Warrior in Her Bed

by Cathleen Galitz

  Obviously, her own mind had taken a vacation from common sense.

  She blamed that on the fact that Johnny was such a splendid-looking man. The way his dark skin shone in the afternoon sunlight reminded Annie of the ancient statues she had studied in her college art classes. He looked like Mars, the god of war, cast in bronze. And like that fearsome warrior, Johnny’s skin bore the signs of battle.

  A nasty gash at the base of his collarbone looked an awful lot like a knife wound. Had it been but an inch closer to his jugular, Annie suspected it might well have cost him his life. A frightful looking rosette scar below his ribs had no twin, making her shiver to think that was where a bullet had entered and never exited. Wondering if any shrapnel was still lodged in his back, she contemplated how close it had come to missing any vital organs. After witnessing his reticence to publicly acknowledge his distinguished service record, Annie couldn’t bring herself to ask how he had come to be marked by the ravages of war.

  Tears clouded her vision.

  Wordlessly Johnny lowered himself onto the bed beside her. Annie opened her arms to him. Her heart could do no less.

  Tenderly kissing the pale raised rope of the scar along his collarbone, she validated the sacrifice he made for his country. For her behalf—and for the behalf of every consenting adult who was free to spend such a perfectly lovely Saturday dancing and eating and celebrating and making glorious love without giving a second thought to the freedom they enjoyed and all too often took for granted.

  Johnny flinched beneath her tender ministry, giving the distinct impression that he did not want her lingering over his wounds. Wrapping his arms around her, he rolled Annie over so that she was on top of him. Her hair formed a shimmering curtain that framed both of their faces and blocked out the rest of the world. The sensation of bare flesh against bare flesh was heavenly. As their lips came together, the restraint both of them had managed over the course of the day was shattered.

  The urgency in their lovemaking defied the limits of logic. Theirs was an insatiable hunger that only deepened with the attempt to satisfy it. He tasted of dark chocolate, sinfully bittersweet. She of spun sugar. Like cotton candy that melts in the mouth almost before it can be savored, neither one could seem to get their fill of the other.

  Lightly stroking the sides of her breasts, Johnny feasted his eyes upon their perfect fullness. Evoking a whimper for his effort, he languorously moved his hands over the rest of her body, taking care to appreciate all her womanly curves. Gently, he lifted her hips in order to position her just right, giving her the chance to take only as much of him as she could handle.

  Annie’s breath shuddered as her body tensed in anticipation. Though not a virgin, her sexual experience was hardly what one would call extensive. It was not easy for her body to adapt to the demands of such a well-endowed man. She watched in fascination as Johnny’s eyes darkened to an impossibly even-deeper color. The expression on his face wavered somewhere between agony and ecstasy as she took her own sweet time adjusting to the hard length of him. It became quickly apparent that her small, instinctive movements drove him right to the edge of self-control.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” Johnny asked through clenched teeth.

  “I hope so,” Annie answered in a whisper that called undue attention to just how unsure of herself she was.

  Johnny responded with a kiss that took any doubt away about whether she was going to be able to pleasure him. Feeling as if she was standing at the edge of a precipice, Annie instinctively dug her fingernails into his flesh, mindlessly tried to hang on, not realizing that she was actually pushing him closer to the brink. When he called out her name, it echoed like a sacred song carried on the wind.

  Annie could only answer by burying her face in the hollow of his shoulder and truly letting herself go for the very first time. As the world fell away beneath her feet, and shudders rocked her body, Johnny voluntarily stepped over the edge of that cliff with her. Rather than being dashed upon the rocks below as one might expect, they were magically carried to a point far above the world where nothing but the sublime existed. Reaching their peak together, the cosmos was forever altered by the intensity of a passion that was to have cataclysmic aftershocks.

  A few short hours later Annie woke up in a tangle of legs and arms and sheets—and emotions. Her eyelids fluttered open. She took a moment trying to figure out why she happened to be in bed at this unusual time of day. A sweet soreness in her body gave her the answer she sought, gently reminding her that she was a woman who had just experienced the most incredible sex imaginable and couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Luxuriating in the warmth of the hard, masculine body next to hers, she stretched languidly and gave Johnny a generous smile.

  He was awake already, studying her as if she were the enemy rather than the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. Her tousled hair cascaded over one bare, pale shoulder calling out to be kissed or caressed.

  “Hi,” Annie mumbled, finding her voice every bit as heavy and resistant as her limbs.

  Finding her voice as enchanting as a siren’s and doing his best to resist it, Johnny grumbled back. “Hi, yourself.”

  Puzzled by his mood, Annie reached out to trace the outline of his lips with her index finger. All efforts to replace his scowl with a smile were rebuked as he deliberately drew away.

  Stung, Annie made an effort to cuddle. Again she was rebuffed by his cold reaction.

  Determined not to be ignored, she demanded to know, “What’s wrong?”

  What’s wrong, Johnny wanted to tell her, is how right you feel in my arms, how complete I feel with you, how happy you make me feel. And how very much I distrust this wonderful, fleeting feeling.

  What he actually said instead was, “What’s wrong is this whole thing.”

