by Sara Orwig
“You look gorgeous,” he said, his voice raspy, lust consuming him. For a few seconds he forgot where she had gone today or why or the harsh differences between them when he had last seen her in the morning.
“Come in. Would you like a beer before dinner?” she asked.
“Sure,” he thought he answered. He couldn’t be sure; all he could think about was how much he wanted her. He watched her walking ahead of him, saw that familiar little sway of her hips that had stirred him plenty of times and did again now.
She turned and gave him a look filled with curiosity. “Jake? Are you all right?”
“I can’t stop looking at you,” he admitted.
She smiled, but it was cool and brief and he had a feeling she didn’t really feel like smiling, but was merely being polite. He thought about her trip to Dallas and was curious because she didn’t give a hint of what had happened or what she felt.
He followed her and watched her get his beer and a tall glass of ice water for herself. He sipped and lowered the bottle.
“That’s really good,” he said, but he looked at her as he spoke and he was thinking about her, not his beer.
“Do you want to talk now or get cleaned up?”
It took a second for her words to register. He stared at her. She looked cool, clean, sexy. He wanted to touch her.
“I need to clean up first because I’m covered in dust. I’ll be back shortly. Don’t go away. Don’t change.”
This time she did smile. “I won’t do either one. See you soon.”
“You sure will,” he said, hurrying out of the room. Curiosity consumed him. He couldn’t read her reaction, but he was beginning to hope her father had confessed to the truth. Jake had never expected him to, but if Pete Milan had lied about what he had done, Jake didn’t think Madison would have let him in her house now.
Jake lengthened his stride. He wanted to find out what had happened and how she had reacted.
* * *
Madison watched him go, thankful she’d had an effect on him. She wanted to leave him dazzled. Time was when she could do so without much effort. That was no longer true. He seemed so angry sometimes when they had been together that she had wondered if he even liked her anymore.
She had talked to Jessie Lou about dinner and she had made appetizers and dessert. Jessie Lou had great-looking steaks ready to grill so Madison hoped he liked dinner.
It was another half hour before he reappeared and now she felt desire blaze as she looked at him. His hair was neatly combed, the ends still damp near the collar of his Western shirt. His jeans hugged his strong legs.
“Do you want another beer? I have some appetizers I made. We can take our drinks and appetizers to the family room or we can sit outside.”
“Beer and family room sounds good to me.”
He helped as she retrieved a plate of imported cheeses and fancy crackers. They carried them to the family room and set them on a table. Dreading the next hour, but knowing it was long overdue, she turned to face him, meeting his gaze.
* * *
As Jake sipped his beer, he noticed she appeared worried with a slight frown on her brow and her fingers locked together tightly in her lap. He had a swift rush of satisfaction.
“Your dad must have admitted what he did,” he said.
Standing, she faced him while her frown deepened. She shivered and stepped away as if she had to move around. In seconds her eyes met his. “Jake, I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but he couldn’t feel sorry for her. He merely nodded. “Apology accepted, but you’re not the one who should be apologizing.”
“I didn’t know my dad was capable of what he did. I didn’t dream he would ever do such a thing as threaten you and I didn’t think he would do something that would hurt me so badly. I had no inkling that he was behind your disappearance. Not a clue. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your dad must not have confessed everything. He told me to pack and go to college early, to get away and to stay away from you. He threatened me if I didn’t.”
“Threatened you with what?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“He would do everything he could to ruin my future. He would try to make life difficult for me if I lived around here. He listed several possibilities. Frankly, I didn’t think my family would have protected me.”
Shaking her head, Madison placed her hand over her eyes. He didn’t think it was an act. Madison had always been sincere with him. Tears filled her eyes and he could see her struggle for control.
“I don’t even know my own dad and that’s dreadful. And I know you’re right—you couldn’t turn to your family for help.”
“No, I couldn’t,” he said, standing and stepping closer to face her. She wrung her hands. He was certain she wasn’t even aware of what she was doing. “Some members of my family hate all Milans. They would have been as bad as your dad. I knew that at the time. We were on our own in too many ways and we got caught.”
“I feel terrible that I was angry with you.” The tears spilled over, running down her cheeks. “I always thought you walked out on me.”
“I was angry because I thought you would rather have all he offered instead of me. We had been so in love, Madison. But he was so emphatic that it was your wish and since it was, he was warning me to leave you alone and stay far away. If I didn’t, he would let my family know.”
She wiped away the tears but they wet her cheeks again quickly. “Sorry. I can’t control my emotions. I’m still shocked. I wouldn’t have ever believed my father capable of hurting me or being so cruel if I hadn’t clearly heard him admit it today. Jake, I’m just terribly sorry I’ve been mean to you. You didn’t cause it any more than I did. I wish you had called me and told me everything.”
“I couldn’t get through to you, remember?”
