Chapter 7 #2
The idea of sharing a bed with a man you cared for, respected, understood, had seemed practical and certainly human enough. But the idea of sharing a life—or needing to share it because you couldn’t imagine living without one person—had always struck her as romantic nonsense.
No more.
And he was such a beautiful man. Strong and smart.
Stubborn and opinionated. Exactly, she realized, the kind of man she needed.
Without any one of those qualities, her personality would have driven her to run right over him, making both of them miserable.
Because he had them, she would run into him often, bruising them both. And she’d be wildly happy.
Smiling, she caught herself stroking his hair.
After letting out a careful breath, she made herself stop.
What did a woman like her do with these tender feelings?
She understood passion. At least she understood it now.
But what about this soft, yielding sensation, this dependence, this need to nurture and cherish and simply love?
How would a man like Jacob Hornblower react to this sudden gush of emotion?
He’d sneer at her. Closing her eyes, she admitted that she would have sneered herself only hours before.
But everything had changed. For her, Sunny reminded herself. If she was honest she would accept the fact that she’d started falling the moment she’d faced him, ready to fight, in this very same room.
But Jacob . . . She herself had called him a tough nut. Cracking him, discovering whether there was indeed a soft center capable of gentler emotions, would be a difficult task. It would take effort, she thought. That was no problem. It would take patience. That was.
Oblivious of where her thoughts were headed, he turned his head enough to brush a kiss to the curve of her breast.
“Your taste,” he murmured.
“Hmm?”
“It keeps me hungry.” He scraped his teeth along her skin, then smiled when he felt her heart skip a beat. “I like you here best.” He propped himself up to study her face lazily. “Naked and in bed.”
“A typical male attitude.” Deliberately she danced her fingers down his hip and watched his eyes darken. “But then, I think I prefer you in the same state.”
“It’s convenient that we finally agree about something.” He shifted so that he could trace her lips with the tip of his tongue. “I like your mouth, Sunbeam. It’s stubborn and sexy.”
“I could say the same about yours.”
“We agree again.”
“A new record.” She caught his lower lip between her teeth. “We could push our luck. What else do you like?”
“Your . . .” His smile spread slowly. “. . . energy.”
“Another winner.”
With a laugh, he deepened the kiss. She was just as sweet, and just as potent, as the first time. “Your body,” he decided. “I definitely like your body.”
She sighed into his mouth. “We’re on a roll, J.T. Don’t stop now.”
He shifted his attention to her earlobe. “This is a nice spot,” he murmured, nuzzling until they were both dizzy. “But I suppose, under the circumstances, I can confess that I find your mind . . . intriguing.”
“Intriguing,” she repeated, as shudder after delicious shudder passed through her. “An interesting choice of words.”
“It seemed more apt than infuriating at the moment. And I . . .” His words trailed off when he spotted a line of faint bruises on her shoulder.
He placed the tips of his fingers on them experimentally.
“I’ve marked your skin,” he said, surprised and a bit appalled.
If he had bruised her during a fight, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
But in bed, while loving . . . that was a different matter. “I’m sorry.”
She twisted her head to glance at them. She certainly hadn’t felt them. “Are you?”
He looked back to see her lips curved in what he considered a typically female smile. “No, I suppose I’m not.”
“Under the circumstances,” she supplied.
“Right.” He started to speak again, to make some joke, but found himself suddenly and totally at a loss for words. Something in her smile, in her half-hooded eyes, in the tilt of that damn-you chin, turned his brain to mush.
Ridiculous, he told himself as he continued to stare at her.
Absolutely and completely ridiculous. Whatever he was feeling, it couldn’t be love—not the kind of love that caused men to make foolish and life-altering decisions.
It was affection, he told himself. Attraction, desire and passion, tempered with a certain amount of caring, perhaps.
But love. He had no room for it. And no time.
Time. Reality struck him like a blow. Time was the biggest obstacle of all.
He started to push himself away, to put some distance between them until he could think clearly again. Still smiling, she wrapped arms and legs around him. “Going somewhere?”
“I must be heavy.”
“You are.” She continued to smile, then traced her lips with her tongue. Her hips moved gently, sinuously, against his. Thrilled, she watched his eyes cloud as he grew inside her. “I was hoping we could do a little experiment.”
