Redemption's Kiss

by Ann Christopher

  Beau didn’t care about any basket, or any food.

  “I figured you hadn’t eaten much, and after all that work in the yard…”

  She trailed off, well aware both that she was in danger of babbling and that Beau would soon run out of patience with her. Still, he played along, and they glanced at the small side table, where Seinfeld was now sniffing hopefully at a bowl sitting next to a half-full glass of what looked like iced tea.

  “Chicken noodle?” she wondered.

  “Chicken noodle.”

  She wanted to laugh but couldn’t manage a smile. “Some things don’t change.”

  “Some things don’t change at all.”

  Were they still talking about food preferences? Did it matter? Nothing was sure in her world anymore, and that didn’t matter right now, either.

  Beau took a step closer and held out a hand for the basket. She took a step closer and extended the handle to him. He took it and pulled. Gently…gently…exerting just enough force to reel her in until they were face-to-face and she had to tilt her chin up to maintain eye contact.

  Then he tugged the basket out of her hand and stooped to put it on the table. It took him a long time to straighten up again, long, slow seconds during which she could almost imagine that his nose skimmed the folds of her skirt, absorbing her scent. When finally he stretched to his full height, he was a scant inch away and his body flamed with a heat she could feel through her clothes.

  Heavy lidded, she stared at him, not daring to breathe.

  Taking his time about it, he settled his fingers at her temple and then slid them through her hair like a rower’s oars gliding through water. She sighed, a tiny whisper of emotion that turned into a gasp as his fingers emerged from her hair only to trace down the side of her neck, across her collarbones and lower.

  “You came to bring me dinner?”

  His breath was honey-sweet from the tea, as delectable as a box of milk chocolates chased down with champagne. “Yes.”

  “I think,” he said, his hands now skating over her breasts, his thumbs unerringly centering on her nipples and circling with an increased pressure that was as unbearably sweet as it was electrifying, “that you came to tell me what you told me when I was in the hospital and you thought I couldn’t hear you.” He paused, letting her heart skitter with fear because she’d known it would come to this and she’d marched over here anyway, helpless to choose another fate. “Didn’t you?”

  “No.” She tried to sound strong, but her voice was a scratchy mess of nerves.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm.”

  A slight frown made his brows flatten, but it didn’t slow his hands down any. Still on their relentless circuit of her body, they settled low, one each on the globes of her butt, and pulled her up against a full and heart-stopping erection that was so hard she didn’t know how he had enough blood remaining in his head to talk.

  Oh, God. The pleasure was so unspeakably sweet and he hit the ache between her thighs just right with his circling hips. Just right.

  Helpless to do otherwise, she held tight to his heavy forearms so she wouldn’t collapse, let her head drift back and moaned, low and earthy. When he licked across her lower lip and into her mouth, she opened for him and moaned again, from her chest this time, and her soul.

  Ah, God. He tasted so good…so unbelievably good, like tea and Beau and, better than that, like home. She had to get closer and pour herself into him any way she could, any possible way. But when she arched closer, brushing her swollen breasts against the solid wall of his chest and her sensitized lips over the thrilling stubble of his cheeks, he pulled back.

  Just a little, but way too much.

  His hands went to work on the back of her skirt, bunching it up, inch by slow inch, exposing her to the night air until only her black tap pants stood between her and the paradise she needed him to give her.

  His lips rubbed their way across her face to her ear, but she was much more concerned about his fingers edging under her panties, to the throbbing wet folds that desperately needed his attention. And then he spoke, bringing her back to the reality she couldn’t escape.

  “I think you’re still scared,” he whispered.

  She didn’t know how he did it, but those words went directly to her damaged heart, making one more place in her body ache for him.

  “No.”

  “Don’t be scared.” He nipped her lobe, just sharp enough to make her cry out, and then sucked the tender flesh into his mouth to soothe it. “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not.”

  Man. The lies that came out of her mouth were really unbelievable.

  There’d be hell to pay in a minute, no doubt, but right now he had better things to do than punish her. Freeing up one hand while keeping the other at work between her legs, sending her higher and higher, he planted it on the top of her head, tilted it back, and kissed her again, long and deep until she began making uncontrollable sounds of animalistic pleasure that were like nothing she’d ever heard before. She writhed against his fingers, and when he slipped them inside her overheated body she rode him without embarrassment, too overwrought to work up any shame.

  He broke the kiss off to look at her. There was so much love in his eyes, so much tenderness, that it nearly blinded her to see it.

  “Beau.”

  What she thought she was trying to say to him in that moment, she had no idea.

  Nothing. Everything.

  If only she knew where to begin.

  “Don’t be afraid, Jillian. Okay?”

  She wavered, teetering between hugging her doubts closer and absolute surrender to this moment, and he drifted forward to take advantage. Nuzzling her lips and alternating between licks and nipping bites that sharpened the pleasure a million times over, he kept stroking between her legs until they were both wet with honey and she felt it on her thighs, slick and hot.

  A wicked smile gleamed in his eyes. Naturally, he knew what he was doing to her. “You remember this between us, don’t you?”

  Remember? As if she could forget in a million lifetimes.

