With growing horror he listened as the story came tumbling out. She’d traded in her car for a different one, packed up the baby and taken her to the Rocking D for safekeeping. For the past six months she’d been on the run. But it had been a creative run.
Using different disguises and modes of transportation, she’d tried to elude the kidnapper. But just when she thought she had, a man would follow her along a crowded street, far enough away that she couldn’t positively identify him, but close enough for her to suspect he was the same man. By keeping her wits about her, she’d stayed out of his clutches.
When she was finished, Nat held her tight for a long moment. Then he sighed. “We’re calling the police.”
“No!” She backed away from him. “The minute you do that, my parents will be all over this situation, and then my life as we know it will be over.”
“Your life as you know it is totally screwed up!”
“No, it isn’t.” She tucked her wayward hair behind her ears, which made her look like a schoolgirl. A sexy schoolgirl.
He was determined not to be distracted. “The hell it isn’t. You have a kidnapper on your trail and you can’t even risk being close to your baby as a result.”
“I can risk it now that you’re home.”
“Now, wait a minute. Flattering as that sounds, I can’t have you thinking I’m an adequate bodyguard.”
“You just said you’d changed. And I can see it. You’re more aggressive than you were seventeen months ago.”
“I’m not a trained bodyguard, and your parents are exactly the people who could—”
“Oh, gee, look at the time.” She glanced at her bare wrist and started back toward the bathroom. “Gotta run.”
“Oh, hell.” He clamped a hand on her shoulder to keep her from disappearing behind the closed door. Holding her firmly by the shoulder, he heaved a gusty sigh. “Are you telling me that if I call your parents, you’ll take off and leave me to deal with them?” He didn’t relish the thought of facing Russell P. Franklin alone and announcing he’d gotten the Franklin heir with child.
She glanced over her shoulder. Jess was the sort of woman who could be provocative without even trying. “I guess that’s about the size of it, Nathaniel Andrew.”
“That’s blackmail, Jessica Louise.”
She smiled a vixen’s smile. “I know.”
He couldn’t decide which he’d rather do, strangle her or kiss that saucy mouth until she moaned. He did neither. “You’re blackmailing your parents, too, you know. Your dad wants to put a private detective on your trail so bad he can taste it, but your mother won’t let him because she thinks you’ll go away for good if he does.”
“She’s right.”
Turning her to face him, he grasped her other shoulder and barely stopped himself from giving her a shake. “Jess, what if this kidnapper gets ahold of you? What if he decides, after getting the ransom money, to just kill you? Have you thought of that?”
She nodded. “That’s why I needed to talk to you and tell you about Elizabeth,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “So everything would be okay for the baby.”
The thought of something happening to Jess had the power to paralyze his mind, so he didn’t think about it for long. “Setting aside the issue of how the rest of us would fare in that event, let me emphasize that if you got yourself killed, it would not be okay for the baby.” Panic nibbled at him some more. “I’m a lousy candidate for a parent, and you know it.”
“I don’t know it, but if you call my parents, we’ll never get a chance to find out. They’ll have Elizabeth behind the gates of Franklin Hall before you can say boo.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Then he wouldn’t have to worry about the baby. He had a business in Colorado, after all. He could pay support, although the Franklins would probably scoff at the pittance the courts would ask of him.
“And I’d have to go with her,” Jess said softly.
Ah, there was the rub. The woman he loved would be safe but unhappy. And he would be…lost. Lost without hope of redemption.
“You see, it has to be this way if you and I are to have any chance. If Elizabeth is to have any chance.”
As he gazed into her eyes and saw the glimmer of hope there, his feelings of inadequacy threatened to swamp him. “I would botch the job of being Elizabeth’s father, Jess. We’ve been through all that, and you know how I feel about having kids of my own. I’ll admit that on the flight over I began thinking that maybe someday I could consider adopting an orphan from one of the refugee camps. But see, that would be different. The kid wouldn’t have that many options, and even having me as a parent would be better than nothing.”
