Sweet Everlasting (26 page)

For Carrie, it was as if they’d never kissed before and this was their first, or at least their first free, uncomplicated kiss, with neither of them holding back or trying to ignore a guilty conscience. Her mouth opened under his gentle probing and welcomed his warm, sleeking tongue, sucking on it softly until he growled low in his throat and pressed his hands against her spine to bring her nearer. “I don’t want to hurt you, Carrie,” he whispered, “and I might, inadvertently. So you must tell me if I do. Promise.”

She ran the tip of her index finger along the furrow between his dark eyebrows. “I promise,” she said dreamily.

“I mean it.” He frowned harder at the spreading, blue-black contusion at her temple. “How do you feel?”

She licked her lips delicately, tasting him. “How do you think?”

He couldn’t help smiling. “Seriously.”

Her arms around his neck tightened. “Oh, Ty. I think you must’ve given me happiness medicine.” She laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes, to enjoy the feel of his fingers soothing the hair back from her forehead. He had the cleverest hands. “We’re going to make love, aren’t we,” she said on a long sigh, a statement more than a question—but needing to make sure.

“Yes.” It didn’t feel like capitulation to him anymore; it felt like a gift. He pressed his mouth to her hairline, letting stray wisps tickle his nose.

She lifted her face. Behind her shining eyes lurked a question, shy but also bewitchingly matter-of-fact:
Well, what now?

What, indeed. Of course he must handle her with great care and utmost tenderness, go slowly, lead her along this new, risk-strewn path with deliberate consideration, for in every way but technically Carrie was a virgin. But behind her, in the mirror, his hands had hiked the nightshirt up to the tops of her long thighs, and he could see the narrow white crescents of her buttocks gleaming like smooth marble under the hem. In the unexpected flash of lust that scorched him, he wanted more than anything to strip her bare and take her where she stood.

Instead he took her hand and led her to the bed; they sat down on the edge, side by side. He smiled at the prim straightness of her back, and trailed his fingers up and down to relax it. She smiled back, enjoying that, but behind her sensuously drooping lids blinked the eyes of a very alert and attentive pupil. He slipped his fingers inside the square neck of the shirt and stroked them softly across her chest, discovering that her skin was as smooth as warm glass. “Amazing how much better this shirt looks on you than me,” he observed.

Carrie tried to take a deep breath, but her lungs weren’t expanding quite right anymore. “Shall I take it off?”

He shook his head very slowly. “I will.”

Her heart gave an extra heavy pound, then missed the next beat entirely. Even kissing him, she’d never felt like this before. Ty taking her clothes off was a powerful thing; it would’ve scared her to death if it hadn’t been so thrilling. Every button he unbuttoned gave her body a new jolt; it started behind her ribs and shot all the way down to her feet, making her go soft as butter inside. The last button was right over her woman’s place, and the feel of his fingers there made her flex her thighs together. He slipped his hands in and coasted his warm, dry palms slowly over her pelvis, her stomach, right between her breasts, across her collarbone and up to her shoulders. He pushed the open shirt behind her arms, and when he looked at her bare breasts, she felt the tips pucker and crinkle. Just for a second, she was embarrassed. She might’ve tried to cover herself, but her arms were stuck to her sides in the nightshirt’s long sleeves. But then Ty put his fingers on her breasts and made little circles, and then he pinched the peaks ever so gently. Her head fell back. It felt like shooting stars were popping and sparking in her nipples and then zinging away, down to her vitals. It didn’t last long enough, though—he stopped, and when she opened her eyes he was scowling at her throat. “Bastard,” she thought he muttered.

“Don’t look there, Ty. Don’t think about it,” she advised, whispering. “We won’t let him spoil this.”

He took her face between his hands, holding her jaws and feathering his thumbs across her cheeks. “Sweet Carrie, I’m sorry for what he did to you. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m all right, though. I’m so happy right now.”

He kissed her with all the tenderness in him, over and over, each kiss taking them deeper, binding them tighter. She was drawing deep gulps of air when she could, her breath coming fast and hot in his mouth; he felt her move under his hands, and opened his eyes to see her squirming the rest of the way out of the nightshirt. He began to unbutton his own shirt, but she put her fingers over his to stop him. “I will,” she said in her husky voice, and his whole body tightened.

