by Cait London
For a man who commanded boardroom discussions and difficult mergers, who made rules for others to obey, the prospect that this level of their relationship might fail terrified Joel. He’d keep his reference to commitment light, keep his emotions intact, and would be certain not to hurt her.
Night had closed in on Tallchief Mountain, and when he entered the tepee, Joel’s body reacted instantly to the sight of Fiona, waiting for him, firelight warming her bare arms and shoulders. His hands trembled as he secured the flap. Fiona’s scent curled up to him, mixed with wood smoke and the pines outside. One thing at a time, he reminded himself, as his body hardened into a painful ache. He stripped away his gloves and coat and rubbed his stubble-covered jaw. “I’ll shave.”
“I could do that for you,” she offered.
“Not tonight. Thank you.” One touch, one look at Fiona’s body and—Despite the cold, he took his time, and his taut emotions caused a razor nick. He washed with soap and warm water that Fiona had just used and he withdrew fresh towels from the pack and placed them nearby.
“Come to bed, Joel,” she whispered, shocking him. “That is, if you’re done planning how to handle me.”
Wearing his silk shorts, Joel eased into the sleeping bag, “I should have warmed this for you.”
“Joel I was raised on camping trips. I wrapped hot rocks and placed them inside the bag before I got in.” Her breast brushed his arm, the soft warmth surprising him. “Mmm. This is nice. I like the wind and the cold outside and you inside.”
Fiona moved over him, bending to nibble on his jaw. “You look so serious, as if you’re thinking what to say, preparing a verbal brief. You might as well get it out.”
Her hips bumped him intimately, and Joel’s body lurched, immediately coming into contact with her moist heat. As always, Fiona was moving too swiftly, and soon he’d be too far gone in passion to think.
Joel turned her easily, resting over her. “I want to make very certain that you remember this night, Princess. I want to take it slow and easy, and I have things to say.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “But you’ve been very silent.”
“I’ve decided you need variety.” He placed his hand upon her breast, caressing the softness. “You are not exactly talkative during lovemaking, either.”
“Mmm. Making love. That has such a nice sound to it.” Fiona’s hands smoothed his back, caressed his bottom and moved up to his chest. She tugged at the waistband of his shorts. “We’re going to talk? Now?”
“I thought I’d lead, and we’d take it from there. Think of it as a tango, just to get started.” He glanced down at her hands, pale in the firelight, and toying with the hair on his chest. He brushed his thumb across her nipple and noted the quickening of her bream, the arch of her body. flowing beneath him. Joel kissed her shoulder and nipped her earlobe, almost groaning when her breasts slid against his chest.
“Joel?” Fiona breathed rapidly, her mouth raised eagerly for his.
Joel eased aside and while Fiona looked at him, her eyes steaming and her body trembling, he ran his hand down the length of her body, caressing her. He ran his thumb along her hipbone and splayed his open hand over her stomach, thinking of a child that might one day nestle there, if there was truly magic in his life. The muscles in her thighs contracted as he tasted them lightly, moving on to her stomach, flattening his hand against her, sliding his fingers lower to stroke that moist intimate warmth.
Fiona shuddered. “You’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you? It’s so much easier to just take what we want.”
Joel lowered his head to suckle one uptilted breast, and then be lay beside her, shoulders and hips touching, his hand smoothing her gently. “I like lust. Good old-fashioned, honest lust with a physical woman, namely you. I desire you from the time I wake up in the morning until I can manage whatever sleep during the night. When I’m inside you—”
His fingers slid along her body, cherishing the curve of her hips, the indentation of her waist. “How do you feel when I’m inside you?”
She sucked in her breath, shivering and grasping his shoulder as he bent slightly over her, to better see her expression. Fiona did not hide her desire—her eyes smoky and heated beneath her black lashes, her mouth moist and trembling, her color high. “Do we have to talk?” she asked, and Joel smiled at her slightly frustrated tone.
“It would be a first, if we can manage it.”
