That he was fully aroused and very close to climax was more than evident in the tiny ripples cascading down his body and the desperate rhythm of his breathing.
Dropping his head, he pressed his face to her neck, his cheek hot and damp and lightly roughened by a day's growth of whiskers.
Closing her eyes, Hazel rested her head against his deep chest and held herself unmoving, her own breathing far from controlled and her body warming and softening, preparing to welcome his.
His heart thudded furiously, audible beneath his cotton shirt, and tension strained the muscles of his arm and shoulders.
Caught in his embrace, she felt safe and cherished and wonderfully delicate – all the things a bride wanted to feel on the first night of her new life with the man she loved.
Drenched by his heat, she felt as though she would never again be cold, never again be lonely or sad or despairing.
Lifting his head, he murmured her name. Still smiling, she opened her eyes and slowly raised her gaze to his. Instead of speaking, he simply looked at her, his eyes smoldering between the thick black lashes.
His embrace eased, and he stepped back, using his hand to draw hers away from his mutilated shoulder. Unsure of his intentions, she let her other hand fall away.
She murmured his name, her lips curving in a smile to tell him without words that she understood. If this was all he could give her now, it was enough.
Something changed in his face, in his eyes, and then he kissed her again, a long draining, arousing kiss that left her trembling when it ended. Instead of releasing her as she expected, he skimmed his palm the length of her arm. Gravity finished what his fingers had begun, and the slippery gown slid to the floor.
He said nothing, but the swift intake of his breath and the molten look in his eyes told her that to him, at this moment, she was beautiful and desirable and all the things she wanted to be just for him.
Slowly, his eyes holding hers, he flattened his hand against her neck, his fingers resting on the wildly fluttering pulse just below the skin.
"Don't be afraid," he murmured, his voice husky. "Not of me."
"I'm not," she whispered and felt him tremble. Using her index finger she traced his mouth, feeling the tension and strength of him even there.
His hand moved lower until his wrist was nestled between her breasts. Spreading his fingers wider, he lightly ran his hand over both breasts, stroking gently until her nipples were quivering.
Crying out, she reached out blindly, her hands fumbling with the buckle of his belt. Haste made her clumsy, but soon his trousers joined her gown at their feet.
He kicked them away, then stood silent, waiting, allowing her to take the same visual liberties he'd taken earlier.
Surprised and touched, Hazel noted the plain white boxer shorts, the thick muscular thighs furred with soft-looking black hair, the long powerful legs. Most of all she noticed the blatant, aggressive, magnificent arousal.
Her gaze flew to his, only to find his eyebrows drawn and his eyes unreadable. Did he think she would be frightened? she wondered. Embarrassed? The subtle hint of vulnerability touched her almost as much as it beguiled her.
"Did I do that?" she murmured, amusement and desire blending to make her voice thick and her tone breathy.
"‘Fraid so. Do you mind?"
Hazel shook her head. "Not unless you're saving it all for yourself."
He froze, then choked off a laugh. "I think I'm in deep trouble here."
"Absolutely," Hazel murmured, her hands going to the top button of his shirt.
"Not this time, okay?" he said in a surprisingly hesitant tone, capturing her hand with his.
Hazel wanted to tell him that it was all right to bare his body to her. That she wouldn't find him ugly or pathetic or deformed, things that she sensed he'd heard or felt or sensed from women before. But she found herself strangely hesitant to make such a promise.
"My bed or yours?" she whispered instead, her voice shivery with desire and thick with anticipation.
Instead of answering her, he released her hand, leaned past her and jerked back the spread. Still without speaking, his gaze hard and searching on hers, he slipped two fingers beneath the band of his shorts and slid them off.
When his arm circled her shoulders, urging her to the mattress, she went eagerly, willingly.
Her hands clutched his shoulders and she lifted her mouth to meet his as he loomed over her, his body slowly easing full-length until they were lying side by side, his right side pressed to the mattress.
