After they’d given their orders, the waiter brought the wine, a fine California Chablis, and Jordan raised his glass. “To the loveliest woman I’ve ever known.”
Butterflies had joined the marbles in her belly. “Th—Thanks.”
“What about me? Aren’t you going to toast me?”
She opened her mouth for a snappy retort and closed it mutely, at a loss for words. He grinned, a heart-stopping, breathtaking grin that sent her spinning.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you speechless,” he taunted. “You gave me ‘what for’ before I even hired you. What’s come over you, Leslie?”
She’d become impatient with her nervousness, so she let his innocent words stoke a fire in her.
“You’re playing with me, and I want you to stop it.”
“Me? I’m just trying to give you a shot of emotional involvement. The Leslie I know would have teased me right back.”
“You don’t want to tangle with me. Shove, and I’ll shove right back.”
That was what he wanted. Some fire. Spirit. The ready boil that was part of his attraction to her. “I want to tangle with you, all right, but definitely not here,” he said, and dropped a quarter into the juke box selector at their booth.
Heat sent the blood rushing to her face when she heard the country group, Alabama, launch into “If I Had You,” but she forced herself to look him in the eye. With his A-1 grin, he as much as told her he knew what it cost her not to back down. Then, as though weary of needling her, he switched the subject and the mood, and they were soon speaking of the coming semester and what she hoped to accomplish.
After some minutes, she asked him, “What was your childhood like before you lost your parents?”
“Normal, I suppose. Our parents were university professors, devoted to their work and to each other. That didn’t leave them with a lot of time for Haskell and me, but what time they had to spend with us, I guess you’d say was quality time. They weren’t always kissing us, but whenever we talked to them, they stopped whatever they were doing and listened, really listened. I always felt that we were really important to them. They loved to gather wild mushrooms during their walks in the woods. One day they got some bad ones, and, well…it took them both. I think it was natural for them to go together, considering how close they were.
“It took me a long time to accept that Haskell just walked out of my life. He was almost ten years my senior, and I practically worshipped him. Looking back, I realize that he wasn’t cut out for a rural, farm existence. He just said good-bye and left. I never heard from him or about him from the time I was nine years old until Clifford came to me. I hope he found what he was looking for. You might say Julia has been my family, my mother, and when she married Cal, I got a father as well. I care a lot for her. Uncle Riddick showered me with kindness, and I know he loved me, but he had no idea what to do with a child. Julia was so full of energy, fun and love, always filling the place with happiness that I, well…she was everything a small boy needed.”
“You were fortunate. I suspect she needed a child to care for just as you needed a mother’s love. The age of nine must have been a terrible time to lose both parents and the older brother whom you idolized. It’s no wonder that you love Julia.”
He couldn’t risk getting mired in nostalgia, so he dropped a quarter in the tune selector and without shifting his gaze from hers, rose to his full six feet, five inches. “Dance with me, Leslie. I need to hold you.”
“R—Right here?” she stammered. “I mean, I’m not much of a dancer.”
They stood so close that air could barely pierce the distance between them. He didn’t want her beguiled, but fully knowledgeable of every move he made. He didn’t believe in seducing a woman
He stepped back and looked at her. “You don’t need to be expert at it. Just move with me.”
“Said the spider to the fly,” she murmured.
“What was that?”
“Nothing important.”
“I’m not spinning a web or any other trap for you.” He led her in a gently swaying two-step, his right hand splayed lightly at her lower back and his left one firmly grasping her right hand. She missed a step, and he drew her closer, so close that the pressure of his chest caused her nipples to harden. She stifled a gasp and lowered her eyes. The song ended, but he didn’t leave the floor.
Someone had spent a quarter on a song about pleading unrequited love. She knew the words implied his heed of her, but she couldn’t resist resting her head on his shoulder and letting the music and his sensuous rhythm sweep her away. She gave in to the music as she danced, relaxed in his arms, not thinking that she was stirring the coals of a fire that he might be struggling to contain, but responding to the sensual pleasure of moving in the arms of the man that she loved. She felt free, even a little wild, and she suspected that he sensed it. Her heart sang a new tune, but would he understand that?
