KALEIDOSCOPE  III
Cynthia Hatch

---

  Part 2d

It was a long time before any of the terrain looked familiar, yet he walked with confident, fluid strides, following his own innate sense of direction. He didn't speak, and she was reluctant to, afraid of breaking the spell of the Samhain, but at the first passage bathed in yellow light she spoke his name. 

She had said it merely so that he would turn and she could see his face, but when he did so, the blue eyes jolted her anew, their spell more potent than even this hallowed evening should allow, and he was kissing her, still holding her lightly in his arms. 

She sighed, nestling her head on his shoulder as he resumed the journey. Half-dazed, she wondered why they hadn't encountered a single sentry, but as the way grew more and more familiar even her wildly careening mind could grasp the fact that he was simply avoiding them all, veering through little known passageways, circumventing the elaborate security system as if it didn't exist. Thank goodness no intruder could have his instincts! 

At the doorway to his chamber a laughing face winked up at them uncertainly, the candle inside--no doubt lighted many hours before--was spluttering its last. 

"A present?" she whispered. 

"Mmm. From Samantha--so I wouldn't be lonely after leaving you tonight." She said nothing as he entered the chamber and set her down. What was there to say? He hadn't left her tonight. They were still here--together, and the sheer novelty of the fact stunned them both into a charged silence. A single candle flickered on the writing table, but it was enough to show her his expression. There was uncertainty in his eyes, as she realized there must be in hers. Neither knew precisely what would happen next--only that a choice had come to move toward love or away from it, and that this time he had taken a step toward it. Uncertainty--not fear. 

He removed his cloak and took her cape, hanging them both on a pipe that ran along one wall. Anyone might have taken him for a polite host welcoming his guest, if it weren't for the awareness flashing unspoken between them, circling with an almost audible hum through their bond. 

She stood, toes curling into the warm carpet, as he approached, his eyes sweeping the room uneasily. For an absurd moment she half expected him to offer her a chair . . . a drink . . . an hors d'oeuvres. 

"Catherine, do you mind being here--in this chamber?" 

"Mind? Why would I mind? I love this room. It holds more happy memories than anyplace I can imagine. Why do you think I might not want to come here?" 

"Because it's mine," he said cryptically. 

"That's why I love it, Vincent." She looked at him, struggling to understand, suddenly realizing--how? through their bond, her natural sensitivity to his expressions, his body language, the way his mind worked?--that he thought she might have preferred more neutral ground. He had always regarded her apartment as hers alone, never a place for the two of them, and this room was definitely his. His sense of fairness was touching, however out of place it might be in these uncharted waters he'd found the courage to sail. "There's no place I'd rather be," she assured him. 

He took a deep breath and nodded. Having mastered the audacity of bringing her here, he seemed unsure of the next step, but she felt absolutely it would not be a turning away. So many times they had ventured so far, only to have him retreat or tell her to leave. This time she had sensed his resolve, and, after all, it was the Samhain. Whatever happened now would not be a retreat. 

"You're not thinking again, are you?" she teased softly, as if it might be the worst of accusations. 

"I don't know." His expression held a baffled honesty. "I cannot tell anymore where thinking of you ends . . . where feeling your love inside of me begins. Kissing you, holding you . . . all of it, Catherine, is one thing, one perfect, undeniable truth." 

His words, the helpless gesture that accompanied them brought the odd blending of tears and utter joy that only he could provoke. Her smile widened even as she blinked back the tears. "It was the kissing part we were working on, I think." 

"Yes." With the single quiet syllable he closed the gap between them, taking her in his arms, kissing her hair, her cheek. His fingertip, turned always to its non-lethal side, stroked lovingly along the dimpled line bracketing her mouth. "Your smile," he whispered, "is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." 

"They're defects, you know--dimples. Perfect people aren't supposed to have them, it's a flaw in the muscle, I think." 

His carefully placed kiss indicated what he thought of the theory, and she closed her eyes, parting her lips expectantly, surprised when he straightened. She blinked up at him, noting the trepidation that shadowed his eyes. Out of habit her mind leaped to decipher the cause of the interruption, but as he stepped back still looking at her with that same new combination of anxiety and determination--as his hands went to the ruffled cravat at his throat--it dawned on her that there'd been no interruption, that what he was about to do flowed logically from the playful words she'd just spoken. 

Her pulse pounded erratically. She had to remind herself to breathe. Yet it was less the physical implications of his intent that shook her than the act of trust it represented. He was defying the pattern of a lifetime before her very eyes, and suddenly she couldn't bear to watch, couldn't bear the overwhelming sympathy that flooded her as his fingers fumbled on the hidden fastenings of the shirt. 

She shut her eyes, freeing him from the burden of her commiseration. Her hand sought the back of a chair for balance. Far away a subway rumbled--the only sound except for the whispered movement of cloth. Several seconds of total quiet passed before her eyes opened to meet his. Was there a tinge of fatalism in his steady gaze? He was turned only slightly away from her, and her first thought was how wrong she had been. 

In those hours when she'd let her fantasies run free, imagining what he might look like, she had assumed that minus the layers of exotic clothing he would naturally appear more slender, less formidable. Now she knew it wasn't true. The flickering candle lit his body in high-relief. Shadows played along the muscled curves. The firelight found golden highlights in the thick, tawny whorls that seemed more mysterious for their familiarity than for their lack of resemblance to anything she'd ever seen before. His tight-fitting trousers only emphasized the broad shoulders, the graceful power of his torso. Never had he seemed so larger-than-life. 

The pouch, containing her rose, still hung around his neck. Mesmerized she watched it ride his deep-chested breathing, and a feeling twisted deep inside that she identified as envy, envy of the soft leather brushing against him. Tongue-tied, she simply stood staring, relying on his empathy to interpret her response. When she was finally able to move, there was no sense of deliberate purpose. Sheer magnetism seemed to draw her, floating toward him, to lay her fingers tenderly against his chest. How often she had done this, but never--never to feel the soft reality of the silky curls, the warmth of his flesh. His heart thudded so close beneath her hand. 

"Oh, Vincent, don't you know how incredibly beautiful you are?" Her lips tingled, as she dared to press them into the downy tendrils. Their clean, virile scent made her light-headed. 

