Times Change

Chapter 7

He crossed to her slowly, soundlessly. Inevitably. In his eyes she saw mirrored her own needs. A reflection of desires, raw and ready, that she had refused to acknowledge. Even now, faced with them, she wanted to deny that they existed. Not with this power. Not with this potency.

She could have held up a hand, said one simple word. No.

Perhaps it would have stopped him. Perhaps not. But her hands remained clutched on the towel. And she said nothing. At all.

At her back she could feel the steam from the shower still rising. Or was it anticipation that heated her skin? Her fingers were balled tight, lodged in the subtle valley between her breasts. Her eyes were steady on his. But her pulse scrambled erratically, as if she had just crossed the finish line of a long, arduous race.

He didn’t touch her. Not at first. He already knew that once he did, the time to turn back would be lost for both of them. A part of him wished desperately that he could simply walk back, turn away and continue on the route he already had mapped out. She was a detour, a dangerous combination of curves that would only lead him astray.

But, looking at her, his eyes dark and intent on her face, he knew that his bridges were already smoking behind him.

He touched her face . . . took it in his hands. Cupped it, molding his fingers to the angles, as if to mold the shape of it in his mind. To remember her, always, as she was in this one instant, to remember her through all the centuries that would keep them apart.

He heard her breath catch, then release, felt the faint, almost delicate, tremblings of passion still restrained. All the while he watched her, measuring that look in her eyes. Part panic, part challenge. Resisting her would be as impossible as stopping his own heartbeat at will.

Slowly, deliberately, he spread his fingers, skimming them up so that his palms slid over her jawline, her cheekbones, her temples, until his hands were caught in her wet, sleek hair. He took one fistful of it, then two.

Her gaze never faltered from his. She wouldn’t permit it to. But she couldn’t prevent a quick, soft gasp as he drew her head back. Her lips parted, in both invitation and acceptance, as he leaned closer. Only the thinning mist from the bath wound between them.

With his mouth a breath away from hers, he stopped, waited. It had nothing to do with hesitation. There was as much challenge in his eyes as in hers.

To meet it, she moved forward, the slight sway of her body closing the narrow distance between them.

“Yes,” she said, and lifted her mouth to his.

No single word could have lit the fires so quickly. No practiced seduction could have broken the last chains on his control. His fingers tightened in her hair, and his mouth swooped down on hers.

The glory of it. He felt hunger answer hunger, desperation ply desperation. Her mouth was like an oasis, offering the last cool drop of life to a dying man who knew he must stumble back into the sun. She appeased even as she incited, promised even as she demanded. There was honey for the taking, rich and thick, but always at the risk of being stung. The risk made the reward all the sweeter.

He had never known a woman could make him suffer, and make him relish the pain, all from a meeting of lips.

Her hands were trapped between their bodies. They flexed, impatient, not for release but to take as he was taking. She spread them flat on his chest, fretting for freedom. But her murmur of protest was lost in his assault on her mouth before it merged with a groan of pleasure.

His teeth nipped and nibbled, and then his tongue plunged deep, greedily. Deaf and blind to all else, she dived in, as recklessly as he.

Her hands were free for an instant. Before she could clutch at him, her world seemed to tilt, and she was swept up in his arms. Swept off her feet, she thought giddily. No man before him had ever dared to attempt it. No man before him would have succeeded. With muscles like iron, he caught her hard against him, closing the distance to the bedroom in a few long-legged strides. Even as she tugged at his sweater, they were tumbling onto the bed.

With one frantic stroke, he ripped the towel from her, then gripped her seeking hands in his, fingers interlacing, locking, so that he could look his fill. The thin winter light seeped through the window to lie loverlike on her skin.

Her struggle to free her hands stopped. For a moment, she thought her breathing had, as well.

He knew his had. It wasn’t air that rushed through him, but a desire so acute it left him reeling.

She was pale as moonlight, long limbed, with the fine-toned muscles of a dancer or an athlete. The strength was there, and the femininity. As he looked, and looked, and looked, she began to tremble.

Her hair was dark, wet and slicked back from her face. Now, as they had earlier with anger, her eyes had deepened to smoke. And they watched him.

