Abduction (64 page)

Now he was shaking, too, just to be so near and about to touch.

Slow. Slow. Dev warm. Soft. He tried to read her eyes, finding or imagining want mingling with lingering hurt and forgiveness.

God, those eyes, mirrors of his want, his love turned up to him, pulling him close, into her warmth, faint scent of something low and sweet—shampoo, mint on her warm breath. On her way out, before. Just her warmth, that look, her sweet smell, god he wanted closer. Wanted to feel her, hear her, taste her.

But slow. Slow. Wanting to stretch this moment over a vast, bright field of time, so they'd have it to roam again and again in coming days, coming years. Every second amazing—too full of joy and hope, poignant—wanting the next moment, unwilling to give this one up. So flushed with life—his skin hot, heart thumping. Her eyes still pulling him in.

Tentatively he curved an index finger against hers, another big thump in his chest at that small, intimate contact, the warmth of her small hand, the relief—so big it hurt—

that she hadn't pulled her hand away. The thrill of that small, warm touch shot through him, and he struggled against the terrible force of his want, to stay slow and gentle.

He felt the warmth of her breath—coming in rapid little pants—against his face as he leaned in, as he sighed her name, and when he let his lips brush faintly against hers and she went stark still and stopped breathing his heart seemed to stop beating. But a moment later she brought him back to life with her own sweet, soft kiss.

“I've missed you, Dev,” he panted between kisses.

She didn't say anything, but gave him a shy smile, then kissed him again.

Vaughn could hardly believe her impossible tenderness. He'd hurt her. Badly. He knew. So he'd only come to talk. To see. But her want was palpable, so fierce it maybe matched his own. They'd talk later.

Her mouth was soft and seeking, warm and yielding. Their breaths sounded against each other, hot and damp, their fingers seeking and weaving, bodies coming together, brushing against each other, parting, pressing close again. He could hardly bear the pain of his need—for her body, yes, but even more for her, the closeness, the unitedness he knew he'd feel as they gave themselves to each other—but there was almost a pleasure in drawing the torment out. Making it last.

Still, when she looked up at him, panting, eager, and after a moment of silent stillness between them, reached up and started unzipping his jacket, there was nothing in him to slow what was coming. He helped her get his jacket off, and when she tentatively touched the hem of his shirt and gave him a questioning look, he pulled that off as well. Then, the way she looked up at him, watching his face as she touched her hand to his chest, so softly it was almost as if she were afraid of hurting him, then carefully pressed the palm of her other hand to his stomach, just below his navel—as if she could only make sure he was really there by feeling the bump of his heart and the quiver of his belly—somehow it doubled the tenderness already overwhelming him.

And then—god he was hard and hot under all the tender warmth he was feeling for her—her touch slid down his body, rousing his nerves and his want. Her fingers lit on his belt, undid it, then worked his fly open as she gazed up at him with the sweetest questioning, wanting look. So eager to do her will he could hardly tell it from his own, he stripped himself bare.

“Do you want me to?” he asked her then, the tie of her dress drawn out taut in his fingers. He only pulled, making the bow shrink and come undone, when she'd smiled and nodded her assent. Watching him, looking eager and trusting, she let him undo a second, hidden knot at her waist, then slide the dress off her shoulders. It slipped down her arms to pool on the floor at her feet. It touched him, seeing her standing there in nothing but a simple pair of black boy shorts. Her own things. Not like the silly, frilly things Conrad had dressed her in.

“Dev.”

His sigh was warm where her hair fell over her ear. Her whole body rode a swell of heat to feel the delicious contrast of his gentle embrace, and the length of his powerful body, his hot skin, muscled flesh, press against her bare breasts, belly, thighs.

His fingers in her hair, his hip and back smooth and hot under her hands. When he kissed her, soft and deep, hot and urgent, it was that kiss, the kiss she remembered, that she'd fantasized again and again, that stirred and warmed her, deep and low, like a physical premonition of feeling him inside her.

