MADIGAN'S WIFE

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And there’s nothing wrong with sex just for the sake of sex. People do it all the time.”

  “I don’t,” she said quickly.

  His eyebrows shot up. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her hard. She felt that stare to her bones. She knew this look, determined and tenacious. Devil-may-care Ray could be obstinate, when it suited him, and he was definitely being obstinate now, as he studied her with calculating eyes. He found something in her, saw something that made a muscle in his jaw twitch. His entire body seemed to grow rigid.

  “Gracie, honey, when was the last time you had a tenth date?” His voice was ominously and falsely serene.

  She brought the paper up so she couldn’t see his face and he couldn’t see her blush. This was not a conversation she was comfortable having with anyone, least of all Ray! Her sex life, or lack thereof, was nobody’s business but her own.

  She didn’t hear him move from the couch, but without warning a finger appeared at the top of the page, and Ray slowly pushed the paper down. He was right there, unsmiling, blue eyes burning, evening stubble on his finely shaped jaw making him look rough and untamed. “Gracie?”

  “None of your business,” she said crisply.

  “Everything about you is my business,” he said in a low voice. “Everything. We can pretend that’s not so, we can deny it out loud when things get complicated, but we both know the truth.”

  She looked at him and knew he was right. Ray was still a part of her, and that’s why she hadn’t been able to move on, that’s why there hadn’t been any other men in her life. She needed to get him out of her soul, to exorcise him once and for all. Somehow she had to get past the myth to the truth, she had to replace memories she surely saw through rose-colored glasses with cold, hard facts.

  “Six years,” she whispered.

  His eyebrows lifted only slightly, but she saw the surprise in his eyes. The questions. Surely he wouldn’t ask. Surely not…

  “Why? You were never shy about sex, you even seemed to like it well enough. Why’d you give it up?”

  He made it sound as if it would have been easy to move on, to replace him with someone else. Of course he thought it was easy. He’d managed quite well to replace her.

  If she did have sex with Ray it would probably be awkward. They’d fumble around like a couple of strangers and it would be over too quickly and she’d wonder what all the fuss had been about. She’d see Ray for what he was. Just a man. And then she’d be able to go on when he moved to Mobile.

  “I didn’t intend to give my sex life up, it just happened that way.”

  “Don’t you miss it?” he whispered.

  “Sometimes,” she admitted.

  He didn’t back away, didn’t ask another personal question. He just stared at her, studied her as if he hadn’t ever seen her face before.

  If he’d make another crude suggestion she could easily push him away, as she’d been doing since he came back into her life. But he didn’t. Instead he reached out a hand and touched her cheek, brushing his thumb lightly against her mouth.

  He was right here before her and, as always, all he had to do was touch her and her heart leapt into her throat. A hand on her cheek made her body grow warm. The thumb on her mouth teased her with the memory of the way he kissed her. She could smell him, taste him, feel him all around her. All she needed was one good look into those clear blue eyes of his and she dismissed all her reservations.

  With an easy motion of his hand he removed the pins that held her hair up and tossed them aside. “Why do you insist on wearing your hair up?” he asked, his eyes on the strands as they fell around her shoulders. “You have beautiful hair.” Tossing the paper aside, he knelt before her, spread her legs slightly so he fit between them, and leaned forward to kiss her. His hands wound through her hair, his mouth working wonders that clouded her mind and affected her body to the core.

  “Ray,” she whispered as she took her mouth from his. She saw in his eyes, in the way his face hardened, that he expected her to push him away again. She should. What he wanted was so much less than what they’d once had. Instead of pushing him away, she reached out to touch his jaw, leaned forward to kiss him again.

  The kiss was soft and promising, a little more tentative than the last one. This was a big step, a huge step, and they both knew it.

  Ray’s mouth swayed and tasted and skimmed, but never left hers. He rose slowly, pulling her to her feet. Their mouths parted only briefly as they stood, coming together easily as they stood chest to chest, knee to knee.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” Ray whispered. He narrowed his eyes, crinkling the corners. “I should rephrase that. Let’s get a couple of things straight here.”

  She smiled and placed a hand on his neck. “A couple of things?”

  “You’re not going to get me halfway home and change your mind again.”

  She shook her head. “No, I won’t.” Her mind was made up.

  “And if you’re expecting a quickie on the couch, a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, you’re in for a surprise.” He kissed her mouth again, barely brushing his lips across hers. “A woman who’s been without for six years deserves to have it done right.”

  Her whole body quivered in anticipation. Sex just for the sake of sex, he said. No prettying up what was about to happen with fantasies about love and happily ever after. No false promises to be broken in the morning. “You won’t get any complaints from me.”

  He speared his fingers through her hair, resting his hand at the back of her head. He looked her dead in the eye, serious and passionate and apparently every bit as bewildered as she was. “And, Gracie, don’t make this more than it is.”

  “I won’t,” she whispered.

  He pulled her sweater over her head, the action smooth and almost cautious. As if he was afraid she might break. And he looked at her, watching his hand as it played across her shoulder, as it skimmed down her side. There was nothing hurried in his touch, nothing rushed. When he kissed her his lips were gentle and still demanding, the kiss exacting and intimate.

