THE MORNING SIDE OF DAWN Read online

  She moaned his name, her head lolling back as her eyes closed. He stared at her, thinking he'd never seen anything so beautiful, and not quite able to believe she was here, hot and wanting, for him. Then she moved, lowering herself until soft, hot feminine flesh touched and caressed him into a hardness he'd never thought possible. He groaned at the contact; he could no longer doubt that she wanted him, for whatever reason. The aroused slickness of her body made it impossible to deny.

  "Dar," she whispered, in a tone of awe that struck him so deeply he wondered if he would ever be the same.

  And then she began to move, to stroke herself against his taut flesh in a hot erotic caress that nearly drove him out of his mind. She moved slowly, hesitantly, as if she couldn't help herself, and that evidence of pure need did as much to him as the touch itself. He forgot everything, forgot all the reasons this was crazy, forgot all his misgivings, his doubts. Nothing mattered except that this was Cassie, and right now she wanted him.

  He groaned, low and deep in his chest, and his eyes closed as his head dug back into the pillow. Bracing himself with his longer leg, he pushed upward, increasing the friction between them, and he heard Cassie moan.

  "Dar," she panted out, "please, I want—"

  "Ah, Cassie, so do I."

  Did he want! He'd never, ever wanted like this. He hadn't known he was capable of wanting like this, even before, when youthful hormones had been running high and the handsome sports star had been able to pick and choose the lucky recipient of his attentions.

  The moment she reached for him, the moment she began to guide his eager flesh into that searing, slick heat, he knew he was lost. He could already feel it boiling up inside him, hot and fierce and unstoppable. The sound she made, a shocked little cry of pleasure as she took him deep and hard and home, put the seal on it; the thought that she found such pleasure just from taking him inside her ripped away the last shreds of his control.

  She began to move, to rock on him, her body squeezing him in the sweetest of caresses, and he couldn't help the guttural moan that broke from him. Sweat beaded up on his body, and he could hear himself breathing, in rapid, gulping pants. Once, twice, three times she moved, until his entire world narrowed to the beauty of her as she loomed above him and the exquisite feel of being deep inside her.

  "Ahhh!" he cried out sharply. "Cassie … Cassieee… I can't … stop!"

  His body bowed, his hands tightened on her hips, grinding her tightly against him as he gave up the battle to wait. The suppressed longings and needs of years erupted through him, and he poured himself into her welcoming body with such shuddering force he could have sworn he felt it all the way to his missing toes.

  Gasping for breath, he sagged beneath her. Everything seemed to be spinning, and he closed his eyes against the light-headed feeling. He felt more than drained, he felt hollow, scoured out, empty.

  And then Cassie moved, lowering herself to lie atop him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hugging him fiercely. She didn't speak, simply held him. And when her left leg tangled with the stump of his right, she simply bent it until their knees were interlaced. And suddenly he didn't feel empty anymore.

  "I'm sorry," he finally said. "I couldn't … hold back."

  He didn't open his eyes; he couldn't look at her, knowing she'd gotten little out of this coupling, not when he doubted that he'd lasted three minutes, let alone five.

  "I'm glad," she said.

  At that he opened his eyes. "Glad? That I couldn't even wait long enough for you to get anything out of this?"

  "Oh, I got something," she said, her voice low and deliciously throaty. She was smiling at him, a smile unlike any he'd ever seen before. "More than you would probably believe. Besides … now we get to try again."

  He blinked. "We do?"

  "You promised."

  "I did?"

  "Well, you didn't disagree, anyway," she said with a teasing look.

  She crossed her arms over his chest and lifted herself up. The movement rubbed her breasts over his skin, and he felt a quiver in flesh he thought exhausted, flesh still buried inside her. She smiled again, and shifted her hips just slightly, as if to let him know she'd felt that little response, too.

  "That's what I thought," she murmured. "We've both been saving up for a long time. With any luck at all, this could be a very long night."

  Dar smothered a groan at her words and the images they had evoked, images culled from long hours of sleepless nights and erotic dreams of the woman sprawled across him, the woman who seemed to have no intention of leaving.

  She moved her right hand then, trailing it over his chest and down his side to rest at his hip.

  "Good thing you're in such great shape, Cordell," she said, sliding that hand beneath him to cup and massage the muscled curve of his buttock. At the same moment she moved her head, flicking her tongue over his left nipple.

  Heat flared anew, racing along pathways long ignored, rousing flesh that was proving much quicker to recover than he would have expected. There was something, he thought, to her theory about saving up. Already he was feeling it, that urgency, the building of that pulsing ache.

  Then she duplicated her action with her left hand, sliding it down his body and then beneath him, and he found himself shifting his hips to ease her way, until both her hands were beneath his buttocks and holding him tightly to her in a way he would never have thought could be so arousing. She moved her teasing mouth to his right nipple, this time flicking the disk of flesh with her tongue, then nipping it ever so gently with her teeth.

  His body was responding as if those explosive moments had never happened. He was helpless beneath the onslaught of sensations she was causing, and he didn't care. He who thought helplessness the worst form of hell was lying here open and vulnerable to what she was doing to him, and he didn't care. In fact he was savoring it, wishing she would never stop, that it could go on forever, this eager yet tender loving that was so different from anything he'd ever experienced.

