Moving as quietly as he could, Johnny Mack made his way down the back stairs, through the kitchen and out onto the patio. Lane was nowhere in sight. But he knew, instinctively, where she had gone.
The Nobles’ garden remained as well-manicured as it had been in the past, covering over two acres that led from the back of the house, down three separate rows of concrete steps within the verdant garden enclosure. A stepping-stone path led from the garden to the river and the old boathouse.
At one time the Noble mansion had stood alone, the center of a huge plantation. But eventually the town had built up around the estate, and over the years, one by one, the other fine homes had been erected on what had once been Noble land.
What did it cost Lane to maintain the house and grounds in the same manner her family had been doing for generations? The upkeep on this place must be bleeding her meager resources dry. Her father had left her his forty-nine percent of the Herald, but what little money he’d had left was in a trust fund for Will and any future children Lane might have. Smart man that he was, Bill Noble had made sure that Kent Graham couldn’t get his hands on a dime.
Johnny Mack knew for a fact that the Herald’s profits had been declining each year. He also knew that Lane had secretly sold off some of her mother’s jewelry. If she hadn’t needed the money so badly, she would never have parted with any of Celeste Noble’s jewels. After all, some of the items had been in the Noble family since before the Civil War.
When he had found out about the sale of the jewels, he had asked Wyatt Foster to locate the items and buy them back for Lane. When the time was right, he would return them to her.
As he drew nearer the banks of the Chickasaw, he wondered if he would find Lane on the riverbank or inside the boathouse, sitting on the deck of her father’s boat. When they used to meet to talk—only to talk—they had often sought privacy inside, on Bill Noble’s boat, but on warm nights they had usually sat on the riverbank.
And that was where he found her. Sitting in the grass, her knees bent, her arms draped around her legs. The moonlight washed her with fluid gold. Pale. Shimmery. Sheer. Her hair hung loosely over her bare shoulders.
What had driven Lane out of her house before daylight? Why had she been unable to sleep? If he called her name, would she rise and come to him? Or would she run?
When he approached, she sat there unaware of his presence as she stared up at the dark sky. She wore nothing but her yellow cotton gown, the material thin and filmy, plainly revealing the curves of her body. Everything male within him reacted to all that was female within her. And he understood, as if God had written the message in stone and handed the tablet to him, that he had been waiting for this moment all his life. He had denied his feelings as a teenager. He had told himself that he respected Bill Noble and Lane herself far too much to violate Lane, to take her innocence. But she was no longer an innocent. And he had waited a lifetime to take what he knew in his gut had always belonged to him. Did she understand as he did that the time for them to become lovers was long overdue?
Only two things could stop him from taking what he wanted. An act of God. Or Lane saying no.
Chapter 17
Lane wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. Even in August it was cool late at night and early in the morning down by the river. Why hadn’t she thought to wear her robe? Better yet, what was she doing here? You’re running scared. Trying to escape from the dream. But that’s all it was, just a dream. Not reality, and only reality could truly harm her.
But she could easily turn the dream into reality. One word from her and Johnny Mack would become her lover. She wasn’t blind to the way he had been looking at her. He wanted her. Wanted her as he had wanted countless other women over the years. If she went to him, gave herself to him, could she accept the fact that she wasn’t special, that she wasn’t the one woman on earth destined to tame the beast within him? Those had been a young girl’s foolish fantasies. She was older and wiser now. She had once loved him with all her heart, and he had respected her and appreciated her friendship. But that had been years ago. What was there between them now? Distrust. Suspicion. A child they both wanted desperately to help. And a primitive lust that infected every other aspect of their relationship.
She had never known passion, never experienced a desire so great that it tormented her day and night. In the beginning of her marriage, she had tried to love Kent, had tried to enjoy the physical part of their marriage, but his selfishness and jealous need to erase Johnny Mack from her heart had created a barrier between them. And later on, Kent’s cruelty had destroyed what little affection she’d ever had for him.
What would it be like to be with a man she truly wanted? Even knowing that she could expect nothing more than a brief affair with him, wouldn’t it be worth the risk of losing her heart all over again just to—finally—have the one man she had always wanted?
The eastern sky quivered with a predawn softness, the labor pains that would soon bring forth the birth of a new day. The half-moon paled in the darkness as if preparing to take a final bow before exiting. While the river hummed with a repetitive, seductive motion, a morning breeze rippled over the dark surface.
Lane rose to her feet, bare and damp on the cool, dew-laden grass. And that was when she saw him. The outline of a tall man. She gasped, then relaxed when she realized it was Johnny Mack. But that relief was short-lived. Even in the semidarkness she could see the look of longing and determination in his black eyes, and she knew that he had followed her. Not to talk about Kent’s murder. Not to discuss Will. Not to remind her that he had returned to Noble’s Crossing to help her.
The closer he came, the more of his large, wide-shouldered body the fading moonlight revealed. He appeared to have gotten out of bed hastily. His hair was mussed and his shirt unbuttoned. An air of raw, masculine energy permeated every inch of his big body.
