Katherine O’Neal (38 page)

“That’s it,” he said, beginning to thrust
into her again. “Just watch. Just feel. Has anyone else ever felt
like this?”

“No one,” she gasped, shaking her head. “No
one’s ever felt so good.”

“That’s it, darling. Just feel what it’s like
to have me inside. Look at my eyes. What do you see?”

“I—”

He’d shifted position. He was moving against
her so exquisitely, she couldn’t find the words. She felt another
climax building, felt her mouth began to slacken.

“Do you see malice?”

She shook her head.

“Do I look like I want to harm you?”

“No...”

“What do I look like? Tell me.”

“Like—you love me.”

“That’s it, love. Keep looking. Keep
remembering this is how love looks.”

He reached out and stroked her breasts as he
increased his thrusts. Her breath caught in her throat, and her
senses once again began to whirl. “Don’t look away,” he commanded.
“Keep looking into my eyes.”

She fought to keep her eyes open. He moved
his hand and thrust his thumb into her mouth. She sucked on him all
the while the sensations built. On the brink of release, he halted,
and she felt the joyous flutters drift languorously, of their own
volition, up her spine to the very depths of her heart. As they
did, she saw in his eyes the approval, the light, the love. And she
began to understand, at last, what this wearing night had been
about.

“Mace,” she whispered, when she’d come back
to the bed, where her arms ached beyond endurance and her mind
longed for sleep.

He leaned over her, taking her protectively
in his arms. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“I can’t go on. I’m so tired. I have to
sleep.”

He was still inside her, still as hard and
rigid as a shaft of crystal in some deep, dark cave.

“We’re almost there, love. Just a little
more.”

“
What is it?”
she cried, exasperated,
and so exhausted she felt close to tears. “What is it you want from
me?”

“You’ll know,” he promised her. And began
anew.

The next time was easier. And the next. Her
exhaustion began to release the hold of her mind. Too tired now to
think, she abandoned herself, at last, to her feelings. To the
sensation of his hot tongue against her breast. To the feel of his
fingers tangled in the soft, dewy hair between her thighs. To the
empty, aching longing when he withdrew and she was no longer filled
with the matchless pressure of him pulsing inside.

And then it happened. The miracle he’d been
waiting for. She no longer wanted her freedom so she could rake her
nails angrily across his back, or beat him from her when her panic
flared. Suddenly, all in a moment, she was consumed by a joy so
immeasurable that it seemed to fill her heart and radiate out
through every pore. Unbelievably, she felt her heart as a huge,
glorious orb, pulsing love and compassion throughout her veins. It
was as if she was being overtaken by an incredible surge of love so
sweet, so overpowering, that it encompassed all the earth. She
felt, for the first time, what it was to forgive.

He was nibbling at her neck when she could
finally put voice to her transformation.

“Mace.”

He stilled, waiting.

“Untie me.”

“We’ve been over that.”

“Untie me, Mace. I want to touch you. It
isn’t enough to have you give this to me. I want to give something
to you in return.”

He looked at her suspiciously. Raising
himself up on his knees, he knelt before her, thrusting against her
mouth. “It isn’t time,” he said.

Her tongue was so hungry to taste him, it
darted out and lapped at him with rare enthusiasm. She sucked him
inside, the glorious throbbing length of him, too big to fit
comfortably, yet her mouth seemed to stretch of its own volition,
so greedy was it for the taste of him. She sucked hard, yanking at
her cords as her fingers itched to touch.

For a moment, he caught his breath. His eyes
closed, he moaned deep in his throat. As if the pleasure was so
delirious, he couldn’t find words to express it. Then, shaking his
head like a fighter struggling for endurance, he forced himself
away.

“No fair. I warned you. You’re to have no
control.”

She couldn’t blame his suspicions. Hours
ago—or had it been days, now? She’d lost all sense of time—she’d
tried to use her mouth to control
him
instead of the other
way around. But she was beyond that now, transported as if by some
divine intervention to a longing only to give pleasure in return
for the gift he’d given her through the long hours of the
night.

