There was no one around when she pulled into Jade's yard. A few determined steps took her to his front door. She stabbed at the doorbell and then half-turned and tapped her foot in a staccato rhythm against the brick stoop. Nothing happened. She gave the doorbell another poke, holding it down with her finger. There was nothing wrong with the doorbell. She could hear the chimes repeat their melodic summons. She turned to scan the buildings nearby. Was he out on the range somewhere or doing some repair work in the machine shed?
Behind her, the door swung open.
Jade stood there, wearing nothing but a terry coverup that began at his waist and barely reached his knees. Amber hair clung damply to his nape, and the light covering of darker whorls on his chest held drops of moisture. His body exuded a faintly soapy smell.
Irritated that, even now, she could feel the pull of sexual attraction, she snapped, “Do you always answer the door like that?”
She’d been really rude to him in the print shop and she expected him to snap back at her. But he didn’t. He seemed quite calm and collected. “Yes,” he said coolly, “and the phone too, when I've just come from the shower.” He took her arm, drew her into the house and shut the door; acting as if her sudden appearance on his doorstep was the most natural thing in the world. “Here, let me take your jacket.” His hands went to her shoulders.
“If you're getting ready to go out, I won’t stay.” Had she been unconsciously hoping he would deny it? He didn't.
His mouth moved upward in a half-smile. “No problem. She's coming here. I've made a fire. Go on in the living room. I'm still on the phone, but I'll be with you in a minute.”
He divested her quickly of her jacket before she could protest and gave her a little push toward the luxurious conversation pit. Then he strode away to the kitchen, making any further resistance useless. Her anger dissolved. A welling sickness took its place as she walked woodenly over the plush carpet. Whoever his chosen woman was, she was coming here. Raine would probably run into her as she left.
Jade's fire crackled in the fireplace and filled the room with warmth and welcome but even with the distraction of listening to the fire, she could hear Jade murmuring in a low intimate tone to someone on the phone. No wonder he was sure he had plenty of time. He was still talking to her. Were they so much in love that they had long, intimate telephone conversations before spending the evening together?
In spite of the warmth, a chill shivered over her arms. Did she really have the courage to stay and watch some other woman make her home here? Raine settled on the leather couch, wondering if some strange woman would come in and throw this comfortable furniture out to bring in something new and modern.
Jade's soft laughter drifted into the room and the sound of it made the muscles in her stomach tighten in pain. She heard him say, “So that’s what the bee in her bonnet is all about.”
He sounded delighted. What right did she have to deny him his happiness? Surely he had suffered enough with Michele. If she, Raine, loved him…truly loved him with the only kind of love that was worth anything, the kind of love that put his happiness above her own, she should be glad he had found someone to take the agony out of his eyes and the bitter twist from his mouth.
She couldn't tarnish Jade's happiness. It didn't matter what his motives were for buying the print shop. No matter what he thought or did, she was staying. But they would have to reach some kind of truce, because of Tate.
She jumped to her feet and climbed the two steps out of the conversation pit, only to hear Jade hang up the phone.
He was in the doorway before she could escape. He walked toward her, his bare feet soundless on the soft carpet. “Where are you going?”
One moment he was three feet away from her, the next he had hold of her arm. “Come and sit down.”
She went with him, suddenly anxious to say something, anything, and leave before the woman he was seeing arrived.
He pressed her down into the soft leather cushions and sat next to her, his terry coverup parting slightly, exposing his knees and a portion of his hard upper thigh. “What did you want to see me about, Raine?” he asked pleasantly. “Did you think of something more you wanted done at the shop?”
“I…no. But the shop…the shop is why I’m here. I…”
She tried to keep her eyes on his face, but she seemed unable to see anything but the bare satiny skin stretched tautly over his shoulders, the muscles well-molded underneath, the nakedness of his thighs covered with the hair that was several shades darker than that on his head. She tried again, but her throat had gone very dry. It wasn’t fair that he was so beautiful and she was so ordinary. “I…” a remnant of her temper returned and in her distress, she blurted, “Will you go and put some clothes on?”
