She could feel his desire for her growing. The man was incredible. “Again?”
The look on his face was pure innocence. “Hey, being a monk lets you store up an incredible amount of energy, lady…” Suddenly, he whipped her around, making her land flat on her back. “I have only begun to make love.” He raised and lowered his brows comically. “Think you’re up to it?”
Her heart was already beginning to race. “Why don’t you try me and see?”
He shifted so that his body covered hers. “Exactly what I had in mind.”
It wasn’t until nearly an hour later that she found her tongue again. She had all the energy of a de-stuffed rag doll. As if he wasn’t already perfect enough, the man was an incredible lover.
With what she thought was her last ounce of strength, she turned her body toward his. It amazed her that he hadn’t fallen asleep yet. She splayed her hand against his chest, finding infinite comfort in the feel of his heart beating beneath her palm.
“By the way, was that a ploy?”
“What?” He raised his head just a tad to look at her expression. “That I can make love all night under the right conditions?”
“No, that you had something for me.” She pushed herself up onto her elbow and her eyes sparkled as they dipped low on his torso. “Or was that ‘it’?”
“A little more respect, please,” he teased, stealing a kiss. “And no, ‘that,’ as you so irreverently called it, wasn’t ‘it.”’
Her curiosity was roused all over again, despite her resolve not to accept another material thing from him. “Then what?”
He laughed, drawing her closer. “Getting mercenary on me, are you?”
“No,” she protested with just enough indignity to have him guessing whether or not she was serious. “I just want to know when you’re feeding me lines.”
“I’d never feed you a line.” Sitting up, he threw off the sheet and got out of bed. “Wait here.”
She bolted upright. “Rick, you can’t go out like that. What if Mrs. Rutledge sees you? She’ll have a heart attack.”
“I wasn’t about to go parading up the stairs in my birthday suit.” Rick grabbed his pants from the floor where they’d been discarded and put them on quickly. Pulling up the zipper, he didn’t bother buttoning them. “Wait here.”
“With bated breath.”
Moving the pillows against the headboard, Joanna sank back against the bed, sighing. She felt exhausted, excited, energized all at the same time. All that and in love as well.
She knew she shouldn’t be, that it was a mistake to fall in love with Rick all over again. She knew that what his parents had said was ultimately true. She and Rick belonged in totally different worlds. A temporarily out-of-work love child with next to no roots and a multi-millionaire with bloodlines that went back to the Thirteen Colonies had little in common. They could hardly be mentioned in the same sentence.
But for now, for tonight, Joanna thought, lacing her fingers behind her head, she could let the practical world go and just pretend that she was still just Joanna Prescott, twenty years old and wildly in love.
Because she was.
She glanced toward the doorway. Rick had returned and he was carrying a rectangular, unwrapped, white shirt box in his hands.
Unlacing her hands, she made herself comfortable. “That was fast. Grabbed the first thing you could find, did you?”
“No.” But he had grabbed the first box he could find in order to make it look like a gift. Rick sat down on the bed next to her. “I grabbed the gift I had for you. The one I was going to give you before Pierce called in the middle of his heart attack.” She looked at him uncertainly. “Figuratively speaking. Pierce is always having heart attacks. He enjoys being dramatic.”
He put the box on her lap. As she moved forward, the sheet began to slip from her breasts and she made a grab for it. He stayed her hand.
“No, don’t. Let it fall.” He moved her hand away from the sheet. “Let me have my fantasy.”
She raised an amused brow. “Your fantasy is drooping sheets?”
“No,” he pressed a kiss to her shoulder and had the pleasure of feeling her shiver ever so slightly, “my fantasy is you.” He nodded toward the box on her lap. “Well, aren’t you going to open it?”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, looking down at the box.
“Let me savor this. Sometimes, anticipation is the best part.” And then she looked at him. His hair was still tousled where she’d run her fingers through it. Joanna could feel her skin glowing just thinking about what they’d done. “Except for tonight,” she said softly.
He curbed the temptation to run his hand along her breasts, reveling in the softness of her skin. Instead, he nodded at his gift. He wanted to see her face when she opened it more than he wanted to fulfill his erotic fantasies. “The box.”
“The box.” Joanna placed her hands on either side of the gift. “And you’re sure this didn’t cost anything?”
“Not a dime,” he assured her, just the slightest bit impatient. “Even the box was one that was just lying around.”
A grin played along her lips. “But you think I’ll like this.”
She was messing with him and she knew it. “Open it already. Here,” he reached for the box, ready to open it for her himself, but she pulled it aside.
“No,” she laughed, “I can open my own free gifts.”
And then, as the lid came off and she held it in her hands, the laughter stilled.
There was an album inside. Its cover had been weathered slightly by the passage of time. She recognized it as one she’d given him years ago. She’d always thought he’d thrown it away.
Joanna said nothing as she carefully took the album out of the box and set it down on her lap. Then, very slowly, she lifted the cover and looked inside. There was page after page of photographs. The photographs that she’d lost in the fire. Tears filled her eyes.
