Redemption's Touch (Kimani Romance)

by Ann Christopher

  Charity…giving…rah, rah, rah. Big freaking deal.

  After putting in an appearance in her sexy little black dress—not that there was any real point to looking nice or, hell, basic grooming these days—she’d eyed the desserts (no appetite), declined a glass of champagne (not thirsty) and decamped out here, to the terrace nearest the greenhouse.

  Not to brood, or anything. She wasn’t brooding. That was his game. Joshua/Dawson/Whoever. In the last several days she’d simplified matters and just referred to him as the Jerk when she thought of him, which was either all the time or once per second, whichever was more frequent.

  But it was hard not to…remember. That’s what she was doing. Remembering. This night was balmy and starlit, and so was that one. The same jazz combo had played both parties, and don’t get her started on pasta bars. Resting her elbows on the stone ledge, she tightened her filmy wrap and glared off in the distance. Stupid party. Why did she have to be subjected to this nonsense when she was miserable and would prefer hiding in the cottage with the sheet over her head? And why—

  Heavy male footsteps came up behind her, making her jump like an Olympic sprinter out of the starting block. When her feet hit the ground again, she spun and discovered him standing there. Joshua. Because it was impossible to think of him as the Jerk when he wore a great black tuxedo, had a spark of a smile in his dark eyes and held two bowls of something chocolatey in his hands.

  “Weren’t you going to say hi to me?” he asked.

  Oh, God. Oh, holy God. Mother of—

  “No,” she managed, her jaw still hovering around her navel. “I wasn’t.”

  “Hmm.” He handed her one of the bowls, which she took because some weird sort of autopilot had taken over her body and was now firmly in charge. “Well, it’s a good thing I followed you out here, isn’t it?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “Here.” Reaching for her waist, he swung her up onto the wall. He also, fortunately, prevented her from toppling backward and falling to her death when her jellified spine gave way and refused to hold her upright.

  When the dust settled, he’d created a space for himself between her legs and kept his hands somewhat lower on her body, more butt than waist. Watching her with that intent gaze, he put his bowl on the ledge and did the same with hers. From there it was simple enough for him to step closer and pull her into his arms and for her to wrap her thighs around his.

  She stared at him, trying to sound coherent when joyous sobs threatened to erupt from her throat. “What should I call you tonight?” she questioned. “I’ve been thinking of you as the Jerk, but you probably don’t care for that.”

  A smile broke across his face, the most beautiful sight the universe could produce. There was no angst in that smile, no bitterness or anger, nothing but smile.

  “How about you call me Joshua? It’s my name. Well…it will be again soon. I filed the paperwork.”

  “Interesting.”

  That smile faded, leaving only absolute focus on his face. “Glad you think so.”

  “I’ve had a name change, too. I’m going back to Davies. My maiden name.”

  “Interesting.”

  “So, Joshua,” she said, tilting her hips just enough to bring her sweet spot up against the deliciously hard bulge of his groin and enjoying the corresponding hitch in his breath, “is this you forgiving me?”

  Those hips circled and thrust, making her cry out. He dipped his head, speaking against her lips. “This is me asking you to forgive me.”

  “For what?” It was important to make wrongdoers recite their crimes, right? Plus she didn’t want to make this whole exercise too easy for him.

  “Being unforgiving.”

  A tiny laugh bubbled up to her lips, but her swelling heart wouldn’t allow much more than that. “You were pretty unforgiving.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too. For not telling you.”

  “You’re forgiven.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Yeah.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Thank you, God. Thank you.”

  The raspy emotion in his voice was so heartfelt it just killed her. With a crazy half-laugh, half-sob combination, she pulled his head down, and he nuzzled his face into the curve of her neck. His glasses were hard and uncomfortable, but she didn’t even care.

  This was heaven, and she hadn’t had to die to get there.

  Some time passed while he held her. She lost herself in his scent and the hard embrace of his body, and oh, God, there was nothing like it. Never had been and never could be.

  “I knew,” she said in his ear. “The first night I saw you, I knew…” She trailed off, helpless to find words for this and afraid she’d sound silly if she did.

  “Knew what, baby?”

  He drew back so he could see her, forcing more intimacy, and she discovered that when this big teddy bear looked at her with all that warmth and adoration, even if he’d never said he loved her, things weren’t so scary after all.

  “I knew you were the one for me,” she said simply, shrugging. “The only one.”

  A shudder rippled through him as he looked to the skies and the stars overhead. “Thank you,” he said again, and then he was kissing her.

  It was an onslaught, something she could never have braced for. His mouth, hot and skilled, took hers in every way imaginable, sucking, biting and licking her top lip, then her bottom, then both lips together and then, finally, planting his hand in her hair, angling her head and delving deep into her, as though he was determined to reach every part of her body through just her mouth.

  Only when all the breath had left her lungs and she’d begun rubbing her aching breasts against his chest and scraping his nails across his scalp did he pull back enough to speak.

