On Pins and Needles

by Victoria Pade

  “So that’s it for the whole thing,” Josh concluded. “Which means that the rest of tonight can just be about having fun.”

  “Agreed,” Megan said as he pulled into the parking lot of the Buckin’ Bronco.

  And that really was the end of any talk about Pete Chaney and what had happened to him. Not that they could have discussed it further even if they’d wanted to because once they stepped inside the honky tonk the noise of the band and the crowd made it impossible for any kind of actual conversation.

  Of course Josh knew just about every body in the place but he got them a small table in one corner so no one could join them. Then he ordered a bottle of champagne.

  And between glasses of the bubbly stuff they spent the entire evening dancing line dances and two-steps and cowboy waltzes until Megan’s head was light and her feet ached and she couldn’t remember when she’d had a better time.

  “Last call,” the bar tender shouted at a little before 2:00 a.m. and the band’s lead singer countered with, “Last dance, too.”

  The place was only about half as full as it had been when Megan and Josh had arrived so when Josh led her out to the dance floor they had plenty of space. But by then Megan was accustomed to him swinging her into his arms and holding her close, and it didn’t matter how much room they had to spread out, he still pulled her up against him with one hand at the small of her back and the other holding her hand between them.

  They could have talked as they danced then because the song was slow and much softer than most of what had been played all evening. But neither of them did. It was just too nice to go on the way they had been, letting their bodies do the communicating as they did barely more than sway together, Megan’s head on Josh’s chest, Josh’s cheek resting on her crown.

  Then, out of the blue, Josh whispered, “I don’t want this to be over.”

  “Neither do I,” she admitted even though she wasn’t exactly sure what he didn’t want to be over, whether it was the dance or the evening or what they’d been playing at from the start. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t want any of it to end.

  “What are we going to do about it?” he asked then.

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  He chuckled, a husky rumble she wouldn’t have been able to hear if her ear hadn’t been pressed to him. “I want to take you home and make love to you,” he said just as quietly.

  Megan smiled against him. Maybe it was all the champagne or all the dancing. Maybe it was all the feelings she had for this man that had been growing secretly since the moment they’d met. Or maybe it was that she’d been taught that desire was a natural thing and that nothing nature designed was bad. But unlike the night before, she was no longer thinking about the fact that they were two very different people. She wasn’t thinking about how much she’d been hurt by those differences and her former fiancé’s attempts to change her. She wasn’t thinking about how much she might be hurt by Josh if she got in any deeper than she already was.

  Tonight she was only thinking about the possibility that this could be her last chance with Josh. Her last chance to have those natural—and very intense—desires fulfilled.

  Tonight she was only thinking that, come what may, she didn’t want to pass up that chance.

  So she heard herself say, “Nissa is gone for the night.”

  Josh lifted his head from the top of hers and craned to look into her face.

  He was smiling a small, tentative smile that said he still wasn’t ready to rush into anything.

  “Careful what you’re saying, darlin’, because I meant what I said about makin’ love to you.”

  And he didn’t want to get near to that and have her stop things the way she had the night before. The night before when she’d said she didn’t want them to go too far and he’d honored that request.

  But the night before hadn’t seemed like her last chance….

  “I know,” she said quietly, raising her head from his chest to look into those navy-blue eyes of his. “You’re sure?”

  Megan nodded but Josh still wasn’t in any hurry. Instead he searched her expression as if to make certain she knew what she was getting into.

  But she didn’t have any doubts so she was confident he wouldn’t find any of them in her face and she merely waited for him to convince himself.

  Which was just what he must have done because when the song ended and the singer had bid the room sweet dreams, Josh kept hold of her hand to return to their table only to snatch up her shawl and take her out to his car.

  Luckily it was a short drive to her place. And once they were there he wasted no time helping her out of the car and taking her up the porch steps.

  “You’re sure?” he repeated as she unlocked the front door.

  Megan glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled without comment. She was sure. Sure she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything or anyone in her life.

  Then she led him inside. Into the dark entryway. And as if that seclusion was all they’d been waiting for, Josh spun her around just enough to scoop her into his arms to carry her up the stairs to her room.

  But he didn’t take her all the way to the bed.

  He stopped a few feet away from it and set her on her feet.

  Moon light was the only illumination they had but it was enough to drench them both in a milky glow, to allow them to see each other.

  For a moment Josh stared down into her face again, delving into her eyes with his.

  “I’m out of my mind over you,” he whispered as he bent far enough forward to kiss the side of her neck.

  Megan could only smile once more and let her head fall back to free the way for him to press his lips to the hollow of her throat, then to the other side of her neck before he reached her mouth with his.

  The kiss was slow and sweet, lingering like a summer breeze in a sycamore tree until he ended it to kiss her cheek bones, one right after the other. Then he kissed the bridge of her nose, too. And her brow, smiling against her skin before he found her mouth once more.

  His big hands gently bracketed her neck, his thumbs reaching up past her jaws to stroke her face so lightly it was the brush of angel’s wings as his lips parted over hers, as he drew only her lower lip between his, and then only her upper lip.