  And she was already lost.

  Again he unfastened her bra with a simple flick of his fingers, slipped the straps off her shoulders and dropped the garment to the floor, and while he continued to kiss her his fingers brushed and cupped and caressed her breasts.

  Purely for physical pleasure, Grace thought as Ray so easily roused her deepest passions. This encounter had nothing to do with the heart, she reminded herself. It was sex for the sake of sex, right? She untucked his T-shirt and slipped her hands beneath to touch Ray’s warm flesh as she wrapped her arms around him. This felt so good, so right. Amazingly powerful. She dismissed the certainty that there had to be more between them than just the physical.

  He shrugged off the unbuttoned shirt he wore over the T-shirt and dropped it to the floor, and they began to walk, still kissing, still touching, toward the hallway. She kicked off her shoes one at a time, and Ray removed the gun from its place at his spine and left it on the occasional table by the hallway entrance. He unzipped her trousers and pushed them down, and she kicked them aside as she reached for his zipper.

  So far nothing about this surrender was awkward. Their movements were slow and deliberate, smooth and effortlessly intimate. She knew Ray well, his body and his mind. Together they still felt right. More right than anything she’d ever known.

  By the time they reached her bedroom they were both naked. They tumbled to the bed and lay side by side, kissing, reveling in the feel of one eager body against another. Grace lifted her leg and wrapped it around Ray’s, instinctively searching to bring herself closer to him. His arousal touched her thigh, and she swayed against him.

  “Not so fast,” he whispered, rolling her onto her back and hovering above her.

  The hallway light lit the room softly, so she saw his face and body well. She ignored the scars on his chest, close as they were, and concentrated on his face. At least
she knew without doubt that Ray wanted her. She could see the passion in his eyes, feel it in his heartbeat.

  He kissed her, deep and tender, and she spread her thighs so that he fit there just right. She trembled to her bones, quaked to her center, throbbed all over.

  Ray moved his mouth to her neck, kissed her there while his hands explored her body as if she were a stranger. As if he didn’t already know every inch. No, she thought hazily, as if he knew every inch and was relearning every one. Slowly, with loving fingers. Grace closed her eyes and savored the feel of those hands everywhere.

  His mouth came to hers again and again. He kissed her gently while his palm raked tenderly over her breasts, down her ribs. There was no urgency in his kiss or in his airy, arousing touch.

  When he took a nipple into his mouth she almost cried aloud, the pleasure was so great. She threaded her fingers through his hair while he caressed her there, while he sucked her sensitive flesh into his mouth.

  He slid one slow hand up her inner thigh to touch her intimately, to stroke her gently while he suckled. She shuddered deeply, closed her eyes and welcomed the rush of pure pleasure through her body.

  Ray slowly slid his body lower to kiss her belly, then slipped his hands beneath her thighs to cock her legs up and kiss her where she throbbed for him. He teased the sensitive flesh at the back of her knees, trailed his fingers down the backs of her legs, and then he made unrelenting love to her with his mouth, slow and torturously easy, light and teasing until her entire body shook.

  She had to hold on to something to remain earthbound, anything, so she reached behind her and grabbed the headboard, grasping tightly as Ray heightened the gentle assault. She closed her eyes and lifted her hips as he slipped a finger inside her, bringing her to a climax that made her shudder deep and cry out softly.

  Still weak, she didn’t move as Ray kissed her inner thigh, her belly, and then, again, her breasts. She closed her eyes and clutched him to her, knowing she had made a terrible mistake. Awkward? Not as good as she remembered? How could she have been so stupid?

  They fit together perfectly, they moved in sync and always had.

  She expected Ray to enter her quickly, but he didn’t. He very gently rolled her onto her stomach and began to feather kisses down her spine. His hands gently kneaded her buttocks and trailed down her thighs.

  “You have a great back,” he said.

  She smiled into the pillow.

  “You have a great front, too,” he said, a hint of teasing in his voice.

  He spread her thighs slightly and touched her intimately. Grace rocked slightly against his hand. Amazingly enough, she not only wanted Ray inside her, she needed him. Was incomplete without him. He kissed her neck and her spine, continued to touch her tenderly. On the ebbing waves of one climax, she could already feel the growing urgency of another.

  She saw his arm reach past her to the bedside table. He opened the top drawer and took out a foil-wrapped condom. With her face still against the pillow, she heard him rip open the wrapper.

  “How did that get in my drawer?”

  “I put it there,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck.

  “When?”

  “Yesterday,” he admitted, apparently unashamed. “You’re not going to hold that against me, are you?”

  How could she? “No.”

  He rolled her onto her back and spread her thighs wide with his knee. “There’s a dozen in there.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted her hips to bring him closer. “Good,” she whispered.

  Ray fit himself to her, then thrust to fill her waiting body. Her body stretched and yielded to take him, and Grace closed her eyes in sheer delight, in wonder at the unexpected pleasure that shot through her body.

