Hummingbird (35 page)

"Oh, no you don't! You're not running out of this bed and leaving this unsettled, because I'm not about to let you! You're going to stay right here until I find out what's got you prickled up, men you're going to give me a chance to put it right!"

"I am not prickled up!"

"Like hell you aren't! Can't we even do
this
without a fight! Not even this!" She bit her lip to keep from bawling out loud.

He went on, "I thought we did rather well, myself, considering it was our first time together So what's your gripe?"

"Let me up. You're all done with me anyway." Martyrdom felt blessedly sweet. But one hard arm pressed her shoulders relentlessly, allowing no escape.

"I'm
what
!" he barked, growing angrier by the minute at her sudden, unexplained peevishness. "Don't you use that tone of voice on me, as if I'd slung you here against your will and raped you!"

"I didn't mean it that way. I only meant that it was obvious I was nothing."

"Abbie, don't say that." His voice lost its harshness. "This shouldn't happen between a man and a woman and leave them as nothing. It should always leave them as more."

"But I was nothing. You said so."

"I never said any such thing!"

"You said it takes's… some time't… to learn. "The tears were growing plumper on her lids.

"Well, damnit, it does! But that's nothing against you."

"Don't you dare lie there over me, swearing right into my face, Jesse DuFrayne!"

"I'll lie here and do any damn thing I please, Miss Abigail McKenzie! You've got the story all wrong anyway. Look at you! Why, you're half the size of me. Just what do you think would happen if I laid into you with all I've got?" She turned her face aside. He grabbed her cheeks and made her look him in the eyes. "Abbie, I didn't want to hurt you so I held back… and there's not as much in it, is all, when a man does that. And yes, you're inexperienced, and no, you don't know all the moves, but I didn't care. By the time we got to the end I knew exactly how painful it was for you—the first time is always like that for a woman. I just wanted to end it quick for you."

"I am not made of china like the soup bowl you shattered once in this room!" she pouted.

"I don't think I know exactly what you're bitching about! Just what is it!"

Her chin trembled and a tear spilled. She looked at the moonlight streaming across the windowseat. "I…

I don't kn… know either. You just… you acted like you were glad it was ov… over, that's all."

He sighed, tired and disgusted now. "Abbie, my leg hurt like hell and I was worried about hurting you any more and… and . .
.oh, goddamnit
!" he exclaimed, pounding a fist into the mattress and flopping onto his back to stare at the ceiling.

She knew he was done with her for sure then, so sat up. But he touched her arm, gently though. "Stay a minute," he placated. "Will you stay?" There was a new note of sincerity in his voice as he dropped his hand from her arm. She pushed her hair back and wiped her eyes, so sorry now that she'd ever started this. "Don't go, Abbie, not like this," he pleaded, raising up on an elbow.

"I'm just getting the sheet." She found it on the floor and wiped her eyes with it before lying down and flinging it over hen It fell across him too, and they lay there like a pair of scarecrows under the sheet and the silence and the misunderstanding. Finally he rolled onto his side facing her and folded an elbow beneath his ear, studying her stiff profile against the square of milk-white window. His voice came again, soft and disarming. "Abbie, do you think it's always so easy for a man? Well, it's not. A man is expected to lead the way and a woman relies on him to do the right thing. But being the leader doesn't make him either infallible or fearless." She stared at the ceiling, the sheet clinched tightly beneath her armpits as tears dripped down into her ears. He ran an absent finger back and forth along the taut edge of the sheet while he went on quietly. "I took a virgin tonight. Do you know what goes through a man's mind when he does that? Do you think I didn't fear you'd push me away or think I went too fast or too hard or too far? Do you think I didn't know how you recoiled from touching me, Abbie? What was I supposed to do then?

Stop, for God's sake?" Back and forth, back and forth went his finger, lightly whisking her skin and the edge of the sheet. "I promised to make it good for you, as good as I could, but the first time is never too good for a woman. Abbie, can you believe that I was afraid after that? Every step of the way I had doubts just like you, just like all lovers do the first time. The farther I went, the more afraid I was that you'd get up and run out of here in the middle of it all. Abbie, look at me."

She did, because he sounded very hurt and sincere.

