by Tami Hoag
“For my bad back,” he insisted.
He switched on the small brass lamps on the bedside tables, casting a soft golden light around the room. Then they stood facing each other, holding hands, smiling and inching closer and closer together.
There was no hurry, no nervousness, only the pleasant tingle of mutual anticipation. It was as if they had been lovers for years. Sweet kisses were traded and trailed over mouth, cheek, and throat, as fingers fumbled with buttons.
As glad as Genna had been to see Jared wearing a normal, light blue oxford-cloth shirt, she was even happier when it was off him so at last her hands could touch his magnificent chest. It was a masculine masterpiece, bronzed and beautiful, and lightly sprigged with black hair. She watched hungrily as her fingertips traced the definite lines and ridges of muscle. He was tan and hard and all man, his skin smooth and warm. She thought that if she lived to be one hundred, she’d never get enough of touching him.
Jared held still for her explorations, watching her smoky eyes darken with desire. This was what he’d been waiting for, for Genna to want to take the next step in their relationship. Now he could scarcely believe it was happening. Her palm pressed against the springy chest hair. One fingertip traveled to circle and tease a dark nipple. His breath caught as her thumb brushed the pebble-hard bud of flesh. Her head dipped, and her warm, wet tongue darted out to caress it. Still he held on to his control until she looked up him, her eyes impossibly huge and dark.
Growling low in his throat, he bent and kissed her, his hands ridding her of her white cotton blouse and lacy bra. Their sighs mingled in the still room as flesh met flesh, soft breasts pressed against unyielding muscle, satisfying one need. For a moment they simply held each other, savoring this first plateau, hands stroking backs as they nuzzled and breathed in the clean warm scents of man and woman.
Genna tipped her head back and begged another kiss, this one deeper than the last. She offered him access to the sweetness of her mouth and trembled with delight when he accepted, his lips caressing hers, his tongue sliding deep inside. She arched against Jared like a cat begging to be stroked. Her breasts ached for his touch. He complied readily, his hands cupping the tender flesh, kneading, rubbing the swollen red tips against his chest.
She moaned her pleasure and her need, pressing against him. Waves of anticipation radiated from her belly, where Jared’s arousal nudged at her through his jeans. Somewhere far, far back in her mind Genna realized she had never felt quite this way. She had never felt quite so bold in her sexuality. Jared was so overwhelmingly male, he drew out all that was female in her.
“Unzip me, honey,” he instructed her against her ear.
Genna let her desire consume her, let it take control. She felt no need to hold back or be shy with him. Eagerly her hands went to his waistband to do his bidding, working the button free and peeling the zipper down. She didn’t hesitate to push his jeans and briefs out of their way.
Somehow Jared managed the same task, stripping Genna’s khaki chinos and her panties down over her hips. They came together again, each aching to touch the other. He nearly crushed her in his embrace as they reached another plateau and the passion began to boil higher. Genna raised on tiptoe and moved against him, loving the feel of his smooth, hard maleness pressed between them, as Jared’s tongue slowly plunged in and out of her mouth in the rhythm of love.
Breaking apart, they each stepped out of their pants. Jared yanked back the navy coverlet and dark gray sheets, and helped Genna onto the bed. It rippled gently beneath them as they settled down. Jared stretched out beside her, one leg thrown over hers. He planted kisses along her collarbone. His hand stroked her waist, her flank, slipped between her parted thighs, his fingers brushing through the tangle of dark curls there.
Genna gasped at the pleasure. Jared caressed her intimately. His thumb found her most sensitive flesh and rubbed the aching bud as he eased a finger up inside her, testing her readiness and heightening it at once.
“This will be so special, sweetheart,” he whispered against her throat.
“Yes,” she said between breaths, her hands clutching at his back. Special and so right. Already she knew a completeness deep in her soul that she had never felt before. Jared was special. He was her friend and he would be her lover.
