"Yes, I do know that."
"Your timing could be off."
"My timing is never off"
"This once it could be."
She glared at him, then returned to what he'd said before. "How is it my fault?"
"It must be," he said reasonably. "Every time you're near, I get hard."
"I'm not doing anything. It has to be your fault."
"You're breathing. Evidently that's enough." He collapsed back on the bed and pulled her so she was lying half on him. His free hand smoothed over her slender back, and down to stroke the round curves of her bottom. "Part of it's the way you smell, like honey and cinnamon, all sweet and spicy at the same time."
Her head lifted and she stared at him, startled. "I've always loved the way you smell," she confessed. "Even when I was a little kid. I thought you were the best smell in the world, but I've never been able to exactly describe it."
"So you've had a crush on me since you were little?" he asked, pleased.
To hide her expression, she tucked her head back into its resting place in the hollow of his shoulder, and inhaled the delicious male scent she had just mentioned. "No," she said softly. "It wasn't a crush."
He grunted and settled himself more comfortably, pulling her thigh up to ride across his hips. She felt his penis twitch warningly against the soft inside of her leg, then subside. "I used to worry about you," he murmured, his voice becoming sleepy. "Running around alone in the woods the way you did."
She was silent a moment. "How often did you see me?"
"A couple of times."
"I saw you," she said, gathering her courage.
"In the woods?"
"At the summerhouse. With Lindsey Partain. I watched through the window."
His eyes shot open. "Why, you little sneak!" he said, and swatted her bottom, hard. "I guess you got an eyeful."
"I sure did," she agreed, rubbing her bottom indignantly. She retaliated by twisting her fingers in his chest hair and pulling.
He yelped and rubbed his chest. "Ouch!"
"Revenge is sweet," she said. "And prompt."
"I'll remember that," he said ruefully, squinting down at his chest. "Damn, there's a bald patch there."
"There is not."
She rubbed her cheek against him, her eyes closing as she luxuriated in the feel of him, so warm and solid and vital. She had been in paradise from the moment he carried her to bed. Lying here like this with him, so relaxed, all hostility gone and desire thoroughly sated, was more than she had ever dared hope for in her life. None of their problems were solved and the hostility would undoubtedly return, but for right now, this moment, she was happy.
So happy, in fact, that there was only a little hurt mixed in with the curiosity when she said, "You made love to Lindsey in French."
His eyes had closed drowsily, but they popped open again. "What?"
"I heard you. You made love to her in French. Lots of love words and compliments."
Gray was too experienced not to notice how she felt about that, and immediately discerned the reason. He gave her a disbelieving look, then put his head back on the pillow and shouted with laughter. Faith's lower lip trembled and she tried to turn away, but his arms tightened and he held her right where she was.
"Oh, Jesus," he said, wheezing with the effort it took to control himself. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "You little innocent. I'm fluent in French, but it isn't my first language." It was plain by the mortified expression in those green eyes that she didn't understand, so he explained. "Baby, if I can still think clearly enough to speak French, then I'm not totally involved in what I'm doing. It may sound pretty, but it doesn't mean anything. Men are different from women; the more excited we are, the more like cavemen we sound. I could barely speak English with you, much less French. As I remember, my vocabulary deteriorated to a few short, explicit words, 'fuck' being the most prominent."
To his amazement, she blushed, and he smiled at this further evidence of her charming prudery. "Go to sleep," he said gently. "Lindsey didn't even rate a replay."
God only knew why she found that reassuring, but she did. She went to sleep as easily as a child, exhausted by the events of the morning, and woke to make love again. He was more leisurely this time, and, with a positively wicked gleam in his dark eyes, whispered French love words to her. Then he had to grab her hands to protect his chest hairs, roaring with laughter at her indignation. That was how they passed the afternoon, sleeping, making love, and murmuring drowsily to each other afterward. If the lovemaking was wildly exciting, it was in the pillow talk that a deeper kind of intimacy was forged, a quiet sharing of secrets and thoughts, a linking together of their pasts.
"Tell me about the foster home you were in," he said once, and was relieved when she smiled.
"The Greshams. They gave me the first real home I'd ever known. I still keep in touch with them."
"How did you wind up in a foster home?"
