Page 52 of West Wind

She tugged at his damp shirt. Their eyes locked as he moved away from her to undress. She helped, pulling his sleeves down his arms, impatient for his touch.

“Shelley, I…” She hesitated. She loved him with everything she had to give, but she didn’t want to scare him away.

“What is it?”

“I don’t love you, I swear,” she whispered.

He smiled down at her. “That’s good, darlin’.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“We broke our treaty,” Annabelle whispered into Shelley’s ear.

It had been dark for a while and still they hadn’t moved from the gently sloping grass by the creek. She didn’t know how much time had passed, and didn’t care. It might be midnight, it might be almost dawn. They’d made love three times there on the blanket that was now wrapped around them, cocooning them against the night air.

Shelley lay on his back, one arm holding onto her snugly. He gave her a low, affirmative murmur, showing little concern for their pact at the moment.

“We need another one,” she insisted gently.

He grinned and rolled onto his side to face her, his chest pressing against her breasts, his lips close to hers. “You can touch me anytime you want.”

She ran her fingers along his spine. She loved the feel of his skin, the softness of his lips against hers. “And you can touch me anytime.”

He took advantage of her addition to their new treaty and ran his hands down her sides and across her hips, coming to rest there. “You’ll sing to me every night.”

“You can write poems and recite them to me by the fire.”

His smile faded. “Sure, until I leave you at the ferry to San Francisco, then that’s it. I’m not a romantic. This is lust, pure and simple. It doesn’t mean⁠—”

“I understand,” she said, not letting her disappointment come through in her voice. If this was all she could have, then it was enough. “No questions,” she added. “I don’t care what you did before we met or what you’ll do after we part. No questions about the past, not from me and not from you. I’m just Annie, you’re just Shelley. I want you; you want me. That’s all we need to know.”

He pulled her on top of him and wrapped his arms around her. “I want you right now,” he whispered huskily, seeking her lips with hunger.

She held his face in her hands and returned his kiss with parted lips, her tongue learning how to drive him wild. “Just one more small demand,” she whispered, pulling her mouth slightly away from his.

“Anything.”

“Don’t call it lust. I don’t like that word.” She settled her lips over his briefly, then pulled them away again. “Passion,” she whispered. “You’re my passion, Shelley.”

“If you say so, darlin’.”

This man, her man, her lover, rolled her onto her back, throwing the blanket off their legs despite the cool air. He locked his lips to hers, drawing her very soul into him with his mouth. He rested his hand on her breast, massaging her taut nipple before his hand moved lower, over her belly to rest between her thighs. She arched her back when he touched her.

“Shelley,” she whispered his name as he moved his lips to the base of her neck. “It hurts.” Her voice was so low she wasn’t certain he could hear her.

“What hurts, darlin’?” He was very still as he waited for her answer.

“I want you so much it hurts.”

She took his hair in her hands and pulled his lips to hers, lifting her hips to him as he entered her. How was it that the feel of him inside her was more wonderful, more exciting every time? That with every meeting of their bodies the release he brought her was more powerful than the time before?

He felt it, too, she was certain, the wonder they created. She saw the knowledge in his hooded eyes as he languidly studied her; she felt it in his touch. His appetite for her was as insatiable as hers for him.

The culmination of their joining came almost too quickly. She dug her fingernails into his back and screamed his name as he whispered hers again and again. Annie, not Annabelle. With him she wasn’t Annabelle St. Clair, she was… different. More complete.

He rolled over and brought her with him, wrapping the blanket around her.

She was breathless, as if Shelley had sucked the very spirit from her. It was a wondrous, unexpected feeling, and she felt cheated out of the nights they’d denied themselves the pleasure they found in making love.