Closing The Gap (Dangerous Pasts, #1) (15 page)

“I don’t want any more to drink.”

“You don’t?”

“I want to be able to feel everything that’s about to happen without being numb from booze.  I want you to come closer.”  His voice, already deep, took on an even sexier rasp when he used it to issue gentle commands.

“I can’t come closer.  Even though I want to more than anything.”

“Why not?  Don’t you want me to touch you?”

She searched her brain for some sophisticated words.  Not finding any that were right, she ended up saying the first thing that came to mind.

“Do I need to be worried about where you’ve been?”

Her voice hitched in the middle of the question and she noticed it took a few seconds for him to comprehend her true meaning and not the literal one.  She wished he’d set her mind at ease right away and steer this conversation in a more positive direction or the perfect mood that had been building all evening would be ruined.

“I haven’t been anywhere in many months.”

The single syllable sighed out on her next breath.  “Oh.”

“You can trust me Lake, I’ve never lied to you.  That thing with Lauren was over months before she sent those texts.  I’ve never had any health issues.  I’ve been extremely careful over the years.”

She noticed that he kept his expression neutral as she sat there motionless and watched him for seconds that seemed like hours.  She held her wine glass before her torso as though it were a samurai sword ready to do battle.  Could she trust him enough with her body to lay down the weapon?

“Are you on birth control?”

The conversation seemed innocent.  He didn’t realize he was using a cannon to destroy an anthill and that he’d just shot out the loaded question that would blow the tiny grains of sand straight into the air.  As she’d laid in bed multiple sleepless nights, she’d ran through this scenario so many times in her head, the actual reality was déjà vu.  His children would be blue eyed replicas of him and he would be a wonderful father, just like Chuck.  Lake could never be their mother.  She was less than any other woman he had ever had.  God, it felt like her insides were melting down her legs and ending in a liquefied pool inside her feet.

Lake rose on shaky legs, prepared to return to the house and end the evening, end them.  He wouldn’t want to see her again after her next words tumbled out.  Her lips trembled. She knew he could see the tremors of her face and limbs but she couldn’t make them stop.

“Lake, why are you standing?  Please sit back down before you fall down.  You have to stop running away from me.  There is something real here and I know you feel it too.  Trust me to take care of you.”  Exasperation had settled into his tone.  If she pissed him off enough, would he just leave and make this easier?  Discomfort washed over her in waves.

No, he’d broken through with his honesty.  The evasion had to stop here if she ever wanted to move on from the rote position she’d been stuck in for so long.  She turned towards him and looked straight into his eyes.  Her own pain and anguish reflected back towards her.

“I’m not on any birth control.  I can’t have children.”

Knowing what those words had just cost her, he stood up within the space of a second, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into his strong embrace.  As he grasped her trembling hand in his strong one, he led her back to the sofa and pulled them both down to settle her in to the crook of his right arm.  Lake didn’t trust herself to speak because she knew she’d break down and she would not cry in front of him.  She didn’t want his pity.  Thinking he just wanted to comfort her, surprise registered when he spoke some words at low volume as if something out in the black of night eavesdropped on their conversation.

“Lake, I had a bad accident back when I played youth hockey and took a metal pipe to the junk that caused internal bleeding.  It’s highly unlikely that I could father any kids either.  When I was younger, it might have been a possibility with a good fertility clinic.  Now, at my age, the doctors tell me it’s near to impossible.  I developed a life threatening blood clot right after it happened.  All I remember is being drugged up in the hospital for days and how my mom cried by my bedside day and night.  I almost didn’t make it.” 

She wrenched her head back to be able to see into his eyes and searched for verification in their azure depths.  How could she be sure this wasn’t some made up story just to bring down her defenses so he could try to have his way with her?  His face was lit with genuine distress.

“You can’t have kids either?”  Her voice remained tremulous as tears threatened to overrun her eyelids and spill past them, down her flushed cheeks.

