Kathleen Creighton - Still Waters

She opened her mouth, then closed it. He saw her throat move. She wouldn't argue with him-she didn't have enough self-confidence for that-but he knew she felt rejected. He hated doing this to her, but the alternative was unthinkable. In a little while, when she'd had a chance to recover her sanity, she'd thank him.

"Come on, I'll take you home," he said, still struggling with his rigid jaws. He glanced down at her feet. "Get your shoes."

She shook her head. "Don't have any. I left them at Jody's. Just take me back there, please. I have to get my car."

"Oh," he said. "Of course."

He drove her back to the Harbors' in silence. The party was still in full swing. He sat in his car and waited while she walked barefooted up the walk. He knew he should have gone with her, but he didn't think he could have faced her at the door, said night to her, without pulling her into his arms. He didn't think he had it in him to let her go twice in one night.

When she had disappeared through the Harbors' front door, he put his car in gear and drove slowly and carefully home. He let himself into his empty house and made straight for the basement. As he crossed the room he was pulling his shirt off over his head, kicking off his shoes, yanking at his belt buckle. By the time he reached the pool he was naked. Without missing a stride he launched himself through the air in a shallow racing dive. His body cut like a knife through the cool, silky blackness.

He thought it probable that anyone watching him enter the water must have heard the hiss of steam…

He swam underwater until his chest began to feel like a bass drum, then surfaced and ploughed up and down the length of the pool until he was thoroughly winded. As he was dragging himself out of the water he thought he heard the chime of his front doorbell.

He froze, listening, while they pool water undulated, glittering with reflected moonlight. It came again, distant but unmistakable.

Damn, he thought. Who the hell could that be?

Muttering oaths under his breath, he found a towel and knotted it carelessly around his hips. Leaving a trail of wet footprints and water droplets, he ran up the stairs and strode to the door. Flung it open. And stood frozen with disbelief.

Maddy stood there, holding her shoes in one hand.

"I can't believe I let you do that," she said, breathing hard through her nose. She'd worked up a good head of steam on the drive there, and she was ready to let it blow.

Zack looked as if he'd run into a wall. He blinked at her and croaked, "What?"

"I can't believe I let you decide for me what I do or do not want to do, what is or is not good for me! And after I'd just got through telling you I wasn't a child!" She glared at him, then looked more closely and felt her anger getting sidetracked.

"You're wet!" she declared, then asked uncertainly, "Were you in the shower?"

"No, I was-"

"Aren't you going to let me come in? I am barefooted, you know." To her bemusement, her voice seemed to have grown husky. It wasn't as if she hadn't seen his body before, but there was something about the towel, and the way he had it knotted, that made her quite certain there was nothing but Zack underneath it.

Impulsively she reached out and brushed glistening drops of water from one smooth pectoral mound. "And you… are getting cold."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are." She brushed the backs of her fingers across a flat nipple and the hard little bump at its center.

He caught her wrist. "Dammit, Maddy. What do you think I am? Do you have any idea how hard it was to say good night to you?"

She gazed steadily at him and said bluntly, "Then why did you?"

"I told you-"

"You told me about holding on to each other… comforting each other. I don't see anything wrong with that." It was too soon to tell him how she really felt about him. She didn't have the courage to say the words. Maybe she never would. Which was maybe why she wanted so desperately to show him…

She took a deep breath, shoring up her crumbling self-confidence. "Zack, I don't want to be alone tonight-not after all we've… all that's been said. I don't think you do either."

"Maddy." He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Zack. Recent behavior to the contrary, I am a grown woman. Give me credit for knowing my own mind. But please." She paused for a small gust of nervous laughter. "If you leave me standing out here on your doorstep much longer, you won't have to say good night, because I'm about to lose my nerve. Zack… tell me honestly: Do you want me to go? If you really want me to go, I'll leave."

She stared at him, feeling her legs weaken, hearing her heartbeat like thunder in her ears. After several eternities he shook his head and muttered thickly, "No. I don't want you to go."

She lifted her hands, then let them drop, and made a frustrated, whimpering sound. Zack held out his hand. She put hers into it and stepped over the threshold. The door's soft closing seemed symbolic. If she'd gone too far this time, there was no going back.

"Maddy…" Her name was a sigh in the darkness. His hand closed on the nape of her neck. "I'm glad you're here."

Tiny electrical currents of anxiety ran around inside her. A hiccup of laughter pushed up through her throat. "Zack, I'm afraid you'll have to tell me… I don't know quite where we go from here. I'm not… used to this sort of thing."

His hand tightened for an instant on her neck. She heard a soft snort of irony. "What makes you think I am?"

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and stared at his dark outline. "You're not?"

The dry rustle of his laughter stirred the darkness. "Driving for Olympic gold doesn't leave much time for… other things. And afterward, I was overwhelmed by all the attention. Carol was the first girl who didn't make me feel like some kind of freak, and we married when I was barely twenty-one. She was two years older. And after she died… Look, do you really want to stand here and discuss my sexual track record?"

Maddy heard the vulnerability vibrating through the exasperation in his voice and let her smile come into hers. "No, I don't." She put out her hand and touched the tense muscles of his belly. Beneath the cool, water-chilled skin she could feel vibrant heat and ripples of inner trembling, like the shivers that were turning her own insides to jelly. Tenderness poured through her like warm rain, nourishing her confidence.

