by Merry Farmer
Chapter Twelve
She gasped as their lips met, which gave him just the invitation he needed to slide his tongue to meet hers. She melted against him, and he closed his arms around her more tightly. He could tell himself that it was to bring her body into closer contact with his, to revel in the sensations of her, but after the painful, stilted confessions she had tried to make, it felt more like he was holding her up. She needed him—maybe just for that moment, but she needed him to hold her together.
But the kiss….
She responded with such freeness that he couldn’t help but ask for more. His mouth slanted over hers, drawing a low moan from her as he teased and explored her. He dropped one hand to the curve of her backside, pressing her hips against his growing erection. He wanted her to see what she did to him, beyond driving him nuts with her hot and cold moods. Her hips jerked, her whole body tensed, and she paused to take deep, panting breaths.
For half a second, Jogi thought they were done, that one kiss was all she needed. But even as he loosened his hold on her, prepared to let her stand on her own again, she surged into him, sliding her fingers into his hair and tugging him into another kiss. It took him by surprise, which sent a thrill of excitement through him beyond the passion of lust. He ran his hands up along the smooth fabric of her bathing suit to cradle her breasts.
“Jogi, I need you,” she whispered against his mouth, then nibbled on his bottom lip.
The rush of desire that slammed him was almost painful in its intensity. There hadn’t been anyone since Sandy, and memories of the way she felt wrapped around him, the taste of her skin and the magic her hands could do, pounded at him. He broke away from her lips, trailing kisses across her jaw to her neck and shoulder to give himself time to think.
Thought had a hard time breaking through the heat that surged through him. He grabbed the strap of her bathing suit and pulled it down over her shoulder, exposing one breast. She sighed in encouragement and arched into him as he bent as low as he could to close his mouth around her nipple.
She let out a wordless cry of approval as he licked and sucked her until her nipple was a hard point. The pulsing ache in his groin grew unbearable, urging him to be aggressive, to take her right there. He followed that urging so far as to sink to the grass, bringing Sandy with him. She wriggled as she dropped to her knees, pushing the other strap of her suit off her shoulder and shimmying to slide the whole thing down her torso. Her skirt had an elastic waist, and before he could fully get his bearings, she’d wriggled out of the whole ensemble and knelt naked in front of him.
The sweet memory of nights they’d spent together, of the way she liked to get naked as fast as possible, and the comfort she felt in her own skin brought a wolfish smile to Jogi’s lips. He moved into her, lowering her to her back and tugging her clothes off her legs to toss aside. She spread her knees, giving him a tempting view of the gloss of her sex. Her cinnamon skin formed a gorgeous contrast with the lush green under her. He throbbed with the need to be inside of her and quickly undid his jeans to free himself.
Which was when reality hit him.
“I don’t have a condom,” he choked out.
Her panting stopped. She let out a frustrated moan. “I don’t care.”
“I do,” he replied.
She propped herself up on her elbows and glared at him with a combination of restless desire and desperate frustration. Everything in Jogi rippled with lust at the sight. He was hanging on to his control by a thread, but he had to keep that control. She was vulnerable, but at the same time, she was no child. And he was no saint.
He rocked forward, positioning himself between her legs and planting his hands on the grass on either side of her. His aggression forced her to lay back, which she did with a relieved sigh. He kissed her, tongues twining and lips devouring, but he was careful to keep his erection from coming into contact with her, even though undoing his jeans had given it a lot more room to expand. Sandy fumbled her way through the buttons of his shirt, then ran her hands along his chest, pushing the fabric off his shoulders.
He took one second to straighten and shrug his shirt off before diving back into her. His mouth took hers in one searing kiss, then began a journey across the valley of her neck to the rise of her chest and swell of her breasts. He shifted so that he could tease and suckle her, balancing on one arm. His other hand stroked her hip, his fingers delving into the curls between her legs. He might not be prepared to give her all of what she needed, but he could certainly give her another kind of satisfaction.
