Between Love and Duty

by Janice Kay Johnson

  She decided on herbal. “I don’t need any more adrenaline,” she said ruefully.

  He didn’t, either. Duncan poured himself the English Breakfast, anyway. He couldn’t remember why he’d bought the herbal. It tasted like tainted water to him. It was probably worse now, as it had been sitting in the cupboard so long.

  His socks looked cute on her, he decided, when she hoisted herself onto a tall stool at the breakfast bar. Saggy on her much-smaller feet. Even so, he could see her toes curl over the rung.

  Setting out a saucer for their tea bags, he carried both mugs to the breakfast bar and hitched himself onto the one right next to her. Jane stared into her steeping tea with unwarranted concentration. Duncan had gotten to the point where he was trying to think of something to fill the silence when she spoke, so quietly he barely heard her.

  “I feel so violated.”

  He swiveled so he was completely facing her. After a minute she raised her head to meet his eyes.

  “That’s normal,” he said. “People sympathize when your house is broken into, but they’re talking about your new flat-screen TV and the hassle of dealing with an insurance claim. Unless it’s happened to them, they don’t think about what it feels like. And this…is worse. Way worse.”

  She bit so hard on her lip, he almost protested, expecting to see blood. “If only it wasn’t my bedroom,” she burst out.

  God. He wanted to take her in his arms and not let go. But she was holding herself together, and he sensed that she needed to keep on doing that.

  “I know.”

  She shuddered and reverted to staring at her tea. He watched for a couple of minutes then lifted her tea bag out of her mug and dropped it on the saucer. “Drink,” he murmured. “The warmth will do you good.”

  They didn’t talk much. He had the furnace cranking so that he was sweating, but she seemed comfortable. The tea helped, he thought, maybe only the comfort of cradling a hot mug, breathing in the steam, sipping. It occurred to him how rarely he’d had a woman in his kitchen. Beth Pannek, a lieutenant on the traffic side who, along with her husband, a county deputy, had become friends. A couple of others who’d come to dinner, none to spend the night. He didn’t bring women here for sex.

  He’d never had one sitting here in his kitchen wearing his pajamas.

  Duncan couldn’t tell if she had any consciousness of him as a man right now. He shouldn’t be thinking about how much he wished he was taking her to his bed, but he couldn’t help himself. Where was his vaunted self-control?

  Slosh, slosh. Iceberg becomes ice cubes become meltwater.

  And he wasn’t as disturbed about it as maybe he should be. He wanted her, yes, but…mostly he wanted to hold her. Waking and sleeping. Something he’d never done.

  “I wish I had a sleeping pill to offer you,” he said finally.

  Jane gave him a funny smile that was all askew. “I wish you did, too. But I think I’m ready to go to bed, anyway.”

  “Okay.” Careful not to touch her, he showed her to the guest bedroom, something he’d never quite figured out why he needed. He wasn’t a sociable man. Nobody had ever slept in that bed. He’d never envisioned having guests. He’d also never asked himself why he’d set it up for guests. With faint shock he realized it had something to do with his brothers. He’d kept Niall’s room in the old house while he was in college, so he had someplace to come home to. Conall’s in turn, even though Conall never did come home. He’d wanted them to know they could, even though after he had the new house built he never actually said, I always have a place for you. He tried to imagine showing Conall to this room, and gave a grunt that earned him a startled look from Jane. “Sorry,” he said. “Just…had a thought.”

  Her eyes widened. “About what happened?”

  “No. About my brothers. Nothing important.”

  “Okay.” She peeked into the bedroom, and he wondered if he ought to offer to look under the bed for her, but she only said, “Do you mind if I leave the door open?” and went in.

  “Of course not. I’m, uh, right across the hall.” He gestured. “If you need me, call. I’m a pretty light sleeper.”

  Jane nodded, her smile genuine if strained. “Duncan…”

  He cut her off quick. “If you’re going to thank me, don’t. No thanks. Good night, Jane.”

  She surprised him by stepping closer, rising on tiptoe and kissing his cheek, the touch of her lips so soft it was barely a whisper. Then she whisked into the room and went to the bed. Duncan retreated before he had to watch her actually snuggling under the covers.

  WAS IT ANY SURPRISE THAT sleep eluded her? Jane tried to think about anything or everything but that awful scene in her bedroom, but the result felt like a too-fragile leaf circling in an eddy, being pulled inevitably toward the center where its fate awaited, like it or not.

  As always, she did best when she turned her thoughts to Duncan. Not so much wondering about him—she was getting a pretty good idea why he wasn’t married, for example. The tension between him and Niall wasn’t that hard to read, either. Sibling tension wasn’t meant to get stirred into the push-pull between father and son.

  Jane frowned in the darkness. Did that have anything to do with why her sisters had rejected her long-distance overtures with such vehemence? Did they think she was trying to be something to them that she wasn’t? After a minute she thought in resignation, Who knows? More likely they were comfortable in the pattern of their lives. Neither had been born rebellious, the way she had.

