by Laura Taylor
Just the thought of making love with Jessica made his hands shake as he smoothed them down her narrow back. He held back, though, his conscience warning him that this wasn’t the time to expect anything more from her. She’d already given generously of her patience and compassion, and to expect anything else would be selfish.
She eventually eased back in his arms to study his face. "Feel better?"
He nodded. "Thanks to you."
She smiled at him, the flush in her cheeks evident even in the subdued glow cast across her features by the crackling fire. "You just needed a friend to prod you into realizing that you’d done your best under nearly impossible circumstances."
"Correction, I needed someone who cared enough to prod."
"I do care, Dev, but… I’m afraid to care too much. I don’t want to disappoint either one of us again."
"You won’t disappoint me. You couldn’t."
Lifting his hand, he brought his fingertips to her lips and silenced her before she could speak again. He then ran his middle finger back and forth cross her plump lower lip until a broken sigh escaped her and her eyes fluttered closed.
"I care, Jessica," he said hoarsely. "I care so much, I ache right down to my soul from wanting and needing you."
When he felt her fingers move restlessly through the dark pelt of hair that covered his chest, he drew her forward so that she rested against the strength of his naked chest and hard belly. Wrapping his arms around her, he vowed that he would simply hold her for a few minutes. He would free her, he told himself, once he memorized the feel of her in his arms, but the torture of having her astride his body with her legs circling his leans hips displaced his vow almost immediately.
He groaned, her trembling body, the scent of her skin, and the desire throbbing in his loins obscuring his awareness of anything but the sensual woman in his arms. Sipping from her lips, Dev inhaled her shattered–sounding murmurs and tasted the brandy they’d shared. He raised shaking hands to frame her face in the same moment that she curled her fingers over his shoulders to steady herself.
He tasted her even more thoroughly when she parted her lips and granted him access to the heated depths of her mouth. Sensing the silent battle she waged against her own rising passion, he discovered that he could no longer deny what both fate and Jessica had denied him for so many years.
Angling his head, he took her mouth with the possessiveness of an abandoned lover intent on reclaiming what had belonged to him all along. When she shifted urgently against his aching sex, Dev moaned into her mouth.
He tugged her nightgown up so that it bunched at her waist. Repeatedly smoothing his fingertips up and down her thighs and across her belly, he teasingly skirted the dark silk that concealed her core.
Jessica shuddered. She whispered his name over and over like an erotic chant. Several heartbeats later, she wrenched her lips free of his and let her head fall back. Eyes closed, she gasped for air as he pressed stinging little kisses to the tender skin of her neck.
He lingered at the pulse point throbbing in the hollow of her throat, his tongue hot and wet and arousing. He heard her breathless cry of need, and he absorbed the tremors that he knew would have buckled her knees had she been standing.
Dev shifted his hands up her body until he cupped the weight of her breasts and felt the stab of her taut nipples in the centers of his palms. He heard her breathing stop when he gently scraped his thumbnails across the tips of her nipples. When he paused, she exhaled shakily.
Closing his hands even more securely over her breasts, Dev felt them swell and firm beneath his touch. Her skin, heated now and oh so smooth, prompted a mental image of molten satin.
"Christ, Jessie. You don’t know what you’re doing to me."
"You can’t even begin to imagine what you’re doing to me," she countered.
She stared at him. Her shocked expression assured Dev that she needed and wanted him as much as he needed and wanted her.
"I’d forgotten I could feel this way," she finally confessed.
"I’ve never forgotten what we were like together. And I’ve never forgotten the way you come alive when I make love to you… when I’m buried inside of you and the world disappears."
She stroked the side of his face. He turned his head and captured the sensitive ridge of flesh at the base of her thumb with gentle teeth. She shivered, but she didn’t withdraw her hand.
"It took me a very long time not to want you every second of every day. I finally realized that a part of me had died we when parted. No one could take your place. No one." A sob escaped her on the heels of this confession.
Sweeping her nightgown up and over her head, he cast it aside. He tugged at the delicate tips of her breasts with callused fingers and recalled the seductive flavor of her skin. He also recalled the texture of her rose–tinted nipples, and he knew he wouldn’t survive the night without the taste and feel of her in his mouth.
Shifting her upward so that her breasts were level with his lips, he circled a nipple with the tip of his tongue before sucking it deep into his mouth. He trembled as he restrained the instinct that commanded him to shed his own clothing and seek the ultimate sanctuary within Jessica’s body. Instead, he turned his attention to her other breast, his lips and teeth devastating her in a thousand different ways with a thousand unique sensations.
Shaken and stunned, Jessica stared at him when he paused. Her eyes flooded with tears. "I shouldn’t want you so much after all this time."
He gently lowered her back down to a position astride his lap and enfolded her in his arms, but he couldn’t conceal his desperate hunger for her. His body revealed his need, the hard, thick length of his sex, although still restrained by his partially unzipped jeans, throbbing almost painfully. But Dev managed to contain his desire in the face of Jessica’s obvious shock and uncertainty.
When he could speak, he said, "I’ve never stopped wanting you. My feelings didn’t go away when you left. They didn’t stop even when I was angry and hurt that you didn’t want me or love me any longer."