His hand roamed freely, exploring, caressing, until she was moaning and moving and desperate for him.
He murmured compliments, kissed her face and her neck and each breast, his mouth lingering and moist over each nipple until she arched upward, out of control.
His hand moved lower, stroking her belly, her thighs, his fingers talented and deft, driving her mad.
She cried his name over and over, frantic to feel him slip inside her, her love for him so intense that she felt she might burst with it.
When he tested her readiness to receive him with the gentlest of probing touches, she whimpered helplessly. And when he replaced his hard fingers with his even harder arousal, she arched backward in pleasure and hunger.
For such a big man he was incredibly tender, restraining his own hunger while making sure that she could take all of him without pain before he began to move. Slowly, caressingly, his gaze fixed on her face, his muscular forearm taking most of his weight, leaving her free to move with him.
Pleasure built upon pleasure, her mind and body merging until she felt as though she were soaring weightless and free.
And then she was tumbling, hot shivers gathering, gathering, until she was sobbing out his name.
He groaned, his body moving faster, deeper, until he, too, cried out, a long hoarse explosion of sound muffled by soft flesh as he buried his face between her breasts. His breath was hot, his chest heaving as tremors shook him.
"I'm too heavy," he murmured.
"Never."
"Does that mean I can stay like this for a while?" His tone was wry, relaxed.
Hazel hugged him again, feeling so full of love she thought she might burst. "Just try to get away," she growled softly.
She felt him smile against her hot damp flesh. "Yes, ma'am."
"That's better," she murmured, kissing the top of his head.
"How about that?" he muttered, his voice drowsy. "Married one day and already henpecked."
A lump formed in her throat. "Any complaints?" she asked softly.
But Jess didn't answer. Her brand-new husband was asleep.
* * *
Chapter 15
«^»
Sunlight assaulting his closed eyelids told Jess it was morning. Averting his face, he encountered a mass of soft, perfumed hair and a warm shoulder.
Hazel was draped over him like a milk-sated, fast-asleep mama cat, her cheek pillowed on his bad shoulder, her hair a bright slash against his white shirt.
Drawing a deep breath and holding it, he inched sideways on the pillow until he could see her face. Her skin was translucent in the soft morning light, her lips rosy and still slightly swollen.
He hadn't kissed a woman in years the way he'd kissed her. And damn her, she'd kissed him back like a wild woman.
The brilliant Ph.D. whose haughty stare and crisp professionalism had reduced Assistant District Attorney Jackson Lamont to a shell during Tyler's second trial was full of fun and fire in bed.
And the lady shrink who wore classic suits and sensible blouses during office hours turned into a voluptuous temptress in slinky satin after dark.
Very slinky satin, as he seemed to recall, that was now a forlorn puddle in the middle of her bedroom floor. Which meant that under the yellow flowered sheet and the bright green blanket, his wild lady lover was as bare as the day she was born.
The warm flesh-and-blood reality of her had been beyond even his ability to fantasize. Her ski
n had been uniformly pale, with no tan lines, no imperfections, her nipples dark and tempting. He could still feel their gravelly roughness against his tongue, still taste the tang of her skin.
Jess groaned silently, already far too aroused for his peace of mind. Not to mention the strain on his already sore, out-of-practice body.
At least everything still worked the way it was supposed to, he thought, slowly pushing his hand through the mess her fingers had made of his hair. From the slow heat settling between his legs and the quicker surges of pulsing blood, his body was already preparing for a repeat performance.
Even he didn't have the ego to believe he was better than average in the sack, especially now, with the restrictions his handicap put on him.
But damn, she'd come apart when he'd touched her. And she'd been wet and ready for him, something that not even a great actress could fake.
He'd known what sexual desire had felt like in physical terms since the age of ten, when he had fallen asleep reading in the foaling barn and woken up listening to the sounds of Garrett and Evelyn Marquette getting it on in one of the empty stalls.
