Passion (43 page)

It was the most erotic sound Teryl had ever heard. Power, he’d told her, was one of the biggest turn-ons around. Now she knew
what he meant. She’d never imagined she could draw such a plea from a man as big and strong as John. She hadn’t suspected
that she could make him beg, but she thought she could… if she cared to try. She didn’t.

Wriggling free of him, she evaded his reaching hands and rose to her knees on the bed, then pushed him onto his back. Like
most women, she’d always had a healthy appreciation for the male form, but it had been a long time since she’d had an opportunity
to express that appreciation in such a personal way. Maybe life in Colorado was just healthier—cleaner air, cleaner environment—or
maybe it was those California genes, combined with all the years he’d spent drifting and working whatever jobs he could get,
but he was certainly in better shape than any other man she’d been involved with. They had all been soft. John wasn’t muscle-bound—although
the muscles in his arms, chest, abdomen, and legs were clearly defined—but neither was he the slightest bit soft, not anywhere.
Especially not where she was stroking him now, she thought with wicked delight.

“Come here,” he commanded, reaching for her again.

“Not yet.” She caught his hand, lifted it to her mouth for a
kiss, then laid it on the mattress at his side. He immediately reached again.

“I won’t take over. You can do whatever you want. I just want you on top of me. I want to be inside you.”

“Then I can’t do everything I want.” But she relented this time, let him pull her over, lift her up. He steadied her while
she guided him into place; then she slid down slowly, achingly slowly, to take every hard inch. She watched his face—watched
the muscles in his jaw tighten as she took it all, watched the beads of sweat form across his forehead as she tentatively
moved, shifting, her body readjusting to his, watched his mouth move in a silent curse as she moved again and he struggled
to retain control.
Power
. She could learn to love it.

She could learn to love
him
.

Even if he
was
going to break her heart.

Leaning forward, she kissed his mouth, his throat, his nipples, her hips rocking back and forth, shifting side to side, not
much, never enough to get either of them off, just enough to make them hotter, needier, greedier. She liked it on top, she
decided, liked that the position made it so easy for her, that the natural, easy movement, up and down, in and out, stimulated
her as thoroughly as it did him. She liked looking down at him, watching the emotions cross his face, seeing what she did
to him. She especially liked seeing the effect she had on him and knowing that those same emotions and that same intense need
were reflected on her own face.

At some point, what started out as fun turned into serious business. Sweet, lazy enjoyment gave way to sharp-edged desire,
raw and dangerous. Lust grew into hunger that threatened to consume her. Her body was clenching, her rhythm faster and barely
controlled, John’s thrusts harder, deeper. Too aroused, too violently needy, she clung to him, pleaded with him to help, and
he responded. Gripping her hips in his hands, he rolled over, never leaving her body, sliding her into place underneath him,
and he took her hard and fast, pushing her over the edge, not stopping even then, not relenting. She lay there, fierce waves
of pleasure battering her with such intensity that her eyes grew damp and breathing became
impossible. Everything was greatly magnified—the heat they generated together, the friction where their bodies rubbed, the
little shock waves where her nipples brushed his chest, the emptiness in her own chest, and the fullness, the incredible fullness,
down lower as, with a savage groan and a curse, he came again, pumping into her, filling her.

Hell, yes, she could get used to this.

“Your parents were wrong.”

John was lying on his back, Teryl’s pillows under his head, her bedcovers tangled underneath him, and she was lying beside
him, her head cradled on his chest, her leg over and between his, her fingers moving lightly over his skin. If he moved enough
to see the clock on the night table, he would find out that it was the middle of the night, long past the time she should
have been asleep, considering that she had to get up and go to work in the morning. He didn’t bother to move, though. He was
perfectly comfortable right where he was. “About what?” he finally asked, although he knew exactly what she was referring
to.

“You’re
not
stupid.”

