Page 30 of If You Were the Only Girl in the World
“I will come back to you,” he said. “I’ll find a way.”
She clutched him close and fought to stop crying. Flinging her tears away, she pulled back and grinned at him. “That was spectacular.”
He arched a brow. “For me, delicious.”
She chuckled. “You are frank.”
“Would you expect me to be less, Doctor?”
“I have never found you to be less, Colonel. You are my perfect man.”
He rolled his eyes and pressed her breasts to his chest. “And you, my perfectly luscious woman.”
She grew serious and caressed his cheek. “I want you to have as much delight as I.”
“You know that’s not possible, my darling. I did not come with any protection. This was the only way.” He took her lips with a swift madness. “I couldn’t walk away from you and I cannot have you, not completely. I won’t have you pay prices for this that you cannot bear.”
At that, he pushed up and away to leave the room. She heard him run water in the bathroom and he returned to nudge her thighs apart and wash her clean. Off he went to the bathroom again and when he returned, he took her in his arms again. “You were a virgin and I am as tickled at that as if I were twenty and a novice myself. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, smiling. “You were so careful of me.”
He pushed aside a curl that hung over her cheek. “I want to be considerate. I hope I was. My darling, I tried but you are—” he lifted her chin, “—you are my dearest woman. Precious to me. There I’ve said it. Hear all that it is. All that it means. I would have you this minute, fully, again, for my own if my life were my own.”
“I hear you. I do.” But her heart melted at the sight of him, so tormented. “I am yours,Nathaniel Langston. I say it as a gift. A hope. A fond desire, my darling man.” She kissed him and pressed herself into him to be absorbed by him.
“Oh, God above, Katrina. I want you still. How could I not? I would not hurt you for the world.”
“Humans mate,” she said with a smile. “We are but that. Take nothing from this night but that I wanted you. Still do. Will for a long, long time.” Anything more would be too much for him to bear. She could see it in the torment in his gaze. Such grand declarations were for those who could see the future. She could glimpse it, but he had not enough faith in anything he’d seen to envision an end to war. It had robbed him of it. And so she steeled herself to his need. She would wait.
She ran her hand down his arm and adopted a winsome air. “I want to offer you tea or cognac. I have bread? Jam?”
He shook his head. “Just let me hold you.”
“Oh, Nate.” She undulated against him and at once he caught her jaw and held her while he kissed her as if the world was afire.
“I want you,” he breathed, and moved against her. She knew at once his renewed desire. “I’ve adored you from that first moment in London. I was shocked then that I had thrown over every good rule not to care for anyone too madly.”
“And I’ve wanted you, surprised I could need a man so dearly. You are the only man in this world I could ever adore.” She caught back tears with her words, but opened herself to him in all the other ways that she might declare she loved him.
He growled and dropped inside her. “My god, you are heaven. Let me love you for all the days we are apart.”
For all the words we will not say.
He began once more the gentle touches and long caresses that drove her to a renewed demand. He nipped her breasts and made her buck. He licked her swollen folds and made her cry. He sent two fingers up inside her to curl and tease and torment and give her a new pulsing fulfillment. Then he sank inside her again and pounded his way to her heart. Inside her, full and insistent, he took her on a flight to an ecstasy as raw as before. This time, he gave a maddening cry before he left her and spilled himself into the sheets.
Soon after, they slept at peace, he with his arms around her, her back to him. Spooned as lovers, they awoke sated with bliss, then mated again.
The next morning, she awoke as bright sun pierced the slit in her blackout drapes. She rolled over to find him, his head propped on his hand, looking at her. In the light of day, she saw on his dear face the desire she’d welcomed in deep shadows all through the night.
“I want you again,” she whispered against his lips, her naked body crushed to his from chest to sex to feet.
“My darling,” he gruffed as he rained kisses to her nipples and her waist and her heavy wet folds, “I will remember your every sigh.”
* * *
Half an hour later, he finished the last of her very good coffee. They stood in her tiny kitchen, she attired only in her lovely skin beneath a brazen silk kimono, he washed and dressed in his uniform.
He fought the greatest battle of his life not to strip the flimsy thing from her and take her back to bed. She was everything he wanted in a lover, a woman, a mate. Cruel to know he’d whisk her to a church this morning if he could have her to wife. But he could not. Oh, he’d get approval from his commander to marry. That was not the issue. No. The greater problem was her job, her position as a foreign national in France. Greater was the threat that the Germans might take Paris. They’d threatened it so often in the past years. As for him, he was frequently at the front lines in line of fire at emergency medical stations, and he could not say he’d not be hit or that he’d outlive this war.
