Darkness Before the Dawn (Maggie Bennett 2)

He made no move to release her. She could feel the heat, the tension flowing from his body. His shirt hung open around his torso, and his lean brown chest was rising and falling rapidly. He wanted her. His eyes told her so, his body told her so. But his words kept pushing her away.

“Did you think that because you slept with me before you met Pulaski somehow this wouldn’t count? That you’d still be faithful to your dead husband?”

“Don’t!” She thought she’d screamed it, but the word came out a raw murmur of pain.

He shook her, and her head snapped back. Her eyes met his. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I look at it a little differently? For me, Pulaski doesn’t count. I had you first.”

She stood very still at the bitter, passionate words. Finally, she found her voice. “What are you waiting for, Randall? An engraved invitation? Don’t you want to see if I’ve gotten any better with practice?”

“You couldn’t have,” he said flatly, his hands leaving her arms.

“Hopeless case, was I?” She began undoing her buttons, one by one; her eyes never left his.

“You couldn’t improve on perfection.”

Her hands stopped where they were. The shirt hung open, exposing her skimpy little bra. “I think your memory needs jogging, Randall.”

“I think your mouth needs stopping, Maggie.” And he suited the action to the words, covering her mouth with his as he pulled her into his arms. His tongue slid past her teeth into the stunned interior of her mouth, and he kissed her long and hard and deep as his hands pushed the shirt off her shoulders and unfastened the bra. He stripped her jeans off and moved her down onto the narrow cot, covering her with his still-clothed body.

And then it was all darkness, warmth, and heat. His mouth was all over her, arousing her, inciting her, devouring her, until she was arching in his arms and weeping against the roughness of his shirt as his hands and mouth brought her to the border of madness and then beyond.

She lay gasping and trembling with reaction, listening to her pulse race and her heart pound. Randall lay, still clothed, half beside her, half on top of her, and he made no move to do more than hold her as she slowly floated back toward sanity.

But sanity wasn’t what she wanted. She reached her hand down to touch him, but Randall caught her wrist, and she waited for him to pull her away. But he couldn’t do it.

“What did Miroslav do to you, Randall?” she taunted softly. “Geld you?”

He laughed then, a small, surprising sound of amusement. “You did a much better job than he ever did, Maggie,” he said, his fingers covering hers and pressing her hand against him. She began to tremble with fierce hunger, and her hands were clumsy as she tried to unfasten his zipper.

Finally he took pity on her, stripping off his pants and looming over her in the darkness. She lay back, waiting, nerves on fire, desire sweeping through her, waiting for him to complete their union. He hovered there for a moment, hesitating, and Maggie’s arms reached for him.

He moved then, swiftly, pushing deep into her, shoving her back into the narrow cot with the force of his thrust. Her fingers clutched his shoulders, and her legs wrapped around his narrow hips as she took him,

all of him, deep inside her, and her entire body responded with a spasm of pleasure-pain that left her sobbing into the night.

“Open your eyes, Maggie,” he said softly.

She had no choice but to obey, opening her dazed eyes to stare up at him. His gray-blue eyes looked silver in the moonlight, and his mouth was a thin line of desire. “I want you to know it’s me,” he said, punctuating his words with a thrust of his hips. “I don’t want you to lie there and pretend it’s anyone but me filling you. You feel that, don’t you? You know it’s me, deep inside you, wanting you, having you. For six years I’ve been waiting for you, and I’m not going to have you mistaking me for anyone else.”

She lifted her hands, running them down the sides of his tense, sweating body. It took all her effort not to clench her fists in his sleek skin. She raised her hips to meet him, tightening around him, and watched with satisfaction as his eyes glazed. “Who am I, Maggie?” he whispered, thrusting into her, his voice raw with passion. “Who do you want? Who do you need? Who do you love?” He pulled away, waiting, demanding her answer, and desperately she clutched at him.

“Answer me, Maggie,” he said, his voice a thin thread. “Who do you love?”

Some small, distant, conscious part of her brain told her that now was the time for her revenge. Now she could wound him as he’d wounded her, years ago. All she had to do was say Mack’s name.

She looked up at him, shivering with desire and frustration. “You, Randall,” she said. “Damn you to hell. You.”

He moved then, thrusting into her with a force that shook the flimsy bed, once, twice, three times, and went rigid in her arms, in the same instant that she shattered around him. Together they were swept away, lost in a maelstrom of love, passion, and despair still tinged with fury. Maggie held on to him, her fingers slippery on his sweat-slick shoulders, burying her face against his neck, hiding, as the last of the tremors shook her body.

He held her for a long, timeless moment. He didn’t say a word, just held her, and she felt his body relax slowly into the stillness of sleep.

Darkness was all around them. The moon had set, and there was a soft wind whispering through the leaves and dancing across her damp skin. The feel of Randall’s strong body pressed up against hers was a mindless comfort that she refused to examine. She was too weary, too replete for second thoughts and recriminations. For now, she would take what he had given and worry about it tomorrow.

She yawned, pressed her body back against him, and rubbed gently like a contented kitten as she sank into the velvet blackness of the summer night. One last thought flitted through her mind before she closed her eyes and gave herself up to much-needed sleep: She could learn to like the darkness.

Randall felt the last bit of tension leave her body. She lay in his arms completely at ease, trusting. He didn’t have to look to know what her face would look like. Wet with her tears, her smooth skin would be relaxed in sleep with that look of surprise still lingering around her bruised mouth. He had managed to surprise her with her response to him. He had known that response was there, waiting for him to tap it. Sooner or later she’d accept it, too.

She wouldn’t like the confession he’d forced from her. She’d hate him for that, she’d hate him for making her want him. He could live with her hatred—he had for years, because he’d always known it was tied up with wanting that she’d only recognize as love. And making her admit it, even if she denied it like crazy tomorrow, was the only way to tie her to him.