"Abbie, what did I do wrong?" he asked softly. His hand had stopped toying with the sheet and lay unmoving between her breasts, his elbow resting lightly along the shallows of her ribcage.

"Nothing… nothing. It was in… me. I was terribly noisy, and afraid to do what I knew you wanted me to do, and I blamed you because it hurt at the end, and… and… oh, everything." Chagrined, she turned her face against his biceps. Tears were coming fast now. "It… it's just easier to get in… mad at you than it is't… to get mad at mys… self."

"Shhh, Abbie," he hushed, "you were fine."

"N… no, I was not f… fine. I was sc… scared and childish, but Id… didn't expect—"

A big hand found her cheek, its thumb brushed near a lower eyelid. "I know, Ab, I know. It's all new to you. Don't cry, though, and don't think you didn't give me pleasure, because you did."

She was horrified that she could not stem the flow of tears. His thumb grew sleek upon the hot puddle in the hollow beneath her eye. Her chest felt like it was near bursting from holding the sobs back.

"Th… then why were you in such a hurry to have it over with? I even h… heard you gritting your't…

teeth."

"I told you why I hurried. My leg hurt and I thought I'd crush you. Besides, my own performance was none too great at the end either." He lifted his head off its cradling arm to look down into her face and find her eyes tightly jammed shut. In all his life he'd never faced a situation such as this after lovemaking.

He too felt inept and wanting, dissatisfied in spite of what had passed. But at the same time he felt singularly protective toward this woman: the first he'd ever encountered who was as much concerned with fulfilling his needs as her own. He leaned to kiss the river of salt that streamed from her eyes, and she suddenly choked and clutched his neck, sobbing pitifully, her arms tenaciously trapping him too close for him to watch her misery. Her chest heaved with wrenching sobs that shook his own and made his stomach cinch tight with the need to comfort her and make things right.

"Abbie, Abbie, don't cry," he whispered throatily against her hair. "We'll try it again and it'll be better" But he understood what she really cried about. He understood how far she'd come from propriety to this. So he held her tenderly, cooing soft endearments as he smoothed the hair up from the nape of her neck and back from her temples, wondering miserably how things could have gone so wrong.

"Oh, Jess, I w… wanted my memories of this n… night to be good. I didn't w… want us to f… fight tonight. I wanted us to pi… please each other."

"Shhh, Abbie, there are lots of ways." He dried her cheeks with the tail of a sheet. "Lots of ways and lots of time."

"Then show me, Jess, show me," she pleaded, desperate now to see that this night not end in desolation.

His hand stopped moving. He kissed her forehead. She heard him swallow.

"I can't right now. A man needs time in between, Abbie, and my leg needs a rest too. But in a while… all right?"

But she didn't believe him. She was sure now that he was only placating her because she'd done such a miserable job the first time. He rolled to his back again, swallowing the sigh which formed as he fully rested his leg. She lay very still, staring at the ceiling, going over it all in her memory, recategorizing Jesse DuFrayne once again according to what this night had taught her about him. No longer could she consider him a defiler of women, but a tender, considerate lover instead. Not fearless, as she'd thought, but human, with misgivings not unlike her own. He'd always seemed so bold and doubtless in his teasing.

What a revelation to think that there lurked trepidation behind his bravado. Yet even in his disappointment he eased her with kind, sweet words and assuaged her feelings of inadequacy by taking the blame upon himself.

But how could she face him come morning? How could she awaken here and look into his dark eyes when neither would be able to deny that their lovemaking had been disastrous? As she had once before in this room, she lay falsely still, waiting for sleep to overtake him so she could slip away. But a large, heavy hand sought and found her hair, smoothed it, then drew her to her side and pulled her up against his chest. He rested his chin upon the top of her head and her eyelashes fluttered shut as she sighed and stayed, unwilling to deny herself the comfort of being cradled that way. After some minutes his hand moved lazily against her hair. His brawny chest had a silken texture beneath her cheek. She told herself she must get up and go—what would she say to him in the morning? But like a bridling in its nesting place, she felt secure. His hand grew weighted upon her skull, then fell still. His other hand, which lay flung across her hip, twitched once spasmodically. His breathing became heavy and buffeted the top of her hair. A lethargy unlike any she'd known before came to lower her lids and sap her limbs. She knew she was falling asleep in the arms of Jesse DuFrayne. She knew he'd been a gentle and considerate lover.

