Thorne's Wife

by Joan Hohl

  “You’re going to be a grandfather, Dad!”

  Chapter 2

  A grandfather. He was going to be a grandfather.

  His mouth curved in a wry smile, Jonas turned off the shower spray and stepped out of the ceramic tile stall. His Mary Beth, his baby, was going to have a baby.

  Suddenly tired, Jonas muffled a yawn with one hand, reaching with the other for a brown-and-white-striped oversize towel that was neatly folded over a long gleaming chrome rack mounted on the wall.

  Though he seldom retired much before midnight, tonight it was even later than usual. It had been after one before Mary Beth and Jean-Paul departed for home, thanks to the impromptu celebration they’d put on—complete with a snack Val and Mary Beth had prepared and the bottle of imported champagne Jonas had provided for the occasion.

  Where had all the years gone? Jonas mused, drying his body with absentminded sweeps of the thick bath sheet. By his reckoning, Mary Beth still seemed little more than a baby herself. And yet in seven months or so his little girl, his baby, would make him a grandfather.

  Jonas couldn’t decide whether he liked the idea or not. It wasn’t so much the fact of being a grandfather as the word’s connotations of age. Though there were days when Jonas felt a hundred and twelve, usually he didn’t yet feel old enough to be a grandfather.

  His Mary Beth. Picturing the sweet-natured, golden-haired little girl who had run into his arms whenever he’d managed to make it home from the office before her bedtime, Jonas sighed. His baby. Feeling the pressure of time, he glanced into the full-length mirror on the door.

  Was he getting old? He’d be forty-two next month. Was forty-two old? His lids narrowed over his gray-blue eyes, Jonas studied his reflection, searching for telltale signs of encroaching age. He didn’t have to look very hard. The sprinkling of gray that had merely peppered the thick, abundant ash-blond hair at his temples a few years ago had grown into wings of solid silver. The lines radiating from his eyes and bracketing his mouth had deepened into permanent grooves. His brow was creased. He acknowledged with a vague sense of dissatisfaction that all these signs were definite indications of middle age.

  On the other hand, his face and form still retained vestiges of youth and vigor, Jonas decided with wry humor, as he scanned his reflected image.

  There was a sheen of health in the skin that stretched tautly over his big-boned, sharply defined facial features. His eyes were clear, shrewd, intelligent. His tall form still had the flat, angular look of youth, the musculature long and steel-hard rather than bunched and flabby. His hips and waist were still narrow, his belly flat to slightly concave.

  Turning away from his reflection, Jonas tossed the towel into the clothes hamper and shrugged into the black silk robe Val had given him the previous Christmas. Recalling his initial reaction to the gift, Jonas smiled with self-mockery.

  Jonas had never considered himself a robe type; he was either dressed or undressed. That being the case, he knew his expression had been one of consternation when he opened the elaborately wrapped package on Christmas morning. Not wanting to hurt Val, he’d infused a note of enthusiasm into his voice as he thanked her for the present.

  Proving she knew him better than he had suspected, Val had laughed and said, “I know you’re thinking that it’s too sybaritic for you.”

  She was correct.

  Jonas had concurred with a grunted, “Damn right.”

  “But you’re wrong,” Val had continued, ignoring his mutter of agreement. “I knew it was for you the moment I saw it.” Leaning over him, she had curled her arms around his neck and nibbled delicately on his earlobe. “Please, darling, try it on for me. I just know you’re going to look as sexy as the devil in it.”

  Since it was very early on Christmas morning, hours before Mary Beth, Jean-Paul and Marge were due to arrive for the traditional meal and exchange of gifts, Jonas and Val had been sitting on their huge bed to exchange their personal gifts.

  “Sexy, hmm?” Though Jonas had laughed, he had modeled the robe for her—after a mutually exciting interlude—and had worn it nearly every evening since then.

  Feeling the silk glide against his skin brought back the fiery excitement of that holiday morning. Desire, hot and swift, flared through Jonas, burning away his sleepiness, searing his tired body into taut revival. Suddenly needing the sensations only Val could arouse in him, he raked a brush through his hair and pulled open the bathroom door.

