Their Other Mother

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by Janis Reams Hudson


  “Your eyes make me want to get lost in them. I never knew how true that old cliché was about being able to drown in a pair of eyes until the first time I saw your eyes go dark with wanting.”

  Belinda’s heart stumbled.

  “When you want me, they’re as dark as thunderheads. When you’re happy and laughing, they’re as light and changeable as morning mist. When you concentrate at the computer they look like new pewter. God—” he closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against her hair “—I love your eyes.”

  “Ace...”

  “Shh.” He opened his eyes and met her gaze in the mirror. “I’m not finished. I haven’t told you what your mouth does to me. I don’t know if I can. They’re so expressive, your mouth and your eyes. If I could drown in your eyes, I want to devour your mouth, with that full lower lip that can pout and smile and tease until I want to beg for mercy. And that’s not even considering the way it feels against mine, the way it tastes or what it does to me when you press it against my skin. Just looking at it stirs my blood. You have,” he said with a smile and a stroke of his forefinger over her lips, “a beautiful mouth, Slim.”

  This time she couldn’t work up an ounce of concern over the hated nickname. What did it matter about her body if he thought these things about her mouth, her eyes, her hair? How was it possible to be so thoroughly seduced by words that had little or nothing to do with sex?

  “I know.” He pulled his arms from around her waist and ran his hands up and down her arms. “I haven’t gotten to the crux of the matter, but I will now.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I do,” he countered. “I do have to. I want to.” He flashed her a teasing, tender smile. “But I’ll apologize in advance if I start drooling on you.”

  Belinda did not return his smile. She couldn’t. She was appalled at how badly she wanted whatever he was about to say to somehow miraculously make her stop comparing herself to Cathy—at least this physical aspect of herself—and come up wanting. She knew she should be able to accept herself for who and what she was without some man—even this man, whom she loved—having to tap dance around her feelings of inadequacy.

  “The first thing you have to understand is that I have never—never—compared you to Cathy. Not physically, not personality-wise, not in any way. It never occurred to me to compare you. It never occurred to me that anyone would. But you do. That’s why I’m doing this, Belinda. Because you keep comparing yourself to her. Being a woman,” he said, “I imagine the first thing you’d compare between yourself and Cathy would be these.” He cupped his hands around her breasts.

  Belinda’s various different reactions to what he was doing locked her breath in her throat. First there was the physical pleasure of his touch and the deep need to have him touch her this way. There was the shameful, insecure wish that her breasts were larger so he would like them better—like her better, enjoy her more. Enjoy her as much as he had Cathy.

  What a bitter emotion. What a bitter feeling in the pit of her stomach to admit such a weakness to herself and know that he knew what she was thinking.

  Without her realizing how or when, her blouse was suddenly unbuttoned and his hands were on the bare flesh of her breasts, taking her breath away. “Ace—”

  “You’re so damn sensitive, so responsive. Look.”

  The sight of his dark hands against her pale skin made her heart skitter. When he stroked his thumbs over her nipples, she couldn’t swallow the moan that rose from deep inside.

  “Look,” he whispered again. “Look how you respond to my touch. I love touching you like this.” His hips nudged against her backside. “Feel what this does to me? And the skin here...” He stroked the underside of one breast. “It’s the smoothest skin in the world, soft, like cool silk.”

  Belinda moaned in protest at the loss of his touch on her nipples.

  “I know, I know.” He gave her breasts a gentle squeeze. “We’re supposed to be talking about size. That’s where you’ve got your sister beat and don’t even know it. You’re just small enough, barely, to be comfortable without a bra. You can’t think for a minute that knowing you never wear one, that you don’t need one, doesn’t drive me crazy. Me and every other red-blooded man in the world.”

  With a sweep of his hands, her blouse slid down her arms. He stepped back enough to let it fall between them to the floor. He stroked her arms, her ribs.

