Having Faith (20 page)

She eyed him curiously.

"Why?"

"Because I'm interested."

"But I'm not them."

"You were once." He sent her a lopsided grin.

"You've clearly evolved into a higher form of the species, but I've always liked history. It was the one subject in school that I paid attention to." "History was more intriguing than girls?"

"Yeah. Less fickle. More predictable. Longer lasting."

"Does that mean you'll immerse yourself in my history and forget all about me?"

"Not a chance," he said too softly.

A fris son of excitement shot up and down her spine, making her shiver.

He misinterpreted the tiny movement.

"You're cold." He tugged the double sleeping bag closer to the fire and held it open. Faith crawled in. He followed and took her easily into his arms. It was a minute before they'd settled comfortably, his body supine, hers angled into it.

She was cautious at first, but her caution didn't stand much of a chance against the feel of his body. It was long and solid, still it accepted her shape with surprising malleability. He was like that, she realized. Strong, yet flexible. That made the step they were taking a little less threatening to her. Gradually, she gave him more of her weight.

Sawyer did his best not to hug her hard in thanks for her trust. And trust was what it was about just then, he knew. She was trusting him to take care with not only her body, but her mind. She'd been hurt by her marriage, and though the hurt had been by default, the pain had been real. Now, curled next to him, she was vulnerable again. He rather liked that thought. He liked feeling responsible for her. The only problem was that he wanted to make love to her there and then, only he'd told her they'd talk.

Closing his eyes, he breathed in the sweet smell of her hair. Between that and the soft feel of her body, the weight of her hand on his chest, the bend of her knee over his, he was in an agony of bliss.

Faith felt something of what he did, but for different reasons.

"This is so strange," she whispered.

"How so?"

"Being with you like this. We've known each other for so long. I keep thinking we're doing something we shouldn't be doing."

"We're not."

"You sound sure."

"I am."

She sighed.

"Nice, to be so sure."

"You'd be sure, too, if you stopped thinking so much. Feel it. Faith.

It feels right. "

It felt more than right to Faith, but what he said was true. She thought too much. She wasn't used to relying on feelings.

"I analyze things to death, I guess."

"Which is great for some things. It's one of the reasons you're such a dynamite lawyer. You look at a case from every possible angle before you decide on the best course of action, and you have to, because judges and juries don't decide things by intuition. They need arguments and facts. We don't."

But there were certain facts of which she was becoming increasingly aware, such as the fact that when he spoke his deep voice rippled through her, and the fact that his shoulder was just broad enough and full enough to make a wonderful pillow, and the fact that the scent of warm male after a day's work was surprisingly exciting.

Mostly she was aware of the fact that she wanted him. She might have joked about stripping and doing it, but there must have been a little wishful thinking in the joke. The more she relaxed against him, the more she tightened up inside.

Reflecting her thoughts. Sawyer shifted his lower body.

Faith tipped back her head and looked at him. The new log had brightened the fire, still his expression wasn't easily read. His eyes were dark, his lips firm, but it was only when the flames danced up with a sudden snap and a sizzle that she was able to see tiny lines of tension.

"Don't look at me that way," he whispered, not once taking his eyes from hers.

"I'm trying."

"Trying what?"

"Not to take you right now. I said we'd talk."

"Why did you say that?"

"Because I want you to know that what's between us isn't only sex."

Faith knew that.

"We've been good friends for a long time. You said it yourself--we had a lot going for us before we ever tried sex."

"Still there's a lot to say. Friends say certain things, lovers say others."

She kept looking at him. She wanted to say that she'd like to experience the lover part again before they got into deep discussions, but that seemed wrong. After all, she'd been the one putting him off.

"Help me. Faith," he growled.

"I'm trying, but it's not easy."

But she couldn't look away. She was intrigued by his features, so carved and commanding, so taut with desire that she had trouble believing she was the cause.

He closed his hand over hers on his chest. "Why do you look so surprised?"

"I ... uh..."

He began to move her hand in widening circles.

"You don't believe that I want you?"

"I don't believe how much," she said guilelessly.

"Much. Very much." The circles edged lower as a wry grin pulled at his mouth.

"And more by the minute." He had her hand at the snap of his jeans, but there the circles ended. After a minute's hesitation, he moved their hands southward to cover the raised ridge of hard flesh that pushed insistently against his fly.

Faith could barely breath. Vague glimpses of that other time, made hazy by the wine she'd had, brought the recollection of heat and length. But this was different. There was no haze, and the reality straining against her palm was far more than a glimpse. Heat, length, thickness, power--she was aware of all of those things as, with agonizing slowness. Sawyer inched her hand over him. When she saw his eyelids drift shut, even more when she heard the low, guttural moan that he couldn't suppress, she realized that the power was hers as well.

Shaping her fingers to better capture his strength in the stroking, she levered herself up and sought his mouth. He gave it to her, along with a wet, deep- seeking kiss that left her dizzy. It also left her far removed from thoughts of sensible discussions. What she was feeling, not only beneath her hand but deep inside her, was strong enough to decide the matter. She and Sawyer were making love then and there. Once they were done, they could talk.

She conveyed her decision to Sawyer by going in for a second kiss.

This one was even more involving, and by its end, she was flat on her back with him looming above her.

"Last chance," he said. His low voice vibrated with need. His dark eyes were on fire from within.

"Last chance, Faith."

