“It wasn’t losing Webb that hurt so badly,” she said. “It was my belief that I wasn’t worthy of being loved. All the other stuff just made it worse.”
Will seemed to relax, move a few inches away from the door. “Is that why you never believed I loved you?”
Loved you. He hadn’t said love you. He’d said loved. Did that mean he’d fallen out of love with her, that she’d been so standoffish he’d given up and was going home?
“That and a lot of other things,” she said. “But that’s not true anymore. I realized I was being very unfair to you. I didn’t blame you for the things that had happened to me, but I expected you to act like everybody else. I’ve never known anybody like you, so I didn’t know what to do. I know that’s not an adequate excuse, but it’s all I have.”
Will came closer, reached for the two hands Idalou was twisting in front of her. He covered her hands with his before gently prying them apart. He caressed them, treating them as though they were the soft hands of some elegant woman rather than the rough hands of a woman who’d worked all her life. “What are you trying to tell me?” he asked when he looked into her eyes.
For a moment Idalou was afraid the words wouldn’t come out. She swallowed to moisten her throat, to release the tension. “I’m trying to say I love you,” she managed in a half whisper. “I think I have for some time. I just was too afraid to admit it.”
She didn’t know exactly what response she’d been expecting, but Will’s lack of reaction frightened her.
“I wanted to tell you before now,” she said, hoping his love hadn’t died completely, “but I couldn’t. I don’t know why other things bothered me so much, but every time I tried to tell you, something stopped me.”
“You’re a proud woman, Idalou Ellsworth,” Will said. “That’s a good thing to be, but sometimes pride can get in the way of happiness. I’m just as much at fault as you. I watched my brother close himself off from the world because of fear. I decided I was never going to let anything have that kind of control over me. I went so far in the other direction, people thought I didn’t care about anything. I just sat still and watched life go by. It took me a long time to realize I wasn’t protecting myself. I was isolating myself from life, from all the things that made being alive worthwhile.”
“You haven’t stopped helping people,” Idalou said.
“I didn’t help you that first day. I had good reasons for not doing it, but I was angry at myself in spite of my reasons. I knew right then there was something different about you.”
Idalou felt embarrassed. She hadn’t started liking him until a long time after that. “Why would you be attracted to anyone as rude as I was?”
“You were the first woman who didn’t care about my looks. I knew right then you weren’t going to be impressed by my family’s money, either. I was going to have to impress you on my own. That challenged me, but it was also what I wanted. No man wants to think a woman likes him just for his looks and his money.”
Idalou felt guilty that Will was giving her too much credit. “I’m no more immune to your looks than any other woman,” she confessed. “I only acted the way I did because I was upset. I knew you were right, but the threat of losing the ranch had made me so angry at the world, I couldn’t be fair. I didn’t even want to.”
Will’s smile remained in check. She could tell that something was still bothering him.
“What about Junie Mae?” he asked.
Idalou looked away. “I was jealous of all the attention you gave her, the way she felt free to touch you, lean on you, cry on your shoulder. I couldn’t convince myself you weren’t going to turn to her just like Webb had. When neither of you would tell me who the baby’s father was, I was convinced you were hiding some secret. Few things are more maddening than thinking the man you love shares a secret with another woman.”
“Is everything that stood between us out of the way now?” Will asked.
“Yes.”
“Then if I tell you I love you, you won’t back away?”
The relief that surged through her was so enormous, she felt weak in the knees. “No. I promise I won’t back away.”
“Would you meet me halfway?”
“I think I can do that.” She would have gone all the way on her own if necessary.
They came together, his arms around her waist, her arms around his neck. She could hardly believe how good it felt to be so close to him. He’d held her before, kissed her, but something had always stood between them, kept her from being able to concentrate on just the two of them. Things were different now. She was different. She could go to Will with an open and trusting heart.
She wanted love to make everything perfect, cast light into all the dark corners of her world, provide answers for all the mysteries, assure her that the future held nothing but happiness for her and everyone she loved. She was too old and too experienced to believe that could happen, but she was young enough to hope. Love had been able to transform her life, eliminate her fears. If it could do that, then everything else must be possible, too.
“You’re thinking again,” Will chided with a smile.
“Am I not allowed to think?”
“Isabelle assures me that a woman truly in love is beyond the reach of reason. She’s not sure that a man is capable of reason even before the malady of love has descended upon him.”
Idalou wanted to meet this woman who had had such a powerful influence on Will, the woman she was convinced had made him the man he’d become. “Surely she doesn’t believe love is a sickness.”
“She swears it’s the only reason she’s been able to put up with Jake for these twenty years.”
“What do you think?”
“I think she loves him so much she doesn’t see any faults, so she has to create some failings just to make him mortal.”
Idalou wondered if it was possible that Will would ever love her that much. She didn’t think he was without fault, but he did come close to being perfect. She wasn’t perfect and never would be. There was nothing remarkable about her, while he was the most remarkable man she’d ever known.
