Stay With Me (35 page)

He ran his finger up her neck, tilting her
chin up. He lowered his head until his lips just brushed hers. Then
he ran the tip of his tongue across her lower lip. His hand, the
one that remained on her shoulder, quivered.

When he pulled her close and pressed his lips
to hers, she savored the warm, complex taste of his mouth. He
kissed her for a very long time. When he pulled back, they were
both breathless.

“Sarah,” he said, his chest rapidly rising
and falling. “I’ve got one more question.”

“Yes?”

“Will you let me share your bed?”

Now it was her body that quaked. “I’ve never
wanted anything more,” she said.

He sighed, a deep, long release of air. Then,
with excruciating slowness, he undid the buttons of her blouse. He
smiled and shook his head when he saw the buttons of her chemise.
Then, deliberately, careful not to touch her, he undid all
seven.

He slipped one hand inside and cupped her
bare breast. Her breath caught in her throat. She needed air, she
needed strength, she needed him. When he flicked his finger across
the nipple, her traitorous body jerked in response.

He grabbed the edges of the material and
freed her arms. The cotton dropped to the floor and she stood
before him, naked to the waist. She felt the cool air in the room
brush against her heated skin.

“So full. So pretty.” He bent his head down.
“In my dreams,” he said, “I take you in my mouth.”

He ran his tongue across her.

“Your body is warm and soft” he said, as his
tongue darted across her one more time.

She felt it all the way to her toes.

“You taste rich and sweet and I am a greedy
man,” he said, and his mouth clamped down on her turgid nipple.

She thought she might just die, right then
and there. When she swayed, she felt his strong arms hold her. He
suckled harder and she felt the answering response deep in her
core. She arched her back and pushed herself into him.

He lifted his head and gave her a sleepy
smile.

He dipped his index finger in the waistband
of her skirt and skimmed the material until he came to rest on the
button. “May I?”

She nodded, her head feeling heavy.

Within seconds, her skirt and petticoat
pooled around her ankles. He stared at her blue bikini panties. He
ran a finger under the elastic waist and her stomach muscles jumped
in response.

“What do you call these?” he asked, his voice
hoarse.

“Panties. They’re popular in my day.”

He studied her. “I like. Very much.” He
traced them, from one hip to the other, brushing intimately against
her. She pressed her legs together. My God, she was going to come
and he’d barely touched her.

He laughed. “Sweet Sarah,” he said. He gently
pushed her back until her legs hit the bed. Then he lowered her on
it and lay next to her, his head propped up on his bent arm. “In my
dreams, you come to my bed, naked, and you slip between the sheets.
I take you in my arms and you slide against my body.”

Nothing else, she knew, would stem the
wanting.

“Your body is like sun-warmed silk and I want
you desperately but I make myself wait. I pull back the sheets and
the cool night air blows across your body.”

She could practically feel the chill. Her
nipples, wet from his kisses, strained upwards.

“Every part of you is perfect. Even your
toes.” With the tip of his index finger, he traced from her heel to
her toes.

Her foot arched in response.

Bold and brazen, she lifted her hips and he
pulled her panties down. She kicked the silk free. He ran his hands
up and down her thighs. “Beautiful,” he said. “So delicate, yet so
strong. In my dreams, you wrap your legs around me and I feel your
strength.”

She was going to explode.

“Your womanly scent fills my bed,” he said,
“making me want with a urgency I cannot describe.”

He didn’t need to describe it. She was on
fire with it.

Then he laid his cheek against her blonde
curls and kissed the inside of her thigh.

Oh my God. “Take your clothes off,” she
said.

He lifted his head. “Not yet.” He took his
hands and gently spread her legs apart. Then he made love to her
with his mouth.

And when she came, it was with such force
that her body shook from the power of it. Afterwards, he rested his
head against her still-quivering stomach.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She felt like purring. Like she was a big cat
who’d gotten stroked.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for making
my dream come true.”

