“Exponentially, huh?”
“I think that was the word.”
“Ah, Red, we’re in big trouble.”
“That depends on your definition of trouble.” Smiling, she raised up on her tiptoes and gave him an openmouthed kiss that left his head reeling.
John’s vision blurred when she closed her hand around him. He jolted, felt his control teeter, his breath stall in his lungs. He hadn’t been with a woman for several months and had to run his mind through a quick algebra equation to keep from losing it right then and there. He didn’t want that to happen with Hannah. That kind of control was important to him. Giving her pleasure even more so.
Her skin was like velvet as he skimmed his hand down her side. Need drove into him as his hand moved over her slightly rounded belly, pausing at the triangle of curls. She opened to him when he reached the apex of her thighs. Parting her folds, he caressed her. Hot, wet silk met his fingertips. John closed his eyes as a hot burst of emotion shook him from the inside out. Her vulnerability touched him. Her beauty humbled him. Her trust shattered everything he’d ever known about himself.
He told himself this was only sex. Lust in its simplest form. Uncomplicated. Primal. A man and a woman reaching out for a moment of pleasure during a time of high stress.
He figured he’d become a pretty good liar in the last couple of days.
He stroked her, felt her body melt around him, the shudders begin. Her mouth sought his and he feasted on her, drinking in the essence of her like a thirst-crazed man at an oasis. Crying out, she arched, then shattered in his arms.
John held her while she trembled. He kissed her temple, her throat. He speared his fingers into her hair and lost himself in its heady essence. He couldn’t get enough of her. A flash of insight told him he never would. This one and only time would have to be enough.
The kick of emotion came swift and brutal. This went deeper than the flesh, he realized with a start. Beyond anything he’d ever experienced. The realization sent a quick spike of panic through him. The world spun out from under his feet. When she opened her eyes and smiled at him, John realized the world as he knew it had been forever changed.
* * *
Hannah didn’t need her memory to know she’d never experienced anything like that before. The man had taken her apart atom by atom, cell by cell, until she was nothing but a quivering mass of sensation tied together by emotions so complex she would never sort through them all. Lord. If she didn’t know better, she might have believed she’d fallen for him.
The frightening thought was cut short when she suddenly found herself swept into his arms. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to make love to a pregnant woman.” Gently he lowered her onto the cot. Kneeling, he leaned toward her and kissed her mouth, her cheek, the sensitive spot just below her ear. The sensations coursing through her made her head swim. Hannah’s heart beat wildly beneath her breast. Every nerve ending in her body hummed with anticipation when he stood and began unbuttoning his flannel shirt. Something niggled at the back of her mind, but her brain floundered helplessly as he finished with the shirt and his hands went to the buttons of his low-rise jeans.
She was still shaking from the sheer power of the climax he’d given her. Shaking inside and outside and every place in between. Never in a hundred years would she have even dreamed it could be like this between a man and a woman. Or that she had unwittingly ventured to a world where sensation and emotion collided and exploded and melded. A place where wounds were healed and hearts were mended. A virtual garden where faith and trust grew wildly and bloomed like sacred flowers.
“It’s okay if you’re having second thoughts.”
His voice drew her from her reverie. “Not second thoughts,” she said. “I’m just…”
“Nervous?”
She laughed to cover her discomfiture. “That, and about a million other things.”
He sat down on the cot next to her and kissed her with devastating gentleness. “I’m nervous, too.”
“Really?”
“I’ll understand if you want to stop.”
“I know you will. I don’t want to stop.”
His eyes searched hers. “So, then, what’s bothering you?”
She hadn’t wanted to think about what was weighing on her mind. For just a little while, she’d wanted to put the danger and ugliness aside. She wanted to feel alive and safe and loved—even if it was only an illusion. Still, until this moment, she hadn’t realized just how important it was for her to talk about this first.
“I was married, John.” She struggled with the words, not even understanding fully herself what she was trying to say. “I’m carrying another man’s child.”
She raised her gaze to his, and in a moment of blinding insight, she knew her heart wasn’t merely at risk. She’d already handed it over to the man who sat beside her, about to make love to her.
The thought thoroughly undid her.
Heart pounding, body humming with arousal, she stared at him, felt the need and uncertainty flash like fire.
“We’ll deal with it.” He eased away from her, his jaw flexing. “I won’t rush you. I won’t press you. But I care about you too much to make a promise I can’t keep.”
“Then make me one you can.”
“How about if I show you?” Holding her gaze, he kissed her fingertips, drew them into his mouth. Hannah watched, mesmerized and so moved she couldn’t speak. She loved watching him, loved his voice, his northeastern accent, the way he mispronounced her name. She loved the way his hair spiked when it was mussed, loved the way he looked at her when she’d perplexed him—like she had just now. Dear God, was it possible she’d fallen in love with him? Was it possible she’d given her heart to this man when she had absolutely no idea what she would discover about herself when her memory returned?
“Make love to me,” she said.
His eyes darkened, intensified, and it took every shred of composure she possessed to hold his gaze. “I’m not a strong enough man to turn you down,” he said. “Even if it is the right thing to do.”