With a gasp his arms came around her, almost tentatively at first, reminding her of the first time they'd said good-bye--fraught with a sense of wonder, a hesitancy to believe, but his embrace tightened with her own acquiescent sigh as he bent his head to her shoulder. This time when his mouth found hers, her hands sought the forbidden thicket that covered his chest. They moved freely over the sinewy smoothness of his back, clutched intimately at the strongly defined arms. The result was a kind of sensory overload that left them both trembling, breathless and incapable of any goal other than the increasing of their own heady torment. 

She trailed a path of ardent kisses down his neck for the sheer, shocking pleasure of not stopping, continuing across the hard infinitely sweet expanse of his chest. 

"No one . . . no one has ever done that before," he managed. 

Blearily, she smiled up at him, intensely proud that one of them had succeeded in putting a coherent sentence together, if only to state the obvious. "How about here . . . or here?" She turned her attention to his shoulder, his biceps and continued the delicious task of confirming her appreciation for all his long-hidden beauty, ending finally at the tender flesh of his inner wrist. He watched her with a half-befuddled intensity and a final "No . . . no one," as if in clinging to the facts he might withstand the siege of emotions. 

"Do you know how honored that makes me feel?" she breathed. "Not just to see you, but to touch you." 

"Your touch . . . gives me a reality I never felt before . . . an existence beyond myself . . . I cannot explain." 

"Because you're willing to share yourself . . . with me," she nodded, touching her fingers to his lips. 

"Catherine, all that I am is yours. I've known that from the beginning--my heart, my soul, my life itself, if this too pleases you . . . " He watched in mute fascination as her hands slid with obvious pleasure over his shoulders and down the satiny strength of his arms. 

"More than I ever imagined could be possible," she said fervently, placing a kiss in the vicinity of his heart, "and I do want to make you feel how much I love all of you--by touching you and kissing you, it's nice, isn't it?" She buried her face against him. 

"Nice? Catherine . . . it's unbearable." His voice shook with earnestness, but his hand stayed tangled in her hair, pressing her closer, his other arm locked around her waist. 

"Do you want me to stop?" she murmured, continuing to confirm his reality, with her lips, her hands. 

"No . . . that would be unbearable as well." 

"I know--isn't it wonderful?" She pulled back letting him see the flush of euphoria that warmed her cheeks, and its reflection was there in his eyes--passion unmixed with pain, glowing with a diffident joy. 

"It is wonderful," he confirmed, and to emphasize the point scooped her up in his arms and spun around several times in an impetuous dance that seemed to challenge all the dark strictures they'd ever confronted. She laughed with the freedom of it, the triumphant gleam in his eyes, the unnerving appeal of being cradled against his naked chest, his bare arms holding her. 

"Shall I put you down?" he murmured into her hair, as he stopped. 

"I don't think so. There are places here I haven't kissed." Her hair, long sense liberated from any semblance of style, draped over his shoulder as she rectified the omissions leaving her seal of approval on the enticing muscles that rippled over his upper back. "That's all I can reach," she said regretfully, raising her head to look at him. "It's a big job, but I plan to stick with it." 

"Catherine . . . your . . . dedication is truly inspiring." 

Faces close, it was easy to note the deepening blue in his eyes that belied the ironic tone. 

"Really?" she coaxed archly. "What does it inspire you to do?" 

"What I'm powerless to stop doing," he confessed, pulling her unresisting to the warm jolt of his mouth. Happiness sailed like sunbeams on currents too deep to fathom, too turbulent to oppose. As he slowly lowered her to her feet, she slid down the length of him, pressing nearer with a hunger that rose from body and soul alike. 

"Would you mind taking this off" she whispered, fingering the rawhide cord that held his rose. "Just for now." 

He looked down as if surprised to see the familiar talisman there, though she thought it was more likely the sight of her hands playing over his bare chest that entranced him. "I keep it close whenever possible, Catherine . . . to feel that you're near me." 

"Then tonight you don't need it. Tonight you have me." 

He nodded slowly, still trying to grasp that this could be so, and allowed her to lift it gently from his neck, as she had once lovingly put it on. He took it from her, laying it carefully on the table and pulled her with deliberate thoroughness against him. 

"Hold me tighter," she begged. 

And as if it were possible to do so, he answered. "Yes." 

He turned, still holding her so close that they cast a single shadow in the dancing light, seeking some magical position in which they might merge totally with each other. She felt as though she'd slipped weightless to drift nearer and nearer the center of their bond, where his feelings were as clear to her as her own, one need, one desire. Thought was as unnecessary as it was impossible. Sight was the blue of his eyes, the wild gold of his hair. At the edge of her vision, formless shadows flickered, proof that objects outside themselves had dissolved into illusions devoid of any significance they might once have claimed. 

Suddenly the stained glass window was soaring overhead, and she noted dreamily that they must be on the bed, but the fact called up neither surprise nor judgment. The urgency sweeping through their silent link had its own logic, unfettered by rationality, and its promise--that here they might touch more completely--was all that mattered. 

His hands pulled her more surely into him, as she molded her body to his, leaving a gleaming trail of kisses across his skin. Stretched along side of him, she smiled into his eyes, lips pulsing with his kisses, hair hopelessly entangled with his as he lowered his head to find the soft base of her throat. The warm velvet pressure of his mouth followed the neckline of her gown, until the whispered urgings of "closer" were beyond her ability to articulate. 

Even this position failed to satisfy the silent demand coursing through them, and she moaned softly as his weight shifted over her, her lips already parted to welcome his kiss. The fire storm arose from everywhere at once--from his supple skin beneath her eager fingers, from the hard heat of his body melding with hers, from the passion driving through her in his kiss. Any moment it would consume them, yet her only goal was to push closer to the white, hot center, to vanish purified into its light. 

Through a fog of desire she watched his face materialize above her, his eyes seeking hers with a look of agonized adoration. "Am I hurting you? Catherine, I don't want to hurt you." 

"No," she whispered, "you're not. You couldn't. Oh, God, Vincent, it feels so heavenly." 

"Yes." He allowed her silent urging to pull him down again, his long fingers tangled in her hair. For a time she lay, heart beating beneath his, reveling in the nearness that was not near enough, submitting quietly to the coursing waves of heat that continued unabated. 