The tears pooled in her eyes spilled down her cheeks. "I always wanted you, even when I knew I couldn’t have you in my life."
Lifting his hands, he curved them over her breasts. He heard Jessica’s sharp gasp and felt the shudder that ripped through her. "You’re so perfect. You’ve always been so perfect, Jessie. I hate it that any other man has ever touched you. I don’t care if he was your husband."
"I didn’t feel anything when he touched me. He was so patient at first, and I felt guilty because I couldn’t love him," she confessed. "I really tried to respond, because he was my husband, but I couldn’t force myself to feel emotions or physical desires that weren’t there. I cheated him when I agreed to marry him, and I was ashamed of the relief I felt when he stopped expecting sex a few months after we were married. He got angry once, and he told me I had the sexual instincts of a stone. Until this week, I thought he might be right."
His hands remained over her breasts as he studied her. As if to verify Dev’s ability to seduce her, her nipples hardened into points of desire. Pain and pleasure clashed in his groin when he felt her fingertips brush across his belly.
"You deserved someone who could arouse your passions, Jessie. He obviously failed you, because you’re the most passionate woman I’ve ever known."
"Only with you."
After a long pause, he said, "We were meant for each other."
She covered his strong hands with her own. "I used to think that, too."
"Can’t you try to believe it now, Jessica?"
She sighed. His hands slipped away from her breasts as she slid out of his lap. "The obligations and the responsibilities won’t go away, and I won’t run away from them."
"What about the fear? Will you ever overcome it?"
"I’m not afraid, Dev. I’m just realistic."
"But you’re afraid to love a warrior. You said it yourself."
She got to her feet, snagged her nightgown, a
nd slipped it over her head as she stepped into her slippers. "I’m not afraid. I simply won’t allow either one of us to take the risks involved. There is a difference."
"Have it your way, Jessica. You always do."
She stiffened when she heard the hard edge in his voice. "I’m doing what’s best for both of us. You just don’t realize it, and all I can do is ask you to trust me. Maybe someday you’ll understand. Maybe someday I’ll find the courage to make you understand."
Dev shook his head in frustration. "I feel as if I’ve spent the last few hours on the wrong end of a yo–yo." He climbed to his feet, his body still painfully aroused and his patience with Jessica suddenly stretched to the limit.
"Tomorrow’s almost here, and I need a few hours of sleep before I tackle all the cleanup chores waiting for me outside," she said in a subdued voice.
"I’ll give you a hand."
"You’re a guest…"
"I’m more than a guest," he reminded her through clenched teeth.
"That’s what Mom said."
"I want to help you."
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you, Dev."
He watched as she walked to the doorway, and he felt the sudden need to delay her departure for just a few more seconds. "What time?"
When she glanced back at him, he thought she looked like a schoolgirl in her old–fashioned nightgown, but her swollen lips, flushed skin, and the faint sway of her full, hard–nippled breasts beneath her gown proclaimed her a woman.
"Whenever we wake up," she answered before she disappeared from sight.
"Night, Jessie," Dev whispered to the empty room, the regret in his soul as devastating as the unfulfilled desire ravaging his body.
6
Jessica lowered the flame beneath the bacon sizzling in a large skillet atop the stove. She then checked to see that the butter melting in a second pan on an adjacent burner wasn’t in danger of scorching. After cracking several eggs into a mixing bowl and setting it aside, she grated a chunk of sharp cheddar cheese into a small serving dish and placed it on the kitchen table.
Moving to the sink to wash her hands, Jessica peered out the kitchen window and silently pondered the heavy downpour and gusting winds that continued to pummel the southern Ozarks. She knew that the current weather conditions and the tornado advisory issued just minutes ago by the local radio station would delay her plan to clean up the debris already scattered by the storm between the inn and the lakefront.
A floorboard creaked. Jessica glanced in the direction of the sound and saw Dev standing in the kitchen doorway. She concealed behind a welcoming smile the anxiety she still felt over the strained manner in which they’d parted shortly before dawn. He wore a gray Marine Corps sweatshirt, snug black jeans, and the cowboy boots he’d worn the night before. Jessica thought he appeared rested despite the fact that he’d had less than five hours of sleep.
"Something smells good."
"Brunch. We’ll eat soon."
Dev strolled into the kitchen and helped himself to a cup of coffee before joining her at the sink. Slipping his free arm around her shoulder, he dropped a light kiss on the tip of her nose and then moved lower to leave a second lingering kiss on her lips.
He teased and seduced with lips, tongue, and nibbling teeth. She responded in spite of herself. When he released her, she swayed unsteadily.
His nearness and casually intimate manner sent her senses spinning, and she almost missed his observation, "It looks like it’s gotten a bit worse out there, not better."
Although disconcerted by his behavior, Jessica pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "The weather service just announced a tornado advisory for our area."
"Is the inn in jeopardy?"
"Possibly, but not for a while unless the advisory is upgraded to a bona fide tornado alert. To paraphrase Bette Davis, we may have to fasten our seat belts if things get bumpy out there."
"You don’t look alarmed."
