by Sandra Field
Pulling back, he said roughly, “Lise, we’d better eat.”
He felt her sudden stillness; she was staring at his shirt as if she’d never seen a row of buttons before. With careful politeness, she said, “Yes. You’re right. Of course.”
“If we don’t,” he said, “you know what’s going to happen?”
This time a shiver ran through her. “Yes,” she said in a low voice.
The emotion Judd felt now was undoubtedly tenderness. For him a totally new emotion, one that not even Angeline in those early days—and nights—had called up. There’d always been something detached about Angeline, a portion of herself kept firmly to herself; only later had he wondered if that had been part of her fascination for him: that he could never quite reach her core, no matter how hard he tried.
Run, he thought. Run for your life, buddy. Because if you make love to this red-haired woman, you’ll never be the same again. You know that. And maybe she knows it, too. You don’t want that kind of involvement. You swore off it years ago.
He moved away from her so that her hand fell to her side and said with a lightness that sounded almost genuine, “Sally will have my hide if we don’t make at least an inroad into the food she’s prepared. You haven’t seen Sally on the warpath—not much puts the fear of God in me, but she sure does.”
“Do I scare you, Judd?” Lise asked.
Of all the questions she could have asked, she’d chosen the one that was the most impossible to answer. He’d given enough away already by keeping that stupid promise. That’s all you’re getting, Lise Charbonneau, Judd thought. No more involvement. No, ma’am. Definitely not part of my game plan. He said coolly, “Other than Sally, I don’t let women scare me.”
Her lashes flickered. Then she lifted her chin; her courage stabbed him to the heart. “I get the message,” she said. “So what’s for dinner? And did Emmy go to sleep all right? She hasn’t had any nightmares at all, has she? It was a good idea to bring her here, it’s easy to see how much she loves the place. Not that I’m surprised, it’s so beautiful.”
Lise wasn’t normally a chatty woman; her ability to be comfortable with silence was something else he’d noticed about her. He’d noticed a lot, Judd thought grimly, and said, “Cold pumpkin soup. A conch salad, plantain, curried shrimp, Creole pork chops…want me to go on?”
“Sounds wonderful,” Lise said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
The next hour Judd would long remember as one of the most excruciating in his life. He and Lise were painstakingly polite to each other, each talked at length about totally impersonal subjects, and they ate as though appeasing Sally were all that mattered. But finally they’d finished the sliced mangoes cooked in a ginger syrup, and had drained delicate china demitasses of coffee. Lise said with an artificial yawn, “I think I’ll say good night, Judd, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“Sleep well,” he said with just the right touch of detachment, and watched her leave the room. A few moments later he heard the decisive click of her bedroom door. Only then did he let his breath out in a long sigh.
You’re a fool, Judd Harwood. You had your chance and you blew it. You could have bedded her. Gotten her out of your system.
A little voice sneered in his head, You figure one night with Lise would cure whatever’s wrong with you? Now that really does make you a fool.
Come off it. She’s just a woman. And I’m not in love with her, nowhere near.
You want me to list all her attributes? Starting with courage and ending with passion?
Oh, shut up, Judd thought irritably, and got up from the table. He carried the uneaten food back to the kitchen, storing it in the refrigerator; he blew out the candles; he checked on Emmy, who was sprawled across her bed fast asleep. There was no sound from Lise’s room. Cursing himself, Judd went to his own room, had a shower that he tapered off to cold, with no noticeable effect, and pulled on the briefs that were all he wore to bed. Then he gathered a stack of articles he’d been meaning to read for the last two weeks, and tried to concentrate.
Angeline had never slept in this bed. She’d wanted the trendy islands where the jet set gathered, where there were casinos and nightclubs. Not peaceful Dominica with its dark sands and sleepy little capital. The only woman he’d ever brought here was Lise.
He wasn’t going to think about Lise. Tomorrow he’d drop her off at her apartment and that would be that. Luckily Emmy had kept her guard up; he didn’t need that further complication. His jaw tight, Judd picked up a pen and started jotting down notes.