But this need he had for Hazel O'Connor was more than physical, and that was what scared him. At the moment, however, he was having trouble keeping his mind on much else.
Lying perfectly still, he pictured himself walking into a half-frozen pond in the dead of winter. When that failed to distract him, he started to inch away.
She opened her eyes and reached for him before she was fully awake. "No, don't go," she murmured, her voice drowsy and her mouth sulky. "I like sleeping with you."
Just like that, he wanted her again. "On top of me, you mean," he said, kissing the tip of her nose.
Instantly there was a smile in her sleepy cat's eyes and a hit of last night's temptress in the curve of her lips. "You're such an aggressive sleeper," she murmured. "There didn't seem to be any other way."
Jess froze. "Aggressive?" he asked cautiously. He hadn't lashed out in his sleep for a long time. At least, he didn't think he had.
"Hmm. Hogging the covers, pushing me around, all but crushing me. I think the first thing on our agenda today is shopping for a king-size bed."
Jess felt emotion swell his chest, but he managed to mask it with a groan. "No way," he said, turning suddenly so that they were face-to-face. "This one suits me just fine."
"Are you sure, because—"
He covered her mouth with his and slid easily, effortlessly into her again.
* * *
When Hazel woke again, she was tangled in the sheets and hugging Jess's pillow.
It was way past the time she usually climbed out of bed on Sunday morning. The neighbors would wonder why she hadn't collected her Sunday paper. Or maybe they wouldn't, she decided, remembering yesterday's ceremony.
Allowing herself a smile, she turned onto her back and stretched. Her body felt heavy and fluid, as though she were moving in slow motion, and she was definitely sore where she'd felt such pleasure only a few hours earlier.
The sun was high, washing the room with yellow light. As she moved, her ring caught a sunbeam, flashing a brilliant gold.
Her smile grew dreamy.
Her new husband was a tempestuous, demanding lover, treating her more like the seductress she'd secretly yearned to become rather than the modest, self-effacing lady her mother had tried so hard to rear.
He'd been as eager as a boy, scarcely containing himself while making sure that she was satisfied first, and then he'd been a demanding and noisy and out of control savage.
"And you, Hazel Louise O'Connor Dante, loved every single, dangerous, glorious minute," she whispered and then wondered how soon she could entice Jess into doing it all again. Tonight, for sure, she told herself as she left their marriage bed and headed for the shower.
Fifteen minutes later she was wrapped in a warm terry cloth robe, rubbing her hair furiously with a towel, when she sensed she wasn't alone. Jess was standing on the threshold between the two rooms.
He'd been up long enough to have shaved and showered and pulled on jeans and yet another disreputable T-shirt. This one was a very faded orange, with the logo of a famous oil treatment company emblazoned on the front, and it had apparently shrunk as it had faded, because it was molded like a second skin across his massive chest.
"Tell me there's coffee made."
"There's coffee. There's also a problem."
Hazel frowned. She'd been so busy admiring the fit of his shirt that she'd failed to notice the strained look on his face. "What kind of problem?"
"Cait called while you were in the shower and—"
"Has something happened to Francey? It has, hasn't it? I see it in your face." She clutched his arm with frantic fingers.
"Take it easy, honey. It's just a minor ear infection. Ty's already phoned the pharmacy near their place for antibiotics."
"What does that mean?"
Jess saw the real fear in her eyes and cursed himself for not softening the truth. "It means that she's in good hands and there's no reason for you to panic."
"This is not panic. This is guilt. Panic comes next."
She snatched the towel from her hair, which flopped into her eyes. Impatiently she brushed it back, already picturing Francey burning up with fever and screaming in pain.
"Babies get sick. Why should you feel guilty?" Jess watched her impassively, looking far too calm. She wanted him to be worried and nervous and generally scared to death, as she was.
"This is all my fault," she muttered in the direction of his chin. "I never should have asked Cait to take her."
