When we came together, it was as if we had both been waiting a lifetime for the moment. Benjamin seemed to know me better than I knew myself. Sheer instinct seemed to guide him, telling him what I wanted, what I needed. The love we shared, I have never shared with another, and know in my heart I can share only with him. Benjamin. My Benjamin. My tender, passionate lover, who taught me the meaning of ecstasy.
Tears gathered in Joanna’s eyes. She closed the diary and hugged it to her breast. Had J.T. read a third of the diary tonight, or had he skipped through parts of it, coming to this account of the first time Annabelle and Benjamin made love?
Joanna padded across the room, her bare feet quiet on the wooden floor. She opened the screen door, stepped outside and let the door slam shut behind her. J.T. didn’t flinch. He had known she was there; he had probably heard her stirring about inside.
“Did I wake you?” he asked, keeping his back to her.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I think I might have heard the front door open, but I wasn’t sleeping soundly anyway.”
The moonlight combined with the glow from the lone lamp in the living room, creating a muted illumination that cast everything into soft shadows. J.T. wore nothing except a pair of faded jeans. His broad, muscular back looked like polished leather. Joanna barely controlled the urge to reach out and touch him. She wanted this man, wanted him in a way she had never wanted anyone or anything. He stirred needs in her that were new and powerful and frightening in their intensity. Yet, as much as she wanted J.T., she was afraid of the very virility and masculine power that attracted her to him.
“If I weren’t working, I’d go somewhere and get rip-roaring drunk.” J.T. gripped the banister that bordered the front porch. “I never had any idea it was possible to want a woman as much as I want you.”
Joanna went hot all over; a flush of excitement and pure feminine exhilaration spread through her body. She reached out and touched his shoulder. He flinched. She withdrew her hand.
“You read some more of Annabelle’s diary, didn’t you?” Joanna’s voice sounded strange to her own ears, its quality low and earthy and undeniably sensual.
“Yeah, I read a couple of entries after the first one, then I just flipped through the pages.”
“You read about the first time they made love.” Joanna laid her hand on his bare back. Dear God, how she longed to wrap her arms around him, to cuddle up against him and hug him close to her.
He whipped around, knocking her hand off his back in the process. “I wish I’d never made that bargain with you. I wish I’d never read a word in that damn diary.”
Joanna’s heart roared in her ears. She swayed slightly. J.T. grabbed her by the elbows, steadying her. She looked up at him, and suddenly the whole world condensed into this time, this space, this one man.
“It’s painful, isn’t it?” Joanna realized that Annabelle’s words had touched J.T.’s heart. “Reading about how she felt, how much she loved him and how hopeless their love was, always makes me cry. And of course, they’d both realized, from the very beginning, that they had no future together.”
J.T. knew what Joanna wanted him to say. She wanted him to admit he’d been wrong and she’d been right about their great-grandparents’ summer love affair.
After reading her diary, it had become obvious to J.T. that Annabelle Beaumont had been deeply in love with Benjamin Greymountain, and that it had broken her heart knowing they couldn’t spend the rest of their lives together.
How had Benjamin felt? What pain had he suffered? J.T. wondered. Unlike Annabelle, whose emotions lived on in her words, Benjamin’s thoughts and feelings had died with him. Had he suffered the way she had? Had he lived out his life yearning for a love that could never truly be his, except in his memories? And how had he felt having an affair with a woman, knowing he had nothing to offer her? He’d been a poor Navajo silversmith and she a wealthy Virginia socialite. How many nights had Benjamin stared up at the stars and raged against heaven?
“Would you do what Annabelle did?” he asked, drawing Joanna into his arms. “Would you risk everything for a brief affair with a man who could offer you nothing more than heaven in his arms?”
“Yes.” She slipped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. Silently she added, “If I loved him, I would risk everything.”
“I promise that I won’t hurt you. Not now or ever,” J.T. vowed. “I want you, Jo. I want to lift you into my arms and carry you to bed and make slow, sweet love to you all night long.”
