Part of the Bargain

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Ummm,” agreed Libby, slipping deeper and deeper under his spell.

  Jess had pressed her back against a counter, and his body formed an impassable barricade, leaning, hard and fragrant, into hers. He was tracing the length of her neck with soft, searing lips, tasting the hollow beneath her ear.

  Finally he kissed her, first with tenderness, then with fervor, his tongue seeking and being granted sweet entry. This preliminary joining made Libby’s whole entity pulse with an awareness of the primitive differences between his body and her own. Where she was soft and yielding, he was fiercely hard. Her nipples pouted into tiny peaks, crying out for his attention.

  Seeming to sense that, Jess unbuttoned her blouse with deft, brazen fingers that felt warm against her skin. He opened the front catch on her bra, admired the pink-tipped lushness that seemed to grow richer and rounder under his gaze.

  Idly he bent to kiss one peak into ferocious submission, and Libby groaned, her head falling back. Etched against the clear roof, she saw the long needles of ponderosa pines splintering the spring moonlight into shards of silver.

  After almost a minute of pleasure so keen that Libby was certain she couldn’t bear it, Jess turned to the other breast, kissing, suckling, nipping softly with his teeth. And all the while, he worked the opposite nipple skillfully with his fingers, putting it through delicious paces.

  Libby was almost mindless by the time she felt the snap and zipper of her jeans give way, and her hands were still tangled in his dark hair as he knelt. Down came the jeans, her panties with them.

  She could manage no more than a throaty gasp as his hands stroked the smooth skin of her thighs, the V of curls at their junction. She felt his breath there, warm, promising to cherish.

  Libby trembled as he sought entrance with a questioning kiss, unveiled her with fingers that would not await permission.

  As his tongue first touched the tenderness that had been hidden, his hands came to Libby’s hips, pressing her down onto this fiery, inescapable glory. Only when she pleaded did he tug her fully into his mouth and partake of her.

  Jess enjoyed Libby at his leisure, demanding her essence, showing no mercy even when she cried out and shuddered upon him in a final, soaring triumph. When her own chants of passion had ceased, she was conscious of his.

  Jess still knelt before her, his every touch saying that he was worshiping, but there was sweet mastery in his manner, too. After one kiss of farewell, he gently drew her jeans and panties back into place and stood.

  Libby stared at him, amazed at his power over her. He smiled at her wonder, though there was a spark of that same emotion deep in his eyes, and then lifted her off her feet and into his arms.

  Say “I love you,” Libby thought with prayerful fervor.

  “I need you,” he said instead.

  And, for the moment, it was enough.

  Stars peeked through the endlessly varied patterns the fallen pine needles made on the glass roof, as if to see and assess the glory that glowed beneath. Libby preened under their celestial jealousy and cuddled closer to Jess’s hard, sheet-entangled frame.

  “Why didn’t you ever marry, Jess?” she asked, tracing a soft path across his chest with her fingers.

  The mattress shifted as he moved to put one arm around Libby and draw her nearer still. “I don’t know. It always seemed that marriage could wait.”

  “Didn’t you even come close?”

  Jess sighed, his fingers moving idly in her hair. “A couple of times I seriously considered it, yes. I guess it bothered me, subliminally, that I was looking these women over as though they were livestock or something. This one would have beautiful children, that one would like living on the ranch—that sort of thing.”

  “I see.”

  Jess stiffened slightly beneath the patterns she was making in the soft swirls of hair on his chest, and she felt the question coming long before he uttered it.

  “What attracted you to Aaron Strand?”

  Libby had been pondering that mystery herself, ever since her marriage to Aaron had begun to dissolve. Now, suddenly, she was certain that she understood. Weak though he might be, Aaron Strand was tall, dark-haired, broad in the shoulders. He had given the impression of strength and self-assurance, qualities that any woman would find appealing.

  “I guess I thought he was strong, like Dad,” she said, because she couldn’t quite amend the sentence to a full truth and admit that she had probably superimposed Jess’s image over Aaron’s in the first place.

  “Ummm,” said Jess noncommittally.

