Heartbreaker (20 page)

“I was ashamed that you found me like that with Bella,” he said through his teeth. “It was like getting caught red-handed in an adulterous relationship. For God’s sake, don’t you have any idea how I feel about you, Tellie?” he groaned. “I was frustrated and impatient, and Bella was handy. But I’ve never slept with her,” he added firmly. “And I never would have. You have to believe that.”

She was reeling mentally. She let her head slide back on his shoulder so that she could see his face.

“But…why were you so cruel…?”

His lean hand pressed against her cheek caressingly. “Do you remember when you were eighteen?” he asked huskily. “And I made love to you on the couch in the living room?”

She flushed. “Yes.”

“You loved being kissed. But when I started touching you, I felt you draw back. You liked kissing me, but you weren’t comfortable with anything more intimate than that. You didn’t feel anything approaching passion, Tellie. You were like a child.” He sucked in a harsh breath. “And I was burning, aching, to have you. I knew you were too young. It was unfair of me to push you into a relationship you weren’t nearly ready for.” He studied her shocked face. “So I drew back and waited. And waited. I grew bitter from the waiting. It made me cruel.”

Her eyes were wide, shocked, delighted, as she realized what had been going on. She hadn’t dreamed that he might feel something this powerful for her, and for so long.

“Yes, now you see it, don’t you?” he breathed, lowering his mouth to hers again, savoring its shy
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response. “I was at the end of my rope, and you seemed just the same. Desperation made me cruel.

Then,” he whispered, “you lost your memory and I had you in my house. I touched you…and you wanted me.” He kissed her hungrily, roughly. “I was over the moon, Tellie. You’d forgotten, temporarily, all the terrible things I said to you when you caught me with Bella. But it ended, all too soon. Your memory came back.” He buried his face in her neck, rocking her. “You hated me. I didn’t know what to do. So I waited some more. And hoped. I might still be waiting, except that Bella told me she saw you crying in the emergency room when I thought you hadn’t even come to see about me after the tornado hit.” He kissed her again, hungrily, and felt with a sense of wonder her arms clinging to him, her mouth answering the passion of his own.

“You brought that awful woman to Marge’s house and let her insult me,” she complained hotly.

He kissed her, laughing. “You were jealous,” he replied, unashamedly happy. “It gave me hope. I dangled Bella to make you jealous. It worked almost too well.”

“You vicious man,” she accused, but she was smiling.

“Look who’s talking,” he chided. “Grange gave me some bad moments.”

“I like him very much, but I didn’t love him,” she replied quietly.

“No. You love me,” he whispered. His eyes ate her face. “And I love you, Tellie,” he whispered as he bent again to her mouth. “I love you with all my heart!”

She closed her eyes and gave in to his ardor, blind to the fact that they were sitting in a parked car on a college campus.

She felt some disturbance around her and looked up. In front of the car were three students with quickly printed squares of poster paper. One said “9,” and two said “10.” They were grading J.B. on his technique. He followed her amused gaze and burst out laughing.

He drew her up closer. “Don’t protest,” he murmured as his head bent. “I’m going for a perfect score…”

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He took her back to his hotel. His intentions were honorable, of course, but it was inevitable that once they were alone, he’d kiss her. He did, and all at once the raging fever he’d contained for so many years broke its bonds with glorious abandon.

“J.B.,” she protested weakly as he picked her up and carried her into one of the bedrooms in his suite, closing the door firmly behind them.

“You can’t stop an avalanche, honey,” he ground out against her mouth. “I’m sorry. I love you. I can’t wait any longer…!”

She was flat on her back, her jeans on the floor, swiftly joined by her blouse and everything underneath.

He looked down at her with a harsh, heartfelt groan. “I knew you’d be perfect, Tellie,” he whispered as he bent to touch his mouth reverently to her breasts.

There was hardly any sane answer to that sort of rapt delight. She felt faintly apprehensive, but she was wearing an engagement ring and it was apparent that it wasn’t a sham, or a dream. She came straight up off the bed as his mouth increased its warm pressure on her breast and began to taste it with his tongue.

