With the ring gone it couldn’t be their secret. Winnie would know. Everyone would know. And yet Gina wasn’t sure herself where this turn in the relationship would lead, only that she needed to take it.
Someone had to take a chance. It wouldn’t be him. He was too logical, too accustomed to putting everyone else first. To take, just because he wanted? Not part of his code. She had to be the one.
Aware of his searing gaze, she tugged the ring off her finger, opened the drawer to his nightstand and dropped it in, a solid plunk of metal to wood, the death knell of that relationship, her mourning long ago given up privately, but now publicly.
Before she could shut the drawer, he wrapped a hand around hers, rubbed at the indentation the ring left, then traced his tongue around it like a brand. Wonder rocketed through her, trailing fire. The world shimmered and shined.
He wouldn’t offer words of love yet. That truth was inescapable. Nor could she give him the words that waited in the wings of her heart, not until he was ready to hear them. He might take duty too far.
“Gina.”
He waited for her, calm, patient. Or was he uncertain? Did he really think she would change her mind? That she would come this far, only to stop? The man was a saint if he could. She couldn’t, even though she was a little fearful about how her body would accept him.
“Make love to me,” she said, arms extended in invitation. “With me.”
He matched his body to hers, legs twining, hips aligned, the soft hair on his chest brushing her breasts.
She said she was ready. With a soft press of lips to her temple, he murmured, “Not yet.”
He started with her mouth, ended with her toes. Along the way, exploration, discovery, temptation. He was tender and demanding, yielding and resistant. He loitered over every caress, assaulted her senses, handcuffed her modesty.
She insisted she was ready. He hovered above her, stroking, testing. “Not yet,” he said. Her groan of frustration made him smile, not gently but with knowledge of the power he had.
She’d thought him fierce before? Nothing, nothing compared to now. His intensity was the brightest she’d seen, a crystal bulb about to shatter into a billion shards.
He asked everything of her, wouldn’t settle for less—not only from her, but himself. She finally stopped thinking and lost herself in him, in the textures of his body, so different from hers. In the beauty of his masculinity, a life force, giving and taking. “Ready,” he breathed, then, strong and hot, he eased into her. Instant explosion. Another. Too much. Oh, too much. His mouth on hers, liquid fire, drowning sounds, then soliciting new ones, louder, longer, lower. No, those came from him.
She’d done that? She had the same power as he?
Ah, yes. She felt exhilarated in her power. Found joy in his satisfaction.
Then their two suns collided, creating a new universe, minuscule but theirs. Only theirs.
Heaven on earth.
J.T. rolled over, needing to keep her wrapped in his arms, but knowing he was too heavy to stay on top, a flesh-and-bone blanket. His mind barely functioned. Nothing had ever compared.
“I never knew it could be this good,” she said against his neck.
Ahh. Thank you, Gina. Every curiosity satisfied in one simple, generous statement. No need to wonder.
Her generosity demanded reciprocation. “Do you know what day this is?” he asked, kissing her fragrant hair, stroking her back, reveling in the little shudders he generated.
“The first day of the rest of my life?”
Her warm, lazy tone didn’t completely hide the deeper question, one he had no answer to. He had to think through the consequences, had to know if she would be willing not to have more children. He hadn’t been so swept away that he’d forgotten to use protection.
“My birthday,” he said.
She lifted her head, propped her arms on his chest. Still dazed at his good fortune, he trailed his forefingers over her cheekbones, down her face, along her jaw.
“This is the first time in fifteen years I haven’t spent it celebrating—commiserating—with whiskey.”
“You? I’ve never seen you drink anything other than a beer.”
“Once a year.” And one other night. The night you told me you hated me.
“Grief changes us. I’ve learned that much.”
Finally, someone who didn’t utter platitudes or offer advice. Grief was the least of it, after all these years. Anger, frustration and helplessness all jockeyed for first place. If he could get his brother to stop talking to him… “Maybe this year I’ll just get drunk on a bottle of Gina,” he said. “Aged to perfection.”
“To the legal drinking age, anyway. By my calculation you’ve got about nineteen hours of birthday left, and you’ve only drunk down to—” she touched her shoulder “—here. That’s not even enough to make you tipsy.”
“I’m feeling no pain. How about you?”
Gina pressed her nose to his chest and inhaled him. “I think you went out of your way to make sure of that.”
“It was important. It still is. Gina, look at me, please.”
She did.
“I’m counting on your honesty. If anything makes you uncomfortable, you have to tell me. It matters.”
“I’ll try.”
He sat up against the headboard, taking her with him, repositioning her to straddle his lap. “You have to do more than try. And you need to tell me what you like, too.”
She didn’t know how to voice such thoughts. She had no reason to be shy with him anymore, but she also had no experience with someone who cared more about her satisfaction than his own. “I liked everything you did,” she told him honestly, and then she kissed him, as much in gratitude as in need. “I was a little nervous that it might hurt, but after a while I forgot I was worried.”
“The ultimate compliment.” He drew her close to kiss her again. “I don’t suppose we could tell Winnie we’re under quarantine,” he muttered against her mouth.
