How could he have ever thought one night with her would be enough? After one night he wanted her more than before, when she’d been just a fantasy. Now he knew she was better than a fantasy. Better than anything he’d ever held in his hands. And he knew that as long as she was within his reach, he would reach for her.
She grasped the end of his T-shirt and tugged it from his jeans. He took over and pulled it over his head, and before the T-shirt hit the floor, her hands were on him. On his sides and shoulders and moving down his chest. She leaned forward and kissed his throat. Her warm, moist tongue sent shivers throughout his body and made him so hard he throbbed.
Her fingers combed through the hair on his chest, leaving a path of fire to the waistband of his pants. She unbuttoned his fly, reached into his jeans, and took him out. That was one of the things he liked about Hope. She wasn’t shy about going after what she wanted.
Dylan looked down between them, between her breasts to his penis resting in her soft white hand. He didn’t know how things would work out for them, and at the moment, he didn’t care. His blood pounded in his veins, his head, and his groin. Lust pulled his gut into a hard knot. He wrapped his hand over hers and moved it up and down, sliding within the soft velvet of her palm.
He knew there would come a time when he would not be able to touch her. When she wouldn’t be here to touch him, but she was here now, and he wanted this. He wanted the ache in his gut and the heavy throb in his belly. He wanted the feeling of being hit by a runaway train. Of being flattened by something he couldn’t and didn’t want to stop.
He kissed her mouth, the side of her face, and her throat. He untied the back of her dress and it fluttered to her feet. She stood before him in nothing but silky blue panties. She brushed the head of his penis across her smooth stomach, and his knees about buckled under him. Even though he knew better, he wanted this to last forever.
“Make love to me, Dylan,” she whispered.
He placed both her hands on his shoulders. “You city girls,” he said as he lifted her from the pool of her dress. “You’re always in a hurry.” Slowly he lowered her, sliding her down his body. The hard points of her breasts grazed his chest, and he held her against him. Nipples to nipples, their groins pressed together, his erection shoved up against her thigh and crotch. “We have all day. All night, too.”
With her mouth poised just above his, she asked, “You don’t have to be anywhere? No pressing responsibilities?”
“Nope. I already talked to Adam today, and I left his dog at my mom’s.” He ground his hips into her. “The only place I want to be is right here.” He would have stood like that longer, but she wiggled from his grasp. With his body painfully aroused, he watched her walk away.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t go anywhere.” She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
He glanced down at himself, at his erection jutting from his pants like a piece of driftwood, and wondered just where in the hell she thought he would go.
Hadn’t she just asked him to make love to her? He reached for his wallet and pitched it onto the coffee table.
“Do something useful,” she called from the dining room. “Take off your clothes.”
He kicked off his boots and stuffed his socks inside. As he shoved his pants down his thighs, the sounds of a steel guitar and a fiddle filled the house. He tossed his jeans by his boots and looked up. Hope reappeared, walking to him, her breasts bouncing a little with each step. From the other room, Dwight Yoakam sang about a wild ride. Damn, he wasn’t going to be able to hear Dwight any more without thinking of Hope moving toward him in nothing but her little panties.
“I’ve never listened to country-and-western music,” she said. “I want to broaden my horizons. Experience something new.”
He grabbed her and folded her into his chest. With the length of her pressed against the length of him, he figured it was his duty to give her a new experience. While Dwight sang about a woman rubbing her hand up his thigh, Dylan created a little friction, rubbing against Hope Spencer’s thighs and filling his hands with her little behind covered in those thin, silky panties. Her breasts were pressed into his chest and he ground his pelvis into her. He kissed her hard, a long, wet tangle of tongues and smashed mouths gasping for breath. He slid one hand around her side and down into the front of her panties. She was wet, and when he felt her where she was warm and slick, a long, rough moan sounded deep in her throat.
She wiggled from his embrace once more, but this time she didn’t leave him. “Sit down,” she ordered, her voice sounding as drugged as he felt. She didn’t wait for him to follow her request. Instead, she shoved her hands on his chest and pushed until he sat on the couch. She stood between his widespread knees and pushed her panties down her thighs. As she kicked them behind her, he ran his gaze up her legs to her bikini line. Just last week, he’d wondered if she was a natural blonde. Now he knew she was, and Jesus H., walking around with that kind of knowledge had nearly killed him already. Just that morning, he’d been picturing her crotch and had driven a tractor into the side of his mother’s barn.
Just looking at her now made it hard to breathe. “I need a party hat,” he said.
“What?”
“There’s a condom in my wallet.”
She took his wallet from the table and slid the gold foil-wrapped condom from inside. “I thought you didn’t come over here for sex.”
He smiled. “Well, a guy can hope, Hope.”
One brow lifted as she unwrapped the condom and slipped it between her lips. Then, before his astonished eyes, she put it on him with her mouth. “Oh, God,” he groaned as she broadened his horizons and gave him a whole new experience.
