Come Lie With Me Read online

  Her eyes were such wide, huge golden pools of wonder, that they eclipsed the rest of her face. The thought of children was so enticing that she was tempted to tell him that she would marry him right then. She’d always wanted children, wanted to be able to pour out the deep reservoir of love that was dammed up inside her. The care and nourishment that she’d never received from her own mother were there, waiting patiently for a child of her own. Blake’s child: blue eyes; dark hair; that engaging grin that brought out his hidden dimple.

  But a child was the one thing she couldn’t gamble with, so she didn’t argue with him. Instead she offered quietly, “I’ll see a doctor and get a prescription.”

  “No,” he refused, steel lacing his voice. “No pills. You’re not taking any risks, however slight, with your body. I can handle it without any risk at all, and that’s the way we’ll do it.”

  She didn’t mind; the thought that he was willing to take responsibility for their lovemaking was a warm, melting one. She put her arms around him and nestled against him, drinking in his scent.

  “Tell me you love me,” he demanded, cupping her chin in his palm and lifting her face to him. “I know you do, but I want to hear it.”

  A tremulous smile quivered on her lips. “I love you.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he said with satisfaction, and kissed her as a reward. “Everything will be all right, darling. Just wait and see.”

  Chapter Eleven

  She didn’t dare to hope, but it seemed as if he might be right. He bought a slim black cane that looked more like a sexy prop than something that was actually used as support, and every morning Miguel drove him to work. At first Dione fretted every moment he was gone. She worried that he might fall and hurt himself, that he’d try to do too much and tire himself out. After a week she was forced to admit that he was thriving on the challenge of working again. Far from falling, every day he improved, walking faster and with less effort. Nor did she have to worry that he was pushing himself too hard; he was in excellent shape, thanks to her program.

  She almost drove herself mad thinking of all the women he was in contact with every day; she knew herself how attractive he was, especially with that intriguing limp. When he came home the first day she all but held her breath, waiting for him to say cheerfully, “Well, you were right; it was just infatuation. You can leave now.”

  But he never said it. He returned home as eagerly as he went to work, and they spent the afternoons in the gym, or swimming if the day was warm. December was a pleasant month, with the afternoon temperatures often in the high sixties and low seventies, though at night it sometimes dipped close to freezing. Blake decided to have a heating unit put in the pool so they could swim at night, but he had so much on his mind that he kept putting it off. Dione didn’t care if the pool was ever heated or not; why bother with swimming when the nights were better spent in his arms?

  Whatever happened, whatever the ending that was eventually written to their particular story, she would always love him for freeing her from the cage of fear. In his arms she forgot about the past and concentrated only on the pleasure he gave her, pleasure which she joyously returned.

  He was the lover who she had needed; he was mature enough to understand the rewards of patience, and astute enough to sometimes be impatient. He gave, he demanded, he stroked, he experimented, he laughed, he teased, and he satisfied. He was as happily fascinated with her body as she was with his, and that was the sort of open admiration that she needed. The events that had shaped her had made her wary of repressed emotion, even when that emotion was happiness, and the complete honesty with which Blake treated her gave her a secure springboard from which she launched herself as a woman, secure at last in her own femininity and sexuality.

  The days of December were the happiest of her life. She had known peace and contentment, not a small accomplishment after the terror she’d survived, but with Blake she was truly happy. Except for the absence of a ceremony, she might already have been married to him, and each passing day the idea of being his wife became more firmly rooted in her mind, changing from impossible to implausible, then to chancy, then to a half-scared, hopeful “maybe.” She refused to let herself progress beyond that, afraid of tempting the fates, but still she began to dream of a long stretch of days, even years, and she found herself thinking up names for babies.

  He took her Christmas shopping, something she’d never done before in her life. No one had ever been close enough to her to either give or receive a gift, and when Blake learned this, he embarked on a crusade to make her first real Christmas one that would boggle the imagination. The house was decorated in a unique and not always logical blend of traditional and desert styles; every cactus found itself sporting gaily colored bows or even decorative glass balls, if the spines were large enough. He had holly and mistletoe flown in and kept in the refrigerator until it was time to put them up, and Alberta entered into the spirit of the season by scouring cookbooks for traditional Christmas recipes.

  Dione realized that they were all going to so much trouble for her, and she was determined to throw herself into the preparations and the happiness. Suddenly it seemed that the world was full of people who cared, and those she cared for.

  She’d been half-fearful that Blake would embarrass her by giving her a lot of expensive gifts, and she was both delighted and relieved when she began opening her gifts to find that they were small, thoughtful and sometimes humorous. A long, flat box that could have held a watch or an expensive bracelet instead yielded an array of tiny charms that made her laugh aloud: a miniature barbell, a track shoe, a sweatband, a Frisbee, a loving cup trophy and a little silver bell that actually gave a tinny little chime when she shook it. Another box held the charm bracelet that the charms were supposed to go on; a third gift was a best seller that she’d picked up in a bookstore just the week before, then replaced and forgotten to buy in the confusion of shopping. A lacy black mantilla drifted over her head and she looked up to smile at Richard, who was regarding her with an oddly tender look in his cool gray eyes. Serena’s gift made her gasp and quickly stuff it back into the box, as Serena rolled with laughter and Blake immediately came over to wrestle the box away from her and hold up the contents: a very intimate garment with heart-shaped cutouts in strategic places.

  “This was something you overlooked when you bought all those clothes to wage war in,” Serena said innocently, her blue eyes as limpid as a child’s.

  “Ahhh, those clothes.” Blake sighed in satisfaction.

  Dione snatched the teddy…thing…whatever…away from him and replaced it in the box, her cheeks fiery red. “Why is everyone watching me?” she asked uncomfortably. “Why aren’t you opening your own gifts?”

  “Because you’re so beautiful to watch,” Blake replied softly, leaning down so only she could hear him. “Your eyes are shining like a little girl’s. I have something else for you to…ah, unwrap later on tonight. Think you might be interested?”

  She stared at him, her black pupils dilating until they almost obscured the golden rims. “I’m interested,” she murmured, her body already quickening at the thought of the lovemaking they’d share later, when they were laying pressed together in his big bed.

  “It’s a date,” he whispered.

  The rest of the gifts were opened amid laughter and thank-yous; then Alberta served hot buttered rum. Dione seldom drank, having an aversion to alcohol that dated back to her earliest childhood, but she drank the rum because she was happy and relaxed and suddenly the old restrictions no longer mattered so much. The rum slid smoothly down her throat, warming her, and when that was finished she drank another.

  After Serena and Richard had left, Blake helped Dione up the stairs with a steadying arm around her waist. He was laughing softly, and she leaned into him, letting him take most of her weight. “What’s so funny?” she asked sleepily.

  “You are. You’re half-drunk, and you’re beautiful. Did you know that you’ve had the sweetest, sleep