by Cindy Gerard
“Now,” she demanded, as she drew him on top of her and opened her body to take him in.
“Now,” he ground out as he filled her with his length and claimed her. “Now and forever.”
He entered and withdrew in thick, silken thrusts and deep, driving glides. She locked her legs around his waist, dug her fingers into his shoulders and rode to the crest of each towering swell. He stroked her to yet another orgasm, this one so stunning, so endless, she lost time, lost presence, lost awareness of everything but his thrilling heat and carnal rhythms.
He filled her completely, velvet steel to liquid silk, and with his own guttural groan of release, shot over the peak and into the abyss of dark, drenching pleasure.
Garrett knew the moment she came awake. Had loved watching the gentle transition from deep sleep to dreamy consciousness.
He stroked his hand over a pale, slim hip, kneading softly. Lowering his mouth to the velvet tip of her breast, he nuzzled, lavishly laved. Her response was so perfect, so purely and wantonly selfish, he smiled against her breast and drew her deeper.
A limp hand fell to his hair, caressed him, pressed him closer in abandoned invitation to taste and sample more.
“I’ve missed this. Missed waking up to you like this,” he whispered, shifting his attention to her other breast. “Sated, sleepy, completely submissive.”
She purred. It could only be called a purr as she shivered, and in a fluid, graceful move, turned the tables on him. Pressing him to his back, she pinned his shoulders to the mattress with her hands. Watching his face, she leaned into him, brushing her breasts across his chest “We’ll see about submissive.”
She drove him out of his mind—at least she tried to. As always, with Emma, he took care to keep himself in check. She’d been barely eighteen the first time they’d made love. She’d been a virgin. He’d been more experienced than he’d had a right to be—and wrong to take advantage. It hadn’t stopped him from wanting her. Hadn’t stopped him from loving her. But it had made him mindful enough to take great care.
He’d been taking care ever since. His need for her was so huge, so consuming, he was afraid if he ever let himself go completely, he’d destroy her—physically and emotionally.
He took care now. Care to keep his need confined. Care to give more than he took. Care to see to her needs before his.
She fought the descent from aggressor to supplicant. Battled the transition of power. His assault was relentless and artful. For each move she made, he countered, feeding her flame, building her desire until her focus shifted. Until her yearning to please him became a restless demand to be pleased.
With lush strokes and smoky kisses he coaxed her over that edge again where her body clenched, her breath caught, and she begged him to tumble her over the peak.
Loving her, loving the feel of her, the need in her, he followed, his own demise mellow and blissfully sweet.
His growling stomach and a definite chill roused him a couple of hours later. Careful not to wake her, Garrett eased out of bed, pulled on jeans and a shirt and crept quietly down the stairs.
After pouring himself a huge glass of milk, he hunted up the beef stew Maya had made up and sent with him. He’d just finished his first bowl when Emma tiptoed down the stairs and joined him in the kitchen.
Her face was sleep flushed, her hair beautifully and provocatively mussed. She dragged her fingers through it, her expression sober as she wrapped the rose silk robe tighter around her.
He went to her, drew her into his arms, held her for a moment.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
She pulled slowly away, busied herself finding a bowl and a spoon.
Everything in her response—from the stiff set of her shoulders, to her unwillingness to face him—suggested otherwise.
“Em?” He caught her arm. Turned her toward him. “Sweetheart—what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she insisted, closed her eyes, then opened them with a forced smile in place. “I’m just...just a little nervous about this, I guess.”
“Nervous?” It took a moment of confusion before it finally came to him. When it did, his conscience kicked into overdrive.
“It was too soon, wasn’t it? I knew I was rushing you.”
“No. It wasn’t too soon. And you didn’t rush me.” Banked impatience clipped her words. She checked it and made another game attempt at a smile. “I came to you, remember?”
He did remember. That’s why she was confusing the hell out of him. “Then what? What is it?” The cause came to him like a sledge dropped on his chest. “Em...was I too rough with you?”
Her smile was too quick. Her laugh a little too brittle. “No, Garrett. You weren’t rough. You’re never rough. You were the perfect gentleman. You took good care of me.”
Somehow she had managed to make that sound distasteful. Before he could question her on it, she flashed him another one of those overbright smiles. “Just...give me a little time to adjust to...to us. To this physical part of us again, okay?”
Again she smiled. And still, he felt there was more she wasn’t telling him.
“Now, were you going to feed me, or am I going to have to stand here with my empty bowl like Oliver Twist all night?”
With a frown creasing his brow, he took the bowl she extended and filled it with stew. When he joined her at the table, whatever he’d sensed—or thought he’d sensed—was wrong, was no longer there. In its place was a bubbling enthusiasm at the prospect of returning to the spot where she’d found the gold piece to continue the search the next day.
Through it all, though, an unnamed concern niggled in the back of his mind. Yet when she led him back to the loft and let him make love to her again under the downy warmth of the bed covers, he let the night and the moment and the woman take him—and forgot that everything wasn’t exactly right with his world.
