Taxi to Paris Page 20

"It has hooks," she explained.

  I sought them with my fingers and found them. They were innumerable.

  "Oh, my goodness!" This could take hours!

  She laughed softly again. "You only have to undo a few of them, not all."

  It wasn't a bit easy to figure out the mechanism of the things. Once I had it, I began to open one after the other. I reached under the cloth with my hand and caressed her. She moaned again. Actually, I didn't want to remove the dress too quickly. It was exciting to keep switching back and forth from the cloth to her skin. The similarities and differences became more and more apparent. Her warmth and the cool of the silk, her softness and the flowing firmness of the dress. I didn't want to stop. She moaned stronger and stronger. I opened nearly all of the hooks and caressed the skin of her back from her neck to her waist.

  "I never should have put it on." Her voice sounded a little forced.

  I stopped caressing her, surprised. "Why?"

  She gasped for breath, now that she was free of the stimulation for a moment. "I should have remembered. You have a silk fetish."

  "Me?" Who was the one who slept in silk pajamas on silk sheets?

  "Yes, you," she repeated, calmly and without moving. "Without my bathrobe, I never would've had a chance with you."

  She had me! I laughed. "Before I met you, I hardly even knew what silk felt like. Especially against the skin of a woman."

  She leaned back in my arms and looked at my face. "Wouldn't you like to know what the woman under the silk feels like, too?" Before I could answer, she took an elegant step backwards. The dress fell to the floor.

  "Do you ever wear anything underneath?" I asked saucily, remembering the beginning of our relationship.

  She remembered it as well, of course. "With you?" She laughed seductively. "That would be pointless, now wouldn't it!"

  When she saw the wild look on my face, she took off running toward the bedroom. I chased after her. I caught her right in front of the bed and tackled her. We landed together in the middle of the mattress.

  I looked at her. There was nothing lascivious about her nakedness. Her beauty overcame me anew. "Aphrodite herself could never compare with you." I felt almost helpless in her presence.

  "Now!" she denied certainly. "You're really exaggerating things!"

  "There are no exaggerations in love," I explained earnestly. "And I love you."

  That was again the point at which she could say nothing more. She looked at me briefly, then she turned away.

  I rolled over next to her and took her in my arms. I snuggled up against her. "I don't require anything of you for that," I told her. "Only that you accept it."

  "I can't do that," she replied, expressionless.

  "I hope that will change someday." I turned her carefully onto her back. "I love you," I repeated. I wanted to kiss her gently, but she wouldn't allow me to. Instead, she threw her arms around my neck and pulled me down on top of her. Her kiss wanted proof that my words were true. I gave it. I no longer had any doubt that she wanted me. And I wanted her.

  The full strength of the passion that had been dammed up for the previous hours broke loose. She sighed in my mouth. We rolled from one side to the other across the bed, sometimes coming very close to the edges. I was still dressed, but that obviously didn't bother her. It did bother me a little. But she didn't give me a second free.

  Her wild passion aroused me incredibly. I held her tightly and took her nipples between my lips. They were so hard, my tongue could play with them like little marbles. I ran back and forth across them. She writhed in ecstasy beneath me. I caressed her down to her stomach with my hands. She moaned loudly and thrust her hips against me. I left her breasts and let my mouth follow the path my hands had made. She was practically screaming with lust. I ran my lips along the inside of her thigh. She dug her fingers into my hair and pressed my head between her legs. She let go and lay very still for a moment. All I heard from her was heavy breathing. "Please..." It was very weak. I touched her clit with the tip of my tongue, very gently. She jerked. "Please," she whispered even more desperately. "Don't make me wait any longer."

  I let my tongue circle around her center. She was well beyond simple arousal. At every touch, she thrust high into the air and collapsed again. Then, at last, she cried out her lust and lay, exhausted, still.

  I propped myself up slowly and regarded her. I covered her up. Then I stood up and took off my clothes. I slid under the blanket and could finally savor her warmth against my bare skin. When I snuggled up against her, I felt her even breathing. She was asleep. Soon after, so was I.

