Miss Emmaline And The Archangel Part 15

Gently, with all the empty, lonely feelings and needs rising in her, she moved her fingers on his scarred cheek. Tenderly she caressed him, trying to tell him that maybe, for just this little while, they didn't have to be lonesome.

Gage's breath locked in his throat. She didn't know what she was doing to him. She didn't have the faintest notion; she was too d.a.m.n innocent to have any idea. Emma thought she was comforting him, when in fact she was pus.h.i.+ng him right over the edge.

And it was going to take only the tiniest push, he realized with angry resignation. Yesterday, between them, they'd built the fire, and nothing had yet happened to throw water on the flames. They were licking at his loins right now, fueled by her soft touch, by her feminine scent, by the sight and feel of her in his arms.

He didn't want to do this, he thought furiously. He was going to hate himself later. He was going to curse his weakness and d.a.m.n his loss of control. He was going to feel like the lowest slime and the cruddiest sleaze.

But he wasn't going to be able to stop himself.

He looked so angry, Emma thought. She might have been frightened, except that the hands holding her remained gentle as they stroked her back through the covers. Had she made him angry by touching his scarred cheek? Had it bothered him to be reminded of it? Concerned, she started to take her hand away, but just as she moved, he turned his head and pressed a kiss into the palm of her hand.

Emma caught her breath and stared wide-eyed up at him. And suddenly she was free. He didn't move, he just let go of her. Not an inch of him touched an inch of her any longer. Her hand hovered over his cheek, as if frozen there by his kiss.

"Emma," he said softly, in his husky, ruined voice, "if I touch you again, I won't be able to stop." That much conscience and control he had left, just enough to give her a chance to escape.

She didn't move, didn't flinch. She simply stopped breathing and continued to stare up at him with eyes that grew bigger and darker with each pa.s.sing second.

"Tell me to go," he said, not knowing how to make it any plainer. If she didn't seize her chance to escape, he wasn't going to let her go. He was no gentleman. To the bone he was a rough, ruthless street fighter, and he wore the outward trappings of civilization for convenience. His soul had been meant for a Viking or a cossack, not for a world where men needed to confine their appet.i.tes, needs and inclinations in a social straitjacket. He had accepted the constraints as a necessity, but now they were slipping from his grasp, ripped away in a whirlwind of rising pa.s.sion.

She didn't tell him to go. The pulse in her throat fluttered wildly, and she drew a deep ragged breath. And then ... and then her hand settled once again on his cheek, like featherdown, so light and soft and warm. The touch made him shudder, and he felt the impact of it all the way to his frozen soul.

She had no idea. She couldn't have any idea. She was innocent, too innocent to see the violence and raging hunger in him. Too innocent to know what he might be capable of. Too innocent to realize that it wasn't wise to want to give herself to a man who was capable only of taking.

But he was no saint to turn from what was so generously offered. He had given her a chance to back away. Now it was too late-for both of them.

He reached for the blankets and stripped them away from her, flinging them to the foot of the bed with one swift movement of his arm. Only the nightgown s.h.i.+elded her now, and it was no barrier against the hand that suddenly cupped her breast, or the powerful thigh that was suddenly thrown across hers.

"G.o.d, I want you," he breathed raggedly against her ear. "d.a.m.n it, Em..."

Why did he have to sound so angry? she wondered hazily. Somehow, even with all the layers of cloth yet between them, he made her feel as if he was wrapping her in his body and absorbing her into himself. As if she was being inexorably drawn into the darkness he seemed to carry with him. And dimly, as she felt him tremble and press his hips achingly against her, she sensed the pure white heat that was at the core of the night that surrounded Gage Dalton.

He didn't want to feel. He didn't want to need. He didn't want to l.u.s.t or hunger or yearn. He had fought his way up to the dark, icy edge of the abyss called despair, had found a precarious ledge where he could feel almost nothing at all, and now...and now...

Oh, G.o.d, she was making him feel!

Emotions exploded in him with all the devastating force of a volcanic eruption. Rage scalded all the frozen places, melting ice that held the wolves at bay. Pain poured through the cracks, agonizing and fresh, making a joke out of all his denials and defenses. He had admitted he grieved. He had faced that, accepted it, and from time to time even indulged it. But he had never faced any of the other feelings about what had happened, and right here and now they burst from confinement in a maelstrom of torment.

And Emma suddenly looked like a lifeline.

Gage's face told Emma she wasn't about to enjoy the gentle seduction she had once childishly imagined for her first time. She wasn't even to enjoy the tenderness he had showed her last night when he had guided her through her first real taste of pa.s.sion and fulfillment. No, she thought weakly, it wasn't going to be like that at all.

