Dan bent slightly and his arm came beneath her knees. Both her arms were about his neck and he lifted her high against his chest. He stood holding
her and her hands moved over the smooth muscles of his shoulders and down his back. It was one of the most wonderously exciting moments of her life. He was holding her tenderly, cradled in his arms as if she were a small child, but the kisses he placed on her shoulders and neck were the kisses of a man desperate to make love. He moved across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, then turned and lay down with her still in his arms. Her head was in the crook of his arm and she couldn’t have moved even if she had wanted to.
“I want our first time to be long and sweet until you ache for me.” His voice was deep, soft.
He began to stroke her, his hands moving from shoulder to hip; he whispered love words, their meaning lost to her as he kissed her soft breast, her shoulders and neck, burying his face in the curve. The powerful tug of her own desire set her ablaze with a hunger equal to his. There was no haste in his lovemaking. Sensuous, languid, he took his time quite deliberately, and every move he made was to increase her sexual excitement. He was invading every inch of her now, exploring her body boldy, making her give herself up to him. His breathing suddenly became harsh and she could feel him tremble against her, and felt a shock of eager excitement to know that he was aroused to the point of no return.
“Darling … sweetheart…” His breath was ragged in her ear. “Are you ready for me? I … can’t wait much longer!”
“You don’t have to wait, darling.” Her hand moved down the smooth skin of his side and across the flat stomach muscles and grasped him.
His response was so convulsive that Casey was almost frightened. He writhed against her and trembled violently, his mouth everywhere on her face, his hands searching for her moist depth. He growled deeply in his throat when she twined her leg over his catching him between her thighs.
“I don’t want to be rough … I don’t want to hurt you,” he breathed desperately. “But…”
The next minute she was on her back. He leaned over her, sought entrance, and filled her completely. The pain-pleasure was so intense that she cried out his name. Now she was only female body responding to powerful male body. He probed urgently, turning this way and that, while she arched to impale herself more completely on his throbbing warmth.
“Oh, darling! Oh, my God! We fit so perfectly. Oh, love…” He moaned with pleasure while resting on his elbows, and Casey locked her arms about him and pressed her lips to his mouth. “Sweetheart …”
A heavenly feeling began to build as Dan’s motions grew more and more frantic. She wanted what they were reaching for desperately, dreaded missing it, and quivered with expectation beneath the pressure of his body. She clung to him, heedless of sore spots now, aware only of that thrusting, pulsing rhythm increasing unbearably to a tempo that
brought her higher … higher. She felt deep, thrilling spasms, exquisite pleasure. From somewhere in the blaze, she heard a soft triumphant, “Oh, God!”
Casey came languidly back to reality and found her hands clasping Dan’s tight buttocks, his hair on her cheek as he rested face down. He was still huge and deep inside her, but the waves of frenzied pleasure that had ripped through her were subsiding. In their place swelled a burning desire to comfort and pleasure him. She moved her hands over his back and turned her lips to his cheek. His heart was still thundering against hers when he wrapped his legs around her and turned on his side, taking her with him.
They lay face to face, her soft belly tight against his hard one. His hand moved along the length of her from her thigh up over her hip past her waist and beyond to her injured breast. He had just barely touched it and her hand grasped his wrist and moved it away. He was still for a long moment, then rolled her over him and they lay on their other sides. His hand moved to her breast and she brought her hand up and pressed it there. She began to tremble and her lips moved over his chin to his mouth.
They kissed for a long time, as if it were the first time they had kissed, as if there couldn’t be anything beyond a kiss, a kiss that had to be all they could have. His tongue was inside her mouth and moving softly and slowly while his fingers teased the nipple on her breast. Then his fingers drifted
lightly down to her belly, and fluttered their way between their flesh to where soft curls nestled among his own crisp hair.
“Is it blond?” he asked against her mouth.
