by Sandra Brown
“I always seem to leave a mark on you,” he said with a trace of regret. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
His eyes glowed hotly as they moved down her stomach to her navel. He licked the sweat out of it before bathing the rest of her abdomen with the cloth. Then he washed her legs, being careful of her new scar. “Turn over.”
Rusty gazed up at him inquisitively, but she turned over on her stomach and rested her cheek on her stacked hands. Leisurely, he washed her entire back with the cloth. At the small of her back, he paused, then ran the cloth over the cheeks of her bottom.
“Hmm,” she sighed.
“That’s for me to say.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Hmm.” He spent far more time than was necessary to wash away any perspiration. He sponged the backs of her legs all the way down to the soles of her feet, which he discovered were ticklish. On his way back up, he lingered to taste the backs of her knees.
“Just relax a minute,” he told her as he left the bed to undress.
“Easy for you to say. You haven’t been subjected to heavy petting.”
“Brace yourself, baby. You’ve got more coming.”
Rusty wasn’t quite braced for him to lie naked and warm along the length of her back. She drew in a jagged breath and shivered with the startling impact of his hair-roughened skin against the smoothness of her back. His opened thighs sandwiched hers. Her bottom fit snugly against his sex. It was solid with desire and as smooth as velvet-sheathed steel as it rubbed against her.
He covered the backs of her hands with his palms, interlacing their fingers, and used his nose to move aside her ponytail so his lips could get to her ear.
“I can’t do anything for wanting you,” he whispered gruffly. “Can’t work. Sleep. Eat. There’s no comfort in my getaway house anymore. You ruined it for me. The mountains aren’t beautiful anymore. Your face has blinded me to them.”
He rocked against her and made an upward thrust, settling himself more firmly against her. “I thought I’d work you out of my system, but so far I’ve failed. I even went to Vegas and bought a woman for the evening. When we got to the hotel room, I just sat there staring at her and drinking, trying to work up desire. She practiced some of her fanciest tricks, but I felt nothing. I couldn’t do it. Didn’t want to. Finally I sent her home before she became as disgusted with me as I was with myself.”
He buried his face in the back of her neck. “You redheaded witch, what’d you do to me up there? I was fine, understand? Fine, until you came along with your wet-satin mouth and silky skin. Now my life isn’t worth a damn. All I can think about, see, hear, touch, smell, taste, is you. You.”
He rolled her over and pinned her beneath him. His mouth slanted against hers. He parted her lips with his hard, invasive, possessive tongue. “I’ve got to have you. Got to. Now.”
He ground his body against hers as though to meld them into one. Nudging her knees apart and giving one long, smooth, plunging motion of his hips, he delved into the giving folds of her womanhood.
Groaning with pleasure, he lowered his head to her chest. He called upon every prince of Heaven and hell to release him from his torment. His breath fell hot and labored on her breasts and when the nipples responded, he loved them with his mouth.
His skin was flushed. It burned her hands as she moved them over the rippling, supple muscles of his back and hips. She cupped his hard buttocks and drew him deeper yet. He moaned her name and brought their mouths together again. His kiss was carnally symbolic.
Rusty didn’t feel vanquished by his virile power, though she could well have. On the contrary, she felt free and unfettered, strong enough to fly, to soar to the limits of the universe. Just as her body was opened to him, so was her heart and soul. Love poured out of them abundantly. He must feel it. He must know.
She was sure he did, because he was saying her name in cadence to his thrusts. His voice was raw with emotion. But a heartbeat before he lost his ability to reason, she felt him about to withdraw.
“No! Don’t you dare.”
“Yes, Rusty, yes.”
“I love you, Cooper.” She crossed her ankles at the small of his back. “I want you. All of you.”
“No, no,” he groaned in misery as well as ecstasy.
“I love you.”
Clenching his teeth and baring them, he threw his head back and surrendered to orgasm with a long, low, primal groan that worked its way up from the bottom of his soul. He filled this woman who loved him with his hot, rich seed.
Chapter Thirteen
Sweat dripped from his face. He was drenched in it. His body hair was curled with it. He collapsed atop her. She held him tightly. Her maternal instinct asserted itself; she wanted to cuddle him like a child.
It was an endless forever before he regained enough strength to move, but neither was in a hurry for him to leave her. Finally, he rolled away from her and lay on his back, replete. Rusty gazed at his beloved face. His eyes were closed. The lines on either side of his stern mouth had relaxed considerably since he’d come through her front door.
She laid her head on his chest and smoothed her hand over his stomach, combing through the crinkled, damp hair. “It wasn’t just me you withdrew from, was it?” Somehow she knew that this was the first time in a long time that Cooper had completed the love act.
“No.”
“It wasn’t because I might get pregnant, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Why did you make love that way, Cooper?” He opened his eyes. She stared down into them. They were guarded. He, who she had assumed was fearless, was afraid of her, a naked woman, lying helplessly beside him, utterly fascinated by him and under his spell. What threat could she possibly represent?
“Why did you impose that kind of discipline on yourself?” she asked gently. “Tell me.”
He stared at the ceiling. “There was a woman.”
