Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  The fact that hunger rushed over him like a tsunami and had him devouring her shook him enough that he forced himself to pull his mouth from Anna’s to string small kisses along her jaw, to nuzzle her neck, to nibble on her earlobe. He needed to get a grip. Make it slow, he reminded himself. Give her pleasure. Don’t push her up against the wall and bury yourself in her the way you want.

  God. That was something he’d never done before, but the picture leaped into his mind, shockingly vivid, and he had to grit his teeth to suppress a raw sound.

  The next few minutes turned into something of a battle. She kept trying to capture his mouth; he’d let her win the skirmish, but would keep the kiss light and teasing. He didn’t dare start to undress her. Touching her breasts through the nubby sweater and thin T-shirt was about all he could handle in slow-down mode.

  Eventually, he raised his head. “Bedroom?” He sounded hoarse.

  She stared at him almost blindly. “Oh. Um.” Her head turned. “Upstairs.”

  God help him. He was so damn hard he didn’t know how he was going to climb the stairs, but he wasn’t going to throw her down on her sofa, either. He had something to prove to himself.

  No, it wasn’t that complicated. He just needed to make sure he didn’t get mixed up about what this meant.

  He grabbed her hand and led her to the foot of the staircase. It reared above them like Mount Rainier. He could see the sofa out of the corner of his eye. No! Put one foot in front of the other.

  She took the initiative and led the way, tugging him by the hand. As he plodded, she laughed over her shoulder at him, her eyes alight. “Slowpoke,” she teased.

  “I have a handicap,” he growled.

  “Really? Is that what it is?”

  No, it was the hard-on to end all hard-ons. He’d liked her better on the defensive, he decided.

  No, this is good, he assured himself. All she wants is to have fun, too.

  Was that what this was supposed to be?

  The upstairs of her new town house had only two bedrooms. He saw through the first open door that she was using one of the rooms for a home office. The other, thank God, was her bedroom. He had an impression of warm colors and glowing wood, but all he really saw was the bed. Only a double, which suggested she might not entertain men here often. No footboard, so his feet could hang off the bottom.

  When they reached the bed, Anna turned to face him. Those soft gray eyes searched his face, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she did a little shimmy and pulled sweater and tee over her head, ruffling her sleek dark blond hair and leaving her wearing only a bra that was presumably intended to be skin colored. Her skin was so white, it didn’t work.

  His question was answered about what she wore beneath her clothes. Utilitarian color, delicate cut, allowing a swell of female flesh above satin fabric. A guttural sound escaped Reid’s throat, and he placed his palms right over her breasts and gently rotated. She bent her head and watched, hair fanning down to partially hide her expression.

  Her breasts were considerably more generous than they appeared in her workday clothes. The truth was, she was so slender, with a narrow rib cage and tiny waist, the swell of what he guessed might even be C-cup breasts was erotic enough to cut off his breathing. He had to close his eyes for a moment.

  You’re in control. His mantra. He didn’t usually have to remind himself.

  His hands didn’t wait for direction. One had slipped behind her to unclip her bra so that, by the time he opened his eyes, the straps were already slipping off her shoulders and down her arms. She turned out to have small, taut nipples, rosy-pink.

  Reid dropped to his knees in front of her and worked on freeing her from her slacks. The panties were tan, too, and damn skimpy. The soft curls he found beneath were a shade darker than her hair, a light brown. He eased slacks and panties down her long legs, until he helped her step out of shoes and clothes. The socks he had to peel off.

  Then he explored her legs as he stroked his hands back up the way they’d come. Spectacular legs, slim with taut muscles. He’d already known how fabulous they were after seeing her in the skintight, stretchy pants she’d worn skiing. Her hips were almost boyish, but not quite. His thumbs explored the dip beneath her pelvic bones, then the jut of them covered by silky skin. Testing his self-control, he rubbed his cheek against her curls, feeling her fingers tangle in his hair and grip hard. When he licked between her folds, she gasped.

  “Reid.”

  Oh, yeah. He liked the way she said his name.

  He did it again, swirled his tongue a few times, closing his mind to everything but the amazing taste and sensations, the little sounds she made.

  The fact that you’re taking your time. Good.

  He shed his shirt before he rose to his feet, and Anna immediately transferred her hands from his head to his chest. Every muscle in his body tightened at her exploring touch. In self-defense, he lifted her and laid her backward across the bed, planting a knee between her legs and pinning her hands above her head.

  Better.

  He made slow love to her, leaving his own trousers on. More self-defense. Only when her hips were rising helplessly and cries broke from her lips did he grab a packet from his pocket and get naked.

  “Let me,” she whispered, but he shook his head.

  “Not this time.”

  Reid was shocked to see his hands were shaking when he donned the condom. Not a good sign.

  He wanted her and that was okay. He was controlling the pace.

  He went back to kissing her, his tongue deep in her mouth. She sucked on it, sending an electric charge through his body. Her legs were already splayed wide. All he had to do was position himself and push.

