Lovelace, Merline

by Dark Side of Dawn

  Alex's hand closed over her breast, exploring its shape, teasing the rigid center with thumb and forefinger.

  "I've been fantasizing about this since I saw those pictures of you in the tabloids."

  "I thought you didn't read the— Oh!"

  Gasping at the nip of his teeth on her engorged nipple, she arched under him. Pleasure streaked from her breast to every finger and toe. Pleasure, and a small thrill of pain.

  The sensations were still jolting through her system when Alex lifted her just enough to drag the bra over her head. It caught at her elbows, binding her arms behind her back. Jo tried to pull them free, but Alex's weight combined with her own to push her into the cushions, her arms still twisted behind her back.

  "I can't touch you," she protested, half embarrassed and wholly aroused by the glitter in his eyes as he unzipped her jeans.

  "I don't want you to touch me, my darling. Not yet."

  His palm splayed on her belly, pushed down her jeans and panties. Not all the way to her ankles. Barely to her knees. Just enough to give him room to slide a hand between her thighs. His palm cupped her mound, his fingers found the hot center it protected.

  They'd go for spontaneous next time, Jo decided on a wave of pure sensation. This scripted seduction was erotic, so foreign and exciting. She'd never made love like this, sprawled across a pile of cushions, exposed, entangled, unable to reciprocate. Never been made love to with such intense deliberation.

  His fingers explored her with a nimble skill that soon had her wet and trembling.

  "Alex..."

  "Just enjoy, my darling. Learn...."

  "Learn?"

  She wasn't exactly a neophyte, although she'd never played the game in quite this manner.

  "How I like it," he murmured, bending to rake her nipple with his teeth again.

  It took a few moments for that husky "I" to penetrate the pleasure coursing through her body. There should have been a "we" in there somewhere, she thought. Awash on a wave of tingly sensation, she suddenly needed to play in the game, too.

  "I want to touch you," she panted. "Raise up a little so I can untangle my arms."

  "No, not yet. You're not ready."

  Her pleasure ebbing sharply, she tugged at her bound arms. "Let me up."

  "Not yet."

  "Alex, I don't like this."

  "You will," he promised in a silky whisper. "Katherine did. Whatever else we disagreed about, she always liked this."

  The hairs on the back of Jo's neck stood on end. Katherine! He was making love to Katherine. It was his wife he held pinned to the pillows, his wife he intended to pleasure in an erotic ritual of dominance and submission they'd obviously raised to an art form.

  Before she could gasp out that she wasn't Katherine, that she'd love him in her own way or not at all, he covered her mouth in a savage kiss.

  Surprise held her immobile for a heartbeat, maybe two. Then her brain kicked into gear. Fury whipped through her. Fury, hurt, and disappointment.

  But not fear. She'd learned too many moves from her childhood and her various Air Force survival and self-defense courses to doubt her ability to end this scene. It was how she'd end it that engaged her thoughts while Alex engaged her mouth.

  Before she could decide, an alarm pierced the harsh, pounding thunder of her heart.

  Not an alarm, she realized after Alex dragged his mouth from hers. A phone. His phone.

  His brow slashing into a frown, he rolled to one side. "I'm sorry, Jo. I have to take it."

  "Sorry isn't the word for it," she muttered, trembling with the force of her rage.

  While he dug a slim cell phone out his back pocket, she yanked her arms free of the black spandex and snatched up her sweater. She was fumbling with her jeans when Alex's sharp exclamation snapped her head around.

  "How bad is it?"

  He shot to his feet, his face draining of all color.

  "Have the jet ready. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

  Flipping the cell phone shut, he spun to face her.

  "It's my grandfather," he managed, his skin stretched tight across his cheekbones. "He's had another stroke. They don't know... The doctors..."

  He stopped, his throat working.

  Pity found its way through Jo's bubbling anger. She'd almost lost a brother once. Even now, after all these years, she could remember the long, silent vigils by Jack's hospital bed.

  "I have to leave, Jo. I'm sorry," he said again.

