JEZEBEL'S BLUES Page 12

  Finally, Celia slapped his shoulder. “Enough!” She grinned at him. “It helps,” she pronounced. “Now maybe you should sing one for your sister.”

  He moistened his lip, looking at her, and even in the darkness, his eyes held a mystical blue color. All mirth fled his face. He bent his head over the harp and blew a soft, mournful cry of notes. A ripple passed through Celia’s belly—a warning.

  Then Eric opened his mouth and began to sing, really sing. The words told a story of loneliness and a long search for safe harbor, of a pretty woman abused by a world too harsh for her gentle ways.

  It was a beautiful, sad, poetic song, but the words were insignificant in comparison to the voice that sang them.

  His speaking voice was almost unbearably rich, dark, low and seductive; having heard it, Celia should have expected that he could sing like this. But as she listened, she realized, too, that she could never have known how beautiful it was without hearing it. He sang low and hard and with great power, the notes raspy here, clear there; so rich and deep, she ached with the power of it. His was a voice perfectly suited to singing blues ballads, and the longer he sang, the more she pulsed with it. Tears began to stream from her eyes unheeded as she thought of his sister and her father and Eric himself, aching for all of them. Aching for herself.

  * * *

  Eric finished the song, staring out toward the fields where lightning bugs sparked in the grass like fallen stars. His heart felt less heavy for having sung, and he sighed with deep satisfaction.

  From beside him came Celia’s voice, soft and filled with tears. “Eric,” she whispered, “that was so beautiful.”

  He turned in surprise to see a wash of tears running over her pale cheeks. “Oh, sugar,” he said, and without thinking, gathered her into his arms. Her fine hair splayed over his hand, and her face nestled into the hollow of his shoulder. Her arms slipped around him. “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said.

  She felt like a fragile doll in his arms, so small that she might snap if he hugged her too tightly. But he’d learned that her fragility was an illusion, and he tugged her hard against him, feeling a well of emotion at the press of her damp face against his neck. She was vulnerable in ways, tender in others, but she was strong, and as he held her, he knew why he’d come.

  “You should be singing, Eric,” she said. “Your voice—”

  “No,” he whispered against her jaw, seeking her mouth. “I should be kissing you. I wanted to all day.”

  “I wanted you to.” She lifted her head, her pale eyes full of trust and hunger. He bent his head and tasted her sweet lips, fitting his mouth over hers with ease. Such a soft mouth, he thought vaguely, drifting as she returned the kiss.

  The simmering hunger he’d felt for her went up another notch, and forgetting that he’d sworn he would not give in to his passion, he traced the lines of her body with both hands—her long, slim back and the dip of her waist, the curve of her hip and thigh, even her calves. He tasted the flicker of her tongue against his and felt the edges of her pretty teeth. Her nose bumped his cheek and she made a small, low sound.

  He lifted his mouth from hers, holding her head in his hand. Her eyes were slumberous, her mouth glistening with his kiss. The sight pushed his control beyond all recall. “I want you,” he said raggedly, kissing her between words. With one hand he traced the line of her jaw, followed her neck and, staring into her eyes, cupped her breast, wondering again at the perfect nestling of it against his palm. “You make me feel like somebody else.” He stroked the gentle rise of flesh and felt the pearling of the tip against his thumb. He settled his mouth over hers, pushing the fabric from her shoulders—first the loose blouse, then the plain, ordinary bra below. Her naked breast fell into his waiting hand and he heard her gasp and felt her try to pull away.

  “I can’t do this, Eric,” she whispered. “Not if you’re going to tell me you have to go. Don’t make me go through another night like last night.”

  In answer, he bent his head to the soft skin in his palm and nudged the tip with his tongue, once, lightly, then settled his mouth over it, suckling at the heat. She made an airy, restless sound and grabbed his shoulders and he pushed her back against the post to brace her. He circled the incredibly soft, supple flesh of her breasts with his palms and tasted the column of her throat with his mouth, with his tongue.

