The Hero's Redemption

by Janice Kay Johnson

  That wasn’t true, but despite eating better these days—since Cole had come into her life—she hadn’t come close to regaining the weight she’d lost after the accident. No man had ever carried her to bed before and, feminist or no, she found the experience exhilarating.

  She wrapped both arms around his neck.

  He laughed this time. “Afraid I’ll drop you?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  Another laugh, and he started up the stairs. One arm looped under her thighs, the other supporting her back.

  “I should have wrapped my legs around your waist.”

  His gaze flicked to her face. “If you had, I wouldn’t have made it.”

  Mouth suddenly dry, Erin felt a cramp deep in her abdomen. He could have set her down on one of the steps and stripped off her jeans. She wouldn’t have minded. She wouldn’t mind if he did it now.

  She rubbed her cheek against the bulge of his bicep. A rumbling sound came from his chest, but he kept moving.

  In her room, he let her fall onto the bed and sank down on top of her, catching some of his weight on his elbows and a knee planted between hers. His kiss was desperate this time, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, even as his hand roved. The sensation of her breasts rubbing against his chest set Erin to moving restlessly as she kissed him back with equal urgency.

  He rolled them so that she lay atop him and he could grab her butt, adjusting her hips until the fit was just right. He’d have been inside her if they hadn’t both been wearing pants, and suddenly Erin was desperate to get rid of everything separating them. Except...she couldn’t stop moving rhythmically against that hard ridge, which felt even better with his hips bucking to meet hers.

  She might not have been able to stop—she was already so close to climaxing—but he flipped them again, his voice harsh when he said, “Enough.”

  “What?” Dazed, she stared up at him.

  “I can’t play. I’ll lose it. I want to be inside you when I come.”

  “Please.”

  Cole growled something and lifted himself off her. On his knees beside her, he unzipped her jeans and peeled them off, taking her panties with them. She should have felt exposed beneath his burning gaze, but instead reveled in the way he looked at her naked body.

  Her canvas tennis shoes must have gotten lost. One sock came off with her jeans; the other, he pulled off more slowly. As if he hadn’t been desperate a moment ago, he squeezed her feet, seemingly as captivated by them as he’d been by her breasts. Since her feet were a bony size nine, she couldn’t imagine why, but she discovered that the feel of his thumb kneading the sensitive ball of her foot sent electric shots of pleasure straight up her legs.

  When he wrapped his fingers around her ankle and began caressing his way upward, she protested. “I thought you couldn’t play.”

  He lifted his head. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

  Oh, no. He was going to torture her.

  I’ll get my chance.

  She waited until he was within reach, when she laid her hands back on his chest, teasing his nipples, sliding lower.

  Cole groaned.

  Just a little farther... Yes!

  She squeezed his erection through the canvas fabric of his work pants.

  He levitated and swore. Abruptly losing interest in taking his time, he jumped off the bed and stripped. Erin quit breathing as she watched. For an instant, her gaze caught on a scar low on his back, on the right side, then strayed lower. His butt was as muscular as the rest of his body, and the dragon writhed as the muscles in his back flexed. Of course it was breathing fire. Erin felt as if she was, too.

  Then he yanked a wallet that must be new out of his pocket and extracted a thin package. Her breath rushed out, causing him to turn and look at her.

  “I never thought—I’m not on anything. There’s been no reason—”

  “I...picked these up a little while ago.”

  These? Yes, he was tossing another one on her bedside table.

  Wait. Had he been thinking about her when he bought condoms? Or—Forget it, she told herself. She’d been the one to suggest they could make love without any implied commitment. Which meant no jealousy, either.

  Or, at least, hiding her jealousy.

  And then she focused on his erect penis and forgot everything else. Cole backed away when she reached for the condom. “Not this time. I’m on the edge. I can’t let you touch me.”

  So she only watched while he rolled it on with hands that shook. Seeing that vulnerability squeezed her heart, but she didn’t have a chance to dwell on the intensity of what she felt. He had her on her back too fast, him on top of her, separating her thighs.

  And then he was there, pushing inside her, filling her. Erin arched off the bed, a cry escaping. Her mind slammed shut. When he paused, she shook her head frantically and tried to pull him deeper.

  There was nothing smooth about their joining. If they ever found a rhythm, she didn’t notice. As if his control had snapped, he thrust hard, one hand urging her thighs wider. The skin over his cheekbones seemed to be pulled tight, his eyes blazing. She’d never felt anything like this madness. When release hit, it was searing, pleasure that sent liquid fire all the way to the tips of her fingers and her toes. She cried out, “Cole!”

  His body stiffened when he followed, his head thrown back and his teeth bared. For a long moment, he hung above her, a raw sound escaping between clenched teeth. Then he sagged down beside her, most of his weight on one shoulder.

  All Erin could think was, I shouldn’t have done this. If I’d known...

  But how could she have, when she’d never felt anything like this before?

  * * *

  IN THE STUNNED AFTERMATH, Cole couldn’t seem to move. He knew he should; he must be crushing her. His heart battered his rib cage, and he had to gasp for breath.

