by Janzen, Tara
Lila slipped out of her shirt like cream pouring from a pitcher, smoothly, with flowing grace. The midnight-blue silk blouse floated toward the floor, catching on a cupboard handle and hanging there like a testimonial flag to love. He kissed her exposed shoulder, his mouth running in a hot trail down the side of her neck, his hands pushing the tiny white straps of her bra off her arms. The delicate piece of lingerie ended up draped across the fruit bowl.
Jack kicked off his tennis shoes in the hall. Lila stepped out of her flats in front of the “undersea” bathroom. They paused beneath the two-by-four, where Jack taught her the delights of a bare bosom pressed against a hardened, muscled chest covered with silky dark hair. It was a lesson she never wanted to end, not when he simultaneously whispered erotic promises in her ear.
His previous kisses should have been fair warning of the fire he was igniting all along her body. His sculpture should have prepared her for the imagination inherent in his words. But five years of marriage and one three-week debacle of a love affair had obviously left some blanks in her sexual experiences.
“No,” she exclaimed softly, her face flaming even as her own imagination embellished his sensual murmurings.
He grinned and gently bit her neck. “Yes.”
She tilted her head back, another denial on her lips, but what she saw in his eyes left it unspoken. The man loved her. He wanted to give her everything, and she had a sneaky suspicion he could—like nothing and nobody she’d ever dreamed up.
“Jack, I . . .” Her voice trailed off in uncertainty. She wanted to tell him something, say something to explain how she felt about him, but she couldn’t find the right words. “I’m—I’m glad I came this morning.”
“Good.” His mouth brushed across her brow as his hand caressed upward toward her breast.
“But . . .”
“Shh.” He filled his palm with her, and she felt his sigh against her skin.
“There was someone else.” The words came hesitantly, and she wondered if that was what she’d meant to say all along. Somehow she didn’t think so.
“You don’t have to tell me.” He stepped backward, continuing down the hall toward his bedroom, pulling her with him, kissing her cheek, her temple, the side of her nose.
“It wasn’t very good,” she added haltingly. “Or admirable. It was pretty terrible.”
“I’ll make it better.” He tunneled his hand through her hair and lifted it away from her neck. His mouth traced a path along her nape, his tongue searing her skin.
Breathless, her heart pounding, Lila let him lead her into his bedroom. A part of her mind kept wondering where all the extraneous doubts were hiding and when they would jump out and fill her with guilt, embarrassment, reticence. Her confession certainly hadn’t done it, but something had to happen to ruin these marvelous feelings. Some internal switch must have been delayed.
Or Jack had derailed it, she thought, because no anxiety surfaced when he backed her up to his bed and pushed her slacks over her hips. Only excitement happened—deep down, thrilling, sensual excitement laced with a heady dose of anticipation. His hands, so strong and sure, were on her, all over her, guiding and pleasing, and undressing her with a confidence she responded to without hesitation.
Her limbs were heavy with the need to hold him closer. Her mouth searched for his as he followed her down to the bed, leaving his jeans in a pile on the floor next to hers.
“I’m in love with you,” he said between soft, slow kisses. He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones, his warm masculine body pressed against the length of hers. “I wanted you to know that.”
“Thank you.” She sighed the words and heard his deep chuckle echo against her skin.
“You’re welcome.” He kissed her once more, then lifted his head. A lazy smile graced his mouth. A slumberous passion darkened his eyes. “You’re very pretty”—his gaze drifted down in perfect tandem with his hand—“everywhere.”
“Thank you,” she said again in a hushed whisper, all of her senses intent on the path he was taking.
“You’re welcome,” he drawled, and she felt the smile in his words. He stopped at her knee, then lightly stroked up the silky length of her inner thigh. Her eyes fluttered closed as she moaned. How did he make her melt with each touch? she wondered. What instinct gave him the magic to thrill her with such sensitivity?
What manner of man had she fallen in love with? And where were all her inhibitions?