“It’s not free,” she whispered, “it’s priceless. But where did you get this?”
“From my closet. From deep in my closet,” he added. “I couldn’t make myself get rid of it.” The album had been there all these years. He hadn’t taken it with him when he’d left town, hadn’t wanted to look at anything that reminded him of her.
She still didn’t understand. “I thought you said you didn’t care about keeping photographs, that you didn’t need them.”
Inside the album was every single photograph she’d insisted on giving him. Each time she’d had a roll of film developed, she’d made duplicates of all the shots that contained the two of them. And each and every time, he’d acted cavalierly, claiming he didn’t believe in keeping photographs, even after she’d given him the album as a keepsake.
Rick shrugged. The truth was, he was far more sentimental than he’d ever wanted to admit.
“Saving photographs didn’t sound macho. A twenty-two-year-old guy wasn’t supposed to get sentimental over something like that. These are all the ones you lost in the fire.” Craning his neck, he looked at her. “You’re crying.” A shaky sigh escaped as she nodded. Taking a corner of the sheet, he wiped away her tears. “Happy tears?” She nodded again. Rick shook his head. “That never made any sense to me. It’s like aloha and shalom, words that can mean two completely opposite things.”
Emotion welled up inside her. She carefully placed the album on the nightstand and then turned back to Rick. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she hugged him as hard as she could. “Thank you.”
He kissed the top of her head, not trusting his voice at the moment. The heat of her body began working its magic again. He could feel himself becoming aroused just holding her.
He glanced over toward the nursery. “Think Rachel’ll sleep a little longer?”
“She’s been sleeping longer and longer these days.” Mentally, Joanna crossed her fingers. “I think Mrs. Rutledge’s been training her.”
He could just barely remember what the woman had been like when he w
as growing up. Strict, but kind. “God bless Mrs. Rutledge.”
She watched unabashedly as he rose and slid his pants from his hips. “What did you have in mind?”
Rick got into bed with her. “Round three.”
She wiped the last of her tears away with the back of her hand, having absolutely no idea how much that aroused him. “Ready when you are.”
“Ready,” he declared.
Rick pulled her back down on the bed. He lost no time revisiting places he had gotten far more familiar with in this short space of time than he was with his own body.
Weaving a wreath of hot, open-mouth kisses along her quivering skin, he paused only long enough to say, “When it comes to you, Joey, I was born ready.”
“Big talk,” she teased, arching her body temptingly against his, savoring the burst of desire that erupted within her each time his mouth made contact. “Actions speak louder than words.”
“Then prepare to go deaf.”
Taking her hands, he held them above her head, locking his fingers through hers. His body was less than a hairbreadth away from hers, tantalizing her, making her yearn for the coupling she knew was to come. He moved against her just enough to make her crazy.
Joanna felt herself growing damp, could feel the throbbing need in her own loins. Two could play this game, she thought. She arched against him, then gloried in the smoky look that came into his eyes.
With one slow, teasing movement of her body, the warden had become the prisoner, the captor had become the captured.
She held him in the palm of her hand. He knew that in some ways, she always would. How had he lived so long without this woman, without feeling her supple body yielding itself to his? How had he been able to withstand the days without losing himself within her?
Containing himself as best he could, holding both her hands in one of his, Rick moved down the length of her, branding her with his lips, his tongue.
He was creating havoc within her very core. Joanna could feel the precursors of climaxes reaching up to greater and greater heights within her, wanting the final moment, the final triumph. And just when the climax threatened to erupt, he’d pull back just enough to keep the moment from happening.
It was torture, and she loved it.
Finally releasing her hands, he framed her body, lightly skimming his fingers along her skin even as his mouth reduced her to the consistency of quivering warm jelly.
“You’re making me crazy.” The words came in short, breathless spurts.
“Good,” he murmured against the tender flesh of her stomach, his warm breath arousing her to almost a frenzy.
She bucked beneath him. “Now, Rick, now.”
He wasn’t sure if it was a plea or an order. Whatever the case, it came because she wanted him as much as he wanted her. And it came at the right moment because he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer.
Pulling himself up along her body, her dampness exciting him, he stopped just short of entry. Poised over her, his eyes held hers for a long moment.
She felt as if time had suddenly been frozen.
There was so much she felt, so much she wanted to say. So much she couldn’t say.
But he could read it in her eyes.
There was no need to part her legs, she was ready for him. Eager for him. He drove himself in, his breath catching in his throat from the start.
And then the dance began, not a waltz, but a wild tango, heated from the very start, pledged to get only more so before the music stopped.
The final explosion came quickly, draining them both. He held her in his arms as tranquillity descended, wishing that this moment could somehow be pressed within the pages of time, to be revisited, refelt, whenever he needed to remember what it was like to love someone so much that nothing else mattered.
He kissed her temple. “Loud enough for you?”
