Dancing in the Moonlight (17 page)

“This isn’t about you. It’s about me.”

“It sure as hell
is
about me.”

Sounding more furious than she’d ever heard him, he reached out a hand and stopped her just as they entered the glowing circle from the vapor light on the power pole near the house.

“It
is
about me,” he repeated. “It’s about you not daring to trust me, about you comparing me to your bastard of a fiancé and thinking I will turn away from you, too, just when you need me. I won’t. I’m not like him. Can’t you see that?”

Oh, yes. She couldn’t imagine two men more different. She thought she had loved Clay. She had agreed to marry him, for heaven’s sake. But what had seemed so powerful and real before she headed to Afghanistan so long ago seemed pale, insipid, compared to this raging storm inside her when she looked at Jake in the moonlight.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, to the ache starting to spread there, then let out a breath. “Go home, Jake,” she murmured.

He ignored her. “Tell me, are you planning on giving up love and intimacy for the rest of your life just because you don’t like the way you look beneath your clothes?”

He didn’t need to make it sound as if she was some shallow creature who had a zit in an inconvenient place
or who only wanted to lose five pounds to get down to a size four.

She’d lost a frigging leg! Didn’t that give her a right to be a little self-conscious?

“I said go home. I think we’d both agree this date has dragged on long enough.”

“Damn you, Maggie. Don’t push me away. Your amputation does not matter to me. What do I have to do to prove that to you?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing to prove.”

She wanted to bury her face in her hands. She was mad and embarrassed and heartsore, and she just wanted to be away from him. Instead, she drew all her remaining resources around her and forced herself to give him one more cool look.

“You can sit out here all night if you want, but I’m going to bed. Thank you for the ride.”

She headed up the porch steps. But through the hot tears in her eyes she misjudged a step about halfway up and stumbled.

Fortunately, she landed with the good leg first but her right knee jabbed into the edge of the wooden step as she fell and fiery pain shot up her kneecap. To her humiliation she found herself on her hands and knees, sprawled up the porch steps.

Eyes burning, she wanted nothing more than to curl up right there and weep hot, mortified tears.

She forced them back, swallowing her sob even though it choked her, and gripped the railing to pull herself up to stand.

Below her she heard Jake growl a string of oaths that
would have earned him a good pinch if his mother had heard him, and a moment later he reached her and lifted her into his arms.

“You are the most stubborn woman who ever lived,” he snarled as he carried her inside. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“Put me down.”

“Shut up,” he bit out. “Where’s your bedroom?”

She blinked at his furious tone. What happened to kind, good-natured Dr. Dalton? There seemed no point in arguing with him, not when he was in this kind of mood. “Upstairs.”

He frowned. “Didn’t Viv have a room on the ground floor you could take over while you’re here?”

“I preferred my own bedroom, the same one I’ve always used,” she said stiffly.

“Of course you did. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

As if she weighed nothing more than a baby kitten, he carried her up the long flight of stairs.

“Which door?” he asked at the top, not even breathing hard.

She pointed hers out, and he pushed it open, flipped on the light and set her on the bed with a gentle care that belied the tension in his frame.

She prayed he would leave as soon as she was settled, but instead he stepped back and studied her for a long moment, his features solemn, saying nothing.

“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman in my life,” he finally said in a low voice. “You’re in my blood, my skin, my bones. I go to bed wanting you, I wake up wanting you, I spend most of the damn day wanting you. But I’m not going to beg.”

He gazed at her for several moments more, then he sighed. “Aw hell. Yes, I am. Please, Maggie. No matter what you think about yourself, you are beautiful to me. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. You always have been, from the time you were just a pigtailed brat at the school bus.”

It hurt her to see the tenderness in his blue eyes but she couldn’t seem to look away.

“Please. Don’t lose your courage now and hide away from me, from this,” he murmured.

She gazed at him, her emotions a wild raging river inside her. Desire still churned through her veins, and her love was heavy in her chest, weighed down by fear and uncertainty.

