TAYLOR WAS CONFUSED by Brian’s behavior. In high school, she’d always, always focused on giving pleasure, rather than receiving it. Brian had never failed to hold her close afterward, which she’d craved far more than the sex they shared. His behavior tonight was different. He was focused on giving pleasure to her. And she wasn’t quite sure how to respond.
Since she couldn’t see his expression, she stopped what she was doing and asked, “What’s going on, Brian?”
He lowered his head to kiss her throat beneath her ear. “I’m making love to you. Slowly. So we can enjoy ourselves.”
“I was enjoying myself,” she said with a pout that was wasted in the dark.
A moment later he reached her mouth, his tongue dipping inside to taste and to tease, and the pout disappeared. She threaded her fingers into his hair and gave herself up to the novel experience of having Brian search out the best ways to arouse her. She writhed in his arms, her moans and gasps and wrenching groans filling the deep silence of the cave, as she waited for the moment when their roles would revert to those they’d played in the past.
But the kisses didn’t stop. And Brian never headed for third base, let alone home plate. It was as though the two of them were teenagers making out, with no intention of doing anything more. She quivered when Brian touched her breast with the reverence of a boy tracing its shape for the first time. He outlined her ear with his tongue, causing her insides to clench.
He’d never left a hickey on her neck in high school, because she’d shuddered at the thought of explaining one to Leah or Vick. But the gentle suction of his mouth on her throat became more insistent, and she felt her body responding to the intense pleasure-pain.
Brian tore his mouth from her throat and threaded his fingers into her hair, shoving it away from her face so he could plant surprising, petal-soft kisses on her eyes and cheeks, before he finally found his way back to her mouth.
His tongue dipped inside and withdrew, teasing, taunting. She moaned and opened her mouth wider, inviting him inside. She thrust her tongue into Brian’s mouth, while her hips writhed against his engorged shaft, trying to incite him to finish what he’d started. She’d never been so ready for a man, never desired a man so much.
It didn’t occur to her to simply ask Brian for what she wanted, because she’d never done it in the past—with him, or any other man. Wanting something from another person meant making herself vulnerable to the pain of rejection. In her experience, it was better not to get her hopes up in the first place.
She loved what Brian was doing and wondered if she would ever again be satisfied with moving from “at bat” to “home plate” without so much as a pause in between.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say Brian cares about me.
Taylor found that thought terrifying. She wanted to get this interlude over with so she wouldn’t have to deal with all the unwelcome baggage that had been churned up along with it. Like knowing she was not the sort of woman to whom men got attached. Like feeling unlovable. Like knowing she was unloved.
Taylor wondered if the rush of frightening emotions she was fighting, as Brian devoted himself to the simple acts of kissing and touching, was being magnified by the dark. Otherwise, she had no explanation for why her throat ached and her eyes had filled with unshed tears.
“Brian,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I wish I could see your face.”
“Why?”
“So I’d know if you’re enjoying all this kissing as much as I am.”
He chuckled, and pressed his hard, hot length more tightly against her. “What does that tell you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Take a guess.”
“That you’d rather be inside me?”
He lifted himself up on his arms, and she could feel his consternation in the sudden tenseness of his muscles. “We have all the time in the world. Why hurry?”
Because I don’t want this to mean something when it doesn’t. Because I’m feeling too much. Because it hurts to want what I don’t believe I’ll ever have.
She swallowed past the rawness in her throat and said, “I just want to be sure you’re satisfied.”
“This isn’t about you pleasing me,” he replied. “It’s about us pleasing each other.”
“Oh.” It was a sign of how little she’d asked for from the men she’d dated that Taylor found the concept of shared joy unnerving. Fortunately, because it was pitch-black, Brian couldn’t see how uncomfortable she was with the idea of giving up even a little of the control of their lovemaking to him.
Unless Brian had changed a great deal, she knew the places on his body where he was most sensitive, and she did what she knew would arouse him, smoothing her fingertips over his sweat-slick shoulder, then letting her hand roam to a small spot under his armpit that she knew was almost ticklish.
She felt him grunt and wriggle away, before lying still and inviting her touch. She slid her hand down his side to his hip, to the crevice between his groin and leg. Before she could do more than touch, she felt his hand cupping the heart of her, and his finger finding its way inside.
“You’re wet,” he said.
She was glad for the darkness that hid her sudden blush. No one had ever said such a thing to her out loud. It was the sort of frankness between partners that would have required knowing each other well, and Taylor had never stayed long enough with a man, or sought such intimacy, even with the three men to whom she’d been engaged. Very briefly engaged.
