by EC Sheedy
"But?" he urged, hoping her mind was on a similar track to his, willing her to respond to him.
She pulled back then and gazed into his eyes. He wondered what she was looking for and hoped to heaven she found it, because he couldn't hold her like this much longer. Everything male in him wanted to claim this woman, wanted to make her his; but another part of him wanted her to be sure, very sure. He waited.
"But I am going to kiss you, and... probably a whole lot more."
"I like that 'whole lot more' part." He lifted her hair from her neck and bent to nip her soft flesh. "I like it a lot." She quivered in his arms, and he heard a low moan escape her lips. He hardened to the point of discomfort and pulled her hard against him.
"God, I want you." He grasped her head in his hands and brought her mouth to his. The kiss was deep, erotic, a kiss of passion and promise. She folded into him, fitting herself between his legs like a traveler coming home. It surprised him to feel her hands gently pushing him back.
"Do you, uh, have anything?" she asked.
Pulling himself from his sexual haze, he tried to make sense of what she was saying. When sense came, he kissed the top of her head. "In the car. I'll get it." He was loath to let her go, afraid she'd change her mind in the time it took him to get to the car and back. He kissed her lightly. "For God's sake, don't move."
"I won't. Once I make up my mind, I rarely change it." She gave him a nudge. "Now, go—and hurry."
There was something in her words, her tone, that bothered him, but for the moment his libido was in overdrive and his brain on idle. Later. He would figure it out later.
Later was when he reentered the cabin. Evan was standing where he'd left her, but her back was to the door. It didn't take a high-powered lens to see the tension across her shoulders. He swallowed the bitter gall of disappointment, stepped toward her, and pulled her back to his chest. She straightened, then relaxed against him.
"It's okay. Relax. It's okay if you've changed your mind. What we do—or don't do—is up to you."
She shuddered and leaned her head back against his shoulder, open, vulnerable—trusting. He massaged her shoulders, stroked her upper arms, then wrapped his arms snugly around her waist. Holding her close, he felt curiously awkward, uncertain as to whether he was up to the task of easing her fears and overcoming her reservations. Yet he was compelled to try.
He tightened his hold on her.
Everything had to be right. So right.
He didn't want to hurt her. He wanted to care for her, not only with his body, but with all that he was. He wanted to cherish her—
On a rush of raw feeling, his mind suddenly fogged then blanked. His breath knotted in his throat.
Every nerve, every muscle, every cell in his body fevered before freezing to a stop. It was as if a curtain dropped between his yesterdays and this moment.
The realization of what was happening —he refused to name it—had his heart pounding so hard, his body vibrated. He sucked in a harsh breath to steady himself. Only one thought stood upright.
Nothing from this moment on would be the same.
* * *
Evan rested against the wall of his chest, her thoughts ricocheting around in her head with the agitation of disturbed grasshoppers.
Could she do this? Was it worth the risk? The answer was sudden and emphatic. No! It wasn't, but Linc definitely was. His arms tightened around her, and a sudden inexplicable heat, like warmed honey, suffused her. She would take a step out of time. She would have him, hold him close, love him, and then... carry on. She would not become necessary to his happiness, nor he to hers. But first—honesty. She turned in his arms. When he started to speak, she rested her index finger against his lips.
"I won't want more than this. Only tonight. Nothing beyond the next few hours. No promises. No plans. No... entanglements of any kind," she stated.
He cocked his head. "Seems to me that should be my line, not yours." He lifted her chin. "But I'm curious. Tell me what makes a woman like you, a woman who's proven herself to be resourceful, competent, and independent, so terrified of a relationship."
"Because I'm no good at them, that's why. I just... screw up." She tried to pull her face from his hand, but he wouldn't let her.
"I guess that makes two us then, wouldn't you say?"
She pulled back from his arms and stood a few steps away, facing him. "Not very encouraging, is it?"
"It's an honest start."