Zack's hand turned upward beneath her hair to cradle her head. He brought his mouth to within a hair's breadth of hers, then stopped there, because her palm was still pressing against his stomach, holding him away. She touched his mouth with her smiling lips and slid her hand across the smooth plane of his abdomen to find the knot that held his towel together. When she loosened it he made a sound and a reflexive movement. The towel slid to the floor.

Against her mouth he whispered, "No fair…"

Maddy answered, "All's fair…"

She caught her breath and held it, standing very still as his free hand slid over her shoulder and down, taking her dress with it. The bodice's stretchy fabric yielded, and Maddy slowly pulled her arm from its sleeve. She felt his cool hand on the heated skin of her rib cage and sucked in air-a tiny, sustaining gasp. Zack's lips touched hers tenderly, reassuringly. His mouth monitored her quick, shallow respirations as his hand followed the neckline of her dress diagonally upward across her body to the other shoulder…and then over it. With slow and gentle pressure he pulled the dress down to her waist, eased it over the swell of her hips, and let it fall, with a rustling sigh, to the floor.

Maddy stood in the puddle of discarded clothing, wearing only the plainest of white nylon panties, touching him only with one palm against his belly. Her head still rested in the support of his hand. Her lips barely brushed his, mingling their warm breaths. Electricity crackled between them; heat and a strange aching pressure filled her body; tremors shook her so that she could barely stand. She spoke his name, and was shocked to hear it emerge as a whimper.

In response, he made a low sound-half hunger, half triumph-and finally brought her mouth to his. Keeping space between their bodies, he claimed her mouth, making it seem almost part of his own. Maddy stood as one drugged, with her hands resting forgotten on his waist, oblivious to everything but the rising flood of sensation in her own body. She'd never felt like this… never imagined it was possible to feel like this. She was drowning… she ached… she wanted… something.

She wanted Zack.

She felt his hands slide up over her ribs, brush the sides of her breasts, then gently cover them. His hands were a comforting warmth, soothing the ache there, at least. She moaned softly and leaned forward. His fingers sought her nipples, circled them with feathering strokes, then rubbed them with more direct, insistent pressure. A bolt of fire shot through her and settled, throbbing, in the lower part of her body. She gasped and tore her mouth from his, arching her head back and gripping his back for support.

Zack made that sound again, that low, primitive growl of need and dominance, and lowered his mouth to her throat. His hands stroked downward, spanning her ribs, her waist, slipping inside her panties to caress the smooth, taut skin of her belly. She moaned again and pushed against his hands, needing him on a level that was purely instinctive. When one hand moved between her thighs to cup the center of that tormenting pressure, she shuddered and cried out, "Zack-please…"

In answer to her plea he jerked her panties over her hips and caught her buttocks in his hands, pressing her hard against him. She gave a little gasp of shock at the unfamiliar shapes and textures of his body, then wrapped her arms around him and strained closer.

As she clung to him, trembling, Zack lifted his head, said thickly, "Time to move, babe," and, in the very best Prince Charming tradition, lifted her into his arms.

Maddy gave a husky gurgle of surprise and pleasure and muttered, "I knew there was a third choice!"

Zack uttered a groggy and bewildered, "What?" Maddy whispered, "Nothing…" and buried her hot face in the curve of his neck.

Zack was every bit as strong as he'd claimed to be. He carried her easily, effortlessly, making her feel both weak and cherished. And when she felt the cool, crisp texture of the sheets against her back, with Zack a real and solid presence above her, she discovered that that could be a devastatingly erotic combination…

She was drugged with desire, her body both heavy and tense with wanting. She was filled with pressure, and at the same time empty. She wanted Zack with an urgency that bordered on madness.

"Maddy, sweetheart…" His hand brushed her forehead, and she nodded, though she didn't know or care what he wanted to tell her. "Maddy… you're not… Are you protected?"

She shook her head frantically, almost angrily. "No. But it's all right-I'm all right… right now." She didn't know whether that was true or not and didn't care. She laced her fingers through his hair and arched her back, silently pleading.

His hand ran down her body, stroking, gentling. She felt the silky caress of damp hair as he lowered his head to her breast, then the rasp of his face on her tender skin. His mouth was a warm, liquid torture.

She shook her head wildly and dug her fingers into his shoulders. She moved her legs and turned her lower body toward him, searching… and still he went on caressing her, his hands leaving trails of fire wherever they touched, following her body's curve over back, bottom, and thighs…

It occurred to her that he was trying to take it easy on her account, and she didn't know how to tell him it wasn't what she wanted. Needed. The pressure and tension in her were intolerable-she was going to explode. Shaking, she cried, "Zack!-"

He lifted his head and looked down at her, and she whispered, "Please…"

His hand slipped under her; her arms circled his neck as he lifted her hard against him. It was instinct that made her shift her legs to make a place for him, and he moved at last into the cradle of her body. His mouth found her throat, and he felt the wild cadence of her pulse as he pressed into her.

She tried to stifle the sharp gasp of shock and pain, but she couldn't. That, and her body's resistance, gave her away. Zack's muscles turned to stone beneath her hands. He lifted his head and said raggedly, "Maddy-dear God-"