Taylor wanted to be in a loving relationship. She wanted to be married and have children. But she was short on trust. She’d never been sure any of her fiancés would really hang around through thick and thin. She couldn’t shake the thought that the men who’d sworn to love her would run away at the first sign of trouble, the way her mother had. Or abandon her without a backward look to follow their personal dreams, as her father had.
Her parents’ behavior had left Taylor feeling like a person without a lot of worth to anybody. Was it any wonder she expected a man to take off when the going got tough? Consequently, she always made sure she found a reason to leave first. She couldn’t face the thought of being abandoned—yet again—by someone she loved.
Because Taylor was always ready and willing to walk away, she’d been careful never to let her feelings get too engaged. What Brian was doing to her now brought back memories of the time they’d spent together and reminded her that she’d given more of herself to him than she had to anyone else before or since. All those teenage feelings of wanting to be loved and seeking to belong were surging over her like a tidal wave, threatening to drown her with needs she’d shoved aside for far too many years.
She had to do something to end this. Now. Before things got completely out of control.
Taylor reached for Brian’s hardened shaft, but her fingertips merely grazed the heat of his throbbing flesh, before he laughed and angled his body away, forcing her to let go.
“Back off, lady. I’m enjoying myself too much to want this to be over anytime soon.” He continued kissing her mouth, letting his hands work their magic on her body.
In the end, she didn’t let him have things entirely his way. Her hands roamed his back and shoulders, caressing and gently scratching, reveling in the play of muscle over bone. She could feel and smell—and indulged herself enough to taste—the faint layer of slick, salty sweat that coated his shoulders. Her fingertips dipped into the tiny dimples at the top of his sinewy buttocks and then slid down to lovingly cup them. She caught him off-guard when she captured the delicate, soft sacs below, caressing until his breathing was ragged.
Trapped as they were in the darkness, time ceased to have meaning. Every time Taylor thought she couldn’t endure another moment of pleasure, Brian would find another place to kiss, another place to tease, another place to touch with greedy hands that demanded her attention.
When Brian finally entered her, she rose to meet him. Their bodies came together joyfully, with the sucking sounds of thrust and parry. She wrapped her legs around his hips and arched upward to urge him deeper inside. Their tongues mimicked the dance of their bodies below, as each sought the pleasure to be found in the other.
She had never felt so full. Never felt such yearning to be closer to another human being. Never felt such a need to give—and to take. Never experienced such wonder and joy and sheer carnal desire. Taylor didn’t think she could survive it. Her glass was full and spilling over in torrents of exhilarating, almost excruciating, pleasure.
Their bodies continued to plunge and escape until, at last, their guttural grunts and agonized groans of satisfaction filled the dark void.
Afterward, Brian lay atop her, slick with sweat, his lungs heaving. She slid her arms around him to hold him tight, loving the feel of his solid weight on her body.
Too soon he said, “I’m too heavy for you,” and slid to her side.
She felt bereft. But only for a moment, because he reached out and slid his arm around her, pulling her close, as he murmured, “Come here.”
She snuggled against him, her nose at his throat, smelling his piney aftershave, the faded scent of which must have been released by their exertions, and the pungent scent of sex. Once they were lying still, Taylor quickly became chilled.
When she shivered, Brian said, “You must be cold.” He snatched up the parachute, and dragged it over them.
“You ready to sleep now?” he asked.
“It’s too dark to sleep.”
He chuckled. “Don’t you usually sleep with the lights out?”
“Actually, no.”
“Why not? Oh, right. The whole ‘scared of the dark’ thing.”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of? Now I’m curious. Spill.”
“Aren’t you sleepy?” she asked, unwilling to keep him awake, if he was tired, to hear something she wasn’t sure she should share in the first place.
“A little. Go ahead and tell your story. You can give me an elbow in the ribs if I nod off.”
“I wouldn’t do that!”
“My brothers have done a lot worse. I’m listening.”
She pursed her lips, trying to decide whether to reveal another piece of herself to him. But she was too keyed up to sleep, so she might as well talk.
“I was already scared of the dark by the time I got to that boarding school in Switzerland where King sent me.”
“Let me interrupt.”
She laughed. “Already?”
“Why do you call your dad ‘King’ instead of ‘Dad’?”
She shrugged, realized he couldn’t see the gesture and explained, “Since King was gone so much of the time, Leah was the only parent my sisters and I had growing up. She called my father King because she was five years old when he married our mother and became her stepfather. We followed her lead and called him King, too.” Taylor thought of times when she’d referred to her father as “Daddy” or “Dad” and amended, “Well, most of the time, anyway.”
“Do you ever hear from your mother?”