  “Of course, he is actually very weak.”

  Jess offered no comment.

  “I guess my mistake,” Libby went on quietly, “was in seeing myself through Aaron’s eyes. He made me feel so worthless….”

  “Maybe that made him feel better about himself.”

  “Maybe. But I still hate him, Jess—isn’t that awful? I still hate him for leaving Jonathan in the lurch like that, especially.”

  “It isn’t awful, it’s human. It appears that you and Jonathan needed more than he had to give. Unconsciously, you probably measured him against Ken, and whatever else he is, your dad is a hard act to follow, Libby.”

  “Yes,” said Libby, but she was thinking: I didn’t measure Aaron against Dad. God help me, Jess, I measured him against you.

  Jess turned over in a graceful, rolling motion, so that he was above her, his head and shoulders blocking out the light of the stars. “Enough heavy talk, woman. I came here to—”

  “Buy a car?” broke in Libby, her tone teasing and full of love.

  He nuzzled his face between her warm, welcoming breasts. “My God,” he said, his voice muffled by her satin flesh, “what an innocent you are, Libby Kincaid!” One of his hands came down, gentle and mischievous, to squeeze her bottom. “Nice upholstery.”

  Libby gasped and arched her back as his mouth slid up over the rounding of her breast to claim its peak. “Not much mileage,” she choked out.

  Jess laughed against the nipple he was tormenting so methodically. “A definite plus.” His hand moved between her thighs to assert an ancient mastery, and his breath quickened at Libby’s immediate response. “Starts easily,” he muttered, sipping at her nipple now, tugging it into an obedient little point.

  Libby was beyond the game now, rising and falling on the velvet swells of need he was stirring within her. “I… Oh, God, Jess…what are you…ooooh!”

  Somehow, Jess managed to turn on the bedside lamp without interrupting the searing pace his right hand was setting for Libby’s body. “You are a goddess,” he said.

  The fevered dance continued, even though Libby willed herself to lie still. Damn him, he was watching her, taking pleasure from the unbridled response she could not help giving. Her heart raced with exertion, blood boiled in every vein, and Jess’s lazy smile was lost in a silver haze.

  She sobbed out his name, groping for his shoulders with her hands, holding on. Then, shuddering violently, she tumbled into some chasm where there was no sound but the beat of her own heart.

  “You like doing that, don’t you?” she snapped when she could see again, breathe again.

  “Yes,” replied Jess without hesitation.

  Libby scrambled into a sitting position, blue eyes shooting flames. “Bastard,” she said.

  He met her gaze placidly. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Libby wasn’t quite sure of the answer to that question. “It just…it just bothers me that you were…you were looking at me,” she faltered, covering her still-pulsing breasts with the bedclothes.

  With a deliberate motion of his hands, Jess removed the covers again, and Libby’s traitorous nipples puckered in response to his brazen perusal. “Why?” he asked.

  Libby’s cheeks ached with color, and she lowered her eyes. Instantly Jess caught her chin in a gentle grasp, made her look at him again.

  “Sweetheart, you’re not ashamed, are you?”

  Libby couldn’t reply,
she was so confused.

  His hand slid, soothing, from Libby’s chin to the side of her face. “You were giving yourself to me, Libby, trusting me. Is there shame in that?”

  She realized that there wasn’t, not the way she loved this brazen, tender, outlandish man. If only she dared to tell him verbally what her body already had.

  He kissed her softly, sensing her need for greater reassurance. “Exquisite,” he said. “Even ordinarily, you are exquisite. But when you let me love you, you go beyond that. You move me on a level where I’ve never even been touched before.”

  Say it now, Libby urged silently, say you love me.

  But she had to be satisfied with what he had already said, for it was immediately clear that there would be no poetic avowals of devotion forthcoming. He’d said she was exquisite, that she moved him, but he’d made no declaration.

  For this reason, there was a measure of sadness in the lovemaking that followed.

  Long after Jess slept, exhausted, beside her, Libby lay awake, aching. She wanted, needed more from Jess than his readily admitted lust. So much more.

