“Why not?”
“Because we’re going to church today, remember?”
He rolled the peppermint stick into the corner of his mouth. “So?”
“So we can’t make love and then go to church.”
Jake frowned. “Well, if that’s the case, then I’m not going. I don’t like that rule.”
“Jake Harkner, you’ve been fighting that promise for a month now. Your excuse has been that you won’t go until Evie is ready to go, and she is. Our lovely, healing daughter is finally ready to get out and see people again, and the main reason she agreed to do so was because you promised her you would go to church with all of us today. It’s time to keep your promise. You are out of excuses.”
He bit off a piece of the peppermint and ran the other end of it over her lips. “What’s that got to do with making love before we go?”
“It just doesn’t seem right, that’s all. We’ve waited this long so I’d be completely healed and we were both stronger. What are a few more hours going to matter?”
“Randy, do you realize who you’re talking to? This is a record for me. We haven’t gone this long without sex unless I was gone and we couldn’t be together.”
“Jake—”
“What if I promise to keep it respectful?”
Randy smiled. “You don’t know how to make love respectfully.”
“And you enjoy it.”
“Jake, I am absolutely not going to have sex before I go to church.”
She started to get up but he pulled her back down. “We’re married, so it’s not sinful, if that’s what you’re saying. And, hell, the Bible is full of stories about lust and whores and men tasting the fruits of women’s breasts and murder and mayhem and all the damn things I’ve already done, so maybe I’ll fit right in when I walk into that church.”
“Jake Harkner, you just used the words hell, lust, whores, breasts, and damn all in the same sentence as the word Bible. You are the most hopeless child of God I have ever known.”
He moved a hand over her breasts, caressing them through the soft flannel gown. “All I know is that God made man and woman to fit together just right, and for a reason. They’re supposed to mate, and you’re my mate.” He moved his hand down to the hem of her nightgown and up underneath it, along her thigh. “And I’ve waited because I wanted you to be completely healed. I can’t take this torture any longer.”
“So you pick a Sunday morning before church to stop and make love after all this time?”
“Seems like a great way to start a Sunday morning. You’re the one who says God saved both of us. I think he saved us for this.”
“Not many people would think God saved someone so they could have sex again.”
Jake grinned, the old familiar, handsome grin that always undid her. “Come on, woman, take off the underwear and bite on this peppermint stick.”
“Why do you have a way of always making this seem sinful?”
“Because it’s more fun that way.”
“What if Ben wakes up?”
“That kid sleeps like a bear in hibernation.”
“I’m only going to let you do this if you promise not to use one cuss word today when everyone comes for dinner. Evie is right. Your grandsons are starting to talk like barroom brawlers, and Ben will be doing the same thing if you don’t stop. And be careful in church if the preacher talks to you afterward. I know how easily those words fall out of your mouth without you even being aware of it.”
“Take off the underwear and I promise not to cuss.”
Randy smiled, her eyes full of doubt. She bit the other end of the peppermint stick, and they ate it down until their lips met. Once they did, she had no argument left in her. The underwear came off. Not only that, so did the gown, and Randy found herself allowing the man to ravish her in what she considered was surely the most sinful way of all.
But it had been so long. So long. Her weak protest was whispered and not very firm as his kisses trailed from her breasts, over her belly, where he licked and kissed at her scars. He moved down to her thighs. She sucked in her breath when he found her sweetness and groaned with the pleasure of tasting her in the most intimate way she once never dreamed she’d let a man do to her. But this was Jake, and she doubted there was anything he didn’t know about how to please a woman. She grasped his hair and offered herself to him, taking wicked pleasure in the way he had of making love to that secret place that belonged only to him. She cried out with an intense climax, almost painful from that deep, reawakened need for this man. He moved his tongue back up over her belly and savored her breasts as he grasped her bottom with both hands and filled her with manly passion. She tasted her own sweetness on his lips as he devoured her mouth in that way he had of bringing out not just desire but pure lust—lust that made her arch up to his thrusts, all of it made so keenly perfect because she was well and there was no more fear of what might have been. This was sweet, soft, warm morning sex—their favorite time to make love.