Just This Once (33 page)

“Ethan... no, please. Don’t... do this.” The
plea was mixed with a sob wrenched from the depths of her battered
heart.

She felt him stiffen at the sound of that
sob. His lips froze just above hers. They were heartbeat to
heartbeat, their bodies rigidly pressed together, and she could
feel the huge, hard ridge of his manhood against her nightdress,
feel every taut muscle up and down the length of his frame.

Another sob, one of mingled fear and
craving, spilled out of her, and he raised his head and stared down
into her tormented face.

“Are you so sure this isn’t love, Josie?” he
asked hoarsely. Suddenly his eyes glittered with a fierce, agonized
longing that slashed at the remnants of her heart. “Then maybe I’m
not doing it right.”

And to her astonishment, he released her
hands, letting them drop numbly to her sides. She was too stunned
to move. She could only stare at him, her breath coming fast and
hard in her chest.

Then his hands touched her lightly. They
caressed her shoulders, her arms, then slid to just beneath the
swell of her breasts. Staring into her eyes, Ethan ran his hands
slowly down the trembling length of her until they spanned her
waist.

Her lips were quivering. With a slight,
tentative smile, Ethan sought her mouth again, this time brushing
them with the gentlest of kisses, and then another, and another,
each one hotter and sweeter and deeper than the one before.

Wonder swept over her like sun-warmed honey.
She was melting, melting against him, into him, into herself. His
violence hadn’t hurt her. It had frightened her, but not hurt her.
But this sweetness, these tender kisses, were killing her.

“I’d never hurt you, Josie,” she heard him
mutter against her hair, and then her arms went around him,
clasping his neck, holding him every bit as tightly as she wanted
him to hold her.

“I love you, Josie, don’t you know that by
now? Or don’t you think I’m capable of it?”

There was bitterness and self-mockery and
pain in his voice, and reflected in his eyes.

Josie cupped his face in her hands, her
fingers trembling. “But you can’t.” Her voice cracked. “No one’s
ever loved me. Not
really
loved me. You can’t possibly.”

“I not only can, you little fool, I do... I
do....” He gave a hoarse laugh as he gripped one of her hands and
pressed it to his lips. A thrill of fire raced down Josie’s
spine.

“Sounds like I’m saying marriage vows again.
Maybe, just maybe I am, Josie, for the very first time.”

And then as he read the wonder and doubt
and, yes, disbelief in her eyes, anger swept through him again,
warring with his efforts at patience.

“Molly’s ghost isn’t between us, Josie. Only
your fears are, your doubts.”

“You loved
her
.”

“Yes, once, a long time ago. And she died.”
Now it was his turn to cradle her face in his hands. It didn’t
matter how she’d learned about Molly—maybe it was for the best that
everything be clear between them. Her bones felt so fragile beneath
his fingers. Her eyes were huge violet pools watching him with an
unwavering intensity that ripped through his chest.

He struggled for words even as his heartbeat
accelerated, even as the beauty and fragility of her soul and her
spirit touched him. “We were young... she was lovely, sweet... and
she was taken from me, by my own father and my brother, with help
from Winthrop, because she wasn’t deemed good enough. Good enough!
They weren’t fit to kiss her hand. And they killed her, and I could
never forgive them for that. But... it was young love, Josie, new
love, and I’ll never know if it was meant to last. It was years
ago, and she’s gone.” His eyes darkened with both sadness and
acceptance. “She’s
been
gone. I’ve moved on. I never thought
I’d love anyone else like that again—and I don’t.”

She drew in her breath, and his hands
clamped down on her shoulders, gripping hard. His eyes blazed into
hers. “I love you differently from the way I loved her.
I’m
different now than I was then... I love differently, feel
differently. And, my sweet, foolish, beautiful little love—believe
it or not, I’m prepared to spend this entire night making you
believe it. Hell, the rest of my life making you believe it. I love
you for
you
, because of
you
—because I can’t think of
anything or anyone but you! You’re in my heart, Josie, you’re in my
head, and you’re in my blood.”