With her hands still caught in his, he lowered his mouth. She arched, as greedy as he for the contact. Even as the kiss pumped through her like a drug, she tried to tug her hands free. But he was relentless, as if he knew that once he released her the power would be taken from him. Not to dominate, but only to pleasure, he kept her prisoner.

She moaned as the soft cotton of his sweater brushed her skin. She wanted his flesh against hers. She wanted her hands on him, and his on her. But he used his mouth, only his mouth, to drive her to the edge of reason.

Rapidly, almost savagely, he moved his lips over her—her face, her neck, her shoulders. She spoke his name, writhing frantically beneath him, but he moved restlessly on.

With openmouthed kisses he circled her breasts, tormenting himself as much as her. Then he drew the point into his mouth to nip, to suck, to stroke with the rough edge of his tongue.

He had known the flavor of women, but hers was new, so exclusively hers that he knew that if he supped of ten times ten thousand others, he would never be satisfied. Never had he known so keen or so perfect a match. The ache to claim all of her sprinted inside him.

“Jacob.” His name was like a prayer that was transformed into a frantic moan. “Let me—”

But the words ended on a stunned, suffocated cry as he shot her over a towering, airless peak. She flew, thoughts and feelings tangling and breaking apart. Still his hands were locked with hers. Gasping, giddy, she closed her eyes as her tensed muscles went lax.

If this was pleasure, she had never tasted it before. If this was passion, she understood for the first time why a woman would die for it.

Dazed, she opened her eyes. The fierce triumph in his had her heart pounding against her ribs again. “I can’t—I haven’t—”

“You can, and you will. Again.” And he watched, ravenous, as he sent her soaring.

Shudders racked her. Each movement of her body beneath his pushed her closer to the edge of reason. Freed, her hands slid bonelessly to the rumpled sheets. There was a mist in front of her eyes. As his hands joined his mouth in plundering her, she wondered that she didn’t simply float up and away into it.

Touch me.

She wasn’t certain if he spoke the words or if his need merely echoed in her head. Through layers of drugged pleasure she lifted her arms, brought him close. And found his mouth with hers.

Strength raced back into her, edgier, more potent, from the weakness. A new level of desperation had her dragging his sweater over his head. Twin gasps of pleasure speared the quiet as her hands found him.

Warm, firm. Hers. She stroked and explored as thoroughly, as mercilessly, as he. Catapulted by a hunger grown insatiable, she rolled with him on the bed, her mouth fused to his, tearing at his jeans with frantic fingers until heated flesh met heated flesh.

He had thought he knew what delights a woman could bring when she touched a man. But she had never touched him before. All he had known, all he had experienced before, paled. And meant nothing.

He was filled with her body, mind and soul. She was everything he’d dreamed of without knowing he was dreaming, everything he’d wished for without knowing he was wishing. As her lips ran over him, small, hungry sounds rising in her throat, desire built to a rage.

Over and over they rolled on the bed, legs tangling as they pushed each other from brink to brink. The war they fought was punctuated by searing kisses, bruising strokes. Driven beyond reason, he gripped her hips. But she was already rising to meet him, to take him in.

Sheathed inside her, he felt the first shudders, hers, his, rip through them. Her legs locked around him. His fingers dug into the sheets. Reason shattered. Rhythms matched.

And he was rocketing through space, through time. All he knew was that she was with him.

***

She lay crossways on the bed, one arm flung out, the other hand still clutched in Jacob’s hair. His body was as limp as hers as he sprawled over her, his head resting between her breasts. His first thought was that her heart, thudding under his ear, matched the pace of his own. Before reason could set in, he slid a hand over the warm tangle of sheets and covered hers. He knew he would never be able to describe the sensation that rippled through him as her fingers curled against his.

He was heavy. She didn’t care. It seemed perfectly feasible that she could spend the rest of her life lying just so, listening to his breathing and to the quiet sound of snow melting from the eaves in the sun.

So this was what it was to love, she mused. She hadn’t known she’d waited all her life to feel like this. It had always seemed possible to her to live her life alone, independent, content with the freedom to do as she pleased when she pleased.

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.