  “I remember.”

  “Good.” His lids lowered into such a look of sultry promise that her breath stopped dead. “This is going to be better. We’re better.”

  She managed the beginnings of a smile and a shaky nod. Ninety-five percent of her believed him, and wasn’t that enough? “We are better.”

  “I want to make love.”

  “God, so do I. I’m shaking with it.”

  That was putting it mildly. A quivering tremble had begun in the depths of her belly and quickly spread to her heavy limbs. She felt languid and agitated, petrified and ecstatic, the same and yet fresh and clean as a newborn blinking up at the world for the first time.

  Beau felt exactly the same beneath her hands—the silkycoarse hair, the sleek skin, the restrained power in his tense body—and yet he felt…more. More intense, more determined and more of a man than he’d ever been before. And she wanted this new Beau in a way she’d never wanted anything.

  “Now,” she whispered against his mouth, panting, kissing and biting, melting down in his arms with the sheer effort of holding back her climax because she wanted him inside her when she came. “Now.”

  “Not yet.” Maintaining a rigid control that tightened his muscles until he felt like marble vibrating against her, he shifted his one hand. Now it assaulted her from behind with a slow stroking torture that crept between the halves of her butt and through her wet cleft and up…up…up…just grazing her engorged clitoris before retreating to assault her again. “Tell me what you said at the hospital.”

  Another feathering touch had her knees buckling.

  “Ahhh,” she cried, her head falling back. “Beau, please—”

  “You love me?”

  That murmuring voice, raspy, low and hot against her lips, was as much a torment to her overwhelmed body as anything else. She wasn’t ready to admit anything,
not yet, but the clenching muscles inside her tightened another notch.

  In that one second, the swirling sensations surrounding her receded enough for one crucial truth to become perfectly clear:

  If she didn’t come right now, she would die—and he wouldn’t let her come until she confessed what they both already knew.

  “Do you love me?”

  Those fingers hovered a fraction of an inch from where she needed them to be.

  “Yes.”

  His chest heaved with a startled gasp of surprise, and he kissed her, long and hard until she tasted all his gratitude and his overwhelming relief.

  “Tell me, Jillian. Tell me.”

  With his strong body loving and protecting her and his adoring eyes watching her, she couldn’t be afraid. Not here. Not now. Not anymore.

  “I love you. I never stopped loving you. I couldn’t even when I wanted to.”

  There was another great contraction of his torso and he made a choked sound. Whether it was a laugh or a sob, she didn’t know. And then he tilted his head back for a quick glance up at the starless sky.

  “Thank you, Jesus.”

  He took her mouth again with a greedy sucking kiss, ran his fingers over her hard nub and then thrust them inside her, catching her by surprise.

  She came with a violent jackknifing of her body and astonished cries that echoed off the courtyard’s stones. Seinfeld, who was somewhere nearby, emitted a What the hell’s going on? kind of whine that she barely heard.

  The piercing pleasure washed over her in pulsing waves that crested and rose again, on and on for what seemed like forever.

  Something happened then. She may have crumpled, or maybe he picked her up. She never knew. But suddenly he was carrying her in his arms, her face pressed to his neck, and then swinging her around and settling her onto the nearest chaise.

  His face dark with purpose, he went to work on her clothes.

  Chapter 16

  Melting into the cushions, she had a dazed awareness of him sliding his hands under her skirt to relieve her of her panties, and she lifted her hips to help him. He tossed the panties aside and yanked his own T-shirt off. Then he sat on the edge of the chaise and stared down at her.

  She was bared to the waist, the vibrant night air cool against her legs and excruciatingly intimate against her sex. He studied her with utter absorption, his gaze focused on the nest of curls and the still-quivering flesh. Unsatisfied, he reached up to pull the bodice of her dress lower until her aching breasts bounced free. A breeze swept through just then, puckering her dark nipples down to jutting points.

  Over the water’s gentle splash came the sound of his harsh sigh, which was awed and utterly masculine. “Look at you, Jill.”

  When his naked torso gleamed, rippling and golden, in the moonlight? And his erection strained for her, tenting the front of his shorts with an insistence that made need curl deep in her belly all over again? She didn’t think so.

  “I’d rather look at you.”

  He grinned and their gazes met.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what? Making me the happiest man on the face of the earth?”

  Flushing and feeling more feminine than she had in her life, she shifted so she could prop her chin on one hand and stroke his heavy length with the other.

  “No, silly. For coming too soon.”

  He groaned and thrust his hips, developing a rhythm that had him growing longer, harder. She tightened her grip and he groaned again.

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “I wanted all this inside me,” she murmured, pouting.

  “Don’t worry.”

  Breaking free as though he’d slammed headfirst into his limit, he got to his feet and turned toward the open French doors with a last glance at her. His gaze lingered, savoring her breasts and bare body south of her bunched-up skirt.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  “Don’t worry.”

  Raising her hands overhead to rest them on the back of the chaise, she sprawled, feeling deliciously like Cleopatra. He cursed and disappeared. In less than ten seconds, he was back, his limp almost undetectable and a red package in his hand.

