Heaven Sent (37 page)

Of course, he would do the honorable
thing. She wouldn’t refuse him after he’d taken her maidenhood.
Something akin to elation filled him. She’d marry him now. After
tonight, she’d have to. And he’d never be alone again.

As soon as they were inside his room,
he shut the door and turned the key in the lock. She still clutched
the neck of her robe, but she turned and looked at him
calmly.

“
Are you sure?” he asked
again, wondering at his sanity. If she backed out now, it would
probably kill him.

But she nodded. “Yes, Aubrey. I’m
sure.”

He shut his eyes for a moment and
thanked God for bringing Callie Prophet into his life. She might be
irritating. She might drive him crazy. She might be as different
from Anne as the day was from the night, but he sensed in that
moment that she was his salvation.

Dramatic, he told himself. Too
dramatic. But he couldn’t suppress the feeling. He walked up to her
and drew her close. “I’ll be gentle, Callie.”

“
I know you will,” she
whispered.

Aubrey wasn’t surprised by how well
she fit into his embrace. Ever since Becky’s birthday party, he’d
been longing to hold her again. And he’d wanted to taste her. He
did so now, covering her mouth gently with his own and caressing
it, nuzzling it. He felt her relax inch by inch, until her body was
molded against his.

His arousal was heavy and powerful and
urgent, but he refused to hurry. Callie was saving his life; he
owed it to her to be careful.

Her lips had softened under his, and
she opened them willingly when he tasted them with his tongue.
Slowly, carefully, he allowed his tongue to explore her mouth. She
tasted wonderful. He recognized the faint taste of mint. She must
use mint and soda when she brushed her teeth. Anne used to do
that.

Dash it, he had to stop thinking about
Anne! It would spoil everything if he started to feel guilty. It
had been Anne who had urged him to remarry, he reminded himself
almost desperately.

Fearing his mind would start working
and ruin the moment, Aubrey deepened the kiss and pressed more
urgently against Callie. He hoped to God his stiff sex wouldn’t
alarm her. Surely, she understood the basics of how men and women
went about consummating a union. She was twenty-four years old, too
old to be silly and impressionable. She wasn’t a flighty
adolescent, but a mature woman.

“
Come to bed, Callie,” he
said urgently. “Come to bed with me now.”

She obliged, leaning on him for
support as he walked her to the big four-poster bed he’d shared
with Anne until the last year of her life, when she’d had to sleep
alone because of the pain.

“
I-I’ve never done this
before,” she told him unnecessarily.

“
I know, sweetheart. I
know.” Her confession, whispered and sounding as if she considered
herself lacking somehow because she was inexperienced in sexual
matters, touched him deeply. He lifted her up and sat her on the
edge of the bed, then put his arms around her again, feeling a
swell of tenderness toward her.

He kissed her warmly and passionately,
longing to lose himself and his sadness in her. He wished he could
tell her he loved her, but of course he couldn’t. He loved
Anne.

She returned his kiss with an
eagerness he hadn’t anticipated. Her arms tightened around him, and
he had a feeling she’d just surrendered everything to him and that
she was now clinging to him for dear life—and trusting him with her
essence.

It was a heady feeling, and Aubrey
reacted strongly. Pushing her back onto the bed, he joined her
there, pressing her into the covers and kissing her hard. “God, I
want you.” His voice sounded ragged to his ears.

“
I want you, too,” she
whispered. “I love you.”

The last three words were so soft,
Aubrey wasn’t sure he’d heard them. They rattled him for an instant
before he realized he’d misunderstood her. He wasn’t sure what
she’d said, but he was positive it hadn’t been a declaration of
love.

Because he didn’t want to get
confused, he reached to thrust her robe aside. A smile touched his
lips when he saw that he hadn’t revealed much by the rash act. The
flannel nightgown she wore was serviceable and perhaps even pretty,
since it had tiny pink rosebuds embroidered around the high neck,
but it was absolutely modest.

“
How,” he asked with humor,
“does this thing come off?”