  “No,” he said, “you can’t be considered skinny. There’s not a single bone poking through. Just firm, smooth flesh over firm, lean muscle. Feminine muscle that curves and dips right where it should. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

  Unnerved by his examination of her, she said, “You’ve made your point.” Her voice came out weak and breathless.

  “Not yet. If I had, you wouldn’t still be feeling uncomfortable standing here like this, looking at yourself, watching me touch you.”

  “I’m not uncomfortable. It’s just—”

  “You’re fighting the urge to cross your arms over your chest to hide yourself. I don’t know which is stronger, wanting to hide from yourself or from me. It hurts me to think of you hiding from yourself, denying yourself the right to look into a mirror and like what you see. It’s a different kind of hurt, for me, from when you hide yourself from me. If you could see yourself through my eyes, you’d see a beautiful woman, slender and sexy and beautiful.”

  Before she realized what he was about to do, he unsnapped her jeans and pushed them and her underwear down to her knees, out of sight in the mirror.

  Belinda wanted to protest, but suddenly, incredibly, what she saw in the mirror was not a skinny, shapeless woman. As her gaze followed Ace’s hands roaming over her, she saw a lean torso—with no ribs showing as if she didn’t get enough to eat. Her waist curved in, then flared out slightly to hips that were narrow, but not too narrow.

  “Look at you,” he whispered, his hands stroking her hips. “You’re slender and shapely and beautiful.”

  Belinda swallowed a lump of emotion and smiled slightly. “I think the word you’re looking for is... slim.”

  “If you don’t like the name, I’ll try to quit using it.” He smiled back. “But somehow, slender just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

  Quickly he tugged down his own jeans and shorts and kicked them aside. “Look now.”

  Belinda looked. Her breath caught at the sight in the mirror. She stood slightly before him and to the side. She was fully revealed there, and he was nearly so, with only one arm and the outer edge of his left side hidden by her body.

  “Look at us,” he urged. He wrapped his left arm around her waist and splayed that hand across her abdomen.

  Belinda had never stood this way with a man before. Just stood, and looked. His touch alone would have been enough to make her heart pound, but the sight of them together, him so large, her much smaller, his skin dark, hers pale, his hard muscles, her softer curves ..together they were...beautiful.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Puzzled by the question, she looked into the reflection of his eyes in the mirror. “Nothing. Why?”

  “When you look at us in the mirror, you don’t see anything wrong?”

  There was a trap here, she was sure, but she couldn’t see it. Her gaze slid down along their bodies. At the sight of his erection, she swallowed. “No. Wrong isn’t the word I would use.”

  “What word would you use?”

  Against the back of her shoulder, she felt the strong, steady beat of his heart. “Us. I see us. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “Us will do just fine. Because there is an us. You can see it right there. You and me—us. Separately, you’re beautiful and I’m not bad.” He smiled briefly. “But don’t you see? Together we’re...perfect. Like two pieces of a puzzle that belong together, that fit together side by side.”

  “Don’t,” she beseeched him.

  “Don’t what? Don’t see that we belong together?”

>   “You’re talking about marriage again.”

  “I’m talking about all of it. Every way we belong together. Every way we match. Our lives, our hearts, our souls.” He stroked his hand down her stomach, down lower, until he cupped her between her legs.

  Heat pooled. Her bones turned to water. She let out a sharp cry of pleasure.

  “Our bodies,” he added. Needlessly.

  Belinda stared wide-eyed into the mirror, her mind emptied of everything but the sight of their naked bodies, of his hand between her legs. She wasn’t a prude, but she felt a little like a voyeur, even if it was herself she was watching. Herself, and Ace.

  But the sight did not repulse or appall. It excited. It was the most arousing, erotic thing she’d ever seen. The words he whispered were thrilling, exciting. Loving.

  The pounding pleasure built with each flex of his fingers, until she had to bite her lower lip to keep from crying out, from begging him for more.

