The Marriage Conspiracy

by Christine Rimmer

  She looked at him expectantly. And he decided that it was about time they went ahead and got it out there, said the name. Told the truth. “You heard about the problem from Stacey, right?”

  Jo nodded.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Oh, vague things. She never said it outright. But she hinted, once or twice, in the last few months you were still living together, that you were not able to, uh…”

  “Get it up?”

  She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I didn’t take her too seriously. She said so many crazy things at the end. It got so I could never tell what she’d made up in her own confused, unhappy mind, and what had really happened. I learned that whatever she said, I shouldn’t put a lot of store in it—but then, the night of DeDe’s weddin’, when you and I were talking about man-woman love…?” She let the sentence wander off, looked at him for confirmation.

  He gave it. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Dead meat, is what you said. That you were dead meat when it came to man-woman love.”

  “That’s right, I said that—and?”

  “Well, it kind of stuck with me. And later, after you kissed me at my house on our own weddin’ night, after I started realizing that I would like it if you kissed me some more, I did get to wondering if maybe what Stacey said had been true.”

  “It was. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t make love with her, not there at the end. Maybe I still did love her, even then. It’s hard to say. But I sure as hell didn’t want her. I didn’t even want to want her.”

  “Oh, Dekker. I am so sorry….”

  He lifted his hand from her shoulder, laid it against her silky hair, felt the warmth of it, the tender curve of her skull beneath his palm. “There is no reason for you to be sorry.”

  “You never would have met her, if she hadn’t been my friend.”

  “That hardly makes my bad marriage your fault.”

  “I wanted…to help you. To help both of you. I loved you both, so much, and you were both so unhappy, both hurting so bad.”

  “You did help.” He clasped her shoulder again, gave it a squeeze. “You saved my damn life, after Stacey was gone. And you did all you could to help her, too. More than I ever did, that’s for sure.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “It wasn’t enough.”

  “Jo. With Stacey, nothing was ever enough.”

  She let out a small, mournful sound. “So sad…”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it was. Real sad…” He insinuated his hand beneath the warm, silky fall of her hair. She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, mouth tipped up, dark eyes alight.

  He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. So good, he thought. To be able to touch her again. To let himself touch her in this whole new way. He brushed her lips lightly with his, felt her shiver slightly, beneath his hand.

  It came to him that he loved the scent of her, that he always had and always would. She smelled of soap and shampoo. Clean. Fresh. With that tempting hint of flowers—and something more. Something that was distinctly Jo, something that, to him, would always mean all the good things, the sweetest things….

  “Dekker?”

  “Um?”

  “Do you want to…right now?”

  “Do you?”

  “Oh, yes.” Her eagerness enchanted him. But then she frowned. “I, well, I think it is only fair to warn you. I’m not all that experienced. It was only a few times, with Bobby. And I have to admit, those times weren’t very good. I always thought that it could be, you know, good. But I didn’t know what I was doin’, and Bobby Atwood was…well, for a guy goin’ nowhere, he was sure in an all-fired hurry to get there, if you know what I mean.”

  He kissed the end of her nose. “We’ll work it out.”

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  He put his mouth on hers again, tasting. She sighed some more, her lips softly parting, inviting his tongue inside.

  He could never have refused such a sweet invitation.

  He tasted her, more deeply, sweeping the secret flesh of her underlip, running his tongue over her pretty white teeth, and then meeting her tongue, which shyly darted back at first, then, hesitant but eager, came forward to rub against his own.

  He guided her back, to lie across the bed with him. She went without hesitation, smiling against his mouth.

  They lay there, kissing—long, lazy kisses. He was enjoying every sigh, every slightest hungry quiver of her body under his. He wanted to make it last, stretch it out into forever. To make it last for her sake, because she was Jo, because that fool, Atwood, hadn’t had sense enough to love her the way she ought to be loved.

  For her sake, and also for his own.

  This, now—Jo’s mouth under his, her sweet, soft body moving beneath his hands—this was a gift the likes of which he had never thought to know.

  So damn many gifts she had given him, down all the years. Gifts of loyalty, gifts of time, the simple gift of her presence when he had been hopelessly lost and completely alone, when he had nothing to say and nothing left inside himself to give to anyone else. The gift of her insistence, her refusal to give up on him, that dogged stubbornness in her that made her stick with a friend till the end, no matter what.

  So damn many gifts.

  And now this…

  He wanted to make it good for her, to show her what it could be, between a woman and a man, so that later, when the threat Robert Atwood posed to her had been effectively neutralized, when she was ready to move on to the kind of man she deserved, she’d go with confidence in herself as a desirable woman, with the full knowledge of how to take pleasure and how to give it back in kind.

  He raised his head enough that he could look at her, at her flushed face, her kiss-swollen mouth. Her lashes fluttered up and her eyes were so dark and soft right then, he thought of summer nights or of falling, falling forever, but into a good place.

  She asked his name, on a whisper of breath, and she raised a hand, brushed it lightly back from his temple, fingers stroking his hair, sliding against his scalp in a tender brand and then gone.