She smiled up at him. His heart turned
a. back flip and went all soft and mushy. “I’ll do it.”

And she did. As he watched, she sat
up, reached to the back of her nightgown and pulled something. The
garment slid down her shoulders. His eyes grew large when the
fabric caught on her breasts. He’d ached to touch her breasts. To
see them. To weigh them in his hands. He reached with those hands
now, and gently slid the flannel aside.

There was little light in his room,
but he thought he saw her swallow. She might have been blushing; he
couldn’t tell. “You’re beautiful, Callie. Beautiful.” He dragged
his vest off and threw it aside. He heard it land somewhere, but
bad no notion where.

She murmured something that might have
been thanks. Aubrey’s ears were roaring from the blood coursing
through his veins. He was so strongly aroused, his condition was
almost painful. Gently, he lowered Callie to the bed and kissed
her, deeply and thoroughly. He felt the tension flow out of her.
Her arms went around his neck, and she held him tightly.

Life. For the first time in more than
a year, Aubrey felt fully alive, thanks to Callie. She gasped when
he drew his mouth from hers, and she gasped again when he feathered
light, caressing kisses over her body,

She had a spectacular body. She was
both taller and meatier than Anne had been. Aubrey didn’t feel that
he had to be as careful with Callie as he’d been with Anne, who’d
been fragile and delicate. Not Callie. Callie was robust. There
wasn’t any fat on her, but there was lots of flesh. Soft flesh.
Warm flesh. Beautiful flesh. Arousing flesh.

Aubrey felt every inch of it. And
Callie reacted to his touch as no woman ever had. Soft moans and
gasps told him how much she appreciated his efforts. Not that they
were entirely on her behalf. He couldn’t have stopped himself if
he’d wanted to, which he didn’t. Nor did he try.

He aimed to marry this woman. What did
it matter if they consummated the matter beforehand? Not a whit.
Thank God, thank God.

Callie’s fingers, shaking as if with a
palsy, lifted to his shirt buttons. “May I?” she whispered, as if
she feared she was being too bold.

She couldn’t possibly be too bold for
Aubrey. He needed this, he needed her, and he needed her boldness.
“Please do,” he whispered back, his voice gone low and
scratchy.

So she did. As soon as she’d finished
unbuttoning his shirt, he shrugged it off and tossed it in the
general direction of his vest, wherever that was. “I’ll get rid of
these,” he said, reaching for the buttons to his trousers. His sex
pressed against the buttons, impeding his progress, and he grew
impatient. “Damnation.”

“
What’s wrong?”

She sounded worried, so he smiled down
at her. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m eager, is all.”

“
Oh.” She smiled
back.

She had a pretty, saucy
smile, and Aubrey liked it a lot. He liked
her
a lot, if it came to that, and
his admiration rather surprised him. Callie was so different from
Anne, they might be different species altogether. Yet he could
appreciate both of them.

In a desperate hurry now—offhand, he
couldn’t recall the last time he’d been this aroused—Aubrey shoved
his trousers down. His erection was so hard, it was difficult for
him to bend over and remove his shoes and stockings and trousers,
but he did it. And then he was free.

He fairly bounded back to lie beside
Callie. When he took her naked body into his arms, she felt stiffer
than she had before. His passion was so high, it took him an
instant or two to realize she’d been staring with horror at his
aroused manhood.

Damnation. He’d forgotten she wasn’t
used to this sort of thing. If she backed out now, he’d die; he
knew it. “Don’t be afraid, Callie.” He tried to pitch his voice to
a soothing timbre, but was afraid his desperation edged in. “It
might hurt this time, but it will never hurt again. I promise you.
Don’t be afraid,” he begged.

“
I—I’m not afraid,” she
said. Aubrey figured she’d just lied to him, but he didn’t mention
it.

“
Not really afraid, I
mean.”

“
Good.” He’d take her
meaning as spoken; then. Trying to restrain his lust, he kissed her
softly but deeply, hoping to feel her tension ease, as it had
before.