She knew she must awaken tomorrow to the fact that he was leaving. But it all ceased to matter.

And they slept, unaware.

The Colorado Rockies spread protective arms about the lovers. The moon pulled the earth around, climbed the clouds, and slid down the other side, to the west. The dawn peepings of birds stirred upon the pinkening air A sleeping man rolled over and settled his face against a fair, warm arm. A sleeping woman pulled her pillow into the deep curve of her shoulder, bent a bare knee toward her nose. The man snored lightly and shifted onto his stomach, and a lock of hair caught in his moustache, fluttering as he breathed, tickling him distractingly. The edge of a long, dark hand scratched the nose, tried to brush the nuisance away. But his breath fluttered it again, still caught, still tickling. He snuffled, roused, felt something warm covering his fingers, and opened his eyes groggily to see what it was.

Abbie.

He grinned at the sight of a single rose-tipped breast half covering the back of his hand. Her other breast was buried beneath her someplace, for she too was half on her belly, one knee drawn up high, presenting a beautifully turned hip, but hiding her feminine secrets. He smiled crookedly. She likes to hog the bed, he thought. The smile dissolved as he remembered how she'd cried last night. He carefully extracted his hand, rolled onto his side, and braced his jaw on a palm. His eyes leisurely traveled the length of her, several times. Tiny toes, delicate ankles, shapely calves. He remembered glimpsing them before, but never as freely as this. Her hip was as round as the swell of a sea wave, and her waist as sharp as the trough created by tides. The deep crevice carved an enticing angle, buttressed by the knee she'd cast upward toward her chest. Myriad memories flitted through his mind. Abbie, you saved my life. Abbie, I made you cry. Abbie, I must leave soon. He looked at the window where pink-gray light crept over the sill and knew an emptiness unlike any he'd ever faced upon leaving a woman's bed. No, last night's pleasures, for him, had been minimal at best, yet his body sprang to life now at the sight of her. He leaned to drop a light kiss upon her ribs, then on that pale hip. He placed a much more lingering one in the trough of her waist. A small hand came down and swatted unconsciously at him. Then she flopped over, facing away from him, with her top leg pulled up high as before.

His heart went crazy and moisture erupted on his brow. She was small and exquisite and—yes, it was still true—innocent, for she knew nothing of the ways in which he yet desired her. He released a pent-up breath and eased down low on the bed, touched his tongue to the soft place behind her knee, closed his eyes and breathed against her skin, knowing he was taking unfair advantage while she slept, yet he was aroused so ardently that his body felt it would burst its bounds. He tasted salt and roses and maybe a little of himself. He followed the contour of her leg, his hair brushing against her thigh, recalling how very familiar she had long ago become with his own body.

What he did seemed inevitable; the weeks of intimacy they had shared made it almost preordained. He kissed her everywhere but the one spot he wanted most to taste, waiting for her to awaken that he might kiss it, too. He learned the ridges of her vertebrae, the firmness of her hip, the resilience of her thighs, buttocks, calves. He memorized even her half-flattened breast. She awakened when he lightly bit the arch of her updrawn foot, and with a start she looked back over her shoulder at the man behind her. Vague, predawn light caught in his black, aroused eyes as he braced up and searched her face for permission.

Above his open lips his moustache was a dark, trembling shadow. Her eyes were drawn to it, sensing that it had just explored her skin. Her startled eyes again fled to his, and she read in that gaze a kind of ardent agony which she'd not suspected a man could harbor. It brought her heart and blood alive with a leap of sensuality and expectation.

"J… Jesse?" she stammered croakily. Slowly she eased her leg down, realizing how immodest her pose had been and that he'd undoubtedly been awake for some time. "Y… you woke me up."

"I meant to, love," he whispered, holding her captive by only the strong, sensuous tether of his gaze. She rolled backward slightly, twisting at the waist, bracing up on an elbow now and watching his eyes drop to the peak of her other breast, which curved into view, then return to her face. She felt his warm palm travel from the small of her back, around one buttock, along the back side of her calf, gently tucking her knee back up as it had been before. And all the while his eyes never left hers.