She started out boldly enough, but about halfway down his chest Carrie got pudding-fingered, because shocking pictures of where all this undressing was leading to kept flashing in her mind’s eye. But she finally did it, got every last button undone. “Oh, you’re beautiful,” she breathed, pulling his shirt wide open. “I always knew it, and now …”

“Now?”

“Now I get to touch you.” She spread her palms across the hard, horizontal ridges of muscle that lay over his stomach, amazed at how soft his skin was there—she hadn’t thought he’d be soft anywhere. He wasn’t covered all over with hair, like Artemis; he only had a downy, light-brown sprinkle in the center of his chest. It narrowed at the bottom to a fascinating arrow that trailed down his flat belly and disappeared into his trousers. She didn’t have the nerve to explore that—yet—but she couldn’t resist putting an index finger on one of his flat nipples, the way he’d done for her. But it didn’t do a thing for him—not until she gave it a little flick with her fingernail. Then it turned to a hard bead, and Ty sucked in his breath. “Aha,” she murmured. “So.”

“So,” he agreed, beguiled by her keen-eyed, gentlehanded exploration.

“I don’t know
anything,”
she wailed, suddenly dismayed. “Nothing at all. All the things to do, all the differences between a man and a woman—Ty, I’m not going to be any good, I’ll just—”

“Be quiet,” he commanded, kissing her to make sure she did. “It’s all right not to know anything. You can’t hurt me—everything you do pleases me. It’s all good between us, Carrie. All good.” He took her down in a long, drugging kiss, pressing her into the feather mattress. When she tried to protest, offer more reasons for why she wasn’t going to be any good, he seized her wrists. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” he instructed, nudging her lips apart and slipping his tongue deep inside.

She was delicious; he tasted and stroked and teased until her mouth turned greedy and tried to devour him, too. The sounds she was making—low moans, whimpers, incredulous gasps—drove him up too high, much too fast. Using his teeth on her jaw, he took voracious bites along the way to her ear; he opened his mouth wide and sucked it in, giving it a sharp, darting tongue bath. Carrie squealed and shuddered and tried to squirm away, but he held on, burying a heady laugh against her neck. “I’ll stop,” he promised, panting. She was driving him crazy.

“When you kissed me before,” she finally managed to say, “those two times before you knew I could talk do you remember?”

“Mm, yes, I seem to remember.”

“I was so scared.”

“Scared? Why?”

“I thought I’d make a sound—a noise! I wanted to. I came so close, especially when you … you know.”

“What?” He smiled, knowing the answer but wanting to hear her say it.

“Touched me,” she whispered.

“Touched you? Where?”

“Here.” She made a vague gesture at her chest.

“Where?”

A dawning smile replaced the consternation in her beautiful face. His own smile faltered and froze as he watched his shy, innocent Carrie cup her left breast with her hand, and then slide the hand away in a slow, uncannily knowing caress, uncovering a pert and very erect nipple. “Here.”

He’d never been offered a more tantalizing invitation. He accepted it instantly, using the flat of his tongue first, then the edge of his teeth, and finally the rough-soft tug of his whole mouth, while Carrie arched upward and clutched at the sheet. Still suckling her, he shoved the bunched-up nightshirt past her hips, and she wriggled the rest of the way out of it herself.

He raised up over her, to see her. “Ah, Carrie, look at you. You’re so … lovely,” he said, inadequately. She had long, fine bones and smooth, feminine flesh and muscle under skin the color of clean sand. Gently curving hips—nothing boyish about them after all—and perfect breasts with pink-tipped nipples, one of them rosier now than the other. Dimpled knees and long, elegant shin bones, gleaming like white blades through the satiny skin. Delicate ribs, a shallow, enticing navel, reddish curls set in a seductive triangle between thighs the shade of sunlight on snow—

“I am?” she quavered.

“You are. Very, very lovely.”

It amazed her.
Lovely.
Would he say that just to be kind? Yes, certainly—but she almost believed him anyway. It was a marvelous possibility, and it filled her with a shivery, tentative joy.
Lovely.
It would be enough. Oh, it would last her forever.

Tyler stood and stripped off his clothes, swiftly, with no wasted movements. When he was naked, he stood still, waiting for her to look up at him. Finally she did—but only his face; it was as if the rest of him had been chopped off at the neck. He put one knee on the edge of the mattress, tipping it, and her, a little toward him. “Look at me, Carrie. It’s just me. My body won’t hurt you. Artemis hurt you, but I never would. Never could.”

