by Karina Bliss
“We nearly canceled that date half a dozen times,” Dan offered. “Swear to God, I know how fathers feel with daughters now. Torn between letting their little girl live and threatening the guy if he so much as laid a finger on her. It was horrible.”
The bottom dropped out of Lee’s world.
“Of course, Mark’s a hell of a nice guy,” Ross added, “but if we’d believed for one moment you were still alive we would never have fixed them up.”
Clearly they’d been practicing this...explanation.
“We couldn’t stand the thought of some loser filling your shoes,” Nate said earnestly. “It’s not like Jules’s judgment has been all that great lately. Grief does crazy things to a person.”
One by one they ran out of steam. Or maybe it was the look in his eyes that shut them up. There was a sudden, terrible silence.
“Oh, shit.” Dan rubbed his forehead. “You didn’t know.”
In captivity Lee had learned to step outside himself when the beatings started, retreat to a space three feet above the action and observe it like a movie...nothing to do with him. He tried to do that now but was pinned by a shaft of pain between his ribs and weighted by a dreadful sense of betrayal.
Laughter burst from a group of partygoers to his left, the estuary sparkled and the edge of the bar’s tablecloth billowed playfully. Every happy sight and sound scraped across his nerves like sandpaper.
“Lee,” Ross began, but he held up a hand.
“You thought I was dead,” he said conversationally.
Three chins jerked assent.
“And now you’re dead to me.”
He started walking away but paused.
“You know why I believed you were dead?” he threw over his shoulder. “Because if you were alive, you would have come for me.”
It was a perfectly timed lob that stopped them dead in their tracks as they moved to follow him. Coolly, Lee pulled the pin. “I never thought Steve and I would be so easily replaced.”
He saw Nate’s pain, heard Dan’s hiss and watched Ross reel as if struck. “Now,” he said in a low voice, “you really can relate to how I feel.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
JULES WATCHED LEE stride toward her across the grass and his pallor pierced her alcohol haze. She was scrambling to her feet before she was even aware of it.
“Are you sick?” she said.
“Yes, I need to leave right now,” he said unsteadily. “If you lend me your car, someone can give you a ride home later.”
“I’ll give her a ride,” Zander drawled.
Lee’s dismissive gaze raked over him. “You can try.” He held out his hand. “I need the keys, Jules.”
“Of course. I’m coming with you.” She picked up the sweater she’d discarded along with her handbag. “I’ll just tell Claire we’re leaving.”
“Don’t bother. I’ve said my goodbyes.” Behind him, Dan approached, his paleness matching Lee’s. Seeing her attention diverted, Lee pivoted.
“Don’t bother,” he barked. “Jules, I’ll meet you by the car.” Ignoring Zander, he strode toward the road. And she understood that whatever was wrong wasn’t physical.
Dan’s eyes met hers in a silent telegraphing of big trouble before he forced a smile for Zander. “My wife’s talking about naming our firstborn after you. I’d really appreciate you talking her out of it.”
“Use my middle name, Lovell.” Zander kissed Jules goodbye with a kiss on each cheek. “Drunk, I’d challenge your fiancé for you,” he murmured. “Sober I’m more realistic.” He pulled away. “And in answer to your earlier question, it’s a woman’s prerogative to keep changing her mind.”
“Thank you.” She pressed his hand. “Dan, I’ll phone you later.” She hurried to catch up to Lee. He was leaning his forehead against the roof of the car but straightened when he heard the crunch of her heels on the gravel. “I’ve been drinking.” She held up the keys. “Are you okay to drive?”
He nodded and they got in the car.
“What happened?” Jules fastened her seat belt, as the Pink Lady’s engine growled to life.
Maneuvering the Caddy out of the tight parking space, Lee didn’t reply until they were on the road that twisted through the hills sheltering Stingray Bay.
“Why didn’t you tell me the guys set you up with Mark?”
Multiple thoughts ran through Jules’s head simultaneously. No wonder he was devastated. And what possessed them to tell him today? The timing couldn’t have been worse. They should have run it by her first. “What good would it have served?”
Expertly he took a sharp corner, spinning the wheel almost immediately for another.
“They told you, didn’t they?” she persisted. “That’s worth something. Did you give them a chance to explain?” Jules braced herself against the door as he took a third corner. “They believed they were following your wishes.” Ross had hatched the idea then talked Nate and Dan into it, but that point was moot. Once in, they were all in.
“In what loopy universe would setting you up with another guy reflect my wishes?”
Put like that... Jules tried again. “They thought you’d want me to be happy.” Their concern had touched her, which was why she’d agreed to one introduction.
“I do want you to be happy.” Lee ground the gears as he changed down. “Haven’t I backed off to make you happy? That doesn’t mean I wanted my friends pimping for you.”