“Am I bothering you?”
She fought the urge to cough with nervousness. Bother wasn’t the word.
“We know each other well enough by now for certain…intimacies.” He picked up a long strand of her hair and played with it, wrapping it around a lean finger. “Don't you think?”
Think? She couldn't think at all. The gentle tug on her scalp that signaled his possessiveness overwhelmed her. Her only defense was to say what she had come to say and get out of Jade's house as quickly as she could. “Julia just told me today that you…you bought everything.”
“Did she?” His fingers tangled in her hair and brushed her shoulder. “Did that upset you?”
“Yes. I know…” She took a breath and tried to block out the subtle seduction of his fingers in her hair. “I know why you did it.”
“Do you?” He dropped the strand of hair he had been fondling. Relief mingled with disappointment, until her overtaxed nerves registered the fact that he had moved closer and was sliding his arm around the back of the couch behind her. “Tell me. Why did I do it?” He bent his head and his mouth moved to the side of her ear. His warm breath whispered over her skin.
“To get rid of me,” she murmured, every sensible part of her brain telling her to move away, every cell in her body refusing to deny the pleasure of his warm mouth nibbling around her ear.
“Did it work? Are you leaving?” he breathed softly.
His failure to give even a token denial stung. “No,” her voice trembled, “it didn't. I’m not going. I’m never going, no matter how much you want me to leave.”
“Does this seem like I want you to leave?” His tongue touched her earlobe. Panicked, she pulled away. “I don’t know what it means. I just know I’m staying,” she said staunchly. “I'll have to drive to Canton to find work, but no matter what you do, you’re not chasing me away. This is my hometown and I belong here and I…I won't go.” What should have been an angry denouncement came out in a breathless rush.
“So you're not leaving town.” His tongue circled closer, probed deeper.
She cried, “Don't!” The anguish in her voice must have penetrated. He pulled away, surprising her with his acquiescence.
“No. I'm not leaving town.” Her anger fueled by her pain, she twisted to face him head on and blurted out exactly what she was thinking. “How can you do this to me when in a few minutes, another woman will walk through that door?”
He laughed softly. She cried out and tried to get up but he grasped her shoulders and pushed her back into the cushions, half-leaning over her, trapping her under his hard body. “Anyone who walks through that door during the next twelve hours places his…or her…life in jeopardy.” The gleam in his eyes and the suppressed violence in his voice told her that he meant every word. She tried to make sense out of her whirling thoughts. “But you said you were waiting for a woman…”
“I was.” His eyes caught and held hers. “I've been waiting for her for a long time. Waiting till I was free. And waiting until she grew up enough to realize she’s twice the woman her sister is. And now I’ve finally trapped her in my lair,” his hands tightened slightly on the word, “I don't want any interruptions.” For a long heady moment, he simply gazed at her. Her
eyes wide and dark, she stared back, breath held.
“If she doesn’t want to be trapped, now is the time to tell me.”
He actually looked a little worried. He’d been playing her. He’d been playing her since the moment she walked in the door. She owed him just a little of his own back.
“She’s thinking,” she said, her eyes alive with humor.
“How much longer will she need to think?”
“A nanosecond? There, I’m done thinking.” She began to pound him lightly with her fists. “You miserable wretch. You were playing me.”
“I thought I owed you a little something after that complete set down you gave me at the gate. There I was, all dressed up and ready to woo you properly, take you out and wine and dine you, and you tell me to send you a postcard. I couldn’t figure out what in the hell was wrong with you. So I called Julia.”