“You think I can’t manage a conversation now?” she asked in a tone that said she’d picked up his challenge.
“I want to be desired, sweetheart. I want to laminate myself to you, feel your heat as my own, taste your mouth, move in you. I want to taste you down one side and up the other.” Using the images that Fiona had given him when they first shared a bed, Joel continued, “I want heat and storms and thunder, bodies slick and bursting, twisting, breathing like one.”
Joel turned Fiona on her stomach and kissed a line across her shoulders and down her spine. She groaned and shivered as his hand swept down and then up to rub gently between her legs.
“This isn’t fair,” Fiona gasped as Joel nuzzled her neck and eased her to her side, facing him.
“Tell me about how you feel. Now. Right now.”
Fiona’s open mouth raised to his, her tongue flicking his. “You’re wanting a lot.”
“I want foreplay, during play and after play. I want to fill you, and keep filling you, and draw out, and fill you again.”
“I want to hold you tight inside me, against me.” Fona’s hands skimmed down his chest, and Joel sucked in his stomach as they stopped.
He closed his eyes, body throbbing, aching, then relented, sliding off his shorts. “Take me inside you, and we’ll continue.”
Her lips curled against his. “You won’t be able to talk then, my prince.”
Yet her hands curved around him, encircled him and gently examined him. “I told you once that I wanted no easy lover, Palladin, and you’ve been much too gentle, fearing to hurt me. If we’re going to be honest, I’d prefer that you forgot everything but me. Tell me what you want from me.”
Her hips undulated against him, the sensual friction almost taking him. Joel forced his body to still, because tonight, Fiona was not leaping from A to Z Her untutored hands were exploring him intimately, and he could sense his body tilting dangerously into lack of control.
In a gesture Joel decided was heroic, he reached out, dipped his hand in the bucket of cold drinking water and dashed it on his face.
Fiona laughed, delighted. “You won’t make it, Joel.”
“Won’t I?”
He drew her knee over his thigh, cupping her buttocks and caressing them. He began to speak softly, smoothing Fiona’s breasts, her back, her legs. “We haven’t begun, you and I. You’re right, I’ve been very conventional, careful not to shock you. But—” Joel eased slightly inside Fiona’s warmth and felt her heat pour over him. He closed his eyes and slipped deeper, her uneven sigh coming as a deep-throated purr.
“When I’m inside you, I think how I’m the only man you’ve cared about enough to give your body. I think of how sweet you were that first time, and how—”
“How?” Fiona was breathing rapidly, her body flowing beneath his, opening. Joel eased over Fiona, fighting the rigid desire that threatened to rule him. “Princess, I’ve never been so deep.”
She clasped him tighter. “Don’t you dare stop, Joel Palladin.”
“How do you feel now?” he asked, desperate for her.
“As if you’ve always been a part of me.” Her hands smoothed back his hair, and the first rocketing contraction sped through her, gloriously amazing to Joel. Fighting his own needs, he waited, rigid, until she came back to him.
He gave her a soft, lingering kiss, and Fiona went wonderfully boneless in his arms. Joel rubbed her nose with his. “Let’s talk.”
She groaned unsteadily and closed her eyes as he began the sensual friction again, whispering huskily into her ear. “Fiona
. You’re a part of me and I’m a part of you. I’m deep inside. In another minute I’ll be giving you myself, and from that could come a child. How do you feel about that?”
Through her passion, Fiona stared at him, her fingers digging into him. “Joel?”
Then her expression changed, a fierce demand adding to her emotions as her hand swept lower and Joel shuddered, almost losing control. “I want everything. I want it raw and true and good, straight from what you feel,” Fiona whispered against his lips, then suckled his tongue as her hips rose to meet his. “If you try that blasted control and logic, I’ll know, and I won’t have it, not with you. Not now.”
Despite her demand, Joel managed to control his body. Just. He feared hurting her. Another fierce wave hit Fiona, and her teeth sank gently into his shoulder, her cry muffled against his skin. “Come to me,” she whispered fiercely as another wave hit her.