She closed her eyes as the car zigzagged through the bushy hills and then opened them because the alcohol was making her dizzy. “Can you slow down please? I’m feeling queasy.” Immediately Lee eased off the accelerator. Jules massaged her temples. “I’m not doing this very well. I’m sure they’ll explain it better. Once you’ve calmed down and—”
He snorted. “You think I ever want to see them again after this?”
“All they did was arrange an introduction, Lee. I was the one who slept with him, and yesterday you apologized to Mark for reacting like a Neanderthal. This reaction doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s about loyalty. You didn’t owe me anything because you’d already dumped me. And even if you hadn’t, only an idiot would expect you to give up on love, marriage and kids for the rest of your life.”
Jules recoiled. “It was only sex...touch I wanted. I’d never date someone I’d have to love like I loved you. I’m not that much of a masochist. And if you’re blaming the guys for leading me astray, don’t! I’d already joined an internet dating site before they set me up with Mark.”
He set his jaw. “These past days I’ve been telling myself to stop begrudging everyone for getting on with their lives. But I can’t frickin’ believe how easily I’ve been replaced.”
“Easily.” Jules gaped at him, sure she’d misheard. “Easily!” she repeated. Every emotion she’d been repressing for the past few weeks imploded into white-hot fury. “Stop the car!” She wrestled to undo her seat belt. “Stop this goddamned car now!”
* * *
ALARMED, LEE SKIDDED to a halt by the side of the road, under an overhang of trees. “What’s wrong?”
Seizing her bag and sweater, Jules wrenched the door open, half-falling in her scramble to get out of the vehicle. “Go,” she yelled. “Be alone! I’ll walk before I listen to that bullshit!” She slammed the door before he could answer and the heavy clunk reverberated in the country quiet. Seething, she started marching down the road.
Behind her she heard the driver’s door swing open. “Jules!�
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She spun around and kept walking backward. “Even after our heart-to-heart you still have no appreciation of what I—or any of us—have gone through.” On an angry sob, she pivoted and continued her march, too upset to consider the impracticality of a twenty-kilometer walk in strappy sandals.
Lee’s footfalls only made her walk faster.
“Go away,” she growled as he fell in beside her, averting her face. “I’m damned if I’ll let you see me crying over you ever again.” Angrily she dabbed at her eyes with the navy sweater scrunched in one fist.
An oncoming car crested the hill.
“C’mon,” Lee said gently. “You’ll get run over. And I’m not leaving you here...or going anywhere while you’re this upset.”
Jules started to argue, but the last thing she wanted was the interference of well-meaning motorists. Reluctantly, she let Lee guide her into the tract of bush beside the road, pulling away as soon as they were out of sight. She fumbled in her bag for tissues.
“You think you were the only one in chains these past two years?” The tears were falling faster than she could wipe them away. “Everyone who loved you struggled to find some meaning in your death, in Steve’s.”
His face was a blur through her tears.
“I started dating because I couldn’t keep living a half life, couldn’t keep being a victim.” Every sob seemed to shake another deeply buried emotion to the surface. “I had to believe that I could get over you.”
Bowing her head, Jules wept.
“Let me get over you.”
“I can’t,” he said hoarsely. Catching her wet face between his hands, Lee rested his forehead against hers. Tears trickled onto her chin, but they weren’t hers. “I can’t let you get over me,” he whispered. “Because I’m never going to get over you.”
The dam of her long-buried grief burst its banks. “I missed you so much,” she wept.
“I missed you, too.” Passionately, he kissed her swollen eyelids, her wet cheeks, the corners of her trembling mouth, and his kisses were clumsy and messy and wonderful. “But I’m here now.”
She kissed him back between gasps, their mingled tears salty and warm. Gradually Jules stopped crying and their kisses lengthened and deepened. Her arms tightened around his neck. She needed him closer, needed all of him.
A car honked and they broke apart, dazed, still holding hands.
“Come on.” Fern fronds brushed Jules’s bare legs under her dress as Lee pulled her farther into the bush, their footsteps muffled by pine needles.
“Far enough.” Jules yanked him back into her arms, needing full-body contact and needing it now. Equally fervent, his mouth sought hers and she abandoned herself to sensation.
The temperature was cooler among the trees, but Lee’s sun-warmed body was the only heat source she craved. With her spine pressed against the rough-barked totara, she devoured his mouth as he devoured hers, while their hands roamed restlessly over each other’s bodies, unable to settle because nothing was enough. And each kiss, every caress, inflamed their desire, fed the hunger.
Nothing mattered but assuaging this burning need to reconnect, reaffirm life.
Lee untied her halter top and pulled it down to expose her breasts. His hot mouth closed over a nipple, too gently for her need. Jules wanted to be marked, she wanted to mark him. Her emotions were too raw for finesse. Impatiently, she threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged. “Harder.”
Then she flung back her head and moaned as he did as he was bid.
