From This Day On

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Satisfied?” she asked with raised eyebrows.

  “Yeah.” Jakob was embarrassed to realize how smug he felt. This desire to claim a woman was new to him.

  “It might have been better if I could have strung him along until I’d finished the article.”

  “You’d have gone out with him for no other reason?” he asked incredulously.

  Her look was indignant. “Of course not, but if you weren’t around I probably would have gone out with him. He’s good-looking, he’s nice, he has a sense of humor, he’s giving lots of time to good causes.... What’s not to like?”

  “Nothing,” Jakob admitted. “Wild behavior aside,” he added belatedly.

  “Right. Sure.” She headed for the fridge. “Beer?”

  When he agreed, she grabbed one for him and poured herself milk.

  “You bought the beer for me,” he said, pleased.

  “For guests,” she agreed, then laughed at his expression. “Of course for you. You’re the only guest I’ve had.”

  That required a kiss, which held back dinner for a couple of minutes. She wrestled out of his arms eventually, though. “Oh, no, you don’t! We’re eating dinner no matter what.”

  “Alone,” he reminded her, feeling aroused but good. “Dangerous.”

  They kept it light for much of the meal. Her tacos were seriously spicy, which he liked. There was nothing bland about Amy; he’d have been shocked if her favorite foods were mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese out of the box.

  “For someone who isn’t that interested in eating, you’re a fantastic cook,” he said.

  “My checkered career. I waitressed one summer and swore never again, but a friend who runs her own catering business hired and trained me. I worked for her for...oh, probably five years. We were a perfect match, because she only needed help part-time and intermittently. I could drop everything and work ten-hour days when a big shindig came along, and was fine if she didn’t need me at all for two weeks.”

  “Ah. Makes sense. Was that when you lived in Seattle?”

  “San Francisco.”

  He’d forgotten she lived in the city by the bay for a few years. One place Jakob had never lived, but he had spent time there.

  They talked about why he didn’t yet have any California stores, although he currently had someone researching possibilities.

  Eventually, Amy served a dessert of key lime pie that she admitted had come from a neighborhood bakery. She got a little quieter then.

  “You heard from your mother?” Jakob asked.

  Her eyes flashed surprise when she looked at him. “How do you read my mind?”

  “Sometimes I think you read mine, too.”

  She frowned at him, then shrugged acknowledgement. “She called today.”

  Jakob waited.

  It took her a minute, and she started slow, but it came out that Michelle had let sadness seep through her usual reserve, and Amy had begged to be allowed to join her in Florence and help go through the grandparents’ stuff.

  “No surprise she refused.” Amy gave a twisted smile, the one that always gave him an uncomfortable bump in his chest. “She might have to actually talk to me. Share some memories. So not her style.”

  “It sounds as if she is talking to you more than she ever has.” He wouldn’t let her see how angry he was at Michelle. Whether she was indifferent to her daughter’s pain or just plain insensitive, he had quit seeing a rape that had happened thirty-five years ago as an adequate excuse.

  “Yes.” She used her fork to squish a bite of her pie. “No, you’re right. I’m expecting too much. Did I tell you?” The glint of gold was absent in her big, caramel-brown eyes. “Right before she left, I hugged her. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I did that. Just for a second, I thought...” She pressed her lips together. “I wondered if the time would ever come when she’d hug me back. But I know how dumb that is as a fantasy.” She was really good at sounding uncaring, amused at herself. “A few times I’ve seen Ken put his arm around her, but she never leans against him the way women do. Honestly—I have a really hard time picturing them in bed together.” She laughed, her body language easing. “I’ll concede, who does want to picture any parent having sex?”

  “Not me,” he said fervently. “Oh, man, that was the worst part when Dad was dating Martina. There I was—what? fifteen?—thinking about nothing but girls’ tits and asses....”

  “And the way she walks and smells.” She scrunched up her nose again. “I remember.”

  “Right. And what’s my father doing but having sleepovers down the hall. I’m sure he thought they were quiet, but a couple of times I heard the headboard banging the wall. It was all I could do not to race for the bathroom and puke.”

  “It didn’t turn you on?” She looked brightly interested.

  “God, no! They were old.”

  The next second, they were both laughing.

  He didn’t know about her, but he felt a lot better after that. He was able to go back to enjoying the tart lime pie and the coffee Amy had served with it. She even finished her slice, half the size of his.

  “Mom did talk about some things she might bring back with her,” Amy said suddenly. “A couple of family quilts. Apparently my grandfather’s grandmother was a quilter. Mom says she’d forgotten, because they were kept rolled in pillowcases in a cedar chest. The good news is that according to her they’re in pristine condition. She says I can pick whichever one I want to keep.”

  “No bad memories attached to them for her.”

  “No.” There were some other things, too. Her grandmother had a glass-fronted case of porcelain collectibles that Amy, on the rare visits to their house, had been strictly forbidden to open. “Mom says she was, too. Once her dad whipped her because he caught her looking and he didn’t believe she hadn’t opened it so she could touch, too. What a creep. No wonder she hated him. Anyway—she says she thinks some of the figurines are actually pretty valuable. Meissen, Spode, I don’t know what else. They’re more Mom’s style than mine, but she says she’s bringing all of them home, too, and we can look at them and decide what we want to keep and how to sell the rest.”

