This Time Love

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Joy closed her eyes suddenly. That, at least, hadn’t changed. He was still as sensual as her memories and dreams. More sensual. Less confident.

  And, oddly, much more intriguing.

  When she was twenty, Gabe’s lack of philosophical questions about himself and the world had excited her. Now she realized that a man without questions wasn’t exciting to anyone but a girl.

  She was a woman now.

  Yet Gabe still appealed to her, for in many ways he was more of a man than ever before. His searching, aching, questioning intelligence was much more intriguing than his untested self-confidence had been.

  He was different now. Stronger. His mind had grown, breaking out of old certainties, flexing against the intimate unknown that was himself. He’d begun an internal exploration that equaled in danger and fascination any that he could have found in the external world.

  Joy knew what such explorations were like, the danger and the excitement, the risk and the reward and the despair. She knew how necessary it was to explore and accept yourself, your limitations and strengths, your fears and hopes, your ability to love.

  And to hate.

  If she hadn’t begun to know herself, she wouldn’t have survived the loss of Gabe and her parents. She wouldn’t have survived raising a fatherless child. Survival had meant no longer asking old questions. Survival had meant beginning a search for new answers.

  It had been the same for Gabe. New questions. New answers. It was all there in his eyes as he watched her, waiting for her decision.

  “I don’t understand what brought you back to Lost River Cave,” Joy said finally. “I don’t understand why you left. I do know that each of us has to do what is necessary, what we can live with. Hatred isn’t one of those things, Gabe. I can’t live with it.”

  He touched her cheek gently. Just that. No more. “Neither can I.”

  She took a shaky breath. “As for forgiveness—you’re right. It’s a part of love. And love—” Her voice broke. “Love like that just isn’t a part of me anymore. So if you came to Lost River Cave to be forgiven, you came to the wrong place. I’ve never forgiven myself for being such an innocent fool. How can I possibly forgive the man who took the innocence and left only the fool?”

  “Joy,” he whispered. His voice fragmented into silence. He swallowed against the emotions burning in his throat. “You weren’t a fool. Your love was the most beautiful thing I’d ever known. I was the fool. I left you.”

  She smiled sadly, trying to keep her tears from falling. “No, Gabriel. I was the only fool. I loved the wrong man. But it was a long time ago. Please—oh God, please—can’t we just let go of it?”

  He looked at her tear-filled eyes and knew with great certainty that if he let go of the past now, he would lose the future as well. Somehow he had to convince her of that.

  Words weren’t enough.

  “I can’t let go.” He bent over to kiss Joy’s long, honey-colored lashes, wet with tears. “Only a fool would let go of love. I’m not a fool anymore.”

  Her breath broke as his lips both soothed and incited hers. His tongue was a hot moist flame licking over her. She leaned toward him yearningly.

  “It will be good, sweetheart,” he promised in a low, husky voice. “It will be unbearably good.”

  Twenty-three

  SUSPENDED BETWEEN PASSION AND FEAR, JOY TREMBLED in Gabe’s hands, remembering too many things.

  It will be unbearably good.

  She wanted him until she shook with it. Yet he’d offered nothing beyond the satisfaction of the hunger that raged through her. And through him.

  What did I expect—a promise to spend the future with me, happy ever after, world without end amen? she asked herself wildly. He’s being honest with me.

  This time.

  No. That isn’t fair. He was honest before. He never promised a damn thing. Why should it be different this time?

  And then an idea came, a thought both sweet and savagely triumphant.

  Yes, why shouldn’t it be the same? Why shouldn’t he make love to me while he’s here and then leave me the way he did before?

  Pregnant.

  Why shouldn’t I give him the passion that’s all he wants and take from him all I want—passion and another child?

  There was no answer but the liquid heat of desire uncurling between her thighs. With a moan Joy gave herself over to Gabe’s touch, saying nothing, asking nothing of him beyond the hot, sensual glide of his flesh over hers.

  As her response swept through him, his hands tightened almost painfully on her shoulders. She felt him try and fail to control the urgency driving him, felt his kiss go in a single instant from tender to devouring.

  Triumph flashed through her. It had been like this the first time they made love. When he would have gone slow, might have drawn back, she’d come to him like fire, burning away the real world.

  And he hadn’t pulled back.

  The barely leashed strength of Gabe’s arms should have been painful, but Joy was straining against him just as harshly, her body on fire with demands now as it had been the first time. When he lifted his mouth from hers, she protested with a hungry, throaty sound.

  He laughed shakily and watched her with burning green eyes.

  “If I don’t slow down, I’m afraid I’ll hurt you. I’d never forgive myself for that. It’s been so long for you. And—” His breath broke as discovery raced through him, illuminating part of his inner maze that he’d never known existed. As he bent to kiss her with an aching hunger that was new, he shared his discovery with her. “In all the ways that matter, it’s been just as long for me.”

  She arched into his kiss, not wanting to talk, afraid that he would pull back and ask her questions whose answers would turn hunger into hurt and anger. She didn’t want that. All she wanted was the endless, passionate present she’d found only with him.