  And yet, if a commitment were offered, would Libby want to accept it? Weren’t there already too many conflicts complicating their lives? Though she tried to shut out the memory, Libby couldn’t forget that Jess had believed her capable of carrying on with his brother and hurting her cousin and dearest friend in the process. Nor could she forget the wedge that had been driven between them the first time they’d made love, when she’d slipped and uttered words that had made him feel as though she’d used him to prove herself as a woman.

  Of course, they had come together again, despite these things, but that was of no comfort to Libby. If they were to achieve any real closeness, more than just their bodies would have to be in accord.

  After several hours, Libby fell into a fitful, dream-ridden sleep. When morning came, casting bright sunlight through the expanse of glass overhead, she was alone in the tousled bed.

  “Lib!”

  She went to the edge of the loft, peering down over the side. “What?” she retorted, petulant in the face of Jess’s freshly showered, bright-and-shiny good cheer.

  He waved a cooking spatula with a flourish. “One egg or two?”

  “Drop dead,” she replied flatly, frowning at the ladder.

  Jess laughed. “Watch it. You’ll get my hopes up with such tender words.”

  “What’s this damned ladder for, anyway?”

  “Are you this grouchy every morning?” he countered.

  “Only when I’ve engaged in illicit sex the night before!” Libby snapped, scowling. “I believe I asked you about the ladder?”

  “It’s for climbing up and down.” Jess shrugged.

  Libby’s head throbbed, and her eyes felt puffy and sore. “Given time, I probably could have figured out that much!”

  Jess chuckled and shook his head, as if in sympathy.

  Libby grasped the top of the peculiar ladder in question and gave it a vigorous shake. It was immovable. Her puzzlement made her feel even more irritable and, for no consciously conceived reason, she put out her tongue at Jess Barlowe and whirled away from the edge of the loft, out of his view.

  His laughter rang out as she stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the water in the shower stall.

  Once she had showered and brushed her teeth, Libby began to feel semihuman. With this came contrition for the snappish way she had greeted Jess minutes before. It wasn’t his fault, after all, that he was so nauseatingly happy in the mornings.

  Grinning a mischievous grin, Libby rummaged through the suitcase she had so hastily packed and found the T-shirt she had bought for Jess the day before, when she’d come to Kalispell with Cathy. She pulled the garment on over her head and, in a flash of daring, swung over the loft to climb down the ladder.

  Her reward was a low, appreciative whistle.

  “Now I know why that ladder was built,” Jess said. “The view from down here is great.

  Libby was embarrassed; she’d thought Jess was in the kitchen and thus unable to see her novel descent from the loft. Reaching the floor, she whirled, her face crimson, to glare at him.

  Jess read the legend printed on the front of the T-shirt, which was so big that it reached almost to her knees, and laughed explosively. “‘If it feels good, do it’?” he marveled.

  Libby’s glare simply would not stay in place, no matter how hard she tried to sustain it. Her mouth twitched and a chuckle escaped her and then she was laughing as hard as Jess was.

  Given the situation, his words came as a shock.

  “Libby, will you marry me?”

  She stared at him, bewildered, afraid to hope. “What?”

  The jade eyes were gentle now, still glistening with residual laughter. “Don’t make me repeat it, princess.”

  “I think the eggs are burning,” said Libby in tones made wooden by surprise.

  “Wrong. I’ve already eaten mine, and yours are congealing on your plate. What’s your answer, Kincaid?”

  Libby’s throat ached; something about the size of her heart was caught in it. “I… What…”

  “I thought you only talked in broken sentences at the height of passion. Are you really as surprised as all that?”

  “Yes!” croaked Libby after a struggle.

  The broad shoulders, accentuated rather than hidden by a soft yellow sweater, moved in a shrug. “It seemed like a good solution to me.”

  “A solution? To what?”

  “All our separate and combined problems,” answered Jess airily. Persuasively. “Think about it, Lib. Stacey couldn’t very well hassle you anymore, could he? And you could stay on the ranch.”

