Lionhearted

by Diana Palmer

  Hettie started giggling. Janie glared at her.

  “You don’t remember, do you?” the housekeeper asked Janie. “Leo helped them do the same thing to Dorie, and Tira, and Tess, and even Meredith. It’s payback time. They’re getting even.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Leo told Janie with a smug grin. “But look at the bright side, you can just sit back and relax and not have to worry about a single detail.”

  “But, my dress…” she protested.

  He patted her on the shoulder. “They have wonderful taste,” he assured her.

  Fred was grinning from ear to ear. He never would have believed one man could move so fast, but he’d seen the way Leo looked at Janie just the morning before. It was no surprise to him that a wedding was forthcoming. He knew a man who was head over heels when he saw one.

  By the end of the evening, Janie had approved the wedding gown, provided the statistics and details of her family background and education, and climbed into the car with Leo to let him take her home.

  “The rings will be ready Tuesday, they promised,” he told her at her father’s door. He smiled tenderly. “You’ll be a beautiful bride.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she said softly, searching his lean face.

  He drew her close. “Wednesday night, you’ll believe it,” he said huskily, and bent to kiss her with obvious restraint. “Now, good night!”

  He walked to the car. She drifted inside, wrapped in dreams.

  It was a honey of a society wedding. For something so hastily concocted, especially with Christmas approaching, it went off perfectly. Even the rings were ready on time, the dress arrived by special overnight delivery, the blood tests and marriage license were promptly produced, the minister engaged, press coverage assured, the caterer on time—nothing, absolutely nothing, went wrong.

  Janie stood beside Leo at the Hart ranch at a makeshift arch latticed with pink and white roses while they spoke their vows. Janie had a veil, because Leo had insisted. And after the last words of the marriage ceremony were spoken, he lifted the veil from Janie’s soft eyes and looked at her with smoldering possession. He bent and kissed her tenderly, his lips barely brushing hers. She had a yellowing bruise on one cheek and she was careful to keep that side away from the camera, but Leo didn’t seem to notice the blemish.

  “You are the most beautiful bride who ever spoke her vows,” he whispered as he kissed her. “And I will cherish you until they lay me down in the dark!”

  She reached up and kissed him back, triggering a burst of enthusiastic ardor that he was only able to curb belatedly. He drew away from her, smiling sheepishly at their audience, caught her hand, and led her back to the house through a shower of rice.

  The brothers were on the job even then. The press was delicately prompted to leave after the cake and punch were consumed, the symphony orchestra was coaxed to load their instruments. The guests were delicately led to the door and thanked. Then the brothers carried their wives away in a flurry of good wishes and, at last, the newlyweds were alone, in their own home.

  Leo looked at Janie with eyes that made her heart race. “Alone,” he whispered, approaching her slowly, “at last.”

  He bent and lifted her, tenderly, and carried her down the hall to the bedroom. He locked the door. He took the phone off the hook. He closed the curtains. He came back to her, where she stood, a little apprehensive, just inside the closed door.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly. “You’re a priceless treasure. I’m going to be slow, and tender, and I’m going to give you all the time you need. Don’t be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not, really,” she said huskily, watching him divest her of the veil and the hairpins that held her elaborate coiffure in place with sprigs of lily of the valley. “But you want me so much,” she tried to explain. “What if I can’t satisfy you?”

  He laughed. “You underestimate yourself.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He turned her around so that he could undo the delicate hooks and snaps of her gown. “I’m sure.”

  She let him strip her down to her lacy camisole, white stockings and lacy white garter belt, her eyes feeding on the delighted expression that claimed his lean face.

  “Beautiful,” he said huskily. “I love you in white lace.”

  “You’re not bad in a morning coat,” she teased, liking the vested gray ceremonial rig he was wearing.

  “How am I without it?” he teased.

  “Let’s find out.” She unbuttoned his coat and then the vest under it. He obligingly stripped them off for her, along with his tie, and left the shirt buttons to her hands. “You’ve got cuff links,” she murmured, trying to release them.