“That must be nice for Jake,” Idalou said.
Will broke out laughing. “The last thing Jake wants is to be thought of as perfect. He’ll do something just to make Isabelle argue with him. I used to be afraid that one of them would leave and destroy the only real home I’d ever known. I finally realized that arguing is just one of the ways they show their love.”
No wonder she couldn’t understand how Will could love her. She didn’t understand how fighting could be a way of showing love. She’d only had her mother’s slavish adoration of her father as an example. She knew she’d argue with Will if she thought he was wrong. She already had.
“Is that why you never fell out of love with me?” she asked.
“I never had a reason to fall out of love with you,” Will said and kissed her nose. “You were adorable from the very beginning.”
“Men don’t like their wives to argue with them.”
“I won’t mind. It’ll keep me from taking you for granted.”
It was hard to think with him kissing her ears, but she had to be sure. “What if I don’t agree with you?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
He kissed her eyes. The temptation to forget everything but Will was nearly overpowering, but she persevered. “What happens if we can’t work something out?”
“Then we ask Jake or Isabelle to arbitrate.” He kissed the side of her mouth. “They’ll probably side with you.” He kissed the side of her neck. “They’ll probably advise against marrying me, but I hope you won’t listen to them.”
He was kissing her throat. Webb had never done anything like this. Why had she ever thought she was in love with him? Compared to Will, he faded into insignificance. “You haven’t asked me to marry you.”
He nuzzled her. “See? I never can get things right.”
Maybe he didn’t do everything by the rules,
but Idalou couldn’t see anything wrong with the way he did things. If he didn’t stop turning her mind to mush with his kisses, she wouldn’t be able to think at all.
Not that she wanted to think. It was nearly impossible to resist the temptation to turn off her mind and just let Will take her to a place where she’d be co-cooned in his embrace. All her life she’d carried enormous burdens that squeezed the joy out of her, burdens that had turned her into an adult years ahead of time, burdens that had pitted her against men of greater power, that had forced her into battles she couldn’t win, that had turned her into a combative woman men avoided.
“You do want me to marry you, don’t you?” he asked.
“Only if you promise to let me kiss you like this every night.”
Will had gotten her worked up into such a state she couldn’t think, but she decided thinking was overrated. Thinking had driven Webb away. Thinking had turned her into a termagant men avoided. She made a vow to think a whole lot less in the future, and not at all when she was in Will’s arms.
“Only if you let me win every argument,” she said, wanting to see if his brain was in the same sorry state as hers.
His hands were taking inventory of her back. “I probably should warn you that I won’t play fair. I’ll search out your weaknesses and take shameless advantage of them. I’ll lay siege to your strengths until I’ve completely undermined them.”
“Are you saying you’re unprincipled?”
“Completely.”
“That you’ll try to take advantage of me?”
“Every time I can.”
“Will you feel remorse?”
“Why do it if you’re going to feel sorry?”
Idalou had a feeling Will had just confessed to a woeful lack of character, but all she could think about was his kisses and her desire to kiss him back. Discussions of character could be saved for a day when it was cold, raining, and he was late to sit down to the hot dinner she’d worked hard to have ready on time. Right now it was summer, the air was warm, and she couldn’t think of a single reason to complain.
Idalou didn’t know how long she stood there letting Will kiss her, kissing him in return, and wondering in a vague sort of way why she had waited so long for something this wonderful.
“I’d better go.”
Will’s words pulled her out of the safe world she’d found in his arms.
“Why?”
“You need to rest. You have to work tomorrow.”
“I don’t need to go to bed just yet. Are you really tired?”
“No.”
The question hung in the air between them. She knew it was up to her to make the decision. It seemed like a huge step, one far too important to be decided without a lot of thought, but this wasn’t just a question of logic or what was best in the long run. It came down to what she wanted, and of that she was very sure.
“I ought to go,” Will said.
“Don’t.”
She undid a few buttons on his shirt and slipped her hand inside. She was stunned by her brazen act but exhilarated at the same time. It wasn’t just that her hand was splayed against the warm skin of the man she loved, it was the implication that her action implied.
Her lips could never have framed the words, but she was asking Will to make love to her. It was impossible to resist moving her hand across the expanse of his chest, to resist running her fingers through the soft mat of blond hair. Though she’d been around men all her life, had seen them in various stages of undress, had danced with and been held by them, she’d given very little thought to the structure and appearance of the male body. It left her at a disadvantage in knowing how to continue what she’d begun. Fortunately, Will didn’t have any such problem.
With a deftness she’d someday ask how he’d acquired, he undid the buttons at the back of her blouse. The feel of his hand against the bare flesh of her back caused her to freeze. More clearly than her hand on Will’s chest, Will’s hand on her back brought home what she’d asked him to do. She was about to make an important commitment. She was saying she wanted to be this man’s wife for the rest of her life. And she wanted him to be her husband.