  Eagerly her fingers moved over the mesh of the body-covering underwear he wore. No matter how she probed, she couldn’t feel the smooth heat of his naked skin or the rough silk of the hair that she knew curled across his chest. She’d loved playing with that hair, had teased and tantalized him mercilessly, using the tip of her tongue to comb through the dense mat to the tiny nipples hiding beneath.

  She wanted to do that again, to know again every texture of him, every taste, everything.

  “Are you going to take off that damned underwear,” she asked huskily, “or am I going to get out my pocketknife?”

  “I was just thinking of making you the same offer.”

  His eyes were black except for the brilliant rim of green circling the enlarged pupil. The clean line of his lips beckoned her.

  “What are you waiting for?” she whispered.

  She stood on tiptoe and traced his mouth with the moist tip of her tongue. His fingers kneaded hungrily down her back and hips, pressing her against his body, letting her feel the hard length of his arousal.

  It was like falling into fire.

  Her hips made repeated twisting movements against him, telling him of a need that equaled his. His breath came out in a groan.

  “I want to kiss you like this,” she said, tracing his lips again, nibbling. “Everywhere.”

  He threaded one hand into her short, silky hair and pulled her head back until she was arched like a bow, her thighs taut against his. She smiled and slowly rubbed against him, glorying in the sexual need that made his face tight, dark, exciting.

  His hand ran urgently down her body the instant before his mouth closed over hers, stifling her gasp of pleasure as he found and caressed the soft heat between her legs. His tongue thrust into her mouth until she had no room even for breath.

  And still she strained to be closer, closer, now.

  With tiny, teasing nips, his teeth tormented her soft mouth while his palm rubbed her intimately, hungrily, knowingly. She moaned, shivered, and gave him a taste of the sultry pleasures that waited inside her.

  His whole body went taut. It was like his me
mories, but better. This time she knew what she wanted. So did he. He had an overwhelming need to sink into Joy, transforming her, loving her so perfectly that she would never look toward another man. But this time he also knew he would never look to another woman.

  It was like being set free.

  With an effort of will that left him aching, he stepped back from Joy.

  “Gabe? Don’t you want—”

  “God, yes,” he cut in. “But all these damned—”

  Instead of finishing, he started stripping off her clothes. Yet even when she was naked he simply looked at her, almost afraid.

  He hadn’t known he could want anything as much as he wanted Joy.

  “Gabriel?” she asked, her voice like his eyes, almost afraid.

  He was trembling as he looked at her.

  “Get in the shower,” he said, his lips thinned with the effort of controlling himself. When she took a breath that sent her breasts swaying, he closed his eyes. It was that or take her right here, right now.

  “But—” she began.

  “Go. Or I’ll take you right here, right now, on the floor, because I’ve never wanted anything so much as I want you now, even my own life when it was hanging by a thread.” His eyes opened hot and green. “Do you understand?”

  He saw the wild blaze of response in her, felt her hands seeking him, shaping his hot, rigid flesh in a caress that made the air hiss out between his clenched teeth.

  “Joy, I mean it.”

  “Good.” Her voice was shaking as badly as her hands. She tugged at the mesh underwear separating her from him, pulling it off his powerful body. “I want it like that. I want to watch you take me and know that you’ve never wanted anything more than you want me now.”

  He stripped off the last of his clothing with careless strength, ripping the tough mesh and taking her down to the floor in the same continuous motion. She moved eagerly beneath him, opening herself to him, watching him want her.

  He tried to stop, to ask her if this was what she really wanted, but her sultry need pulsed out to meet him, licking over his aroused flesh, searing him with a promise of pleasure so great it stopped his breath. With a groan he pushed into her even as she reached up to take him. And then he cried out with the sweet agony of being alive within Joy again.

  The liquid heat of her body enclosed him tightly, completely, and the tiny cries she made as she felt him inside her again were like crystals glittering in darkness. He felt the instant, deep ripples of her release tug at him and knew that she’d wanted him as unbearably as he’d wanted her.

  The discovery exploded through him, bringing a searing, pulsing release so great he could only arch against her sweet, clinging body and pour himself into her as she cried out his name in passion and triumph.

  After that, there was no sound but ragged breathing. Spent, Gabe laid his cheek next to hers while the world slowly took shape around him again.

  It was then he realized that he hadn’t protected her.

  Again.

  He swore painfully, savagely.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, her gray eyes searching his.

  “I didn’t protect you. It’s the past all over again. I get close to you and nothing else is real, especially tomorrow.”

  She smiled crookedly. “Don’t worry.” She kissed him lightly. “This time I know the risk of sleeping with you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He rolled aside so that he could see her face clearly. What he saw first was the unspoken protest that tightened her lips when he left her body.

  And then he saw the smooth mask of Dr. Anderson descend, veiling the vivid sensuality of Joy.

  “It means I’m not young anymore.” She stood gracefully and walked into the kitchen. “This time around I’m an adult. I know that love between a man and a woman is a figment of human imagination rather than a fact of human relations. This time around I’m not trapped in my innocence. And neither are you.”

  “But—” he began.

  “But nothing. If I’d wanted protection, I would have demanded it.”

