just learned: this little girl had plugged up a hole, obliterated an emptiness he’d had in him nearly all of his life. She went back to her finger exercises and was soon lost in the pleasure of them. He patted her shoulders and, humbled by the child’s healing love, walked with measured steps out of her room to where Alexis filled his vision, and he received his second shock: tears streamed down her face. And he’d thought her unflappable.
He rushed to her. “What is it? What’s the matter? Alexis, why are you crying?”
His hands went toward her shoulders but didn’t touch them. She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand and tried to speak, but the strength of whatever she felt overwhelmed her, and the tears became a deluge, cascading down her face.
Her loss of composure cut to the quick, and he thought he’d go insane if he couldn’t comfort her. With a groan, he pulled her into the protection of his arms.
“Tell me what hurts you, and if it can be fixed, I’ll fix it. I can’t stand seeing you like this.”
She didn’t move from him, and he clasped her tighter, relishing her nearness and the womanly scent that perfumed his nostrils.
“What is it?” he urged.
“Tara. Her…her father never had time for her. Yet, as busy as I know you are, you sat there and played that keyboard for her, giving her what she’s missed so badly. I don’t know how to th—”
“Don’t. Don’t thank me. Look, I…I’d better check out that floodlight.”
He knew his limit, and he was inches from it. He opened the screen door and stepped out into the garden, still feeling her flesh in his hands, her softness against his chest. He leaned against the side of the house, took deep breaths and counted to ten as he inhaled and exhaled. In thirty-six years, he’d never been so strung out.
Standing where he left her, Alexis, too, let the wall take her weight. Maybe he had herculean self-control, or maybe he didn’t want her as badly as she’d thought. Whatever the reason why he could hold her so tenderly and then walk away when her whole being screamed for his loving, she should be grateful. She rubbed her arms and knew that was a substitute for his warmth. It wasn’t right, and she would regret it, but she wanted him to kiss her so badly that she burned for it.
He knocked on the screen door. “May I come in? I have to get a flashlight.”
“I have one.” She handed it to him, keeping a good distance away.
“Could you hold it while I check out this fuse box?”
She stepped outside in the cool spring night and trained the beam on the light meter. After about ten minutes during which he worked silently, he closed the box.
“Must be the bulb, but I can’t change that tonight.”
“I don’t need that light, Telford.”
He raised himself up from his squatting position. “Then I’ll do it after I get home tomorrow.”
The moonlight cast a glow over his face that softened his features, and gave his hazel-brown eyes a sexy, almost wanton magnetism. She stared at him; she couldn’t help it. Her gaze darted to his broad chest with its pectorals prominent beneath his T-shirt, back to his square chin and settled on his mouth.
She knew the moment had come, when he took the flashlight from her fingers and she heard the gadget fall to the grass. It didn’t occur to her that she ought to move.
“Alexis, if you want our relationship to remain exactly as it is, get back in that house. Now.”
She didn’t want it to change, but she wanted to be in his arms. Needed the warmth and loving that a faithless marriage had denied her. Her head said move, but her heart said stay where you are.
“Did you understand what I said? Did you?”
The hoarse, guttural sounds, so unlike his mellifluous voice, excited her, and a strange heat began wafting its way through her veins. She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came.
Like lightning, he had her in his arms and lifted her until he pressed them breast to chest and belly to belly. One of his big, powerful hands locked to her buttocks and the other to the back of her head. He stared into her face, and then his mouth came down on her, hard and trembling.
“Open for me. Let me in you.”
He parted her lips with his tongue, commanding her to take him. And she did. Hot darts danced inside her and her senses whirled dizzily when at last she had him. His tongue danced within her mouth, tasting, anointing, driving in and out in a symbolic act of love. He teased and tantalized until she gripped him to her and moans sprang from deep in her throat. Frustrated, she twisted against his chest, and experienced man that he was, his fingers found her nipple and pinched and rubbed until she cried aloud.
“Telford, I can’t stand this.”
The tips of his callused fingers brushed her chest before dipping into the scooped-neck caftan and freeing her breast for his rapacious mouth. His tongue, moist, warm and sweet, curled around her erected aureole, bringing a keening cry from her as he suckled her with a wild, animal hunger until electric shocks pelted her feminine core.
Stunned as, for the first time in her life, love’s liquid flowed freely from her, she attempted to move away from him.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered, as if he feared startling her. “Have I…done something wrong?”
Embarrassed, she buried her face in his shoulder. “It’s… I’m sorry…it went further than I… I let it get out of hand.”
He eased her to her feet, but his arm stayed snug around her. “I don’t want you to be upset. There’s no point in that. Both of us knew the minute we first looked at each other that this would happen. Right?”
He caressed her cheek, rhythmically, the way he’d stroked her breast and, to stop his assault on her senses, she covered his hand with her own. But to him, it must have been a gesture of affection, for he kissed her forehead.
“If you had left here then, it could have been a year from now, but I think I would eventually have gone after you.”
“Yes, we both knew, but we didn’t want it to happen,” she whispered.
“In these circumstances? No, we didn’t, but I wouldn’t exchange it for anything. Still, I’ll try to keep my hands off you.”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. “I don’t question your honor.”
He stared until she wanted to lose herself in his eyes. Then he tipped her chin with his right index finger. “You are one beautiful woman. And I’m not talking about looks, though there’s definitely that, too. I mean you are everything a man needs. I’ll see you at breakfast. Sleep well.” He opened the screen door, strode through her room and out of sight.
She sat on the edge of her bed, grateful for a moment of privacy while Tara plunked away at the keyboard. Jack Stevenson hadn’t known what to do with her or, if he had, he hadn’t bothered to apply that knowledge. Maybe she’d asked to be treated as if she were cold porcelain, but she didn’t think so. Until tonight, she had no basis for
