by Diana Palmer
But he wasn’t giving up before he’d started, he told himself firmly. He’d never really tried to court Tellie. If she still cared at all, she wouldn’t be able to resist him—any more than he could resist her.
Tellie was finding her new routine wearing. She taught a night class in history for four hours, two nights a week, and she went to classes three other days during the week. She was young and strong, and she knew she could cope. But she didn’t sleep well, remembering Bella curled close in J.B.’s arm the night of the tornado. He wouldn’t marry the beautiful woman, she knew that. He wouldn’t marry anyone. But he had nothing to offer Tellie, and she knew, and suffered for it.
One of her classmates, John, who’d helped her find a room the night before she came back to Houston, paused by her table in the college coffeehouse.
“Tellie, can you cover for me in anthropology?” he asked. “I’ve got to work tomorrow morning.”
She grinned up at him. John, like her, was doing master’s work, although his was in anthropology. Tellie was taking the course as an elective. “I’ll make sure I take good notes. How about covering for me in literature? I’ll have a test to grade in my night school course.”
“No problem,” he said. He grinned down at her, with a hand on the back of her chair. “Sure you don’t want to go out to dinner with me Friday night?”
He was good-looking, and sweet, but he liked to drink and Tellie didn’t. She was searching for a reply when she turned her gaze to the door.
Her heart jumped up into her throat. J.B. was standing just inside the door of the crowded café, searching. He spotted her and came right on, his eyes never leaving her as he wound through the crowd.
He stopped at her table. He spared John a brief glance that made veiled threats.
“I’d better run,” John said abruptly. “See you later, Tellie.”
“Sure thing.”
J.B. pulled out a chair and sat down, tossing his hat idly onto the chair beside hers. He didn’t smile. His eyes were intent, curiously warm.
“You ran, Tellie.”
She couldn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. She pushed back her wavy hair and picked up her coffee cup. “It seemed sensible.”
“Did it?”
She sipped coffee. “Did the tornado do much damage at the ranch?”
He shrugged. “Enough to keep me busy for several days, or I’d have been here sooner,” he told her. He paused as the waitress came by, to order himself a cup of cappuccino. He glanced at Tellie and grinned. “Make that two cups,” he told the waitress. She smiled and went to fill the order, while J.B. watched Tellie’s face. “You can’t afford it on your budget,” he said knowingly. “My treat.”
“Thanks,” she murmured.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her, intently, un-smiling. “Heard from Grange?”
She shook her head. “He phoned before I left Jacobsville to say he was going back to Washington, D.C. Apparently he was subpoenaed to testify against his former commanding officer, who’s being court-martialed.”
He nodded. “Cag Hart told me. He and Blake Kemp and Grange served in the same division in Iraq. He said Grange’s commanding officer had him thrown out of the army and took credit for a successful incursion that was Grange’s idea.”
“He told me,” she replied.
The waitress came back with steaming cappuccino for both of them. J.B. picked his up and sipped it. Tellie sniffed hers with her eyes closed, smiling. She loved the rich brew.
After a minute J.B. met her eyes again. “Tellie, is this what you really want?” he asked, indicating the coffeehouse and the college campus.
The question startled her. She toyed with the handle of her cup. “Of course it is,” she lied. “When I get my doctorate, I can teach at college level.”
“And that’s all you want from life?” he asked. “A career?”
She couldn’t look at him. “We both know I’ll never get very far any other way. I have plenty of friends who cry on my shoulder about their girlfriends or ask me to take notes for them in class, or keep their cats when they go on holiday.” She shrugged. “I’m not the sort of woman that men want for keeps.”
He closed his eyes on a wave of guilt. He’d said such horrible things to her. She already had a low self-image. He’d lowered it more, in a fit of bad temper.