No such luck. Nevertheless,
she did relax a little bit, and Aubrey blessed her for it.
Take it easy
, he
commanded him- self.
Don’t go too fast.
She’s a virgin
. He had to remember she was
a virgin, or he might be rough. He wasn’t accustomed to being able
to be free to fondle and sexually tussle with a woman, Anne having
been so delicate and all. He didn’t want to hurt Callie because of
his exuberance.

It occurred to him that it might be
nice to have an exuberant sexual partner to wrestle with for the
rest of his life. Pleasant, even.

But he didn’t want to think about that
now.

Aubrey was feeling more impatient by
the second. If they didn’t get on with this pretty soon, he’d
explode. With that aim in mind, he caressed her hips and fondled
her thighs and quickly made his way to the mop of dark blond curls
between her legs. She gasped again when he covered her hidden
treasure.

“
I won’t hurt you, Callie,”
he growled desperately. “I promise I won’t hurt you.” Not after
this time, anyway.

“
I know you won’t, Aubrey.”
She took the initiative this time and kissed him.

Taking that as a good sign, Aubrey
dipped a linger between the soft petals of her femininity She
arched like a bowstring. He’d never witnessed so strong a reaction
to his lovemaking. She was already wet, too. And hot. Thrilled by
her passionate reaction, he kissed her deeply and gently as he
plied his fingers. She bucked like a horse under his ministrations
and gasped with astonishment. He pulled his mouth away from hers so
he could watch her face.

“
Aubrey!” His name was a
quiet shriek. Her eyes were huge, and she looked to him as if she
were in the throes of some kind of alien emotion. He was beginning
to feel pretty good about this. Anne had never demonstrated such
overt evidence of her pleasure, although she claimed to enjoy the
marriage act. Callie’s pleasure was obvious.

“
It’s all right, Callie.
This is what it’s all about.”

“
My God.” She lifted the
back of her hand to her mouth and pressed hard, Aubrey presumed to
catch any other errant screams.

Her face and its changing expressions
fascinated him. No prim miss, Callie. Not a bit of it. It was as if
she couldn’t help herself, and Aubrey found himself reacting with
real satisfaction that was a part of, but different from, the
sexual satisfaction he was experiencing of this; their first sexual
union.

She was, in short, a pure joy to
watch. She was a pure joy to be with. Marriage to Callie Prophet
wouldn’t be a hardship at all, if this was going to be a part of
it.

When her climax came, Aubrey was
almost as shocked as Callie. She grabbed his shoulders and
screamed, “Aubrey!” Fortunately, the walls of his house were thick
and her scream was partially muffled because the upper part of her
body lifted off the bed and her face was buried against his
chest.

It was more than Aubrey could take.
Before her spasms of pleasure had subsided, he’d pressed her back
against the bedclothes and guided his shaft to her wet, tight
passage. With a shove, he was inside her—and Callie went perfectly
still.

“
Oh,” she said in a sort of
gasp.

Aubrey was holding himself back with
all the strength he possessed. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut,
he gritted his teeth, and he held himself rigidly away from her
with his arms. He wasn’t going to disgrace himself by spilling his
seed instantly. Granted, it had been a long time since he’d made
love to anyone; still, he owed it to his masculine pride to take
more than a second or two in achieving his own
satisfaction.

After a couple of moments, he dared
open his eyes. Callie stared up at him, her eyes gone round, and
all traces of pleasure vanished from her face. Damn. In spite of
his promises, he’d hurt her.

“
I’m sorry, Callie. It won’t
happen again.”

“
Oh,” she said
again.

Ah, to hell with
it
. Aubrey gave up on his pride, and
everything else in the universe. He needed this more than he’d ever
needed anything.

Taking the time to lean over and kiss
her hard, he relaxed his arms and moved within her. He’d never felt
anything like it. What’s more, she moved with him. He couldn’t
recall ever having a woman react like this. Callie’s body relaxed
into his and Aubrey gave her a moment to adjust to the feel of him
inside before he started moving again. He didn’t want her to be in
pain, but he was getting to the point where he couldn’t restrain
himself anymore.