He looked so furious as he stood beside the bed and pulled his sweater over his head. He looked so ... hurt. He was in mortal pain, and she didn't think it was his back this time. No, not his back.

He reached for the snap of his jeans, and some little voice in Emma's mind, some last little voice of reason, told her to get out of here now. And then, before she could consider things logically, some floodgate in her heart opened, pouring the golden warmth of understanding through her.

In an instant she left behind the last romantic notions of her youth. She understood suddenly that a woman's body could do more than give pleasure and then children to the man she loved. It could give him forgetfulness. Or rea.s.surance. Or welcome. It could help mend hurts he couldn't speak of. It could tell him that someone in the world cared for him, cared deeply enough to take him inside her. It could, for a while, wrap him in security and shelter him from life's cruelties. It could give him all those things men never asked for and seldom admitted they needed.

What Gage needed from her tonight, she realized as he yanked down his zipper, had little to do with pleasure. And whatever it was, she longed to give it to him.

She gasped softly when he thrust his jeans and briefs down, letting her see for the first time in her life a man in the full grip of desire. He was so ... big, she thought weakly. It simply couldn't work.

Gage kicked his jeans aside and then suddenly threw his head back, standing rigid, his hands locked into fists, his expression a tortured grimace. First time ... whispered the cool voice of reason, barely heard through the gale in his head. Her first time... He shuddered, clawing inwardly for some remnant of self-control, some last decent impulse to cling to.

"Emma." His ruined voice was grittier than usual, forced past the tight knot in his throat. He made himself look down at her, some corner of his mind noting that she looked like a virginal sacrifice in that d.a.m.ned white flannel. "Emma, I don't think I can-" His throat closed, shut down by a hunger that just kept growing despite everything.

He was beautiful, she thought, losing her fear in her own rising heat and need. So beautiful, like a dark angel. Unlike the hair on his head, his body hair wasn't silver but a dark chestnut brown. It decorated his chest in a masculine swirl and then arrowed straight downward to the most potent part of him. And there... Emma caught her breath and looked up into his anguished face.

"It's all right, Gage," she heard herself say gently, as she held out a hand. "It's all right." At that moment she felt like the earth mother, all bountiful, all understanding, all giving. He was welcome to whatever he needed from her.

Gage made a strangled sound and was suddenly beside her, suddenly hauling her into his arms and then into the curve of his naked body. "Em ... oh, G.o.d, Em..." He shuddered violently when he felt her soft warm palms on the naked, scarred skin of his back, on the naked, scarred skin of his b.u.t.tocks.

"It's all right," Emma murmured. "It's all right." And somehow she believed it would be, whatever happened now. The next few minutes might be unpleasant for her, but they hardly mattered next to Gage's need.

Her first time... The words rolled around in his head, and he tried, he really tried, to bring her with him. Grasping at the straws of restraint, he lifted her gown over her head, taking care not to pull or tear it from her. When she at last lay completely bare before him, he saw the incredible shyness in her green eyes, in the warm rush of blood to her throat and cheeks.

"Beautiful," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Beautiful." He trailed his gaze over her from head to toe, feeling his body harden and throb even more urgently as he traced each graceful curve. The b.r.e.a.s.t.s he had touched and kissed last night were full without being large and crowned in strawberry pink. Her nipples were already knotted and hard for him, beckoning to him. Not yet.

He trailed his gaze lower, to the incredibly narrow nip of her waist-d.a.m.n, how could she be so slender, so fragile?-and lower to the thatch of fiery curls that drew his entire body like a powerful magnet.

d.a.m.n! Her first time! Another time he might have appreciated that. Now he could only see it as a potential hazard.

He turned his head back up and found her watching him, shyness warring with eagerness on her face. Holding on to a last, rapidly charring thread of control, he bent his head to kiss her.

The instant his hot, rough tongue touched hers, Emma was caught up in a whirlwind of escalating sensation. She became exquisitely aware of each place her bare skin touched his, and each touch fueled the yearning in her and made her press closer and closer to his heat, his strength, his hardness. Oh, yes, suddenly she needed that, too.

His hands were impatient, almost rough, as they swept over her, but she didn't mind. Oh, no. His impatience fed hers, made her feel wanted, made her feel wonderful that he wanted her enough to be impatient, to be rough. She didn't mind at all that he needed her as fast as he could get her, that he was driving toward his goal with little tenderness and only a modic.u.m of consideration for her. She didn't mind at all, because there was nothing, absolutely nothing, as heady or as satisfying as being wanted this badly.

For the first time in a decade she felt like a woman. He had given her that, and it didn't matter a tinker's d.a.m.n whether he gave her anything else. For him, for these brief minutes, she was woman enough.

