"Yes," Mattie began hesitantly, wondering how to explain.
Joe shook his head in instinctive, violent denial, only able to fear that it would be wrong and that he would lose everything. "No!" he forced out the word. "Oh no, Mat-tie! I won't take your pity. I haven't sunk quite that low. Not yet."
"It's not pity! I've been thinking about this a lot, Joe," Mattie insisted quietly, her voice trembling. "I need so badly to learn about that kind of... love. I want to know what Cole and Jassy have, what Marion and Jen have. You've been around happy marriages all your life. You know what it is to love. I need to know that."
"And what if you don't find that with me?" Joe demanded harshly, his breathing ragged. "You're a virgin, dammit. What if I hurt you? Will our friendship survive that?"
Mattie met his tortured gaze with tender, trustful eyes. "You wouldn't hurt me, Joe." There was a certainty in her tone. "You would never hurt me."
Joe swallowed, lifting her hand to press it to his lips in helpless need. "No," he conceded tautly. "No, love. I would never hurt you." His lips brushed against her palm. "I would make it so good for you, Mattie."
"If it's that you don't...want me..." Mattie looked away. "I understand, Joe. Really, I do."
"Don't want you?" Joe repeated incredulously, shaking his head. "Are you crazy?"
"Then show me," Mattie pleaded shakily. "Show me about love."
"Mattie, I can't lose what you've given me. I can't lose our friendship."
"That's right, Joe," Mattie told him steadily, twisting his denial. "You can't. It's not possible. Just as I can never lose what you've given me. We're a part of each other now. Would the loving be so different?"
Joe could not deny the gentle logic, and he didn't want to try. His eyes closed as he fought to marshall his hungering senses. "We'll do it my way." His words were achingly husky as he tacitly admitted defeat. "Slow. Easy. Soft." Emerald-green eyes burned into gray, searching for acceptance.
"Yes." It was all she said, but it said everything.
Joe flipped aside the corner of the blanket, inviting her into his bed. "Come to me."
Mattie slid silently under the covers beside him, shivering as Joe carefully closed his arms around her.
Mattie caught her breath as she absorbed the shock of his hard male body against hers. They were both silent as they adjusted to the feel of their bodies together. We're so different, yet we meld so perfectly, Mattie thought in wonder. Joe's hands did not move on her, but simply held her close as he breathed deeply of her scent.
Finally, he spoke. "You don't know anything about making love, do you, sweetheart?"
Mattie experienced a frightening, slashing memory of the traumas of her childhood, before forcing the picture away. She shook her head, her cheek brushing against his hair-roughened chest.
"The only rule is that there are no rules. If something pleases you, then it's right. If something frightens you, then it's wrong. You know what feels good to you," Joe continued softly, shifting to look deeply into her eyes. "So if you touch me here—" he grasped her hand gently and raised it to his face, directing it down his jaw "—then I'll know it's okay for me to touch you, too." His large hand moved to echo the caress across her own jaw.
Mattie nodded hesitantly, a question in her eyes. "How far...?"
"All the way," Joe answered quietly, intently. "It's the only way between us."
Mattie caressed his face gently, her eyes tender. "I care for you so much."
Joe drew a deep, calming breath and closed his eyes on a wave of intense emotion. "I...care for you, too, Mattie. So much."
"Then it will be all right," she told him with husky confidence, shifting slightly to run her hand across his shoulder. "Strong shoulders..."
Joe's hands echoed the motion faithfully on her slight frame. "Delicate shoulders..."
Mattie pressed a kiss against his jaw and felt the slight rasp of his beard. "A little rough..."
Joe's lips burned against her skin. "So soft..."
Mattie's tongue peeked out daringly to taste the taut skin at the base of his neck and Joe shuddered. "Salty... and cinnamon."
"Oh God," Joe whispered shakily, his own tongue brushing against her throat as he felt himself sinking into passion. "Sweet... and cinnamon."
The exploration was soft and slow and mutual. For Mattie it was glorious to touch and be touched, to control and ignite and feel passion. When she balked, Joe encouraged, but never insisted. When she grew bold, Joe moaned in strained hunger. When she drew away in fear, he soothed and urged her back. And when he noticed her hesitation, he gave her courage.
