A Christmas Baby Surprise: Reclaimed by the Rancher
Page 18
It was as if they had never been apart. He rolled her to her stomach and moved aside a swath of her hair to kiss the nape of her neck. The press of his lips against sensitive skin sent sparkles of sensation all down to her feet.
When he nibbled his way along her spine, her hands grabbed the sheets. He lay heavy against her, his big body weighing her down deliciously.
At last she felt him move away. He scrambled out of his boxers and rolled her to face him once again. She let her arms fall lax above her head, enjoying the way his avid gaze scoured her from head to toe.
It had been two years since she had seen him naked...two years since she had seen him at all. Beginning with what would have been their wedding morning, he had phoned her every single day for a week. Each one of those times she had let his call go to voice mail, telling herself he should have had the guts to face her in person.
Had she wronged him grievously? In her blind hurt, had she rushed to judgment? The enormity of the question made her head spin.
For weeks and months, she had wallowed in her self-righteous anger, calling Jeff Hartley every dirty name in the book, telling herself she hated him...that he was a worthless cad, a two-timing player.
But what if she had been wrong? What if she had been terribly, dreadfully wrong?
He used his thumb to erase the frown lines between her brows. “What’s the matter, buttercup?”
Hearing the silly nickname made the lump in her throat grow larger. “I don’t know what we’re doing, Jeff.”
His smile was lopsided, more rueful than happy. “Damned if I know either. But let’s worry about that tomorrow.”
She cupped his cheek, feeling the light stubble of late-day beard. “Since when do you channel Scarlett O’Hara?”
Without answering, he reached in his discarded pants for a condom and took care of business. Then he moved between her thighs. “Put your arms around my neck, Lucy. I want to feel you skin to skin.”
Fifteen
Jeff tried to live an honorable life. He gave to charity, offered work to those who needed it, supported his local civic organizations and donated large sums of money to the church where he had been baptized as an infant.
But lying in Lucy’s arms, on the brink of restaking a claim that had lain dormant for two years, he would have sold his soul to the devil if he could have frozen time.
Lucy’s eyes were closed.
“Look at me,” he commanded. “I want you to see my face when I take you.”
Her breath came in short, sharp pants. She nodded, her eyelids fluttering upward as she obeyed.
Gently, he spread her thighs and positioned his aching flesh against the moist, pink lips of her sex. When he pushed inside, he was pretty sure he blacked out for a moment. Two years. Two damn years.
It was everything he remembered and more. The fragrance of her silky skin. The sound of her soft, incoherent cries. His body and his soul would have recognized her even in the dark, anywhere in the world.
He felt her heart beating against his chest. Or maybe it was his heart. It was impossible to separate the two. Burying his face in the crook of her shoulder, he moved in her steadily, sucking in a sharp breath when she wrapped her legs around his waist, driving him deeper.
He thrust slowly at first, but all the willpower in the world couldn’t stem the tide of his hunger. His body betrayed him, his desire cresting sharply in a release that left him almost insensate.
Lucy hadn’t come. He knew that. But his embarrassment was blunted by the sheer euphoria of being with her again. He kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, love.” He touched her gently, intimately, stroking and teasing until she climaxed, too. Afterward, he held her close for long minutes.
But reality eventually intruded.
Lucy reclined on her elbow, head propped on her hand. “May I ask you a very personal question?”
Though his breathing was still far from steady, he nodded. “Anything.”
Lucy reached out and smoothed a lock of his hair. Her gaze was troubled. “When was the last time you had sex?”
Here it was. The first test of their tenuous reconciliation. “You should know,” he said quietly. “You were there.”
She went white, her expression anguished, tears spilling from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “You’re lying,” she whispered.
Her accusation angered him. But he gathered her into his arms and held her as she sobbed. Two years of grief and separation. Two years of lost happiness.
“I know you don’t believe me, Lucy.” He combed her hair with his fingers. “Maybe you never will. Don’t cry so hard. You’ll make yourself sick.”
Perhaps they should have talked first. But his need for her had obliterated everything else. Now she was distraught, and he didn’t know how to help her get to the truth. Was this going to be the only moment they had? If so, he wasn’t prepared to let it end so soon.
Feeling her nude body against his healed the raw places inside him. She was his. He would fight. For however long it took. No matter what happened, he was never letting her go again.
Sixteen
Lucy’s brain whirled in sickening circles. Jeff wanted her to believe he hadn’t been with another woman since she walked out on him. He expected her to believe he had not cheated on her.
She should have been elated...relieved. Instead, she was shattered and confused and overwhelmed. Was she going to be one of those women who blindly accepted whatever her lover told her? Where was her pride? Her intuition? Her intellect?
Jeff was silent, but tense. She knew him well enough to realize that he was angry. Even so, the strong arms holding her close were her only anchors at a moment when everything she thought she knew was shattering into tiny fragments and swirling away.