  Maybe he wasn’t quite as old as he had almost convinced himself he was.

  The sight that met his eyes as he walked into the bedroom drew from him a sigh made up of equal parts of amusement and frustration.

  Her only covering a minuscule scrap of white satin panties, Val was on the floor in a hatha-yoga shoulder stand. Her slim body rose into the air, straight as an arrow from the base of her neck and the edge of her shoulders. Her arms lay relaxed and limp on the carpet. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was measured, even and regular. Her small, rose-tipped breasts shivered with each breath.

  Jonas had become so accustomed to observing Val in a variety of exercise positions that he was no longer fazed. Yet, seeing her this time in that particular upside-down position for some inexplicable reason added fuel to the fire raging in his body.

  Obeying an impulse, Jonas padded toward her across the lush carpet. Halting mere inches from her raised legs, he reached out and stroked his broad hands over her slender, shapely calves. Fire licked through his veins when he felt her muscles quiver in reaction and heard the catch in her breathing pattern.

  “Jonas.” Val didn’t open her eyes as she murmured his name in a tone of admonition.

  Ignoring the warning, Jonas curled his long fingers around her ankles. Gently applying pressure, he drew down her body until her weight was resting on the upper part of her back. Then, parting her legs, he stepped forward and tucked them neatly around his waist.

  Val’s eyes flew open. “Jonas! What are you—? Oh!” She gasped aloud as he slid one palm down the inside of her thigh. “What are you thinking of?”

  “I’m thinking that this position you’re in has very definite possibilities,” Jonas murmured, stroking the underside of her knees with his fingertips.

  So delicately balanced, Val couldn’t move. Jonas knew she couldn’t move. She knew that he knew she couldn’t move. His smile was slow, sexy and incredibly exciting. Val shivered with anticipation.

  Jonas didn’t disappoint her. Savoring the tightness coiling inside him, he let his hand drift with excruciating slowness to the satin barrier at the apex of her thighs.

  Valerie didn’t disappoint him. Murmuring low in her throat, she moved her body against his tingling palm. Jonas shuddered in reaction to the sensation that streaked like lightning from his hand to every nerve ending in his body. The intensity of the desire clamoring inside him was slightly shocking… considering that they had slept side by side for three years.

  Would he never get enough of her? Jonas asked himself, responding to her sensuous movements by stroking his long fingers over the heated satin beneath his hand.

  The query was the last cohesive thought to form in Jonas’s head for some time. Moaning his name, Valerie moved against him in invitation. Her action cleared his mind of all considerations except the overpowering need that was storming his senses and converging on the center of his masculinity.

  Forgetting the comfort of the enormous bed behind him, Jonas continued to stroke her through the warm satin while he slowly sank to his knees. Within seconds both his robe and the scrap of fabric swathing Valerie’s hips lay in a shimmering heap on the carpet beside him.

  Old? Middle-aged? Ha!

  Silent laughter rippled through Jonas as he slid his taut aroused body between her silky thighs. The encroaching years were meaningless, powerless against the surge of vigor now quickening his body. Valerie and his unquenchable hunger for her kept him young, vital…hot.

  Sliding his hands beneath her, Jonas held Val’s undulating h
ips still. Denying the urgency shuddering through him, he entered her slowly, savoring the thrill of burying the strongest and most vulnerable part of himself deeply within the velvet softness of her body. Excitement took a quantum leap inside him when Val grasped his thighs and sank her nails reflexively into his quivering muscles.

  “Jonas.” Valerie’s husky whisper contained both a plea and a command.

  He granted both. Bending to her, Jonas captured her mouth with his in a hard, hungry kiss. Then, spurred by her throaty murmurs, he speared his tongue into the depths of her sweetness, initiating a rhythm of complete possession that was reflected by the movement of his body. Impelled by a need beyond his comprehension, Jonas drove his body relentlessly toward the goal of utter ecstasy. Gritting his teeth, he denied himself until he felt the first of the cascading shudders that began pulsating through Val. Then, releasing his restraint, Jonas made the final thrust, crying her name in a hoarse groan as he was swept into the vortex with her.