“Oh, Nat.” She moved in close and combed her fingers through his beard so she could cup his face in both hands.
He loved her touch, and decided at that very moment that he wanted to shave so nothing interfered with the feel of her soft hands on his face.
“I’ve never met your father,” she said, “but I know you’re nothing like him. You would never beat a child the way you were beaten, or belittle them until they felt worthless, the way your father did.”
“You don’t know that. It’s the pattern I saw for eighteen years. Some of that behavior has to be lurking in me, waiting for the time when I have a kid, and that automatic conditioning kicks in.”
Her gaze searched his. “Don’t you at least want to see her?” she asked gently.
His stomach churned at the thought, but yes, he’d admit to a flicker of curiosity. “Maybe, from a distance.”
Jess smiled. “How far a distance?”
“One of those videophones would be about right.”
She held his gaze. “I think she has your eyes.”
That rocked him. All along he’d pictured her with woeful brown eyes, like the children he’d left in the camps. “Blue?”
“They probably are by now. The color was still a little indistinct when I…when I left her at the ranch.” Her breath caught and her eyes began to glow with longing. “Oh, Nat, please. Let’s call the ranch and tell them we’re on our way. It’s been an eternity. Please. It’s still only ten there. They won’t be in bed. Let’s call them now.”
One thing had become obvious—he wouldn’t in good conscience be able to shift this new and unwanted responsibility to Jess’s parents. Neither could he expect Sebastian to keep on taking the burden, although Nat wasn’t wild about heading out there to face this massive change in his life. He’d ten times rather hold up in the Waldorf for a few days and calm his fears by making endless love to Jess.
But it looked as if he needed to take Jess to Colorado. “Okay. Yeah. We’ll do that.”
“Oh, thank you!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a kiss right on his mouth.
She might have meant it as a friendly gesture instead of an invitation, but it didn’t matter how she’d meant it. His body flipped to automatic pilot as he grabbed her and pulled her in tight. He couldn’t have kept his tongue out of her mouth for all the gold in Fort Knox.
With a little whimper of delight, she molded herself against him the way only Jess could do. Her body dovetailed with his as no other woman’s body had ever done. It was as if they’d been carved from the same block of stone so that when they came together, the seam of separation disappeared.
But she wasn’t stone—she was warm and pliant. When he pushed his hand into the invisible gap between them, she magically made way for him. He tugged at the sash of her bathrobe and the thick material loosened instantly, gaping open over the smooth curve of her breast.
He was there in an instant, cupping the weight, almost out of his mind with the joy of caressing her silken breast again. He brushed the erect nipple with the pad of his thumb and she gasped against his mouth. She’d always been so sensitive to his slightest touch, which had made him feel like a god when he made love to her.
Tonight her reaction seemed even more sensitive, and subtly different. Or maybe it was a
ll in his mind. Once upon a time, he’d thought he knew every intimate detail about her. But in his absence she’d given birth to a child—his child. The knowledge made her body mysterious and exotic. He needed to reconnect with her, if only to convince himself that she was still knowable, still within his reach.
He lifted his mouth a fraction from hers as he rubbed her nipple with his thumb. “Did you nurse her?” he murmured.
Her breath blew warm on his lips. “Yes.”
He traced her open mouth with his tongue. “Tell me how it was.”
“Sweet.” Her breath quickened.
He looked down at her upturned face, her auburn lashes lying against her freckled cheeks, her lips parted, her breathing uneven as he stroked her taut nipple. “So you liked it.” He was hard, so hard.
Her eyes fluttered open, and her glance scorched his. “I loved it.”
“I wish I’d been there.”
“So do I.”
Holding her gaze, he deliberately pushed aside the lapel of her robe. Lifting her breast in his hand, he leaned down, heart racing, and slowly drew her nipple into his mouth. She tasted like heaven. He closed his eyes in ecstasy.