By the time she straddled his lap, he was very close to the point of no return. She positioned the head of his penis, then slowly sat until he was buried deep inside her. Through the thin layer of latex, her hot flesh surrounded his erection as if she’d been custom-made for him. She shuddered and he felt every ripple of her tight passage. She grabbed his shoulders and leaned back. Her lips were parted, her breathing shallow, and her head fell to one side. Her cheeks were flushed pink. The hunger in her clear blue eyes focused on him as if he were the only man who had exactly what she needed.
She sighed his name and he placed his hands on her back. He kissed her breasts, and when she squeezed her tight muscles, he had to fight to keep from coming before she did. He tried to think of something else while every cell in his body was focused on her. On the way she felt inside. On the warmth of her contracting muscles. On the sharp pain and dull ache twisting his groin.
She straightened and pressed her forehead to his. He breathed the air from her lungs as she moved up and down, touching him with a slow and steady rhythm that built a fever for more. He grabbed her behind and brought her down hard, moving her faster.
He didn’t think anything could feel as good as the inside of Hope, but with the next push, it did. It got a whole lot hotter. And wet, like her mouth, only better. Heat swept across his flesh like a raging fire. Hope moaned and squeezed him tight, pulsing, constricting around him. The strong contractions of her orgasm wrung a release from him that twisted his vital organs and left him without air in his lungs.
He came deep inside where she was hot and slick, and even as he pumped into her one last time, he knew why it suddenly felt so damn good.
The condom broke.
Hope rested her head on Dylan’s shoulder while the music from her CD player filled the silence, broken only by their gasps of breath. She hadn’t thought sex with Dylan could get better than it had been the other night. She’d been wrong about that. Perhaps it was better now because she was more relaxed. More at ease with her body and his. More comfortable acting like herself.
She waited until her breathing returned to normal before she spoke. “I think you’ve ruined me for any other man.” When he didn’t say a word, she pulled back and looked into his face. He didn’t loo
k like a man basking in afterglow. “What’s wrong?”
“Hop up,” was all he said.
As soon as Hope rose to her knees, he grasped her hips and stood her in front of him. Without a word, he grabbed his jeans and headed to the bathroom.
Hope stared after him until he was out of sight. The bathroom door shut, and her own afterglow bubble popped like a balloon. She stood in the middle of her living room, suddenly feeling very naked and exposed. What had happened? What had gone wrong? What had she done?
She grabbed her dress and slipped it over her head. She didn’t know what had happened or what she’d done. Everything had been wonderful until afterward. Until she’d made that crack about him ruining her for other men. Maybe that was it. Maybe that had sounded like a commitment to him.
Hope tied the dress behind her neck and glanced toward the hall. That had to be it. She’d made him angry. He’d probably leave now. The thought of him walking out her front door left her cold.
The CD stopped and the toilet flushed. Dylan appeared in his black jeans, but he didn’t look any happier than when he’d left. “Are you taking birth control?” he asked.
“What?” Her gaze locked on the grim line of his mouth. She shook her head. “I mean, no.”
“Shit!”
Hope jumped. “What?”
“What?” He ran his fingers through the sides of his hair. “Didn’t you feel the condom break?”
She thought for a moment. Thought of the exact second when everything suddenly felt a whole lot better than it had. “Oh,” she said.
His hands dropped to his sides. “When are you due for your period?”
He was worried about pregnancy. Something that she hadn’t thought about for so long, it never entered her head. “Not for a long time,” she assured him.
“How long?”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“Take my word for it.”
He moved to the couch and sat with his elbows on his knees. His bare foot landed on her balled-up panties. “Jesus, what a mess.”
“I’m not pregnant, Dylan.”
“You don’t know that, Hope. At this very minute my DNA is swimming upstream, millions of happy little tadpoles gearing up to knock at ground zero.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Fuck!”
Hope tried not to take it all too personally, but she didn’t succeed.
“I can’t have another illegitimate child whose mama lives in another state. I just can’t do that again.”
He shook his head and looked up at her. “I won’t do that.”
Hope tried not to let her surprise show on her face. She didn’t know if he realized what he’d just told her. “Trust me. I’m not pregnant.”
“How do you know?”
It was no big deal, she told herself. It didn’t matter, but just when she’d begun to feel comfortable with him, telling him would bring up every insecurity she had about her body. “There is no ground zero.”
His gaze lowered to her stomach, and he drummed his fingers on the back of the couch. “What do you mean?”
Hope moved to the fireplace and stared at the cold stone mantel. She stood with her back to Dylan, her toes curling in the bearskin covering Hiram’s bloodstain. She didn’t know exactly how to tell him. It shouldn’t matter, but for some men, it did. “Remember when I told you that the scar on my abdomen was from a tummy tuck? Well, I lied about that. When I was younger, I had a condition that was so bad, I missed a lot of school. Doctors were afraid it might spread to my other organs, so when drug therapy didn’t work, I had to have surgery that left me unable to have children.”
“Cancer?”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “No, endometriosis.”
“Jesus.” He sighed. “Why didn’t you just say that? You made it sound like you were one breath away from death.”
“Have you heard of endometriosis?”
“Sure. My mother had it and had to have a hysterectomy when I was about sixteen.”
