by Tami Hoag
Not even trying to resist temptation, Reilly lowered his head and brushed his lips across the knotted flesh. Jayne sucked in a breath. A low groan escaped her when he drew his tongue across it and back again. He raised his head a bit and admired the glow of the wetness his mouth had trailed across her breast and the way her nipple tightened and puckered as the air cooled it. Then he lowered his head again and took the distended peak into his mouth and began to suck strongly and rhythmically.
Jayne stirred restlessly. She clutched at Reilly’s bare shoulders with her hands and shifted her hips as desire coursed through her, unchecked for the first time in forever. It swept through her like a fire, swirling and leaping, licking at the core of her. Sensations assaulted her one on top of the other—the feel of Reilly’s mouth tugging at her nipple, the delicious weight of him bearing down on her, the strength of his arousal pressing into her thigh, the ache of need that throbbed between her own thighs and intensified with each pull of his mouth.
The sensations built and swelled, sweeping her along on a wave that crested abruptly. She gasped, her whole body stiffening and arching up against Reilly’s.
“Oh, Jaynie,” he whispered reverently.
He watched her face as she reached her peak and then for a long moment as her orgasm gradually subsided. That she had reached it so easily and with so little effort on his part surprised and excited him.
His hand was trembling when he brushed her hair back from her damp forehead. He dropped a kiss on her mouth, then stared down into her eyes, his expression a combination of male pride and sexual hunger.
“I want to be inside you the next time that happens,” he said, his voice a graveled purr. “I want to feel you tighten around me. I want you.” He leaned closer and feathered hungry kisses down her jaw to her ear, where he nipped her and teased her with his tongue. “Aw, Jaynie, I want you so bad. I’ve wanted you for so long. Please let me.”
Jayne groaned as Reilly kneed her thighs apart and settled himself intimately against her. The thin fabric of his sweatpants was the only barrier between them. There was certainly no question about him wanting her. She wanted him, too. She was tired of forcing herself to deny the unique desire she felt for this man. As she stroked the muscled ridges of his back, her bracelet burned between her flesh and his, and she knew again that sense of inevitability. In what direction this step would take them, she wasn’t sure. But this had been their destiny from the first, and there was no point denying it any longer.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Reilly raised his head sharply. His gaze could have burned through titanium. “Are you sure, Jaynie? Once it’s done, there’s no going back. I won’t have regrets between us. I won’t have any ghosts either. I need you like a dying man needs salvation, but I won’t tolerate compromise.”
“No,” she murmured, relieved that she felt no guilt as she made this decision. “I’m sure.”
He stared at her a moment longer, reading every nuance of her expression. Finally he nodded. “All right then.”
He levered himself up off her and off the couch, then offered her his hand and helped her up. Jayne’s knees swayed unsteadily beneath her, but she managed to lead Reilly the short distance across the den and up the steps to her bedroom.
The room took up the entire east end of the second floor. Three walls were comprised of floor-to-ceiling multipaned windows so that the room seemed to be a platform suspended in the mist. Reilly glanced around with a distracted sense of wonder. His focus was on Jayne, but a part of his brain registered the various aspects of the unique environment she had created for herself.
To the far right, a set of steps led up to a Jacuzzi that was set down in the cedar floor. It was flanked by two walls of glass and surrounded by greenery. In the center of the room stood an overstuffed love seat, a matching chair, and a low table that had been taken over by an ivy plant. To the far left of the room was the bed. This was what caught Reilly’s attention and held it.
Jayne’s bed was nothing more than a king-size mattress on a simple pedestal. Rumpled white satin sheets glowed richly in the soft light, seeming like a tangible extension of the mist that swirled outside the window. An assortment of white pillows was scattered across the head like a line of clouds.
She led him now to the side of the big bed and lifted his hand to press a kiss to his calloused palm. Slowly he slid the flowered robe from her shoulders and down the supple line of her back. It dropped with the softest of sighs to pool on the thick white carpet and was forgotten as Reilly feasted his eyes on her.