Her heart did a funny little pitter-pat. For
a man who didn’t talk much, he had a way with words. “You have too
many clothes on,” she said.

He lifted his head. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

She could feel him gather his big, warm body
up. He stood up, shrugged each shoulder, dropping his suspenders.
He pulled his shirt from his pants and started to pull it off.

He gotten naked the same way he did
everything else. Efficiently with no wasted motion. He stood before
her, in all his splendid glory. She couldn’t tear her eyes
away.

“Sarah?”

“Yes.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No. No, I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

He tilted his chin up, looking unsure. “Well,
then. What exactly would you say?”

“Wow.”

He smiled. “I want to share your bed,
Sarah.”

She’d never wanted anything more. With one
finger, she motioned him close. He stretched his long frame out
next to her. She could feel the hair on his arms, his legs,
brushing up against her body.

She turned on her side and faced him. She ran
the tip of her index finger across his chest and smiled when his
flat nipples hardened. “Like that?” she asked.

He nodded, looking very serious. “I want you
to touch me. Everywhere. Next time. And the time after. But
Sarah”—his voice sounded strained—“I don’t believe I can wait. I
very much want to make you mine. Now.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve
been waiting for days.”

“Days?” He blinked his dark brown eyes. “Oh,
Sarah,” he said. In one swift motion, he flipped her over onto her
back. His hands raced over her, touching her breasts, her stomach,
her thighs. He bent his head and suckled at her nipples, first one
then the other.

With one knee, he nudged her thighs apart.
She arched, wanting, needing, willing to beg. He pressed himself up
against her and pushed.

And pushed.

She prayed.

“Relax,” he murmured, his voice close to her
ear.

She tried, she really tried.

He shoved into her and suddenly tore beyond
her resistance. Pain, slices of it, ripped through her.

His head jerked up. “Oh, my Sarah.”

With every bit of strength she had, she
grabbed his bare hips and pulled him into her, bringing him to her
core.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

She squeezed her inner muscles. He moved and
each stroke was hot and wet and more intense than she could have
imagined. Desperate for release, she pressed. Hard. And when he
rocked against her, she exploded.

Wave after wave of pleasure wracked her body
like surf on a beach. It rolled over her, sweeping her up, tossing
her, carrying her to places unknown. When finally the tide ebbed,
it left her trembling.

“Oh, John,” she said.

He cupped her face with his hands and very
gently kissed her. Then he started to move. Slow at first, then
faster, then faster still, until finally, she could not separate
where he ended and she began. He pounded into her, slapping against
her skin, taking her, making her his. With a sudden cry, he
stiffened, and his body jerked in the spasms of completion.

He held himself still, the weight of his
upper body braced on his forearms, his eyes closed. Then, slowly,
gently, he left her. She squeezed her legs together and looked at
him through one barely open eye.

He lay absolutely still. He stared at her,
then at himself. She could see the smear of fresh blood on his
skin. He didn’t say a word. Finally, he walked across the room. He
poured water from the pitcher onto a clean towel and folded it
twice. He walked back to the bed and handed it to her.

“I imagine some cool water might help,” he
said, like they’d just finished a brisk walk around the block
rather than some bed-shaking, body-bruising, sex.

Fine. Two could play this game. “Thank you.”
With as much grace as she could muster, she pressed the cool cloth
to herself.

He nodded and reached for his shirt.

He was leaving? Just like that? She
swallowed, hoping like heck she wouldn’t cry in front of him.

He buttoned his pants and slipped his
suspenders over his shoulders.

Damn him. Damn him for making her love him.
Damn him for making her want to stay. Damn him for touching her,
for changing her, for leaving her. She curled up on the bed,
wanting to protect her naked body, her naked soul.

She waited. John walked to the door and took
a seat in the chair that sat next to it. He held his hat in his
hand.

“Get out,” she said. “Go ahead and
leave.”

He shook his head, looking a little dazed.
“I’m not planning on leaving, Sarah. I just thought it might be
helpful if one of us had some clothes on.”

