One From The Heart (13 page)

“Ernie,” she said in exasperation. So that was the reason he’d wanted to know if she’d seen Rick. He thought she’d been behaving like Elizabeth in that respect, too.

“I want to mean more to you than that, Hannah. I know all about not letting anybody get close to you because you’re afraid you’ll get hurt. And I know I don’t fit into your life and you don’t fit into mine—but I still want to mean something to you. I’m thirty-nine years old, and I’m acting like a kid. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I think about you all the time—and I don’t
want
to think about you, dammit all! Right now, it’s all I can do to keep my hands off you, and I still want to run like hell!”

“Why don’t you run, then?” she asked quietly. It would be the best thing for both of them.

“Because I know you’d let me go. Just like you let Archer go. It’s the way you … handle things.”

“Oh, really?” she said angrily. “And just what makes you such an authority on human behavior!”

“Group therapy sessions at Alcoholics Anonymous,” he said shortly. He abruptly got up and walked to the stove, taking the coffee pot off and setting it aside. He got down a white cup from the cupboard, and another, but he left them both sitting and simply stood with his back to her. She waited awkwardly, expecting him to say something.

“Ernie?” she said when he didn’t.

“What?” He moved the white coffee cup a bit to the left, but he didn’t turn around.

“Rick and I … weren’t lovers. We weren’t even close friends. We were just professional associates—”

“Hannah, I don’t want to hear this,” he interrupted, glancing at her over his shoulder.

“You don’t want to hear this? Ernie, you asked me about it on the way down here!”

“I know that,” he said testily. And he was fiddling with the coffee cups again. “I’m trying to do better by you. I don’t want to
make
you tell me anything you don’t want to tell me, like I did about your father—”

“Right! So now you won’t let me tell you something I
want
to tell you, for God’s sake!”

She gave up then; she didn’t want to talk anymore. Whatever the attraction was between them, logic and appropriateness had nothing to do with it, and whatever they wanted to say to each other always seemed to come out wrong.

She went to him, hesitating a moment, then leaning against him, her face pressed into his back, her eyes closed. He sighed heavily, and she slid her arms around his waist, loving the scent and the feel of him and thinking this was where he’d probably break and run. Again.

“We’re a pair, you know that, Hannah?” he said sadly.

“Yes, I know that. What if—” She broke off and started again. She might as well say it. “What if I think—I’m in love with you, too?” She could say it because he couldn’t see her face.

“Then we’re in big trouble.”

He turned around, giving her a sad smile and gently brushing back her hair. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered, leaning down a bit to nuzzle her cheek.

“I’ve got freckles,” she felt obliged to remind him, her eyes half closed. She could feel his breath warm against her face, feel the soft brush of his mustache.

“I love your freckles,” he said, still whispering, placing a soft, lingering kiss gently on her mouth.

Oh
, she thought, perhaps said. How sweet his kisses were. And how sweet it would be if just this once he didn’t try to make another escape.

“Don’t make me go,” he whispered. The words were a soft murmuring, his mouth against hers. “Don’t—”

Lord, no
, she thought. That was the last thing she wanted, prudent or not, sensible or not, and in spite of what she’d just said.

“We’re in big trouble,” she reminded him anyway, parting her lips for him as he kissed her again.

“I know it. It’s too late now.”

“Is it?”

“You know damn well it is. Too late. Too soon. Everything about it’s wrong,” he said, his mouth coming down hard on hers.

Yes. Yes, she knew that, and the knowledge would do nothing to forestall the pain that would ultimately be hers if she continued this. Her knees were weak. The desire she’d tried to deny since the first night they’d met began once again to uncoil deep within her, leaving an aching, empty place that only he could fill. She didn’t want to be hurt again, and yet she wasn’t afraid. She could feel his need of her, feel it in the urgent way his mouth took hers, again and again, and in the hard pressure of his body.

Trembling. He was trembling. “Hannah,” he whispered against her ear, his voice ragged with that need. She twisted her body so he could touch her breast. She wanted to be touched, wanted his warm hands on her breasts. She could feel her body opening to him, responding to the heat of the longing he generated in her like some delicate hothouse flower.

He leaned back for a moment to look at her, his eyes searching hers.

Dear God, she thought then.
He’s more afraid than I am
. She could see it. He expected nothing but pain from her, the same kind of pain he’d gotten from Libby.

“I want to make love with you, Hannah.”

She reached up to touch his face, but he caught her hand and pressed a soft, loving kiss into her palm. She was lost then, and she reached down to take him by the hand, to lead him to the bed with the Hudson Bay blanket at the far end of the room. He sat down on the side of the bed, then reached for her to bring her onto his lap. He held her tightly, his face between her breasts while she rested her head against his, her hands caressing the back of his neck and his shoulders. She helped him take off his denim jacket and undo the buttons on his shirt—he was wearing the old-fashioned undershirt she’d admired the night he’d brought Petey to her. No. It wasn’t the undershirt she’d admired. It was the man wearing it.

Ernie
.

His eyes never left hers, and from time to time he smiled that shy, quiet smile she’d seen only a very few times, the one that had left her knowing that the barriers he’d needed against her were down, the smile that left her weak with desire now. She lifted her arms for him so he could pull off her T-shirt. Underneath it she wore a soft camisole and no bra. His hands, warm and loving, gently cupped her breast, then slid up under the camisole to caress her bare skin.

“I can’t believe how soft you feel,” he said. “Let me look at you.”

She removed the camisole herself, offering her body to him without false modesty, without shame.

“Hannah, Hannah, you are so beautiful,” he whispered. “You know that, don’t you?”