“My dad told me about that. He had the calls sent to the phone line in his toolshed on the ranch. I never knew you tried to call.”
“I can’t believe I was so gullible, either.” Jake shook his head. “But even if we had managed to elope, with your dad’s power and influence he would have found a way to separate us and have the marriage annulled.”
“You had a scholarship to play football in Mississippi. I thought if we had married, and I had gone with you, they wouldn’t have brought me back.” She looked at him, raising her chin.
They stared at each other and his gaze ran over her features again, sliding down to her low neckline and tempting curves. His gaze returned to her mouth. He didn’t know what his feelings were for her, but he knew he wanted her. He wanted to make love to her. She was no teenage girl anymore. She was a grown, intelligent woman who could make her decisions with far more judgment and clarity.
He set his beer on a table and closed the space between them. As he approached her, her eyes widened. Her lips parted as she took a deep breath.
“Jake?” she asked breathlessly.
Seven
Jake leaned down to cover her mouth with his own. His arms tightened around her and he leaned over her.
Madison pressed against him, standing on tiptoe to kiss him passionately.
“Jake, forgive me,” Madison whispered, pausing a moment.
“It’s in the past, Madison,” he replied. “Let it go because it’s over and can’t ever affect us again unless we let it.”
“I was as mean to you as my dad,” she said, feeling agonized as a deep frown furrowed her brow.
“Forget it now,” he ordered. “You didn’t know and I couldn’t fight your family and mine. We wouldn’t have been able to stay together because you were underage. The main thing is now you know I did not deliberately hurt you.”
Madison pulled his head down to kiss him. She wanted him with all the longing that seemed to have bui
lt through the past empty years. She wanted to love him and be loved by him, mindlessly, not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, just to love him once again for what had been taken from them. She wanted to forget and replace the past with memories of today.
She kissed him passionately, winding her fingers in his thick hair, relishing touching him, thinking he was still the most exciting man she had ever known.
While she kissed him, she leaned away a fraction to undo the buttons on his knit shirt. Her hands went to his belt and she unfastened the heavy buckle he had won in a rodeo.
With shaking fingers she tugged his shirt swiftly from his jeans. He released her to yank his shirt over his head and toss it away.
While he slid the zipper down the back of her dress, he watched her. She glanced up and the blatant desire in his brown eyes made her weak-kneed.
As she started to move closer again, he held her away. “Wait,” he commanded. He slipped her dress off her shoulders and when he let it fall, she stepped out of it. His gaze roamed over her slowly, a tantalizing perusal that she knew was the precursor to his caresses. She inhaled, tingling, wanting to grab him. Instead, she clung tightly to his upper arms as he unfastened her bra and tossed it aside.
“Jake,” she whispered as he cupped her breasts. His hands were warm, rough, calloused from the days of digging and moving rocks, heightening sensations as he caressed her so lightly, his thumbs circling her nipples with feathery touches that set her on fire.
She repeated his name, loving the feel of it on her mouth, just as she relished the feel of his hands on her breasts. She closed her eyes and moaned with pleasure. One hand continued to caress her while his other hand peeled away her lace panties, letting them fall around her ankles so she could step out of them.
He bent to take her nipple in his mouth, his tongue replacing his thumb and driving her wild.
She held his shoulders tightly, tension mounting, desire a raging fire, while uppermost in her mind was the knowledge that she was being loved by Jake. Nothing would ever give them back the lost years, but right now, in this moment, he was making love to her. At last, she could freely make love to him in return, to try in this way to convey her regrets and long-ago feelings for him that had remained part of her life even when he had gone.
“Jake, there’s never been anyone that it’s been the same with,” she whispered. She opened her eyes to unfasten his jeans and push them off his narrow hips.
As her gaze ran over his chest, she inhaled deeply, wanting him with a building desperation. She didn’t think she could wait as long as he could hold out and continue the foreplay that built flames into a raging inferno of need.
“I don’t know how to make it up to you,” she whispered, looking up at him.
His lips were red from her kisses and his eyes still filled with naked desire.
“You can keep trying,” he whispered, kissing her breast and making her forget conversation.
She knelt to caress and kiss him, hoping to stir him to the heights where he had already taken her. She wanted him to remember this night, to know she had regrets and was trying to make it up to him. She wanted to make up in a tiny measure for lost years of loving between them.
His fingers tangled in her hair while she stroked and kissed him until he caught her beneath her arms and raised her to her feet. He swung her into his arms and carried her to his bedroom. Setting her on her feet beside the bed, he yanked back covers and then placed her on the cool sheets.
He stretched beside her, kissing her and caressing her while he held her. In minutes he moved over her, rolling her over and kissing her slowly, a hot torment as his tongue teased and desire built even more.
“It’s been so long,” she whispered.
“Too long, Maddie.”
A thrill spiraled from her head to her toes. Maddie. That’s what he had always called her before, but never once since he had been back. She wanted to hear him say it again, and again.
