Childfinders Inc - Hero For Hire Part 29

Desire had always been just a physical sensation for him. Now it was that and something more, something he couldn't define. Something he was afraid to define because identifying it would capture him even more solidly than this woman with the wide, vulnerable green eyes, this woman whose need ignited his own.

His lips were everywhere. Over and over again, he touched and caressed, fascinated by her reactions. Her soft moans heated his blood, bringing him up even higher. The obvious pleasure he heard escape her lips brought him a satisfaction of its own and made him want to heighten her reactions even more.

Though lovemaking was a pleasurable thing, Chad couldn't remember ever feeling this involved. Always before, there had been distance, a place to which he retreated while he watched himself make love to a woman. It was as if he could float above what was happening.

This time, there was no retreat, no safe place for him to stand off to. The ground had been taken away and he was free-falling along with this woman he couldn't seem to get enough of.

Chad pa.s.sed the heel of his hand against her soft belly, pressing just enough to evoke sensations that made her twist harder against him. Made her grasp his forearms as if to pull her into him.

He brought his mouth down to where his hand had been and felt her flesh quiver beneath his lips.

She tasted of innocence, of things he'd never tasted before.

Ridiculous thought, given who she was and that she had a child.

But the word innocence continued to echo in his brain, making him humble for the gift he was sharing.

Making him proud.

He did what he could to bring her to the crest of fulfillment first. It wasn't hard to know the exact moment it happened. There were no games. She wasn't coy. He found himself enjoying the way her eyes flew open the first time the explosion flowered within her.

Chad felt her nails digging into his shoulders as she arched to absorb the core of the storm. His own desire grew exponentially until he was completely intoxicated with it. And besotted with her.

He couldn't hold back any longer.

With her breath rasping against his ear, warming his blood even more, Chad drove himself into her. He m.u.f.fled her cries with his mouth as his hips melded with hers.

The last dance had begun. A dance that was theirs alone.

Poised above her, trying to balance himself so that he wouldn't hurt her, Chad grabbed fistfuls of sheet beneath his hands as the final thrust brought the elusive, sought-after sensation.

Formless words came to him, floating through his brain, shimmering just out of reach.

And then euphoria blanketed him and, with it, a sense of profound contentment. It took him a moment to identify the feeling. Another to examine it in awed wonder.

He'd never experienced that before.

After lovemaking there had always been a sense of exhaustion, perhaps with it a desire to sleep. But never anything further. Nothing like... whatever this was.

He pushed it back, not wanting to examine it too closely. Afraid of losing it.

Afraid of wanting to find it again.

He realized that he had his arm around her and was holding her close against his side.

"Was I all right?" she asked.

The question, quiet, shy, honest, cut through the haze that was still clinging to his brain. It took him a second to make sense of it.

When he did, Chad felt something akin to a chuckle in his chest and wondered at it. He wasn't a man given to things like chuckling. But the question struck him as amusing. Didn't she realize that she'd all but made the walls shake around them?

That even now, with her against him, he felt the distant lick of appet.i.tes beginning all over again, he, who was always satisfied to make love only once?

"Only if the G.o.ds of the dictionary decide to write an entirely new definition of the expression all right." He cradled her to him so that he could look down into her face. She was serious, he thought. The chuckle faded. "Why? Did I give you any cause to doubt that you were anything but magnificent?"

She blushed then. Like a schoolgirl, he thought. There was nothing of the sophisticated socialite here in his arms. Only a woman who could have easily had a battalion of men eagerly jumping through hoops to sample just a little of what he'd just had.

Veronica hesitated, the blush deepening. "It's just that I'm not very experienced. I mean, other than Robert, I didn't... And then Robert... he was a very good lover, but he wasn't..." This wasn't coming out right, she thought. Chad probably thought she was an idiot. She finally found the word she was looking for- or at least one that was close. "Energetic." She lowered her eyes, embarra.s.sed to look at him. "I just wanted to know if I satisfied you."

"Satisfied me?" He rolled the term around on his tongue, wondering again how she could possibly be serious. "Yes and no."

"Yes and no?"

Turning suddenly, Chad was over her again, his hands framing her head, his eyes looking into hers. His body intimately touching hers and heating quickly. d.a.m.n, but he wanted her again.

One for the books, he thought.

"Yes, you satisfied me. More than satisfied me," he said. "But you also made me want more." Ever so lightly, he began to kiss her lips again, first the upper, then the lower. He heard her sigh of surrender, and his blood began to surge again, pulsing to his loins. "Hence," he breathed, barely pa.s.sing his tongue along both her lips, "yes and no."

Her body awakened again, she moved beneath him, silently extending a welcoming to the invitation she had received. "Oh, now I understand."

"As long as we're clear."

"Very." Entwining her arms around his neck, Veronica raised her lips to his, capturing them. Capturing him. And slipping gladly back into paradise for a second time.

She'd always been a quick riser. Unlike her younger sister, Veronica popped up out of bed like bread from a toaster. But this time she was reluctant to leave the sheltering arms of sleep behind. She'd spent what little there'd been left of the night reliving their lovemaking in her dreams, and the netherworld was much more preferable to the world that waited to greet her at first light.

But her inner clock was preset and roused the rest of her. Slowly she opened her eyes and realized that morning had joined them, dressed in full regalia. Surprised that she had slept in, Veronica tried to focus on her surroundings.

Chad was already up on his side of the bed, slipping his jeans on over hips unenc.u.mbered by underwear. She felt her cheeks heating right along with the rest of her body.

The part of her that had always been reserved couldn't believe what had happened last night.

Couldn't believe that she had made love with a man she hardly knew.

But another part of her, the more recessed, sensitive part, felt as if she had known him forever. As if she had been waiting for him forever. Waiting for a man who could take care of her. Who made love with wild, pa.s.sionate abandonment. To her, not her name, not her money, but to her.

Had she really found him? Had he somehow managed to wander in and find her amid all this chaos going on around her?

It was too soon, too early for answers. Only questions. Pulling the sheet to her,

Veronica sat up. Her hair cascaded in uncombed waves around her shoulders. She glanced to where the clock usually was. The s.p.a.ce was empty. Vaguely she remembered accidentally flinging out her hand and hitting it during a crucial moment. It had toppled over and was probably somewhere under the bed.

"What time is it?" she asked.

His back to her, Chad raised his head. He'd been hoping to make it out of the room before she woke up. It would have been easier that way.

He turned to face her, not knowing what he would see in her eyes. Recrimination?

Denial? Anger? She was ent.i.tled to all of those and more. Conduct Unbecoming-that was what they would have labeled it if he'd still been in law enforcement. He'd taken advantage of her last night, of her vulnerability and of whatever it was that felt lacking within himself.

But dawn brought reason in tow.

And reason brought guilt with it. The excuses he'd given himself had trouble holding up in the light of day.