  That flash of red troubled her, and he seemed to know it because he worked it on while watching her with turbulent eyes. As a married couple, they’d rarely used condoms, and she’d had no other lovers. But he…

  “Don’t think about that, Jill,” he said, crawling over her to wedge her thighs farther apart and settle between her legs. Balancing on his elbows, he spoke with the kind of ferocity and conviction she’d never seen before. “None of that was ever important. You’re important.” Taking his penis, he rubbed it across her thick flesh, lubricating himself, and she cocked her hips to take him in. “You’re everything. You’re everything.”

  He penetrated her just a little, which was all she could take because it had been so long, and he held himself in such rigid check that a light sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead.

  “God,” he said.

  “I know.”

  Killing her by degrees, he worked another inch inside, and then drew out just as slowly. Another inch…another withdrawal…and another…until her muscles eased, her eyes rolled closed and her body moved on its own and rose up to meet him.

  Testing them both, he withdrew to his engorged tip, swiveled his hips just a little and then thrust. She cried out, her voice surprised and raw, and her eyes flew open to discover that her dream had finally come to life.

  Beau rising over her, muscles bunched and neck straining, sweat glistening on his chest as it rubbed against her breasts, his eyes wild and fierce with determination. Everything she’d dreamed, and more.

  Digging her short nails into his heavy shoulders, she scratched down his back and grabbed his butt as he flexed and released. Those perfect globes pumped beneath her hands, and he settled into a hard, driving rhythm that had the pleasure building again, darker and more primitive this time, and stars sparking across her vision.

  She drew her legs into her chest, taking him deeper, and he faltered, losing his tempo as he gave himself over to pure sensation.

  “Jillian,” he said as his head dropped.

  Before the oblivion took her, she felt a moment’s savage satisfaction and a ruthless determination to make this a night he would never forget. Beau needed to know who she was and what she could do to him.

  “Jillian,” he said again, a whimper. “Jillian.”

  Tightening her thighs around his torso, she worked him harder, demanding more and then more again. “Harder.”

  “Jill—”

  “Harder,” she urged. “Now. Hurry.”

  He knew what she was doing. She could see it in his face. Staring down at her, his features a dark kaleidoscope of emotions, he gave her what she needed, physically and emotionally.

  Driving into her with all he was worth, he matched the beat of his words with the thrust of his hips. “You’re everything, Jill. Everything. Everything.”

  She almost believed him.

  His chanted everythings went on until the darkness claimed them both, and her cries, joyous and triumphant, drowned out the sound of his voice.

  The night was so balmy and beautiful, the splash of water so peaceful and relaxing, that they saw no need to go inside, to bed. Maybe later. Right now, they spooned together on the chaise, her back to his front, while he enjoyed the silky slide of her dress and the silkier glide of her bare skin against his, and tried to convince himself that this was real. That it wasn’t impossible or, hell, illegal, for him to be this happy with life.

  Having never felt this way before, he feared the imminent arrival of a speeding bus or a lightning bolt with his name on it. If that was his fate, he almost didn’t care. At least he’d die having made love to this amazing woman one more time.

  He couldn’t seem to stop rubbing, stroking, caressing, squeezing and otherwise touching her every way he could. Every inch of Jillian was endlessl
y fascinating to him, from her sweet-smelling hair, which tickled his chin, to her exposed breasts, which weighed heavy in his hands, as plump and ripe as he’d remembered them, to her thighs, which were strong, lean and perfect for anchoring him inside her.

  Yeah.

  Life was good.

  Loud smacking pierced his sensual haze, and he looked around, raising his head just high enough to see Jillian slip Seinfeld some cheese from the picnic basket. They’d cracked it open and enjoyed the best cheeses and crusty bread, meat-loaf sandwiches, pasta salad and fat fudgy brownies that he’d ever tasted, all washed down with sparkling cider since he no longer drank.

  Now Jillian was sneaking remnants to the dumb dog, who looked every bit as thoroughly sated and pleased with her as Beau was. He pretended he didn’t know what was going on for a few seconds, but then his pet-ownership gene kicked in.

  “You know,” he said, smoothing her hair back and kissing her temple, “you’re not supposed to feed table food to dogs.”

  “Really?” Amusement oozed from her voice. “What if it’s low fat?”

  “Nope. It’s not healthy and it spoils them.”

  “Ah, but he’s not my dog. I can spoil him and then go home and leave you to explain why he’s getting Alpo for his next meal.”

  “Don’t even try it.”

  Wondering if a few more things had stayed the same over the years, he bit her on the shoulder and then, holding her tighter, tickled her ribs.

  Bull’s-eye.

  Her whole body spasmed, and she laughed a belly-deep laugh that was the earthiest music he’d ever heard. When she squirmed to get away, he slid his hands onto her breasts, flattened his palms against those tight nipples and circled. Just for good measure, he latched his lips onto the sensitive tendon between her neck and shoulder and bit.

  Another bull’s-eye. Like magic, she loosened in his arms, as fluid and hot as molten lava trailing down the side of a Hawaiian volcano.

  And then she made a move herself, grinding her butt against his erection and twisting her neck to kiss him. God. She undid him, this woman did.