  “She is talking to you, then.”

  Tiny creases formed between Amy’s eyebrows. “I guess so.” After a minute she shrugged. “That’s the story. Enough said about Mom.”

  “Good.” Watching her as closely as he had been, Jakob had seen the signs of nerves she couldn’t quite hide. He was feeling some tension himself. They’d both finished dinner. Even coffee. They were alone. Last night’s kiss had come close to getting out of control.

  He cleared his throat. “Is there any chance at all you plan to invite me to stay tonight?”

  She eyed him warily. “What if I don’t?”

  Don’t push.

  He offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile, when the truth was his body had already hardened at the very thought of going upstairs with Amy, turning into her bedroom instead of her mother’s.

  “Then I politely kiss you good-night at the front door and go back out in the rain.” Which hadn’t let up; he could hear it on the roof and it ran down the small-paned windows, obscuring any view beyond the glass.

  “Oh.” She was fiddling with something, as she often did, in this case the unused bread knife that was getting rolled between her fingers. She looked down at what she was doing. “I suppose you’re impatient.”

  At her small voice, he grabbed for what patience he did have left. “Amy...” He waited until she lifted her eyes to meet his. “I want you, but I can wait.” Too bad his voice, river-rock rough, belied the words.

  Her gaze momentarily flitted away, shy. But Amy was too direct for much evasion. After a moment she looked squarely at him. Her chin was high and defiant. “Actually...” She sounded g
ruff. “I’d like it if you did stay.”

  He’d braced himself for anything but. It took a minute for dreams to become belief. There was a fleeting moment of remembering what he’d told her, about how he’d always seen her as shy and wild, and how awed he felt just to see her, touch her.

  That awe was part of the most powerful tangle of emotions he’d ever felt. “Amy,” he said, raw.

  Her smile was shy, but brazen, too, and so sweet he was lucky he could stagger to his feet.

  “Amy.”

  She came out of her chair and into his arms with a rush.

  He was ready for her. He thought he’d been ready his whole damn life.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ALL THROUGH DINNER, Amy had known what was coming. She’d planned it. She might even have been insulted or hurt if Jakob hadn’t asked whether he could stay.

  But a part of her still wished he hadn’t. These weeks with him had been magic, the best of her life. And sex... Well, that was something she wasn’t very good at.

  Not that she didn’t go through the motions. Guys mostly seemed satisfied, and sometimes she even enjoyed herself. But she knew she walled the most essential part of herself off as soon as things got intense.

  She’d realized a long time ago that she had a problem with being touched and held. She and her mother were two of a kind.

  Maybe it was inevitable when you grew up in a home where everyone was very, extremely careful not to touch. She wouldn’t even want to try if it weren’t for her dad and those first few years. Prekindergarten memories were scattered and not always clear, but they were there: her running to Daddy when he came in the door and him laughing and swooping her up, swinging her in a circle, dangling her over his shoulder and ignoring her giggling protests. She could see the world from the perspective of sitting on her daddy’s shoulders, her small fingers gripping his hair for security. Story times, encircled by his big arm.

  So she wasn’t like those babies raised in orphanages who had passed the point where it would ever be possible for them to enjoy physical intimacy. But sometime after her daddy moved out, taking Jakob with him, Amy had frozen inside. Now, even when she was turned on, getting naked with someone, having full body contact, letting a man be all over her and inside her, always had her feeling... She couldn’t even name it. Like she wanted to shrink away and protect herself.

  Kissing was okay, sex not so much.

  So far, she hadn’t had any of her usual squeamishness with Jakob, but they hadn’t taken their clothes off, either. She’d been able to hope. This was Jakob, who had always been perfect in her eyes. Amy wanted to see him unclothed, tall and strong and golden. She just had this really bad feeling that sex would go wrong somehow and ruin everything.

  That she would ruin everything.

  Now the moment had come and, despite all her fears, she threw herself into his arms, closed her eyes and pressed her face to his chest. Breathing in his scent—male, woodsy and uniquely him—both calmed and excited her.

  One of his big hands cradled the back of her head, the other roved restlessly up and down her back. It was a moment before she realized his hands both were shaking.

  “Jakob?” She looked up.

  She didn’t know that expression on his face.

  “It seems like I’ve wanted you all my life.”

  Oh, boy—if anything was calculated to scare her, that was it. Talk about expectations.

  Amy tried to smile. “Now you get me.”

  “Yeah.” His voice was hoarse, his eyes searching hers. “You look scared to death.”

  “No.” Honesty seemed to be important. “Well, nervous. Um...I know you don’t like it when I say this, but I’m not that...”

  “What?”

  “Beautiful!” she blurted. “I’m skinny. I don’t know why you want me, okay? And I don’t know how I can possibly measure up to what you seem to feel.”

  During her speech, she felt him stiffen. Frustration tightened his mouth and darkened his eyes.

