She writhed in the throes of needing him inside her, aching for that explosion which she’d never felt before. “You won’t like it.”
“Like you don’t like this?” He came closer and closer to filling her.
“You’ll be angry with me.” She twisted and lifted her hips, trying to capture him and push him deeper inside her.
“I said you could say anything to me.”
“I just thought…you’d probably be born keeping your body closed to protect yourself.”
“You’re right, I don’t like it. But it’s not exactly true, is it? Because here I am, opening my body to you in every way there is.”
The game ended, and Jade was no longer afraid to show Raine the depth of his passion. He plunged deep within her over and over until she cried out with the wonderful ecstasy of her first climax…while Jade felt as if he’d never made love before with such complete abandonment. His entire body shuddering he gave in to the magic Raine had cast over him.
Jade lay beside Raine and trailed a lazy, questing finger around her breasts, down to her navel. “Did it occur to you that examining a man’s navel may not be the best key to understanding him?”
She looked at him drowsily. “It does now.”
He smiled. “Are you going to sleep?”
“Not if you keep doing that.”
“Do you feel like talking?”
She considered it. “Not if you keep doing that.”
He laughed and moved over her to fit himself into her, loving the sound of her satisfaction and the way she rose up to take him in with such loving acceptance.
Afterwards, when she lay snuggled in the hollow of his shoulder, she said, “Jade, I'd better go.”
“You're not going anywhere.”
“But Julia…”
“Julia knows where you are.”
“You two plotted against me, didn’t you?”
“And a damn fine job we did of it, too.” His fingers wandered lower, entered her.
“You’re quite insatiable, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t heard you complaining.”
“Jade, a marriage should be based on more than physical need.” This was dangerous territory and she knew it. He’d told her once he’d never tell any woman he loved her, but surely now…Silence echoed in the room.
“You don’t love me?” he asked.
Stung, she cried, “Yes, of course, I do, but you…”
“…haven't said the words, have I?”
“No, you haven't.”
“Suppose I never say the words. Suppose I live with you, take care of you, stay with you day after day until the day I die, but never say the words. Does that mean I don't love you?”
“No, of course not, but…I’d like to know what you’re thinking.”
“I've thought of nothing but you since the first night you kissed me.” He gripped her tighter in his arms. “Nothing. Even while I hated my wife for wanting another man, I wanted you. And I'll go on wanting you. I'll never have enough of you.”
He buried his face in the long strands of hair that lay fanned out on the pillow beside him. “I've asked you to spend your life with me. I can't do any more than that to show how deeply I feel about you. If that isn’t enough…”
“It’s more than enough.”
They married a week later in the church in Verylon. The look on Jade’s face when he saw her coming down the aisle to him in her bridal gown made her heart skip several beats. When it was over, Julia hugged her close and whispered in her ear. "He's not an easy man but he’s given you a marvelous gift. He’s given you his trust. He must love you very much, Raine.”
When the reception was over, and Julia had taken a sleepy Tate home after assuring Jade Tate would be fine with her for a week, they got into the car to drive to the Black Hills for their honeymoon. Then she thought about Julia's words. He must love you very much. Could it be true?
Jade said, “You're very quiet.” He reached out and pulled her across the seat, his warm hand hard on hers. She went willingly. All he had to do now was touch her and she melted into a woman yearning for his possession. “Did I tell you how very beautiful you looked this afternoon coming down the aisle to me?”
She shook her head, her throat suddenly full. “I don't think you mentioned it.” How light and casual her voice sounded.
She wore a knee-length apricot silk dress with a full skirt and a sleeveless bodice with a matching waist-length jacket. It was terribly old-fashioned to be so dressed up for going away, she supposed, but she’d found the dress on a flying shopping trip to Sioux Falls. She had especially liked the tapered sash that went round her waist and tied to one side. The tail ends of the sash lay on Jade's trousered knee. He held the wheel with one hand and casually fingered the silken tie with the other. “I like this dress very much, too,” he said softly. “The color looks good on you.”
That, of course, erased her misgivings about being overdressed. “Thank you.”
Jade was handsome in a gray Western suit that enhanced his blond hair. “I think I'd like it even better if, tonight, for me, you wore just the sash.”
It was the kind of bold, provocative statement Jade loved to make. He'd said similar things often in the week before they were married, and his words never failed to bring the bloom of color to her cheeks. They hadn't had time for this stage of intimacy before but Jade was making up for it with a vengeance. He hadn't made love to her physically the week before their marriage, but he'd made love to her verbally in a way that made her heart pound and her head reel. The sweet, provocative words took their toll. With each passing day, he was the man she needed to see, his was the voice she needed whispering in her ear.
And so after they arrived at the hotel in Sioux Falls and ate dinner, she went into the bathroom to change and came out wearing nothing but the silken sash tied in front with the ends dangling in just the right place.