  She couldn't lay her own tumultuous feelings on him now. Not with his face taut with worry and his thoughts already winging to the bedside of the only person in the world he had left.

  "I'll call you," he promised on his way out the door. "As soon as I know how he is, I'll call you.... And thanks for a wonderful day."

  Chapter Eleven

  Shivering in the damp chill that had swept in with October, Jo unlocked her back door Monday evening just as a sharp ring broke the silence inside her house.

  Alex.

  He'd called last night. Twice. She'd been on alert, standing in for another pilot who'd come down with the flu, but the message he'd left on her answering machine had wrung her heart. His grandfather's stroke had robbed him of all movement and much of his speech. Alex planned to stay with him indefinitely. He'd left a number, asked her to return the call.

  Jo had intended to... as soon as she figured out what the heck she wanted to say to him. Goose bumps still popped out on her skin whenever she thought of those moments by the fire.

  The phone's ring cut through the air once again. While she hurried through the kitchen, the answering machine kicked on and rattled off her breezy leave-a-message instructions. She plucked the cordless phone from its charger cradle and was just about to stab at the talk button when a deep, rich baritone jumped out of the recorder.

  "Joanna, this is Alex."

  Her finger hovered over the button.

  "Call me. I need to hear your voice."

  The request took on a bite.

  "Tonight, Joanna. The number is—"

  She punched the key. "Hello, Alex."

  "You're there?"

  He sounded surprised, as if the possibility she might listen to his message and not pick up had never occurred to him. Jo guessed few people failed to answer when Alexander Taylor called.

  "I just came in the door and heard you on the machine. How's your grandfather?"

  "The same."

  "I'm so sorry." Unzipping her brown leather flight jacket, she dropped into the chair beside the phone. "What's the prognosis?"

  "Not good, I'm afraid."

  "I'm sorry," she said again, recognizing the inadequacy of the words. A small silence spun out, broken by Alex a moment later.

  "I called you last night. Where were you?"

  She blinked at the abrupt question. Just in time, she swallowed her instinctive retort: It wasn't really any of his business. Her brothers might shrug off that kind of knee-jerk response from the little sister whose life they'd insisted on poking their collective noses into. Alex deserved better.

  "I had to pull alert for another pilot who got bit by the flu bug. I was going to call you tonight."

  "I don't like not being able to reach you. I'm going to give you a specially configured phone, similar to the one I carry. It's small enough to fit in the pocket of your flight suit and keyed directly into my private number."

  "That's not necessary."

  "Not necessary, perhaps, but eminently convenient. We can speak to each other at the press of a single button."

  "And what happens if you press that button while I'm cruising along at three thousand feet and a hundred plus knots? The wrong kinds of electronic transmissions could screw up my radio signals, maybe even send my aircraft into a dive."

  "Don't joke about something like that!"

  The whip in his voice earned him a cool reply.

  "I wasn't joking, Alex. I never joke about flight safety."

  He drew in a ragged breath. "I'm
sorry. I can't handle the thought of losing you right now, even in the abstract."

  Her fingers tightened on the phone. Tell him, her conscience urged. Tell him he lost you two nights ago, in front of the fire... not that he'd ever really had you.

  They'd come close, though. So very close. For a few brief, shining moments she'd almost let herself believe the prince and the dairyman's daughter might find that happily ever after.

  "Can you come down to Bella Vista?"

  His request jerked her out of her thoughts. "I don't think that's a good idea."

  "I need you, Joanna."

  Tell him.

  "I can't."

  "Is it your work?"

  Impatience bit at his voice. He needed her. He wanted her. In his mind, that took precedence over such mundane matters as her job.

  "If your schedule's a problem, I can take care of that with a single phone call."

  "Alex, we agreed! That night in the limo coming home from the White House, remember? No interference in my career."

  She felt him reigning in, could almost hear him exercise his formidable control.

  "You're right. Forgive me. My grandfather's condition has shaken me more than I realized and..." He paused, as if weighing his words. "There's no one here I can talk to."

