Harlequin - Jennifer Greene (11 page)

Her voice kept doing that hypnotizing thing—and, yeah, of course he figured out what she was doing.

But that didn’t seem to be able to stop him from putting this picture in his mind. The picture wasn’t
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anything special. Just a rolling field, a meadow with wildflowers and tall sweet grasses, swaying in a spring wind. Aspens and poplars hemmed the far edge of the field, rustling and shivering in that same breeze. The sun beat down, softer than a balm and healing warm. A bird soared overhead. A fawn cavorted in the grasses. It was a busting-gut happy kind of scene. Nothing hurt. For some crazy, totally insane reason, nothing hurt.

His eyes snapped open. And found Phoebe, still sitting cross-legged across from him, her eyes on his face, her smile on his smile, her scruffy pups snoozing on both sides of her. He said heavily, “This is beyond weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“Nothing hurts.”

“That’s great.”

“No. You don’t understand. Imean it. Nothing hurts. Even myside doesn’t hurt.”

“Great.”

Before, Fergus thought he’d had enough. But now he’d hadenough. “This isnot funny. It’s impossible.

What’d you do to me?” he demanded suspiciously.

“You did it, not me, Fox. And the exercise won’t always work, but it’s always worth a try. So when you feel stress or pain coming on, give it a shot. Go to your safe place.”

“That’s a pile of hooey,” he informed her succinctly.

“Actually, Mr. Skeptic, it’s not hooey at all. It’s plain old physiology. When you feel pain or stress, your body tenses up. Those tense muscles and tendons essentially cause more pain—whereas when you feel safe, your blood pressure and heart rate both calm down. That helps your body loosen up. Which helps ease the pain. Any exercise that helps you relax would work the same way.”

He understood what she was saying. He’d just quit believing in Santa Claus almost three decades ago.

Determined to jolt himself back to sanity, he yanked up his sweatshirt on his right side to above his ribs.

There, in plain sight, was the needle-size fragment that had been working its way to the surface of his skin for hours now. As Fergus well knew, there was pain and then there was pain. This wasn’t bad pain. It was barely mentionable compared to the serious injuries he’d had. But it was what it was—an annoyance. It hurt just enough that he couldn’t get it off his mind, the same way it was impossible to ignore a sharp sliver.

Phoebe sucked in her breath when she saw the injury. “What on—”

When he made to poke the spot, she grabbed his hand.

“Are you nuts, Fox? Don’t touch that, for Pete’s sake! It’s an open sore!”

He was speaking to himself more than her. “Ican still feel it. It’s just…damn.You were right, Red.

Who’d believe it? It’s not gone, but it really is nothing compared to how much it was bothering me before.”

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“That’s what I was trying to tell you. That ‘safe place’ exercise is one way to physically slow down your breathing and pulse. If you can do that, then you’re always going to win some over pain. It’s not a magic cure. But there are more exercises I can—” She gulped. “Look. Can I take that out? Or do you want to go to a doctor?”

He couldn’t twist well enough to see the spot very well—but enough to notice the sliver had broken through the skin. “If you’ve got tweezers, I can deal with it.”

She had tweezers. She had first-aid cream. She had red stuff to wash the spot. She kept him talking while she ran around, accumulating her little tray of supplies, making him explain about the dirty-bomb thing, how parts kept coming to the surface, how that was likely to happen for a while, how it wasn’t the end of the world, just disconcerting, and occasionally…gross.

“It’s not gross, Fox. That’s ridiculous. It’s just a sore. But how come no one ever tells us this kind of thing on CNN?”

“Beats me—what are you doing?” He was conscious that for all the touching she’d done to him before, she hadn’t actually put her hands below his neck. Not on bare skin. And, yeah, she’d seen him bare that day in the shower, but it wasn’t the same thing as having her eyes an inch away from his ribs. Her mouth, her eyes, her face, so close to his heartbeat. So close to his damned ugly scars. “Ouch,” he said.

“Darn—did that hurt?” she asked cheerfully, and bent closer with the tweezers again. He could see all that wild, thick red hair of hers, but not her face just then, not the sore. And out of nowhere she suddenly started singing the national anthem.

