Mary's Child

by Ramin, Terese

  No, there was something about this stalker and those photographs beyond what Joe had told her—both the things he didn’t know, and the things she was damn well certain he’d left out. It wasn’t reasonable to expect he’d horde this thing to himself since a couple days after Mary’s funeral, then suddenly turn up and spill everything to his old partner in one evening.

  Especially when that old partner was wet-nursing his child or if he thought that not telling her might somehow protect her from God knew what. All of which meant that, in her opinion, Joe had a whole lot more explaining to do. And since he was already keeping her awake...

  With one last glance at Maura, Hallie stepped into her slippers and eased noiselessly downstairs to have a serious discussion with Joe about full disclosure of evidence.

  He hadn’t closed the shades in the living room and by the light from the snow-glow outside, Hallie could see he’d donned a sweatshirt and gym shorts, opened the Hide-ABed and stretched diagonally across it. His sleeping bag lay bunched to one side of him, as if he’d used it to cover himself but the slippery fabric had had other plans and had slid away the first time he’d turned in his sleep. He lay almost on his back, legs sprawled so that one foot hung off the mattress; one arm pillowed his head, the other lay draped across his body. Even defined by shadows, his face was more peaceful than she’d seen it since well before Mary’s death.

  Her determination fled. With a soft sigh, Hallie headed for the linen cupboard to find a flannel-covered quilt, returned to ease it over him. If he could sleep, she wouldn’t wake him. Morning would be soon enough to eke more revelations from him—especially since it looked like they’d be stuck here for the better part of the day, at least, without the boys.

  She pulled the quilt over his shoulder and her thumb grazed his jaw. Before his eyes opened, his hand snaked out to catch hers.

  “Hallie?” he muttered. Something besides snow-light glittered in his eyes.

  “It’s me, Joe,” she whispered, trying to ease her hand out of his grip. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Not yet” Without letting her go he lifted the quilt. Then, while she was too surprised to protest, he hauled her forward and into bed beside him, tucking the quilt around them both. “I thought I told you to get some sleep.”

  “I—”

  She swallowed. He was much too close, the warmth from his body way too inviting, the blatant and unrestrained reaction of his body to her proximity—even though he did nothing but lie quietly pressed against her—much too intoxicating.

  It had been a long time since she’d lain next to a man. Longer since she’d wanted to lie with one. Lying next to this man, with whom she knew without doubt she wanted to lie, made it impossible to think. She opened her mouth and tried again.

  And couldn’t believe what fell out.

  “I couldn’t. You were in my dreams. I want you, Joe.”

  He jacked himself up on an elbow and peered down at her, unable to believe it, either. “Hallie?” His voice was rough.

  Whatever she heard in his pronouncement of her name, it was enough. She smiled and kicked off her slippers, lifted a hand to cup his jaw. “Kiss me, Joe.”

  He closed his eyes and sighed, and a shudder ran through him, deep and heartfelt. He opened his eyes and looked down at her. Then he threw a leg across hers and pulled her into him, closer than close, bent his head and met her mouth.

  As before, the kiss ran through her, head to toe, zinged along her veins, seeming to change the direction of her pulse, connecting its beat to his; nerve endings flared to life, heat spilled through her, a dam opened.

  It was no fluke.

  In case she’d wondered, this kiss confirmed the last, verified the message in her dreams: if ever a woman could be truly meant to kiss one single man in her life, it was clear as glass she was meant to kiss Joe.

  And kiss him.

  She angled her head, reaching for deeper access, and he growled low in his throat, drawing her in; she curved her body to fit with his and he groaned into her mouth and arched against her, and she knew she was meant to touch him.

  And touch him.

  She needed to. Wanted to.

  Had to.

  She freed a hand, slid it up the massive, rock-hard thigh he’d draped over hers, ran it inside the bottom edge of his gym shorts and over his hip, rocked him into the hollow between her thighs at the same time she lifted her own hips to meet him. The statement was shameless, obvious—and one she’d only ever made in quite this way to Joe. And then only the once, a long time ago, when neither of them knew what they were doing except for what The Joy of Sex said.

