When Somebody Loves You

by Cindy Gerard

  “Feel this,” he said gruffly. Framing her face in his hands, he forced her to look at him. “If my heart rate elevated any higher, we’d be talking cardiac arrest here. You do that to me.”

  Her lashes screened eyes grown cloudy with questions. “Then why are you turning me away?”

  Her vulnerability was heartbreaking. Angered that he didn’t have the will to stop, he levered himself above her and offered a reason to send him back to his bed. “Because you don’t have any idea what you’re getting into. Because if I don’t stop now, I’ll settle for nothing less than all of you.”

  He crushed his mouth to hers, intent on proving his point. Bracketing her head in his palms, he forced her lips apart with the not-so-gentle pressure of his thumbs. His tongue pillaged and plundered the warm recesses of her mouth with a violence intended to frighten her. But if anyone was frightened, it was he, by the urgency with which he wanted to take her and by the trusting pliancy with which she responded.

  He jerked away and stared deep into her eyes. They were glistening with excitement and a fear she couldn’t quite conceal. Her lips were parted and swollen from his kiss. Against his chest, he could feel her heart clamoring.

  “Do you understand now?” He ground his hips against hers, seducing her with his arousal even as he issued one final warning. “Do you understand what I want from you?”

  She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Yes.”

  “Oh, baby.” He groaned. “I don’t think you do. You’re so damn trusting, so naive about the appetites of a man like me. I’ve seen and experienced too much. I want it all, Jo. This is no sweet slap and tickle, no demure nocturnal interlude. I want you in ways you can’t imagine.”

  “You’d never hurt me. Adam, listen to me. All my life I’ve had to think about tomorrow and the consequences of what I do today. Just once I want to take the moment and go with what feels right.”

  He lowered his mouth to her throat. “And all my life I’ve taken it as it comes, the consequences be damned.”

  She turned her face into his hair. “Then don’t change on me now, Dursky. Please don’t change on me now.”

  Just that fast, the battle was over.

  If there was a surrender, it was his.

  If there was defeat, it was sweet.

  The trust in her eyes was devastating, and provocative, and so total he promised himself she was right. He would never hurt her. If it took every shred of restraint, he’d make himself go slow with her.

  He pressed a tender kiss to her brow, then eased away. Rising to his feet, he extended his hand and drew her up against him, wrapped her in his arms, and held her for a long, soul-searching moment.

  Then he led her to her bed on the floor.

  For all her earlier bravado, Adam sensed her shyness and self-doubt returning. He shucked his jeans and stretched out full-length beside her. Propping his head on his palm, he curled a finger under her chin.

  “A boy might overlook this face,” he said, “but a man never would.”

  Her lips parted, glistening. He touched them lightly with his own, finding them quivering and cool. “You taste wonderful.”

  Timidly, she lifted to him, extending the contact.

  Smiling against her mouth, he deepened the kiss, rimming her lips with his tongue before delving inside, probing gently. “You must have had very stupid friends . . . or they had blind boyfriends.”

  This time it was she who smiled against his lips. “You’re very tactful, aren’t you?”

  “And you’re very tasty.” He nibbled at the corner of her mouth before returning to its center and kissing her with an urgency that left him panting.

  He trailed his hand unerringly down the length of her body, lingering over the cotton-covered tip of one breast. The sensitive nipple throbbed to hardness beneath his fingers. She moved restlessly against him when he lowered his hand to the tangle of silken curls between her thighs.

  With trembling fingers he lifted the T-shirt over her hips and touched the velvet softness of her belly. “Joanna.” He groaned as his fingers slipped inside her waiting warmth and found her wet and wanting and ready for him.

  She thrust upward against the pressure, moaning softly.

  Swiftly moving over her, he parted her thighs with his knee and settled against her. “I wanted to take this slow,” he said hoarsely.

  But slow was beyond hope.

  Need was beyond measure.

