All a Man Is

by Janice Kay Johnson

  The sunlight somehow surprised Alec even though he knew morning had come. Julia paused outside the doors, blinking bemusedly.

  “Maybe we should have breakfast in the cafeteria before we go home,” he said.

  “I’d rather make us something,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “Fine by me.” Even if she poured him a bowl of cornflakes, it would taste fantastic because she’d supplied it.

  “Oh! It’s late enough to call Andrea, isn’t it?”

  She already had her phone out and it was ringing by the time he had her car unlocked. He didn’t ask if she wanted to drive; given his job, he’d become inured to interrupted sleep and even nights when he got no sleep at all. In the midst of a homicide investigation or when the chance for a big drug bust came, you didn’t knock off at five for dinner and bed. Julia was always beautiful to him, but he also noted the bruised look beneath her eyes and the slowness of her usually quick, graceful movements.

  She fumbled for the seat belt and he helped her fasten it as she talked to their neighbor, then to Liana.

  “Yes, Matt’s fine and really embarrassed,” Julia told Liana. “He insists he thought he could drive.” She actually laughed. “You may be jealous, because he has a cast. Think what an attention-getter that will be when you two start school.” She listened and finally said, “Okay, let me talk to Andrea again.”

  They were almost home when she ended the call. He glanced at her. “I suppose Liana had a great night’s sleep and is raring to go.”

  “Probably, but Andrea has an outing planned. They’re going to a late-morning movie, out to lunch and then shopping. You know I’d promised to buy Liana boots for riding. Andrea’s going to take care of that for both girls. Bless her heart, she says not to expect Liana until dinnertime. She knows I need to take a nap and then go back to see Matt later.”

  “We struck gold when it came to neighbors,” Alec agreed.

  “So...breakfast first.”

  He hadn’t really expected her to reach for the cereal boxes. They were no sooner in her side of the duplex than she began to bustle. An omelet, she decided. Tomorrow morning, they’d have waffles before they went to pick up Matt at the hospital. Waffles were Liana’s favorite, even Alec knew.

  He liked the way Julia said we. She was including him, wasn’t she?

  Cooking seemed to energize her, although he suspected she’d wind down fast once the food settled comfortably in her stomach. She chattered over breakfast, a little too brightly, repeating herself several times.

  “Listen to me!” she said finally, laughing. “I feel like I just walked out of prison. Free at last!” Her gaze sought his. “Am I being too optimistic?”

  “No.” He captured her hand across the table. “We had to find out what was really eating at him. Now we know. I’m guessing he’s feeling as relieved as you are.”

  She shook her head. “He actually thought we’d hate him,” Julia marveled.

  “He’s a teenager,” Alec said matter-of-factly. “Everything is blown bigger than it should be. And this...this was big to start with. You’ve felt guilty yourself, and you’re adult enough to know better.”

  “That’s true.” She smiled at him. “I feel giddy. Did I ever tell you I took dance lessons when I was a girl? I’m sure I could go en pointe now. Swan Lake, here I come!”

  “I can see you as a dancer,” Alec said seriously. “You have the body.”

  “I don’t think our dance school was very good. Mrs. Hopper, who owned it and taught the classes I took, was in her fifties and had gotten a little pudgy. But we had fun and dreamed a little.”

  “Did you play any sports?”

  She shook her head. “In my town, Little League was for boys, and the first soccer league started when I was a teenager. Of course, the high school had girls’ sports, but the skill level was pretty awful. How were we supposed to compete on a basketball court when the only time we’d ever played was in PE?”

  He chuckled at her indignation. “Sorry, sweetheart, but basketball wouldn’t have been your sport no matter what.” The chuckle became an outright laugh. “I can just picture you under the basket trying to block a shot.”

  “I think I’m insulted.”

  “No, you’re just short.”

  Julia blew a raspberry. “What about you?”