  She raised herself up then, the movement driving his renewed arousal deeper into her. She shivered and shifted her knees farther apart, to come down on him even harder. Her nipples were still taut, and bright coral now, and he couldn't resist raising his hands to cup and lift her breasts. The soft curves nestled into his palms as if made for him, and the realization that at even this slight touch her nipples had tightened even more completed the job her hands and tongue had begun; he swelled to full hardness inside her once more.

  The moment she felt it she began to move, to rock on him once more, each flex of her body a deep, hot caress of his. This time he savored it, all of it. The sight of her, her eyes closed as her head lolled back, the long slender line of her neck, bared now by the tousled short hair. The incredibly arousing sight of her breasts in his hands, her nipples between his fingers now, drawing up into even harder nubs as he gently plucked them, drawing tiny cries of pleasure from her.

  He lowered his gaze, for the first time really seeing her body joined to his, the tangling of dark curls with dark curls as she rode him so sweetly. Reaction, swift and rippling, rolled through him. He felt the muscles of his belly cramp, heard himself groan, this time a low, primitive sound he couldn't halt.

  He was too close, again, he thought. But this time he swore he wouldn't go flying alone. He slid his hands down her body, one stopping on her hip, to hold her even tighter against him. With the other he probed, fingers parting that thicket of dark curls until he reached the slick, wet smoothness he sought. He shuddered when his fingers brushed his own distended flesh where it entered her body, and he could feel her incredible heat enveloping him. He fought back the scorching tide that threatened to erupt anew, and continued to search, to probe, to stroke.

  He found the tiny little knot of nerves, and Cassie gasped and suddenly went still. He caressed it slowly, and she moaned. He moved a little faster, and she cried out, arching herself to him, spreading her legs wider, as if begging him not to stop; he didn't,
he couldn't.

  His heart began to slam in his chest, and he had a brief moment to wonder at the fierceness of his reaction to her passionate response. But then she began to move on him again, and it was all he could do to think enough to maintain the stroking caress of her body, while reveling in what her body was in turn doing to his. It had been a very long time, and yes, he was very, very rusty, but he was also determined; he increased the pressure of his fingers slightly, circling now, until she cried out again.

  "Dar! Oh, yes…"

  His name had never sounded like that, never echoed in his ears like a benediction, not in a woman's voice, never in a voice that meant as much as Cassie's.

  And then, incredibly, he felt it, a surging convulsion of her deep inner muscles, tightening around him. He heard her cry out, heard the wonder in her voice. It was no less than what he was feeling. The fierce clenching of her body around his made him doubt everything he'd ever thought he knew, made him wonder if anything that had gone before had ever been real. He'd never known it was possible to feel so intensely, to be so unutterably certain of a woman's response. Whatever lingering doubts he might have had, Cassie's sweet giving wiped away now; she'd proven the genuineness of her need. No matter what might happen tomorrow, for now, for tonight, she was his.

  And with that thought he surrendered to the demand of her coaxing flesh and exploded into the depths of her, a harsh cry of his own blending with her lingering moans of pleasure.

  * * *

  Cassie snuggled up to the warmth, drawn to it even though she wasn't particularly cold. It just felt good, that heat, that sense of closeness, that—

  Closeness. Her eyes snapped open. The room was light, light enough to tell her it was well after dawn and into morning. And to show her that the heat she was snuggled up to was Dar.

  Images came flooding back, memories of a night filled with a kind of passion she'd only dreamed existed. They had gotten little sleep—just the fact that Dar was still asleep, long after his usual rising time, was proof of that—and had gone a long way toward expending the desires they'd been saving up for years. And whatever doubts Dar might have had about her attraction to him, or about his ability in bed, by the time they had sleepily taken each other one last time, she was confident they had been vanquished.

  Slowly, she sat up and looked at him. He was sprawled on his stomach, the sheet pulled to his waist, baring the powerfully muscled back that would no doubt soon be shifting from patches of raw redness to some rather colorful bruises. His dark hair was tousled—mostly from her fingers, she remembered with a little thrill—and fell over his forehead. The dark semicircles of his lowered lashes lay soft against his upper cheek, one set almost brushing the scrape that would also bruise soon, she feared. He was so beautiful to her it seemed almost immaterial that the legs beneath the sheet stopped a little short of most people's. In relaxed sleep even his mouth was a little softer, minus the tension that so often shaped it when he was awake.

  She shivered at the memory of things that mouth had done to her last night. That mouth, and his hands, and, strangely, most of all his eyes, eyes that had heated with wonder and need and passion as he had gone from a tentative touching to passionate, heated lovemaking, taking charge of her pleasure and his own in a way that had left her drained and more pleasantly exhausted than she'd ever been in her life.

  But despite all those vivid, erotic memories, of her responses and his own to this wondrous thing they'd discovered existed between them, the most precious of all was the simple fact that he had trusted her. She sensed she could only begin to guess what a tremendous step that had been for him, to bare his damaged body to her and trust her not to recoil, as others had.

