Satisfying Lonergan's Honor

by Maureen Child

  Jake turned right down a rocky path and he felt Donna stiffen on the seat beside him. She recognized the road, too. But she didn’t ask him to stop. Didn’t tell him to go back. He was grateful, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do as she asked.

  In the distance, a darker shadow crouched in the black night and Jake headed right for it. This small grove of scrub oaks held a special place in his memory. It was the place he dreamed of, when he allowed himself to. It filled his mind with the scents and sounds of that last summer. Of that one hot, moonlit night when he and Donna had almost—

  He parked the bike at the edge of the trees and shut off the engine. In the sudden silence, he sat still, feet braced on the grass at either side of the bike, holding them both upright.

  Crickets chirped and a slight breeze drifted through the trees, rattling leaves until they sounded like hushed whispers from a fascinated crowd. He put down the kickstand and waited for Donna to climb off the bike before he moved. She walked directly toward the nearest tree and stretched out one hand to touch the knobby bark. She pulled her fingers back fast, as if she’d been burned. Then she turned to look at him.

  His eyes, long adjusted to the darkness, fixed on her features and he read the strain—and the memories—in her eyes.

  “Why’d you bring me here, Jake?”

  He scowled slightly, shoved both hands into his pockets and walked toward her, his boot steps crunching on the dirt and grass beneath his feet. Now that they were there, at the spot where he’d imagined her so many times, he didn’t really know what to say.

  How the hell could he admit to her that the time they’d spent together here, in this shadowed grove of trees, was the best night of his life? How pitiful did that sound? A grown man holding on to a memory of a seventeen-year-old boy’s first love?

  No. Couldn’t tell her that. Couldn’t tell her that no woman since her had meant a damn to him. Couldn’t even admit to himself that desire had never felt as thick and hot and necessary as it had the first time he’d touched her.

  Instead he said, “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “It’s not,” she said simply, wrapping both arms around her middle and hanging on. Her eyes clouded and she bit at her bottom lip. “It’s…painful.”

  His head whipped up and his gaze pinned her. “Why painful?” he asked harshly, his voice straining over the words. “Because of what we almost did? Or because we didn’t do it?”

  She blew out a long, shuddering breath. “Both.”

  Something hitched in his chest and Jake grabbed a lungful of air. He took one long step, grabbed her arm and pulled her close. Her head fell back and her gaze met his. He saw the moon and the stars reflected in her eyes and a pulsing rush of desire swept through him.

  “There was no pain between us that night, Donna,” he muttered thickly.

  “It was a mistake then,” Donna whispered, licking dry lips and struggling for air, “and it would be a mistake now.”

  His grip on her arm gentled, but his hold on her was no less firm. Taking hold of her other arm, he rubbed her skin with his thumbs, relishing the feel beneath his hands again. Shaking his head, he said softly, “The only mistake that night was when you ran away from me.”

  She swallowed hard, tossed her hair back out of her face and asked, “I told you why I ran. I was fifteen and scared. Scared of you. Of what you made me feel.”

  “Do you think I wasn’t?” He laughed shortly, no humor in the sound. “I wasn’t that much older than you, you know. And I’d never felt before what I did that night.”

  Her eyes closed and a tired sigh slipped from her. “Why are you doing this, Jake? It’s been fifteen years. Why now?”

  His gaze moved over her features and in his heart, she looked exactly as she had on that long-ago night. Her eyes then had shone with innocence and a need she hadn’t understood. He’d been seventeen and not much more experienced than she. But he had known that he wanted her. Needed her.

  And that, apparently, hadn’t changed.

  “Because just being near you brings it all back. I’ve thought about you,” he admitted. “Over the years, you stayed with me. Always at the edges of my mind. Always reminding me of what we almost had. What we almost found.”

  “Jake…”

  “Tell me you haven’t thought of me,” he demanded, locking his gaze with hers, silently daring her to look away. His hands on her upper arms tightened. “Tell me honestly that you’ve never once regretted running away that night—and I’ll take you home now and never mention this again.”