"I thought Cait insisted?" His silky tone stopped her for a beat, long enough to find her way blocked.
"She did. I just had to ask her first," she murmured. "And don't look at me like I just called you a dirty name. This is as much your fault as mine."
"Care to explain that?"
She grabbed the towel she'd just discarded and whomped it over the shower door. Turning, she eyed him with a mixture of panic and impatience. "You were being noble. I had to do something."
His mouth twitched. "Noble? Me?"
"Yes, you," she said, poking him hard in the chest with an index finger. "For some reason you'd gotten it into your head that we were going to have a platonic marriage."
"You didn't put up an argument."
"I've seen you in the courtroom, remember? You darn near demolished that supercilious prosecutor when he tried to argue with you."
"That was business."
"And this?"
"Definitely pleasure," he drawled, his mouth relaxing into the tentative half smile she adored.
"So what's the point of arguing?"
"Can't think of one."
Hooking her neck with his hand, he hauled her against him and kissed her. He tasted of toothpaste, and his mouth was hot.
He drew back too soon. "For the record, I've always known what I wanted. I just wasn't sure about you." The heated look in his eyes made her warm all over. The rumble of truth in his voice made her smile.
"And now?" she asked, bemused. Could she possibly have read him wrong all these years?
"Now I'd better get out of here so you can get some clothes on. Otherwise Francey will be ready for college before we pick her up."
* * *
Hovering like a sleepy guardian angel, Hazel laid the backs of her fingers against Francey's forehead. Watching from the doorway of the half-completed nursery, Jess wondered if she knew how adorable she looked with her hair mussed and her lower lip trapped between her teeth.
"She's still burning up," she whispered, raising anxious eyes to his. Two days and a night of worry had paled her skin and shadowed her eyes.
His own concern had been just as sharp, even after he'd grilled Ty for twenty solid minutes on everything from symptoms to warning signs of complications to possible side effects from the antibiotic drops they were to give her every four hours. Now, however, from every indication he could detect, Francey was on the
mend.
"O'Connor, you just took her temperature twenty minutes ago. Ninety-nine point eight hardly qualifies as 'burning up.'"
She shot him an impatient look. The only time she'd settled for more than a half-hour since they'd brought the baby home from the McClanes was when she was trying to get Francey to take her bottle. Now it was close to midnight, and Hazel was still fretting.
"Yes, but that thermometer could be wrong."
"Not three times in a row."
Jess knew that she was annoyed with him. He also knew that she was going to wear herself out worrying if she didn't get some rest.
Last night, the second night of their marriage, they'd taken turns sleeping so that one of them had always been with the baby.
"How do you know about thermometers? You're a lawyer, not a doctor."
Jess joined her next to the crib. Francey was dressed in a thin shirt and a diaper and covered with a light blanket. Exactly what Ty had advised.
"Would it help if I ran down to that all-night drugstore on the corner and bought a couple more baby thermometers?"
"If you wouldn't mind—" Relief gave way to a sudden suspicion. "What do you mean, a couple?"
"I figured you could get an average that way." Jess was careful to keep a straight face. Trying to distract a worried mother hen flapping over her chick was tougher than winning a favorable ruling from Henry Pollard.
"That's not funny, Dante," she whispered, her eyes warning that she would brain anyone who dared to make light of her daughter's first illness. "She's in pain. I know, because I had an ear infection when I was in the fourth grade, and it was a nightmare."
"Trust me, O'Connor. If Francey was hurting, she wouldn't be sleeping."
"You'd be sleeping, too, if you'd cried for two solid hours."
"She was crying because every time she moved, you jumped out of bed to check on her and woke her up."
Jess slid his fingers along the rumpled lapel of her very sensible, very ordinary, impossibly sexy bathrobe. He figured he would roast in hell for a long time because he was busy wanting to make love to her while she was so worried. He also figured it would be worth it.
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