Twelve
Jeff’s heartbeat thundered in his chest. He wasn’t usually much of a gambler, but he was betting on a future that, at the moment, didn’t exist.
It was a thousand years before Lucy slid her small hand into his bigger one. “Yes,” she said. The word was barely audible.
He led her among the crowded tables and out into the hotel foyer. After tucking her into an elegant wingback chair, he brushed a finger across her cheek. “Stay here. I won’t be long.”
Perhaps the desk clerk thought him a tad weird. Jeff could barely register for glancing back over his shoulder to see if Lucy had bolted. But all was well. She had her phone in her hand and was apparently checking messages.
When he had the key, he went back for her. “Ready?”
Her face was pale when she looked up at him. But she smiled and rose to her feet. “Yes.”
They shared an elevator with three other people. On the seventh floor, Jeff took Lucy’s arm and steered her off. “This way,” he said gruffly as he located their room number on the brass placard. They were at the end of the hall, far from the noise of the elevator and the ice machine.
He’d booked a suite. Inside the pleasantly neutral sitting room, he took off his jacket and tie. “Would you like more wine?” he asked.
Lucy hovered by the door. “No. Why do you want me to go talk to Kirsten?” Her eyes were huge...perhaps revealing distress over the shambles of their past.
He leaned against the arm of the sofa. “She was your friend from childhood. You and I had dated less than a year. As angry as I was with you, on some level I understood.”
“Why were you angry with me?” she asked, her expression bewildered. “You were the one who cheated.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s been two years, Lucy. Two long, frustrating years when you and I should have been starting our life together. Surely you’ve had time enough to figure it out by now.”
“You didn’t come after me.” Her voice was small, the tone wounded.
Ah...there it was. The evidence of his own stupidity. “You’re right about that. I let my pride get in the way. When you wouldn’t take my calls, I wanted to make you grovel. But as it turns out, that was an abysmally arrogant and unproductive attitude on my part. I’m sorry I didn’t follow you back to Austin. I should have. Maybe one good knock-down, drag-out fight would have cleared the air.”
“And now...if I agree to go talk to Kirsten?”
He swallowed the last of his wine and set the glass aside. “I don’t want to discuss Kirsten anymore. You and I are the only two people here in this suite. What I desperately need is make love to you.”
Thirteen
Lucy sucked in a deep breath, her insides tumbling as they had the one and only time she rode the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair. On that occasion, she had tossed her cookies afterward.
Tonight was different. Tonight, the butterflies were all about anticipation and arousal and the rebirth of hope. Why else would she be here with Jeff Hartley?
She nodded, kicking off her shoes. “Yes.” There were a million words she wanted to say to him, and not all of them kind. But for some reason, the only thing that mattered at this very moment was feeling the warmth of his skin beneath her fingers one more time.
She felt more emotionally bereft than brave, but she made her feet move...carrying her across the plush carpet until she stood face-to-face with Jeff. His gaze was stormy, his fists were clenched at his sides.
He stared into her eyes as if looking for something he was afraid he wouldn’t find. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I thought I could put you out of my mind, but that was laughable. You’ve haunted every room in my house. Kiss me, Lucy.”
With one of his strong arms around her back, binding her to him, she went up on her tiptoes and found his mouth with hers. The taste of him brought tears to sting her eyelids, but she blinked them back, wanting this moment to be about light and warmth and pleasure. He held her gently as he took everything she thought she knew and stripped it away, leaving only a yearning that was heart-deep and visceral.
She wanted to say something, but Jeff was a man possessed. He found the zipper at her back and lowered it with one smooth move. Then he shimmied the garment down her body and held her arm as she stepped out of the small heap of fabric.
Beneath the dress, she wore lacy underthings. Jeff didn’t pause to admire them. The lingerie went the way of the crumpled dress.
Suddenly, she realized that she was completely naked, and her would-be lover was staring. Hotly. Glassy-eyed. As if he’d been struck in the head and was seeing stars.
She crossed her arms over strategic areas and scowled. “Take off your clothes, Mr. Hartley. This show works both ways.”