"That's just it. I don't want to start anything. I want you now. For tonight. That's all." He had to understand. She had to make him understand. "I have plans. And they don't include a... man." Or a man's child. She couldn't bring herself to say it, couldn't bear him to think she didn't care about Jenny.
His eyes narrowed. "Am I missing something here?"
Evan took a deep breath. "Linc, before my fifteenth birthday, I was a mother. I wasn't raped, abused, or molested. I was just a silly, stupid little girl so damned hungry for love—or any reasonable facsimile—I took a cheap imitation of it from the first person who offered it." She shook her head and ran her hands over her upper arms before starting to pace.
"He was seventeen, a friend of a friend visiting the neighboring farm." She shrugged, restless. "I guess, looking back, he should have known better. For that matter so should I. But he was nice to me, and I thought he was... handsome. Cute. Or whatever. I developed a king-sized crush. So when he asked me to—" She shot him a look. "I'm sure you get the gist of it. Country bumpkin gets a quick tumble in the barn by city boy. City boy is miles away before his fly is zipped, and the bumpkin, as my mother so succinctly put it, is left with 'a bun in the oven'." Evan rolled her eyes. "God, I hate that expression."
"What about your parents. Did they help?"
"My father died when I was ten. There was only my mother and me. And a couple of hired men who worked the farm. By the time I figured out what was happening to my body, I was already six months pregnant. Actually it was Mother who noticed. When she did, she threw me out. Put me on a bus to the city and told me to find 'one of those places for wayward girls'. " Evan tried to smile, but her lips refused to curve. "I never heard from her again. A year or so later someone told me she'd married one of the hired men and gone back East."
"She tossed you out. My God, you were only a baby yourself."
"A very pregnant baby, and, in my mother's eyes, a dirty sinner who'd shamed her." She shrugged. "Anyway, to make a long story short, I didn't go to the city. I called my aunt Reina, my dad's sister, and she took me in. She didn't want me any more than my mother did, but she let me stay as long as I worked hard on the farm and didn't make any trouble." She took a breath. "It was no picnic, but Cal and I wouldn't have survived without her. We lived with her until she died. I was seventeen." She paused. "Then I went to the city. My plan was to get a job and go to school nights. I had big dreams back then." She remembered those dreams, how easily she'd... abandoned them.
"And?" Linc prodded. "What happened?"
"Randy happened."
"Randy?"
She needed to get this over with. Hated thinking about it, let alone talking about it. "I'd been on my own for a year, working as a waitress. And with some help from welfare, I was taking a couple of courses so I could finish high school. Then I met Randy Trent. He was a musician. Blond, green-eyed, and handsome—and a very immature twenty-four. I guess I was as desperately lonely as ever, and true to form, I thought I was in love and instantly compounded the mistake by moving in with him. Everything was going to be wonderful. I would drop school, work extra shifts at the restaurant, and he would babysit and write beautiful music that would sell and make us rich. Like the fool I was, I went along with it. All of it." That's what I did best, she thought, go along. But not now, she promised herself. This time I won't give up my plans, my life, for anyone. I won't.
"Let me guess. There was no beautiful music."
Evan shook her head. "There were drugs, booze, broken promises, and a house
full of bottom feeders, and—"
He waited.
"And he nearly cost me the only thing in my life worth anything—Cal. I still can't stand to think about it. It would've been my stupid, gullible fault, all my fault." Even now, years later, she felt the familiar tightening in her chest. The fear.
Linc crossed the few steps between them. He loosely held her upper arms, lowered his head to meet her eyes. "What happened?"
"It was a Wednesday. I had a cold and left work early. When I got home that night, it was after nine o'clock. Randy was asleep, or had passed out on the couch. I couldn't tell which. The apartment was a mess: beer cans, pizza boxes, overflowing ashtrays... I remember feeling sick and disgusted. I knew things weren't right, and I hated the way I was living, how Cal was living. He was only four years old—and I knew things weren't right that I was... failing him. But I was a coward. So afraid to be without someone—to be alone again—I'd hung on. The apartment was a mess—but so was I. I promised myself I'd speak to Randy when he woke up, that I'd straighten everything out, make things right. But first I went to check on Cal."