  Not that her heart hadn't ached for him. She'd felt him tense the first time she'd inadvertently brushed the stump of his right leg, and she'd redoubled her efforts to make certain he sensed no hesitancy or doubt in her. And he'd responded to her every kiss, her every caress, with more fervency than she'd ever dared hope for. Even that first moment of climax, though she'd been left aroused and yearning, had been extraordinary. Simply watching his face go taut with pleasure, hearing him cry out as she felt him explode within her, had been nothing short of miraculous. And later, when he showed her just how much he had learned from her responses by driving her to a fever pitch, until she screamed his name as he buried himself in her body, she had gotten her own miracle, exploding herself the moment he was fully inside her.

  She sat there in his bed, watching him sleep, savoring the memories, reveling in the wonder of it. She'd known there was a man like this behind that cool, aloof exterior; she'd just known it. It must have been what had drawn her to him at Sean's wedding. Even little Katie had sensed there was a gentle man capable of love inside the gruff shell Dar Cordell presented to the world. He'd just never learned how, never had the chance to show it. But she'd make sure he—

  He stirred, murmuring something unintelligible, interrupting her thoughts. He stirred again, then rolled over onto his back. His lashes fluttered, then lifted. She saw the surprise in his dark eyes as he focused on her; and then, as she saw his eyes widen, she could sense the memories flooding back to him as they had to her. She couldn't help smiling.

  "Good morning," she said softly.

  For a moment, he smiled back, a soft, sleepy, sexy smile that made her stomach turn over. But then, with wrenching suddenness, the smile faded. After a moment he propped himself up with his elbows behind him and looked at her warily.

  "Hi," he finally muttered. A faint wash of color tinged his cheekbones as he looked at her. "You're … not dressed."

  She glanced downward over her nakedness, then, pointedly, to where the sheet had slipped halfway down his hips, revealing his lower belly and the edge of the dark tangle of curls that she'd become so familiar with last night.

  "Neither are you," she quipped. She'd expected this to be a little awkward, but something about the way he grabbed at the sheet to cover himself and then looked at her was making her nervous.

  "You're still here," he said, rather unnecessarily.

  "Where else would I be?" she asked, her brows furrowing.

  He shrugged, nodding in the general direction of the main room of the warehouse. "Out there, having second thoughts. Packing. Or already on the road, wondering what the hell you did this for."

  Cassie drew back a little, stung. Was he having second thoughts himself? Was that what had made him say that?

  "Why do you think I did it? Although, as I recall, both of us did our share of doing."

  He looked away, but not before Cassie saw memory spark in his eyes again. He remembered as vividly as she did exactly what both of them had done last night. So what was this? she wondered. The worst kind of morning after? Was he now afraid of what had happened between them? Afraid and wishing he'd never let her past his defenses?

  "Why?" he muttered, still not meeting her eyes. "I don't know. Charity, maybe?"

  Cassie's breath caught in her throat at the insult. She barely resisted the urge to slap him. Only her last thought, that he was afraid and falling back on offense as the best defense, stopped her. For a long, silent moment she studied him, wondering what had ever possessed her to think anything with Dar Cordell would ever be easy.

  At last she slid to the edge of the bed and stood up. She saw his eyes flick over her, and for once in her life was truly grateful for the body the world accepted as beautiful; if he was going to throw her away, then she wanted him to do it knowing full well what he was doing.

  She let him look for a moment, despite the knot that was growing in her stomach. Then, with a quick sweep of her arm, she grabbed the sheet from the bed and yanked it up to wrap around her body, leaving him naked and exposed on the bed. He jumped at her sudden movement, but once it was done he didn't cringe away or try to hide himself; she had to give him that.

  "You know, Cordell," she said, "your problem has nothing to do with your body. It's your head that's all screwed up. Your attitude. I
thought you'd gotten rid of that chip on your shoulder, but you haven't. You've taken something beautiful and turned it ugly because you're afraid. Because you never have known how to care, have you? No one ever taught you, and you never bothered to learn yourself. So you just lock yourself away, inside yourself as much as inside this warehouse, never letting the world in."

  He just stared at her, taking it, not reacting. She bent to scoop up her clothes, which had wound up on the floor at the foot of the bed. She straightened, folding them over one arm. He was still staring at her. She returned the favor, looking his naked body up and down once more. Then she gestured at his stumps.

  "And you know what? You would have done the same thing if you were whole. You still would have messed this up." She turned to go, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder at him. "I was wrong. You are still the same guy who was in that video. Because I'll bet you were just as big a jerk before you lost your legs as you are now."

  She walked out of the room then, the sheet wrapped tightly around her. She made it to the bathroom before she started to cry.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  «^»

  "Where's Cassie?"

  The wrench slipped and took a layer of skin off the knuckles of Dar's left hand. He swore, sharply and colorfully; he'd lost enough skin in the past two days. Including the wide strip Cassie had flayed off him this morning.

  "I don't know," he said, not looking at Sean.

  There was a pause before Sean said, his tone carefully neutral, "She's hiding out here because some guy is stalking her, but you don't know where she is?"

  "She went for a walk, all right?" Dar snapped. "She's not a prisoner."