Beyond Eden (29 page)

They were nearly running, saying nothing. She focused on the utterly alien feelings shocking through her, but not hesitating, no, she wanted this—whatever it was—and there was no fear, no sense of revulsion. There was only Taylor and he would take care of her and give her what she wanted, what she needed. She was breathing hard, then harder still. His fingers tightened around hers.

She looked at his profile, saw the flush on his cheeks, saw his partially open mouth. Dear God,
she wanted to touch him, feel all of him, stroke her fingers down his belly, stroke his penis and make him hard and harder still, and bring him inside her. Yes, yes, oh God, yes. . . .

Time suspended itself. Traffic went by the car in a blur of midnight sights and sounds. He was driving too fast, his hands, both of them, clutching the steering wheel, his knuckles white. There was nothing but her, there was nothing in the world but her.

Lindsay stared straight ahead. She felt the strange rhythms in her body, pounding deep and deeper still, and she didn't question them, rather she breathed fast and harsh, feeling him next to her, smelling the man scent of him, her fingers clenching, wanting to touch him, to feel him touching her.

Suddenly, not more than a block from their apartment, she turned to face him and said only, “Taylor.” She swallowed; there was nothing else she could say.

“Yes, Eden. Not long now. Not long.”

They were breathless with their dash to the front door of their apartment. It took him too long to get the front door unlocked. He dropped her bag to the hardwood floor, kicked the door shut with his foot and grabbed her. She came fully and completely against him and he realized for the first time that they fitted perfectly together. But the clothes, the damned clothes. He wanted her naked flesh in his hands, pressed against him. All of her, this instant, heated flesh against him, smooth flesh, her flesh—

“Taylor,” she said again, and this time she grabbed his hand and together they raced toward the bedroom. She drew him on top of her on the bed and he was heavy and hard against her and
Lindsay knew she'd never imagined anything so wonderful as this. He kissed her, not lightly as was his habit, but deep, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, feeling her surprise at the touch of him, knowing that she'd never done this before, never allowed it, but now, with him, she did.

He was trembling with the force of his feelings, the surging lust that was making his heart pound and his loins painful and heavy. His hands were on her breasts now, kneading them, caressing them, tugging gently at her through her clothes. “Too much,” he whispered. The clothes were too much. “Yes, oh yes.” Lindsay bucked him off her to his side and her fingers were frenzied on the buttons of his shirt, then with a whimper of frustration she began yanking futilely on the zipper of his pants.

All that she was, all that had lain buried so deeply within her, was in the open now, raw and painfully sharp, and she was whimpering with the frantic need that was driving her beyond anything she'd ever known, beyond anything she could have ever believed existed.

Taylor couldn't bear it any longer. He reared back off the bed, thrust his hands beneath her sweater to her slacks, and nearly ripped them open. He jerked them down her legs, bringing her panties with them, and her knee socks. He'd forgotten her boots and cursed, then yanked them off. In an instant she was naked to her waist and she was sitting up, grabbing at his pants and watching him as he jerked off his coat and his sweater.

“Taylor, please.”

He couldn't stand it for another moment. He unzipped his pants and freed his sex. She stared at him and there was such hunger on her face that
he moaned. He came down over her, parting her legs wide.

“Eden, oh sweet Jesus, now.” And he parted her with shaking warm fingers and came into her, powerfully, in one long sure thrust.

She yelled, arching off the bed. At the same time her arms were around his back and she was pushing upward, helplessly, not knowing what to do, but allowing the sensations to pour through her, and she felt him so deep inside her. She was pulsing and breathing so hard she thought she would die of it, but all she could think of was the power of him, the heat from him, the depth of his sex, pumping hard inside her, and she moaned and moaned, not ever wanting it to stop, but wanting something, something, that was building and bloating inside her, pushing hard at her, pushing—

He was over her, his face flushed with his passion, and then he came down with all his weight now, so very deep inside her, and he began kissing her hard, then shuddering and pulling back, and kissing her with a tenderness that made her arch upward against him, drawing him deeper and deeper. And it was simply too much. “Come now, Eden, come to me.” In the next instant, his fingers were between their bodies and he'd found her and she was wet and swelled and he thought he'd die with the wonder of it. He caressed her flesh and she was crying now, her chest heaving, her raw moans filling the silent air, and he said again and again, “Come to me now, sweetheart. Yes, come to me. Give it up. Yes, come, come, come—trust me, trust me.”

