Heaven's Price Part 12

Sean looked at her with mixed feelings. He thought she had never looked so beautiful. Her hair was cloaking her head and shoulders like a satin veil. The eyes that rained tears were those of a disillusioned child, and he felt a surge of pity for her. She was trying so desperately to disregard an undeniable fact.

At one moment he was filled with rage that she had let a bunch of idiots spoil the happiness she was so carefully constructing, and wanted to shake her until she realized that their opinion didn't matter.

The next moment he was filled with such love and the need to protect her that he trembled like one palsied. His strength meant nothing if he couldn't be strong for her. He felt frightfully weak.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Put the needle at the beginning of the third selection and help me."

"Help?' "Dance with me."

At any other time, he would have bellowed with laughter. For if he looked like anything in the world, it was not a dancer. A lumberjack, a longsh.o.r.eman, a roughneck, a football player, a wrestler, but not a dancer. But the pitiable sound of her voice eliminated any thoughts of laughter. He felt only a tremendous sadness that this was one thing he couldn't do for her.

"Blair, I can't. I wouldn't know the first..." "I'll talk you through it. Really all you have to do is hold and lift me."

He wiped suddenly damp hands along the sides of his shorts. "I could drop you."

"No," she shook her head. "You wouldn't. I know you wouldn't.

Please."

The appeal so soulfully spoken couldn't be denied.

"All right," he heard himself say. He turned to put the arm of the record player at the end of the second selection to give him time to walk to her.

She was standing in fifth position when he joined her. "Stand behind me. For the first few minutes, the dance is mine. Just turn in my direction. I'll let you know before you have to lift me."

The haunting strains of Rachmaninoff filled the room and she whirled away. She glided around him, her personality changed into the character she was portraying. She embodied a woman in love, sensuous, provocative, dancing for her lover. Each movement was beautifully timed and executed.

"This time when I come close, put your arm around my waist and let me lean all the way to the ground." He held his breath fearing that he'd do something wrong, but was amazed when his huge hand caught her at her waist and he leaned with her until, her legs straight, her head almost touched the floor. Instinctively he seemed to know when to help her rise. She danced away from him again.

"When I come back, put your hands on my hipbones and lift me over your head," she instructed as she spun away from him. He was almost taken off guard when she came running toward him and all but flew over his head as his hands caught her on the flat plane of her pelvis and lifted her up.

"Now walk in a circle slowly," she said, her voice gleeful.

He raised his head to see her back arched, her arms spread wide in the soaring silhouette of a bird. She felt no heavier than one. "Lower me easily," she said, bracing her arms on his shoulders. He was shocked when her knees settled against his chest and she slid sensuously down his body until the pointed toes shoes touched the floor.

She talked him through the rest of the dance. As the music built to its crescendo, she whirled toward him.. "Kneel down on one knee," she said on a heaving breath. The music ended with trilling notes as she did a daring back bend over his right shoulder, her toes resting high on his thigh. Finale.

For long moments after the music stopped they maintained that position.

Then Blair stirred and miraculously lifted herself off his shoulder.

His hand went to her stomach to give her better leverage. She stood, keeping her back to him. From his kneeling position on the floor, he slowly turned her toward him.

Her face was wet with tears, but they were no longer tears of pain, but of joy. "Thank you. It was . . . beautiful."

"You're beautiful." His hands skimmed her body to rea.s.sure him that she was real flesh and blood and not some fairy creature sent from heaven to enchant him. With his palms flattened at the base of her spine, he brought her closer and rested his head against her stomach.

It was a welcomed heaviness and she weaved her fingers through the blond hair to hold him closer. He turned his head slightly until she could feel the moistness of his breath as it filtered through her leotard to her skin. Then his lips moved over her, brus.h.i.+ng random kisses over her stomach, abdomen, and then lower to her thighs.

"Sean," she cried, though no sound was emitted. She collapsed onto him.

He cradled her in his lap, bent her over his thigh, and kissed her with wild hunger. His tongue plundered her mouth that was all too willing a victim. His hands moved through her hair against her head, down her neck, clutching at her shoulders and upper arms. The only thing that prevented him from being a ravenous attacker was that she was in total compliance and just as starved for him. Her arms wrapped around his neck, bringing his head down for the unskilled fervor of her mouth.

When he came up for air, he rasped, "Let's get out of here.

Within minutes they were wheeling away from the studio in his car, the Delgados' borrowed station wagon abandoned for the second time.

There was no possibility of their going into Blair's apartment. The "party" that had occurred there was still too recent, and Sean didn't want her wounds to reopen.