He called her courageous, but she wasn’t. Yeah, she had run back into that damn firebombed clinic in Afghanistan to try to rescue her teammates and as many children as she could.

But the whole time she had been racing back and forth, she hadn’t given a thought to the consequences. If she had known the cost when the building finally collapsed around her, crushing her leg, she wasn’t sure she would have made the same choice.

Somehow this, opening her heart and her soul to him, seemed far more risky right now than running into all the firebombed buildings in the Middle East.

She was so tired of being afraid.

You survive but you do not live.

Her mother’s words rang in her ears. What was the point of making it out of that burning hell if she
stumbled through the rest of her life never taking chances, afraid to fail?

Afraid to
live
.

At her continued silence, something bleak and hopeless flickered across his features. His entire body seemed to sag with defeat, and he sighed and turned to leave.

Now. She had to move or he would walk out the door, down the stairs and out of her life. Somehow she knew he wouldn’t be back. A man could only take so much rejection.

Her heart pounding, she sat up, gripped the headboard and rose on shaky legs, ignoring the pain from her stump and the lingering throb in the knee she had banged in her graceless fall. In one movement she reached for him, grabbing his arm both for support and to catch his attention.

He turned and she saw surprise flicker in his eyes for only an instant before she kissed him.

F
or an instant Jake couldn’t process such a rapid emotional shift, from the bone-deep despair of thinking he would never overcome her thorny barriers to this wild exhilaration as she kissed him, her soft, delectable mouth fiercely enthusiastic.

His head spun and he grabbed her to him. He didn’t care why she had changed her mind. He only cared that she was here again in his arms, that she was kissing him, her arms tight around his neck as if she never wanted to let him go.

He absorbed her weight, the physician corner of his mind that worried about such things concerned that she must have reached the limit of her physical endurance some time ago ago after their long evening.

Through the questions swirling around in his mind,
he still managed to think clearly enough to lower her back to the bed so she didn’t have to stand unnecessarily, their mouths still fused together.

Her hands were suddenly everywhere—his hair, his shoulders, slipping up under the untucked tails of his shirt to slide across his skin. He groaned, instantly aroused again.

How did she do this to him so easily? One moment he was defeated, heartsore, the next hot and hard and ready for action.

Through the haze of need obscuring his thoughts, he managed to hang on to one important concept.

“What about Viv?” he asked.

Maggie paused, her fingers at the buttons of his shirt. “Her car’s not out front. I’m guessing she’s gone to Guillermo’s.”

He gave her a searching look. “How do you feel about that?”

“Like it’s about the last thing I want to discuss right now, Doctor. Thanks all the same.”

She kissed him again, and he decided if she didn’t care where her mother spent the night, he certainly didn’t. He gave himself up to the rare and precious wonder of having her in his arms again.

Then, just when things were really starting to simmer, she pulled away from him, untangling her mouth and her arms.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, fighting an insane urge to bang his head against the wall a few dozen times in frustration. He didn’t think he could bear it if she pushed him away again.

She swallowed hard, then reached for his hand, wrapping her fingers around his. “I’m not stopping again, I promise. I just…I want to take off the prosthesis first. Will you help me?”

He gazed at her, emotion burning behind his eyes. He knew exactly what she was asking and offering, knew just how how difficult it must be for her to let him so deeply into this part of her world, and he knew he had never been so moved.

“Of course,” he answered. Tenderness washing through him, he knelt beside her bed and waited for her to swing her legs over the side.

He didn’t miss the way her hands trembled as she rolled her pant leg up or the little pause she took before reaching for the prosthesis. His heart burst with love and pride in her courage.

Then she was removing the appliance, and he helped her pull it free. The stump sock was next and for just an instant she closed her eyes, shuddering a little.

“Hurt?” he asked.

“No. The opposite. It feels so good to have the blasted thing off after I’ve worn it a long time. Imagine slipping off a pair of high heels that rub and pinch after a long day. Then magnify that about a million times and you have some idea how good it feels.”