“I want that, too, but—”
“You take charge, honey. You tell me what to do. Every step of the way. I won’t do anything without your orders.”
He was promising her what she wanted to hear, assuring her that she would be in control of the situation. But could she trust him? J.T. looked like a man on the edge, a man ready to explode. He might promise her anything right now to gain her acceptance, but what would he do in the throes of passion?
“I’m not sure. I want you, too, J.T. I want you till I ache with the wanting. But I’m afraid.”
“Trust me to be true to my word.”
Lifting her head, she stared up at him. “You’re so big and strong and…if I asked you to stop and you didn’t, I’d be powerless.”
“If you ask me to stop, I’ll stop. I promise.”
Closing her eyes against the sight of him, against the temptation of his pure masculine beauty, she took a deep breath and choked back her tears. Reaching into the depths of her soul she sought and found courage— Annabelle Beaumont’s kind of courage; the courage to risk loving a man who could promise her nothing more than the moment.
“Hell, Jo, take your gun to bed with us if that’ll make you feel safer!”
Tears escaped from her eyes, trickled down her cheeks and into her mouth. She smiled at J.T. “You want me so much you’d risk getting shot?”
If she refused him, he’d die. But if she accepted him, making love to her slowly and tenderly would kill him by degrees. He wanted her wild and furious this first time, wanted her passion to equal his. But if he acted on his instincts, he’d scare the hell out of her. “Yeah, I want you that much.”
“Then take me to bed,” she told him.
He thanked God that she hadn’t denied him, and at the same time prayed for the strength to be the lover Joanna needed, to be man enough to relinquish the power to her and allow her to make love to him. It was the only way, and he knew it. Yet every primitive, masculine instinct in him cried out for him to take her, possess her, dominate her and make her yield to him.
He swept her up in his arms, swung open the screen door and carried her into the living room, then closed and locked the front door. Joanna kept her arm draped around his neck as he carried her down the hall and into her bedroom. After laying her down, he stood by her bed and waited.
“I’m not sure what to tell you to do next,” she admitted. “I haven’t done this sort of thing before and I… J.T., what do I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to touch you.”
His already aroused body stiffened painfully. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “How’s this?”
She scooted over toward him, wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek on his back. “You’re hot.” She ran her fingers up and down, over his stomach and chest.
J.T. sucked in his breath. Her hands stilled on his chest. He laid his hands over hers gently. “It’s all right. You didn’t do anything wrong. I love having your hands all over me.”
“Would you…would you lie down and let me look at you?”
Slipping out of her arms, he rolled over and lay down flat on his back, then raised his arms and crossed them behind his head. “How’s this?”
Joanna edged backward, easing her knees up in front of her and hugging her arms around her legs. “You’re a beautiful man, J.T. The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”
He grinned. She smiled. And the bottom dropp
ed out of his stomach. “And I’m all yours,” he told her. “Putty in your hands. Yours to command.”
“I guess I’m just a bit overwhelmed with all this power.”
She surveyed him from the top of his head to the tips of his bare feet, taking inventory of every inch of his big, hard body. He lay there watching her watch him. His arms bulged with muscles. She reached out and ran her fingertips over one arm from elbow to armpit, then slid her nails down his side and over across his broad, sleek chest. When she touched one tight little nipple, he made a sound, and Joanna knew he was trying to stifle a groan.
She wondered if his body ached the way hers did; if he throbbed with desire, wanting her the way she wanted him.
She couldn’t mistake the evidence inside his jeans—the truth about the way he felt. His body revealed his need for her. “Would you take off your jeans?” she asked.
“Why don’t you help me take them off?” He took her hand, brought it over to the snap on his jeans and placed it directly over his zipper.
Her hand trembled. She’d never touched a man this way. Shaking like a leaf, she unsnapped his jeans and undid the zipper, then jerked her hand away.
