Rio Grande Wedding Part 28

"However, it would not take a trained professional to see that you are dead on your feet and need to get some rest. Those are my orders. Let your wife take you home."

His wife. He had almost forgotten. Wiping a hand over his face, he nodded. "I am sorry."

On the way to the house, Alejandro saw that Molly, too, was exhausted. Blue shadows lay under her eyes. Impulsively, he reached across the seat. "Thank you for staying with me. It was good not to be alone."

She attempted a smile that fell short of her eyes.

Inside, Molly threw her keys on the table and kicked off her shoes, then moved to the

kitchen. Alejandro followed more slowly, his body reminding him forcefully that he was not yet healed, and there was, too, a hollowness in his chest that he couldn't quite pinpoint until he also drank a gla.s.s of water and they were standing side by side, dull-witted and staring sightlessly at the gray shapes of moon-washed lavender beds outside the window.

Suddenly, the full force of it all hit Alejandro, and with a strangled sound, he reached for the counter. "If she had been outside another day," he said roughly, "she would have died."

"Yes," Molly whispered.

Something in her posture, coupled with his own need for human touch, made him reach for her, pull her next to him. And there was not even a hint of resistance. She flowed into his embrace, and put her head on his shoulder with a sigh.

It eased the hollowness in him, and he closed his eyes, inexpressibly weary, drawing comfort from the warmth and softness of her. In an ancient motion of comfort, they rocked ever so slightly.

"I can tell you now that it's over," she said quietly, "and she's out of danger." She paused. "But she almost died tonight. I have never prayed so hard in all my life."

It pierced him, and he rubbed his cheek against her hair. "So didI ."

And there was no more need for words. They simply leaned together, finding support and comfort from the other. Vaguely, he wondered why humans neededthis, needed to feel the breath of another, feel the warmth of blood below flesh, the a.s.surance of life continuing.

The need for sleep edged into his brain, sucked will from his muscles. He raised his head. "Molly, will you let me sleep beside you? Only sleep, I promise." He touched her hair. "I want to hold you."

She simply nodded, took his hand and led him to her bedroom. He took off his s.h.i.+rt, and would have left on his jeans, but she gave him a half smile. "I've already seen everything."

But more modest than he, she took a flannel nights.h.i.+rt into the bathroom and came back,

suddenly shy, he could tell. Carefully, he did not look at her bare legs, and held out a hand. "Only sleep, Saint Molly. We both need to touch."

Without another word of protest, she slid under the covers and across the bed into his arms. Her head fit neatly into his shoulder, and her small hand rested against hischest, and with a sigh, he let sleep come on him.

When Molly awakened, the first thing she became aware of was Alejandro's breath against her neck. There was not a single second of confusion over exactly who it was in the bed with her, the bed she'd only shared with one man her whole life.

And there was no mistaking the feel of his long-fingered hand resting loosely upon her hip. No mistake in the rush of feelings that overtook her when she realized she was lying here with the man who, if she were honest, had occupied center stage of her fantasies for several days now. Against her bare calf, she felt the silky hair of his s.h.i.+n. His soft breath, warm and moist on her neck, made her imagine how close his mouth was to her flesh.

She ached to turn, simply roll over in the nest of blankets, and put her hands on him.

Instead, savoring the moment as it was, she simply lay very still and gloried in the surprise that was Alejandro Sosa. Every facet of him surprised her, but especially this. How many men would have slept beside a woman without trying something? How many men would have been so respectful of her needs and wishes in every little thing?

What an odd freedom he'd given her!

His hand moved on her hip, moved away, and Molly felt him getting up. Bereft, she turned. "I didn't know you were awake."

With his back to her, that long, b.u.t.ter-smooth, golden back, he said, "I have been awake for a long time, Saint Molly. I am going to take a shower and make coffee for you." Still keeping his back to her, he slipped into his jeans, then turned and tugged the cover back over her shoulder. "Sleep a little longer."

She gazed up at him sleepily, hungrily, wis.h.i.+ng for the courage to pull the covers back and invite him to crawl back into bed with her. For a moment, as he stood there, looking down, she thought he was going to do it, even without her invitation. Then he smiled. "Sleep some more," he said, and left her.

