Miss Emmaline And The Archangel Part 16

Emma's breath locked in her throat, and she felt as if she were drowning in his stormy eyes. "Will it?" she whispered.

"You bet," he whispered back. "All over every d.a.m.n inch of me. This night isn't over yet, lady. Not by a long sight."

She wanted it never to be over. Never, ever. It would end, of course. Beneath her euphoria an honest part of her accepted the end as inevitable. But for now, for tonight, she wanted to live in a fool's paradise where a man could love her despite her infertility, where dreams could come true and morning never came.

"We're snowed in," Gage murmured as he brushed kisses against each of her eyelids, against her cheek and chin. "n.o.body's going anywhere come morning. You don't have to open the library."

"That's right." Her agreement was breathless, the merest whisper as spiraling desire began to coalesce like a warm weight at her center. Instinctively she brought her knees together beneath the water.

"And I wouldn't want to leave you wondering," he murmured against her ear.

"Wondering ... what?"

"Whether the second time was a fluke."

She gasped as his tongue speared into her ear. A s.h.i.+ver raced down her spine to join the growing heaviness between her legs. He'd said something, hadn't he? Was she supposed to answer?

"No, Miss Emma." His voice was little more than a rough growl. "I want you to know for sure that s.e.x is just about the best thing a man and a woman can do together. I don't want you ever to doubt it."

Emma gasped and arched instinctively as his hand closed around her breast beneath the water. The bath salts made the water slick, and his fingers slipped silkily over her skin as he sought her nipple. She gasped again when he found it, then tilted her head to the side so he was able to nibble his way down to an exquisitely sensitive place on her neck.

"You should wear your hair down, Emma," he said huskily, his lips leaving a hot trail from her ear to her shoulder. "It's like something out of a fairy tale, all gold and red like fire." Catching her swollen nipple between thumb and forefinger, he tugged gently on it and listened with satisfaction to the soft whimper that escaped her.

He could hardly believe it, but he was throbbing again, nowhere near critical, but definitely hungry enough that he didn't want to stop. How did she do this to him? How had she dragged him out of the frozen wastes where he'd been hiding and made him once again a man?

h.e.l.l's own archangel had been a particularly apt appellation, he thought now, as he savored each moment of Emma's growing response. People who thought of fire and brimstone didn't know. h.e.l.l was a cold place. Colder than the arctic wastes. Emptier.

Her flame was warming him, and d.a.m.ned if he could pull away now. Not yet. Later, but not now. Like a wolf drawn by fire, he just kept circling closer and closer to the warmth, hungry for light, for laughter, for...

He choked the thought down and focused on Emma. Lovely Emma with her wild mane of hair caught up in a gaudy clasp, her neck as pale as dairy cream rising above the slowly evaporating bubbles. Now he could see the breast he was fondling, and he felt his loins tighten even more in reaction.

"So sweet," he heard himself say roughly as another soft whimper escaped her. "G.o.d, Emma, you're the sweetest thing..."

Leaning forward, ignoring the viselike pain in his back, he pressed a deep, wet kiss on her mouth as he sent his hand foraging lower beneath suds and water. When he found her soft silky curls she arched upward, tight as a bowstring.

Gage broke off the kiss, breathing heavily now himself. "Isn't it time to get out of there, Red? Before I get in there with you and prove that an old man with a crippled back ought to know better?"

She drew a sharp breath, and her sleepy-looking eyes opened slowly. "Would you?"

"I'm getting d.a.m.n close to it."

She smiled slumberously. "That makes me feel good, to hear you say that."

Suddenly smiling himself, he leaned closer and nipped her earlobe. "So it makes you feel good to bring a man to his knees, does it?"

"Just you, Gage. Only you."

The words sounded a warning in the back of his mind, but he ignored it. He figured he was earning enough bad karma tonight to turn him into a snake for at least five lifetimes to come. That being the case, he was d.a.m.ned well going to enjoy it.

Standing, oblivious to his own nudity or its impact on her, he grabbed a towel from the rack and then held a hand out to her.

"Come on, Venus," he said. "Time to rise from the sea foam."

