Free Can't Stop Loving You by Peggy Webb Page A

her skin, smelled the scent of spring flowers.
    Please tell me not to go
.
    Her arms tightened around him. Her eyes were
luminous in the moonlight, luminous and filled with...
What
?
Love
?
    God, let it be love
.
    God, it can’t be love
.
    The mattress sank under their combined
weight. Her hair spread across the pillow. Her face looked like a
cameo.
    Propped on his elbows he gazed down at her.
Her fingertips burned his skin where they touched the sensitive
area at the back of his neck.
    Her robe had fallen open. He memorized the
rounded curves with his eyes, then his lips. Helen lay perfectly
still, her arms laced around his neck.
    Memories overwhelmed him... her long legs
locked around him, her eyes wide with pleasure, her face glowing
with fulfillment. The love and the laughter, so intermingled that
it seemed impossible to have one without the other. Late night
forays into the kitchen, tasting more of each other than the fresh
fruit they kept in a crystal bowl. Soft music playing and candles
burning. Always candles and music.
    His lips brushed against her skin. He felt
the shivers that ran through her.
    More.
He wanted more.
    He skimmed the neckline of her gown with his
fingertips. The satin was cool to the touch, the skin underneath
lush and warm.
    She drew a sharp breath. Her back arched
slightly off the mattress as she leaned toward his hands.
    Helen. My love
.
    With one finger he drew a line from her
throat, around the curve of her left breast, across her flat belly
to the warm juncture of her thighs.
    Her sigh was softer than a whisper, so soft,
he barely heard it.
    Joy surged through him. His touch made Helen
sigh.
    She arched toward him again. He traced her
legs upward, from the curve of her foot to the inside of her knee.
She bent her left leg, lifted her foot. The gown fell away.
    In the moonlight she looked like a fallen
flower, a creamy gardenia. He was filled with her, drunk with her.
His senses reeled.
    She spread her hands across his chest,
fingers wide. Then in one slow, sensuous move, she dipped a
fingertip inside his shirt and drew erotic circles on his
chest.
    It was too much to bear. He would soon be
totally out of control.
    Tell me you want me, Helen. Tell me to
stay
.
    He knew she would not ask, knew he could not
stay. People who had been badly burned knew how to avoid the
fire.
    He drew a deep, steadying breath, then
smoothed her gown down over her legs. Taking a light quilt from the
end of the bed, he covered her.
    Their eyes locked, held. Hers questioned. His
begged.
    The silence between them was deafening. His
entire body pulsed with it.
    There was only one thing to do. Leaning down,
he kissed her cheek.
    She sighed, then closed her eyes.
    He took one last glance, memorizing the way
her lashes fanned across her porcelain cheeks, the way the
moonlight illuminated the pulse that beat against her creamy skin
like butterfly wings.
    Go. While you still can
.
    He left her then, his footfalls swallowed up
by the deep carpet.
    The door closed behind him with a finality
that sounded like doom.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    In the bedroom next to Helen’s, Marsha lay
under the covers wide awake and tense. She had heard Helen leave
just as she had heard Brick’s door open earlier.
    She might be getting old, but she didn’t miss
a trick.
    Her guess was that Helen was headed to the
kitchen. For a woman as skinny as she was, she had the appetite of
a stevedore.
    Brick did, too, of course. But he was a man.
Healthy men were supposed to eat heartily. And he was a handsome,
healthy specimen of a man.
    No wonder Helen had been fit to be tied after
rehearsals.
    Lord, would they get back together? Marsha
half hoped they did, half prayed they didn’t.
    She knew Helen would never survive another
parting. And until they straightened things out, a reunion would
surely lead to disaster.
    Her bedroom door creaked on its hinges and
swung inward, leaving a small crack. That made twice since she’d
been here, and she thought she’d