Loving You

by Maureen Child

  She’d been driving him crazy for weeks. His dreams were filled with her, his days measured by whether he would see her or not. She was in his brain, his heart, and his soul. Tasha Flynn had broken through his defenses and made herself such a part of him, he couldn’t imagine a world without her in it.

  Releasing her hand, he wrapped both arms around her, holding her as he moved, cradling her small, curvy body close to him. Her breaths matched to his, her heart beat in time with his. And he knew if he didn’t touch her soon, he’d lose what was left of his mind.

  She moved her hands up his arms to his shoulders, then encircled his neck. Her fingertips brushed against his neck and he felt the rush of heat from her touch as surely as if she’d branded him.

  “I want you,” he whispered, and felt her shiver in his arms. “I need to touch you, Tasha.” As he scooped one hand beneath the hem of her lacy shirt, his fingers slid across her skin like silk across ice.

  She sucked in a gulp of air and squirmed in his arms, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she shifted, moving with his touch, turning in to him. Nick smiled to himself as he shifted both hands beneath her blouse, and swayed to music only they could hear. Sliding his hands up between them, he found her breasts, bare beneath the lace, and air rushed from his lungs as he cupped her.

  “Oh my.” She sighed and tipped her head back, closing her eyes as she allowed him easier access to her body. His thumbs dusted across her hardened nipples, and her mouth dropped open on a soft moan.

  That sigh sliced into him and left him weak. Wanting.

  “Oh, Nick,” she whispered brokenly.

  “Let me have you,” he said as his fingers and thumbs tweaked the tips of her breasts, teasing, stroking, driving them both to the edge of control.

  She moved and his heart clutched. She sighed and his soul shattered. She moaned and a fierce, overpowering urge to claim her rose up in him, strangling him with need.

  Tasha couldn’t open her eyes. She was surprised she was still standing. Her whole body felt liquid. Her knees wobbled and she locked them as he continued to rock her gently in a slow, circular dance. His hands on her body were warm, strong, and tender. Music played in her head and her heart.

  And he was the song. He was everything. His breath dusting her cheeks was a blessing, sweet with the promise of more to come.

  His hands dropped from her breasts and she wanted to weep for the loss of them. But in an instant he’d lifted the hem of her blouse higher, baring her flesh to the cool night air. Her eyes flew open. She stared at him as her skin hummed and her insides warred between excitement and embarrassment.

  “Nick, people will see and—”

  “No one can see us,” he said, a small smile curving his mouth. “It’s too dark. We’re too far back from the road.”

  “But—”

  “I want to see you in moonlight,” he said, and she was lost.

  He tugged her blouse up and over her head, and before she could feel the cold, he leaned down and claimed her breasts with his mouth.

  Heat suffused her. Saturated her. Glowed inside her until she felt radioactive and wouldn’t have been shocked to see light streaking from her fingertips. Her stomach flip-flopped wildly, then tightened into a hard knot of expectation.

  She looked down and watched as he took her nipples, one after the other, with his lips and tongue. He lavished attention on her, tugging, nipping, licking. She held tightly to him, digging her fingers into his muscled shoulders, wishing she could feel his skin beneath her hands. Embarrassment fled. Nothing mattered but what he was doing to her. What he was making her feel. Then he suckled her and Tasha felt the world tip.

  She groaned tightly. “That feels so … good,” she said, her voice harsh, strained with the new feelings sweeping through her. She arched into him, offering herself to him, silently demanding that he give her more, take more.

  “So good,” he agreed quietly, the words muffled against her body. Again and again, his mouth worked her nipples, until the fog in her head descended completely, leaving her awash in muted sensation.

  When he broke the intimate kiss, Tasha groaned again, this time in dismay. But he only straightened up, dropped one arm around her, and said, “Inside. We have to go inside for the rest, Tasha.”

  “Right,” she said, breath staggering in and out of her lungs rapidly, as if she’d been running a marathon. She felt keyed up, every nerve on alert. As if she might shatter if she moved too quickly. And oh, she didn’t want to shatter, yet. She wanted to feel more. Experience “the rest.”