Jayne was lovely in a sleek, fine way. His gaze drifted down the subtle lines of her, her small proud breasts, her dainty waist, the gentle outward slope of her slim hip. She was so petite, so perfectly feminine, his whole body was trembling at the thought of making her his. His concentration on that thought was so absolute that he jumped when Jayne’s hands plucked at the drawstring of his sweatpants.
The pants had done nothing to disguise Reilly’s state of arousal. Still, Jayne’s breath caught in her throat as she drew the loose fabric slowly down his hips, and a small yearning sound escaped her as she uncovered the proud evidence of his gender. Reilly was impressively male, warm and hard as she closed her hand around him.
He let his head fall back and sucked a breath in through his teeth as he enjoyed the exquisite torture of Jayne’s small soft hand stroking him. Desire coiled in his gut until he was sure he couldn’t stand any more. As she had done, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm then nuzzled the bracelet that hung like a wreath of tiny golden stars around her wrist.
Jayne backed away, her eyes never leaving his, and settled herself in the center of the bed. The mattress dipped as Reilly joined her. He took her in his arms and stretched out across the cool satin sheets.
As badly as he wanted to prolong the preliminaries, his body was screaming for release. Gently he rolled Jayne beneath him and kneed her thighs apart, reaching between them to test her readiness with a tender caress that wrung a gasp from her. She was warm and moist as he entered her, and so tight he had to ruthlessly check his own response when he was but halfway home. His instincts urged him to bury himself in her with one hard possessive thrust, but he held back, the idea of frightening or hurting her abhorrent to him. The anger and frustration he had aimed at her in the past was gone now. This was the woman he had wanted, had waited for. This, their first time together, had to be perfect.
Jayne let her fingernails sink into Reilly’s shoulders as pleasure rippled through her. Sighing his name, she lifted her hips into his, taking all of him. It was magnificent, welcoming him into her body, becoming one with him. He filled her completely, as if this silken pocket of her womanhood had been tailor-made for him. And along with the pleasure that radiated outward from the point of their ultimate union was a sense of rightness, of completion.
Her hands drifted down Reilly’s back as he withdrew, cupping his buttocks as he plunged into her again. The muscles beneath her fingers relaxed and tightened as he repeated the process again and again. She arched to meet his thrusts, her heels slipping on the satin sheets as she tried to gain purchase.
“Put your legs around me, luv,” Reilly muttered between deep wet kisses.
A groan rumbled deep in his chest as she complied, her smooth limbs wrapping around his hips. He slid a hand between them and caressed her breast, his breath catching hard in his lungs when he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and her body tightened convulsively around his sex. She was so responsive, so openly giving. She was everything he had dreamed and something extra besides. There was a purity in her lovemaking, no guile, no selfishness, no deception. When she opened her eyes and gazed up at him, he felt enveloped by a power, an energy that transcended anything he’d ever known with a woman.
“That’s it, Jaynie,” he whispered darkly. “Look at me. I want to watch your face. I want to see it in your eyes.”
In a way, his command was as erotic as anything else
going on between them, Jayne thought. He was asking her to share everything with him, not only her physical ecstasy, but the emotional ecstasy that would be mirrored in her eyes as well. In that ultimate moment she would have no secrets from him.
On a deeply instinctive level, that idea frightened Jayne. She would be giving herself to him wholly, body and soul. Reilly, whose passions ran deep and fierce, would own her in the most elemental way. He would consume her, just as she had feared all along. But like a moth drawn to a flame, she couldn’t pull away now. Her destiny had been determined, and she gave herself over to it and to him.
She looked up at him as he moved above her and within her, his body reaching inside hers to touch the deepest core of her desire. The muscles of his shoulders and upper arms bunched and flexed as he braced himself over her. The pale white light that flooded the room illuminated the sheen of sweat that slicked his skin. Then her gaze locked on his just as the tension building in her lower body exploded.