“No. I have no idea what happened to her.” She was tempted to add, “And I don’t care!” But that would have been a lie. Not knowing was awful. Wondering was even worse. With the Internet, she probably could have tracked her mother down, but when all she felt was animosity toward the woman, it hadn’t seemed like a good idea.
“Sorry I brought it up,” Brian said. “Go on with your story.”
“As I said, I was already afraid of the dark when I arrived at that Swiss boarding school.”
“Did you like it there?”
“Vick loved it. I did everything I could to get myself kicked out.”
“What was wrong with it?”
“Nothing, I guess. Except it was thousands of miles from home. I begged King not to make me go. Leah said she’d take care of me, but he wouldn’t budge. Being at that school was proof that I was merely another problem my father had to solve. Most of the shit I pulled was just a way to get him to pay attention to me.
“It didn’t work. He never came to visit. Not once. He just kept paying for the damage I caused, along with a bit more for the inconvenience I’d become, and I was stuck there for three long years.”
“How did you finally get him to let you come home?”
“I set a fire that nearly burned down the dormitory.”
She’d forgotten he was a firefighter, but his appalled voice reminded her of that fact when he asked, “You’re an arsonist?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose! It was an accident.”
He made an accusatory sound in his throat.
“Honestly, it wasn’t my fault.”
“Sounds to me like a lot of folks, including you, could have been killed.”
“I would rather have been dead than stuck where I was,” she muttered, resentful of his judgmental tone.
“It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“You weren’t there,” she retorted. “The other girls were tired of all the trouble I was causing and decided to teach me a lesson. Vick had told a friend I was scared of the dark, to explain why we always had a small light on in our room at night. The story must have been passed around, because they fixed the light switch in the cellar so it wouldn’t turn on and locked me in there all alone in the dark.
“It was my worst nightmare come to life.”
He reached out to brush her shoulder with his hand but didn’t speak. Why couldn’t her father have done that, just that, when he’d learned about her terrifying experience in the cellar? King hadn’t been sympathetic when he’d heard what she’d been through. He’d been livid.
“What happened next?” Brian asked.
“It was bitterly cold, and I didn’t have a coat. And, of course, it was dark enough to be the setting for some monster movie. They imprisoned me down there shortly after Vick left to spend the weekend with a friend. The other girls told the headmistress that I’d gone with Vick to Paris.”
“Those little bitches,” Brian muttered.
“I yelled and banged on the cellar door, but it was thick, and besides, there was no one around to hear me. I was down there, alone in the dark, when I accidentally started the fire.”
“How could you start an ‘accidental’ fire in the dark?”
“I found a candle on Friday. I didn’t find the matches until Sunday afternoon. Those were the darkest, longest, loneliest three days of my life.”
“I’m so sorry, Tag. That must have been awful.”
“It was.” Her throat clogged in response to Brian’s sympathy. She swallowed over the painful lump and continued, “I must have put the candle too close to the straw used to pack the wine stored down there, because I woke up choking from the smoke. It never occurred to me that such an ancient cellar would have sprinklers, but I suppose they put them in when they started using the building overhead as a dormitory for wealthy young ladies.
“At any rate, the sprinklers went off, the fire engines showed up, and I got myself thrown out and sent home. Vick was pissed off because she got kicked out right along with me.”
“And you showed up at Jackson High in the fall, where I took one look and fell hard for you.”
“You didn’t do that.”
“Didn’t I?”
She heard Brian’s jaw crack when he yawned.
“Sorry to be keeping you up,” she said.
“I haven’t had much sleep over the past two weeks while we’ve been fighting that fire.”
“Believe it or not,” she murmured, “I forgot about the fire.” Making love with Brian, and then lying in his arms, had made their circumstances fade away. At least, for a little while. “Go to sleep, Brian.”
“If you can’t sleep, count some sheep.” His voice was slurred, as though he were already half asleep.
Taylor lay there for a long time, staring into nothingness. She shouldn’t have let Brian talk her into that last “low and slow” survey of the fire. Then none of this would have happened. But she was the pilot. She could have refused. She was more to blame for the hopeless situation in which they found themselves than he was.
Her stomach growled. Taylor hardly ever thought of food. She ate to nourish her body, plain and simple. Now, all she could think about was how great an enormous bison cheeseburger and a plate of Big O rings at Liberty’s would taste, followed by a huge, homemade huckleberry ice-cream cone from Moos.
Taylor’s mouth filled with saliva. For heaven’s sake, she was drooling! She stuck her head under Brian’s chin and squeezed her eyes, just to make sure they were closed, then sighed in disgust. She might as well try counting sheep. Tomorrow was liable to be a very long day.
One sheep. Two sheep. Red…sheep…Blue…sheep…