With a little cry, she threaded her fingers in his hair.
Again, he knew.
And so did she. She momentarily wondered why she felt no embarrassment at the prospect, decided she was having far too much fun to care. And when he finally—finally!—kissed her there, all rational thought shattered into a million incoherent shards.
On a startled sigh, her eyes closed, shutting out everything but the exquisite sensation she had thought pure fantasy until this moment. She may have moaned his name as his hands began to massage her buttocks, his attention becoming even more intimate. From someplace else, she heard her breathing become edgy and high, felt him hold her more tightly as her knees began to buckle.
He coaxed her around and lay her back on the bed, deepening his loving, sweet torment. Emotions spun, dipped, leapt, not just inside her, but around her, as if a flock of birds had somehow gotten inside her room. And all the while, heat licked at the insides of her thighs, at her core, spreading upward, ever upward, until, deep, deep inside, pleasure exploded in a series of short, sharp bursts.
“Oooh…!” she cried out in delighted surprise, emotions and sensation blending for one white-hot second before shattering to kingdom come and back again, as she gripped Dean’s shoulders, her short nails digging into his skin. She didn’t want it to ever end, didn’t think she’d survive if it didn’t.
But eventually, it did. And seconds after that, still trembling but completely limp, she found herself fiercely, possessively pressed to Dean’s chest.
And completely stunned. Somehow, she knew what they’d just shared wasn’t the norm, that few lovers could—or would—care enough to bring such euphoric pleasure to their partners, be unselfish enough to put their own needs on hold like that. She shifted, then nestled his head against her breasts and blew out a long, fulfilled sigh.
Never mind the horde of guilt demons who’d just barged on in.
“No complaints, I take it?” Dean gently teased, brushing his lips over the top of her breast.
“Uh-uh.” Then she frowned. “Well…maybe just one.”
“Oh? And what could that possibly be?”
She let her fingers sift through his hair. “I thought this was supposed to be a team sport.”
His laugh was as dark and rich as hot fudge. “I think it’s safe to say I was more than just a spectator, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
He pulled back to look into her eyes, the crooked smile at odds with the crease between his brows. “I didn’t miss out on anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. I did exactly what I wanted to do, okay? I had a good time, it sure as heck sounded like you had a good time, so I don’t want to hear any more about it. Besides, I guarantee I’ll catch up. Which reminds me…”
He pulled away and leaned over the side of the bed, retrieving several foil packets from his pants pocket, which he then tossed nonchalantly on the nightstand.
Turning her back on those various and assorted little demons, Sarah propped her head on her hand and watched this procedure with great interest, just as glad she hadn’t had to be the one to supply…things. Then she chuckled. “Mmm…just a little optimistic, aren’t we?”
The bed squeaked as Dean gathered her in his arms again, and she noticed wryly that everything—in both camps—had perked right up again. Then she caught his eyes twinkling into hers, love shining from them so clearly it almost made her wince. She mentally tossed those damn demons into a jar and screwed the lid on tight. “Just wanted to be prepared, that’s all.”
“Prepared?” She let out a sharp laugh. “Shoot—if we use all those tonight, we’ll make the Guinness Book of World Records.”
“If we use all those tonight, they’ll have to sandblast the smiles off our faces.”
“If we don’t kill ourselves in the process.” She heard Dean mutter something about not being able to think of a better way to go as she reached over him and picked up one of the packets, inspecting it as if she’d never seen one before. Which, in fact, she hadn’t, since she hadn’t bothered to open the box Jen had left. For some reason, perhaps due to there being only one purpose for such an item, she found the whole idea a sudden and inexplicable turn-on.
She could feel his eyes on her as she removed the condom from its wrapper, then handed it to him. His brows lifted. “You sure?”
“Why don’t you put on your little friend, there, and I’ll show you how sure I am, ’kay?”
He leaned back, arms crossed underneath his head, and grinned. “Why don’t you?”