Fallen in love with?
“Jack?”
“Hmm?”
“Something is happening.”
“No kidding.” He slid his leg between hers and lowered his mouth to her breast. After several tantalizing moments, he moved to her other breast, and Lila felt his low groan ricochet through her chest. He was devouring her sweetly, completely, his mouth roaming at will over her body, teasing her, tasting her, fulfilling the promise of his whispered words.
She sank deeper under his spell with every second of pleasure, until the pleasure grew too intense and her need for more of him grew undeniable.
With a slight shift of her body and the guiding tenderness of her hands, she silently asked him to return to her mouth for her kiss. When he did, the magic started all over, heightened by the pressure of his arousal between her thighs. He slipped partway inside, deepening the kiss to match. Slowly, degree by breathtaking degree, he made her completely his own.
She didn’t remember love ever being so intensely sweet, with each movement lifting them to a higher level of sensation and her feeling so safe in abandoning herself to the moment and the man who held her. She placed wild kisses on his face and throat and mouth, always his mouth, his divinely designed mouth so adept at drenching her senses in passion.
Jack matched her kiss for kiss, until he felt time running out. He wanted to be inside her forever, playing on the edge of maximum excitement and total satiation, but she had a way about her, a way of tightening around him with each thrust, a way of sighing in his ear and driving him over that sweet, delicate edge. All of his energy coalesced into one urgent desire—to take her, and take her quickly, to the place where she was taking him.
He plunged deeply and stopped long enough to capture her gasp with his mouth. Then he moved again, and again, quickening his tempo in response to the thousand subtle signals her body sent to his.
When the end came, he found his eternity in her sweet contractions around him, in the whisper of his name on her lips, in the tightness of her embrace.
* * *
Cocooned in contentment, Lila nuzzled her face into the broad shoulder supporting her head. Every atom of her being felt worked over, supremely used and renewed. Her skin still tingled, nerve impulses still imploded softly along the length of her body. She’d never known love could feel the way it felt with Jack. She’d loved Danny, but there had always been something elusive about him even in making love, something distracted and dreamy. He’d been hard to hold on to, and ultimately, she’d lost him.
But Jack, for all the sensitivity of his artistic soul, was there with her one hundred percent. She’d never been the recipient of so much concentrated attention, and she liked it—a lot. Even after only one dose, she suspected she might be addicted.
She turned her face up to his and kissed his jaw, eliciting a heavy sigh from deep in his chest. He rolled on top of her, his eyes still closed, and began to love her all over again.
* * *
“We can’t go on like this,” she murmured, snuggling closer to his warmth, her legs tangled with his.
“Speak for yourself,” he muttered in her ear before proceeding with the path he was gently gnawing down her shoulder to her breast.
“I’m hungry,” she said, her sigh quickly turning into a catch in her throat.
Jack was torn. He had food, lots of food, but he also had her in his arms, and she was starting to do all those little things she’d been doing all morning to tell him she was ready to make love again. He’d never
known a woman to be so innately responsive. She did things, wild things, to his ego and his desire that both surprised and fascinated him. The softness in her eyes pulled on him; the other-worldly rapture she bestowed on him bewitched him. She’d blossomed under his caress, giving him more than he’d seen in the photograph, and she was ready to give to him again, as he was ready to give to her.
But she was hungry.
With a groan, he levered himself up on one elbow and reached over to the nightstand closest to him, patting around in the drawer until he found what he wanted.
Lila laughed when she saw what he offered. “You keep a box of cookies in your bedroom?”
“For emergencies,” he said, kissing her cheek before opening the gold box and checking the contents. “This is the variety pack. Chocolate-covered mint, chocolate fudge without mint, chocolate-chocolate chip, regular chocolate chip with pecans, and chocolate-peanut butter swirls.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a variety.”
“I’m a consistent kind of guy.”
“Justine’s?” she guessed correctly.
“I harbor an undying love for the woman and her cookie sheets.”
