“Kiss me, Allison. Let me know that you want me too.” The quiet desire in his voice played on her senses at the same time the heat of his body permeated every pore of her bare skin.
Allison felt a giant shudder in her body as though her heart and her lungs took a second to gear up in anticipation of what was to come. She answered him the only way she could. She kissed him.
He didn’t tighten his grip as he felt the rush of fire hit him somewhere in his lower stomach. He forced himself to stand totally still in the darkness, allowing only his lips to speak. The melting rush of feeling changed as she tentatively slid her tongue into his mouth. Her boldness excited him, and his breath quickened as her arms slid up to encircle his neck.
Allison pressed herself closer, tangling her hands in his hair, across his mustache, through his beard, moving herself against him in a spiraling urgency that mirrored the rhythm of her tongue. She felt her heart beat wildly. She wanted to feel the downy hair of his chest next to her body. She wanted to touch him, all of him. She moaned, pulled herself away from his lips, stripped the swimsuit from her body, and pressed her nipples against him.
This time the moan came from Joker as he returned her kiss for an urgent moment. He was on fire, burning up in the heat of his desire for this woman. Standing in the darkened courtyard, he knew that he’d passed the point of no return. He had to have her, and he knew that no matter what she thought about herself, she wanted him too.
Lifting her to him, he whirled around and walked up the steps to the carriage house. Inside the bedroom he carried her to the bed and let her slide down until her feet touched the floor.
“Can you stand for a minute, darling?”
She caught the post at the foot of the bed and steadied herself. “Yes.”
As he pulled his arms from around her, she gave a light gasp and listened as he walked across the dark room and pulled open the drapes, letting the moonlight flood the floor and the bed behind her.
“No,” she whispered dazedly as she licked her swollen lips.
“No?”
“I mean the drapes. Leave them closed.”
“Not this time, my Beauty,” he answered. “I want to see you, and I want you to see me.”
“You might be disappointed with me,” she said hesitantly.
“Not a chance, darling, just look at yourself. Your nipples, they’re all swollen, throbbing, waiting for me to caress them with my tongue.” He knelt before her and began to stroke her legs and thighs. She could feel his warm breath against her body. When he took her nipple inside his mouth, she moaned and held on to his shoulders.
He géently fondled her breasts, licking, stroking, turning her nipples into hard little buds that burned with fiery heat, until she rocked against him shamelessly.
“Slowly, Beauty. Well touch and taste and learn to know each other.” He rose, and she felt suspended in mid air, her heart hammering in her throat. He caught her waist and looked down at her. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel his gaze on her. And the urgent frenzy disappeared as she waited, replaced by the feeling—that warm, special feeling that came over her whenever he was close. She took a deep breath and let it out.
“Yes.” When she gave a hesitant smile, he slid his hands up until his thumbs touched her breasts and his long fingers were splayed across her back.
“Just relax, my love. I’m going to kiss you. You like the way I kiss you, don’t you?”
His hands were flexing against her body, like a pianist limbering up his fingers to perform. Each suggestive ripple sent off a message along the network of nerve endings beneath her skin. With nothing more than his hands, he was changing the composition of her body, and she felt herself take a step closer.
“Jamie?”
“Yes, darling. Let yourself feel my aura. Our bodies are synchronizing themselves. Can’t you feel the pull?”
He was right. She needed to feel his bare skin against hers again. His hands began to move, and their imprint set off a tingle down her legs to her toes.
“Wait,” she murmured, inserting her thumbs beneath his trunks and working them down his body. His arousal throbbed insistently between them, and she pressed herself to him. Everywhere she touched seemed warm and vibrant.
Joker pulled himself slightly back and moved his chest back and forth across her breasts, brushing her nipples with his chest hair until she wanted to cry out with pleasure.
Joker cupped her bottom in his big hands and lifted her from the floor, sliding her up his body until he was able to reach her breasts with his lips. She felt his velvet-soft mouth close around one taut nipple, and she couldn’t hold back her cry. The great beard and mustache caressed and tantalized. His lips greedily pulled as if he wanted to take all of her inside his mouth.
Joker continued to lift her up and down, cradling his erection between her thighs with his movements. Her lower body grew moist and hot, and suddenly her legs were clasped around his hips and she arched toward him with a deep moan.
Allison was on fire. She wanted this man. She was throbbing, groaning. She knew now what had been missing in her life. Her breath came in short quick little pants as she felt some great coil of heated desire began to twist inside her. Desperately she ducked her head and forced his lips to meet her own. She felt as if she’d never kissed a man before. Kissing Joker was a promise of what he could do to her body. With his tongue he examined her with a maddening slowness, sliding it in and out of her mouth as he demonstrated what was to come. Just as she reached the end of her endurance, he removed his tongue and made her give him hers.
The coil of heat inside her lower body was drawn tight, and she felt herself begin to lose control. Tightly she contracted her muscles. She couldn’t let go. She didn’t know what would happen, she had to hold back. The pain, the need … And she heard the moan of anguish. It was Joker. And then she knew that whatever she was feeling, he was feeling too. This great, burly man was holding on to the last thread of restraint. He wanted her as much as she wanted him.
