"Greta," he crooned softly. "You did not call me yesterday. Nor today. I have been waiting, but could wait no longer. I thought Matthew may have come home early, so I sat nearby and watched for a while. I know he is not here. Let me in, Greta."

The thought of Jean-Pierre sitting in his bedroom, or just outside the gate, watching for signs of Matthew being home made her feel suddenly roguish and s.e.xy. Desired.

"Jean-Pierre, it's been so awful staying here. I wanted to come see you, but I could not bring myself to do it."

"I am here. I brought you something. Now let me in," he commanded, his voice much louder.

"Yes," she said and unlatched the door.

He stepped inside the room and gripped her shoulders. Night air and animal and maleness flooded her senses. She gasped all of it in, then her breath was cut off by his lips. He kissed her, hard, and snapped his head away. "Matthew. When?"

"He won't be back until tomorrow."

"Good."

"Yes." She looked past his shoulder, outside the doors, and began to cry softly.

He frowned and pulled her down beside him on the bed. "Greta, what is it?" He wiped her cheeks with his thumbs.

"I've been so upset and confused by everything. This is so hard for me." She closed her eyes and dropped her forehead against his shoulder. Her mind flashed with images of the first time he had kissed her, in the horse stall.

"You mustn't cry." He kissed her again. His hands touched just inside her soft robe. Lightly, down to her belly. Gooseflesh p.r.i.c.kled her forearms, spread to her stomach, her loins. Her nipples felt pinched and hard, needed pinching.

"Wait," she said, squeezing his strong forearms. "I've been in bed for two days. I really must take a shower."

"Mmm," he hummed. "Never mind that." In one quick motion he slid the robe from her shoulders and undid the belt, parting the garment at her waist. Pushing her down, he crouched over her, facing her, supporting his weight on either side with his knees.

His jeans-clad thighs rubbed lightly against her own. She had imagined and wanted this moment for so long. However she could not be with him here like this until she had a quick shower.

"Please," she said, squirming from beneath him. "I'll just be a few minutes," she said, and darted from his lunging grasp to the bathroom.

There, she looked at herself in the mirror. With horror, she remembered that her hands were ungloved. She let her eyes go first to her right hand, then the left. She forced her vision to stay there until she could breathe again. Yes, she would have to tell him. And show him.

A few minutes later she emerged from the bathroom wearing a towel around her midsection. Jean-Pierre was lying on the bed propped on one elbow, naked. Timidly, she proceeded to the bedside. He raised himself to his knees and placed his hands on her hips.

Before she could take in the shape and size of his nakedness, he had her on the bed in one quick movement, the towel discarded with a flick of his wrist.

He breathed a l.u.s.ty sigh and lowered his lips to hers. She felt his hard, blazing length along her entire body. She wanted to look at him next to her like this, but before she could take in their togetherness, he kissed her again, gently this time, teasingly. She expected that in any second he would enter her, have her.

But instead he gently clasped her hands in his own. "Your hands, Greta, this is the first time I have felt them."

"Feel them. Both of them. Go on."

It took him a moment to register. "Oh, Greta. Is this why you have been afraid?"

She began to cry again. "It's so horrible. I was once a hand model, and then that happened. And everything ended."

He said nothing. He kissed her, told her softly to cry and let it out. "What happened, Greta? You must tell me. There is nothing bad about it to me."

When she stopped crying she wiped her eyes and sat up, allowing his hands to remain on hers through the entire story, which she recounted in a quiet monotone.

"We were on a yacht anch.o.r.ed in a windy lagoon, celebrating a new soda of Matthew's that was a huge success. I'd had a lot to drink. At one point I was standing off to the side all by myself.

I was poking my ring finger in the little hole of an empty can, thinking about how Matthew and I were going to start a family.

Apparently we were getting ready to sail some more. It was dark.

I remember they were taking Matthew's picture just a few feet away. The flashes popped and at the same time a strong wind rocked the boat. I lost my balance and reached out to grab the rail but I was blinded by flashes and couldn't see. My finger was still in the can and I had no time to shake it off before grabbing on to stop myself from falling. I felt rope and metal and pain all at once. I had grabbed between the support line and the rail, and the can was caught between that and my hand. I think that was when I started to scream. I was leaning forward trying to free my hand when the boat lurched. I fell overboard.

My finger didn't come with me. Matthew was standing at the rail of the boat, screaming hysterically. Someone jumped in. It was dark, but I saw the blood then, and when I reached for the life preserver I saw what had happened. The little white nub of bone.

The rest of it gone. I pa.s.sed out and woke up in the hospital.

They said that the can with my finger and my wedding band had fallen overboard with me. They never found it. It's still out there in the ocean, lost, Matthew and I with it."