"Vincent . . . there is a way to get closer," she ventured at last, and he raised himself to look at her. She held his eyes for a moment, conscious once again of how very quiet it was in this world. With an effort he withdrew to sit on the edge of the bed, still saying nothing, his eyes never leaving her face. The loss of physical contact was so painful she inhaled sharply, and a reflection of the sensation flashed in his expression as she pulled herself up to sit beside him, relieved when he immediately took her hands. 

"Are you afraid?" she whispered gently. 

"I . . . my mind tells me I should be," he said carefully. 

"And what about your heart?" 

He shook his head, intent on the sight of her fingers clasped in his. "My heart is in your hands, Catherine. It speaks of nothing but you." 

She nodded, her throat constricting, even as she smiled. "What you said, Vincent--about feeling more real because I touched you . . . I know that feeling. It happened to me that right in the Chamber of the Falls when you . . . when you did what you did. It could happen again." She met his eyes with a look of quiet trust. "Would you be able to help me with my dress?" 

Bronzed by candlelight, his chest rose and fell with a labored breath. The sight pulled deliciously at some vulnerable point deep inside, and she waited breathless for his reply. He released her fingers, and his hand came around her neck, sending shivers down to her bare toes as her hair was gently lifted. Head tilted, he made a brief study of the situation. "Catherine," he said, chagrined, "the buttons are very small." 

She laughed with elation and the sudden recollection that there were dozens of tiny buttons marching down the back of the gown. No wonder he felt daunted. "Don't worry--it's a theatrical costume. There's a zipper underneath--not very authentic, I'm afraid." 

"But deeply appreciated." 

"If you can just start it for me, I can do the rest." Which was stranger, she wondered, the fact that they were having this conversation, or the fact that--on some level--it didn't feel strange at all? 

She bowed her head, to make his job easier, thinking that the dress had weighed like armor ever since they'd been here, stifling, while the seductive weight of his body had only made her feel wildly free. Aching to feel her skin on his, she thought the soft velvet might have been iron, and now the whisper of air on her back shook her with the power of a gale. 

"I can get it now," she said in an unsteady voice. 

"Catherine--you're certain you want to do this?" 

"I'm certain." She allowed her hands the sensual pleasure of gliding over his chest again. "You've opened yourself to me tonight in a way you never have before. How can I do any less? Unless, of course, the idea doesn't interest you . . . " 

His groan was half muffled, as he caught her to him in a kiss that gave her the answer. When it ended, she drew a breath as shaky as the hand that groped blindly for the zipper. 

"Catherine, wait . . . I cannot let you do this." 

One arm behind her, she stared at him, unmoving. "Why?" Something like panic rose up inside and with it the recognition that desire had passed some crucial point. The specter of another dismissal was so unbearable that for a moment she felt dangerously queasy. She sought his eyes for that look of fear, of obdurate determination, that had so often brought them up short on their journey but found only a deep concern. 

"No." Hastily, he lay a comforting hand on her hair. "I only meant, I cannot let you compromise yourself in this way . . . Someone could come in. We must be sure that doesn't happen." 

She released her pent-up breath, giddy with relief. "But how? Surely, there's not much chance of finding a sentry to stand guard at this hour." 

"No--particularly one who's blind . . . and deaf." 

Flinging her arms around him, she nuzzled at his ear. "It doesn't matter. Nobody's likely to interrupt us." 

"Catherine," he said, cocking his head to escape her assault. "How often have we been alone here--without being interrupted?" 

"You have a point," she smiled, diving under his chin to tease at his other ear, "but I'm willing to take the chance." 

"I'm not," he said, emphatically, moving her to arm's length, though she noted with satisfaction that his breathing was uneven. "I'll only be a moment." 

Under her puzzled gaze, he strode determinedly across the room, picked up the huge bronze statue of Justice as if it were a department store mannequin and disappeared through the entrance. He returned--alone--to the lilt of her incredulous laughter. "What did you do?" 

"I simply posted a sentry who met our requirements."

"Will anyone know what it means?" 

"If you came across such an obstacle, wouldn't it give you pause?" 

"I guess it would at that," she grinned. 

He stood in front of her, eyes twinkling, but as she watched, they grew serious again, and he blinked uncertainly. She understood the cause, understood and even shared the slight sense of awkwardness. There were no precedents for this evening. While a power uniquely compelling, impossible to resist, swept them forward, there were still these small practicalities to deal with. Could he bring himself to actually remove her clothes? She wasn't sure, and there was no reason to make the responsibility his. Instinctively, she followed his lead, mirroring the moment when he had chosen to reveal himself to her. 

He took a backward step and turned to tend the lone candle on his writing table, making a slow and meticulous job of pouring the pooled wax into the dish. The soft slide of the zipper was unnaturally amplified in the stillness, and the snug, pointed sleeves resisted maddeningly her efforts to pull them down. With fierce concentration she extricated herself from the tight-fitting bodice, remembering with grateful irony how she'd tried on four different bras in a futile attempt to find one that didn't thwart the unusual lines of the costume. 

The distinctive air of the underworld on her bare skin and his silent presence just a few feet away were threatening the detachment necessary to complete her task, and she forced herself to fix on detail, noticing for the first time the mud-splattered hem and the petticoats sagging beneath it. Hopefully, none of that dirt had gotten on the bed. It would be a shame to ruin the lovely quilt. The pragmatic thought gave her the courage to push the remaining garments to the floor in one swift, daring movement. 

He still stood with his back to her, shoulders slightly hunched as he focused elaborate attention on the table, if he turned to her now--swept her with those intensely blue eyes--surely she'd burst into flame on the spot--the victim of some erotic spontaneous combustion. And what would it do to him--to suddenly face her as she stood now? Their cautious progress seemed in danger of taking on all the subtlety of a runaway train--and all the recklessness. 

Climbing onto the bed, she groped for an Indian blanket that lay folded at its foot and wrapped it around her, not the least surprised that he should turn slowly toward her at the moment that she drew it closed. 

His eyes flicked over the discarded clothing and came to rest where she sat huddled in an agony of anticipation, thoroughly enveloped in patterned wool. 

"You look so small sitting there," he said softly. 