She did with a soul-deep shudder. Her eyes went blank and glazed. “Taylor!” She arched upward, her hips moving wildly against his fingers, drawing
him even more deeply into her, and her muscles were contracting and he knew that it was all over for him. When her screams burst over him, he let himself go and heaved and threw back his head, yelling his climax. He knew even as he exploded inside her that this was her first orgasm and that he had given it to her and that something had happened to bring her to him in this wild frenzy, but he wouldn't think of it now, oh no.

And as he quieted, she said into his mouth, “My name is Lindsay, not Lynn. I hate Eden. Please, my name is Lindsay.”

“I love you, Lindsay,” he said and in so saying it, he offered her all of him, without reservations and forever.

“And I you,” she said, her voice hoarse and raw and dazed, her tongue warm in his mouth, and she was licking his upper lip, his tongue, nipping his chin, and she was tightening beneath him yet again.

“I want to feel all of you,” he said, and pulled out of her.

Taylor / Lindsay

 

It was beating wildly inside her again, this need, this urgency, this all-consuming wanting of this man. The orgasm that had hit her hard had dazed her, leaving her shaking and hot and strangely fluid, and she hadn't really understood what had happened but knew that it was going to happen again. This frenzy, it was building fast inside her. She didn't question it, didn't hesitate for an instant. She came up and began ripping off her clothes.

“Yes,” she said, all her concentration on getting her bra off, “I want to feel you, Taylor, I want to know everything about you, everything—to touch you, your belly is so beautiful and hard and—”

He paused an instant, his breath coming fast again and faster still as he listened to her. He didn't question that he wanted her again, as fiercely as he had but minutes before. Blood was pumping through him, and his skin felt itchy and hot. He felt incredibly strong. He watched her tugging clumsily at her bra. He laughed and slapped away her hands. It was a front clasp and he slid it quickly open, and he pushed it back and stared at her breasts, just stared, gulping, his lips moving because
he wanted her in his mouth, to suck and caress. His hands cupped them, weighing them, holding them, filling his hands with her, and he groaned.

“Hurry,” she gasped. “Oh, hurry, please, Taylor.”

And he did. When he came over her, her legs parted for him and he moved between them and he felt all of her, her breasts against his bare chest, her belly against his, the length of her legs against his, and he closed his eyes at the intensity of the feelings crashing through him.

“Ah, Lindsay, damn, I'd thought to make this time slow and sweet.”

“No,” she said, pushing at him, trying to touch him with her fingers. He pushed up on his elbows and felt her hands thrust between their bellies and close around him. His eyes closed and he felt himself pushing against her soft hands, his breath heaving, quickening, and he had to jerk away because in another moment or so he would come again. “I can't, dear God, stop it, sweetheart. Come over me, now.” He pulled her over on top of him.

He saw she didn't understand. “Come up on your knees and bring me inside you. Then you can move the way you want to.”

She glowed at his words, her eyes as deep and hot as her body, and he saw the intense passion in her and it was dazzling. He watched her stare at his penis, then clasp him, and still she stared at him, her look absorbed and intent and eager. He watched her come up on her knees, saw her ease him between her widespread legs. He felt the heat of her as she slid him inside her. He'd known that heat would be there for him, and so it was, incredible and dark and smooth, this welcoming of hers. He felt the wet of his seed, and the wet of her, he
supposed, a woman's moistness, and the heat that was pouring onto him, and into him, and it eased his way. He didn't think he could hold on. He grasped her hips suddenly in his hands and in a furious downward motion brought her down hard on him as he jerked up.

She yelled, her back arched. He looked up to see her breasts thrusting out, her head thrown back, her lips parted. She looked pagan with all that thick waving hair like a nimbus around her head. She looked like a woman who had no thought beyond his penis pumping inside her and the pleasure she was drawing from him. He worked her, showing her how to move on him, then paused. He raised his hand. He smiled up at her when, lightly, with a tempter's touch, his fingertips found her clitoris and gently squeezed.

“Taylor!” She yelled and bucked and heaved, and he went over the edge.

Her palms were flat on his chest, and she was staring at him, seeing him climax, and then Lindsay felt the pressure build higher and higher still until she couldn't contain it anymore. His fingers were fast and hard, then slow and easy on her, and she yelled again and again, rocking against him, madly, senseless with the lust that drove her.