He gave her no time to doubt, to question.
He dragged her to him and his mouth covered hers. The heat from him
flamed into her. Her whole body quivered with it. His mouth burned
down her throat like hot silk. And his hands... Josie shuddered and
trembled at the fierce exploration of those strong, demanding
hands.

“Ethan, I want to believe you,” she gasped,
her arms around him as the sensations washed over her in wave after
delicious wave.

“Then believe.” His tongue caressed her
lips. Her mouth parted, senses swimming.

“Don’t... lie to me....”

“Is this a lie?” Their lips met, clung,
burned.

“Is this a lie?” He traced the outline of
her breasts beneath the nightgown, cupped them gently but firmly,
kneading them with his hands. When her eyelashes fluttered with
delight and her head tilted back as she gave a quivering gasp, he
grinned and slid one hand down her hip to cup her bottom.

“Is the way I’m looking at you a lie? Josie,
can’t you see the answer? Look at me, sweetheart. Look into my
eyes. My damned love for you is eating me alive.”

She couldn’t think anymore, but she could
see. She saw the urgency and tenderness gazing back at her, and
something else, something darker, more exciting. Need glinted at
her, and a desire so ferocious, it had to hurt. She recognized the
pain of aloneness in him—perhaps she’d recognized it all along,
from the first time he’d kissed her in Judge Collins’s study.

Incredibly, she recognized something else
too. Love. Love shook Ethan Savage’s tall, massive frame, it
glittered darkly in his eyes, it pumped through his heart. She felt
the jolt, the electricity and the sparks. She threw herself against
him.

“I love you too, Ethan! I need you. I need
you to hold me, to kiss me....”

“Glad to oblige,” he rasped, and then he was
kissing her, and undressing her in the dark of the bedroom, sliding
the filmy fabric up across her hips and breasts, above her head,
then in one motion tossing the nightgown to the floor.

The long, heavy ringlets of Josie’s hair
cascaded forward across her cheeks. They fell about her shoulders,
wild and dark, trailed over her breasts, caressed the pale smooth
skin that gleamed in the moonlight tiptoeing in through the
windows.

If Ethan was hard before, he was now a rock.
His eyes drank in the sight of her lovely pearly breasts with their
delicate rose tips, her narrow waist, smooth flat stomach, the lush
curve of her hips. Her legs were long and silky, her shoulders
sensuously rounded. She was magnificent—dazzlingly feminine,
intoxicatingly sweet. And shy. Her cheeks glowed with a blush that
would rival dawn.

“You’re so beautiful,” he managed to croak
out as her smile wavered and then grew steadier and she slipped
forward sleek as velvet into his arms.

Beautiful? He called me beautiful.
And he was gazing at her and touching her as if she were beautiful.
Josie’s hands skimmed over the breadth of his shoulders, exploring
the hard bulge of muscle beneath his fancy white shirt. She
continued along the corded muscles of his arms, her head tilted
back all the while to savor his deep drowning kisses.

A feverish trembling whisked over her. She
wanted to touch him, to see him, all of him. Previously unknown
needs and longings tangled through her as she wrapped herself
against him, almost too weak with desire to stand.

“Ethan, it’s your turn—to take off your
clothes,” she heard herself whispering, and felt her face
flame.

He grinned at her and caught her beneath the
knees, scooping her up into his arms.

“So it is,” he chuckled, nibbling at the
corners of her lips as he carried her toward the bed. “Fair’s fair,
I always say.”

She laughed softly, her arms wound around
his neck. “I never heard you say any such thing.”

Ethan lowered her onto the bed with infinite
gentleness. Her mouth was sweet and soft and giving—and clung to
his with such ardor, he thought he’d explode before he could strip
off his own clothes.