  She slumped in his grip, but didn’t look away from him. Seconds ticked past and all he heard was the sigh of the wind and the song of the crickets. His own heartbeat crashed in his chest and he felt flames licking at his insides.

  Finally when Jake thought his will would snap, she spoke.

  “Regret doesn’t change anything.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “You know the answer, Jake,” she said, staring deeply into his eyes. “But it still changes nothing.”

  “We can change it.”

  “Can we?” she asked, shaking her head. “Should we?”

  “We’re not kids anymore, Donna.” His gaze moved over her, hungry. “There’s no reason to run. No reason to not feel what we want to feel.”

  She laughed shortly. “Of course there are reasons,” she said on a sigh. “Too many to count.”

  “They don’t matter,” he said, watching emotions flit across her eyes too quickly for him to identify.

  “Don’t they?”

  “I wanted you then,” he said, his voice scraping against his throat. “And I want you now. That’s all that matters tonight.”

  Briefly she dropped her forehead to his chest, then lifted her head to look at him again. “Even then, Jake, you were a hard man to resist.”

  “You managed,” he said, hiding the sting of the truth behind a small smile.

  “It wasn’t easy,” she admitted, “but I was so scared…”

  “Yeah. You said that before. I scared you so bad you ran to Mac.”

  She stiffened slightly. “Mac was sweet. Gentle. Kind.”

  “Everything I wasn’t?” That stung, too, but he wouldn’t let her know.

  “Don’t, Jake. Don’t do this.” She shook her head, and her hair swung in a soft arc.

  “You wanted me,” he said, “not Mac.”

  Her eyes closed as she nodded. “I did want you,” she admitted. “But I wanted to want Mac.”

  “Did it work?” he demanded as the wind soughed over them both like a blessing. “When you were with him, did you see him? Or were you seeing me? Feeling me?”

  She looked up into his eyes and he saw truth shining in her eyes. “Do you really need to hear this?”

  “After fifteen years, I think I deserve to hear it.”

  “Fine. It was you, Jake. It was always you.”

  “So you do remember what we felt.”

  “How could I forget?”

  That was all he needed to know. He pulled her closer, lifting her up until she stood on her toes and her mouth was just a breath away from his. Staring down into her eyes, he bent his head closer, closer, lingering over the sweet rush of expectation.

  Then his mouth closed on hers and the years fell away. He sighed and gave himself up to the rush of heat clamoring within.

  Donna groaned, her lips parting beneath Jake’s to welcome his sweet invasion. Her pulse jumped and skittered, her heartbeat jolted into a frenetic beat and her tongue tangled with his in a desperate, breathless dance of need. Not since that one night so long ago had she felt so many different emotions clattering inside her.

  Her body came alive and desires she’d long suppressed erupted with a vengeance. Every nerve ending felt as though it were on fire. Every touch of his hands on her arms, then her back and down to the curve of her behind, felt as though his skin was flame and she was dry tinder.

  He pulled her tighter against him a
nd she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on, pressing herself as close to him as she could possibly get. Her nipples ached and her stomach spun with the wash of emotion lancing through her.

  His big hands cupped her bottom and lifted, holding her tightly to the hard press of his groin. Heat flashed and her core tingled into awareness. She lifted her legs, wrapped them around his middle and moved on him, swiveling her hips even as her tongue tasted more of him and gave more of herself.

  It had been years since she’d known this desperation. Years since she’d allowed herself to even dwell on the magic she’d once felt in Jake’s arms. It was only in her dreams when her iron will gave way and the memories she’d suppressed came to life. Only then, in the middle of a lonely night, did she allow herself to remember and to wonder.

  Donna had spent the last fifteen years trying to bury her own needs in favor of raising her son. Eric was what mattered. He deserved her attention. Her focus. And yet, she thought now, as Jake’s hands brought her eager body to life, couldn’t she allow herself one night? A few hours when she belonged only to herself and her own desires?

