Redemption's Kiss

by Ann Christopher

  Always had, always would.

  Needing more, again, needing everything, he reached for the throbbing heat between her legs just for the thrill of hearing her gasp. She broke the kiss and arched, her face twisted with agonized pleasure.

  Before they got sidetracked, though, and, make no mistake, there would be some serious sidetracking before the night was over, it was a good time to mention some things she needed to know.

  Returning his hands to her breasts, he spoke against her ear.

  “Seinfeld is your dog, Jill. This is your home. Everything I have is yours.”

  She stilled, her unspoken uncertainty as clear as the moon overhead. Then she turned to face him and, with a sly smile that did nothing to hide the wariness in her eyes, reached for his rock-hard length, which he’d foolishly encased back in his shorts.

  “This?”

  Don’t do that, Jill. Don’t make something so serious and absolute into a moment for teasing. He stared with all the bottled intensity he was feeling and watched her eyes widen.

  “Yeah, actually.” As her smile faded, he guided her hand and pressed it to his heart. It was, predictably, pounding like a rap concert, so there was little chance of her not getting the message. “And this. Understand?”

  After a slight hesitation, she blinked and risked the beginnings of a smile. And that was enough, for now.

  Baby steps, Taylor, he reminded himself. Just take baby steps.

  They twined their legs and settled together with his erection cradled in her sweet spot. God, she was soft. Unsatisfied, he slid a hand down to her thigh and brought it up, higher, until it was snug against his hip and there were no parts of them that weren’t fitted together like the dovetails of a finely made antique cabinet.

  “I’m worried about your leg,” she said, even as she tightened her grip on him. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do I look hurt?”

  A sudden burst of laughter had her head tipping back and his lungs struggling for air. She was so freaking amazing he just couldn’t get over it.

  “I was scared,” he told her, cupping her face and running his thumb over the happy apples of her cheek, “that you’d never smile at me again.”

  “You were wrong, weren’t you?”

  He snorted. “I’m good at being wrong. It’s a cottage industry with me.”

  “Ah, well. It gives you something to work on, doesn’t it?”

  A second or two passed while he stared at her, considering. Maybe now wasn’t the time, but they needed to get some of these things out from between them. Forever.

  She sensed his new seriousness, and her features clouded over. “What?”

  “Can I tell you something?”

  It took her a while to answer. “Do you need to?”

  “Yes.”

  There it was, that subtle bracing of her shoulders and darkening of her features. He knew those gestures so well because he’d taught them to her. He’d taught her to be afraid, and to fear the worst, and, God, he was sorry to the depths of his soul for it.

  “The women—” he began.

  She flinched, resisting him, and he tightened his hold and ran his hand over her thigh, soothing her.

  “The women—during the marriage and after—they all looked like you. They all reminded me of you. I got drunk when I was with them and usually wished I were drunker. I tried not to look at them too hard because then I would see—”

  The emotion rose up to strangle him, and he had to clear his voice.

  “—then I would see that they weren’t you.” He paused, wondering how much to confess, but what the hell. He’d come this far. “The night of the accident, I was with this woman in the limo. I barely knew her. I didn’t want to know her. And I was so disgusted with myself that I could almost vomit. And that’s how I felt all the time. But I didn’t know how to get out of the nightmare.”

  The shadows had taken over her expression now. “Did you ever think about…hurting yourself?” He paused, hating to tell her.

  “I’m not going to lie, Jill. I was relieved when I saw that semi coming, and I was sick when I woke up in the hospital, alone, and realized I was still alive. What you said to me when I was out of it—that you still loved me—that was the only thing that kept me going. Because I decided that if I had a second chance—with life, and with you—I wanted to do the work. I wanted to deserve it.”

  “You do deserve it.”

  The sudden ferocity in her voice stopped him cold, and that was before she grabbed his face and pressed kisses all over it. Both eyes first, forehead and cheeks and then, finally, his mouth. She poured herself into him, and he thought that maybe everything they’d endured to get to this point was worth it.

  “Don’t you hurt yourself, Beau. Ever. Do you understand me?”

  He understood the hard glitter in her eyes, all right. “Yeah.”

  They needed each other now. Nothing else. Pausing only long enough to reach over the side of the chaise and pick up another condom, he struggled out of his shorts and worked it on.

  They were still facing each other. Widening her thighs with much eager help from her, he took his engorged length—God, he was going to explode in another second here—and slid inside all that tight heat with her breathless gasps to spur him on. She was looser this time, but not much, and the delicious friction nearly blinded him.

  Once he was seated to the base, he drew her closer until they formed one seamless whole from chest to toes. And then he nuzzled her mouth with shallow kisses and the kinds of featherlight licks of his tongue that had always driven her wild.

  Still did, apparently.

  As he set the slow pace, her cries rose up to the night sky.

  Chapter 17

  “What’s this room?” Jillian asked.

  It’d gotten too cool for sleeping outside on the chaise, not that they were likely to get much sleeping done anyway under the circumstances, so Jillian had asked him to show her the house, which she’d been dying to see.

