Mind Over Matter

playing agent, A.J.?”
    “No.” Her eyes were abruptly serious as she took his face in her hands. “I’m being your friend.”
    She touched him, more deeply, more sweetly, than any of their loving, any of their passion. For a moment he could find nothing to say. “Every time I think I’ve got a track on you, you switch lanes.”
    “Will you read it?”
    He kissed one cheek, then the other, in a gesture he’d seen her use with her mother. It meant affection, devotion. He wondered if she understood. “I guess that means you can get me a copy.”
    “I just happened to have brought one home with me.” With a laugh, she threw her arms around him. “David, you’re going to love it.”
    “I’d rather love you.”
    She stiffened, but only for a heartbeat. Their loving was physical, she reminded herself. Deeply satisfying but only physical. When he spoke of love, it didn’t mean the emotions, but the body. It was all she could expect from him, and all he wanted from her.
    “Then love me now,” she murmured, and found his mouth with hers. “Love me now.”
    She drew him to her, tempting him to take everything at once, quickly, heatedly. But he learned that pleasure taken slowly, given gently, could be so much more gratifying. Because it was still so new, she responded to tenderness with hesitation. Her stomach fluttered when he skimmed her lips with his, offering, promising. She heard her own sigh escape, a soft, giving sound that whispered across his lips. Then he murmured her name, quietly, as if it were the only sound he needed to hear.
    No rush. His needs seemed to meld with her own. No hurry. Content, she let herself enjoy easy kisses that aroused the soul before they tempted the body. Relaxed, she allowed herself to thrill to the light caresses that made her strong enough to accept being weak.
    She wanted to feel him against her without boundaries. With a murmur of approval, she pulled his shirt over his head, then took her hands on a long stroke down his back. There was the strength she’d understood from the beginning. A strength she respected, perhaps even more now that his hands were gentle.
    When had she looked for gentleness? Her mind was already too clouded to know if she ever had. But now that she’d found it, she never wanted to lose it. Or him.
    “I want you, David.” She whispered the words along his cheek as she drew him closer.
    Hearing her say it made his heart pound. He’d heard the words before, but rarely from her and never with such quiet acceptance. He lifted his head to look down at her. “Tell me again.” As he took her chin in his hand, his voice was low and husky with emotion. “Tell me again, when I’m looking at you.”
    “I want you.”
    His mouth crushed down on hers, smothering any more words, any more thoughts. He seemed to need more; she thought she could feel it, though she didn’t know what to give. She offered her mouth, that his might hungrily meet it. She offered her body, that his could greedily take it. But she held back her heart, afraid he would take that, as well, and damage it.
    Clothes were peeled off as patience grew thin. He wanted to feel her against him, all the long length of her. He trembled when he touched her, but he was nearly used to trembling for her now. He ached, as he always ached. Light and subtle alongher skin was the path of scent. He could follow it from her throat, to the hollow of her breasts, to the pulse at the inside of her elbows.
    She shuddered against him. Her body seemed to pulse, then sigh, with each touch, each stroke. He knew where the brush of a fingertip would arouse, or the nip of his teeth would inflame. And she knew his body just as intimately. Her lips would find each point of pleasure; her palms would stroke each flame higher.
    He grew to need. Each time he loved her, he came to need not only what she would give, but what she could. Each time he was more desperate to draw more from her, knowing that if he didn’t find the key, he’d beg. She could, simply because she asked for nothing, bring him to his knees.
    “Tell me what you want,” he demanded as she clung to him.
    “You. I want you.”
    She was hovering above the clouds that shook with lightning and thunder. The air was thick and heavy, the heat swirling. Her body was his; she gave it willingly. But the heart she struggled so hard to defend lost itself to him.
    “David.” All the love, all the emotion she felt, shimmered in his name as she pressed