wanted more than her compliance, and he began stroking her in ways that made her cry out, made her flesh heat and begin to press urgently against him. She began to climax and he pressed deep into her, pulsing with his own release.
Afterward she tried again to get up, to put on her nightgown, but he held her tightly. She needed to trust him, to be able to fall asleep knowing that he would wake up if she tried to leave, that he wouldn't let her roam the house in defenseless sleep. Until she had that assurance, sleep would remain difficult for her.
Roanna huddled against him, devastated by what had almost happened. She began to cry again, choked sobs that she tried to stifle. She hadn't cried in years, but she was helpless to stop, as if the very fierceness of the pleasure she received from his lovemaking had battered down the walls of her defenses, so that she couldn't hold any emotion at bay.
It was too much, all of it, everything that had happened since Lucinda had sent her to Arizona in search of Webb. Within an hour of finding him, she had been lying beneath him, and nothing had been the same since. How long had it been? Three weeks? Three weeks that comprised shattering ecstasy and devastating pain, three weeks of tension and sleepless nights and fear, and the more recent days when she had felt herself changing inside, facing life and in the process beginning to live again.
She loved Webb, loved him so much that she felt it in every pore of her body, every particle of her soul. Tonight he had made love to her, not with anger, but with a breathtaking possessiveness and sensuality. She hadn't gone to him, he had come to her, and he was holding her as if he never intended to let her go.
But if he did-if, when morning came, he said it had been a mistake-she would survive. It would hurt, but she would go on. She had learned that she could endure almost anything, that her future was still out there.
Oddly, realizing that she could live without him made his presence all the sweeter. She cried until she couldn't any302
more, and he held her the entire time, stroking her hair, murmuring to her. Exhausted both emotionally and physically, she slept.
It was six o'clock when she woke, the morning already bright and sweet, the storm long gone and the birds singing with mad abandon. The veranda doors were still standing open, and Webb was leaning over her.
"Thank God," he muttered roughly as he saw her eyes flutter open.
"I don't know how much longer I could have waited." Then he mounted her, and she forgot about the morning, about the household awakening around them. For all his impatience, he made love to her with a lingering enjoyment they hadn't been able to savor the night before.
When it was over, he gathered her trembling body close and wiped the tears, this time of ecstasy, from her eyes.
"I think we've found the cure for your insomnia," he teased, his voice still hoarse and strained from his own climax.
She gave a hiccupping little laugh and buried her face against his shoulder.
Webb closed his eyes, that small, happy sound reverberating through his entire body. His throat clogged, and his eyes burned. She had laughed. Roanna had laughed.
Her small laugh died away. She kept her face pressed to him, and her fingers moved along his ribcage.
"I can handle not sleeping," she said quietly.
"But knowing that I walk in my sleep ... terrifies me."
He moved his hand down her spine, stroking each vertebrae.
"I promise you," he said, "that if you're in bed with me, I won't let you leave the room."
She shivered, but it was from the delicious sensations his stroking fingers were causing as they moved along her spine, probing and caressing. She arched inward, the movement pressing her body more firmly against him.
"Don't try to distract me," she said.
"I really would feel more secure if I wore my nightgown."
He shifted so that he was lying to face her, gathering her in.
"But I don't want a nightgown between us," he murmured, coaxing her.
"I want to feel your skin, your breasts. I want you to go to sleep and know that I won't let anything happen to you-unless I'm the one doing it."
She was silent, and he knew that he hadn't convinced her, but for now she wasn't going to argue the point. Slowly he combed his fingers through her tangled curls, letting the strands drift down so that the sunlight caught them, highlighting the reds and golds and richest browns. He thought of the night he had first taken her, and damned himself for his callousness. He thought of the empty nights since then, when he could have been making love to her, and damned himself for his stupidity.
"I thought I was being noble by not taking advantage of you," he said in lazy amusement.
"Stupid," she said, rubbing her cheek against his hairy chest. She nuzzled one of his flat nipples and caught it with her teeth, lightly biting. He sucked in his breath, undone by her uncomplicated sensuality.
He tried to explain further. "I blackmailed you into that first night. I didn't want you to think you had no choice."
"Dumb." She tilted her head back and looked up at him, whiskey eyes drowsy with sensual completion.
"I thought you didn't want me."
"Ye gods," he muttered.
"And you called me dumb." She smiled and returned her head to its resting place on his chest. Number five. They were coming more often now, he thought, but were just as precious.
He thought of the shots that someone had taken at him the day before, of the danger she had already faced because of him. He should get the hell away from Davencourt, out of her life, for her safety and that of everyone else in the house. But he couldn't, because he had already been careless of her safety even before returning to Davencourt.