  An appetite that for so long had been fed only by meager portions of nameless, meaningless encounters gnawed with a hunger that demanded more than just his passion be sated. This was a woman whose name he would never forget, whom he feared would come to mean more to him than the next breath he drew, and whose face would haunt him the rest of his life.

  “This is crazy. I don’t have protection,” he groaned against her throat.

  “Are you . . . are you worried about . . .”

  “STDs?” he finished for her, knowing she was embarrassed. “I’m clean, Jo. There’s no threat there.”

  “None here either,” she said, and he knew she told the truth. “But what about . . . you know?”

  “Getting pregnant? You don’t have to worry about that.”

  It was too late to worry at any rate. He was lost. He shucked his jeans and moved over her again.

  “Joanna,” he murmured as he probed, penetrated. He buried himself in her tight, giving heat, and she arched to him. She moved with him. She wrapped her legs around him and rode with him in a rhythm as timeless as the constant lap of the water against the shore, to an end as fulfilling as the act of love was intended to be.

  Seven

  Carefully, so as not to wake him, Jo disengaged herself from the circle of Adam’s arms. She sat up on the blankets beside him, tucked her knees to her chest, and laid her cheek on her crossed arms. With rapt fascination, she watched him sleep.

  Adam at bath had been captivating. Adam at rest was a miracle. His magnificent jaw was slack, his expression restful and thoroughly sated. She felt a swift and filling rush of elation. She was responsible for that look and for the wonderfully lethargic sprawl of his limbs.

  Her gaze traveled the golden length of his body. How could all that power diffuse into such quiet slumber? How could all that strength give way to such careful loving? Even with her limited knowledge of the physical act of love, she sensed it had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. The urgency with which he’d taken her had been telling. He’d cautioned her that he could hurt her. It was then, as he’d issued his ardent warning, that she’d accepted the depth of her love for him. As she watched him now, with exquisite knowledge of his gentleness, she reaffirmed that fact. She did love him. Completely. Irrevocably. So much that she’d make sure he didn’t feel obligated to stay.

  She’d come to him with her eyes wide open. She’d offered herself out of need. But what she felt in the aftermath of their lovemaking was nothing so simple as need, nothing so fleeting as desire. It was a completion of sorts, a yielding of a spirit she’d held so rigid that she’d thought no man could bend it. Yet Adam, this private and sadly vulnerable man, had broken through a barrier she’d thought was impenetrable. Because of his own need, he’d reached deep inside her and uncovered feelings she’d intended to live a lifetime without.

  He’d asked for her physical love with an unblinking honesty that included no offers of forever, just a need for the here and now. She’d accepted those terms willingly.

  Tugging the T-shirt that smelled of him lower over her hips, she rose and walked to the fire. She added a piece of cedar to the embers, watching the flames catch hold. It was sad, she thought, that what had barely begun between them would end as abruptly as it had started. Only a precious few days separated reality from fantasy.

  But it was life. It was her life, and she’d learned long ago not to expect any more from it. Any
one she’d ever loved had left her. Adam would be no exception. He wasn’t hers to keep and treasure. He was fate’s fleeting gift for what she’d gone through and gone without. She accepted it as her due and intended to savor each moment.

  For however long they had, she would give and take with equal fervor. No questions asked. No promises extracted. She would be all he could want in a woman. She would take from him all she wanted from a man. In the process, they would both find their lives a little richer, the loneliness ahead a little easier to bear.

  Brushing away a tear that tracked down her cheek, she refused to give way to sentiment. She watched the fire, determined not to think about tomorrow, or next week, or next year. . . .

  Adam awoke slowly from the druglike lethargy induced by making love to Jo.

  Making love to Jo.

  He sighed deeply and realized that was exactly what he wanted to do again. The warmth of her body against his was painfully absent. Opening his eyes to a newly kindled fire, he found her silhouetted before it on the edge of the bed.

