Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (45 page)

The sound of his laughter bounded up the stairs ahead of them. Katherine was both thrilled and mortified; thrilled that the moment she had dreamed of for so long was about to become a reality, mortified at the thought that she might be too much of a burden, that he might be winded by her weight. Her weight?
There’s something wrong with a woman who thinks about something like her weight at a moment like this. Get your mind on what’s happening here, Katherine. I’d rather not
, came a weak little voice inside her head.

As it turned out, Katherine didn’t have to remind herself of a thing. The moment he set her on her feet beside the bed, Alex took care of everything. His hands were at her throat now, his thumbs tilting her head up so he could see her face. She saw so much in those eyes, desire, of course, and a feeling he was asking something of her. But what?

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

She released a long-held breath. “No, relieved.”

“Relieved?” His eyes never left her face. “You shouldn’t be feeling relieved now, Katherine.” Then his voice went soft and throaty. He trailed a finger down the length of her throat. “That comes later.”

She drew a sudden quick breath, conscious of the wild beating of her heart prompted by the smoldering look of need in his eyes. “Well, I’m sorry if I’ve jumped the gun on you, but you asked me and I’m telling you, I’m relieved. And you would be too, if you’d been waiting for this moment as long as I have.”

He threw back his head and laughed. Then he looked at her with humor, warm and infinite, in his eyes. He had never seen her more adorable than she was at this moment, or more desirable. She felt the vibrations of his laughter. She had never heard a more beautiful sound. He drew her closer, his words fluttering the hair around her face. “Do you know what happens now?”

“Of course I do. I grew up on a farm, remember. I’ve watched animals…”

“Dear Lord! I don’t know which is worse…ignorance, or the barnyard kind of knowledge.” His hands tightened on her arms. “Listen to me Katherine, try to forget everything you think you know. No matter what you’ve observed, it isn’t like that between a man and a woman. I’m not going to attack you from behind.”

He had thought his words would embarrass her, or even bring a flare of anger, but her reaction surprised him.

She smiled up at him, then dropped her head against his chest, the sound of her laughter bubbling up and washing over him like a free-flowing spring. “I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed.”

He dropped his head against hers, the sound of his rocking laughter muffled in the thickness of her hair. This was a side of her he never knew existed. He knew, of course, that Katherine had a sense of humor, but to exhibit it at a time like this considering she had never been intimate with a man. It was both unexpected and rare. Here was a woman who could match him stroke for stroke, word for word. For an instant he held her so tightly she thought her bones would crack. Then he was whispering inaudible things laced with the groaning of her name just before he smothered her with a kiss that was warm, hard, and demanding. Katherine was in awe as much as she was in love. Here she was, married at last to the man of her dreams, being held in his arms and wanting him as much as he wanted her. Grateful and frustrated that he had shown such kindness, such patience, she pulled her mouth away far enough to say, “Alex, are you going to make love to me now?”

“Yes Katherine, I am.”

“At last,” she said with a satisfied sigh. Her smile hovered like a luxuriant haze, only to vanish with a soft, shuddering gasp as his hands came up to loosen the tie on her wrapper, sending it to the floor. A moment later her gown followed.

If anyone had ever told her she would be standing bare as a scraped carrot in front of a man and he fully clothed, she would have thought the least reaction she could have expected from herself would be to dive into the bed and bury herself under the covers. So it was as much a surprise to her as it was to him when she looked at him and said, “I love you, Alex.”

“I know,” he said. “I guess in a way, I’ve always known.” His eyes traveled the length of her. His mouth went dry. Even in the dimness he could see she was small and delicate with a waist his hands would go around, yet her hips were wide enough to receive a man, her breasts full and generous and perfectly formed. And her legs were long and slender, yet strong enough to hold a man. “I knew you would be beautiful,” he said.