Jordan decided that it was then or never; he had to put his life, his house, in order. If he didn’t reach out and take her, he’d never get her. Her head was full of him right then, so he was moving while he had the wind at his back.
“Let’s go.”
“It’s early yet, only eight-thirty.”
“Believe me, it’s not all that early.” He led her from the dance floor, signed the check and headed them toward the elevator. As they ascended to their floor, he held her hand and could feel her tremble when he drew her close.
“What is it?” He couldn’t help being solicitous. She didn’t look at him, but focused upon the opening elevator door.
“I guess I had too much to drink.”
That was one excuse he didn’t intend to accept. He’d take nothing less than honesty. She wanted to or she didn’t want to. “Come again, Leslie. You didn’t drink half a glass of wine. You’re as sober as the head of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union ever was.”
They stopped at her door, and she looked up at him inquiringly. He was calling a spade a spade, and he was through tiptoeing around the issue. “We can enter from your door or from mine,” he told her bluntly. “There’s a connecting door between our rooms.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t hesitate. He stepped inside her room, his hand splayed lightly at her back, closed the door and pulled her to him. She opened her mouth, but the words that she would have spoken were lost on the tip of his tongue as he closed in on her, thrilling her, setting her afire, taking possession of her senses. But as she relaxed and melted into him, he released her.
“I want you, Leslie.” He gazed intensely at her. “I want to make love with you. Here. Now. I told you that I haven’t touched a woman since I laid eyes on you. Oh, they are out there, all right, but I have wanted only you. It’s time for us. It’s long past time. We have to know what there is between us, Leslie, and we have to know where it’s going. I know what I want, but I’m not sure that you do. I told you that our relationship isn’t normal, and it isn’t. I am a man, Leslie, a young, healthy man, and I need you in my arms, in my bed. I want to love you. I want to know the glory of your body, to give you the supreme pleasure that a man can give a woman, and I want to feel it myself, nestled deep inside you. I know you want me and that you care for me. But I will not continue the way we are now. I can’t stand it!”
Leslie moved toward Jordan, as if his nearness would guide her, but he stepped away, making it clear that he would not pressure her.
“Don’t let your demons rob you of your womanhood. If you’ll trust me, I’ll give you your birthright. I’ll set you free, Leslie.”
She looked away from him. Maybe she was trying to come to terms with her feelings, with what loving him would cost her. But she should already have done that. He’d done the sweating, tossing and weighing of consequences, had first accepted and then embraced what nestled in his heart for her. He needed her, and he had to have a resolution of their relationship one way or the other.
“I won’t come to you again. Not here, not ever.
If you want me, you’ll always know where I am. But make certain that you don’t wait too long. Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing leaving you right now, but I’m human, and rejection hurts me as much as it does the next man.” He turned and entered his room through their connecting door.
Had he looked, he would have seen her reach out to him, seen the desperation in her eyes. In her room with the doors closed, she clung to the foot of the bed for support. He had challenged her, and he had the right to do it. Hadn’t she encouraged him with her response to his kisses and caresses even as she’d said there could be nothing between them? Shaking her head as if to clear it, she walked to the closet door, opened it, reached for her robe and paused, as a pain settled in the region of her heart. She leaned against the door.
“Oh, God, please, don’t let him walk away from me.” She’d always reached out for what she wanted. So why did she fear what she wanted so badly? She reached for her robe, and her glance fell on the gown that hung beside it. She’d never worn the dusty-rose lace garment, because it demanded male companionship.