  “Believe it or not, I actually did play basketball. Despite my height, I was a guard on my high school team. Neither tall enough nor good enough to play at a college level, though. Not really interested enough, either, I guess.”

  He rambled a little about the sports he and Josh had both enjoyed: surfing, mountain biking, hiking. “He was always more into high-adrenaline stuff. He took up hang gliding at one point. He earned enough summers to be able to afford to take flying lessons and try skydiving. Me, I’m not actually that crazy about heights.”

  “Really?” Julia looked fascinated. “I never knew that.”

  “I don’t advertise it.”

  She tried to suppress the smile, but he saw it in her eyes. “Big tough cop with a weakness?”

  “Reputation is everything,” he told her.

  Now she had the chance to laugh at him, and he enjoyed it. Damn, she was beautiful when she was happy. In one way he’d known how unhappy she had become, but the effects had been gradual.

  Her smile slowly faded. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’m thinking how beautiful you are,” he said quietly. He pushed his chair back and held out a hand to her. “Hey, come here.”

  Her teeth momentarily sank into her lower lip. Her eyes never left his as she stood and rounded the corner of the table. Instead of taking his hand, she plopped down on his lap and slid her arms around his neck. “Alec,” she murmured and pressed her lips to his.

  He kissed her, trying to keep it gentle, although a sort of static wiped out most of his rational thoughts almost immediately. Her lips were so soft, so giving. She smelled good and tasted good, although he couldn’t have described either. It was just...Julia.

  He nibbled on her lower lip and shuddered when she did the same to his and then soothed it with her tongue. His hands dug into her. He’d never gotten hard so fast. Even so, Alec somehow kept the kiss slow, almost lazy, his tongue sliding against hers, stroking the roof of her mouth, swirling against the tantalizing flesh of her cheeks.

  She made little sounds and kneaded his shoulders and neck while her tongue danced with his.

  Pulling back took everything he had. It didn’t help when he got a good look at her face, her eyes dreamy and shimmering with gold, her mouth swollen and damp.

  “Julia...” Voice scratchy, he stopped. Lifting his hand, he cupped her delicate jaw and cheek, loving the way she tilted her face as if to nestle into his touch. “I know you must be exhausted. We don’t have to do this.”

  She blinked, looking for a moment as if she had stepped out into the startlingly bright day. Then she seemed to focus. “Have to do this? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t want to—” God, had he been going to say take advantage of you? Really? “Push you.”

  It had to be pride stiffening her spine. Julia planted her hands on his chest and shoved herself away, wriggling to get off his lap. “If you don’t want me...”

  “You know damn well I do!”

  “Then what?” She looked mad. “I’m tired of throwing myself at you and getting nowhere! Let’s just forget it.”

  He easily prevented her from standing. As pissed as he’d been a second ago, he didn’t know where the amusement had come from. “Throwing yourself at me? Is that what you’ve been doing?”

  Glaring did not suit a face as finely made as hers. “Yes!”

  God help him, he was still painfully hard. “There is nothing in life I want more than to make love wi
th you.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” His voice had become husky. “Nothing at all. Hold on tight.” He slid an arm under her thighs and stood. Julia squeaked. Striding from the kitchen, he momentarily paused. “Did we lock the door?”

  He saw from her face that he’d awakened dismay in her, too. Probably Andrea would keep the girls safely away from home, but who knew? What if one of them didn’t feel good and they came home early?

  “I think so,” Julia said uncertainly. “But Liana has a key, you know.”

  “Oh, hell.” After a moment, he let her body slide down his, increasing his torment. “Then let’s go over to my side.”

  “Yes!”

  “Bring your phone.”

  She spotted it on the kitchen counter and darted over to grab it.

  Like two teenagers sneaking out into the night, they locked the door behind them and hustled from the small concrete pad that was her porch to the matching one that was his. Inserting the key almost took more concentration than he could manage. Once he had the door open, she whisked past him. He slammed it, turned the dead bolt and reached for her. He scooped her up again to bring her to his level, and when she wrapped her legs around his waist, he swung around and braced her back against the door. Two soft thuds told him her sandals had fallen to the floor.

