The Wedding Dress (30 page)

“Don’t close your eyes, Emma. Look at me when I take you.”

He thrust deep, touching places Drew had never touched. Could never reach. Parts of her soul Drew had never wanted to see.

“You feel so…so right underneath me,” Jared murmured in amazement. “God help me.”

Jared was the one who pulled his gaze away. Heavy dark lashes settled on the blades of his cheekbones, shutting out every sense but touch and taste and sound as he kissed her, setting a wild pulsing rhythm that echoed deep in Emma’s soul.

The edge sharpened as her body tightened around him. She felt the cry forming at the back of her throat. She couldn’t stop it any more than she’d been able to stop herself from stumbling over the edge of the cliff.

Jared gave a raw cry of triumph as her body quickened around his shaft, a white-hot fulfillment, blinding her, burning her.

He drove himself deep, kissing her so fiercely her lips stung. She didn’t care, only held tight to his hard warrior’s body, glorying in his rough loving, somehow more beautiful than any tenderness she’d ever known. He stiffened above her, cried out in his own searing climax. But the whisper Emma heard was her own.

I love you.

She reeled at the truth of it.

Oh, God. She’d wondered what made Jared different? Made her choose this night, this man? She’d wondered why her defenses had come tumbling down?

She loved him.

Her adversary. Her foe. Her battered knight fighting dragons all alone.

She loved him.

The truth shattered its way into her heart.

Emma held him long moments as he lay against her, his chest heaving, his face buried in her curls. What if he couldn’t look at her because he was as stunned as she was, by feelings he hadn’t expected? What if love had…well…She couldn’t help but smile as a purely Jared Butler smart aleck description flashed into her mind.
If love had sneaked up and bit him like her damned terror of a dog?

It was possible, wasn’t it? Emma couldn’t keep from hoping. That’s what happened to McDaniels, Uncle Cade had always claimed. No warning. Just a sneak attack and then, wham, next thing you knew, there you were facing down a sour-faced minister in the gazebo, no escape in sight.

Sometimes, Jared seemed almost more McDaniel-esque than Emma was.

What if she just told him the truth? Blurted it out right here, right now?
Hey, Jared, funny thing happened when you were screwing my brains out…

Don’t be crazy, Emma,
her common sense warned.
Just…just test the waters. See what Jared says. Maybe…well, you can see if this meant anything more to him than just sex.

Right. And won’t it just smash your little heart to bits if it was no big deal to him?

Had a riot making you scream, Emma. Have a nice life…

Blessedly, Jared rolled away from her before she could think of any more cheery farewells. He turned his broad back to her, busying himself disposing of the condom. A simple act that took the king of multitasking far longer than necessary.

Was it possible he was feeling as awkward as she was? What did people say to each other after they made love the first time? Drew had been almost apologetic, sure he’d hurt her, treating her like some fragile, delicate thing. That kind of chivalry would seem ridiculous after the fireworks that had happened here. But Jared’s silence was driving her slowly insane.

Emma groped for something to break the tension, settled on humor. “Nice touch, Butler,” she said, trying to keep it light. “Ye old medieval condom. Did they have those in the Middle Ages?”

“Actually, condoms were invented in—”

“Never mind! Never mind! I was just teasing you! I really meant to congratulate you for being a good Boy Scout.”

“What?”

“You know, the old motto.
Be prepared.
”

He still didn’t look at her, his shoulders far too stiff. Emma’s stomach tightened.

“I planted this when you weren’t looking,” Jared explained. “Just in case I lost my mind.”

“Is that what just happened?” She tried not to let the sudden hurt she felt bleed into her voice. “You lost your mind?”

He ran his hand back through his hair. “I don’t know what the hell else to call it. You have a way of making me lose control. Of my temper, my, er, baser instincts.”

“Your
baser instincts?
” They were already down to
instincts?
Oh, God, he wasn’t turning scientist on her already? “Maybe that’s the reason LadyAislinn never had any children,” she said, her voice sounding brittle. “Her husband kept a stash of birth control hidden under the bed. Of course, I doubt they had nice tidy little foil packets from the chemist’s down the street. Blows your whole theory of historical accuracy.”