Passion hit Joel broadside. He arched, easing deeper, deeper, and fought the heated pressure devouring him. He raised her knees for the first time in their lovemaking, and Fiona gasped with the deeper invasion, then hurled herself hungrily against him.
He forgot to be tender. He forgot control. Joel dived into the fire, her body pulling at his, her helpless tones driving him on. At the height, fighting for release, Fiona cried out, bolting high as Joel touched her intimately.
She took him closer, their skins blending, heating, becoming one, bodies locked, pitting themselves against the inevitable. A strong woman, Fiona demanded, and Joel gave. He demanded, bringing her hips up tight against him suckling her breasts, and Fiona ignited.
The pounding heat swept them away, lingered, pounded again, and flung them into a pulsating world where only he and she existed. Joel tried for control, and instead laced his fingers with Fiona’s, his kiss desperate as he poured himself into her.
Heartbeats later, while Joel was trying to summon strength to lift his head from her breasts, Fiona smoothed his hair. “That was not ordinary, everyday sex to feed basic needs, was it?”
Joel smothered the smile touching his lips and eased up to draw her close to him. He kissed the black, glossy head resting on his shoulder. “Nope. Not even close to basic, average lust.”
Her hand smoothed his stomach. “You gave me everything, didn’t you?”
“Everything. We had no ordinary loving. I’m afraid ... I’m afraid I was too rough.”
She groaned and curled around him, stroking the dragon on his arm. “I think you’re marvelous. I like how you make love, soft and gentle, or raw and open and truthful, as if you’re giving me the best part of you.”
Long after Fiona lay sleeping in his arms, Joel stared at the firelight shadows on the tepee. Did he want too much?
Hungry for her again, Joel eased Fiona to her side, cradled her breasts and kissed her shoulder. She arched back against him and inhaled as Joel entered her moist warmth.
Fiona looked down at Joel, sleeping innocently. He’d had her again, softly, gently, awakening her with encouragement—“So sweet, Princess. You’re so soft and warm and—” He’d paused as he had eased gently inside her. She would remember that fullness forever, the gentle way he held her.
“Ten me,” she’d whispered in the darkness, her hand pressing his against her breasts.
“That you’re all I want? All that I’ve ever wanted?” he’d asked unevenly, gathering her close against him. “That when I see you, a part of me feels like I’m wallowing in peaceful sunshine, where the world is right and happy...and the other part starts heating and thinking of ways to have you?”
His gentle rhythm had seduced, intrigued, his words flowing urgently around her. “You give me so much, making me a part of your life and now a part of your body.”
The heated waves had come gently firmly upon her, and again Joel had given her his unique gift.
Now, looking down at Joel sleeping beside her. Fiona realized that Joel probably had never revealed himself to another woman. That he’d saved that portion of his life for her and that though words were difficult, he wanted to give them to her.
She eased her hand to his stomach, smoothed the slightly hairy surface and circled his naval with her finger. Joel groaned unevenly, arching to her touch, and his arousal rose gently to her stroking.
Fiona came upon him, settled and made their bodies one. He awoke slowly, wonderfully, powerfully, this man she’d claimed. She took him as fiercely as the night before, and hoped to shock him thoroughly, for he had stepped inside her heart and had frightened her.
Again he poured into her, giving his essence, his life to her—not a light matter for Joel Palladin, who guarded himself well.
With the wind howling around the tepee, Fiona settled at his side. Joel’s dark green eyes were drowsy, his expression pleased and dreamy. “Let’s make this legal,” he whispered. “Then you can take me every night.”
She looked up at him. “Joel, you don’t think this could be—”
“Love? Could be. I haven’t got any experience with what we’re going through now, but I know it’s good. You make me feel good just being with you or thinking about you.... Go to sleep, Princess.”
“But you want harmony and structure in your life. I can’t give you that I don’t know if this is wise, talking while we’re making love, or after it.”
“We’re relating, sweetheart. Becoming more intimate than physical need can take us. We’re communicating.” Joel patted her bare bottom and added drowsily, “You give me more than harmony and structure ever could.”
