by Theresa Weir
“Neither have you, Luke. Not really.”
Next to the first picture was another, this one showing Jessie in a pair of shorts, her long legs tanned and gleaming, as she held up a string of trout. Luke wanted to touch the open expression on her face, the trusting smile she was giving the camera, and wondered who’d snapped the shot.
There were a lot more pictures like that in the second book, pictures of the life Luke had missed out on, pictures of Jessie and Giselle on Christmas morning, pictures of Daniel place-holding where Luke might have been.
And yet, not even the jealousy and regret could blunt the growing wish he felt to have her close to him. As she closed the album, her hair brushed his hand and he turned his hand to let it flow over his palm, silky and heavy. A lock caught on his fingers and he hastily withdrew to let it free.
Before she could pick up the third book in the stack, he asked, “Will you show me your studio, Jessie? I’d really like to see the work you’ve done.”
She bent her head and plucked nervously at the edge of a photo album. After a long moment, she said, “All right.”
“Is it wrong to ask?”
“No.” She seemed about to say something else, but just shook her head as she stood. “This way.”
She led him to a room off the kitchen, probably used as a sun porch in other homes. The first thing that struck him was the smell—oil paint and thinner mixed with the moist notes of potted plants. It was peculiarly evocative and piercing—a smell he remembered and had stowed away in some forgotten place in his mind.
Plants crowded the benches along the windows, big and small, flowering and not, hanging from the ceiling and filling little jars lined up on the sills. He chuckled. “You’re right about the plants.”
She stepped aside, primly folding her hands in front of her. “The paintings are over there, against the wall.”
But he didn’t move right away. Instead, he stayed where he was, letting her get used to him inside her private sanctuary, giving himself time to absorb the intimacy of the smells and sights in the room. There was a futon against one wall, with a Navajo blanket flung over the back, and he saw by the artlessness of it that the blanket was used more for comfort than decoration. He imagined her sitting here late at night, the blanket around her shoulders, a cup of tea in hand.
A nearly completed painting rested on an easel, one of a woman nursing a child. He stepped forward, drawn by the warmth of the brown flesh tones, the curve of the baby’s cheek, the almost audible peace emanating from the painting. “Ah, Jessie,” he said quietly and reached out, not touching the work, but brushing his fingers in the air over it.
He saw a soft, pleased smile touch her lips, and a little of the tension left her shoulders. Encouraged, he moved toward the stack of canvases leaning against the wall and knelt before them. Here was the midwife she’d spoken of, and another of a gaggle of young Spanish women, laughing together in a little knot. Emotion filled his throat as he looked at them. There was exquisite detail and mood in the works, a maturing of the raw style he had so admired when she was younger.
Beside him, she gestured with a fluttery movement, sending the bracelets on her arms into a soft clatter. “I seem to always be painting women,” she said. “Don’t really know why.”
“Jessie…oh, honey.” He shook his head. “These are beautiful. Even better than I expected.” He looked up at her and straightened, intending to tell her more, to tell her exactly what he liked.
But behind her on the wall was the reason she’d been reluctant to bring him here, and it stole the words from him. A painful, sharp pinch touched his chest and he closed his eyes for a minute.
It was a portrait of himself, the painting Giselle must have meant when she told him there was a picture of him in her house. Like all of Jessie’s portraits, it had been rendered on a large canvas. It portrayed Luke ten years before, his hair long and caught back in a single braid that slipped over his shoulder as he bent to ruffle the fur of his dog, Boris. So simple. Luke, shirtless and barefoot beneath a pine, playing with a dog he still missed.
But as with all her work, the details and the mood made it powerful. In the paintings of the midwife, he felt the sturdy strength of a woman who’d spent her life tending expertly to the needs of others. In the mother and child, he felt the peace.
In this simple painting of himself was…love. It was in his face, in his hands, in the eyes of the dog—the love of the painter for the man in her work. It wasn’t blind love, for there was arrogance on his brow and too much pride in the tilt of his jaw, but it was clear and true and powerful.
