He reached for her and hugged her to him again. "I'm ashamed to say it wasn't until then that I fully understood how you felt about my relationship with Dinah. I'd never been jealous before, not even when she and I were engaged. She had a lot of men friends, and sometimes they'd take her to parties or receptions when I wasn't able to. It never bothered me, but when you showed up at my house with another man I felt as if I'd been stabbed in the gut."
She kissed the pulse that was hammering under his jaw. "I'm glad. I like the idea of your being jealous of me, and besides, it served you right."
He nibbled her earlobe. "You little devil. You're not going to sympathize with me at all, are you?"
"No," she whispered, "not about that. And I still don't know why you didn't tell me Dinah was leaving."
Clint sighed. "Because I was too bullheaded. Also, I was so mad I couldn't think or reason. I decided that if you were going to flaunt another man at me you could damn well wait a while longer before I proposed to you again."
Elyse burrowed her face in his shoulder. "That wasn't very nice," she chided. "I've been going through hell."
"So have I, my darling," he murmured as he nuzzled her hair. "Unfortunately I'm only human, and there are a lot of things about me that aren't very nice—I'm sure you'll discover all of them during the next fifty or so years. But I love you with a passion I never asked for, and sometimes it just plain scares the hell out of me."
She couldn't very well argue with that. "Speaking of scared," she said, "I hope you never have to feel what I did when I heard on TV that you'd been shot. I didn't know if you were dead or alive, and—" Her voice broke and she shivered and clung to him.
Clint held her close. "Take off your shoes and lie on the bed with me," he said.
There was nowhere she wanted to be more, but she hesitated. "I might hurt you."
"Sweetheart, I already hurt. You take my mind off the pain—and besides, I need you as close as I can get you. I've spent too much time in bed alone these past few weeks, tormented with dreams of holding you and loving you, only to wake and find the bed and my arms empty."
She slipped out of her pumps and adjusted her position so she was lying full length next to him on top of the sheet. He put his arm around her and cuddled her against him. "Mmm, that's better," he murmured. "Now raise up and give me a kiss. I can't move around much."
She leaned over him and stroked his temple. "You mean this time you want me to take charge?"
He rubbed his cheek against the soft rise of her breast. "Are you sure you know how?" There was amusement in his tone.
"I'll improvise," she whispered into his ear, then traced the inside of it with the tip of her tongue.
"You're learning fast," he said approvingly as she kissed first one side of his mouth, then the other.
She touched her lips to his fleetingly, then returned to brush them again. The third time she settled her mouth squarely on his and felt the blood pound through her veins at his quick, heated response.
"Mmmmmm," she murmured, and ran her tongue around his lips. He parted them, inviting her penetration as the hand that was holding her searched for and found her bare thigh. She bent her leg and brought it up to rest gently against his sheet-covered groin.
Unexpectedly her knee nestled beside the hard ridge of his desire, and she quickly moved it. She hadn't meant to arouse him. "Oh, my, I didn't mean to—"
He chuckled. "Honey, all you have to do is come into the room to get that kind of response from me. Now come on, put your knee back up. It feels so good."
"But you can't—"
"No, I can't. Not yet. But it's sure as hell reassuring to know it's not because of any…uh…structural damage. Meanwhile we can fool around a little. It'll just be that much sweeter and more satisfying when we do make love completely. Besides, this will relieve some of the frustration that's been driving me out of my mind."
He tugged at her thigh, and she returned to the position he wanted.
He sighed contentedly and moved his left arm to caress her knee. The effort caused him to cringe and swear with pain.
Elyse raised herself on her elbow, frightened that he might have injured himself. "Clint, be careful!"
He relaxed as the discomfort subsided. "It's all right. The muscles in my chest are sore on that side, and moving my arm pulls them. I'll just have to get used to it."
She snuggled closer against him and put her hand on his stomach. "Can I see what they did to you?"
"If you want. There's not much to see."
She unfastened the buttons of his pajama top and pushed it aside. There was a large dressing covering part of his chest, extending around to his back. "The bullet must have hit you to one side," she said as she carefully caressed the part of his shaved chest that wasn't bandaged.
"Lucky for me it did. Otherwise it would have damaged my lung and I'd have to stay here longer. I'm going home tomorrow."
"Oh? Isn't that awfully soon? Did the doctor say it was all right?"