  He lowered his mouth to the smooth space between her brows, murmured, “What?” against her skin.

  But she had no real question, or if she did, it had already become unnecessary to ask it. Because she only closed her eyes again, stroked his shoulder, said his name once more, so low, on a moan.

  He touched the side of her throat, felt the pounding of her pulse there. And then he pressed his mouth where his fingers had been, taking a long, lazy moment to taste the rhythm of her heart, smiling to himself when she sucked in a little gasp at the feel of his tongue on her skin.

  Tenderly, still feeding on the pulse point in her throat, he let his fingers wander downward—but not too far. Just enough to cup his hand over one soft, up-thrusting breast. She gasped again.

  He raised his head and waited for her to look at him. Those lashes fluttered up. She gave him a smile—one that trembled at first and then bloomed wide.

  He found he was as hungry to look as to touch. So he let his gaze wander down the curvy length of her, gently molding her breast at the same time, feeling the nipple pressing into his palm even through the layers of cloth that protected it.

  She wore a T-shirt the color of a mango when you cut it open, exposing the sweet meat inside. And a pair of trim green slacks that came midway between her knees and her ankles. Slip-on sandals on her feet.

  She lifted her head to see what he was looking at.

  He suggested, his voice gruff with arousal, “You could get rid of those sandals with no effort at all.”

  As he watched, she toed off one sandal and then the other. They thumped to the rug at the side of the bed.

  “How’s that?” she asked, a little breathless.

  He looked into her face again, saw excitement and the glint of apprehension. “Perfect.” He touched her mouth, with the pads of two fingers, then traced those fing
ers downward, putting his own mouth where his fingers had been, kissing her again, feeding on her mouth, drawing on her tongue until she surrendered it, gave it up, let him have it to suck on.

  She moaned, and another of those long, hungry shivers went through her. He felt that shiver under his hands as it shimmered down her body.

  Her body…

  Strange. He’d known her virtually her entire life, remembered standing over her crib a few days after her birth, amazed at how ugly a baby could be, thinking that something so small and unappealing would need to be protected, knowing, even then, at the age of five, that he would always protect her, no matter what.

  But her body?

  Until lately it hadn’t concerned him much. Oh, as she’d grown up, he’d been well aware that she wasn’t the least bit ugly anymore, that she had all the right curves in all the right places. But her curviness, her womanliness, didn’t seem to have anything at all to do with him or with their relationship to each other.

  Until lately…

  Lately—as in that dress the other night, the one that wasn’t quite gold and wasn’t quite brown, the one that hugged all those curves that weren’t supposed to concern him. Yeah, he could still picture it, the way that dress had clung to her backside when she’d turned and walked away from him.

  And in that swimsuit she’d found in the cabana that same day—it was turquoise and blue, with splashes of gold at the waist. She had stretched out on that rubber raft and floated there so peacefully. He’d known she’d wanted to be left alone, and he’d known he ought to let her have what she wanted. But he hadn’t been able to resist the desire to get close to her. Eventually he had surfaced at her side.

  At first she wouldn’t look at him. She lay with her cheek on her arm, her head turned away.

  Since she wouldn’t look at him, he let himself look at her.

  At her body.

  The word “smooth” had come to mind. Smooth and soft. Warm. Touchable. Tiny hairs glinted like gold dust on the backs of her thighs.

  He’d thought then that he did want to touch her—feel the warmth, the smoothness, the silkiness of those little hairs….

  He wanted to touch her. And in much more than just a friendly way. He’d felt his body rising, responding to the sight of the woman that he wanted.

  And it was okay to let himself want her. It was good to know that he could want a woman again—after all, for a while, there had been some doubt on that score.

  Also, he had been certain, there in the pool, that he would never do anything about wanting her. They were friends, married for a time, because she needed to be married. But she herself had defined the terms, that night in her mother’s backyard.

  We are deep and true friends. But we are not lovers….

  He’d dribbled that water over her thighs to force her to look at him—and also to watch the way it beaded up and glittered as it trickled over her skin….

  “Dekker?” She was staring up at him now, stretched out with him across this bed he had never thought to share with her. He saw a hundred questions in her eyes.

  For the first time as a man with her, he felt more than aroused. He felt…something hot and insistent, something very close to need.

  He sucked in a long breath and thought about control—that he needed to exercise a little of it about now. He couldn’t really have her now, be inside her, feel her softness closing around him. He would have to wait for that. This marriage of theirs was not forever. They couldn’t afford to go making any babies together. And at the moment he had nothing to keep a baby from happening.

  Then again, maybe she did. It was doubtful. But no harm in asking.

  “Are you on the pill, Jo?”

  Those eyes went wide again. She shook her head. “Oh, I didn’t even think about that.”

  He smoothed his hand down her hair again, wrapped a coil of the silky stuff around a finger. “No diaphragm handy, huh?”

  “Uh-uh.” She started to sit up.

  He clasped her shoulder. “Where are you going?”

  “Uh, well, I thought, you know, that we’d have to wait until—”

  “Please stay here. For a little.”

  “But we probably shouldn’t—”

  “We won’t. Not until later. Not until tonight.”

