It was easy, from the vantage point of hindsight, to spin a perfect scenario. But life was seldom perfect. He knew that better than most. “Maybe not.”
She released a breath, trying to keep from lashing out at him again. He wasn’t the target, he was just standing in the way. Making sense at a time when she didn’t want to have anything to do with sense. When she just wanted to vent.
“Well, we’ll never know, will we?”
“No,” he agreed quietly, “we won’t, and we can debate this until the cows come home and it still won’t make any difference.” He looked at her pointedly. “What makes a difference is that he’s here and you and your brother and your sister are each going to have to deal with that in your own way.”
Suddenly she was drained and so very tired. “I don’t want to deal with it now.”
She raised her head up to him and he saw that there were tears shimmering in her eyes. His heart constricted within his chest. At a moment like this, fairly or not, he could have readily done battle with her father for her.
“I don’t want to deal with it now,” she repeated, her voice almost breaking.
“Then don’t,” he whispered.
Kevin took her into his arms and she let him, burying her face in his chest until she could regain control. Something that seemed very far out of reach right now. She hated herself like this, hated the fact that she was weak and that her father could still affect her this way. She was supposed to be above that. She wasn’t supposed to care if he lived or died or showed up here. None of that was supposed to matter anymore.
So why did it?
Why was there this awful ache inside her? This restless, disoriented feeling that she didn’t know what to do with?
Her face against him, she sighed heavily. “Why did he have to show up now?”
Her breath was warm as it traveled along his chest. He was having trouble remembering that his sole function right now was to comfort her, not to feel anything himself, other than empathy.
It wasn’t easy.
“I don’t think there could have ever been a good time, June.”
He was right, she thought. It still didn’t make it easier.
“No, but it would had to have been better than now. Max is really happy for maybe the first time in a long time. I don’t want anything to spoil that.” She raised her head and looked at Kevin, searching his face for a promise she needed. “Please don’t tell him that our father’s back.”
In all good conscience, he didn’t feel he could make that promise. “June—”
“Please,” she begged, “don’t tell him. I’ll tell him when I think the time’s right.”
He didn’t know whether he believed her, and it was against his better nature to withdraw like this. Her family was now his family—it had been ever since Jimmy had married April. But his heart went out to her.
“All right, I won’t tell,” he promised. “But I think you should warn Max. Warn him and April and your grandmother before your father approaches them. He didn’t come back to stay in the shadows.”
She sighed deeply. He was right. Suddenly she felt lost and small. “Hold me, Kevin. Just hold me. I’m not sure I can stand up on my own.”
“I’ll hold you,” he told her. “I’ll hold you for as long as you want me to.” His arms closed around her more tightly. “And I’ll talk to your father for you if you want.”
She pressed her face against his chest, drawing strength from his warmth. Wishing she could vanish for a little while, until all of this was sorted out. “You’ll tell him to go away?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“You really are a knight in shining armor, aren’t you?”
He could feel her smile as it crept along her lips and pressed itself against his chest.
“Maybe not shining, and probably not even a knight—” he kissed the top of her head “—but I’m here for you if you need me.”
“I need you,” she whispered.
Chapter Ten
Her eyes were saying things to his heart that he was afraid to acknowledge. It led to places Kevin knew he wasn’t supposed to go.
“I need you, Kevin,” she whispered again.
He couldn’t help himself.
There were a thousand different things he could have done in response.
He did only one.
Framing her face as if it were the most precious of treasures, he tilted June’s head up to his and pressed his lips against hers.
He meant to do it lightly, gently, to assure her that he was here for her for as long as she needed. But the urgency with which the words were uttered broke through, tearing down the last of his own defenses.
June wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Hard. Kissed him with all the swirling emotions that had been cut loose by the reappearance of her father in her life, by the catapulting of her very being into a cataclysmic abyss. She needed something to cling to, something stable to anchor her before she was lost to this darkness that was assailing her.
She chose him.
And held on for dear life.
He felt drained. He felt invigorated. And most of all, he felt airborne. Sailing full tilt into a place that had been beckoning to him ever since the first time he’d kissed her.
It was then, during that first kiss, that all the needs he’d put aside, all the emotions he thought had been anesthetized until they’d faded out of existence, had come alive and moved up to the front of the line, waiting for the moment they could be released.
She couldn’t think. Down was up, out was in, everything seemed completely jumbled except for the most important thing. That she wanted this, needed this.
Needed him.
Right now, above all else, she needed him, needed this mad whirl he was responsible for that was going on in her head, going faster and faster until it stole her very breath away.
She felt the kiss deepening and wasn’t entirely sure of her part in that, only of her reaction to it.
He made her feel drunk with power, with excitement and so very safe she could have cried.
Barriers were breaking down within him like fences built out of ice facing the full power of the summer sun. He caught hold of himself before it was too late. Before he couldn’t.