Jade had already showered and was lying in bed waiting for her.
She came toward him, smiling. “Is this what you had in mind?”
“No. Even my imagination couldn’t capture your beauty, even though you are constantly on my mind. I don’t think I take a breath without thinking of you.”
He stood and came to her, his hands going to her waist and untying the bow. Using the sash like reins, he pulled her toward him. At the bed, he fell, pulling her on top of him. He trailed the ends of the silk up and down her back, making her shiver. “Jade, what are you doing?”
“Thinking of all the thousand ways I want to make love to you.” He feathered the silk across the top of her breasts, over her navel and down over her mound. “Do you know how crazy it made me to see you and your salesman tied together during that damn race?”
“No,” she said. “How crazy did it make you, Jade?”
“Crazy enough to want to strangle you both.”
“You were jealous.”
“I wanted to be the man who was tied to you.” He looped the sash around her wrist and then his own. He raised their fastened wrists above her head. His muscled arm covered hers while her whole side was open and vulnerable to him.
He examined her face. She stared fearlessly back at him. “How does it feel to be tied to me, Jade?”
“It feels damn good.” He lowered his head and feasted on her breast, his hair brushing against her sensitive skin. “Promise me that you’ll never be with another man, Raine.”
“I just did. I stood at the altar and made that promise, Jade. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer…”
“Promise me, now, Raine. While I have you tied to me and we’re looking at each other face to face. Because if anything happened and you left me, I’d take the bridge.”
“Jade, you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t ever try me.”
“Jade, I love you with all my heart. There will never be another man for me.”
He made a sound and came into her, their wrists still tied. She helped him keep their wrists joined while
she loved him with her body and soul.
Raine woke in the night with a throat that felt on fire. She groped around in the dark and found the robe she'd included in her packing. She went to the bathroom and got a drink of water, but it tasted of sulphur and did nothing to quench her thirst. Jade slept soundly and she didn’t want to disturb him. Leaving the bathroom door open a tiny crack so she could see, she found her purse. There was a soft drink machine in the lobby and she was dressed decently enough to go down, even if there was a stray desk clerk around.
She made it down the stairs without seeing anyone other than the sleepy young man in uniform who sat at the desk. He looked up briefly but when he saw where she was headed, his gaze flickered away.
She had just put money in the machine and heard the clunk of a can slipping into the tray when a fire bell began to ring. The sound was ear-splitting. Was it a real fire? She smelled no smoke. Surely it must be a false alarm. Whatever it was, she had to get back to Jade.
She turned to race up the stairs. Instantly, the desk clerk materialized at her side and grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”
“I have to go back up. My husband…”
“Sorry,” he said unsympathetically. “You've got to go outside. Your husband will come down without your help.”
“No,” she said, panicking, “you don’t understand. He’ll think I’m up there somewhere. I have to go to him.”
The loathsome man caught her arm. “No way, lady. You'll be in the way of people coming down. I must insist that you go outside."
In despair, Raine looked up the stairway. A mother was shepherding her three small children down, urging them forward in an agitated tone every step of the way. She knew the young man was right. She couldn't risk the possibility of harming a child. Jade would have to come down with the others.
Raine went out into the chilly night air and turned back so she could see who came out the door. But when the people in nightwear stopped pouring out of the motel, Jade was not among them.
“Is it a false alarm?” a worried female voice asked.
“We think so, but we can't be sure. Is everyone out?” the harried young man asked the group.
An older man, balding and with a paunch that prevented his robe from closing over his pajamas in front, shook his head. “There's some guy up there looking for his wife.”
“Didn't you tell him to come down?”
“Hey.” The older man shrugged. “That guy is twenty years younger, four inches taller, and in a hell of a lot better shape than I am.
“It's Jade,” she cried and before anyone could stop her, she raced past the crowd back into the building.
Raine pounded up the stairs two at a time and jerked at the fire door. It was heavy but she got it open. She screamed his name, “Jade!”
“Raine!” He had evidently been opening doors, going through the rooms one by one. Now he strode to her, his hair disheveled, his dark brown robe barely covering his hard thighs. “I thought…” He gathered her into his arms, almost crushing her in his fierce embrace. In a voice strangely thick and muffled, he said, “I thought I'd lost you.”
“I went downstairs to get a soft drink. They wouldn’t let me come back up.” She pushed away to look into his face. “Why didn't you come down?'”
“I wasn't leaving until I found you.”
She’d known that. There, in those dark, husky words, Jade had declared his love for her as surely as if he had carved them in stone.
She went up on tiptoe to kiss him. She was a whisper away from his mouth when he said in a rough tone that still contained a trace of his worry for her, “If the building's burning, don't you think we should go outside?”
