Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (103 page)

'I know.' She smiled. 'Thanks, O.T. It's nice of you to keep
your door open despite the fact that I won't be coming back.' She went over to the bedside cabinet and picked up the small
Matisse still life by the frame and held it at arm's length.

'Nobody controls colour quite like Matisse,' O.T. said
admiringly, peering at it over her shoulder. 'It's a beautiful
painting.'

'Yes, it is, isn't it?'

'You sold the others?'

She turned to him and nodded. 'This one isn't worth what
the others were. In a way, I'm glad—this way I won't be
tempted to sell it. I think I'll keep it always. It'll be something
I can hand down to my children.' She gave a low, sad laugh.
'If I ever have any.'

He nodded. 'It would have been a shame if you didn't have one painting left. You had the beginnings of a fine collection.'

She laid the painting down and padded it carefully with a blanket, then put it in one of the empty suitcases and tucked
some clothes around it. 'Just look at this. One entire suitcase
reserved for this picture. Silly, isn't it?'

'On the contrary. I think it's wise. It's more than a painting.
It's a treasure.'

She nodded and smiled at a distant memory. 'It was Louie's
first anniversary present to me.' Her eyes took on a faraway
look. 'It seems like a lifetime ago now, doesn't it?'

'The night we danced?'

'And you made that blatant pass at me.'

'All I can remember is the pain after you kneed me in the
groin.'

She laughed. 'You had it coming. But no one guessed. You
sailed through the rest of that evening with a grin, if I remem
ber correctly.'

'A grimace.'

'It never would have worked out between us,' she said
gently. 'You know that.'

He smiled sadly. 'It's a shame it didn't. You were all woman.
Still are.'

'Only I was a one-man woman.' She sat on the edge of the
bed and was silent for a moment. 'You know,' she said slowly,
her features furrowing into a frown, 'life has never been the
same for me since Louis died. Would you believe I haven't
slept with a man since then?' She looked up at him.

He could only stare at her. 'You don't mean to tell me that
you've been celibate all this time?'

'I have,' she said quietly. 'Not that I couldn't have had my pick of men. It's open season on widows in this town. It's just
that . . .' She paused and looked down at her hands, 'I just
never had the desire.'

'I wish I had known.'

She smiled wryly. 'It was just as well that you didn't. I needed time to get myself functioning again.'

'And are you?'

She shook her head. 'Sometimes I think my body can no
longer function in that way.'

'You have to force it, then. You can't go through the rest of your life like a nun. You're a passionate woman, and celibacy
doesn't suit you. It will only embitter you. I think it's time that
we broke that cycle.'

She shook her head. 'I can't, O.T. Our going to bed together
would be the worst mistake we could make. I just need to give
myself more time, that's all.'

'You've given yourself a year and a half already—a year and
a half that should have been part of the best time of your life.
That's far too long to live life as an incomplete woman.'

'You don't understand. It's love I need, not
making
love.'

'Sometimes the act itself can be as important as love. You
have to free yourself of the shackles that link you to the past,
and there's only one way of doing that.'

She laughed. 'I've got to hand it to you. That must be the
wildest excuse I've ever heard for trying to take somebody to
bed.'

He didn't laugh. 'I'm serious,' he said gently. 'Only by mak
ing love can you be free again. Don't you understand that?'

She looked at him speechlessly. Inside her she could feel
something long-lost beginning to stir, like delicate humming
bird wings vibrating deep within her. Long-forgotten desires
flickered distantly, began to uncoil slowly. Her eyes never left
his, and the expression on her face was one of confusion.

He drew closer and his arms came up, wrapping themselves
around her. Then his face met hers and he kissed her, his
tongue deep and probing as it swirled around hers. She didn't
respond, but stood there statue-still, arms at her sides, unable
to move. Like a figure carved of ice.

'No!' she whispered huskily. Suddenly she pushed him back
and turned away. 'I can't. I just
can't.'

'You can,' he said softly, taking her chin in his hand and
turning her around to face him. 'You must. Don't you see
that? Only this way can you go on truly living.' She nodded
hesitantly, and his fingers reached out for her blouse and he
slowly began to unbutton it.

