Once a Warrior (39 page)

And then he was kissing her eyelids, her temples, her cheeks, tasting every tiny patch of her silken flesh. His lips even feathered over the tip of her nose. She felt dreamy, as if none of this was real, and yet she had never wanted so intensely as she did now. Hungry for more, she rose up on tiptoe, drew his head down and guided his mouth to hers.

Giving a low growl, he took the initiative from her. He fused their mouths together and sent his tongue deep, penetrating her mouth and saturating her with desire. The rich male taste of him coated her throat. The things he murmured made her tummy quiver in anticipation. The scent of him, a mixture of musk and the indigo night, caused her knees to go weak.

She made a languid noise, reveling in the carnality of his kiss and letting her tongue dance lightly around his. He continued to kiss her ravenously as he crushed her to the burning length of his body. Her breasts were flattened against his chest and his erection nudged the cleft of her thighs. Exulting in the obvious strength of his desire, she ground her middle against it.  

The power of her need for this man, a man she barely knew and would probably never see again, surprised her. But oh, it felt so right. And all that made her woman told her that what was to follow would truly be an act of love.

Cain grasped the skirt of her shift and worked it up to her waist. “How am I supposed to get you out of this damn thing?” 

Smiling, Cat wriggled out of his arms and turned her back on him. “Try the zipper.”

“Oh,” he said on a sheepish laugh, “good thinking.”   

He eased the zipper all the way down to her slender waist, kissing the shadowed discovery of her shoulder blades and the slender column of her spine. When his lips moved up to her ear lobe, and then behind it, the night air cooled the flushed skin of her back. His deft fingers unhooked her bra, so that he could peel it and her dress and her panties off in one fluid motion. Standing before him, clad only in the tropical moonlight, she allowed herself the satisfaction of hearing him groan with desire.

“I knew you were beautiful,” he said hoarsely, looking at the wanton picture she made with her hair-tumbled head thrown back and her skin gleaming camellia white in the dim light. “But I didn’t know you were perfect.”

“Your turn,” she whispered coquettishly, and reached for the hem of his T-shirt.   

“Not yet,” he temporized, and cupped her breasts in his callused palms.

Her knees nearly buckled when he brushed his thumbs over her nipples. Like torpid buds released by springtime, they burst into feverish flower for him. She gripped his forearms to keep from falling. Then she gasped in ecstasy when he bent his head to kiss them each in turn, applying a piercingly sweet sucking action that she felt all the way down to her toes.       

“Now,” he said huskily, and gently lowered her to the bed.

Prickles of heat shot through her as she watched him pull his T-shirt over his head and toss it aside. Her breathing grew ragged when he removed his jeans and she saw his erection, hard and huge with arousal. She shocked herself when she raised up on one elbow and reached out to stroke him and read his secret contours.

Groaning, Cain wrapped his fingers around her wrist and whispered fiercely, “Stop, or it’ll be over before it begins.”

“We can’t have that, can we?”  All enchantress now, Cat fell back and stretched her arms over her head, arching her breasts upward in tender offering.

His hair shone blue-black in the moonlight as he bent his head and circled her pert nipples with his tongue, causing her back to bow. “No,” he said, smiling wolfishly up at her then, “we sure can’t.” 

As their lips bonded again, her hands began to have their own cravings. She caressed his taut buttocks and sinewy back. Her fingers found the ridges of scars old and new and followed them with healing tenderness. Then, giving into an urge she couldn’t fathom, she gently sank her nails into his meaty shoulders.

Her blood swam when he deepened the kiss, sending little crackles of excitement surging up her spine. His tongue stroked and pressed, searching out the shapes and spaces of her mouth. Her fingers lifted to his head and threaded themselves through the thick hair that fell like wild black rain over his forehead.

She parted her thighs and felt his fierce passion graze their sensitive insides. Her tummy quickened when the heat of him nudged the heart of her. A shudder seized her then, sponsored as much by his tender torment as by the fact that there could be no future for them. And though it pained her to acknowledge it, she seized the moment with a smile. 

“Love me, Cain,” she murmured, raising her hips and moving against him.    