“No, I can’t.  It’s the reason for my divorce and my subsequent ‘lifestyle’.”  He lifted his arms for a moment to throw air quotes into the space right above her head.  “Most women want marriage and babies.  If you keep everything casual, you never have to have this difficult conversation.  Who wants to admit that they’re infertile?  That doesn’t make for very interesting pillow talk.  My ex-wife, Shelly and I had been together since High School.  She cheated during our marriage while I was on the road and tried to pass off another man’s baby as it if were mine.  Since I want you to trust me, I’m going to take a leap of faith to trust first and tell you the whole story right now.”

She laid there in silence, curled up next to him while he wore his heart on his sleeve for the first time in her presence.  When warranted, she interjected with questions or comments.  About an hour later, he stopped and Lake couldn’t believe what he’d told her.  Her heart sung with joy that he’d shared this personal information.  Her armor started to lose its strength.  If he tried hard enough tonight, he’d break through the final barrier.

“I’m so honored that you trusted me with this.”  Had God sent this man to her?  She wondered if he could be the impetus to her final healing.  Lake turned to him and placed her right hand on his cheek loving the way his beard growth felt soft against her fingertips.  The lines on his face appeared deeper than they had been earlier.  He looked wiped out.  She traced the planes of his face with the pads of her fingers.  Her soul seemed to know what her mind hadn’t grasped yet.  She was falling in love with him.  Since she really had no concrete proof beyond tonight that he felt the same way, she just wanted to go with it and see where it would lead.  His trust and midnight confessions were a very good place to start.

He laid his head back further into the cushions and let his eyes drift closed.  “Lake, that feels wonderful.”

“I’m glad.”  Emboldened by that reaction, she turned towards him and got on her knees next to his left side for a better angle.  She started her exploration with the sides of his neck, then soft strokes outward to his shoulders.  Lake leaned towards him and let her palms rest on the hard planes of his chest.  She felt his heartbeat through his white dress shirt like the pound of a tribal drum, strong and steady.  As she started again, her fingers moved along down his sides and hovered lower. 

“Come here.”

****

T
elling Lake his story had fatigued him to his bones.  Josh wanted to curl up in a ball like a bear and hibernate.  Until she started touching him.  He hadn’t wanted to admit how much his divorce had cost him until he’d let the emotions flow out and be released.  That Lake was the catharsis for this epic event didn’t surprise him at all.  She’d fast become his soft place to fall and he’d fallen for
her
hook, line and sinker as he confessed things he’d never told anyone else.  He hoped that he would prove to be worthy of her.  She didn’t completely trust him yet and he noticed she hadn’t shared why she couldn’t have children.  He wouldn’t push her to tell him about the accident.  She’d trusted him enough to share part of herself when he’d pleaded with her earlier and that was a good place to start.  The rest would come later.

When she’d laid her fingers across his jaw line and stroked, he’d just about jumped out of his skin.  How could she turn him on like this with the barest hint of a touch?  It was a conundrum.  Most times, it took buttons flying off and a strong grip through the fly of his pants.  He laid back and closed his eyes to allow her soft touch a chance to ease the turbulent emotions.  On fire with need, he wondered if he’d be able to hold back.  Her hands drifted lower towards his belt and hesitated there. 
God damn it!
  The hands must not have been brave enough tonight because they started back on their slow journey up his sides again.  Patience proved difficult but he had confidence her dormant passion could escalate, like kindling waiting for the lit match to set it ablaze.

He couldn’t wait another second to taste her lips and feel her skin against his.  He’d been eyeing her full breasts in that cleavage bearing, pink number all night long and he’d wanted to rip it right off her body in the middle of the dance floor.  Jealousy was the only thing that had stopped him.  No other man would see her naked ever again.  That lacy dress needed to come off right now. 

“Come here.”

Josh gripped Lake by the waist and pulled her towards him so she fell right into his chest and waiting mouth.  Their kiss was explosive.  The weeks of pent up sexual tension had been released in a fire storm of raw need and bare emotion spurred on by the illicit revelations of the evening.  She’d put her hands on his chest to break her fall but now they moved upwards into his thick hair.  He had to have more of her, right now.  He sucked her full bottom lip into his mouth.  Josh loved how she always bit it when she felt unsure.  She moaned, little sounds of pleasure against him and he enjoyed the faint vibrations.

