by Jacobs, Ann
Every pleasure she’d ever known and every pain she’d suffered passed before her in a montage of brilliant colors. She loved him. She hated him. She begged him to take her over the edge and bring her back to earth.
Omigod. Sensation claimed her, hotter than the fires of hell yet more frigid than Arctic ice.
Again and again he skimmed his hands and mouth over her heated skin, his motions deliberate when she wanted them frenzied, gentle when she needed them to be rough. Pressure built inside her slowly, so slowly she became nothing but a mindless pit of sensation. When she thought she’d surely die, he finally nudged her over the edge.
Then he stood and watched her tremble in the wake of her climax as he stripped off the garments she’d begged him to get rid of, to no avail. She feasted her eyes on him, all sculpted muscles and skin bronzed in twilight’s waning glow. Oh! Looking at his bold, rigid erection made her muscles clench in anticipation.
The man had a perfect body. More important, he had arms strong enough to hold her…and a heart full enough to make hers whole.
She held out her arms, and he came into them. He came into her, his motion strong and sure, filling her body as he’d already filled her heart. She shuddered, awed by the power he held over her, but when he began to move she gave herself over to him. To the rhythm and the sensation…to the satisfaction only he could deliver.
Soon he pushed her over the edge again, this time shouting out his own pleasure at the simultaneous orgasm that left her practically unconscious in its wake.
When she woke what seemed like several hours later, Jared was sitting on the edge of the bed. He’d opened the drawer where she’d put Bill’s picture.
“You loved him.” His expression bored straight into her heart.
She sensed denial wouldn’t do. “Yes. We fell in love when we were twelve years old. If he hadn’t died, we’d have been married by now.”
Jared ran a finger across her breast, his lips curling in a smile as he watched the nipple harden. Green fire, like shards of emeralds, glowed in his eyes. “Sometimes fate does strange things.”
“Yes it does. Jared, put the past away. I have.”
He took a last look at the photo. Then he set it back in the drawer and pushed it closed. “Are you sure?”
“Very sure. I’ll show you how sure I am.”
As she stroked his chest and belly, he tried to stay calm. It was no use. He wanted her again. She was in his blood, and he in hers.
Jared reminded himself she hadn’t given herself to the fresh-faced boy she had loved. Only to him. Knowing that made him want her more.
He rolled over and pinned her beneath him, claiming her again in one fierce thrust. He loved the way she responded, clasping her arms around his shoulders and entangling her legs with his. This time he felt no urgency, only a need for them to be together, as close as a man and a woman could get.
The bed sagged a bit under their weight. It cradled them, and he caught the scent of their earlier lovemaking in the soft covers. When he flexed his hips she clenched her inner muscles as though she wanted to hold him deep inside her forever. A lover’s caress.
I love you. She’d never said those words to him, words she’d apparently given freely to her dead fiancé. But he didn’t doubt she meant them. He was as certain as he’d ever been of anything that every time she took him into her body she must be giving him a piece of her heart.
It made sense. If she didn’t love him, she wouldn’t make love with him so freely. Jared banished the jealousy he never should have felt toward a dead man. Then he tightened his arms around Althea and buried his face in the soft crook of her throat. And he moved inside her, slow and deep.
Her gentle climax triggered his own. Keeping their bodies joined, He turned on his side and held her close. He’d never before felt so content—so complete.
▪ ▪ ▪
The next morning Jared went home when Althea left to open her shop. After making coffee, he put in a call to Harriet and pressed the realtor to get an answer about the property he’d decided to buy. It was early afternoon when she got around to calling him back.
He listened to the counteroffer Helen related from the owner of the property, glad the woman had called now, before Althea got here. Anxious to get the project underway and see her eyes light up at his surprise, he almost accepted the price he knew was still too high. Then he told Harriet not to deal with him any further but to work with Laura in his Atlanta office. His hard-nosed assistant wouldn’t be tempted to give away the farm. She wasn’t personally involved.
Jared was. More involved than he’d ever been with a woman. When Althea was with him, he wanted her closer. When she wasn’t, he felt incomplete. Empty.
He called Laura and explained about the property he wanted, then told her to make the deal with the realtor. Although Laura sounded surprised that he wanted to fund a project so far from his home base, she assured him she’d negotiate the best possible terms for the land.
When he got off the phone he settled his gaze on the quilt. Its colors reminded him of the woods, of fragrant spruce trees and towering pines, and of the shimmering lake at the base of Big Bear Mountain. He found the predictable pattern of light and dark prints in a precise geometric design was soothing.
Moving closer to the quilting frame, he reached out and touched a corner where Althea had begun quilting the layers together. It was surprisingly soft. The finely woven materials, already handled over and over by Althea, felt almost like silk, yet warm to the touch. It amazed him to realize that the patchwork top, batting and the forest-green backing he’d chosen would eventually become a finished quilt.
The quilt Jared had slept under for years as a child hadn’t been this soft. When he’d begun making money with his computer games, he hadn’t been able to get rid of the scratchy thing fast enough. It had been stiff even after repeated washings had worn the material thin. Its filler hadn’t been downy soft fiber like this, but an old blanket.