  “I’ll do it.” He moved to the chest of drawers and put his cuff links in a small box, along with his pocket change and keys. He paused to remove his shirt and slacks, shoes and socks before he came back to her, in silky gray boxer shorts like the ones he’d worn the night they were almost intimate.

  “You are…magnificent,” she whispered, running her hands over his chest.

  “You have no idea how magnificent, yet.” He unsnapped the shorts and let them fall, coaxing her eyes to him. He shivered at the expression on her face, because he was far more potent than he’d been the one time she’d looked at him like this.

  While she was gaping, he unfastened the camisole with a delicate flick of his fingers and unhooked the garter belt. He stripped the whole of it down her slender body and tipped her back onto the bed while he pulled the stockings off with the remainder of her clothing.

  He pulled back the cover and tossed the pillows off to the side before he arranged her on the crisp white sheets and stood over her, vibrating with desire, his eyes eating her nude body, from her taut nipples to the visible trembling of her long, parted legs.

  She watched him come down to her with faint apprehension that suddenly vanished when he pressed his open mouth down, hard, right on her soft belly.

  He’d never touched her like that, and in the next few feverish minutes, she went from shock to greater shock as he displayed his knowledge of women.

  “No, you can’t, you can’t!” she sobbed, but he was, he did, he had!

  She arched up toward his mouth with tears of tortured ecstasy raining down her cheeks in a firestorm of sensation, sobbing as the pleasure stretched her tight as a rope under the warm, expert motions of his lips.

  She gasped as the wave began to hit her. Her eyes opened, and his face was there, his body suddenly right over hers, his hips thrusting down. She felt him, and then looked and saw him, even as she felt the small stabbing pain of his invasion. The sight of what was happening numbed the pain, and then it was gone all together as he shifted roughly, dragging his hips against hers as he enforced his possession of her innocence.

  Her nails bit into his long back as he moved on her, insisting, demanding. His face, above her, was strained, intent.

  “Am I hurting you?” he ground out.

  “N…no!” she gasped, lifting toward him, her eyes wide, shocked, fascinated.

  He looked down, lifting himself so that he could watch her body absorb him. “Look,” he coaxed through his teeth. “Look, Janie. Look at us.”

  She glanced down and her breath caught at the intimate sight that met her eyes. She gasped.

  “And we’ve barely begun,” he breathed, shifting suddenly, fiercely, against her.

  She sobbed, shivering.

  He did it again, watching her face, assessing her reaction. “I can feel you, all around me, like a soft, warm glove,” he whispered, his lips compressing as pleasure shot through him with every deepening motion of his hips. “Take me, baby. Take me inside you. Take all of me. Make me scream, baby,” he murmured.

  She was out of her mind with the pleasure he was giving her. She writhed under him, arching her hips, pushing against him, watching his face. She shifted and he groaned harshly. She laughed, through her own torment, and suddenly cried out as the pleasure became
more and more unbearable. Her hands went between them, in a fever of desire.

  “Yes,” he moaned as he felt her trembling touch. “Yes. Oh…God…baby…do it, do it! Do it!”

  She was going to die. She opened her eyes and looked at him, feeling her body pulse as he shortened and deepened his movements, watching her with his mouth compressed, his eyes feverish.

  “Do it…harder,” she choked.

  He groaned in anguish and his hips ground into hers suddenly, his hands catching her wrists and slamming them over her head as he moved fiercely above her, his eyes holding hers prisoner as his body enforced its possession violently.

  She felt her body strain to accommodate him and in the last few mad seconds, she wondered if she would be able to…

  He blurred in her sight. She was shaking. Her whole body rippled in a shuddering parody of convulsions, whipping against his while her mouth opened, gasping at air, and her voice uttered sounds she’d never heard from it in her entire life.

  “Get it,” he groaned. “Yes. Get it…!”

  He cried out and then his body, too, began to shudder rhythmically. A sound like a harsh sob tore from his throat. He groaned endlessly as his body shivered into completion. Seconds, minutes, hours, an eternity of pleasure later, he collapsed on her.