He liked the defensive, annoyed, derisive tone of her voice. Wouldn’t it surprise his parents to hear someone they would probably
like, someone who would probably remind them enough of Janie—sweet, friendly, warm, caring, innocent—to make them relate favorably
to her, take that attitude regarding
him
. “I know I’m not.” For example, in the last few minutes, the absentminded, lazy caresses she had been spreading across his
ribs and stomach had now moved down to his crotch—to his penis, soft and spent from their love-making, but more than happy
to receive her petting—but no way was he stupid enough to point that out to her. No way was he stupid enough to do anything
that might make her stop.

“Any fool can tell that you’re very bright.”

“In all fairness, I did have a lot of trouble in school.”

Resting her chin on his chest, she gazed up at him. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, in the beginning, I just wasn’t interested in what they were teaching. Once you get a reputation for
being dumb, a lot of teachers don’t try very hard. Your teachers probably always expected As from you, and you delivered.
My teachers didn’t think I was capable of anything better than Cs or Ds, so that’s what they gave me.”

“Maybe your parents had told you you were stupid so often that you believed it. Maybe
you
didn’t think you were capable of earning better grades, so you never did.”

He smiled faintly. “Oh, I believed them, all right. I felt like some sort of aberration. Here was Tom, who was absolutely
brilliant, and Janie, who was pretty damned close to brilliant, and in the middle was John the idiot child. If we hadn’t all
looked so damned much alike, they would have sworn I couldn’t possibly be their son.”

“Maybe it would have been better for you if they had,” she said, striving for but having difficulty reaching a lighter note.
“Then someone else could have taken you in, someone like
my
parents, who think
everyone’s
children are
their
children.” She fell silent for a moment, then moved so she could see his face better. Immediately he missed her soft little
caresses, but he found just as much pleasure gazing into her soft brown eyes. “Could you ever forgive them?”

“I doubt it.”

“But how do you get over it if you can’t forgive it?”

“I can accept it. I can accept that they had problems far more serious than a not-too-bright kid who wasn’t much good at anything
he did. What kind of parents can’t love their son because he doesn’t like football or can’t catch a baseball or doesn’t do
well in school?” He reached for her hand, needing the contact, focusing on her long, slender fingers. “Whatever failings
I
had were forgivable because I was just a kid. But they were adults. They knew better. They were supposed to protect me, and
instead they made my life miserable. As for forgiveness… that’s not something I can just do. They have to ask for it—they
have to earn it—and that’s never going to happen. As far as they’re concerned, I died with Tom. I no longer exist for them.”

“You don’t know that. If you haven’t seen them in seventeen years—”

“My sister keeps in touch with them,” he gently interrupted her, “and she keeps in touch with me. If they ever asked about
me, if they ever acknowledged me in any way, Janie would let me know.”

She became silent again, her expression troubled; then, once more, she changed positions, sitting up this time, pulling on
her tank top, facing him from the side of the bed.
“Can
you accept it?” she asked. “Can you understand that everything they did was wrong? That the way they treated you was wrong?
That the things they said to you weren’t true?”

He sat up, too, slid the pillows behind his back, pulled the sheet free of the covers, and tugged it to his waist. “Some things
are easier to accept than others,” he admitted. “I know I’m not stupid or clumsy or irresponsible. I don’t ruin everything
I do. I’m not lazy or worthless or careless or an idiot.” There were tangible ways of proving or disproving those insults.
The simple fact that he’d become the best-selling author in the country disproved most of them. You didn’t write critically
acclaimed books if you were stupid. You didn’t build a sizable fortune if you were irresponsible. You didn’t spend long, hard
hours working if you were lazy. You weren’t worth millions if you were worthless.

“And the others?”

Ah, yes, the others, Those were tougher. How did you prove you were worthy of being loved? After being told that you were
unlovable for nineteen years, after being told that the people who had given you life wished you had never been born—that
they prayed for your death—how could you believe that you deserved to be loved? There was no way to prove it. There was nothing
to point to the way he could point to his books and say, “I wrote these; obviously, I’m not an idiot.” There was nothing that
gave him reason to believe he had a right to love someone and be loved in return, nothing that said the man he’d become was
any more deserving of love than the boy he’d once been.