Jayne cried out as the shock waves splintered through her. Her climax was so powerful, she actually felt her consciousness dim. She wasn’t even certain whether or not she was still looking up at Reilly. His image was indelibly etched in her mind. The neon glow of his blue eyes was something she could feel as well as see. The dark, sexy words he was urgently whispering to her seemed to come to her through a fog as thick as the one outside the windows.
She could feel him imbedded deep within her, throbbing as her body rewarded his efforts with contraction after contraction. Then he wrapped his arms around her, crushing her to his heaving chest. He buried his face against her throat and drove himself into her for three hard strokes. His big body stiffened in her arms, and Jayne gasped again as she felt the warm pulsing of his climax.
Slowly, Reilly rolled to his side and snuggled Jayne against him. He feathered kisses across her face, brushing his lips over her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her nose, her chin, seemingly intent on branding every inch of her skin with his touch. She hadn’t felt so cherished in a long, long time.
Not since Mac.
She was a little surprised that the thought of the man she had loved so well brought no guilt with it, only a touch of sadness. Mac had been gone from her life for a long time, but now he felt a little farther away.
“No regrets, Jaynie,” Reilly murmured.
Jayne glanced up into his eyes, her heart clenching at the worry she saw there. She smiled softly and caressed the rough plane of his cheek. “No. No regrets.”
“Mac wouldn’t begrudge us being happy together.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” When he started to speak again, she pressed two fingers to his lips to silence him. “No ghosts, Reilly—for either of us.”
They were crossing a threshold. Jayne could feel it. She could also feel a knot of apprehension in her stomach, but she did her best to ignore it. It wasn’t a premonition, it was plain old fear. She was flying blind into unknown territory with a man she had always considered dangerous. But as Reilly cuddled her to his chest and pressed a kiss on the top of her head, she felt some of her hesitation slide away. She was fast discovering Pat Reilly was a man she could like and respect, a man she could care for, a man she could love.
She just hoped and prayed he could love her in return.
SEVEN
THE KNOCK THAT sounded on the bedroom door was soft, but it woke Jayne immediately. She disentangled herself from Reilly’s embrace, sitting up carefully, trying not to wake him. He was sound asleep, his face buried in a pillow, his breathing deep and even. His hair stuck up like a rooster’s tail. The sheet rode low across the small of his back. Jayne sighed dreamily and smiled a secret smile. He looked adorable and sexy. It was a huge temptation to lean down and kiss the dip between the muscles of his lower back.
“Jayne?” Candi’s voice called out hesitantly. “Are you asleep?”
Jayne jumped guiltily. “Just a second, honey,” she whispered loudly.
She eased from the bed and snatched her robe up from the floor, thrusting her arms into it as she crossed the room and belting it securely before she slipped out the door.
Candi stood with her arms wrapped around her chest, her belly protruding beneath. This girl didn’t bear much resemblance to the spike-haired punk she portrayed during the day. This girl was a wide-eyed teenager going through a difficult time in her life. In her long flannel nightgown with no makeup and her hair combed, she looked frightfully young and vulnerable.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Jayne asked softly, reaching out to comb a strand of orange-and-black hair from the girl’s eyes. “Are you feeling okay?”
Candi shrugged, doing her best to make light of her trip across the house. Heaven forbid anyone should think she needed reassurance or a shoulder to cry on, Jayne thought.
“I couldn’t sleep. The baby’s moving around a lot and—” She broke off at the sound that rumbled on the other side of Jayne’s bedroom door. It sounded decidedly masculine and very much like a snore. Candi’s eyes rounded and her mouth dropped open in embarrassment. “Ohmygod. I’m sorry. I interrupted something.” She shooed her hands at Jayne as she started leaning back toward the den. “Go back to bed. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t be silly. You didn’t interrupt anything,” Jayne said, trying to brazen it out. To her dismay, Reilly chose that moment to begin snoring in earnest. He sounded like a big truck with a bad muffler. Jayne’s cheeks turned a shade that matched the fuchsia flowers in her robe.