Ah, the woman, Rusty thought.
“Her name was Melody. I met her soon after I got back from Nam. I was messed up. Bitter. Angry. She—” he made a helpless gesture “—she put things back into perspective, gave focus to my life. I was attending college on the GI bill. We were going to get married as soon as I finished. I thought that everything was going well for us. It was.”
He closed his eyes again and Rusty knew he was approaching the difficult part of the story. “Then she got pregnant. Without my knowledge, she had an abortion.” His hands curled into fists and his jaw grew rigid with fury. Rusty actually jumped when he turned to her abruptly.
“She killed my baby. After all the death I’d seen, she...” His breathing became so harsh that Rusty was afraid he’d go into cardiac arrest. She laid a comforting hand on his chest and softly spoke his name.
“I’m so sorry, Cooper, darling. I’m so sorry.”
He breathed deeply, until he had filled his lungs with sufficient air. “Yeah.”
“You’ve been angry at her ever since.”
“At first. But then I came to hate her too much to be angry at her. I’d shared so many confidences with her. She knew what was going on inside my head, how I felt about things. She’d urged me to talk about the prison camp and everything that happened there.”
“Did you feel that she abused that confidence?”
“Abused and betrayed it.” With the pad of his thumb, he caught a tear rolling down Rusty’s cheek and swept it away. “She’d held me in her arms while I cried like a baby, telling her about buddies I’d seen...killed,” he finished in a hoarse whisper.
“I’d told her about the hell I went through to escape and then what I did to survive until I was rescued. Even after that, after I’d described how I’d lain in a heap of rotting, stinking corpses to keep from being recaptured—”
“Cooper, don’t.” Rusty reached for him and drew him close.
“She went out and had our baby destroyed. After I’d seen babies torn apart, probably had killed some myself, she—�
�
“Shh, shh. Don’t.”
Rusty cradled his head against her breasts and crooned to him as she smoothed his hair. Tears blurred her vision. She felt his suffering, and wished she could take it all on herself. She kissed the crown of his head. “I’m sorry, my darling. So very sorry.”
“I left Melody. I moved to the mountains, bought my livestock, built my house.”
And a wall around your heart, Rusty thought sadly. No wonder he’d spurned society. He’d been betrayed twice— once by his country, which didn’t want to be reminded of its mistake, and then by the woman he had loved and trusted.
“You didn’t take a chance on any woman getting pregnant by you again.”
He worked his head free and looked into her eyes. “That’s right. Not until now.” He placed his hands on either side of her face. “Until you. And I couldn’t stop myself from filling you.” He kissed her hard. “I wanted it to last forever.”
Smiling, she turned her head and bit the meaty part of his hand just below his thumb. “I thought it was going to.”
He smiled, too, looking boyishly pleased with himself. “Really?”
Rusty laughed. “Really.”
He slid his hand between her thighs and worked his fingers through the nest of russet curls before intimately palming her sex. “I left a special mark on you this time. You’re carrying part of me inside you.” He raised his head off the pillow and brushed his mouth across her kiss-swollen lips.
“That’s what I wanted. I wouldn’t have let you leave me this time.”
“Oh, no?” There was an arrogant, teasing glint in his eyes. “What would you have done?”
“I would have given you one hell of a fight. That’s how much I wanted you. All of you.”
He pulled her lower lip between his teeth and worried it deliciously with his tongue. “One of the things I like most about you...” His mouth went for her neck.
“Yes?”
“Is that you always look like you’ve just been royally...” He finished his sentence with a gutter word that only he could make sound sexy.
“Cooper!” Pretending to be offended, Rusty sat back on her heels and placed her hands on her hips.
He laughed. The wonderful, rare sound of his laughter was so encouraging that she assumed an even prissier expression. He only laughed harder. His laughter was real, not tainted by cynicism. She wanted to draw it around her like a blanket. She wanted to bask in it as one would the first hot day of summer. She’d made Cooper Landry laugh. That was no small feat, particularly in the past few years. Probably few could lay claim to having made this man laugh.
His mouth was still split into a wide grin beneath his mustache. He mimicked her in an old maid’s whine. “Coo-per!” Piqued by his imitation of her, she smacked his bare thigh. “Hey, it’s not my fault that you’ve got bedroom hair and smoky brown eyes.” He reached out and ran his thumb along her lower lip. “I can’t help it if your mouth always looks recently kissed and begging for more; if your breasts are always aquiver.”
“‘Aquiver’?” she asked breathlessly as he cupped one.
“Hmm. Is it my fault that your nipples are always primed and ready?”
“In fact it is.”
That, he liked. Smiling, he plucked at the dusky pearl, rolling it gently between his fingers.
“But primed and ready for what, Cooper?”
He leaned forward and, using his lips and tongue, demonstrated.
Rusty felt the familiar sensations unwinding in her midsection like a spool of silk ribbon. Sighing, she clasped his head and pushed it away from her. He looked at her in bewilderment, but didn’t resist as she pressed him back against the pillows. “What are we doing?” he asked.
“I’m going to make love to you for a change.”
“I thought you just did.”