“Beauty alone isn’t worth much,” he said after a minute. “Neither is wealth. After I got out of the emergency room, I went home to an empty house, Tellie,” he said sadly. “I stood there in the vestibule, with crystal chandeliers and Italian marble all around me, mahogany staircases, Persian rugs…and suddenly it felt like being alone in a tomb. You know what, Tellie? Wealth isn’t enough. In fact, it’s nothing, unless you have someone to share it with.”
“You’ve got Bella,” she said with more bitterness than she knew.
He laughed. “I told her I was in the hole and likely to lose everything,” he commented amusedly. “She suddenly remembered an invitation to spend the summer in the sun with her aunt.”
Tellie’s eyes lifted to his. She was afraid to hope.
He reached across the table and curled her fingers into his. “Finish your cappuccino,” he said gently. “I want to talk to you.”
She was hardly aware of what she was doing. This must be a dream, J.B. sitting here with her, holding her hand. She was going to wake up any minute. Meanwhile, she might as well enjoy the fantasy. She smiled at him and sipped her cappuccino.
He took her out to his car and put her in the passenger side. When he was seated behind the wheel, he reached back and brought out a shopping bag with colored paper tastefully arranged in it. “Open it,” he said.
She reached in and pulled out a beautiful lacy black mantilla with red roses embroidered across it. She caught her breath. She collected the beautiful things. This was the prettiest one she’d ever seen. She looked at him with a question in her eyes.
“I picked it out myself,” he told her quietly. “I didn’t send Jarrett shopping this time. Don’t stop. There’s more, in the bottom of the bag.”
Puzzled, she reached down and her fingers closed around a velvety box with a bow on it. She pulled it out and stared at it curiously. Another watch? she wondered.
“Go on. Open it.”
She took off the bow and opened the box. Inside was…another box. Frowning, she opened that one, too, and found a very small square box. She opened that one, too, and caught her breath. It was a diamond. Not too big, not too small, but of perfect quality in what looked like expensive yellow gold. Next to it was an equally elegant band studded with diamonds that matched the solitaire.
J.B. was holding his breath, although it didn’t show.
She met his searching gaze. “I…don’t understand.”
He took the box from her, lifted out the solitaire and slid it gently onto her ring finger. “Now, do you understand?”
She was afraid to try. Surely it was still part of the dream. If not, it was a cruel joke.
“You don’t want me,” she said bitterly. “I’m ugly, and you can’t bear me to touch you…!”
He pulled her across into his arms and kissed her with un-abashed passion, cradling her against his broad chest while his mouth proceeded to wear down all her protests. When she was clinging to him, breathless, he folded her in his arms and rocked her hungrily.
“I was ashamed that you found me like that with Bella,” he said through his teeth. “It was like getting caught red-handed in an adulterous relationship. For God’s sake, don’t you have any idea how I feel about you, Tellie?” he groaned. “I was frustrated and impatient, and Bella was handy. But I’ve never slept with her,” he added firmly. “And I never would have. You have to believe that.”
She was reeling mentally. She let her head slide back on his shoulder so that she could see his face. “But…why were you so cruel…?”
His lean hand pressed against her cheek caressingly. “Do you remember when you we
re eighteen?” he asked huskily. “And I made love to you on the couch in the living room?”
She flushed. “Yes.”
“You loved being kissed. But when I started touching you, I felt you draw back. You liked kissing me, but you weren’t comfortable with anything more intimate than that. You didn’t feel anything approaching passion, Tellie. You were like a child.” He sucked in a harsh breath. “And I was burning, aching, to have you. I knew you were too young. It was unfair of me to push you into a relationship you weren’t nearly ready for.” He studied her shocked face. “So I drew back and waited. And waited. I grew bitter from the waiting. It made me cruel.”
Her eyes were wide, shocked, delighted, as she realized what had been going on. She hadn’t dreamed that he might feel something this powerful for her, and for so long.