Moaning, she turned to him, her hand seeking and finding his arousal. She wanted to give him pleasure, wanted him to know the consuming desire that pleasure created. Jared groaned and let his teeth graze her shoulder as her hand stroked and gently tugged at him.
He wanted her. His blood was on fire, but he felt no desire to rush. He wanted to touch and taste and please every inch of her. Time was of no importance. She was finally going to be his. He planned to savor the moments.
Genna felt the same. It seemed her whole body ached for him, but she wanted no quick burst of satisfaction. These feelings building inside her were too intense, too wonderful to use up greedily.
With a shift of his hips, Jared was kneeling between her thighs. He kissed her, then dragged his kiss to her ear, where he nibbled and nuzzled.
“Are you protected, honey?”
Genna murmured a distracted yes, then pulled his mouth back to hers to drink in the warm, fresh taste of him. He pulled away, sliding down her body, seeking out one breast then the other. His hands molded around the full, ripe mounds as he kissed them and breathed in their powder-soft scent. With maddening slowness he drew his tongue around the dark areola, finally closing his lips over her throbbing nipple.
She cried out as he sucked her, and held his head to her when he was going to pull away. Her eyes squeezed shut as the exquisite sensations shot through her like jolts of electricity, burning a path straight to the pit of her stomach.
Jared slid down, planting lingering kisses across the feminine swell of tummy below her navel, then lower. She opened herself to him, offering the sweet treasure of her womanhood to his seeking mouth, gasping his name and arching up for him.
Then his mouth was on hers as he eased into the silken heat of her an inch at a time until she was full of him. His hands slipped beneath her, angling her hips. He sank deeper still.
“Jared!” She gasped softly.
“Am I hurting you, sweetheart?”
“No,” she whispered, reaching up to touch his cheek with a trembling hand. “So perfect.”
His eyes held hers. Sweat beaded on his brow. “Perfect, my sweet, sweet Genna.”
Her heart overflowing with love for him, Genna could only murmur his name as their bodies began to move together toward fulfillment. They moved in beautiful harmony as the pleasure built, carrying them higher and higher until they strained together for the peak, and then soared beyond it.
It was perfect.
Afterward they lay together in a tangle of legs and sheets, Genna’s head pressed to the hollow of Jared’s shoulder as he stroked her back. Contentment overrode the need for conversation. For a long while they did nothing more than bask in the sweet afterglow of their loving.
Jared was the one who broke the silence. Genna had given herself to him physically, but there were still emotional barriers between them. He was determined to take them down even if it meant hearing about a past love. “Tell me about what happened between you and Corrigan.”
Startled, Genna lifted her head, her eyes searching, her heart beating at a frantic pace. Did she dare tell Jared?
Sensing her uncertainty, Jared gently stroked her cheek and said, “It’s okay, honey, you can tell me. We’re friends, remember?”
Yes, Genna thought, easing her head back to his shoulder, she could tell Jared. He was her friend first.
“It was just a case of me thinking things were more serious between us than they really were,” she said softly. It sounded so simple but it had been so difficult. The deep bruise to her heart and her pride had never quite healed. The experience had left a dark blotch on her sense of self-esteem and on her belief in her own judgment, all because she had made the mistake
of assuming “I love you” applied out of the bedroom as well as in it. She had sworn to never make that mistake again. “That problem wouldn’t have been so hard to straighten out, except …”
Jared kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her, waiting for her to continue. “Except what?” he coaxed her gently, not in the least prepared for her answer.
“I got pregnant,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes at the way Jared tensed beneath her. Was he thinking what Allan had thought? She hoped with all her heart he wasn’t, feared with all her heart he was. Her voice trembled with both emotions as she went on. “It was an accident, a fluke. I didn’t plan it, I swear.”
His arms tightened around her automatically as he struggled to swallow a major dose of guilt. It was obvious Genna believed he would think the worst and that Corrigan had. Jared wanted to damn the bastard to hell, but how could he? Hadn’t he always harbored the belief that Elaine had gotten pregnant on purpose?
