Lover of My Dreams (40 page)

Rachel kissed him deeply, her hands reaching around to pull him tightly against her. As she intensified in the urgency of her touch, he found that he needed to touch the warmth of her body. Slipping his hand beneath her sweatshirt, he lightly caressed her breast, carefully pushing aside the lace material of her bra that acted as a barrier between his hand and the sweetness of her body. He felt her warm skin quiver beneath his touch.

Raising his head, his lips left hers, and he smiled down at her tenderly. He reached for the bottom of her sweatshirt to slowly pull it up to reveal her beautiful body. Rachel lifted her shoulders slightly to help him ease the shirt over her head to be discarded on the far side of the bed. It was quickly followed by her bra.

He looked down at her silently, his eyes clouding with passion as he viewed her naked beauty. He reached out to caress each breast tenderly. Very slowly, he leaned down to kiss each swollen mound, hesitating when he saw the bruise of the bite marks that marred her perfect skin. He kissed the bruises lightly and looked up to see her looking at him with sudden fear in her eyes.

“He was an animal,” Sam told her, angry at the brutality.

“Yes, he was,” she whispered, not moving.

“Do you want me to stop touching you?” he asked softly.

“I’m not sure,” she answered him honestly.

He eased his body up to lie beside her, took her into his arms and pulled her against him. Reaching down, he pulled the blankets up to their shoulders, careful to keep the night chill away from them. Her bare chest was pressed tightly against his own. He closed his eyes at the pure pleasure of having her partially naked, lying trustingly in his arms. Kissing her temple lightly, he pulled her tightly into his embrace and sighed.

Rachel could feel Sam’s heart pounding against her hand as it rested on his muscled chest. His gentleness had undone her. She pushed aside her thoughts of Richard and concentrated on the incredible caring of this man who held her so gently.

“Having you around again is something that’s easy to get used to. You have a way of working your way into my thoughts. You always did,” he confessed after a moment.

Rachel smiled at his admission. “I grow on you, huh?” she whispered, smiling softly.

“Yes, you do. I’ve been such a loner for so long. It’s hard for me to accept that I enjoy having you around,” he admitted quietly. “My resistance is worn down, Rachel. You’re wrapped around my brain, consuming my thoughts. And my dreams.”

She looked up at him in surprise. He was having dreams about her? Were they as real as the dreams she was having about him?

He leaned forward to kiss her lips lightly. His breath became ragged as her response to him grew more passionate. When she reached around him to gently stroke his back and she kissed him so tenderly, he thought he would die from the pure pleasure of her tenderness.

He pulled away from her and tried to take a calming breath. He reached down and took hold of her hand that tenderly stroked his back. He drew it gently to his lips and kissed her open palm slowly.

“Being able to touch you every night would make me a happy man,” he whispered softly.

Rachel thought she would cry at the tenderness he was showing her. She closed her eyes to enjoy the feeling of his hands gently touching her body, opening them when he slowly caressed her breasts. She saw him smile at the gasp of pleasure that escaped her when he brushed his open palm across her nipple. She felt a strange combination of tenseness and joy at the feeling of his mouth trailing kisses along her neck and shoulders.

He hesitated slightly, looking into her eyes and seeing the passion there, before continuing toward her breasts. He kissed them lightly then suckled at each nipple gently before pulling back slightly to look down at her again. He traced each nipple slowly with his index finger, then stroked the fullness of each breast tenderly before slowly passing his hand down her body and resting it lightly on her abdomen, his mouth trailing kisses along the warmth of her skin.

Rachel’s body felt as if it were on fire. His touch was so beautiful. When he suckled at her breasts and kissed her stomach, she thought she would die from the pleasure and happiness that he gave her.

“I want you, Rachel,” he told her again quietly, kissing her lips passionately before pulling back to search her face for any sign of fear.

“I want you, too, Sam,” Rachel whispered. “I know this is just for now, and I’m okay with that. You have to get yourself back into medicine and I have a lot of obligations back East.”

Sam looked at her and smiled a sad kind of a smile. He should have known better than to hope that things would work out for him. Her words served to cool him off just as if a bucket of ice cold water had been dumped over him.

“I understand,” he said calmly, his voice suddenly sounding very tired. “You have a thriving writing career. Children wouldn’t fit into your life’s plan.”

She watched him silently for a moment, unsure what to do or say. She just knew that she had to do something. She could never let him continue to think that she was rejecting him. She knew what it was like to be rejected and had felt the deep pain from not feeling good enough or worthy enough.

“It has nothing to do with my career,” she tried to explain.

Sam looked at her and waited silently. She could see the distance in his eyes and knew that he was growing more disconnected from her with each moment.

“Okay, it’s not your career,” he told her calmly. “Babies wouldn’t fit into your life right now.”

Rachel looked at him silently for a moment. Considering how conflicted she was about keeping her distance or showing Sam the affection she ached to give him, it really took her no time at all to decide what to do.

“Are you offering?” she asked finally, reaching out to touch his cheek and stroke it gently, tracing his lips before resting her hand upon his muscular chest and gently teasing the black hair that covered it.

“Offering what?” he asked, a sadness beneath the anger in his voice.

“To get me pregnant,” she told him calmly.

He looked at her in surprise then searched her face silently. He covered her hand with his own and squeezed it gently.

“Are you willing?” he asked her finally, smiling. When she hesitated and looked away, he reached for her face and held it so that she couldn’t hide her expressive eyes from him. “Answer me.”