At last, the storm of grief passed. She lay against him limp with emotional distress. Taking a deep breath, she tried to sit up. “We need to go back to Royal. Right now. I need to see you and Kirsten in the same room at the same time to hash this out.”
Jeff moved up against the headboard. His jaw was tight, but he scooped her into his lap. “It can wait until tomorrow. We deserve this night together, Lucy. You and I. No one else. Even if you don’t believe me.”
With her cheek against his chest, she seesawed between hope and despair. Was it possible she hadn’t lost him after all, or was she being a credulous fool? If she had placed more trust in what they had from the beginning, it might never have come to this. Was it too late to repair the damage and to reclaim the future that had almost been destroyed?
And what if Jeff had initiated the kiss with Kirsten? Could she forgive him and move on? Was what they had worth another chance? Would their relationship ever be the same?
She was deeply moved, unbearably regretful, and at the same time giddy with hope. Tipping back her head so she could see his face, she memorized his features. The heavy-lidded green eyes. The strong chin. The slightly crooked nose. The tiny scar below his left cheekbone.
He gazed down at her with a half-smile. “Are we good?”
“I’m not sure.” She wanted to say more. She wanted to pour out her heart...to tell him about the endless months of despair and loneliness. But now was not the time to be sad. “Kiss me again,” she whispered unsteadily. “So I know this isn’t a dream.”
Jeff leaned her over his arm and gave her what she asked for, warm and slow...soft and deep. With each fractured sigh on her part and every ragged groan from him, arousal shimmered and spread until every cell of her body pulsed wildly with wanting him. She grabbed handfuls of his hair, trying to drag him closer.
He winced and laughed. “Easy, darlin’. I don’t want to go bald just yet.”
His trademark humor was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the beginning. That and his broad-shouldered, lanky body.
“I need you inside me again,” she pleaded.
“Not yet.” His smile was feral. “Have patience, Lucy, love. We’ve got all night.”
Seventeen
Jeff wanted to worship her body and mark it as his and drive her insane with pleasure. It was a tall order for a man still wrung out from his own release. Not that he wasn’t ready for another round. He was. He definitely was. His erection throbbed with a hunger that wouldn’t be sated anytime soon.
But somehow he had to make Lucy understand.
When he tasted the tips of her breasts, circled the areolas with his tongue, she gasped and arched her back. He pressed her to the mattress and moved south, teasing her belly button before kissing his way down her hips and thighs and legs one at a time. He even spent a few crazy minutes playing with her toes, and this from a man who had never once entertained a foot fetish.
By this point, she was calling him names...pleading for more.
He laughed, but it was a hoarse laugh. He knew the joke was on him. All his plans to demonstrate how high he could push her evaporated in the driving urge to fill her and erase the memory of every hour that had separated them.
His brain was so fuzzy he only remembered the new condom at the last minute. Once he was ready, he knelt and lifted one of Lucy’s legs onto his shoulder. He paused—only a moment—to appreciate the sensual picture she made.
Everything about her was perfect...from the graceful arch of her neck to her narrow waist to the small mole just below her right breast.
He touched her deliberately, stroking the little spot that made her body weep for him. Even though he was gentle and almost lazy in his caress, Lucy climaxed wildly, her release beautiful and real and utterly impossible to resist. “God, I want you,” he muttered.
When he thrust inside her, her orgasm hit another peak. The feel of her inner muscles fluttering against his sex drove him to the brink of control. He went still...chest heaving, hips moving restlessly despite his pause.
“Lucy?”
Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. “Yes?”
“I was furious with you for not trusting me. But I never stopped loving you.”
“Oh, Jeff...” The look on her face told him she wasn’t there yet. She still had doubts. He could wait, maybe. He wanted her to be absolutely sure. For now it was enough to feel...and to know...
Lucy was his.
He retreated and lifted her onto her knees, stuffing pillows beneath her. Her butt was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, heart-shaped and full. Lucy had bemoaned the curves of her bottom on numerous occasions. Tonight, as he palmed it and squeezed it and steadied himself against it to enter her again with one firm push, he decided he could spend the rest of his life proving to her how perfect it was.
Leaning forward, he gathered her hair into a ponytail, securing it with his fist and using the grip to turn her head. “Look in the mirror, Lucy. This is us. This is real.”
Eighteen
Lucy hadn’t even noticed that the dresser was conveniently situated across from the bed...and that the mirror faithfully reflected Jeff’s sun-bronzed body and her own paler frame. The carnal image was indelibly imprinted on her brain. As long as she lived, she would never forget this moment.
She closed her eyes and bent her head. Jeff released her hair, letting it fall around her face. Behind her, his harsh breathing was audible. At last, he moved with a muffled shout, slamming into her again and again until he shuddered and moaned and slumped on top of her as they both collapsed onto the mattress.
Minutes later...maybe hours, so skewed was her sense of time, she stirred. In the interim, they had untangled their bodies. Jeff lay flat on his back, one arm flung across his eyes. She snuggled against him, draping her leg across his hairy thigh. “Are you alive?”