He watched her as her climax took her, watched her as the deep quivers slowly lessened and her legs relaxed their grip around his hips. She was staring down at her hands, palms flat on his belly. Jesus, he thought, gazing up at her. It was unbelievable, this insane and uncontrolled passion, but he would accept it, willingly, as he accepted her.

He released her hips, saw that there would be bruises on her white flesh, and slid his hands
upward to cup her breasts. She quivered again and he smiled.

“You're very responsive,” he said in the greatest understatement of his life, and he had to laugh at himself. “You're wonderful, Lindsay.”

“Not like you,” she said, her mouth dry, her mind sluggish, her body growing more limp with exhaustion by the moment. “Not like you.”

“Give me your breasts. That's it, lean down. Good.” And he took her nipple in his mouth and she jerked with the shock of it, the newness of it, the utter amazement of it, until she could take no more. Her body had stopped.

She fell atop him, sprawling loosely, covering him, and he touched her hair, stroked his hands down her back, and felt himself still deep inside her.

She'd been so tight that first time. Like a virgin, like a woman who hadn't had sex in a very, very long time.

She'd had two orgasms. He wanted to dance and shout. He wanted to give her ten more. Tonight. Instead, he eased her onto her back and came out of her. She moaned, throwing her arm over her eyes.

“Don't move,” he said.

She could only moan again, drawing her knees up.

When he came back, he gently spread her onto her back again and pressed a warm washcloth against her, wiping away his seed, but not the heat, oh, no, not the heat of her. He pictured making love to her in the summer, when the outward heat would consume them and they would sweat and heave together and meld and become one. He quivered at the thought. He looked down at her
sprawled on her back, those long legs of hers, so beautifully formed, and the softness of her, the streaked blond hair that covered her woman's mound. She was too thin, but he didn't care. Even her ribs made him want to come inside her again. And her breasts. Fuller than he expected and round, her nipples a light soft pink. He leaned down and took her nipple in his mouth.

She lurched up, gasping. “Please, Taylor.
Oh, God!
”

The responsiveness of her made him want to shout.

She was tugging at his head, whispering, “ Goodness—why won't it stop? Why, Taylor? I don't understand, oh, God, it's splendid. Don't let it end.”

She was babbling with her discovery of it but he knew she was also exhausted. No wonder. He didn't know what had happened to her in San Francisco. Whatever it was had pushed her to him, completely, openly. “No, love. I'm sorry, forgive me, but you're so beautiful. Not now, not yet.” He gently pushed her back down, tossed the washcloth onto the floor, and managed to get both of them under the covers. Within minutes they were asleep, wrapped in each other, close and warm and together.

Taylor fought the urge to come inside her again, but he didn't want to sleep either. He had to think because he had this stark feeling that when she awoke in the morning she wouldn't think, she would simply react and that reaction would be one of cold fear, fear shaped from the past. He put himself to imagining what she would think tomorrow. After she'd behaved in the dark of the night like the most impassioned of lovers, like a woman to whom sex was the greatest thing in the world, and she'd just discovered it and couldn't, quite
simply, get enough of him. He smiled, a sated smile, one tinged with a good deal of satisfaction, but it faded as his worry grew. He had to bind her to him. He had to make her trust him. Hell, at least she'd told him her name. But it wasn't enough. The secrets, the puzzles, had to be solved. He shook his head. His brain felt like mush. She'd behaved completely out of the character she'd created for herself. But created when? Why? Nor did he know what had triggered this change in her. Then, quite suddenly, he didn't care. None of the other mattered, just having her with him, next to him, wrapped around him, here now, and now, now—

He felt her breasts against his chest, felt her leg between his. What the hell, he thought, and gave in. Slowly, gently, he came over her, spreading her onto her back, and slipped slowly and deeply inside her. This time he could feel the stretching of her flesh to accommodate him. Sweet Jesus, she was soft, and that incredible heat of hers made him want to pound deep and not stop. He'd been so frantic before, he hadn't really felt the tight flesh that surrounded him, the slickness of her, he'd been aware of an incredible tightness that had driven him insane, but he was now aware of every bit of her. He closed his eyes against the wonder of her.