She sighed his name and tunneled her fingers through his hair to hold him against her breast.
When he thought he might come apart from the pressure of wanting her, he lifted his head and gazed into her passion-dark eyes. “I’m taking you to bed.”
“What about…the phone…call,” she whispered weakly.
He scooped her into his arms and the robe fell away as he carried her to the bed and laid her on the quilted spread. His throat went dry at her beauty, and his vocal cords felt like the rusty hinge on an old screen door. His hand went to his belt buckle. “In the morning,” he said.
CHAPTER FIVE
WITH A SENSE of inevitability, Jessica abandoned control of the situation and allowed her desire to take her where it would. Making the phone call tonight wouldn’t get her to her baby any faster, anyway. Nat needed sleep before he went anywhere.
But sleep didn’t seem to be on his mind. She watched him shuck his clothes and remembered all the lonely nights she’d dreamed of his virile body moving in rhythm with hers. She wanted that as much as he did. Needed that, to give her a taste of what she was fighting for.
Her gaze swept hungrily over him. She’d always loved looking at him naked. Maybe it was the long absence, but he seemed even more beautiful now, leaner, stronger-looking, his chest and shoulder muscles more defined. With his thick beard, she couldn’t help thinking of some Norse god with thunderbolts in each clenched fist.
When he put his knee on the mattress and braced his hands on either side of her, she reached up to stroke his chest. The muscles under her hand were rock-hard.
She glanced into his intense blue eyes. “You must have worked like a field hand over there.”
“I dug a lot of ditches.” He leaned closer and nibbled on her lower lip. “I worked until I was so tired, I couldn’t stand. And still I couldn’t sleep for needing you.”
His beard tickled her skin. She longed to give herself to the sensuous delight of his kiss, but first she had to know. “And did you…find someone to help you with that problem?”
When he stilled, her heart twisted. Cupping his face in both hands, she drew back and looked into his eyes. She saw remorse there, and a crack started to form in her heart. “You did, didn’t you?”
“No,” he said quietly.
“No? Then why are you looking so guilty?”
“Because it just hit me how she must have felt when I turned her down.”
“A refugee?”
“God, no. I would never take advantage of those vulnerable women. Another camp volunteer, from England. She wanted me, or at least she wanted someone like me. I thought I could go through with it. I tried to go through with it.” His gaze bored into hers and he sounded irritated. Whether with himself or her, she wasn’t sure. “I wanted to forget you,” he said. “I wanted in the worst way to be able to make love to her.”
The thought of him even considering getting naked with another woman drove her crazy. “So, did you kiss her?”
“Yes.”
She couldn’t leave it alone. “French-kiss?”
“Yes.”
“You had your tongue in another woman’s mouth? How could you do that?”
A faint smile touched his lips. “Forget it, Jess. Nothing happened. Not that I wasn’t hoping it would. I just…couldn’t.”
Jessica was pretty happy about that. “Did you take her clothes off?”
“Yes, and now I’m going to take off the rest of yours.” His mouth came down, cutting off her next question as he worked her arm out of the bathrobe sleeve.
She shoved him away and gasped for breath. “Not so fast, buster. I want to get this straight. Were your clothes off, too?”
“Mostly.” In one smooth movement he pulled the robe off her other arm and tossed it on the floor.
“And even after all that, you didn’t make love to her?”
“No.” He pushed her flat on the mattress and followed her down, pinning her there with his chest.
Oh, yes. She loved the satisfying weight of him, the slight abrasion of his chest hair against her breasts. And he needed her. Only her. She gazed up at him, overjoyed with the news that he’d had a chance to make love to someone and hadn’t been able to.
Yet she still could hardly believe it. “Is that normal?”
“I doubt it. I think you’ve ruined me.” He framed her face in both hands, and his eyes searched hers for many long moments.
“What is it?” she questioned softly.