She hated talking about it, remembering it. She steadied her voice. "The apartment was too small for Cal to have a bedroom of his own, so he slept behind a curtain in our room. But he wasn't there." Evan shuddered when the memory flooded back. "For as long as I live, I'll never forget staring at that empty bed."
"Christ." Linc pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head.
"We found him—three endless hours later. Me and a cop who spotted this crazed young girl combing the streets and helped her search. Cal was in an alley over a block away—sitting by a dumpster. He told me he'd gone 'venturing'. He was cold, wet and dirty, and the most bedraggled and welcome sight I've ever seen."
"I can imagine how you felt. If it had been Jenny..." Linc didn't finish. Probably couldn't, Evan thought, knowing she'd replayed for him every parent's worst nightmare, a missing child. She knew how much he loved Jenny.
As if she hadn't heard him, she went on. "We took him back to the apartment. The cop—his name was Redgie—looked at Randy, the state of the apartment, and sniffed the ashtray, then said he thought I should go with him and talk to someone. I could tell he didn't approve, not of me, Randy, anything. I couldn't blame him, but I was sure that 'someone' he was referring to was social services." Evan sucked in a hard breath, felt as if she'd swallowed a jagged rock. "And I knew what that meant. They'd take Cal. I was sure of it. And absolutely terrified."
"What did you do?"
"I told him to wait while I got a few things together for Cal and went into the bedroom. What I wanted to do was think. I was lucky, because just then Randy woke up. I heard voices, then an argument. I don't know what it was about, but it gave me enough time to grab a few clothes and scramble out the bedroom window with Cal." She lifted her face to his, determined to make him understand. "I made a lot of promises that night. The main one being that Cal would come first in my life. There would be no more chances—no more Randys. I owed my son a safe, happy childhood, and I swore he'd have it. In the three hours that Cal was gone, I'd grown up. Looking back, I think it was when I finally understood what being a mother was all about, what it meant to be responsible for another life."
He looked down at her. "And you've kept your promise." His thumbs were stroking her temples near the hairline. His eyes were dark, tender.
"Yes. I have."
"He's grown up now, and he's a terrific kid. You've done your job, and done it well. Isn't it time for you now?"
Evan took a fortifying breath.
That's exactly what it was—time for her. Time to make long-harbored dreams come true. Time that couldn't include him or Jenny. But not knowing how to tell a man she didn't want the care and responsibility for the child he adored, she said nothing.
When he continued to massage her temples, she reminded herself that child care wasn't exactly what Linc had in mind for the evening. She let the tension drain away. She was getting too serious, borrowing problems from tomorrow. She wanted this man so badly, her insides quivered with need.
Of one thing, she was certain. Making love with Linc had to happen.
When she didn't answer, he added, "I think it's time for both of us." He bent to brush his lips across her mouth. "Make love with me, Evan. I want to discover you, touch you, lie with you."
"I want that, too." She tightened her grip on his waist. "You should know that I, uh, like you. If I didn't, I would never—" She stopped, feeling foolish.
His mouth quirked into a grin. "Thank you. I like you, too, and it's good to know you're not only after my body."
"I didn't exactly say that. As a matter of fact, I find your body intriguing—very intriguing."
She undid the top buttons on his shirt and stroked the sprinkling of silky gold chest hairs. Playing under the edges of soft cotton, she raked her nail lightly across his nipple.
She heard his sharp intake of breath and glanced up.
He stayed her hand. "I don't have a lot of restraint when it comes to you."
"I wanted to touch you."
"And I want to do more than touch," he murmured, pulling her mouth to his. His tongue plunged and withdrew, its message vivid and urgent. Evan grounded herself to him, giving and taking, warming under his fire, loving his impatience for her. When Linc stepped back, she was breathless, her emotions roiling like clouds before a summer storm.