“Look into my eyes,” she told him.

He did so, with a touch of amusement that she
should turn his tactics on him.

“What do you see?”

He frowned.

“Something is different, is it not?”

He kept frowning, as if struggling to define
it.

“More specifically, something’s missing?”

“Yes... that’s it...”

“What do you see?”

Still, he couldn’t define it.

“I’ll tell you. You see a woman who loves you
beyond all time and space. A woman who’s so grateful to you that
she wants to give, in part, as she’s received. A woman whose eyes
once held the pain of remembrance, but who now can see before her
only the man she loves.”

His eyes flicked over her face, and she saw a
flash of hesitation, as if he wanted so badly to believe that he
was afraid to hope.

“Untie me, Mace. Let me show you what you’ve
done for me. Let me make love to
you
for a change.”

Cautiously, expecting mutiny at every turn,
he unleashed her limbs. As soon as she was free, she turned on him.
She could see in his eyes that he expected retribution.

She lunged at him, wrapped her arms around
his neck, and kissed him so violently, he fell backward into the
shambles of a bed. Still kissing him deeply, she moved over him,
rubbing her loins against the strong columns of his legs, running
her hands over his chest, his shoulders, anything she could
find.

She found him pinned beneath their bodies. He
sprang to life at the touch of her fingers, filling her hands.
Bending, she took him greedily into her mouth, running both hands
along the sides of him, nudging apart his legs and cupping him
underneath. She sucked with an avarice that made him growl as his
hands buried themselves in her hair.

Her exhaustion was spent, replaced with a
second wind that was born on her redemption. In that moment, she
felt she could do anything. She could fly through the air with him
and even look down. As long as she was safe in his arms.

“Oh, how I’ve wanted to touch you,” she
panted. “You can’t know what it was like for me, to see you, so
close, and not be able to run my hands along your body. Dear God,
how I love your body.”

He opened his eyes in surprise.

“That’s it, darling. Keep your eyes open. I
want to look into your eyes as you come for me.” Shifting her
weight, she lowered herself over him, impaling herself, inch by
agonizing inch, until she was so full of him, she thought she’d
split in two. Her eyes clinging to his, she began to move, up and
down, up and down, slowly, teasingly, gripping him with muscles
that should have been weary, but that somehow clung like a vise.
Watching his eyes cloud over the way hers must have as he watched
her.

She reached down and licked his nipples and
heard his curse. Denied his own pleasure for so long, he was
volatile and ready to erupt. She increased her pace as he grasped
her buttocks and kneaded them as she moved.

She’d thought to give him pleasure. But as
she moved, as she gazed lovingly into his eyes, she felt herself
slipping and melding, like vapor, into him. Her climax was so
unexpected, so intense, that it transcended bodily pleasure. It was
a thing of the spirit, where two souls meet and, freed from their
bodily prisons, realize their radiance at last.

“Oh, Mace,” she said as if mesmerized,
looking into his eyes. “Mace... Mace... thank you. Thank you for
saving me.”

They were so shaken by it all that they lay,
locked in each other’s arms, incapable of words. He clutched her
tight as she clung to him, feeling her heart open and expand,
feeling what it was to love. To give more than you had to give. To
surrender it all.

To trust
.

She settled her head into the crook of his
arm and drifted peacefully to sleep. And knew, in her heart, in the
newly discovered purity of her soul, that nothing could harm her
again.

They spent the next day in bed, dozing in
each other’s arms, nibbling on bread and cheese, being lulled by
the ever-present rhythm of the paddlewheel on the river. The water
churning against the sides of the boat, the tangy smells of the
Mississippi, the gentle rocking of their enclosed quarters, all
contributed to the feeling of peace and solace in the aftermath of
absolution.

They pulled the curtains closed around the
bed, shutting out the outside world as effectively as if they’d
sailed to distant, enchanted shores. It was snug in their haven,
cozy as a cave. They piled jewel-toned pillows about them and
nestled deep, secreted in their own private world.