“My mind boggles,” he said dryly.

She returned his smile, then reached for the cuff of her pants. He put out a hand to stop her before she could yank it down to cover the site of her amputation and shield herself from his view.

“Hold on.”

“Jake…”

“Just a minute.”

She watched him out of wary eyes as he reached for her leg. He tried to remember what he’d learned and used smooth, gentle strokes to try massaging the pain away.

Though she stiffened at his first touch, she didn’t pull away, so he took that as tacit permission to continue.

Gradually he felt her muscles relax, felt the hard tightness of scar tissue and contracted muscles begin to ease. After a few moments her whole body seemed to sag into the bed, and she closed her eyes, the apprehension seeping out of her features.

Finally, when he almost thought she had fallen asleep, he kissed her just below her knee and sat back.

“Better?”

She opened one eye. “
Madre de Dios.
How and where did you learn to do that?”

“I had a rudimentary massage section in my alt-med class. The rest was just instinct.”

“You’ve got one heck of an instinct, Dalton.”

Guilt pinched at him, and he knew he couldn’t lie. “Okay, that’s not exactly the whole story.”

Confession time, he thought, a little apprehensive at how she might react. “The day after you came back, I called a friend of mine who’s a prosthetist in Seattle and asked him for some pain management techniques I could try with you. He suggested massage and sent me a couple articles and a video.”

Both of her eyes were open wide and the stunned wonder in them left him deeply grateful he’d taken the time to study.

“Why?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I hoped it might help, since you didn’t seem all that crazy about the idea when I suggested trying some new medicine combinations.”

“I meant, why would you possibly want to go to so much trouble for your surly neighbor?”

While he was confessing his sins, he might as well tell her the whole truth. The entire town had apparently clued in to his feelings—or at least his brothers had—so she was bound to figure it out, anyway.

“You’ve always been much more than just a neighbor to me, Maggie. In your heart, you know that.”

He rose and kissed her before she could respond. She sighed his name against his mouth, and he found it the sexiest sound in the world as she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close.

She seemed different now. Maybe it was his brief massage, maybe just the freedom of knowing they had crossed her personal Rubicon and there was no turning back now. But he sensed an openness to her kiss, a sweet and tender welcome, and he basked in it.

Again she reached for the buttons of his shirt and he helped her, shrugging out of it quickly, then helping her out of hers. The bowery down by the creek had been romantic and secluded in the moonlight, but there was a hell of a lot to be said for electricity, he decided, as he savored the sight of her dusky curves against the pale lavender of her comforter.

As much as he enjoyed the visual delight before him, he sensed she would be more comfortable without the harsh overhead lights. He spied a small lamp on a table
in the corner and he left her to turn it on, then turned off the main switch.

A warm glow still filled the room, but it was softer, more gentle than the direct light from the overhead fixture. When he returned to the bed, Maggie gave him a smile of gratitude and reached for him again, her hands going to his back.

In moments he was naked, hard and hungry, and turned to help her undress the rest of the way. Anticipation thrummed through him, mingled with a healthy dose of anxiety.

He didn’t think he could bear it if she stopped things now, and he only hoped he could be sensitive and perceptive enough to do and say the right things when his body was having a hard time focusing on anything but devouring her.

And then they were both naked. He ached to be inside her, to lose himself in her heat, but he reined in his unruly needs. Right now Maggie’s fears were far more important, and he suspected she needed affirmation and reassurance more than he needed the sexual connection his body and soul craved.

He studied her several moments, his gaze ranging over the curve of her breasts, the flat plane of her stomach, the dark triangle between her legs, then his gaze shifted lower, to one long, shapely leg and foot and the other that ended abruptly a few inches below her knee.

Though he grieved again for her pain and he would have given anything to give her back what she had lost, he found nothing there that filled him with anything but desire.

“You take my breath away, Maggie.” He kissed her tenderly, his eyes open. Hers remained open, as well, and he prayed she could read the truth in his eyes. “You have nothing to be uncomfortable about. Absolutely nothing. Every single part of you is beautiful to me.”