  An ache opened in her chest. She could only guess at how much it cost him to admit that.

  "No one to share the long, endless nights with," he added.

  "I'm not sure I'm the right one to share them with you," she said slowly.

  "I'm sure, my darling."

  The endearment that had so thrilled her when he'd first used it didn't carry quite the same impact at this particular moment.

  "Alex, listen to me. The other night, here at the house, I wanted to make love with you."

  "I thought I'd made it clear I wanted the same thing." He chuckled, putting his own spin on her odd remark. "If that message didn't come through, I'd better brush up on my technique."

  Tell him now!

  "Your technique doesn't need practice. You've honed it to a fine art. You and Katherine."

  The name produced a stark silence. Swallowing a sting of regret, Jo forged ahead.

  "You said her name, Alex. When you were making love to me, you said her name."

  And you showed me her portrait, she thought on a silent sigh. I saw her bedroom at Chestnut Hill, as white and still as a marble tomb.

  "You don't understand, Joanna. No one does."

  "No, I don't think I do."

  "Come to Bella Vista," he said quietly. "Let me tell you about Katherine. Please. Let me try to make it right between us."

  Jo played with the zipper of her leather jacket. Up. Down. Up again. Thinking about his request, wondering how he could ever make those moments before the fire right. She owed him the opportunity, she decided. Owed herself the opportunity.

  "I'll check with Scheduling tomorrow and see what I can arrange."

  "Good."

  "Even if I can clear the flying schedule, I wouldn't be able to make it down there until Wednesday afternoon," she added, remembering the call she'd received only that morning from Colonel Marshall.

  The Air Force had approved the award of the Airman's Medal, he'd advised her, based on the personal recommendation of the Secretary of State. Mrs. Adair wanted to pin on the medal personally at a ceremony Wednesday morning before she departed Andrews on a flight to the Middle East.

  Having won her agreement, Alex shrugged aside the few extra hours delay. "I'll look for you Wednesday afternoon. Fly the Sikorsky down. I'll have my people get in touch with you to make the arrangements."

  "All right."

  "I knew I could count on you, Joanna. Thank you."

  His relief flowed through the phone, accompanied by a need he didn't try to disguise.

  Scheduling was willing enough to help her juggle her flights the next morning. Jo had made up enough hours to close out September still current and had the whole month of October yet ahead of her. By taking both her planned afternoon sortie, a night training flight later in the evening, and delaying her next flight until the weekend, she cleared Wednesday afternoon as well as all day Thursday and Friday.

  Now all she had to do was get Colonel Marshall's approval for a leave to go out of the area. Since the director of operations had taken a bird up himself this morning and wasn't due down until noon, Jo filled the hours with the last of the preplanning for her night training flight.

  When lunchtime rolled around, she declined an offer of a run to the on-base Burger King and opted instead for the dubious delights of the vending machines in the crew lounge. A pine-paneled room filled with the usual motley collection of Formica-topped break tables, a few sofas, a big-screen TV and the inevitable Nintendo hook-up, the lounge ebbed and flowed with green-suited crew members. Pepsi cans littered the table. Boots were propped on handy chairs. Hoots and catcalls punctuated a talk-show host's earnest attempts to convince a currently reigning beauty queen to confess her supposed affair with another woman.

  Leafing through an issue of Rotor Review that one of the pilots had brought back from a visit to a Navy helo unit, Jo tuned out the ribald comments. She'd long ago defined her own comfort level with this kind of testosterone-induced irreverence. No woman could operate successfully in a primarily male field without learning where to draw the line... and how to draw that line without becoming a martyr or a dweeb.

  She'd become so absorbed in a Navy pilot's firsthand experience with autorotation—his helo's aerodynamics after total engine failure—that she didn't register the owner of the boots propped beside hers on a handy chair until Deke's distinctive drawl pierced her consciousness.

  "All set for your command performance, West?"

  "What command performance?"

  "The award ceremony tomorrow." The skin beside his eyes crinkled. "We're all planning to turn out to watch Wonder Woman get another gold star."