  “Hallie...”

  His voice was dark with desire and laughter, muted in the hollow of her neck.

  “Ah,” she said, squeezing his hip. “You remembered.”

  “Yeah, and thanks a lot for reminding me.” His hand skimmed over her pajama shirt to find the curve of her breast, cupped it gently. “I worked damned hard to forget.”

  “I didn’t.” She touched his mouth, sighed and lifted her breast into the feather-caress of his thumb across her nipple. The warning tingle-ache that preceded letdown was dull but there; she ignored it. “I never wanted to share that first with anyone but you.”

  “Me neither, you.” The buttons of her pajama top opened without hesitation. The skin of her stomach was silk beneath his touch, the feel of her breast softer still when he moved his hand up to take its freed weight in his palm. Dios, Joe wanted to taste her, but he knew if he did, the craving he’d experienced when she’d opened her door to him would return in force; he wouldn’t want to stop. Hurting her in any way was out of the question. “I’m a whole lot better at this now than I was then,” he said softly. “And I want you, but are you sure you’re all right with this... with everything? Okay for it?”

  She nuzzled his jaw, liking the graze of overnight stubble under her mouth. “You pulled me into this bed, but I choose to stay. And I don’t live on regrets, you know that.”

  “Good.” His eyes closed, stomach muscles contracted when she pushed aside his sweatshirt and ran her fingers inside the waistband of his shorts. “That’s...” He sucked air when a fingertip found the head of his sex, traced it gently. “That’s good. Dios, that’s good.” He concentrated and gathered his wits with an effort. “But it’s not what I meant. At least, not all of it. I mean, it’s only been... Maura’s only three months old. Are you sure it’s okay—you’re okay to—”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” Hallie stroked up his rib cage, his belly, his chest. Sweet heaven, he felt wonderful, lightly furred, tickly if she raised her hand so her palm barely grazed him. Arousing. She wanted to touch all of him, feel that tickly sensation against her bare skin, anticipated the exquisite texture teasing nipples sensitive from nursing. “Not that there was any reason for it, but I got the green light six weeks ago.”

  “You did? Six weeks. No problems. You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, absolutely. What about you?” Suddenly feeling a little anxious, a bit careful, she stopped her hand in its exploration of his chest, withdrawing a little. She wanted him, but she wasn’t Mary, couldn’t be her substitute. “This isn’t too soon for you after... after Mary, is it? No regrets for you? You don’t really want—”

  “No.” The word was passionate, definite.

  He kissed her, pouring all of himself into it. Lifted his head to look down at her, to run his hand restlessly, possessively up her side, through her hair, over her face, claiming every inch possible. “I loved Mary, but this...this is you. I think I ran partly because I wanted you too soon after—” he stopped, swallowed “—what I found. She betrayed me and I’d have hurt you and... Time’s passed. I mean, look at me. I haven’t even been back a day, and already I’m touching you because I can’t stop myself. Jeez—” He grimaced—a wry, self-derisive twist of a smile—and palmed her cheek. “You talk about dreams... Woman, you’ve kept me awake practically since I left. Today... you opened the door and I nearly lost it right th
ere. If we start, I don’t know if I could stop, and I just don’t want—”

  “Don’t stop.” She hushed him with her lips against his. “Don’t sto—”

  It was all the encouragement Joe needed. Before the word was out, he dipped his head and took possession of Hallie’s mouth.

  Their kisses were brief at first, circumspect, wondering—a toe dipped in a once familiar creek to test, then to acclimate themselves, to raise the temperature. Then all at once the kisses were dark, urgent, bruised with passion, flavored with the liquor of the night’s excess and the morning’s second thoughts, potentially costly but unstoppable.

  Unthinking.

  Hallie was wild, surprising, more passionate—more knowledgeable than he’d remembered. He couldn’t seem to absorb her fast enough, and no matter how badly he thought he’d wanted her before, for this need, he was not prepared.

  It had been a long time, this was Hallie, object of months of dreams, hours of desire, and he was needy and she was willing, and that was all, he told himself.

