Hell, what was he saying? He didn’t know. She’d turned his mind into mush, and he’d lost any sense of reason as he breathed in the sweet fragrance of her hair and touched the satiny skin that came to life beneath his fingertips.
“Don’t worry. Joker can always take care of himself, and you, too, my Beauty.” His hand slid up her arm and came to rest on her breast.
She gasped. What was she doing draping herself all over this man, allowing him access to her body? No, that was wrong. She was inviting him to touch her. She took a deep breath and tried to push herself away. “I’m not worried,” she insisted.
“Ah shucks, and I thought you’d been sitting here all day missing me. I thought that’s why you might be glad to see me.”
“Well, I’m not. I don’t care if you go out and get your fool head cut off.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, lifted her head for a moment, and smiled. “I was just worried about your fingers.”
“My fingers? You’re worried about my fingers?” His voice sounded unnaturally high. He wouldn’t want to do without his fingers either. Without his fingers he couldn’t touch the body he was holding. He couldn’t run his fingertips down her backbone or caress her upper arm or hold the small round breast beneath his hand. He couldn’t tangle his fingers in her damp silken hair and turn her face up to his. He couldn’t … Lord, what was he doing? The woman was turning him into a fumbling kid. He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted to rip the towel from around her and press her back on the bed beneath him.
“Why shouldn’t I worry, you big dear man? Do you think you have a monopoly on worrying about people?”
“Nobody worries about Joker.”
She caught his face in her hands and held it so that she could look into his eyes, eyes that were veiled, moist, not piercing as they’d been that morning in the garden, but slightly confused as if he were having trouble believing her. And she knew in that moment that he was as vulnerable as she. He was tough, yes. But he needed reassurance just as much as she did. And now she could give something to him.
“I do. How much money do we need, landlord?”
“Money? Eh … too much. Why?”
“Because you’re adding on a room when you should be repairing the house. I can’t allow that, Joker. Letting me stay here is one thing, but what you’re doing is too much. I figured”—she paused and took a deep breath—“that I couldn’t drive anyway, so I sold my car.”
She released his face and reached behind her. Joker heard the rustle of paper and felt her touch as she pulled his arm from around her, slid her fingertips along its brawny girth, and placed a stack of money into his palm.
“You sold your car? Why?”
“Don’t worry about that, just use the money. I can’t move in and let you support me without contributing to the expenses. I insist on sharing the costs. You take the money. It’s for you.”
“You sold your car to pay me rent?” Disbelief shattered what little control Joker had left. “You sold your car for me?”
“What are you, a broken record? Yes. I sold my car. I didn’t think it was going to be of much use to me. And anyway, that’s what … friends are for, isn’t it? You did say we were friends, didn’t you?”
“Ah, Beauty …” He couldn’t speak. He only wanted to hold her. “Why’d you go and do a thing like that?”
“You’ve been good to Gran, been here for her when I wasn’t, I wanted to let you know how I felt, and I didn’t know how.”
“A simple thank-you would have been enough. You didn’t have to do this.” How could he tell her what a beautiful unselfish gesture she’d made?
“I’ve never been able to express myself very well, unless I’m on the ice, and that isn’t likely to happen again, so? Ah, hell, Joker, don’t make this any tougher than it already is. Take the damned money and get out of here before I do something dumb like cry.”
She’d touched some secret part of him, and he hadn’t expected that. He was the giver not the receiver.
A tenderness filled his chest and spilled over into his mind so that all he could feel was an incredible need to touch her—but that’s what he’d been doing, stroking her leg and hip while his lips placed light little kisses down the side of her face and behind her ear.
“Oh, Beauty, you’re an extraordinary woman. How good it will be to make you well so that I can show you exactly how wonderful you are, but I can’t accept this money. It would be dishonest.” He laid the stack of bills on the table and put his arms back around her. “I have to tell you—”
“Please, Joker,” she interrupted. “I have to give something to you, and you’re going to have to accept it.” She tightened her arms around his neck and turned her face back to look at him. In two days he’d invaded her life and her thoughts to the point that she couldn’t think of anything else.
And suddenly, all the bad memories went away. Her eyes fluttered open as he lowered his head, and without any thought of refusal, her lips parted. Slowly, almost delicately his lips touched hers. She gave herself over to the taste of him, felt his restraint, and loved him for it. He nibbled around her mouth, sighed, and lifted his head.
“I’ve missed you,” he said huskily.
“Ummm. Do you give all your boarders such special treatment?” She tightened her arms around his neck and laid her face against his chin. His beard and mustache caressed her skin deliciously, and she was drawn deeper and deeper under his spell.
“Only those with great dark eyes and pixie faces,” he said, teasing, giving himself over to the joy of holding her.
Once he’d kissed her again, she was scarcely aware of what she was doing. Her heart beat wildly, and she was filled with joy. “You’re right,” she whispered dizzily, “you’ve turned this into a magic place.” The buttons on his shirt were suddenly open and the thatch of red-brown hair seemed irresistible. She moved her cheek against it and was rewarded when he involuntarily shuddered.
