Times Change

by Nora Roberts

  “Look.”

  Wary, she turned. But he was only pointing to the feeder, where a few hardy birds were enjoying breakfast. It helped her relax a little. “Well, I’ve done my duty by them.” Because she was suddenly and brutally aware of the cold, she gave herself a quick shake. “I’m going in.”

  She waded across the snow. They didn’t speak again as they gathered wood, as they tromped snow from their boots or as they carried the logs to the woodbox. Sunny banked down an urge for a steaming cup of tea. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to think.

  “I’m going up for a shower.” Feeling miserably awkward, she watched him toss logs on the fire.

  “Fine.”

  She made a face at his back. “Fine.”

  He waited until he heard her climb the stairs before he straightened. The woman was scrambling his brain, he decided. It was highly probable that he was still disoriented from the trip. That was why she was having such a profound effect on him. All he needed was a little more time to adjust. Data or no data, it would be best if he took that time aboard ship.

  He took a long, thoughtful look at the cabin. Still, he’d promised to do the dishes. It would be an interesting experience to try his hand at it.

  Upstairs, Sunny stripped off layers of clothes, letting each item fall carelessly to the floor. Naked, she turned the shower on, letting it run until the hot water was steaming. She winced as she stepped under it, then let out a long, lazy sigh.

  Better, she told herself. It was certainly a better way of getting her blood moving than kissing Jacob. No, it wasn’t.

  She laid her forehead against the wall of the shower and with her eyes closed let the water rain over her.

  Maybe she’d been a little crazy when she’d kissed him, but she’d never felt more alive. She couldn’t blame him, not this time. She had made the move. She had looked into his eyes and known he was the one.

  Yet how could he be? She barely knew him, was far from convinced she trusted him. Half the time she was sure she disliked him. But . . . But, she thought again. The other half of the time she was afraid she was falling in love with him.

  It was completely irrational, undeniably foolish and totally genuine. All she had to do was figure out what to do about it.

  Pouring shampoo into her palm, she tried to think. She was a practical woman. As far back as her memory took her, she had been able to take care of herself. Problems, even emotional ones, were meant to be surmounted. If she was falling in love, she would deal with it. The trick was not to do anything rash.

  Caution, common sense and control, Sunny decided. She lathered her skin lavishly. She would keep a practical distance from Jacob until she got to know him better, until she was more certain of her feelings. It made perfect sense. More confident now, she turned under the spray and let the water sluice the suds from her.

  Once she had determined her own feelings, she would work on his. There was no denying he was a strange sort of man. Interesting, certainly, but different in ways she had yet to fully figure out.

  She could handle him. After turning off the water, she slicked a hand down her hair. She had always been able to handle men very satisfactorily. In this case, she just had to handle herself first.

  Satisfied, she kicked her clothes out of the way. Dry, she wrapped a towel around her and stepped out into the hall.

  ***

  He’d enjoyed doing the dishes. It was just the sort of mindless chore he’d needed to relax his mind. And his body. The plastic squeeze bottle marked dishwashing liquid claimed to contain real lemon juice. He took a sniff of his hands and found the lingering scent pleasant. As soon as he got back to the ship he was going to make a report on it.

  And the task had given him time to put his reaction to Sunny in perspective. Being attracted to her was natural, even elemental. But he was intelligent enough to control certain primal urges. Particularly when acting on them would cause incredible complications.

  She was beautiful, desirable, but she was also impossible. The idea of pursuit had been a bad one. He was well aware now that a physical encounter with her would not be simple. It could only be problematic. He would solve the problem for both of them by gathering up his things and spending the bulk of his time on his ship. When Cal came back he would convince his brother that he had made a mistake. Then they would go home, where they belonged. And that would be the end of it.

  It should have been. Perhaps it would have been. But he came to the top of the stairs just as Sunny stepped out of the bath. She held a towel at her breasts with both hands. He gripped the rail so hard that he wondered the wood didn’t crumble under his fingers.

  Bad timing. The thought went through both of their heads. Or perhaps it was perfect timing.

  Chapter 7

  He crossed to her slowly, soundlessly. Inevitably. In his eyes she saw mirrored her own needs. A reflection of desires, raw and ready, that she had refused to acknowledge. Even now, faced with them, she wanted to deny that they existed. Not with this power. Not with this potency.

  She could have held up a hand, said one simple word. No.

  Perhaps it would have stopped him. Perhaps not. But her hands remained clutched on the towel. And she said nothing. At all.

  At her back she could feel the steam from the shower still rising. Or was it anticipation that heated her skin? Her fingers were balled tight, lodged in the subtle valley between her breasts. Her eyes were steady on his. But her pulse scrambled erratically, as if she had just crossed the finish line of a long, arduous race.

  He didn’t touch her. Not at first. He already knew that once he did, the time to turn back would be lost for both of them. A part of him wished desperately that he could simply walk back, turn away and continue on the route he already had mapped out. She was a detour, a dangerous combination of curves that would only lead him astray.

  But, looking at her, his eyes dark and intent on her face, he knew that his bridges were already smoking behind him.