He forgot the sensitive spot where she was probing. Anyone would. “My God. Is there a cat in heat in here?”

“Fox. This is one long sliver. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the emergency room?”

“Hell, no. I can do it myself.”

“No, you can’t. You can’t reach it on your own. It’s too far under your arm. Okay, turn a little more this way.” When he failed to, she picked up the lyrics. “…what so proudly we hailed…”

He used a cuss word. The big one. And promptly shifted his arm over his head promptly. “I heard you hum before. It was bad, but not this bad. I’ll sit as still as you want if you just don’t sing again, all right?”

“You promise not to move?”

“I’ll promise anything. If you swear you won’t sing again.”

It was a weak attempt at humor. Very weak. So weak that suddenly neither of them was moving.

Somewhere a pup was snoring. Somewhere a faucet was dripping. But the only thing he was really aware of was her face, inches from his. She was looking at him with this…expression. Of caring. And compassion. And something more. Something so gut personal, so intimate, so about her and him, that he couldn’t seem to breathe for a whole long second.

And then she said, “It’s gone, Fox.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s there every damn time we’re in the same room together. Every time you look at me.

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Every time I look at you.”

“No. I mean…it’s out.”

“I wish I could believe that, but I swear to God, that feeling’s coming after us like a freight train. Damn it, Phoebe. I’m not totally sure I planned to have sex again for the rest of my life. I came home not expecting to feel anything for the rest of my life. And then you came along.”

“Fox.All I’m trying to tell you is that the long metal sliver is out!”

Oh. The sliver. But when he looked at her face again, that fierce, soft look of longing and desire and closeness was still there—real as moonlight. As real as the pulse drumming in her throat. As real as her parted lips.

Six

Phoebe saw him coming, saw him aiming for a kiss, and knew perfectly well he intended trouble—and not a little trouble, but a major-meltdown type of trouble. Yet she couldn’t smack him. Not after having seen all those scars, all those healing wounds, all those hurts, so close up. She couldn’t do anything to further hurt Fox. It was unthinkable.

Yet when her body bowed toward his—when her lips parted for his—it wasn’t exactly because she wanted to kiss him. It was just that she recognized his soul needed healing far, far more than his body.

And, of course, she had no power to heal his soul or anyone else’s. But she couldn’t be so mean as to reject Fox.

That was her excuse for kissing him as if she’d die without another taste.

It wasn’t because she was a wanton, red-hot mama. It wasn’t because she let her senses rule her sense.

It wasn’t because she was the kind of woman who’d kick out her morals when a guy turned her on.

Phoebe wasn’t worried about all those insinuations Alan had implied about her character. She wasn’t.

She didn’t have time to worry about nonsense like that just then. Her brain was scrambling too hard trying to figure out how to tactfully, carefully, extricate herself from Fox without hurting him. She was fiercely considering that problem. Or trying to—only, by then he was kissing her again. And again. And again.

She fought for a breath. “You’re not up for this,” she whispered worriedly.

“Oh, trust me. I am.”

“I don’t want to touch you in the wrong place. Risk hurting you—”

“Phoebe. You couldn’t conceivably hurt me in the wrong way. It’s the first time I’ve hurt this good in a lifetime and then some.” His hands sieved through her hair. Even in the dusky light, she could see his eyes, fiercer than fire. “Don’t stop me. You can stop me later. I swear, I won’t go further than you want, not now, not ever. But…don’t stop me from kissing you a little more right now, okay?”

If any other man tried that ridiculous line on her, Phoebe would have laughed…but Fox, damn him, wasn’t any other man. He sounded as if he really meant it—that he truly believed they’d stop, that he’d stop, that he wasn’t just beguiling her into being seduced. And because she believed he was telling her
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the whole truth—as he knew it—her heart helplessly lunged again.

He’d locked the door on his feelings for so long. It meant something huge that he’d opened himself now, for her. Yeah, it was sex—she knew it wasn’t for more—-but that didn’t make his trusting her with his wary emotional state any less. The man was in so much pain. Shehad to respond to him. Anyone would have. Her heart wasn’t involved. Not really.

Not exactly.