“Maybe this shouldn’t have happened.” He saw by the way her smile faded that he’d begun badly.

“I see.”

“No, you don’t.” Annoyed with himself, he made a grab for her before she could roll out of bed.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said stiffly. “When you’ve been fired as often as I have you get used to rejection. If you’re sorry about what happened—”

“I’m not.” He cut her off with a brisk shake that turned the glazed hurt in her eyes to smoke.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“I’m not sorry,” he said, struggling for calm. “I damn well should be, but I’m not. I can’t be, because all I can think about is making love with you again.”

She blew her hair out of her eyes and swore to herself that she would be calm. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

“Neither do I.” He released her to tug his fingers through his hair. “It mattered,” he blurted out. It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but it, too, was a fact. “Being with you mattered to me. I didn’t think it would.”

The ice she had deliberately formed around her heart melted a little. “Are you upset because it was more than sex?”

“I’m upset because it was a hell of a lot more than sex.” And he was a coward, he realized, because he couldn’t tell her that what they had now would end before either of them was ready. “I don’t know how to handle it.”

She was silent for a moment. He looked so angry—with himself. And as confused as she was by what had grown—no, by what had exploded into life—between them. “How about one day at a time?”

He shifted his gaze to hers. He wanted to believe it could be that simple. Needed to. “And what happens when I leave?”

The ice had definitely melted, because she felt the first slash in her heart. “Then we’ll deal with it.” She chose her words carefully. “Jacob, I don’t think either of us wanted to get involved. But it happened. I wouldn’t want to take it back.”

“Be sure.”

She lifted a hand to his cheek. “I am.” Afraid she would say too much too soon, she bundled back under the covers. “Now that that’s settled, it’s your turn to make breakfast. You can yell up the stairs when it’s ready.”

He said nothing. The thought of what might tumble from his heart to his lips unnerved him. If it was a choice between saying too much and saying too little, he had to choose the latter. He rose, tugged on what clothes came to hand, and left her.

Alone, she turned her face into the pillow. It smelled of him. Letting out a long, weary sigh, she willed her body to relax. She had lied. Rejections wounded her deeply, left her miserable and aching and full of self-loathing. A rejection from him would hurt so much more than the loss of a job.

Rubbing her cheek on the pillowcase, she watched the slant of sunlight. What would she do if he ended it? She would recover. She needed to believe that. But she knew that if he turned away from her, recovery would take a lifetime.

So she couldn’t let him turn away.

It was important not to push. Sunny was very aware that she demanded too much from the people close to her. Too much love, too much attention, too much patience, too much faith. This time it would be different. She would be patient. She would have faith.

It would be easier, she knew, because he was as unsteady as she. Who wouldn’t be, with the velocity and force with which they had come together? If they could progress so far in such a short time, how much further could they go in the weeks ahead?

All they needed was a little time, to get to know each other better, to work on those rough edges. Forget the rough edges, she thought, gazing at the ceiling. Those would take a couple of lifetimes, at least. In any case, she rather liked them.

But time . . . she was certain she had that right. Time was what they needed to get used to what had happened, to accept that it was going to keep right on happening.

She smiled at that, her confidence building again. And if that didn’t work she’d browbeat him into it. She knew exactly what she wanted. And that was a first. She wanted Jacob T. Hornblower. If, after he had seen and spoken with Cal, he packed his pitiful little bag and headed back east, she would just go after him.

What was a few thousand miles between friends? Or lovers.

Oh, no, he wasn’t going to shake her off without a fight. And fighting was what she did best. If she wanted him—and she was certain she did—then he didn’t have a chance. She had as much right to call things off as he did, and she was far from ready. Maybe, if he was lucky, she’d let him off the hook in fifty or sixty years. In the meantime, he was just going to have to deal with it, and with her.

“Sunny! This stuff is in the bowls, and I can’t find the damn coffee.”

She grinned. Ah, the sweet sound of her lover’s voice carrying on the morning air. Like music, like the trilling of birds—

“I said, I can’t find the damn coffee.”

Like the roar of a wounded mule.

Madly in love, she tossed the heap of blankets aside.

“It’s in the cupboard over the stove, dummy. I’ll be right down.”