O'Rourke clasped his bare arms outside the blanket, and Kate realized that he was also trying to keep from shivering. He was not succeeding. She wondered if any of the shivers were from nervousness. They were huddled in their little depression in the straw like two Indians crouched facetoface.
“'Come here,” whispered Kate and lay back in the straw, pulling the blanket so that O'Rourke was obliged to come with it. There was an awkward moment of rearranging the blanket and then they were lying next to each other, not quite touching but sharing warmth under the wool. Kate tried to think of a joke to break the tension palpable between them, then decided not to. O'Rourke was looking at her with those clear gray eyes, and she was not quite sure if there was a question there or not.
“Turn around,” she whispered.
With each of them in a fetal position, there was just enough blanket to cover them securely. Without hesitating, Kate slipped against him spoon fashion, feeling her breasts compress under the cotton sweater, feeling the backs of his thighs still moist with rain against the front of hers. Her hands touched his cold shoulders, slipped down his arms. She could feel the muscles tense and quivering with cold and realized that O'Rourke had been soaked and freezing during most of the long drive to Tirgoviste. She snuggled closer and slid her bandaged left arm around his body, her hand flat against his chest.
“I don't think . . .” began O'Rourke.
“Shhh,” whispered Kate, molding his legs and hips to hers. “It's all right. We'll just get warm and rest a bit until it gets dark.” She felt his chest expand as if he were going to say something else, but he stayed silent. A moment later she felt him relax.
Kate felt her own excitement, felt the warmth and moisture between her thighs and the slight sense of heaviness in her breasts that always signified arousal in her, but she also felt a great sense of calm descend on her for the first time since the fire. She set her face close to the back of his neck, feeling the soft tickling where his uncut hair curled slightly there and breathing in the clean male scent of him. He had stopped shivering.
Kate was very aware of her nipples separated from his skin by only the light cotton, was conscious of the warmth of the. cheeks of his behind against her thighs, and sensed the curve of his back solid against the cusp of her belly, but she let the urgency such proximity produced just slide away for now, become a pleasant background sensation, as she relaxed into the warmth of the moment.
And slept.
It was dark when she woke and for a second there was a surge of panic that they had overslept and missed the Ceremony, but then Kate saw the dim remnants of twilight through the dusty panes and knew that the sun had just set. They had hours left until midnight.
O'Rourke was asleepKate had not even the briefest confusion about where she was or whom she was withbut he had turned in his sleep so that they lay facing each other. Kate's bandaged left arm was still encircling him, but O'Rourke had huddled closer under the small blanket, his hands clasped together in front of him so that they lay in the warm valley between her breasts. There was no chance that he was feigning sleep; O'Rourke was snoring ever so softly, his mouth open slightly in that vulnerable unselfconsciousness Kate had seen so often when she checked on Joshua in the night.
Kate studied O'Rourke's face in the bit of light available: his lips were full and soft, his eyelashes longshe could imagine how cute he had been as a boyand there were traces of red and premature gray in his brown beard. His relaxed face made her realize how much subtle strain there usually was in his otherwise open and friendly countenance, as if Mike O'Rourke carried a heavy weight which he relinquished only in sleep.
Kate glanced down but could not see the artificial leg in the gap where the small blanket had parted above them. She did see the long curve of his naked thigh where his leg lay next to hers.
Without thinking about it, because thinking would change her mind, Kate leaned closer, kissed O'Rourke's cheek, andwhen his eyes opened and lips closed in surprise kissed him softly but firmly on the mouth. He did not pull away. Kate pulled back a second to let her eyes focus on his, saw something more important than surprise there, and brought her face closer to kiss him again. This time her lips parted only seconds before his did. She used her bandaged left arm to pull him tighter against her, feeling his hands, still folded, between her breasts and the slow but steady rise of his penis against her thigh.
They gasped for breath and then kissed again, and this time something infinitely more complex than their mutual urgency and excitement was communicated in the kissit was a slow and simultaneous opening of sensation, a resonance as real as the pounding of their hearts.
Kate pulled back, her senses literally swimming in a vertigo of feeling. “I'm sorry, I“
“Hush,” whispered O'Rourke, lifting his hands to the back of her head, fingers sliding into and under her hair, pulling her close again for another kiss.
Kate thought that the moist perfection of that kiss would never end. When it did, her voice was shaky. “I mean, it's all right if we do. I mean, I have an IUD . . . but, really, I understand if you“
“Hush,” he whispered again and lifted her sweater over her head. Her nipples responded to the cold air at the same instant her eyes were covered, then she could see again and he was pulling the blanket back in place. “Shhh,” he said, touching her lips with one finger while his other hand found her underpants and tugged them down and off.
“If you don't want to, it's all“she began, voice thick.
“Shut up,” whispered O'Rourke. “Please.” He kissed her again, then slipped his left arm behind her, fingers strong on her back, and rolled half on top of her, his left arm taking the weight.
“Please,” she echoed and said no more as she lifted her face and kissed him, one hand splayed on the back of his head, the other sliding down his back to the base of his spine. There were scar ridges theremost small, but at least one long and ridged. She felt the briefest touch of the prosthesis as he lifted and then lowered himself between her legs, but then she was aware only of the warmth of the rest of his body, of his kisses, and of his erection warm and insistent against the curve of her belly.
Kate moaned and moved her right hand down, under his thighs, cupped him, slid up him, and guided him to her. She was very wet as she raised her knees and cradled him.
O'Rourke was in no hurry. He kissed her deeply, raised his face to look at her with what seemed infinite tenderness, then kissed her again so slowly and so passionately that Kate thought she might have lost consciousness for a second or two. Her hips moved and he entered her then, with no clumsiness, no rough male desperation, but with the same moist, slow firmness that she felt in his kiss.
Kate stopped breathing for an instant as he paused and seemed ready to withdraw, but he returned with infinite slowness. Then he was moving deep within her, still slowly, so slowly that she could feel the perfect contact as he moved across the most sensitive interior part of her and then almost withdrew and moved again.
The next few minutes were like memories of a future in which their lovemaking had grown better and better, more intimate with each act of love. Nothing seemed forced or awkward. They moved together for several urgent moments, Kate's senses lifted to a point of excitement where she could hardly breathe, and then O'Rourke shifted his weight slightly and his right hand was between them, part of the moisture and contact, and each time he drew back a bitthe slow movement then making Kate feel as if she were folding around him and in on herselfhis moist fingers stroked her gently downward, she felt the sensation of being rubbed against both his fingers and the shaft of his penis, and then his hand would rise slowly against her even as he slid deeper. In moments Kate found herself excited beyond anything she had experienced before, her hips moving more rapidly, demandingly, then slowing as the cadence of their movement slowed, their tempo increasing again in a perfect unison of lubricated friction.