  “You’re so beautiful, Celia,” he said, lifting his head to look into her eyes, his fingers roving of their own accord over her. Her eyes grew sultry and her eyelids dropped, but she held his gaze without shyness or embarrassment as his hands moved over her. Slowly, looking at him, she lifted her hands to cover his and leaned forward to kiss him.

  He exploded at the carnal thrust of her tongue and with a groan, he bent his head again to lick and suckle the rose-tipped rise of her breasts, lost in the taste of her satiny flesh, lost in the glory of Celia.

  “Make love with me, Eric,” she whispered. With her—not to her. Something swelled in his chest, and he growled low as he stood up, grasping her waist to pull her up with him. He kissed her at the door, pressing her into the threshold, his hands roaming her body as she clutched handfuls of his hair so tightly, it hurt him. She turned and backed them into the living room, her fingers freeing the buttons of his shirt as she walked.

  At the foot of the stairs, he kissed her again, lost in his need for her. In an urgent need to feel her bared flesh, he pushed the tank top from her arms and chest into a pool at her waist, leaving her in that simple white bra, one strap falling down her arm. He tugged the clasps free and tossed it over his shoulder, taking her mouth as he let his hands roam the small, silky lines of her back, her slender shoulders, the fine round of her rib cage. Halfway up the stairs, they tripped together, but in spite of the jarring impact, they didn’t lose touch. She pushed his shirt from his shoulders, her breath coming in hard, fast gasps. He felt the round give of her breasts against the wall of his chest and a jolt of electric sensation squeezed his heart. For an instant, he pressed her closer, reveling in the glory of her naked flesh against his own, and then he picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to the attic room where it had all begun.

  Together they tumbled to the bed, kissing so wildly, Eric thought he would lose his mind before he could join with her completely.

  And for the first time in his life, he felt a woman needed him as much as he needed her, for in Celia’s kiss there were teeth, and her body arched in fierce hunger. She freed the buttons on his pants and pushed them away, and she restlessly stroked the curve of his naked buttocks and the backs of his thighs and the hollow of his spine, using her palms and fingers and nails.

  Somehow in the madness, he found her completely bare below him, hot and shivering at once.

  Only then did he pause, kneeling above her in the dark room, with moonlight pouring through the window. Her hair was as silvery as the light, and her big, gray eyes shone like captured moonbeams. He touched her breasts and her belly. “You’re so beautiful, Celia. Like sugar.”

  She opened her arms to beckon him. “Eric.”

  Then he was lost, driving into the waiting heat of her, moving with urgent hunger and lost control. Celia met him, wrapping herself around him. It was not smooth or sweet; it was not elegant or polished. It was pure and elemental and primitive.

  And yet as he held her and moved with her in the silence, his hands cupped around her bottom, his mouth against her neck, her arms flung hard around his shoulders, he felt a shock of joining that transcended anything he’d known. As they thrashed together, lost to anything but each other, he felt suddenly awash in a perfect silvery light, as if Celia had cloaked them with her magic. Where everything had been dark, now all glowed with light—a blazing, healing light he’d never seen, had never hoped to know. In Celia’s arms he felt it in him to be all she saw in him, all the things he’d never dared dream of being.

  And as their rhythm intensified, punctuated with breathless whispers and urgings and endearments and ki
sses, he felt tears. His own tears, running hot on his face. Ashamed, he bowed his head into her hair, feeling her tremble and shiver against him. She clutched his back and cried his name, and even as he tumbled into the very depths of her, his tears washed unchecked into the silk of her hair.

  Lost, he thought, coming apart. He was so lost—and Celia felt like home.

  Chapter 10

  As their breathing slowed, Celia felt a tingle moving through her body, spreading from the tips of her fingers and toes to radiate through her limbs and torso, through her organs and through her soul.

  Eric’s weight pressed her into the mattress, his powerful arms anchoring her even more tightly to him. His hair fell over her face, silky and cool. She flashed on their tangled, passionate ascent up the stairs and a bubble of laughter built in her chest. “Good grief,” she said with a chuckle.