Two hours later, he’d managed to whip up a half-decent level of concentration on an article about rising jet fuel costs. His brow furrowed, he quickly numbered the main points of the argument. Then a sudden, bitten-off cry of terror ripped the peaceful night air; his pen skidded on the page and he raised his head, like an animal sensing danger.
Emmy. Another nightmare.
Not bothering to pull on any clothes, Judd was out of bed in one quick movement and was running down the hallway. But as he flung open his daughter’s door, he saw that Emmy was peacefully asleep, her arm thrown over Plush.
It hadn’t been Emmy who’d screamed. So it must have been Lise.
He didn’t bother tapping on Lise’s door. Shoving it open, hearing it swing shut behind him, Judd said urgently, “Lise—what’s wrong?”
Her voice quavered across the room. “S-something landed on the b-bed.”
As he switched on the light, the biggest lizard he’d ever seen scurried across the bedclothes to the floor and vanished under the bed. With a gasp of horror, Lise cowered against the head of the bed. Judd sat down on the bed and started to laugh.
Shuddering, she sputtered, “It ran across my f-face and woke me up—shut up, Judd, it’s not the slightest bit funny!”
He laughed all the harder. “You can enter burning buildings and deal with car wrecks, and a lizard makes you scream? Oh Lise, I’ve found your feet of clay.”
“You try it! Claws clinging to your cheeks and it’s so damn dark you can’t see your fingers in front of your face—Judd, will you please stop laughing?”
She was sitting up straight now, the covers around her waist, her hair a wild tangle around her furious face. He said, “They get in through the louvers. If it’s any comfort, the lizard was probably much more scared than you.”
“It’s no comfort whatsoever.”
And suddenly Judd became aware that he was sitting on Lise’s bed clad in nothing but a pair of briefs; and even more aware of the creamy rise and fall of her breasts in her silk nightgown. When he’d purchased it, he’d pictured it clinging to her body in all the right places. It clung all right, he thought, his mouth dry; and did what he’d been craving to do ever since he’d first seen Lise lying semi-conscious in a hospital bed in Montreal. Leaning forward, he took her by the shoulders, his fingers clasping her warm skin with acute pleasure. Then he kissed her upturned face, exposing all his fierce hunger for her. It was a kiss that seemed to go on forever. A kiss, he thought dimly, that she was more than returning.
Her arms were around his neck; her breasts were pressed to his bare chest. In passionate gratitude he felt her open to the thrust of his tongue, her own tongue playing with his with an eroticism that made his head swim. Lise wanted him. Wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
Had he ever doubted that?
Judd buried his hands in the silky mass of her hair, his lips sweeping the curve of her cheekbones; as he did so, the fragrance of her skin filled his nostrils. He pushed down the thin straps of her gown, kissing her collarbone and the gentle hollow of her throat. Then he found the firm rise of her breast; his heart thudding against his rib cage, Judd cupped its weight, teasing her nipple to hardness. Lise moaned his name, her palms splayed against his chest, her fingers playing with his body hair in a way that inflamed him. He kissed her again, straining her to him, knowing there was nowhere on earth he would rather be than in Lise’s bed. With Lise.
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Her gown fell to her waist. He dropped his head to the sweet valley between her breasts, kissing first one ivory curve of flesh, then the other, feeling her fingers in his hair, tracing the hard lines of his skull. Raw need overcoming all caution, he pushed back the covers, twisting to lie down and drawing her down beside him. “Take off your gown, Lise—I want you naked.”
With only a trace of shyness, she pulled the blue silk over her head and threw it to one side. Judd pushed up on one elbow, drinking in the soft arc of her waist and swell of hip, the darker tangle of hair at the juncture of her thighs, the slender length of each leg all the way to the arch of her instep. He was not a man normally at a loss for words. “Lise, you’re exquisite,” he said huskily.
She said, scarlet-cheeked, “No fair, Judd—you’re still dressed. Sort of.”