She blushed, and she fumbled a bit, but she did it, and then they began to tease each other all over again with merciless abandon. Sometimes with words, the gentle murmurings of best friends who have crossed the line to lovers; then, increasingly, with their bodies, with hands and mouths and limbs, until she ached, again, for release, was mad for it, but, oh, how much she wanted to pretend a little longer…
But not as much as she wanted to take him inside her most secret place, to bind him to her, even if only for a precious few minutes, to prove to him that she trusted him, forgave him.
Loved him with everything she had.
She rolled onto her back, lifting her knees, the time-honored signal from a woman to a man when she’s ready.
He positioned himself over her, stroking her hip. “How long has it been?”
Confusion nudged her off track, for a second. He damn well knew how long it had been—
Oh.
“A while,” she said noncommittally, and he kissed her, gently opened her, began easing himself inside… “Oh, Dean,” she whispered, arching toward him, gasping at the sweetness of those agonizingly slow, deliberate, loving thrusts. Wonder almost immediately extinguished the momentary discomfort as her muscles stretched to receive him, welcome him…
Well now, y’all just come right on in and make yourself at home, y’hear?
Suffocating her laughter in the salty dampness of his neck, she wrapped her legs around his back, drawing him deeper, still deeper into her, desperate to banish the emptiness, to capture another memory she’d never thought to have. And yet, even filled with him as she was, it still wasn’t enough: clamping her hands on either side of his head, she directed his mouth to her breast.
Taking his cue as if they’d been lovers for years, he first circled her nipple with his tongue, then suckled her, timing the exquisite, gentle tugs with his movements, so amazing, so delicious inside her, and yet still not enough, never enough.
And what made you think this would ever be enough?
The thought, unbidden, unexpected, knifed through her, slashing her joy to ribbons. She clung to him then, claiming his mouth, hot tears slipping from behind her eyelids to sear her cheeks as anguish, huge and black and opaque, threatened to eclipse the pleasure spiraling through her… No! No! she clenched her jaw, scrabbling to preserve the preciousness of the moment as one might grab for a falling child, only to hear, at Dean’s final plunge, a cry torn from her throat that was as much from grief as fulfillment.
She floated slowly back to earth with Dean still inside her, savoring a dozen, more, of those hard, sweet kisses even as she began gathering the tattered remnants of the fantasy, tugging them around her so he wouldn’t see, wouldn’t know. She could barely feel Dean’s weight on her body; but the weight of her sorrow nearly suffocated her.
He braced himself on his forearms, smiling into her eyes. “I don’t know about you, honey, but I’m thinking nine years is longer than I care to wait for the next time, don’t you?”
Even as she laughed, she felt her heart break all over again.
Dean couldn’t bring himself to withdraw from her. Not yet. Not when he’d waited so long for this moment.
He wanted her again, already. He wanted her forever. He wanted to make love to her every night, and to wake up every morning to find her beside him in his bed. He wanted to marry her, to make love without a damn condom and make babies and watch her swell with his child inside of her, to see her
face on his children. It had been the only thing he’d ever really wanted since he was eighteen, the only desire that had haunted him all these years, even when he’d pushed it so far back in his brain it no longer had a face or a name but had just become a permanent feeling of emptiness in his gut. He had thought he was already as much in love with her as he could possibly be.
He’d been wrong.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Would you like to breathe?”
Her laugh was soft. “Not particularly.” Then she frowned, and he saw that odd expression flash through her eyes, that something-is-wrong-but-I’m-not-going-to-tell-you-so-don’t-bother-asking look. Even so, he started when she grasped the tops of his arms. “Don’t let me go.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart,” he said, now concerned. Only Vivian’s counsel, to not push, to let her come to him in her own time, kept him from shaking her, demanding she ’fess up about whatever it was that was bugging her so much.
Instead he drew her close, gentling her head to his chest and stroking her hair. He kissed her on the forehead, whispered, “I do love you, you know.”
