Second Chance Pass (29 page)

“You shouldn’t. We don’t really know each other.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking all day—we should get to know each other better.” He put his hands on her waist. “I’ve been wondering about this all day,” he said. “I can get my hands around your waist.” He lowered his lips to hers, barely touching them. “I think there was a small tear there,” he whispered.

“There wasn’t.”

“There was,” he insisted. He put his lips there again. Barely touching. He ran his tongue along her upper lip. “Tear,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

Her eyes closed and another tear squeezed out and ran
down her cheek. He was right on it, kissing it dry. It took many soft kisses. “No one should make you cry like this. Tell me who he is. I’ll kill him for you.”

“I wasted so much time on him,” she said with a hiccup of emotion.

He kissed her eyes. “He’s a dick,” he said. “Worse. He’s a stupid dick.”

She responded with a small, whimpering laugh.

He pulled her closer, slipped his arms around her and lowered his head to kiss her neck.

“There are no tears there,” she said in a whisper.

“I know that now,” he said. “Do you have any idea how good you smell?”

“Of course. I meant to smell this way,” she said. Her hands were on his arms. Not embracing, but not pushing him away. “Do you do this a lot?”

“I’ve
never
done this before,” he said.

“You’re such a liar,” she said softly. “I bet you pick up girls all the time.”

He lifted his head. “I try,” he admitted. “It doesn’t work that often. And I swear, I have never found a beautiful woman crying over some jerk and kissed her tears away. Never. But I think I like it. And I’m getting good at it.”

“Not too bad,” she said with a sigh, laying her head on his shoulder. “For an amateur.”

He chuckled. “Nikki, you’re beautiful and sexy. And funny. You shouldn’t be treated badly by anyone. No one should make you cry. Ever.”

“Believe me, I want you to be right.”

“Oh, I’m right.” He touched her lips again, a little more firmly this time. He moved over them tenderly. “I think you’re starting to feel a little better.”

“Not yet,” she said, her eyes closing as she leaned into his kiss again.

Something happened inside Joe’s head, inside his chest. There was a kind of lightness and fullness at the same time. He opened his lips as he kissed her, tasting her mouth, and she was delicious. In fact, she tasted even better than she smelled and he was falling headlong into her. Whoa, he thought. I’m wanting this girl, this woman. I want the maid of honor. She opened her lips under his and allowed his tongue inside and it brought a thrilled, lusty moan from him. He held her close against him, probing the inside of her mouth. No way he was letting her go, now that he finally had her in his arms. Her arms went around his neck, yielding to the kiss, making small noises that were not associated with crying. He found himself thinking,
Paul is going to kill me. I’m thinking carnal thoughts about the maid of honor and how to get her out of this pink dress and Paul is going to kill me.

But I will die happy,
he further thought.

He pulled away from her just a bit, whispering against her lips, “That’s what you needed. You needed to be kissed.”

“Possibly,” she whispered.

“We should be sure,” he said, covering her mouth again. And again, tongues played, lips moved. He ran a hand down her hair and found it felt as soft as it looked—pure silk. The softest thing he’d ever touched. He scrunched up a handful at the base of her neck. “God,” he whispered, in awe of the texture. “God.”

“We hardly know each other,” she said again, but she said it while her lips were still in contact with his.

“Yeah…but that’s a short-term problem. We’re going to get to know each other lots better.”

Like an answer to a prayer, she came to his lips with hunger, thrusting her small tongue inside, moaning softly as she did so. He ran his hand down to the small of her back and pulled her against him. He devoured her lips for
a full minute, for two full minutes. Three. A light from the great room inside the house flicked off, leaving the deck that much darker and he became intoxicated with the taste of her, the feel of her small body molded to his. With a will of its own, his hand brushed against her breast and if he wasn’t mistaken, she kissed him harder, deeper. He could feel an erect nipple under the silk of her dress and he ran his thumb over it, bringing a sigh from her. She didn’t push his hand away. His lips slipped to her neck. “Yeah. You’re starting to feel better I think.”

“Maybe. Just a little.”