  She tried to shrug it off. "Don't bother. It's no big deal."

  "Right. It's such an un-big deal that the Secretary of State herself is pinning the medal on your chest."

  "C'mon, Deke. You and I both know I came as close to taking a serious career hit over that incident as I did to getting a medal."

  "Yeah, well, I'm glad it worked out this way for you."

  The sincerity behind the simple statement warmed her. Like Jo, Deke understood the vagaries of their profession. No mission was ever routine, despite the many checklists, procedures, and extensive training. Every flight contained the potential for either glory or disaster.

  "I'm glad it worked out this way, too," she replied, tossing the magazine aside to hook her fingers across her stomach.

  Funny how comfortable she felt sitting here beside Deke. More comfortable than she had in weeks. Not for the first time, Jo regretted the wall she'd erected between them. Deke walked the same walk she did. He talked the same shorthand of technical terminology, military acronyms, and slang so incomprehensible to anyone outside the flying fraternity. They shared so many common points of reference. Too many, she'd worried.

  Now...

  Now her relationship with Alex was providing an entirely new perspective. As difficult as it had been for Jo and her former fiance to juggle the demands of their military careers, she'd discovered that it was even more of a challenge to balance that career with an outsider's demands on her time and attention. Particularly an outsider like Alexander Taylor, who possessed the resources and the will to arrange his world to suit himself.

  Life, Jo decided on a wry inner grimace, had a way of complicating itself.

  As if reading her mind, Deke slanted her a considering glance. "Is Taylor going to grace us with his presence at the award ceremony?"

  "No. His grandfather took a turn for the worse."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. When did it happen?"

  "Over the weekend. That's not for public consumption, okay?"

  Sudden howls of laughter from the other crew members drowned Deke's reply,
but Jo knew she could trust him.

  "When did you hear?" he asked when the noise died.

  "Alex got the call at my place Saturday night and flew down to Richmond to be with him."

  A touch of frost chilled the friendliness and concern in Deke's green-brown eyes. "At your place, huh?"

  Jo cursed her slip. She hadn't intended to rub his nose in her confusing relationship with Alex.

  "Are you open to a few words of advice, West?"

  "It depends on what the advice pertains to."

  "Watch yourself with Taylor. I suspect he doesn't fly by the same rules as ordinary mortals."

  Jo had already figured that out for herself, but she didn't intend to discuss Alex with Deke, any more than she'd discuss Deke with Alex.

  "I've got both hands on the controls, but I appreciate your concern." She pushed off the sofa. "I'd better go check weather. I'm first off the spot this afternoon."

  His jaw grinding, Deke watched her stride away. Concern, hell!

  Concern didn't figure anywhere in the feelings Jo West generated within him. Desire, yes. Frustration, definitely. And adding fuel to the combustible mix was his instant, instinctive dislike for Alexander Taylor.

  Deke didn't kid himself. He knew exactly what drove that dislike. He'd waited too long to make his move.

  Taylor, on the other hand, hadn't waited at all. He'd seen what he wanted and gone after it. The arm he'd banded around Jo's waist at the picnic had marked her as his possession as much as those diamonds flashing on her sweater.

  Deke hadn't missed Jo's flicker of embarrassment when he'd commented on the pin. It hadn't been hard to guess that she wouldn't have worn something like that to a picnic if Taylor hadn't pressed it on her. His kind, Deke thought sardonically, always pressed.

  And given his way, Taylor would press everything that made Jo West so unique right out of her. There was no way he'd adjust his lifestyle to Jo's. No way he'd accept a schedule that kept her from jetting off for a trip to the south of France. Jo couldn't continue her military career and maintain a relationship with one of the world's richest men. The lady thought she was flying straight, but she was riding for a fall.

  Deke was damned if he was going to hang around to watch it. His boots hit the floor with a thump. Scooping up his helmet bag, he abandoned the lounge. He'd driven into work at five a.m. and flown a four-hour sortie. The rest of his day was clear. He'd finish the paperwork, debrief his crew, and get the hell out of Dodge.