Since her father’s death, she had feared intimacy, had feared the loneliness that came with the loss of someone you loved. And her nearly catastrophic experience with Faron Walker had saddled her with a dread of physical intimacy. Strangely, she hadn’t dwelled on it in recent months. Yet it troubled her now. Panic begin to suffocate her, but with it came anger. Anger at Faron for his beastliness and at herself for her inability to shed those omnipresent, crippling demons. She forced herself to see that the fear of intimacy with Jordan was groundless, robbing her of something precious. He had said that he would give her her birthright, and she wanted, oh how she wanted, to believe him.
She didn’t want to go through life without having known love in Jordan’s arms. It could blow up all around her and leave her with the ashes of a foolish heart, but if she gambled and lost, would she hurt more because she’d become a woman in his arms or because she hadn’t? She remembered how she had felt every time he kissed her, that she never wanted him to stop, and her mind replayed Jordan’s words: I will not continue the way we are. I can’t stand it. Neither can I, she thought, and reached for the lacy gown.
* * *
Jordan undressed slowly. He knew he wouldn’t sleep, but he’d reconciled himself to it. “Just another sleepless night,” he muttered. But it wasn’t just another night. All he had to do was open that door and crawl into her bed and he’d have what he needed. But he didn’t want her that way. He wanted Leslie to open up to him, to come to him, because she needed him and because she cared for him. He didn’t want her to give in to him, because she couldn’t control her body’s reaction to him. He wanted, needed, her, heart and mind, as well as her body; he wanted her to love him.
What a laugh! He’d never been inconsiderate where women were concerned, and he had never taken unfair advantage of them, but he hadn’t ever had to ask the second time, either. Sure to God, he’d never pined for a woman. Maybe he’d made a mistake by walking away from her. But it had been that or lose control, and to lose mastery of himself where Leslie was concerned was unthinkable. He cherished her as he’d never treasured any other human being, and he would protect her, even from himself. He undressed down to his briefs—a yellow thing that was barely more than a G-string—and protected by the darkened room, walked over to the window. He propped his right foot on the chair, rested his right elbow on his right knee and looked out at the millions of stars and the moon cradled in their midst. Through a window across the way, he saw a man take a woman by the hand just before he switched off the light. He swore harshly and rested his chin on the back of his hand. How would he get through the night?
* * *
“Jordan?”
He didn’t respond, but continued massaging his temple.
“Jordan?” She said it more softly this time, anxious because he hadn’t answered. She longed to move closer to him, to touch him, but how could she when he didn’t acknowledge her presence?
“Jordan?” She barely whispered it.
He raised tortured eyes, looking at her, but appearing not to see her. Deflated, she turned to leave, and her sudden movement must have caught his attention.
“Leslie. Leslie!” It was a hoarse shout, one that she knew was wrenched from deep inside him.
She stopped, but didn’t turn, didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me!”
She could feel his pain then, could almost touch the need that vibrated from him She hated her inexperience, hated her lack of knowledge about men and how to deal with them. But her intuition told her that he was as vulnerable as she, that he was hurting as she was. With instinct alone to guide her, she turned slowly and raised open arms, wordlessly letting him read in her face all that she felt for him.
Oblivious to his near nudity; heedless of his six-year vow to avoid vulnerability to any woman, and propelled by his consummate love for her, he moved with lightning speed into the sweet haven of her arms. She clasped him tightly, and he didn’t try to control the tremors that shook him as he buried his face in the warm curve of her neck.
“Leslie! Oh, Leslie!” He wrapped her in his arms and held her silently, nearly unstrung by his overpowering emotions. For over seven months, they had headed for this moment, and for just as long, he hadn’t known where he stood with her.
When he was able to dampen his feelings, he stepped back from her, his hands resting on her slight shoulders. He didn’t want any misunderstanding now; it wasn’t a time for mistakes, neither his nor hers. The gravity of the moment made him tense, cautious. He was looking at his life and, whether she knew it or not, she was facing hers. His heart seemed to seesaw back and forth in his chest as he gazed at her, almost unable to believe that she’d come to him.
“Why are you here, Leslie?” He spoke softly, because he didn’t want to undermine her confidence.