“If this is a mistake, then it’s one I need to make.” Her breath caught when he brushed a strand of hair from her face. Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek to his palm.
“Neither of us are going to be the same when this is all over and done,” he said.
“I know.” She didn’t want to think about what would happen when this was over and done. She had no idea what state she’d left her life in, whether or not they would even survive the next twenty-four hours.
John kicked off his jeans, then stepped out of his boxers. Hannah swallowed at the sight of him, felt the slow burn of lust creep into her center.
Her mind blanked when he leaned forward and kissed her. Before he’d been gentle, even tentative. This time, his mouth swooped down on hers, taking her breath and devouring her like a hungry predator. The kiss held dark promises of all the things to come. Promises she knew he would make good on. Heat swirled low in her belly, and wet heat pulsed between her legs. Her breasts grew heavy and ached for his touch.
She kissed him back, matching every dark promise with one of her own. He moved over her. Sensation pummeled her until she was mindless with need. All the while he kissed her mouth, her throat. His hands caressed her, wreaking havoc on what little control she had left. She groaned involuntarily when his mouth met her breast. She felt her body writhing beneath his, but she couldn’t stop. It was as if someone had doused her with flammable liquid and set her aflame.
He kissed her breasts, her belly, his five o’clock shadow driving her to sweet insanity as he worked his way lower. She knew better than to let herself be swept away like this, but Hannah was helpless to stop the tide.
“Open to me,” he said. “I want to taste you.”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. While her intellectual side knew opening herself up to this kind of intimacy would only hurt them both in the long run, her body o
beyed. Her legs opened, and he lowered his mouth to her most intimate area.
A thousand lights exploded behind her lids when his mouth found her center. She heard his name, realized she’d cried out. Once. Twice. Oh, sweet heaven, she hadn’t expected this. The pleasure built until she thought she couldn’t bear it. Sweat broke out on her brow. All the while, his mouth gave her mind-bending pleasure with such intensity that she thought she would scream.
The first wave crashed over her with stunning force. Hannah felt her body clench. Reaching. Wanting. Needing. John. She cried out as the release poured over her, through her, tumbling her until she didn’t know up from down, right from wrong.
She reached for him, desperate to join their bodies. Touch his heart. Reach into his soul and make him believe all the things she already knew.
His eyes were dark and intense as he moved over her. She opened to him. Felt his touch like a jolt of electricity, charging through every cell in her body.
“However this turns out, whatever happens between us tonight, I want you to know I care about you, Hannah. I care about you so much I ache.”
She told herself she wasn’t disappointed. That she hadn’t expected him to proclaim his love for her. Not when he had some very serious issues to deal with and she hadn’t the slightest idea where she stood as far as her own life. But his words sliced her just the same, like a blade across her chest, leaving her open and bleeding.
He entered her with devastating slowness that took her breath, wrenching every last shred of caution from her. “I love you,” she whispered.
She felt him go rigid for an instant. Heard her name on his lips. Then sensation assaulted her when he began to move within her. Long, powerful strokes that took her breath and stole every last ounce of rational thought. Her senses faltered until all she was aware of was John and the magic between them. Words no longer mattered as their bodies became one and their hearts joined in a chorus as ancient and beautiful as the mountains.
He took her to the precipice of her pleasure and a mind-numbing free fall. Then her bones melted, and she knew their fates had been sealed forever.
CHAPTER 14
I love you.
The words rang in John’s ears as he lay sleepless on the cot and stared at the ceiling. For a man who’d just had the best sex of his life, he figured he ought to be feeling a hell of a lot better than he was. Maybe he would if he could get out from under the guilt. If he could keep the emotions from creeping into his brain and wrapping their stealthy fingers around his heart. If he could maintain his vise grip on control long enough to get her safely away from him.
None of those things was happening.
He had his reasons for leaving her words unanswered. Even so, it didn’t make hurting her any easier. It didn’t make his own hurt any less acute.
John had made the ultimate mistake. For the first time in his life, he’d fallen hard and fast and irrevocably in love. The knowledge thoroughly terrified him. It should have terrified her, too, considering what he was, but he knew it didn’t. Hannah didn’t understand what love could do to a man like him. What it did to his emotions, his control. She had no idea what a man like him could do to a relationship. Growing up in that Philadelphia tenement, he’d seen love as an ugly beast with a black heart and devastating bite. He’d seen passion as a trap and promised himself he’d chew his own leg off before he let himself get snared. He’d been on the receiving end of violence too many times as a boy not to fear it. As a man, he vowed never to hurt anyone the way he’d seen his old man hurt his mother.
He lived by the rule of distance. Physical distance. Emotional distance. Too bad he hadn’t had the discipline to follow those rules when it came to Hannah. The thought made him feel sick. John figured he knew what it was like to be standing on the gallows and feel the noose slip around his neck.
Rising from the cot, careful not to wake Hannah, he stepped into his boxers and walked barefoot down the hall toward the kitchen. The building was cold, but he didn’t care. He needed the diversion to start working on getting her out of his system. Judging from the tightness in his chest, he knew he’d be working on that for a long, long time to come.