Then she awoke. He felt her muscles clench spasmodically around him. She didn't, couldn't, have any idea what that did to him. He rode her gently, not so deep this time, but still he felt his body clenching, tightening, felt his heart pound harder and harder, and knew he would leave her if he didn't stop, if he didn't pull out of her now. He quickly eased out of her, came down between her legs to put his mouth on her, knowing she would welcome him. She was sleepy, sated, she wanted
him again, and it was dark and hidden, and she was safe with him and she knew it.

She came in soft shudders. Then, to his surprise, as he prepared to ease his rhythm, to bring her down, to soothe her, she came again, her hips lurching upward, reaching a higher level, and he felt the deep flexing of her legs, the tightening of her muscles, the rippling of her flesh. Her hands fisted his hair and he breathed his hot breath against her and she came again. Arching and jerking, she was caught, by him, within herself, and when she quieted this time, he slid into her again, riding her deeply and silently, and spilling himself with gentle shudders deep inside her.

He had no more thoughts. She was against him, part of him, her warm breath against his throat, and when he had climaxed, when his own breathing finally slowed, he smiled down at her, for she was asleep. He joined her and they slept deeply.

 

Taylor awoke with a start, jerking upright, immediately alert. He whipped about, but he knew he was too late. Eden—No, not Eden and not Lynn. She was Lindsay and she wasn't there. He felt her pillow. It was still warm, the indentation of her head still clear. God, he prayed she hadn't run out on him. He cursed himself for not waking when she'd left the bed, for not feeling the emptiness when she'd left him. He prayed he wasn't too late.

He threw back the covers and ran stark naked out of the bedroom. He ran down the long corridor toward the front door, and right into her, nearly knocking her down. She was ready to walk out the door, dressed, in her winter coat and boots and gloves, her huge bag over her shoulder.

He grabbed her arm, twisting her around.

Her face was white. Fear filled her eyes, fear and something else—something wrenching and frightening was there in her eyes. He ignored it.

He grabbed her other arm. “Where the hell do you think you're going?”

She tried to pull away but he didn't ease his grip. “Don't you know about lovers' etiquette? Rule one is you don't run out. You don't pull a disappearing act because you can't face things, can't face what you—yeah you, Lindsay—wanted to do and did with great enthusiasm and energy and passion. No, dammit, hold still. I'm not letting you go anywhere, so don't try. Come with me. I'm naked and it's cold and you belong with me, back in bed. Don't fight me, damn you.”

He dragged her back to the bedroom. She dug in her boot heels, but it didn't help. He was strong and mad and determined. She hadn't said a word, hadn't made a single sound. There was just her harsh deep breathing. Once he got her in the bedroom, he slammed the door and locked it. He threw the key under the bed. He pulled her bag off her shoulder, then unleashed the strength he'd always controlled around her. He got her out of her coat and gloves and scarf. She was wearing a bulky wool sweater beneath, and tight blue jeans and boots.

He shoved her down onto the bed. She leapt up, only to have him shove her down again. She kicked out and got his thigh. He winced and cursed, realizing in that moment she knew karate, yet she wasn't out to shred him. No, she battered him with her fists, but even then she was careful. A good sign, he supposed as he grabbed her right leg, held it up by shoving her flat on her back, knocking the breath out of her, and pulling off the boot. He got
the other one off the same way. “Now,” he said, and grabbed her sweater. “Progress, at last.”

She began to fight him in earnest now. Still, she said nothing, struggling and twisting and striking out in an eerie silence that he refused to acknowledge. Her blue jeans were tough because they were so bloody tight, but he got them off her despite her fighting him, peeling them down inside out. He'd carry bruises from this, but what the hell. He saw the bruises he'd made on her hips from the previous night. He wondered if she'd noticed, and remembered her frantic movements, riding him, letting him work her up and down on him, his fingers digging into her flesh, all while she'd shouted and moaned and arched wildly.

He left her knee socks and her panties on. She hadn't bothered with a bra, just a light wool teddy. He was in no mood for niceties now. He ripped it off.

“Now,” he said again, and brought her under the covers with him, holding her, stiff and hard and withdrawn, against him. It made him furious and he bellowed, “Feel me, damn you, Lindsay!” He pressed his hand against her hips, pressing her into his belly, against his hard penis. “I'm yours, dammit, and this body of mine is also yours and I'm not about to let you use me to cure whatever devils were chasing you last night. I'm not about to let you enjoy four damned orgasms that I give to you and then run out on me as if nothing happened. Do you hear me, you damned twit?”

“You're yelling, of course I hear you. You needn't use profanity.”