Born Innocent by Christine Rimmer

you...”
    He rolled his eyes a little and gave a short laugh but didn’t say anything.
    She went on. “But I really didn’t expect... this to happen tonight. I, um, I’m not using anything. I mean, the pill, or anything...” She took in a bracing breath, and continued, “It should be my safe time, but, well...”
    He was stroking her hair, his eyes soft and deep, as she’d never seen them before—and probably, she realized sadly, as she would never see them again. “I should have some condoms around here somewhere. Don’t worry. We’ll be careful.”
    She released the breath she’d taken. “Good.”
    He took her face in his hands again, and kissed her lips with soft, tender promise. Then he said, “Come on. We’ll find them. And we’ll put some fresh sheets on my bed. And I’ll take a shower—” he glanced at his injured shoulder “—carefully.”
    He scooped her against his chest as he had earlier and stood up. This time she saw his slight wince when his hurt shoulder took half her weight. But before she could order him to put her down, he did it without coaxing, lowering her legs so she could stand.
    He stepped back a little and looked at her, his eyes heavy and hot. “God,” he breathed. “So beautiful. So soft.” He touched her breast, just a brush of a touch, with the tip of a finger. Then he snared her hand. “Come on.”
    He led her down a dim hall to a bedroom sparsely furnished with an old, brass-framed double bed, a scarred dresser and a wooden rocking chair. From a hall closet, he produced clean sheets and they made the bed up fresh.
    Then he took her to the bathroom, where he showered— carefully—as he’d said he would, and she sat waiting outside the tub with a towel to dry him off when he emerged. She did some looking herself, then, and found him as long and lean and tough as the wolf he sometimes made her think of.
    She dried him—carefully—counting the scars on his hard body, kissing them, wondering how he’d acquired them, but not daring to ask.
    At the back of a drawer in that same bathroom, he found two condoms. The packaging was wrinkled and marred, and Joe allowed that they’d probably been in the drawer for a couple of years.
    “ Even though my mother made her living on her back,” he remarked dryly, “I guess I’m no Casanova.”
    She’d known about his mother, of course. Everyone in Pine Bluff knew. Still, she ached a little for him, hearing him say that hard truth out loud. At the same time, she felt gladness that he was “no Casanova.”
    He went on, “And I’m not so sure that these are still good.”
    She took one of the packages and studied it, without opening it. “I think it’ll be okay. And I don’t think I can get pregnant now, anyway.”
    They looked at each other, naked and unashamed in the harsh bathroom light. They both smiled and said in unison, “It’ll be fine....”
    She laughed, and he laughed back. And then they were reaching for each other, touching each other, eager as children for forbidden sweets.
    He put his arms around her and waltzed her out of the bathroom and across the bedroom to the newly made bed. They fell across it.
    He said, suddenly gruff, “I don’t want to wait.” He pressed himself against her. “I want to be inside you.”
    They had fallen facing each other. In answer, she rolled, guiding him over her, opening herself. He rose up between her knees, fumbling with the condom. She reached out, gentle and sure, to help him slide it on.
    That accomplished, she lay back, looking at him, memorizing him above her—hard beauty and danger, cruel sweetness. Her love. He said something crude and poignant, something needful and real.
    And he came down upon her, burying himself in her with one hard, certain thrust. She cried his name. He devoured the single word with a kiss, pushing himself so far up into her that the burning pleasure bordered on pain.
    Then, having totally claimed her, he braced himself on his lean, strong