  He stroked her and she rose to meet each gentle thrust. Ray was all around her, inside her, above and beneath her. He filled her, he completed her. He made love to her. He could tell her not to make too much of this, he could claim it was just a roll in the hay or a hop in the sack if he wanted, but there was love here; she felt it.

  There was nothing in the world but this moment, the sway of their bodies and the way Ray made her feel, their hearts beating in time and their bodies dancing. She wrapped her legs around his and held on tight, as he thrust deep and completion claimed her again. She cried out; his name, a wordless cry, a moan.

  While her body still shuddered he found his own release, then sank down slowly to cover her.

  His head rested against her neck. She threaded her fingers through his hair and held on, not yet ready to let him go.

  There had been nothing awkward about their encounter, nothing fumbled or less than perfect. While he’d loved her, she’d had no doubts, no fears at all. She’d taken and given with complete abandon, and so had he. In this way, physically, they were made to go together. Surely they were meant to be.

  “I’d forgotten,” she whispered, stopping before she caught herself and gave away too much. There would be no confessions in the dark, no pleading for what could never be.

  “Just like riding a bike,” Ray said breathlessly.

  “Uh-huh,” she murmured, stroking his head and the wavy strands there. Holding Ray against her while she still could. He thought this was simple, unfettered sex, but she knew better. She also knew there was nothing she could do to get Ray out of her system. She couldn’t confess that terrible secret, not now. Not ever. But she would take what she could get.

  “And I’m happy to see you’re still a nice guy,” she teased

  Ray raised his head and smiled at her, and her heart skipped a beat. He was big and warm, wonderfully heavy. “Nice guys finish last,” he said, and then he kissed her.

  *

  Chapter 9

  «^»

  Ray woke slowly to morning light and an odd surge of contentment. He slept on his stomach, his face half buried in a soft pillow, his legs spread to take up most of the bed. The sheets over and around him were tangled, the arm that rested on his back was warm and familiar.

  Grace.

  He turned his head slowly so he could watch her sleep. Her arm draped familiarly over him, her face was inches away from his shoulder. She looked … damn, she looked good. Eyes closed, dark hair across one cheek, face pressed into the pillow, she was beautiful.

  And still naked.

  He touched her and she sighed and slithered closer to him. Last night had been incredible, better than he’d remembered, better than he’d imagined it could be. There had been no questions about the past, no second thoughts, no annoying moments of uncertainty on her part or his.

  Knowing she hadn’t been with anyone since she’d left him had broken down the last of his labored restraint. In that moment he’d realized that she was still his, in at least one elemental way. He hadn’t been able to grin and scare her away, to pretend that he didn’t need her in ways he’d never needed any other woman.

  So he’d allowed himself to give in, he’d allowed her to give in, rationalizing with every step down the long hallway that what was happening meant nothing more than any cheap one-night stand. She was a woman, he was a man, there was nothing more sinister or meaningful than that in the sexual equation. One night, he’d reasoned, wouldn’t change anything.

  His hand settled on her hip and stayed there, resting comfortably. Why had he thought sleeping with Grace would somehow end things, make his demons go away? She haunted him still, would likely bedevil him more insistently than ever, now that he had the feel of her strengthened in his memory, the scent of her fresh on his skin.

  Her eyes drifted open, landing on him immediately. She smiled, soft and sleepy, and he smiled back. He’d tried for six years to forget her, to replace her. Unsuccessfully. He wanted, more than anything, to believe she was back for good, that when she’d returned to Huntsville she’d been coming home to him.

  His fanciful thoughts were short-lived. In an instant Grace’s apparent satisfaction disappeared. Her smile vanished. Her eyes widened and she
scooted away from him, taking the sheet with her.

  “I can’t believe we did what we did.”

  “Believe it, Gracie,” he said as she left the bed, taking the sheet with her and wrapping it around her luscious body.

  A shy man would reach for the quilt on the floor and cover himself, especially since touching her had him aroused and ready for another round, but Ray had never been shy. He didn’t move.

  She turned her back on him and looked at the clock. “I’m late for work,” she snapped nervously. “Didn’t the alarm go off? I always have it set for six.”

  “You turned it off at four,” he said, silently daring her to turn around. “After the last time we…”

  “I know what we did,” she interrupted tersely. “You don’t have to remind me.”

  “Well, you seemed to think you’d be in no shape to make it to work this morning.”

  She hugged the sheet more tightly to her. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were probably thinking it was four in the morning, and we were both exhausted, and after a night like last night…”

  She went to the chest against the far wall and, still holding the sheet so that it covered as much of her lovely body as possible, reached into a drawer for underwear, a pair of sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt.

  As Ray watched, his smile faded. Of course she had regrets. Didn’t she always? Maybe now was the time to ask her why she’d left. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t, but watching her right now he wondered more than ever what had gone wrong.

  “Gracie…”

  The phone rang, and she jumped like she’d been shot

  “That’s probably the office,” she said, turning to reach for the bedside phone, very pointedly not looking at him as she dropped her sweats onto the bed.

  As she lifted the receiver the doorbell rang. “Put on some clothes and answer the door,” she said. Adding, when he didn’t immediately jump to do as she asked, a very softly whispered, “Please.”