  At last he found the strength to turn onto his back and stare up at the ceiling. That wasn’t sex like any sex he’d ever had.

  Only because it’s been so long.

  Uh-huh. Sure.

  He should say something, but what? That was fun, babe? It’ll make a really fine memory? So fine I may never be able to enjoy sex with anyone else again? He didn’t remember what he’d said to previous sex partners. Had he said anything at all?

  He was making too much of this. He liked Erin. He could love her, if he dared to let himself. Of course, that made sex better. And it’d been his first time in so damn many years he should have expected to go off like a rocket. Easy explanation. The next time wouldn’t be so explosive.

  He finally turned his head so he could see her. She was staring up at the ceiling, looking as shell-shocked as he felt.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Erin blinked a couple of times. “I...think so.”

  “That was...really good.” To his own ears, he sounded drunk.

  He wasn’t the only one. Her “Yes” was a mumble.

  Cole groped around until he found her hand. He felt better when she returned his clasp.

  Good. He wouldn’t blame her if she was insulted. Why hadn’t he said staggering? Mind-blowing? Astounding?

  But she squeezed his hand. “Yes, it was. This was one way to start the day.”

  He actually laughed. At least, his chest vibrated. If only he could start every day like this.

  No, this was temporary. Thinking otherwise wasn’t smart. “Damn.” Was that a tingle in his feet? He hadn’t been sure he could feel them, far less wriggle them. Or stand on them. “Del’s going to be wondering where I am.”

  “Well, this is one place he won’t look for you,” she said practically.

  Cole mulled that over. “I don’t know. You don’t think the neighbors are suspicious?”

  Erin wen
t so still he turned his head again. “I hope not!” she exclaimed a moment later.

  Feeling a stab to his gut, he started to sit up. Erin gave a hard tug that had him half rolling to face her instead.

  “Quit being so sensitive. I didn’t mean that the way you took it. Only that...they’re my grandmother’s generation. She’d be shaking her head at me right now.”

  “You so sure about that?” From what Erin had said about her grandmother, he had the impression of a pretty feisty lady. “You don’t think she enjoyed sex in her day?”

  “Yes, but I doubt she ever had sex with anyone but Grandpa.”

  “Really? Nobody in—what?—the forties ever had premarital sex?”

  “Well, maybe she did with him.”

  Laughing at her dubious tone, he did sit up. His body had rebooted, thank God. “I’d better go head off Del.”

  Erin sighed. “I swore I’d paint the last bedroom today. I am so tired of painting.”

  Cole pointed upward. “Should have done the ceilings first.”

  “That’s a mean thing to say.”

  The light conversation made it possible for them both to get dressed, for him to give her a quick, hard kiss, say, “See you at lunch?” and leave.

  Walking down the driveway, his mood turned bleak. Mind-blowing? What he really feared was that making love with Erin could be slotted into the life-altering category. Which meant repeating it was dangerous, and even this one memory should be forgotten, not carried everywhere he went.

  But he also knew damn well that he’d spend every minute he could in her bed.

  * * *

  SITTING ON THE porch eating lunch with Cole was so much like every other day that Erin felt as if she was having an out-of-body experience. Were those two people she was looking down at faking it? Or had they simply relieved some tension and figured it was all good? What was he thinking? What am I thinking?

  Thinking wasn’t exactly what she was doing. Feeling was more like it, and she was better off not acknowledging emotions until he was gone. Whenever that would be.

  “I talked to Lottie,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I’ll put the second coat of paint on Del’s porch railings and uprights this afternoon, then start her ramp tomorrow. The lumber should be delivered today.”

  Erin’s relief was huge. He wasn’t going right away. He’d be here for another couple of weeks at least.

  The longer he stayed, the more she’d miss him when he did leave.

  “She’s a character,” Erin remarked, reaching for a celery stick. “Don’t be surprised if she flirts with you.”

  His grin looked more genuine than his earlier smiles. “I think she already has. Hard to take seriously.”

  Lottie had to be ninety. The makeup she applied to her deeply wrinkled face gave her a cartoonish look. A tiny woman, she had a hump worse than Nanna’s had been and shuffled along with her walker, stooped over.

  “Maybe I should bake her a loaf of banana bread, using Nanna’s recipe.”

  Cole laughed. “She might make me tell you it’s dry as sawdust.”

  “Oh, no, I’m sure she’d wait to offer me her recipe, because ‘Dear, even your grandmother conceded my banana bread is better.’”

  Head thrown back, his laugh deepened. “Consider me forewarned.”

  Erin chuckled. “She is a good cook, so count your blessings if she decides to feed you.”

  He was quiet for a minute. “I like it when you feed me.”

  It took her a moment to get past the painful contraction of her rib cage. “If you want to come to dinner tonight, I thought I’d make lasagna,” she said, careful not to sound too eager, too hopeful.

  His frown formed. “You don’t have to offer, just because I said that.”

  Time for a fake smile. “I have to eat, and I’ve had a craving for lasagna. If you have plans...”

  “You know I don’t.” He crumpled the paper towel that had served as plate and napkin and stood. He bent to kiss her, much as he had that morning, only this time she felt some anger in his touch. But all he said was, “Got to get back to work. See you at six?”