She stood frozen, like a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car, knowing what lay ahead and yet unable to flee from danger. Fear combined with desire, creating conflict within her. The rational part of her mind warned her to run, but her body begged her to remain, to open herself up and accept the inevitable.
“Lane.” He spoke her name as if it were an endearment.
“No, we can’t.” She took a tentative, backward step.
“Yes, we can.” He moved toward her, but stopped abruptly when she continued backing away from him, her silhouette quickly disappearing behind the curtain of drooping willow limbs.
“You don’t understand.” When her behind encountered the trunk of the willow tree, which blocked her escape route, Lane waited, her breathing ragged and quick. She was trapped. Trapped by the tree at her back. Trapped by Johnny Mack towering over her as he closed the gap between them. And trapped by her own desperate desire.
“Make me understand.” He laid one hand on the tree trunk, his fingers spread out above her head.
He was close. Too close. She shut her eyes to avoid looking directly at him. How could she face him with the truth about her marriage to Kent? Coward, she chided herself. Sooner or later you’ll have to tell him what a stupid, naive fool you were. And how pitifully weak and helpless you allowed yourself to become before you broke free.
“I was a virgin when I married Kent.” She opened her eyes and watched the expression on Johnny Mack’s face. He grimaced as if he were in pain, and then he swallowed hard. “I had dreamed that my first sexual experience would be with you.”
“It should have been.” He lifted his other hand and touched her face. Tenderly. Hesitantly. As if he were afraid she would bolt and run. “You can’t imagine how much I wanted to be the one to initiate you.”
“It was never right between Kent and me. Not from the very beginning. And later on…” Lane breathed deeply, garnering strength from an inner reserve that was almost depleted. “By the time Will was a toddler, I had stopped sharing a bed with Kent. The only time we were ever…ever intimate was
when he forced the issue.”
“Are you saying that he raped you?” Johnny Mack’s caressing hand knotted into a tight fist as he jerked it away from Lane’s face.
“Yes, he forced me. More than once. And each time, he told me to just pretend it was you, that he knew I’d been doing that all along. I’ve never told anyone about Kent’s brutal attacks. No one knew except Lillie Mae, and I didn’t tell her. She guessed the truth. And she swore she’d stop him permanently if he ever touched me again.” Lane slid away from the tree, away from Johnny Mack, and ran to the edge of the water.
“Lane!” Johnny Mack followed her, but when she stopped and turned to face him, he made no move to touch her.
A multicolored pastel dawn light spread across the eastern horizon, hinting that morning was approaching. The nighttime’s soft warmth had yet to be replaced by the onset of August sizzle, the smoldering, humid heat only a matter of hours away. The cool breeze coming off the water kept the temperatures several degrees lower here by the river, day and night.
Lane stared at Johnny Mack, but she felt as if she were looking straight through him, looking back in time to when she had been Kent Graham’s wife. Back to when she had been at his mercy and too ashamed to even tell her parents about the nightmare her marriage had become.
“After the third time he forced me, I told him that if he ever came near me again, I’d kill him.” Lane heaved a deep sigh. “I bought a gun. And you know that I’ve always hated guns. Then I threatened him with a divorce. I honestly intended to go through with it. But then Daddy was killed in the car crash, and I had to deal with taking care of Mother for nearly two years. And Will still loved Kent. So we simply lived separate lives most of the time. It seemed easier that way for both of us.”
“How could you have stayed married to him, after what he’d done to you?”
Had that been censure in Johnny Mack’s voice? Was he condemning her for not divorcing Kent sooner? In retrospect she realized that she should have ended the marriage long before she did. But at the time, she had thought she was doing the right thing.
“I remained Kent’s wife until Will was nearly ten and I finally understood that staying with Kent was hurting Will far more than getting a divorce would. By that time Kent’s drinking had gotten so bad that even Miss Edith agreed that Will was better off with me. And it was Miss Edith who paid Kent’s child support payments for him.”
“Everything you’ve done for the past fifteen years has been for Will, hasn’t it?” Johnny Mack shook his head, as if trying to deny the obvious. “Because he was mine.”
“Yes, before he was born I loved him because he was yours. But the moment I lifted him into my arms for the very first time, he became mine, too.”
“He should have been ours.”
Lane nodded. “Yes, he should have been. But in a strange sort of a way, he is ours.”
“Don’t you see, Lane, that you and I should have been together back then. We should be together now.”
When he reached for her, she held up her hands in a Stop gesture. “I dreamed of your making love to me for so many years. Since I was fourteen. Even after you left town and I married Kent, you were the only man in my heart.”
“I should have taken you with me.”
“But you didn’t. And every time Kent touched me, I wished it was you. And eventually all the love I’d felt for you turned into hatred.”
He stared at her, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You don’t hate me, Lane. God, honey, you can’t really hate me.”
“I hated you because you left me. I hated you because you’d gotten Sharon pregnant. I hated you because I blamed you for my having to marry Kent. And I hated you because you never called, you never wrote.” Lane lifted her loosely curled fists and slapped at Johnny Mack, her hands haphazardly striking his chest. Tears streamed down her face, over her nose and into her mouth. “I hated you because…” She gulped down her sobs and continued the halfhearted flogging, her arms moving slower and slower as she cried harder and harder, “…because I loved you so much and you never came back for me.”
