Free Beloved Stranger by Joan Wolf

enormous in the dim light of her bedroom.
    “It doesn’t matter,” he answered impatiently, and began to unbuckle his belt. Susan shivered and dragged her eyes away from him. She was breathing very quickly.
    I’m being stupid, she told herself. It will be wonderful, just as it was the first time. The bed creaked as it took the brunt of his weight and her eyes flew up to his face. For the first time he seemed to apprehend that something was wrong.
    “Susan,” he said. “ Querida .” His voice was deep, caressing. “You aren’t afraid of me?”
    It was the voice of the blizzard. “Ricardo,” she said uncertainly, and he answered, “Shh, little one. It will be all right.” And he bent his head and kissed her.
    It was an infinitely gentle kiss, infinitely sweet. After a moment he eased her back against the mattress and stretched out beside her, gathering her close against him. She remembered instantly the feel of his body and slowly her arms curved up to hold him. “Susan,” he said in her ear. His mouth brushed her cheek, her temple. “ Dios , but it has been a long wait.”
    She arched her head back to look up at him. “Did you mind?” she asked wonderingly.
    He made a sound deep down in his throat. “I am a man,” he said. “Of course I minded.”
    “Oh,” breathed Susan, and then he kissed her again. Her lips softened under his and immediately the kiss became more forceful, his mouth opening hungrily on hers in an erotic demand she recognized and involuntarily surrendered to.
    It was like nothing else in the world, the feel of Ricardo’s rough callused hands, so incredibly sure and delicate on her body. She melted before the magic of it, opening for him as a flower opens to the warmth of the sun. He seemed to sense the magnitude of her surrender, for his gentle caresses became something more. She had the dizzy feeling of being violently overthrown and mastered, and then, astonishing, her own passion came beating up, answering strongly to his, overwhelming and all-encompassing. When it was over they lay still, locked together, not ready yet to return to their separate identities.
    It was he who spoke first. “Do you know why I never tried to see you after that night in New Hampshire?”
    His breath lightly stirred the silky hair on her temple. His voice was so soft, so deep, it penetrated her nerves. “No,” she answered on a bare breath of sound.
    “It was because I didn’t want to spoil the memory of that night, and I was afraid that if we met again it would never seem the same.” He chuckled. “It was rather like something out of a medieval romance, you must admit: the night, the storm, the beautiful young virgin.”
    She had never suspected him capable of such profound romanticism. “I know,” she whispered. “It was—you said it was magic.”
    “It was.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “I expected you to turn into a unicorn the next morning and gallop off into the mountains.”
    She sighed. “And instead I turned into a very pregnant lady whom you had to marry.”
    “Well, let us say rather you turned into a very pregnant unicorn,” he suggested, and she giggled. “But I’m not sorry we got married,” he was going on. “Are you?”
    She was acutely conscious of his nearness, his maleness, his power and strength. He was the biggest thing that had ever happened to her. She knew that and she knew, too, in a sudden flash of intuition, that he always would be. Nothing else in her life would ever measure up to the importance of Ricardo. “No,” she said, low and steady, “no, I’m not sorry.”
    “Good.” He burrowed comfortably deeper into the bed and in two minutes he was asleep. Susan lay awake for much much longer before she finally drifted into a dreamless slumber.
    * * * *
    The next few weeks slipped by for Susan, heavy with the haze of sensual fulfillment . All the minor discontents and irritations of the past weeks seemed simply to vanish. Her world both