The Wedding In White Read online

  "It won't hurt for long," he promised as he began to move closer. "I'll be careful with you."

  "I don't care," she choked, pushing against him in an agony of need. Her eyes closed on a sob. "Oh, please, Mack! It aches so!"

  "Natalie," he groaned, losing his patience in the heated brushing of her thighs against his. He brought her against him hard while his mouth ground into hers. He felt her body open to him completely, hesitate, flinch briefly.

  His eye opened and looked into both of hers, but she wasn't hesitating, she wasn't protesting. Her eyes were blind with passion, her face flushed with desire.

  His hands contracted while he watched her face. She gasped at the slow, deep, sweet invasion and moaned sharply as her body adjusted to this new and wonderful intimacy.

  "Don't tense," he whispered.

  "I'm not!" she whispered back, swallowing hard. "It feels..." Her eyes closed and she gasped. "So good, Mack! So...good! So good!"

  She was sobbing with every fierce movement of his hips, her hands clutching at him, her body following the quick, hard dance of his in the silence of the room. Spirals of pleasure were running through her like flames, lifting her, turning her against him. She felt him inside her and the pleasure began to pulse, like the quick, sharp beat of her heart as he moved in a deep, throbbing rhythm. She had a glimpse of his face going taut, and she heard his breath become torturous as the movement increased in fury and insistence.

  She was reaching for some incredibly sweet peak of pleasure. It was there, it was...there. If only she could find the right position, the right movement, the right...yes! She lifted to him in an arch, gasping.

  "There?" he whispered. "All right. Here we go. Don't fight it...don't fight it...don't...Natalie!"

  His voice throbbed like her body, like the pulse that was beating in her eyes, her brain, her body, a heat that was as close to pain as it was to pleasure. And all at once, it became an unbearably wonderful tension that pulled and pulled and suddenly snapped, throwing her against him in an agony of pleasure. She shivered and felt him shiver as they clung together in the most delicious ecstasy she'd ever experienced in her life.

  She heard his voice at her ear, harsh and deep, as his body clenched one last time and finally relaxed, pressing her into the mattress with the weight of him. Her arms curled around his long back and her eyes closed and she smiled, achingly content as she held him like that, heavy and damp and warm, vulnerable in his satiation, on her heart.

  All too soon, he leaned up, his gaze holding on her rapt face. He smiled gently. "Well?"

  She knew what he was asking. She smiled shyly and hid her face in his warm, damp throat.

  He rolled over, still joined to her, holding her close. "How's the rib cage?"

  "It's fine," she whispered.

  "And what do you think about lovemaking, Mrs. Killain?" he whispered wickedly.

  "I think it's wonderful," she blurted. "I never would have believed it could be so sweet. And I was afraid!" she added, laughing.

  "I noticed." He kissed her nose. "Are you ready for a shock?"

  She looked at him, puzzled. "A shock?"

  "Uh-huh."

  While she was trying to work it out, he lifted her away from him, and she looked down. Her face went scarlet.

  "Now you know, don't you?" he asked with a worldly wisdom she couldn't match. He put her down and got out of bed, magnificently naked and not a bit inhibited. He went to the small icebox and pulled out a bottle of beer, which he took to bed, sprawling on top of the sheets against the headboard.

  "Come on," he coaxed, opening his arm to gather her beside him. "You'll get used to it. Marriage is an adventure. You have to expect startling discoveries."

  "This is one," she murmured, still shy of him like this.

  He chuckled. "I'm just flesh and blood. The mystery will get less mysterious as we go along. We're through the worst of the honeymoon shocks, though."

  "Think so?" she mused. "You haven't seen me with my hair in curlers and no makeup yet."

  He bent and kissed the tip of her nose. "You're beautiful to me. It won't matter what you wear. Or how you look. I love you. Now more than ever."

  He opened the beer and took a sip, putting the bottle to her lips. She made a face.

  "It isn't good beer," he agreed. "But it's cold and good for the sort of thirst we've worked up." He took another sip and let his eyes run down the length of her soft body, lingering on the places he'd touched and kissed until she flushed. "You really are a knockout," he murmured. "I knew you were nicely shaped, Mrs. Killain, but you're more than I ever expected."

  "That goes for me, too," she said.

  He kissed her lips tenderly. "Feel like doing that again?" he whispered. "Or is it going to be uncomfortable?"

  She rolled onto her side and slid one of her legs to the inside of his. "It won't be uncomfortable," she whispered. She rubbed her body against him and felt him tense with a sense of pride and accomplishment. "I want you."

  The beer bottle barely made it to the table without overturning as he pulled her to him and kissed her with renewed passion. He really shouldn't have been capable of this much desire this soon, but he wasn't going to question a nice miracle. His mouth opened on her eager one, and he forgot the rest of his questions.

  That evening, they sat on the balcony after a light supper, drinking cola and watching the moon rise over the Gulf of Mexico. They sat side by side, holding hands and glancing at each other every few seconds to make sure that it was all real.

  "In all my dreams, it was never like this," she confessed softly.

  "Not in mine, either," he replied gently. "I don't like to leave you even long enough to take a shower." His gaze went hungrily to her face. "I never thought it could be like this, Natalie," he breathed. "Not so that I feel as if we're sewn together by invisible threads."

  She drew the back of his big hand to her lips. "This is what they say marriage should be," she said dreamily. "But it's more than I hoped for."

  His fingers curled into hers. "I know." He glanced at her hungrily. "You'll never know how I felt when Vivian confessed that she'd lied. I couldn't bear the thought that I'd almost lost you."

  "It's all in the past," she said tenderly. "Speaking of your sister, Vivian phoned while you were showering," she said suddenly. "She said that Bob and Charles have gone hunting with that Marlowe man and she was going to spend the weekend cramming for her first test."

  "I told the boys not to go off and leave her alone," he said grimly.

  "Stop that," she chided. "Vivian's grown, and the boys practically are. You have to stop dictating every move they make."

  He glared at her. "Wait until we have kids that age, and tell me that then!" he chided.

  She sighed over him, her eyes full of wonderful dreams. "I'd like one of each," she mused. "A boy to look like you, and a girl who'll spend time with me when I'm working in the kitchen or the garden, or who'll be old enough for school when I go back to teaching."

  "Planning to?" he asked comfortably.

  "Not until the children are old enough to go, too," she said. "We can afford for me to stay home with them while they're small, and I will. When they're old enough to go to school, I'll go back to work."

  He brought her hand to his mouth and smiled. "Sensible," he agreed. "And I'll change diapers and give bottles and teach them how to ride."

  She studied his handsome face and thought back over all the long years they'd known each other, and the trials they'd faced together. "It's the bad times that bring us close," she commented softly.

  "Yes," he said. "Like fire tempering steel. We've seen the best and worst of each other, and we have enough in common that even if we didn't have the best sex on two continents, we'd still make a good marriage."

  She pursed her lips. "As it is," she said, "we'll make an extraordinary one."

  "I couldn't agree more." He lifted his can of soda and she lifted hers, and they made a toast.

  Out on the bay, a crui
se ship was just coming into port, its lights making a fiesta of the darkness, a jeweled portrait in the night. Natalie felt like that inside, like a holiday ship making its way to a safe harbor. The orphan finally had a home where she belonged. She clasped her husband's hand tight in her own and sighed with pure joy.