All of a sudden Emma felt shy again. Somehow it suddenly seemed impossible to stand up, leaving the concealing bubbles behind, while this man watched her.

"Come on, Em," Gage said, lowering his voice to a deep, coaxing tone. "Promise I'll close my eyes."

Her gaze flew to his face and found him grinning almost wickedly. He looked so young, suddenly, she thought with a pang. Young and carefree.

"Your bubbles are almost gone, Red. There isn't a whole lot I can't see right now. Come on."

Blus.h.i.+ng profusely, unable to look at him, she rose from the tub and kept her face averted as the water sluiced from her.

"d.a.m.n," Gage said softly. "d.a.m.n, you're gorgeous." And somehow, he was going to make Miss Emma believe that, he thought as he studied her blus.h.i.+ng face and the way she refused to look at him. He needed to make her believe that.

Stepping forward, he wrapped the towel snugly around her and helped her out of the tub. Then, taking the devil's own time about it, he began to rub and stroke her dry. It wasn't long before Emma forgot her momentary shyness and succ.u.mbed to the incredible pleasure of being treated as if she was precious and desirable. And beautiful. He made her feel so beautiful, which she surely was not.

"I'd carry you," he murmured huskily in her ear as he dropped the towel and drew her full, bare length against his. "I'd sweep you off your feet and carry you to bed like Rhett Butler, if I could."

He was referring to his back, and Emma hastened to rea.s.sure him. She leaned even more into him and pressed a kiss on the smooth skin of his shoulder. "I always figured I'd be terrified of falling. Not good for the mood."

He chuckled quietly and began backing toward the door. "This is nice. Oh, have I got plans for you, Miss Emma." He whispered a suggestion in her ear and felt the tremor of response ripple through her. "Ah, you like the sound of that..."

His voice was doing as much to her as any of his touches, she realized. There was something incredibly s.e.xy about a man talking quietly in your ear, whispering of the things he'd like to do. Making suggestions that would have caused Great-aunt Isabel to swoon. Poor, dear Aunt Isabel, Emma thought dreamily as she and Gage tangled together on cool sheets. The poor woman had missed so much.

Emma didn't want to miss a bit of it. Not even the tiniest little thing. Spurred suddenly by appet.i.tes she had only just begun to discover, she pressed Gage back on the bed and straddled him on her hands and knees.

He looked up at her, a crooked smile on his face. "What's this?"

She leaned down and kissed him lightly on the lips. "I want to find out what turns you on."

A soft laugh escaped him. "Lady, you turn me on. The way you walk, the way you smile, the way your b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounce when you laugh... I don't think there's one thing about you that doesn't turn me on. If there is, I've been too turned on all week to notice it."

He captured her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands and rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, drawing a long, low sound from her. "That turns me on, too," he murmured. "The way you respond. The way you sound."

"But I want to please you," she said when she could find breath.

"You do, Emma. Oh, baby, you do." But he understood. She wanted to be active, not just pa.s.sive. She wanted to partic.i.p.ate. She wanted to draw from him the same sounds he drew from her. So he told her what he liked. And then endured the exquisite torture of having her try it all out.

And, oh, how it excited her to excite him. When she licked his small nipple to a hard point and sucked on it, drawing a deep moan from him, she felt a tug of pleasure in her own center every bit as strong as if he had been sucking her breast. When he guided her hands to his arousal and taught her how to stroke his silky length, her insides clenched again and again in a deep, wrenching throb of pleasure.

Somehow, at some point, it had become impossible to tell who was giving and who was receiving, who was touching and who was touched.

When Gage eased her onto her back and scooted down to bury his face in her musky, dewy core, she was prepared to give him anything he wanted, because each new experience only sent her higher and higher in the excruciatingly wonderful spiral of pa.s.sion.

The touch of his tongue electrified her, a sensation so powerful that it bordered on pain. She tried instinctively to pull away, but he caught her hips in his powerful hands and held her still.

"Let me, Emma," he said roughly. "Let me taste you."