  Valerie couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She could only feel. Her entire body sensitized, she gloried in the tension coiling ever tighter inside with each stroke and thrust of Jonas’s hard body. Quivering, she abandoned herself to sensation. It was always the same, yet ever different. Clutching his taut flanks, Val strained to draw him deeper within herself, at that instant needing the fullness of him more than she needed breath to survive.

  Forgotten was the discord between them. There had never been discord while they were locked together, united in the most intimate embrace of lovers. And Valerie loved Jonas with every part of her being. The clawing need robbing her of thought and inhibition was a direct response to the depth of the love she felt for him. In three years, Valerie had never had enough of his lovemaking, and never felt completely satiated. She always craved more, more, and still more of Jonas.

  Valerie made a strangled sound of surprised pleasure when release caught her, and gasped in appreciation of his final driving thrust. Fusing together, clinging to each other, they rode the wave of completion.

  “You know I love you.” Jonas’s voice was ragged from his uneven breathing.

  “Yes.” Val smiled. Jonas never spoke the words of love while performing the act of love. He always waited until they had attained the heights of passion before speaking aloud his innermost feelings, complimenting her with his declaration after sharing his pleasure with her. “As you know I love you,” she murmured, returning the compliment.

  “Do you?” Levering his body away from her, Jonas stared into her eyes as he stretched his length on the carpet beside her.

  “Jonas!” Val didn’t try to conceal the confusion and hurt his question caused her. “You know I do.”

  “Then why in hell are you going to San Francisco without me?” Jonas demanded, ruthlessly searching her shadowed violet eyes.

  The discord between them was back, weighing Val down with disappointment and depression. She escaped his piercing stare by closing her eyes. “I’ve explained why I’m going,” she answered in a weary tone. “I’m going in support of the—”

  Jonas cut her off impatiently. “I don’t believe you.”

  Was she so very transparent? Val asked herself, trembling in reaction to the harshness of his tone. Could Jonas see through her so easily? Did he know, understand or even care that she was fighting an uphill battle to move out of the shade of his protective, smothering shadow and establish her own identity? Didn’t he realize that she couldn’t be a true mate or partner to him until she became all she could be as a woman?

  Anger dried the tears gathering in Valerie’s eyes. Opening them, she gave him a glittering look. “Are you calling me a liar, Jonas?”

  “No.” His denial held conviction.

  “But you just said that you don’t believe me,” she reminded him pointedly.

  “I don’t believe that you’re that concerned with protecting artistic individuality.” As usual, Jonas swore when he was mad. “Damn it, Val, you’ve been involving yourself in one pursuit after another for months.” His eyes narrowed; his harsh voice lashed at her once more. “Are you bored with this marriage?” He paused, then added in a dangerously soft tone, “Or are you bored with me?”

  “Bored?” Her expression incredulous, Val jerked into a sitting position. “You can ask me that after what just happened here?” She indicated their carpet-bed with a sweep of her small hand.

  Obviously uncomfortable with having her glare down at him, Jonas sprang up beside her. “Well, damn it, Val, you must be dissatisfied with something,” he insisted, grinding out the words.

  “For your information, dissatisfied is not synonymous with bored,” Val said, scrambling to her feet so that she could look down at him again, even while admitting to herself that her action was childish.

  As if not to be bested, and revealing a streak of immaturity himself, Jonas rose to tower over her. “Then you admit to being dissatisfied?” Accusation colored his tone; a ruddy hue tinged his prominent cheekbones.

  Tamping down an urge to climb onto the bed to gain additional height, Valerie tilted her chin defiantly and glared up into his stormy steel-blue eyes. “Yes,” she said distinctly. “I am dissatisfied.”

  Her boldness seemed to stop him cold for an instant. Then, his movement calculated, Jonas turned to rake a gaze over the carpet. “You didn’t appear to be dissatisfied a few minutes ago,” he said as he returned his gaze to hers. “Or was your response an act, put on to appease me?” His eyes were the icy color of the Atlantic Ocean in the dead of winter.