“Yes, now you see it, don’t you?” he breathed, lowering his mouth to hers again, savoring its shy response. “I was at the end of my rope, and you seemed just the same. Desperation made me cruel. Then,” he whispered, “you lost your memory and I had you in my house. I touched you…and you wanted me.” He kissed her hungrily, roughly. “I was over the moon, Tellie. You’d forgotten, temporarily, all the terrible things I said to you when you caught me with Bella. But it ended, all too soon. Your memory came back.” He buried his face in her neck, rocking her. “You hated me. I didn’t know what to do. So I waited some more. And hoped. I might still be waiting, except that Bella told me she saw you crying in the emergency room when I thought you hadn’t even come to see about me after the tornado hit.” He kissed her again, hungrily, and felt with a sense of wonder her arms clinging to him, her mouth answering the passion of his own.
“You brought that awful woman to Marge’s house and let her insult me,” she complained hotly.
He kissed her, laughing. “You were jealous,” he replied, un-ashamedly happy. “It gave me hope. I dangled Bella to make you jealous. It worked almost too well.”
“You vicious man,” she accused, but she was smiling.
“Look who’s talking,” he chided. “Grange gave me some bad moments.”
“I like him very much, but I didn’t love him,” she replied quietly.
“No. You love me,” he whispered. His eyes ate her face. “And I love you, Tellie,” he whispered as he bent again to her mouth. “I love you with all my heart!”
She closed her eyes and gave in to his ardor, blind to the fact that they were sitting in a parked car on a college campus.
She felt some disturbance around her and looked up. In front of the car were three students with quickly printed squares of poster paper. One said “9,” and two said “10.” They were grading J.B. on his technique. He followed her amused gaze and burst out laughing.
He drew her up closer. “Don’t protest,” he murmured as his head bent. “I’m going for a perfect score…”
He took her back to his hotel. His intentions were honorable, of course, but it was inevitable that once they were alone, he’d kiss her. He did, and all at once the raging fever he’d contained for so many years broke its bonds with glorious abandon.
“J.B.,” she protested weakly as he picked her up and carried her into one of the bedrooms in his suite, closing the door firmly behind them.
“You can’t stop an avalanche, honey,” he ground out against her mouth. “I’m sorry. I love you. I can’t wait any longer…!”
She was flat on her back, her jeans on the floor, swiftly joined by her blouse and everything underneath. He looked down at her with a harsh, heartfelt groan. “I knew you’d be perfect, Tellie,” he whispered as he bent to touch his mouth reverently to her breasts.
There was hardly any sane answer to that sort of rapt delight. She felt faintly apprehensive, but she was wearing an engagement ring and it was apparent that it wasn’t a sham, or a dream. She came straight up off the bed as his mouth increased its warm pressure on her breast and began to taste it with his tongue.
“Like that, do you?” he whispered huskily. “It’s only the beginning.”
As he spoke, he sat up and quickly removed every bit of fabric that would have separated them.
Shyly she looked at his hard, muscular body with eyes that showed equal parts of awe and apprehension.
“People have been doing this for millennia,” he whispered as he lowered his body against hers. “If it didn’t feel good, nobody would indulge.”
“Well, yes, but…” she began.
His lean hand smoothed over her belly. “You have to trust me,” he said softly. “I won’t hurt you. I swear it.”
Her body relaxed a little. “I’ve heard stories,” she began.
“I’m not in them,” he replied easily, smiling. “If I were less modest, I’d tell you that women used to write my telephone number on bathroom walls.”
That tickled her and she laughed. “Don’t you dare brag about your conquests,” she muttered.
He laughed. “Practice,” he said against her mouth. “I was practicing, while I waited for you. And this is what I learned, Tellie,” he added as his body slid against hers.
She felt his hands and his mouth all over her. The lights were on and she couldn’t have cared less. Sensation upon sensation rippled through her untried body. She saw J.B.’s face harden, his dark green eyes glitter as he increased the pressure of his powerful legs to part hers, as his mouth swallowed one small, firm breast and drew his tongue against it in a sweet, harsh rhythm.