He couldn’t hold it back any longer; he was aroused. Erect. Damn. This was going to put him in a tough spot, because this reaction always made it a lot more difficult to think straight. It was a real challenge to be sensible. Logical. Thoughts of Paul killing him for making love to the maid of honor fled from his mind, replaced with obsessive thoughts of what his lips around that nipple would feel like. He lowered his head to check. He was absolutely right—it felt perfect. Even through the dress.

“Maybe we shouldn’t get any more worked up,” she said in a whisper.

“Whatever you say,” he replied, but he was agonizingly unable to lift his head. He was busy putting small kisses on her breast, her neck, her shoulder. He ran a hand down her back, over her bum, down her thigh. He accidentally found that slit in her dress and before he knew it, his hand was inside. “Oh God, Nikki. I’m a dead man.”

“You’re not doing too bad for a corpse,” she said.

“Nikki, you have no panties on, and I’m a dead, dead man.”

“Then take your hand out of there,” she advised breathlessly.

“I. Can’t.”

He put his lips back on hers for a long, deep, wet kiss that lasted two minutes at least. But, he proudly thought, he was somehow able to keep his hand from wandering any farther than her naked bum. One large hand on one small, round, perfect cheek. He had cast a mental image of Crazy Glue holding him there, because if he slid it any farther south all the blood would drain from his brain and he would faint. And then came the danger zone. She pressed against him, rubbed against him. She gyrated her hips a little and moaned softly. She knew he was hard and ready to burst. She knew he knew she knew. He lifted his head. “Nikki. Let’s,” he said.

“Oh God,” she said. “We shouldn’t.”

“Let’s make love.”

“How tacky is that? The maid of honor having sex with a marine on the deck?”

He chuckled in spite of himself. “I’ll take you somewhere.”

“By that time, I will have come to my senses,” she said.

“It’s not far. I drag my bedroom around with me.”

“Wow. Talk about always being prepared…”

He kissed her again. Hot and hard kisses that lasted forever. “It’s not really mine. I borrowed it from Paul. There aren’t exactly rooms to rent around here….”

“That funny little trailer?” she asked him.

“The door locks,” he said against her lips. “It’s very comfortable.”

“Listen,” she said, pushing him away a little bit. “I haven’t ever—I mean, I’m no nun, but I’ve never done anything like this. This one-night stand thing. Never.”

“It’s not, I don’t think,” he said.

“Hmm?” she said, yielding to his lips again.

He wasn’t going to bother saying something that was just going to sound like a line, even if it seemed entirely
true. He felt something. He’d been feeling it since the moment he saw her in the bar with Vanni a while back, felt it again the second time he saw her, had been feeling it all day today and he had absolutely no idea what it was. But it sure didn’t feel as if he was going to be cured of it in one night. “It’s just the first night,” he said.

“Talk me into it,” she pleaded.

“No. No way,” he answered, pulling away a little. “It’s up to you. If you want me to, I’ll make love to you. If you don’t, I can step away right now.” He kissed her again. “It wouldn’t be easy, but I could let go of you.”

“But what will people think—”

“Shh, people don’t have to know if you don’t want them to. This—it’s just about you and me. It only matters what you think, what you want. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do.” He made a derisive sound deep in his throat. “That was really hard advice to give, by the way.”

She answered by kissing him deeply, pressing her body up against his, and he was only further weakened. Or maybe he was further strengthened, because he was feeling more and more sure that he had to have this woman next to him, in his arms, in his life. There was some terrible curse on this place that turned fine, upstanding, confirmed bachelors into ridiculous, desperate men who tripped over a pretty girl and began to instantly think life would not go on if they didn’t have her forever. They hadn’t even been intimate and he already couldn’t imagine letting her go. He tried to tell himself that by morning that feeling, that compulsion would be gone, but he doubted it. He’d wanted before, but he couldn’t remember wanting like this. Like he was drugged. Like he was glazed over and totally out of his mind for this one person.

She pulled away. “I want to,” she said.

“Sure?”

“Sure.” She drew a ragged breath. “I’m really sure.”