  As slight as she was, he wasn’t surprised to find her passage was tight. Move slow, when the roaring in his head demanded he plunge hard and fast. She squirmed, tilting her hips to meet him. By the time he was buried as deep as he could go, the very concept of self-control was beyond him.

  Anna’s fingers dug into the muscles of his back and she moaned.

  At the small sound, he began to move.

  He held on, although, God, he didn’t know how, until he felt the first ripples of her climax. Only then did he let himself go, pounding into her once, twice, three times, the pleasure making him deaf, dumb and blind.

  So damn good.

  He didn’t let himself sag on top of her the way he wanted to. Instead, he came down on his shoulder and rolled to the side, gently pulling her with him until her slim body was arranged the way he liked it.

  It was a long time until he could think. Euphoria spread like a drug in his bloodstream. Yeah, so what? he thought as his brain gradually came back online. Sex was supposed to feel good. It had been too long for him. And, damn, he’d wanted her. He wouldn’t make more of it than it was.

  He should say something. What? Did he usually say anything at this moment? For some weird reason, he couldn’t remember. Couldn’t even quite picture another woman’s head resting on his shoulder, the scent of another woman’s hair. Something like panic squeezed him, but he stamped down hard on it. What an idiot, freaking because the sex was good.

  It was Anna who eased herself away from him. She rose on one elbow and raked her hair back from her face. Her eyes searched his again, and this time he had no idea at all what she was thinking. There was a tiny crinkle between her eyebrows.

  “Do you always like to be in charge?” she asked.

  Stunned to know that she’d seen right through him, he let the silence go a little longer than he should have. “Yeah,” he said finally. “It’s the nature of the beast. Was it so bad?”

  “You know it wasn’t.” But the tension evident in her voice and on her forehead didn’t ease, either. “I just would have liked—” She didn’t finish.

  He car
essed her face, slid his fingers into the silk of her hair. “Would have liked?”

  Anna shook her head slightly but emphatically. “It doesn’t matter.” She laid her head back down, relaxing as if comfortable, but he wasn’t fooled.

  The panic was pressing upward, feeling a lot like heartburn. Stirred into it was a hint of wounded pride. That wasn’t good enough for her? He knew she’d come, had heard her cry his name in astonishment. So what the hell did she want?

  Resentment stirred. Power. That was what she wanted. To demonstrate her power over him. To know she could reduce him to sheer desperation.

  Wasn’t happening. If his brand of lovemaking wasn’t good enough for her, well, there were plenty of women in a city the size of Angel Butte.

  He rolled out of bed. “This was a mistake.”

  There was a discernible silence behind him before she said, “If you think so, then it was.” She sounded cool, even indifferent.

  Reid yanked up his knit boxers and the black dress pants he’d worn to work. He had to look at her. He didn’t make a habit of slicing people deep without at least checking to see what he’d done to them.

  Of course she wasn’t looking at him. She, too, had slid out of bed, but on the other side. As gutsy as she was, he should have known she wouldn’t try to wrap a sheet around herself to hide her body. Instead, with her head held high, she walked to the dresser. While he still stood there feeling cruel and, God help him, turned on by the sight of her slim, pale body, she put on bikini underwear—petal-pink—followed by a pair of jeans.

  The bra she grabbed for didn’t match. She probably didn’t notice or care. Although she was keeping her back to him, he could see her beautiful breasts in the mirror above the dresser. Covered, then adjusted after she hooked the bra in back. A moment later, she pulled a long-sleeved tee over her head and at last turned to face him.

  Reid hadn’t moved. Even in the mirror, he’d seen her eyes. For all her composure, he’d hurt her. Feeling sick, he asked himself if he’d meant to. You got what you came for, and now you want to make damn sure she doesn’t expect anything else or deceive herself you’ll be back for more.

  That, or he had lashed out because she’d hurt his feelings.

  The first option sounded more like him. He didn’t like knowing it, but he was capable of thinking that coldly. Sometimes that was the only way he could protect himself.

  The thought rattled him. Protect himself from what?

  Feeling too much.

  Reid thought of himself as a decent man. He didn’t hurt people on purpose, although he’d like to make an exception for his father. He especially didn’t hurt the women he had sex with if he could help it. But it had been easy to be a decent man when he didn’t feel anything and had no need to protect himself.

  Reid suddenly became aware he hadn’t moved. His shirt lay on the floor halfway to the door. His socks and shoes were... He didn’t know.

  “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.

  Those extraordinary eyes met his. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Reid. I knew you didn’t want to get involved with me. That’s okay. But I’d like you to leave now.”

  “No. I didn’t mean it.” He almost groaned, the turmoil rising in him to fill his chest cavity. He couldn’t afford to do this.

  Anna crossed her arms. “What didn’t you mean?”

  “It wasn’t a mistake.”

  “Obviously it was, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

  “No.” God. A boulder lodged in his throat. “I was...” What? He knew, but could he say it? “Afraid,” he managed, sick that he’d bared himself to this extent. He remembered what he’d thought once, that for her he would roll on his back and expose his naked underside. That was what he was doing now.

  The only reaction he could see was the slight widening of her eyes. “Afraid of what?”