“I can’t believe I’m really here with you. I’m afraid I’m going to wake up.”
“Me, too.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “Make love to me, Nat, before we both wake up.”
With a groan he lowered his head and kissed her. His kiss was deep and sensuous, as it always was in her dreams, and she arched against him, praying that he wasn’t an illusion. Deepening the kiss, he slid his hand between her legs and caressed her inner thigh, but that had been a part of her dreams, too. Even when he slipped his fingers into her moist channel and stroked her until she whimpered, she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
But in all the nights she’d fantasized about loving him again, she’d never dreamed of the soft whisper of his beard against her skin. As if that alone could convince her that he wouldn’t disappear in a puff of smoke, she combed her fingers through it.
He lifted his mouth from hers. “I should have shaved,” he murmured.
“No.” Oh, his fingers could work magic, winding her tighter and tighter. “I…like it.”
“It must be like making love to a furry animal.” As if to make his point, he nibbled his way down her throat, his beard tickling her all the way.
“Uh-huh.”
He stroked his beard deliberately over the tip of her breast. “Or some caveman.”
She closed her eyes in ecstasy. “Uh-huh.”
“And you like this?” he asked in a husky voice as he swept his beard back and forth across her tingling nipples.
She struggled for breath. “Uh-huh.”
His low chuckle was laced with excitement. “You’re kinky, woman.”
“And you love it.”
His voice roughened. “Damned if I don’t.” He moistened each nipple with his tongue and then brushed them dry with his beard. He repeated the process, all the while coaxing her higher with the persistent rhythm of his fingers.
The effect was incredible. She climaxed with a wild cry, arching away from the mattress as he buried his bearded face between her breasts. And he’d only begun. As she lay helplessly gasping from his first assault, he kissed a path down her quivering body until he’d nestled himself between her thighs.
“Oh, Nat.” This was no dream. In a million nights of fantasizing she couldn’t have imagined the delicious sensation of his mustache right there, while
his beard feathered her inner thighs, and his tongue…there were no words for it, only sounds. And she filled the room with her moans of delight.
He gifted her with another shattering climax before making his way back to her mouth, revisiting his sites of conquest along the way. By the time he kissed her again, she would have done anything for him, if only she had a smidgen of strength left with which to do it.
“And I thought this beard was only good for keeping my face warm in a cold wind,” he whispered.
She could barely move, let alone talk. But she wanted him to feel this euphoria, too. It was only fair. She liked her dry lips. “What about…you?”
He lifted his head and gazed down at her, his eyes alight. “I’m getting to that.” He kissed the tip of her nose and his voice was gruff with emotion. “But you know how guys are when they’ve been frustrated for this long. It’ll be fast and furious the first time. You needed a head start.”
“Mmm.” She figured she’d already finished the race. Twice.
“Don’t go away.” He leaned over and opened the bedside-table drawer.
She turned her head and watched him put on the condom. Observing him rolling the latex over his stiff penis turned out to be an arousing activity. After the way he’d thoroughly loved her, she was amazed she was still capable of being aroused.
He hadn’t worn a condom any of the other times they’d made love, and she wondered if she’d feel the difference. They’d both trusted in her birth control pills, which had ultimately failed them. But she couldn’t be sorry about getting pregnant. Even if Elizabeth ended up tearing them apart, she couldn’t be sorry.
He slid back into bed beside her and turned on his side. His gaze locked with hers. She grew restless, wanting him again, but the ache was deeper this time. She no longer had that frantic craving for release. This time she wanted connection.
Still looking into her eyes, he took her chin in his hand. Then slowly he stroked down the curve of her throat, and his gaze followed the path of his hand as it swept past her collarbone and over the slope of her breast. His touch seemed to define the shape of her body as his palm glided past her hip and down her thigh. His penis twitched impatiently, yet he took his time, propping himself up on one arm so he could reach all the way to her ankles.
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