He lifted himself up off the bed, tugged his jeans down his legs and tossed them on the floor. Joanna watched his every move, becoming more and more fascinated by the sheer masculine glory of J.T.’s body.
“I suppose I should take something off, shouldn’t I?”
“Only if you want to, honey.” J.T. wasn’t sure he had the strength to resist his need to take this woman. But, God in heaven, he had to resist. He had to be strong for Joanna. He had to give her all the power; otherwise, she’d be lost to him forever.
Joanna removed her thin silk robe. She sucked in several deep breaths, then dropped the robe on the floor and edged her way closer to J.T. Sliding close to his side, she eased one leg up over his and rested her elbow on the bed as she leaned over and kissed his chest. She explored his body, touching, kissing, licking him from forehead to feet.
J.T. could imagine no torture more unbearable. He called upon every divine force in the universe to help him.
Suddenly his prayers were answered when Joanna said, “Touch me, J.T. Please, touch me.”
Touch her? Where? How? What he wanted to do to her would be too much too soon. Slow and easy, Blackwood, he told himself. Don’t do anything to frighten her, to take away her sense of complete control.
He lifted her up and on top of him, showing her how to straddle him the way she did a horse. He sat her down directly on top of his arousal, allowing her to feel his throbbing hardness through the thin cotton of his briefs.
“Oh,” she gasped. Her body clenched and unclenched with pulsating need. She braced herself by placing her hands on his shoulders.
J.T. bucked up against her once. She gasped again. Still clinging to his shoulders, she clenched his hips with her knees.
“Do you like that?” he asked, and circled her waist with both hands, urging her to lean forward.
“I’m tingling all over,” she said. “Tingling and aching and—”
Her breath caught in her throat when she felt his hands spreading out from her waist, slowly covering her buttocks. He caressed her through the silk gown, the feel of his big hands gentle yet sensual.
“I’d like to kiss you,” he said. “Would that be all right?”
“Yes. Please.”
Every muscle in his body strained, every nerve roared like a wounded beast. Take her! Take her now! his body ordered him. Be patient. Wait. Make sure she’s ready, his mind told him. While his body and mind fought, his heart won the battle. He brought her downward, inch by inch, until she lay atop the full length of his body. She lowered her head and touched her lips to his.
She played with his lips, licking, nibbling, and then finally enticing him to open his mouth and allow her tongue entrance. Once she had initiated the dance, he fell into step, thrusting and tasting, becoming a full participant in the wild fandango their kiss became.
J.T. eased her gown up her hips, one tiny piece of material at a time. When he slipped his hands beneath the silk and stroked her bare buttocks, Joanna moaned into his mouth and shivered violently.
He ended the kiss. They both gulped in air. She cuddled up against him like a sleek, purring kitten. He wrapped his arms around her.
“I want to kiss your breasts and your belly and taste the sweetness of your body,” he said. “Will you let me do that?”
With her head still resting on his chest, she nodded, then whispered her agreement. Gently shoving her upward until she straddled him again, he gripped the hem of her gown, which rested about her hips.
“May I take this off?” he asked.
“My gown? Yes. It’s all right. Take it off.”
He pulled her gown up over her head, tossed it on the floor on top of his jeans and then rolled her over onto her back. While he anointed her face with dozens of sweet kisses, he ran his hands over her breasts, cupping them, lifting them, caressing their roundness.
Her nipples beaded into hard buds. Her breasts felt heavy and achy. “J.T.?”
“It’s all right, honey. I know what you want.” While he suckled one breast, he stroked the other between his thumb and forefinger.
Joanna’s lower body lifted off the bed, the movement completely instinctive. “Oh, J.T., please, do something. I’m aching so.”
He rose over her and looked down at her face, her beautiful face, flushed and damp with passion. His gaze traveled over her breasts, round and full, the nipples tight with desire.
Lowering his head, he kissed her belly. She moaned. He painted a moist trail downward until his lips encountered the fiery red triangle between her legs. “Let me touch you…here.” He nuzzled her with his nose.