I don’t think you’ll ever know how much I loved you, Luke.
He closed his eyes again, struggling to keep some semblance of control. Until this moment, until he saw her vision of him, Luke had not grasped how much leaving him had cost her. Thick emotion crowded his throat, pressed into his mouth, and he reached for her hand blindly. He pressed her fingers to his lips. “I’m so sorry, Jessie,” he whispered.
“I thought painting it would help,” she said in a small voice. “But it didn’t.”
There was only one thing he could do. He tugged her hand and pulled her beloved body close to him, folding her into his arms so he could press his lips to her hair. He held her tight, clinging for the strength she gave him, trying to find some way to breathe again. He tried to speak and could only say her name, over and over, like a prayer.
Jessie wept into his chest, curling her fingers into the flesh of his back with painful force. Luke embraced her, kissing her temple and stroking her hair, aching for all the things that could never be undone, all the days they had lost, all the broken dreams they’d shared. “Jessie,” he whispered, touching her chin.
She lifted her face. “You can’t imagine how many times I wished you’d just step out of that painting,” she said. Her slim fingers traced his jaw. “So many times, Luke. And here you are.”
“Here I am.” He bent to kiss her, gently brushing her lips, then the tracks of her tears. He kissed the side of her jaw and her eyelids and the end of her nose, asking forgiveness, offering the only healing he knew how to give. She leaned into him, her body ceasing to shudder and tremble, her spine softening under his hands. Her breasts and belly warmed him.
A thundering pounded in his blood, slow and deep. All he had ever really wanted was Jessie, and wood for his hands, and children to love. Once more he drank of her mouth, tasting the lingering sweetness of her tea and a hint of vanilla from the cookies. He curled his hand around the slender column of her neck, sliding his hand below her collar to touch the heat of her shoulder. Their tongues danced and swirled, making him dizzy. Her hands restlessly moved on his back. His knee bumped her thigh and he used the small awkwardness to pull her closer, lacing his legs between hers.
There was thick silence around them, the stillness of deep night and winter. But as Luke began to open the buttons of her blouse, he heard music all through him, the music of the wild ocean that was Jessie mingling with the deep, pounding drums of his blood. Her flesh was soft as doeskin, and he opened his palm over the upper swell of her breast. She swayed a little and clutched his arms, making a soft, warm sound.
Without hurry, he pushed the blouse from her and she let it fall to the floor. Luke found the clasp of her bra and tugged it open, and then her breasts were against his palms, warm and infinitely soft. “Oh, Jessie,” he whispered, stroking her. He stopped kissing her for a moment to see her, to give his eyes something to savor.
In the low yellow lamplight, her pale skin took on a sheen of warmth and her hair glittered around her like a shawl. He touched a length of the warm brown mass of it, caught it in his hand and lifted it to his face. “I love your hair,” he said. “I worried sometimes that you would have cut it off.”
She shook her head. “No.”
He raised a hand to curl it around her breast, stroking the rosy aroused tip with his thumb, gauging the fit against his palm. A smoky expression darkened her eyes, an
d she reached for the buttons on his shirt. “I want you,” she whispered.
He didn’t want to end up on the floor again, and glanced over her shoulder toward the futon in the corner. A part of him was afraid if he paused, she would have time to think, and would stop and push him away. Another part of him wanted to make sure this was something they did with their heads as well as their hearts.
He took her hand and led her to the futon. “Help me with this,” he said, tugging at the foot of it.
But she didn’t move. Luke yanked the futon into a bed. Then he straightened, meeting her eyes across the vastness of the mattress. With calm, deliberate movements, he unfastened the buttons of his shirt, then carelessly tossed it aside. He waited, wanting her with a wildness he kept hidden.