She let out a ragged breath and he saw a tear drip out of the corner of her eye to her nose. He kissed it away, then another, then dipped his head to cover her mouth with his.

She had been so worried, so sure she could never enjoy this again for her self-consciousness and emotional angst. But as sweet, healing sensations surged to all her nerve endings, she wondered why she had ever been so concerned. Making love to Jake suddenly seemed the most natural, wonderful thing in the world.

She forgot to be uncomfortable, forgot to worry about what she looked like from the waist down. She focused completely on the magic they made together.

This was Jake, the man she loved, and she couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful than sharing this intimacy with him.

He seemed to know exactly how to touch her, and they spent what felt like forever exploring each other. The world seemed to condense to right here, to this moment in his arms. Still, something flickered in the back of her mind, some shadow of concern that wouldn’t quite crystallize.

At last, when she thought she would crack apart with anticipation, he poised himself above her and entered her slowly, sliding inside inch by torturous, wonderful inch.

She had worried about the mechanics of this, too, but
she needn’t have, she realized. Everything important still worked perfectly.

She clutched him to her and closed her eyes, wanting to burn every glorious sensation into her memory.

He held his weight off her as he moved slightly inside her. Heat cascaded through her but she still frowned.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“No,” she murmured.

He froze and moved as if to withdraw but she held him fast, her hands tight around the warm skin of his back.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“You. You’re treating me like some kind of fragile porcelain figurine, afraid you’re going to drop me and shatter me. I won’t break, Jake. Please. Don’t hold back.”

He paused for only a second, and she saw the careful control in his eyes slip, then with a groan he captured her mouth in a fierce, swift kiss as his body pounded into her, hard and fast.

Ah, yes. This was what she meant. She rose to meet him eagerly, as hungry as he for completion.

The room started to dip and spin and all she could do was hang on to him tightly as her body climbed toward fulfillment.

Suddenly he reached a hand between their bodies and touched her, the gentle caress of his thumb in wild contrast to the hard, insistent demands of his body. She gasped his name as she climaxed and he caught the sound with his mouth.

I love you,
she thought, but the words caught in her throat as, muscles straining, he followed her and found his own release.

Neither of them seemed to be able to move for long moments after. She loved the feel of him against her, all hard, masculine muscles, and she thrilled to the sound of his racing heartbeat against her ear.

Eventually he slid off her and drew her against him and they lay curled together, one of his hard thighs between her legs.

He couldn’t miss her stump now when it was lying against him, she thought, but she refused to let herself ruin the magic and wonder of the moment by obsessing about it.

Jake honestly didn’t seem to care. She had searched his expression intently when she had first been fully exposed to his view, and she had seen nothing in his eyes but masculine appreciation and desire.

Maggie traced the muscles of his chest, wishing she could put her feelings into words. She felt as if a part of her she thought gone forever had just been handed back to her, wrapped in ribbons and bows.

She smiled a little at that, sure he wouldn’t appreciate the visual image, no matter how strategically placed the ribbons might be.

He drew a tender hand down the length of her hair. “Okay,” he murmured. “In another three or four years I might start to get feeling back in my toes again.”

“Lucky! You don’t have to rub it in.”

He laughed and kissed her forehead and, with a little spurt of shock, she realized that was the first genuine joke she’d made in five months about her amputation.

It felt good, she realized. Really good.

She smiled, content to lie there listening to his heart
beat. Words of love welled up in her throat but they tangled on her tongue, and she couldn’t manage to find the courage to work them free.

She focused instead on what he had said earlier, those tantalizing words he hadn’t explained.

“Jake, what did you mean before? When you said I’ve always been…more than a neighbor to you.”

The hand idly dancing down her back froze in mid-stroke and he let out a long, slow breath.

She wasn’t sure he would answer her, but after a moment he sat up, pulling the sheet along with him as he leaned against the headboard. His features were solemn when he faced her, and she felt a little spasm of nervousness when his silence dragged on.