Joe's Wife (22 page)

Her words filtered into Tye's mind and he allowed them to sift through years of contrary belief. She'd said she was proud of him. A knot welled up in his throat. Meg had said she was proud of him. He felt as if he were six years old and his mother had patted him on the head.

She wasn't ashamed of him.

He struggled for composure.

"I'm confused by the way you make me feel, is all," she said, her sweet voice warbling. "I'm ashamed of me. Of my behavior. But I'm not ashamed of you. Never you."

He sorted through that admission. Recognition dawned on him slowly. He'd never slept with anyone other than a whore in his whole life, and he had no comparison for Meg's feelings or behavior. "What is it exactly that you're ashamed of doing if it's not making love with me?"

A frustrated sigh escaped her. "Oh, this is so hard. And so embarrassing."

"Meg, I know you liked what we did. I know you enjoyed it."

"Yes," she said softly.

"Is it that you don't think you should feel good with me because I'm not Joe?"

"Honesty," she whispered.

"What?"

"That was part of it. At first."

That was probably normal. She'd felt disloyal to Joe's memory.

"But … it was more because … because it was never like that with Joe."

Anguish weighed like a rock on his chest. Perhaps her honesty was better forgotten if it pierced his heart this way. No doubt Joe, the renowned saint, behaved in a more gentlemanly manner in bed. Tye hadn't been trained in the finer points of making love to a lady.
Don't say any more. Don't kick me while I'm down.

"I'm sorry," was all he could manage.

"I loved him, I truly did."

I know you did. I know you do.

"But…"

He didn't want to hear it.

"When you and I are together, it's more. It's frightening. I think about it afterward. I think about doing it again."

He let those words ease into his mind. Enlightenment dawned. He leaned up on one elbow and stared as though he could see her in the darkness. He almost wept at her endearing self-doubt and naïveté. He reached and found her silky soft cheek in the dark. "I'll be damned."

"Tye!" The bed dipped and Meg heard him pad across the floor. The sound of a flint striking echoed, and a moment later the halo of the lamp revealed his nakedness.

Chapter Thirteen

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S
he
turned her face away.

He moved again and lit the lantern she'd left on her bureau. His shadow flickered across the room as he returned to the bed.

"What are you doing?" she asked, blinking as her eyes adjusted and doing her best to avoid staring at his lean, muscled body.

"I want to see you." He leaned above her and she closed her eyes. He kissed her and she melted into the sensations. With his gentle lips, he coaxed a response. Meg loved it when he kissed her this way. He took his time, lingering over her mouth with slow and deliberate care. He ran his tongue over her lower lip and she met it with her own, wrapping her arm around his neck and falling into a vortex of rushing, inflaming pleasure.

He stopped long enough to unbutton the row of buttons at her neck. "What are you doing?"

"I told you. I want to see you."

Meg fought down stinging embarrassment and allowed him to ease her nightgown up and over her head. Wanting to cover herself, she kept her eyes tightly closed and brought a hand to her face. "Look at me, Meg."

She opened her eyes and met his through her fingers.

"Have you never made love with the lamps on? Or in the daylight?"

She'd lived with Joe for more than a year before he'd had to leave. In all that time he'd never seen her naked. He'd never asked. She'd never considered it. But now … now here was Tye wanting to look at her … and
asking.
"No."

Minutes ticked by. Tye ran a hand along her arm, up over her shoulder and, nudging her hand away, bracketed her face with his palm. She looked into his deep blue eyes and plainly saw the wonder and the need. "You're so beautiful, Meg. It's a shame to hide your beauty in the darkness—as long as you're sure you're not ashamed of doing this with me."

Was she ashamed of experiencing this all-consuming, frantic need and pleasure with him? He started to move away, but she clutched his shoulder and held him fast.

He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her willing lips again. His kiss, always so tender, always so simultaneously stirring and fulfilling, eroded her qualms.

She laid her hand tenderly along his granite-cut jaw.