“June—”
But she wouldn’t let him say anything more. This time, it was she who framed his face, she who kissed him, blotting out the words of caution, of protest she was afraid were coming.
“Don’t talk,” she begged him. “Just make love with me.”
Make love with me.
The invitation rose up, twelve feet high, before him. But rather than give in to the raging inferno that was singeing his very insides, Kevin forced himself to step back. He caught June by the shoulders, holding her in place.
“I’m not going to let you do something you’re going to regret just because you’re upset.” It cost him more than she would ever know to say this to her.
“I’m not upset,” June insisted. The intensity of her voice lowered as she added, her voice thick with emotion, “And I’m not ever going to regret this.”
He knew better. He was too old for her. “That’s what you say now—”
She wasn’t going to have him use that damn logic of his to ruin this.
“That’s what I mean now. Are you going to make me beg?” Tears shimmered in her eyes, tears that caught the sun, going straight into his heart as if they rode on a laser beam. “Because I won’t beg, Kevin. I—”
Unable to resist the power of her tears, unable to turn away from her, and himself, any longer, Kevin brought his mouth down to hers.
A rapture seized them, until the kiss burned into both their souls.
Still kissing her, Kevin picked her up in his arms again.
This time, she didn’t push him away, didn’t resist. This time she surrendered herself completely to him, because it was what she wanted. To be his. To have him be hers. Everything else didn’t matter.
>
Feeling his way around, Kevin entered the farmhouse using the rear door. The music from the radio she always left on followed them as he slowly made his way through the kitchen.
When he stopped kissing her, June moaned. Her limbs had been reduced to the consistency of churned butter and she was afraid that he was going to try to argue with her again. She could hardly pull two words together in her brain.
Drawing air into her oxygen-depleted lungs, she slowly blew out a breath, then said, “What?”
“Your bedroom?”
He was asking directions. He was a rare man, indeed.
Kevin saw the smile that curved her lips enter her eyes as she pointed toward the front of the house.
“That way,” she breathed.
Knowing he shouldn’t, having no choice, Kevin went in the direction she’d indicated.
“You know,” he told her, “you should eat occasionally.” He felt he was carrying nothing. “The paint cans weighed more.”
June curled her body into him, glorying in the heat she felt radiating from him. “What I lack in weight I make up in staying power,” she murmured.
Her whole body tingled with anticipation. He’d leeched the sadness out of her, the sorrow that had threatened to drown her, replacing it with a desire so intense she didn’t think she could draw a deep breath without feeling it consume her.
He smiled down at her and she could feel the effects of his expression right down to her very core. “No argument there.”
“Finally,” she breathed.
She meant the single word to encompass both his verbal surrender and the fact that they had reached her bedroom. It was the larger of the two, though not by much. It had been her parents’ bedroom once. It had taken her several weeks before she’d decided to use it instead of remaining in the one she’d shared with her siblings.
The latter was smaller, but here at least the memories had been mostly happy ones. She wasn’t certain what she’d feel in the room that her parents had slept in. Loved in. It had taken her a while to settle in with the ghosts.
And now she discovered that one of the ghosts was still among the living.
No, she wasn’t going to go there, she upbraided herself. Not now, not when she was going to finally make love with Kevin. The way she realized that she’d always wanted to. Maybe that was why she’d always kept everyone else at arm’s distance. Because she’d been waiting for someone like him.
And maybe she was just being vulnerable right now, but she didn’t want to explore it. She just wanted to feel it. To feel that excitement she knew had to be there rushing through her veins.
“Stop,” she ordered softly.
He was certain she’d changed her mind. He stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at her and was surprised when, instead of pushing herself out of his arms, she raised her head to his and kissed him.
And took away the doubts he harbored.
As he crossed the threshold into June’s room, he was barely aware of his surroundings. There was precious little to take in. Like the rest of the house, it had an economy of furnishings, an abundance of disarray. She was no better a housekeeper in her bedroom than she was in the rest of the house.
He wasn’t looking for a housekeeper. Just the keeper of his soul.
He welcomed a little disorder. His life, he decided, had been far too orderly. Too restricted. Because even now, it was tugging at him, warning him of the steps he was taking and their consequences.
But his blood was too hot and rushing too loudly for him to take heed any longer.
Very gently, Kevin laid her on her bed.
The blue-and-white down comforter was already half off the bed and she pushed it aside, letting it fall to the floor. She lay there, waiting for him. Her eyes reached out to him in a silent invitation.
He had no idea where he found the strength to make her a final offer. “Last chance to back out.”
Even as he said it, his gut tightened, afraid she’d listen to him at the very last moment. Afraid June would come to her senses the way he no longer could come to his.
She lay there a long moment, just looking at him. He had no idea what she was thinking. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.
It was all he needed to hear.