  I awoke to something tickling me. She was caressing me with a feather.

  "Ooh." Pleasant tingles coursed through me.

  "Does that tickle too much?" she asked attentively.

  "I'll tell you after you've done it for awhile," I answered with relish. She continued.

  Laughing softly, she asked some time later, "Doesn't that tickle yet?"

  "Mmm," I answered like a true connoisseur.

  "Not here, either?" She tickled me boldly between the legs.

  I twisted around and tried to escape her. "Yes, right there," I giggled.

  "Wonderful." The result seemed to please her. I'd gotten an entirely different impression of the situation. Expectantly, I watched her movements. She caressed me some more, now switching back and forth from her hand to the feather. I always reached for the hand and tried to avoid the feather. Every time, she increased the level of stimulation. My skin prickled; the heat inside me had reached the boiling point. I moaned. "What are you doing to me?" She touched me with the feather. I jerked again.

  She set the feather aside and entered me. I let out a throaty sound. She left her fingers where they were and rose to kiss me. She caressed me inside. Both together drove me forcefully to a climax. I exploded without warning. She observed me at this and smiled lovingly. When I lay still, satisfied, she remarked, "It's too bad that you can't see yourself doing that. You're beautiful."

  I didn't know what to say to that. "Every woman is beautiful at that moment," I replied.

  She laughed. "Certainly not!" I could hardly contradict her there, given her experience. She kissed me softly on the lips. "But you are," she said tenderly.

  "Thank you," I said - this time it was my turn to be polite. Nothing else at all occurred to me.

  "I think it comes from within," she mused.

  I looked at her. I think it comes from the fact that you love me, I thought, but I didn't say it aloud. Sometime she was going to have to deal that. If I was still there.

  Chapter 23

  Unable to sleep from my love for her, I lay awake. I watched her sleep next to me. The nearer our goodbyes came, the worse it got.

  Lost in thought, I watched the moonlight play across her face. It would still caress her long after she'd forgotten me. Very carefully, I stroked her hair. She blinked.

  "I didn't want to wake you." I spoke softly. Perhaps she wasn't all the way awake and could go right back to sleep.

  "Hm." It sounded like a confirmation.

  In the moonshine, it looked as if her eyes were tiny, deep lakes reflecting the light of the moon. Why did love have to hurt so much? I turned over onto my back and tried to put up walls against my emotions.

  "What is it?" She wasn't quite awake. Her voice sounded sleepy.

  I did everything I could not to show my feelings. "Nothing. I'm sorry I woke you. Go on back to sleep."

  "You were caressing me," she remarked, much more clearly.

  "Yes," I admitted remorsefully. I thought she had slept much more deeply. I repeated, "I'm sorry."

  "You're sorry that you caressed me?"

  "No, that I woke you." Why couldn't she just go back to sleep?

  "Something's up with you." Amazing how quickly she became alert and coherent when she woke up. Apparently, she couldn't only do that in the morning, but in the middle of the night as well. I'd never understand how she did that.

  "I
'm going back tomorrow."

  She rolled over onto her back and put her hands behind her head. "That had to happen eventually," she said quietly.

  "Yes, sure." Her unexpectedly calm reaction threw me for a loop, since I'd been preparing myself for something completely different. But if she could stay calm, so could I. Maybe it wasn't such a big deal to her as it was to me. After these days of tenderness and love - even if she refused to call it that - I had anticipated something else, but she was still a mystery to me in so many ways. Her feelings were her deepest secret, which she didn't like to share. For that reason, I could rarely tell how she really felt. I only hoped that it was the same thing I would feel in that situation, or at least something similar. She lay there, still saying nothing. I at least wanted to know one thing. "Do you want to... Are you going to stay here?"

  "Yes," she answered immediately. "For a few more days, most likely."

  I looked over at her. The moonlight made her face glow. Strong contours made themselves visible: her forehead, her nose, her mouth. That wonderfully curved mouth that could kiss so perfectly! It captivated me magically.

  A paralyzing fear struck me suddenly. What would the situation be now? She couldn't possibly just go back to work! The danger of something like this happening again, as it had happened already, was too great.