  “Next time I’ll—”

  She interrupted him again. “If you come to me wearing a condom, I won’t have you.”

  With that she disappeared inside the house.

  Twenty-four

  FOR A MOMENT GABE SIMPLY STARED AT THE EMPTY DOOR-way. Then he surged to his feet and followed Joy, determined to talk to her. Now, at least, she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t want anything to do with him. He knew better. He had felt the proof of it flowing hotly over him.

  Like Kati, that part of the past was very much alive.

  And it was good.

  The sound of the shower told him where Joy was. When he got to the bathroom, steam was already rising from the tall showerhead that loomed over the old-fashioned bathtub.

  She looked over her shoulder and held out her hand to him. “Want to share the shower?”

  He took her slender fingers. They moved over his palm as though tasting him. The thought of that kind of pleasure hazed his brain.

  “We have to talk,” he managed.

  “In the shower. I’ll explain. Okay?”

  He stepped into the bathtub with her and pulled the curtain in place, shutting out the world.

  “If you’re pregnant—” he began, only to be cut off.

  “It’s not your problem, so don’t worry about it,” she said calmly, stepping under the warm spray.

  Almost warily he took the soap from her hands and began making a rich lather, which he smoothed over her body. He was uncertain, every instinct alert to danger. He felt like he was climbing a cliff and had suddenly sensed it quivering on the brink of landslide.

  “You can’t believe that,” he said slowly, washing and caressing Joy at the same time.

  The feel of his hands made her breath catch and her eyes widen in surprise. A few minutes ago orgasm had exploded hotly through her. Surely that couldn’t be new arousal she felt prowling through her blood, her body.

  Yet even as she denied the possibility of new desire, she felt tension gathering in her breasts, in the pit of her stomach, between her thighs, heat coiling tightly, hungry for release.

  Then she saw Gabe’s eyes watching the sudden, hard rise of her nipples, saw his slanting smile, saw the renewed heat of his blood in the male flesh stirring against her thigh.

  “Listen to me,” she said huskily, taking the soap from his hands and bathing him in rich lather. “When you have what you need for your article, you’ll leave. I accept that, Gabriel. That’s the only truth that matters. No injured innocence, no responsibilities to anyone but yourself. It will be the same for me, I promise you. No past for us, no future. Just the hot, endless now.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  His voice broke as her fingers slicked through the hair on his chest and teased his sensitive nipples. A shudder ripped through him, tightening his whole body. He couldn’t think when her small hands followed his body hair down and down. His breath came out in a ragged groan when she cupped her palm between his thighs, weighing and enjoying his very different flesh.

  “I love your body,” she said as she caressed him. “So different from mine. So wonderfully different.”

  He tried to say her name, but all that came out was a thick sound. Only in his dreams had she taken the lead in sensual exploration. The sight of her pale fingers caressing him, defining him, loosened his knees. He told himself that this was real, that he wouldn’t wake up shaking, sweating, alone, filled to bursting with hot dreams.

  Her hands shifted upward slowly until she captured the blunt statement of his desire. She felt a fierce pleasure when he became even harder in response to her sensual exploration. She had touched him like this only in her dreams, when she wanted to drive him wild with need.

  “This time there are no ties, no traps, no hidden expectations,” she said.

  As she spoke, she stepped aside. Hot water flowed over him, chasing dissolvi
ng sheets of lather down to the drain.

  “That’s the past,” she said, flicking the spent lather with her toe. “There is no future.” Her mouth brushed over his chest, searching through dark hair until she found the tiny, hard thrust of his nipple. “There is only now.”

  Her teeth raked lightly over him. She felt his instant response in the leap of his aroused flesh between her hands.

  “Let’s make it last forever, Gabe.”

  Her husky whisper was like her tongue—maddening, searching, caressing every bit of him as she slid down his body and the hot water beat against his back. He saw the flash of her smile against his dark hair, felt the sweet sting of her teeth testing the flexed muscles of his thighs.

  “I didn’t do this before,” she said. “I didn’t even know I wanted to. I know it now. I want this.”

  “Joy, sweetheart, we have to talk.”

  “I am. You’re just not listening.”

  Then her soft, hungry mouth closed over him and he couldn’t think at all.

  A shock wave of desire slammed through him. All the heat and power of his blood rushed into the flesh she was caressing so intimately. His body tensed until he could have been carved of stone. He endured the sweet agony for as long as he could, and then longer still, until finally he called to her.

  She didn’t hear. She was lost to everything but the wild pleasure of loving him, the taste and heat of him burning through her.

  With a hoarse sound Gabe pulled Joy up his body and wrapped her tightly in his arms. If this was the only communication she allowed, he would make it more binding than words.

  “Turn off the shower,” he said.

  While she fumbled with the faucets, he bent over her and caught her erect nipple between his teeth. Sensation shot through her, arching her into his mouth. Her hands slid away from metal and back to her lover’s slick, exciting body.

  Water kept beating down on his head.

  “To hell with it,” he muttered. He turned off the faucets himself, yanked aside the shower curtain, and lifted her out. “The only thing I want to drown in is you.”