A down-home quilt, his mom had called it and others she’d made from cloth flour sacks and scraps she’d salvaged from outgrown and worn-out clothes. Its backing had been a cheap bed sheet, coarse-textured in spite of its thinness.
Althea was finally giving him the quilt his mom had promised she’d make for him someday, before their world had fallen apart. Jared recalled her talking about how she’d make it block by block from remnants she’d buy as she could afford them, so she could finish the Flying Geese in time for him to give his bride.
He blinked back tears, angry with himself for having let them form in the first place. This was just a quilt, the same pattern but not the same quilt his mom had barely started. Both were pieces of cloth cut apart and sewn together to make covers that would keep away winter’s cold. That was all. Nothing more.
A loud knock at the front door startled him. He doubted it would be Althea this early. As he strode across the living room, he glanced at his watch, noted it would be two hours before she could close up shop. Besides, she’d told him she had some things to do at home before joining him here for the rest of the weekend. When he opened the door, he saw his visitor was Althea’s brother, Jim.
“Hey Jim. What brings you here?”
“I wanted to thank you again for bringing Althea down to the hospital.” Jim looked at the toes of his scuffed boots, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he had something else to say but couldn’t get the words out.
“Mary and the baby are okay, I hope.” Jared stepped back and motioned for Jim to go inside.
“Doin’ fine now. Mary gave me a hell of a scare, though. See you got yourself one of my quiltin’ frames.” Jim ran a finger down one side of the frame. “I missed sandin’ a couple of spots here and there,” he said. “Remind me to sand them down again next time I come over.”
Jared nodded. He was starting to feel a little uneasy about the way Althea’s big brother was eyeing the quilt. Damn it, he wasn’t going to…
Jim looked away from
the quilting frame, his fists clenched. He turned to Jared. “You sleepin’ with Althea?” he asked, his voice deadly calm.
Suddenly Jared felt as if he were sixteen, not thirty-six. “Whether I am or not is between Althea and me.”
“It’s not exactly between the two of you when folks tell me they saw your flashy sports car parked in front of her house at six o’clock in the morning.”
Jared looked Jim in the eye, wishing he didn’t feel as though he’d been caught at the mall in Atlanta with his pants down. “What’s between us is private. Personal.”
“I don’t see it that way. My sister’s been away to college. She got herself some fancy ideas about making things better for folks here in the mountains, but she’s still one of us. And our women don’t go sleepin’ around without bein’ in love. You’d best not go taking advantage of her tender feelings.”
“I care deeply for your sister, Jim.”
“For now or for always?”
Jared noticed Jim’s fists still were clenched, but he’d relaxed his belligerent stance. He met the other man’s gaze. “Seems more like for always, every day.” It came to him just how close Althea had come to stealing away his heart.
“Better be. You know, our daddy was a preacher. He’ll be havin’ fits up in heaven if he thinks some rich city dude is taking advantage of his little girl.”
Taking a chance with his arm’s well-being, Jared laid a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I’d sooner kill myself than hurt Althea. Believe me,” he said, holding the other man’s somber gaze. “Go on home now and give my best wishes to your wife and baby.”
Jim moved away, toward the front door. “Guess I will. You take care, though, and keep in mind what I just said.”
As though Jared were likely to forget. Jim’s soft-spoken warning rang in his ears as he stood on the porch and watched the other man’s van make its way down the driveway until it disappeared around the bend. Twenty minutes later he was still standing at the porch rail when he heard the distinctive roar of Althea’s Pathfinder.
▪ ▪ ▪
Althea wondered as she put the last of their supper dishes in the dishwasher what had Jared so preoccupied. He’d hardly said a word since she got here. Dismissing her worries as unfounded, she poured herself another glass of sweet tea. Then she went through the living room to join him on the porch.
Characters from his latest game marched across the screen of his laptop to the rhythm of a the game’s catchy theme song. The sounds drew her gaze to the spot on the sofa where he’d left it. Compact and obviously powerful, the machine he apparently used only to check out games he was planning to sell reminded her of the even more powerful desktop system upstairs in his bedroom. It had a printer. Two of them if she wasn’t mistaken.
Surely it wouldn’t hurt to ask him to make a handful of jelly jar labels. She hadn’t had time lately to drive over to the print shop in Dahlonega, but she’d wait and see before asking Jared for a favor. Right now she needed to feel his arms around her.
Maybe making love would remind her the bond between them was no more than powerful chemistry and hot sensation.
Chapter Sixteen
“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” Althea said later as she pushed her needle rhythmically through the layers of Jared’s quilt.
He looked up from the game he was testing and watched her hands move on the dark side of a quilt square. “Your brother stopped by to see me this afternoon.”
She glanced at him, a surprised look on her face. “Why?”
“He wanted to warn me off. Althea, I—the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you in any way. He made me feel guilty as hell…”
“Damn it, why can’t my brother mind his own business? I’m not a child or a dimwit.”
“Jim thinks it’s his business. To be honest, I probably would, too, if you were my little sister.”