  “Six is good.”

  She watched him detour, as always, to his apartment, but before he could reappear, she retreated into the house.

  What had she said to make him angry? Maybe she’d imagined it, but she didn’t think so. Well, she was angry, too, at his refusal to give them a chance.

  And yet, she understood how he felt. He was very much a man, but one who’d lost ten years of his life. Here she was, wishing she could lasso him and keep him penned in this very small and unexciting town that was her refuge. He had every reason to suspect she clung to him for unhealthy reasons, too.

  He might even be right.

  Any enthusiasm she’d had for starting to paint the ceilings had disappeared. Well, there wasn’t any hurry. She could play on the computer a little, look at those job listings again, curl up in the one comfortable chair in the living room and read. Lots of options.

  Oh—and check to be sure she actually had the ingredients for lasagna, in case she needed to make a quick run to the store.

  * * *

  WHILE ERIN GOT up to start the coffee after dinner, Cole glanced around the kitchen, thinking how homey the old house felt to him. Concentrating on it was an alternative to focusing on her, the way she moved, her curves. Mentally stripping off her clothes, now that he knew her lithe, slim body.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Surprised, he saw that she was pulling out her chair. Not so long ago, he’d have known the instant she, or anyone else, approached.

  “I like this house,” he said, needing a subject that stayed away from the future or what he felt for her. “I guess it feels a little like where I grew up.” He didn’t say home, because it wasn’t anymore; home was a place where you were always welcome.

  “Is it an older house?” Erin resumed her seat. As she did, the braid that contained her red-gold hair flopped over her shoulder, momentarily capturing his attention. He loved her hair. And while he’d never thought of collarbones as sexy before, hers were. Delicate.

  What had she asked? “Ah, yeah. It’s a brick house, not that far from Green Lake.”

  She nodded. Most people who’d spent any time in the area knew where the lake was in Seattle. If nothing else, they would’ve visited the nearby Woodland Park Zoo.

  “My mother liked old houses. She made Dad refinish the molding downstairs.” He smiled at the memory. “Dad wanted to paint instead, but she wasn’t having it.”

  “Good for her. Although...” Erin wrinkled her nose. “Just the idea of stripping all the molding here makes my shoulders ache. I might have to—” She stopped and shook her head.

  Hire someone? Was that what she’d been about to say?

  His determination to leave had faltered enough for him to think he might kind of enjoy doing the job for her. Stripping and refinishing the floors, too. That would mean her moving out—but she could stay with him in the apartment for that week or two.

  Instead of suggesting or promising something he’d probably regret, he told her more about his childhood home, which he seemed to remember had dated to the 1920s. “Brick isn’t ideal in earthquake country, but in the older parts of Seattle, the houses are almost all brick, and they’ve survived a bunch of earthquakes.”

  Erin nodded. “When I was a kid, I really wanted a brick house. The one I dreamed of had a steeply pitched roof, a front door with an arched top and one of those wings to the side—” she gestured “—with a doorway that leads to the back garden.”

  “And has an arched top, too.”

  She laughed at his teasing. “Of course. Those houses had a fairy-tale feel. And it seemed that all the houses I liked had beautiful gardens, too.”

 
; No wonder she was working so hard to re-create that ideal, he reflected, doing as well as she could with the material at hand.

  “Do you know when this house was built?”

  “Later than your parents’. I think the 1930s. If it’d been much later than that, it wouldn’t have the details it does.”

  “Yeah, if I were going to build, I’d meld the good things from houses of this era with modern improvements.”

  “Like?”

  He’d checked out some Architectural Digest magazines from the library, and a couple of times when he’d borrowed her Cherokee he’d driven through newer construction on acreage above the river. Mostly, he’d been preparing for his job hunt, wanting to sound well-informed.

  “Not wasting so much space in the kitchen,” he said immediately.

  “You have a point.” Even with the table and chairs in here, there was a lot of open floor space.

  An island would help, he thought—then shut down that kind of speculation. He wouldn’t be remodeling this house.

  “Oh!” She leaped up. “I forgot the coffee.”

  They kept talking, but Cole knew he wasn’t the only one aware of growing tension. Had her invitation to dinner implied more? Say, that he could spend the night? Or had this morning been a one-off as far as she was concerned?

  If he asked, would he sound like he was begging?

  She talked about a book she was reading, a history of the First World War. “I’ve been lugging it around forever and not getting to it, but today I felt lazy and decided to read for a while.”

  He could make conversation, too. “That’s outside your usual interests,” he commented, hoping he sounded semi-intelligent.

  “Yes, but somehow my schooling completely skipped the early twentieth century. Well...” She shrugged. “Actually, the entire twentieth century. But my grandfather fought in World War II, and he told some really horrific stories. I was curious enough to do some reading back then. And Dad was drafted and fought in the Vietnam War.” She raised her eyebrows. “What about your father?”

  “A little too young.”

  “Lucky man. Anyway, my high school class in US history never made it to the turn of the century. Too much interesting stuff before that, I guess. So I’m filling in the blanks.”