Oh, my word! she thought hazily. His touch, his voice, his demand, they all added fuel to the fire. She had never dreamed that simple, ordinary words could be so erotic. "Yes," she said hoa.r.s.ely, totally unable to say no. "But it hurts..."

"Not for long. It's just so new ... Emma, sweet ... so sweet..."

The sensations were so new, so sharp, so exquisite, that she reached the brink swiftly and then stalled there, unable to find her way over. Writhing, she clawed the sheets, and then, in a moment so intense it seemed to halt time in its course, she tumbled over.

She would never forget, she thought dazedly. She would never forget the way her thighs had clamped around his head, holding him to her. Never forget the low sound of triumph he had made when he knew she had reached the apex. Would never, ever forget the instant when he slid up over her and slipped into her, causing a deep, clenching thrill to spear through her. Would never forget the way he lifted her hips to him and made her climb the peak one more time, this time with him.

She would never forget the way he felt when he collapsed on her and lay tiredly against her, his muscles quivering, his breath gasping. She would surely never forget the sound of his name on her lips or the sound of hers on his as they slowly slipped back into reality.

And most definitely, most a.s.suredly, she would never forget the moment she realized she loved him.

Lying on his side, Gage watched Emma sleep. Her silky, curly hair cascaded like wildfire over the pillow; her golden eyelashes shadowed her pale cheeks. In repose she looked remarkably fragile and delicate, in marked contrast to her waking manner of strength and competence. From the outside, no man would ever guess how soft, how warm, how utterly vulnerable, was Emmaline Conard.

He'd been lying there for what seemed ages, just watching her. The throb of pain in his back was persistent, but it seemed unimportant beside the tightness in his chest, a tightness born of unaccustomed emotions. Miss Emma had opened old wounds simply by giving herself to him. He shouldn't have allowed her to do that. He couldn't allow her to keep on doing it. He couldn't ever again be responsible for anyone else's well-being. No way. And he couldn't allow his own internal walls to be torn down, his defenses to be breached. They were the only things that stood between him and madness. Or so he sometimes thought.

If he had half a brain, he would get out of this bed now and make it clear that this night would never happen again. Let her know that nothing would come of this.

Make it clear that she wasn't to count on him for anything. Show her that he could only give her pain.

But he stayed, and in the soft light from the Tiffany lamp, he watched her sleep. t.i.tania, he thought, a crazy thought but one that seemed suddenly apt. A fairy princess with flaming hair and incredibly delicate features slumbered trustingly beside him, and for this little while he allowed himself to forget that he didn't deserve her trust.

Tomorrow, he thought with a shudder, tomorrow would be soon enough to return to h.e.l.l.

Reaching out, he touched a soft curl. He never lost control, but he had lost control tonight. Emma and a couple of nurses from long ago were the only people on the planet who had seen Gage Dalton completely stripped to raw feeling. He should feel uneasy, threatened, embarra.s.sed, that she had seen him shaking with need and almost out of his mind with hunger, but he didn't. Somehow he felt his vulnerability was in safe hands with Emma.

He felt he was in safe hands with Emma. It was a strange feeling for a man who had never counted on anyone but himself, a man who was accustomed to having others turn to him for safety. Not that he was able to provide it, but he had always sure as h.e.l.l tried to.

Aching, trying to swallow feelings that seemed to be determined to be felt tonight, he tried to think of s.e.x and not of needs. He tried to put the night down to rampaging hormones, not loneliness, not tenderness, not caring.

Yet Emma had given herself to him with tenderness and caring, whether he wanted to face it or not. She had held out a hand to him when he had been caught in a tempest of unchained needs and hurts, had told him it would be all right at a time when she should have been afraid and seeking his rea.s.surances.

He wanted to accept all that she was offering him, but he didn't deserve it. He would never deserve the promises he had seen in her eyes after the last time they had made love. So tomorrow he was going to have to find some way to put distance between them, some way to let her know that nothing more could happen between them.

Somehow he had to stop things before he hurt her any worse than he already had.

"Gage?"