As soon as his fingers brushed against her clitoris, she gasped and jerked into his touch. Something that wasn’t quite words ripped from her throat as he stretched his fingers into the wet heat of her. He left her breasts to kiss and lick his way across her stomach. Then, with his fingers spreading her open to him, he covered her clit with his mouth and stroked her with his tongue.
She let out a panting cry that had him so hard he was sure he would burst. With his fingers stroking her from the inside and his mouth pleasuring her, it was a matter of seconds until she crashed into a throbbing orgasm. He groaned as her muscles squeezed his fingers and her thighs tensed. She was so passionate when she came, so unashamed to show how much pleasure she felt. He felt his own control slipping fast and rocked back enough to push his jeans and underwear down enough to free his erection.
All it took was a few hard strokes before he burst like a volcano. He spilled himself into the grass between her legs, his whole body throbbing with the intensity of release. It would have been infinitely better to come inside of her, but given the circumstances, he’d take what he could get.
As soon as the rush left him, exhaustion swooped in. He stretched himself by Sandy’s side, leaving everything hanging out. As much as he thought he should say something, his mind was blank. Sandy’s heavy panting turned into small, vocal sighs that didn’t resolve into words. She rolled to her side, draping herself over him, and the two of them simply lay there recovering for a moment.
He should say something. There had to be words to express how she made him feel. He needed to let her know he was okay with whatever she decided to do next. They were still partners for the dance, after all, and if all she wanted was a hot orgasm beside a lake then…well, he wasn’t exactly okay with that and nothing more, but since he wasn’t sure what he really wanted, he’d take what he could get.
Her breathing hadn’t fully evened our when she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Jogi blinked. It was so far from what he thought he’d hear that someone could have honked a car horn and it wouldn’t have shaken him more. He turned to her. “What?”
“I…I’m sorry,” she repeated. She wouldn’t look at him. Instead of sated satisfaction, a look of deep grief lined her face.
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he said, wondering if it was true. He stroked the side of her face, the urge to do something to make it better swelling in him.
“I do,” she said. “I—”
The sharp ring of a cell phone interrupted the moment. Sandy glanced over her head to her bag, sitting beside the cooler and boom box. The ring was loud and grating, but rather than glaring at her bag in frustration, a look that came close to panic filled her eyes.
“That’s Mom’s ring,” she said, scrambling to her knees and crawling to the bag as fast as she could. “Mom never uses her cell phone. Never. Unless it’s an emergency.”
Jogi pushed himself to sit as fast as he could, tugging up his jeans and underwear. His pulse kicked up a few notches.
Sandy reached the bag and scrambled to retrieve her phone. “Hello? Mom?”
The silence that followed felt like a vise squeezing Jogi’s chest. He watched as Sandy’s expression switched from worried curiosity to shock to outright terror.
“Where is he?” she demanded, her voice higher and more frightened than he’d ever heard it. “What did they do for him? Are you at Haskell’s Hospital?”
Jogi’s apprehensio
n turned to alarm. He pushed himself to his feet, buttoning his shirt.
“Intensive Care ward?” Sandy almost shouted. “Is he…is he going to make it?”
Jogi bent to pick up Sandy’s clothes, shaking them out so they would be ready for her to dress in a flash.
At last, Sandy’s expression hardened to the determination he was used to seeing from her. “I’ll be right there, Mom,” she said, standing and glancing to Jogi. “I’m out by Lake Enchantment right now, but we can be there in half an hour. Maybe less.” There was a pause, then she nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’ll be there soon. I love you.” Her voice cracked, and she tapped her phone to end the call. Her eyes were wide with fear when she glanced to Jogi and said, “Dad’s had a heart attack. He’s been rushed to the hospital.”
That was all Jogi needed to hear. “Then we’ll go there.”
He launched into action, gathering up everything they’d brought with them. So much for dance practice. And so much for finding out what Sandy was sorry about.