His hot exhalation gusted over her nipples as he paused to catch his breath and Jules used the brief respite to fumble for the fastening on his jeans. Jerking the zipper down, she grasped the silky, hot length of him, her strokes clumsy with eagerness.
“Jules.” Lee pressed himself against her palm with a groan. “If you want me inside you, leave that alone.”
She responded with a tortured laugh to the thread of humor he brought to their dark passion. “Then give me skin!” Withdrawing her hand, she started tugging at the buttons of his shirt.
Lee caught her fingers and their eyes locked.
“No more hiding,” she insisted. “I love all of you.”
He let his hands fall.
The shirt opened and she saw a slash of red, the color of dried blood, slicing across the edge of one nipple to bisect a smooth pectoral. Lower, other lines curved around his lean ribs, not quite meeting in the middle of his ridged abdomen. Jules had a sudden vivid image of him curled on his side, protecting his head and heart.
Thank God she’d already seen his back and was prepared for this. Gently, she skimmed each raised scar with her fingertips.
Lee leaned forward and nipped her lower lip. “No pity,” he ordered. “Not between us, and gentle isn’t what I want now, either.”
His eyes darkened as he spoke and Jules knew her own pupils had flared in response by the way he grinned, wolfish and wicked.
Her heartbeat escalated, as did the throbbing between her thighs. “No,” she said huskily. “No gentle.”
Twining one leg around his like a snake, she pressed her lips against the tendon in his neck and nipped. “In fact,” she murmured, before grazing her teeth down his chest to lay an openmouthed kiss over his heart, “I don’t want to be able to walk.”
She gasped as he pushed himself against her, the tight ridge of his arousal pressing against her clitoris through the cotton barrier of her capris.
“Bossy,” he said, and increased the friction. “Still so bossy.” His jungle-green eyes reminded her of some wildcat’s, predatory.
Jules leaned back against the tree trunk and lifted her arms above her head, watching his gaze drop to her out-thrust breasts. “Do me,” she said.
He had them both stripped naked in under a minute. She pressed her breasts against his torso, skin to skin, and rubbed herself against his heat, feeling feral. This was private farmland and their chances of discovery were small but right now Jules would have made love on the highway.
She needed to take him, needed him to take her.
His hands were warm, callused against her bare bottom as he lifted her, balancing her against the tree so she could wrap her legs around his waist. And then the press of his hot flesh against hers, already wet and yielding to his hardness.
He held back. “Tell me,” he demanded.
“Tell you what?” she teased, and wiggled to torment him, but that only increased her own frantic need.
“Tell me,” he whispered.
“I love you,” she cried.
Lee thrust into her and she felt herself convulse around him.
Jules tightened her trembling thighs around his waist and opened her mouth to tell him to wait, to savor this shimmering moment, but she could only gasp against his throat.
But Lee did pause. Trembling as much as she was, breathing as hard, his mouth caught hers in a searing, tender kiss.
She heard a tui’s bell-like call above them. Beams of sunlight pierced the canopy, spilling light onto the forest floor. The scent of pine and forest and earth filled Jules’s lungs as she breathed deeply. “I love you,” she whispered on the exhale.
He began moving and the only thing that mattered was his rough tenderness, the textures of his skin and the rasp of his voice murmuring endearments.
* * *
SHE WAS DRAWING him back to the light, to life before the ambush, before her devastating rejection, when all things seemed possible.
He’d thought the spark that once defined him had finally been extinguished by the guys’ revelation, but she’d fanned it to life. With her generosity, with her willingness to stay the course.
Her faith shored his.
Her hair tickled his nose and he nuzzled it aside and kissed the pulse point at her jaw, felt her arms tighten around his neck as she stirred.
They would get it right this time.
“I must be getting heavy.” Jules turned her head and brushed her lips against his.
He returned her kiss. He would work to earn this woman’s love every day. “I could cradle your ass forever, but how’s your back?” She had taken the brunt of the tree bark.
Experimentally, Jules wiggled her shoulders and her breasts slid against his bare chest. Her smile suggested it was deliberate. Bending his head, he ran the tip of his tongue along the curve of that smile, savoring it.
“You heal me,” he said.
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Lee,” she whispered.
He kissed her tears away. “No more crying. We’re done with it.”
Her smile wobbled. “Sounds good.”
Slowly he lowered her to the ground, bereft the moment he let her go. He checked her back for scrapes. All the bark indentations were superficial. Getting dressed took a long time; they kept stopping to kiss and share endearments.
Driving home, Lee held her hand when he wasn’t changing gears, lifting it to press his lips against her palm.
Within a few minutes she’d unfastened her seat belt and slid over to lean her head against his shoulder. “I don’t care if it’s illegal,” she murmured. “I need to touch you.”
“I feel the same.” He released her hand to change gears and then dropped it to her knee, smoothing back the skirt to find skin. “We’re going to be naked for weeks.”