“Yes,” he murmured, incredibly shaken as he tried valiantly to subdue the longing she inspired. “And the magic will make you walk again, without that crutch. All you have to do is believe.”
Walking was the last thing on her mind at the moment. The towel had come untied, exposing her breasts to his intimate touch. He brushed his hand over her nipples, rosy with desire. She flung back her head and moaned.
The sound cut through the silence, jerking Joker out of his dreamy state. He shook his head and pulled back, separating himself from her with a sigh of regret.
“Dammit, Allison, this is not good.”
“It isn’t?”
He set her away from him, mumbled a curse, and pulled her full length against him one last time, letting her feel the heat of his desire openly before he drew back. “Allison, I’m sorry. I mean … I can’t seem to stop touching you. I know that’s what I promised, but I don’t know if I can sit here just holding you much longer.”
“You can’t? Why? I like it. I like it very much.” She made a move to reclaim her place in his arms.
“Ummm,” he said with a groan. “I’d like to be six years old and playing doctor again. But I’m not, my Beauty. And right now this poor old frustrated body knows firsthand that you aren’t wearing anything under this towel, and it’s cursing my promise to be just your friend with a vengeance.”
“What’s wrong with friendship between two bodies?” Allison asked, feeling the wonderful sense of peace she’d come to expect when Joker touched her.
“At the moment our friendship is very one-sided. My body is more into lust. Stop squirming around.”
“I can’t seem to be still.”
“The flesh is weak, darling, at least most of mine is. You’d better let me work on your knee, before I forget what I’m here for and ravish you.”
He moved her from his lap and put his hands gently on her knee without any pretense at massage. Suddenly the stiffness in her leg disappeared.
Allison gave a moan of contentment and moved back into his arms,
encountering a part of Joker’s body that didn’t appear to be weak in the least.
“Oh! Joker, when I’m with you my body seems to reach out and meld itself to yours, and I feel as if I could do anything as long as I’m touching you. I never thought I was a very … sexual person. Do you want to make love to me?”
Did he want to make love to her? She was lying in his arms wearing nothing but a towel, and she asked if he wanted her. “Oh, yes, Allison Josey. I want to make love to you.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Don’t do this, Beauty. This isn’t a good idea, my love. It was just that your beautiful gesture, selling your car, made me a little crazy. Now this …”
Joker was burning with sensations. Allison’s fingertips were skimming his chest with quick little motions as if she were memorizing every inch of him.
“Joker,” she whispered hesitantly, “if touching me all over is good for my circulation, I don’t mind. I really think that the stimulation is working. Could you touch me again?” She took one of his hands and moved it slowly back up her body to her breast. The catch in her breath broke the silence and Joker’s last shred of restraint.
He felt as if he were tumbling out of control. “Don’t do that, Beauty,” he said gruffly, and slid her feet to the floor as he sprang from the bed and walked to the window, calling on every overworked ounce of willpower he possessed to instill some semblance of rationality into his shattered body.
“I’m sorry, Joker,” she murmured. “I didn’t think. I mean, you just make me feel so good.”
A voice from within roared at him, silencing his mind and regathering his control. “That’s good, Beauty. I want you to feel good. That’s part of healing.” And one of these days, he was going to show her how wrong she was about a lot of things, beginning with walking and ending with sex.
“Do you have a swimsuit?” he asked, his voice making him sound like a cross between Kermit the Frog and Foghorn Leghorn.
Allison’s voice was having its own difficulty as her body went from burning hot to frosty. “No. Well, maybe. I have a maillot, a bodysuit that I suppose could be considered a bathing suit. Why?”
“We’re going to take a little trip to the springs. Where is the suit?” Joker moved toward the chest of drawers.
“In the bottom drawer, but Joker, you don’t really believe all that stuff about those mineral springs, do you?”
“You’d get into big trouble if Minnie and Luther Peavey heard you make a statement like that. Pure blasphemy, woman.”
“Who are Minnie and Luther?”
“They’re the most shining examples of the springs’ healing power. They were both invalids in the nursing home before they ran into Kaylyn and discovered her springs. Now they’re the most vitally alive eighty-year-old married couple I know. You ought to remember Miss Minnie. She used to be your neighbor.”
Allison searched her mind. “Miss Minnie Rakestraw, next door?” She vaguely recalled a large rawboned woman who popped in and out of Gran’s kitchen without any warning. “I think so.”
“Well, she and Luther got married several months back. They were causing a regular scandal in the nursing home until the director agreed to let them get married and share a room legally.” Joker held up a dark blue metallic French-cut bodysuit and grinned. “This it?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to meet anybody, and I have no intention of wearing that thing to take a swim.”
“Suit yourself darling,” Joker said with a shrug of his shoulders. “If you’d rather swim without, I’m game.” He lifted Allison, maillot, towel, and all and started down the stairs.
“Put me down, Joker. I am not going off on a motorcycle wearing nothing but a towel.”
“Well, you could leave that behind, but I think Chief Newton and the Pretty Springs police department might object. Besides, we’re not riding my bike tonight. We’re traveling by van.”
Joker pushed open the door and revealed the sleek bronze-colored van parked in the driveway.