  He snatched up her shirt from the chair where he’d tossed it and followed her into the house. Tasha took her blouse from him and held it to her as she walked across the room toward the stairs. He was right behind her. His hurried footsteps matched hers. His breathing was harsh, strained, and she knew he’d been as affected as she. At the top of the stairs, she turned left and walked the length of the landing, to her own room, at the opposite side of the house from Jonas’s.

  Stepping inside, she let Nick move past her, then she closed the door. He took her blouse and tossed it aside, then pulled off his own sweater and the T-shirt beneath it. Moving closer, he drew her up against him, and the warmth of flesh to flesh speared through her, stealing her breath again. Her hands moved over his broad back, loving the feel of his skin beneath her palms. He shuddered at her touch and Tasha smiled to herself, enjoying the rush of sexual power inside her.

  “I need to have you, Tasha. Now.”

  She pulled her head back and looked up at him. In the indistinct light, his dark eyes flashed and she trembled. “I need that, too, Nick. I need you. I didn’t want to. But I do.”

  He nodded, his gaze moving over her, lingering on her breasts before lifting to meet her eyes again. “From that first day, I knew we were headed here.”

  “From that first day,” she agreed. It had been inevitable. The sizzling attraction between them had been leading them here. To this moment. To this familiar room where moonlight shone like the path to heaven.

  He cupped her face in his palms and bent his head to kiss her. His mouth took hers, his tongue sweeping inside, stealing what was left of her breath and giving her his. She took it, claimed it, and then gave it back.

  Her mind drifted, shut down, and her senses took over. His hands were everywhere at once. Her skin was on fire. And she didn’t care. All she wanted was to feel. To have him show her everything she’d ever dreamed of. To have Nick inside her.

  He walked her toward the bed and, leaning down, grabbed hold of the quilt and tossed it to the foot of the mattress. Then he bent her backward, laying her down on the clean, fresh sheets and joining her there. His right hand swept down the length of her body and beneath the hem of her skirt. Up, up, his fingertips slid along her thigh, then drifted to the inside, higher, higher, until he reached the thin silk barrier of her panties.

  He actually growled and rolled her onto her back. Levering himself up on one elbow, he looked down into her eyes and said, “These have gotta go.”

  She inhaled sharply. “You bet.”

  He grinned at her, then kissed her hard, before shifting his mouth to her chin, her neck, and down the line of her throat. Slowly, he slid along her body, like a river of fire. His mouth trailed kisses across her flesh, and she burned, flames licking at her skin. He paused at her breasts, long enough to taste her nipples before moving again, down her rib cage, across her stomach, to the waistband of her skirt.

  “More,” she whispered, and heard the break in her voice.

  “Now,” he said, and reaching beneath her, he undid the zipper, then tugged the flimsy fabric down and off. Then he cupped her, his palm tight against the scrap of black silk still covering her.

  Tasha moved, lifting her hips into his hand. His thumb traced over a so-sensitive spot and she whimpered even as tiny electriclike shocks shot through her body. Writhing in the patch of moonlight spread across the bed, she hungered for more. She reached for him, but he avoided he
r hands as he slid lower, off the edge of the mattress, then pulled her to him.

  “Nick…” She went up on her elbows as he hooked his fingers under the elastic band and slowly pulled her black silk panties down her legs.

  He looked at her, eyes dark and fathomless. “Just lay back,” he said, “and let me have you.”

  “But—” Tasha wanted his arms around her again. She wanted to feel his body pressed to hers. Flesh to flesh, that brush of hard to soft. Her body ached as she watched him kneel and position her legs on either side of him. “Nick, what’re you—”

  His fingertips dusted the insides of her thighs, and Tasha bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from whimpering. Then slowly, tantalizingly slowly, his fingers moved closer to the heart of her. She lifted her hips in anticipation. She didn’t know what to expect. What to feel. What to do. God, why didn’t she know what to do?

  He touched her.

  Tasha splintered.

