Native Affairs Page 11

“Okay,” she said, and he grinned.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said, heading for the door.

  “Drew?” she called, as he reached for the knob.

  He looked at her over his shoulder.

  “What’s jai alai?”

  He laughed.

  “You’ll see,” he answered, and left.

  * * * *

  Watching jai alai proved to be an enlightening experience. A game invented by the Basques of Spain, it resembled handball, except that the players didn’t hit the ball with their hands. They caught it in a mitt called a cesta and then threw it back. Fox’s game was being played in an arena called a fronton and was the subject of mass betting among the spectators. Fox got Cindy a front row seat, and she didn’t care that she couldn’t understand a thing going on in the court. Her eyes glued to Fox, she watched his lightning moves throughout the game, leaping to her feet and screaming with the other fans every time it was clear that he had scored. His team won, and afterward they went out with a group of players and their dates, or wives, until Fox took her aside during a lull in the music.

  “Let’s blow this joint,” he said. “The dining room set we ordered arrived. Do you want to go over to my place and see it?”

  This was clearly a pretext to get her alone, but Cindy wanted that as much as he did. She nodded, and he made their excuses to the group.

  They went to his apartment and looked at the new furniture. They looked at the view. They looked at the newly installed carpeting in the hall. They avoided looking at each other. Finally Fox came and stood next to Cindy at the window. He touched her arm and she jumped.

  “Yeah,” he said huskily. “I know exactly how you feel.”

  Cindy turned to look at him. His hair was still slightly damp from his post game shower, and it clung together at the ends in shiny tufts. He wore a green pullover that heightened the color of his eyes, and his tan deepened the dusky shade of his skin to sepia. He was beautiful, exotic, infinitely desirable to the woman who saw in him the culmination of centuries of struggle and endurance. Maybe he wasn’t perfect, maybe he wasn’t even right for her, as Paula said, but she loved him and that was all she knew.

  Fox reached out and gently tucked her into his arms. “I can’t fight this anymore,” he murmured. “I want us to make love, Cindy. Do you still feel the same?”

  Cindy’s throat tightened with unshed tears, and the right words would not come. He misinterpreted her silence and released her, his face shadowed with a disappointment so deep he was unable to conceal it.

  “No, huh?” he said, making an attempt to dismiss it lightly. “I guess I blew it. You should have told me that it was a one-time-only offer.” He couldn’t quite pull it off, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m sorry,” he added quietly. “I’ll take you home.”

  Cindy stepped forward and slipped her arms around his lean waist. With a sigh of complete surrender, she put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

  He understood and enfolded her once again. “Oh, princess,” he said, in a voice that was not quite steady, “all those years in school and you still don’t know what to say at a moment like this.”

  “I’ve never had a moment like this, Drew,” she whispered. “I want to share it with you. Only with you.”

  “And you will,” he said fiercely, his grip tightening. “After I brought you home the last time you were here, I thought, if I’m not the first some other man will be. The idea drove me crazy. And then when I saw you with that guy in the restaurant…”

  Cindy raised her head to look at him. “You have no rival in Richard, Drew. You have no rival in anyone.” She saw him draw a breath, and then he kissed her so urgently that she had to clutch his arms to keep from rocking back on her heels. He shifted position, clasping her with one arm and slipping the other under her knees. Cindy’s feet left the floor as he picked her up and strode with her into the bedroom.

  Fox set her gently on the bed, kneeling before her on the floor. Cindy had picked out the spread, the curtains and the rug, but everything looked new, as if she were seeing it for the first time. When Fox reached up to undo the buttons of her blouse, she shivered. His hand fell away and he moved to sit next to her.

  “Come here,” he said.

  She relaxed into his arms.

  “Your teeth are practically chattering,” he said into her ear. “It can’t be the climate controlled temperature in this computerized apartment, so it must be me.”

  Cindy managed a small laugh.

  “That’s better,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?”

  “Fox,” she corrected, and he chuckled.

