For a long while, she lay there, perfectly still, willing away that glorious lassitude and delightful heaviness. She didn’t want to feel this good. She had made a fool of herself and didn’t know how she would ever face this man again.
He laid a reassuring hand on her back and patted it. Long minutes passed. He didn’t try to force conversation on her and for that she was grateful. At last he said, “I’ve got to go into the trees for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
She felt him rise and listened to his footsteps as he left her. She rolled over and spotted him disappearing into a thick copse. Despite what had happened moments ago, she smiled at his diplomacy. She could have stood a trip to the bathroom, too.
With fumbling fingers she restored her clothing and ran her hands through her tangled hair. She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, knowing that her earlier tears had no doubt made a streaking mud of her eye makeup.
When she saw him coming from the cover of the trees, she busied herself picking up the refuse of their picnic and replacing it in the basket.
“We’d better start back down,” she said quickly before he could say anything. She stood up and dusted off her seat. “It gets dark early up here.” She retied the sleeves of her sweater around her waist and took two steps before Hunter grasped her wrist and turned her around to face him.
“We’re not going anywhere until we talk this out. Since we met each other, we’ve had one big misunderstanding after another. I’m not going to let this develop into one.”
She hadn’t yet found the courage to meet his eyes, so she spoke to the third button of his shirt, which had been neatly rebuttoned and tucked into his shorts. “I don’t know what happened. I—”
“You had an orgasm.” It was quietly, emphatically, bluntly spoken. Her eyes flew to his. His expression was the gentlest she’d ever seen. “I fail to see the problem, Kari. Why are you acting like this?”
“Because that’s never happened to me before.”
His lips tried hard to hide a quick smile but failed. “Then, I think congratulations are in order.”
“I mean, it has,” she said in exasperation, “just not like that. Not so …”
She foundered for a way to describe her total lack of self-control. Would he understand that feeling of slipping toward a precipice and not knowing how to slow down, or of trying to stop an avalanche? Or by trying to explain would she make even a greater fool of herself? Because when it came right down to it, no description fit. “It came on so fast, without even … you know. You must think—”
“Will you let me do my own thinking, please?” He drew her closer. “I think that you’re a passionate woman who, due to the sad circumstances of your life this past year, was starved for physical love.”
“That’s just it,” she cried. “I can’t stand being thought of as a sex-starved widow out for the first man who—”
“Listen to me.” He shook her lightly. At the hard tone of his voice, she once again braved his gaze. “I thought it was beautiful. And I’m damn glad I was the one to bring it about. If any other man had even come close, I probably would have wanted to kill him, breaking one of the laws I hold dear. You were wonderful.
“All right? You got that? What else do I have to say to wipe that guilt-ridden expression off your face and take that closed, cautious wariness out of your eyes?”
It was at that moment she knew she loved him.
He could have reacted to what had happened with smug satisfaction, lording it over her that he could control her emotions and her body. But he hadn’t. He had made her feel that it was her triumph, not his.
Her eyes glossed with tears, but she smiled as she said, “What else do you have to say? Say you’ll cook your special spaghetti for me tonight.”
The tight lines around his mouth relaxed and went from a frown to a lazy grin. “Come here.”
He drew her against him. With his hand cupping her head, he pressed her face into his neck and bent his head over hers. His other arm was like a band of steel across her back as he hugged her tight. They remained locked in that embrace for several minutes, rocking slightly.
When he released her, he kissed her briskly on the tip of her nose. “You’re right. It’s already getting dusky. Let’s go home.”
He arrived early. She was sitting curled on the couch watching Sally Jenkins’s entertainment segment on the news. She held the door for him as he came in carrying a grocery sack and two bottles of wine.
He searched for her mouth over the grocery sack and kissed her with a smacking noise. “Am I early or late?”