“I can’t wait much longer, Beauty,” he said, breathing as though he were behind some glass wall, suspended in a soundless vacuum. “Is it all right?”
“Oh, yes. It’s wonderful,” she said, panting. “I never ever knew it could be so wonderful.”
He laid her back on the bed, catching the edge with his knees and supporting his weight with his elbows. He slid inside her, pausing for her small frame to adjust to his size. He entered her until they fit together as naturally as if they’d been designed as two parts of a whole.
“Yes, yes, love me, Jamie.”
“But I haven’t protected you,” he said, trying to slow the involuntary motions of his traitorous body.
She gasped. “Please?” Tightening her legs around his thighs, Allison lifted her body to follow his attempt at removal. “Don’t. Please … please don’t stop.”
And then it was too late. The explosion that enveloped them was a fiery eruption of sensation that tore them apart and flung them back together again into a shimmering orbit of pleasure. Wave after wave vibrated outward until the fire melted away into a steady core of warmth.
Only when the flames began to die down and she came back to her senses did Allison realize that she was holding on to Joker’s hair with both hands and her legs were locked around his great thighs. Only then did she feel the throbbing of her knee and the weight of the man still holding her breast with his hand and still joined magnificently to her lower body. She couldn’t hold back a slight moan as a spasm tightened her knee.
“Damn!” Joker rolled away. “I forgot about your leg. I seem to have forgotten about everything.”
As he pulled himself away, she felt a great wave of regret. “No,” she whispered, and knew the whisper was more of a plea. “Don’t leave me.”
“Ah, darling, I’m not leaving you.” He slid up on the bed and drew her into the curve of his arm. Threading his fingers through the silk of her hair, he spread it across her shoulders until he
found her breast and clasped it possessively.
“Rest your leg across me, and I’ll warm it.”
Obediently she turned on her side and moved her leg across his thigh. As she did she felt moisture trickle down between them. “Oh!”
“Don’t be embarrassed, darling. I’m responsible for that. It’s us, you and me, our bodies letting us know how good we are together. Don’t ever be embarrassed over making love with me.” He shifted her upper body until she was practically lying across him.
“Yes,” she whispered, caressing him lovingly. There was a joy in being close, a wonderful rightness about loving him. She smiled in the darkness and placed a kiss on his chest. She didn’t know how to express her feelings about what had happened, about the miracle, the pleasure that she’d never dreamed she’d experience. But with Joker she didn’t have to. He knew how awkward she’d felt, and he understood the wonder of her surprise. This was making love. This was what she’d been cheated out of. She sighed in satisfaction.
“Did I hurt you?” Joker asked, cursing himself for his impatience, for forgetting about her injury in his great need to love her.
“Oh, no.” She ran her fingers across his chest, skimming over the wiry hair. She wasn’t shy anymore. The intimacy they shared had changed all that. “My whole body feels so wonderfully relaxed that if you weren’t holding me, I’d float away.”
“Are you sure?” He moved his hand down her rib cage to her knee. She didn’t flinch at his touch, and he couldn’t feel any tension as he tenderly probed the swollen joint.
“Honestly. I’m not sure why, but my knee feels … it feels,” she searched for a way to describe the detached feeling, “as if it’s floating in water—warm, bubbling water, like in the springs.”
“Me and the springs. Seems we both have healing power. What do you know about that?” Joker’s hand rested lightly across her kneecap, and he felt an answering throb of response.
Allison didn’t know how to tell him, but she knew that the heated vibrations beginning again stemmed not from bathing in the springs but from being close to the man holding her. “The springs may be powerful,” she began hesitantly, “but I don’t think they hold a candle to what’s happened here. It’s you, Jamie Daniel, your loving touch.”
“Whoa now, Beauty, you’re just feeling the afterglow.”
“Afterglow?”
“When the loving between two people is very good, there is an afterglow. If we’re lucky, it will stay with us for a while. If we’re very lucky”—He kissed her eyelids—“it will stay with us …” he started to say forever, but amended it to, “all night.” From her ear he skipped down her neck and across her collarbone, hovering just above her left breast until she thought she’d die of anticipation. Then he captured her nipple and tugged it into his mouth.
“No. It’s you,” she said, giving herself over to the delicious sensations bursting to life again. “I’m not very good at loving. It has to be you and the magic.”
Joker released her nipple. “Beauty, loving you was so wonderful that you made me forget everything. I don’t think I could have stopped, even if you hadn’t been protected.”
“Protected?” She mouthed as his lips nibbled at the corners of her mouth.
“Yes, protected.” He kissed her again as his hand left her knee and found the most tender part of her. “As in birth control, darling. Don’t be shy with me now. This concerns both of us. What are you using?”
“Oh, that?” She sighed as he turned her onto her back and lifted himself on his elbow over her. “I don’t use anything.”
“What?” Joker sprang to his feet like a wounded bear. “Allison, tell me you’re joking.”
“You needn’t worry, Jamie.” Her voice turned sad as she explained, “I can’t have children.”
