Eye of the Storm by Renee Simons Page B

feeling cut through him, like lightning, piercing and searing as it went. Zan broke the silence with a soft moan, arched into his touch and finally released his hand.
    He watched her face as he whispered, "That 'ugly thing' has a strangely erotic effect, doesn't it?"
    "I wonder why," she said as she watched him with a sultry, dark-eyed intensity.
    "Because nothing about you is repellant to me, not even that scar, and you're no less beautiful or desirable because of it."
    "A little like my being here with you even. . . ." As if afraid to spoil the moment, she went no further.
    ". . . even though you have doubts about me?"
    "Does that make you angry?"
    Stormwalker slipped one leg between hers and let his hand travel lightly down her body once again to rest quietly but temptingly on the mound of curls brushing his thigh.
      "Red, honey," he crooned against the corner of her mouth, " there are too many other feelings in this body to have any room left for anger."
      "Tell me."
    He found the words difficult to frame, and he knew that once he said them, he would be forever vulnerable to her, but he needed to say them and she needed to hear.
    "Fear and gratitude, pleasure and pain, wanting and needing and something I'm afraid to name," he whispered, "that I've never felt before with any woman I've known . . . not even my wife."
    She touched his cheek. "Try?"
    He covered her hand with his and looked into her dark eyes, imagining he could see acceptance, a soft welcome, a need to share what he felt. "Being with you feels like . . . coming home."
      As if his words had touched some dark, previously untouchable place, silent tears began to flow. He kissed them away, murmuring soft words of comfort.
    She opened herself to him and joined with him, receiving the sensual pleasure and the caring that lay within every kiss, every caress, every softly whispered word. In the sharing, she returned warmth and renewal and a gentle passion he would cherish whether or not the future held any hope for them. Or him.

     

    *****

     
    Zan woke to the feel of Stormwalker's arms around her, his breath feathery soft on the side of her neck, his strong body nested against hers like one spoon against another. Rather than wake him, she lay quietly, remembering how they'd passed the night, or a good part of it. She felt again the heat, the urgency, the passion they'd aroused in each other and then satisfied. Her nipples hardened and moisture started in that place he had so recently filled.
    Chagrined and more than a little afraid of her response to the memory of their lovemaking, she shifted out of his arms. They'd made no commitment to each other. If she slipped away now she wouldn't have to see regret in his eyes that they'd come together at all.
    "Where're you going?" he asked in a sleep-roughened whisper.
    "Back to my place. I have to check something in the computer." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "Come over for coffee, if you care to."
    His lips touched the back of her hand. "I have to work this morning. Meet me at the plant," he said and drifted off.
    She found her clothes and dressed as quietly as she could before climbing down the ladder. In the doorway of the barn she paused to let her eyes adjust to the bright light of early morning. Anyone in view of her would have fun speculating about what she was doing here.
    "Too late to worry about appearances," she muttered and walked out into the street.
    Back at the camper, she started the coffee maker and booted up the computer. As she'd awakened, a memory had flashed through her mind that had caused her gut to flip-flop and to keep on flip-flopping until nausea set in.
    She loaded the diskette containing trial transcripts and scrolled to an account of Stormwalker's alleged betrayal of the Agency. There, just as she'd remembered it, was a piece of information crucial to the case against him.
    She went over the data twice, to be sure she understood it, then stared at the screen as the printer produced