He smiled down at her, took her hand in his, and they walked down the steps into the yard and around the house, stopping every few feet to embrace, to kiss and fondle. And then he opened the door to that funny little trailer.

It was a little awkward at first, stepping up into that tiny trailer, because Joe was tearing the place apart looking for a condom. And she asked him, hadn’t he brought any? And he told her he never expected something like this to come up while he was in Virgin River. “We usually just hunt. Play poker. Drink a little too much.” And then he found a box of condoms in the drawer under the microwave and said, “Ah! God bless Paul.”

After that discovery, the awkwardness passed as he began to seduce her and became seduced by her. There was nothing under that pink dress but Nikki, and she was exquisite—tiny, firm, beautiful, sensual. Despite his condition, which was one of being so worked up and turned on he was afraid he might embarrass himself, he managed to make a decent study of her body and make long, slow, delicious love to her. Love that he was sure was completely satisfying to her as well as him.

Then they lay in each other’s arms and talked for a while. “Don’t tell me about him, I don’t want to know. But tell me more about you. Where you came from, what you like to do, how you want to spend the rest of your life.”

He learned that she had grown up in the city, gone to private schools, disappointed her parents by choosing to fly as a cabin attendant rather than becoming a neurosurgeon or astronaut or something. She liked to travel, ride horses, read. She was a good cook. What she wanted was to have a family, which was why she ended up with this guy who finally made it clear he was completely opposed to that
idea. She had no idea it was really going to come to that. “Whoops,” she said. “I think that might’ve been about him.”

“That’s okay,” he forgave. “Let’s put him away for now.” And he made love to her again.

There was something about loving her that surpassed the sex. He could easily move her around, she was so light, and as he did so, he forgot that he had been dying to experience her. The only important thing became her pleasure, giving her everything he had. Working her up, getting her so hot she was begging. Long, slow, deep strokes that made her sigh and moan. And when she let him know it was time, deep and strong thrusts that made her gasp and hold him tightly to her. When her orgasm came, he felt proud, as if he’d taken good care of her. Maybe it was her response to him, the way she was swept away, her release leaving her breathless and gasping. If he had anything to say about it, this would go on forever and she would never be disappointed in his arms, in his life.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was how loving and sexual she was toward him, acting as if his pleasure was the most important thing as well. Unwilling to lie back and receive his lovemaking, he felt her lips on every inch of his body; she pushed him back on that small bed and tortured him so beautifully it almost brought tears to his eyes. She was a woman who could give as good as she got and it filled him up with emotion so strong, he was sure he’d never felt that way before.

And again they talked—this time about Joe and his small town up north, the houses he designed, the Marine Corps and the friends for life he’d made. He told her all about his Virgin River experiences, including the first time Jack called on the boys to help him clear the woods of dangerous men, to the time they’d come together to help Paul lay his best friend to final rest.

Then more love. Deeply satisfying, wondrous, phenomenal love. Joe honestly didn’t know if he’d suddenly become better at making love than he realized or if this woman, Nikki, was simply so astonishing, she made him look good. So responsive, so sweet. It didn’t matter to him—he was sublimely grateful for every orgasm she had, and more grateful that he was able to give her more than he took for himself.

“Nikki,” he whispered. “I think finding you was the luckiest day of my life.”

Then they talked about the others. Not the one who was making her cry, because Joe didn’t want any more crying. Since stepping into that funky little trailer, there hadn’t been any tears. Soft laughter, whispers, deep sighs, no tears. They talked about the other ones that just didn’t work out, starting with his year-long marriage at the age of twenty-five. “
She
left
you?
” Nikki asked, as though stunned.

“Yeah,” he said. “It killed me.”

Joe told her he’d always been kind of prepped for marriage and family, given his parents’ long marriage, the successful marriages of two brothers and one sister. And maybe he was gun-shy, that he hadn’t fallen in love again after that. He was surprised to find himself this old and still unattached; he thought he’d be settled and have a couple of kids by now. Once he saw some of his buddies find it late, he had renewed hope that maybe it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for him.