Highlander - Donna Lettow [65]
“Sex and love aren’t the same, Miriam. You know that.” He could feel her pain, her loneliness, her longing welling up inside of her as she stroked the strong, dark ridge of his brow. With the very tips of her fingers, she traced the contours of his lips, the touch of a feather. He could feel his senses begin to awaken.
“Please, Duncan, I want to be touched by someone who cares about me.” One fevered hand moved to unfasten his jacket. “I need to be held by someone I care for. Just once.” With her other hand she explored the silhouette of his face, the curvature of his ear like someone blind, taking it all in, memorizing the shape, the feel, the sensations. “Please,” she said urgently. “Now. Before the Germans come. Show me what it’s like to be a woman. Make love to me.”
His senses coming sharply into focus, MacLeod looked at Miriam with new eyes. Her bleached hair tied simply back, her face free of the makeup she usually wore to look older to her contacts on the Aryan side, she projected a bittersweet innocence even through the cuts and bruises. She was so very young and fragile. And beautiful. He’d never allowed himself to see how beautiful she was before. But behind the facade of the brave, dispassionate ZOB courier was a young woman barely out of her teens, scared and vulnerable. He was torn. “Miriam, I … I can’t. We can’t.”
“Duncan, please, don’t say no.” Her voice took on an edge of desperation. “I don’t want my first time to be like today … or some German …” The prospect left her speechless and trembling. Her eyes bored into his, filling with tears once again, begging him.
The last thing a wounded psyche like Miriam’s needed was sex for sex’s sake, loveless, meaningless, mechanical. But he knew that with caring and affection, the act of love could rise above that, become a rite of celebration, an affirmation of life, a ceremony of healing and, as such, not out of place on this night, so different from all other nights. He cared deeply for Miriam, although never until this moment had he thought of her in a consciously sexual way. Perhaps some affection and tenderness could help prepare her spirit for the ordeal he knew would come with the rising sun.
Wordless, he rose to his knees and answered her, moving closer to her face still cradled in his hands, touching her lips with his own, parting those trembling lips and claiming her mouth with his tongue. He felt her shiver ripple through her body and into his own.
He released her for a moment and watched her gasp for air, her body awakening to new possibilities, sensations she was only starting to imagine. Every breath a sigh of longing. He removed his leather jacket and wadded it into a pillow, which he placed at one end of the tattered blanket. As soon as the jacket was off, Miriam began unfastening his shirt with a fierce passion, but her inexperience showed as she fumbled with the buttons. Taking one of her tiny hands in each of his own strong ones, he helped her carefully work each button.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked as she pulled the shirttail from his trousers and finished unbuttoning it.
“More than anything in my life,” she responded with grave seriousness as she ran her hands under the shirt, up his taut abdomen, and across a chest as firm as steel. She pushed the shirt off each of his shoulders, and he helped her pull it off behind him and throw it aside.
MacLeod leaned forward and kissed her again, pulling her close so their bodies fitted together. He was pleased to feel her tongue dance over his lips, and he opened them, taking her deep inside him. She didn’t hesitate, exploring every crevice of his mouth, running her tongue along the slick, hard surface of his teeth. She wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, delighting in the sensation of his naked back rubbing against her palms.
She moved against him as she kneaded the muscles of his back and shoulders, and he could feel the swelling of her breasts grind against his own sensitive chest through the thin, worn