  He touched her face . . . took it in his hands. Cupped it, molding his fingers to the angles, as if to mold the shape of it in his mind. To remember her, always, as she was in this one instant, to remember her through all the centuries that would keep them apart.

  He heard her breath catch, then release, felt the faint, almost delicate, tremblings of passion still restrained. All the while he watched her, measuring that look in her eyes. Part panic, part challenge. Resisting her would be as impossible as stopping his own heartbeat at will.

  Slowly, deliberately, he spread his fingers, skimming them up so that his palms slid over her jawline, her cheekbones, her temples, until his hands were caught in her wet, sleek hair. He took one fistful of it, then two.

  Her gaze never faltered from his. She wouldn’t permit it to. But she couldn’t prevent a quick, soft gasp as he drew her head back. Her lips parted, in both invitation and acceptance, as he leaned closer. Only the thinning mist from the bath wound between them.

  With his mouth a breath away from hers, he stopped, waited. It had nothing to do with hesitation. There was as much challenge in his eyes as in hers.

  To meet it, she moved forward, the slight sway of her body closing the narrow distance between them.

  “Yes,” she said, and lifted her mouth to his.

  No single word could have lit the fires so quickly. No practiced seduction could have broken the last chains on his control. His fingers tightened in her hair, and his mouth swooped down on hers.

  The glory of it. He felt hunger answer hunger, desperation ply desperation. Her mouth was like an oasis, offering the last cool drop of life to a dying man who knew he must stumble back into the sun. She appeased even as she incited, promised even as she demanded. There was honey for the taking, rich and thick, but always at the risk of being stung. The risk made the reward all the sweeter.

  He had never known a woman could make him suffer, and make him relish the pain, all from a meeting of lips.

  Her hands were trapped between their bo
dies. They flexed, impatient, not for release but to take as he was taking. She spread them flat on his chest, fretting for freedom. But her murmur of protest was lost in his assault on her mouth before it merged with a groan of pleasure.

  His teeth nipped and nibbled, and then his tongue plunged deep, greedily. Deaf and blind to all else, she dived in, as recklessly as he.

  Her hands were free for an instant. Before she could clutch at him, her world seemed to tilt, and she was swept up in his arms. Swept off her feet, she thought giddily. No man before him had ever dared to attempt it. No man before him would have succeeded. With muscles like iron, he caught her hard against him, closing the distance to the bedroom in a few long-legged strides. Even as she tugged at his sweater, they were tumbling onto the bed.

  With one frantic stroke, he ripped the towel from her, then gripped her seeking hands in his, fingers interlacing, locking, so that he could look his fill. The thin winter light seeped through the window to lie loverlike on her skin.

  Her struggle to free her hands stopped. For a moment, she thought her breathing had, as well.

  He knew his had. It wasn’t air that rushed through him, but a desire so acute it left him reeling.

  She was pale as moonlight, long limbed, with the fine-toned muscles of a dancer or an athlete. The strength was there, and the femininity. As he looked, and looked, and looked, she began to tremble.

  Her hair was dark, wet and slicked back from her face. Now, as they had earlier with anger, her eyes had deepened to smoke. And they watched him.

  With her hands still caught in his, he lowered his mouth. She arched, as greedy as he for the contact. Even as the kiss pumped through her like a drug, she tried to tug her hands free. But he was relentless, as if he knew that once he released her the power would be taken from him. Not to dominate, but only to pleasure, he kept her prisoner.

  She moaned as the soft cotton of his sweater brushed her skin. She wanted his flesh against hers. She wanted her hands on him, and his on her. But he used his mouth, only his mouth, to drive her to the edge of reason.

  Rapidly, almost savagely, he moved his lips over her—her face, her neck, her shoulders. She spoke his name, writhing frantically beneath him, but he moved restlessly on.

  With openmouthed kisses he circled her breasts, tormenting himself as much as her. Then he drew the point into his mouth to nip, to suck, to stroke with the rough edge of his tongue.

  He had known the flavor of women, but hers was new, so exclusively hers that he knew that if he supped of ten times ten thousand others, he would never be satisfied. Never had he known so keen or so perfect a match. The ache to claim all of her sprinted inside him.

  “Jacob.” His name was like a prayer that was transformed into a frantic moan. “Let me—”

  But the words ended on a stunned, suffocated cry as he shot her over a towering, airless peak. She flew, thoughts and feelings tangling and breaking apart. Still his hands were locked with hers. Gasping, giddy, she closed her eyes as her tensed muscles went lax.

  If this was pleasure, she had never tasted it before. If this was passion, she understood for the first time why a woman would die for it.

  Dazed, she opened her eyes. The fierce triumph in his had her heart pounding against her ribs again. “I can’t—I haven’t—”

  “You can, and you will. Again.” And he watched, ravenous, as he sent her soaring.

  Shudders racked her. Each movement of her body beneath his pushed her closer to the edge of reason. Freed, her hands slid bonelessly to the rumpled sheets. There was a mist in front of her eyes. As his hands joined his mouth in plundering her, she wondered that she didn’t simply float up and away into it.

  Touch me.

  She wasn’t certain if he spoke the words or if his need merely echoed in her head. Through layers of drugged pleasure she lifted her arms, brought him close. And found his mouth with hers.