The hell of it was, he did. He loved her, but he couldn’t afford to tell her. Couldn’t risk cracking the shell of numbness that kept him going. So he showed her. He rose above her and slowly buried himself within her snug, moist sheath. Ecstasy shimmied through him when she said his name, then whispered it again against his lips.   

His body was starved; hers was the feast. But even as the need for release clawed at him, he was mindful that this was all he could offer her. His strokes were long and smooth, which only heightened the eroticism and prolonged the pleasure.

“Cain.”  Her breath burned her lungs. “It’s never . . . Not like this. Cain.” 

“Look at me, Cat.”  He sipped at the glad tear that slipped down her glowing cheek.

Their gazes met in the moonlight. Their mouths melded with a fervor that kissed their souls. Their bodies moved in an age-old rhythm that felt miraculously new as the love which neither dared voice culminated in a brilliant, shimmering climax.

* * * *

A soft, mewling sound woke her. She opened one eye, saw that it was still dark, and wondered what on earth that—

The baby! 

Cat opened both eyes and blinked rapidly, trying to orient herself in the strange room. Then she slipped carefully out of bed, not wanting to disturb Cain, and tiptoed out of her bedroom and into John Lee’s.

The crib was empty!

Her breath slicing at her throat and her heart thundering fearfully against her eardrums, Cat spun and started back to her bedroom to wake Cain.

Another voice, this one deeper than the first, drew her toward the living room. She stopped in the doorway, her eyes misting over with high emotion when she saw the huge, naked man walking the floor with her baby draped over his broad shoulder.

Cain was singing to John Lee in a soft undertone. The tune was vaguely familiar to Cat but she couldn’t make out the words. She cocked her head and listened closely. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud when she recognized the mellow rendition of “The Purple People Eater.”

He turned, his raven hair disheveled upon his brow, and held a silencing finger against his lips when he saw her standing there. She trailed him into the temporary nursery and watched him lay John Lee on his tummy in the crib. The baby gave one little squeak of protest at being put down before falling into the innocent sleep of a child.

“You’ve got a real mother’s ear,” Cat said when they were back in her room.

Cain shrugged nonchalantly. “A man who lives on the edge learns to sleep light.”

She looked up at him, startled by the reminder that he was returning to the war while she was going back to the world. It was all she could do not to beg him to come with her. Her father would be glad to help him with his legal problems, she was sure of it. Especially after everything he’d done for her and the baby.

But he would never willingly leave the nuns and the orphans. She was as certain of that as she was of her own name. And if he
did
agree to desert them, she knew, he wouldn’t be the man she loved.        

“That was some lullaby,” she said in a wry tone.        

His smile shone whitely in the moonlight. “John Lee enjoyed it.”

“Well, a one-eyed, one-eared flying purple people eater is liable to give him nightmares.” 

“You’re right. Maybe I should’ve started him out on the Big Bopper.”

“He’s a little young for ‘Chantilly Lace’.”

“All right, you think of someone.”

She pursed her lips. “The Beatles.”

“Catherine
, ma belle
’,” he crooned in a nasally French accent.

Laughter tickled her throat. “Fats Domino.”

“Now you’re talking.”  He pulled her tight against him, placed his mouth next to her ear and began singing, “
I found my thrill
. . .
boom-boom-boom-boom, boom-boom-boom-boom
. . .”

She tipped her head back. “‘Blueberry Hill’ hardly qualifies as a cradlesong.”

“This isn’t for John Lee.”  His breath blew warm against her face. “It’s for me.”

“Oh, well, in that case . . .” Caught up in his inspired silliness in spite of herself, Cat wrapped her arms around his neck, laid her head in the curve of his shoulder, and let Cain draw her into his rhythm.

“
The moon stood still . . . boom-boom-boom-boom, boom-boom-boom-boom . . .
”

It was the craziest thing she’d ever done, dancing naked in the dark with a man who was supplying both the words and the music. It was also the most sensual. His body, solid against hers, made her heart flutter. The hair on his chest teased her breasts, and his hard thighs slid along hers. His hand, pressed to the small of her back, marked her as his for all time.

