Just Joe (20 page)

"It's not pity! I've
been thinking about this a lot, Joe," Mattie insisted quietly, her voice
trembling. "I need so badly to learn about that kind of... love. I want to
know what Cole and Jassy have, what Marion and Jen have. You've been around
happy marriages all your life. You know what it is to love. I need to know
that."

"And what if you
don't find that with me?" Joe demanded harshly, his breathing ragged.
"You're a virgin, dammit. What if I hurt you? Will our friendship survive
that?"

Mattie met his tortured
gaze with tender, trustful eyes. "You wouldn't hurt me, Joe." There
was a certainty in her tone. "You would never hurt me."

Joe swallowed, lifting her
hand to press it to his lips in helpless need. "No," he conceded
tautly. "No, love. I would never hurt you." His lips brushed against
her palm. "I would make it so good for you, Mattie."

"If it's that you
don't...want me..." Mattie looked away. "I understand, Joe. Really, I
do."

"Don't want
you?" Joe repeated incredulously, shaking his head. "Are you
crazy?"

"Then show me,"
Mattie pleaded shakily. "Show me about love."

"Mattie, I can't lose
what you've given me. I can't lose our friendship."

"That's right,
Joe," Mattie told him steadily, twisting his denial. "You can't. It's
not possible. Just as I can never lose what you've given me. We're a part of
each other now. Would the loving be so different?"

Joe could not deny the
gentle logic, and he didn't want to try. His eyes closed as he fought to
marshall his hungering senses. "We'll do it my way." His words were
achingly husky as he tacitly admitted defeat. "Slow. Easy. Soft."
Emerald-green eyes burned into gray, searching for acceptance.

"Yes." It was
all she said, but it said everything.

Joe flipped aside the
corner of the blanket, inviting her into his bed. "Come to me."

Mattie slid silently under
the covers beside him, shivering as Joe carefully closed his arms around her.

Mattie caught her breath
as she absorbed the shock of his hard male body against hers. They were both
silent as they adjusted to the feel of their bodies together. We're so
different, yet we meld so perfectly, Mattie thought in wonder. Joe's hands did
not move on her, but simply held her close as he breathed deeply of her scent.

Finally, he spoke.
"You don't know anything about making love, do you, sweetheart?"

Mattie experienced a
frightening, slashing memory of the traumas of her childhood, before forcing
the picture away. She shook her head, her cheek brushing against his
hair-roughened chest.

"The only rule is
that there are no rules. If something pleases you, then it's right. If
something frightens you, then it's wrong. You know what feels good to
you," Joe continued softly, shifting to look deeply into her eyes.
"So if you touch me here—" he grasped her hand gently and raised it
to his face, directing it down his jaw "—then I'll know it's okay for me
to touch you, too." His large hand moved to echo the caress across her own
jaw.

Mattie nodded hesitantly,
a question in her eyes. "How far...?"

"All the way,"
Joe answered quietly, intently. "It's the only way between us."

Mattie caressed his face
gently, her eyes tender. "I care for you so much."

Joe drew a deep, calming
breath and closed his eyes on a wave of intense emotion. "I...care for
you, too, Mattie. So much."

"Then it will be all
right," she told him with husky confidence, shifting slightly to run her
hand across his shoulder. "Strong shoulders..."

Joe's hands echoed the
motion faithfully on her slight frame. "Delicate shoulders..."

Mattie pressed a kiss
against his jaw and felt the slight rasp of his beard. "A little
rough..."

Joe's lips burned against
her skin. "So soft..."

Mattie's tongue peeked out
daringly to taste the taut skin at the base of his neck and Joe shuddered.
"Salty... and cinnamon."

"Oh God," Joe
whispered shakily, his own tongue brushing against her throat as he felt
himself sinking into passion. "Sweet... and cinnamon."

The exploration was soft
and slow and mutual. For Mattie it was glorious to touch and be touched, to
control and ignite and feel passion. When she balked, Joe encouraged, but never
insisted. When she grew bold, Joe moaned in strained hunger. When she drew away
in fear, he soothed and urged her back. And when he noticed her hesitation, he
gave her courage.

"Mattie, there is no
part of my body that you can't touch. No part of me that doesn't ache for the
feel of your hands, your lips..." And for the first time in their
love-making, Joe took the initiative. Holding Mattie's eyes with his, he drew
her hand to his hard abdomen.

Joe's eyes closed with a
shudder as he felt her hand so close... and Mattie moaned in incredulous
hunger.

"No part of me that
doesn't need you," Joe reiterated thickly, his eyes still closed.

But when Mattie's hands
slipped down to carefully cradle the length of his masculinity, when her soft
fingers moved over his hardness, Joe's body buckled uncontrollably and Mattie
drew away in fear.

" I hurt you!"
she cried.

"No. Oh God, no,
Mattie. You pleasure me...you make me whole... please, come back to me. Please
touch me again."

"You really don't
mind?" she asked hesitantly, conscious of her own fears.

"I really don't
mind," Joe confirmed softly, his eyes liquid warmth.

"I—I would be
frightened to have you touch me... there," she confessed in a rush.

Joe swallowed. "Then
I won't, Not unless you ask me to. Do you want to touch me now?"

Mattie did, more than
anything else in the world. She wanted to hold him, to be held. Her hands moved
back.

He was so big, she thought
reverently, but so gentle. And the sweet seduction continued. Each touch became
the sweetest kind of agony, each moan the most wild music.