"Do I?" Amazing how normal her voice sounded. "I feel a little like an Apache squaw." His movement toward her was dreamlike, a mythical creature of gold and copper dominating the room with his physical presence and her heart with the simple fact of his existence. 

He sat down beside her, eyes fastened on the hands that clutched the blanket at her throat. "I believe the blanket's Navaho." 

"Well, it's very beautiful. Wasn't it the Navaho who purposely wove imperfections into their work--so as not to rival their gods?" 

He nodded and lifted a finger to the scar that still graced her temple. "There was beauty in that tribute as well." 

Despite the voluminous covering, the shivering started as he leaned close to kiss the stark reminder of the night they'd met. Her eyes closed when he remained there, breath soft against her face, and she turned slightly, her lips meeting his. 

His infinite gentleness did nothing to quell the surge of molten feeling. 

Hands caressing her hair, he continued to kiss her with a leisureliness that only drew at her senses, tugging them into an exquisite tension as he touched her neck, her shoulder. Nerveless, her fingers released their grip, and the blanket slipped to her lap, freeing her hands to lose themselves in the lush jungle of his hair. 

Her breath stopped as his did. His hands had frozen on her shoulders. She opened her eyes to the sudden conviction that she could tumble into that turbulent blue, be swept away by the currents reflected there and never have the slightest desire to save herself. He tried to speak and failed, and she laid her fingers against his lips. "For you, Vincent" she whispered shakily, "to know. . . to love." 

Under his gaze, she felt intensely vulnerable--vulnerable to the mysterious feelings he had awakened long ago. Yet until this moment, she had never conceived of their depth, their all-encompassing power. With the first tentative touch of his fingers she melted back into the pillows, and he followed, whispering against her mouth--fragmented declarations whose meaning found expression in his hands, claiming her, moving over her in a sultry benediction that reduced everything to an elemental core. 

"I love you." Her words were hardly more than frantic breaths, but they brought tears to his eyes as he looked down at her, still trying to find his own voice. Words. Such small, inadequate expressions for feelings too complex to explain, too basic to define. How many of them were hers alone? Here in the eye of the storm, his passion, his sense of staggered wonder buffeted her as though their bond, overwhelmed with sensations, had begun to flow as intensely toward her as it always had to him. 

Under the homage of his hands, she felt delicate as a bubble, molding itself with shivering pliancy to the demands of desire. With no ties to hold her to anything but him, she soared into the strange, rarefied atmosphere, blue as his eyes, bound for the life-giving mystery of the sun. 

He pressed against her, and her body burned into his, glorifying in every inch of flesh on flesh. "Catherine . . . Would it . . . I long to. . . " 

The words were half-strangled, but incredibly sweet--in their confession of desire and the innocence that led him to question its propriety. She murmured her answer against his lips. "Whatever you long to do to me, Vincent . . . I long for you to do. I don't doubt that for a minute." 

His eyes sought hers, and intuitively she read the need in them--to taste as well as touch. The prospect was so agonizingly provocative that she could only nod in mute consent, giving him the formal permission his long-held reticence required, though the waves of her longing must have long ago engulfed his senses. 

He began with her mouth, and his message proved so eloquent that any other mission was, for a time, forgotten. The deprivation, as he started to pull away, was momentarily unendurable, and she clung to him, returning his kiss hungrily, kneading the brawny sleekness of his back with frantic fingers. The soft growl deep in his throat was music--bewitching and deeply personal. It resonated seductively through her own hammering heartbeat, the blood rushing in her ears like the thunder of the falls. 

With mesmerizing precision he left her face, intent on appreciating to the fullest everything he'd been offered. His hair tingled over her skin. Eyes closed, she felt herself plunged into a vision of fathomless blue, where eddies of an almost worshipful tenderness whirled undisturbed by the tidal force that bore them up. 

It was a force born of his sensuous nature, keyed so perfectly to her own frenetic desire that demand and surrender were indistinguishable. Wet with the velvet magic of his mouth, the sense of her body as one fluid need, she flowed beneath him like the waves beneath the wind, and the cry of ecstasy as she clutched him to her was lost in the silent siren song surrounding them. 

His eyes sought hers, desperate with unspoken thoughts, and she wanted to smile, wanted to reassure him that she understood all the undreamed of sensations shaking him, all the feelings he wanted to express, but she could only stare at him, imploring, and with a gasp he took her mouth again, pulling her close against the length of his body. 

The same spell that had so thoroughly melted all sense of herself as a solid being reversed enigmatically. As his hand slid over her, she took shape again beside him--her waist, the rise of her hip, her leg--all shivered into existence under the warmth of his stroking. Mind reeling with the wanton inventiveness of his kisses, she didn't grasp at first that the blanket had obligingly followed his caress to bunch at her feet. One look at his face told her he'd realized it too, and for a moment he floated above her, caught between their unleashed passion and the sense that their path had led them once again to the edge of a precipice. 

She sensed his confusion as clearly as his passion and instinctively touched trembling fingers to his face in silent empathy. His eyes were locked on hers in what she knew to be an effort to read her thoughts--and to resist the powerful urge pulling his attention elsewhere. 

"It's okay, Vincent," she whispered. "You can look." 

His tongue flashed across his lower lip as he tried to speak, and even the nervous gesture struck her as unbearably erotic, but she lay still, and waited for him to gather his resources. "Catherine . . . I never expected . . . What you share with me tonight is more than I ever dreamed possible. I should be grateful for that I am . . . grateful . . . but I cannot . . . there is a need in me to . . . " 

"To possess it as well" she finished for him. "I know that about you." 

He accepted this truth from her lips, uneasily. "I don't know the limits of that desire. I don't know how to stop it." 

"I don't think there are any limits." Her voice, wispy though it sounded, was warm with conviction. "We were meant to be together, and whatever happens will come from that . . . Do you know what?" she added, suddenly aware of a curious feeling that had been there all along, steady under the swelling waves of longing. "I can't remember when I've ever felt so completely safe." 

The unexpected statement and her expression of bemused sincerity seemed to touch him as profoundly as any vow of love, and he fingered her tangled hair, smoothing it away from her cheek with ritualistic tenderness. "My hand is shaking," he observed in a whisper. 