Sandy despised hospitals. On a logical level, she knew they were full of expert medical staff who had dedicated their lives to healing, but most of the time she visited one was as part of a malpractice suit or to help a dying client draft an emergency will. Simply walking through the door of the emergency room filled her with dread.
At least she had Jogi by her side.
“There they are.” He pointed across the waiting area to where Rita and their brother Ward stood talking to a nurse.
Sandy squeezed Jogi’s hand, then picked up her pace, her dance skirt fluttering around her calves. “Ward, what are you doing here?” Her voice shook as she rushed to hug him.
“I was already flying to Casper when they radioed me to let me know what happened.” Ward hugged her hard, his tall lean body a comfort, though in an entirely different way from Jogi’s. “I switched the Cessna’s course and landed at Howie’s private airfield.”
“He got here about three minutes before you did,” Rita said. She sent a brief glance to Jogi, before grabbing Sandy’s hand as she came out of Ward’s hug. “Dad’s going to be all right.”
The words hit Sandy with such relief that she groaned and sagged against her brother. “Thank God.”
“It was a heart attack,” Rita went on in her most calming psychologist voice, “but the doctor says it was relatively minor. He had a coronary artery spasm that cut off blood flow to his heart temporarily.”
“The spasm was aggravated by atherosclerosis,” the nurse added. “But don’t worry. Your father is already scheduled to have a stent inserted to increase blood flow and correct the problem.” She paused, glancing between the siblings and then cautiously to Jogi. “You can go back and see him if you’d like.”
“Yes,” Sandy sighed in relief. She took Rita’s hand as her sister started for the door leading to the rooms beyond the ER.
“I’ll wait here in case you need me,” Jogi said.
Sandy stopped and twisted to face him. Of course she needed him. Everything that had happened in the last hour only proved that. She’d spent the drive home from Lake Enchantment praying for her father and thanking her lucky stars that Jogi was with her. And she’d opened her mouth to tell him so about a dozen times with nothing coming out.
Just like nothing seemed to come out now.
It was Ward who broke the impasse. “And you are?” He looked at Jogi with the same kind of big brother questioning she’d always thrown at any man who had stopped by the house to take her out in high school.
“Ward, this is Jogi.” Sandy stepped back to take Jogi’s hand. “And I’d like him to come with us.” She hadn’t realized how badly until the words slipped out of her mouth.
Jogi’s brow inched up in surprise. She was certain he would protest. Instead, he squeezed her hand.
Ward was less certain. “Pleased to meet you.” He held out one of his large, intimidating hands to Jogi. “Thanks for getting my sister here.”
“Anything I can do to help.” Jogi shook his hand. A brief wince told Sandy that yes, her brother had tried to show him where he stood. There wasn’t time for a full confrontation, though.
“Dad is still down here in the ER,” Rita explained, managing to move the whole group forward with her voice alone. “He’s waiting for a bed to free up in the cardiology unit.”
“I’m surprised Haskell General even has a cardiology unit,” Ward said, striding ahead to walk by Rita’s side.
“It seems like anyone with spare change around here has been donating it to the hospital lately,” Rita said as they walked past a large sign proclaiming “Bonneville Burn Unit” over the entrance to a side corridor.
Ward snorted as he and Rita pulled slightly ahead. Sandy clutched Jogi’s hand more tightly.
“I didn’t mean to spring this on you, but I don’t know if I can handle seeing my dad looking so….” She couldn’t bring herself to verbalize what might be around the next corner.
“It’s okay,” Jogi said. “I understand.”
She sent him a grateful look, wondering if he really did. The thought that someone could read her like a book terrified her. She could chalk it up to professional reservation, the learned need to give away as little as possible while engaging in legal debates, but it went deeper than that. No one could see how close she really was to crumbling.
“Look who’s here, Wainright.” Sandy heard her mother’s voice a second before she and Jogi rounded the three-sided examination area and came face to face with her father in his hospital bed.