  They kissed deeply, hungrily. Alec quit holding back; he couldn’t. She squirmed against him, driving him insane. His hips rocked, his head fogged. By instinct one hand found her breast, cupping it and squeezing, rubbing the peak of her nipple with his palm. He wanted to tear off her shirt, find smooth, bare skin, but he’d have had to back off to do that and he couldn’t. He rocked his erection into the cradle her parted legs offered until he was painfully, excruciatingly close to coming without ever getting inside her.

  He finally tore his mouth away from hers. “God, Julia,” he said desperately.

  She looked at him without comprehension.

  This was their first time. They couldn’t do it against the door. He turned his head and saw the sofa. Gripping her more firmly, he started that way. His legs didn’t feel as steady as they had and his path across the small living room wavered. It didn’t help that she was kissing and licking his neck. The feel of her damp tongue lapping at the base of his throat had him groaning his need.

  About to lay her down, Alec clenched his teeth instead. “Julia,” he ground out, “are you on birth control?”

  She bit the thick muscle that ran from his neck to his shoulder.

  “Julia!” Even more desperate, he shook her. “Are you on the pill?”

  Comprehension came slowly, but made it in the end. Her eyes widened. “No! After Josh, I decided to take a break.”

  “Bed, then.” He stumbled around the back of the leather sofa and started toward the short hall.

  “Do you have something?” She sounded stricken.

  “Yeah.” He’d thrown away the box of condoms he’d kept in the bathroom at his Los Feliz place before he moved, disconcerted to see the expiration date. He hadn’t gone that long without sex since his first experience at sixteen. But within a couple of weeks of Julia’s arrival in Angel Butte, he’d bought a new box. Hope in action.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed.

  “I wouldn’t be the police chief if I couldn’t plan ahead.”

  She giggled at his feeble attempt at a joke, but then started nuzzling his throat again, and whatever limited blood was fueling his brain went south again.

  He shouldered open the bedroom door, made it the last few steps and planted a knee on his bed, laying her down. He had to get her clothes off before he lowered himself onto her.

  Funny thing, as he reached for the hem of her T-shirt, she was reaching for his. They struggled momentarily until he muttered, “Oh, the hell with it,” and stripped off his own while she did the same. The color of a ripe peach, her bra was pretty. He didn’t care. He had it off and tossed aside between one breath and the next.

  “Julia” was all he could manage to say, and that was guttural. Now he did bear her back again, hungry to close his mouth over her taut, rose-brown nipple. He sucked it deep into his mouth, tugging rhythmically. She gave a strangled cry and her hips rose and fell, making him crazy. He wanted to savor her, but knew he couldn’t hold out that long.

  Lifting himself away from her, he worked on unfastening her chinos and pulled both them and her panties down. When he straightened, her small hands found the button on his trousers. It was ecstasy and agony watching her concentrate fiercely on getting him naked. He sucked in his belly as she tugged on the zipper, her fingers stroking him as she pulled it down. Then she gripped him through the cotton of his briefs, squeezed and slid her fingers beneath the elastic waistband to work the briefs down, too. Once she got them as far as his thighs, he took over, kicking off shoes and pants, wrenching off his socks and coming down on top of her for the hungriest, most frantic kiss of his life.

  “Condom,” she gasped at one point, and he managed to roll away to wrench open the bedside drawer, where he’d tossed a few loose ones. He used his teeth to rip open the packaging and rolled the condom on with careless haste.

  Then Alec looked at her, the woman he’d wanted for so damn long, and felt a wave of euphoria. There she sprawled, arms and legs wide and waiting for him, her nipples dark and hard, her hair tousled against the bedcover, her slender body everything he could ever want.