“That was her you were talking to on the phone, wasn’t it? Jade Kincaid, I should get up and walk out of this room right now…”
“But you won’t. Will you?” He actually looked worried. Before she would answer, his mouth came down on hers with a heat and a passion that she’d been waiting for all her life. All her years of silently loving him focused on this one blinding moment. She exploded in a blaze of relief and ecstasy under him and strained upward to meet his kiss, her mind and heart and body alive with an all-consuming hunger. He felt her need and moved to satisfy it, coming down on her more heavily, his body laying half on hers, his mouth taking hers with a hard passion. His tongue entered her mouth and she was lovely and open to him, soon learning how to tease him back.
Conscious of her slenderness trapped under him, he lifted his mouth and moved to ease himself away.
“Oh, please, don’t move. I’ve spent my whole life wanting this.”
“Your whole life?” he teased.
“Since I was sixteen and I saw you strip off your shirt.”
“Precocious, weren’t you?”
“I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”
His other hand moved under her back so that she lay cradled between his arm and his body. “From now on, you can say anything you want to me.” His mouth moved over her face, covering it with feather-light kisses while his voice dropped to a lower, huskier, more amused tone, “do anything you want to do.”
“Anything?” she breathed, touching his bare back, dancing her fingertips lightly over his spine from the nape of his neck to the indentation of his waist above the terrycloth. With one quick movement, she pulled it loose.
He groaned in her ear. "Where did you learn that little trick?”
“You said I could do anything.” She pushed him down and while he watched, she unbuttoned her blouse and tossed it on the floor. He watched her loveliness emerge, unable to believe she was stripping so willingly for him. Her bra went next. Now bare as he was above the waist, she pressed her breasts against his chest.
“Um,” she said.
“Um, indeed.” He lifted her up enough so that he could clasp both her breasts with his hands.
“I always thought I loved the way your hands looked,” she said. “But now I know how wonderful they feel. I want to put my nipples on yours,” she said. “Will it work?”
“Not a clue,” he said, amazed at her inventiveness. “Raine, are you…have you ever…”
“Nope. But I’ve been studying up…just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case of you.” She was going round in circles now, making her breasts rub sensuously against his bare chest. At her groan of pleasure, he smiled, the devilish highlight in his eyes reflected by the firelight in the rapidly darkening room.
An added wriggling came with the circling. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m trying to get my jeans off without leaving your lovely chest.”
“You’re the one with the lovely chest. Here, sit up. I’ll do the honors.”
While she watched him with those silvery eyes, he drew her zipper down and put his big hands under her hips to lift her. Her moccasins came off with her jeans. There was nothing left but the little scrap of underwear she wore. Still keeping his eyes on her face, he inserted his finger under the silk and drew it down over her knees and ankles.
Her slight look of apprehension made him decide to be bold. He leaned down and kissed the sweet little nest between her legs. When she made a sound of pleasure, he lifted her up and put his mouth to her, exploring her with his tongue. She gasped and made a slight movement as if to bring him up, but he stayed where he was, tasting and pleasuring her, toying with her clit until he could feel her body responding to him.
She was very close to a climax, he knew. He lifted his head and kissed her navel.
“Kiss me everywhere, Jade.
“Raine, beautiful Raine…”
He started with a breast, tonguing her nipple and then suckling it. Somehow, this audacious woman found a way to wrap her fingers around his member, finding an extra-sensitive place. He nearly came up off the couch.
“Do you…is that okay?”
He kissed that wonderful mouth of hers. “Very okay, beautiful lady.”
“I’m not beautiful.”
“You are the most beautiful woman in the world. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving it to you.”
“Is that a marriage proposal?”
“Yes. We’ve already spent too much of our lives apart. I want to make you mine as soon as possible. I want you at my side, in my bed, having our children, sharing my wealth with me for all the years we have left. Will you be my wife, Raine?” As if to claim her for all time, he thrust into her. There was a slight tug and then he was fully in her.
She lay looking at him, smiling.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because I’m wondering what I’ll say when people ask how you proposed to me. Shall I tell them you popped the question while you seduced me?”