Lane shivered when Johnny Mack’s arms wrapped around her. He pulled her closer, slowly, carefully, with the utmost tenderness. When he lowered his head to press his lips against her temple, she crumbled, allowing her body to collapse into his. Longing for comfort, she gave in to the weakness of being a woman in need of a man. Her man. And even if it would be only this once, for now, for this predawn moment, he was hers. Completely.
Later she might regret her compliance. But despite her doubts and fears, she was willing to risk everything just to belong to Johnny Mack. When his lips caressed the side of her face, sweetly, gently, she felt the heat rise within her. Warmth spread through her like a hot summer sun. And moisture coated her feminine folds as her body prepared itself. A clenching sensation tightened and released between her legs, and she ached with a need like none she had ever known.
Johnny Mack kissed her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, her chin and finally touched her lips with his. Like the flutter of a butterfly, so soft, his tender touch erased her tears.
“I would never force you,” he whispered against her mouth. “I want to make love to you. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. Will you let me, Lane? Will you let me love you?” His big fingers speared through her hair as he grasped the back of her head, claiming her with a certainty that mocked his plea for permission.
“I might disappoint you,” she admitted. She had never truly enjoyed sex with Kent, and often she had wondered if that fact had been as much her fault as Kent’s. Perhaps she was one of those women who couldn’t…. But with Johnny Mack it would be different, wouldn’t it?
Cupping her face with his hands, he gazed deeply into her eyes. “Will you trust me not to hurt you? Will you give yourself to me and allow me to love you the way I want to do?”
She sucked in a deep breath. “Yes.” Her voice trembled.
“Then, don’t worry, honey. You won’t disappoint me. You couldn’t.”
His kiss began with seductive little licks and nips. When she responded, he progressed to the next level and took her mouth with his. Wet. Warm. Possessive. And when she sighed, he slipped his tongue inside, and she gloried in the mating dance he initiated. While she still quivered from the heated kiss, his lips moved down her throat and over her chest. His mouth covered one nipple through the thin barrier of her cotton gown. Lane’s knees buckled.
“I want to see you,” he said, his voice a husky growl.
And without waiting for her response, he tucked his index fingers under the narrow straps and eased them down her arms and bunched her gown at her waist. He looked at her boldly. She blushed. Would he think she was beautiful? Or would he be disappointed?
After an indrawn breath, he groaned. “I used to wonder about your breasts. When we were together, I tried not to look at them, but they were so full and round that it was all I could do not to touch them.”
He lifted her breasts in his hands, as if weighing them, then flicked both nipples with the pads of his thumbs. Lane keened when a sensation of pure lust shot through her. She didn’t know how much more she could take. He had done nothing but kiss her and rub her nipples, and already she ached with longing.
While he lowered his head to take one tight peak into his mouth and suckle, he ran his hand up under her gown and traced a path from thigh to hip. When Lane tossed back her head and moaned her pleasure as his lips tormented one breast and then the other, he clasped her buttocks in both hands and dragged her up against his swollen sex. The thin barrier of her gown was no protection from the strength of the coarse denim or his iron-hard erection.
Before she realized what he was doing, he slid her gown down her hips. It fell to the ground, circling her ankles like melted lemon sherbet. After encouraging her to step forward, he slid one hand between them and splayed it over her flat belly. She grabbed his shoulders to steady herself and was glad she had when his hand moved lower. His fingers
forked through her pubic hair and delved farther, seeking entrance. When he pushed two fingers inside and used his thumb to massage her intimately, her thighs closed around him, holding his hand in place. Tension spiraled tighter and tighter inside her.
“You have no idea how much I wanted to do this back when you were sixteen and I first noticed that you weren’t a kid anymore,” he told her. “It was always you, Lane. You were the one I wanted. The one I knew I could never have. The one I wasn’t good enough for.”
“Oh, Johnny Mack, if only I’d known how you felt. I thought you didn’t want me.”
“I wanted you the most. Always.”
As if he had come to the end of his patience, he lifted her off her feet. “Is your father’s cruiser still in the boathouse?”
“No, I sold the boat,” she said breathlessly. “Over a year ago.”
Holding her securely in his arms, he took her lips in a ravaging kiss. When he allowed her to breathe again, he said, “I can’t tell you how many times over the past fifteen years I’ve dreamed about making love to you in that boat. That was my fantasy back when we used to spend so much time down here by the river.”
“You’ve actually thought about me?” Was he lying, simply telling her what he thought she wanted to hear? Or had he actually dreamed of her, as she had of him?
“Lady, you honestly don’t know, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
Without responding to her question, he carried Lane beneath the nearest willow tree and laid her on the ground. The grass-cushioned earth beneath her was dew-laden, but she barely noticed. Not when Johnny Mack straddled her. His open shirt skimmed over her hips, and the coarse denim of his jeans scraped along the outer sides of her thighs. It was in that moment she realized that she was totally naked. And he wasn’t.
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