Her faith devastated him and shook him all the way to his core. John wanted desperately to believe he didn’t have the violence inside him. That his father’s legacy hadn’t affected his life or the decisions he’d made about getting involved.
Only, he knew better.
As Hannah stared up at him with eyes so clear he could look into them and almost see tomorrow, he felt the slow coil of hope burgeon in his chest. It was an unfamiliar emotion that made his throat tighten and threatened the walls surrounding his heart.
“You saved my life,” she said simply. “You risked your own life to get me on board that helicopter. You’ve spent the last few days risking your safety to keep me out of harm’s way. And now you expect me to believe you’re a batterer?”
John felt those walls fracture with an almost audible crack. “I’d rather die than hurt you, Hannah. I could never live with myself if I…” He couldn’t finish the sentence, found himself struggling just to get enough oxygen into his chest. “You deserve better.”
“I deserve the truth.”
“You deserve the opportunity to get the hell away from a man like me. I’m giving you that opportunity.”
“What you’re giving me is a cop-out.”
This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. He stared at her, incredulous and a little angry, not sure what to say or do next.
“Your sense of honor is commendable, but misplaced,” she said.
“Yeah, well, Red, my misplaced sense of honor, as you so aptly put it, is going to save both of us a hell of a lot of pain in the long run.”
“The only thing that hurts at the moment is knowing you believe that about yourself.” Raising up on her tiptoes, she brushed a kiss across his lips. “You’re wrong.”
Surprise and pleasure and a dozen other emotions he didn’t want to name rippled the length of him. “Don’t,” he said.
“Stop me.”
John endured the kiss, his heart pounding, his blood heating, his palms wet with sweat. The logical side of his brain told him to set her aside and get the hell out of there—pronto. But the moment their lips met, his intellect died a quick and painless death.
Sensation assaulted him, the warm pressure of her mouth against his, the scent of her hair, the sweetness of her breath, the heady rush of blood to his groin. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a tiny voice of reason told him it wasn’t too late to walk away. He could drive her back to Denver. Drop her at a shelter or even the police department. Staying with her under the guise of keeping her safe was no longer a viable option. If he were any kind of man at all, he would get out before either of them did something irrevocable.
But the sweet urgency of her kiss cleared his mind of everything except the moment. The essence of her hovered like a sweet hologram, moving over him, through him. Softness and heat and unspoken promises breached the boundaries of his discipline. The walls he’d spent so many years erecting and fortifying shattered.
He kissed her back, tentatively at first, then hungrily. Her arms went around his neck. “How about if we just hold each other for a while?” she said.
Only then did he realize he hadn’t put his arms around her. They hung at his sides. But the need to wrap them around her was so acute, he ached with it. “I don’t deserve to hold you,” he said. “I don’t deserve to be with you like this.”
Pulling away slightly, she took his hands in hers and met his gaze levelly. “I may not know my own name, but I know with all my heart you would never hurt me or any other woman.”
Never taking his eyes from hers, he raised their clasped hands and kissed her knuckles. “If I were a better man, I’d walk away right now.”
“If you were a better man, you wouldn’t be human.”
He thought about that a moment, then felt the grin emerge. “That’s a scary—”
Before he could finish the sentence, she captured his mouth in a kiss that made his head reel. He heard a groan, realized it had come from him. Then passion overrode caution. Raising his hands to her hair, he cupped the back of her head and devoured her mouth. She opened to him, and he went in deep, tasting her, savoring her, putting every sensation to memory because deep down inside he knew this would be their one and only time together.
Fresh urgency plowed through him when she pressed her body against his. The last vestiges of his discipline crumbled. Need hammered at his common sense, scattering it like powdered snow in a gale. He wanted to feel her softness against him. Wanted the warmth of her flesh in his hands. He wanted to lose himself inside her.
He cupped her breasts, marveling at the weight of them in his hands. An involuntary moan rumbled up from his chest when he felt the hard peaks of her nipples through her bra. “I’ve got to touch you.” With shaking fingers, he lifted the hem of her sweatshirt and dragged it over her head. “Now.”