Slow, he’d go slow. That’s what he planned.
Slow kisses, slow touches. But the desire lashed at him, and
Josie’s hands working at the buttons of his shirt, trailing across
his chest, drove him to an aching frenzy.

Sweat shone on his naked chest and torso.
His clothes landed on the floor in a heap, and then only the two of
them were in the darkened room, the two of them and the moonlight
and the scent of passion heavy in the air.

He leaned over her and kissed each of her
breasts. Leisurely, his tongue curled around first one
nipple—caressing, tormenting, teasing it into a taut rose
peak—before grazing its way across her flesh to savor the
other.

He was driving her mad, utterly mad. Josie
arched her back, writhing with delight. Pleasure floated through
her with such wild sweetness, she began to ache. Ethan’s hair was
thick and soft beneath her hands. He smelled of brandy and cigars,
and as her fingers swept across his powerful shoulders and along
the muscles of his bronzed back, she felt herself giving up
everything to him, pride, dignity, embarrassment, hesitation... all
dissolving beneath the onslaught of his hands and the warmth of his
wicked mouth.

Without thinking, Josie’s legs snaked around
his, pulling the long, heavy length of him down full upon her, but
when she suddenly felt the huge, solid hardness of him against her
thighs, panic struck, slicing cold as ice.

“No, Ethan, no, don’t!” She froze for a
moment, then began to push and writhe, trying to scramble out from
under him.

Ethan rolled off her and stared, his breath
coming hard. There was fear in her eyes.
No,
he realized
with shock.
Terror. And misery. Why?

“Don’t do this to me, sweetheart. You can’t
want to stop now. What is it, what’s wrong?”

She didn’t know what to say, how to explain.
With all of her heart, she wanted to press her body up against his,
to be held tight and close, to be kissed by him until the world
rocked and swayed and disappeared and there was only this room,
this time, this man—a swirl of heat and sweetness and pleasure.

But there wouldn’t be pleasure if she let
him do all he wanted to do. There would be pain. Terrible pain.

“It’s going to hurt. I’m afraid, I don’t
want...”

He smiled in relief, and reached out to take
her hand, pulling it up to his lips. He nibbled a finger, then
brushed a kiss across her palm. “It’s true that it sometimes hurts
the first time, Josie, but...”

It hadn’t sunk in to him until just now that
this would be her first time. He drew in a hard breath as
anticipation sharpened. “I’ll be gentle, sweetheart. And very
careful of you. I’d never do anything to hurt you on purpose, I’ll
go easily until—”

“No, it always hurts!” She yanked her hand
away, her eyes flashing with dismay. There was a sob in her voice.
“Don’t lie to me!”

“I’m not lying.”

“You are—it will hurt. It always does for
the woman. I love you Ethan, and I’ll try to let you do it if
that’s what you want, but...”

Ethan could only stare in amazement at the
torment in her beautiful face. “What do you mean, it always hurts
for the woman?” he demanded, his voice more harsh than he intended.
“Who the hell told you this nonsense?”

“No one told me, I know.”

He watched as she struggled to sit up. Her
hair spilled forward over her breasts in dark rippling waves, and
her lower lip was trembling, no longer with passion but with anger
and fear.

Something went still and cold and dark
inside Ethan. His mouth whitened and thinned to a grim, hard line.
“How do you know, Josie? Tell me.”

H
is voice was
quiet, but the unmistakable note of command in it had her lifting
her head to meet his eyes. Anger gleamed in them.
Oh, God, what
had she said? He would guess now, he would know.

It was too late for secrets. When he grasped
her arm and ordered her once more to tell him, she did.

“Snake.” It came out in a rush. “Whenever
Snake did that... did
this
with me, it hurt, it hurt
something awful. Almost as bad as when he beat me that night.
He—”

“You went to bed with that outlaw?”
Stupefaction left him numb. Then it quickly gave way to a leap of
realization. Shock stabbed through him like a steel-edged bayonet.
Ethan stared at her with rigidly clamped jaw.