I didn’t think.
Instinct drove me from the altered painting and out of the studio. I hadn’t seen which direction Jonathan had turned, but I followed nonetheless.
I knew.
Or my heart knew and whispered its wise instructions to my feet.
Down the hall, up another flight of stairs and into a suite of rooms at the top of the house with the best view of the garden below. Familiarity enveloped me from the sachet scent of lavender and cedar to the soft glow of lamps with golden silk shades.
My steps slowed.
I came to a stop in the middle of a sitting room. I lifted one hand up to press against my lips to quiet the cry that wanted to escape. I wanted to call for Jonathan. The familiarity held a threat I couldn’t understand. My pulse leapt and my respiration came quick and light.
I knew this place.
These rooms were a part of me and my past, but there were shadowy corners here I was suddenly afraid to face.
“Chloe,” Jonathan said, whispering my name as I kept myself from calling out his.
He came from the other room where I could see the large solid shape of a rice bed. Its gleaming dark wood complimented the bed clothes of vivid white damask.
He’d already removed the shirt I’d loosened. His bare chest was both vulnerable, with its scar, and intimidating with the intimacy of its masculine ripples and planes. He stepped toward me and his beltless black trousers sat so low on his lean hips that I could see a hint of pale skin, untouched by the summer sun.
I stood on the precipice of revelation when I saw him stride from the bedroom, when he whispered my name in raw welcome in this suite some part of me knew so well. But instead of being relieved I was terrified. This moment of almost knowing sent a warning flow of adrenaline rushing beneath my skin.
Jonathan saw my distress. He came to me. He took me in his arms. He didn’t speak beyond soothing wordless murmurs hummed into my still-damp hair.
And, suddenly, memories could wait because my body was completely present in the here and now.
My dress was thin, my underthings light. I could feel the heat of his chest against my breasts and my nipples responded with tightened peaks. I thought I could tell when his concern tensed into awareness and need. His hands came up and he threaded his fingers into my hair. My face was pressed into the hollow of his neck.
I breathed cedar and soap and the faintest hint of expensive tobacco.
And then I tasted him, opening my lips and kissing the spot where his pulse beat to heat his skin.
“Chloe…don’t,” he warned, but his grip in my hair pressed my face closer.
I lifted my hands to run my palms over his muscled back while I continued to taste him. I nipped his shoulder, my teeth against his tanned skin, and suddenly his hands swooped down and he lifted me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and the move was as natural to me as walking.
As he backed into the bedroom, my heat was pressed to the insistent ridge of his arousal. His steps caused movements that made me writhe and sigh.
He sank down on the snowy duvet and I sank down with him. He was cushioned by the downy soft linens and I was supported by his muscular body. Together, we pressed an indention that felt like it welcomed our weight and shape.
I raised myself up with my hands on either side of his head and looked down at his handsome, flushed face.
“You need to go back to the guest room and lock the door,” he groaned. He closed his eyes only after a long look up into my face.
We fit. I’d noticed if from the first time his hand had touched my face. I wasn’t going to lock myself away from that. His nightmare eyes might scare me. His kiss might strip away all the simple and shallow things I’d known for 365 days and bring me to the heart of what was aching and raw and waiting to be discovered.
But I wasn’t going to run away.
Not when our molecules practically sang aloud as we fit together.
I waited.
Finally, after long tense seconds of holding himself taut and still beneath me, Jonathan opened his eyes and I knew my window for escape had closed.
They burned a midnight blue with a glow I’d never seen in my darkest dreams, but some part of me had recalled with soul-deep yearning.
My dress had ridden up, but his hands raised it up farther and over my head until I straddled him in wispy bra and panties, the dark tips of my breasts showing through filmy lace.
He cupped and held the weight of them, teasing his thumbs lightly over my pebbled nipples.
“I can’t let you go,” he said.
“Don’t,” I begged. “Never let me go.”
He had been my lifeline to the past. I held him now, both hands buried into the black waves of his hair.
“Never,” he said. I heard the weight of a solemn vow in the word as it came from his lips in a slow, cultured Louisiana drawl that was more ragged than I’d ever heard.
He rolled me onto my back then, easily spilling me onto the soft duvet and covering me with his hard body. I reached for his waist, a not so subtle hint that I wanted him exposed to me, but he popped the clasp of my bra first, freeing my breasts for his hot lips and tongue.
“Oh,” I sighed. My excitement dampened the lace between my thighs. It had been so long since I’d been intimate with anyone. I couldn’t remember details. Only flashes of lips and teeth and tongue.
He moved so I could pull his zipper down and with his help his trousers and boxers joined my dress and bra on the floor.
Now, only a bit of lace and my sudden nerves kept us apart. Jonathan had enough courage for both of us. He reached to find damp lace and me, hot and wet beneath it. He claimed me gently with one exploring finger and I rocked up against its thrust with startled and eager hips.
“I can’t go slow, Chloe. It’s been too long,” he warned. His erection was the only evidence I needed to go with his warning, but to my delight I also saw his desire in his flushed cheeks and I felt it in his shaking fingers and in the eager way his tongue plunged between my lips again and again. I fisted my hands into the duvet to try to keep myself from flying apart too soon, but my body was also impatient. I spread my legs in unspoken invitation and he accepted. He moved to settle himself between my thighs and guided himself home.
I cried out when he pulled aside the lace and replaced his finger with the much smoother and hotter shaft of his penis.
We fit. Oh, yes, we fit.
It had been too long for me too.
I whispered his name against his shoulder and moved my hips, accepting a fierce, sudden wave of pleasure that dispelled my fear and doubts in long seconds of shuddering release.
“Please, come back to me,” he groaned against my lips and then his orgasm followed mine with a sudden thrust and the beautiful tensing of his entire body above me.
I held him as he collapsed, his damp forehead pressed to my scarred brow.