Joanna moved her head so she could look at him. “Eh? What did you say? I can’t hear you, I’ve gone temporarily deaf.”
He laughed and hugged her to him. And felt himself getting aroused all over again.
The woman was more than part witch, he thought. And she was all his.
The rest of the night was spent in further exploration, in testing the limits both of their endurance and the boundaries of their creativity.
He found himself doing things with her that had never even crossed his mind, found himself assuming positions that would have made a yoga master proud. And while she had always been an exciting lover, the years of deprivation had transformed her into an aggressive one.
More than once, she assumed the lead, making him the one who wanted to sit up and beg.
For mercy.
For more.
She teased his body, tempting it, tantalizing it, bringing it up almost to a climax and then knowing just how to retreat in order to heighten the experience when it finally came.
He was in complete awe of her.
In complete awe of his own body and how it responded to her.
And somewhere in the night, amid lovemaking and dozing, heat and contentment, all the doubts that had been plaguing him slipped silently away.
It was almost idyllic. As close to paradise as she would ever get, living or dead, Joanna mused at the end of the following week.
But on some level, she kept waiting for it to end. For the serpent to make his entrance and cause her ultimate banishment.
Life was almost too perfect.
She had a wonderful new daughter, someone to help her out when she stumbled—the way her mother would have, had she lived—and a man she adored who came home to her every night. It was so much more than she’d ever had before.
Rachel had learned to sleep through the night, allowing her not to if she so chose. Since that first night together, she and Rick made love every night. The nights belonged to both of them, and the past as well as the present.
But with each day that passed, the thought that she had to be getting out on her own grew a little stronger, made itself known a little more. She couldn’t keep putting it off, not if she wanted to keep her own self-respect. And that was as important to her as he was.
What cinched her resolve even more was the fund-raiser he took her to in the middle of the week. It was an annual affair to raise money for one of his mother’s favorite charities. Rick felt obligated to make an appearance and he asked her to come with him. Against her better judgment, she agreed.
His friends, the people who inhabited the world his parents had so carefully crafted for him years ago, welcomed him back to Southern California with opened arms. Their arms, however, were closed when it came to Joanna. They left less than an hour after they’d arrived.
“You don’t have to leave on my account,” she told him, hurrying beside him as he strode out the door after a woman had nodded toward her and asked him if he was slumming. “Stay with your friends.”
“I’m leaving on my account and those are not my friends. Those are just people I used to know. People,” he told her firmly, “I don’t want to know anymore. Not if they can’t be civil to you.”
All she could think of that night, as he made love with her and tried to make her forget the misspent hour and the unthinking comments aimed in her direction, was that his parents had been right after all. She didn’t belong in his world.
That Friday, Rick came home early, full of plans for the two days that lay ahead. He wanted to take her to Catalina for the weekend, to make up for the fund-raiser. He knew that night still bothered her and he wanted to erase it from her life.
Rachel was old enough to be separated from her mother for a couple of days. The weather promised to be idyllic, and he’d personally booked passage and made hotel reservations on the island.
In an incredibly good mood, he came in the front door looking for her. She wasn’t in the living room, but he found signs that she’d been there. The classified section was spread out on the coffee table.
Rick stopped to look at it. His smile faded. “Joan
na?”
“In here,” she called from the kitchen. When he came in, he was surprised to see her in an apron, surrounded by pots. There was something boiling on the stove. “You’re home too early. I’m making dinner tonight and I just started.” She stopped when she saw the look on his face. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s this?” Rick dropped the newspapers he’d found on the kitchen table. The page was turned to the rental section and there were several listings circled in bright red.
She shrugged casually as she reached for flour and spread it out on a plate. She’d told him when she came that she didn’t intend to stay here permanently. “Apartments for rent.”
He struggled to contain his anger. “Why are you looking for an apartment?”
“To move into,” she replied. Joanna dusted the flour from her hands. “The check came from the insurance company today.”
He frowned. “I thought you said you were rebuilding the house.”
“I am.” She took out a plate of chicken cutlets she’d prepared earlier. Closing the refrigerator, she placed the plate on the counter and began coating each piece with the flour mixture. “This check is for living expenses. I had a rider on the policy that if something happened to the house and I couldn’t live in it for a while, the policy provided funds to allow me to rent a place while reconstruction was taking place.” Turning away from him, she opened the cabinets and rummaged around for a suitable frying pan.
Rick placed himself in front of her. “Is this because of the fund-raiser? Because of what Alyssa Taylor said?”
“No,” she said firmly. “This has nothing to do with Alyssa.”
“Aren’t you happy here?”
Taking the frying pan out, she put it on the stove. “It’s not a matter of being happy, Rick. It’s a matter of taking charge of my life.”
“Independence again.”
She could hear him huff the word out behind her. Annoyed, she turned around and looked at him. Why was he so determined not to allow her to stand on her own two feet? Did he want her to be a clinging vine? “Yes, independence again.”
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