  “Look,” he said, sitting up and cupping her chin in his hand. “Nothing will happen if you change your mind. Just say the word and we’re both out of here.”

  Cindy met his eyes. “I don’t want to go...it’s just that...” She looked away. “Virgins are so much trouble, aren’t they?”

  “You are no trouble at all,” he answered. “Listen to me now. We’ll take it easy and go slow. If at any time you want me to stop, just tell me and I will.”

  “You will?” she said.

  “Of course. I’m not a machine that can’t be stopped once it’s set in motion, and I don’t want to rape you. I want to love you. It won’t be any good for me unless it’s good for you, don’t you understand that?”

  “I understand,” she replied meekly, and he grinned.

  “Now let’s try this again,” he said, and undid her buttons one by one, watching her face. She sat placidly and let him do it. He removed her blouse, and then her light cotton slacks. His eyes moved over her slowly when she was wearing nothing but her lace bra and panties.

  “Your skin is beautiful,” he whispered, bending to run his lips along her bare shoulder. “Like porcelain. I’m glad you don’t have a tan.”

  “I can’t get a good tan,” she answered, her voice wobbling as his tongue probed the hollow of her throat. “I’m so fair I always burn.”

  “You are fair,” he said huskily. “The fairest of them all.” His mouth moved lower and found the swollen nipple that strained against its silken covering. The heat of his lips penetrated the cloth with such intensity that Cindy felt as if she were wearing nothing.

  He sat up abruptly, pulling off his thin knit sweater. The sight of his naked torso brought back vivid recollections of seeing him working at his grandfather’s house. Then he had been too far away for her to appreciate him fully, but now he was close enough for her to see the pulse beating strongly at the base of his throat. She reached out and touched it, feeling the life coursing beneath her fingers, life as precious to her as her own. His skin glowed with a soft patina of health, and the perfectly proportioned muscles it covered contracted as she stroked him. Her fingers trailed over his flat stomach, ribbed with years of conditioning and etched with a random pattern of faint and newly healed scars.

  “Don’t hold back,” he whispered, his lambent eyes resembling those of the sleek animal for which he was named. “You can trust me, princess. Do what you feel. Do what you want.”

  With a strangled sound, half sigh, half moan, Cindy put her arms around him and kissed his chest lingeringly, luxuriously. She rubbed her cheek on the smooth surface of his shoulders and ran her hands down his spare, sculptured back, surrendering herself to the experience.

  “So many people have hurt you,” she murmured, gliding her lips over a thickened weal of pink scar tissue. “So much pain. Drew, how can you bear it?”

  “It’s my life,” he responded softly, holding her to him. “I am Indian. I accept.”

  Cindy pressed her mouth to one of his nipples, sucking gently. He gasped and his hand tightened on the back of her neck. She set her teeth on him, nipping lightly, and he pushed her backward on the bed, looming above her. He twined his fingers with hers and raised her arms above her head.

  “You’re a fast learner, Miss Warren,” he murmured, kissing the corner of he
r mouth.

  “First time lucky,” she answered. “Lucky to be with you.”

  “I hope you’ll always think so, princess,” he said quietly, kissing her nose, then her brow. His lips returned to hers, and he kissed her deeply, moving to lie against her. Cindy explored the textures of his mouth: softness of lips, smooth wetness of tongue and slick hardness of teeth. He slipped his hands under her and unhooked her bra, pulling it off and tossing it on the floor. He pressed his face to her breasts instantly, closing his fingers around one and taking the hard peak of the other into his mouth. He groaned with satisfaction, and Cindy realized, through the drugged haze of her own pleasure, what it had cost him to approach her so cautiously.

  He gave careful attention to her breasts, and then moved lower, kissing her abdomen. Cindy’s shyness receded before a rolling wave of intense feeling that obliterated every other emotion. She lay supine as he caressed her ever more intimately, nudging her toward the fulfillment they both wanted, but sensitive to her least indication of resistance. When he slid his forefinger under the waistband of her pants, she stiffened automatically. He withdrew his hand immediately, shifting to cuddle her, switching moods to become the unthreatening protector once again.