He trailed kisses along her chin, her throat, her shoulder, gooseflesh rising along her skin. His hot, moist lips found and kissed the tip of one breast and the skin beaded, leaving Meg anticipating more. He didn't disappoint her, pulling her nipple into his mouth and creating new and white-hot fire in her limbs, in her belly and lower.

No, she wasn't ashamed of this incredible new awareness. It was simply foreign to her experience and her thinking.

"You're so beautiful." His voice, hoarse and low, vibrated through his chest and against her ribs. "So smooth and so soft everywhere, Meg." He ran his palm over her hip and her belly, slid his fingers into her curls, and shamelessly, she opened herself to his glorious touch. "Do you like this?"

She felt beautiful when he touched her, kissed her, looked at her. "Yes."

"I just wanted to hear you say it."

A ripple coursed through her.

He suckled her other breast. "I always want to make it good for you," he said.

She opened her eyes and found his earnest expression focused on her face. "It's good, Tye."

"The way it was the last time. I want to make it that good for you."

She absorbed his words, his meaning, another kind of shame ebbing through her veins. He knew? He knew of those unspeakable sensations she'd never even placed coherent thoughts with? Meg wanted to turn away, more to hide this carnal need than her face and body. She raised a trembling hand to her eyes as if she could mask her mortification.

"No, look at me. Keep your eyes open." Tye took her hand and drew it to his lips. He kissed each finger, took the tip of one between his lips and gently sucked the pad against his tongue.

Heady sensations rocked Meg's senses, and her already melting body liquefied. Her fluttering breath caught in her throat.

"What is it that makes you want to hide from me?" he asked.

She shook her head. There were no words. There'd never even been conscious thought before.

"Do you know what it is I want for you?"

"I—I'm not sure. I don't think so."

"Meg, you don't have to be ashamed or embarrassed. It's as natural as breathing or eating."

Meg's skin burned hotter. "Is that true?"

"It's true." He drew one finger deliberately up the inside of her thigh and back down, a slow, torturous route, and leaned to press a kiss to the inside of her knee.

Meg buried the instinctive reflex to draw her knees together and felt every inch of her skin quiver. She'd never known this mad crush of need, had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted these frightening new sensations Tye had brought to life. His skin glowed golden in the lamplight, his blue eyes filled with passion.

The muscles of his strong shoulders and neck were defined by the shadows the lamp created. She ran her hands over his skin, relishing his strength and maleness. If she was as beautiful to him as he was to her, she understood his desire to see her.

The dark furring across his chest snared her attention, and she raked her fingers through the silky mass.

With his clever fingers and seeking tongue, Tye urged her to the very edge of rapture.

An urgent sound escaped her, and she raised her hips.

He moved upward, his breath puckering her nipple. "You're ready for me, Meg."

"Yes."

"Now?" he asked.

"Yes."

His hard limbs moved over her, his hair-roughened skin sliding against hers, and she pulled him to her with a greed and a quivering urgency she didn't stop to think about so that his less-than-gentle entry was her own fault. That very roughness was the catalyst that sent her over the edge.

"This is it, Meg," he said, not only knowing what was happening to her but aiding the cataclysmic feeling with prolonged and forceful thrusts. "This is it."

She cried out and dug her fingers into his back, riding the rippling wave of ecstasy.

Tye slowed his movements then, kissed her face and her neck and the crest of each dewy breast. She opened her eyes and discovered his caressing smile.

He kissed the corner of her mouth and she turned into the kiss instinctively, wrapping her arms and legs around him.

He gave himself the pleasure of long, slow, steady strokes that varied in intensity and tempo. He ended the kiss, lifting himself to look at her face. He ran his thumb over her lower lip, slid the tip into her mouth against her teeth and rubbed gently until she opened her mouth and touched her tongue to his salty skin.

His eyes darkened. Strangely enough, Meg wasn't embarrassed by his earthy appetite or his frank and open pleasure in her body and her mouth, nor by this uninhibited, soul-rocking union. His face, his neck and shoulders were rigid with the fervor of his purpose, and she tested the muscle and sinew beneath his skin, finding his body toned and solid.