She turned to capture it, kissing his palm. "Your hands were meant to give love," she smiled, "and if you think that's bad--I'm shaking from head to foot." 

"You're not cold?" 

"No . . . I'm most definitely not cold." 

"How can I begin to tell you . . . ?" He shook his head again, confounded by the inability to articulate the wonder and devotion that nevertheless shone with crystal clarity in his eyes. 

"You tell me in so many ways," she breathed. "Your hands, your mouth . . . Oh, God, Vincent, your mouth . . . " Remembered waves of ecstasy closed over her again, sweeping him towards her, as the conversation came to an abrupt and delirious end. 

No witchcraft could have created this spellbound world where even the air seemed to pulse with love. She breathed it, felt it, heard it. It poured over and through her with the honeyed warmth of a liqueur, dulling thought, magnifying every sensibility, until it seemed the yearning that governed her must be his as well, that in challenging the physical boundaries they had at last approached the perfection of their bond. 

She knew--without forcing her languid lids to open--the moment when he truly dared to look at her. His gaze was a palpable brush against her flushed skin. The response that clutched at him convulsed along her own nerve endings, and it wasn't until he breathed her name, a sound that pierced her heart with its poignancy, that she found the strength to meet his eyes. 

Her own pooled with tears as she smiled at him. How long she had dreamed of seeing him look like this--of being the cause of that look. His unspoken question seared through her, and she nodded, surrendering to a universe bound only by the smooth gliding of his hands, the unique pressure of his fingers, their fur, as he carefully turned the sharp nails away, feathered provocatively across her skin. She had long since ceased to identify as her own, the small, desperate sounds that drifted around them, abandoning herself instead to the faint prickle of whiskers, the lush warmth of his mouth. 

Teetering on a pinnacle of joy too precarious for her giddy state, she watched him draw his hand away, turning to her with a look of revelation, and the words spilled out with the tears she could no longer hold back. "That's for you, too, Vincent . . . because of you . . . because of how much I want you." 

In a daze she watched him lower his head to his fingers, sensed his rapturous response as he obeyed the primal urge to draw in her scent, and when his tongue sought the taste on his fingertips, she moaned as if it were her own body he had touched. 

He had succumbed to it now--the unconscious eroticism that had held her in thrall for so long--it vibrated in the taut muscles, and through the sinuous river of their bond, shattering all concept of time and place. Seconds and hours became synonymous. The orderliness of sequence disappeared. Strobe-like images threaded crazily through eons when everything seemed to move in slow motion, exquisite and endless. It seemed he lay beside her naked and golden before the interval--perfectly etched into her memory--when he had briefly turned away to make it possible. 

There was a moment when his voice, guttural with passion, murmured near her ear, and, though the essence of his distracted warning reached her intuitively, she heard only the word "lost." 

"I know," she shuddered, clutching him closer, scattering kisses like shining amulets through his hair. "But this time . . . we're lost together, Vincent . . . together." 

The instinctive drive to weave the single remaining thread of their bond, her longing to confirm to him his own humanity, the sensate desire--all wound tight, threatening to snap, and still time slipped formless around them, as if every moment of their love-making happened simultaneously and before and after all the others. Only the impossibly burgeoning hunger marked its passing. 

And then it stopped. A moment became finite, isolated from all the others, caught in the snare of his determination as blue eyes shivered intensely above her. "Catherine? Please . . . tell me . . . what . . . what you see." 

Mind swimming, body resonating with a need that transcended desire, she struggled to focus on the question. That she saw nothing but him was obvious. The width and breadth of the universe existed only in him, and she knew he felt her total surrender to it, but there was for the first time a hint of pain in his eyes, a nameless vulnerability, so intense that she knew it was the evidence of a soul laid bare. 

"I see . . . I see the man I love," she whispered. 

The terrible naked need still burned. What did it mean? She would gladly sacrifice everything to ease it, immolate herself in a last desperate effort to quench its tyranny and give him peace--but how? The answer came in the crumbling of a wall long ago created to protect herself and, she had thought at the time, to protect him, but tonight the truth of his soul, touching hers as never before, would not sustain its existence. Nothing could be in the inner circle of their love that was not true--no matter how loving the intentions that had put it there. 

"I see the gentlest, kindest, wisest of men. I see your beauty and your strength and compassion. I see a lover whose tenderness ravishes me in a way that mere power never could . . . and I see these, Vincent." She clutched his hand. Bringing his unresisting fingers to her face, she lightly pulled one deadly claw across her lips, feeling him flinch, though it hadn't drawn blood. "I know they can kill. I've seen it." She released his hand to twist her fingers in the fur-like curls that adorned his chest. "I see that you're not like other men. Not here . . . or here." One finger breached his open mouth to trace a gleaming, sharp canine. "And I see in you a rage that doesn't hesitate to strike out when what you love is threatened. I see all that, Vincent, as well as the shame you feel that it should be and the moral courage that will never let it rule you." 

The breath he released might have been pent up in him all his life. How clear it was now. She had thought she was doing the right thing for so long, emphasizing the man, drawing him out, helping him see the strength and invincibility of his humanity, and, of course, it had helped him. Her belief had been the key to unlocking all the acceptance he now felt of himself, but at what price? 

Every instance of her reaching out, every sign of approval must have seemed a double-edged sword, a denial that the darker side of him existed. How isolated that must have made him feel, how fearful that the love she offered was based on blindness to a truth he could never escape within himself. Father, too, had unwittingly promoted that awful suspicion that those who loved him best were misguided, that they couldn't truly understand. Jacob Wells had always been visibly uncomfortable in referring to the darkness in his son, preferring to stress only the scholar and the friend. 

She saw all this without consciously thinking at all, in a moment of revelation that lasted no longer than the time it took for the pain to ease from his expression, the look of passionate adoration to return. "You see . . . all that and yet you love?" 

"I love all of you, Vincent . . . even what you can't love in yourself. Without the darkness to struggle against, you might not have become the person you are, and there's a part of me that's no less ugly--the part that's forced you to call upon the violence so many times. Can you forgive me for that?" 

"Forgive? Catherine, you are everything right and good that has ever awakened a response in me. What I've done, I've done to protect you and love you in the only way I know how." 