He let his gaze move back to her face as his hands came up to lift the heavy length of her hair over her shoulders to fall like a curtain over her breasts. The warmth of his mouth found the most sensitive spot of her neck and she curled against him, fragile as a flower. He kissed her, not with a wild urgency, but with a slow-burning heat that seemed to grow hotter and hotter. While he seduced her with his mouth, his hands eased across her back, following the indentation of her spine to spread firmly across her hips. Then he was away from her, his hands coming up to the buttons of his shirt.

“No,” she said, her hands coming up to push his aside. “Let me.”

Delight sang through his veins, and he marveled at the open honesty of her. She lifted her eyes to his as her fingers nimbly slipped the buttons through, one by one, until she reached the waistband of his pants. Tugging, she freed his shirt, pushing it back from his shoulders and down his arms. When she reached for his pants, he pulled back, hopping first on one foot to remove his boot, and then on the other. “Now,” he said, dropping the last boot to the floor, “where were we? Here?” he asked, drawing her to him and kissing her until she swayed against him.

A moment later he felt her hands on his chest, tentative at first, then growing bolder, slipping downward to stop at the button at his waist. Her movement was less confident and not as smoothly executed as it had been with his shirt, but she finished the job, pushing his pants down over his hips until he took over and pulled them from his body. When he was finished and as naked as she, she did as he had done, looking him over slowly from head to foot. “Oh Alex, you’re the one who’s beautiful.”

He took her hand, drawing her with him to the bed where he threw back the covers. To ease the awkwardness of the moment he sat down, his hands holding hers, drawing her down with him as he lay back, until she was lying beside him. He held her close and kissed her slowly until he felt her relax, his hand showing her he knew all her secret places and knew them better than she.

Such wonderful things, hands. She had never imagined ten fingers could do so much, could evoke such a range of emotion. His lips buried in her hair, she held her breath when his fingertips delighted with weightless strokes the trembling skin of her throat and breasts. Suddenly his kiss was dissolving the living part of her and his wants became her wants, his needs, hers. Untutored and innocent, her hands were guided by a desire to please and be pleased, as something inexplicable guided her hands. Her arms enfolded him, one palm pressing with slow, easy movement the contours of his back, the other exploring the strength of his neck, then twisting into his hair as she strained to intensify their closeness and feel more acutely the pleasure of his beloved weight pressing her down. Never had she felt such desperation to feel so many things at once, to be all things, do all things, and to understand, at last, the mystery of love in its completeness.

And then it began to build, a spiraling heat that knew no end, filling her body, drawing upon the feel of his hands, the rasp of his harsh breathing against her ear. “Please Alex…”

Alex felt his body tense. Had he been moving too fast for her? Was she frightened?
Dear God, please don’t let her be one of those.
His mind exploded with the thought of spending the rest of his life with a cold, passionless wife. His heart in his mouth, he whispered against the softness of her throat, “What, love? Tell me, Kath.”

“Touch me,” she whispered. “Touch me and keep on touching me.”

Starbursts of delight sang through the tensely held muscles of his body and he felt himself relax in delight. “Where, sweetheart? Where does it give you pleasure? Here?” He touched her breasts with his mouth, delighting her, but she wanted more, much more. “Tell me, love.”

“In all the places, Alex. The unravished places.”

Her words were like music penetrating his soul and his body flowed outward in a rhapsody of enchantment. “My precious wife,” he said and softly bit her neck.

He found the unravished places she was talking about, much to her delight, and with a queer sort of obedience, the desirous hand began touching her, first in the ravished places—her face, her neck, her breasts—touching her with a familiar assurance that was infinite and wily, beguiling her with both pleasure and promise. Yet the assurance was always there, the soft-spreading assurance that flamed within the center of her.

She lay perfectly still, hearing nothing but the tempestuous mating of breath mingling with breath, the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears. The softness of his words, the gentle touch of his hands whispered against her body as his hands came down to touch her, preparing the way. With a quiver of pleasure, she opened to him, and he touched the heat of her, sweeping her along in a drowsy, aching warmth of a drugged kind of sleep that unfolded like a flower into a world intense and powerful, bursting with vivid color.