Again she answered without a word, this time flattening both palms on his chest, running them up to his shoulders, then reversing direction and sliding them down over his chest and belly until they met at his burgeoning sex.

He moaned again, again helpless to hold it in, but he wasn't so helpless that he didn't know the import of the moment. Making love with Faith was going to be different this time than it had been before. This time they were stone sober. They knew what they were doing and why. And Sawyer knew that it had to be better than either of them remembered it being, if they were to have a shot at the future.

He had to show her that when it came to sex, she was everything he'd ever wanted.

That was actually the easy part, because it was true. He couldn't control the hunger in his mouth when he kissed her, or his need to repeat the kiss from one angle, then another. He couldn't control the depths to which his tongue plunged in its search for hidden droplets of her sweetness. He couldn't control his need to nuzzle her neck, to inhale her scent as though it were life-giving oxygen, to nudge aside the crew neck of her sweater and nibble on her collarbone.

He told her of his pleasure in a myriad of wordless ways--in the smokiness in his eyes when he cupped her breasts, the tremor of his hands when he freed her from her sweater, the eagerness of his breath when he explored her through her bra. Whispered words came when he removed that wisp of lace and nuzzled her swollen flesh. He told her how beautiful she was, how responsive, and he showed her by chafing the pad of his thumb over her nipple until it was puckered and taut, then taking the hardened nub into his mouth and drawing it deeply between his teeth.

By this time she was holding tight to his shoulders, arching toward him, taking short, shallow breaths, and it was easy to go on. He undid her jeans and skinned them from her legs, then smoothed his hands over her panties until they followed. As though he'd been stifled before, when she was finally fully naked he couldn't touch her enough. With broad sweeps of his hands he covered her body from top to bottom. His palms were flatter over her throat, her hips, her legs;

his fingers curved around her breasts and lower, on the focus of her womanly heat.

No, showing her how precious she was was the easy part. The hard part was restraining himself. At times he shook all over with the need for penetration. At times his breathing was heavy enough to wake the dead.

But he was bound and determined to bring her to a fevered pitch of arousal before offering her the satisfaction they both sought.

She complicated things by moving against him in the most provocative, if innocent, ways. With slow turns and twists, silent yearnings spoke through her body, and then, when the turns and twists grew more frenzied and still didn't give her what she craved, she reached for his clothes. He thought he was safe as long as he was dressed, but she wasn't allowing that. One minute she was writhing in response to the sensuous glide of his fingers inside her, the next she was frantically struggling with his zipper.

"Now, Sawyer," she whispered.

"Please. Now."

Grasping her wrists, he dragged them up and pinned them by her shoulders. His mouth closed over hers in a long, hot kiss, but if he thought that by breaking the momentum of touching he'd slow things down, it didn't work. The feel of her body beneath his was incendiary, adding the final spark to what was already glowing and ready to flame.

With a low moan, he left her long enough to tear his sweater and T-shirt over his head and work his pants down. Even before he tossed them aside, Faith's hands were on him.

Ironically that did slow him down. Her touch was too special to ignore, slender hands and curious fingers working their way through the hair on his chest, teasing his nipples, scoring his ribcage. He wanted to savor it, which was another way of telling her how good she made it for him, but when her hands slipped past his navel and found the grooves where his thighs connected with his torso, his resolve snapped. Coming over her, he drew her knees up to flank him and entered her with a single powerful thrust.

She gasped, stunned by the force of the filling, and for an instant Sawyer wondered if he'd hurt her. Her eyes were closed, her face shadowed. He couldn't make out her expression.

"Faith?"

But while he watched, she broke out into a slow smile, a crescent of sunlight in the midst of shadow, telling of the ecstasy she felt.

"Don't stop now," came her whispered drawl. The sound was sexy to match the sultriness of her smile, both of which matched the feminine allure of her body, which was gold-tipped in the fire's dancing light.

Sawyer was driven just as much by what was going on in his head as what was happening to his body. He didn't believe that a woman could be as beautiful as Faith was and still be real. He'd set out to pleasure her as she'd never been pleasured before, but it seemed that in approaching his goal, the tables had turned. He'd never had a woman smile up at him like that, as though he were her world and she wanted no other.

He continued to bask in the heat of her smile until his body began to clamor for attention. Then he moved, slowly unsheathing himself, even more slowly and deeply returning to her heart. His breath pulsed against her lips, ragged between kisses. When soft sounds came from her throat, he increased the pressure of his mouth and stroking hands, and when she began to squirm against him, he increased the speed of his thrusts. He took pleasure in her every response, growing hotter and harder until the battle he fought against release seemed doomed.

In a last- ditch effort to regain control, he paused, but in that instant, while he held himself as still as his quivering frame would allow, Faith arched into a powerful climax, and he utterly lost himself. Within seconds, bowing his back and pushing deeper than ever inside her, he vaulted into an orgasm of his own.

It was staggering, spasm after spasm of pent-up passion turned loose in her heated body, but Faith felt the powerful pulsations only as a counterpoint to her own shattering release. When the brightest of the star- bursts faded, she floated for a time in the limbo between heaven and earth. Only when Sawyer's breathing evened by her ear, when he slid his sweat slick body to the side and pulled her over to face him did she open her eyes. What she saw in his nearly sent her aloft again. Neither the night or the dying light of the fire could hide the adoration there.

"How do you feel?" he asked in a whisper. He slid one still-shaky hand into her hair and stroked her scalp through the silken strands until he'd caught the last of his racing breath.