“I was twenty-one.”
He rose and went toward her. “That must have been rough.”
She shrugged and looked down at the bobcat on the hearth. “I felt so much better afterward, it was worth it to me. I had so much more freedom. I didn’t have to spend half a month dreading the other half. I thought that if I ever wanted children, I would adopt. Having my own biological child was never an issue for me. Maybe because I thought it wouldn’t matter to a man who loved me.”
“It shouldn’t.”
She knew better. “But it does.” She felt him move behind her.
“I gather it mattered to your ex-husband,” he said, crowding her personal space with his big, solid body and intimate questions.
She’d never talked to anyone about what had happened in her marriage. She really didn’t want to talk about it now, but he rested his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. She looked up at him and he was looking back through patient green eyes, like he was prepared to wait all day for her answer. “He thought it wouldn’t matter, but it did,” she said.
His thumbs brushed her bare skin. “Then he’s an ass.”
“Yes, for a lot of reasons, but not for that.” Again Hope found herself in the position of defending her ex-husband to Dylan, but if he was to hear the truth, he had to hear everything. “When we were first married, I really do believe that it didn’t matter to him. He was busy with his practice and we traveled a lot. We told each other that our lives were full and our marriage was wonderful because we could just pick up and go and spend the weekend in Carmel if we wanted. We told ourselves our life was better than the lives of our friends who were tied down with children, and that we could make love in every room of our house if we wanted. We could hop on a jet and fly to Scottsdale or Palm Springs to play golf. And we did do all those things, but it wasn’t enough. At least not for him.”
“He left you for a nurse, right?”
“No. I lied about that, too.”
His thumbs stopped and his brows rose up his forehead.
“I certainly didn’t know you well enough to tell you my husband had an affair with my good friend. It was too embarrassing.” She looked away, but he placed his hand on the side of her face and brought her gaze back to his.
“He’s an ass,” Dylan repeated.
“He said the affair was an accident, but I don’t think so. He said her pregnancy was an accident, too. I didn’t believe that, either. He might not have even known it until it happened, but I think he wanted what I couldn’t give him. He wanted his own child.” She lowered her gaze to his bare chest. “I think it’s biology. I think men want their own children.”
“Maybe it’s just more important to some men.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You have Adam.”
“Yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean I was always sure he was mine.” He slid his palm down her arm and took her hand in his. “Julie and I weren’t even living together at the time Adam was conceived, and I wasn’t so sure she didn’t have other boyfriends.”
“But Adam has your eyes.”
“He does now. When he was born, they were dark blue and all swollen. He kind of looked like Winston Churchill, to tell you the truth. He had a hard time and was an ugly little spud. But the second I looked into his tiny face, and the second he looked at me, we were buddies. And biology didn’t mean squat. He was mine. He was my son.”
Hope looked in Dylan’s eyes, and her silly heart swelled. She was proud of him and didn’t really know why. Maybe for being a real man. Maybe just for being him. She leaned forward a little and laid her head on his bare shoulder. “You’re a good man, Dylan Taber.”
“Why, because I do what I’m supposed to do? Most men are like me. You just happened to marry a guy who was hung up on the wrong things.”
“I think somewhere in our marriage he changed. He looked at me different, I think. At first he thought I was enough for him, but I wasn’t.” Ev
erything inside Hope stilled. She hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t meant to confess her soul. Dylan made her feel too comfortable.
“You’re kidding me. You’re about the most perfect woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to touch.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted it more than she could remember wanting anything. But she didn’t. Not really. “No, not quite perfect.”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “Why, because you don’t have a uterus?”
The way he said it sounded so clinical. “You make it sound like we’re discussing an appendix.”
“Just about.” He placed his hands on the sides of her face and raised her gaze to his.
“No, it not the same thing. It’s not a reproductive organ.”
“I don’t mean to sound insensitive here, but there is a hell of a lot more to being a woman than reproducing. A hell of a lot more to being a man than knocking up women. If you ask me, your ex-husband sounds like a jerk, and he did you a real favor by having that affair with your friend. I know he did me a favor. Otherwise, you’d be in Carmel or playing golf in Palm Springs. Instead, you’re standing here with me without your panties on.”
She laughed. “That’s true.”
He slid a hand beneath the back of her dress and grasped her bare behind. “And I wouldn’t have ruined you for other men.”
“You heard that, huh?”
“Of course.” He brushed his nose against hers. “Anything else you want to tell me you’ve lied about before I ruin you some more?”
No, she’d confessed enough for one day. “That’s it.”
Wind whipped Hope’s ponytail about her head as she pawed through the cassette tapes in Dylan’s truck. More Dwight Yoakam, Aaron Tippin, John Anderson, Garth Brooks… and AC/DC. She took the latter out of the case and held it up. “Highway To Hell?”
He looked over at her through his mirrored sunglasses and grinned like he was sixteen. “Partied a lot with those boys.”
“I thought cowboys listened to country.”
He shrugged and turned his attention back to the road. “I used to listen to Blue Oyster Cult, too. And, of course, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.”
True Confessions Page 21