  He lied.

  Joe was dark and intense, no laughing eighteen-year-old lover, awkward and tentative and reckless—and fast. Neither was he the temperately thoughtful, considerate lover Zeke had always been; he was frightening, intoxicating, sensual beyond her wildest imaginings.

  Hallie couldn’t drink him in fast enough, and she was not prepared.

  It had been a long time and this was Joe, keeper of half her heart since long before time began, and she recognized what was happening to her the instant it occurred.

  She’d never been big on lying to herself, she realized with regret. More’s the pity. But because she couldn’t deny it, she opened her heart, her hands, her arms, her mouth, her thighs, her body...

  And loved him.

  Her breasts were tender, tight and full, and she told him, so he left them after first breathing on each a hot promise to return when they were ready for him, and worked his way slowly down her body—ribs, abdomen, belly—inched her pajama bottoms off her, leaving openmouthed kisses and teasing tongue-darts in his wake. By the time he reached her feet she felt like liquid fire, her wakened nerve endings raw with hunger after a long winter’s fast.

  She held out her arms to him, wordlessly calling him back.

  He shook his head and grinned. “Wait,” he suggested, and dropped her leggings on the floor, stood and shed shorts and sweatshirt.

  “Mmm,” she muttered, eyeing him up and down, from the well-defined wall of his chest, to the slim, tight hips, to the muscular thighs—and, of course, to his equally wellproportioned sex jutting out from the dark nest between those thighs. “Mmm-mmm-mmm.”

  His grin widened; he arched a brow and gave her a variety of weight lifter’s poses—offering her the benefit of viewing him from all angles.

  She laughed, a little breathless, but unwilling to swell his head to match the, um, magnitude of the rest of him. “Not bad,” she admitted. She nodded at his erection. “Is that for me?”

  “Every bit of it.” His chuckle was deep and seductive, suggestively filthy. “As, er, long as you want it.”

  It seemed silly to blush at this point, but Hallie blushed nonetheless. A lieutenant sheriff in a sexual situation of her own choosing, embarrassed? Who would have thought it? But she supposed you had to be there—and, of course, she was.

  “Joe, please,” she said—or perhaps “demanded” was the word. “I don’t think—”

  “Wait,” he promised again and picked up her foot, starting at the instep and returning back up her body the way he’d come down, only more slowly and far more thoroughly. “I’ll get there.”

  Even with the pleasure seeping into her bones, she tried to twist away, to reach him. “Joe, I don’t think you understand. When you’ve got a baby in the house you don’t waste time because there’s none to waste. She could get up—”

  “I’m not wasting time.”

  He knelt on the bed and his mouth followed his hand, skimming up her legs, pausing at each raised inner knee, lurking on the insides of her thighs until she thought he’d drive her mad.

  “I’m...”

  He placed a kiss, dark and wet amid the curls at the apex of her thighs.

  “Taking...”

  His tongue swirled, gliding, dipping in a quick foray into the treasures hidden below the curls that made her gasp and thrust her hips off the mattress, seeking more of the same.

  “Time.”

  His fingers followed his tongue, sinking into her dilatorily, a little at a time; probing gently, drawing the heat, the wetness from her while she shut her eyes in mindless rapture and concentrated and felt the pleasure begin to burn.

  Felt the hard length of his body stretch out next to hers, felt him nudge aside her pajama top, run his tongue up the valley of her breasts.

  Felt him pause abruptly when he encountered the scarring left by the gunshot wound that had nearly killed her six years ago; felt him shudder and lift his head when she involuntarily sucked air and stiffened. Then, as though he understood her fear, knew it for his own, he tightened his hold around her, and dipped his head to graze his lips in deep, openmouthed, almost-reverent kisses over the entire extent of the jagged tissue before he moved on.

  Felt his tongue, warm and moist, tracing the aching swell of first one then the other of her breasts in ever-tightening spirals until there was no place on them left untouched but the hard, tingling crest that wept for his touch.