  When she was a girl, she’d been too terrified of what she was feeling to let it happen. Now, the thought of not experiencing what Jake had to offer was the only thing scaring her.

  He skimmed one hand around to slide between their bodies and her brain shut off. She didn’t want to think. She only wanted to feel. Just for this one moment in time, she wanted what she’d never had. And she’d worry about the consequences later.

  His thumb and forefinger flicked open the button at her waistband and then as she shifted in his grasp, making room, he tugged the zipper of her jeans down. Donna broke their kiss, threw her head back and stared at the starlit sky as he dipped his fingers down, beneath her panties, to skim the heat at her center.

  Her legs flexed around his middle and she hissed in a breath as she tried to help him. Tried to make room for his touch.

  “Can’t reach you. Can’t…feel you,” he muttered, bending his head to rake the edges of his teeth along her throat.

  Frustration rattled her. She didn’t want to move out of his arms, but she needed to feel his hands on her. She was through pretending. Through lying to herself. She’d always wanted Jake’s touch and tonight, she would have it. At last.

  “Touch me, Jake,” she sighed, her muscles quivering with the banked need within. “Have to touch me, now.”

  He growled, low in his throat, grabbed her waist, swung her off of him and stood her up against a tree. The rough bark bit into her back through the fabric of her T-shirt, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the look in his eyes as he worked her jeans and panties down the length of her legs. She kicked off her shoes and stepped out of her clothes, enjoying the kiss of the wind on her bare, heated skin.

  She trembled, her knees weak, blood pumping. Her gaze locked on Jake’s eyes and in those dark depths, she read the same hunger enveloping her. Seeing that desire etched into his features was like laying a match to the fuse on a stick of dynamite.

  But in an instant, his expression changed. Darkened.

  “What?” she asked, barely able to form the single word.

  He looked like he wanted to kick something. “I don’t have anything with me.” At her blank look, he ground out, “Condoms.”

  Donna chuckled. “Big, bad Jake Lonergan doesn’t carry condoms in his wallet anymore?”

  He scrubbed one hand across his face. “I’m not a randy kid looking to get lucky anymore.”

  She pulled in a shaky breath. Here was her chance. To stop this before it went any further. But she wasn’t going to do that and she knew it. “You’re about to get really lucky,” she said, her voice low, husky with the need clutching at her throat.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. If you swear to me you’re healthy,” she said, holding up one finger to point at him.

  “I am,” he said, clearly affronted that she would even think he’d touch her if he weren’t.

  “Me, too,” she said, then added, “and, I’m on the pill.”

  “That might be the best news I’ve ever heard,” he said softly, moving in closer.

  “I feel just the same way,” she said, licking dry lips in eager anticipation.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Even more beautiful than you were then.”

  Donna felt beautiful. Naked in the moonlight, she read his hunger for her in his eyes and basked in the knowledge that this man wanted her as desperately as she did him.

  She struggled for air as he stripped off his T-shirt, exposing his broad, muscled chest to her avid gaze. She reached out one hand and skimmed her fingertips across his skin and smiled when he shuddered. Then he was pulling off her T-shirt and tossing it to the ground with his. She stood naked, under the moon, with the breath of wind caressing her flesh. A swirl of something powerful and sexy rushed through her and Donna felt the thrill of the forbidden rise up within.

  His fingers worked the buttons of his fly and she stepped up to him, walking into his arms as if it was where she’d always belonged. She jumped up and he caught her as she linked her legs around his waist and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her breasts pressed to his chest, she felt sharp blasts of heat jolting through her system and when his hands came down hard onto her hips, she knew he felt it, too.