When he was safely gone, she pulled a pillow over her head and groaned. If nerves were visible, she would look like a porcupine. Every single one stood on alert, distended, ready. She needed his hands on her. His mouth. His body. It was the only thing that would soothe those nerves back into place.

She pushed the pillow down harder on her face. The smell of him lingered in it, sending the longing up one more notch, making her remember the way his long, copper limbs had looked when she bathed him, when his black hair was drawn back from that elegantly arranged face.

The water came on in the bathroom. Right by her head. On the other side of that wall he was naked, all six feet two inches of muscled flesh. Right now, water was spilling over him,all over him. His neck. His beautiful shoulders. His mouth. His s.e.x.

Her skin was on fire. What was wrong with her? In disgust, she got up, threw on her robe and started unweaving her tangled braid. She was crazy. He was kind and honorable and virtuous. She was a s.e.x-crazed female who couldn't think how to seduce him.

Maybe, she thought, yanking a brush through her hair, he wasn't all that interested.

He'd certainly had plenty of opportunity and it wasn't like men of any culture were slow to pick up on those signals. She'd been blipping red-hot since the first night she'd l.u.s.ted over him in the back room, when he had ostensibly been just a patient she was nursing back to health.

Get over it, she told herself with a glare, and flung open the door, stomping down the hallway in her bare feet, studiously ignoring the sound of the shower behind the bathroom door.

Coffee. She needed coffee, fast. And a good walk, maybe. She scowled, running her tongue over her teeth. And her toothbrush. Ugh.

She started the coffee and leaned against the counter, glaring at the machine while she waited for Alejandro to emerge. When he did, with his hair wet-combed straight back, and his jaw shaved and hisblastedly gorgeous chest bare and damp, she brushed by him abruptly and went into the bathroom. She scrubbed her teeth with the same violence she'd used on her hair, washed her face until it stung.

And she could still feel the brush of his breath on her neck. Could feel the ghostly image of his s.h.i.+n against the back of her leg. Felt the imprint of his hand on her hip.

I have been awake a long time.

"You idiot," she said into the mirror. He was honorable in such an old-world way that a jaded American like Molly had a hard time even recognizing the depth of it when it was right under her nose. She thought of him carefully keeping his body turned away from her, thought of his rush to the shower.

A cold shower?

With a slight sense of giddiness, she took off her robe and her gown. She washed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and arms and private places, then dusted a musky talc.u.m powder over her body.

Then, naked below her loosely tied robe, she went to find him.

He leaned on the kitchen sink, an unusual brooding expression on his face, one he quickly hid when she came into the room. "Ah," he said, smiling. "There you are. Do you wish my good coffee, or this machine kind?"

Molly swallowed. It had been one thing to imagine, in the privacy of the bathroom, seducing him. It was quite another to actually do it.

To her despair, she found she didn't have the courage.

Brightly she said, "Well, the machine kind is already made." She opened a cupboard, embarra.s.singly aware of her nakedness below the robe, and took out two mugs.

He was quiet as she poured first his, then her own. Her skin flushed under his gaze, and she wanted, more than breathing, for him to kiss her. Touch her.

He brushed his hand over her hair, down her back. "You never wear it like this," he said. "Why?"

Molly stirred sugar in her coffee. "Too much trouble." She lifted her head to smile, stupidly and brightly, once again, and halted.

Alejandro,bare to the waist, held his coffee in one hand. In his other, he grasped a fistful of her hair. His eyes were far beyond liquid as he stared down at her they were lava. Molten. For a moment, he only looked at her, then in a gesture both considered and primal, he lifted the small fistful of hair to his face and rubbed it across his mouth.

Her hips went suddenly fluid.

"I am trying, Molly, to be strong." He swallowed and put the cup down on the counter, then took hers and put it down, too. With one hand, he drew a line from her throat down to the opening of her robe, which was lower than she had believed, low enough to reveal the obviously naked swell of a breast at the opening. "I do not think you wish me to be strong any longer."

"No," she whispered.