"I didn't ask him—I told him. I'm going to take you and Janey home with me, and we're going to be a family. If you'd rather get married first there's a chaplain here at the hospital who will do the honors, but I'm not going to let you get away from me ever again. There's been enough shilly-shallying about this. I love you. You're the only woman I love, and I intend to spend the rest of my life proving it to you."
He sounded so confident, but Elyse saw the cloud of uncertainty on his face as he searched hers. "Will you marry me, love? I really, truly can't live without you."
She raised herself up to once more cover his mouth with hers, and their kiss was long and hot and wonderfully satisfying. "Of course I'll marry you," she said when they'd finally pulled apart. "I love you and I want you, and if you still have unresolved feelings for Dinah I'll marry you anyway, because even second best is better than not having you at all."
His good arm crushed her against him, and with a strangled moan he lowered his head to bury his face in her hair. For a moment he said nothing, but she could feel his muscles clench with the effort he was making to control his runaway feelings.
She put her arm around his neck and nuzzled his shoulder. "I don't deserve you," he murmured brokenly, "but you'll never ever be second best with me. As I told you earlier, Dinah was a habit I had to break. It wasn't hard. Actually, it happened fast once I knew I'd lose you if I didn't. But then you flaunted another man at me, and I behaved like a jealous teenager."
"We've both acted like spoiled brats," she said as she continued the nuzzling, this time on his bare chest.
He pulled her loose-fitting dress up with his left hand and rubbed his palm over the silky panties that covered her bottom. His low sound of approval was almost a purr, and she arched against his side and hoped it wouldn't be long before he could move around enough to tend the fire he was building deep inside her.
It was time for a little distraction, and there was a question that had to be asked. "Clint, are you going to tell me what happened between you and Dinah?"
His hand stilled, but remained where it was. "The conclusion was simple, actually, but it took us both years to arrive at it. I'd always thought of love as eternal. But now I realize there are different kinds of love. Romantic love, the passionate love of a man for a woman, needs to be returned and nurtured in order to grow and flourish. Like a flowering desert cactus it will survive a lot of neglect and mistreatment, but eventually if it's not nourished it will wither and die."
He rubbed his lips across her forehead. "That's what happened to the love Dinah and I once shared. It died of neglect. But it happened so gradually that neither of us noticed until we were forced to."
Elyse thought for a moment before she spoke. "You may be right. When Jerry died I was sure I'd never love again, but as the shock wore off and the pain and loneliness lessened I was able to accept dates with other men."
She tenderly ran her hand around the outside of his bandage, wanting desperately either to take away his pai
n or share it. "When you first came to the house I was surprised at the wallop my emotions took. It caught me off guard, and from then on I didn't have a prayer of resisting you. I think I fell in love with you before I even knew you, and no matter how hard I tried to prevent it that love just grew stronger and deeper."
Clint's fingers slid under the leg of her skimpy panties and stroked her soft skin. "That's because it was returned. Even when I thought you were Paul's girl, I wanted you, and I knew I was in trouble. Lust could have been toned down or turned off, but I couldn't do anything about the feelings I had for you except yearn."
His fingers crept closer to her heat and she squirmed. He shivered and clutched the inside of her thigh.
She started to move away, but he protested. "I want you to touch me. It's just that it's been far too long since we made love, and when I hold you like this my whole body responds."
"I'm having the same problem," she confessed. "When I crawl into bed with you all thought of sleep goes up in smoke."
His thumb explored upward, making her sigh with pleasure. "There are ways, you know…"
She put her hand over his to stop its upward spiral. "I know, darling, and tomorrow when you get home I'll let you teach me, but for now we'd better not think about it. We'd not only shock the nurse if she walked in, but you don't need that kind of excitement. We don't want to take the chance of your tearing something loose and having to stay here any longer—"
"I'm afraid you're probably right," he said regretfully, moving his hand to her breast, "but keep your knee where it is. I promise to behave."
"I was afraid of that," she said playfully.
He swatted her gently. "Watch what you're implying, young lady, or I'll disregard bullet holes, broken ribs and outraged nurses and make love to you in all the ways I can think of right here and now."
"Tomorrow," she whispered against his cheek.
"Is that a promise?" he murmured.
"Cross my heart."
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Cross My Heart Page 21