She hadn’t known it; she was only Hannah and not Elizabeth, by any stretch of the imagination, and he’d left so abruptly before. But he made her believe it, with the tremor in his touch, with the soft, loving look and the desire in his dark eyes, with the warm press of his mouth against her skin. Her eyes closed and her hands slid into his hair as he lowered his head to circle one taut nipple with his tongue, then take it into his mouth. She felt his gentle tugging so intensely that she kept him there, giving a soft cry of pleasure as the aching, empty space in her grew hot and restless and emptier still. They tumbled backward on the bed together, lying face to face, his legs under hers.

“The lights,” she said as his warm mouth found her breasts again, moving from one to the other. “Ernie—Oh—”

He lifted his head to look at her. “I’m not hiding with you in the dark, Hannah. I want you to see me loving you.”

He sat up then, removing the rest of his clothes and hers. She shivered, more from anticipation and passion than from the cool air on her bare skin. He helped her pull down the blankets and position the pillows, then stood. Hannah looked up at him. He was so beautiful, his angular male body, which she reached out to caress, his very soul, which looked out at her through such solemn eyes. She held the blankets back for him, and he stretched out beside her, careful of his knee and gathering her close to him, pressing his face into her neck for a moment, his breath ragged and warm there.

“I didn’t want to leave you last night,” she thought he said.

“I didn’t want you to leave,” she whispered, pressing a kiss against his cheek, feeling the rough stubble of his beard against her lips and loving the feel of it. Her hands rested lightly on his shoulders, and he looked at her then, smiling into her eyes.

“That’s why you were holding the door open and yelling for me to get out, right?”

They laughed together, and he hugged her to him again, his hands moving slowly over her back and around to her hips, finally sliding up to cup her breasts again.

“God, you are so good for me,” he said, his mouth finding hers. It left her breathless, swamped with sensations—his warm hands and the cool, crisp sheets, her desire once again spiraling upward, her worry that she wasn’t as good for him as he thought. And she was afraid after all. Making love with a man for the first time meant being afraid, vulnerable—particularly
this
man. She knew how hard he’d fought not to become involved with her, and she pushed any thought of Elizabeth out of her mind. She wanted to be good for him. She wanted to hold him and to be possessed by him, and to give him more pleasure than he’d ever known. She didn’t want him to be sad anymore, and she wanted to be the reason.

“My … sweet … Hannah …” he murmured as he held her face in his hands and kissed her, so gently and so thoroughly, eyes open so he could see her response. She outlined his lips lightly with the tip of her tongue, teasing, tasting, until he gave a soft, passion-filled moan, until his arms slid around her, and he strained to hold her closer than it was possible to be held. She reveled in the urgent pressure of his arousal against her belly and in the kisses she needed so desperately and couldn’t wait to return.

“You feel so good to me,” he whispered, his hands moving over her, touching her in all the places that craved his touch. “Let me love you—let me—”

“Yes!” she whispered, her voice fierce with passion. Then he was lifting her, sliding under her, bringing her leg over him.

“Hannah,” he whispered, his voice as urgent as his kisses. “It’s been a long time since I—I can’t wait for you—”

But he was already inside her, filling the place in her body and in her soul that was meant only for him. He inhaled sharply as she took him deeply, clamping his arms around her when she fell forward onto his chest to hold her still until he could regain some element of control.

“Hannah, Hannah—” he whispered against her ear, as if her name might serve as a benediction of the need he had for her.

She wanted him; she was on fire with her need for him, and she whimpered in frustration. But then his hips thrust upward in that ancient and purpose-filled motion that changed her frustration to a pleasure so searing it was almost pain.

He didn’t go to someone else last night
—
not Selena or Modesta or the woman with the strange voice
…

Such pleasure. Such exquisite pleasure. Her body was suffused with it. She had never felt anything like this, and she wanted to tell him so, in soft, unrestrained words she could let spill over him as lightly as the rain that now sounded against the window at their heads.

But making love with a man for the first time was being afraid, and she tried to hide her need of him, her need to let him know that she loved him and that
she
wouldn’t hurt him, ever.

Ever
.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“H
ANNAH
?”

“What?”

His arms tightened around her. “Are you … all right?”

“No,” she said truthfully. She was still so overwhelmed by her response to him that she pressed her face into his neck and clung to him as if she were in danger of drowning. He kissed her forehead and caressed her cheek. She was cold suddenly, and she shivered against him.

“Hannah—”

“Ernie, let’s don’t talk, okay? I don’t want to … talk.” She had too much to sort out, too many conflicting emotions.

“Hannah, it’s never been like this for me. I want to know what you’re feeling—”

“No, you don’t.”

He hooked his fingers under her chin to make her look at him. “Yes, I do. Tell me. You’re worrying me here. A lot. I didn’t … I wasn’t too rough with you or anything, was I?”

“No, no, Ernie,” she whispered, hugging him tightly. “You didn’t hurt me. You were—”

“What? I was what?”

She lifted her head to see his face. He had told the truth. He was worrying. “Everything,” she said, staring into his eyes. “You were everything. You made me feel—”

“Hannah, don’t stop now. I can’t take it. Tell me.”

She pressed her face into his neck again, noting amid all the turmoil she was feeling how much she loved the masculine scent of his body. She ran her hand over his chest, loving his lean, muscular feel. “As if I belong to you,” she said quietly.

“What?” he asked, raising himself up so he could see her face.

She didn’t repeat it, and his arms tightened around her. He kissed her forehead again, then her eyes, and finally her lips, lingering over them in a way that emptied her mind of everything but him. “I heard you,” he whispered. “I just wanted to hear you say it again.”