Midnight Rainbow Read online

  “Easy,” he soothed, blowing his warm breath across her flesh. He wanted her so badly that he felt he would explode, but at the same time he couldn’t get enough of touching her, of watching her arch higher and higher as he aroused her. He was drunk on her flesh, and still trying to satiate himself. He took her nipple in his mouth and began sucking again, wringing another cry from her.

  Between her legs a finger suddenly penetrated, searching out the depths of her readiness, and shock waves battered her body. Something went wild inside her, and she could no longer hold her body still. It writhed and bucked against his hand, and his mouth was turning her breasts into pure flame. Then his thumb brushed insistently over her straining, aching flesh, and she exploded in his arms, blind with the colossal upheaval of her senses, crying out unconsciously. Nothing had ever prepared her for this, for the total, mind-shattering pleasure of her own body.

  When it was over, she lay sprawled limply on the tarp. He undid his pants and shoved them off, his eyes glittering and wild. Jane’s eyes slowly opened and she stared up at him dazedly. Grasping her legs, he lifted them high and spread them; then he braced himself over her and slowly sank his flesh into hers.

  Jane’s hands clenched on the tarp, and she bit her lips to keep from crying out as her body was inexorably stretched and filled. He paused, his big body shuddering, allowing her the time to accept him. Then suddenly it was she who couldn’t bear any distance at all between them, and she surged upward, taking all of him, reaching up her arms to pull him close.

  She never noticed the tears that ran in silvered streaks down her temples, but Grant gently wiped them away with his rough thumbs. Supporting his weight on his arms, sliding his entire body over her in a subtle caress, he began moving with slow, measured strokes. He was so close to the edge that he could feel the feathery sensation along his spine, but he wanted to make it last. He wanted to entice her again to that satisfying explosion, watch her go crazy in his arms.

  “Are you all right?” he asked in a raw, husky tone, catching another tear with his tongue as it left the corner of her eye. If he were hurting her, he wouldn’t prolong the loving, though he felt it would tear him apart to stop.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she breathed, stroking her hands up the moving, surging muscles of his back. Fine… What a word for the wild magnificence of belonging to him. She’d never dreamed it could feel like this. It was as if she’d found a half of herself that she hadn’t even known was missing. She’d never dreamed that she could feel like this. Her fingers clutched mindlessly at his back as his long, slow movements began to heat her body.

  He felt her response and fiercely buried his mouth against the sensitive little hollow between her throat and collarbone, biting her just enough to let her feel his teeth, then licking where he’d bitten. She whimpered, that soft, uncontrollable little sound that drove him crazy, and he lost control. He began driving into her with increasing power, pulling her legs higher around him so he could have more of her, all of her, deeper and harder, hearing her little cries and going still crazier. There was no longer any sense of time, or of danger, only the feel of the woman beneath him and around him. While he was in her arms he could no longer feel the dark, icy edges of the shadows in his mind and soul.

  In the aftermath, like that after a storm of unbelievable violence, they lay in exhausted silence, each reluctant to speak for fear it would shatter the fragile peace. His massive shoulders crushed her, making it difficult for her to breathe, but she would gladly have spent the rest of her life lying there. Her fingers slowly stroked the sweat-darkened gold of his hair, threading through the heavy, live silk. Their bodies were reluctant to leave each other, too. He hadn’t withdrawn from her; instead, after easing his weight down onto her, he’d nestled closer and now seemed to be lightly dozing.

  Perhaps it had happened too quickly between them, but she couldn’t regret it. She was fiercely happy that she’d given herself to him. She’d never been in love before, never wanted to explore the physical mysteries of a man and a woman. She’d even convinced herself that she just wasn’t a physical person, and had decided to enjoy her solitary life. Now her entire concept of herself had been changed, and it was as if she’d discovered a treasure within herself. After the kidnapping she had withdrawn from people, except for the trusted precious few who she had loved before: her parents, Chris, a couple of other friends. And even though she had married Chris, she had remained essentially alone, emotionally withdrawn. Perhaps that was why their marriage had failed, because she hadn’t been willing to let him come close enough to be a real husband. Oh, they had been physically intimate, but she had been unresponsive, and eventually he had stopped bothering her. That was exactly what it had been for her: a bother. Chris had deserved better. He was her best friend, but only a friend, not a lover. He was much better off with the warm, responsive, adoring woman he’d married after their divorce.

  She was too honest with herself to even pretend that any blame for their failed marriage belonged to Chris. It had been entirely her fault, and she knew it. She’d thought it was a lack in herself. Now she realized that she did have the warm, passionate instincts of a woman in love—because she was in love for the first time. She hadn’t been able to respond to Chris, simply because she hadn’t loved him as a woman should love the man she marries.

  She was twenty-nine. She wasn’t going to pretend to a shyness she didn’t feel for the sake of appearance. She loved the man who lay in her arms, and she was going to enjoy to the fullest whatever time she had with him. She hoped to have a lifetime; but if fate weren’t that kind, she would not let timidity cheat her out of one minute of the time they did have. Her life had been almost snuffed out twenty years ago, before it had really begun. She knew that life and time were too precious to waste.

  Perhaps it didn’t mean to Grant what it did to her, to be able to hold and love like this. She knew intuitively that his life had been much harder than hers, that he’d seen things that had changed him, that had stolen the laughter from his eyes. His experiences had hardened him, had left him extraordinarily cautious. But even if he were only taking the shallowest form of comfort from her, that of sexual release, she loved him enough to give him whatever he needed from her, without question. Jane loved as she did everything else, completely and courageously.

  He stirred, lifting his weight onto his forearms and staring down at her. His golden eyes were shadowed, but there was something in them that made her heart beat faster, for he was looking at her the way a man looks at the woman who belongs to him. “I’ve got to be too heavy for you.”

  “Yes, but I don’t care.” Jane tightened her arms about his neck and tried to pull him back down, but his strength was so much greater than hers that she couldn’t budge him.

  He gave her a swift, hard kiss. “It’s stopped raining. We have to go.”

  “Why can’t we stay the night here? Aren’t we safe?”

  He didn’t answer, just gently disengaged their bodies and sat up, reaching for his clothes, and that was answer enough. She sighed, but sat up to reach for her own clothes. The sigh became a wince as she became aware of the various aches she’d acquired by making love on the ground.

  She could have sworn that he wasn’t looking at her, but his awareness of his surroundings was awesome. His head jerked around, and a slight frown pulled his dark brows together. “Did I hurt you?” he asked abruptly.

  “No, I’m all right.” He didn’t look convinced by her reassurance. When they descended the steep slope to the floor of the gorge, he kept himself positioned directly in front of her. He carried her down the last twenty feet, hoisting her over his shoulder despite her startled, then indignant, protests.

  It was a waste of time for her to protest, though; he simply ignored her. When he put her down silently and started walking, she had no choice but to follow.

  Twice that afternoon they heard a helicopter, and both times he pulled her into the thickest cover, waiting until the sound had comple