Stripping off his shirt, he threw it aside onto the comforter that had sagged to the floor. His eyes never left hers as he came to her. Kevin slipped his hand underneath her blouse, softly skimming along the delicate skin he found there.
Her heart pounding, she took his hand and slowly moved it to her breast. Her breath caught, trapped by the look in his eyes as she felt his hand cover her.
He could feel her heart hammering. Keeping time with his, he thought.
His mouth came down to hers again.
Kevin kissed her over and over again, melting them both even as the fire rose higher, demanding more from each.
Consuming both.
She almost tore her shirt from her body, wanting to feel his hands all over her. Wanting to feel that final, infinite surge in her veins, the one that promised to wash everything else from her.
Her fingers were fumbling, getting in each other’s way.
“Easy,” he whispered against her hair. “Easy.”
With patient fingers, he undid the rest of the buttons on her work shirt, guiding the material from her breasts, from her shoulders, until it fell away completely. Her skin was like cream, soft and tempting. He struggled to keep his mind focused on putting her pleasure above his own. He pressed a warm, teasing kiss to the swell above her breasts as he undid the hook at the back of her bra.
She shrugged out of the lacy affair. He caressed every newly exposed inch of her, making her shiver in anticipation.
Needs she’d never known before came racing to the fore, clamoring for more. Clamoring for fulfillment. Making her yearn.
For pleasure.
For him.
She began fumbling with the button on his jeans, unable to release it.
His soft laugh echoed in her head as Kevin moved her hand away and undid the button himself.
He saw the look in her eyes. She thought he was laughing at her, he realized. Maybe even patronizing her.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. He was enjoying her. Reveling in the wonder of her.
Kevin buried his face in the slope of her neck, breathing in the fragrance of her hair, of her skin. It made his senses swirl at a dizzying speed.
Swiftly he undid the button on her jeans, sliding the denim along her hips. Her underwear rode down with it.
And then she was completely nude, completely pliant before him.
He’d never seen anything so beautiful before in his life, not even inside a museum. Not even in his wildest dreams.
He had no business being here, but it was far too late for warnings to be issued, much less heeded. He wanted her so badly he knew with an unshakable certainty that he’d incinerate if he couldn’t have her.
An urgency rushed through her like a bullet train overdue for its destination. And she was overdue, so overdue for what she anticipated was waiting for her at the end of the line.
June pushed the rough fabric from his hips, reveling in the smooth feel of his skin beneath her heated hands. Her pulse pounded as she drove the material down to his knees.
Kevin kicked his jeans and underwear aside and pulled her on top of him. As she squealed in surprise, he kissed the space between her breasts, then turned his attention to each one individually. Swirling his tongue along each of her nipples.
He heard her moan as his blood pumped harder through his veins. His hands braced against her, Kevin moved her so that her torso trailed along his. Hardened him. Moistening her.
Suddenly reversing their positions, he continued his odyssey, kissing the flat of her stomach, curve of her navel and slowly, achingly, moving just beyond a microinch at a time.
Her eyes flew open. June caught hold of his shoulders, digging in her fingers and crying out some
thing unintelligible as he found his way to her inner core. He entered slowly, deliberately, brushing his tongue so that there were rainbows and stars dancing through her brain at the same time, eclipsing one another.
Creating a fire like she’d never felt before.
Twisting, turning, June cried out his name like some wild prayer as she felt herself suddenly driven up over a crest she hadn’t even known was there.
And as she sank down, panting, she felt another beginning to rise.
Trying to brace herself, she fisted her hands in his hair. The explosion that racked her came far faster than the first. It left her drenched, exhausted and completely cradled in the arms of wonder.
What was he doing to her? How was he creating this bittersweet ecstasy that made her want to sing one second and cry the next?
And then he worked his way down, kissing her thighs, the hollow behind her knees, moving ever forward until he was at her instep, all the while evoking sensations that had been completely foreign to her, sensations only half hoped for, dreamed of.
She could merely moan and scramble inwardly in an attempt to absorb every new sensation, every new wave of passion, of desire as it came over her.
Moving down one limb, Kevin began the journey back up along the other until he was over her again, covering her mouth with his own.
Covering her body with his.
She felt was if she’d been branded. Exhausted but excited. Aware but anticipating.
She was all things and they all existed because of him.
The look in her eyes empowered him and made him feel humble at the same time. He felt as if he’d been reborn in this small room and could just as easily have died there as well with no complaint.
He’d never felt so alive, so vital and so beholding all at once.
But his energy was ebbing out of his reach. He’d been concentrating all this time on holding himself back just a little longer, wanting to give her pleasure for yet another moment.
A man could wait only so long, hold back only so much. Just the way she took in her breath, moving against him, aroused him almost to the point of no return.
The Bride Wore Blue Jeans Page 11