His voice was firm, deadly serious. He did not want to misunderstand what she was telling him. This was one question whose answer he had to be sure of.

“Do you want to have my baby?” he asked calmly.

Rachel looked up at him, blushing slightly at their intimate conversation. She hesitated a moment to think through the consequences that her answer would bring.

“Very much,” she barely whispered, a soft smile crossing her lips as she looked at him and saw his blue eyes flash at her response.

She wanted to be with him and love him and share his tenderness. She wanted to laugh and listen and talk with him. Having a baby with him would be an added bonus to the loving relationship that she knew that they could share.

She waited what seemed like an eternity while he looked down at her silently. The intensity of his blue eyes nearly sparkled as he searched her face. He smiled down at her but did not laugh.

“We can’t do this,” he said finally.

Rachel’s heart stopped. He was rejecting her. She wasn’t good enough for him. There was something about her that was lacking. No man would want her. Isn’t that what Richard had told her?

His rejection hurt her deeply but she was determined to remove herself from the bed with as much dignity as she could manage. She sat up and reached for her discarded sweatshirt and pulled it on as quickly as she could. His hands reached out to stop her as she tried to climb across him to step down from the bed. She turned to face him calmly.

“Sam, let me go,” she told him firmly, trying to remain emotionless.

Sam watched her as coldness settled within her eyes. He realized that she didn’t understand what he meant, and he knew that he had better explain before she lost herself to thoughts that he couldn’t erase.

“Rachel, what I mean is that I want our child to be conceived the right way,” he tried to explain.

Rachel looked at him calmly, her expression distant and cold. “I didn’t realize there was more than one way to conceive a child. Please tell me about this medical breakthrough, doctor.”

Sam couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t mean physically,” he told her, laughing softly. “I mean our situation.”

“What situation?”

“Rachel, I would not make a baby with you unless we were married.”

“I understand,” she told him honestly. “Until this very moment, I’ve always felt the same way.” But things had changed.

She tried to climb over him once again but he stopped her midway through her attempted escape, and she found herself straddling his hips. She blushed at the intimacy of it but looked at him directly.

“Please…” she said quietly. She tried to pull herself free from his hold.

Sam let her go and she stood quickly on the camper floor. She turned away and tried to step away from him to walk the short distance back to her own bed when his hand gently touched her forearm to stop her. She looked down at the hand on her arm and watched as he ran his hand down the length of her arm and took her hand in his. She faced him silently and saw him sitting up in bed. Her heart ached at the sight of him.

The lantern light was glowing softly, throwing shadows across his muscled chest. She had to close her eyes to control herself because the very sight of his body still affected her strongly even if he didn’t want her. She thought about the dreams that she had dreamed, and her body ached with sadness for a future that wasn’t meant to be.

“Rachel,” he said quietly, breaking into her thoughts.

“What?”

“Please marry me.”

“What?”

She was stunned. Of all the things he could have said to her, she would never have imagined that he would ever make that request. She looked into his eyes and saw tenderness and worry. She wondered if she also saw love there. She looked at the hand that held hers so tenderly and melted at the thought of that gentle hand touching her, caressing her, and holding her for the rest of her life.

“Rache,” he whispered, bringing her attention back to his face. “I didn’t mean that I didn’t want you. I want you so much I hurt.”

He pulled her closer to him and took both her hands in his. His eyes locked with hers and he saw the hesitance and confusion there.

“You don’t have to marry someone to have sex with them, Sam,” Rachel told him sadly.

“That’s not what I want, Rachel,” he told her immediately, his voice strong and clear. “I want a lot more. Don’t you?”

Rachel didn’t trust her voice to answer. She nodded her head slowly.

“The sooner you say yes, the sooner we’ll be married and the sooner we can get busy making our baby.” He smiled at her, gentle tenderness in his eyes.

“I can’t,” she told him sadly.

Sam looked at her in confusion. He tried to make sense of her words but no explanation he could come up with mattered.

“I know you’re not married,” he finally told her seriously.

“No, I’m not,” she admitted.

“You’re not engaged.”

“No.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend.”

“No.”

“I’m not good enough for you?”

Rachel reached out and gently touched his face. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is?”

She leaned toward him to kiss his lips tenderly. Sam’s arms encircled her immediately. His kiss remained gentle, melting her already weakened resistance. She couldn’t stop the sigh that escaped her as he held her so tenderly against his chest.

“Then tell me why you can’t marry me,” he said quietly.

Rachel hesitated a moment while a million reasons raced through her mind. “I don’t think we know each other well enough,” she told him finally.

“Rachel, I’ve known you since you were five!” he answered, stunned, pulling back to look down at her in surprise.

“I mean the person I am now,” she explained.

“We’ve been friends for nearly our whole lives. You’re caring and sensitive and have given me support and encouragement whenever I felt alone. You and Roy were the two people who knew everything about me and didn’t care who my father was. You’re the person who stood by me when my mother died,” he whispered. “You will never know how much having you and the Monroes by my side meant to both my mother and me. She loved you very much.”

“I loved her, too,” Rachel whispered, her eyes tearing up at the memory of his mother.

“I know you did,” he said seriously, reaching up to pull the gold chain with the ice blue stone from beneath the neckline of her sweatshirt to rest it gently between her breasts. “You wear this all the time, don’t you?”

Rachel nodded, holding his hand as he gently touched the precious stone. “She gave it to me the day she died.”

“I know.”

“Do you mind?”