“And her cake pans,” Lila added, teasing him.
“And her cake pans,” he agreed, grinning. “So what’s it going to be? Fudge, chips, nuts, mint, peanut butter . . . or me?” His eyes met hers, his smile slowly faded, and his last words came out so wistfully she couldn’t resist.
Minutes later she was wonderfully glad she hadn’t resisted. Loving Jack was sheer decadence, an indulgence of the senses. Maybe she had been alone too long. Or maybe the man in her arms was everything her heart had been telling her he was, while her mind had been searching for problems and running from the possibility of love.
When he touched her, she came alive. When he gave himself to her, she felt fulfilled. What he took in return, she didn’t miss. Hope grew where only denial had been before. Maybe it was time to trust herself again. She certainly trusted Jack.
* * *
“Fudge, please.”
“We’re out of fudge. How about a chocolate-peanut butter swirl?”
Lila rolled over onto her side to face him, staring at him in disbelief. “You ate the last fudge cookie?”
“No, darlin’,” he drawled. “You did.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” he repeated, not bothering to hide his grin. “Are you having fun yet?”
She nodded with only the barest hint of a blush. She couldn’t have imagined more fun if she’d had a year to think it all up. Making love with Jack and sharing a whole box of Justine’s cookies in bed had hit the top of her all-time-most-fun list. He made everything natural, carefree. His lack of self-consciousness was catching. He loved her.
Could it really be that easy? she asked herself. To make love and find love in a morning? The nice, thick barrier of skepticism she’d been carrying around for a year had melted under his touch, leaving her wondering. But even the serious nature of her musings didn’t dim her fancy for another cookie. She peeked into the box resting on his abdomen.
“You can tell me about him now,” he said, “if you want.”
She paused with her fingers hovering over the last chocolate-chocolate chip. “Who?”
“You didn’t mention him by name, but you said something about pretty terrible and not very good or admirable.”
“Oh . . . him.” She withdrew her hand and made a move to put some distance between her and Jack.
He stopped her by gently grasping her wrist. “I can wait until you’re ready.”
She glanced up. “I’m not sure why I spoke of him at all.”
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “He shocked me, humiliated me, and in the end disgusted me, but no, he didn’t hurt me.” She paused for a moment, then whispered the truth. “He hurt his wife.”
Jack quietly absorbed the information, watching her and feeling the sense of betrayal in her words.
“I—I didn’t know,” she said softly. “It was a real mess. We were at the Washington Center last Christmas. She came looking for him, found us instead, and went berserk. I never blamed her, except for ripping my dress and almost costing me my job. The whole sordid affair lasted less than three weeks and left me feeling horrible until . . .” Her eyes slowly met his. “. . . until this morning. Jack, I—”
Gazing at him, feeling the warmth of his arm around her, she wanted to tell him what she’d learned while making love. She wanted to tell him she loved him. But she’d used those words once by mistake, and had thereby cheapened them. She’d had some cockamamie idea that those three words would salve her conscience. She’d thought saying I love you would vanquish all the doubts she’d felt about going to bed with Robert. In short, she’d been a fool.
Now she looked at herself, lounging in bed with a man she’d been making love with all morning, not a shred of guilt in sight, and no false claims of love. Maybe she shouldn’t rock the boat.
Jack kept himself from pushing her to finish her thoughts out loud, sensing her need for caution. He knew what they had between them. He was willing to wait for her to come to her own realizations in her own time. He had what he wanted. She was with him, and he wasn’t letting her go.
“It won’t happen again, Lila,” he said, turning her into his arms and cradling her love-warmed, naked body against his. He brushed a kiss across her brow. When she lifted her face, he covered her mouth with his own, more than willing to love her yet again, to love any remnants of her doubts and pain away.
* * *
Starvation woke her, manifested as a great rumbling sound from the vicinity of her stomach. Woman, she decided, could not live on love and cookies forever. She needed sustenance, while Jack, it seemed, needed sleep.