  Feeling hopelessly inarticulate, he gestured to the ceiling as if to encompass their whole shaky relationship.

  “Oh,” Annie said, dragging the word out so that it sounded rather like the air being let out of a tire.

  Of all the scars that she had tended to, Annie realized she had somehow managed to overlook the worst one of all. Leaning up on one elbow, she bent down to kiss the invisible one behind which Johnny’s heart was beating. She felt it skip a beat.

  Recalling how he had suggested that they take things one step at a time, Annie decided that what had been good advice earlier in the day seemed even more appropriate now.

  “Don’t worry,” Annie hastened to reassure him with a confidence that she did not feel. “I don’t expect you to feel any special obligation to me because of what’s happened. I’m a big girl, and I can take care of myself. If you want to simply pretend that nothing happened between us, I think I can probably manage that. This doesn’t have to affect our working relationship, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  It sounded believable enough to her ears, but Johnny didn’t look at all persuaded. He glared at her, making Annie feel as if she had somehow trapped the poor man into doing something against his wishes.

  For his part, Johnny couldn’t understand why the words he told himself he wanted to hear sounded like a razor blade scraping against his eardrums.

  “I’m not worried about anything,” he averred.

  Nothing, that is, except how the tribal council that oversees Dream Catchers might feel about me sleeping with a member of the faculty. Or how my sister might perceive it as sleeping with the enemy. Not to mention that touchy little matter of how afraid I am of falling in love with anyone again, let alone with someone who is clearly so wrong for me. Someone who is bound to blow out of my life just as quickly and furiously as she blew in. Like a white tornado.

  For, as temporarily diverting as her short stay on an Indian reservation might prove to be, Johnny knew it was highly unlikely that a well-educated, single Anglo woman raised with solid middle-class values such as Annie would consciously choose it as a permanent destination. Which was just as well, he supposed. The emotional scars of an
impoverished childhood, the devastation of war and a broken heart had left him unwilling to even consider another romantic relationship.

  “You don’t strike me as the type to go in for clandestine summertime flings,” he observed, taking the focus off himself and putting it squarely where it belonged—on her slender shoulders.

  Annie was quick to respond. “I’m not.”

  For a woman who had spent the past six years preaching to teenage girls about the dangers of having sex in any kind of uncommitted relationship, it seemed utterly incongruous that she was lying naked here beside a man she barely knew. Why she couldn’t bring herself to feel ashamed was less a tribute to her sense of independence than it was to the fact that sex with Johnny Lonebear was nothing short of incredible. It was, in fact, so unbelievably good that even in a sated state, Annie couldn’t help wonder if she shouldn’t ask for an encore performance just to prove that it wasn’t only her long abstinence from sex that had made her supersensitive to the experience.

  “Well then where do we go from here?” she asked instead.

  “Back to work, I guess.”

  “As friends?”

  The implications of either a yes or a no answer placed her between the pointed horns of a dilemma. Annie tried imagining a more awkward situation and simply couldn’t. She could almost hear Sigmund Freud laughing in the background. As nonchalant as she might want to seem about this mind-blowing sex, Annie knew that it was going to be hard enough coping with Johnny Lonebear in her dreams let alone on a daily basis at work. In the flesh.

  “Of course as friends,” he growled. “What else?”

  As Johnny worked to disentangle himself from her, Annie couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t seem nearly as disturbed as she was by the likelihood of bumping into her on a regular basis at their shared place of employment. Ruefully, she reminded herself that men didn’t seem to have much difficulty walking away from her. Determined to never again play the part of the simpering fool by appealing to a man’s sense of decency and honor, she kept her chin proudly tipped up and her voice steady.

  What good did it do to remind herself never to put herself in the position of ever becoming a one-night stand again?

  The difference this time was that she had not been pressured into something she wasn’t ready for. Not to mention that she was older and wiser now and thereby better able to handle rejection more graciously than when she had been a starry-eyed teenager who believed that marriage proposals automatically accompanied the loss of one’s virginity.

  Feigning a sophisticated air, Annie hoped to regain a modicum of dignity while at the same time alleviating any fears Johnny was harboring about her stalking him in the future. If those rumors Jewell had passed on to her were true, Johnny Lonebear had plenty of experience dumping the women he bedded—as well as the children those unions produced. Fighting the sense of nausea that that particular thought evoked, Annie had to give him credit for making progress in that respect.

  To her chagrin, Johnny had been the one to insist on protection, not her.

  “Of course as a friend,” she repeated, forcing a smile. “As opposed to some little hussy you might think about pulling into the janitor’s closet at work and having a quickie between classes.”

  “No?”

  Annie had never seen a scowl turn into such a devastating smile so quickly. A twinkle illuminated the depths of Johnny’s dark eyes with unexpected mirth as he paused in the midst of searching for his underwear to ask, “Are you sure that’s such a bad idea?”

  Desire unfurled inside Annie overriding her indignation and making her all too aware of her vulnerability to this man. It appeared that her rusty sex drive was definitely in working order after all. But rather than admit that the idea actually held forbidden appeal, Annie responded by throwing a pillow at him. Too surprised to duck, Johnny was caught off guard.