When Mattie's hands
encountered the hard, bare flesh of his thighs, Joe drew a rough, shaky breath,
fighting to remain still beneath her exploring touch.

"So good...you feel
so good," she whispered in awe, the words lost in his mouth as it covered
hers.

But when Joe's hands
slipped to the hem of her sheer T-shirt, Mattie stilled suddenly, her eyes
meeting his.

"It's just that I'm a
little scared." Her eyes reflected both need and vulnerability.

Joe's eyes closed in raw
agony, a muscle kicking to life along his jaw. "Then we'll stop," he
told her in a thick, strained tone. "I told you once—you have only to say
the word."

Mattie felt the strain in
herself, saw it on Joe's face and in his body. "No," she denied,
brushing a fallen lock of hair from his forehead, her eyes tender and hungry
and yearning. "No, don't stop. Teach me not to be afraid."

Holding his eyes with
hers, Mattie sat up and slowly pulled the shirt over her head, leaving her body
bare to Joe's burning gaze.

Joe stopped breathing. His
muscular, gleaming chest expanded with air that he could not for the moment
release. He didn't reach for her at once. He simply looked his fill at the
soft, sweet curves of her body.

With a helpless groan he
reached out his arms, his eyes pleading with her to come to him, to give him
what he would not take. Taut and aching, he felt the wild shudder that shook
her as she moved against him, trembling as their bodies brushed and meshed and
entwined.

"Are you all
right?" he demanded, shaking, his lips in her tumbled black curls.

Mattie nodded, her damp
lashes brushing against his neck.

"Don't cry," Joe
whispered, agonized. "Please, love, don't cry. We don't have to do this.
We can stop now. It doesn't—"

Mattie's lips against his
own stopped the flow of desperate words. "I don't want to stop. I want to
be a... part of you. Show me how to love."

With a muffled groan Joe
gave in and showed her his love. It was urgent and gentle and hard and sweet
and slow. And always, always patient. Broken murmurs, softened sighs were the
only sounds between them. Green eyes held gray as Joe's hands moved to Mattie's
soft thighs, searching for even a hint of fear as he brushed and coaxed and
teased them into parting.

"Yes?" he
questioned hoarsely.

"Yes," she
answered weakly.

He saw the flare of fire
in her eyes as his fingers brushed against the warm, secret heart of her. He
saw her lashes drift closed in pleasure as his hands grew bolder and more
intimate. He did not see fear.

"Joe..." she
breathed on a wild shudder.

"Yes," Joe
repeated against the tiny swell of her abdomen as his lips brushed lower.
"Just Joe. Always Joe."

Mattie's eyes flew open in
stunned ecstasy as his lips replaced his fingers at the center of her thighs,
building a throbbing wave of hunger higher and higher within her.

"Sweet, so damn
sweet..."

Her hands tightened on his
shoulders, pale against the breadth of his tan skin.

"Joe, please! It's
back. You brought it back. Make it go away!"

Joe stiffened immediately,
rising to meet her eyes. What had he brought back? Please, not the fear, not
the memories of violation. He sought her passion glazed eyes fearfully,
searching for his answer.

"I feel...empty
again. Lonely, so lonely, Joe. Here." She took his hand and brought in low
on her body, just above the downy curls at the apex of her thighs. "Joe,
can I have you here?"
             
                     

Her eyes held his with
such yearning and such a blatant trust. Joe released the shuddering, pent-up
breath he held.

"Yes, love. Mattie,
you can have me there, inside, loving you. I'll take the emptiness away. I'll
fill you with me. I promise you'll never be lonely again."

Slowly, during the
passionate litany of his words, he eased into her body. A body that he had made
so hot, hungry and moist for him that there was no pain, only pleasure as he
sheathed himself inside. His hands continued to play with her throbbing
softness, his lips brushing and nipping and suckling at the hard tips of her
swollen breasts. The pitch of her arousal was such that the first thrust robbed
her of breath and reason. She could only feel and move as he cradled himself
within her.

Once, she gasped at the
exquisite pleasure his fingers brought her, and Joe stopped moving, breathing
heavily, still within her.

"Mattie?"

"More," she
whispered incredulously, her eyes pleading with his. "More. Allof you...
in me."

"Sweetheart..."
Joe trembled, and Mattie felt it within her own body. "You're so
small...and tight. Are you sure?"

"So hungry. Joe, I'm
so hungry for you!"

Joe began to move again,
hard and deep and full within her. Mattie's body took over then. Moving,
enticing, inciting him to a thrusting possession that speared the very heart of
her.

"Mine," Joe
whispered as he claimed her again and again. "Mine now, Mattie. A part of
me..."

Together they climbed to a
place neither knew existed, clinging and straining and arcing toward their final
completion.

Mattie felt her body tense
and shimmer, like a spring too tightly wound, and cried out at the unknown
beckoning to her.

"Joe...!"

"Mattie," Joe
pleaded huskily, his fingers clenching in the soft skin of her hips as he
thrust more deeply inside of her. "I need you so___"

Mattie followed him over
the boundary they had rushed to, clenching around him, holding him tightly
within her body, determined never to be alone again.

A part of him... forever.

Their breathing gradually
calmed. Mattie's trembling subsided to gentle frissons of pleasure originating
from the hypnotic brush of Joe's callused fingers on her bare skin. Joe's
heartbeat ceased its race and quieted to a wondering thunder.