Wild Rain (18 page)

“And how in the hell did you come up with that analysis? Or are you talking from personal experience? Your own past?”

His jaw clenched tightly, but he didn’t react to her challenge. “I have a confession to make.”

“What?”

He nodded to the large green trash bag he’d carried over to the clinic. “When I went through your stuff, to pack for you, I found a photo in your drawer. Since you didn’t have it out, I wasn’t sure whether it was something you’d want to save—”

Jillian knew exactly what photo he was referring to. Her heart clenched, and her knees shook. She knew every individual grain of that black-and-white photo. She’d had a long love-hate relationship with it, had wanted many times to destroy it, but always stopped herself in time. Her breath caught in her throat as it occurred to her that since she’d kept it tucked in her bedroom dresser, the photo was likely somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico by now.

“Oh dear God,” she whispered.

“It’s in the bag, Jillian. I put it in there, just in case.”

“But that bag split open when I fell—”

“I wrapped it in one of your sweatshirts. I checked it when I picked up your things. It was okay.”

Instinct drove her into his arms, and she hugged him as tightly as she could. “Thank you. It’s the only picture I have of … of the three of us.” She pulled back, feeling suddenly too vulnerable. “My father hated having his picture taken. As you could probably tell from looking at it.”

Reese was silent for so long, she finally looked up at him. He was staring at her, his expression unreadable.

“You know what I saw in that photo, Jillian.”

She didn’t want to go on with this, didn’t want to hear him say it out loud, to confirm what she knew, had always known. And yet she heard herself asking him, “What? What did you see?”

His gaze intensified, locked on her, focused on her, connecting them in a way that was more powerful than any physical bond.

“I saw a woman very much in love with her husband.”

The conviction in his voice shook Jillian. She’d never thought of him as a man who put much stock in emotions like love. Caring, helping, yes. But not something as vulnerable, as threatening as love.

It shook her worse to realize that she’d just defined her own feelings about love.

“I also saw a man whose mind was occupied with things other than his wife and child.” His voice grew harsher. “Greater things, stupid things, wasteful things … I don’t know. Just not what his wife wanted him to have on his mind when he was with her. She wanted him to be thinking of her. To look at her the way she was looking at him. And I don’t think he did. Ever.”

Tears burned in her eyes, but refused to fall. The photo was etched in her mind in perfect clarity. Her mind’s eye kept focusing on the child that had been her. Had Reese noticed her? Or had his attention been captured by Regina’s beauty and tragic longing?

Some inner force compelled her to ask. “What did you see when you looked at … the child?”

His body jerked slightly as if she’d hit him, then he stilled, tensed. For a second she thought he would set her away from him, but then he bent closer to her.

“I saw me, Jillian. I saw me.”

Jillian’s throat knotted, tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks unheeded. He knew. Reese had known what she’d felt when she looked up at her mother so long ago. What he’d just forced her to admit she still wanted today. To be loved. Simply. Totally. Just for herself.

Through her tears she stared into Reese’s hard eyes and saw that same pain, that same yearning.
Dear Lord, not him too. Such a fine man. Who must once have been a fine boy; a sweet, trusting child.

There was no relief in the sharing. Her own hurt escalated in the knowledge that he’d suffered, too, that she hadn’t been alone.

“Oh, Reese,” she whispered hoarsely. She reached for his face and pulled it down to hers. And she kissed him, letting down every barrier she’d ever erected. Everything she felt, everything he’d made her feel was in her kiss.

In the next instant she was pulled hard against his chest, his mouth fierce and full against hers as she felt his walls tumble down on top of hers.

“Jillian,” he whispered raggedly against her lips, his voice filled with undisguised yearning, heavy with newly acknowledged need.

“I know, Reese. I know.” And then the time for talk was over.

Their kisses were dark and powerful. Reese took her mouth, demanded possession of it at the same time he awarded her possession of his.

Her hands left his cheeks and trailed down to his chest. It was rock, living rock; hot and pulsing under her searching fingertips. She clutched at his shirt, pulling upward, needing, wanting, to have her hands on his bare skin.

Reese yanked it over his head and claimed her mouth again. She let him. Tasted his desire for her as her hands felt it.

His chest was sleek, hard, his skin molded
tightly around every muscle. Her fingers charted it all, the sensations moving through them into her body. Her skin heated, her muscles grew languorous, and the most poignant ache tightened slowly between her legs.

“Reese,” she whispered. It was part worshipful, part pleading.

He bent lower, his mouth finding the side of her neck. “Sweet Jillian,” he breathed in her ear.

Jillian opened her eyes, only then realizing they’d drifted shut. His chest filled her vision and she leaned into it, her mouth exploring the course her fingers had taken. Reese clutched her head in his hands but didn’t stop her as he leaned back against the wall, drawing her with him.

She tasted the fine, crisp hairs that bisected his pectorals, then dropped small kisses on the swell of the muscle leading to his nipple. It was rigid, distended and begged to be tasted. She did. Reese bucked beneath her, a deep groan vibrating the skin beneath her cheek.

She withdrew her tongue.

“No,” he rasped. “Feels … wonderful.”

She smiled against his chest, reveling in her newfound power to distract, to disarm. The idea that she was able to pleasure this man was heady stuff indeed. She let her tongue blaze a provocative trail across his chest to his other nipple, where she feasted again. She felt his hips rise against her stomach again and again, establishing a sinuous rhythm that seduced the muscles between her legs
into relaxing and contracting in a similar primal beat.

She was on fire, she was melting, she was exploding. She thought she might die before she figured out how to find that elusive thing which would satisfy this hunger, this craving, this need that pushed her, drove her, controlled her.