Fiona slipped from Joel’s arms to add wood to the fire and to bathe. Joel had been careful to lay out lush towels and feminine soap. There were advantages to having a logical prepared man nearby. She knelt by the fire, aching in places deep and private and recently shared by Joel. Fiona realized that she joined other women who had given themselves completely and then had risen to cleanse; a private, feminine moment to contemplate the past hours. Thinking of Una and Tallchief and the chest’s legend, which had entered her life, she soaped her face, breasts and arms, and stood, facing away from Joel, to complete the rest of her body.
Emotion ran deep and true between them after the loving. Physical needs had eased into gentler ones, truer, enduring ones. Joel looked at her like her father had looked at her mother: as if nothing else, no one else, mattered. As if she were his treasure.
He was no easy man, ridden by the past Yet he’d torn away his familiar control and had given her the truest part of his heart. For Joel, he’d broken his own rules for her, no easy matter.
His hand circled her ankle, the dragon on his arm flexing as she looked down. “Turn,” he requested softly.
Fiona lifted her head. A private woman, who kept her secrets, Joel was asking to look at her body. Her lover had not seen all of her body in their lovemaking, and she was shy of him now.
He had given all of himself, tearing away from the past, from what he feared, and she could do no less. Fiona turned, holding the towel against her, then dropped it slowly.
Joel stroked her ankle, his dark gaze flowing slowly upward, filling her with a heavy gentle warmth. When his eyes locked with hers, Fiona said what was in her heart, “I will never forget this time with you. I will never hurry so fast through life, that you—this won’t be a part of me. You will always be mine, Joel Palladin, because I have chosen you.”
Ten
While the washer began the rinse cycle, Joel slipped the broccoli and chicken casserole into the new oven and checked the dinner rolls rising beneath a damp cloth. The romaine lettuce had been rinsed and waited m the refrigerator for salad. The table had been set with candles and place settings. Joel frowned and eased a dinner fork noticeably askew. He slipped the cookbook he’d been using back onto the shelf with the other new ones and glanced out the kitchen window. The middle of November hung in layers of cold damp mist, and the Tallchiefs had invited him to Thanksgiving dinner next week.
Dante and Morning Star were in the big pasture, and a small milk cow, a g
ift from Duncan and Sybil, was in the corral, getting used to her new home.
In the barn was Joel’s brand-new shop, a small neat room with wide, well-lit work counters and strong shelves. He had several new projects from Mrs. Wailey, and he didn’t want his home to look like a garage. He wanted his home to look intimate and comfortable for the woman who would return to him that night and lie in his arms. He ran his hand over the bouquet Fiona had brought him last night, treasuring it.
She’d let him help her replace the spark plugs in her battered, beloved Jeep, and the task had seemed a very intimate sharing, especially when they ended up on the bales of hay, making love.
He tensed, reminded of how he had tried to think, to give her those nice sweet words that he felt, but sometimes they came with difficulty, especially when Fino was in a hurry. Her hit-and-run tactics left him stunned and frustrated, because he wanted her to move into his home, share it with him. He hadn’t asked, because Fino was a woman who would choose her time.
An independent woman, Fino had been mildly surprised as he’d laundered, cooked and cleaned. Joel shrugged, dismissing any potential comments from Cafe and Nick. So he liked making a home for his woman, so what? When they found a woman they wanted to cook for, he would loan them a cookbook.
Joel slipped the dish towel from his suspenders and hung it on the rack. House husbandry was a relaxing pleasure, but he spent every morning after Fino left tending to Mamie’s business needs and his personal financial accounts. The rest of the day was his, to scrape free the old linoleum in the bathroom, to tinker with his motors and to plan the addition to his home.
Cody’s bedroom was waiting, not the high-tech one he would expect. His son’s computer escapades would be highly limited and monitored by Joel, replaced by stacking firewood and a regular round of chores.
What did he know about being a father? About knowing when to give and when to set down rules?