"I’m not, but it never hurts to be cautious and prepare for the worst." Jessica knew he understood the dual meaning of her comment when he shot her an amused look.
Dev resumed his study of the ongoing deluge and the low, dark clouds that stretched across the width of the lake to hover in the foothills of the nearby mountains. Jessica felt the lean strength and shifting muscles of his body with every breath he took.
Much to her chagrin, she grasped how truly vulnerable she’d become in the last few days, and she experienced a moment of pure resentment that Dev had such an undeniable impact on her. She refused to let him see that he made it difficult for her to hold even the simplest conversation with him.
"We tend to take our weather forecasts very seriously in this part of the country. We can keep an eye on the situation while we have our meal, and then I’ll take some things down to the storm cellar just to be safe."
"Be optimistic. Maybe the storm will blow itself out in a few hours. If not, we can just stay put, listen to the radio, and… amuse ourselves."
She frowned. "I’m realistic about the weather and about you. I’ve also got a chessboard and a Monopoly game in the family room if you feel the need to amuse yourself."
"I like to fly over bad weather whenever possible," he continued, ignoring the warning in her voice. "It’s less nerve racking that way. What I’d really like to know is how long you’re going to play games where we’re concerned."
She squared her shoulders and raised her chin. She met his curious gaze with a firm look of her own. "As long as you make it necessary, Dev."
"I guess you told me."
"I guess I did, didn’t I?"
She smiled triumphantly and walked to the stove after ducking out from under his encircling arm, her thoughts dominated by her emotions. Extinguishing the flame beneath the bacon, she drained the strips on a length of paper towel and scrambled the eggs.
Jessica cautioned herself against becoming over confident around Dev. She realized that her love for him weakened her ability to defend herself against the emotions he inspired within her. Her conscience promptly asked her if she really wanted to mount a defense against him, and she lied when she answered in the affirmative.
"Need some help?"
She flinched, the sound of his voice jarring her back to the present. "Everything’s almost ready, but thanks for asking. Why don’t you help yourself to a muffin while I finish the eggs?"
He followed her suggestion and reached into a napkin–lined basket for a warm blueberry muffin. "I see you’re planning to fatten me up."
"I’m known as a slave driver around here, and I intend to make use of your strong back if we ever manage to get outside and start dealing with the real work. My employees will tell you that I always provide sufficient fuel for their bodies." She smiled in his direction, determined to play the role of gracious hostess. "You look rested."
"I am. It’s the first time in a few months that I haven’t had nightmares. You may be hell on my body, Jessica Cleary, but you’re damn good for what’s been ailing me mentally."
"You’re welcome, I think."
"I’m glad you feel I’m worth the effort."
She glanced at him as she stirred their eggs to fluffy perfection with a wooden spoon. "That’s an odd thing to say."
"It’s not at all odd. You fought for me and for my peace of mind last night. I haven’t had many people in my life capable of sensing when that kind of persistence is necessary, not to mention being willing to risk my temper."
She grinned.
"What’s so funny?"
"You’re what’s funny, Devlin Mackenzie. Apparently damn few of your friends and coworkers realize that you’re a real Boy Scout beneath that swaggering, macho pilot image you’ve managed to cultivate."
He clapped a hand over his heart. "Are you saying I’m not a macho jet jockey?"
"Your secret’s safe with me, Major."
She laughed when he lowered his hand and inspected his chest. "Do you see any blood? I must
be losing a pint a second."
"Eat your muffin, or I’ll put you on half–rations."
"Yes, ma’am."
Jessica filled a platter with the bacon and eggs. She joined Dev at the kitchen table, watching as he doctored his eggs with spicy salsa and grated cheddar.
"You’re a thoughtful woman, Jessica."
Unprepared for his appreciation, she looked down at her plate. She knew he was talking about the eggs, her obvious memory of how he liked them prepared, and the fact that she’d provided him with a brand of salsa they’d discovered during a trip to southern California several years earlier.
Rather than contribute to the expansion of his ego, she said, "Our West Coast guests appreciate having familiar condiments on the table. Not everyone likes fried catfish with side orders of hush puppies and grits three times a day. I know I certainly don’t, so I vary the menu whenever possible."
"I still appreciate the thought, Jessie."
Jessie.
She felt her body temperature rise. Just the low, sexy way in which he said Jessie evoked a legion of erotic mental images and sent them tripping across the landscape of her mind.
Images of another time and place that displaced her instinctive resistance to any recollections of their past. Images of their naked bodies joined in passion. Other images of two people whispering words of love to each other by a campfire after a day spent river rafting. And yet another image from the night when she’d accepted Dev’s marriage proposal, because she’d wanted to believe that the strength of the love they shared could and would overcome any difficulties life might throw at them.
Jessica’s heart trembled. She held very still for a long moment, waiting for the sensation to pass. When it did, she refocused on the contents of her plate and made herself eat. Sadly, the fluffy scrambled eggs tasted like ash in her mouth.
"Old appetites die hard, if they die at all. Isn’t that right, Jessie?"
She met his bold gaze, refusing to shrink from it despite his accurate observation and the tension emanating from his body. She saw, too, the message in his eyes that warned her she couldn’t run from him forever.