  He was toying with her but with a sensuality so potent it seeped into her pores and lit a fire in her stomach that spread fingers of arousal up to her breasts and down to that much lower spot of her body that ached with an enduring curiosity to know him in the most intimate sense.

  But it was much too early yet for that and so instead she just gave herself over to his mouth on hers. To lips parted and urging hers to part, too. To his playful tongue when it came to greet hers.

  She did lay her hands on his chest, though, indulging in the brick-wall hardness of that arousal that was gaining ground with each passing moment began to niggle at her, urging her on to more.

  As their mouths went on exploring, meeting, parting, as their tongues teased and toyed, she searched for and found the top button of his shirt, unfastening it and moving down to the rest until she came up against the waist band of his jeans. Then she pulled the tails free and laid her palms flat against his wash board belly this time.

  Up or down? an impish little voice in the back of her mind asked.

  Oh, how she wanted to go down!

  But she wasn’t that brave. Yet. So instead she went up. Sliding along his skin, rising to honed pectorals where his nipples were only a fraction as hard as hers were.

  And hers were hard. So hard she thought they might burst right through the silk confines of her dress.

  But Josh didn’t leave her wanting for long. One hand slid from the side of her face, down her neck to the spaghetti strap that slipped off her shoulder without too much encouragement and took part of the dress with it so that the up per most curve of her breast was exposed to the air and just the faintest stroke of Josh’s fingertips.

  She stoo
d a little straighter. Not intentionally, but in answer to the overpowering need for more than that.

  Josh obliged, taking her whole breast in his hand, and even though her dress still stood between them, it felt good enough for a tiny moan to echo in her throat.

  Then he inched the dress farther down on that same side, freeing her at last to the warm kid-leather of his palm where her nipple fitted as perfectly as if it had been carved from it.

  Kneading, caressing, teasing…

  Arousal was turning to flames that licked her insides with hotter need than she’d ever known. So hot she kicked off her shoes as if that would help cool her off and let her hands slide over Josh’s shoulders until his shirt fell around their feet and she could press her own palms to his bare flesh.

  He did a bit of a two-step himself to get his boots off and she knew he was as driven as she was because he was breathing so deeply that massive chest of his rose beneath her searching hands.

  Then he slipped her other strap down and that was all it took for the whole dress to fall in a gossamer wisp around her ankles, leaving her with only nylons to dispose of—some thing he did without hesitation, leaving her naked before him.

  That was when his mouth deserted hers so he could look at her. Openly. As if she were a work of art.

  And as he did he slipped out of what remained of his clothes.

  Megan felt a flash of self-conscious ness but she forgot all about that the moment she could feast on the sight of him. There was no better word to describe him than magnificent. Sleek and muscular and perfectly pro portioned, it occurred to her that it was a crime to ever cover him up with clothes.

  And he wanted her. That was more than evident.

  He took her into his arms again, capturing her mouth once more with his, enclosing her breast in the warm grip of his hand, his desire for her nestled between them.

  Then he took her the rest of the way to the bed, lying them down on their sides, facing each other. One of his arms was her pillow while he wrapped the other around her and pulled her closer, rubbing her back as he went on kissing her, plundering her mouth with his probing tongue in hungry abandon now.

  His leg came over hers and once more she could feel the intensity of his desire for her against the lowest part of her pubic bone, long and hard and strong. And this time when that little voice in the back of her mind urged her downward she complied, encompassing that length and strength in her hand.

  He groaned a groan that almost sounded like agony. But she knew it was an agony of pleasure as she explored him, learned the wonders of that staff that was as magnificent as the rest of him.

  Then he rolled her to her back, still kissing her, his mouth open wide, his tongue mastering hers before he began two descents of his own.

  His hand trailed a caressing stroke to her stomach as he kissed his way to her abandoned breast, taking her nipple into the wonderful dark mystery of his mouth, teasing, tugging with his teeth, sucking it deeply in and flicking that incredibly sensitive crest with the tip of his tongue.

  Then his hand went farther still, finding its way between her thighs, slipping his finger into that center of her that had wanted him from the very beginning.

  But by then Megan was nearly wild with desire, with yearning, with need. Her spine arched all on its own, pulling her up off the bed as if she were riding an ocean wave.

  Josh got the message. He tore his mouth from her breast and rose above her, fitting himself between her thighs and coming inside her in one fluid motion, embed ding himself into her, claiming her, making her his.

  He drew out of her, slowly, slowly and so far that for one awful moment Megan thought he might pull free and steal from her the wonder of that stupendous body filling her the way her body was screaming to be filled.

  But just as she was about to protest he plunged back in, even farther than he’d been before, so far that her spine arched a second time and her shoulders left the bed again, thrusting her breasts impudently into his chest.

  Josh in sinuated his hand underneath her then and, making sure to hold her firmly enough to him that they didn’t part, he rolled them both to their sides again.