He picked her up, cradled her in his arms, and kissed her on the forehead. She wrapped both arms around his neck and kissed the rapidly beating pulse in his throat. Her own heart a pounding, clawing thing in her chest.
His voice was deeper than normal when he said, "Let's go to bed. I have a powerful desire to get horizontal. You can touch all you want then." He carried her easily toward the bedroom, and she snuggled against him.
Linc set her on the bed and stood looking down at her. When his arms left her, it seemed as if she'd fallen into a void. She hadn't made love in a long time, and never, absolutely never, with a man as sophisticated as Linc. At the thought of failing, she faltered.
"Don't," he said.
She looked up at him, tried to look more relaxed than she felt. "Don't what?"
"Don't second-guess this. It's meant to be. We're meant to be."
He was right. She lowered her head and, with awkward movements, tried to tug her shirt away from her skirt. His hands covered hers.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Nerves. I want this to be... good." I don't want to disappoint you.
"It will be. And if we don't get it right the first time, we'll keep working on it until we do."
"I don't really know much about lovemaking." Still hesitating, she didn't smile back. She felt a dime short of miserable.
He gave her a wicked grin. "That makes one of us."
With one smooth move, he freed her top from her skirt. Kneeling in front of her, he slowly undid the buttons on her shirt, kissing each inch of skin as he exposed it.
She closed her eyes when his head lowered to kiss the valley between her breasts. When she opened her eyes, her bra was off, and Linc was openly admiring her breasts. Cupping them, he glanced up at her.
"Beautiful," he said, touching each nipple.
He rubbed his knuckles across them and watch when they hardened and strained to his touch.
Every nerve in her body quivered and tensed. Linc's breath, his warm, moist lips on her breasts, struck her senses a knockout blow. She struggled to fill her air-depleted lungs, but her hard won breath was expelled in a rush when Linc's expert tongue played across the tip of one straining breast.
"You know all you need to know, love," he whispered against her skin. "You're a natural."
She knotted her fingers in his silky hair and drew his face to hers. What came naturally was to kiss this man until it was his turn to beg for mercy. She fell back on the bed, pulling him with her, and while she concentrated on kissing him senseless, he removed her skirt and slip, leaving her d
own to a filmy slash of silk panties.
She rolled over and braced an arm across his chest. When she managed to catch a breath between kisses, she said, "The way you did that, I'm guessing I'm in the hands of a master."
He ran his hands down her back, slipping two fingers under the wisp of silk. "What?" he asked.
"Get my clothes off, Mister Slick—at the speed of light. I came into this room fully and properly dressed. Blouse, skirt, bra—the works. And now..."
In a rapid movement, Linc relieved her of her panties. "And now?"
She laughed. "And now I'm as naked as the New Year's baby."
"More naked." He dropped her panties on the floor beside the bed.
"More naked—while you're still fully clothed."
"I figure when you get interested enough, you'll take care of that."
"I'm interested."
"Good."
She straddled him, and he groaned when the weight of her pressed down on his erection. "Maybe this isn't such a good idea." He closed his eyes.
She smiled, shifted her weight to cause him further agony, and set about undoing the last buttons of his shirt, unclasping his belt buckle, and opening his zipper,
Stroking the hard length of him through his briefs, she bent to lick and kiss his nipples. He lifted himself, and shrugged the shirt from his shoulders.
In the next second, she was on her back, Linc looming over her, his eyes a mixture of humor and pain. "My turn," he murmured, running his hand between her breasts, around the curve of her waist, and down her abdomen. He teased at the apex of her thighs. One finger. Touching. Not touching. Her knees fell open, begging for more.
Her breaths came in gasps. "You're good at this, aren't you?" His finger slipped into her, and she inhaled deep, arcing to his hand.
"I'm a tactile kind of guy." Another stroke. Deeper.
Evan swallowed hard and reached for his hand. She needed a fully drawn breath, and couldn't get one while he continued his assault. She pulled his hand to the hollow of her stomach, held it still.