Always (28 page)

“Maybe we were too young,” Ross allowed. “Maybe the war pushed us to act too quickly. Neither of us was prepared to handle the consequences at the time, but I have a feeling it would have happened sooner or later, regardless.”

Emily shook her head. “You can’t know that.”

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to look away from him. She couldn’t keep from trying to understand what was in his heart. What he said didn’t make any sense. He had been the one to see the truth first—that it had been a mistake. It had taken her months, no, years to accept that truth, and now he claimed to see it differently? Perhaps she should have been angry. That was certainly preferable to the mind-numbing spin of emotions that she was experiencing now.

“I know it was meant to happen between us,” he said, “because I remember how right it felt.”

He touched her jaw with one finger, then traced it down beneath her chin and bent his head closer. She knew that she should break away, but she didn’t. The frightening truth was, she still craved him.

It was a gentle kiss, a teasing, mere brushing of his lips over hers, but it hurtled Emily back to that night four years ago, before the rejection and hurt, to that first exhilarating rush of hope and anticipation.

He ended the kiss and whispered against her mouth, “You remember, too, don’t you?”

Of course she remembered. It was he who had been so hell-bent on forgetting. This thought, one last, pitifully weak flash of rebellion, flitted through her mind, but she didn’t act on it because he was already pulling her tight against the full length of him. He kissed her again, deeper this time, moving his warm, seeking mouth over hers so that her lips instantly parted.

A tingling warmth spread to weaken her limbs and speed up her heart, and she knew that time and experience had not changed her feelings for him at all. When she reached up to lock her arms around his neck, the money she’d brought with her, the money meant to symbolize a final break from him, fluttered to the parlor floor.

Chapter Twenty

Making love with Ross on a hooked rug in the late afternoon was not what Emily had envisioned for them in any of the forbidden fantasies she had concocted over the years. In those fantasies, they had coupled in natural settings, usually by the creek on a blanket warmed by the sun or beneath the old oak tree they had climbed as children. But, as it had been that night four years before, reality proved no less magnificent than any fantasy she could have created in her own mind.

When their clothes were shed, there was no place to hide and no secrets left to keep. The late afternoon sun’s rays slanted through the cozy parlor’s Venetian blinds, casting their sensual encounter in an ethereal golden glow. Emily finally allowed her curiosity free reign to touch him as he had touched her that night so long ago.

She marveled at the stark beauty of his male body, so hard and lean where she was soft and round. She ran her fingertips over the beard-roughened contours of his face, the gentle curve of his mouth, the sharp angle of his jaw, and the splendid expanse of his chest. All the while, he watched her and waited as she tested the taut curves of lean muscle in his arms and shoulders and trailed a gentle exploration along the wretched scars left behind by the war.

When he brought them both down to their knees on the floor, she even dared to touch the part of him that made him male, tentatively closing her hand around the hardened shaft that seemed a wondrous combination of steel and silk. It didn’t take long, though, for him to cut short her explorations.

Pulling her into a tight embrace, he urged her down onto her back on the floor. He kissed her and touched every part of her that ached to be touched. He caressed her breasts, her belly, her thighs, and where his fingers grazed, his mouth soon followed. And when he finally took her in one smooth, breath-stealing stroke, there was no pain, only a stunning sense of fulfillment that was followed by an urgency that narrowed her consciousness down to the point of their physical joining and nothing else.

Emily threw her head back and clung to him, every muscle in her body tensing, her breath coming in harsh gasps as she strained to match his quickening rhythm. Her release, when it came, came as a dazzling surprise, all at once and in a spiraling, wit-scattering rush of pure delight.

Later, when they were both sated , a sweet exhaustion stole over Emily, she lay very still, her arms slackening around Ross’s neck, her eyes closed, her lips curved in a secret smile. She imagined that she was lying in the warm, wet grass by the creek after being sprinkled by a cool summer rain. If she opened her eyes, iridescent shafts of sunlight would be shooting through the breaking clouds overhead.

She felt Ross’s mouth brush over hers. “Em?”

“Hmm?”