“Like that, do you?” he whispered huskily. “It’s only the beginning.”

As he spoke, he sat up and quickly removed every bit of fabric that would have separated them.

Shyly she looked at his hard, muscular body with eyes that showed equal parts of awe and apprehension.

“People have been doing this for millennia,” he whispered as he lowered his body against hers. “If it didn’t feel good, nobody would indulge.”

“Well, yes, but…” she began.

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His lean hand smoothed over her belly. “You have to trust me,” he said softly. “I won’t hurt you. I swear it.”

Her body relaxed a little. “I’ve heard stories,” she began.

“I’m not in them,” he replied easily, smiling. “If I were less modest, I’d tell you that women used to write my telephone number on bathroom walls.”

That tickled her and she laughed. “Don’t you dare brag about your conquests,” she muttered.

He laughed. “Practice,” he said against her mouth. “I was practicing, while I waited for you. And this is what I learned, Tellie,” he added as his body slid against hers.

She felt his hands and his mouth all over her. The lights were on and she couldn’t have cared less.

Sensation upon sensation rippled through her untried body. She saw J.B.’s face harden, his dark green eyes glitter as he increased the pressure of his powerful legs to part hers, as his mouth swallowed one small, firm breast and drew his tongue against it in a sweet, harsh rhythm.

He was touching her in ways she’d only read about. She gasped and moaned and, finally, begged. She hadn’t dreamed that her body could feel such things, could react in this headlong, demanding, insistent way to a man’s slow, insistent ardor.

The slow thrust of his body widened her eyes alarmingly and she tensed, but he whispered to her, kissed her eyes closed, and never stopped for an instant. He found the place, and the pressure, that made her begin to sob and dig her nails into his hips. Then he smiled as he increased the rhythm and heard her cry out again and again with helpless delight.

It seemed hours before he finally gave in to his own need and shuddered against her in a culmination that exceeded his wildest dreams of fulfillment. He held her close, intimately joined to him, and fought to get enough air to breathe.

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“Cataclysmic,” he whispered into her throat. “That’s what it was.”

She was shivering, too, having experienced what the self-help articles referred to as “multiple culminations of pleasure.”

“I never dreamed…!” she exclaimed breathlessly.

“Neither did I, sweetheart,” he said heavily. “Neither did I.”

He moved and rolled over, drawing her close against his side. They were both damp with sweat and pulsating in the aftermath of explosive satisfaction.

“Marge would kill us both,” she began.

He chuckled. “Not likely. She’s been busy on our behalf.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

He ruffled her dark hair. “Sending out e-mailed invitations, calling caterers, ordering stuff. Which reminds me, I hope you’re free Saturday. We’re getting married at the ranch.”

She sat up, gasping. “We’re what?”

“Getting married,” he replied slowly. “Why do you think I bought two rings?”

“But you’ve been swearing for years that you’d never get married!” Then she remembered why and her eyes went sad. “Because of that woman, the one you were going to marry,” she said worriedly.

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He drew her down beside him and looked at her solemnly. “When I was twenty-one, I fell in love. She was my exact opposite, and because my father opposed the marriage, I rebelled and ran headlong into it.

She took the easy way out, rather than fighting him. You were right about that, although it hurt me to acknowledge it,” he said quietly. “You’d have marched right up to my father and told him to do his worst.” He smiled. “It’s one of the things I love about you, that stubborn determination. She wasn’t strong enough to stand up to him. So she killed herself. It would have been a disaster, if she hadn’t,” he added. “I’d have walked all over her, and she’d have been miserable. As things worked out, she saved her brother from prison and both of us from a bitter life together. I’m sorry it happened that way. I think she was mentally unstable. She was unhappy and she couldn’t see a future without me. If she’d been able to talk to anyone about it, I don’t think she’d have done it. I’ll always regret what my father did, but he paid for it, in his way. So did I, unfortunately. Until you came along, and shook up my life, I didn’t have much interest in living.”