  Despite the companionable delivery, Jess’s words made Libby’s soul ache. “Those are solutions for me. What problems would marriage solve for you?”

  “We’re good in bed,” he offered, shattering Libby with what he seemed to mean as a compliment.

  “It takes more than that!”

  “Does it?”

  Libby was speechless, though a voice inside her kept screaming silly, sentimental things. What about love? What about babies and leftover meatloaf and filing joint tax returns?

  “You dad would be happy,” Jess added, and he couldn’t have hurt Libby more if he’d raised his hand and slapped her.

  “My dad? My dad?”

  Jess turned away, seemingly unaware of the effect his convoluted proposal was having on Libby. He looked like exactly what he was: a trained, skillful attorney pleading a weak case. “You want children, don’t you? And I know you like living on the ranch.”

  Libby broke in coldly. “I guess I meet all the qualifications. I do want children. I do like living on the Circle Bar B. So why don’t you just hog-tie me and brand me a Barlowe?”

  Every muscle in Jess’s body seemed to tense, but he did not turn around to face her. “There is one other reason,” he offered.

  For all her fury and hurt, hope sang through Libby’s system like the wind unleashed on a wide prairie. “What’s that?”

  He drew a deep breath, his hands clasped behind him, courtroom style. “There would be no chance, for now at least, of Cathy being hurt.”

  Cathy. Libby’s knees weakened; she groped for the sofa behind her, fell into it. Good God, was his devotion to Cathy so deep that he would marry the woman he considered a threat to her happiness, just to protect her?

  “I am so damned tired of hearing about Cathy,” she said evenly, tugging the end of the T-shirt down over her knees for something to do.

  Now Jess turned, looked at her with unreadable eyes.

  Even though Libby felt the guilt she always did whenever she was even mildly annoyed with Cathy, she stood her ground. “A person doesn’t have to be handicapped to hurt, you know,” she said in a small and rather uncertain voice.

  Jess folded his arms and the sunlight streaming in through the glass ceiling glittered in his dark hair. “I know that,” he said softly. “And we’re all hand
icapped in some way, aren’t we?”

  She couldn’t tell whether he was reprimanding her or offering an olive branch. Huddling on the couch, feeling foolish in the T-shirt she had put on as a joke, Libby knotted her hands together in her lap. “I suppose that remark was intended as a barb.”

  Jess came to sit beside her on the couch, careful not to touch her. “Libby, it wasn’t. I’m tired of exchanging verbal shots with you—that was fine when we had to ride the same school bus every day, but we’re adults now. Let’s try to act as such.”

  Libby looked into Jess’s face and was thunderstruck by how much she cared for him, needed him. And yet, even a week before, she would have said she despised Jess and meant it. All that rancor they’d borne each other—had it really been passion instead?

  “I don’t understand any of this.”

  Jess took one of her hands into both of his. “Do you want to marry me or not?”

  Both fear and joy rose within Libby. In order to look inward at her own feelings, she was forced to look away from him. She did love Jess, there was absolutely no doubt of that, and she wanted, above all things, to be his wife. She wanted children and, at thirty-one, she often had the feeling that time was getting short. Dammit, why couldn’t he say he loved her?

  “Would you be faithful to me, Jess?”

  He touched her cheek, turning her face without apparent effort, so that she was again looking into those bewitching green eyes. “I would never betray you.”

  Aaron had said those words, too. Aaron had been so very good with words.

  But this was Jess, Libby reminded herself. Jess, not Aaron. “I couldn’t give up my career,” she said. “It’s a crazy business, Jess, and sometimes there are long stretches of time when I don’t do much of anything. Other times, I have to work tenor twelve-hour days to meet a deadline.”

  Jess did not seem to be dissuaded.

  Libby drew a deep breath. “Of course, I’d go on being known as Libby Kincaid. I never took Aaron’s name and I don’t see any sense in taking yours—should I agree to marry you, that is.”

  He seemed amused, but she had definitely touched a sore spot. That became immediately obvious. “Wait a minute, lady. Professionally, you can be known by any name you want. Privately, however, you’ll be Libby Barlowe.”