  “Look at me,” he whispered.

  She barely heard him over the pounding of her own blood in her ears. She couldn’t move, other than against his hand.

  “In the mirror,” he said. “Look at me in the mirror. I want to watch your eyes.”

  “I—can’t.” But she did it. She met his gaze and held it while his fingers worked their magic and sent her higher and higher until she called his name and shattered.

  Watching her was almost more than Ace could take. Never had he seen anything more arousing than Belinda’s response to him. When her knees buckled, he gathered her close and took them both down onto the bed behind him.

  He had to have her. Now. But the tears on her face stopped him. Made his heart stumble. Tenderly, with a hand that trembled slightly, he brushed the dampness from one cheek. “Belinda?”

  She swallowed hard and looked up at him where he leaned over her. “Oh, Ace, I’ve never...that was... incredible.”

  Ace’s heart resumed its heady rhythm. “You’re incredible.” Tasting her lips, sipping the tears from her other cheek, he eased himself into the cradle of her thighs. “Silver,” he told her. “When you peak, your eyes explode from black to silver.” Slowly, one inch at a time, he joined their bodies. “I want to see it again.”

  If anyone had asked, Belinda would have told them she was incapable of responding again just then. But Ace proved her wrong. The feel of him stretching her, filling her with his heat and hardness, took her breath away. Her eyes misted again. Her pulse pounded. Never did she want this feeling, this closeness with Ace, to end.

  And it didn’t end. Ace set the pace, and it was slow and devastating.

  Belinda writhed beneath him, reaching for more, for that sharp pinnacle of pleasure she found only with him. Urging him to hurry.

  “Easy,” he whispered, his voice flowing over her like dark velvet. He pulled almost all the way out, then surged slowly back in, all the way.

  The hot, tingling pleasure deep inside her was so exquisite that it bordered on pain.

  “We’ve got all night,” he whispered.

  Maybe he did, Belinda thought through the fog in her brain, but she was dying. “You’re killing me,” she protested, her hips rising to meet his next thrust. “I want...”

  “What?” His breath was coming harder, faster. “What do you want?”

  Gasping, Belinda reached for his shoulders, gratified to feel them slick with sweat. “I want this to never end.”

  Ace felt his pulse leap at her words. Then she flexed her hips again and he groaned. Soon the pounding, primal rhythm in their blood took over and had its own way with them. The pleasure built until the explosion flashed between them and hurled them over the edge.

  It was a long time before either could move again.

  And then, without words, they started over.

  When the alarm went off at 4:30 the next morning, Ace cursed the presence of mind that had him set it between one long round of lovemaking and the next during the night. If he cared to think about it, which he didn’t, he figured they’d had about three hours of sleep.

  Still, the morning had its benefits, and they weren’t small ones. “Did I ever tell you,” he whispered close to her ear, “how much I love waking up with you beside me?”

  Belinda sighed. “No, you didn’t.”

  He stroked a hand across her belly. “I love waking up with you beside me.”

  “You’re not so bad to wake up with yourself.” She kissed his shoulder. With a stretch and a yawn, she asked, “What was your name again?”

  “That’s real funny, Slim.”

  “Ha. If you think that’s going to get a rise out of me, forget it. I think I like that nickname now.”

  Chuckling, Ace wrapped his arms around her and rolled until she lay nestled along his length. “Speaking of somebody getting a rise out of somebody, did I ever tell you what that sexy, morning voice of yours does to me?”

  Fully awake now and willing to take advantage of the situation in which she found herself, Belinda wriggled along his body and wrung a moan from him. “I think I get the idea.”

  It was twenty minutes before Ace dragged her out of bed and into the shower with him. It was another fifteen and an empty hot water tank later before they made it out again.

  When she finally headed for the door to go to her room and get dressed, Ace stopped her and gave her a long, slow kiss. Against her lips he whispered, “I love you. Think about me while I’m out mending fence all morning.”