  The fire glow framed her tiny body. The flames caressed her hair, haloing the long, shining strands in hues of copper and autumn gold. He watched in fascination as a fire of his own reached a flash point.

  She was so quiet. He wished he could see her face. Was she frightened? Was she sorry? Was she ashamed?

  Or was she wanting him again, the way he had awakened wanting her?

  Jo. What have I done to you?

  Her shoulders were slightly bowed. Her slender hips, sheathed in the white cotton of his T-shirt, flared delightfully, evocatively. Toes as pink as a baby’s cheek peeked out from under her gently rounded bottom. He wanted to take each one in his mouth, love each one with his tongue, and leisurely work his way up the length of her slender, giving body.

  He wanted to pleasure her until she cried his name. And then he wanted to love her some more.

  Jo. What have you done to me?

  The first time he’d looked in her eyes, he’d known she possessed the ability to make him care again. It wasn’t an emotion he could afford. He couldn’t care, or feel, or ask more from a life that seemed determined always to leave him with less and wanting more.

  When he looked at her, though, he wanted. And what he wanted was to lose himself again in the sweet wonder of her body. More than that, in the honesty of her responses, in the openness of her heart.

  As he let his gaze travel the length of her back, he realized what an empty shell of a man he’d become. Time and circumstances had hollowed out his sense of purpose the way wind erodes fallow land. For years he’d been barren of emotions, empty of feeling.

  She’d changed all that. She had filled him with her giving. Healed him with her trust. He felt like a long, cold winter awakening to the warmth of a spring thaw. Like shadow solidifying into flesh. And he meant to give it all back to her.

  He’d take her slowly this time, and in the taking he’d gift her with the sense of warmth she’d offered him.

  Levering himself up on an elbow, he reached out to touch her hair. His newly enlightened flesh came alive as he held it in his hand. Amber silk floated through his fingers. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded.

  “Regrets?”

  She looked back over her shoulder. Meeting his eyes briefly, she shook her head. “None.”

  If the relief had been sweeter, he would have died from it. Only days ago he’d seen her as a kid, with a kid’s need for protection. But when she’d lain beneath him, she’d become all woman. It was a woman’s eyes that had gone liquid with passion. A woman’s body that had strained with need when he’d moved inside her. It was the woman he turned to now, jealous of the fire glow that caressed her body and tinged her skin with heat.

  He rose to his knees behind her and touched his lips to her hair. Bracketing her shoulders with his hands, he pulled her back against him.

  She trembled.

  “Do I frighten you?” Spreading his knees wide, he lowered himself behind her. The fine bones of her shoulder blades slid against his chest. Her hair flowed like cool silk against his skin as he couched her hips with his thighs and buried his face against her neck.

  “No.” She sighed as he draped her hair over her shoulder to make way for his mouth.

  He fed on the slender column of her throat as he slid his hands down the length of her arms.

  “You’re shivering,” he whispered as he captured her small-boned wrists. “Are you cold?”

  “No,” she murmured, sounding breathless. She pressed back against him, the fingers of her good hand digging into the muscle of his thigh.

  He nipped the taut cords of her neck. “Hot, then?”

  “Yes . . . Adam . . . What are you doing to me?”

  He smiled against the delicate skin beneath her jaw and felt her shudder and yearn and stretch in one sensuous, sultry motion. “I’m seducing you, darlin’. And this time, I’m going to take it slow.”

  On their knees before the fire, her leaning back against him, he began loving her as slowly as he had promised; as expertly as his experience had taught him; as purposefully as if he intended to make it his life’s work. His hands, knowing and sure, stole downward to her waist, then dropped to cup and knead the curve of her hips.

  “You’re so soft here,” he whispered. “And here. Raise your arms.” He worked the T-shirt up over her head. “I want to feel you against me.” Crossing his arms over her ribs, he filled his palms with the delicate weight of her breasts and pulled her snugly against him.

  Her nipples pearled beneath his fingertips. “So sensitive. So responsive. Put your arms around my neck.”