“I didn’t,” Genna murmured. “I wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone, especially the baby.”
“I know you wouldn’t, Gen,” he assured her, hurting for her.
She gave a humorless laugh. “Allan didn’t. He came right out and accused me of trying to trap him into marrying me. He was furious. He said a lot of ugly things, culminating with ‘You got yourself into this, you can get yourself out of it.’ And then he left.”
Jared wasn’t having any trouble cursing Corrigan now. If he ever saw the lowlife jerk again, he’d be hard pressed not to snap his neck like a chicken bone. Genna would have been frightened and upset, and that damned three-piece suit had left her in the lurch!
He tried to keep his rising temper under control as he asked, “What’d you do?”
A sad smile curved her mouth against his chest. She had wanted the child even if Allan hadn’t. And she had been prepared to make sacrifices to keep her baby. But ultimately the decision had not been hers to make. “Nothing,” she said. “Life is full of little ironies, you know. Two days after I told Allan the good news, I miscarried. Thank heaven Amy and I were in Hartford at the time. No one in Tory Hills ever knew, or I would have been out of a job on top of everything else.”
“They’d have fired you?” he asked in surprise.
She tilted her head up so she could look at him. “Do you know any unmarried, pregnant kindergarten teachers?”
He thought about it for a minute before answering. The sexual revolution notwithstanding, Tory Hills was a conservative small town. The good folk here would have taken a dim view of the situation. “I see your point,” he said.
“So anyway,” she said with forced brightness as she propped herself up on an elbow and looked down at him with vulnerable blue eyes, “that’s the tale of my sordid past. Have I ruined the evening?”
Jared stared up at her, aching for her, for the pain she’d suffered. She’d been through a hell of a lot and had come out on top. He’d been right from the start. She had it. Genna Hastings was one very special lady. And now she was his.
“No,” he whispered, pulling her down so he could kiss her. As she stretched out on top of him, he felt passion begin anew, even sweeter than before. His hand stroked down her back then up, his fingers tangling in the thick silk of her hair. “I’m your friend, honey. I want you to know you can tell me anything. I won’t ever stop being your friend.” He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he held back, afraid she might not want to hear that just yet.
“I know,” she whispered, stringing kisses slowly up his chest to his mouth. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” he said, “for sharing part of yourself with me.”
And they both knew he wasn’t talking about the act of love that joined their bodies once more, but the trust she’d given him in telling her story.
SEVEN
IT WAS ELEVEN forty-five when the phone beside Jared’s bed rang and jolted them both awake. He reached for it and groaned a sleepy, “’Lo?”
“Jared, it’s Amy. Sorry if I woke you, but—”
“Is Alyssa all right?” he demanded, coming fully awake and sitting upright in bed. Genna sat up, too, pulling the gray sheet around her.
“No. She’s pretty upset—”
“I’ll be right there.” He was out of bed and pulling his jeans on before the receiver hit the cradle.
“Jared, what is it?” Genna asked, fear making her shiver in spite of the bedcovers. Jared’s features were grim as he yanked on his clothes.
“Alyssa’s had another nightmare,” he said, shoving his feet into his running shoes. He didn’t even look at her as he bolted from the room.
For a moment Genna sat back against the pillows. So this was why he had been reluctant to let Alyssa spend the night away from home. Another nightmare. No doubt it was related to the accident she’d been in that had killed her mother. Poor little lamb, Genna thought, aching to comfort the little girl. That was Jared’s department, though. Well, she would do what she could, she decided, slipping out of bed to dress.
Across the street Jared didn’t bother to knock on the Dennisons’ front door. He practically stormed the place, bursting in and striding into the living room to the couch where Amy sat trying to calm Alyssa. His daughter was sobbing as if her entire world had come to an end.
“Come here, baby,” Jared crooned, scooping her into his arms and holding her tight as she cried on his shoulder. “Daddy’s here, sweetheart.”