Vaughn was holding her so close, kissing her so deeply, but she was desperate for more of him. To feel his weight on her, their flesh pressed together, their bodies merged, moving together. She could hardly keep from whimpering her need with every exhale, and she caught herself writhing against him, her body seeking what it needed, in defiance of her conscious efforts to be passive, to resist pushing him, as she had that final morning back at the cabin.

Finally, finally, Vaughn—panting, even shaking a little, she thought—broke off the kiss that was torment-tinged pleasure, and with a penetrating look and a tender smile, sank to his knees at her feet. He pressed a sweet, lingering kiss to her belly, then, gazing up at her, slid her panties slowly off her hips, down thighs, calves, and she stepped out of them. Filled up with a sudden, startling joy to be naked with him like that, she gazed down at him gazing up at her, shaking with an excitement that bordered on elation and fear simultaneously.

When he pressed his cheek to her belly and wrapped his arms around her thighs and hips, and held her that way through a long, still quiet, she cradled his head against her, feeling sharply in that moment—with a physical sensation close to pain—how tenuous the chance of the resurrection of their nascent affection had been, how precious, how amazing this reunion was.

Then they were on her bed. Vaughn was touching her and kissing her and everything felt wonderful, but at the same time it was painful. Like a taunt. Like he was too far away. She needed him closer. Inside. Sighing and kissing and holding him close to her, she spread her legs and wrapped them around his thick hard thighs and cocked her hips, begging him.

But then she remembered, and froze, and at that moment realized he'd gone stiff and still. Then she remembered something else. Vaughn reflected her smile back to her, and, suddenly nervous, her face warm, she reached over, pulled out the shallow little drawer of the night stand, felt around, and drew back her hand, holding a little packet between thumb and forefinger.

“Thank god,” he sighed, collapsing with a warm laugh, tipping his forehead to hers.

“I've never...” she started, still feeling blush after blush burning her face and throat, “...would you...”

He gave her another warm smile and kissed her mouth, soft, lingering. The he took the little square of plastic from her, opened it, and slid out the circle of rolled latex.

She watched him bring the ring of off-white membrane to the tip of his cock and roll the almost transparent sheath down the length of him with three little moves of his hand.

Fuck, it was sexy, how his hand moved over himself, gentle and sure, how the constraining sheath of latex made his cock seem fuller, harder.

He came back down to her, giving her a deep, rousing kiss. Then they merged together, his body and hers, pressed close and hot. Their movements were slow, a desperate, determined seeking. Reunion.

When she took him in, his opening of her body, his hardness parting and taking possession of her seemed to break something in her. The veil she'd put between herself and a pain too big to face. Vaughn, Vaughn, his living warmth part of her, moving inside of her, his body, his touch, overwhelming and gentle tore through that frail barrier and her chest went tight with a choking heat, shaking her, drowning her.

She fell apart. Open. Nothing closed, nothing defended.

“Dev, Dev,” he sighed, his lips and breath against her lips.

Every tremulous touch, kiss, flex of his body, mouth, hands warmed, restored her and that drowning heaviness in her chest didn't feel like sadness, now, but a kind of joyful need. She needed, her body seeking what her whole being pleaded for. Vaughn.

“Vaughn.”

All her strength bent on pulling him to her, lifting her body to him, drawing him all the way into her seeking heat.

“Vaughn,” she pleaded and her whole body—her arms, her legs, her cunt—

seized around him. And when he gave in to her, convulsing and sobbing her name it was maybe the saddest and the happiest she'd ever been.

After, he stayed with her. Inside her. Their faces close, their eyes locked. Little kisses. tender smiles. Then he lied down beside her and they pulled each other close.

Her heart felt like it would rupture from the pressure of her incredible joy, the adoration welling up in her in relentless waves as Vaughn held her to him, caressing and kissing and nuzzling. After a long while, Vaughn looked at her and smiled. Then he laughed softly.

“That’s not quite how I thought this would go.”

Vaughn felt a little bit like he’d had a brief spell of amnesia. How had it happened? Hardly a dozen words between them, after all those months apart, and here he was in her bed, her soft warm body, naked, pressed against his. God, he felt almost sick with love for her.

“Dev,” he sighed, pressing his forehead to hers and combing his fingers through her hair, “I can't believe I'm here with you now, like this.” She smiled, her strange eyes and the bend of her full mouth half memory in the swelling darkness.