“Emily,” he murmured again, and she forced her eyes open to see that he was watching her. They were, unfortunately, no longer joined. He had withdrawn from her before his own release, but, except for pushing up onto his elbows, he hadn’t moved. They were still in an intimate embrace, both of them slick with sweat, her knees straddling him from below, hugging his waist.

Emily felt warmth wash over her cheeks. Considering what they had just done, it seemed ironic that he could elicit such a maidenly reaction with just one look. Then again, they had known each other for a very long time in almost every way, but not like this. That night four years ago notwithstanding, physical intimacy was very new.

“Ross, why are you watching me like that?”

He gave her a slow smile. “I’m trying to remember what you looked like in braids.”

If she’d had any strength left at all, she would have swatted him for having the audacity to tease her. Instead, she wrinkled her nose. “And are you having any success?”

“None.” Shifting his weight slightly, he reached with one hand to touch a tendril of hair that trailed over her shoulder. Her hairpins had been lost among their clothing, which lay scattered like autumn leaves all over the floor.

“I feel as if I’m meeting someone new for the first time,” he said, echoing her previous line of thought. His gaze dropped to follow the slow, tickling path his fingers took. Down, down along her neck and her shoulder only to pause and linger at the rise of her breast.

Emily caught her breath. His touch, so very light and subtle, seemed to stir up new bone-melting sensations. “I feel that way, too,” she said.

“I’ve only grown older, Em. So have you, but there are some things that never change.”

“Like what?”

He gave a shrug, then smiled, his expression lighting with the same sort of adolescent devilment she remembered. “Like... how many ways can you say...” He paused to bend his head and kiss the damp skin between her breasts. “Delicious?”

Emily’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Delicious,” he repeated, trailing his tongue up to run a tantalizing circle around her nipple.

Emily squeezed her eyes shut when his mouth closed upon the aroused peak. “I, uh, um...”

“Scrumptious,” he murmured, leisurely shifting position to trail a line of warm, tickling kisses down to her navel.

“Tasty,” she said, biting down hard on her lower lip as he played his mouth over her abdomen.

“Luscious.”

“Um, savory.”

“Delectable.”

He was cheating, Emily thought, as he slid one hand very slowly up and down the inside of her thigh. “Flavorful,” she managed, but the word came out a weak and ineffectual squeak. Once again, she felt her body heating like a pot set to boil over a high flame. “Mouthwatering.”

“Um, um, um…” Her vocabulary was shrinking by the second, and she didn’t care. He was nibbling at the inside of her knee. Who would have thought a knee could be so sensitive?

“Succulent,” he muttered, and now he was working a slow path up her thigh. Up, up…

Everywhere he touched, with his mouth or his hands, he seemed to stir lush, toe-curling responses. Part of it, of course, had to do with the fact that it was Ross. Even when she was angry with him, he could turn her heart into a limp egg noodle with one crooked smile. It only followed that his touch would be even more devastating, but how could he possibly know so much more about her own body’s responses than she herself? How could he...?

Emily’s eyes fluttered open.

Practice.

The answer came like an onslaught of cold spring water. She stiffened. Just who had he been practicing with?
Johanna?

Ross had always been a quick study. As he learned every inch of Emily’s lithe and lovely body, he was keenly attentive to how she reacted to each touch and each kiss. This sudden tensing of her muscles was not in tune with what he had already come to expect.

Very cautiously, he lifted his head to see that she was, at the same time, propping up onto her elbows to fix him with a narrow-eyed look. While he had spoken the truth earlier—he truly couldn’t picture her in braids anymore—he did indeed recognize that look. He was in trouble for something. Bad timing, though. With all that shining ebony hair spilling about her shoulders and those pretty breasts rising and falling with each breath, Ross was primed to tumble her all over again.

“Ticklish?” he inquired sheepishly.

“You swine.”

“What?”

Her voice was low, barely controlled. “Johanna.”

“Who?” The inane question popped out of his mouth before the obvious slapped him in the face.
Johanna?

Good grief. Johanna.