At song’s end, he touched his lips to her forehead in a brief kiss and asked huskily, “Any other requests?” 

“Yes.”  Smiling up into his lean face, she reached down and gave him a gentle squeeze. “Encore.”

* * * *

Cat took one last look around the guest house to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything. In her bedroom, she smiled gently with remembrance. Cain had left sometime before dawn, while she was sleeping, but they had already said goodbye.

It was easier this way, she acknowledged as she pressed a soft kiss into John Lee’s downy black hair. She wasn’t sure where he’d gone, but she remembered him telling Sister Simone that he needed to go north. And she thought it was smart of him to leave Saigon before Colonel Howard could set another trap for him. But how she’d hated waking up this morning without him!

They’d had more than one encore, as it turned out. Their passions had been quick to ignite each time one touched the other, and the heat of their movements had echoed the heat of the night. They had dozed in between, lying indolently among the tangled sheets.      

Cat had been married, but she’d never experienced anything like the intimacies she’d shared with Cain. There’d been no rules, no restraints as they’d plumbed the depths of a more voluptuous sensuality than she’d ever dreamed possible. He’d touched her with astonishing familiarity, his hands and tongue taking liberties that had had left her weak and spent. Shy at first, and then emboldened by his encouraging murmurs, she’d kissed her way down his stomach, and then lower, delighting in both his ragged breathing and the knowledge that she could leave him as drained and relaxed as she.    

She’d been awakened from a deep, dreamless sleep by a knock on the front door a little after six. It was Ngo, carrying a tray full of traditional breakfast foods—small meat dumplings to dip in that hot fish sauce, fried pork sausage, and a shrimp paste that looked like a paté. Everything was artfully arranged and smelled heavenly, but she hadn’t had much of an appetite. Not wanting to insult her lovely hostess, however, she had thrown on a floral-printed skirt and plain white blouse and eaten few bites of each dish before going to dress and feed the baby. 

“I’m ready,” she told Loc now as she returned to the living room.

Nodding briskly, he handed her a package wrapped in several layers of tissue paper before he picked up her suitcases. “For you.” 

“What is it?” she asked him.

“The teapot.”  At the front door, he turned back and gave her a rare smile. “It’s my wife’s and my hope that you will teach your son to honor his Vietnamese as well as his American ancestors. We are an ancient and proud people, a peaceful people at heart, but we are fighting to be free of the communists just as your forebears fought to be free of the English.”

“I’ll learn all I can,” she promised him in a quavering voice. “And then I’ll teach John Lee.” 

Before she left the house, she took a moment to tuck the painted china teapot into the carry-on bag holding John Lee’s things so she would have it with her at all times during her long trip home. The heat and humidity slapped at her face like wet hands as she stepped outside. She could still hear shooting in the distance as she settled into the back seat of the car with the baby.

Cat had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t look back. What good would it do?  Cain was well on his way north by now, and her plane was leaving in less than an hour. But as Loc put the Tempest in gear and pulled away from the curb, she glanced over her shoulder and said a spiritual goodbye to the small house where she had spent the most wonderful night of her life.

Then, telling herself that what was past was past, she turned her stinging eyes to the front and, hugging the baby tightly, began focusing on the future.

Pandemonium reigned outside the terminal at Tan Son Nhut, with taxis and trucks carrying everything from humans to crates of chickens rattling past. Loc parked behind an old school bus, and got out to unload her luggage from the trunk. A skycap of sorts with a brown face and the last of her piasters in his pocket carried the suitcases inside.

“Thank you.”  With her arms full of baby and purse and diaper bag, Cat couldn’t give Loc a hug. So she leaned over kissed his leathery cheek. “For everything.”

His face worked with emotion, and for a moment she was afraid he was going to cry. Then he pulled himself together, bowing his head and closing his eyes just as he had the first time she’d met him. “Be proud that you are an American.”

“I am,” she said, and blinked away tears.

“And know that no matter what others say, your husband died for a noble cause.”

The thudding of harassment and interdiction fire sounded beyond the chain link fence that surrounded the airport.