They were silent for a very long time. She did not cry anymore, she only lay there with her head turned on the pillow, eyes closed, waiting for him to let go of her hand. But he did not let go. Instead he kissed her right hand, then the left one, each knuckle. She was frozen in place as he did this, as he kissed between her pinkie and the middle finger, at the s.p.a.ce where her ring finger once was. She gasped when she felt his tongue there.

Holding the hand, he leisurely traced along her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her own fingertips. He trailed their course with his lips and tongue, taking tiny nips at one breast, then the other. He squatted over her, his knees on either side. His ponytail fell forward into her face and she let some of the gathered hair enter her mouth as he sucked her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with growing urgency. Her hips responded. She lifted herself against him, pressed his head harder into her chest. He held both of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, licked beneath them. She felt a chilling tingle along the back of her neck each time the fine hairs of his b.u.t.tocks brushed against her thighs. Gripping him beneath his armpits, she squeezed his strong chest between her hands and pulled him fully down onto her with all of her might.

"Slowly," he whispered, resisting her insistence. "There is no hurry."

"Yes," she moaned, nearly in tears. "Yes, hurry, I want you so bad." Never before had she been kept on edge like this, all of her energy wriggling beneath him, wanting him. It had always been Matthew wanting her when he needed, and she had always been there to service him. But this was not like that.

And then she felt a new emotion that was both exciting and frightening. "I need you," she mouthed without a sound into the pillow. Her inhibitions lifted and, as if beyond her control, she felt her entire self slacken, acceptance at last releasing her anxiety.

Sensing her sacrifice, he pressed his whole hard body against her, claiming her entirely from head to toe. His hot s.e.x lay rigid between them, ready to consummate their bond.

With a l.u.s.tful moan of antic.i.p.ation he lay on his side and took her hand again. He kissed her wrists, her lips, her throat, traced her fingers along his ample s.e.x, beneath his s.c.r.o.t.u.m, which lay swollen over her hotness. She attempted to wrap her hand around it entirely, attempted to gently cup and fondle his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, but his control was beyond her own, and so she let him lead her maddeningly, pleasurably, on an erotic discovery of their bodies.

With his p.e.n.i.s in both their hands, he played its tip along her folds, as far up to her navel, back again, and down and around the edge of her a.n.u.s. In an instant he was inside her with his fingers. Then he removed his and encouraged hers in. At first she pulled away, her entire arm taut in his grip. He eased her resistance with a kiss that was both tender and probing, secure.

"Shhh," he whispered, gently pressing her fingers inside her. She yielded, pressed a breast to his mouth as they alternated their exploration of her innermost region. Gently he withdrew his hand entirely, and watched her as she continued by herself, tuning in to her own rhythm.

"Yes," he said encouragingly, caressing between her b.u.t.tocks with his hand. He changed position so that he could work his tongue between her fingers. She quickened her rhythm, squeezing his tongue with each press and flick. He followed her fingers inside with his tongue and she cried out his name when she felt it slide in the gap created by her missing finger. Her free hand flew to his hair and with a moan she freed his ponytail, wanting all of him inside her. His hands rolled and pinched her nipples in time with each lunge of his tongue, propelling her on mercilessly. She moaned deeply, and he pulled back when she drew close.

She pulled his head up by the hair and crushed his lips with a kiss. She opened her legs and slid them up, pressing her knees into his flanks. Then she led him in, pulling her hand from between them. He alternately kissed her and her hand, the stubby knuckle. With each of his thrusts he kissed her, and it felt marvelously good and wicked at the same time, feeling him inside her and holding her hand and kissing her. With each lunge he squeezed more tightly, as they inched closer, until his unflagging rhythm suddenly altered to forceful, jutting bursts.

With each hot gush inside her, she cried out his name, her hand twitching spasmodically in his as she was overcome by wave after wave of irrepressible pleasure.

After their breathing returned to almost normal he took her in his arms, their steaming bodies sticking together as they lay entangled, too exhausted to move. Her head was spinning from the champagne and from their intoxicating lovemaking.

Never before had she felt like this, she thought, feeling him still inside her, softening. Matthew had always been the one to want, and she had always given to him, but now she understood all at once her desire to be given to.

Their hands remained clasped together as she drifted away from her thoughts, the tingling inside her turning to numbness as she cooled, cooled, then felt chilled, as though she were shaking.

Being shaken.

"Greta!" Jean-Pierre whispered.

"Mmm?" she moaned, disoriented.

"Matthew!"

Not Matthew, she thought half-consciously. No, not Matthew. Not for a while. Only Jean-Pierre now.

"Matthew!" Jean-Pierre hissed again, leaping from the bed.

She sat up, wide-eyed. It was dark in the room. She turned on the beside lamp. Jean-Pierre was hastily gathering his strewn clothes. No, he didn't understand. They were safe. Touching her hand to her head for an instant, she relaxed a little, felt a little laugh begin in her chest at the comedy of his panic. He must have heard Marie, because Matthew wouldn't be home from his New York trip until tomorrow afternoon.