  Thought it was still a work in progress, with stepladders, drop cloths and sawhorses every few feet, the place was well on its way back to being a gorgeous home after years of neglect.

  “Remains to be seen.” Beau hesitated, shoving his hands into his shorts pockets and staring at his bare feet. “I was thinking—”

  Looking up, he shrugged and worked at a nonchalant smile that never gained strength. And was he blushing? Not that she could tell in this light, of course, but still. After the night they’d had together?

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “I was thinking…maybe it could be a nursery, if we have more children.”

  That was the last thing she’d expected—she’d been thinking game room—and the room swayed accordingly. Whoa.

  Breathe, Jill. Don’t freak out now.

  That was easier said than done, considering that the ch-word was a hard slap of reality in what had otherwise been a fantasy night. She stared into his intent eyes, trying to think, but…no. She couldn’t think. She could only feel, and the thought of trying to have more children with Beau felt like the panicked slamming of a speeding Porsche into the Great Wall of China.

  No. God, no. And also…yes. “Children?”

  Already his brows were lowering, and he looked as though he wanted to take it back. “Children. Little humans with continence issues.”

  “I’m old,” she reminded him.

  “Not that old.”

  “I’ve had several miscarriages—”

  “And a healthy child.”

  “—and a stillborn child. Have you forgotten?”

  “Jill,” he said.

  God. She hated that reproach in his voice. How dare he make her feel guilty for pointing out a few details that should be obvious to anyone with even half a functioning brain?

  She turned away, wishing the walls would back up a little and stop closing in on her.

  “Don’t you want any more children?” He seemed genuinely
bewildered. “Is that it?”

  Not want any more high-maintenance divas like Allegra, sweet angels like Mary or—she hardly dared to think of it—hazel-eyed, curly haired boys like Beau? The possibility made her insides clench with the worst kind of need.

  “That’s not the point. The point is that it took a lot of tragedy for me to produce one healthy child. And besides that—we’re not even married. I’d never have a child out of wedlock. I’m surprised you’d even suggest—”

  He raised one eyebrow and settled into the kind of terrible stillness that made her squirm every time. “Is that what you think I’m suggesting?”

  Marriage? He wanted to talk marriage tonight?

  The walls continued their relentless advance, blocking off the room’s air and leaving her with none. That familiar feeling of naked vulnerability swept her up, and she tugged the bodice of her now-crumpled dress up a little higher, even though it felt like she was about to suffocate.

  When that provided no protection, she folded her arms and tried to use sarcasm to get this night back on track. “Having sex doesn’t cure everything between us, Beau.”

  The darkness didn’t disguise the wounded look in his eyes, or the subtle slump to his shoulders, as though he’d absorbed a blow. “No, but making love and admitting that we still love each other is a pretty big push in the right direction, don’t you think?”

  Yeah.

  She just hadn’t figured it’d still be so scary.

  The rising fear made her go on the offensive. “What? Did you think we’d head off to the justice of the peace in the morning?”

  “No.” He smiled ruefully. “Things with us would never be that easy.”

  She stared, absorbing the implication that he’d fire up the car right now if she only gave the word. “How can you be so sure?”

  Another smile, this one so sad and beautiful it was almost blinding. “If there’s one thing I’ve ever been sure about, it’s spending my life with you. It’s everything else that causes problems.”

  Why was this so hard to hear? It wasn’t as if he’d kept his intentions a secret; he’d told her the day he arrived that he wanted them to remarry.

  And—she had to admit it to herself, if not to him—she wanted it, too.

  In her entire life, she’d never loved a man the way she loved Beau, and she never would. When she’d said I do, she’d meant it—forever. If she had a magic wand to wave or a bottled genie, remarriage and rebuilding their family was what she’d wish for, no question.

  But this was no fairy tale, and she and Beau were two seriously flawed human beings.

  And, God, she still couldn’t breathe.

  She circled her throat with her hand, trying to massage her heart into slowing down and her airway into opening. Now was not the time for a panic attack.

  “We’ve been apart for years, Beau.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ve changed.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “We can’t…we can’t just—”

  Thinking and talking were getting pretty hard what with the severe lack of air and all, and her hand slipped to her now-heaving ribs. Brilliant, Jill. That wasn’t obvious at all.

  “We can’t just pick up where we left off and—”

  “I know we—” He materialized at her side with a sudden burst of movement that didn’t help her spinning head. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she tried.

  “Don’t tell me nothing.” Wrapping her in his arms, he steered her to the window seat, where they sat and he looked her over with a gaze made all the more penetrating by the moonlight. “Are you in pain, or—”

  “No.”

  What she was, was gasping for air like a swordfish on a line, and she had no intention of ending the night curled in the fetal position inside his nearest closet.

  “Should we get you to the ER—”

  “Shh.” Leaning her head against the glass, she closed her eyes. “I just need…a minute…or two. Okay?”

  Instead of answering, he pressed his lips to her temple and tightened his hold on her rib cage, his hands atop hers. A quick surge of anger at her ongoing weakness helped her pull herself together and, after a few harsh breaths that made her sound like a near-drowning victim, she was more embarrassed than anything.