  Back to Duncan. The Duncan here and now, right across the hall from her. He’d stayed up a while longer, after showing her to the bedroom. But not long ago she’d heard his footsteps. He’d paused outside her bedroom door, as if listening for her breathing. The hall light went out. After a pause, the bathroom one went on.

  A night-light for her. Huddled under the covers, she was grateful.

  More light, from his bedroom, she supposed. The sound of a distant toilet flushing, and then his light went out. She thought it was that, rather than his door closing.

  She’d rolled so that she faced her own open doorway. Through it she knew she was looking through his, at an angle. Maybe straight at his bed, where he might be stretched out staring her way thinking about her....

  Jane muffled a moan.

  What would he do if she crept in there on silent feet and stood like a child beside her parents’ bed and said, “Can I sleep with you tonight?” Except she didn’t feel childlike. She wanted to feel safe with him, but she also wanted…more.

  Stupidly more. The kind of more that would return to haunt her. He threatened her determination to hold on to her independence as no man ever had. And all she had to do was think about the way he snapped out orders and took for granted that they’d be followed to know how wrong he was for her.

  Maybe she was getting drowsy. She could think without hurting anything, couldn’t she? Or picture? How Duncan’s harsh face would look relaxed in sleep, for example. She lingered over that one. Or his body, sprawled across the bed. But he’d said he was a light sleeper, which didn’t suggest much relaxation....

  Jane drifted.

  She woke screaming, horrors flash frozen on her retinas, blood splattering her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “JANE! SWEETHEART, you’re all right. You’re only dreaming.” Hard arms closed around her; Duncan’s heart slammed beneath her cheek when he pulled her face against his chest. “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay, honey. You’re at my house, remember? I’m here.”

  He was. She latched onto him with a ferocity that might have shocked her any other time. Seen dimly in the fall of light from the hall, he was half sitting on the edge of the bed. She scrambled onto him and her arms wrapped him so tight it was a wonder if he could breathe.

  Continuing to murmur comforting words to her, he turned them both so he could lie down on the bed beside her. She was still mostly on top of him, but he couldn’t mind much or he would have set her to the side. Instead, his hands wer
e moving up and down her body now, crooning in a different way from his deep, velvety voice.

  She was whimpering, Jane was dismayed to realize. She made herself stop, but the result was some hitching breaths that could have been mistaken for sobs. Maybe were sobs.

  “Cry if you want,” he said against her ear. “It’s okay.”

  “No.” She sounded funny; raspy. “I…I think I’m all right now. I…I don’t know…”

  “Bad one, huh?”

  “Yes.” She squeezed her eyes shut trying to see it, and realized the nightmare had faded, the way they did. “All I can remember is blood.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  After a minute she mumbled, “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “Um…”

  “Offering myself up?” Was that a hint of amusement?

  She bobbed her head. She was starting to be a little embarrassed, but not enough to make herself let go and roll away. Instead, under the pleasure of his hands kneading a tight muscle here, squeezing another there, her body began to loosen. She wasn’t grabbing on to him so tight anymore. She concentrated on the feel of his hands on her, strong and gentle at the same time. And his body beneath hers. What was he wearing…?

  Nothing on top. All that separated her from the solid beat of his heart was skin, muscle and bone. If she moved her cheek, the least little bit, she felt the silkiness of chest hair. And she could see his small, flat nipple.

  With alarm, Jane realized that she was suddenly, acutely aroused. No in-between state; one minute, sagging in relief, the next quivering with the need to touch and kiss and merge. What if he guessed…?

  Her eyes widened at the feel of the hard ridge beneath her belly. Whether he knew what she was feeling or not, he was aroused, too.

  Bad idea.

  Don’t care.

  He’d quit crooning at some point and been doing nothing but breathing. Now, though, he made a sound. It rumbled from deep within him. A groan.

  And his hands. They hadn’t stopped. They still kneaded and caressed, but one of them wrapped her hip and one buttock. The other, oh, it was skating up her side to the plump swelling of her breast, what he could reach of it with her flattened atop him.

  The need to touch in turn had become irresistible. Her hand slid over the powerful muscles in his chest so that her fingertips could lightly explore his nipple. And…she wriggled, trying to crawl higher on his body so she could put that ridge somewhere it could do more good.

  Duncan muttered some kind of blasphemy, his voice deeper and darker, and then he was forcibly lifting her so that she straddled him the way she longed to, and so that their mouths could meet.

  The kiss, only their second, wasn’t tentative. It seemed to take up where the other had left off. Or as if it never had left off. Hungry and practiced and insatiable. His tongue explored her mouth and then gave her a chance to do the same, though it never ceased its stroking. His hands had slid now beneath her borrowed T-shirt and stroked her bare, exquisitely sensitized skin. Then one delved beneath the waistband of the pajama pants and gripped her butt, moving her against him. No, helping her own movements find a rhythm, one that had already flooded her with heat and raw need.