  “Hey!” he called out in an offended tone that belied the softness of the projectile that had taken him unawares.

  Once again abandoning the clothes strewn on the floor, Johnny approached Annie with a pillow behind his back. The intention of paying her back in full was clearly written all over his face. Any somberness between them disappeared as the mood suddenly became playful. Rolling off the other side of the bed and onto the floor, Annie attempted to escape retribution unscathed. She wasn’t quite quick enough, however. With what could pass as a war whoop, Johnny threw himself on top of her, pinning her between the bed and the wall. Annie shrieked in protest.

  “Before I ravish you again,” he said, “I just have one question.”

  He touched a fingertip to the end of her nose. She squirmed beneath him, finding this game incredibly erotic. Feeling the length of his manhood pressed against her thigh, she could tell without a doubt that he did, too.

  “What question is that?” she asked, her voice husky with wanting him all over again.

  “What exactly is a hussy?”

  Annie punched him in the arm. The sound of her laughter filled up not only the sunny little bedroom but also the empty space in Johnny’s heart. The fact that she employed such a tactful word to express her concern greatly amused him. Not having spent much time around women who suffered from such ladylike qualms, he wasn’t quite sure how to reassure her that she was the farthest thing from a hussy he’d ever had the good fortune to bump into. He seriously doubted whether mentioning how tight and decidedly sweet she was in bed was the proper way to approach the subject.

  “Just so you know,” he told her, considering her beauty through his own eyelashes that caught the sunlight and transformed Annie into the most enchanting creature he had ever seen. Bedecked in natural sparkles, she seemed a fairy princess. “I’ve had my fair share of hussies. If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to spend some time getting to know a good woman for a change.”

  Seven

  Although it was the oddest compliment Annie had ever received, it nevertheless made her feel like bursting into song. That Johnny Lonebear wasn’t the type to gush poetic was perfectly fine with her. The truth of the matter was she had a hard time trusting men who spouted romantic platitudes. Sweet nothings held little appeal for a straight shooter such as herself. The last thing Annie was looking for was the kind of glib flatterer who, once upon another lifetime, had robbed her of her virginity and subsequently stolen her dignity. As far as she was concerned, Johnny’s plain-spoken honesty more than made up for his lack of eloquence.

  For all the feministic rhetoric to which Annie truly subscribed, she did not want this man to believe her to be loose with her affections. That he saw her as a good woman pleased her more than she cared to analyze at the moment. Perhaps it was because, despite her degree in counseling, she still doubted herself occasionally. She still berated herself for the foolish choices of her youth that continued to haunt her as a grown woman. That Johnny actually wanted to pursue a genuine relationship with her, albeit a short-lived one, given that she would be here only for the summer, made Annie feel better about her decision to become intimate with him.

  Of course, that didn’t mean she was about to read any more into their relationship than he was offering. At the present time she wasn’t looking for a lifelong commitment any more than he was. Just because his scars were more visible than hers didn’t mean she had no wounds of her own. Nor did she have any desire to compromise her relationship with his niece—or Johnny’s with his family, for that matter.

  Clearly the smartest thing to do would be to break things off cleanly now while they were still friends.

  Before anyone got hurt.

  Unfortunately, Annie feared, it was already too late for that. Whatever an outside observer might think, she was not the type to jump in and out of bed with just anybody. Granted, the physical reaction between Johnny and her was stronger than anything she had ever felt before. Still, had she no feelings beyond simple lust, Annie undoubtedly would have found the strength to resist her animal instincts. The trouble was that she truly liked Johnny.
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  Their physical union had done more to alleviate the ache in her chest that had sent her into self-imposed exile in the wilds of Wyoming. Flashbacks still occurred at the most inopportune times: the sight of a baby nestled in a mother’s arms, a pregnant teenager, the sound of mocking laughter….

  Annie squeezed her eyes shut.

  So far the only thing powerful enough to blot out those awful memories was the feel of Johnny’s lips upon hers. Still wedged between the bed and the wall where he had her pinned, she felt safer and happier beneath this strong, enigmatic man than anywhere else in the world. Annie wasn’t ready to give up those feelings before she absolutely had to. She hoped that by virtue of association, his strength would somehow rub off on her, and she would emerge from their tenuous relationship more resilient and sure of her place in the world.

  Johnny kissed her eyelids softly, bringing Annie back to the present with gentleness that moistened her long lashes. She blinked back unexpected tears.

  “Did I say something wrong?” he asked, assuming that certain tone that men have of accepting blame for whatever unintended slight they had committed just to keep the peace.

  “No,” Annie assured him with a sultry smile. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Except for keeping me pinned here beneath you without doing anything to press your advantage.”

  An ember of lust banked in Johnny’s dark eyes leaped to life at the challenge. “Is that so?”

  Annie answered by squirming enticingly beneath him, rekindling a desire hot enough to scorch everything in its path. She didn’t have to try very hard to make him want her as much as she wanted him again. Impressed by his stamina, she arched her back and murmured his name as though it were a prayer upon her lips. His arms tightened around her possessively.