“Yes. Please.”
J.T. cupped her softly, petting her, then slipped his fingers inside the hot, wet folds of her body. She quivered uncontrollably for a few seconds, then closed her thighs, capturing his hand.
“Easy, Jo. Easy, sweet darling.”
She relaxed her legs and allowed him to part them slowly. After he’d settled himself between her legs, his lips sought and found the secret heart of her. When he kissed her there, she cried out. When his tongue worked tirelessly against her, she clutched his shoulders and wept as her body tightened and released, tightened and released, until she was wound so tight, she was wild with need. With one final stroke, he sent her over the edge, then lifted himself upward to take her cries of completion into his mouth.
She shuddered as spasms of earth-shattering ecstasy claimed her body. Taking her in his arms, J.T. rolled them over, positioning her on top of him. He had to take her—take her now—or he’d die on the spot.
“I want you, Jo. I want you so much.”
“Yes. Please. Now,” she cried, as the remnants of her release echoed through her body.
J.T. lifted Joanna and brought her down onto him, thrusting inside her. She gasped several times, then whimpered softly.
“Are you all right?” he asked, praying he hadn’t hurt her.
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
Nothing he’d ever experienced had prepared him for the feel of being inside Joanna, of becoming her lover. She was hot and wet and tight. So very tight. Her body sheathed him like a glove. A perfect fit.
“Take charge, honey,” he said. “Do whatever you want to do to me.”
“I want to make love to you, J.T., but I’m not sure I know how. I’ve never… I mean, there wasn’t anyone before—”
“You and your fiancé never made love?” Was it possible? he wondered. Had she been a virgin when Lenny Plott raped her?
“No. Todd and I didn’t make love. I wanted to wait.”
“Then I’m the first,” J.T. said.
“You would be, if…if I hadn’t been—”
“I’m your first,” he told her, moving out and then back in, claiming her as his own. “No other man has ever been your lover.”
She wept, tear
s of joy and of sorrow. Tears that washed away any residue of shame she’d felt. Tears that proclaimed her gratitude. He might not realize the truth himself, but Joanna knew, in her heart of hearts, that J.T. was the other half of her, her life’s partner, her soul mate.
“Making love is so easy,” he said, “when you want each other the way we do.”
“I do want you, J.T. I want you so desperately.”
“Then take me, honey. Ride me…hard and fast. Give us both what we want…what we need.”
Pure, primitive feminine instinct took over, guiding her into a mating ritual as old as time. She moved, slowly, tentatively, uncertain of herself and of him at first. But as the momentum inside her body gradually built, she gave herself over to the passion, to the basic animal urges she didn’t want to control. J.T. stroked and petted her hips and buttocks. He suckled at her breasts, moving from one to the other, paying equal homage. And he whispered sweet, dark, erotic words of praise, and in the moment of fulfillment, he cried out to her, “Ayóí óosh’ni,” the words strange to his own ears, the language the Navajo tongue of his childhood.
She whispered his name over and over, telling him that she loved him, as release claimed her only seconds after he fell headlong into completion.
He held her in his arms, atop his sweat-dampened body. She cuddled to him, not wanting to move, wishing they could stay this way forever. Happy, fulfilled, complete, and safe from the outside world.
He spread a line of kisses along her cheek and jaw, then reached down, pulled up the sheet and covered them.
“Shouldn’t I move?” she asked. “I can’t stay on top of you all night. I’m too heavy.”
“I don’t want you to move,” he said, stroking her hip. “Go to sleep right where you are, honey.”
Sighing, she relaxed on top of him, then kissed his chest. “What did you say to me when…just as you…you know…those strange words? Were they Navajo?”
“I don’t speak Saad.” He kissed the top of her head resting on his chest. “Or at least I haven’t since I was a little boy. I don’t have any idea what I said. It must have been something I remembered from my childhood.”
Til Death Do Us Part Page 14