She laid the back of her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. “I do feel a tad feverish.”
“I have a cure for that.”
“Does it involve a cold shower?” she asked. “Because I’ve had enough of those lately.”
“No wonder we never ran out of hot water.”
“You, too?”
He smiled and nodded.
“Maybe it wasn’t so bad that we had to wait a month,” she said, brushing his hair with her fingers.
“Plus three years. I slept with you that first night a hundred different ways in my mind.” He angled his head, kissed her throat.
“Are…are there a hundred ways?”
He moved lower, dragged his tongue between her breasts, filled his hands with her, plunged his teeth softly into the plump underside of one breast. She arched, letting him support her, feeling deliciously wanton. Low in her body he pressed hard and hot against her. She rocked a little. He drew a long, slow breath.
“Self-control,” he said, as if remembering then and reminding himself now.
“Tell me one of those hundred things you wanted to do,” she said, feeling daring.
“If I do, will you tell me something, too?”
“From that night?”
“From that night. From before we actually talked.”
“And you flat rejected me.”
He sighed. “You were a teenager, Gina.”
She wrinkled her nose.
They were in need of a little mood shift, J.T. decided, wanting to return to the intimacy of a minute ago. He slid his hands over her rear, pulled her closer.
“Once, you leaned over the pool table, your eyes on me instead of setting up your shot. Do you remember?” he asked.
“Which time?”
“The time you crooked your finger in invitation—”
“I’ve never crooked my finger at anyone!”
“Whose fantasy is this?” As the memory flooded him, he moved her against him, the friction driving him wild, the freedom intensifying every sensation. “I lifted you onto the edge of the table, then I ripped your T-shirt clean down the middle—” he mimed the movement, made a sound of cloth tearing “—tossed your bra into the hanging lamp overhead, peeled your jeans off and took you, spread out on the pool table. Hell, Gina. A leather jacket. Boots. All that tough-girl surface, and good-girl underneath. Every man’s dream.”
He lifted her, impaled her.
She gasped. Went still. Closed her eyes. “You fill me up so much it’s hard to breathe,” she said, her voice shaking.
“More compliments. No, don’t move. Just sit there and let me look at you.” He waited until she opened her eyes. “You don’t know how many times I pictured you like this. Whenever you were in the same room. Sometimes even when you weren’t.”
“You mean—” she held her breath as he slipped a hand between them, exploring and arousing “—all those times we saw each other after that, the polite conversations we shared in the middle of rowdy parties—” she groaned as his thumb circled her ever so slowly “—you were thinking things like that about me?”
“Those were my tamest thoughts.”
“Um—” she tipped her head back, made a long, low sound “—um, I never knew.”
“I didn’t want you to know.” He held her motionless then, afraid he would lose control, and he hadn’t put on protection.
“Being near you excited me,” she whispered, tightening around him, fighting his resistance. “I felt so disloyal.”
“Attraction is chemical. You can’t control your body’s response, only what you do about it. And, Gina, you have nothing to be ashamed of.” He let her move awhile. Stopped her again. Loved the sound of her protesting groan. “Now tell me something.”
Her eyes glazed over, then cleared slowly. “You’ll laugh.”
“I won’t.”
For a few long seconds she said nothing, did nothing. Finally she wrapped her arms around him. “You seemed like the loneliest man I’d ever seen. I just wanted to hold you and comfort you and tell you everything would be all right.”
No, he didn’t feel like laughing. Lonely, yes. Alone. If he’d known she would satisfy more than physical needs—
No. She’d been eighteen. Eighteen.
He pulled back a little. He couldn’t remember having a conversation while he was inside a woman. Pleasure rocked him. “That’s not a fair trade of stories, Gina.”
She smiled, then bent low. Kissed him right over his heart. “My thoughts weren’t as explicit as yours. I didn’t have much experience to draw on. You scared me back then, if you want the truth.”
He held his breath as she trailed her tongue over his chest, lingering here and there, tempting, arousing. Deep inside, she convulsed around him.
No protection. The reminder flashed through him like lightning. Keep talking. Stay distracted.
What were they talking about? “Ah. Ticked off. You were ticked off at me.”
“Only when I had good reason to be.” She sat up, encircled his neck with her arms. “Until then, when you made love to me with your eyes, I was afraid I was going to let you.”
“I knew how attracted you were.”
“You did?”
He dragged his hands down her breasts, ran his thumbs over the peaks. “These got hard every time our eyes connected for more than a few seconds.”
Her face paled.
“Which is probably why I didn’t stop to consider how young you were.”
She swallowed. “Well, at least I did something about it. I invited you to shoot a match with me. You would’ve sat there all night, staring.”
“I wouldn’t have let you walk out without finding out who you were.”
She kissed him, a hard, rhythmic caress…high and low, then eased back, her eyes filled with passion and tenderness and a whole lot more that he didn’t dare put a name to.