He was touching her in ways she’d only read about. She gasped and moaned and, finally, begged. She hadn’t dreamed that her body could feel such things, could react in this headlong, demanding, insistent way to a man’s slow, insistent ardor.
The slow thrust of his body widened her eyes alarmingly and she tensed, but he whispered to her, kissed her eyes closed, and never stopped for an instant. He found the place, and the pressure, that made her begin to sob and dig her nails into his hips. Then he smiled as he increased the rhythm and heard her cry out again and again with helpless delight.
It seemed hours before he finally gave in to his own need and shuddered against her in a culmination that exceeded his wildest dreams of fulfillment. He held her close, intimately joined to him, and fought to get enough air to breathe.
“Cataclysmic,” he whispered into her throat. “That’s what it was.”
She was shivering, too, having experienced what the self-help articles referred to as “multiple culminations of pleasure.”
“I never dreamed…!” she exclaimed breathlessly.
“Neither did I, sweetheart,” he said heavily. “Neither did I.”
He moved and rolled over, drawing her close against his side. They were both damp with sweat and pulsating in the aftermath of explosive satisfaction.
“Marge would kill us both,” she began.
He chuckled. “Not likely. She’s been busy on our behalf.”
“Doing what?” she asked.
He ruffled her dark hair. “Sending out e-mailed invitations, calling caterers, ordering stuff. Which reminds me, I hope you’re free Saturday. We’re getting married at the ranch.”
She sat up, gasping. “We’re what?”
“Getting married,” he replied slowly. “Why do you think I bought two rings?”
“But you’ve been swearing for years that you’d never get married!” Then she remembered why and her eyes went sad. “Because of that woman, the one you were going to marry,” she said worriedly.
He drew her down beside him and looked at her solemnly. “When I was twenty-one, I fell in love. She was my exact opposite, and because my father opposed the marriage, I rebelled and ran headlong into it. She took the easy way out, rather than fighting him. You were right about that, although it hurt me to acknowledge it,” he said quietly. “You’d have marched right up to my father and told him to do his worst.” He smiled. “It’s one of the things I love about you, that stubborn determination. She wasn’t strong enough to stand up to him. So she killed herself. It would have
been a disaster, if she hadn’t,” he added. “I’d have walked all over her, and she’d have been miserable. As things worked out, she saved her brother from prison and both of us from a bitter life together. I’m sorry it happened that way. I think she was mentally unstable. She was unhappy and she couldn’t see a future without me. If she’d been able to talk to anyone about it, I don’t think she’d have done it. I’ll always regret what my father did, but he paid for it, in his way. So did I, unfortunately. Until you came along, and shook up my life, I didn’t have much interest in living.”
She felt happier, knowing that. She was sad for his fiancée, but she couldn’t be sad that she’d ended up with J.B.
He traced her eyebrows, exploring her face, her soft body, with slow, tender tracings. “I never knew what love was, until you were eighteen. It was too soon, but I’d have married you then, if you’d been able to return what I felt for you.”
Her arms closed around him. “It was too soon. I have a degree and I’ve had independence.”
“And now?” he asked. “What about college?”
She drew in a slow, lazy breath. “You can always go back to college,” she murmured. “I’d like to be with you for a few years. We might have a baby together and I’ll be needed at home for a while. I can teach adult education at our community college if I get the urge. I only need a B.A. for that, and I’ve got it.”
“We might have a baby together?” he teased, smiling. “How would that happen?”
She drew up one long leg and slid it gently over one of his. “We could do a lot more of what we’ve just done,” she suggested, moving closer to him. “If we do it enough, who knows what might happen?”
He pursed his lips and moved between her legs. “More of this, you mean?” he drawled, easing down.
“Definitely…more of this,” she whispered unsteadily. She closed her eyes and tugged his mouth down over hers. Then she didn’t speak again for a long, long time.
Twelve
Nell was overcome with delight when Tellie walked into Marge’s house with J.B.’s arm around her. “You’re back,” she exclaimed to Tellie. “But what…how…why?”