  They both shivered in the aftermath. She felt tears on her face, in her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. Her body ached, even inside, and when she moved, she felt pleasure stab her in the most secret places, where she could still feel him.

  She sobbed, her nails biting into the hands pinning her wrists.

  He lifted his head. “Look at me,” he whispered, and when she did, he began to move again.

  She sobbed harder, her legs parting, her hips lifting for him, her whole body shivering in a maelstrom of unbelievable delight.

  “I can go again, right now,” he whispered huskily, holding her eyes. “Can you? Or will it hurt?”

  “I can’t…feel pain,” she whimpered. Her eyes closed on a shiver and then opened again, right into his. “Oh, please,” she whispered brokenly. “Please, please…!”

  He began to move, very slowly. “I love watching you,” he whispered breathlessly. “Your face is beautiful, like this. Your body…” He looked down at it, watching its sensuous movements in response to his own. “I could eat you with a spoon right now, Mrs. Hart,” he added shakily. “You are every dream of perfection that I’ve ever had.”

  “And you…are mine,” she whispered. She lifted up to him, initiating the rhythm, whimpering softly as the pleasure began to climb all over again. “I love you…so much,” she sobbed.

  His body clenched. He groaned, arched, his face going into her throat as his body took over from his mind and buffeted her violently.

  She went over the edge almost at once, holding on for dear life while he took what he wanted from her. It was feverish, ardent, overwhelming. She thought she might faint from the ecstasy when it throbbed into endless satiation. He went with her, every second of the way. She felt him when his body gave up the pleasure he sought, felt the rigor, heard the helpless throb of his voice at her ear when he shuddered and then relaxed completely.

  She held him close, drinking in the intimate sound and feel and scent of his big body over hers in the damp bed. It had been a long, wild loving. She’d never imagined, even in their most passionate encounters, that lovemaking would be like this.

  She told him so, in shy whispers.

  He didn’t answer her. He was still, and quiet, for such a long time that she became worried.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered at his ear. Over her, she could hear and feel the beat of his heart as it slowly calmed.

  His head lifted, very slowly. He looked into her wide eyes. “I lost consciousness for a few seconds,” he said quietly. He touched her lower lip, swollen from the fierce pressure of his mouth just at the last. “I thought…I might die, trying to get deep enough to satisfy us both.”

  She flushed.

  He put his finger over her lips. He wasn’t smiling. He moved deliberately, letting her feel him. “You aren’t on the Pill,” he said. “And I was too hot to even think of any sort of birth control. Janie,” he added, hesitantly, “I think I made you pregnant.”

  Her eyes searched his. “You said you wanted to,” she reminded him in a whisper.

  “I do. But it should have been your choice, too,” he continued, sounding worried.

  She traced his long, elegant nose and smiled with delicious exhaustion. “Did you hear me shouting, Leo, stop and run to the pharmacy to buy protection!”

  He laughed despite the gravity of the situation. “Was that about the time I was yelling, ‘get it, baby’?”

  She hit his chest, flushed, and then laughed.

  “You did, too, didn’t you?” he asked with a smug grin. “So did I. Repeatedly.” He groaned as he moved slowly away from her and flopped onto his back, stretching his sore muscles. “Damn, I’m sore! And I told you I could go all night, didn’t I?”

  She sat up, torn between shock and amusement as she met his playful eyes. “Sore? Men get sore?”

  “When they go at it like that, they do,” he replied sardonically. “What a wedding night,” he said, whistling through his lips as he studied her nude body appreciatively. “If they gave medals, you could have two.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Really? I was…I was all right?”

  He tugged her down to him. “Women have egos, too, don’t they?” he asked tenderly. He pushed her damp hair away from her cheeks and mouth. “You were delicious. I’ve never enjoyed a woman so much.”

  “I didn’t know anything at all.”

  He brought her head down and kissed her eyelids. “It isn’t a matter of knowledge.”

  She searched his eyes. “You had enough of that for both of us,” she murmured.

  “Bodies in the dark,” he said, making it sound unimportant. “I wanted to have you in the light, Janie,” he said solemnly. “I wanted to look at you while I was taking you.”