Then his fingers slipped within her slick folds. She gasped, electrified by the unexpected sensation. He didn't say anything, just kept rubbing her there in a way that soon had her arching toward his touch and clinging to his hair like a lifeline.

A low growl of laughter escaped him, and he closed his mouth over her breast as his fingers continued to stroke, to delve, to test both her readiness and her inexperience.

Emma groaned, forgetting all her fantasies about being a bountiful earth mother, forgetting what it was she was understanding, and became hostage to the feelings he was giving her. Pleasure splintered again and again within her, and she wondered why the nerve that was directly connected from her nipple to her womb had never showed up in any anatomy book. Because each and every time he sucked on her breast, her insides tightened in a wild, delightful spasm.

And his fingers ... oh, his fingers were wicked, teaching her hungers and needs and sensations beyond imagining. When he parted her legs and knelt between them, she had long since forgotten that she didn't think this could work. All she knew was that it had to work. Somehow. Anyhow. Any way.

She felt him probe where no one but he had ever touched her, and then she felt him entering ... oh, my word, how he stretched her...

A sharp, searing pain jerked her out of her haze of arousal. She drew a sharp breath but swallowed the instinctive cry and stared up into Gage's grimacing face.

It didn't feel very good, she found herself thinking, wondering if he was just going to keep pus.h.i.+ng deeper and deeper. She wanted him out, now, before this feeling got any worse. Oh, my word, surely something was going tear?

She had known it would hurt the first time, but she hadn't been quite prepared for this feeling of uncomfortable fullness, this feeling of being stretched too far, of being sundered in two. Did women really learn to like this?

He stopped pus.h.i.+ng inward, and she released a relieved sigh when he started to pull out. But then he plunged again, and again, and again, and she could tell he was totally absorbed by something happening inside him, so all she could do was endure...

A hot tear fell on her cheek. And then another. And another. While he climaxed, Gage Dalton wept.

Chapter 10.

Nothing looked any different, Emma thought as she stared past Gage's head at the spangles of color on the ceiling. The storm still howled outside, the Tiffany lamp still cast its colors around the room, the floor hadn't cracked open to swallow her, and the ceiling hadn't caved in.

Except now a man's heavy weight lay limply on her, his body still joined to hers. Except now she knew the sights and sounds and smells of s.e.x. Except now she was free of some invisible barrier that only at this moment did she realize had been a burden. She was no longer a virgin, and she was fiercely glad of that fact, even if she hadn't found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Some women never did. She had read enough to know that much.

Her shoulder was wet where Gage's tears had fallen. It had been a brief, silent storm, over almost as soon as it happened. She hoped that his hurt had eased a little.

And she was afraid, mortally afraid, that he would get up now and leave her. Never had she felt so exposed, so vulnerable, so utterly defenseless. And she suspected he felt the same. He had exposed himself, his anguish, his need, his loss of control. Right about now he was probably wis.h.i.+ng he could vanish into thin air.

Regrets, Gage thought, were the manure of life, littering every d.a.m.n byway and walkway. She was probably feeling them, he was certainly feeling them, and right now he felt as raw as if he'd been skinned.

What he regretted was that he had not given her a better experience. What he regretted was that his knapsack full of guilt and remorse was going to keep him from giving her what she really needed for the long run. He couldn't give Miss Emma love, but he sure as h.e.l.l could have given her good s.e.x, and he hadn't even done that.

He had felt those moments when she had wished he would pull away from her. He had sensed her discomfort, but he had been too far gone to stop. He'd been afraid of that, and it had happened. Now, what the h.e.l.l could he do about it?

He sighed heavily and raised himself on his elbows so he could look down at Emma. At once she closed her eyes, and color rushed rosily into her cheeks.

"Look at me, Red," he said huskily, catching her face between his large hands. "Come on, look at me."

Her eyes fluttered reluctantly open, and the color staining her cheeks darkened.

Gage gave her a lopsided smile. "It doesn't get much more intimate than this, Em."

Impossibly, she felt the tug of a smile at the corners of her mouth, even as she wanted to hide her face in his shoulder. It couldn't get much more intimate, she thought. She was so completely, exquisitely aware of everywhere their bodies touched, of how he fit even now between her legs, part of him still possessing her. She was aware of textures, of smells, of pressures, of sounds. Nothing was as intimate as this.

"I'm sorry it wasn't any good for you, Emma."

"I didn't say-"

He cut her off with a quick, soft kiss. "You didn't have to say. All I did was hurt you."

"Just a little," she protested. "Besides, at first..." Her voice trailed off, and her blush heightened again.