She felt happier, knowing that. She was sad for his fiancée, but she couldn’t be sad that she’d ended up with J.B.

He traced her eyebrows, exploring her face, her soft body, with slow, tender tracings. “I never knew what love was, until you were eighteen. It was too soon, but I’d have married you then, if you’d been able to return what I felt for you.”

Her arms closed around him. “It was too soon. I have a degree and I’ve had independence.”

“And now?” he asked. “What about college?”

She drew in a slow, lazy breath. “You can always go back to college,” she murmured. “I’d like to be with you for a few years. We might have a baby together and I’ll be needed at home for a while. I can teach adult education at our community college if I get the urge. I only need a B.A. for that, and I’ve got it.”

“We might have a baby together?” he teased, smiling. “How would that happen?”

She drew up one long leg and slid it gently over one of his. “We could do a lot more of what we’ve just done,” she suggested, moving closer to him. “If we do it enough, who knows what might happen?”

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He pursed his lips and moved between her legs. “More of this, you mean?” he drawled, easing down.

“Definitely…more of this,” she whispered unsteadily. She closed her eyes and tugged his mouth down over hers. Then she didn’t speak again for a long, long time.

Twelve

N ell was overcome with delight when Tellie walked into Marge’s house with J.B.’s arm around her.

“You’re back,” she exclaimed to Tellie. “But what…how…why?”

J.B. lifted Tellie’s left hand and extended it, with the diamond solitaire winking on her ring finger.

“Oh, my goodness!” Nell exclaimed, and hugged both of them with tearful enthusiasm. “Have you told Marge and the girls?” she asked.

“Marge is making all the arrangements for us,” J.B. said with an ear-to-ear grin. “I’m sure she’s told the girls. But it looks as if she was saving it as a surprise for you!”

“I can’t believe it,” Nell repeated, dabbing at her wet eyes. “I’ve never been so happy for anyone in my life! Have you had lunch?”

“Not yet,” J.B. replied. “I thought we might have it with you, if that’s all right?” he added with unexpected courtesy.

Nell’s eyebrows went up. “Well! That’s the first time you’ve ever treated me with any sort of courtesy.”

“She’s been working on me,” he said, nodding toward Tellie.

“To good effect, apparently, too,” Nell agreed. “I’m just floored!”

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“Cook while you’re getting adjusted,” J.B. suggested. “I’m going to get Tellie’s bag from her room and put it in the car. Marge packed it for her.”

“Thanks,” she said shyly, and not without a smile.

“How did you do it?” Nell asked when he was out of sight.

Tellie shook her head. “I have no idea. He showed up at the café where I was having coffee, and the next thing I knew, I was engaged. I thought he was involved with Bella.”

“So did I,” Nell agreed.

“But he wasn’t,” she replied, with a happy smile. “I went away thinking my life was over. Now look at me.”

“I couldn’t be happier for you,” Nell said. “For both of you.”

“So am I,” Tellie told her. “In fact, I’m over the moon!”

Later, Marge and the girls came home, and all of them spent the evening going over wedding plans, because there wasn’t much time.

J.B. drove Tellie to his house and installed her in the same guest bedroom he’d given her when she stayed with him during her bout of amnesia. They’d already decided that they’d abstain from any more sensual adventures until after the wedding, however old-fashioned it sounded.

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The next day, J.B. bounced Tellie out of bed early. “Get up, get up,” he teased, lifting her free of the covers to kiss her with pure delight. “We’re going shopping.”

“You and me?” she asked, breathless.

He nodded, smiling. “You look pretty first thing in the morning.”

“But I’m all rumpled and my hair isn’t brushed.”

He kissed her again, tenderly. “You’re the most beautiful thing in my house, and in my heart,” he whispered against her lips.

She kissed him back, sighing contentedly. She had the world in her arms, she thought. The whole world!

Albert fixed them croissants and strong coffee for breakfast, and J.B. privately lamented the lack of bacon and eggs and biscuits that Nell had always provided. Albert considered such a breakfast too heavy for normal people.