  “I’m fine.”

  She tried to pull free and act like the strong woman she wanted to be, but Beau held her close, his expression closed and unreadable.

  “You mentioned having panic attacks.”

  Why couldn’t she have had a simple heart attack? It’d be so much easier to explain. “Occasionally, yes.”

  “Since when?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  Cursing, Beau looked to the ceiling, and his body thrummed tight with tension. For a minute she thought he might jump up and punch a wall or something, but he swallowed all that emotion back and got control of himself much faster than she had. When he looked at her again, all that intensity was banked to a manageable level that didn’t scare the wits out of her.

  “Maybe I should let you go,” he said. “We both know it would be better for you.”

  “Taking the easy way out again, are you?”

  His gaze wavered, but he didn’t answer, and that wasn’t good enough.

  “Should I expect you to turn up with a new girlfriend next week?” She didn’t bother to keep the taunt out of her voice. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? When there’s trouble between us? Turn to someone else?”

  Just like that, he was all focus again, all fighting determination. His jaw squared and she knew that this man, this better Beau, was worth all the trouble and pain.

  “Not this time,” he told her. “Not ever again.”

  “But you want to let me go.”

  “Don’t twist my words. I want to marry you, and you damn well know it.”

  “I’m not ready for that.”

  His expression softened. Leaning in, he nuzzled the curve of her neck and, oh, man, she could feel all their joint need heating up again and the uncertainty in his trembling lips.

  “I know. And I can wait. But whatever happens, I don’t want to make things harder for you—”

  Giving him a sly smile that she sincerely hoped would drive him out of his mind, she slipped her fingers under the waistband of his shorts, to where his growing length was already straining and hot.

  “Some things are better when they’re hard, Beau.”

  He gasped and let his head fall back while she stroked him. But then, suddenly, he’d had enough, and grabbed her wrist to stop her. Fixing her dead in his sights, he waited until he had her full attention.

  “Jill,” he said.

  Fear tried to break free inside her again, but she willed it back with several deep breaths before she spoke. One near-panic attack per night was more than enough for her, thanks.

  “Yes?”

  “Can we work on recommitting to this family? Can we think about it?”

  Whatever he wanted, she was pretty much there. A new commitment? Her body, heart and soul? Her right kidney? It was all good if Beau needed it and asked nicely.

  “Yeah,” she said. “We can do that.”

  “We’re getting there, aren’t we, Jill?”

  She laughed, the sound every bit as shaky and vulnerable as she felt. “I sure hope so.”

  They lapsed into a delicious silence, staring at each other without much need for anything else. He was doing it to her again, that trick he had of filling his hazel eyes with so much raw love and adoration he seemed to glow with it. Being scared when they were connected like this was as remote a possibility as swimming to the bottom of the Atlantic to live with mermaids.

  Finally his half smile widened into the rueful, self-deprecating grin that always made her skin flush and her heart skitter. He shook his head and reached around to massage her nape with those strong fingers. She almost passed out with the unbearable pleasure.

  “Can I tell
you something?” she asked.

  His gaze, which gleamed bright and hot in the moonlight, drifted to her mouth as she spoke. Shifting closer, he ran his thumb over her sensitized bottom lip, tugging it gently to one side and bringing her to life in ways she’d never known were possible. She felt wicked and decadent. Surprising him, she sucked his thumb into her mouth, where she pulled on it, hard and deep.

  He shuddered and then went still, except that his entire body tensed and seemed to hum with restraint. “As long as you don’t tell me we’re done making love for the night, you can tell me anything.”

  Laughing, she freed his thumb, which he seemed reluctant to take back. “I’m so glad I don’t have to hate you anymore. It was exhausting.”

  “Yeah.” His fingers dipped to the curve of her breast, tracing circles across her skin until she felt the gooseflesh rise. “That wasn’t working for me, either.”

  “Tonight seems to be going okay, though.”

  That got her the full smile, dimples and all.

  “Tonight’s shaping up pretty well.”

  With that, his mood shifted into hot and dangerous territory. Using just a bit of his phenomenal upper-body strength, he shifted her around until they were face-to-face and she was on her knees, straddling his lap. He tipped his chin up and stared at her above him, his gleaming gaze wicked as his fingers inched under her skirt and up.

  “What’ll we tell Allegra?”

  A moment of cool sanity penetrated her sensual fog. “Do we have to make an official statement just now? Can’t we just take things slow?”

  The line of his jaw hardened because she’d given the wrong answer, one that hurt him. One that, judging by the harsh set of his lush lips, he meant to punish her for.

  “We can take that slow, yeah.”

  Without warning, he grabbed her arms and twisted her until, in one breathless heartbeat, she was flat on her back in the window seat, and he was wedged between her legs, a couple of hundred pounds of relentless determination.

  A tug and a rip, and then her panties were flying off in the darkness, ruined and gone. Shoving her thighs apart, he shifted down her body, pausing only to shoot her a warning glance and settle one of her legs on his shoulder.