Authors: Mary Wine
Still Mine (8 page)
Except for the fact that she was still married—as far as the law was concerned which would make it adultery.
Turning around, she glared at the man who had torn her heart in two. He’d also set her up to commit adultery without even knowing she was breaking a commandment. While she didn’t cling to her faith as tightly as some folks did, she tried to draw the line at smashing through the ten commandants.
“I’m not quite so helpless that I don’t understand a warning sign like this one.” It was almost pitch black. He stood only a few paces in front of her, looking too large. Shifting her body away from his position, she crossed her arms in front of her body. Somehow, her dreams had failed to remind her of the difference in their size. She wanted to wiggle backwards, to place enough distance between them to defend herself. Tension tightened every muscle in her neck as she stared at him in amazement once again. She couldn’t seem to shake the shock off. Even the wound in her heart wasn’t enough to get her to stop staring at him like a gift from heaven.
“So, gee thanks for coming after me, but I don’t need you.”
Now that she wasn’t demanding her body exert itself, the chill in the night air was biting through the thin layer of her clothing, making her shiver.
“You need this.”
In the dark it was impossible to tell what he tossed at her. Catching it by instinct, Jo held it for a moment, trying to decide what it was. She was grateful for the warmth the garment would provide, but less than pleased with the delivery person.
Six years ago she would have walked through fire just to hear his voice one more time.
“Yeah, well, thanks.” She shrugged into the coat and started walking.
“Where are you going?”
His demand broke through the shock attempting to numb her brain. But it wasn’t happening fast enough; she still felt too much. It was move or attack the cause of her problem. Halting her step, Jo turned to face the root of her pain.
“I. Don’t. Know!” Each word was slowly spat out with the venom that was winding its way along her spine. “I don’t know where I am and I don’t have a clue as to how long this fence is. But I just might have the answer to
that
question tonight.”
She stopped and turned so quickly that Paul had to pull himself up short or collide with her body. Standing this close, he could clearly see the flames that burned in her eyes. Eyes that held a place in his memory of the only woman he’d ever risked his work for. Her scent drifted on the wind and he pulled it into his lungs. Recognition flared in a forgotten corner of his brain, that place he’d shoved every memory of her into, bolting the door shut to avoid being yanked away from his work again.
Control was something he defined himself by. Jonnie destroyed it with one soft kiss. Ripping away every layer of protection he owned, leaving him exposed. There wasn’t a man alive he feared.
Jonnie terrified him.
But the woman in front of him fascinated him too. Curiosity was still the most deadly of sins because he couldn’t resist investigating the woman his child bride had transformed into. He also didn’t get surprised often and the rush of excitement was overpowering his better judgment. He wanted to know, needed to discover just who she’d become.
“Get lost. I don’t need your company.”
The tilt of her chin as well as the solid stance of her body declared her to be far more than the girl he’d taken to his bed years ago. This was a mature female. Capable and armed with the knowledge of her own strength. Admiration formed and spread up his back in response to her denial of his authority. His cock twitched with more than common lust. Need flared up from the coals of their marriage. It wasn’t nearly as dead as he’d convinced himself it had to be. Heat moved through his blood as his gaze swept her frame.
“Really, Paul, I don’t need your company. I’m quite used to doing without it.”
He didn’t look like he was in the mood to listen. Jo watched as one cheek flinched. His face was familiar yet the hard features were somehow oddly primitive now. Paul had never been so…hardened. Those black eyes sharpened into solid steel as he reached some sort of decision.
“You’ve grown up, Jonnie.”
He sounded surprised and impressed. Jolene felt her pride rear its head. “If I was too immature for you, why did you marry me? You couldn’t have been that hard up for sex.”
His lips curled back from his teeth in response. His gaze very precisely dropped down her body in a slow inspection that made her gasp. Oh God, her memories didn’t do justice to just how intensely sexual her husband could be. Somewhere along the way, the dreams of him had taken on a controlled feeling that was anything but true. He had always been in command of her, his body driving her past any control or ability to think. He’d possessed her. The hard edge radiated stronger from him now than she could recall it being in the past.
Heat filled her checks as she watched him stare at the mounds of her breasts. The things he could do with a woman’s breasts were amazing. But that little tingle of attraction beneath the jacket only made her madder. She’d been forced to forget because he’d discarded her. Hell, he hadn’t even left her hope they might reconcile.
“There wasn’t any other way to have you. You wouldn’t yield without that wedding, and I wanted you.” One corner of his cheek twitched as his gaze roamed over her body once again. Heat tingled all the way down her spine as she watched his gaze linger on her hips. Her memory was cruel because her clit softly throbbed as she recalled exactly how good it felt to be had by him. Dreams were nothing compared to the reality. Knowing that just made everything worse. It was the absolute in forbidden fruit. Within reach but deadly if she gave in to temptation. Just looking at him doubled her hunger.
“Absolutely perfect. You married me for sex. Wonderful, and here I’ve been thinking that we were in love. How silly of me.” Propping her hands on her hips, she shook her head, screaming at the surge of sexual impulses trying to flood her brain with hormones designed to defeat her. “You have one hell of a nerve, you know that? You got one thing right, my virginity was worth fifteen minutes in front of a priest.”
Hurt speared through her as she recognized the hard truth that you had to value someone before you cared if you deceived them or not.
But her body wasn’t listening to the anger coursing through her. He still drew her attention like freshly baked bread did a starving person. There was no logic to it, only the clamoring of every inch of her body for her protests to die a swift death in favor of letting her explore the gift of having her husband back in the flesh. She wanted to step through the mirror into her dream world and let him fold her into his embrace. She shuddered with the sheer abundance of emotion.