He wasn’t leaving
. “I don’t
understand.”

He shrugged. “Me either. I know you told me
you came from the future. I believed you. At least I thought I
did.” His face lost all color and she could see the strong muscles
of his throat working as he tried to swallow. “You were untouched.
No man has ever lain with you.”

I think I was waiting for you
. “John,
we don’t have to talk about this.”

He shook his head. “We do. You’re not Peter’s
wife?”

“I’m not.”

He nodded and stared straight ahead. She
wondered what he was seeing. The room was so quiet that she could
hear the early-morning birds chirping outside the closed
window.

“There’s something you need to know,” John
said, his voice soft. “Peter’s wife, that Sarah, is dead.”

“Dead? What?”

He turned toward her. “For almost a week,
I’ve been carrying around a letter. I hadn’t opened it. I thought
it was something else. An attorney wrote it. Turns out he witnessed
Sarah’s death. On the seventeenth of April.

April seventeenth
. She tried to
swallow but her throat was dry.

“She sent the money back. All of it. Her
final wish was to make amends.”

Oh, my. “Do you feel differently about her
now?”

“I think so,” John said. His voice was filled
with sadness. “But I don’t think it’s because of the money. I think
I feel differently because I’ve finally let go of the hatred. You
know, it was easy to hate Sarah. It allowed me to focus on the kind
of woman that I thought she was. Then I didn’t have to think about
the kind of man that I’d become.”

“You’re a good man, John Beckett,” Sarah
said, trying to reassure him.

John shrugged his broad shoulders. “Earlier
you said that you didn’t know how or why you came. I don’t know how
but I know why. You came for me. To save me. To make me whole. To
make a difference in my life.”

She’d made a difference
.

She and Sarah One had both gotten their
wishes.

“And Sarah, you were wrong,” he added, his
voice even softer. “You said I could never see you as anything
besides Sarah Beckett. That I’d only be able to think of you as
Peter’s wife.”

“John, you don’t need to…”

He gave her a look that heated her blood.
“There’s only one way I can think of you now. You’re my Sarah. My
sweet Sarah.”

She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t even think.
It had been so wonderful, so absolutely right. It made it all that
much harder to know that she had to leave him.

“John,” she said, “you need to understand
something. I still have to go. I can’t stay.”

“Will you tell me why?”

“There’s a child who needs me.”

“Not your child,” he said knowingly, looking
at the tangled sheets.

She could feel the warmth flood her face.
“After what they’d shared, how could she still blush? “Remember I
told you that I work at a school? I’m a social worker.”

He did his eyebrow thing again.

“I have special training to help children who
have trouble. You know, trouble at home, trouble at school, trouble
learning.”

“I imagine you’re very good at that,” he
said, his eyes warm with appreciation. “You’ve a gift with
children.”

“No,” she denied, thinking her chest might
burst. He thought she had a gift.

He smiled at her. “I’ve seen you with Fred’s
children.”

Sarah shrugged. “Fred’s children are easy.
Some of the children I’m trying to help have very serious
problems.”

“You do important work.”

“I used to think it was important,” she said.
“But the truth is, that for every child I help, there are ten more
waiting in line. I can’t do enough, it’s never enough.”

He got up from the bed, walked over to the
bed, and sat down. He reached for her hand. “If you help one, even
though there are more, then at least one child suffers less. That
is more than most people will ever do. Now, tell me about the child
who needs you.”

His hand felt warm and strong and she thought
that if she could just hold it forever, then everything might be
okay. “His name is Miguel Lopez. He’s eight and he’s wonderful.
Very polite. Very sweet. Good to his sisters and a joy to his
mother.”

“His father?”

“No father. He died just a few months before
Miguel’s mother left Mexico to bring Miguel and his sisters to live
in the United States.”

“And what is Miguel’s trouble?”

“He’s dying.”

John’s arm jerked but he didn’t release her
hand. If anything, he held it a little tighter. “You can keep him
from dying?”