He shook his head but failed to clear it. “Experiment?”
“Physics.” She trailed a single fingertip down his back. “You know about physics, don’t you, J.T.?”
He used to. “That’s Dr. Hornblower to you,” he muttered, and buried his face in her throat.
“Well, Doc . . . isn’t there this theory about an object in motion remaining in motion?”
His breath was ragged in her ear. “Let me show you.”
***
She ached all over. And she’d never felt better in her life. Bleary eyed, she winced at the intruding sunlight. Morning. Again, she realized.
She wouldn’t have believed it was possible to spend the better part of a day and all of a night in bed. With only snatches of sleep. With a grumbling sigh, she tried to roll over and met the solid wall of Jacob’s body.
He’d been busy since dawn, she mused. Busy working her over to the edge of the bed.
Now he took up ninety percent of the mattress, along with all of the sheets and blankets.
The only thing saving her from sliding onto the floor was the weight of the leg he had hooked around her hips.
And the arm stretched carelessly, and certainly not amorously, over her throat.
She shifted again, met the unmoving line of resistance and narrowed her eyes. “Okay, pal,” she said under her breath, “we’re going to begin as I mean to go on, and I don’t mean to roll onto the floor every night for the rest of my life.”
She gave him an unloverlike nudge in the stomach with her elbow. He swore and shoved her another inch toward the edge.
Tactics, Sunny decided. She changed hers by sliding a hand intimately over his hip and thigh. “J.T.,” she whispered, trailing a line of kisses down his cheek. “Honey.”
“Hmm?”
She nibbled delicately at his ear. “Jacob? Sweetheart?”
He made another vague sound and cupped her breast. Sunny’s brow lifted. His movement had cost her another precious fraction of an inch.
“Baby,” she added, figuring she was running out of endearments. “Wake up, sugar. There’s something I want to do.” Gently, seductively, she brushed her lips down to his shoulder. “Something I really need.”
As his lips curved, she bit him. Hard.
“Ow.” His eyes flew open, temper and bafflement warring in them. “What the hell was that for?”
“So I could get back my share of the bed.” Satisfied, she snuggled into the pillow he’d just vacated. She opened one eye and was gratified to see that he was scowling at her. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a bed hog? And a blanket thief.” She snatched the loose cover and rolled into it.
“You’re the first one to complain.”
She only smiled. She was counting on being the last. Frowning, he rubbed the wound on his shoulder. There were shadows under her eyes. They made her look vulnerable. The faint throbbing where her teeth had connected reminded him that she was anything but.
Inside that angular body was a whirlwind of energy.
All wells of passion that he was sure—even with the marathon they’d put each other through—had yet to be tapped.
She’d taken him places he hadn’t believed existed.
Places he was already yearning to return to.
In the deepest part of the night she had been insatiable, and impossibly generous.
He’d had only to touch her to have her respond.
She’d had only to touch him to cause the need to churn.
Now, in the full light of morning, she was wrapped in the blankets, with only her tousled cap of hair and half of her face in view. And he wanted her.
What was he going to do about her? With her? For her? He hadn’t a clue.
He wondered how she would react if he told her everything.
She’d go back to thinking he was unbalanced.
He could prove it to her. And once he had they would both have to face the fact that whatever had happened between them during the last spin of the earth on its axis was transient. He wasn’t ready for that.
For once in his life he wanted to delude himself. To pretend. They would have only a few weeks together at best. More than other men, he had firsthand knowledge of how fickle time could be. So now he would use it, and take what he had with her.
But how could he? Sitting up, he rubbed his hands over his face.
It wasn’t fair to her. It was grossly unfair, particularly if his instincts were correct and her feelings were involved.
Not telling her would hurt her when it ended.
Telling her would hurt her before it had really begun. And maybe that was best.
“Going somewhere?” she asked him.
He was reminded of when she had used the same phrase before, and where it had ended. Now he thought of how he could tell her just how far away he was going. She was an intelligent woman. He had only to give her the facts.
“Sunny.”
“Yes?” She ran a hand up his arm. Then, feeling repentant, she rose long enough to kiss his shoulder where she had bitten it.