“I think she had a nightmare,” Amy said, handing Jared Alyssa’s little suitcase.
“I know,” he nodded, giving her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Amy.”
Amy shook her head, almost in tears herself at Alyssa’s heartwrenching sobs. She reached up and brushed the little girl’s hair back from her tear-drenched face. “It’s okay, honey. You can come back another time.”
Her words only made Jared’s daughter cry all the harder.
“I’m—not—a—big—girl,” she said between hiccups as they crossed the street.
“Sure you are, honey,” Jared whispered, his heart breaking as he held Alyssa in his arms, sobs racking her little body.
“Nooooo!” she wailed.
Genna met them at the door and followed them to Alyssa’s room, where she had turned the carousel horse lamp on and the frilly covers of the canopied bed back. She leaned against the doorframe, wanting to be near enough to help but not wanting to intrude.
Jared toed off his sneakers and sat on the bed, leaning back against the carved white headboard and stretching his legs out, Alyssa still clinging to his shoulder. He tried to comfort and quiet her with soft words and kisses as his hand stroked over the cloud of her midnight hair. He looked up once, his gaze, full of pain and helplessness, meeting Genna’s, so longing to help. Then he squeezed his eyes shut to keep his own tears at bay. He could handle two-hundred-plus-pound football players running over him with the zeal of a freight train, but it tore him apart to hear his little girl cry.
“It was—the—bad dream—Daddy,” Alyssa said, sliding down onto his lap and pressing her wet face to his chest, her tears staining his shirt.
“I know it was, muffin,” he murmured. “It’s all gone now.”
One small hand smoothed over the white eyelet nightgown that had been purchased for her big night, as the tears in Alyssa’s blue eyes welled up and spilled over again. “I’m not a big girl.”
“Sure you are, Lyss,” Jared said thickly. “Even grown-ups have bad dreams sometimes.”
He dried her tears with a handkerchief from his hip pocket. She was nearly all cried out. He had unfortunately gone through this enough to know. Pulling the covers up around them, he tucked Alyssa’s worn-out rag doll in her arms.
“Here’s Dollie,” he whispered tenderly, kissing his daughter’s hair and hugging her close. She still cried in fits and spurts. “Should we play The Game, muffin?”
She nodded.
“Okay. Let’s close our eyes—”
“Nooo!” she sobbed,
so clearly frightened that Genna had to wonder what terrible visions came to Alyssa when she closed her eyes.
“We have to,” Jared persisted gently. “Remember? We close our eyes and what do we see?”
The crescent of long inky lashes glistening with tears fluttered down against Alyssa’s cheek. “Th—the sky.”
“That’s right. A beautiful blue sky,” He spoke in a slow, soothing cadence, his warm, smoky voice coaxing his little girl to relax, lulling her to sleep. His hand stroked her hair over and over. “With big, fluffy white clouds.
“What else do we see?”
“Grass … and flowers.”
“Lots of flowers. All different kinds and colors; blue and yellow and pink … It’s a meadow. And it’s warm and nice, and the grass is blowing over in the wind. What else do we see? What’s in the grass?”
“Bunnies,” Alyssa said, the thumb of one hand inching toward her mouth. “…And they’re hopping and playing.”
“Are they having fun?”
She nodded against his chest. “And puppies too.”
“Rolling in the grass like Flurry does?”
The thumb found its target on the second nod and she was asleep.
Jared held her for a moment longer, finally kissing the top of her head and easing himself out from under her. He left the lamp on low and went to Genna, looking like he’d run a marathon, his wide shoulders sagging, his face pale and drawn.
She put her arms around him and held him close, feeling ten times stronger than he and knowing she had to be that strong for him now because he just didn’t have it left in him. He lowered his head to her shoulder.
“Hell of a way to end the evening. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, patting his broad back. “Does this happen often?”
He broke the embrace and leaned back against the doorjamb, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Not as often as it did at first. It used to be every night.”
“Is it about the accident?”