And then he rolled, coming up to brace himself on one knee before he spread the way and eased his body between hers. How to describe it? It was like nothing she had ever known, the exquisite feel of warm, hungry flesh pressed against warm, hungry flesh. This man was her husband and she loved him with all her heart. And the tightness of it pleased her. She closed her eyes to savor the feel of it, opening them and looking deep into his eyes the moment she felt him between her legs. As he arched his body and entered her with one sure, swift stroke, her breath caught, then rode away on the current of her next words. “There was never anything more right than this,” she said. “Never.”

For a moment he was still, swollen and quivering inside her. As he began to move, he kept hearing those words, understanding their meaning, knowing what she had said was true. There was a rightness to what had passed between them, a rightness that went far beyond the act of coupling. He fought the feeling, but his thoughts grew farther and farther apart. His body the authority now, he drifted on a rising swell that moved in a slow, helpless rhythm. He lured her from the sweet sleep, awaking her with a strange ripple of pleasure. One after another—rippling, rippling—the constant overlapping of gentle waves, then running and running, faster now, coming closer and closer together until they melted together into points of exquisite brilliance—intense, so intense until she convulsed with a wildness unknown to her, drawing him deeper into her, urging him on with untamed cries until she felt herself filled with him—and it came, a warm, liquid heat, that crested, then burst with all the force of the Pacific where it crashed against the craggy rocks of Humboldt Bay.

For a shattering of an instant, she knew, she knew! She knew the mystery, the spiraling awareness of what it felt like to be born.
Too beautiful, too beautiful!
her mind screamed out, trying to hold onto the moment, to stop the ebbing away of all the loveliness. She clung with a deeper tenderness to the man now bound to her forever, taking into her hand the beauty of his wilting penis, touching it as tenderly as she would a babe, understanding now its frailty, knowing for all time the power of its thrust. She began to cry softly.

“Angel-love, sweet Katherine, what’s wrong? Have I hurt you?”

“It’s too beautiful…too beautiful,” she cried softly. “How can anything be too beautiful to hold onto?” He kissed her tears and said nothing, only rolled to his side, taking her with him, tucking her head against his chest, the curve of his throat cradling the top of her head, and she knew nothing but peace, exquisite peace.

Sometime later, Katherine stretched like a cat awaking from a long nap in the sun, warm and satisfied, opening her eyes to a world of blinding color. Nothing would ever be the same for her.

“Hello,” he said, the words vibrating against her ear like a hum coming from deep in his chest.

She lowered her voice a decibel or two and said in deep rumbling tones, “Hello yourself.”

He smiled, kissing her forehead. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He felt her smile tickle the hairs of his chest. “I was thinking I’m glad that’s over.”

He pulled back and looked down at her, his face concerned, serious. “Was it that bad, that painful for you?”

“It was sort of like,
Ouch!
That felt wonderful!”

The bed rocked with his laughter. His arms came around her tightly and he hugged her to him. “You’re unbelievable. You know that?”

“No, I’m honest.”

“That’s what I said, you’re unbelievable. Your honesty is not only refreshing, it’s unheard of. Now, tell me what you meant when you said you were glad that was over.”

“I meant, I’m glad all this fuss about chastity and virginity is over. And I must say, I have been led down a merry, primrose path that led absolutely nowhere.” She rolled away, coming up on her elbows, her face slightly above his. He had seen that look before. She was wound up tighter than an eight-day clock and ready to talk. He might as well settle in. He folded his arms behind his head and readied himself.

“Where, in heaven’s name,” she asked, “did all those bits of information I’ve had spoon-fed to me all these years come from?”

“What kind of facts?”

“Groundless ones,” she said. “You know, silly things that women are always told about purity and holding themselves back for marriage. The way it was all presented, I expected something quite transforming…nothing short of a miracle…something like the parting of the Red Sea.”

“Hmmm,” he said with a laugh. “There could be a striking similarity there.” He was laughing harder now. “You know, that adds a new dimension to an old story. I’m afraid I’ll never be able to listen to a sermon about the parting of the Red Sea without giving it a whole new perspective.”