Sandy battled to hide the flinch that hit her at the sight of the IV hooked up to her father’s wrist and the beeping monitor behind him. Just as she’d feared, he looked pale and exhausted with dark circles under his eyes.
But as soon as he saw Ward, Wainright pushed himself to sit straighter and blossomed into a weary smile. “My boy,” he said, then looked on to Sandy and smiled wider. “And my girl. My girls.” He winked at Rita. “It’s not Christmas yet, is it?”
“No, Pop.” Ward edged past Rita to take his father’s hand and to bend over and kiss his forehead.
“Oh, Lord.” Wainright rolled his eyes. “I must be dying if you’re here out of the blue kissing my head like I’m an invalid.”
“Don’t say that, Papa.” Without warning, Sandy burst into tears. She let go of Jogi’s hand and nearly knocked her mother over in her rush to hug her father. The emotions that filled her were wild and destructive and completely unlike her. They were terrifying.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Her father let go of Ward’s hand to put his arms around her. He was careful with his arm that had the IV needles taped in place, but the strength of his hug did more to assure the rational part of Sandy that things weren’t so bad than any doctor’s explanation could. “It was just a scare. The ambulance got there in plenty of time, and the paramedics knew exactly what to do. And Dr. Levinson says I’m going to make a full recovery.”
“You’ll just have to cut back on all those steaks,” Sandy’s mom said. She was teasing, but there was enough tension in her voice to tell Sandy how serious the situation was.
Sandy gave her dad another squeeze, then straightened. As she sniffed and wiped her tears away, embarrassment rushed in to replace her fear. “I’m not usually like this,” she apologized, even though the only people there were family. And Jogi. “I’m sorry.”
“Hush,” her mother said, blinking away her own tears as she gave Sandy a hug. “We were all scared, but things are going to be okay.”
“Rita said it was a minor heart attack?” Ward asked, giving Sandy a chance to collect herself. “A coronary artery spasm?”
“That’s all,” their mom nodded. “Dr. Levinson says it’s probably been coming on for a while, what with the amount of plaque they discovered in your father’s arteries.” She gave Wainright a stern look, as though he had caused those blockages directly by eating too many donuts.
“Everything is under control,” Wainright agreed.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
Everyone in the room turned at the unfamiliar voice to find Richard Bonneville standing just beyond the line of the open curtain that would have given them more privacy.
“Hello, Richard,” Wainright sighed from his hospital bed. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He might have been playing it cool, but Sandy was in no mood to put up with any kind of Bonneville antics. “This is a private family moment,” she snapped, taking a step toward Richard.
Richard narrowed her eyes even as he sent her an indulgent smile. “Family, you say? Then what’s he doing here?” He nodded to Jogi.
“Jogi is a trusted friend.” Sandy straightened her back in the face of Richard’s condescending sneer.
“Come on.” Jogi took a step toward Richard, gesturing as if to lead him away. “Let’s give the family a moment.”
Richard shook him off as soon as Jogi touched his arm. He looked at Jogi with such repugnance that Sandy’s temper came close to flying off the handle. It would have if Richard hadn’t said, “So, Wainright. A heart attack brought on by stress and overwork? Not such a good thing when you’ve got a vote of confidence from the board coming up.”
“Who told you that?” Rita snapped.
“It was not stress,” Sandy barked at the same time, although she wasn’t so sure that stress had nothing to do with it.
“I think you need to leave,” Ward said, trumping all of them by simply taking a step toward Richard and pulling himself to his full height.
Richard swayed back on instinct before shifting his stance and attempting to look at Ward as though he were inconsequential. He might have pulled it off if not for the spark of apprehension that stayed in his eyes.
“I’ll leave,” he said as the smarmy grin came back to his lips. “I’m about to play golf with a couple guys from the board anyhow. I’m sure they’d love to hear all about how their CEO is doing in the ER.”