If the situation hadn’t been so emotionally fraught, she might have chuckled when Jeff dragged his shirt, still half-buttoned, over his head. His pants and socks and shoes were next in the frenzied disrobing.
Underneath, he wore snug-fitting black boxers that strained to contain his arousal. Suddenly, she felt shy and afraid and clueless. Had she ever really known this man at all?
He didn’t give her time for second thoughts. “We’ll be more comfortable on the bed,” he promised, scooping her up and carrying her through the adjacent doorway. She barely noticed the furnishings or the color scheme. Her gaze was locked on Jeff’s face.
His cheekbones were slashed with color. His eyes glittered with lust. “You’re mine, Lucy.”
Fourteen
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. It was as simple as that. Even if he hadn’t said the words, she would have felt his deep conviction in the way he moved his hands over her body.
He still wore his underwear, maybe to keep things from rushing along too rapidly. He was tanned all over from his days of working in the hot sun. His chest was a work of art, sleekly muscled...lightly dusted with golden hair.
Even as she took in the magnificence that was Jeff Hartley, she couldn’t help but question his motives. As a rancher and a member of the Texas Cattleman’s Club in Royal, he was a well-respected member of the community. Had his reputation suffered when she walked out on him? Was there a part of him that wanted revenge?
He loomed over her on one elbow, his emerald eyes darker than normal, his forehead damp, his skin hot. It was all she could do to be still and let him map her curves like a blind man. Need rose, hot and tormenting, between her clenched thighs.
How could she want him so desperately while knowing full well there were serious unresolved issues between them? “Jeff,” she whispered, not really knowing what to say. “Please...” Despite what her head told her, her heart and her body were in control.
It was as if they had never been apart. He rolled her to her stomach and moved aside a swath of her hair to kiss the nape of her neck. The press of his lips against sensitive skin sent sparkles of sensation all down to her feet.
When he nibbled his way along her spine, her hands grabbed the sheets. He lay heavy against her, his big body weighing her down deliciously.
At last she felt him move away. He scrambled out of his boxers and rolled her to face him once again. She let her arms fall lax above her head, enjoying the way his avid gaze scoured her from head to toe.
It had been two years since she had seen him naked...two years since she had seen him at all. Beginning with what would have been their wedding morning, he had phoned her every single day for a week. Each one of those times she had let his call go to voice mail, telling herself he should have had the guts to face her in person.
Had she wronged him grievously? In her blind hurt, had she rushed to judgment? The enormity of the question made her head spin.
For weeks and months, she had wallowed in her self-righteous anger, calling Jeff Hartley every dirty name in the book, telling herself she hated him...that he was a worthless cad, a two-timing player.
But what if she had been wrong? What if she had been terribly, dreadfully wrong?
He used his thumb to erase the frown lines between her brows. “What’s the matter, buttercup?”
Hearing the silly nickname made the lump in her throat grow larger. “I don’t know what we’re doing, Jeff.”
His smile was lopsided, more rueful than happy. “Damned if I know either. But let’s worry about that tomorrow.”
She cupped his cheek, feeling the light stubble of late-day beard. “Since when do you channel Scarlett O’Hara?”
Without answering, he reached in his discarded pants for a condom and took care of business. Then he moved between her thighs. “Put your arms around my neck, Lucy. I want to feel you skin to skin.”
Fifteen
Jeff tried to live an honorable life. He gave to charity, offered work to those who needed it, supported his local civic organizations and donated large sums of money to the church where he had been baptized as an infant.
But lying in Lucy’s arms, on the brink of restaking a claim that had lain dormant for two years, he would have sold his soul to the devil if he could have frozen time.
Lucy’s eyes were closed.
“Look at me,” he commanded. “I want you to see my face when I take you.”
Her breath came in short, sharp pants. She nodded, her eyelids fluttering upward as she obeyed.
Gently, he spread her thighs and positioned his aching flesh against the moist, pink lips of her sex. When he pushed inside, he was pretty sure he blacked out for a moment. Two years. Two damn years.