"Pa took off not long after... after that night," she said, faltering a little. "Russ, my oldest brother, wasn't far behind him. Nicky tried to earn enough to feed us, I'll say that for him, but he was relieved when the social services people found us. We were in Beaumont at the time. Jodie was put in one foster home, and Scottie and I in another. It wasn't easy to find someone who would take Scottie, too, but the Greshams agreed if I would take care of him. As if I would leave him behind," she said softly.
"What happened to him?"
"He died the next January. At least he was happy, the last six months of his life. After we moved in, the Greshams were wonderful to him. They bought him toys, played with him. He had so much fun at Christmas, but he faded fast after that. I sat up with him," she said in a quiet voice, her eyes liquid with tears as she stared down the years. "I held his hand while he died." She brushed her hand across her eyes. "I used to wonder if Guy was his father."
He'd never thought of that. He stared at her, disturbed both by the idea that his father might have sired other children, and by the horrifying thought that he might have thrown his little brother out into the dirt.
Faith groped for his hand. "I don't think he was," she said, compelled to comfort him. "Your father wouldn't have left one of his children to live the way we did. If Scottie had been his, he'd have taken care of him. There's no telling who Scottie's daddy was; I doubt it was Pa."
Gray blinked, his own eyes shiny with tears. "Yes," he said hoarsely. "He'd have taken care of him."
Later, he asked, "What happened to the rest of your family?"
"I don't know. I think Jodie's living around Jackson, but I haven't seen her since she turned eighteen. I don't have any idea what happened to Pa and the boys." She carefully didn't mention Renee.
So her family, such as it was, had been shattered by his actions. He held her tight, as if he could shield her from the pain of the past.
"I hated Dad, for a while," he admitted. "God, when I found out he'd left he was our rock, not Mother. It hurt so much, I couldn't stand it."
Faith bit her lip, thinking of what she had to tell him, and soon.
"Monica tried to kill herself," he said abruptly. "She cut her wrists right after I told her Dad was gone. She almost bled to death before I could get her to a hospital. When I came to the shack that night, I'd just left the hospital in Baton Rouge."
He was trying to explain his rage, she realized, why he'd done what he had. She kissed his shoulder, forgiveness in the gesture. Actually, she had forgiven him long ago, understanding the pain and sense of betrayal he must have been feeling.
He stared up at the ceiling fan. "Mother withdrew completely. She stopped talking, even stopped feeding herself. She didn't come out of her room for two years. She's the most self-centered person I've ever known," he said with brutal honesty, "but I don't ever want to see her that way again."
And that was why he was so adamant that neither Monica nor his mother be upset by anything Faith said or did. She had experienced some of his overprotectiveness herself. In some ways, he was like a feudal lord in Prescott, his influence touching almost every aspect of parish life, and like a feudal lord, he took his responsibilities seriously.
He rolled on top of her, entering her with a gentle insistence that nevertheless made her catch her breath, for she was sore from all the other times. He braced himself on his elbows and cradled her head in his hands. "That night is a link between us," he whispered. "Ugly as it was, we share the memories. And it wasn't all ugly. I wanted you that night, Faith." He began moving slowly inside her, his eyes darkening with the slow build of passion. "You were only fourteen, but I wanted you. And when I saw you again, in the motel, it was as if the twelve years apart didn't exist, because I still wanted you."
Then he began to smile. "Do you want me to say it in French?" he asked.
When she woke the next time, she lay quietly and watched him sleeping. His black lashes were dark smudges on his cheekbones, and black beard stubbled his lower jaw. His lips were softly parted as he slept, his powerful body relaxed. The beauty of him shook her. With his long hair tousled around his shoulders, he looked like a pirate taking his rest in a lady's bed after a long day of ship-boardings and sword fights. The tiny diamond in his left ear didn't do anything to detract from the image.
She was too sore to possibly make love again, she thought, but still his body drew her. He was wonderfully made, all long bones and hard muscle. One arm dangled off the side of the bed, but his other hand lay relaxed on his chest. He had big hands, his fingers lean and well shaped, but his little finger was as thick as her thumb. She thought of those hands on her body and shivered with delight.
She leaned over him, delicately inhaling the warm scent of his skin, rising off him on waves of heat. This was Gray. The realization stunned her anew. He was actually here. She could touch him, kiss him, do all the things she had spent most of her life only dreaming about.