In the quiet of the night, she paused, staring at him with an unreadable expression in her eyes. Standing there dressed only in her skirt, her hair only barely cloaking her breasts, she was as powerfully sexy as she’d been that day on the rocks.
Her gaze flickered, straying from his face to lick at his body, and Luke knew that her hunger was as deep as his own. She met his eyes and ceremoniously lifted her arms to remove her bracelets, turning to carefully place them on the windowsill. She turned back and knelt on her side of the bed. She lifted her hand. “Luke.”
He dove toward her, snagging her close against his chest. “Touch me, Jessie,” he groaned, aching with long dampened hunger.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered, as she lifted her hands to stroke his chest and belly, his hips and the outside of his thighs. He cupped the sides of her breasts and suckled her neck.
He gave a hoarse cry when her hands at last circled and freed the buttons on his jeans, setting him free, and he heard a sharp sound of pleasure escape her as he kissed her hard, feeling their teeth click and lips bruise. She stroked him restlessly until there was a fever he could not contain, no more.
Luke made a small, victorious sound as he pressed his face into the velvety texture of her skin—ah, the warmth and silk and shivery tremblings. His passion, leashed for endless days, exploded.
He kissed the hollow of her throat and her chin, suckled the rosy, eager tips of her breasts, tugged up her skirt to stroke the quivering flesh of her inner thighs. A dampness met his questing fingers and impatiently he tugged away her panties to touch her, to make sure she was as impatient as he. At his caress, her breath caught high in her throat and she grabbed his shoulders to pull him up to her.
He went willingly, groaning over the erotic brush of her breasts against his chest, and the eager work of her hands, which freed him from the prison of his jeans. He found the buttons to her skirt and nearly tore it in his haste to get it out of his way.
But then, ah, then they were flesh to flesh. Thighs and bellies and chests, arms and lips and tongues. He kissed her, reckless and uncontrolled and unafraid. Jessie met him with eagerness, making small pleased and hungry noises as her hands moved on his back, on his arms, in his hair. Each time he heard her voice or touched her breast or felt her hair tangling in his fingers, he felt a small explosion of disbelief and joy—it was Jessie moving sinuously against him, Jessie who fiercely kissed him and stroked him and urged him to touch her.
He could wait no longer, nor could she. With one fierce thrust, they were joined and cried out in unison at the brilliant shock of it. They went utterly still, as if stunned.
Then together they began to move, and within Luke there was a sense of wholeness and perfection that had little to do with lust and everything to do with spirit. As completion neared, he gathered her as tightly as he was able, tangled them close and prayed wordlessly for things he couldn’t name.
* * *
Jessie clutched Luke close to her, the rippling aftermath shuddering between them. The polished sleekness of his shoulders rested against the underside of her arms, and his black hair fell over her hands. His lips moved on her neck, against her shoulder, and as their breathing slowed, he began to shift his weight.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, tightening her hold. “Not yet.”
He lifted his head and there was a gleam of amusement in the darkness of his eyes. “I liked that,” he said in a low, sexy voice, moving his hips against her. “Let’s do it again.”
Jessie smiled at the old password. “And again.”
“And again.” He kissed her quickly, then shifted, holding her close as he rolled to his side. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, “I just don’t want to crush you.”
He reached for the blanket and tossed it over them. Jessie closed her eyes, absorbing the feel of him so close, so dear after such a long time, and breathed deeply the scent of him. Then, afraid somehow it was an illusion, she opened her eyes.
His face was only inches from her own, harsh and beautiful. “A woman saw the painting of you,” she said. “She told me there was no way you were real.” With her fingers, she touched the sweep of his intelligent brow, the high brown angle of his cheekbone. “She thought I made you up.” He didn’t move, just watched her with those rich, dark eyes.
Unwilling to think, wanting only to feel, she moved closer and pressed her mouth to the same path her fingers had taken, feeling the fragility of skin over sharp bone and the brush of his lashes and the strength of his unstubbled jaw.