He carried her into his house, through the screened room she so enjoyed and through the lower floor rooms to the sweeping broad staircase.

Her head lay nestled against his chest in absolute trust. When he set her down in the large bedroom, she looked up at him shyly. "I need a snower.

He grinned sweetly. "So do I. Through there." He indicated a door across the room and she walked toward it, still wearing the toe shoes that looked awkward on one's feet when not dancing poznte. Sean was right behind her and didn't turn on the bright overhead lights, but only a heat lamp that suffused the room with a warm orange glow.

He opened the shower's gla.s.s door and turned on the taps. As the room filled with steam, they undressed slowly, their eyes never leaving the other. His shorts and s.h.i.+rt were easily discarded, as were his shoes.

He had the privilege of watching Blair as she peeled the leotard and tights down her slender hips and beautiful legs. She tossed them negligently atop the toe shoes.

Boldly, her earlier shyness gone, she surveyed the splendor of his body. He indulged her, not moving as her eyes traveled the length of him, then came back to study his flagrant masculinity. Maidenly fingers braved the s.p.a.ce that separated them. Hovering for a ponderous moment, she at last touched him.

Had she been looking at his face rather than at what she caressed so timidly, she might have been frightened by the sparks of light that flared in his eyes and beamed into infinity like lasers. The iron-hard set of his jaw tensed in reaction, and the hands that knotted into tight, white-knuckled fists might have intimidated her. Instead she felt only the immediate stirrings of arousal and yanked her hand back quickly. Her eyes flew to his.

"I won't hurt you, Blair," he promised with fierce sincerity.

She smiled tremulously. "I know." Bending forward, he caressed her lips with his.

He stepped into the shower and pulled her in after him. He let them both get thoroughly wet under the fine spray before he lathered his hands and began to rub them briskly over her back. He smoothed over her derriere, loving the silky feel of her skin against his work-roughened palms. She moaned with pleasure as he ran his hands down the backs of her thighs and knees.

He turned her around and handed her the soap. She returned the favor of scrubbing his back, standing on tiptoe to wash the tops of his broad shoulders. She watched the water trickle past the indentation of his waist, past the curve at the small of his back, over the firm muscles of his b.u.t.tocks. She couldn't quite garner the courage to touch him again.

When they faced each other once more, he washed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, squeezing them gently between soapy fingers. He dripped bubbles onto her nipples and laughed in delight as they cascaded over the pink tips. His hands moved down over her ribs, her stomach, her abdomen to the delta that deemed her woman. Most of the dark down had been carefully clipped.

He c.o.c.ked a questioning eyebrow and she answered bashfully, "Costumes."

He nodded in understanding. She closed her eyes, grateful for his easily satisfied curiosity. But her eyes sprang open when she felt his hand cup her. His eyes were startlingly blue even in the strange light.

"Put your arms around my neck, Blair," he said. She did as she was told, and buried her face in the matted hair on his chest. His hand caressed her. She groaned as sensation after sensation rippled through her in time to the alluring movements of his fingers. She sipped at the warm water streaming down his chest.

Then he removed his hand and pressed her to him from chest to knees, positioning himself between her thighs.

"Sean," she breathed, reflexively arching against him when she knew the power of his desire. "Sean."

He broke the embrace and cut off the water. He helped her out of the shower within heartbeats of her speaking his name with such pleading and wrapped her in a fluffy, absorbent towel, then blotted her dry.

Haphazardly he dried himself.

Scooping her in his arms, he carried her into the moonlit room and, holding her in one arm, flung the covers of the bed back with the other.

He settled her on the cool, soft sheets before following with his own body. He turned on his side to face her. "I'm still afraid of crus.h.i.+ng you," he said as he gathered her to him.

His lips fused with hers, melding their mouths together and sealing them with heat. His tongue teased along the inside of her lips. "Do that to me," he said urgently. She did and was rewarded with an animal growl deep in his throat. Praise makes one brave. When next their mouths came together, it was her tongue that darted into his mouth, a fleeting, flirtatious thing that drove him mad. "Blair, Blair, G.o.d, you're wonderful."

His lips found her ear and blessed it with ardent attention.

Strong white teeth worried her earlobe. When his tongue had soothed it, his mustache dried it.

"Please, Sean," she said, turning her head toward his mouth. He knew what her request was before she asked it. He licked at her lips with slow, leisurely strokes. His mustache was a caress of itself as it oscillated over her s.h.i.+ny mouth, taking up what he had deposited.

"That feels so good, so good."

She pressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the crinkly carpet on his chest.

