“Yeah?”
She nodded. “I’d just hack at it with scissors when it got in my way. Misty—the hairdresser Mel took me to see?—took one look at it that first time and just rolled her eyes.”
He chuckled. “I guess she didn’t appreciate how much I wanted to run my hands through it,” he said, combing out the tangles of her new haircut with his fingers, until the soft feathers were in place once more. “I do like your new haircut, though,” he added.
She managed a small smile. “I do too. And I think Granny was relieved to see it.”
Mark laughed and pulled her to him once more.
“We’re gonna take it slow this time, darlin’,” he said, lightly brushing his lips over her forehead and along her jaw. “Anything I do that makes you uncomfortable, you tell me. Hear?”
“All right,” she said, though the touch of his lips was doing those magical things to her insides again.
This time, he shed his own sweater and t-shirt before reaching for her robe and nightgown. She marveled at his musculature, running her fingers over his shoulders and down his arms. His chest was dark with thick, curly hair, which arrowed down and disappeared into his jeans. She barely noticed when her robe and nightgown slid to the floor, leaving her completely naked once again. She was too busy trying to unbutton his jeans. Then the zipper nearly defeated her, but he took over, slipping off his jeans, leaving only his shorts behind as he gently pushed her back onto the bed.
Addy couldn’t take her eyes off of him. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured.
His laugh sounded pained. “That’s supposed to be my line, darlin’.”
But she shook her head as she pushed him onto his back and straddled his thighs. She ran her hands over his body like a blind woman, the sensitive tips of her fingers exploring every inch of him. When she got to the waistband of his shorts, he lifted her off of him, reversing their positions.
“My turn, darlin’.”
“Let me see you, first,” she said, staying his hands.
He hesitated, then lifted himself far enough to push his shorts down and away. Her eyes widened when she saw him, and she started to tremble.
“I know how this is supposed to work,” she whispered. “I mean, I do live on a farm, but…”
“We’ll do this a little different,” he told her with a chuckle, nudging her legs apart.
She opened for him, and when he reached down to touch her intimately, she gasped when she felt a gush of wetness between her thighs.
“Mark!”
“It’s okay, Addy. It’s just your body tellin’ me you’re ready for me.”
When her eyes met his in confusion, he smiled. “Trust me, darlin’.”
“Okay,” she whispered, suddenly certain that she could and did.
She felt that huge part of him at her opening and sucked in her breath as she felt him come into her, slowly at first, then suddenly filling her completely. There might have been pain, but it was gone in another moment as he began to rock inside her in an age-old rhythm. When his lips and hands found her breasts, she cried out again. But just as she thought she could stand no more, her whole body tightened, and this time his voice joined hers as their world shattered.
19
Addy lay curled against Mark, listening to his heartbeat slow to match hers. She had never imagined anything like what they had just shared together.
“Are you all right, darlin’?” he asked after a time.
She smiled to hear the concern in his voice. “I’m fine. Actually, I may be a whole lot better than fine.”
She heard the deep rumble in his chest and remembered him as a bear and the pleasure of wrestling with him in the meadow.
“I need to tell you something,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I almost Shifted tonight,” she confessed. “When I panicked, just before we…”
She broke off. It was one thing to do what they had and quite another to talk about it.
“But you didn’t,” he finally said. “You stayed as yourself. You didn’t Shift, when I scared you.”
She pushed herself up and looked him in the eye. “You didn’t exactly scare me!”
When he only raised his eyebrows in that way of his, she blushed.
“Well, all right, you did—for just a minute, though.”
He reached up to push her loose hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trail down past her ear, along her neck and to her throat.
“I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am that I did.”
She reached out to close his lips with her finger tips.
“It doesn’t matter, now, Mark. Really it doesn’t. I didn’t know what I was gettin’ into. Well, not exactly, anyway. But you made it good for me. You made it right. And I love you for it.
He smiled. “Do you?”
She nodded. “Yes. I guess I love you for a lot of reasons, but that one for sure.”