His flesh drew her like a lodestone, making her breath come a little faster, and her skin flush. There were no restraints on her natural sensuality now, and the freedom to touch him, and be touched by him, was intoxicating. She laid her hand on his thigh, feeling hard muscle under the roughness of hair, then slipped her fingertips, in a dreamy, sensual sampling, down to where the flesh was smooth and hairless, trailing her fingertips across it. His scrotum hung low, his testicles like two small eggs in their soft sac. She turned her hand and cupped it, feeling it cool and heavy in her palm. He stirred restlessly, his legs falling apart, but he didn't wake. He was a wonderfully male animal, and, for the moment at least, totally hers.
She leaned over him even closer, letting the tips of her breasts drag through the crisp, curly hair on his chest, and sucked in a quick breath at the sharp tingle of sensation that drew her nipples erect.
His eyelids fluttered and opened. "Ummm," he said, a low hum of pleasure, and automatically reached up to circle her with his arms.
She nuzzled her face against his throat and slid all the way onto him, her entire body squirming sinuously as she rubbed herself over him, feline in her enjoyment. "You feel so good," she whispered, nipping his earlobe, then licking it. "All three of the H factors."
"What are the H factors?" he asked. "Or do I want to know?"
"Hot, hard, and hairy."
He chuckled, and stretched languidly beneath her. It was a startling sensation, like being on a lumpy raft tossed about by the ocean. She hung on to his shoulders to keep from falling off.
His hair brushed her fingers, and when he had settled, she thrust her hand into the black mass of it. It was thick and silky, with just a hint of curl. Most women would have killed to have hair like that. "Why do you wear your hair long?" she asked, picking up another strand and pulling it around to tickle his nose with the end of it. "And why the earring? That's pretty dashing for a man who sits on several corporate boards."
He obligingly made a face, then began to laugh. "Promise not to tell?"
"Promise unless you say someone scared you with a picture of Sinead O'Connor; I'd have to tell that."
His white teeth flashed as he gave her a faintly embarrassed grin. "It's almost as bad. I'm afraid of hair clippers." She was so astonished that she slipped off his chest. "Hair clippers?" she echoed. This six foot four, over-two-hundred-pound pirate was afraid of hair clippers?
"I don't like the noise," he explained, turning onto his side and curling one arm under his head. His eyes were smiling. "Gives me the willies. I can remember when I was four or five years old, howling my head off as Dad tried to hold me still for old Herbert Dumas to give me a haircut. Evidently holding me down made Dad feel like a traitor, so he started trying to bribe me to be good, but I just couldn't do it. I'd hear that first bzzz and nearly jump out of my skin. By the time I was ten, we had negotiated our way to scissor cuts. The older I get, the further apart the hair trims are. As for the earring " He laughed out loud. "It's sort of camouflage. Wearing the earring makes it look as if my hair is long on purpose. A style, rather than a phobia."
"Who trims your hair?" she asked, too fascinated to laugh. She was still trying to deal with the image of a grown man avoiding barbershops the way some people avoided the dentist.
"Sometimes I do. Sometimes I'll get it trimmed when I'm in New Orleans. There's a salon there with a standing rule not to turn on any hair clippers while I'm there. Why? Do you want to take over the job?" He laid his hand on the side of her neck, his thumb brushing her earlobe. He was smiling, but she sensed he was serious.
"You'd trust me to cut your hair?"
"Of course. Wouldn't you trust me to cut yours?"
Her reply was swift. "Not in this lifetime. But I'd let you shave my legs."
"It's a deal!" was his reply, just as swift, as he grabbed for her.
It was almost twilight the next time he stirred awake, and groaned as he rubbed his hand over his face. "I'm starving," he announced in a rumbling voice. "Damn, I need to call home and let someone know where I am."
Faith rolled onto her back, cautiously stretching. Though she had spent most of the day in bed, she was as tired as if she had been up all night. Being in bed with Gray Rouiliard was not restful. It was a lot of fun, it was wonderfully exciting, but restful, it wasn't.
Now that he had mentioned it, she realized how hungry she was. The idea of lunch hadn't occurred to either of them, and breakfast had been many hours ago. Food was just what she needed.
He sat up on the side of the bed, giving her a wonderful view of his buttocks. She reached out and stroked them as he picked up the phone, and he tossed a quick grin over his shoulder. "Feel free," he invited, punching in his own number.
His back was just as marvelous as his front, she thought dreamily. Thick with muscle, bisected by the deep groove of his spine, tapering from those wide shoulders down to a taut waist.