Her hair tumbled over her shoulders. Her sweet scent surrounded him, drugging him, driving him toward a cliff that promised a fatal fall. He deepened the kiss, fumbling with the clasp of her bra, desperate to touch her. The sound of his own heart raged in time with his labored breaths. The scrap of lace opened. Her breasts, swollen from her pregnancy spilled heavily into his palms. John groaned again, told himself it was lust that made his legs go weak, his head spin. But he’d had plenty of lustful encounters in his lifetime and none of them had ever come close to this. He didn’t want to put a name to the magic exploding between them. If he did, it would be real, and he would have to deal with it. He had absolutely no idea how to deal with Hannah.
He cupped her, all the while gently caressing the sensitized tips with his thumbs. “You’re incredibly beautiful,” he whispered.
“You make me feel beautiful.”
“You are. All of you. Right or wrong, I want you, Hannah. I’ve never wanted anyone so badly in my life.” He barely heard his own voice over the thrum of blood through his veins. Wasn’t even sure what he’d said, only that he felt the words all the way to his soul.
Breaking the kiss, he lowered his head and trailed kisses down her neck. He thought of the bruises on her throat and his mouth lingered there, seeking to heal the flesh, erase the hidden scars. She shuddered, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop even if the building had been on fire and their lives in peril. John figured he could die right now and never be as happy as he was at this moment.
Her breasts were rounded, her nipples small, dark peaks. She gasped when he took her into his mouth. She arched, her breaths coming short and fast. He suckled and teased, barely hearing her cries of pleasure, barely aware of her trembling hands at the back of his head, pressing him into her.
Her stomach was soft and rounded. Closing his eyes, he skimmed his hands over her. Longing was an ache that thrummed throughout his body. He wanted her, wanted the child she carried within her to be his. Crazy thoughts, he knew, but John refused to consider logic when his entire world spun crazily out of control. Not when he was intoxicated on magic and prepared to make a fatal leap with this woman, knowing fully he wouldn’t survive the fall.
Slipping his hands in the waistband of her scrub pants, he eased them down her hips. Her panties came next. She stepped out of them, then kicked them off. All the while, she kissed him. Driving him insane with her mouth. The feel of her body against his. The sighs emanating from deep inside her.
Breaking the kiss, he leaned forward and set his mouth against her ear. “There’s time to change your mind,” he whispered.
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
He shouldn’t have been relieved, but he was. Vastly. “I’ve got a confession to make.”
Raising her gaze to his, she arched a brow.
“I’ve never made love to a pregnant woman before.”
A soft laugh broke from her lips. “I think the generalities are the same. Think you can handle it?”
“Ah, watch the ego, Red, will you?” He smiled, but it felt tight on his face. It stunned him to realize he was nervous. Very, very nervous. “What about you?”
“I can definitely handle it.”
It took him a moment to find his voice. “I don’t want to hurt you or…uh, the baby.”
“Oh, you mean physically?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I was reading from the medical Web site stuff you downloaded back at your cabin—”
“Did it mention mind-blowing sex?”
“Not in that exact context, but I gathered it’s okay for a pregnant woman to have sex. It said some women’s…uh, sex drive is exponentially heightened during pregnancy.”
“Exponentially, huh?”
“I think that was the word.”
“Ah, Red, we’re in big trouble.”
“That depends on your definition of trouble.” Smiling, she raised up on her tiptoes and gave him an openmouthed kiss that left his head reeling.
John’s vision blurred when she closed her hand around him. He jolted, felt his control teeter, his breath stall in his lungs. He hadn’t been with a woman for several months and had to run his mind through a quick algebra equation to keep from losing it right then and there. He didn’t want that to happen with Hannah. That kind of control was important to him. Giving her pleasure even more so.