  “Relax,” he murmured soothingly, rocking her to and fro. “There’s no rush. We have all the time in the world.”

  He kissed her gently, and she sighed, unwinding visibly. He waited until he could feel that her desire was stronger than her anxiety and then set her back down, bending to kiss her thighs, the swell of her hips, the soft dimple of her navel. Before she knew what was happening she was lifting herself off the bed to help him strip away her last defense.

  Cindy lay naked, and Fox’s lips parted as he drank in the sight of her, his eyes moving greedily over every lovely inch.

  “I wish you could see how you look to me,” he whispered. “I’ll never, never forget.” In a gesture of homage, almost of worship, he stretched out next to her and pressed his burning cheek to her bare belly. His body radiated heat, and the flush staining his skin made him look more primitive than ever. His eyes were closed, and the curve of his lashes swept his cheeks like tiny black webs. Cindy rested her hand on his head, moving her fingers through the thick mass of his hair. He inhaled sharply, and then exhaled in a long breath. She heard it catch in the middle like a sob.

  He sat up abruptly, blinking rapidly, and stood to remove the rest of his clothes. She looked away until he joined her on the bed. He enfolded her, stroking the satiny slope of her spine. The shock of his nakedness was pleasant, and then intoxicating as his legs moved between hers and she felt the hard strength of his body, the urgency of his desire. He kissed her everywhere, her lips, her breasts, caressing her from her fingers to her toes until she was clutching him, straining against him eagerly. She wound her legs around him, so anxious for union that she unconsciously moved into position.

  He was trembling but still in control. He slid his hands beneath her hips, where she could feel the imprint of each finger like a brand.

  “This may hurt,” he said hoarsely, on fire to bury himself in her, but still trying to shield her from all pain.

  “I don’t care,” she moaned, no longer needing his restraint. She was all woman now, restless, seeking, digging her heels into the back of his legs. Her nails scraped his shoulders, slick with sweat, and she surged against him.

  He entered her partially and she grimaced, but made no sound. He waited, perfectly still.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, fighting off the instinctive urge to continue.

  Cindy opened her eyes to look at him, and in his gaze she saw the love he had never expressed in words.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered and kissed him. He kissed her back eagerly, and on his lips she tasted the salt of his effort to control himself.

  “Then hold me tight,” he said. She did so, and he thrust again. She gasped as he joined with her fully and lowered his weight onto her, embracing her completely.

  “Oh, Drew,” she moaned. “I feel like part of you.” Her head fell back and he settled against her, their bodies interlocked, a perfect fit.

  “You are,” he responded, moving within her so skillfully that she arched her back and her breath hissed between her teeth.

  “Now come with me,” he added.

  “Anywhere,” Cindy answered. “I’ll go with you anywhere.”

  And she did.

  * * * *

  Cindy awoke to the sound of running water. She was alone in the bed. Fox’s scent was everywhere: in the sheets, on her skin, like a warm and musky perfume. She was drunk with it, and him.

  She glanced at the clock. It was just after midnight; he had made love to her for a long time.

  She got up and wrapped the sheet around her, wandering to the bathroom, the source of the noise. Fox was kneeling on the floor next to the tub, sprinkling salts into the rushing water and splashing them around to make suds.

  He looked up and saw her in the doorway. “I’m running this for you,” he announced, holding out his hand.

  Obediently, Cindy padded to his side. He helped her out of the sheet and into the water.

  “Be right back,” he said, as she sank up to her chin in fragrant bubbles. She shrugged philosophically, and stretched, letting the wet heat soak into her bones. Her glance fell on the bottle of salts on the shelf above the tub. It was an expensive brand, and obviously not his. She tried not to think about the woman who had left it behind with him.

  Fox returned with a tumbler half filled with amber liquid. “Brandy,” he said, and handed it to her.