“Yes,” she whispered and his hand went to her buttocks to press her more tightly to him before moving back to her breast, lifting and holding it until his mouth could reach her nipple. He tugged on it with his lips, gently at first, then almost roughly. The varieties of pressure thrilled her in different ways and in her belly and deep, deep inside of her. The feeling was so acutely pleasurable that she sighed and tightened her arms about him, and he laughed deep in his throat. He lifted his head and pressed her wet nipple to his and moved it gently, teasing it against the rough hair on his chest.
His lips moved from her mouth to her eyes. “Are your eyes open, my love? I wish I could see them. You’re so incredibly sweet! I want you to feel everything!”
“If I felt any more … I’d explode,” she murmured, and he chuckled.
His hand lifted her breast again. “You tie me in knots, woman.” He lowered his head to take her breast into his mouth and worry the taut nipple with his tongue.
“Mmmmmmmmmm.” She arched against him and he began to move gently. “Dan…”
“Talk to me, darling.” His hands were everywhere, his lips nibbling at hers. “Tell me how you
feel, what you want, although I’m sure we’ve done this a million times before.”
Her hands moved over his firm, muscled body. “Ahhhh…” The sound came from deep in his throat when her fingers found a bud on his chest and massaged it. “There’s nothing more wonderful than the feel of you surrounding me. Oh! Lie still, darling!” he breathed in gasps when she began to move. “Forgive me,” he whispered, and with a long breath he thrust at her full force and incredibly her body responded to him and they merged into a long, long, unbelievably beautiful release to the accompaniment of their moans of pleasure. Then they lay shuddering in each other’s arms.
Casey’s arms curved about him tenderly. She had an odd sense of power. This big, self-assured man had quivered in her arms as she had in his.
Slowly his breathing steadied, and he turned on his back to lie beside her, his arm pulling her to him, his hand bringing her thigh up to rest on his. They were quiet for a long while and his fingers moved back and forth over her thigh.
“Do you think the Indians will attack tonight?” Casey whispered and suppressed a giggle. She felt the silent chuckle resound in his chest.
“They could have stormed the cabin, sweetheart, and I’d have been helpless as a babe.” His lips found her forehead. “I think you were a witch in your other life.”
“Then I shall get on my broomstick and fly away.”
“Never!” he said firmly and moved her up in the bed so he could cover them with the sheet. “Go to sleep, love. I’ve got to plow the south forty tomorrow.”
“And I’ve got to spin some wool to make you a shirt,” she quipped.
Tucking the covers around them he cuddled her warm body against his and almost instantly he was asleep.
Feeling wonderfully loved and happily relaxed, Casey closed her eyes thinking she would wait until he was sleeping soundly before she got up to put on her gown and robe.
Then she, too, was asleep.
Coming out of a deep sleep, Casey was aware of teasing fingers between her thighs and lips fastened softly to her breast. She came half awake and realized she was lying on her back and Dan’s head lay on her breast. Her arm tightened about him, and swiftly and silently he pulled her legs about him and embedded himself in her moistness. Involuntarily she constricted about him, and with a muffled cry he stiffened and thrust deeply. In minutes they were panting in each others’ arms. Casey had never felt so completely a woman. He pressed his hand into the hollow of her shoulder.
“Casey, darling, I love you,” he whispered.
She held him until the deepness of his breathing told her he was sleeping soundly, then she
eased him out of her arms and got slowly out of bed. In the darkness she felt her way to the bathroom door, went inside and closed it before she turned on the light. She stood with her back to the door and allowed her eyes to become used to the harsh brightness. She turned and looked at herself in the mirror. She almost cringed away from the image she saw there. Her disheveled hair was pulled back. The scar and the ear with part of the lobe missing seemed to be all she could see in the face that stared back at her. Deliberately she forced her eyes lower to the skin of her stomach and thighs and to her injured breast. Tears sprang to her eyes.
She turned from the mirror and quickly washed herself and slipped into a high-necked cotton gown with three-quarter sleeves. Judy had bought it for her to wear in the hospital. She felt
safe
behind the gown. She looked at her image once more and picked up the hairbrush and arranged her hair around her face. Now, she thought, most of the ugliness was hidden.