“I've made so many terrible mistakes. I’m sorry I left, Dev. And I’m sorry I stayed away so long. Sorrier than I can tell you in words. And, god, when I found your letter, I was so angry with myself for being gone, not there to get it. I hate it, knowing you must have thought I'd gotten it, read it, and just stayed away. Stayed silent.” Devan didn't say anything. She was warm against him, and almost still. Only her arm moved a little, and her fingers combed gently through his hair.

“I hated it. Being apart from you. And worried, every day, how I must be hurting you. I don't expect you to forgive me easily or quickly. All I hope for is that you'll believe me that I never doubted that I wanted to be with you.” Still she was quiet, just gently stroking his hair, the back of his neck.

“Dev. I've put you through so much. I—“

“Don't, Vaughn. You didn't put me through anything. We both went through something, and we both had to deal with it. It's okay that you needed time” He pulled her to him, buried his face against her neck, deep in the fragrant warmth of her hair, half out of his mind with gratitude, that she could be so tender, so welcoming after his absence, and half terrified by the impossibility of it.

“Dev. You can't be this good.”

“Good?”

“Aren't you at least a little angry?”

“At you?”

“Yes. At me. That I just dropped you here that day, and turned my back on what we had between us.”

“Is that what you did?” Her body and the mattress shifted a little, and now her soft voice, the warmth of her breath came from just above. “Did you want...did you try to put what happened, and me, behind you?”

“No, Dev. God, no. I just felt like I'd hurt you. Even though you said I hadn't. I didn't see how I could be with you, feeling that way. I was afraid one day you'd see it that way, too. That instead of me being this guy you'd known for a few weeks who'd hurt you, one day you'd look at me and regret sharing your life with me for all the time we'd been together.”

“Vaughn. No. You don't think that now?”

“It still scares me, Dev, when I think of some of the choices I made. The things I did. Sometimes I still think I was as bad, as wrong as he was.”

“How can you think that?”

“The only defense I have for the things I did, was that I was trying to do what was best for you. And that was his perverse rationale for orchestrating everything.”

“But you know the difference, don't you? Between Conrad and you? To him, it was like a game. I think you're right—he didn't want to hurt me. He even had the hubris to believe he was doing me some kind of favor. But he played with me—with us—like animals in some kind of behavioral experiment. You were forced to play the game against your will, and I believe, believe absolutely, that you did your best to do me the least possible harm. You never presumed to know better than me what I needed.”

“No.”

“I was never angry with you, Vaughn. It hurt. I missed you. And...” her voice cracked and the rest rode out, quivery and broken, on a low sob, “I'd started to think you 589

wouldn't come back to me. But I understood. You needed to cope with everything that had happened. I just hoped you weren't hating yourself. And that you weren't....”

“What, Dev?”

“That you weren't thinking too badly of me.”

He went weak, limp with guilt.

“No, Dev. Never.”

“Because of how I was. With him,” she added in a weak voice after a long pause.

He'd known. He'd known at the cabin, and he'd known after. But he'd been too selfish, too occupied with his own guilt to assuage hers.

“Dev.”

He pulled her close, kissed her brow. Warm and smooth. Noted with a surge of tenderness the feeling of her body's small movements as she breathed, in, out, in, out, in his arms, against his body.

“Dev. I was so afraid for you, almost every minute he was there. It was so hard, seeing you scared, watching him coerce you.”

He forced air into his lungs. Stroked her hair, warm and soft under his palm.

Kissed her silky crown.

“Those moments, Dev, when your fear went away, when your arousal took over, those were the moments, while he was there, when I could breathe. I think—I'm almost sure—you felt guilty, like you were betraying me, somehow, whenever you wanted him.

Enjoyed him. But I never saw it that way.”

“No?” she breathed against him, barely audibly.

“No, Dev.”

“And—maybe it's the wrong thing, but I'll tell you, because I want to be honest with you—when you seemed to forget your fear, and you gave yourself up to the pleasure he gave you, I was never hurt. Or jealous.”
Confess
. “Truthfully, it aroused me.”