And there were two very good reasons to believe he
wasn’t. He had loved only two people in his life, the only two people who had ever loved him, and they had both suffered for
it. How could he ever risk making Teryl suffer?

“John?”

Feeling an all-too-familiar ache—loneliness, the kind that ate at a man from the inside out, the kind that he had come to
know intimately in the last half of his life—he forced a smile to his lips and his attention to her. “Do you know that ever
since I had to leave your bed in New Orleans, I’ve been having fantasies about you, some of them inspired by this shirt?”

For a moment, there was a silent protest in her eyes, disappointment that he wasn’t going to answer her question, that he
wasn’t going to confide in her anymore. Then she forced a smile, too. “What kind of fantasies?”

“Sexual ones, of course. Are there any other kind?” he teased. But, of course, there were. There was what could very easily
become his most favorite fantasy ever—the happily-ever-after one—and its variations. The claiming-Teryl-and-spending-the-rest-of-his-life-at-her-side
fantasy. The perfectly-normal-husband-wife-a-dozen-kids-and-a-dog fantasy.

“Tell me about them.”

He tugged the neckline of her shirt down until he could reach inside and lift her breast free. He fondled her nipple, making
it hard, making her soft, making himself stiff. “I’d rather show you. We start with this.” Leaning forward, he drew her nipple
into his mouth, flicking his tongue across it, biting it gently, sucking it hard.

“And then?” Already she was breathless.

“Then you do this.” He pushed the sheet away and brought her hand to his groin, pressing it to him, and immediately her fingers
curved around him. Already, with no more than a kiss and a caress, he was erect. With her sweet touch, he grew longer, harder.

“And then?”

“Then, when we’re ready—”

“How long does that take?”

“I don’t know. An hour or so.”

She gave him a hazy, chastising look. “You couldn’t survive an hour of this,” she taunted, insinuating her hand between
his thighs with a firm, unrelenting pressure and making his hips arch to meet it.

“It’s my fantasy, honey,” he reminded her.

“You feel ready to me, and I don’t have an hour to spare. One of us has to go to work in a few hours, so the other one is
going to go to work now. So what’s next?”

“Next I take your shirt off…” He did that, pulling it up slowly, occasionally stopping to press a kiss to her stomach or to
nuzzle her breast. When he pulled it over her head, it tousled her hair, and he used his fingers to stroke it back into sleek
order. “Now you come to the middle of the bed… facing that way… on your knees…”

She did as he directed but turned to look at him over her shoulder. Her expression was shadowed with wariness and, underneath
it, trust. “Is this going to hurt?”

Cupping his hands to her face, he kissed her gently. “I swear on my life, Teryl, I’ll never hurt you—
never
. But if you’re uncomfortable with this, just say so. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

In mute acceptance, she turned around and let him move her into position—her bottom snug against his hips, her thighs apart,
her hips tilted back, her spine curving down to where her upper body rested on the mattress. He had spoken of fantasies only
to distract her, but he
had
fantasized about making love to her like this in New Orleans. He had wanted her badly enough to feel weak, but guilt and
shame had made him walk away. Tonight, right at this moment, he had nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to be ashamed of.
Tonight he wasn’t lying to her, using her, or betraying her. Tonight she knew everything. She knew his life was filled with
questions without answers, and she wanted him anyway. He wondered if she fully understood how important that was to him.

Entering her from behind was easy. She was hot and wet, and he was hot and hard, and they fitted together snug and tight.
Bracing his hands on her back, his fingers splayed from spine to hip, he began stroking her, long, slow, easy. It was different
from being face-to-face, from having her legs locked around his hips, from feeling her breasts against his
chest. He couldn’t see her face, turned to one side, her hair tumbling over it, but he could hear her breathing, uneven, rapid,
punctuated with soft groans. He could feel the tension in her muscles, could feel it double, triple, when he reached underneath,
through the moist curls, to rub her. He could feel it intimately when she came, those incredibly tight, clamping sensations
hurrying his own orgasm. It wasn’t as shattering as the others had been, but it was powerful nonetheless. It made him tremble.
It left him weak.