  He lifted his head to look at her. There was a sheen of sweat over his brow, and a lock of black hair clung to the moisture on his cheek. “You laugh at the weirdest times.”

  The bubble chuckled over once more as she pushed his damp hair away from his hard jaw. “I think laughing when you feel good is perfectly appropriate.”

  The devilish expression flared in his eyes. “You feel pretty good, do you?” He moved against her and his nostrils flared.

  She nodded slowly. “Mmm.”

  He kissed her, suddenly and urgently. “You taste like sunshine,” he whispered, his big hand wrapped around her neck. “I can’t remember the last time anything tasted as good as you do.”

  Again laughter swelled in her chest. “How about those brownies you ate in one sitting?”

  “Not even those,” he murmured, intently kissing her jaw.

  Celia laughed and he let go of her. “What do you keep laughing about?”

  “Quit scowling,” she said, and rubbed her nose over the tip of his. “Not everything in life is that serious.”

  “This afternoon, that was a serious story and you giggled.” His voice was puzzled, though, not angry.

  “Eric, don’t you see how melodramatic your whole life has been? It really is just like something my father would write. That’s what has been driving me so crazy about you.” She frowned at herself, wondering how she’d let that slip. With a distracted fascination, she touched the round of his shoulder, glorying in the satin sheen of his flesh, the supple feel of it against her palm. In the same mode, she bent and pressed first her lips, then her cheeks to the place.

  The sound of his song for Laura whispered through Celia’s mind. “You really should be singing, Eric.” She lifted her head. “You have the most incredible voice I’ve ever heard.”

  “Thank you.” A glitter of humor touched his eyes. “But I’ve got a feeling you’re feeling just a teeny bit expansive at the moment.”

  “Do you ever accept a compliment?”

  He mockingly frowned. “Try not to make a habit of it.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you?”

  “Why do I get the feeling we’re getting off the subject here?”

  “Are we?” With a quick movement, he pushed away the sheet Celia had demurely drawn up over herself, exposing her breasts to his gaze. In a rumbling voice, he asked, “What if I told you I think you have the prettiest breasts I’ve ever seen?”

  Celia flushed as his hands and eyes roved over her. It was a flush of the spirit and one of the mind—she was embarrassed and pleased and suddenly, incredibly, aroused. Still, she strove for lightness. “I’d say it was sort of a backhanded compliment.”

  He paused, lifting his gaze in surprise. The beautiful lips were only millimeters away from hers. “Backhanded? Why?”

  “Because it assumes you’ve seen quite a number of unclothed women.”

  “Mmm.” He pushed her shoulders until she lay against the pillows. “I’m always giving backhanded compliments,” he murmured against her lips. “But just because I’m clumsy when I open my mouth doesn’t mean I don’t mean it.” As if to illustrate, he bent his head over her, taking one nipple into his mouth slowly. His hair fell forward to brush her flesh as his tongue swept silkily back and forth. “You really do have a pretty body,” he whispered, and his breath added to the erotic sensations. His mouth slid lower, teasing over her ribs to her belly, where his tongue danced over her navel, sending a rocket of sensation through her. “Just right for my hands and my mouth, like they were made for me, waiting for me.”

  Her body rippled softly, but along with the response of her flesh, pleasurable but predictable, came a glow of acceptance. “Oh, Eric,” she whispered, her hands tangling his hair.

  “Women always want more than what they have,” he said, and his mouth traveled down and up, over breasts and belly and arms. He kissed her mouth softly. “They want a smaller rear end and a skinnier waist and big breasts.” He moved close to her, his naked body pressing along her side with heat and hard muscle and hair-dusted flesh. Celia swallowed, unable to prevent a small gasp.

  “You’re perfect, Celia.” His fingers trailed lightly down the curve of her upper arm, tickling the sensitive inner crook of her elbow, to her hand. He lifted it gently, guiding her to the rigid evidence of how she pleased him. “You see?” he whispered.