"At first I got you really turned on," he murmured huskily. "I know. You're fire in a man's arms, Emma. You can't have any idea how good it makes a man feel when a woman responds to him like you do."

Oh, but she could, she thought, remembering the heady moments when Gage's hunger had thrilled her so. She knew exactly what he meant, and just thinking about how he had trembled for want of her was enough to make her feel hot and weak all over again.

He saw the flash of comprehension in her expression, heard it in her suddenly quickened breathing. Good, he thought. Good. He hadn't killed her desire. She was still halfway there and hoping.

He brushed another kiss against her lips, and one against her collarbone. Then he moved his hips against her, lightly, as if by accident, and smiled when he heard her swiftly drawn breath.

"That's it, Em," he whispered roughly in her ear. "Now that more pressing matters are out of the way, let's take care of unfinished business."

He rocked his pelvis against her again, slowly, and then again. Emma was amazed to feel herself rapidly spiraling back up to the heights she had just crashed from so disappointingly.

"It'll be good this time, Red. Just relax and let it happen." He s.h.i.+fted, covering one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with his hand and gently brus.h.i.+ng his thumb back and forth across the nipple as he continued to rock against her. And amazingly, he felt himself harden as if he were fifteen again and not an ancient thirty-eight. "Put your hands on my b.u.t.t, Emma," he ground out. "Hold me like you did before."

She did, loving the feel of those powerful muscles flexing beneath her palms as he moved against her. He was still inside her, filling her more and more with each movement, but this time it didn't feel quite so frightening. No, it was beginning to feel good.

"Does it hurt?" he asked breathlessly.

"No ... no..."

"Good...?"

"Mmm..." She was lifting now, rising to meet his thrusts instead of pa.s.sively accepting them as she had before. Her head began to roll restlessly, and her hands tightened on his b.u.t.tocks until he felt the sting of her nails. That zapped through him like electricity and dragged a groan from his depths.

"Gage!"

He recognized that sound. It had become engraved on his soul the night before when he had brought her to the peak the first time. He slipped his hand down between them and touched her, drawing another cry from her. "Oh, Em, it's good, isn't it? Just let it happen in its own sweet time. Just ... let it..." He was gasping like a marathoner on his last mile, doubtful he could hold out much longer. She turned him on like he'd never been turned on in his whole life. He wouldn't have thought he could...

He felt it happen. She came apart beneath him with a wild upward surge and a cry that pierced his heart. Her arms tightened around him, her legs wrapped around him and Miss Emmaline Conard held h.e.l.l's own archangel in a timeless moment wrested from heaven.

At two in the morning Emma sat chin deep in the big, claw-footed bathtub, surrounded by scented bubbles and rising steam. Opening one eye lazily, she benefited from the sight of Gage's backside, buck naked, as he leaned into the mirror and tried to sc.r.a.pe stubble from his cheek with her razor. He didn't appear to be self-conscious about his scars, once he realized they didn't repel her, and she was glad. She hated to think of the pain he had endured, but those scars in no way diminished him.

"d.a.m.n," Gage muttered. "What is it with women's razors? How the h.e.l.l can you use them when they're so dull? How do they get so dull?"

"There's a fresh one under the sink," Emma said lazily. She decided that she absolutely loved being a fallen woman. It was wonderful to laze around here in her bubbles and listen to a stark-naked man gripe about razors. Yes, she could easily grow addicted to this kind of intimacy.

Gage turned, razor in hand, and looked down at her. "Are you laughing at me?" He pretended to scowl. "I'm only shaving for you, you know."

"I know." Her cheeks felt raw, another sensation she really didn't mind. She wondered if women stopped getting beard burn with time, or if that was always a problem. She gave him a beatific smile. "And I told you where to find a fresh razor."

He tossed the razor down and wiped his face with a towel. "I'm done anyway, Red." A moment later he was kneeling beside the tub, catching her chin with a finger to turn her face up to him. "How do you feel?" he asked, huskily.

"Really."

"High as a kite," she admitted honestly.

Something in his face, some kind of tension, let go. "Yeah?" he said softly, then leaned toward her to brush a light, gentle kiss against her lips.

Her hand rose from the soapy, scented water to touch his cheek, and she thought how wonderful it was to be able to touch him so freely. How absolutely marvelous it was to have left pretense behind and to be able to honestly express desire. How phenomenally liberating it was to be desired in return. The euphoria would fade, she was sure, but she wouldn't trade these moments in time for anything in the whole world.

Gage's voice was huskier than usual. "You about done, Emma?"

"You could join me."

He flashed an unexpected grin. "I might if that water didn't smell like roses. Of course, the scent will probably get all over me anyway."