Casey turned out the light in the bathroom and stood for a moment before she quietly turned the knob and opened the door. The light from the lamp beside the bed illuminated the room and she stood hesitantly in the doorway until Dan’s eyes swung toward her and then she moved toward the bed.
He lay on his back with his hands clasped behind his head. The covers that had been tucked so
neatly beneath the mattress at the foot of the bed were pulled out and his feet hung over the edge. His large frame took up more than half the bed and she wondered almost idly if she had really lain in the small space that was left. A corner of the cover was thrown carelessly across his hips barely covering the thick mat of hair below his flat belly.
Casey was suddenly very nervous, oddly tense. She walked on stiff legs to the bed and stood looking down at him. Her eyes drank in everything about him—the beard that was beginning to show on his cheeks, the lock of hair on his forehead, the incredible strength of his arms and shoulders, his wide mouth and the quietness of the gray-black eyes that looked up at her. Her nose quivered with the scent of male body, with overtones of antiperspirant and after-shave, and the enticing sensual smell of their lovemaking.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I woke the second you left my arms.”
“Oh.” She was suddenly conscious that her breast ached and smarted and that she was sore between her thighs, but more than that she was conscious of the fact she wanted to be back in his arms. He grinned up at her, his eyes warm, and so loving that she felt her body inclining eagerly toward him. He reached up and gathered her gently, not passionately, to him.
“Why did you leave me to put this on?” His big hand plucked at the sleeve of the nightgown. “Are you shy, my Guinevere?”
“I thought we were living our frontier life and I was your Clementine?” She curled against him like a contented kitten.
He chuckled. “This gown looks like one my Clementine would own. If you insist on wearing one, I’ll have to buy you a twentieth-century gown. But I like it much better if there’s nothing between us.” His hand passed over her breast and she flinched at the soreness. “Sweetheart … this isn’t your injured one.” He paused, frowning. “Did I rough you up too much? I’m sorry. You’re a powerful temptation. You’re so desirable you bring out the beast in me.” He touched the tip of her nose with his lips. “Has it been a
very
long time, darling?” he whispered with a slight catch in his voice.
She decided to be honest. “I had an affair when I was eighteen, but I broke it off when I saw I was heading down the same primrose path my mother had taken. Five years ago I had a one-night experience and decided I’d rather remain celibate than go through that again.”
There was a long silence while she wondered if she had revealed too much. His hand moved up under the wide sleeve of her gown and he stroked her shoulder and back. It was as if the two of them were alone in the world. Finally, as if compelled, Dan put his fingers beneath her chin and raised her face so he could look down into her eyes.
“Did what happened tonight put you off again?”
Casey felt her breath catch in her throat, felt her insides warm with pleasure as she looked into
the quiet face and dark eyes now anxiously waiting her answer. Love and tenderness welled within her. She lifted her hand and held it to his cheek. He had been more open, more honest with her than any person she had ever met. No games, no pretense. He had said he wanted to get to know her. But how was he to know that she would fall so desperately in love with him? If only she had met him before the accident. Now she couldn’t bear to see the revulsion in his eyes if he looked at her naked body. He might think he loved her now, but later…
“Dan.” She told herself she mustn’t cry. “Darling, it was the most wonderful experience of my life.” Her warm, moist lips traced the line of his brow and delicately closed his eyelids, then worked their way downward, touching his cheek and the tip of his nose; they settled very gently on his mouth where they moved with sweet provocation. Such a loving feeling unfolded in her midsection and traveled slowly throughout her body that she wanted it to go on and on. It was strange to her, this feeling of wanting to give and give and give to him, wanting to comfort and cherish him. She had never known this melting, letting-go sensation that now invaded her innermost being. Never before had anyone penetrated the personal barrier she had built to protect herself from emotional pain.
Dan lay quietly in her arms. He seemed to be clinging to
her
, needing assurance from
her
. A fierce feeling of protectiveness came over her and she
hugged his head to her breast and smoothed the hair back from his eyes. She would have been content to lie there forever. They didn’t talk. And caressing him no longer made her feel shy; it seemed to be the natural thing to do.