  With a sense of power and excitement, she let herself explore him, tentatively at first, then with greater abandon, trusting her instincts.

  In turn, his hand slid over her belly, into the soft folds between her thighs, and his mouth settled again over the tips of her breast, teasing and dancing, his fingers sliding with exquisite pressure. She cried out at the overload of sensations and heard him growl as her fingers tightened around him.

  All at once, he was poised above her, his legs pushing hers apart as he settled once again between them. His eyes were dark with passion, his color high in his cheeks, and as he paused at the threshold of their joining, he kissed her roughly. “You’re not like anybody else, Celia.”

  Unable to bear the temptation, she arched to bring him home and heard their simultaneous cries an instant before she tumbled again into the explosive, erotic joy of loving Eric in a quiet void where they alone moved together.

  * * *

  The night was as enchanted as any fairy tale, Celia thought once, watching Eric laugh as she tickled his ribs and the bottoms of his feet. Enchanted because her sad drifter was happy when he made love to her; enchanted because kissing Celia made him forget that he could no longer play guitar. He made love the way he sang, slow and deep, and no matter how often he turned to her, Celia knew it would never be enough.

  Toward morning, they dozed off. Eric held her close to him, as if she were an anchor, he a ship that would drift in the night.

  As the pale dawn spread light through the room, Celia started to awake. For an instant, she was disoriented and surprised to find him tangled around her, but remembering the night, she smiled. Shifting gently away, she propped herself up to watch him while he slept.

  Even after looking at him hundreds of times, his pure male beauty stung her anew. He was sprawled in the deepest of sleeps, as he had been the first morning of the flood. He’d tossed the sheets away in the heat, and so lay perfectly bare and open for her gaze.

  She swallowed. His hair sprayed black across the white cotton pillowcase, curling around his strong neck and touching his broad shoulders. His mouth, soft and full in repose, looked tender amid the shadow of his unshaved beard. Lashes as long as a child’s arched over the high plane of his cheekbones.

  It was still hard to believe he was flesh and blood.

  A gentle arousal weighed in her belly as she let her gaze travel over the sinewy arms and sleek chest, over the flat, hard belly and the big hands. A ripple seared through her as she looked at the oddly vulnerable weight of his sex, resting on his thigh—last night she had been just a bit alarmed to see the size of him. Her gaze moved lower, to the furred calves and the strong, bare feet with their high arches. Like his hands, his feet were beautiful, sculpted with graceful curves and lean lines.

  She rem
embered the last morning they had awakened together in this room. The pale light was much the same then as now, and Celia remembered her wish that morning to straddle this rough and tender stranger.

  Since then, she had learned so much more—learned of his lonely, lonely heart, his lost dreams and sad childhood and wandering life. She had learned her stranger could tease and fish; that he loved the blues and his sister and a wild, willful river named Jezebel.

  Her heart caught in her throat. She loved him. Against her better judgment, against everything she’d dreamed she’d have, she loved him.

  And this morning, her beautiful, restless drifter was lying still and quiet next to her. It might be her only chance.

  Gently, she bent over him, teasingly running her hands over the plane of his belly and the rise of his ribs, watching in delight and terror as his eyelids flickered and another portion of his anatomy stirred to life. She moved closer, letting her breasts brush his body as she trailed kisses over his neck. He moved an arm sleepily to circle her shoulders.

  Smiling at her own bravado, she touched the male heat of him, and the same iridescent bubble of pleasure that had made her laugh last night rose again within her at his response.

  He awakened with a growl. “Celia! What are you doing?”

  “Shh.” She grinned at him mischievously, feeling her heart catch at the glowing sapphire of his eyes. Like the wanton woman in her vision, she threw her leg over him, tossing her hair over her shoulder to look down at him with a smile. He made a low, dark noise and reached for her.

  But as they began to move again in the silent morning, her teasing slipped away, leaving behind the shining truth.

  Eric called her name in a helpless voice, his hands bruising her shoulders, his lips in her hair. He clutched her to him with unwilling and almost desperate need.