  “You’re right. I don’t like it. To me, you are beautiful. Why can’t you accept that?”

  “Because I know I’m not!”

  His hand dropped from her back. The one on her head moved in a rough caress, as if he couldn’t help himself, then dropped to his side, too. “We don’t have to do this.”

  She stepped back, pride keeping her head high even though her eyes burned. “That’s not what I was trying to say.”

  “Then what was your point? You think I’m taking pity on you? Or maybe just getting it where I can, and—hey!—we’re spending a lot of time together?”

  “No!” She balled her hand into a fist and punched his chest. “You know it’s not that! You asked if I was scared, and I am, that’s all. Because you...you’re...” Her voice cracked.

  Suddenly his arms were around her again, his face close, his tenderness giving her goose bumps. “What am I, Amy?”

  “You’re...” She forced it past the lump in her throat. “Special. I don’t want to disappoint you, that’s all.”

  “How could I be disappointed?” His lips moved softly over her face, forehead, temples, cheeks. He nuzzled her, his breath warm on her skin. “Making love isn’t a competitive sport. There’s no scoring system. If we’re awkward, then we’ll be less so the next time. It’s okay to laugh at ourselves, you know.”

  Her knees were melting wax. “Okay,” she managed to respond.

  “If this still feels too weird, we can wait, you know. I meant it.”

  A fireball in her chest made her push away. “You’re really hung up on that.”

  She’d known why he was being so patient. What she couldn’t decide was whether he really thought she was freaked out because she’d believed he was her brother—or whether he was the one who couldn’t get past it. He didn’t seem to understand that her problems didn’t have anything to do with him, except for him being...oh, her dream. Her Mr. Perfect.

  “Me?” he said, looking startled. “No, I just want to make sure you’re not.”

  “Fine.” She took a deep breath, laid her hands open on his chest and rose on tiptoe to kiss his jaw. “Are we going to do this, or not?” she murmured.

  Jakob gave a gruff laugh. “You kidding?” He wrapped his hands around her hips and brought them flush against him. His erection was thick and hard, pressed into her belly. “Can we go upstairs?”

  “Yes, we can.”

  “The kitchen...”

  Her rude response made him laugh. Joy and hope seemed to rise in her, so that she wasn’t sure her feet were actually touching the stairs. Mostly what she felt was his hand holding hers tightly. She felt it when he squeezed her butt partway up, too.

  “The things you wear,” he said. Or she thought he said.

  He crowded her against the wall when they reached the top of the stairs and kissed her. She felt that and nothing else. She’d have sworn her blood had become thick and slow and syrupy.

  A few more steps and they stumbled into her bedroom. Jakob peeled off her sweater before they reached the bed. She’d worn a bra tonight, her lacy best, even though she didn’t really need one. She watched carefully for any disappointment when he looked at her, and saw only heat in eyes that blazed blue. He cupped her breasts and moved his hands in a gentle, circular motion that made her moan and let her head fall back. The next moment, he’d swooped her up and deposited her on the bed.

  Her bra fell away.

  “You’re delicate.” His voice had gone as thick as her blood. “So pretty.” He bent her back and licked her nipple, then drew it into his mouth.

  Amy made incoherent sounds and grabbed onto his powerful shoulders for purchase. After a minute she tugged at his shirt and he half cooperated in her effort to strip it over his head, even though he was reluctant to let her go long e
nough.

  After that he kissed his way down her belly and finally planted a knee on the bed as he reached for the zip inside the calf of her right boot. “Do you know how sexy these are?” He pulled the zip down really slowly, as though he was unwrapping her.

  “I hoped,” she said, knowing she was flushed and trembling, wishing he’d hurry.

  He tugged the first boot off then went faster on the second one. He chuckled at the sight of her bright, striped toe-socks before sending them flying, too. An openmouthed kiss on the arch of one foot made her toes curl. With a groan, he sat up straight and peeled off her leggings as if she were a banana and all he wanted to do was bite into the soft flesh.

  After that, he tried to slow things down and she taunted him into speeding up. Oh, she wanted to see him—all of him—but wasn’t as good at peeling as he was. She forgot the athletic shoes and bunched his jeans and knit boxer shorts up at his ankles before he laughed and finished undressing himself.

  Nothing in her life had ever felt as good as full body contact with Jakob did. Stunned, she went still just for a moment to savor. His muscles were so smooth and hard, so warm and eager to flex at the slightest touch from her fingertips. The hair on his chest was dark gold. She wanted to explore, but even more she wanted to get closer yet. To be part of him.

  He kissed and stroked and licked while she did the same, and then he was between her legs before he rumbled and rolled off her.

  “Condom.”

  She’d kept using the birth control patch because it was habit and you never knew when you’d be glad, even though she’d had no reason to be glad in a long time. He must have felt it on her hip, but she’d always insisted on a condom, too. This was the first time ever she was tempted to say, You don’t have to use one.

  He came back down on her, his mouth voracious, his tongue stroking hers in a rhythm that made her body ache and her hips rise. And then he was in her, pushing deep, and she whispered, “Jakob.” Nothing else.

  Magic.