  With complete trust, she obeyed, lifting her arms over her head and linking her wrists behind his neck. The movement thrust her breasts deeper into his palms. He felt as well as heard her breath catch as his fingers plucked and strummed and played against her skin.

  “Ah, Jo,” he growled, holding her against his heat with one hand and foraging lower with the other.

  With a lambent touch, he feathered his fingers through her feminine curls, arousing her by degrees, teasing her body to a restless hunger. He nurtured a want that craved little persuasion, fostered a yearning that needed even less urging. She was a nucleus infused with passion, on fire with a desire to experience everything his touch implied, everything his husky whispers promised.

  “Easy,” he murmured, biting the curve of her shoulder. “Easy. Just go with it. Let it take you.”

  “Adam . . .” she cried as he parted and finessed and induced her feminine flesh to pulsing sensation. She strained against his hand, pressed her head to his shoulder, and, unable to hold back, cried out as he stroked her. Her body was racked by tremors as with ultimate sensitivity to her needs, he lovingly brought her to a shattering climax.

  “Sweet, so sweet . . .” he murmured against her skin, neither knowing nor caring if the moisture dewing her shoulder was left there by his kisses or by her own passion-borne perspiration.

  He turned her in his arms and held her against his chest while she trembled.

  “Adam . . . I’ve n-never . . .”

  He smiled into her hair and held her tighter. “Never?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then we’ll have to make up for some lost time, won’t we?”

  The gentle laughter in his voice brought her head up. He quelled her embarrassment with a kiss. “You were beautiful.”

  “I was loud.” She groaned miserably and snuggled against him.

  “Loud and lush and”—he brushed his thumb across her cheekbone and looked longingly into her eyes—“and I can’t wait to hear your love sounds again. Lie down for me. Let me look at you.”

  The ardor in his eyes erased any remnant of embarrassment Jo might have felt. She lay back willingly, watching his eyes turn to a dark, smoky silver as he plumped bot
h pillows beneath her shoulders and arranged her against them.

  The light from the fire reflected the flame of his building desire. He knelt beside her and took her bandaged hand to his mouth. He kissed it tenderly, then laid it beside her head on the pillow. She watched in wonder as next he brought her unbandaged hand to his lips. He kissed her palm lingeringly, wetting it with his tongue.

  Latent passion stirred back to life within her as he flicked his tongue between her fingers, then gently nipped the heel of her hand before laying it, too, on the pillow beside her head.

  She was totally vulnerable, completely exposed to the building passion in his eyes, yet she’d never felt more secure. Secure in the knowledge he’d never hurt her. Secure in knowing that the wanting he felt for her was real.

  His gaze burned across her body, singeing her flesh with its fire. She gathered herself as licking curls of sensation swirled from her breast to her belly and pulsed with heat between her thighs. Only moments ago she’d been sated, thoroughly, gloriously. Yet she wanted him again with a yearning that transcended reason and a passion that defied comprehension.

  “How did you get this way?” he asked, his tone thick with wonder. His dark hand covered her breast. Cupping her gently, he molded her breast with his palm, then circled the rosy areola with his thumb.

  She closed her eyes and shivered as her nipple crowned.

  “You’re so small and perfect. I love how you respond to me. Beautiful.” Twisting at the hip, he lowered his mouth to hers for a lingering kiss.

  “Beautiful . . .” he repeated on a groan. He wet the gentle ridge of her collarbone with his tongue, then dried her skin with his breath before moving on to trail moist kisses across her torso.

  With his hands on either side of her shoulders, he braced his weight above her. “Open your eyes, Joanna. Open your eyes and see how pretty you are when I love you.”

  She met his gaze, stunned anew by what she saw there. Vivid with the heat of their shared passion, yet gentled by the way she had given herself to him so completely, his expression spoke of healing, and trust, and, though she didn’t recognize it at first, of love.