“I’m here because it’s where you are.”
Her answer didn’t satisfy him, but he had to be patient. “This isn’t the time for mystery or misunderstanding, Leslie. It’s a time for plain truth between us. We’ve already blundered too much. Why have you come to me?”
She looked at him intently, searching, and he had to force himself to smile and to appear relaxed, although he could hardly breathe while he waited for her answer. He supposed she was still troubled by what she had to lose, and he didn’t blame her.
He could tell the minute she came to terms with their moment of reckoning, for her face suddenly bloomed. “You told me that you can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand it, either For reasons I’ve told you about, I’ve been wary of men. I’ve gone further with you in many ways than I have with any other man. You held me and caressed me, and I wanted more. I…I thought I could sacrifice my feelings for you the way I’ve shelved so many other things I’ve wanted.”
When he didn’t speak and held his breath in anticipation, she continued. “I ached. Some nights, I couldn’t sleep. I knew what I needed, but I was scared to take that step. Not afraid of you, but of the unknown; wary of all the social ramifications, and of the chance that I might forfeit my degree. But I’m not afraid now.”
At those last words, he let out his breath and crushed her to him Then he held her away, searching her face for his answer. “Yes. Oh, yes, Jordan.”
“Do you realize what you’re saying, sweetheart? Do you? Are you telling me that you want me here and now? That’s what I’m asking, Leslie.”
“Yes.”
He found her mouth then, and for the first time, she knew what it was to have Jordan kiss her, really kiss her. He had his control, but he unleashed his passion. She felt his velvet tongue deep in her mouth, teasing every crevice in it, simulating the act of love. His big warm hand went inside her gown, gently grasping one breast and softly rubbing its nipple between his thumb and forefinger before he caressed the whole globe. His full arousal rose against her belly, and she stiffened, even as her breath quickened, but he pulled her closer
, and gripped her buttocks tightly. He held her to him until her blood accelerated its pace and sped wildly through her veins.
“Don’t hold back on me, sweetheart. If it feels good to you, let me know it. I’ll take care of you. Don’t resist me. Give in to me, Leslie. Nothing that we do here is cause for shame. Open up to me.” She looked up at him, stared into the hot fire of his smoldering green eyes and slumped against him in surrender. He eased the negligee and gown from her shoulders and let them fall to the floor.
She had barely been aware of his near nudity. But while he gazed at her, appreciating her womanliness, she finally saw him as he was. Mesmerized by what her eyes beheld, she stared and stared, unaware that she ogled him. Her first lust-inciting look at a fully aroused man.
“My God, Jordan. You are—You are—”
Captivated, she stepped forward and placed a palm on his chest, while her other hand touched his left biceps. Then she sent her gaze slowly downward, coming to rest at the apex of his thighs, where his proud sex stood in full readiness. She looked and looked, her gaze finally roaming slowly up to his tapered waist and iron-tight belly. As though in a trance, she smiled and licked her lips, as one savoring the prospect of a grand feast, before stepping back far enough to see the whole man, to take him in from head to foot. Almost stupefied, she ran her tongue slowly around the rim of her top lip, bit on her bottom one and then bathed it generously with her tongue. Her senses had taken possession of her.
It was too much. He let out a harsh groan, reached for her, lifted her until she was eye to eye with him, and kissed her hard. Then he lifted her higher, clamped his lips over her breast and suckled her vigorously. She clasped his head to her and cried out from the pleasure that he gave her. He carried her to the bed, turned back the covers, laid her gently on it and leaned over her, burning her with his plundering mouth, searing. He tortured her neck, kissed the valley between her breast and then took each nipple into his mouth to tease and suck. She squirmed and thrashed against the sheets, but he had only just begun. He intended to adore her in every way a man could love his woman, and though his hunger for every part of her body tempted him, he knew that she wasn’t ready for the ultimate kiss. But he didn’t spare the rest of her.
Against the Wind Page 20