She shook her tousled head. At some point her ponytail had come down. “You made love to me.”
“What’s the difference?”
Smiling a feline smile, her eyes full of promise, she stretched out alongside him and began nibbling his neck. “Wait and see.”
In the peaceful aftermath, they lay together, their arms and legs entangled. “I thought only hookers knew how to do that right.” His voice was still scratchy from crying out her name, and he barely had the energy to strum her spine with his fingertips.
“Did I do it right?”
He tilted his head back and gazed down at the woman who lay sprawled across his chest. “Don’t you know?”
Her eyes were glazed with love as she looked up at him and shook her head with shy uncertainty.
“That’s the first time you ever...?” She nodded yes. He hissed a soft curse and drew her up for a gentle, loving kiss. “Yeah. You did it just fine,” he said with a trace of humor when he finally released her lips. “Just fine.”
After a long silence, Rusty asked him, “What kind of family life did you have?”
“Family life?” As he collected his thoughts, he absently rubbed his leg against her left one, ever careful not to bump the sore one. “It’s been so long ago I barely remember. Practically all I remember of my dad was that he went to work every day. He was a salesman. His job finally caused a massive heart attack that killed him instantly. I was still in elementary school.
“Mother never got over being mad at him for dying prematurely and leaving her a widow. She never got over being mad at me for...existing, I guess. Anyway, all I meant to her was a liability. She had to work to support us.”
“She never remarried?”
“No.”
His mother had probably blamed her blameless son for that, too. Rusty could paint in the numbered spaces and get the complete picture. Cooper had grown up unloved. It was little wonder that now, when a hand was extended to him in kindness, he bit it instead of accepting it. He didn’t believe in human kindness and love. He’d never experienced them. His personal relationships had been fouled with pain, disillusionment, and betrayal.
“I joined the Marines as soon as I graduated from high school. Mother died during my first year in Nam. Breast cancer. She was the kind of woman who was too stubborn to have that lump checked before it was too late.” Rusty stroked his chin with her thumbnail, occasionally dipping it into the vertical cleft. She was filled with remorse for the lonely, unloved child he’d been. Such unhappiness. By comparison she’d had it so easy.
“My mother died, too.”
“And then you lost your brother.”
“Yes. Jeff.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He was terrific,” she said with an affectionate smile. “Everybody liked him. He was friendly—the kind of person who never met a stranger. People were automatically drawn to him. He had outstanding leadership qualities. He could make people laugh. He could do everything.”
“You’ve been reminded of that often enough.”
Quickly her head popped up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Cooper seemed to weigh the advisability of pursuing this conversation, but apparently decided in favor of it. “Doesn’t your father continually hold your brother up as an example for you to follow?”
“Jeff had a promising future in real estate. My father wants that for me, too.”
“But is it your future he wants for you, or your brother’s future?”
She disengaged herself and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Cooper caught a handful of her hair to keep her from leaving the bed. He came up on his knees behind her where she sat on the edge of it. “Like hell you don’t, Rusty. Everything you’ve said about your father and brother leads me to believe that you’re expected to fill Jeff’s shoes.”
“My father only wants me to do well.”
“What he considers well. You’re a beautiful, intelligent woman. A loving daughter. You have a career, and you’re successful. Isn’t that enough for him?”
“No! I mean, yes, of course it’s enough. It
’s just that he wants me to live up to my potential.”
“Or Jeff’s.” She tried to move away, but he held her back by her shoulders. “Like that hunting trip to Great Bear Lake.”
“I told you that that was my idea, not Father’s.”
“But why did you feel that it was necessary to go? Why was it your responsibility to uphold the tradition he had shared with Jeff? You only went because you thought it might please your father.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. If it was strictly a gesture of self-sacrifice, of love. But by going, I think you set out to prove something to him; I think that you wanted your father to see that you’re as marvelous as Jeff was.”
“Well, I failed.”
“That’s my point!” he shouted. “You don’t like hunting and fishing. So what? Why should that make you a failure?”
She managed to wrest herself free. Once she was on her feet, she spun around to face him. “You don’t understand, Cooper.”
“Obviously I don’t. I don’t see why being exactly what you are isn’t enough for your father. Why do you continually have to prove yourself to him? He lost his son: unfortunate; tragic. But he’s still got a daughter. And he’s trying to shape her into something she isn’t. You’re both obsessed with Jeff. Whatever else he did, I’m fairly sure he didn’t walk on water.”
Rusty aimed an accusing finger at him. “You’re a fine one to preach about other people’s obsessions. You nurse your hurt obsessively. You actually take pleasure in your despair.”
“That’s nuts.”
“Precisely. It’s easier for you to sit up there on your mountain than it is to mix with other human beings. Then you might have to open yourself up a little, let people get a peek at the man you are inside. And that terrifies you, doesn’t it? Because you might be found out. Somebody might discover that you’re not the hard, cold, unfeeling bastard you pretend to be. Someone might decide that you’re capable of giving and receiving love.”
“Baby, I gave up on the idea of love a long time ago.”
“Then what was that all about?” She gestured toward the bed.