“I kinda figured,” she murmured in reply, snuggling closer.
“And…yourself?”
She chuckled into his chest. “Fishing, are you?”
“Yep.”
Her stillness sent his emotions into a tailspin, until she said, “Always, Dean. Always have, always will. No matter what.”
Again, they lay silent. Something new, Dean realized, one of those subtle shifts that happens in a relationship with the passage of time. They’d always talked each other’s ears off when they were young, sometimes holding two separate conversations they’d somehow always managed to keep straight, much to the amazement of everyone around them. Some things, however, could be quite readily communicated without words.
Sarah’s hand began to explore his torso with gradually increasing pressure and precision, her lips following in its path. Her touch was pure magic, her uninhibitedness thrilling. But there seemed to be something of desperation in her touches, as if…
As if this was her only shot.
He shoved the thought out of his brain and decided to just go with the flow. Which was beginning to pick up speed again.
“Anything in particular you’d like?” he murmured as his hand in turn played up and down her spine.
“Cute. You sound like a waiter.”
She’d made her usual comeback, but he couldn’t hear the laughter in her voice. He kissed her quickly on the lips, trying to make contact with her eyes. To his dismay, they’d gone blank, as if she’d stepped away from her mental desk. “I…just want to do whatever most pleases you. You know.”
She pushed herself up, looked him right in the eye. “No, Dean. I don’t know. My entire sexual experience consists of our toss in the pine needles when we were kids and what we just did tonight. Which means I haven’t had much opportunity to build up a repertoire. Let alone a wish list. Shoot, I know more about how pigs do it than people.”
He stilled, realizing. “There’s really been no one else?”
The grandfather clock on the hall landing chimed something-forty-five. Then she said, “It’s not something I care to share with just anybody. That’s all.”
Dean suddenly felt downright tawdry. “I see.”
She twisted to face him, amusement flickering in her eyes. “Let me guess. You wouldn’t win any celibacy awards, huh?”
“I guess that depends.”
“On?”
“On what the statute of limitations are on celibacy. I guess I sowed an oat or two when I first got to Atlanta, but…” He shrugged. “Let’s just say it’s been a long time for me, too.”
She went silent again. Too silent. And he knew whatever it was that kept bothering her was back again.
He saw her give a quick shake of her head, then clear her throat. “Hey,” she said, shifting on top of him. “Seems to me we’re spending an awful lot of time talking here when we could be doing other things.”
He slipped his hands around her bottom, pressing her to him, ignoring the doubts, reminding himself—sternly—she’d declared her love.
In spite of what he’d done.
“Going for that Guinness record, huh?” he managed to say over the knot in his chest.
“Might as well,” she said. “Since you brought so much equipment.”
Sarah awoke with a start about 1:00 a.m., momentarily sure she was either having or had just had the most erotic dream in psychological history.
No dream, she realized, yawning. She really had just made love for more than three hours and lived to tell about it. If she were to tell about it, she thought, a small smile touching her lips.
But only for a moment.
She’d have to begin pulling away now, if she had any chance at all of getting through this. The longer she let herself believe this was real, the harder it was going to be. Dean loved her now; by dawn, he wouldn’t. It was that simple.
She’d had her one night. And whether or not it was enough, it was certainly more than she’d ever thought she’d have, so it would have to do.
Wrapping the unused top sheet around her like a toga, she slipped out of bed and curled up in the large armchair in the corner of the room with Bali on her lap, not bothering to turn off the lamp for fear the click would wake Dean. For a long time, she simply watched him sleep; then, she lay her cheek on the back of the chair and silently cried herself to sleep.
Dean was surprised to see the room already bathed in silvery mauve light when he awoke, even more surprised to find Sarah asleep like a child in the chair across the room. Lord. He’d slept like the dead. Nothing like heaving calves out of cows, then staying up half the night making love, to take it out of a guy.