  His fingers smoothed across her most intimate flesh and she gasped drunkenly for air. Drawing her legs up, bracing her heels on the edge of the bed, Tasha looked at him as she arched into his touch, wanting more but not sure how to tell him. But he didn’t need to be told. His hands guided her legs to his shoulders, and before she could take a breath and hold it, his mouth covered her.

  “Nick!” Her head dropped to the mattress and her hands fisted in the sheets. She hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t thought of anything but opening her body for his. But this was more, somehow. More intimate. More devastating. His mouth took her, his tongue sweeping wild, long strokes across her center until she lay twisting, helpless beneath his touch.

  Heels digging into his back, she arched, lifting into him. Sensation poured through her in a rush. Breath staggered. Eyes wide, she stared up at the ceiling, then shifted her gaze down to where Nick was loving her. She reached for him, stretching out one hand to touch his hair, smooth his forehead. He glanced at her, and the heat in his eyes scorched her. She moved again, arching, lifting herself into him. He pushed her higher, higher, until she struggled toward the peak she felt rising in front of her.

  His mouth took her places she’d never imagined. His tongue stroked her so intimately, her whole body seemed to shimmer with a pulsing light that played out in time with the beating of her heart. She hadn’t known. Hadn’t guessed that pleasure could be so deep. So all-encompassing. His breath dusted her body and she sighed his name. His hands smoothed her legs, her bottom. He lifted her off the bed, cradling her as he pushed her higher, faster, up a mountain of raging emotion until she raced breathlessly for the peak. And he was still cradling her when she shattered, whispering his name.

  Before the last of the tremors had died away, Nick eased her down onto the bed, tore his clothes off, grabbed a condom, and slid up the length of her body. She humbled him. She touched his heart in ways he wouldn’t have thought possible. And he needed her more than ever.

  She turned her head and smiled at him. “That was…”

  “Just the beginning,” he said, and kissed her, shifting to cover her body with his. She welcomed him, opening her legs, her heart, and taking him home.

  He entered her slowly, prolonging the pleasure, staking his claim on her body, her heart, inch by inch. She reached for him, sliding her hands across his chest, dragging her short, neat nails along his flesh. He sucked in air through clenched teeth and looked down into meadow green eyes dazed with passion.

  She lifted her hips, guiding him home, and he surrendered, pushing himself into her warmth. But in the next instant, he froze, buried within her. A virgin? Heart pounding, brain screaming, and need hammering at him, he swallowed hard, looked down at her, and said, “You should have told me.”

  “You know now.”

  “When it’s too late.”

  “It was always too late to stop this,” she said, reaching up to cup his face.

  He turned his face into her palm and kissed it. “Your first time should have been special. Should have been…”

  “I waited for this until tonight, Nick,” she said. “This one small part of myself I managed to hold on to, until now.” She smiled up at him and rocked her hips, testing his control, pushing him past the edge of endurance. “And it is perfect. Or will be.…”

  Nick bent his head to kiss her, humbled again. She’d given him the one piece of herself she’d protected, despite whatever troubles had plagued her life. She’d been, at the heart of her, an innocent. She’d fought him and changed him and forced him to rethink a lot of his life. And now Nick felt the enormity of it all crashing down on him. She’d become a part of him. The best part. “Oh, it’s gonna be,” he whispered, bending low to brush a kiss across her mouth.

  He moved within her and she gasped at the sweet friction of bodies joining. Setting the pace, he rocked in and out of her warmth with a rhythm as steady, as all-consuming, as a heartbeat. He watched her eyes glaze, watched her breath hitch in her chest. She dragged her nails across his shoulders and down his back, and the gentle scrape tore away what was left of the shell he’d built around his heart.

  He looked into her eyes and found what he’d been missing all his life. He rocked his body deeper into hers, and as she took him inside, Nick realized he never wanted to leave.

  Tasha moved with him, catching the rhythm of his movements and following him in this dance as she had earlier, on the porch. Moonlight drifted through the window and played on his features with a gentle touch. His eyes shone dark and deep as he looked at her. She felt the magic surround her as he claimed her body, heart, and soul.