Suddenly Reese’s hands were on her, tugging at her shirt. She felt the humid Florida air move across her skin, electrifying it. The feel of the cotton dragging across her breasts was wildly erotic, and she wanted it to go on and on. Then when the shirt was gone, she knew she wanted more. She wanted Reese on her. His hands, his mouth, his tongue.

So demanding was the ache, she cupped her own breasts, seeking to ease the pain any way she could, as fast as she could.

Reese groaned, and her gaze flew up to meet his. Her hands stilled, but when she began to move them, he stopped her.

“Don’t. I have never seen … anything so … beautiful.” His voice was barely more than a gravelly rasp. His chest heaved as he devoured her with his electric blue gaze.

Jillian had a sudden flash of insecurity. Her hands were small, yet they almost completely covered her breasts. A lifelong sense of inadequacy reared its threatening head, and she pleaded with him silently to help her past this barrier.

“Drop your hands now, mite. Let me look at you.”

She did. His eyes burned brighter, hotter. She hadn’t thought it possible. Just as she hadn’t thought the ache below her belly could grow more intense. She was wrong, deliciously wrong, on both counts.

“Perfect pearls. That’s what they are, Jillian.”

Her shoulders squared, her spine straightened, until what little flesh she possessed was pushed proudly toward him.

In a dazed, erotic haze she saw Reese’s hands move lower. Her breathing became shallower as she awaited his touch.

But his hands stopped at the snap to his jeans. She was riveted, her complete attention caught as he freed the shiny button.

There was no mistaking that he was aroused. He was a big man, and apparently there was no exception to any part of him.

“Can you see how you excite me, Jillian? Can you?” He lowered the zipper slowly, the teeth straining to hold together the taut denim covering his arousal.

She nodded, feeling her throat go dry at the same time as her palms began to sweat. She wanted to touch him, to hold him. To feel that desire pulse in her hands, in vibrant, life-giving proof that his need was as strong and mighty as hers.

Then he was bared for her to see. And he was glorious.

TEN

Jillian lifted her hands, then clenched them into fists at the last moment. She felt a sudden intense rush of intimidation.

He leaned back against the wall, but the bright fire in his eyes belied his casual pose. “Take it, Jillian. Hold it. It’s like this because of you.”

Her hands uncurled, and she reached for him. Hot, satiny, rigid, the skin so soft, yet it covered a hardness she’d never felt. He jerked in her hand. The muscles between her legs clenched in response.

The counter he sat on was waist-high to her. All she had to do was bend her head, just slightly.

“Yes. Go ahead. Please.”

He tasted musky, sweet. And the mere knowledge that a part of him had entered her body—even her mouth—captivated her so fully, she could think of nothing else, was reduced to instinct and need.

She tightened her lips and let her tongue stroke him. He surged against her, filling her until she couldn’t take any more. Never in her life had she felt this primal, never had her life been brought to such a simple common denominator. She wanted one thing. Above all else, including her next breath.

And it wasn’t having him in her mouth.

She slid her mouth slowly off of him and felt his shaking groan in every nook and cranny of her soul. It echoed deep inside her, matching her own.

She lifted her head, knowing what she wanted, yet suddenly at a loss as how to get it. Her knees were locked against the trembling need that threatened to drive her to the floor. Her breasts ached … She needed, she needed …

Her hands found him again as she stepped closer between his legs, until the edge of the counter pressed into the soft skin of her belly. Her breasts needed him, to feel his touch. She heard him gasp as she bent forward.

When she brushed the tip of him across first one breast, then the other, they both moaned in unison.

Slowly, her gaze traveled up across the ripples of muscle lining his abdomen, across the swell of his chest, to the rigid vein standing in stark, pulsating relief against the side of his neck, to his jaw, clenched, his beautiful mouth compressed, then finally to his eyes.

And there she found everything she’d ever wanted.

Her mouth opened, though she had no idea what she was going to say. She didn’t have to say anything.

“Take off your pants.” The command was rough, uncivilized. And exactly what she wanted to hear.

Without looking away, she complied. His jeans hit the floor just as hers did.

The instant she was bare to him his hands uncurled from their white-knuckled grip on the counter’s edge. He leaned forward and clasped them around her hips.

He lifted her easily, until her knees straddled him. She tried to keep from knocking against his bad leg, but his thighs were thickly muscled and … Any thought of his wound flew from her mind when she realized what he was about to do.

She looked down between them, saw his rigid length straining toward her hips … hips that suddenly looked so narrow … too narrow.

Her hands flew to his shoulders. She sunk her fingers into the dense muscle. “Reese!”

“Shhh. It’ll be okay.”

She locked her arms, leaning back from him as she sought reassurance in his face. “Have you ever … done this … with someone … like me?”

He let his actions speak for him as he settled her on top of him. She felt him breach her, sinking her deliberately, easily, over the tip of him.

He answered her slowly, his gaze solidly on her as he slid her down onto him. “I have
never
 … 
done
anything
like this … with
anyone
 … like you.”

And then he was completely inside of her, so deep within her, filling her until she knew there wasn’t a cell in her body that didn’t feel him. And it was wondrous, magnificent.

“Relax, mite.” He leaned forward to nuzzle her neck, not moving inside her.

She knew the cost, felt it in the steel under her fingertips, the rocklike length of his thighs between her knees as he strained to keep his hips from thrusting.

His breath was hot, the words he whispered in her ear, hotter. “Relax your knees.” His hands continued to hold her hips until he felt her muscles loosen. Only then did they drift upward to cover her breasts.

She gasped and rocked forward. The motion thrust her hips down onto him, and a moan tore from her throat.