  Strength raced back into her, edgier, more potent, from the weakness. A new level of desperation had her dragging his sweater over his head. Twin gasps of pleasure speared the quiet as her hands found him.

  Warm, firm. Hers. She stroked and explored as thoroughly, as mercilessly, as he. Catapulted by a hunger grown insatiable, she rolled with him on the bed, her mouth fused to his, tearing at his jeans with frantic fingers until heated flesh met heated flesh.

  He had thought he knew what delights a woman could bring when she touched a man. But she had never touched him before. All he had known, all he had experienced before, paled. And meant nothing.

  He was filled with her body, mind and soul. She was everything he’d dreamed of without knowing he was dreaming, everything he’d wished for without knowing he was wishing. As her lips ran over him, small, hungry sounds rising in her throat, desire built to a rage.

  Over and over they rolled on the bed, legs tangling as they pushed each other from brink to brink. The war they fought was punctuated by searing kisses, bruising strokes. Driven beyond reason, he gripped her hips. But she was already rising to meet him, to take him in.

  Sheathed inside her, he felt the first shudders, hers, his, rip through them. Her legs locked around him. His fingers dug into the sheets. Reason shattered. Rhythms matched.

  And he was rocketing through space, through time. All he knew was that she was with him.

  ***

  She lay crossways on the bed, one arm flung out, the other hand still clutched in Jacob’s hair. His body was as limp as hers as he sprawled over her, his head resting between her breasts. His first thought was that her heart, thudding under his ear, matched the pace of his own. Before reason could set in, he slid a hand over the warm tangle of sheets and covered hers. He knew he would never be able to describe the sensation that rippled through him as her fingers curled against his.

  He was heavy. She didn’t care. It seemed perfectly feasible that she could spend the rest of her life lying just so, listening to his breathing and to the quiet sound of snow melting from the eaves in the sun.

  So this was what it was to love, she mused. She hadn’t known she’d waited all her life to feel like this. It had always seemed possible to her to live her life alone, independent, content with the freedom to do as she pleased when she pleased.

  The idea of sharing a bed with a man you cared for, respected, understood, had seemed practical and certainly human enough. But the idea of sharing a life—or needing to share it because you couldn’t imagine living without one person—had always struck her as romantic nonsense.

  No more.

  And he was such a beautiful man. Strong and smart. Stubborn and opinionated. Exactly, she realized, the kind of man she needed. Without any one of those qualities, her personality would have driven her to run right over him, making both of them miserable. Because he had them, she would run into him often, bruising them both. And she’d be wildly happy.

  Smiling, she caught herself stroking his hair. After letting out a careful breath, she made herself stop. What did a woman like her do with these tender feelings? She understood passion. At least she understood it now. But what about this soft, yielding sensation, this dependence, this need to nurture and cherish and simply love? How would a man like Jacob Hornblower react to this sudden gush of emotion?

  He’d sneer at her. Closing her eyes, she admitted that she would have sneered herself only hours before.

  But everything had changed. For her, Sunny reminded herself. If she was honest she would accept the fact that she’d started falling the moment she’d faced him, ready to fight, in this very same room.

  But Jacob . . . She herself had called him a tough nut. Cracking him, discovering whether there was indeed a soft center capable of gentler emotions, would be a difficult task. It would take effort, she thought. That was no problem. It would take patience. That was.

  Oblivious of where her thoughts were headed, he turned his head enough to brush a kiss to the curve of her breast.

  “Your taste,” he murmured.

  “Hmm?”
/>   “It keeps me hungry.” He scraped his teeth along her skin, then smiled when he felt her heart skip a beat. “I like you here best.” He propped himself up to study her face lazily. “Naked and in bed.”

  “A typical male attitude.” Deliberately she danced her fingers down his hip and watched his eyes darken. “But then, I think I prefer you in the same state.”

  “It’s convenient that we finally agree about something.” He shifted so that he could trace her lips with the tip of his tongue. “I like your mouth, Sunbeam. It’s stubborn and sexy.”

  “I could say the same about yours.”

  “We agree again.”

  “A new record.” She caught his lower lip between her teeth. “We could push our luck. What else do you like?”

  “Your . . .” His smile spread slowly. “. . . energy.”

  “Another winner.”

  With a laugh, he deepened the kiss. She was just as sweet, and just as potent, as the first time. “Your body,” he decided. “I definitely like your body.”

  She sighed into his mouth. “We’re on a roll, J.T. Don’t stop now.”

  He shifted his attention to her earlobe. “This is a nice spot,” he murmured, nuzzling until they were both dizzy. “But I suppose, under the circumstances, I can confess that I find your mind . . . intriguing.”

  “Intriguing,” she repeated, as shudder after delicious shudder passed through her. “An interesting choice of words.”

  “It seemed more apt than infuriating at the moment. And I . . .” His words trailed off when he spotted a line of faint bruises on her shoulder. He placed the tips of his fingers on them experimentally. “I’ve marked your skin,” he said, surprised and a bit appalled. If he had bruised her during a fight, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But in bed, while loving . . . that was a different matter. “I’m sorry.”