“This is the most personal conversation we’ve ever had,” she said. “If I’d known it only took getting you naked to get you to talk…”
He didn’t give her the satisfaction of a response, but flattened her on the bed, made quick work of protecting them, then drove into her. “Okay?” he asked when she sucked in a quick breath.
She raised her hips, nipped his shoulder. “Better than that.”
Unleashed of restraint, he gloried in her eagerness, wallowed in her earthy scent, exulted in the untamed coupling. He demanded; she acquiesced. He captured; she capitulated. He took; she gave. Hot need bubbled from a cauldron of carnal innocence that annihilated the past. No other man for her, no other woman for him. Rebirth. A primitive union but pristine and pure.
Their voices merged, souls mingled, hearts united. She was his. He was hers. No truth was greater than that.
The family bed. J.T. smiled at the scene of Gina feeding Joey, the baby cuddled against her bare skin, doing a chorus-line kick with one spindly leg. Deputy, stretched out beside them, resting his head on her thigh.
“Isn’t this cozy?” she asked, her eyes sparkling in the way he remembered.
“It’s quite a picture.” He set two mugs of coffee on the nightstand, shifted Deputy closer to her feet, then sat beside her. Draping an arm around her, he captured Joey’s foot, and the baby smiled at him around the nipple, milk dribbling down his face before he latched on again.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“How beautiful you are.”
“You always know the right thing to say.” Relaxed and unselfconscious, she nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder. What a difference a few hours made.
No, he didn’t always know the right thing to say. That was one of his problems. He was working on it, though.
When the baby was done nursing, she climbed out of bed and headed toward the bathroom. The view of her naked behind teased and tantalized. He would’ve followed her except that Winnie was due soon, so he lay there instead, focusing on anything other than hauling Gina back onto the mattress.
After a minute she peeked around the doorjamb and crooked her finger at him. With as much self-will as a hypnotist’s subject, he followed.
“Uh-uh. Recommended attire is your birthday suit.”
He shoved his sweatpants off, kicked them out of his direct path.
“Aren’t you even going to ask what’s up?” she asked.
“I think that’s obvious.”
She laughed, sweeping her gaze down him in appreciation.
“Where’s Joey?” he asked.
She held out a hand. He drew her into his arms instead and kissed her, slow and sweet.
“Um, Joey’s in his bassinet. He’ll be happy long enough for us to take a shower. Together.”
“Winnie’s due to swoop in on her broomstick pretty soon.”
She gave him a playful shove. “I called her and told her not to come until nine-thirty.”
He walked with her to the shower, his hand lingering at the small of her back. “What excuse did you give?”
“I said you’d had a hard night and had gotten a late start.”
He turned a faucet, waited for the water to run hot. “A hard night?”
From behind, she hugged him, her breasts soft against his back, her hands gliding down his chest, his abdomen…and beyond.
“A very hard night,” she said, her voice husky. “Which seems to have continued into day.”
“Lucky me.”
He had planned to be gone by the time Winnie showed up, but he’d gotten two phone calls, delaying him by ten minutes—nine minutes too long. They’d already been cutting it close when he’d carried Gina from the shower, tossed her soaking wet onto his bed and took her with a speed and force she not only encouraged but matched. They had lingered afterward, speaking quietly, touching tenderly, until they couldn’t dawdle a second longer.
As he walked now from his office to the kitchen, where he could hear the women talking, it occurred to him that he should be grateful to Winnie. If she hadn’t made life hell for her daughter-in-law, Gina wouldn’t have gone in search of him.
Prepared to be generous to the woman, even friendly, he stepped through the kitchen door and said good morning.
She sat at the kitchen counter, Joey cradled in her arms. Gina was in the utility room, but carrying on a conversation about how the baby had slept six hours between feedings for the first time. She came into the room, balancing an armload of folded laundry.
Her hair was still wet. His was damp. There hadn’t been time to blow dry. Winnie glanced from him to Gina, her brows drawing into a deep vee. Then her eyes zeroed in on Gina’s hand. Her ringless hand.
Winnie’s face turned white. Gina wasn’t watching, was probably avoiding making eye contact. J.T. schooled his features.
“Can I pour you a cup of coffee, Winnie?”
Her eyes opened wider at his polite offer. “No, I—” She stood, handed the baby to J.T., then took a few backward steps toward the door. “I only stopped by—”
Her voice shook. She had the look of a cornered animal.
“I’ve got other plans for today,” she finished. Then she left without a goodbye and hurried to her car.
Gina set the laundry on the counter, her eyes bleak. She rubbed her bare finger. “I shouldn’t have let her go like that. I should’ve made her stay and talk.”
“The worst is over now. Give her time to accept it.”
She nodded. J.T. kissed Joey’s head, passed him to Gina, then kissed her hard, reminding her why she took the ring off. He could have stayed a while longer now that Winnie was gone. He didn’t punch a time clock, after all. But he’d gone from a single to a couple a little too fast for comfort, and he needed time alone. Maybe Gina did, too.
Tonight he would tell her why he couldn’t give her more children.
Tonight he would find the right thing to say.
Tonight.