“Mmph...”
It wasn’t much of a response, but it made her smile.
She danced her fingertips over his rib cage. At one time, he had been very ticklish.
His face scrunched up and he batted her hand away. “Five minutes,” he begged, the words slurred. “That’s all I need.”
“Take your time,” she teased. She rested her cheek against his chest, feeling so light with happiness it was a wonder she didn’t float up to the ceiling. Maybe she was being naive. Maybe he would hurt her again. But at the moment, none of that seemed to matter.
“You never gave me a chance to explain two years ago,” he muttered.
His statement dampened her euphoria. “Would it have mattered? I was desperately hurt and in shock. I’m not sure anything you said would have gotten through to me.”
“I deserved a fair hearing, Lucy. We were in a committed relationship, but you were too stubborn to be reasonable.”
His eyes were closed, so she couldn’t see his expression. But his jaw was tight.
Was it all an act? Jeff playing up his innocence?
There was only one way to know for sure, even if the prospect curled her stomach. “Will you do me a favor?” she asked quietly.
Jeff yawned. “The way I feel right now, you could ask me for the moon and I’d call NASA to help me get it for you.”
She reared up on one elbow and gaped. “Why, Jeff Hartley! That was the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
And there it was again. Doubt. Many a woman had been swayed by pretty words.
He chuckled, holding her tightly against his side. “I’ve had two years to practice,” he said. “Prepare to be amazed. But let’s not get off track. What’s this big favor you need from me?”
“Will you go with me to Kirsten’s house?”
His entire body froze. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not come anywhere near that woman.”
She kissed his bicep. “Please. I have to hear the truth. I know you want me to take you on faith, but I need something more concrete. I need you to understand my doubts, and I need your moral support.”
“Damn it. That’s what I get for promising you the moon.”
Nineteen
The following morning when Lucy woke up, she didn’t know where she was. And then it all came back to her in a rush of memories from the night before. She and Jeff Hartley had done naughty things in this huge bed. Naughty, wonderful things.
During the night, he had insisted on holding her close as they slept, though in truth, sleep had been far down the list of their favorite activities. Actually, ranking right below mind-blowing sex were the strawberries and champagne they had ordered from room service at 3:00 a.m.
Jeff was still asleep. She studied him unashamedly, feeling her heart swell with hope and then contract with fear. Loving him once had nearly destroyed her. Could she let herself love him again?
She flinched in surprise when the naked man beneath the covers moved and spoke. “I am not a peep show for your private entertainment,” he mumbled.
Reaching beneath the sheet, she took him in her hand. “Are you sure?”
What followed was a very pleasant start to their morning. When they were both rumpled and limp with satisfaction, she poked his arm. “Time to put on some clothes and check out. I want to get this over with.”
An hour later, they were on the highway, headed back to Royal. Lucy sat rigid in her seat, her hands clenched in her lap. Layers of dread filled her stomach with each passing mile.
When they reached the fringes of Royal proper, Jeff pulled off on the side of the road and turned to face her. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
She blanched. “Oh?”
“Nothing bad,” he
said hastily, correctly reading her state of mind. “I want you to know that I had my bank transfer twenty thousand dollars to Kenny’s account before you and I ever made it to Midland. I wanted you and me to be intimate, but only if you wanted it, too.”
Lucy shook her head. “Thank you for that.” But even as she said the words, she wondered if his generosity might be a ploy to win her trust...to play the knight in shining armor.
Of course, Jeff knew where Kirsten lived. The party where Jeff and Lucy first connected had been down the street from Kirsten’s house. When Jeff parked at the curb, Lucy took a deep breath. “This is it, I guess.”
Jeff was at her side as they made their way up the walk. Lucy rang the bell. Kirsten herself opened the door...and upon seeing Lucy and Jeff together, immediately turned the color of milk, her expression distraught. She didn’t invite them in. They stood in an awkward trio with the noonday sun beaming down.
Lucy squared her shoulders. “It’s been painful having you treat me so coldly these last two years, Kirsten. But I have to know the truth. If Jeff kissed you and you were seduced into responding, I need to hear you admit it.”
Kirsten scowled. “What does the sainted Jeff Hartley have to say about the whole mess? I suppose he’s told you what a bitch I am...what a terrible friend.”
“Actually, he hasn’t said much of anything. The man I knew two years ago wouldn’t have cheated on me. But the only other explanation is that my best friend deliberately ruined my wedding.”
Kirsten wrapped her arms around her waist, her expression hunted. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve run out of scenarios, and I’m damned tired of wondering.” Kirsten sneered. “Men are pigs. They want what they can’t have. Jeff put the moves on me. He cheated on you.”
Suddenly, the pain was as fresh as if the incident had happened yesterday. Seeing Kirsten in Jeff’s arms had nearly killed Lucy. But now she had to take one of them on faith. Either her childhood friend or her lover.