It tickled and teased her nipples until they ached for a firmer touch.

She plumped her breast in her own hand and pushed it against his chest, finding the counterpart of his nipple and rubbing it with her own.

A sharp cry escaped his surprised lips and he crushed her to him.

His mouth went on an uncharted trail down her chest to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

His tongue beat against her nipples like the wings of a b.u.t.terfly.

Then one was enveloped in his mouth and suckled. She felt that he was drawing her very soul into himself and she let it go gladly.

The pulsing action of his mouth echoed the throbbing in the lower part of her body. As though on cue, his hand slipped between her thighs.

Fingers gentle and knowing caressed, stroked, sought, and found with such accuracy, that Blair heard her own labored breathing as that of one suffocating.

Her hand idled down his side to find his naked hip. Unconsciously, her fingers gripped him and pulled him ever closer to that part of her that beseeched not to be left wanting. Love me, Sean.

"I am," he whispered as he explored the realm that held all the secrets of her body. "I'm loving all of you. Feel me loving you."

The blissful torture went on and on until she was held in a fine sensual net from which there was no escape.

Her body surrendered complete control to him. When she clung to him with silent sobbing, when her body undulated with the need to be fulfilled, he rolled her to her back.

s.h.i.+fting his weight quickly, he knelt to kiss what he had loved and she called his name plaintively, clasping his hair in frantic hands and pulling him up to cover her.

He cautioned himself to be gentle, as he knew she'd not been with anyone since coming into his life. He introduced himself into her body with a tentative probing. When she had accepted that much of him, he pressed deeper. He was watching her face, so he saw her teeth clamp down over her bottom lip at the same time he realized that he had encountered a membrane of resistance.

"Blair." Her name was an astonished, horrified exclamation. "This isn't possible."

Her eyes opened. "Don't stop."

"But.." "Please, Sean, if you love me at all."

He searched her face, still incredulous, but eternally tender with emotion. "G.o.d, yes, I love you. Didn't you know that's what this was about?"

"Then please." Her hands persuaded him with pressure at the back of his thighs.

The hardest thing he had ever had to do in his life was curb his own raging pa.s.sions, but he loved her too well to frighten or hurt her.

With meticulous care, and unheralded sensitivity, he slowly, painstakingly sank into the chaste vault. Her years of body conditioning made it easier than he had feared, yet he remained still until he felt her muscles relax and her tension ebb.

Lifting his head from where it lay beside hers on the pillow,. he kissed her mouth softly. Her eyes fluttered open. "Am I hurting you?"

She shook her head. "No." She mouthed the word rather than spoke it.

The heady thought of what was happening between them, the wonder and awe of it, left her too weak to speak.

"You're sure?" She nodded. "Why didn't you tell me, Blair? " "Do you really want to talk about it now?" she asked unevenly.

She felt his stomach shake with silent laughter. "I'd rather bring this to a mutually satisfying conclusion." He ducked his head to plant a solid kiss at the base of her throat. His tongue delved into the delicate triangle there.

Her back arched off the bed. "Do you think you can?" she sighed as his lips plucked at her nipples.

"We can. Together."

"I didn't think that could happen the first time," Blair said, her lips barely moving over the warm skin of his shoulder.

"It's rare I'm sure." His index finger was detailing the fragility of her collarbone. "And only then if the man is lucky enough to initiate a s.e.xpot like you."

She gave him a resounding slap on the bottom. He nipped at her ear with playful teeth and tickled the sensitive skin behind it with his mustache.

"Ah, Sean Garrett, you've turned me into a depraved human being in one evening. Kiss me," she implored, catching his head between her small hands and pulling him down to her mouth.

She was still nibbling at his lips when he pulled back and asked huskily, "Blair, who was Cole?"

Her head thumped back onto the pillow and she stared up at him wide-eyed. After they had regained their strength, Sean walked to the bathroom to bring her a damp cloth to make herself more comfortable.

He had switched on the bedside lamp and now it shed a soft light onto their flushed bodies. At his question, her face paled significantly.

He could see perfect reproductions of the lamp in each of her wide green eyes.

"I told you he was a man I lived with for awhile."

"Forgive me for pointing out that you didn't live together in the usual context of the word."

Her eyes closed against a painful memory. "No. We didn't."

Suddenly remorseful that he had taken that s.h.i.+ning animation his lovemaking had produced from her face, he said, "Don't tell me if it's painful."

"No," she said, taking his hand in a firm grip. "I want you to know.

He gave her time to collect her thoughts. His fingers lightly ma.s.saged her forehead as he looked down into her beautiful face.