  “You were right. I do have to be in control. I didn’t want to lose it with you. I needed to be sure—” He didn’t know how to finish.

  “I didn’t get the impression I was anything special?” The bitterness was the first real emotion she’d let slip into her voice.

  Oh, Christ, he thought, and, yes, he was going to do this despite the fear ripping at his gut. He’d found something more powerful even than his need to keep his distance from everyone and every emotion.

  Anna.

  He knew, somehow, that she’d been hurt in ways worse than what she’d told him. He could not, would not, add a layer, whatever the cost to him.

  She was still waiting for him to finish the damn sentence. “I needed to prove to myself that you aren’t.” Special wasn’t a word he could say. Implying was bad enough.

  “Well, you succeeded,” she told him, and the sharpness was still there. “Congratulations.”

  “No. I didn’t succeed.” He rubbed a hand over his face, willing it to stay impassive. “I hurt your feelings, and I didn’t fool myself for a second.”

  Her forehead crinkled as she scrutinized him. “Do you have any idea how much I hate knowing that every time you call me, you wish you hadn’t wanted to?”

  “You can tell?” he asked in surprise, then winced at what he’d given away.

  Her laugh broke. “Of course I can tell. I should never have asked you over tonight. I knew it was a mistake, but I suppose I hoped—”

  He put a name to what he now felt: anguish. Or was it terror? Reid didn’t know where he was going with her, or whether he wanted to go there, but walking away now would be worse.

  “I owe you an explanation,” he said.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Please,” he heard himself say. Beg.

  The gray of her eyes darkened, clouded. His fault.

  “All right,” she said at last. “I’ll go make some coffee.” She detoured to her closet and thrust her feet into fluffy slippers, then walked right past Reid without looking at him again.

  He didn’t move until he heard her footsteps on the stairs and knew he was truly alone. Then he let his head fall back and strangled the bellow that rose to his throat. What emerged instead was a raw sound, nothing he recognized. He fought the desire to slam his fist into the wall again, too.

  What was wrong with him? What was he going to say to her? Why hadn’t he just left when he had the chance?

  But he knew, and he wasn’t being entirely unselfish. No, he didn’t want to hurt her, but there was more. Adrift in so many unfamiliar feelings lately, he needed her. So quickly, she’d become essential. A lodestone. An anchor. He didn’t really know, only that he wasn’t sure he could maintain his sanity if he couldn’t talk to her, touch her, see her.

  And now there was a price to be paid.

  He hated the price, but, even more, he hated feeling so mixed-up.

  So out of control.

  He’d been kidding himself. Tonight had been a pretense. He’d been pretending to himself a lot lately.

  After a moment, he swiped his shirt up off the floor with an angry movement and thrust his arms through the sleeves. He sat on the upholstered rocker and put on socks and shoes, then looked around, feeling as if he was missing something.

  His weapon. He rarely went without, but tonight he’d locked it in his glove compartment.

  He had the ironic thought that he had come to her entirely unprotected.

  * * *

  THE COFFEE WAS ready to pour by the time Reid appeared in her kitchen. She’d heard the toilet flush upstairs, but couldn’t help wondering what else he’d been doing. Searching her drawers? Hunting for a listening device? God knew. He was paranoid enough.

  Except she knew that wasn’t right. The most impregnable man she had ever met might also be the most vulnerable.

  Without comment, Anna filled two mugs, added cream to hers and carried them to the small
dining nook. The old table she had refinished was made of sycamore, she’d been told, not one of the more common woods. She’d hand-polished it to a warm, rich color. She loved stroking the surface and feeling the tiny indentations left by a century or more of use.

  She made sure to set the mugs down on woven place mats.

  The four chairs were antiques, too, with caned seats. She let Reid take the one armchair, the most substantial of the four. Picking up the sugar bowl, she added a spoonful to her coffee and stirred without looking at him.

  “This is something I’ve been thinking about recently,” he said, then gave a grunt that might have been intended to be a laugh. “Hard not to.”

  She waited to hear what this was.

  “My life was on an even keel until I learned I had a brother. I saw his name, that there’d been a court proceeding, and I felt such rage. I’d forgotten I could feel like that.”

  Anna finally looked at him, to find that he was gazing down into his black coffee as if he’d find answers there. His hand cradled the mug.

  “I told myself that was natural. I should have kept an eye on my father. That Caleb had suffered from his brutality for fifteen years was partly my fault.”

  Anna’s lips parted, but Reid shook his head. So he was watching her, somehow.

  “On a rational level, I know that isn’t true,” he said, before she could protest. “It’s our father’s fault. Entirely his.”

  “Yes.”

  “But something changed in me that day. I got in touch with Caleb, flew up to Spokane to meet him. Understood when he rejected me, said whatever I was offering was too little, too late.”

  Oh, she understood that, too. Had she ever believed anyone’s promises again, the way she had before a betrayed promise resulted in her sister’s death? Like Reid, she knew the angry man who killed Molly was really responsible, but in her mind she’d fastened on the young social worker who’d hugged them both and said, “I’ll be by often to check on you. I promise.”