He was also fully aroused, as she must be aware. He yanked off his briefs, tossing them to the floor. “Come here,” he said; and then for the space of several minutes said nothing else. His intent silence was broken only by Lise’s small gasps of delight, gasps that turned to broken cries as he found the wet pink petals of flesh between her thighs, teasing them open, stroking them with nothing but an impassioned desire to bring her as much pleasure as he could.
She threw back her head, writhing beneath his touch, whimpering his name over and over again; as the tension gathered in her body, she held onto him with all her strength, her green eyes drowning in sensation. Then suddenly she was overwhelmed by the inexorable rhythms of release, her cries echoing in his ears as he held her close. The frantic hammering of her heart was as his own. Feeling as though he held the whole world in his arms, Judd murmured, “Lise…Lise, you’re so incredibly beautiful.”
Her face was pushed into his shoulder. “I—I never knew it could be so sudden. So powerful.”
“And it’s not over yet,” he said, running his hand down the long curve of her back and drawing her closer to his erection. “We’ve only just begun.”
She looked up, her irises shining like emeralds, laughter sparking their depths. “So I see,” she said, and gave a sudden thrust of her hips toward him.
He gasped with pleasure. Then he felt her fingers encircle him, stroking the taut length of his penis. As his face convulsed, he muttered, “Keep that up and you’re in trouble.”
“Another promise?” she said hopefully.
“Yeah, it’s a promise,” he growled. “And I’m going to keep it. Kiss me, Lise.”
She offered her lips with a generosity that touched him to the core. Then, infinitely seductive, she moved down his body, tasting his skin, laving his nipples with her tongue, and tracing the hard angle of one hipbone. “I love your body,” she whispered, taking him in her hands again and caressing him until Judd wondered if he could die of pleasure.
Before he could lose control, he lifted her to straddle him. She slid over him, enclosing him in wetness and heat. In intimacy, he thought, pulling strands of her vivid hair to lie over the tilt of her breasts, and watching the play of expressions on her face. She was hiding nothing, he knew that. And would not have wanted it otherwise.
She rode him with fierce concentration, her knees braced on either side of his body, her breasts gently bouncing. He took her by the waist, loving the smoothness of her skin and her agility, aware through every nerve ending of the primitive building of impulsions older than time.
He wanted her closer, her face so near that he could see every change of expression. Holding her so that he stayed locked within her, Judd pulled her down, rolling over so that she was on her back and he covering her body with his own. He could lose himself in the green depths of her eyes, he thought. Lose himself and find himself? Find a man he scarcely knew? He said impetuously, “Hold me, Lise. Move with me.”
“Oh, Judd…” she whispered, her irises deep pools of tenderness as she brushed her breasts against his body hair, back and forth with a delicious sensuality that spiked his hunger for her until it was all-consuming.
He thrust deep inside her, aware with every fiber of his being of her involuntary response. “Tell me you want me,” he demanded. “Tell me, Lise.”
She locked her arms around his waist and kissed him with passionate intensity, nibbling at his lips as she whispered, “I want you more than I can say. I want—oh, Judd, now. Please, now.”
He was more than ready. Seized by his body’s primitive rhythms, yet never so swept up that he lost sight of her face drowned in rapture, Judd cried out her name, again and again. Then, to his infinite gratification, he sensed her own pulsations, echoing his own: and heard her cries mingle with his. Fused, drained, at one with her with a completion that was unlike any union he’d ever known, Judd emptied within her. And wondered if he would ever be entirely separate from her again.
His forehead fell to her shoulder. His throat heaving, his heart trying to force its way out of his chest, he clung to her as if he were the one who was drowning. She said softly, “Judd, are you all right?”
And how was he supposed to answer that, when a lovemaking he hadn’t planned had taken him to a place he’d never been before? “Complicated question,” he muttered. “You sure know how to ask ’em.”
“Yes or no will do,” she murmured.