Aw, h.e.l.l, he thought, he should have put on a s.h.i.+rt. He was standing in the kitchen in his unb.u.t.toned jeans, watching the snow drift deeper in the dark driveway. Dawn was approaching, but it was impossible to tell. The blizzard still raged, blowing snow against the windowpanes with an icy rattle, burying Emma's small car, coming close to burying his Suburban.

She was standing in the kitchen doorway, hesitating because he hadn't responded when she called his name. He could feel her back there, could feel her eyes on his scarred back, could feel her wondering why he was standing in the kitchen in the dark like this.

"The coffee's hot," he said finally, not knowing what else to say. He kept his back to her, hoping she would take the hint.

"Is your back hurting?"

The concern in her voice was like a claw in his conscience. d.a.m.n it! He didn't deserve her caring. And she sure as h.e.l.l didn't deserve the cost of that caring.

"No more than usual."

Emma edged into the kitchen, uncertain how to handle this. She had hoped this morning would bring an easiness between them, a warmth. Maybe that they would make love again. She had suspected it wouldn't be like that, and had known for certain when she found him gone from the bed.

The question was whether she should let him deal with this in his own way, or whether she should let him off the hook by telling him that she was aware there was no future for them. At least, she thought that was what might be troubling him.

Looking back at last night, she could clearly see what it had taken to break down his resistance to making love to her. She had, after all, seen him stand beside the bed, shaking from head to foot and battling his own needs. She had heard him offer her a chance to get away. She had witnessed the strength of the forces that had buffeted him.

He hadn't wanted to make love to her. He had needed to. And later, when he had been so sweet, he had been giving her something he believed he owed her.

The night beyond the windows was surprisingly bright, the light of streetlamps diffused by the glittering snow into a pale glow. That cold glow poured eerily into the kitchen. Emma felt around in the cabinet for a mug and poured herself some coffee, wondering if she should just act as if nothing had happened between them.

It was Gage who broke the strained silence. "There's no future in this, Emma."

"I know." She did know. She knew with agonizing clarity that no man would want her for long. She had known it for a decade now. But he didn't seem to hear her.

"I can't-" He broke off, unable to find words.

Emma pulled out a chair at the table and sat, watching his back, aching for both of them with a depth and fatalism that astonished her even as she felt it. They were doomed, she thought. Both of them doomed by circ.u.mstances beyond their control. Was it so wrong to seek what comfort they could from one another?

Several minutes ticked by in a silence punctuated by the rattle of snow against the gla.s.s and the low moan of the wind as it whipped around the house. Finally Gage tried again.

"I don't have a future to offer you, Emma," he said roughly.

She knew better than ever to have hoped for any such thing. "I didn't ask-"

He interrupted. "I used up my brownie points with heaven a long time ago, if I ever had any."

Confused, she tried to see him more clearly. "What do you mean?"

"Just that. I've been condemned to h.e.l.l."

"Gage, what-"

"Do you know what h.e.l.l is, Emma?" His voice was quiet, controlled, belying the anguish his words conveyed. "It's an endless, bottomless, icy void. An infinite emptiness of the heart and soul. A gaping chasm that was once filled by everything and everyone you loved."

Emma drew a long, shuddery breath as she began to understand. "Tell me," she said unsteadily.

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. He had to do this, he thought desperately. For both of them. He had to say it, and she had to hear it, before it was too late. Because he was too d.a.m.n tempted to take what she offered.

"It was just before Christmas," he said, his voice low, and rougher than she'd ever heard it. "My wife and I had just finished decorating the Christmas tree."

Wife? Emma's heart began to beat painfully. "We got the kids into their snowsuits..."

Kids? Oh, my G.o.d! She wanted to run, hide, knowing she didn't want to hear any of this. Not any of this.

"The youngest was just two months old," Gage said almost dispa.s.sionately. "We had two little girls already. Sandy was four, and Karen was two. And then we had Tommy. My wife was so thrilled with him. She'd wanted a boy from the start. I kind of liked having little girls, myself. Jan, my wife, said they had me wrapped around their little fingers. I guess maybe they did."

"Gage..." What could she say? What could she do to stop the coming agony? Not a thing. Like a doe caught in headlights, she simply waited for the impact.