“Your fiancée!” To punctuate her anger, she wrested her right leg from his grasp. The next thing he knew, in trying to scramble away, she inadvertently blindsided him on the head with her knee, knocking him off balance to land on his back on the floor.

“Merciful heavens!” Emily railed from somewhere above. “I must be a fool! Twice a fool!”

Ross raised a hand to his throbbing temple. Johanna. He hadn’t thought of her in over two days. He probably should have called at her house when he arrived home from Gettysburg, but she’d completely slipped his mind.

“And this time you’re betrothed to another woman!” Emily shrieked, apparently not noticing or caring that she’d practically knocked him senseless in her hurry to get away.

Ross turned his head to squint up at her as she muttered and ranted and struggled into her drawers. Betrothed. He didn’t feel betrothed. Especially not now as he took note of how nicely rounded the feminine hips and buttocks were that Emily was unfortunately encasing in white cotton, and how if she turned just a few degrees to the right he might steal yet one more gratifying glimpse of lovely, nubile breasts before she managed to locate her chemise.

She was right. He
was
a swine.

“Wait,” he said, pushing up to a sitting position, then up to his feet. “We should talk about this.”

“Talk about it? Talk about it?” Emily refused to look at him as she pulled her chemise over her head and tied it closed with hurrying fingers. “It’s a bit late to talk.”

“You seem to be under the impression that—”

“A mistake is a mistake whether we rehash it or not,” she muttered, searching out her stockings, then balancing on one foot as she maneuvered to get one on.

“It wasn’t a mistake.” He was trying not to lose patience with her, but this was a sorry finish to the splendid encounter that had just taken place between them. Hadn’t he made himself clear earlier?

“It wasn’t a mistake,” he repeated, “not then and not now.”

But she wasn’t listening as she scurried about in an effort to get dressed.

“Damn it, Emily! Stop that and look at me!”

But she wouldn’t stop and she wouldn’t look, and Ross was left to stand bare-assed naked in the middle of his own parlor, wondering what it was he could say or do to make it clear to her that what had happened between them had nothing at all to do with Johanna or his blasted engagement.

Oh, hell. Maybe it was just better to let her calm down before expecting her to listen to anything he had to say. He cursed under his breath and tried to hold to that thought as he searched about for his own clothes, then dressed in sullen silence. By the time he pulled on his trousers and shirt, she seemed much calmer. Maybe too calm. When she spoke, her tone was so low and soft he barely heard the words.

“I never should have come.”

Ross turned to see her sitting on the sofa, bent at the waist as she fastened a shoe. Her hair was still loose, falling like a dark curtain to hide her profile. He had the terrible, panicked feeling that she was about to cry. Except for the night before he’d left for the army and the day she’d returned to Lancaster, he’d never seen Emily cry. He hated that he was the cause of it.

“You’re right,” he said. “You shouldn’t have had to come here today. After the other night, I should have come to you.”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she stood and, keeping her back to him, reached with unsteady hands to gather her hair and twist it into a knot at the nape of her neck.

Bending down, Ross retrieved the few hairpins still on the floor, then closed the distance between them. “Look, I’m sorry, Em. I shouldn’t have barged out of the shop and left you like that. I was just surprised and confused and—”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” She surprised him with how steady she sounded. “I’ve had four years to adjust to the idea of losing a child, you’ve had less than a week.”

When she finally turned around to face him, he saw that she wasn’t crying, but the bleakness in her expression couldn’t have been more devastating than if tears had been streaming down her face. “You were right. I should have found a way to tell you about the baby. Maybe things would have turned out differently if I had.”

Ross didn’t have an answer for that. They looked at each other for a long moment, long enough for him to wonder how things might have turned out if either of them had made different choices—if she had chosen to tell him the truth or if he had chosen to face the consequences of his rash behavior rather than try to pretend nothing had ever happened.

Feeling useless, he offered her the hairpins. She took them without comment. He knew it was pointless to speculate on what might have been. They had to concentrate on the present. Unfortunately, it was a present which, thanks to today, had turned into a complicated, tangled mess of its own.