  “I was wondering,” he rasped, “if maybe we could go to the greenhouse.”

  “Yeah. We could do that.”

  Same drill as before. She clamped her legs tight around his hips and he swung her around and hurried through the door with her, into their private inner sanctum.

  She didn’t let him go. Not until he’d navigated through the dark and over to the bench, their bench, and laid her gently on it, flat on her back. Wasting no time, he shrugged out of his jacket, chucked it to the ground, sat at her hip and ran his hands over her body in an endless massage that made her writhe with pleasure.

  Resting her arms up by her head so she could arch for him, she moaned, not caring how loud she got or how much she gave of herself. He could have it all. He’d always owned it all anyway.

  “I love you,” she said when he ran his hands over her breasts, squeezing them together and then pushing them apart, biting her nipples through the thin silk of her dress and the thinner silk of her bra. “God, I love you so much. You have no idea.”

  He laughed or growled—she couldn’t tell which. The only thing she knew for sure was that the sound was joyous, triumphant, and if she could get him to make that wonderful noise merely by telling him how she felt, she’d be happy to do it again.

  “I love you,” she said when his hands gripped her hips and he buried his face in her belly, biting her there, too.

  But her voice could only hold out for so long, especially when he went to work on her panties, sliding them down her legs and off. “I love—” she began again, but when he kissed her there, spreading her thighs and loving her sex the way he’d loved her mouth, her thoughts spiraled out of control and sentences were impossible.

  Her cries grew louder; she couldn’t help it. Her body’s tension knotted and coiled, pooling in that one perfect spot down low, but even the growing ecstasy wouldn’t shut her up, not now.

  Did he understand? Did he know? Was it enough yet?

  “Love,” she murmured, pulling his hair so he’d come closer and stop torturing her beyond her endurance. “Ah, God, Joshua…love you. I love—”

  He slid his way back up her body, rubbing and touching her everywhere, owning her
so that it wasn’t even her body anymore—it was his. And then there was the rough, urgent slide of his zipper, and he levered over her, resting on his elbows. Pausing long enough to look at her with gleaming, unsmiling eyes, he kissed her again, slow and easy.

  The hot glide of his tongue into her mouth was all it took. Her inner muscles clenched in tiny spasms that grew into such piercing pleasure that her womb contracted and her body convulsed.

  He held her, keeping her close as she rode it out. But when her limp body stilled and she caught her breath, the litany started again because she could never say it enough and he needed to know. It didn’t matter if he never said it to her—she saw his love when he looked at her the way he’d been doing—as long as he trusted how she felt.

  “I love you,” she said again. “So much…so mu—”

  “I love you, too.”

  “—much… So much…so—what?”

  Another licking kiss, during which she though she felt his mouth smile against hers. “You heard me.”

  As nice as his tongue deep in her mouth was, they needed to get this straight. Pulling back as much as she could with the hard bench at her back, she stared up at him, pushed her hair out of her face and tried not to be too needy.

  “Say it again,” she demanded.

  This was no time for joking, and he knew it. The emotion, in fact, seemed to overcome him, and his nostrils flared. She watched, fascinated, as he took a minute to bite his trembling lower lip and get himself together. And then the strongest man she knew, this teddy bear, blinked back his tears and stared her in the face.

  She saw it all, even before he said it.

  “I. Love. You.”

  And she didn’t want to ruin the moment with anything negative like, say, sobbing or doubts, but she did both. Happy sobs, but still sobs. “But you don’t believe in love. You said—”

  He laughed. “You’re rubbing my face in it now? Is that what’s going on here?”

  “No, but—”

  “Arianna. You know I love you. You know I’ve always loved you. Don’t you?”

  “Yes?” she said, and sobbed again.

  For reasons incomprehensible to her, he thought this was funny, too, and was still laughing up until he took the broad head of his penis and stroked it against her thick folds, which were over-sensitized and tingly. Like magic, all the breath whooshed out of both of them, and they gasped.

  “God,” she said as he eased his way inside her body, one slow inch at a time.

  “Yeah.” His voice was hoarse now, barely more than a whisper. “God.”

  His hips surged and eased, surged and eased, and the pleasure began to build again, hotter this time, brighter. Brushing his pants and underwear down his legs a little and out of her way, she clamped her hands on his bare ass as it flexed. And then she drew up her legs, pulled him closer and forced him deeper.

  “Don’t stop,” she said. “Don’t ever stop.”

  “That reminds me.” He broke his rhythm while he spoke, and the effort of holding himself back showed in the sheen of sweat across his forehead. “I promised myself I’d spend every night with you, if possible. Forever. That would probably involve, you know, something like marriage. At some point. When you’re ready.”

  “You want to marry me?”

  “Yeah. I want to marry you.”

  “Good.”

  They smiled at each other for one delicious moment, and then she nudged her hips against his to remind him where he’d left off, and they flowed together in the perfect rhythm.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0580-2

  REDEMPTION’S TOUCH

  Copyright © 2011 by Sally Young Moore

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