Allison gasped. “Joker, how did you afford such a van?”
“Well,” he hedged, “it’s not paid for, if that’s what you mean.”
By the time Allison got over the shock of the luxury vehicle she’d been ensconced inside, Joker was driving smoothly onto the highway. She glanced around, noting the bed in the back, the ornate lighting fixtures, and the bar. “This isn’t a van, Joker, this is a bordello. How many women have you ravished back there?”
“I’ll never tell. But I hope we don’t have an accident,” Joker said wryly. “We’d make a catchy item for the front page of the Pretty Springs Gazette.”
“At least this time I’ve got my man,” Allison quipped before she realized what she’d said.
Joker took a quizzical look at Allison. He wondered what the basis was for her odd remark. There was a suggestion of pain on her lips, lips that curled into a little half smile. The oversize towel she’d wrapped around her looked for all the world like an Indian sari. With her bare feet and her dark hair curling around her face, she looked like some exotic mysterious beauty.
“All you need are some jewels and an elephant to become a royal princess. Command me, memsahib, and I’ll be your servant for life.”
“Oh, Joker. I don’t want you to be my servant. I don’t want you to build a room on your house or to take me for a swim in the mineral springs. Just be my friend—and,” she added impishly, “my personal doctor. It’s too bad my doctors at Boston General don’t know about your brand of treatment. They’d have patients lining the halls.”
Her words brought a surge of instant heat to his groin as he realized what she’d said. He almost missed the back entrance to the springs. It took a sharp jolt of the brakes to slow the van as he turned into the private underground parking area of the Sports Medicine Rehabilitation Center. The center was empty as he’d arranged. He let out a deep sigh of relief and looked over at Allison.
She was staring at him with big dark eyes, eyes filled with trust and something deeper that he wouldn’t let himself examine. He wanted her. He’d never wanted a woman more. And he’d never turned away from a woman he knew he could have—until now.
“We’re here, Beauty. Let’s go inside.” He ignored the confusion he saw in her face. She’d allowed herself to respond naturally, and he’d pulled back from her the second time in less than an hour.
“Inside where?” She retucked her towel and drew her old curtain of wariness around her.
“The springs. I’ll show you.” Joker moved swiftly around the van, opened the door, and carried her into the elevator, pushing the button for the ground floor.
“Are you sure it’s all right for us to be here?” Allison whispered.
“Positive. I told you that I was related to the owners. And this is where I work. I was the landscaper for the whole project. I promise you, we have permission to be here. Relax.”
The elevator door opened, and they stepped out into a dimly lighted room. The place seemed empty, but she couldn’t relax. In the distance she could hear the musical sound of falling water. Joker walked through the rock-walled lobby and over a bridge that stretched across a stream of swiftly moving water.
“Is this the mineral spring?”
“Yep. It bubbles up through these rocks and collects in a pool. The pool overflows and the building is constructed around the path the water takes before it disappears back into the earth.”
The sound of rushing water was louder now, and the air seemed tinged with an odd, sulfurous smell. Joker moved into a second room and touched a switch on the wall.
“Oh! It’s beautiful.” Around the edge of the rocks were soft blue lights that turned the bubbling water into prisms. Hundreds of flecks of light glinted off the rocks like stars in a velvet night sky.
“Now, you can put on that suit, or I’ll just slip you right into the pool as you are.”
“I’ll put on the suit,” she answered quickly. “If you’ll put me down somewhere so that I can manag
e.”
“Fine. You change in here, and I’ll go find a suit for me.”
Joker stepped inside an alcove and placed Allison on a stone bench. “Stay put. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Quickly Allison managed to pull the skimpy maillot on. Uncomfortable with the amount of flesh exposed, she draped the towel around her shoulders and waited, filled with apprehension. How had she allowed him to bring her here? She knew that her protector was raising her hopes for another failure.
When she looked up, Joker was standing in the doorway in a swimsuit that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. His beautiful smile was larger than the scrap of fabric.
“Ready?”
Allison nodded. Her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she couldn’t speak. Her eyes were drawn to the thatch of hair that curled wildly across his chest and disappeared below his navel into the suit. She wasn’t prepared for so much of him to be exposed. He wasn’t a burly giant as she’d thought. He was big, yes, but with a graceful beauty that made her think of a great tawny cat, a gray-eyed, curious cat that swayed back and forth in calm anticipation, ready to pounce on its unsuspecting prey.
She struggled to stand, leaning on her good leg, determined not to let him sweep her up in those great arms.
“You’re beautiful, Allison,” he said in a husky voice.
His gaze left no doubt in her mind that he was seeing the woman he wanted her to be not the real person she was. But it was the real Allison who felt every hair on his chest touch her with magical tingles of heat as he lifted her and walked into the water until only her shoulders were still above the surface.
“What now?” Her voice was thready and uneven. She sounded as if she were a prepubescent boy whose voice was changing.
“We simply sit in the water for now. Later, I’ll massage your knee, and we’ll do some exercises.”
“Oh, so now we’re finally going to play doctor?” Her eyes sparkled with amusement as she allowed the churning water to move her up and down against his body.
Joker's Wild Page 9