Oh, hell. Maybe she was falling so deep, so hard in love that her heart was going to get ripped apart and shredded…but right now, holy kamoly, could he kiss.

Since she’d kissed him before, she should have realized how flammable he was. She knew how potent those narrow lips were. How tasty. But he got these terrible inventive ideas this time. His tongue dipped and swirled and teased. His mouth tucked and ducked and tilted and found a hundred new ways to claim hers.

She never took off his sweatshirt, yet somehow it handily dropped to the ground. She swore she never volunteered to touch him, yet somehow her hands were freely running over his chest, his back. She’d touched him before, but she’d touched him as a masseuse.

Now she learned him with a woman’s hands, inhaled him the way a woman breathes in her lover. Her fingertips chased over muscles and tendons, over the flat of his stomach, the ridges of ribs, up to the column of his neck—not to chase away knots this time, but to inspire some. Not to ease away sore spots, but to ignore other tactile sensations entirely.

The skin on his shoulder had the vague scent of soap and the naked scent of him beneath that. She caught the hint of musky sweat as he struggled with the heat rising between them, as shocking fast as the gush of a volcano…but that hint of sweat was an aphrodisiac for her. It wasn’t work or stress sweat, but simply man sweat, him sweat, the scent of a man on fire.

And still he kissed her. His lips trailed her neck, making necklaces with his damp tongue. His rough, long fingers pushed at her sweater, eased it up and over her head, and on the way back, slowly tugged at her hair. A clip tumbled, then another and another, until her coiled-up hair came apart. So did she.

Mop suddenly clawed at her side. Duster stayed snoring, but Mop tended to worry that her mistress needed rescuing at odd times.

“Lie down, baby,” Fox said, in the same tone she used for the dog. Mop obeyed as if she immediately recognized it was okay, it was Fox, not a danger…although he was a danger, Phoebe knew. She’d opened her eyes at the pup’s interruption. Now she could see Fox’s expression. He stopped moving for that instant, stopped touching her, just took a long, long moment to just look at her.

The last she remembered, they’d both been sitting up, facing each other. Now they both seemed to be lying on the scratchy rug, face-to-face, both of them bare from the waist up. Her yoga pants were tied at the waist, but the ties had loosened and the waistband had dipped below her navel—not revealing anything but the swell of her hip—but he saw that promise of nakedness. He looked. He savored.

He desired.

And so did she. She passionately wanted to be the one who healed Fox. Who made him feel. Who
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made himwant to feel again.

She pulled his hand to her breast, encouraged the palm to shape her, to own her. At the same time she pushed at the snap of his jeans, then chased down the zipper. She’d have lowered the zipper a ton slower if she’d known ahead that the wicked man wasn’t wearing underwear. His jack popped out of the box so fast it risked being clawed with the zipper teeth—but she quickly protected him by wrapping her palm around his long, smooth shift. The flesh was warm and sleek and pulsed violently inside the circle of her palm.

He hissed in a breath. “Don’t.”

“Hmm…is that one of those no’s that really mean yes?” she murmured.

“Don’t tease.”

“You know what, Fox? If there was ever a man who needed some teasing, I think it’s you.” As if to prove her point, his shaft released a single drop of warm, soft moisture. “Oh, yeah, you like this fine,” she whispered, and then suddenly froze.

In seconds she went from tropic heat to icy Popsicle. The trigger was hearing her own throaty chuckle, seeing his responsive lunge to pay her back with the same kind of explosive caresses. Only…she didn’t want to be a seducer. Didn’t want him thinking of her as an inhibited easy lover.

The conflict shot anxiety in her pulse with the speed of a bullet. She wanted him. She totally wanted to make love with him, to invoke wonderful and healing emotions with him, to share those feelings together.

Only, she didn’t want to…give in, surrender. She could. But she was afraid of feeling ashamed, the way Alan had made her feel ashamed. She knew Fox wasn’t Alan. Knew it wasn’t the same situation at all, but…

“What’s wrong?” Fox whispered between kisses, tracing the shell of her ear.

She couldn’t think when he was touching her. Not like that. Notreally think. “Fox. You want to make love?”