  And she would simply refuse to take that danger into account. She was so good at repressing and minimizing everything, especially when it came to her person. That hurt. My body tensed. I would be there, but I couldn't protect her. And the next time could be even worse than the last.

  "No!" I'd spoken out loud from the sheer tension.

  She turned her head. "What, no?"

  I could no longer hold it in. "I'm afraid. I'm worried about you," I explained laboriously.

  "Worried? Why?"

  I knew this would draw her wrath, but now that it was out, I had to take the opportunity and run with it. "Do you want to go back to work?"

  She turned her head away. I saw her profile turn to a stony mask. "I knew you would get around to that eventually." Her controlled voice indicated that she was absolutely furious.

  "Not how you think," I correctly quickly, even if that wasn't quite the whole truth. "I don't want to stop you, only..."

  She stared straight up at the ceiling. "Only?" It sounded completely uninterested. But I knew that that couldn't be the case.

  "Only... I'm horribly afraid for you." I gulped. "That something like this could happen again." After all, she couldn't deny the facts of what had already happened.

  Her eyes continued to stare at precisely the same spot. "It won't." She minimized the event exactly as I had predicted she would. "That doesn't happen every day."

  Not every day - heavens! "But the danger is there," I insisted. How could she live with the thought, how could she imagine opening the door and not knowing what awaited her?

  "Then I couldn't go back to my profession at all," she concluded calmly.

  Yes. Please! I would gladly have implored her to do so, if I'd seen any sense in it whatsoever. But now...? I said nothing.

  "You'd love that, wouldn't you?" She spoke my thoughts aloud. Completely without expression.

  "You know that as well as I do," I said softly.

  "Yes. I know that." Her calmness was frightening. "I knew from the moment I first saw you that you'd never be able to live with it."

  I propped myself up on one elbow and looked at her face, to the extent that I could see it. "I wish so much that I could." My desperation grew. "I love you so much." That was precisely the reason! "I don't know how I'll live without you." Now I'd said it.

  But she'd been expecting that already. "You don't want to see me anymore." That statement would've sounded harsh anyway, but her voice made it even worse. She was relentless.

  "No!" It was almost a scream. "I want to see you. Every day, every minute, every second. And that is exactly the problem."

  "You can't have me all to yourself," she stated, still horribly calmly. It was more awful that anything I'd imagined. She said everything aloud that I'd feared the whole time.

  I let myself fall back into the bed. "I know."

  "So you'd rather not have me at all." Her voice hovered tonelessly in space.

  If only I could claim that wasn't true! That I wanted her under any circumstances. But I couldn't do that. "If only things were different! If we could change places..."

  She let out a hollow, resigned laugh. "Hardly."

  I wanted to touch her, to hold her, to forget that this would be the last time. I leaned over her and brushed her shoulder.

  She turned her head and looked at me. "I -" she stopped.

  I could've bet she wanted to say I love you, but she couldn't. That was her flaw. Mine was my jealousy, but hers hindered her just as much from doing what she wanted.

  She turned her body, bathed in moonlight, slightly toward me. That movement alone made me crazy with longing. I sought her mouth and kissed her. Her lips responded immediately. She had the same wish as I: to forget everything and enjoy our last moments together. I caressed her breast. She moaned. The nipple was hard in my hand. I stroked her skin all the way down to her thighs. She writhed passionately.

  "Lie on top of me," she whispered hoarsely. "I want to feel all of you."

  I pushed myself on top of her, until I could feel her everywhere. Her skin was hot and dry. She moved her hips beneath me, as though I were almost weightless. I felt the heat between her legs.

  I pressed hard against her, out of anger at myself, out of desperation. Why? I cried inside. Why couldn't I just take her as she was? With everything that went with that? Was this really love? Love doesn't ask questions, does it? I didn't know anything anymore. My thrusts grew harder.

  She put her hands on my hips. "Please," she said softly. "You're hurting me."

