Again, she pushed his hands back to his sides and raised her eyes to his. “I want you to relax,” she chided softly.
“Honey, there isn’t a prayer of that. You’re no longer,” he said thickly, “shy.”
“I’m afraid I was never shy,” she admitted.
Her smile was pure wicked temptress one instant, as innocent as a child’s the next. He felt the full force of woman turned on him, from the sway of her breasts to the soft darts of her tongue to her whispered breath deliberately teasing him. She knelt over him, brushing her breasts over his chest, touching nipple to nipple. She tried her teeth, taking small nips from his shoulder and throat.
Pleasure skidded up and down his bloodstream. Desire heated his skin. He wanted to give; she was forcing him to take. The sensation was new and almost…frightening. Laura had powers over him he’d given to no other person, powers he was just beginning to understand. Powers he was afraid she understood all too well.
“Laura…” He reached for her again, but this time she was already there, her softness curled around him, her lips hovering over his.
“You taught me honesty,” she whispered. “But it has to be the same for both of us, love. I need you, Owen, I freely admit it. But I have to know you need me, too. I don’t want a hero to slay dragons for me. I want a man who’s as vulnerable in love as I am.”
“You doubted that?” Rapidly, with infinite gentleness, he switched positions so she was pinned beneath him, her hair fanned out on the pillow. His fingers reached out to touch the silky strands, lingering there. “I’ve been scared as hell from the moment I met you. How could you not know? I’ve never needed anyone the way I need you.” His fingertip traced the shape of her soft, warm lips. “Be with me,” he said huskily. “Love with me, live with me. Fight with me, I don’t care. Just don’t leave me…”
Her eyes closed, with kiss after kiss. Darkness spiraled around her. His body was trembling, dampness making a satin sheen on his shoulders and chest. She had a crazy image in her head of a thousand swallows set free from a church belfry. Love was exploding inside her, soaring high, and that sky was so big and blue.
She shouted his name.
He whispered hers.
“Owen?”
“Hmm?”
“There’s no possible way I can sleep with your hand there.”
“Are you sleepy?”
Her lashes fluttered open. The room was dark except for the rays of a pale moon in the window. And the dark glow from Owen’s eyes just above hers. “You must be tired.”
“I am. A little. But I want my yes.” He brushed kiss after kiss on lips that were already swollen and tender.
“A yes to what?” she murmured in surprise.
“To marrying me.”
“I certainly thought I made it very clear how I felt about spending my life with you.”
“Not clear enough.” He slid his palm down under the sheet again. “You’re not going to sleep until I have a very clear black-and-white yes.”
“You have no intention of letting me sleep anyway.”
“True.” He looked down at her for a long time, at her cheeks and chin and nose and brows and lips. Each feature was perfect. “I didn’t expect to find you,” he said gravely. “I’ve always been alone; I’ve never been afraid of being alone. I thought I was happy until I met you, Laura. I don’t need anyone to serve me dinner or put up with my temper or dust my house. I need you to come home to. I feel free to be honest with you, to show you the faults as well as the good stuff. I need you while I grow and change, and maybe falter and fail. With you I can be vulnerable now and then—you used that word. I need you, love.”
His eyes were a sheen of silver. Her own were blurred with tears. “I thought you’d changed my life,” she whispered. “But that wasn’t right, Owen, because real change has to come from inside, and it’s a lonely process. I want you there, as I change. I want your children. I want to grow old with you. I want to be shy and wanton, self-sufficient and insecure, business lady and sultry temptress…with you…”
He trapped her in a tangle of arms and legs, leveling a kiss of love on the perfect mold of her lips. “Say it, love.”
“When they said you were a tyrant, I never believed them—”
“If you ever want a chocolate again as long as you live—”
Her eyes widened. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
A long time later, she murmured in his ear. “You know, it has nothing to do with chocolates.”
“I know.”
“But whatever you do, don’t let your sister talk you into going into the shoe business.”
Owen burst out laughing.
“You think that’s funny?”
“I think—” sleepily Owen pinned her closer “—you’re looking for trouble again.”
“I couldn’t be. The sun’s nearly up. We have to get some sleep.”
“I love you, Laura.”
She reached for him. “We can catch up on our sleep next year,” she agreed.
About the Author
Jennifer sold her first book in 1980, and since then she has sold more than eighty books in the contemporary romance genre. Her first professional writing award came from RWA—a Silver Medallion in l984—followed by more than twenty nominations and awards, including being honored in RWA’s Hall of Fame and presented with the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Jennifer has been on numerous bestseller lists, has written for Harlequin Books, Avon, Berkley and Dell, and has sold over the world in more than twenty languages. She has written under a number of pseudonyms, most recognizably Jennifer Greene, but also Jeanne Grant and Jessica Massey.
She was born in Michigan, started writing in high school, and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English and psychology. The university honored her with their “Lantern Night Award,” a tradition developed to honor fifty outstanding women graduates each year. Exploring issues and concerns for women today is what first motivated her to write, and she has long been an enthusiastic and active supporter of women’s fiction, which she believes is an “unbeatable way to reach out and support other women.” Jennifer lives in the country around Benton Harbor, Michigan, with her husband, Lar.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9160-1
First published by Berkley Publishing Group in 1986
Copyright © 1986 by Alison Hart
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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