“You mean your
love
was worth that visit to the church. You were the only person who ever loved me. That was worth a wedding.”
Her love. As in one sided.
His gaze fused with hers, his mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
He reached for her and she flung her arm away from his grasping fingers like she would have avoided a rattlesnake. If she had doubted the claim of the warning sign posted on that fence, she was left with no illusions as her hand hit the chain links. The volts of electricity coursed through her flesh, white hot and searing. For a moment, her vision went blank, and she bounced away from the torment, stumbling while trying to stay on her feet.
“
Shit.
”
Paul cussed as he hooked her waistband and sent her farther away from the fence. Jo kept moving to get out of his immediate reach while cradling her injured hand against her chest. Sucking in a deep breath, she glared at her tormentor. “I think that’s my line.” Taking another gulp of air, she tried to steady her feet as her body twitched and jerked. He moved towards her and she stepped back, refusing to allow any contact.
“So nice to see you again, Paul.” Her sarcasm hid the torment ripping her into tiny pieces but she was really afraid his keen gaze didn’t miss the hurt shining in her eyes. At least the pain from her hand would heal. The tear across her heart never would.
Maybe now that she knew the truth, she could move on. Her love hadn’t been good enough. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a man out there who would value her more.
Cussing, she started down the hillside, unwilling to stare at her tormentor any longer. There was a crunch of dry pine needles as light hit her face and she stared into the business end of a high-powered rifle.
“Hands up!”
“She’s clear.” Paul’s voice was hard with authority. The first soldier shifted his gaze over to him as Jo stuck her hands in the air out of pure instinct. The rest of his buddies were all pointing their weapons at her heart. Nolan’s little promise bounced around in her skull as her knees went weak from the pain in her hand.
“The contact with the fence was an accident.” Paul moved forward and captured her upper arm in a firm grip. She hissed at the contact but he didn’t relent as he escorted her right through the group of armed men. Their attention and rifles followed them. But the fact that Paul held the authority to command them didn’t escape her notice. They’d have shot her first and asked questions later. Desolation stole a chunk of her confidence as she recognized just how out of place she was among them.
“The lady needs medical attention, Sergeant.”
“Copy that.” The rifles all pointed away from her in one clipped motion as the soldiers fell into step with Paul. He guided her down the slope with a grip that refused to release her even when she shrugged. Her shoulder was screaming out now, and her hand joined the wave of pain sweeping through her. Staying on her feet took every ounce of strength because the real torment was feeling that grip on her arm, absorbing the physical truth of her husband’s living, breathing person so close and yet now even further away than he had ever been before.
She could never trust him again. Love didn’t exist without trust.
Period.
Paul considered his wife as she sat in a chair to be tended to in the medical facility. The back of her hand was burned severely. Her face was white with pain, and she set her teeth into her lower lip when a doctor began cleaning the wound.
Bringing her here was going to test everything that he based his life on. Six years ago she had been enough to make him hide what he was. Now, it was just possible she was enough to bring him to his knees.
He could not allow that to happen.
Nor could he leave her at the mercy of Andraluph. Paul wasn’t certain just how the terrorist had found out about his wife. But he did know that he was the reason Jolene had become a target. That made it his responsibility to see that she didn’t end up an unfortunate casualty of his youth. Death wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her. In an attempt to get to him, a man like Andraluph could make her beg for death.
He cussed as his gaze lingered on her face. His life didn’t permit such luxuries as a wife. A quarter of an hour in her proximity and he was undeniably drawn to her. His cock tightened as he recalled just how her hair felt between his fingers when he kissed her.
It had been too damn long since he tasted her…
Heat filled his cock, making it hard with need. He wasn’t willing to walk away from the sight of her. It was an addiction he’d battled every day since agreeing to let the powers-that-be separate them. One stupid accident in his shop had provided them the perfect opportunity to force him into letting her go. He’d been young enough to bend to their badgering. Actually believing he was doing the right thing for her. He knew it for what it was now. An attempt to maintain the maximum amount of control over him. No one could force him to sign enlistment papers and he never had, but that just made the military element surrounding him nervous. They lived their lives keeping their fists tightly clenched around every bit of power within their reach. Jo represented the civilian world with its possibilities of more money and freedom. Getting rid of her, before she led him away from the dull, duty-driven world of the military had become a priority.
But his body wasn’t interested in anything except the fact that she was still his. Jo remained his wife because she’d never let another man into her bed. Call the idea outdated…fine, but the connection was hard as stone.
All the empty nights he’d spent waiting for a photo to kill his need for her, one frozen moment that he could see and know that she’d given herself to another man. But it had never come. It was a dangerous thing, the possibility that their bond was stronger than everything that surrounded them. Too powerful for either of them to escape or talk themselves out of.
Her gaze moved and locked with his. Little creases appeared at the corners of her eyes but beneath her thin top, two little points appeared. She jerked her gaze away from his, looking at her hand, but her nipples tightened further, echoing his own arousal. It was there, even in a room full of people. Something so potent, it defied his logic and her hurt. He didn’t have a single notion of just what it was, only that there was too much evidence to ignore.
It was there, between them. Pulsing with a tempo that refused to be snuffed out for any reason.
Still mine…
Chapter Four
It never ceased to amaze Jolene when she woke up feeling worse than when she’d gone to sleep. Lifting her eyelids felt like a monumental task. The sunlight that greeted her stung, so she let her lids drop closed again in surrender. Raising her hands, she rubbed at her forehead.
The bandaging on her right hand made her frown. Opening her eyes a second time, Jo stared at the gauze completely covering her palm as well as half her fingers.