  With a ragged sound, he came down on her, stroking her silken dampness once and then driving inside her as if he wouldn’t survive another minute if he didn’t.

  Her back arched. “Alec,” she whispered and reached around to grab him.

  It took them a minute to catch a rhythm, but it didn’t matter. Every plunge was rapture, his senses so heightened that her fingernails digging into him, her high, helpless sounds, the whisper of her breath against his skin, all were more erotic than anything he could remember.

  He couldn’t have lasted long. He didn’t have to. He knew the moment her heels drove into the bed and her body began to spasm. He let himself go. The release rolled through him like thunder, long and powerful, deafening and blinding him.

  In the end, he sagged down on her, his eyes closed. He said her name again, thankfully.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JULIA THOUGHT THAT DAY might have been the happiest of her life, even if, really, so much was unresolved.

  She and Alec had finally made love. Twice, the second time coming after a lengthy nap. The experience had been so astonishing, she felt her cheeks warming every time she thought about the time in bed with him. She hadn’t known she could lose her inhibitions so completely. She’d been sure she would feel self-conscious about the thin silver stretch marks low on her abdomen, but as he was stripping her, it had never even crossed her mind that he might be disappointed in what he found. She’d expected to feel self-conscious, period—she hadn’t been naked with any man but Josh in a really long time. She hadn’t known she could want so much, there was no room left for self-consciousness.

  And then there was Matt. The way he’d flung himself into her arms that morning at the hospital and cried against her both warmed her and made her heart ache at the same time. She hated knowing he’d wrestled with the same pain and guilt as she had, but with much more devastating results.

  When she and Alec had gone back to the hospital midafternoon, she’d worried that Matt would have retreated into the all-too-familiar sullenness, but he hadn’t. He was shy and quiet, but no longer bristling. He seemed, if anything, to be in more pain than he was right after the accident, and kept shifting to try to get comfortable. Julia wasn’t sure if he repeatedly adjusted the head and foot of the bed because he couldn’t get comfortable or because he liked pushing buttons, but she didn’t say anything about it.

  He dozed in the l
ate afternoon. Alec announced that he’d pick up Liana and bring her and dinner to the hospital. When Julia asked if they were allowed to eat in here, he just smiled, slow and sexy, and said, “To hell with ’em.”

  When Matt’s dinner was delivered, the nurses pretended not to notice the odor of cheeseburgers and fries that permeated the room or the wadded-up wrappers filling the trash can. Both kids loved the idea that they were pulling a fast one on Authority, with a capital A. Amused, Julia wasn’t so sure Alec wasn’t enjoying it, too.

  Finally, after Matt had taken some pain meds, they left him to sleep with a promise to be back to get him first thing tomorrow. Julia’s biggest regret of the day was that Alec didn’t come in with her and Liana. He waited while Julia unlocked and opened the door, hugged Liana, then bent his head to give Julia a swift, soft kiss on the mouth.

  “Dream about me,” he murmured and strode across the yard toward his own front door. When he reached it and noticed that she was still watching him, he gave a cocky grin. “Go on. Lock up.”

  Julia smiled sweetly, blew him a kiss and went inside.

  It wasn’t until she was alone in bed that doubts crept in.

  Matt still felt embarrassed and chagrined because of the enormity of what he’d done. The effect might not last. He’d spent a year and a half rebelling with all the fervor he could summon. Could true confessions really restore them to the good old days, when he’d been an even-tempered boy? If nothing else, he’d become a teenager in the interval. Even if the worst was behind them, she didn’t exactly know who the Matt who emerged would be.

  And Alec. It hadn’t really struck Julia until now that he’d never said the words I love you. Well, neither had she. But she was hampered by her upbringing in an old-fashioned town with old-fashioned parents. A lady would never say it first. And, oh, it was silly, because she knew Alec did love her, in one way at least. It just wasn’t necessarily the way she wanted.