  Duncan yanked the T-shirt over her head, lifted her and reared up enough to close his mouth over her breast. No preliminaries here, either; he suckled hard, and a thin, high cry escaped her.

  They rolled so he could wrestle her pajama bottoms off and take her other breast in his mouth. The deep, rhythmic pull matched the coordinated way their hips pushed at each other.

  Almost sobbing in her desperation, Jane struggled with his pajama bottoms. He kicked them off in the end and was between her legs in the blink of an eye. She had to be sopping wet. The blunt tip of his penis felt so good, so… Jane strained upward, trying to draw him in.

  He pushed, then swore. “I have to go find a condom.” There was nothing velvety about his voice now. It could have stripped varnish.

  “No!” She grabbed frantically at him when he would have withdrawn and tried to pull him deeper.

  “Jane!” Duncan sounded desperate.

  It was an effort to shape words, but necessary. “I’m on the pill.”

  He said something, she didn’t know what, but it didn’t matter because instead of pulling back he was thrusting hard.

  This was nothing like her few and unsatisfactory attempts to explore her sexuality. It was all sensation, so powerful she didn’t seem to exist as a conscious entity. There was no perfect rise and fall, taunt and satisfy; it was more like a struggle, something so primitive there were no words for it. The hunger, the frustration and satisfaction, and drive toward a cataclysm she wanted, oh, she wanted…

  When it came, she was shocked. Her mouth opened on a silent cry. This was no enjoyable little pop! like champagne bubbles when the cork came out. Her body arched and spasmed as a flash flood of white-hot pleasure tore through her, from her core outward. He made a guttural sound, thrust even harder a few times and then went rigid.

  She’d somehow lost all strength. Her arms fell from him to flop onto the bed. His full weight sprawled atop her. Neither moved, but to gasp for breath.

  Brain function was slow returning. Tiny niggles first—the sandpaper texture of his jaw against her throat and chin. The tickle and heat of air his lungs pumped out. Twinges in muscles she hadn’t known she had. Then awareness of her full body, starting with a delicious lassitude. And something that was almost joy, but was physical, tips of her toes to the tips of her fingers and to the hair on her scalp.

  No wonder people would do anything for this.

  He stirred, as if his brain was coming online at the same time, and then with a groan levered himself off her. Jane was startled by the sense of loss, cured when he scooped her up tight to his side, her head planted on his shoulder. Cuddling her.

  Had this been out of the ordinary for him? She couldn’t ask without sounding pathetic.

  She felt the moment Duncan began to actually think. Without moving, he tensed. Panic jumped in her chest. Would he want to get up and return to his own bed, leaving her alone?

  “Are you…” she stuttered, and couldn’t finish.

  His head tilted. “Am I what?”

  “Leaving?”

  “No.” His arm tightened and his other hand came up to stroke her hair from her face. “I won’t leave you.”

  She almost shuddered in relief. The plunge from the heights and climb up again had left her dizzy.

  “Then…what were you thinking?” She had to ask.

  His head cocked a little more, as if he was trying to see her face. He cleared his throat. “I don’t know if I was thinking.” Pause. “Feeling instead.”

  She nodded, wanting to say, Feeling what? but knowing better.

  They cuddled, and breathed, seemingly locked in silence. Only then, out of nowhere, he said, “Like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

  Jane’s throat seemed to close. Did he sound as unnerved as she was?

  Maybe, but…he’d been honest. It would be cowardly to be any less.

  “Me, too,” she whispered.

  His lips brushed her hair. “I’m glad,” he murmured. Then, “Shall I get up and turn off the light?”

  “Not unless it bothers you.”

  He shook his head. She lay there listening to his heartbeat, reveling in the startling heat of his strong, solid body and the security of his embrace, and sleep crept up so stealthily, she hardly knew when it pulled her under.

  “YOU’RE DRESSED.” DUNCAN heard the flatness of his own tone and hid his wince. Way to go.

  He’d heard the shower earlier, but hadn’t expected her to be in her own clothes, makeup applied, even a pair of dainty gold hoops in her ears.

  Having barely walked into the kitchen, Jane stared at him with astonishment. “Um…yes.”

  “You’re not thinking of going to work.”

  She stiffened. “It’s Sunday, so no. If this was Monday, my answer would
be yes.”

  “Do you think that’s smart?” It had to be said, even if he got her back up. The only common sense she’d displayed so far was in calling him when she got in trouble.

  “I own a business, Duncan. Do you want me to hang a ‘Sorry—open again whenever’ sign on the door?”

  “Until this is settled…”

  “Dance Dreams is my livelihood.” And more. She didn’t have to say that.

  Save the argument, he told himself. “If not work today, why get dressed up?”

  “These are the only clothes I have, remember?” she said, expression even more brittle. She quit hovering and circled the breakfast bar. “Do you mind if I get myself a cup of coffee?”