InSight

her hand and led her willingly to the bedroom, to her unmade bed, where she heard his clothes cascade to the floor, before he took off the remainder of hers.
    If Luke McCallister looked like he made love, he was Adonis and she was Aphrodite. He touched her face as she had touched his, tracing his fingers around her eyes and nose and lips without saying a word. She felt the effect all the way to her sex.
    He paused at the small indentation on her left temple, where the .22 caliber bullet ended one life and began another, and brushed his lips over the spot, the gravity of her tragedy becoming his. Cradling her face, he kissed her, gently teasing his tongue into her mouth, moving his hands from her face into her hair, enveloping her into the cocoon of his warm body.
    Abby’s nerve endings were ultra-sensitive, their responsiveness making up for part of what she’d lost. Luke’s mouth roamed all over her—kissing, biting, sucking—sending erotic messages soaring through her. She thought of the last movement of a symphony, before the clash of the cymbals. But as always, she remained silent, afraid to let emotions define her, the realization lost that her sounds of pleasure would be for her ears only.
    He traveled down her neck to her breasts, drawing one nipple into his mouth, flicking the tip, while he gently rolled the other between his fingers. As he moved down her torso, stroking his tongue over her flat stomach, then lower, she pulsated with anticipation. He skirted around, teasing, licking, until she willed him to enter. And he did, with his tongue, deep, until her hips thrust in rhythm. He continued as long as her orgasm lasted, keeping one hand on her throat. She didn’t know why until she released a cry of delight, and she felt her own vibration against his fingers.
    He came up to meet her. Her sensitive fingertips traveled over the Braille of his body, plotting a course over the hills and valleys of his muscular arms and chest, feeling the landscape of his back and down to the swollen protrusion between his legs, damp with expectation.
    “Jesus, Abby, it’s a little late to ask this, but are you protected?”
    “Don’t worry, I’m safe.”
    Then he entered. And the cymbals clashed, and her heart beat like a kettledrum, and her voice cried out in pleasure as his warmth exploded inside, and she came again.
    Lying side by side, Luke’s arm wrapped around her. He ran his fingers over the lids of her closed eyes, wiping a teardrop that clung to her lashes. He turned her face toward him to see her answer. “Why are you safe?”
    She lay still for a long time before she spoke. “I had my tubes tied.”
    “Why?” he asked, still touching her face.
    She didn’t answer, because this had been her secret for eight years.
    “Why?” he coaxed.
    “Stewart wanted another child, a son. I feared for his genes in my daughter and didn’t want another child to inherit his illness.”
    “Why didn’t you use the pill?”
    “I did, but he found them and destroyed them. He watched my every move as if he had sensors, but I managed to sneak away one day. I couldn’t risk bringing another child into the world. He was very sick, Luke. I didn’t know what else to do.”
    Luke pulled her close and ran his fingers through her hair. “I never want to hurt you.”
    She lifted her head to him. “Loving you could never hurt.”
    Now, lying spoonlike , her head on the firm pillow of his arm, she felt his hand caress her breasts. The act was more soothing than sexual. She wanted to tell him how she felt after finding out Stewart was alive. She wanted to but couldn’t. Her conflict of emotions from the last few days shifted from joy to pain to anxiety, as if one part of her life wouldn’t let the other parts rest.
    In the eight years since she lost her sight, Abby conditioned herself to deal with the present. Yes, Macy crept into her mind; she always would. No normal parent forgets a child who predeceases her. But she had learned to put things in their places, or she could never have gone on.
    Lying next to Luke, she let the affection they shared linger like sweet chocolate on her tongue ― satisfying for the moment, knowing she would crave more. She closed her eyes and fell asleep to the steady rhythm of his breathing.

Chapter Twenty
    Liquid Courage

    T hey woke a few hours later with Daisy nuzzling into Abby’s neck. “Okay, girl.”
    “I’ll let her out,” Luke said.
    Abby dragged herself out of bed. “I’m