"Mattie, there is no part of my body that you can't touch. No part of me that doesn't ache for the feel of your hands, your lips..." And for the first time in their love-making, Joe took the initiative. Holding Mattie's eyes with his, he drew her hand to his hard abdomen.
Joe's eyes closed with a shudder as he felt her hand so close... and Mattie moaned in incredulous hunger.
"No part of me that doesn't need you," Joe reiterated thickly, his eyes still closed.
But when Mattie's hands slipped down to carefully cradle the length of his masculinity, when her soft fingers moved over his hardness, Joe's body buckled uncontrollably and Mattie drew away in fear.
" I hurt you!" she cried.
"No. Oh God, no, Mattie. You pleasure me...you make me whole... please, come back to me. Please touch me again."
"You really don't mind?" she asked hesitantly, conscious of her own fears.
"I really don't mind," Joe confirmed softly, his eyes liquid warmth.
"I—I would be frightened to have you touch me... there," she confessed in a rush.
Joe swallowed. "Then I won't, Not unless you ask me to. Do you want to touch me now?"
Mattie did, more than anything else in the world. She wanted to hold him, to be held. Her hands moved back.
He was so big, she thought reverently, but so gentle. And the sweet seduction continued. Each touch became the sweetest kind of agony, each moan the most wild music.
When Mattie's hands encountered the hard, bare flesh of his thighs, Joe drew a rough, shaky breath, fighting to remain still beneath her exploring touch.
"So good...you feel so good," she whispered in awe, the words lost in his mouth as it covered hers.
But when Joe's hands slipped to the hem of her sheer T-shirt, Mattie stilled suddenly, her eyes meeting his.
"It's just that I'm a little scared." Her eyes reflected both need and vulnerability.
Joe's eyes closed in raw agony, a muscle kicking to life along his jaw. "Then we'll stop," he told her in a thick, strained tone. "I told you once—you have only to say the word."
Mattie felt the strain in herself, saw it on Joe's face and in his body. "No," she denied, brushing a fallen lock of hair from his forehead, her eyes tender and hungry and yearning. "No, don't stop. Teach me not to be afraid."
Holding his eyes with hers, Mattie sat up and slowly pulled the shirt over her head, leaving her body bare to Joe's burning gaze.
Joe stopped breathing. His muscular, gleaming chest expanded with air that he could not for the moment release. He didn't reach for her at once. He simply looked his fill at the soft, sweet curves of her body.
With a helpless groan he reached out his arms, his eyes pleading with her to come to him, to give him what he would not take. Taut and aching, he felt the wild shudder that shook her as she moved against him, trembling as their bodies brushed and meshed and entwined.
"Are you all right?" he demanded, shaking, his lips in her tumbled black curls.
Mattie nodded, her damp lashes brushing against his neck.
"Don't cry," Joe whispered, agonized. "Please, love, don't cry. We don't have to do this. We can stop now. It doesn't—"
Mattie's lips against his own stopped the flow of desperate words. "I don't want to stop. I want to be a... part of you. Show me how to love."
With a muffled groan Joe gave in and showed her his love. It was
urgent and gentle and hard and sweet and slow. And always, always patient. Broken murmurs, softened sighs were the only sounds between them. Green eyes held gray as Joe's hands moved to Mattie's soft thighs, searching for even a hint of fear as he brushed and coaxed and teased them into parting.
"Yes?" he questioned hoarsely.
"Yes," she answered weakly.
He saw the flare of fire in her eyes as his fingers brushed against the warm, secret heart of her. He saw her lashes drift closed in pleasure as his hands grew bolder and more intimate. He did not see fear.
"Joe..." she breathed on a wild shudder.
"Yes," Joe repeated against the tiny swell of her abdomen as his lips brushed lower. "Just Joe. Always Joe."
Mattie's eyes flew open in stunned ecstasy as his lips replaced his fingers at the center of her thighs, building a throbbing wave of hunger higher and higher within her.