Her skin was like velvet as he skimmed his hand down her side. Need drove into him as his hand moved over her slightly rounded belly, pausing at the triangle of curls. She opened to him when he reached the apex of her thighs. Parting her folds, he caressed her. Hot, wet silk met his fingertips. John closed his eyes as a hot burst of emotion shook him from the inside out. Her vulnerability touched him. Her beauty humbled him. Her trust shattered everything he’d ever known about himself.
He told himself this was only sex. Lust in its simplest form. Uncomplicated. Primal. A man and a woman reaching out for a moment of pleasure during a time of high stress.
He figured he’d become a pretty good liar in the last couple of days.
He stroked her, felt her body melt around him, the shudders begin. Her mouth sought his and he feasted on her, drinking in the essence of her like a thirst-crazed man at an oasis. Crying out, she arched, then shattered in his arms.
John held her while she trembled. He kissed her temple, her throat. He speared his fingers into her hair and lost himself in its heady essence. He couldn’t get enough of her. A flash of insight told him he never would. This one and only time would have to be enough.
The kick of emotion came swift and brutal. This went deeper than the flesh, he realized with a start. Beyond anything he’d ever experienced. The realization sent a quick spike of panic through him. The world spun out from under his feet. When she opened her eyes and smiled at him, John realized the world as he knew it had been forever changed.
* * *
Hannah didn’t need her memory to know she’d never experienced anything like that before. The man had taken her apart atom by atom, cell by cell, until she was nothing but a quivering mass of sensation tied together by emotions so complex she would never sort through them all. Lord. If she didn’t know better, she might have believed she’d fallen for him.
The frightening thought was cut short when she suddenly found herself swept into his arms. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to make love to a pregnant woman.” Gently he lowered her onto the cot. Kneeling, he leaned toward her and kissed her mouth, her cheek, the sensitive spot just below her ear. The sensations coursing through her made her head swim. Hannah’s heart beat wildly beneath her breast. Every nerve ending in her body hummed with anticipation when he stood and began unbuttoning his flannel shirt. Something niggled at the back of her mind, but her brain floundered helplessly as he finished with the shirt and his hands went to the buttons of his low-rise jeans.
She was still shaking from the sheer power of the climax he’d given her. Shaking inside and outside and every place in between. Never in a hundred years would she have even dreamed it could be like this between a man and a woman. Or that she had unwittingly ventured to a world where sensation and emotion collided and exploded and melded. A place where wounds were healed and hearts were mended. A virtual garden where faith and trust grew wildly and bloomed like sacred flowers.
“It’s okay if you’re having second thoughts.”
His voice drew her from her reverie. “Not second thoughts,” she said. “I’m just…”
“Nervous?”
She laughed to cover her discomfiture. “That, and about a million other things.”
He sat down on the cot next to her and kissed her with devastating gentleness. “I’m nervous, too.”
“Really?”
“I’ll understand if you want to stop.”
“I know you will. I don’t want to stop.”
His eyes searched hers. “So, then, what’s bothering you?”
She hadn’t wanted to think about what was weighing on her mind. For just a little while, she’d wanted to put the danger and ugliness aside. She wanted to feel alive and safe and loved—even if it was only an illusion. Still, until this moment, she hadn’t realized just how important it was for her to talk about this first.
“I was married, John.” She struggled with the words, not even understanding fully herself what she was trying to say. “I’m carrying another man’s child.”
She raised her gaze to his, and in a moment of blinding insight, she knew her heart wasn’t merely at risk. She’d already handed it over to the man who sat beside her, about to make love to her.
The thought thoroughly undid her.
Heart pounding, body humming with arousal, she stared at him, felt the need and uncertainty flash like fire.
“We’ll deal with it.” He eased away from her, his jaw flexing. “I won’t rush you. I won’t press you. But I care about you too much to make a promise I can’t keep.”
“Then make me one you can.”