  Valerie might have shivered in the face of his cold stare, if it hadn’t been for the flash of hot fury that seared through her. Angrier with him than she had ever been, she reacted to his accusation without thought or consideration or even instinctive self-preservation. Val’s arm flew up and out. Her palm connected with his cheek with a stinging, resounding whack. Valerie felt the rippling force of the blow from her palm to her shoulder and all the way down to the base of her spine.

  “How dare you accuse me of putting on that kind of act?” she cried, snatching her burning palm away from his face. A sinking sensation invaded her stomach as she watched a fiery imprint of her palm form on his pale skin.

  Jonas had gone deathly still, for long moments not even appearing to breathe. The only living things about him were his eyes, and the expression in them nearly scared the life out of Valerie. In their sea-tossed depths she could see the inner battle he was fighting against the need to lash out and strike back at her.

  Until that moment, Val had never felt an instant of physical fear of Jonas. Now, fear crawled through her veins like a cold-blooded viper. If Jonas lost his inner battle and struck her, she would go down like a felled tree, and she knew it. What was more, Val also knew she’d deserve it.

  But she wouldn’t run. She couldn’t run! She could barely breathe…. Her spine rigid, Val endured his chilling stare, awaiting the outcome. The breath eased from her constricted chest a heartbeat after Jonas exhaled harshly.

  “That was a close call, Valerie.” His voice was tight with strain.

  Relief brought a sheen of tears to her eyes. “I’m sorry, Jonas,” she whispered.

  “Don’t ever dare to hit me again.”

  Val bristled. “And don’t you ever again dare to accuse me of putting on an act to appease you.”

  Jonas had the grace to back down. “I’m sorry for that. I knew it wasn’t true when I said it.”

  “I shouldn’t have allowed it to hurt me.” She sighed. “You’ve accused me unjustly before.” Val was immediately sorry for the indictment.

  Jonas winced, revealing the pain he had refused to acknowledge from her physical blow. His eyes grew dark, betraying the unceasing inner torment. With her unbridled tongue, she had sliced through the fabric of their past three years together, exposing the wound still open and bleeding in his soul. He had accused her unjustly before, knowing while he did so that it wasn’t true. In consequence, an accident had caused Val to miscarry with
their child. Jonas was still paying the price.

  “Jonas.” Hurting for him, Val reached out to him. It was when her palm touched his warm bare skin that she remembered that they were both still naked. It didn’t matter. In comparison to the exposure of lingering pain in the soul, naked skin was of little importance. With a mental shrug, she stepped forward to slide her arms around his waist. Tears running freely down her face, she held him close, offering compassion and comfort, gratefully accepting the same from him when Jonas enclosed her within his crushing embrace.

  “I’m sorry, Val.” His voice was low and unsteady, and Valerie knew he was apologizing for his past as well as his present unfounded accusations.

  “It’s all right, Jonas.” Val smoothed her hands over the tightly bunched muscles in his back, trying to ease the tension that was gripping him.

  His arms contracted convulsively. She could hardly breathe. She didn’t care.

  “I’m going to be a grandfather,” he murmured against her temple.

  “I know.” Val’s smile was tender.

  “I wanted to be a father again.” Longing was woven through his whisper.

  “I know.” Val closed her eyes against a stinging surge of tears. The moisture clung to the springy hair on his chest. Jonas felt her tears and groaned.

  “I love you, Val.”

  The memory was riding him, terrorizing him; Val could hear it in the tremor in his low voice. “I love you, Jonas.” Turning her head, she pressed her parted lips to his moist chest.

  “You’re a part of me now,” he said, responding to her caress with a shiver. “I don’t know if I could survive without you. I don’t think I’d want to survive.” His shiver intensified. “Don’t leave me, Val. Don’t ever leave me.”

  “I won’t. You know I won’t.” Val tightened her arms around his waist. “I couldn’t.”

  Jonas was quiet for a moment, his strong arms crushing her softness to him. Val could feel the tension ease out of his taut muscles. A few moments later, she felt a different kind of tension ripple through him. She wasn’t at all surprised when he backed her into, then onto, their king-size bed.