She contented herself with covering his face with kisses. She touched her mouth to his lean cheeks, his amber eyelashes, the hard bone of his jaw, the firmness of his throat. As far as she was concerned the whole building could collapse around her and she didn't care. Jade loved her. “They think it's a false alarm.”
As if to confirm her words, the mother with her three children burst through the door. The woman stopped in mid-sentence, cast an embarrassed look over their embracing figures and said brightly, “The management says it's perfectly all right for us to go back to bed.” Her fractious children tugged at the skirt of her robe. “Daddy's waiting for us in Rapid City and he won't want to see us all tired and blearyeyed now, will he? Everybody jump in bed and tomorrow…”
The door closed behind her. “You heard her,” Jade murmured. “She said we should all jump in bed.”
“She’s not my mother,” Raine said cheekily.
He turned Raine in his arms and guided her into their room. “Still, it does seem like a good idea.”
“After the excitement and all?”
“Exactly.” Inside, he pulled her around to face him.
She looped her arms around his neck. “I don't feel very tired.”
“Then,” he said, his voice silky, “we'll have to think of something else to do.”
“I could go back down to the lobby and get my soft drink…”
“You’re not going anywhere,” his hands going to the tie at her waist. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.” With an easy expertise, he slid the tie loose and pushed the robe from her shoulders. Of course, it was easier for him because she helped.
A month later, on a very hot day in May, the printer who had bought the Linotype machine came and took it away. Raine hadn't been there for the actual loading, but now she stood with Jade and looked around the empty print shop. “Why did you buy this place?”
“I bought it to give you a choice. I wanted you to have another option beside some crazy scheme that would put you in debt.”
“Then I should say thank you.” He had been thinking of only of her and she had misjudged him badly.
He perched on the corner of the desk, his booted foot swinging, a look in his green eyes that she had come to know. It was an arrogant male look….combined with a possessive pride. It was the way he looked at Tate, and now it was the way he looked at her. “I had the printer make a souvenir before he disconnected everything.”
“You did?” Her curiosity was aroused. She hadn’t thought Jade understood how sentimental she was about that silly Linotype machine.
He levered himself away from the desk and went round to open a drawer and pull out a slug of type. His eyes dark, he handed it to her.
For a moment, the backward letters made no sense. When they did, tears sprang to her eyes. In her hand she held the mirror image of the words, I love you.
He shrugged, but she knew him well enough by now to know that his apparent unconcern held a deep vulnerability. “You can use it as a paperweight…or as a weapon if we ever need to chase a calf around again.”
“I will treasure this always. It will take pride of place in the china closet Julia is giving me as a housewarming present.” She set the line of type down on the desk and threw herself into Jade’s arms. “I love you so much, Jade.” Her voice trembled with her intensity. “And I will always love you.”
“I know,” he said. “I know.” The unsteadiness of his tone made a little spur of excitement shiver through her and when he folded her in his arms and pressed his mouth on hers in a deeply satisfying kiss, she knew that Jade had given her his three little words engraved in print to show her those words were engraved in his heart…forever.
Below is an excerpt ofTate’s story, soon to be published and as yet untitled
Chapter 1
A South Dakota ranch, many years ago.
THE VISIONS POURED OVER ME like storms rising up out on the ocean. The roiled sea lay far in the distance at first, utterly quiet. Then, there would be a trickling, a loosening of my control until, with an inevitability I could feel, the waves rolled toward me until they engulfed me. I could see everything, feel everything. I would feel afraid. Then the waves subsided and brought me Tate, what he was doing, what he was feeling. I saw him wherever he was, a movie unreeling inside
my head.
When I was four, I stood at mother’s bedside, wishing desperately she would get well, but because of that terrible sixth sense I didn’t realize I had, I knew she would leave me soon. One afternoon as she lay there looking at me, her red hair darkened with her illness, the color washed out of her face, she took hold of my hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry I have to leave you. There’s something you must know. Don’t tell. Don’t ever tell anyone about…seeing things.”
“What do you mean, Mama?” I gripped her hand, wanting to keep her with me. It hurt to look at her face. I could see the pain there.
“Your visions will be both a boon and a bane to you.”
“I don’t know what those words mean.”
“They mean that, like everything in the world, this thing that you are blessed with can be both good and bad.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. When your heart loves, you will.”
Mama died three days after that.
When I was five, the visions began. I thought I felt dizzy because I ate too many chocolate covered peanuts. But after I started going to kindergarten and became best friends with Tate, I sat at my kitchen table one Saturday, and a picture flashed into my head. I could see Tate sitting at his kitchen table. His sadness permeated through me like I was swimming in a too-cold pond. I could see his father looking down at him, and I could feel his father’s sadness, too. He was telling Tate that his mother was going to live in the city and she wasn’t coming back. At first I thought it was because my mother died when I was four that I understood Tate’s feelings. But when Tate sat there holding back the tears, and I could feel them gather behind my own eyes, I knew it was more than that.
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