"Not the only way," she whispered. "Oh, no . . . not the only way at all." Passion pulled them down again, its fires seemingly stoked by the brief exchange of words. His mind, had it ever allowed him to dream this far, undoubtedly would have resisted any thought that his hands would ever do what they were doing now, that his mouth would dare the unspeakable pleasures it unleashed for them both, but deep in the mindless realm of sensuality he knew no hesitation. He was native to it. The sexuality, weaving its demanding spell around her as pure, as consuming as flame, was uncorrupted by experience. He could only be guided by their shared desire with the inevitable result that his mastery was total and her response so abandoned that his sudden speaking of her name took a moment to penetrate. 

The single word, uttered in tones all the more exquisitely seductive for the passion that roughened its edges, the tenuous wonder that infused it, held a wealth of meaning, clear as her own agonizing need. 

"Yes . . . oh, God, yes, Vincent I need you so much . . . " 

The impact of her plea trembled through the muscles beneath her groping fingers. She could feel the colossal effort as he reached for words, for concepts so foreign to him that he could scarcely pick them out in the chaos. "I don't know . . . I don't think it is possible, but . . . " 

With perfect clarity she understood. "You don't have to worry about that . . . I've made sure." 

Fingers caressed her face, unsteadily, but his eyes never wavered, burning into hers with an intense concentration that held her breathless. His love was a tangible force, filling her, cherishing her, with a truth that was unassailable. Speaking of it was redundant, but the words he found instead, a confession and a proclamation, shook her with their voluptuous simplicity. 

"I do . . . want you . . . Catherine." 

A gasp--half imprisoned passion, half a joyful breaking away--was surely the only response possible, but trailing in its wake came a tremulous whisper. "I'm yours to take, Vincent . . . now . . . always." 

His eyes bored into hers, wild with feelings whose names she knew, whose truth throbbed insistently within her, yet he seemed fixated on something more, something so vital that the sense of him drawing it in was palpable. Her unconditional love and trust, the mandate of her expression, half-crazed with desire. These things he absorbed easily, and with his soul brushing so close to hers, she named the last and crucial element he sought: courage. 

Would he ever fully realize how responsible he was for her having the courage to give? For filling her with it, for unlocking her own hidden strength, for nurturing that from the first moment they'd met? Now it had swept full circle in the charmed ring of their bond, hers to give back to him, and she gave it freely--in the force of her passion, the entreaty of her body, the unequivocal faith that burned in her soul. 

The relentless pull of longing--toward him, toward the beckoning circle of their bond--swelled with the change in his eyes, as that courage infused him, eclipsing the last remnants of vigilant restraint in the tempestuous blue. Her feelings flooded toward his--blending, piercingly beautiful, as his emotions dissolved into hers. 

The heat where he pulsed against her undulated along her flesh in torrid waves, and she hung on the promise in his non-wavering gaze, fierce and breathlessly tender, while the physical boundaries melted slowly away with the same sense of inevitability that fused soul to soul. Whimpering, she felt herself pushed exquisitely toward the very center of everything they were together, felt the truth of it close around her, holding her safe in a region of excruciating bliss. 

A strangled groan shook him, threatening the determination that held them both rigidly in place trying to comprehend the implications of this moment, the physical sensations bombarding every nerve. Vaguely, she knew, that she was crying in earnest now, undone by the overwhelming sensuality, the look on his face, the shattering reality of their oneness. It was all there in his eyes, in her heart--a sense of fate fulfilled, a design whose perfection opened some mystic door that had been waiting--always--for their passage. 

The radiance beyond was staggering, kind and warm and brilliant with promise, a benevolent vacuum in the universe, predestined to welcome the full intensity of their love, drawing them implacably toward it. 

Tears glistened in his eyes, as he covered her quivering lips with a mouth that pledged everything in its wordless communication, a lush counterpoint to the rhythm that convulsed suddenly through the single entity, carnal and spiritual, that they had become. 

Senses, already inflamed beyond endurance, rushed to embrace the new sensation, throbbing with the power that was at once a further torment and salvation. The light sucked everything toward its burning center, and the door was the image of his face. It blazed before her, pagan as her own primitive need, pure as the love that shone with unearthly beauty from his eyes. His rough breathing sang like sacred music in her ears. And the password to that source of bliss was the only word she knew. Half-formed by lips swollen with kisses, it trembled in her breath--over and over again, a poem and a prayer. 

The new dimension, soaked in longing, buoyed them upward, bearing inexorably for the core of that newborn star whose gravity could not be escaped. Only in diving into its very heart could there be a release from the coiling urgency, the sweet strain too rapturous to bear. A fiery baptism, impossible to survive. Heart and mind, soul and body--all would shatter into glittering dust. A small price to pay. 

And in the moment when they plunged into the white-hot center she knew she had paid it. Obliteration closed overhead, swift and dark and total, compressing her into the tiny pinpoint that held all the questions that could ever be asked, telescoped into the blackness, the essence of all things, the essence of him--the primal night. 

Then just as suddenly the impossibly dense little seed came to life, bursting into full-blown radiance, blooming outward in streamers of light that touched everything, drenched everything in an illumination that seemed to reach to the darkest corners of the universe. Its clarity was flawless, its intensity absolute. The questions became answers, and they were hers. 

Her cry was lost in the exultant roar that wound into a sob as he collapsed against her. Tide after tide swept from the dazzling horizon, each curling over the last, shuddering through her with primordial power. Somewhere a voice was repeating, "Oh, my love, my love," and it was a while before she realized that it was hers and that she was weeping quietly into his hair. 

Her arms still held him fast when he lifted his head. Eyes bright with tears, he searched her face as if she'd been newly incarnated beneath him which, she realized with a kind of joyous, singing wonder, she had. "Oh, Vincent." Her trembling fingers wiped tenderly at his cheeks. His release, like hers, had been total, freeing them both of so many dark burdens that tears were inevitable. 

"Catherine." It was the longest speech he could muster, but so fully eloquent that she felt every nuance of meaning behind the word. He continued to stare mutely at her and after a moment shook his head, his hair trailing over her still vibrant skin, and suddenly she was laughing through the tears, so deliriously happy that it couldn't be contained. The beloved blue still swam with unabashed emotion, but the corners tilted upwards at the sound of her soft laughter, and the gasp that escaped him held echoes of her own delight. 