  Once they were there his mouth recaptured hers in a wide-open, hungry play of lips and teeth and tongues as his talented hand returned to her engorged breast, to the nipple that was so taut it was like a tiny granite pebble against his palm.

  He held her hips to him with one powerful leg thrown over them as he moved deeply into her yet again. In and out. Choreographing a perfect dance, a perfect union of pleasure, of passion as every sense played its part.

  But that passion mounted and mounted until Megan’s head fell away from their kiss. Until Josh’s hand abandoned her breast so he could hold her tightly against him as he took total control, as he pushed into her so completely it felt as if he were reaching the core of her. Again. Again.

  Each thrust took Megan a step closer to what she was striving for. To what she needed with increasing desperation. Higher. Faster. Harder. Straining to break free of the constraints of anything that bound her beyond the bliss that Josh alone could provide. Joining her to him body and soul, shooting them both through to the heavens.

  They clung to each other, melded into one in that single, pure instant of ecstasy when Megan needed nothing so much as Josh all around her, inside her. As something she didn’t even know she was capable of exploded in a white-hot glory that caught her breath and held her suspended in some thing so blissful, so profound, that she wasn’t sure she would survive…

  But of course she did.

  And when it was over, when both she and Josh came floating back to earth, Megan couldn’t help wondering how she had ever lived without knowing such flawless rapture before.

  How she could go on if she never knew it again…

  But as she caught her breath she reminded herself that she still had that moment. That moment with Josh in her bed. Lying in his arms. And she didn’t want to spoil it by thinking about anything that had come before making love with him. Or anything that might come later.

  She just wanted to go on reveling in what she had right then.

  And so, when he slipped out of her and settled her beside him, her head on his chest, she let herself slide into replete sleep, telling herself that she would deal with whatever came tomorrow when tomorrow came.

  Chapter 11

  JOSH SLEPT LATER THE next morning than he had since he was a teenager. And when he woke up at nearly 10:00 a.m. he knew he should get right out of bed. He knew that, even though it was Saturday, he should go into the office to make some calls and close out the file on Pete Chaney and the Murphys.

  But the bed he was in wasn’t his own. It was Megan’s. And she was asleep beside him, using his chest as her pillow, one of her legs slung over one of his thighs, her palm pressed to his shoulder, her breath soft and warm on his skin. Just the way she’d been when they’d fallen asleep after making love.

  And he certainly had no desire to disturb anything.

  Especially not when he wasn’t sure where things between them would go from here.

  He was very much aware that he hadn’t gone a day without seeing her since they’d met. And last night, after Megan had solved the Pete Chaney case and just before she’d suggested they celebrate, he’d been wondering how he was going to keep on seeing her without the excuse of the investigation.

  And now there he was, in her bed, back to wondering what would happen.

  Wondering what would happen and knowing that the one thing he didn’t want was to stop seeing her.

  Stop seeing her? That was an under statement. He didn’t want to spend five minutes away from her. Ever.

  He didn’t completely under stand it but there was some thing about having made love to her that had lowered the wall of self-delusion he’d been fortifying from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. The wall of self-delusion that had led him to believe that while he might be attracted to Megan, he could keep himself from going any
further than that. That he could keep himself from getting involved with her. From having feelings for her. From falling head-over-heels for her.

  But self-delusion was really all that had been. And making love to her had shone a great big spot light on the truth.

  The truth that he was most definitely involved with her. That he had feelings for her. Deep feelings that put him smack dab in the middle of being head-over-heels for her. That made him want never to let her go.

  But wasn’t he jumping from the pan into the fire with yet another mercurial woman? She was an acupuncturist, for crying out loud. She arranged her furniture according to Feng shui and hung crystals in corners. And by no stretch of the imagination had she led an ordinary life or been raised by run-of-the-mill people. All of which seemed like warnings to him that he might be on the same path he’d been on with Farrah. A path of destruction.

  He reminded himself that after Farrah he’d sworn that he would never have anything to do with another flaky, flighty woman. He’d learned his lesson—flaky and flighty translated into irresponsible and un re liable.

  Off-the-wall women—and Megan qualified as that—couldn’t be trusted. They were too capricious. Too fickle. Too unstable. And he’d vowed that there was no way he was ever going to give his heart to another woman like that.

  Yet there he was with his heart on his sleeve, ready to hand it over to Megan.

  But as he looked down at her sleeping so peace fully, he started to actually think about the kind of person she was. To separate her from the acupuncture and the Feng shui and the crystals and all the rest of that odd stuff she embraced.

  Yes, the trap pings were, in his opinion, as weird as Farrah’s interests in all things meta physical. But Megan didn’t base her decisions on any kind of meta physical dictates. Well, okay, she based her decision of where to put her furniture on some thing not too far removed from it, but guidance in where to put a couch was hardly in a league with leaving him at the altar because a psychic had said to.

  Megan the person was very different from Farrah. Megan had strong family values. Just like he did. She had the same goals he did—settling in Elk Creek, putting down roots, getting married and having kids. She was responsible. Loyal. Considerate. Caring. He’d seen all of that in her response to Mabel. In her defense of her parents.