Nora Roberts - Dance Upon the Air

If he'd been struck blind, he would have seen her, skin glowing in delicate light.

She slipped out of her shoes in a kind of graceful dance. Her simple white bra cut low and sweet over the subtle curve of her breasts. She lifted her hand to the center clasp, watched his eyes follow the move, then she deliberately left it fastened and trailed her fingertips down her midriff to the hook of her slacks.

His pulse began to thrum as the fabric slithered over her hips, down her legs. When it pooled at her feet, she stepped out with that same fluid ease.

"Why don't you let me do the rest?"

Her lips curved and she stepped closer, but not close enough. She'd never set out to seduce a man before, and wasn't ready to surrender the power.

She could imagine his hands on her as she ran her own up her body, as his breath rushed out of his lungs.

With that faint and knowing smile on her face, she flicked open her bra, let it slide away. Her breasts already felt full, and tender. She peeled the panties over her hips, stepped free of them. She was already wet.

"I want to take you," she whispered. "Slowly. I want you to take me." She eased onto the bed on hands and knees to straddle him. "Slowly." She seemed to melt over him. "As if there'll never be an end to it."

Her lips were warm and soft on his. Seeking. The taste of him slid through her system like a drug. When he rolled to take more, to deepen it, she went with him. But not in surrender.

She ran her fingertips lightly up and down his back, finding pleasure in the ridge of muscle, the ripple of it as she aroused him.

She let herself float on sensation as he gave her, and took from her, the gradual glide she'd demanded. Candlelight shifted, then the flames ran straight and true as spears and filled the air with fragrance.

They rose together, danced on that scented air. They knelt on the bed, centered on it, torso to torso and mouth to mouth.

If it was a spell, he'd have stayed bound eternally without question, without struggle. Witch or woman, a blend of both, she was his.

He watched the way his hand looked against her skin, dark to light, rough to fragile. The way her breasts could be cupped in his palms, and how the tips hardened under the brush of his thumb.

They touched, and tasted. A brush, a sip, a lazy caress, a long, slow drink.

When at last he slipped inside her, the gentle rise and fall was like waves of silk. Magic shimmered as they watched each other, as for each, for that moment, no one else existed. Beat to beat, with an intimacy that was more than mating, that abounded past needs and outraced passion.

It welled in her heart, overflowed in a spill like gold.

Her lips curved again as he lowered his mouth to hers. Their hands joined, fingers linking as they slid off the world together.

When she lay curled to his side, her palm over the steady beat of his heart, it seemed nothing could touch them. Her haven, she thought, was safe, as they were safe inside it.

All of her fears and worries, that creeping dread, seemed foolish now.

They were simply a man and a woman in love, lying in a warm bed and listening to the last of a storm pass overhead.

"I wonder if I'll ever learn how to manipulate objects."

"Honey, you manipulate just fine," he chuckled.

"No." She gave him a playful slap. "I mean moving things from one point to another. If I could, I'd chant the proper incantation and so on, and we'd have chicken soup in bed."

"It doesn't work like that. Does it?" he asked.

"I bet it does for Mia, if she wants it enough. But for lowly students such as me, it takes getting up, going into the kitchen and doing it all the old-fashioned way."

She turned her head to give his shoulder a pecking kiss, then rolled away.

"Why don't you stay here and I'll get the soup?"

She tossed a look over her shoulder as she walked to the closet for the robe she'd finally gotten around to buying. "Clever of you to suggest that after I was already up."

"I thought so. And since you caught me, I'll throw some clothes on and come out and give you a hand."

"Fine. Bring out that wet heap in the bathroom while you're at it."

Wet heap? It took him a minute to remember, so she was already out of the room when he leaped out of bed and snatched up his sodden pants from the floor. Digging in the pocket, he let out a breath as his fingers closed around a small box.

She had a round loaf of bread on a cutting board and was ladling up wide bowls of soup when he came in. She looked so pretty, so at home in her soft pink robe, he thought, her feet bare, her hair a little mussed.

"Nell, why don't we let that cool a minute?"

"We'll need to. Do you want some wine?"

"In a minute." Odd, he thought he'd be nervous, at least a little. Instead he was rock calm. He laid his hands on her shoulders, turned her, then ran them down to her elbows. "I love you, Nell."

"I-"

It was as far as she got before his lips silenced hers.

"I thought of different ways to do this. Taking you for a drive one night, or a walk on the beach next full moon. Or for a fancy dinner at the hotel. But this is the right way for us, the right place, and the right time."

The little flutter in her stomach was a warning. But she couldn't step back. She couldn't move at all.

"I thought of different ways to ask you, what words might suit best, and how I should say them. But the only ones that come to me right now are I love you, Nell. Marry me."

The breath that she had been holding released as joy and grief waged a helpless war inside her. "Zack. We've been together such a short time."

"We can wait a while to get married if you want, though I don't see the point in it."

"Why can't we just leave things the way they are?"

Of all the reactions he'd been expecting, the hitch of fear in her voice hadn't been among them. "Because we need a place of our own, a life of our own, not pieces of yours and mine."

"Marriage is just a legality. That's all." She turned away, reached blindly into the cupboard for glasses.

"For some people." He said it quietly. "Not for you or me. We're basic, Nell. When basic people fall in love, and mean it, they get married, start a family. I want to share my life with you, make children with you, grow old with you."

Tears threatened. Everything he said was what she wanted, so deep in her heart that it was into her soul. "You're moving too fast."

"I don't think so." He took the box from his pocket. "I bought this today because we've already started our life together, Nell. It's time to see where it takes us."

Her fingers curled into her palms as she looked down. He'd bought her a sapphire, a rich, warm stone set in a simple band of gold. He'd have known she would need warmth and simplicity.

Evan had chosen a diamond, a brilliant square in platinum that had sat on her finger like ice.

"I'm sorry. Zack, I'm so sorry. I can't marry you."

He felt the slice through his heart, but he never flinched as he watched her face. "Do you love me, Nell?"

"Yes."

"Then I deserve to know why you won't make a promise to me, and take one from me."

"You're right." She struggled to steady herself. "I can't marry you, Zack, because I'm already married."

Nothing she could have said would have stunned him more. "Married? You're married! For God's sake, Nell, we've been together for months."

"I know." It wasn't just shock she saw now. It wasn't just anger. He stared at her as if she were a stranger. "I left him, you see. More than a year ago."

He struggled over the first hurdle. The fact that she'd been married and hadn't told him. But he couldn't make it over the second. That she was married still.

"Left him, but didn't divorce him."