It was exactly what she had been wanting for some time but hadn’t been able to admit. It no longer mattered that she’d thought she had a dozen reasons to question Will’s intentions, even more reasons to hold back, to doubt that she was meant to find such happiness. A life with Will was what she wanted, was everything she wanted, and she couldn’t wait to take that first step, to make the kind of commitment that said there was no turning back.
It took only a few practiced movements for him to slip her arms out of her blouse and let it fall suspended from her waist, where it was tucked inside her skirt. Only a thin cotton chemise preserved her modesty. Yet it didn’t feel like that when Will began placing kisses on her bare shoulders. It felt incredibly decadent, but she didn’t care. She’d never felt so close to rapture in her life. Never had she expected that following her heart instead of her head would have such exhilarating results. She wished she’d done it sooner.
Will was laying a line of kisses from her shoulder down her arm to her elbow. His lips sent shivers racing through her body. How could she have guessed that an elbow could be so sensitive? An elbow! She’d leaned on it for years and never felt a thing, but the moment Will kissed it, it felt like the most erotic part of her body. Now he was kissing her arm all the way down to her wrist, her fingers, her open palm. A little more and she was sure she would melt where she stood.
That was what she thought until he started kissing her neck and gradually moved up to her ears. She didn’t know how she could have survived so long without realizing that every part of her body could be turned into an erogenous zone. It was like discovering herself all over again, being given a new way of looking at a body she’d given very little thought to during her life. It was just there. What was there to know about it?
More than she could have ever imagined.
The sound of a soft moan drew scant attention until she realized it was her own voice she was hearing. Despite being slightly embarrassed at her vocal response, she gave herself wholeheartedly to Will’s ministrations. It didn’t matter that nearly everything she was experiencing was new and unexpected, even a little unnerving. It only mattered that she’d finally been able to give herself to Will, and that he loved her.
Will cupped one breast in his hand, and her nipples grew firm and sensitive to the soft cotton of her chemise rubbing against them. In a flash, all the sensitivity from the distant parts of her body converged on that single breast until she could barely endure his touch. When Will slipped her chemise off her shoulders to expose both breasts, she was certain she couldn’t endure it. But that was nothing compared to the feelings that assaulted her when he gently massaged her nipples with his fingertips. The strength went out of her legs, and she sagged against him.
Will swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. Rather than laying her down as she expected, he sat her up, then got down on his knees to remove her shoes. The feel of his hands on her feet, her ankles, her calves as he removed her stockings caused her to tremble. When it came to Will’s touch, her entire body was an erogenous zone. Next Will stood her up so he could remove her shirt and chemise. Once that was done, he laid her down on the bed.
She felt awkward lying before him stripped of her clothing while he was still fully dressed. “You, too,” she said, her voice a thread, barely more than a whisper.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Will said with the smile that always made her knees feel like jelly. Only this time there was something more. It was in the set of his mouth, the darkening of his eyes, the slight huskiness of his voice. He hadn’t finished removing his clothes before she realized it was also in the altered shape of his body.
She moved over when Will lay down on the bed next to her. For a moment she didn’t breathe, just lay there waiting to find out what he would do next. She knew what was supposed to happen, wha
t she wanted to happen, but she was nervous, unsure, wondering what Will would do when he realized she had no idea what to do. She felt incapable of movement, barely capable of thought. She certainly didn’t know how to move smoothly from one phase of lovemaking to another. She tensed when Will placed his hand palm down on her stomach.
“We don’t have to do this if you’d rather not.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Idalou was grateful to Will for leaving the decision to go any further up to her. She didn’t know how he could gracefully withdraw from the present situation, but she didn’t want him to leave. She was here because she wanted to be with him, to love him, to experience being loved in a way she’d never thought possible.
“I’m a little anxious, but I’m sure.” She moved over to give Will more room, but he immediately moved closer to her.
“Just tell me if anything upsets you, and I’ll stop.”
“It’s not that,” she said, not wanting him to think she was getting cold feet. “It’s just that I don’t know what to do, don’t know what to expect.”
“This is supposed to be a good experience, to make you feel absolutely wonderful. If it doesn’t, it’s my fault.”
He was tracing designs on the inside of her arm, sending more sensations spiraling through her to create havoc in her normally well-controlled body. When he moved down her side, she was caught between sucking in her breath and giggling because it tickled. Before she could ruin the mood and severely damage his ego by laughing, he moved his hand over her stomach to her breast. Leaning on his elbow, he teased first one breast, then the other, cupping it in his warm hand, rubbing her pebble-hard nipple with the tips of his fingers, squeezing it between his thumb and forefinger.
But that was nothing compared to the shocks that ricocheted through her body when he took her nipple into his mouth. She gasped and her body went rigid. She’d never felt anything so intense in her entire life. He sucked her nipple, laved it with his tongue, nipped at it with his teeth, until she thought she’d explode from the tension. She squirmed from side to side, but she couldn’t escape him. She pushed against him, but that only increased the force of their contact. She clutched his head only to realize she was drawing him against her rather than pushing him away.
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