"Sweet, so damn sweet..."
Her hands tightened on his shoulders, pale against the breadth of his tan skin.
"Joe, please! It's back. You brought it back. Make it go away!"
Joe stiffened immediately, rising to meet her eyes. What had he brought back? Please, not the fear, not the memories of violation. He sought her passion glazed eyes fearfully, searching for his answer.
"I feel...empty again. Lonely, so lonely, Joe. Here." She took his hand and brought in low on her body, just above the downy curls at the apex of her thighs. "Joe, can I have you here?"
Her eyes held his with such yearning and such a blatant trust. Joe released the shuddering, pent-up breath he held.
"Yes, love. Mattie, you can have me there, inside, loving you. I'll take the emptiness away. I'll fill you with me. I promise you'll never be lonely again."
Slowly, during the passionate litany of his words, he eased into her body. A body that he had made so hot, hungry and moist for him that there was no pain, only pleasure as he sheathed himself inside. His hands continued to play with her throbbing softness, his lips brushing and nipping and suckling at the hard tips of her swollen breasts. The pitch of her arousal was such that the first thrust robbed her of breath and reason. She could only feel and move as he cradled himself within her.
Once, she gasped at the exquisite pleasure his fingers brought her, and Joe stopped moving, breathing heavily, still within her.
"Mattie?"
"More," she whispered incredulously, her eyes pleading with his. "More. Allof you... in me."
"Sweetheart..." Joe trembled, and Mattie felt it within her own body. "You're so small...and tight. Are you sure?"
"So hungry. Joe, I'm so hungry for you!"
Joe began to move again, hard and deep and full within her. Mattie's body took over then. Moving, enticing, inciting him to a thrusting possession that speared the very heart of her.
"Mine," Joe whispered as he claimed her again and again. "Mine now, Mattie. A part of me..."
Together they climbed to a place neither knew existed, clinging and straining and arcing toward their final completion.
Mattie felt her body tense and shimmer, like a spring too tightly wound, and cried out at the unknown beckoning to her.
"Joe...!"
"Mattie," Joe pleaded huskily, his fingers clenching in the soft skin of her hips as he thrust more deeply inside of her. "I need you so___"
Mattie followed him over the boundary they had rushed to, clenching around him, holding him tightly within her body, determined never to be alone again.
A part of him... forever.
Their breathing gradually calmed. Mattie's trembling subsided to gentle frissons of pleasure originating from the hypnotic brush of Joe's callused fingers on her bare skin. Joe's heartbeat ceased its race and quieted to a wondering thunder.
Joe held Mattie carefully against his chest, breathing in her silken scent. She felt so right in his arms, he thought with a sigh. A part of him, and so small to hold so much of his heart and soul. Mine, he determined fiercely, unconsciously tightening his hold. Mine.
But she was so silent. Even during the peak of their climax she had only whispered his name. Now she lay still, barely breathing against him. What if he had not pleased her when he needed so much to please? What if all she had experienced in his arms was fear? What if he had hurt her? She was so delicate, and he was a big man.
Finally, when the silence became so oppressive that he could not stand it any longer, he spoke. "Mattie?" he whispered carefully, his lips moving in gentle caress at her temple. "Sweetheart?"
"I didn't know it would be like that." Her voice was thin and distant, her tone frighteningly blank. "How could I have known?"
Joe, in his fear, took the words as a pained reproach. Mattie, awash in the aftereffects of a totally unexpected ecstasy, was too dazed with remembered pleasure and satisfaction to notice.
It had been perfect, she thought incredulously. No, more than perfect. Joe had come into her body, as he had already come into her heart, and somehow in doing so had driven away the haunting fear of physical commitment. Joe had chased away all those years of distancing herself from the world, she thought yearningly, with his hungry, gentle possession.
Mattie could not speak, overcome by the wave of joy he brought her. All her life she had spent alone, empty, looking for a missing piece of her soul, and afraid to know where or what it was. Now she knew that it was Joe. Joe in her arms, in her body, in her mind and her heart and her soul. Finally she could feel and need.