  As long as they’d been involved in lovemaking, Belinda had been able to concentrate solely on that, on him. Now he spoke of the day, and work, and unbidden thoughts raced through her mind. Thoughts of his talk of marriage. Thoughts that still terrified her. She turned and opened the door. “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  Chapter Ten

  Belinda got off easy at breakfast. When Ace came back from milking the cows, Stoney came with him, so she didn’t have to face him alone. And because Ace was in a hurry to get out on the range, he didn’t linger after he ate.

  “I’ll be in for lunch,” he told her.

  The best she could offer him was a faint “All right.”

  “We’ll talk tonight,” he said firmly.

  Panic seized her throat and cut off whatever words she might have said as he turned and left the house.

  He had not accepted her refusal to marry him. She’d known he hadn’t. She was grateful that he hadn’t taken their lovemaking to mean she had changed her mind.

  Why did he have to go and mess everything up with talk of marriage? The very idea of getting married turned her blood to ice.

  From the day she’d driven up here in her mother’s place, Belinda had faced one emotional upheaval after another. She had come here blaming Ace for Cathy’s death, only to learn that Cathy’s blind, egotistical stubbornness had brought it about. Belinda had been left with an entirely new sense of loss. Cathy may have been dead for two years, but Belinda’s memories had been of a perfect, enviable woman, a woman Belinda could never hope to be as good as, as gentle as, as kind as, as beautiful as.

  Then all those memories and petty jealousies had been blown to bits by the things Belinda had learned about Cathy, and about herself. About her own feelings for the man who had been her sister’s husband.

  God, the guilt of wanting him. It had nearly crippled her.

  But she’d gotten past that. Mostly. No, not mostly, completely, she realized. She and Ace had a right to be together if they wanted. She knew that, felt it in her heart.

  All those traumas had paraded through her life in recent weeks. Not to mention the minor little things like adjusting to life on the ranch, the heavy workload of cooking for a football team. The scare when Grant had been hurt.

  Oh, but she did love those boys. If she married Ace—

  No. That was a poor reason to marry a man—be—cause you wanted his children.

  Ah, now we’re getting closer to the heart of the matter, girl.

  Yes, the children. Cathy’s children, who ha
d no mother. If any woman had the right to step in and raise those boys, Belinda knew it had to be her. But wouldn’t Ace want more children?

  Before we were married we knew we wanted four. After Jason, we were hoping for a girl.

  At the memory of Ace’s words, equal parts of pain and panic seized her. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t marry Ace. And because of that, she couldn’t stay here on the ranch, taking care of the boys, sneaking into their father’s bed late at night. Ace had already said no to that idea. Truth to tell, she feared she would come to hate the sneaking around as much as he would.

  “That doesn’t leave you many options, does it?” she asked herself.

  “What’s a opshuns?” Clay asked.

  Belinda blinked and focused on the boys eating their breakfast. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. “Options are choices,” she explained. “And mine are running out.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” She rose from the table and went to the notepad beside the telephone at the end of the counter. “Hurry up and finish eating, then go make your beds.”

  “Ah, do we have to?”

  “Yes,” she said, mimicking the pitiful whine in Jason’s voice. “We have to.”

  The minute they reached the top of the stairs, Belinda reached for the phone. Her hand shook, and her palm was damp. Three times while dialing the number, her stomach clenched painfully. But this was best for everyone. It was the right thing to do. The only thing. She could not face the consequences otherwise.

  “Mrs. Harris? This is Belinda Randall at the Flying Ace.”

  When Ace drove back in for lunch, the first thing he noticed was the gray Oldsmobile parked beside the back door of the house. The same gray Olds that the woman from town had driven when she applied for the job of housekeeper.

  Ace’s heart stopped. Just flat stopped at the sight of that car.

  She wouldn’t.

  The second thing he noticed was the absence of a certain little red sports car.

 

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