“It’s okay, Jayne,” Candi said gently, a smile tugging at her lips.
Jayne pressed her hands to her cheeks and groaned as she dragged them back through her hair. “It’s not okay. What kind of example am I setting for you?”
“A pretty terrific one, I think,” the girl said honestly. She led Jayne down the steps to the sofa where they settled in side by side. “Do you know what kind of example my folks set? My old man used to come home drunk every night and knock my mother around the house for fun. I don’t think either one of them ever knew what it was to love somebody.”
Jayne put her arm around the girl’s shoulders as Candi’s eyes filled with tears and her hand strayed absently to her belly.
“I could hardly believe you were for real when I moved in here. You care about people. You really want to help.”
“I do my best,” Jayne murmured self-consciously. A wry smile tugged at her mouth as she remembered Reilly using those same words earlier.
“You’re about the only person who ever cared what happened to me.”
A lump lodging in her throat, Jayne gave Candi a hug. She was a good kid who’d gotten nothing but bad breaks. It broke Jayne’s heart to think of the loveless childhood Candi had survived. “Well, the rest of them missed out, honey, because I think you’re a pretty terrific person.”
“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “I only hope someday somebody can love me the way you love Reilly.”
Was it that obvious, Jayne wondered with a start. Lord, she had only just figured it out for herself. Candi had said it as if it were common knowledge. She wondered what Reilly’s reaction to the statement would have been. Would he have been as matter-of-fact about it as Candi sounded? Was it common knowledge to him? He had told her he’d come to Anastasia to discover what this thing was that burned between them. What would he do if she told him it was love? He didn’t have a very good track record in that area.
“Can you believe Timothy Fieldman asked me to that dance?” Candi asked, trying a little too hard to sound flippant. “What a dork.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jayne said, automatically coming to Timothy’s defense. “I think it was sweet of him to ask you. You should have accepted.”
Candi gave her a look. “Get real. Me at a dance? A costume party, maybe. I could go as the Hindenburg.”
“It might have been fun.”
“Oh, right, with everyone staring at me like I’m some kind of freak. Let’s face it, my dancing days are over.” Her lower lip settled into a pout
that made her look even younger than she was.
Jayne smiled sadly as she realized they were finally getting to the heart of the matter. Candi was feeling left out. At present she seemed to have very little in common with other kids her age. Her pregnancy precluded her from the usual teenage activities. No one was going to ask her to go out for cheerleading or join the swim club. She didn’t fit in with anyone’s clique.
It made Jayne’s heart ache to know Candi was feeling lonely and left out. On the other hand, Candi had made her own choices. She had since discovered it wasn’t fun or glamorous or romantic being sixteen and pregnant. Nor had getting pregnant solved any of her problems; it had instead created a whole set of new ones that were at least as difficult as the old ones. It wasn’t going to do any good for Jayne to give her a lecture, though. What Candi needed now was love, support, and guidance.
“It won’t be long now, sweetheart,” Jayne whispered, coaxing the girl to lay her head on her shoulder. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. So does this little one,” she added, pressing a hand to Candi’s rounded stomach. The baby on the other side gave her a vigorous kick, and both mother and friend smiled and chuckled.
“Yeah. I hope she gets parents who really love her a lot,” Candi said wistfully.
“I’m sure she will, honey.”
Reilly watched the two of them, his shoulder braced against the doorway, his arms folded across his bare chest. He had awakened with a jolt, realizing that Jayne was gone from the bed. His first thought had been that she’d gone off to brood about Mac. He was sure she’d been thinking about MacGregor in the aftermath of their lovemaking. He had been too. There was no getting around it—Mac had been a big part of both their lives. But Mac was gone now and Reilly had no intention of taking a backseat to his buddy’s ghost.
After pulling on his sweatpants, he had set out to find Jayne and take her back where she belonged—in his arms. It hadn’t been an hour since the second time they’d made love, and already his body was aching with hunger for hers. His search had gotten him as far as the doorway.