  This time, they reached the peak together, souls shattering, becoming one, and they held tight to each other as they fell.

  Minutes, hours, maybe centuries later, Tasha moved and Nick shifted his weight off of her, rolling to his back and dragging her along with him.

  “Wow,” she said softly.

  “Yeah, that about sums it up.” Nick smiled into the darkness and stroked one hand up and down her arm as she snuggled in close. “Still wish you had told me.”

  She tipped her head back on his chest to look up at him. “It’s not something you can just drop into casual conversation, y’know. ‘Oh, by the way, I’m the world’s oldest living virgin outside a convent.’“

  He rolled to his side, draped one arm across her middle, and stared down at her. “Tasha, we moved beyond casual a few steps back. And still you didn’t tell me.”

  She didn’t look at him, letting her gaze slide to one side.

  “Just like,” Nick added, wanting to get everything into the open at last, “you didn’t tell me that Mimi’s dead.”

  She froze in his arms. Her body went stiff with shock and her features were suddenly blank. Unreadable. She pushed at his arm, trying to slip away from his hold, but Nick only tightened his grip on her, locking her in close to his body with an arm wrapped around her waist.

  “Let me go.”

  “Not until you talk to me.”

  Her gaze snapped to his, and the passion shining there only moments before was gone, replaced by suspicion and anger. “How did you find out?”

  “Jonas told me.” That ride home from the DNA test had been a long one. He’d listened to Jonas’s fears and tried to ease them, all the while knowing that he couldn’t talk to Tasha about any of it. He’d wanted her to come to him, as Jonas had. To include him, to let him help. But no matter the closeness between them, she hadn’t budged.

  Tonight she’d allowed him into her body.… Now he wanted into her heart.

  “Then you already know everything.”

  Apparently, though, it wasn’t going to be easy. “I don’t know why you didn’t tell me yourself.”

  She pushed at his arm again, and this time he let her move. She slipped off the bed, snatched an old afghan off a nearby chair, and wrapped it around her before facing him again. Tossing her hair back from her face, she said, “I couldn’t tell you. You might have told Social Services. Then they would have taken Jonas.”


  “You think I’d rat you out?” That was insulting. He sat up, grabbed the sheet, and drew it up to cover his own nudity. Easier to fight if you weren’t worried about your body betraying you.

  “How was I supposed to know what you’d do?”

  “And now?” he asked, hoping to hell she knew him well enough now to know that she could count on him.

  She scooped her hair back, threading her fingers through the thick mass and yanking at it in frustration. “Now?” Shaking her head, she turned around and sat down on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped, her back to him. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

  Nick reached out and stroked one hand up and down her spine. “Talk to me, Tasha. Tell me what’s going on. Let me in.”

  Tasha stared out the window, but she wasn’t seeing the night. Instead she was seeing snatches of her past. Snapshots of her and Mimi. Her and Jonas. She was seeing this house, her home, and her family. And then she saw it all taken from her. Her heart ached, and when Nick took her hand in his, she held on tightly, glad suddenly to not be alone in the dark.

  Slowly, she started talking, and then found she couldn’t stop. She told him about Mimi’s sudden death. About how her Social Security money was sitting, untouched, in a savings account. She told him about the postcards sent by Mimi’s loyal friends and the fears that had haunted Tasha for months. She told him about her half-baked plan to run away again, and she felt his fingers tighten on hers when she said it.

  She’d been able, always, to talk to Molly. But this was different. Nick was different. It felt good to get it all out. To hear herself put her darkest fears into words. To feel his hand on hers tighten in support and to hear him whisper words of encouragement as she poured her heart out to him.

  And when it was finished, done, she felt like a popped balloon.

  “A month,” Nick said thoughtfully.

  “That’s it.”

  “You’re not going to run?”

  She thought about it, then remembered everything Molly had said about sentencing Jonas to a life like the one she’d tried to forget. “No,” she said, feeling that one slim chance slip from her grasp. “I won’t run.”