His strength was a delicious contrast against her softness. Meg bit the pad of his thumb and ran her tongue over it, eliciting his groan.

He pulled his hand away, gripped her hips hard and spent himself inside her, against her, around her, her name a litany on each gusted breath.

He lay with his head on her breast, his palm flattened on her belly, their hearts slowing, their damp skin cooling.

"That was it," he said softly. "That was what I wanted for you."

Meg knew exactly what he meant now, but she said nothing.

"Meg?" When she remained silent, Tye raised his head. Her dark honey gaze turned to his. Tendrils of damp hair clung to her temples. He threaded the hair away from her skin. She seemed so embarrassed by his words, he would have thought her innocent if he hadn't known better. "It embarrasses you to talk about this?"

Her gaze moved to his shoulder, and she nodded.

"But you were married. This happened with Joe, right?"

She brushed his damp shoulder with her fingertips. "Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"A—a few times."

He studied her flushed face with intensity now.

"It … just happens," she said defensively. "It's not something I can control."

Tye absorbed those words. Those startling and innocent words. "When it happened … with Joe … did he know about it? Did he try to make it happen?"

She shook her head. "I don't think he knew. I'm sure he didn't."

"It
is
something you can control, Meg, my heart. By telling me what you like and when to wait for you."

"You mean it's okay?"

"It's more than okay. I don't think we should ever stop until it's been okay for you." His beautiful lips curved up into a smile. "I've already learned some of the things you like and I plan to discover as many more as I can."

"This isn't shameful, is it, Tye? What we've done? I mean, doing this isn't just for making babies?"

"I think the good Lord assured man's continuance by creating baby-making so pleasurable. If He didn't want us to enjoy it, He would have thought of something else, or He wouldn't have said we'd be one flesh."

She laughed. Tye turned his nose against her breast and inhaled. He reached for a fistful of her hair and pulled the skein against his nose and mouth. Earthy and honest, she thought, threading her own fingers into his hair and understanding his tactile pleasure with enlightenment.

Of all the things he'd done for her, this newfound sense of freedom was perhaps the best. She didn't have to be ashamed of anything with Tye.

A tiny niggle of guilt tried to wedge its way into her consciousness. Joe would have wanted her to be happy. But would he have wanted Tye to reach her on a level that he never had?

Meg tamped down that doubt. He would have wanted her to be happy. And Tye made her happy.

Tye got up and extinguished the lamps.

For a fleeting second, she wondered where her nightgown had flown. But then Tye eased behind her, adjusted his body so that he cradled her from behind, her head pillowed on his arm, and Meg closed her eyes in sleepy contentment she'd never before known.

She woke during the night, his heat and his hardness a titillating distraction from sleep.

"Are you awake, Tye?"

He kissed the back of her neck. "Do you know no one calls me Tye except you?"

"Eve does."

"Because she mimics you."

"Don't you like it?"

His hand slid up her belly and cupped her breast. "I love it."

"I have to tell you, I wondered if you'd ever call me anything but ma'am."

He pressed openmouthed kisses along her shoulder and sent shivers along her arms and to her breasts. "My mama taught me to be respectful."

"Who taught you all these other enjoyable things?"

"A gentleman never tells."

"I told you about me and Joe." The inflection in her voice betrayed the seriousness of her question.

He drew lazy circles around her nipple. "My mother was a whore, Meg. Those were the women I grew up around. None of the girls at school would give me the time of day."

"And Lottie? Was she someone special?"

"We were friends. When no one else cares if you live or die, any friend is special."

"But you didn't marry her. Was that because of her … occupation?"

"Because I didn't love her."

"And she didn't have a ranch."

His hand stilled.

"I didn't mean it like that, Tye. I just meant there's more than one reason to get married. You don't have to love the person."

No, but you should at least have the
hope
that someday they
will
love you, he thought.