Lake opened her mouth against his and he felt the tentative touch of her tongue.  She tasted faintly of spearmint and lime.  He sucked it into his mouth as he tried not to break the passionate stupor by going too fast or hard too soon.  With every dance of their tongues back and forth, Josh noticed her body melting deeper into his.  He was rock hard and aching.  If it scared her, she didn’t let on because she continued to rub against him in languid strokes of her torso.  He had to touch her for some relief.  Now.

He broke contact for a moment.  “I have three words to say.”

“Hmm?” She didn’t want to talk as she used her lush mouth to rain little nips down his neck and chest, everywhere his skin was exposed.  Holy mother of God, he wanted that mouth to travel with its trail of kisses down his stomach so bad it took every ounce of strength he possessed not to grab her head and force the issue.  He fantasized about her undoing his belt, yanking it through the belt holes and tossing it out into the rocks.  Would it be wrong to ask her to rip his pants off and put her mouth where he wanted it most of all?  That fantasy would have to play out later.  After the intoxicating mental image, his struggled with words.

“Too – many – clothes!”

“Agreed.”

Shit! 
Could he break through her final defenses?  She brought her fingers down to the pearl buttons on his shirt and undid them one by one.  Lake met each new area of skin she exposed with fiery kisses, nipping first and then soothing the area with her tongue.  Where had she learned to do that?  He didn’t really want the truth, didn’t welcome the foreign feelings of jealousy he experienced when he considered her past partners.  The very idea of her being intimate with another man pissed him off.  Consumed with images of pleasuring her so completely, she would become his and his alone, Josh recognized how desperately he wanted her.  He was so in tune with her movements and lit with desire, his passion threatened to overwhelm him.  Lake Harrison was innocence and fire all rolled into one.  She needed to stop or he wouldn’t last when he slid inside her for the first time.  He had to take control.

In one adept move, he clutched her waist and flipped her over onto her back so she rested prone on the sofa cushions.  He took possession of her mouth again and flicked his tongue over her bottom lip over and over until she opened completely to him.  Josh ran his hands along the sides of her neck to her shoulders and with the motion of that intentional caress her spaghetti straps slid right off her upper arms.  Once he’d dispatched with the straps, it became easy to slide the dress a few inches further and expose her breasts to the cool evening air.  As much as he wanted to keep kissing her mouth, he needed to see her and taste her everywhere.

Josh reared back on his knees in between her legs and looked his fill.  She looked amazing, and real. 

“You’re incredible.  Since I’ve met you, every night in my lonely bed I’ve wondered what you would look like beneath me, exposed.”

She didn’t say anything but took that opportunity to dispatch with the remainder of his buttons and pull his shirt from his body.

“Probably the same number of times I’ve dreamt about you without your shirt.  The fantasy doesn’t even compare to the reality.  I want to feel your skin against mine.  What are you going to do about that?”

In seconds, he’d pulled her dress over her legs while he admired her gorgeous, curvy body.  Underneath him in her lacy pink panties that looked more like a scrap of material artfully placed between her legs, Josh released the breath he’d held.  He ran his hands from her feet up her outer calves and thighs stopping at the dip of her waist.  He loved her small waist and stopped to worship that area before he moved on to the sides of her breasts.  Lake’s nipples pebbled with desire and he longed to lick them and feel them tighten further under his tongue.

As he molded her with his hands like a potter with clay, he bent his head and flicked his tongue out.  Lake gasped so he continued the gentle assault until she writhed beneath him.  Only then, did he touch her the way he really wanted.  He had to know if she was wet for him.  He kept his mouth attached to her left nipple, sucked in deeply and nipped lightly with his teeth as he brushed his right hand over the curve of her right hip and down her leg.  His hand came back up by way of her inner thigh and he felt the heat radiating off of her core.

“My God, Lake, you don’t know how bad I want to sink into you right now.”  He looked up, pleased by the blissful look on her face. Anxious to uncover her unique expression when she came, he’d find out soon.  Her sexy and uninhibited expressions could become an addiction.