In the kitchen, he started a pot of coffee. Honeybear rose from his place near the door and padded over to him. Smiling, John reached down and scratched behind the dog’s ear, comforted by the animal’s presence. “Well, I’ve blown it this time, haven’t I, big guy?”
Honeybear looked at him with those wise brown eyes and grunted as if in agreement. “Yeah, I thought so.” The dog ambled back to his bed. John looked out the window. Dawn would break in another hour. Dispatch would arrive shortly thereafter. He figured the smartest thing to do at this point would be to hook up with Buzz and take Hannah to the police station in Denver. There, the older man would find a shelter for her while the police solved the mystery of her identity and what had happened to her up on the mountain. John simply wasn’t up to it. Not after touching her. Not after looking into her eyes and wanting a future he knew they could never have.
A scream from the back room stopped his heart dead in his chest. A hundred scenarios jumped through his mind. Whirling, he sprinted down the hall. “Hannah!”
“No! Please, no!”
Terror resonated in her voice, hung in the air like gun smoke after a shot. At the door, John saw her sit bolt upright, legs thrashing, her eyes wild. “Richard, no!”
John rushed to her, dropped to his knees beside the cot, wrapped his arms around her. “Hannah. Easy. It’s me. John.”
She fought him, lashing out with her fists. He sensed her panic, gently restrained her. “Hannah! It’s John. Take it easy, honey.”
An instant later she relaxed against him, as if all her energy had been sucked out of her. “Oh, God. Oh, John. He was here.”
“Who?”
“Richard,” she choked. “He tried to—”
“No one’s here. You’re safe.”
“He had a gun. He was going to—”
“Shhh. It was just a dream.” But even as he said the words, the hairs at his nape stood on end, and he looked uneasily over his shoulder. “Take a deep breath for me, okay?”
She drew a shaky breath, then pulled away from him and sat up straighter. “It wasn’t just a dream.” Looking dazed, she glanced around the room. “I—I have to go back.”
“Back where?”
“To the mountain.”
“Wait a minute—”
“No.” Her gaze locked with his. “I have to go back. To the place where you found me.”
John had never seen her like this. Terrified and emotionally wrought, but with a steel determination in her eyes that dared him to argue. He couldn’t think when she looked at him like that. “Are you all right?” he asked after a moment.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re shaking.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah, well, blood-curdling screams at six o’clock in the morning tend to do that to a guy.”
She blew out a sigh, then hit him with that power-punch gaze again. The same gaze that turned him inside out every time he saw it. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“So am I.”
The blanket had fallen off her shoulder. He glimpsed the swell of her breast before she tugged it over her. Her beauty humbled him, made him think of crazy possibilities, that anything was possible when deep down inside he knew it was not. Damn, he was in deep. He wanted her again, he realized. Wanted her beneath him, crying out his name as he filled her with his seed, marking her as his, branding her heart to his.
Shocked by the power of his reaction to her, John eased away and sat back on his haunches. Now was not the time for him to be thinking of her in terms of sex. Not when her scent was playing games with his self-control and she was close enough for him to reach out and touch.
But the image of her lying vulnerable and open beneath him as he’d stroked her to climax flashed in his mind’s eye. His body responded with a vehemence that left
him incredulous and disturbed. He’d had plenty of lovers in his lifetime. Quick, emotionless relationships that had been based on physical need and doomed from the start. But John had never been moved like this. He’d never had his world rocked. Hannah was sweet and genuine, and the most responsive lover he’d ever taken. The power of their lovemaking had left him stunned and more than a little overwhelmed. He’d never imagined making love to a pregnant woman would be the most erotic experience of his life.
No, this wasn’t working out the way he’d planned.
“Why do you need to go back to the mountain?” he asked, hoping she didn’t hear the grate of frustration in his voice. “It’s January. There’s two feet of snow at that elevation.”
“I remember more every time I have the nightmare, John. This time, I remembered…I left…something up on the ridge. I don’t know what it was. A book, maybe…”
She was talking too fast, her words tumbling out brokenly. “Take it slow, Red,” he said gently. “What did you leave behind?”
Brows drawn together in fierce concentration, she pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I’m…not sure. A clue maybe. I remember thinking that I wasn’t going to let him get away with…killing me or my child.” Her voice broke with the last word. John watched her fight the tears, watched her win. “I thought I was going to die that night,” she said. “I was terrified, but I was also angry. I wanted to leave something behind that would…incriminate him. Not so much for me, but my baby. I couldn’t bear the thought of… I didn’t want him to get away with killing my unborn child.”
The thought of such a horrendous act sickened him. “So you left behind some kind of clue?”
“I think so. The memory is foggy. A book maybe. A box. A wallet. Something small and dark. I don’t know. It’s driving me crazy.” Closing her eyes, she massaged her temples. “It’s not making any sense.”
“If you thought you were going to die, and you left something behind to incriminate him, that makes perfect sense.”
A Hero to Hold Page 19