“How about if I show you?” Holding her gaze, he kissed her fingertips, drew them into his mouth. Hannah watched, mesmerized and so moved she couldn’t speak. She loved watching him, loved his voice, his northeastern accent, the way he mispronounced her name. She loved the way his hair spiked when it was mussed, loved the way he looked at her when she’d perplexed him—like she had just now. Dear God, was it possible she’d fallen in love with him? Was it possible she’d given her heart to this man when she had absolutely no idea what she would discover about herself when her memory returned?
“Make love to me,” she said.
His eyes darkened, intensified, and it took every shred of composure she possessed to hold his gaze. “I’m not a strong enough man to turn you down,” he said. “Even if it is the right thing to do.”
“If this is a mistake, then it’s one I need to make.” Her breath caught when he brushed a strand of hair from her face. Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek to his palm.
“Neither of us are going to be the same when this is all over and done,” he said.
“I know.” She didn’t want to think about what would happen when this was over and done. She had no idea what state she’d left her life in, whether or not they would even survive the next twenty-four hours.
John kicked off his jeans, then stepped out of his boxers. Hannah swallowed at the sight of him, felt the slow burn of lust creep into her center.
Her mind blanked when he leaned forward and kissed her. Before he’d been gentle, even tentative. This time, his mouth swooped down on hers, taking her breath and devouring her like a hungry predator. The kiss held dark promises of all the things to come. Promises she knew he would make good on. Heat swirled low in her belly, and wet heat pulsed between her legs. Her breasts grew heavy and ached for his touch.
She kissed him back, matching every dark promise with one of her own. He moved over her. Sensation pummeled her until she was mindless with need. All the while he kissed her mouth, her throat. His hands caressed her, wreaking havoc on what little control she had left. She groaned involuntarily when his mouth met her breast. She felt her body writhing beneath his, but she couldn’t stop. It was as if someone had doused her with flammable liquid and set her aflame.
He kissed her breasts, her belly, his five o’clock shadow driving her to sweet insanity as he worked his way lower. She knew better than to let herself be swept away like this, but Hannah was helpless to stop the tide.
“Open to me,” he said. “I want to taste you.”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. While her intellectual side knew opening herself up to this kind of intimacy would only hurt them both in the long run, her body obeyed. Her legs opened, and he lowered his mouth to her most intimate area.
A thousand lights exploded behind her lids when his mouth found her center. She heard his name, realized she’d cried out. Once. Twice. Oh, sweet heaven, she hadn’t expected this. The pleasure built until she thought she couldn’t bear it. Sweat broke out on her brow. All the while, his mouth gave her mind-bending pleasure with such intensity that she thought she would scream.
The first wave crashed over her with stunning force. Hannah felt her body clench. Reaching. Wanting. Needing. John. She cried out as the release poured over her, through her, tumbling her until she didn’t know up from down, right from wrong.
She reached for him, desperate to join their bodies. Touch his heart. Reach into his soul and make him believe all the things she already knew.
His eyes were dark and intense as he moved over her. She opened to him. Felt his touch like a jolt of electricity, charging through every cell in her body.
“However this turns out, whatever happens between us tonight, I want you to know I care about you, Hannah. I care about you so much I ache.”
She told herself she wasn’t disappointed. That she hadn’t expected him to proclaim his love for her. Not when he had some very serious issues to deal with and she hadn’t the slightest idea where she stood as far as her own life. But his words sliced her just the same, like a blade across her chest, leaving her open and bleeding.
He entered her with devastating slowness that took her breath, wrenching every last shred of caution from her. “I love you,” she whispered.
She felt him go rigid for an instant. Heard her name on his lips. Then sensation assaulted her when he began to move within her. Long, powerful strokes that took her breath and stole every last ounce of rational thought. Her senses faltered until all she was aware of was John and the magic between them. Words no longer mattered as their bodies became one and their hearts joined in a chorus as ancient and beautiful as the mountains.
He took her to the precipice of her pleasure and a mind-numbing free fall. Then her bones melted, and she knew their fates had been sealed forever.