  I stopped abruptly and laid my head heavily on the pillow next to hers. I breathed her in. Yes, it was love, I knew it. I loved her and I wanted her, but still...

  "You can't fuck it out of me," she remarked sensibly.

  I was ashamed of myself. She'd caught me. Then I had to grin against my will. "I didn't know you knew words like that." I qualified that, "Privately, I mean."

  She was obviously happy that we were back to our old selves for the moment. "I don't," she joked back. "That must've slipped through." She let her hands wander from my hips to my back. I shivered. My persisting shame made room for another feeling. "Although," I said lightly into her ear, "there's something to it. It makes me sort of..."

  She laughed understandingly. At the same time, she began to circle her hips slowly below me. "...horny?" she completed my sentence.

  Oh, boy, where was she going with this? That didn't sound private at all! "Yes," I said distastefully. "That's the word. But we should stop this now."

  "We don't have to," she offered obligingly and professionally. "I can say anything you'd like to hear."

  Would I ever get her off of this trip? I lifted myself up high and let my entire weight fall on top of her. The wind was knocked out of her, and she panted, "Was that necessary?" She at least allowed herself a hint of indignant protest.

  "I was about to ask you the same thing."

  "Oh!" She was upset.

  "Mm-hmm," I confirmed.

  "I'm sorry." She sounded unsure.

  I looked down at her. "It was my fault. I never should've started with that."

  She began to turn under me again, but this time I had the feeling that she really wanted it. She snapped at my lips and nibbled on them. "At the moment, I really just want to be the woman of your wishes." She came very close to my mouth with her lips again. "All of your wishes." She kissed me. Her kiss was so firey, I wished it would never stop. When she finally let me go again, I panted for air.

  "That was my revenge," she said, grinning. She seemed to be her private self again.

  Why did we have to break up? How could that be? I had to chase those thoughts away. I looked at he
r earnestly. "You are everything I've wished for. You're my dream woman."

  She tried to turn away, but I was lying on top of her and so she couldn't. She had to look at me.

  "Never say that again," she hissed.

  "How could I?" The prospect of a future without her saddened me deeply. "We'll never see each other again."

  That brought back the desire in her and in me. We were both at the ends of our ropes. My head was too heavy to hold up. I let it fall back on the pillow next to her. "Why?" I asked quietly.

  She ran her hands along my back. "Fate," she concluded dejectedly. "We can't help it." Her hands glided down to my bottom and pressed me against her. Her heat was there once more. "I don't want to think about that anymore." She breathed heavily. "I want you."

  My arousal sprung right back up. She did something very special with her movements beneath me. I could hardly hold myself up above her. I let one leg slide between hers. The sensations she caused with her passion became unbearable, and I began to move in synch with her rhythm. She stroked my back again. My skin prickled as if it were stuck by needles.

  She found my mouth again and kissed me. Her tongue drove me higher with every caress. I moaned out loud. I felt the heat climbing inside. Almost...! She stopped kissing me and suddenly lay very still.

  "What...?" I gasped, confused.

  "Not so fast," she teased me.

  I propped myself up next to her. "Are you insane?" I was still gasping. The heat was subsiding very slowly. "I was almost there!"

  "Yes, I noticed that." She laughed softly. Then she let the smile fade slowly from her face. "I want to turn over." Her voice was suddenly raw and excited.

  I didn't understand. "Turn over how? On your stomach?" That wasn't exactly her favorite position! I wondered what was going on.

  "No," she remarked impatiently. "But you have to let me up first." She laid her hands on my shoulders and pushed me away a little. I let myself slide off of her.

  She really did turn over, but not like I'd thought. She traced a path across my stomach with her mouth. At the same moment, her navel appeared before my eyes. An unusually attractive navel, as I'd noticed many times before - though perhaps not quite from this angle. I stretched out next to her and nibbled at the skin above her triangle with my lips. She was already a bit farther along. I felt her between my legs. Along the inside of my thigh, she traced her tongue down to the back of my knee. When she reached them, I almost went wild. I moaned. "I had no idea that that was such an erogenous zone." Aroused to my limit, I could only gasp.