“Oh, Ty, I know that.” She pondered for a moment
how
she knew it, and why what her stepfather had done hadn’t poisoned her against all men for good. Because it was Ty, of course. But part of it might also be because of her real father, whose memory was still strong, who had loved his women—her and her mother—and been a gentle man until the day he died.

“Then look.” He smiled to reassure her, careful to come no closer; and at last, with an air of valiant fatalism, she sat up and faced him. He expected a shy peek or two, just to break the ice, accompanied by a lot of maidenly blushes. She might be blushing, he couldn’t tell, but what started as a shy peek turned very quickly into something else entirely. She studied him minutely and intently, taking her time, missing nothing. “Well?” he finally had to ask, breathing unsteadily. Her fascinated scrutiny unnerved but didn’t unman him. In fact, quite the opposite.

“Well,” she echoed. She finally raised her wide gray gaze to his eyes. “My goodness, Ty, aren’t we different?”

He threw back his head and laughed, an easy, solid, real laugh. “By God, we are,” he agreed heartily. Tugging the covers out of the way, he lay down beside her.

“All right,” she said after a few quiet seconds.

He turned his head on the pillow they were sharing. She had her arms at her sides, chin pointed to the ceiling. “Hmm?”

“I’m ready, Ty. Go ahead.”

He turned on his side, propping his head on his hand. He mustn’t laugh again, but her fearful bravery tickled him. “Well, you know, I’m not quite ready,” he confessed softly. That seemed to surprise her. He could understand why; he’d warrant he looked ready enough to her, He traced her tense profile with a finger, forehead to chin and back up again. Her nostrils were thin and fine, like porcelain, and her nose ended in a sharp but elegant point. It was her mouth that captivated him, though. The sensitive lips quivered when he caressed them, from nerves and desire and self-consciousness. He kissed the corner nearest him, working his way across the dainty arch to the center. Her pink tongue was lying in wait, and flickered out at his when he got there. She bit his lips, both of them and then one at a time, without a trace of shyness. She was learning very quickly.

He let his slow hand drift to her stomach, pressing and kneading her there until she groaned, head turning on the pillow. But she went still when he twined his fingers into her soft pubic hair. “Open your legs, Carrie,” he breathed against her mouth. Her thighs were trembling; for all her brave words, she was afraid. Petting her, softly squeezing the firm flesh of her mons pubis, he waited.

It was what she wanted. It was all she wanted. But she held back, constrained by a lifetime of propriety. To—to
open her legs
so a man could touch her there went against everything she’d ever been taught or instinctively guessed about proper female behavior.

But this was Ty. And—God help her—he’d just stretched out one of his long, sensitive fingers and touched a tender spot on her that reacted like a switch: it turned her mind completely off. But it left everything else humming and alive. Shuddering, whimpering his name, Carrie spread her thighs wide.

She was slippery and hot—so small—sleek as a wet silk glove. He fingered her softly, ardently, eyes shut tight. He pictured her: dark and swollen and slick with wanting, her lips pulsing softly around the two fingers he had inside her. He spread them a little, stretching her; a sound like “Nunh” burst from her throat. He could take her over the edge now, he realized. Right now. Was that the way? No. Selfish—maybe, but he wanted to go with her the first time. With excruciating reluctance, he withdrew his hand.

Carrie put both of her hands over her heart. “Oh, Ty,” she breathed in a high, frustrated quaver. “That was wonderful.”

She thought—it hit him hard, and once more he had to swallow euphoric laughter—she thought it was
over.
“Darling,” he muttered, “oh, sweet, sweet Carrie,” kissing her cheeks and her eyes, her pretty nose. He reached for her far shoulder to pull her onto her side, facing him. “Your turn,” he whispered, watching her drugged eyes clear quickly and then widen in apprehension. “Touch me, love.”

“Oh,” she said, the word rising and falling with false enthusiasm, “would you like me to?”

“Yes,” he said emphatically. “I’d like it as much as you did.”

That got her. “Well, then. All right,”

She was trying mightily to hide her distaste for this job, and clearly preparing for the worst. He wished he could help her, ease her into it gradually—but he was fast losing his capacity for finesse. He caught her fluttering hand and led it directly to his jutting, rock-hard member, wrapping her fingers around it and urging her to move in the basic, uncomplicated way that pleased him best.