Away from judging eyes, they reverted to
their natural inclinations. Shunning the civility of goblets, they
drank wine from the bottle, passing it back and forth, and licked
the wine, giggling, from each other’s lips.

“I feel,” she told him, “as if nothing in my
life until this moment has been real. This time spent with you is
like a reverie—a perfect escape from reality. Yet it seems more
real than anything I’ve ever known.”

“Often reality is the illusion, and the
illusion more real,” he murmured.

“You’re the only one who’d think so,” she
said, giving him a kiss.

His grin was crooked. “Sometimes it’s a
curse, being a visionary. Seeing things no one else can.”

“Do you feel you’re forever holding your
tongue? Incapable of saying things that seem so obvious to you, yet
that snare others to the point that they can’t see which way is
up?”

“As if you’re always having to slow down and
wait for them to catch up.”

“But when you’re with me... ?”

He gave her nose a playful nip. “When I’m
with you, love, I have to keep on my toes.”

“I’m delighted to hear it. I should hate to
think I was as plodding as all the rest of humanity. How was it,
then, with Pilar?”

“Pilar represented something I wanted to be.
She was as much a symbol as anything else.”

“So, by loving her, you were really trying to
find something to love in yourself.”

He considered for a moment. “I hadn’t thought
of it. But I suppose you’re right.” He smiled, and she could see
the relief in his eyes at the realization. As if he, too, had
suddenly been set free. “Trust a flam artist to see through your
justifications.”

“Odd, isn’t it? We’ve each been trained from
birth to pierce the heart of every person we come in contact with.
To see the hypocrisy, the weaknesses they never dare confront. And
to use them to our own advantage. Yet when it comes to our own
feelings—”

“It takes a kindred spirit to pull them out
of us, is that it?”

They laughed companionably, rubbing their
cheeks together. His was bristly with the stubble of a beard,
scratching her soft skin.

“Mace.”

“Yes, love?”

“Let’s make a pact.”

He drew away and pushed himself up higher
against the headboard. “I confess to being leery of promises.”

“Oh, you don’t have to promise to marry me,
or any such silliness as that. I just want us to vow that, come
what may, we shall tell the truth from here on in. At least to each
other.”

He blinked and reached again for the bottle.
“Well, Princess,” he said quietly, “truth is a relative thing.”

“Truth is truth. Something is either true or
it isn’t.”

“I beg to differ. Truth lies in the way you
perceive it. What’s true for me isn’t necessarily true for
you.”

She sat up, turned to face him, and crossed
her legs beneath her. “You don’t really believe that!”

“Of course I do. I’ve spent a lifetime
proving it. So, I might add, have you.”

“I’ve spent a lifetime running away from the
truth. You’ve finally given me the courage to face it, and you have
the audacity to tell me you don’t believe in it?”

“I didn’t say I don’t believe in it. I merely
said that truth is like a prism. You hold it this way and see one
thing, you turn it and see something else. Truth is a concoction of
possibilities. Made up of half-truths, ifs, and maybes. Nothing is
absolute. Why do you think we scuttle artists can do what we do? We
present a possibility as truth and make others believe it. Look at
your friend Bat. I called him a killer of men. Was that the truth?
Is it true if everyone believes it? And if they believe it long
enough, does it become true? Perhaps your Bat will become a killer
because the possibility was presented to him. So what’s the
truth?”

“That’s nothing but double-talk. The truth
is, Bat has killed only one man. He has a kind heart. He never
sought to kill anyone. But that man was attacking a woman. Bat was
shot—that’s how he got his limp. So you see, circumstances forced
him into something he otherwise wouldn’t have chosen.”

“So is he a killer, or isn’t he?”

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it
again.

“You see. It isn’t as simple as it
seems.”

“But what does this have to do with our being
honest with one another?”

“How can I promise something that doesn’t
exist?”

“Are you telling me that, given the chance,
you’d lie to me?”

“I’m telling you that what I accept as true
may seem false to you. That each of us sees truth in his own way.
That the pursuit of truth for its own sake is as fruitless an
occupation as trying to find a lost shilling in the Hudson
River.”