“Historical accuracy is one thing,” Jared insisted. “Being reckless is another.”

Stubbornness fired up in Emma. “What if I told you I
like
being reckless when you’re around? What if I told you I’ve never had so much fun? In sword fights. In bed.”

“That’s just grand. You almost dropped yourself over a cliff tonight, and now…this. I’m not sure this little stunt wasn’t even more dangerous.”

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Emma demanded, hurt and confused. “I know this was a…was a big step for both of us. It’s natural to feel some…well, awkwardness after. At least, I think it is. Not that I really know. From experience, I mean.”

Jared pressed his hands to his temples, as if she were giving him a headache. The jerk. She hadn’t wanted to kick him this badly for weeks. Drawing her tattered dignity around her, she reached for her shift, drew it over her head. She caught the gaping neck closed. Told herself it was to cover her breasts, not somehow protect her heart.

“Whatever you think of me, Jared, know this. My making love with you wasn’t any stunt, reckless or otherwise.”

Jared swore under his breath, and she could tell he was struggling for patience. “Emma, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings here.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’re not. You’re just making me mad as hell.”

“Don’t tell me we’re back to normal again already? Are we?”

“Maybe there’s something I
should
tell you,” Emma fired back, McDaniel pride kicking in. “Something
you
need to know.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’m
anything
but reckless when it comes to sex, Dr. Butler. Drew wasn’t just my first lover. He was my
only
lover.”

Jared wheeled toward her, his face going pale. “You mean you’ve never—”

“Give the boy a gold star. He guessed it in one. I’ve never made love to any man but Drew. And now you.”

“
That’s
a bit of information you might have shared earlier!” Jared grabbed up a fur, wrapped it around his hips. He stalked to the window, looking more wary and wild than ever before.

“I’m not expecting you to marry me or anything,” she shot back. “You don’t have to build me a house with a white picket fence and raise a passel of kids.”

“You picked the wrong man if that’s the job you’re offering! And that’s a dead cert.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t expect anything of you.”

“Maybe not. But I can see the wanting in you. You’re supposed to be an actress, for God’s sake. But I always saw it. So why the hell didn’t I stop myself before…”

“It was my right to choose.”

“And you’re thinking so clearly, aren’t you? You were vulnerable after the divorce and I took advantage—”

“Don’t you dare pull that chivalry bullshit on me!” Emma scrambled out of bed, her fist knotting even tighter in the folds of her shift. “Don’t you cast me as some helpless damsel who fell victim to your charms! Charms which, I might add, have been sadly lacking in your follow-through.”

“Oh, is that right?”

“As a matter of fact, you’re being a real bastard!”

“You knew that before you slept with me. It shouldn’t come as any big surprise.”

They faced each other down, breathless, quivering with emotion, as angry as they’d been in any previous battle. And then Emma glimpsed it—beyond the rage, beyond the stubbornness, beyond the snarled words and steely glares. Icy cold, paralyzing fear.

Oh, God, what had put so much hopelessness in her bold warrior’s eyes?

She drew in a steadying breath, stepping away from the shield of her own fury. She looked Jared straight in the eye. “You
are
a bastard,” Emma observed softly. “But when you turn into the beast there’s always been a reason. I might not find out what the reason is until later, but it’s always there.”

Jared kicked the bench with his bare foot. He swore, but she knew he was glad of the pain. “Don’t tell me,” he snapped. “You played a psychiatrist in some movie I’ve never seen, and now you’re going to analyze me? Poor boyo from a broken home. He’s got commitment issues, and never dealt with—”

“Don’t make something complicated out of this,” she broke in, determined not to rise to his bait, the anger that would make him feel safe. “This thing between us is far too simple for that.” She raised her chin, quiet, defiant. “I know you, Jared. You may not have meant for it to happen. You may not like it a bit. But I do.”

He flinched back as if she’d struck him. “You don’t really know me. No one does. If you could only see, you’d be sickened by the kind of man I am.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true. I knew it from the moment I watched those director’s cuts, you playing with that bunch of kids on the set. Laughing with them and swinging them ’round in that harness thing of yours—”

“You mean the cuts from the first Jade movie?”