  Cindy accepted it without thought, and then started to smile. The smile soon escalated into laughter. She grabbed a handful of foam and threw it at him. He stared at her.

  “Goose,” she said, and laughed again.

  He put his hands on his hips.

  “I’ve lost my virginity, Drew, not my mind. You’re treating me like a psychiatric case.”

  His face fell, and then his mouth assumed the stubborn line she knew indicated trouble. He didn’t like being laughed at, even by her.

  “Well, I don’t know what to do for you,” he said resentfully.

  She raised her brows and looked him straight in the eye. “Don’t you?” she asked.

  Never a man to miss such a cue, he dashed to the tub and grabbed her, hauling her bodily out of the water. She kicked and flailed her arms, streaming water and suds onto the tile floor. Foam flew in all directions as he carried her, laughing and struggling, to the bed.

  “I’m all wet!” she protested, as he tossed her onto the sheets and stripped off his jeans. “And covered with soapsuds.”

  “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” he said piously, and jumped in with her. She settled down immediately as he pinned her under him, holding her still.

  “What?” he said, teasing. “Nothing to say?”

  “Nope,” she answered, putting her arms around his neck.

  “Okay,” he said, feigning ignorance. “You’re going to have to tell me what you want.”

  She squirmed, not comfortable with putting it into words.

  “You know,” she whispered.

  He shook his head.

  “Mm If ti muh,” she muttered.

  “Can’t hear you,” he said, putting his finger in his ear.

  She narrowed her eyes, fuming.

  “Guess I’ll be going,” he sighed, and levered himself off her. She reached up and yanked him back down to her, where he collapsed, laughing.

  “You’re so funny,” she said disgustedly.

  “Still haven’t heard the magic words,” he said, shrugging, his grin roguish.

  “Make love to me!” she yelled, and his eyes widened.

  “Why didn’t you say so?” he asked, and kissed her.

  She punched his shoulder once, lightly. Then her fingers curved around his arm, and she kissed him back, ravenously.

  “Wow,” he gasped, raising his head. “I’ve created a monster. Are yo
u sure you’re new at this?”

  “You know I am,” she answered, pulling away.

  “Don’t get huffy; I was only kidding,” he said mildly, holding her fast. “I just meant that you’re a quick study, that’s all.”

  “I always catch on to new concepts easily,” she recited stiffly, and then heard what she had said. She giggled and he covered his eyes with his hand.

  “Give me a break,” he moaned.

  “You asked for it,” she reminded him.

  “So I did,” he agreed, nuzzling her neck. He drew her against him, and she fitted herself to his body.

  “Time for a quiz,” he murmured. “We have to test how much you’ve learned in the past few hours.”

  “I’m ready,” she sighed.

  “Now pay attention,” he began, and they took the test together.

  * * * *

  In the morning Fox woke Cindy with a kiss.

  “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, as she yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Looks like I exhausted you.”

  “Are you the handsome prince who breaks the spell?” she asked, regarding him contentedly.

  His face clouded. “I’m no prince, sweetheart. I thought I already made that clear.”

  “Well, handsome, anyway,” she said, smiling, trying to joke him out of his sober reaction.

  He stood up silently and lit a cigarette. She followed after him, reaching for his shirt and slipping it over her head. It drifted to her thighs like a mini-dress.

  “What’s this?” she asked, surveying the food he had put out on the dresser. “What time did you get up? Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Not much,” he replied, exhaling a stream of smoke. “It’s a waste of time.”

  “Did you make any of this?”

  He shook his head. “No chance of that. I got it from the take-out place where I bought the picnic lunches. I’ve been keeping that deli in business for ten years.”

  Cindy bit into half of an English muffin and took a sip of the juice provided in a plastic container. “Don’t you want any?” she asked him.

  He nodded, stubbing out his cigarette and picking up a styrofoam cup of coffee. He regarded her thoughtfully over its rim, his eyes unreadable.