  “That’s a sexist remark,” she teased.

  “You took me as well,” he conceded. He touched her mouth with a long forefinger. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” he whispered, and sounded breathless. “Your face, your body…” His face clenched. “And the pleasure.” His eyes closed and he shivered. “I’ve never known anything like it.” His eyes opened again. “It was love,” he whispered to her, scowling. “Making love. Really making love.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She traced his sideburn to his ear. “Yes.”

  “Do you know what I’m trying to tell you?” he asked quietly.

  She looked down into his eyes and saw it there. Her heart jumped into her throat. “You’re telling me that you love me,” she said.

  He nodded. “I love you. I knew it when Clark assaulted you, and I went at him. It hurt my pride that I couldn’t make him beg for forgiveness. I cleaned you up and dried your hair, and knew that I loved you, all at once. It was a very small step from there to a wedding ring.” He brought hers to his lips and kissed it tenderly. “I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. Not after that.”

  She smiled dreamily. “I loved you two years ago, when you brought me a wilted old daisy you’d picked out in the meadow, and teased me about it being a bouquet. You didn’t know it, but to me, it was.”

  “I’ve given you a hard time,” he told her, with obvious regret. “I’m sorry.”

  She leaned down and kissed him tenderly. “You made up for it.” She moved her breasts gently against his chest. “I really can go all night,” she whispered. “When you’ve recovered, I’ll show you.”

  He chuckled under the soft press of her mouth, and his big arms swallowed her. “When you’re recovered, I’ll let you. I love you, Mrs. Hart. I love you with all my heart.”

  “I love you with all mine.” She kissed him again, and thought how dreams did, sometimes, actually come true.

  A week later, they celebrated thei
r first Christmas together at a family party, to which Janie’s father, aunt Lydia and Hettie were also invited. After kissing her with exquisite tenderness beneath the mistletoe, Leo gave Janie an emerald necklace, to match her eyes he said, and she gave him an expensive pocket watch, with his name and hers engraved inside the case.

  On New Year’s Eve, the family gathered with other families at the Jacobsville Civic Center for the first annual celebration. A live band played favorites and couples danced on the polished wood floor. Calhoun Ballenger had mused aloud that since Jacobsville’s economy was based on cattle and agriculture, they should drop a pair of horns instead of a ball to mark the new year. He was red-faced at the celebration, when the city fathers took him seriously and did that very thing.

  While Leo and Janie stood close together on the patio of the second floor ballroom to watch the neon set of longhorns go down to the count, a surprising flurry of snow came tumbling from the sky to dust the heads of the crowd.

  “It’s snowing!” Janie exclaimed, holding out a hand to catch the fluffy precipitation. “But it never snows in Jacobsville! Well, almost never.”

  Leo caught her close as the horns went to the bottom of the courthouse tower across the street and bent to her mouth, smiling. “One more wish come true,” he teased, because he knew how much she loved snow. “Happy New Year, my darling,” he whispered.

  “Happy New Year,” she whispered back, and met his kiss with loving enthusiasm, to the amused glances of the other guests. They were, after all, newlyweds.

  The new year came and soon brought with it unexpected tragedy. John Clark went back to Victoria to get his jailed brother a famous attorney, but he didn’t have any money. So he tried to rob a bank to get the money. He was caught in the act by a security guard and a Texas Ranger who was working on a case locally. Judd Dunn was one of the two men who exchanged shots with Clark in front of the Victoria Bank and Trust. Clark missed. Judd and the security guard didn’t. Ballistics tests were required to pinpoint who fired the fatal bullet.

  Jack Clark, still in jail in Victoria, was let out long enough to attend his brother’s funeral in Victoria. He escaped from the kindly sheriff’s deputy who was bringing him back in only handcuffs instead of handcuffs and leg chains. After all, Jack Clark had been so docile and polite, and even cried at his brother’s grave. The deputy was rewarded for his compassion by being knocked over the head twice with the butt of his own .38 caliber service revolver and left for dead in a driving rain in the grass next to the Victoria road. Later that day, his squad car was found deserted a few miles outside Victoria.