Joker didn’t know whether he was relieved or angry. He’d just made love to a woman without making certain she was protected. Yet she was saying that she was sterile? She was wrong. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
“What makes you think that, Allison?”
Allison took a deep breath and made up her mind to answer him. “I can’t talk with you standing there glowering at me, Jamie. You make me feel … awkward, ashamed.”
Joker heard the uncertainty in her voice. No matter how disturbed he was at what he’d done, he couldn’t make her uncomfortable about their having made love. He lowered himself to the bed and stretched out beside her, settling her back against him. He took a deep breath and allowed the feel of her to work at erasing the tension her words had caused.
“There was a time,” she said hesitantly, “when I wanted a child, Jamie. I thought a child would make everything right between Mark and me. But sometimes women athletes have trouble conceiving. After they’ve exercised and worked at their sport for a long time their bodies stop functioning correctly as women. I’m a woman who couldn’t have a baby, and I’m a skater who can’t skate anymore. I’m a complete, all-round failure.”
“You want to have a child?”
“No, not any more.”
“You mean that you don’t want me to give you a baby?” Joker’s voice went soft, and his body began to die a slow death. “What do you want, Allison Josey?”
“What do I want? More than anything else I want to show the world, myself, that I can skate again.”
She’d said the world, but he knew that it was Mark she wanted to show. She still cared about the man who’d caused her injury and deserted her. He could understand that. They’d shared so much for so long.
Mark was the one hurt he hadn’t been able to erase. He could feel the tension in her body. She was holding him as if she were afraid that he’d disappear, and he didn’t think she was aware of her grip. He nuzzled her cheek, pulling her face up so that his beard was a cushion for her chin.
“Skating. Is it that important to you?”
“Oh, Joker. He was supposed to come back. He promised, and he never even called me again. It’s taken me a while, but I understand him now. Oh, yes. I want more than anything to skate again.”
“I see.”
Suddenly she felt Joker’s stillness. What had she said? She hadn’t meant to let Mark’s meanness touch Joker. For so long she’d refused to think about Mark and what had happened. She’d kept the past bottled up inside her because it had hurt so much. But this night she’d torn down all the walls. Joker had given her the confidence to let herself face Mark’s treachery, and she’d voiced her humiliation over his rejection.
Had she spoken aloud? She seemed to remember angry words. Oh, Lord, she hadn’t even been talking to Joker. How could she explain what she was just now beginning to see?
Joker felt his heart rip into little pieces. After what they’d both shared the thing she wanted most was to skate again. To skate again so that she could run back to the man who’d hurt her so badly. The closeness, the joy, they’d just experienced meant nothing. Well, if that was what she wanted, that was what she’d get. He’d make certain that she skated again. Where he’d played at heading before, this time he’d prove it, to himself and to Allison.
Sadly she looked up at him, waiting for whatever he was going to say. “I’m sorry, Jamie,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t mean …”
“That’s all right, Beauty. You want to skate again, and I’ll help you. I’ll get your training room ready. Starting tomorrow morning, be prepared for a schedule that will make you think that training for the Olympics was child’s play.”
“You don’t understand,” she began. “Let me explain.” But the coldness in his eyes stopped her. “Please don’t do this, Jamie.”
“Jamie isn’t doing it. Jamie is a gentle, foolish man who loves you. He couldn’t help himself. You were right about him, but you were wrong about me. I told you, my name is Joker, and I’m about to show you, Allison Josey, that when it’s necessary, a Joker can be very wild.”
Eight
“Hello!”
Wham!
/> “Yoo-hoo! Allison.”
Wham! Fram! The whole house shook from the pounding.
Allison groaned, stretched, and forced open her eyes. What in the world was attacking her front door? Even Joker’s mechanical ants made less noise.
“Get up, Allison. Were late. Open this door.”
Allison looked over at the clock beside her bed. Eight-thirty. Oh, no. She felt as if she’d just closed her eyes. For the three days since Joker had made love to her in the carriage house, she’d worked at her therapy during the day until she could barely move, soaked in the mineral springs every night, and slept badly if at all.
“Go away! Whoever you are, I don’t want any!” Allison sank back to the bed and covered her head with her pillow.
Wham! Wham!
Whoever it was didn’t intend to go away. Allison Bat up. It didn’t make any sense. Why didn’t Joker open the door? He’d paraded the world through the estate since her crash therapy had begun. Where was the stern red giant now that she needed a houseboy? Allison swung her feet to the floor and reached for her robe. Her crutches were resting at the foot of her bed. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and got up.
“Just a minute! I’m coming,” she called out, leaving one of her crutches behind as she made her way to the foyer. It was probably another trainer or someone from an equipment company delivering more steel for the torture chamber that Joker had erected in the sun room. If it was another muscle-bound hulk, there to give her a lesson in stretching techniques, she’d have him string Joker up to one of those shiny chrome exercise bars by his toes.
Allison paused. Other than the banging on the door, the house was quiet, the vacant, empty kind of quiet that she could identify with. She’d heard enough silence in the last six months. She was alone. Maybe Joker had taken her seriously. Maybe he’d given up.
“Allison, Joker will have my hide if we don’t get to work. Please! Open the door.”
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