At his touch, her breath came in frightened, throaty little
rasps, but this time she didn't try to move away. Nor did she
push him away. She stood there, her body tense and trem
bling, and when at last she stood naked, he undressed without
once taking his eyes off her. Her breasts rose and fell, and her
skin felt cold.

His voice was low but there was no mistaking the command
in it. 'Look at me.'

She stared at him, and it was as though something was grip
ping her throat. His organ, free from the restraint of his
trousers, was an angry serpent straining to lift its head. It looked very long, very thick, and very heavy. She had an
impulse to flee, but her feet felt rooted to the floor.

Very gently, as if she were an extremely fragile blown glass
figurine, he lifted her and laid her down on the bed. As though in shame, she turned her head sideways on the pillow and shut
her eyes.

'No. Don't look away. You must watch. You must be aware
of everything we are doing.'

She could feel his weight shifting on the mattress, and when
she looked up at him, he was poised over her, his knees strad
dling her thighs. Her heart began to beat wildly. She stared at
his body. The skin was stretched taut across his wiry shoulders,
his waist seemed impossibly narrow, and his thighs were well-
muscled and thick. To either side of the cleft, the two muscle
slabs which were his chest sprouted curly dark hair and knob-
like nipples. His belly was ribbed with a muscular shield, and
his navel was a mere indentation in fleshy rock. The power he
seemed to have over her frightened her. It made the long-
forgotten moistness well up inside her and trickle down her
thighs.

Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself inside her. She sucked
in her breath and winced. Her body, having become unused
to intrusion, clamped against the initial assault and tried to
eject him, but he was patient and persevered. Soon she was
filled with his warm thick hardness. Despite herself, a moan
escaped her parted lips. Her smooth, silky skin turned electric,
and her flesh began to crackle and rage and burn with ecstasy
against her will. The moment his hips started to pump, the
myriad nerve endings she thought had been dead suddenly
came to sparkling life, sending delicious little shock waves
down to the tips of her toes, up to her scalp, and all the way
out through her arms to her fingertips.

It was like rediscovering a lost world. Or being reborn from
a womb of desires.

Such a torrent of pent-up passion was being released that
she felt herself shedding her old body and slipping into a new
one. Reality receded, the world seemed to blur as if out of
focus. She lost all track of time and being, of past and future,
of the known and the given. It was as if he had pushed her over
some mysterious threshold, through some magical, invisible doorway, and she found herself falling, falling, falling into a
bottomless netherworld with no beginning and no end. It was
as though she had become a hedonistic animal of carnal lusts awakened after a hundred-year hibernation. Thoughts were
disjointed. Physical positions became fragmented. She had no
idea of what was really happening or where she was. One
moment her head rested on the pillow, the next it was between
his taut furry thighs, her mouth milking him relentlessly, and
then her back was thrust against the carved headboard, her
legs spread in midair as his mouth feasted noisily upon her. Passion defied logic, sent her caroming out into space and to
galaxies beyond. Frantic gasps became animal growls, thrusts
mingled with grunts and howls, and their moist tongues, her
slick wetness, and the blunt scimitar plunging relentlessly into
her groin were the only reality. She clutched him fiercely, as
though he might vaporize into thin air if she let go. Visions burst in front of her eyes. Men from all the ages sprang up
before her and merged into one while he thrust into her, and back out again, and into her again and again. And then, sud
denly, it was Louis—Louis as he was that very first time they
had made love at the clinic in Italy.

Her eyes were wide and dilated. 'Louie,' she whispered,
digging her nails so deeply into O.T. that he cried out in pain.
'You've come back to me, Louieee!'

And then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he faded from
view, his face and body merging into O.T.'s.

'Louie!' she cried thickly, the tears streaming down her
cheeks. 'Don't leave me, Louie. Come backkkk . . .'

Then, as waves of orgasms crashed through her, O.T. let
out a bellowing roar and thrust even more deeply, carrying her to the very vortex of the swirling whirlpool. Both their
bodies convulsed, shuddered, shrieked, and plunged uncon
trollably.

Suddenly everything was cast into a deathly silence. It was
as if someone had thrown a master switch, turning the world
off completely. Only the rapid beating of their hearts, the
ticking of the alarm clock on the bedside cabinet, and her quiet
sobs were audible, those and the slowing rush of their blood.