Eight
The next time Emma awoke it was to daylight and a silence broken only by the deep even breaths of the man sleeping by her side. Garrett had wrapped himself around her like a warm, heavy blanket. She felt treasured and protected—yet weighted with a niggling concern that wouldn’t let her take comfort in the haven he offered.
Not wanting to wake him, but needing some thinking room, she eased carefully from the cocoon of his arms. Wrapped in her robe, she tiptoed down the loft stairs and made a pot of coffee. With a steaming mug in her hand, she snagged a blanket from the sofa and slipped outside. Then she settled herself in the big willow chair on the porch to decide where to go from here.
The morning sparkled. Birdsong drifted on the air like a concerto. Sunlight caught the restlessly shifting waters of the river. It glittered like an unraveling bolt of diamond-studded silk.
The beauty was stunning—yet all she could see was the magnitude of the problems they still faced.
Making love with Garrett may have eased the sexual tension that had been building like a summer storm; it may have been beautiful and breached the barrier of physical intimacy, but it hadn’t really solved any of their deep-seated problems.
Last night, in bed, Garrett had unintentionally shown her just how many issues they still had to resolve if they were going to get their marriage back on track.
But how could she tell him that? How could she explain to him that his lovemaking had been sweet and sexy and totally solicitous to her needs, and then make him understand that it wasn’t enough? How could she explain that it had been wonderful and that he’d given her everything she could possibly want? Everything but himself and the latitude to share the control in their lovemaking and in their lives? How could she make him understand that his inability to let himself be totally free with her in bed carried over to other areas of their relationship and was at the root of the problem that had led them to this point?
She hugged the warm mug with both hands, let out a deep breath. Garrett was a very prideful man. He was a man who shouldered responsibility—no matter how g
reat—without complaint. He didn’t have a selfish urge inside him, yet his inability to share the reins of responsibility in their relationship made her feel like she was being denied something vital. Something that would allow her to be a partner instead of someone who needed to be provided for.
But Garrett was a man who couldn’t, in his wildest dreams, imagine asking the woman he loved to share the load with him. Just like his sense of duty, he’d kept his problems to himself. The end result was that he shut her out of the important parts of his life. The parts that she could help with, if he would but let her. The parts that she could be for him what he always was for her—essential.
For years she’d tried not to feel diminished by the way he held everything inside and by the restraint he imposed on his own needs.
And for all those years, she’d been wrong.
Closing her eyes, she let her head rest on the back of the chair and accepted the severity of that error. It made her as culpable in the disintegration of their relationship as he—more so, because she’d recognized what his inability to treat her as an equal was doing to her and she hadn’t told him.
She’d always known she’d needed him to give her more credit for her own strengths. Yet last night when they’d made love, she’d let herself be manipulated into complacency again. She’d let him change the tempo, let his gentle ways and lavish loving take the power from her and reclaim it as his. And last night, as in the past ten years, she’d hurt them both by giving in so easily.
If they were going to fix what was wrong between them, she couldn’t continue to let that happen. It was the easy way out. The coward’s way. She couldn’t continue to let him control the tone of their lovemaking—just like he controlled the tone of their lives—no matter how noble his motive.
Still, the question remained as she sipped her coffee and stared out over the valley: how did she make him understand without ripping to shreds the delicate threads of the fabric they’d begun to weave back together?
When the screen door opened half an hour later and Garrett stepped outside, she was still wrestling with the weight of a solution even as her heart melted at the look of him.
His hair was bed rumpled and beautifully mussed. He’d taken the time to tug on his jeans but nothing else. His feet were bare as he eased a hip on the porch rail and crossed his arms over his chest to stall a shiver. Goose bumps raced along his skin even as a warming sun struggled to steal the chill from the air.
“G’morning.”
His voice was gruff with sleep, his eyes soft and indulgent.
He would never appreciate the thought, but at that moment this big, strong man who saw to everyone’s needs but his own, looked as vulnerable as their daughter—and the last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. Not again. She’d done enough of that already.
“You’ll catch your death,” she scolded as he smiled into her eyes.
“Then I’d die a happy man.”
Shoving away from the rail, he leaned slowly toward her, planted his hands on the chair’s arms and covered her mouth with his.
His kiss was a gentle hello, the morning stubble of his beard pleasantly abrasive.
He pulled away, touched a finger to her cheek. “I’ll go fix breakfast.”
In silence she watched him go. In silence she told herself she had to be the one to initiate the fix. Then she prayed for the insight and the backbone to see it through.
She’d made up her mind to confront him over breakfast, yet when he came for her, fed her, then coaxed her back to the loft, she couldn’t make herself do it. Not yet. Not with him looking at her that way, not with this renewed intimacy between them so delicate. Instead, she let him take her back to the loft and make love to her as if she were as fragile as glass.