“Any man with a brain could have seen how much you loved them. What a…a fine mother you’d make someday.” His eyes darkened with sadness, an awe that made her ache inside. “How did you learn that, Emma? When your own mother left you the way she did?”

Emma’s mind filled with images of Deirdre McDaniel Stone’s catlike face, all edges and restlessness and self-blame, her blue eyes hollowed out with regret. “I forgave my mom a long time ago. She was gone for nine months. She spent the rest of her life trying to make it up to me. She even stopped singing. Some kind of twisted penance.”

Emma shrugged. “Maybe it sounds hokey, but I just try to remember the good things that came out of the time she was gone. I got my family back, my uncle Cade and the Captain. And Aunt Finn…if I hadn’t been in Whitewater to stir things up, Uncle Cade would’ve scared her off for sure.”

“There you go again. Making it sound like fate.”

“It’s the only thing that gets me through. Believing something better is just around the corner, that there’s a plan, you know? And things will work out in the end.”
But they hadn’t always worked out,
a practical voice in her head challenged. Things hadn’t worked out with Drew. “Maybe you’ve been studying Lady Aislinn’s story for too many years, Jared. It has such an unhappy ending.”

“Most of the stories I’ve known do.”

Emma swallowed hard, trying not to look away from the stark honesty in his face. And she wanted to reach beyond the chain mail of his defenses, to where he was vulnerable. To real flesh and blood beneath. To where the hurting lived.

She crossed to him, laid her hand on his arm. “Won’t you tell me?” she asked softly. “What is it, Jared? What’s wrong? This…weight I can see you’re carrying deep inside you. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”

“Not bad?” His face contorted in misery. “It’s fecking hideous, Emma. Makes any other life impossible.
Us
impossible. Don’t you see?” Jared sucked in a deep breath, blew it out, his features drawn, so raw it hurt her to see. “You want…things I don’t want.” His jaw clenched.
“Ever.”

He crossed to the window, staring out to the sea. And Emma sensed he was about to tell her what kept his heart as locked away from life and laughter and love as Lady Aislinn had been in her prison tower. Then maybe, just maybe for the first time since she’d met this enigmatic man Emma would understand what he’d been fighting out on the waves, all alone.

“You know I have a dead wife,” Jared began. “If I didn’t mention it, I’m sure Davey must have.”

Emma hadn’t seen so much as a picture of the woman, any hint of her memory in Jared’s tent. “I remember hearing something about her,” she said evenly. “Not much.”

“That’s because I don’t talk about her. To anyone. Ever.”

“You weren’t happy.” It was a statement, not a question. There wasn’t any joy in Jared’s eyes. Not even bittersweet echoes of joys remembered, like the memories she still had of Drew.

“Not happy?” Jared scoffed. “That’s an understatement of epic proportions. We were…a disaster from the day I put my ring on her finger.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.” He ran his fingertips over the edge of Emma’s purple frame, glitter clinging to his fingers. “Before Jenny and I got married we never talked about the important things. What we wanted. Who we were.”

“Things like…kids?” Emma hazarded, remembering his reaction to the kids in Jade Star.

“Jenny always joked that she wasn’t about to share my attention with anyone else. There was a twisted kind of logic in it. She was a child herself, really, needing someone to take care of her.”

“A real damsel in distress, huh?”

Jared grimaced.

“I’ll bet that was pretty irresistible to a man with his head all stuffed with tales like Sir Tristan and Isolde,” Emma said.

“I fell in love with the idea of her. And she…God knows why she thought she loved me.”

It was all too easy to imagine the young man Jared must have been: so strong, so talented, so bright, with those knee-meltingly sexy, dangerous good looks that would have turned any young girl’s head. And the secret sadness in him Emma wished she could heal.

“I was always ambivalent about parenting,” Jared continued, “but somewhere in the back of my mind I figured that in time kids would be…natural, you know? The next step. I’d just have to get through it. There were kids on the dig sites I interned at during both my undergraduate and graduate studies. Archaeologist’s families. The families would spend summer holidays together on this grand adventure, then the kids would go to boarding schools the rest of the year.”