She had dreamed this so many times, dreamed of just touching his beloved face as she looked at it. He held her loosely, and she bent to kiss his shoulder and the column of his throat and the hard, flat nipples, her hands eagerly absorbing the plane of his belly and the curve of his ribs.
He caught her arms and pulled her up the length of him. She lay on top of him, their legs tangled. With a deeply serious expression, he stroked her face. “Don’t hide, Jessie. There’s nothing we have to do or say, not about the past or the future.” His voice roughened. “I’ve been waiting too long to let you hide now.”
He pulled her face down to his and she kissed him, her lost Luke. If she did not have to think of another time or place, she was free to love him now. Just for tonight.
Chapter 10
Jessie had no idea how long they stayed there, curled together, not sleeping but speaking little. A long time. His body felt right next to hers, dipping where hers swelled, swelling where hers dipped, so no matter how they moved, their bodies settled into a comfortable fit.
Words were too dangerous. Their hands spoke for them. Jessie wanted to touch him everywhere, wanted to explore his chest and the crook of his elbow and the edge of his ear. She touched his hair and his thighs and his mouth, sometimes using a palm, sometimes her mouth or simply her eyes.
And he spoke in return, learning again the circumference of her wrists and the new shape of her belly, the curve of her hip and the length of her hair.
They kissed, over and over, and Jessie wondered that she never tired of his mouth, his tongue, the click of his teeth against hers, the tickling spray of his hair as it fell forward to brush her cheek.
And at last she again grew aware of the pointed, growing weight of him against her thigh, and his hands began to linger on her breasts. His kiss grew more urgent, and Jessie felt the answering rise of desire in her belly. She moved against him, letting her fingers walk the length of his arousal to let him know she would not mind a second round.
This time, they made love very gently, as if it were the most sacred of rituals. Luke moved with reverence and skill, his mouth and hands plying her most secret places, all the places he had learned in his years with her.
He moved to enter her slowly. When they were joined once again, he paused and grasped her hair in his hands. “Look at me, Jessie,” he said in a raw voice.
She opened her eyes to find his dark gaze fixed upon her face. Slowly, he dipped to kiss her and lifted his head again, his hands almost painfully tight in her hair. As he began to move, his gaze did not waver, and Jessie trembled with the intimacy of him moving and staring together. She blinked, and he tightened his hands. “Look at me,” he said again.
Her body quivered in warning around him, but his expression didn’t change as he paused to kiss her, drawing out the moment as long as he could. She clutched his shoulders, struggling to look at him, and then both of them were out of control, their gazes locked in fierce acknowledgment of the power this joining wrought. Jessie gripped his shoulders and cried out a little, but she rose to his challenge.
She tumbled over the edge, coming apart in his arms. Time and breath paused as he let himself go. Sweaty and exhausted, Luke dropped his head to her shoulder. Jessie held him close, feeling his heart pound against hers, heard their breath tangling.
He kissed her again deeply, so hungrily and desperately Jessie wanted to weep with it, weep for all the beautiful days now lost forever. She gasped, her heart breaking, and touched his hair and his face and found herself trying to draw him closer and closer.
Abruptly, he broke away. Jessie cried out in surprise, feeling suddenly bereft as he grabbed his jeans from the floor and tugged them on in haste.
“Luke,” she whispered.
He didn’t look at her. “I can’t do this.”
Jessie clutched the rough wool blanket to her breasts and sat up, shoving her tousled hair away from her face with one hand. “You said till dawn.” She gestured toward the window. “It’s a long time till then.”
He winced, as if some insult had been uttered. “No. It’s not me you want.” He stabbed a finger toward the painting. “That’s the man you want, over there. Alessandro. Some romantic Indian to sweep you away.” He lifted a bare, brown shoulder. “You want me now, tonight, but in the morning, you’ll push me away because you can’t deal with the real McCoy. I thought I could handle it. I can’t.”
“That’s not fair.”