"Vincent . . . I never dreamed it was possible to feel anything like this . . . Can you . . . can you believe it?" 

Rhetorical as it was, the question spoke so to his own stunned condition that he managed to whisper a hoarse, "No." 

"Tell me . . . tell me what you're thinking." 

"That it was as if . . . as if my soul were passing through your soul." 

"And mine through yours . . . yes." 

"To become one." 

"One," she breathed. It seemed that in that moment of epiphany some part of him had become a part of her--his clear-sighted sense of what was right and good scintillated still within her. 

"I felt . . . your spirit, Catherine . . . like a brilliant light in all the darkest places of who I am. I feel it still . . . as if the joy you bring . . . to everything . . . still lingers . . . in me." 

She lay for long, exquisite minutes pondering the sensation, lost in his eyes where her own reflection seemed physical proof of what was, after all, a truth beyond knowledge. He was silent again, but one gentle finger slowly followed the trail of moisture down her cheek, as if in its cathartic course, he could read again the shattering sequence of ecstasy. 

With a heady sense of possessiveness, she let her hands roam over his shoulders and suddenly came up short. "Oh, God, Vincent, there's blood." 

"Blood?"

The scratches on his golden flesh appalled her. She had no memory of making them. "I'm sorry . . . I didn't realize I was doing that." 

He turned his head in an attempt to see what stung her with such remorse. When he met her eyes again, she caught a brief look of irony that was easy to interpret. For all their fears, all the endless time spent cowered by the specter of disaster, the only violence perpetrated here had been at her hands. "It's all right. I . . . didn't notice. Catherine, what can I say? How can I possibly explain to you what I'm feeling at this moment . . . how profoundly . . . I love you?" 

"I think you just have," she smiled, lifting her head to press fervent lips briefly against his, but her voice grew serious again as she gazed with pure rapture into his eyes. "I belong to you now. Vincent . . . in every way." 

"We belong to each other," he said softly and gathered her close again. She thought if it were possible to die of joy, it would happen now, but even in the midst of the beguiling languor, she knew she'd never felt so incredibly and fully alive. Apparently, joy was no more fatal than ecstasy. The tenderness with which he enfolded her, naked against him, almost brought the tears again, but through it all there stole a dreamy torpor, and her last thought before falling asleep in the safe haven of his arms was that not once--in this magic night of nights--had it occurred to either of them that his darker nature might intrude. 

****

On awakening, her first clue to reality was a delectable, musky scent. Pressed against the downy softness that covered his chest, she moved her head slightly for the express purpose of enjoying the tickling sensation. Their bodies were intertwined, one powerfully muscled leg intruded provocatively between hers, but before she could allow herself to get lost in that knowledge, she realized he was looking down at her, and she met his gaze with a sleepy smile, all satiated adoration. 

"You're really here," he whispered. 

"Did you think you dreamed it all?" 

His hand stroked her hair, his eyes her face, with the same thrilling aura of reverence--and possession. "No . . . No, dream could ever hope to imitate such feelings." 

"There's no doubt about that." She pressed closer, kissing the base of his throat. "But those feelings are just waiting for us to call them up again." 

He tilted her face up to his. "What?" he said with perfect drollness. "You mean what we did together . . . can be done more than once?" 

A girlish giggle bubbled up, courtesy of the euphoria that had settled in her soul and the proof of liberation that his wry humor represented. "Oh, absolutely, in fact, it should be repeated at every opportunity." 

"Really?" He arched an eyebrow. "I know nothing of these things. Perhaps you should tell me." 

"Well," she grinned, "once you've . . . done something like that, it's very dangerous to stop." 

"Dangerous?"

"Terribly." She nodded solemnly. "It could result in the woman you love going terminally crazy." 

"Terminally?"

"Uh-huh . . . instead of only going crazy when I touch you or see you or hear you or think of you . . . " 

"It sounds like a great responsibility," he murmured, bending his head to brush a tantalizing kiss across her mouth. 

"Somehow, I think you're up to it," she said huskily, already undone by his brief touch. "And as far as knowing nothing of these things . . . " She broke off, suddenly weak with the pressure of his body against hers. 

"Catherine, I'm sorry." His voice had grown serious again. "Listen," he added gently. 

She did and with a shock took in the incessant rumbling of dueling subways, the far-off sounds of voices. The night had truly been out-of-time, and she hadn't the faintest notion of how many hours might have passed. "It's . . . it's morning, isn't it?" 

"I'm afraid it is." 

"Is our sentry still posted?" 

"She's nothing if not steadfast." 

"But she probably should be relieved of duty before someone gets curious." 

He nodded.

"Oh, God, Vincent, I hate to leave you," she blurted, tightening her arms around him. 

"And I hate to let you go," he said softly. 

"I wish last night had never ended." 

"All nights end, Catherine, but some things . . . do not . . . could not." 

She caressed his face, daring one brief heartfelt kiss. "I love you so much." 

"I love you," he said, and this time there was no hint of melancholy in the phrase. "Catherine, your clothes are . . . " 

She glanced at the sorry pile beside the bed. "I think the correct word is 'trashed.' I suppose it doesn't really matter. If you can guide me out without scandalizing anyone down here, then I'll only have to risk the curiosity of people in my building." 

"There are other clothes you could wear . . . if you wish."

"You still have them?" she whispered, touched. 

"Yes."

"That would be lovely. I'd like very much to wear them." 

He hesitated, facing the moment when he'd have to leave her to get them, and she wondered if she should turn away or close her eyes. But with a carefully drawn breath he moved lithely across her and left the bed to stride across the room. 

No, last night hadn't been a dream. She thought she could lie here forever just watching him. The graceful power, that no amount of layered clothing could hide, was mesmerizing in the flesh. What a sculptor wouldn't do to capture that, she thought, suddenly aware that her objective appreciation was fast turning into something far more powerful and debilitating. If only there were time . . . but the possibility of someone dropping in increased with every second, and she couldn't stand the thought of their perfect night marred by the reproach of an intruder. 

She sat up, and he returned to hand her a neatly folded stack of garments, the ones she had worn on her brief sojourn here after her Father's death. 