"Hi," he said into the phone. "Tell Delfina I won't be home for dinner."
Faith heard the indistinct murmur of a voice, evidently asking where he was, because he calmly replied, "I'm at Faith's house."
The voice was still indistinct, but considerably more agitated. She watched his back muscles tense and immediately felt uncomfortable, as if she was eavesdropping. She had to get away, she thought distractedly. She couldn't bear to listen to him make an excuse for his presence here. She sat up and swung her legs off the bed, wincing at the unexpected stiffness of her back and legs.
"Monie," Gray said patiently, and sighed. "We have to talk. I'll be home in the morning no, not before. In the morning. If anything important comes up, call me here."
Slowly Faith stood up, straightening with difficulty. Every muscle in her body seemed to be protesting. Her legs were ridiculously weak, her thigh muscles trembling. She desperately wanted to leave the room, but nothing was cooperating. She took one hobbling step, wincing with pain, then another.
"I said, we'll talk tomorrow." His voice was firm. He looked over his shoulder at Faith, started to glance away, then his attention focused on her like a laser beam. " 'Bye," he said absently to Monica, hanging up and cutting her off in midprotest. Then he was on his feet, coming around the end of the bed to where Faith wobbled.
"Poor baby," he crooned. "Muscles sore?"
She scowled at him.
"I know just the thing," he promised, stripping the top sheet from the bed and snaking it out.
"So do I. A hot shower."
"Later." He wrapped the sheet around her and picked her up. "Just be quiet and enjoy."
"Enjoy what?"
"Being quiet, what else?" he replied maddeningly, and she couldn't even hit him, because her arms were wrapped up in the sheet.
She found out soon enough. He carried her into the kitchen and carefully laid her on the table, unwrapping the sheet to spread it out beneath her. "I had some great ideas about this table the first time I saw it," he said, with more than a little satisfaction.
Startled, she said, "What are you doing?" She had been naked in his arms for hours, but somehow, lying naked on top of her kitchen table made her feel unbearably exposed, as if she were a human sacrifice lying on a stone altar.
"Massage," he said. "Stay there." He left the room, leaving her lying there. The hard surface was uncomfortable, but the promise of a massage kept her in place. He returned to the kitchen with a bottle of baby oil and a washcloth in his hands. "On your stomach," he ordered. He turned on the hot water in the sink and let it run until steam began to rise, then filled a bowl and dropped the bottle of oil into it.
Stiffly she obeyed. He hadn't turned on any lights and the kitchen was deeply shadowed, twilight only a few moments away. The air conditioning was on, and though she had been perfectly comfortable in the bedroom, the cold of the table seeped through the sheet and chilled her. She shivered, wishing he would hurry.
"Close your eyes and relax," he said quietly. "Go to sleep if you want."
Her sore muscles were adjusting to the hardness of the table, allowing her to relax fractionally. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sounds of what he was doing. She could hear water splashing, and sighed in anticipation of feeling that warm oil being rubbed into her skin.
His voice was low and soothing, little more than a murmur. "I'm going to wash you, so you'll be more comfortable," he said, just before she felt a wet, very warm washcloth between her legs. The heat felt wonderful on her sore, swollen flesh. He was incredibly gentle, but just as thorough as he cleaned away the evidence of his lovemaking. He took the cloth away, and she heard water running again. "It's going to be cold this time," he warned, and the cold pad of the washcloth was pressed between her legs. He repeated the compress several times, soothing the ache. Then he reached for the oil.
He began at her shoulders, his powerful fingers digging deep into her muscles. She automatically tightened in resistance, then relaxed as the strength and tension seemed to flow out of her. The heated oil made his hands slide over her skin, leaving it slick and fragrant. He worked down each arm, even massaging her hands, and between her fingers. And everywhere his hands went, they left behind loosened tendons, limp muscles, and total contentment. Faith purred her pleasure as he returned to her back, starting at her waist and moving his hands upward in long, powerful sweeps that compressed her rib cage and made her groan aloud with each stroke. He relentlessly searched out every stiff muscle, and kneaded it until it was pliant beneath his hands.
Her legs were next. He kneaded her hamstring muscles, her calves, her Achilles tendons, the bottoms of her feet. He rotated her ankles back and forth, pressing his thumbs hard into her arches, and a startlingly sexual pleasure made her toes curl.
"Oh!" she said involuntarily.