The emotion overwhelmed her. Tears slipped unconsciously from beneath her closed lids and trailed slowly down her cheeks.
Joe froze, shards of burning pain slashing at him viciously. Words that he had never planned and never spoken clawed at his throat, and tumbled into her silky hair. He could not meet her eyes, unable to witness the regret he knew must be mirrored there.
"Mattie, listen to me," he began urgently, his tone intense.
Mattie sighed blissfully.
"If—if what happened... if tonight didn't please you— There are other ways, Mattie."
"Other ways," Mattie echoed faithfully, barely listening.
"Other positions," Joe clarified with an endearing awkwardness. "Other...methods." His whole body was coiled with tension.
Mattie blinked, finally coming to. "Other ways to make love?" she questioned blankly. "What do you mean?"
A muffled sound, midway between a sigh and a groan, escaped Joe. "You could... control the lovemaking. You could be on top and pace it any way..."
"Other methods?"
"I don't have to...possess you that way," Joe explained carefully, his eyes desperately wary. "I don't have to be... inside of you."
Mattie tried to raise her head to meet his eyes, but Joe would not allow it, his hand tangling in her hair to hold her against his shoulder.
"How?" She had no idea what he was so carefully not saying.
"I can use my hands," Joe continued with an aching gentleness. "My lips... my tongue."
"Inside of me?" Mattie began to tremble at the thought.
"Anywhere. Anywhere you want me," Joe told her quietly. "I asked Dr. Wright about it, and he said that we should experiment. Anything that you feel comfortable with, any—"
"You talked to Dr. Wright about.. .making love to me?" Mattie was incredulous. "You wanted me? How long have you wanted this?"
Joe tensed. Should he tell her now? Would she be frightened at the depths of his love for her? A love she still couldn't understand?
Drawing a careful breath, he told her, "I've felt this way about you since we met. I wanted you in that end zone, and I loved you at the park. But it's not only that, Mattie," he rushed to explain. "It's so much more. The friendship wasn't a lie. You are my best friend. I'm in love with you, but I also love you. Do you understand the difference? Even if we could never have this—" his hand smoothed along her shoulder to indicate what he meant "—I would still want you, want to be with you."
"Joe—" Mattie's voice was broken, and tears danced in her eyes.
Rolling to face him, she spread her body over his, holding his eyes intently. "Kiss me, please," she whispered, her hands caressing either side of his neck. "Show me this love again."
Joe needed no second invitation. With a smothered groan of thankfulness, his lips closed on hers, taking possession again to lead her into the timeless land of passion they had found together.
The loving was different now. Joe, no longer the acquiescent partner, explored Mattie's body as if it were the last thing he would ever be allowed to do on this earth. He teased and stroked and licked and nibbled. He touched and probed and possessed, bringing Mattie to such a heightened state of arousal that she could only shiver beneath his sensuous assault.
This time when they reached their climax, Mattie did not whisper his name. She sighed it into his mouth as he scorched himself into her heart.
A long time later Mattie rose from the bed, leaving Joe still sleeping. She crossed to the door, then turned, studying his form with eyes that were lost and frightened. With a sigh, she left the room and drifted down the hallway. On her way down the main steps and into the living room, where the beautiful pine Christmas tree with its blinking lights and glittering ornaments beckoned, Mattie tried to deny the ghost that drove her.
What she had shared with Joe had been the most beautiful thing in her life. It had taken Joe to show her that her body could be touched without causing pain or fear. He had released her from her fear of sex. But the one thing Joe could not do was to take away her fear of love.
She was so confused! All of her life, Mattie had equated love with pain and degradation. Her foster father's words were branded into her mind. Joe said he loved her. But it wasn't the same. Joe's love was gentle and warm and slow. Marion Dumbronkowski loved his wife. But their love was protective and expanded with each child they had. Cole Baron loved Jassy. But their love was binding and uniting. What was Joe offering her? What was love? Mattie felt everything good and warm and gentle in her soul for Joe, but she could not label it love.
Would she ever be free of her past? And could she go to Joe if she wasn't?
Just Joe Page 13