Resolutely she kept her attention on his face. Without a word, he picked up the discarded Navaho blanket and wrapped it lovingly around her, and she slipped from the bed, fully swathed, to head for the tiny chamber that served as a bathroom. 

The clothes with their well-worn fabrics, all made here in the tunnels, felt wonderful against her skin. There was something relaxing about wearing them, although, she reminded herself happily, her relaxed state had far more to do with the interval in which she'd worn nothing at all, than the present moment. Still, they had a prettiness that owed nothing to fashion or expense, and she wished she could see herself in them, though she'd long since grown used to the fact that there were no mirrors here.

When she emerged, he was fully dressed. Her costume had been folded and discreetly placed on the quilt that once again covered the bed. A steaming pot of coffee stood in the center of the table. And, she noted, Justice was firmly back in place. 

"You look . . . so beautiful." 

"I feel . . . I really feel beautiful today," she admitted, "because of you." 

The statement with its implications proved unsettling to them both, and in an effort to stave off emotions that could be highly inconvenient under the circumstances, she said with arch dismay, "And you, Vincent--you look so . . . so dressed." 

"Catherine." His tone was gently reproving, but she caught a flash of diffident pleasure in his eyes. "Would you like some coffee?" 

"Please." They sat down at the little table, and he picked up the plain, ceramic pot. The domesticity of the little scene was inordinately pleasing, but before he could start to pour, a voice called beyond the entrance. "Vincent, . . . are you there?" 

He shot her a quick look that spoke volumes about the efficacy of sentries, the likelihood of interruptions and the grace of timing. "Yes, Mary, come in." 

As the woman appeared in the doorway, Catherine noted again that puzzling sense of déja vu, a common occurrence of late, and then got down to the serious business of wondering what Mary would make of her being here at this hour. 

"Why, hello, Catherine, Vincent. I'm sorry, I didn't know you had company." The company smiled a greeting, and Vincent rose from his chair. 

"You're welcome to join us if you like, Mary." 

"Oh, no--I don't want to interrupt. It's only that none of the sentries saw you return last night, and you know how Father worries. Apparently, the weather's terrible up there. He was afraid you might have been trapped somewhere by the storm." 

"I'm here," Vincent said, and Catherine marveled at the way he made it sound like an explanation. "But, in fact, we were caught in the rain. I brought Catherine down to give her some dry clothes." 

"Well, of course, you did." The gentle face held instant sympathy. "But what a shame that your special outing was ruined." 

"It wasn't a total loss," Catherine assured her. 

"I'm afraid it was only Catherine's costume that was ruined," Vincent added, glancing toward the bed. 

"Is this it?" Mary hurried to pick up the gown, shaking it out at arm's length to inspect the damage. "Oh, isn't this lovely! And it's a very good quality velvet. I'm sure it can be cleaned up. Do you mind, Catherine, if I try?" 

"You really don't have to go to all that trouble." 

"It's no trouble, and the longer it sits, the harder the stains will be to get out. Let me see what I can do, and I'll return it to you later." She gathered up the entire stack and headed for the door. "I'll tell Father you're safely home . . . and that you don't care to have visitors right now." 

Catherine watched her disappear, bemused. Mary almost seemed pleased to find them together. Vincent sat down again and resumed pouring the coffee. 

"First someone cuts holes in a sheet, now my muddy dress. The poor woman must dread Halloween." 

"Mary only wants to see those she loves happy." 

"I guess that's all any of us wants," she said softly. 

"Catherine," he took her hand in both of his, turning to her with an earnest look. "Until you came into my life, I never fully understood what it meant to give happiness . . . to want desperately to give it in return, and last night . . . last night you taught me to accept it as well." 

"Do you know," she said in a hushed tone, moving closer to him, "there were times last night when I actually thought I might die--that it wasn't possible to feel anything that powerful . . . that beautiful and go on." 

He bent toward her, forehead touching hers. "To die . . . together." 

"And be reborn together." 

"Yes." After a while he pulled back, scanning the room with a thoughtful expression. "Everything seems different . . . this chamber . . . all the objects in it . . . myself." 

"And what about me? Do you see me differently now?" 

He considered the question a moment and slowly shook his head. "No. You are my life, Catherine, the one immutable truth. It's merely that everything around us seems more vast . . . brighter, as though I had been traveling down a dark tunnel . . . always. You were the light at the end of that tunnel. I just . . . I never expected to reach it." 

"Vincent . . . what's going to happen now?" 

"Now. . . I don't know." It was an honest answer, the only kind he knew how to give. 

"I wish I could stay with you today. I persuaded Joe to give me the morning off, but there's a hearing I couldn't get out of at noon." 

"You have a life above, Catherine. I understand that." 

"No, Vincent. I have a job above. That's not exactly the same thing. My life--"

"Vincent!" The booming voice made her jump, and they broke apart. 

"What do they do--stand in line out there?" She had a brief vision of the tunnel dwellers queued just outside his chamber, eagerly awaiting their turns to break the mood. One of those little machines that dispensed numbers--like the bakery used--it might make the perfect Winterfest gift. 

"Good morning, Catherine," William rumbled, not looking the least surprised to see her. "Sorry to hear your Halloween got rained out." God, they must all be hovering outside for that piece of trivia to have circulated so quickly. "I wouldn't bother you, Vincent, but it's happened again--evidence of intruders. They're gone, but it's obvious they mean to come back. We thought you might want to take a look before they do." 

"Yes." He blinked with the difficulty of readjusting to a familiar role. 

"We'll wait for you up by the sluice." Never dreaming the request might be questioned, the big man nodded and made his exit with what she assumed he must consider great diplomacy. 

"Catherine . . . " 

"It's okay--I really have to go anyway. You don't need to walk me back." He started to protest, and she laid a soothing finger on his mouth. "I would just as soon remember you here . . . in this magical place." It was perfectly true. She couldn't imagine summoning the strength to climb the ladder, leaving him looking after her--alone. 

His sigh was painful, or perhaps she felt the pain through the seamless bond forged just hours ago. He drew her into his arms, and their kiss set every sensitized nerve aching again. When they parted, she resolutely collected her cloak, pretending a sureness of step that was largely illusory, kissed him lightly in passing and mouthed a soundless "I love you." 

He stood, gazing after her as she defied every natural impulse and left the chamber.