Treasures Lost, Treasures Found

courage.”
    “Kate, you’re not well.” He said it very slowly, as if he had to explain to them both. “You’ve lost blood, had a fever. It’s taken a lot out of you. It’d be best, I think, if you tried to sleep now.”
    She felt no fever now. She felt cool and light and full of needs. “That day on the beach during the storm, you said I’d come to you.” Kate brought her hands up his back until they reached his shoulders. “Even then I knew you were right. I’m coming to you now. Make love with me, Ky, here, in the bed where you loved me that first time.”
    And the last, he remembered, fighting back a torrent of desire. “You’re not well,” he managed a second time.
    “Well enough to know what I want.” She brushed her lips over his chin where his beard grew rough with neglect. So long…that was all that would come clearly to her. It had been so long. Too long. “Well enough to know what I need. It’s always been you.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, her lips inches from his. “It’s only been you.”
    Perhaps moving away from her was the answer. But some answers were impossible. “Tomorrow you may be sorry.”
    She smiled in her calm, quiet way that always moved him. “Then we’ll have tonight.”
    He couldn’t resist her. The warmth. He didn’t want to hurt her. The softness. The need building inside him threatened to send them both raging even though he knewshe was still weak, still fragile. He remembered how it had been the first time, when she’d been innocent. He’d been so careful, though he had never felt the need to care before, and hadn’t since. Remembering that, he laid her back.
    “We’ll have tonight,” he repeated and touched his lips to hers.
    Sweet, fresh, clean. Those words went through his head, those sensations went through his system as her lips parted for his. So he lingered over her kiss, enjoying with tenderness what he’d once promised himself to take ruthlessly. His mouth caressed, without haste, without pressure. Tasting, just tasting, while the hunger grew.
    Her hands reached for his face, fingers stroking, the rough, the smooth. She could hear her own heart beat in her head, feel the slow, easy pleasure that came in liquid waves. He murmured to her, lovely, quiet words that made her thrill when she felt them formed against her mouth. With his tongue he teased hers in long, lazy sweeps until she felt her mind cloud as it had under the drug. Then when she felt the first twinge of desperation, he kissed her with an absorbed patience that left her weak.
    He felt it—that initial change from equality to submission that had always excited him. The aggression would come later, knocking the breath from him, taking him to the edge. He knew that too. But for the moment, she was soft, yielding.
    He slid his hands over the nightshirt, stroking, lingering. The material between his flesh and hers teased them both.She moved to his rhythm, glorying in the steady loss of control. He took her deeper with a touch, still deeper with a taste. She dove, knowing the full pleasure of ultimate trust. Wherever he took her, she wanted to go.
    With a whispering movement he took his hand over the slender curve of her breast. She was soft, the material smooth, making her hardening nipple a sensuous contrast. He loitered there while her breathing grew unsteady, reveling in the changes of her body. Lingering over each separate button of her nightshirt, Ky unfastened them, then slowly parted the material, as if he were unveiling a priceless treasure.
    He’d never forgotten how lovely she was, how exciting delicacy could be. Now that he had her again, he allowed himself the time to look, to touch carefully, all the while watching the contact of his lean tanned hand against her pale skin. With tenderness he felt seldom and demonstrated rarely, he lowered his mouth, letting his lips follow the progress his fingers had already begun.
    She was coming to life under him. Kate felt her blood begin to boil as though it had lain dormant in her veins for years. She felt her heart begin to thump as though it had been frozen in ice until that moment. She heard her name as only he said it. As only he could.
    Sensations? Could there be so many of them? Could she have known them all once, experienced them all once, then lived without them? A whisper, a sigh, the brush of a fingertip along her skin. The scent of a man touched by the sea, the taste of her lover lingering yet on her