Night’s Edge by Barbara Hambly Page A

from hell.”
    Sean’s fingers gripped her chin gently and turned her face to the other side so he could examine her bruises. He kissed the one on her cheek, and then he pulled the cover down to look over her body. She had to stop herself from pulling it right back up. This level of intimacy was great and very exciting, but she sure wasn’t used to it.
    “This is the closest anyone’s been to me in years,” she said. “I haven’t even seen a doctor who looked at this much of me.” Then she told herself to shut up. She was babbling.
    “No one should ever see this much of you,” he said absently. “No one but me.” His fingers, whiter even than her own magnolia skin, brushed a dark bruise on her ribs. “How much are you hurting?”
    “I’m pretty stiff and sore,” she admitted. “I guess my muscles were all tensed up, and then, when I got knocked around…”
    He touched her side gently, his hand very close to her breast. “Will you be able to dance tonight? We need to call Sylvia and cancel if you will not be able. She can get Thompson and Julie to do it.”
    He was still hard, ready for her. She was having a difficult time remembering her sore muscles.
    “I don’t know,” she said, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt.
    “Turn over,” he said, and she obediently rotated. “How’s your back?”
    She moved her shoulders experimentally. “Feels okay,” she said. His fingers traced her spine, and she gasped. His hand rubbed her hip.
    “Don’t think I got bruised there,” she said, smiling into the pillow.
    “What about here?” His hand traveled.
    “There, either.”
    “Here?”
    “Oh, no! Definitely not there!”
    He entered her from behind, holding himself up so his weight wouldn’t press on her tender ribs. “There?” he asked, the mischief in his voice making something in her heart go all soft and mushy.
    “You’d better…massage…that,” she said, ending on a gasp.
    “Like this?”
    “Oh, yes.”
    After they’d basked in the afterglow for a happy thirty minutes, Rue said, “I hate to bring this up, but I’m hungry.”
    Sean, stung by his own negligence, leaped from the bed in one graceful movement. Before Rue knew what was happening, he’d lifted her from the bed, ensconced her in a chair, and clean sheets were on the bed and the old ones stuffed in a hamper. He’d started the shower for her and asked her what kind of food she liked to eat. “Whatever’s in the neighborhood,” she said. “That’s what I love about the city. There’s always food in walking distance.”
    “When you come out of the shower, I’ll be back with food for you,” he promised.
    “You haven’t bought food in years, have you?” she said, and the fact of his age struck her in a way it hadn’t before.
    He shook his head.
    “Will it bother you?”
    “You need it, I’ll provide it,” he said.
    She stared at him, her lips pressed together thoughtfully. He didn’t say this like a wimp who was desperate for a woman. He didn’t say it like a control freakwho wanted to dole out the very air his sweetheart breathed. And he didn’t say it like an aristocrat who was used to having others do his bidding.
    “Okay, then,” she said slowly, still thinking him over. “I’ll just shower.”
    The heat of the water and the minutes of privacy were wonderful. She hadn’t been around people on a one-on-one basis so much for some time, and to be precipitated into such an intimate relationship was quite a shock. An enjoyable one, but still a shock.
    Having clean hair and a clean body did wonders for her spirits, and in the light of Sean’s determination to provide for her, she found a pair of his jeans she could wriggle into. She rolled up the cuffs and found a faded pumpkin-colored T-shirt to wear. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra, but she didn’t know where her bra was. Rue had a terrible conviction that it was still in the studio, which would be a dead giveaway to the other