  And then his mouth was there, toying, rolling, tormenting... and his fingers were there, just inside her entrance where she was most sensitive, his thumb strumming the pearled nubbin just above.... And she was bowing, gasping, rising up from the mattress, fists and heels dug into whatever support they could find, shoulders and head pressed back, throat exposed, body quivering just this side of release.

  He couldn’t see her, but he knew what she felt like, knew no one had ever trusted him with as much of herself as Hallie. He wanted badly to be inside her, but this time was all hers—payback, returning a gift she’d given him not quite eighteen years ago.

  So he moved his fingers, there and there and there, felt her tighten impossibly around them; opened his mouth over her breast and, at the same time he thrust his fingers where she was most swollen, sucked her nipple deep into his mouth. She stiffened for an instant, then convulsed around him, muscles contracting in ever-deepening ripples.

  His name was a chant on her lips, a cry for mercy, a plea for more; without releasing her breast he rolled onto his back, pulled her astride him. She balanced her hands on his shoulders and moved with mindless intensity, levering herself onto him, pushing him deep and deeper while he suckled first one breast, then the other, tasting the sweetness of letdown, the heady flavor of passion.

  The pleasure was intense, almost beyond bearing; certainly, beyond his experience.

  “Don’t move,” he groaned. “Be still, Hallie. I don’t want it over so soon.”

  “Joe,” she whispered. “Please, Joe, not now. I can’t... It’s...”

  She swayed forward, eyes closed, and the fight was surrendered to that place of no turning back. When she rolled her hips, he nearly lost it, hung on long enough to bring a hand down between their joined bodies and touch her.

  “Yes,” she pleaded, frantic now. “Yes. Oh, please. Oh, there-there-there.”

  The instant hung suspended in the air.... Then Hallie’s breath caught, her head fell back and her entire body contracted even more intensely than before, her muscles spasming deeply, repeatedly....

  Beyond thought and control, he wrapped his free arm around her waist and surged up into her, pumped hard into her entreaties and contractions, until his own earthquake rocked him and he was barely conscious himself when she collapsed on top of him.

  Time passed, a collection of harsh breaths, and wits gathering, and senses returning individually to the moment where everything between them—in ways known and unknown—lay changed.

  “Wow,” Joe whispered when h
e had breath to speak.

  Hallie’s answering laughter was weak and breathy. “That was incredible.”

  “It was more than that.”

  “Yeah.” Too drained to lift her head, she moved her cheek in a nod against his chest. “What are we going to do about this?”

  Joe rubbed his hands possessively up her back, through her hair, more grateful than ever that the bullet that had torn up her chest hadn’t gone through and taken out her spine. “More, I hope.”

  “Now? Because I don’t think I want to move yet. You’re a lot more comfortable to lie on than you look.”

  He laughed, a low, homey rumble under her ear. “Thanks a bunch. And don’t worry. I don’t think I can move yet. But as soon as I can...”

  “Mmm,” Hallie agreed, yawning. “You...hmm...” Another yawn. “You let me know when you can move and I’m there....”

  Her voice trailed off, her breathing deepened, and she was asleep.

  Trapped but happy beneath her, Joe reached carefully for the quilt that had fallen to one side and, a little at a time, managed to twitch it over them. When he had Hallie securely covered, he folded one arm tightly around her, bent the other behind his head. His mind, even muzzy with the best sort of exhaustion, still seethed with turmoil, with the uncertainty of an unexpected physical fulfillment he’d half dreamed about for most of a year, and with fear.

  So much, too much, impossibly much to happen in one day. So many thoughts going around and around. So many pieces of the puzzle left to find. So many doubts over what to do about Maura and himself. So many concerns about this thing he had yet to finish that would hopefully lay Mary to rest and protect Hallie, Maura and the boys at the same time...

  So unbelievably much Hallie in his arms.

  He shut his eyes, let the vision of Hallie lying in the hospital kept alive by seemingly more tubes than he could count come to him. While Frank had stood guard, he’d dealt personally with the bastard who’d put her there that time. And they’d only been colleagues, partners, friends then. Now...