“Better to ask it now than afterward.” He began to move and she said, “Oh, Jade, Jade, I never thought this would happen. It feels so good to have you inside me at last. I love you so much.”
She knew he wouldn’t say the words back to her, but it didn’t matter. He was making love to her and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. That was enough.
It was a revelation to lie under Jade and see his face tighten with his intense enjoyment of his climax. It seemed to go on and on. When at last he came to earth, he said, “It’s been a long time.
“Not since my…”
He put his hand to her lips. “Don’t. She’s in the past. We’re the future now, you and I. And right now, my charming virgin, we’re going to take a bath.”
He pushed her up the stairs, his hands on her bare rear. She had the feeling that he just wanted to keep his hands on any part of her anatomy he could.
He drew the bath quickly and in the steamy heat of the bathroom, Raine could feel tendrils of hair curling around her face. She looked down at the lean, male and very bare body bent over the tub. The same heat made the blond tendrils at Jade’s nape loosen and curl inward, the antique gold curls a bright contrast to his bare shoulders with their look of sinewy copper. Experimentally, she cupped his rear end with her hands and then leaned over and licked the small of his back.
He came up as if she had shot him. “You learn damn quickly, miss. That little bit of mischief deserves retribution.”
He turned her in his arms but instead of kissing her, he lifted her off her feet and swung her back and forth, as if he was going to drop her in the tub with a splash.
“Jade, stop it. You’ll make a huge mess in your bathroom. You’re crazy to…”
“If I am, it’s because you’ve been driving me crazy ever since that night on the dock when you pleaded with me to kiss you.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“I never say things I don’t mean.” He lowered her into the tub. “Unlike a certain young woman who kept telling me no, when she meant yes.”<
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Arrogant man. There was only one method of retaliation. She cupped water in her hands and aimed at the general direction of his face. He dodged and she missed. Then he slipped into the tub behind her, and she felt his maleness. When she nestled back against him, he brought his hands to her breasts and clasped them, feeling their warmth and roundness.
She lay back against his chest, loving the gentle caressing, the sweet possession. It was so incredibly sensual to feel the warm water covering her legs and Jade’s hands covering her breasts.
“Tell me if you’re getting cold.”
“I may never be cold again.”
He came to life behind her, ready. She was ready, too, and wanted him where he belonged, inside her.
He carried her to the bed and when she lay down and looked up at him, he said, “Raine. You are too beautiful to be real.
“You are the one who is beautiful.”
“Shall we make beautiful children then?”
“Yes, please.”
He lay beside her and placed a hand on her mound, rubbing but not entering, teasing her. To his delight, her eyes sparkled with pleasure in the game and she played with him just as he played with her, brushing the hair at the root of his penis, running teasing fingers up to his tip and back. In retaliation, he claimed her breast with his mouth, teasing her with his tongue, suckling her. She leaned over him and took his tip in her mouth, running her tongue under his fold.
“Witch,” he breathed.
“Wretch,” she murmured, gazing at his bare chest, his muscled arms.
“See anything you like?”
“Um. All of it. You see anything you like?”
“Let’s see.” He lifted her over him, settling her on his thighs. He ran a finger down between her breasts and found her belly button. “Innie,” he said.
She returned the favor. “Yours is an outie, of course.”
“Why do you say, of course?”
“No reason.”
“Tell me, Raine.” He plunged his fingers into her. He’d been cautious about exploring her, but now he threw caution to the winds and rubbed and probed until she writhed above him. He heightened the torture by holding her shoulder with one hand while he probed her expertly with the other, giving her no quarter. “Last chance, my charming little witch.” He went deeper and found her sweet spot. He knew she hadn’t climaxed before, but now she clenched around him in the beginning spasms of delight. Before she knew what he was doing, he flipped her down on the bed underneath him. Poised above her, he teased her core with his penis, coming into her a bit and then leaving her. “Tell me, baby.”
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