Eyes flashing ice blue fire, Althea met his gaze. “Jim may think I’m still a little girl, but I’m not. We haven’t done a thing I didn’t want to do.” Her voice softened, and her expression turned dreamy. “We’ve done nothing I haven’t enjoyed immensely. The last thing I’m in the market for is a wedding, with or without the shotgun.”
She sounded okay. She even looked okay, if a little perturbed. A worse twinge of guilt than Jim had set off went through Jared when he recalled Althea had been an innocent just a few weeks ago, despite her enthusiastic participation in their lovemaking.
He pulled her up from her chair and over to the couch. Then he sat beside her and took her hand. “It wouldn’t take a shotgun to get me to stand up in front of a preacher with you, sweetheart. It wouldn’t even take a prod from a Saturday night special. If you want to get married, I’ll give in without a fight.”
“Heavens, no.”
Her emphatic denial dented his ego, but her horrified expression smashed it to bits. “You sure know how to make a guy feel bad,” he said, hoping she’d think he was teasing her.
She lifted her hand to his lips as if to silence him. “I’m just fine with the way we are. No promises. No plans. Just us together today and maybe tomorrow, as long as being together feels so right. And Jared, it does feel right. Very right. I love the way you make love with me.”
That was something, maybe not all he’d hoped for, but it was enough for him to hold onto for the time being. He drew her into his arms and shut down his mind. He gave his body free rein and delivered on the only promise she seemed willing to take from him.
▪ ▪ ▪
When he woke the next morning and found Althea’s side of the bed empty, Jared looked around. There she was, checking out the computer on his desk.
She made his white dress shirt look sexy as hell, he noticed as he padded across the room. While she stared at the psychedelic screen saver undulating on the monitor, he stood behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders.
“Go on, sweetheart. Wiggle the mouse. It won’t hurt you, I promise.
He felt her shoulders go tense beneath his fingers. “I’ve seen a computer before. I’ve even used one.”
“Then do me a favor and take a look at this game. I want to know what you think. Its name has to go, for sure, but otherwise I think it’ll be a winner.” He leaned over her and tapped the mouse. When the screen saver disappeared, a scowling pirate’s face took its place.
She reached up and squeezed his hand. “Sorry. I’m not at my best this early in the morning. What’s the object of this game?”
“To see how much you can get of the buccaneer’s stolen treasure.”
“Who is he?” She inclined her head toward the monitor.
“For now his name is Captain Morgan, but that will have to change. I can’t go selling games to kids if the game’s name reminds their parents of rum.”
That made her smile. “Oh.”
When she made no move to begin the game, he moved the mouse and clicked the button a few times. “There. You’ve discovered the gold chest. Now try to get through the maze and knock off each one of the doubloons.”
She found and captured a couple of the brightly colored disks before lifting her hand off the mouse. “I’m afraid I’m not much into games.”
Something was bothering her. She’d acted peculiar last night. Now she was acting as if he’d asked her to walk over coals, not to try out a simple game. Frustrated, he leaned over again and shut down Captain Morgan. Then he took hold of the swivel chair where she was sitting and turned her around to face him. “I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.”
Nothing, hell. She’d closed up tighter than a fresh oyster in its shell, but he wasn’t about to leave well enough alone. “Althea.” He shuddered at the cold feeling he got from her shuttered gaze.
“It has nothing to do with us. I’m just tired. Worried. A little frustrated, that’s all. I’ll work it out.”
He stroked her cheek. “Maybe I could help.”
“No. It’s my problem. My project. It has nothing to do with you.�
�
Her project. The co-op? Jared started to tell Althea what he planned to do for that co-op, but then he changed his mind. Instead he pulled her into his arms and held her as gently as if she’d been no older than Gracie. For a long time they stood by the computer, until he felt her start to relax.
When she spoke,,her words were muffled against his chest. Her breath tickled him but he couldn’t make out what it was she said. “What did you say, sweetheart?”
She hesitated as though she felt whatever it was that she needed would be too much for her to request. Then the words came tumbling out as if she had to say them quickly before she lost her nerve. “Would you let me make a few labels for Trina’s jelly jars on one of your computers?”
Jared sighed. Hard to believe she’d worried about asking for something so insignificant. “Sure. What size labels does she want?” He opened a file cabinet next to the desk and read off dimensions of the laser labels he had on hand.
She picked the size he occasionally used to print up address labels, but shook her head when he tried to hand her an unopened box of the labels. “I only need to make enough for the jars she puts out for sale before they let me into the school next month. I can make more when I can get to the computer there.”
He’d never seen a woman so afraid of taking a favor. “Feel free. Use as many as you need. What software do you usually use to make them?”
When she named a well-known software suite, it surprised him that she hadn’t recognized its distinctive icon on the desktop tower. He bent and clicked on the icon, bringing the program up on the screen. “There it is, sweetheart. Do your thing.”
She looked confused. “This doesn’t look familiar.”
“It’s the newest version. I’ll show you.”
With a few clicks of the mouse, he formatted the labels for her. “There. Type in whatever you want on them.” When she finished he showed her how to add a border and decorate the labels with clip art from the software’s basic library.