He sat up, forking his hand through his hair and yawning for a full ten seconds before crossing to the woman responsible for all of it. Squatting down, he studied her for several seconds, smiling slightly. The sheet she “wore” in lieu of a robe had slipped, exposing one creamy breast, delicately tinged with pink from the morning light, the tip the same pale rose as her full, partly open lips. The nipple was soft and relaxed; he yearned to touch it, to put his lips to it, feel it spring taut in arousal. For him. It was dumb, and antiquated, and assured him a lifetime membership in Macho Mindset of the Month Club, but it gave him an inordinate rush to know no one else had ever touched her like that.
No one would ever separate them again, boy.
His gaze raked her glowing skin slowly, luxuriously, up to her face, a shade darker than her breast, her lashes resting against the tops of her cheeks. Then he noticed something else, and shifted his weight to get a better look.
Her lashes were spiked, as though she’d been crying.
No more secrets, he thought, almost angrily. Not after everything they’d shared last night.
He stroked the top of her hand. “Hey, sweetheart,” he whispered. As if on cue, one of the Jenkinses’ roosters squawked a wake-up call. Sarah jumped, clutching the sheet to her breasts.
He laughed softly, encircling her wrist with his fingers. “Morning, baby. Whatcha doin’ way over here?”
Her eyes grew wide, before she looked away, shaking her head. “Couldn’t sleep,” she mumbled, rubbing her hand over her face.
Dean slicked two fingers down her arm. “You should have awakened me.”
She wouldn’t look at him. He couldn’t decide whether he found her behavior worrisome or irritating. Whatever it was, he didn’t like the sense of foreboding that had settled in his gut.
“Honey…” His hand swept up to her face, capturing her jaw. “I can tell something’s wrong. Why won’t you tell…?” Then it dawned on him. He grasped her hands and pressed them to his chest. “You want promises, don’t you? Reassurances that last night wasn’t just a one-shot deal?”
“No, Dean, it’s not that—”
“You want reassurances, I can do that.” He kissed her fingers. “Sarah, sweetheart…marry
me. How’s that?”
Her laugh was sharp. And sad. “In all my born days,” she said in a shaky voice, “I never expected to receive a marriage proposal from a naked man.”
“So don’t look below my neck. Marry me, honey. Now. While we’re on a roll. I mean, we did a pretty good job of putting the past behind us last night, don’tcha think…?”
“Dean. Stop.”
He stopped, as the foreboding hiked one notch closer to fear.
She touched his face, and he saw hers crumple into despair. “You don’t know what you’re saying—”
“I’m awake and sober and I know damn well what I’m saying. I asked you to marry me…what are you doing?”
She’d stood up, letting the sheet fall so she stood naked in front of him. “You didn’t notice last night, and I didn’t think it was in my best interest to bring it to your attention.”
By now he was thoroughly confused, shaking his head as he scanned what certainly appeared to be a perfectly normal, perfectly exquisite body, the satiny surface of her ivory skin marked only by the occasional mole or freckle. She then pointed to either side of her lower abdomen. “Here. Look.”
He saw nothing at first. Then, slowly, like one of those 3-D paintings, they came into view—lines of puckered skin tracing her belly, a faint lavender-silver color. He remembered feeling them last night, thinking nothing about them except that they were part of her uniqueness. He reached out to touch them now, but she pushed his hands away.
“They’re stretch marks, Dean. From when I was pregnant.”
His eyes jerked to hers, as the sense of doom in his belly exploded into realization.
Chapter 14
Dressed now, Dean sat on the edge of the rumpled bed, staring in disbelief at Katey’s birth certificate in his shaking hands. Sarah, clothed as well in a particularly unattractive T-shirt and pair of cutoffs, stood at the window, her back to him. Periodically, he noticed her hand drift to her face, presumably wiping away tears. His brain still too tangled to form a coherent question or comment, he’d yet to speak.
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