As Garrett saddled the mare after breakfast then led her to the cabin to collect Emma, he told himself that everything was going great between them. She’d been open and giving and deliciously responsive in bed. There had been that moment last night in the kitchen, yes, but he’d since decided he’d just been looking for problems where none existed. Her explanation—a slight case of nerves—made sense. Hell, he’d been a little uptight himself.
And if she seemed a little distant this morning, well, it stood to reason that she might still be feeling vulnerable. She’d been emotionally exhausted when he’d brought her here. In just a couple of days, however, he’d seen a remarkable change. He’d been afraid for her when he’d stolen her away in the middle of the night. But she was evolving back to the Emma he’d fallen in love with, loving, laughing, giving. And he saw nothing but good for their future together.
Yet when she swung up behind him and they headed back toward the spot where she’d found her gold, every instinct he trusted told him something wasn’t quite right, that he was only kidding himself if he thought otherwise.
The day was too perfect he decided, the mood too mellow to let unfounded suspicions dampen it. So he didn’t let it. Together they searched for the gold in earnest. Together they smiled and laughed—and pretended that everything was exactly the way it should be between them.
When their search yielded nothing but cold feet and wet jeans, he led her back to the riverbank and laid her down on the blanket—then he loved her again by sunlight.
That evening he made good on the plans that had gone awry the night before. They dined by candlelight and soft music—music he’d selected especially to stir memories and enhance the mood.
Just like he’d found her favorite movie, he’d dug up songs from the year she’d graduated, songs from her senior prom. With a lovers’ moon peeking through the window, casting a golden glow on her hair, they danced close in each other’s arms, surrounded by memories and magic—then spent the night making love until any undercurrents of trouble were obliterated by exhaustion.
The next few days were filled with sunny mornings and steamy nights. They weren’t any closer to finding the gold than they were when Emma had stumbled onto that single coin. But treasure, Emma decided, came in other forms that were equally as rich. She’d never been more confident of her love for this man. Never more confident of his love for her—yet never less certain of how to ensure that their love didn’t get lost again in a maze of misunderstanding.
She’d had no luck getting Garrett to open up to her, but she had found a number of answers to her own questions up here in the mountains. Of most significance, she’d found herself again. She’d regained her emotional equilibrium. She wasn’t teetering on that edge anymore.
She’d looked her weakness in the eye and faced it down. Without Garrett it would have been hard, but she knew now that she could have done it. She also knew that she was glad she hadn’t had to accomplish it without him.
By the afternoon of the fourth day, however, as she sat on the porch steps and watched Garrett working down by the river, she admitted that she’d been stalling. While she’d worried the problem in her mind over the past several days, even made token attempts to lead him to the brink of a confidence, or to completely letting go in bed, she’d repeatedly allowed him to skillfully and playfully manipulate the control away from her.
As she watched him fussing with the cabin’s waterline, her heart swelled with love, yet felt crowded with fear for their future. Their week was almost up. In a couple of days they’d head back to Jackson—and she still hadn’t forced the issue that would make or break their marriage.
It was then, as the fear made itself known with a vengeance, that she finally accepted the challenge. He wasn’t going to cross that particular bridge with gentle prodding. Not when he still thought he was protecting her from himself—both physically and emotionally. Not when protecting her was Garrett’s main mission in life.
It had never been in her nature to be confrontational, but time was running out. If she was going to be the woman he needed her to be, she had to force him to open up to her. And if they were going to leave Wind River and become a family again, she had to buck nature and anything else that g
ot in her way.
Tonight, she decided, as he lifted his head and sent her a smile as warm as sunlight, was the night that would seal or sink their future together.
The evening temperature was balmy by Wind River standards. What breeze stirred, did so with the warm breath of summer as it sifted through the forest and perfumed the air with the scent of evergreen.
A heavenful of stars accompanied a full, rising moon, embellishing its golden light. The sound of a bluesy sax and lusty lyrics drifted from the CD player as Garrett led Emma out onto the porch and into the moonlight.
He folded her in his arms, kissed her and felt a completeness that three months ago he’d thought he’d lost forever. Everything he’d hoped for, everything he’d counted on happening here had played out exactly the way he’d planned it.
She was his again. She was Emma again. And nothing was ever going to come between them. After everything they’d been through, he’d make damn sure of it.
Bursting with the confidence that their marriage was safe, he drew her hand to his chest where his heart thrummed with excitement and anticipation. “Feel that? You do that to me, Em. Always.”
Swaying with her in his arms, he moved to the music as it blended with the night sounds and the heavy rhythm of his heart.
“I remember this.” She nestled her cheek on his shoulder. “It was the last song of the night at my senior prom.”
“And the first night for something special for us.”
“It was the first time we made love,” she murmured.
He chuckled softly. “You don’t know the agony I went through waiting for you...waiting for that night.” He squeezed her hard. “So what do you think? Any chance of this night playing out like that one?”
He’d expected a coy smile. Instead a wistful sadness darkened her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice sounded breathtakingly sad.
“It seems like it was so long ago. We were so young then. So in love and ignorant of the things that can go bad between a woman and a man.”