Alerted by something in her voice, Judd looked up. “My turn. Are you okay?”
“I feel—” Lise hesitated, then added in a rush, “I feel almost as though I was a virgin, someone who’d never made love before…I guess there aren’t any words, Judd.” With one hand, she smoothed the hair back from his sweat-damp forehead; and with a sudden tightness in his chest, he saw that her fingers were trembling.
He took her hand in his, kissing the backs of her knuckles. “Let’s not try for words, then.”
He drew her down to his shoulder, and closed his eyes; slowly the tumult in his body subsided and he became aware of himself again as a separate entity. As a man who definitely didn’t want to try for words. After all, didn’t that suit him right down to the ground? He didn’t want to say things in the heat of the moment that he’d then be required to live up to. Women always took what you said to the bank. He didn’t want commitment. Ever again. Freedom was the name of the game. Independence. It was the way he’d lived his life ever since his divorce, and just because a woman with hair like flame and a body that ravished all his senses had burst into his life didn’t mean he had to change anything.
All the more reason not to change.
Burying his face in her throat, Judd said, “You’re one heck of a woman, Lise Charbonneau.”
There was the smallest of pauses before she said pertly, “Why, thank you. You’re quite the guy yourself.”
“I’m going to set up a one-man society for the preservation of lizards.”
As he’d hoped, this made her laugh. “Yuk,” she said.
He wrapped his arms around her and discovered something else: that he still wanted her. That there were a myriad ways of making love to her he hadn’t tried yet, and even the thought of them turned him on. Get her out of his system? Who was he kidding? Maybe the lizard hadn’t done him a favor after all, Judd thought grimly. If he’d had any smarts, he’d have stuck to his promise.
“What are you thinking?” Lise whispered.
Her face was clouded with uncertainty in a way that hurt Judd deep inside. To hell with caution, he thought. Right now her happiness was more important than a few niggling doubts. And why should he be so afraid of commitment? The word hadn’t even been mentioned between him and Lise. Besides, hadn’t he always taken what he wanted? “Can’t you tell what I’m thinking?” he asked, easing a little closer to her. “Although I’m not sure my thought processes have much to do with it. Are you interested in a repeat?”
Her chuckle was full of mischief. “I suspect I could be persuaded.”
“Good,” said Judd, and set about to do just that, using all his skills of imagination and empathy.
The thing he hadn’t quite counted on was how Lise met him more than
halfway, with a generosity and abandon that aroused him to a fever pitch. Images of her spilled through his brain: the fullness of her breasts, swollen from his kisses; the tightness of her thighs, wrapped around him; the long curve of her spine, the wonderment in her emerald eyes as he caressed every inch of her body, committing it to memory in spite of his own best intentions. She was his, all his and only his, was his last thought before she tumbled into the abyss of release, pulling him with her every step of the way.
Overwhelmed by the sheer physicality of sensation, aware of being flooded by an uncomfortable blend of tenderness, protectiveness and terror, Judd held her close, and with a distant part of his brain wondered how he was going to say goodbye to her tomorrow. Goodbye? More like hello, he thought with another of those surges of fear. How often did a man and woman mate with such total involvement? Such a blissful satiation of needs and desires?
He had to get of here.
But Lise’s head was resting on his chest, her hair tumbling over his rib cage in glorious abandon. Against his belly he could feel the racing of her heart; her breath wafted his skin. So what was he going to do? Tell her he was leaving right now because he was frightened out of his wits? He was a grown man, for God’s sake. Men weren’t supposed to be scared of women. Anyway, it took a lot to scare him.
Judd lay still and imperceptibly felt her breathing slip into the rhythms of sleep. So the choice was made: he had to stay. For now.
Was he going to say goodbye tomorrow? Is that what he wanted? If he were smart, that’s what he’d do. He wasn’t into commitment. Whereas Lise, he suspected, was the kind of woman to play for keeps.
Deadlock.
Did he want to hurt her? Surely not. Or was it already too late? So should he hurt her now, rather than later?