Late afternoon sunshine bathed him in a golden glow, burnishing his skin to a soft copper against the pure whiteness of the sheets. He stretched the length of the bed, six feet of delectable maleness. An unsolicited sigh escaped her lips, and she had to remind herself what she was about.
Her gaze drifted over his still form once more, taking in the sun-weathered lines feathering from the corners of his eyes, the sweep of brown hair brushed away from his forehead, the curve of the muscles in his arm, and she knew he was the man she loved. When he awakened, she vowed to tell him.
She slipped from his side, making sure the quilt covered him and resisting the urge to tuck the blanket around him, to smooth his hair, maybe bestow a loving kiss on his cheek. He’d be there when she returned from the kitchen.
Her slacks were crumpled on the floor next to his jeans, but her blouse was nowhere to be found. She settled for a sweatshirt she saw lying on his dresser. The heavy black cotton shirt had big silver letters spread across the chest. RAIDERS. Lila grinned. He was a renegade all right. Few people in Bronco territory had the guts to sport the logo of the Denver team’s arch rival.
She found her shoes where she’d left them in front of the aquatic bathroom. As she continued down the hall, she expected at any moment to see her bra and blouse. But she made it to the kitchen without finding them, and once she got there, she forgot all about her clothes.
She stopped stock still in the doorway, her eyes wide with mortification, and let the world crash down around her for a good fifteen seconds before she whirled around and raced away. She grabbed her coat and purse by the front door. She stumbled across the porch and jumped down to the ground. Her car earned her everlasting gratitude by starting on the first try, and she tore down the driveway, leaving a plume of frozen snow in her wake.
When she hit the county road, she lurched to a stop and squeezed her eyes shut. She shouldn’t have run away. It was childish, ridiculous, stupid—but she’d be damned if she was going back.
“Mermaids,” she hissed, slamming her hand against the steering wheel.
* * *
The banging of the front door startled Jack awake. Who in the world? he wondered, pushing himself upright. His first in
tention was to assure Lila everything was okay. But one glance at the bed made it all too obvious what had happened.
He flopped back down on the pillows, biting out a sharp expletive. A moment later he threw one arm over his face, let out a deep sigh, and muttered the word again. If she wasn’t the most confusing woman he’d ever met, she ran a damn close second.
Hadn’t they just spent an incredible morning together? He’d certainly never had another one even remotely similar. He was about ready to nominate himself into the Guinness Book of World Records. Lord, but the lady did crazy things to him.
Hadn’t he bided his time, been patient, wooed and courted her? Yes. But hadn’t he also bulldozed her into his bed that morning? Maybe.
Yet hadn’t she looked at him with those, you-could-drown-in-them brown eyes of hers and all but told him she loved him?
The last question hung in his mind for a long time, unanswered. He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore. He didn’t believe for a minute he was capable of falling in love all by himself, or that he could have misinterpreted everything they’d done and shared in the last few hours, let alone the last month.
So now what? he asked himself. Get up? Get dressed? Go after her? Or would that really make a fool of him?
Yes, the answer came to him. That would really make a fool of him. The lady had run out on him. He had to respect her decision, no matter how totally incomprehensible it was. Totally. Incomprehensible.
He swore again.
“Goodness, Jack. I haven’t heard that kind of language out of you in years.”
For a split second the feminine voice paralyzed him. Then he groaned and swore again, repeatedly, under his breath. He lowered his forearm an inch and peered over his wrist, and his swearing gained some volume.
She stood there, tall and willowy and built, silky blond hair flowing like a sheet of satin to her waist, her only makeup a California tan, her blue eyes wide and innocent. “I didn’t mean to scare your paramour off, honest. I just dropped by to see you and do a few things, pick up a few things. I barely caught her out of the corner of my eye before she disappeared. The next thing I knew, the front door slammed. Didn’t you tell her about me, Jack?”