  Their gazes locked, he reached between their bodies to cup her heat. Donna hissed in a breath and held it as his long, talented fingers caressed her most sensitized flesh. Once, twice, he smoothed his fingertips across her heat and then finally, finally, slipped those fingers deep within her. Donna gulped for air and rode his hand with an urgency she’d never experienced before. She kept her eyes wide open, staring into his gaze as he pushed her higher, higher up the ragged slope of anticipation.

  She trembled, shuddered and clutched at his shoulders as the first wave of something amazing shook her to her bones. Calling out his name, she rocked her hips, seeking, seeking… “Please, Jake,” she groaned, voice tight, pleading. “Please…”

  “Come for me, baby,” he crooned, gaze never leaving her face. “Let go and fall. I’ll catch you.”

  Unable to hold back any longer, she did what he urged and gave herself up to the brightly colored lights flooding her vision. Her body quaked in unbelievable pleasure as his strong arms held her tightly, safely. She relaxed and let herself be what she’d always wanted to be.

  Wild.

  With Jake.

  And before the last of the tremors had claimed her, he pulled his hand free, held her hips tight and pushed his hard, solid length inside her. Donna gasped at the full, tight fit of him within. He was more than she’d imagined. More than she’d expected.

  “You feel so good,” he whispered, burying his face in the curve of her neck.

  “And you feel…” She paused, looking for just the right word and coming up empty. Finally she simply said, “…right. You feel right.”

  He smiled, then that smile dissolved into a whirlpool of desire. He held her tightly, then lifted her hips, sliding her off his shaft only to slam her back down again. He guided the rhythm between them. He fed the fires. He stoked the flames. He was all. He filled her body, her mind and her soul.

  Nothing beyond this grove of trees, this exquisite sensation of being linked with him, existed. They were caught in a world apart. A world where only the two of them belonged. She wouldn’t even let herself think about that world ending with the first rays of sunshine.

  In the moonlight, sheltered beneath the gnarled oaks, they found the magic they’d lost so long ago.

  And when their bodies climaxed, the explosion shocked them both and left them clinging together like shipwrecked survivors—not sure what to do next.

  An hour or two later, Jake lay stretched out on the warm grass with Donna lying bonelessly atop him. They’d taken each other over and over again until now neither of them had the strength to sit up. He couldn’t remember a better night in his life.


  He ran one hand along her spine and smiled to himself when she moaned. She was more than he’d dreamed. More than he’d ever hoped. And yet, she still wasn’t his. He felt it. He knew she’d shared his passion. But when this night was over, she’d run again.

  Not to Mac.

  But she’d run anyway.

  “What’re you thinking?”

  He shifted a look at her as she folded her hands on his chest and propped her chin on them. “What makes you think I’m thinking at all?”

  “Your brow’s all scrunched up.”

  “It is?” He lifted one hand to check, then made a conscious effort to relax his forehead.

  “So, do you want to tell me?”

  “Not really,” he said, knowing that if he brought up the idea of her running—she’d go. And he wasn’t ready to give her up just yet. He’d waited a long time for this night.

  Nodding, she said, “Then I’ll tell you what I’m thinking instead.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m thinking that as wonderful as this was,” she said, her voice filled with a regret he knew was real, “it can’t happen again.”

  Jake laughed shortly and she frowned. “What?”

  “This is what I was thinking,” he said, giving her bare behind a small slap. “That soon enough you’d be running away again.”

  She pushed herself up until she was sitting, straddling him and looking down into his eyes. “I’m not running. I’m just saying—”

  “That I’m still not good enough?” he managed to say.

  “That’s not it and you know it.”

  She tried to slide off of him, but he held her still with one strong hand on each of her thighs. “Then why?”

  “Because I can’t just do whatever I want to do,” she said, covering his hands with her own. “I have a son. I have to think of him.”

  “This has nothing to do with Eric.”

  “Of course it does. I’m his mother. My focus should be on him, not on—”

  “—sex?” he finished for her, sliding one hand to the core of her heat. His thumb stroked the bud of flesh at the heart of her and she sucked in air like a drowning woman.

  “That’s not fair.”