  She swallowed. “Tonight?”

  He nodded, thinking of what they could do now, that he could still give her pleasure, maybe get to see her face as a climax shuddered through her, certainly get to see her naked, here, in the warm light of a California morning.

  The mango-colored shirt ended at her waist. Such a simple act, to insinuate his hand between it and the satiny skin of her belly. He pushed the shirt up, put his mouth there, on her stomach, swirled his tongue around her navel, then dipped it into that tender little groove.

  “Oh!” she said, and “Oh!” again.

  He pushed the shirt up farther. “Raise your arms.” She did. He pulled the shirt over her head and then tossed it toward a chair a few feet from the bed. Her bra was bright pink, and her breasts swelled temptingly from the lacy cups. The thing hooked in the back, though.

  He’d deal with it in a minute. He slid a finger under the button at the waist of the green slacks.

  “Dekker Smith, what are you up to?”

  “That’s Bravo, or it will be soon.” With a flick of his thumb, the button came undone.

  She let out a small sound of distress as he tugged her zipper down. “Well all right then. Dekker Bravo, you are undressing me.”

  “That’s right. Lift up.”

  “But you said that we—”

  He put a finger to her lips. “Shh. Trust me?”

  She gently pushed his hand away. “You know that I do.”

  “We’ll be careful.”

  “Isn’t that what men and women are always saying to each other, right before they get carried away and end up not being careful at all?”

  “Maybe it is. But this is different. We’re not kids. I have…some measure of control. I won’t go any farther than we can afford to go. I promise you.”

  She looked at him, long and deep. “You’re sure?”

  Was he? Hell, yes. He was sure. He could do this. Touch. Taste. But not possess. “Positive.”

  “We’re just going to…?”

  “Play a little. Safe play. I promise. Later I’ll go out and get us some protection. And then, tonight…” He let the thought finish itself.

  “Hmm,” she said, a pleased sort of sound, and then she put her soft hand on the side of his face. “Well, anyway. If something did happen now, we are married….”

  “Nothing’s going to happen,” he vowed. “Nothing that will make babies. I swear it.”

  Her eyes probed his for another long moment. Then she said the word he was waiting for. “Okay.”

  It was all he needed to hear. He put his mouth back on hers and he kissed her, another endless, seeking, very wet kiss. As he kissed her, he undressed her, pushing those green pants off her hips and down, getting rid of her silky panties. And then, finally, taking away her bra.

  She sighed and she moaned, and she pressed herself close to him, those beautiful bare breasts against his chest, her legs rubbing along his. He began kissing his way down her body, tasting her flesh, finding it so sweet and tender, so warm. So good…

  He lingered at her breasts for a long time, sucking the hard little nipples into his mouth, rolling his tongue around them, loving the way she lifted her body, pressing it closer, giving him more….

  He moved lower, down over her soft belly, to the nest of brown curls at the top of her thighs. By then all her initial apprehension had fled. She was openly, honestly needful, clutching his shoulders, making hungry, willing noises deep in her throat.

  He loved that. Her very openness. She was just so…responsible, as a rule. Letting go rarely came easily to her.

  Gently, he pushed her thighs apart and settled between them. She stiffened and she gasped when he put his mouth on her. And
then she cried out.

  And after that cry, she surrendered completely, opening wider, offering herself up to him, letting him do what he wanted, letting him taste her so deeply, he would never forget, never lose her completely. Always, in the most primal part of his consciousness, the taste of her would linger, imprinted on his senses, a branding on his soul.

  She was wet and slick, dripping with her need and his hunger combined. She held his head, slim fingers splayed, gripping hard, pushing her body frantically against him. He held on, too, cradling her bottom in his hands, lifting her up like a cup to drink from, running his tongue over the soft, secret folds, latching on and sucking deeply, rubbing the swollen nub of flesh that was the center of her pleasure.

  She said things, promised things, wild things. Things like forever. He took those promises for what they were: words of the moment, of her passion.

  They did not have forever. But they did have right now.

  And now was good enough—more than good enough. It was better than anything he’d ever expected. A gift. The perfect kind of gift—given so freely and completely unsought. A gift he would save in his heart, even after he had to let her go.

  The tiny, soft explosions started. He felt them, there, against his tongue.

  He stayed with her, maintaining the secret, intimate kiss as the long shudders took her. She cried out again. And again. He held on, his mouth tight against her, tasting her woman’s release, sharing her pleasure at its highest point, until she went lax with a heavy sigh and pushed at his shoulders.

  “Oh. Stop…I can’t…” He took pity on her then and broke the long, forbidden kiss. “Oh, come up here. Up here, to me…” Her hands weren’t pushing anymore. They were pulling, tugging, urging him upward. He went to her, moved up her body. She wrapped those soft arms around him, and she buried her head against his neck.

  “Oh,” she said again. And then his name, over and over, a litany, a soft, tender chant. “Dekker, Dekker, Dekker, Dekker…”

  He made a low, rough, questioning sound.

  She chuckled. It was the naughtiest laugh he had ever heard. “What you did…I do not believe what you did…”