“Jake, make love to me. It’s been so long.” She pulled him to her, lost in desire, but then she remembered. “I’m not protected.”
He moved away, stepping off the bed to retrieve his jeans, and came back with a package. She watched him slip on the condom, looking at his strong hands that she remembered so well.
Her gaze inched over him slowly, taking in his strong thighs with short brown hairs sprinkled over them, his thick rod that was ready, his virile body, muscled, fit and vital, energy radiating from him.
His dark brown eyes studied her as much as she studied him. Locks of his black hair fell on his forehead. He was handsome, exciting, sexy, marvelous. His kisses and lovemaking could rock her and touch the core of her being, an intimacy that she treasured.
Once, she had loved him with all her heart. So much had happened between them and she had harbored bitter feelings for so long, she didn’t know what she felt now except passion and lust. She wanted his hard body against her, his thick manhood inside her, filling her, driving her over a blinding edge.
“Jake, let’s make love,” she whispered again.
“We are, darlin’. Maddie, you’re the most beautiful, exciting woman I’ve ever known,” he whispered and came down to cover her mouth with his before she could answer him. He entered her slowly, driving her wild as he pulled away for seconds and then claimed her again.
She held him tightly while she kissed him possessively, thrusting her tongue deep over his and clinging to him.
He eased into her and withdrew slowly, setting her on fire and then repeating his thrusts. Her hips arched against him, her legs pulling him closer as they wrapped around his narrow waist and held him tightly.
Sweat dotted his forehead as he continued to move with slow deliberation, holding off while building her need, until she didn’t know what she was saying to him, what she was feeling except the desire to cling tighter, move faster.
When his control snapped, he thrust quickly and she rocked with him, rising and crashing over the edge. She cried out with eagerness, climaxing in a release that dazzled her.
Rapture spilled over her along with joy because he was in her arms, loving her and sharing the most intimate moments. He shuddered and pumped with his own release, gasping for breath.
Afterward, he showered kisses on her, making her wonder if he truly felt such closeness and tenderness for her or if it was merely a response to his own satisfaction.
In some ways now, she felt she knew so little about him. They had grown up and been apart all these years. They had both lived in anger and bitterness toward the other, so she didn’t have the closeness with him that they had shared as kids.
She stroked his damp back, running her fingers along the strong column of his neck and then through his hair. She held him to her, welcoming his weight, his closeness.
He rolled to his side, taking her with him, and he smiled at her while he held her. “This is the best, Maddie.”
Another thrill rocked her. She liked having him go back to the old nickname that only he had ever called her. “It seems right to be together and in some ways it wipes out the empty years between then and now,” she said.
“Your dad cheated us of a lot of time together. No one will ever know if he was right or not and I suppose if I had a sixteen-year-old daughter, I might stop her from marrying, too. That’s young, Maddie, even though we didn’t feel it at the time.”
“We’ll never know, Jake. If we had married then, we’d probably have four or five kids by now and I wouldn’t have had an art career.”
“It’s in the past. There’s no use speculating and thinking about the ‘what ifs.’”
She gazed beyond him, thinking about what he just said, to forget their love and their times together and what they had planned. Had tonight been purely lust for both of them? What did she really feel for him and what did Jake feel for her?
/>
She couldn’t answer her questions, but she suspected that he was no longer in love. They were basically strangers now. Sadness filled her and she ran her hands over him, unable to get enough of touching him. The memories of making love long ago were to a different person—a boy. Now he was a man and physically, as well in other ways, he had changed. She had, too. Maybe what they once had had been lost forever.
She tightened her arms around him and pressed against him, holding him tightly. For right now, she was satisfied. They had shared a closeness that was good and the anger and bitterness between them no longer existed. That had to be better.
“You used to talk more than you do now,” she remarked.
He smiled, twisting to look at her. “Another change. I’ve been alone so long, maybe in some ways, I’m all locked up inside myself. I still say life has changed. Just keep on with taking one day at a time.”
They both became silent and she wondered what thoughts ran through his mind. Had too much bitterness passed between them for them to rekindle a relationship?
Physically, it would be no problem, but there was far more to it than a physical relationship. They had lost the joy they once shared. She remembered her father’s warning to be cautious about Jake, that he might want more from this treasure hunt than he had indicated.
At the thought of her father, she recalled her afternoon visit with him.
“It won’t mean anything to you,” she told Jake, “but my dad apologized to me for what he did.”
“That’s nice for you, but it doesn’t change a thing.”
“I know, but I’m glad he did and glad he feels some remorse.”
Jake toyed with her hair and remained silent. “You’re a beautiful woman.”
“Thank you.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes. Desire stirred and he leaned closer, his gaze drifting to her mouth. She couldn’t get her breath. She wanted his kiss, needed him just as if they had never made love. She turned her face up to him and then raised her lips to kiss him.