Straight from the Heart (15 page)

Jace stood behind her then, his hands stroking the smooth bare flesh of her stomach and lower. She sighed and pressed her head back against his shoulder as his fingers combed through the thatch of ebony curls that hid her most feminine secrets. His arousal pressed into her back. She moved against him, wanting him, needing to be one with him.

When they stretched out across the mattress of the big mahogany bed, there was no sense of urgency, only the desire to be close. One long kiss faded into another and another, and the only sound was that of the rain that came steadily down outside the windows. Night closed around the old house like a black satin cloak, leaving the lovers in the soft, colorful glow of a single old Tiffany lamp.

Rebecca felt the past and all its hurts recede as Jace’s hands and mouth soothed and aroused her at once. He knew every inch of her body, every place to touch and tease. He sought them all out and gave each his full attention, then allowed Rebecca to do the same with his body. Time stretched on and on. Neither noticed or cared.

When Jace finally mounted her, he let Becca take his full length in one smooth, slow stroke. They were still for a long moment as they savored their union and the sense of completion that came with it, a completion that was uniquely theirs.

Finally nature intervened. Rebecca’s body tugged at Jace’s, silently begging for release. He groaned and rocked his hips against hers. She sighed and arched up against him.

Their loving was slow and gentle, each movement designed to prolong the pleasure as well as heighten it. Rebecca felt like a finely tuned instrument being played by a master musician. It was a sweet, tender melody, one that touched the most vulnerable corner of her heart, one that built slowly toward what she knew would be a soaring crescendo.

She straddled Jace, moving on him as he leaned back against the headboard of the bed. Her fingers dug into his muscular shoulders as she took him into her, deeper and harder with each stroke. Jace clutched her to him as their pleasure crested powerfully and left them floating on a wave of weakness and bliss.

Sated and relaxed for the first time in hours, they lay together, sharing a pillow. They listened to the rain and the mournful sound of a cat meowing at the back door.

“Can I make a confession?” Jace asked softly. He reached up a hand to comb back a lock of her hair.

“Haven’t we done enough of that for one night?” Rebecca didn’t want anything to intrude on this time, not the past, not the future.

Jace’s smile was sheepish as he ignored her question. “I was disappointed when you told me Justin isn’t mine. I want us to have children together, Becca. I want the love we make to create something even more beautiful than it has.”

A sharp sense of longing ran through Rebecca. She wanted that too. She couldn’t count the times she had wished she had given birth to Justin, and, although she had never admitted it, Jace was the only man she could have pictured as the father of her child. Sometimes it was hard for her to look at Justin and not imagine him as Jace’s and her son.

Those were feelings she tried hard to ignore. She couldn’t afford dreams like that one. They meant investing heavily in a future that was uncertain. Jace wanted to build on the foundation of the changes he had struggled to make within himself. That was an admirable desire. But Rebecca could too easily remember the past promises that lay broken with the pieces of a young girl’s heart. And, too, there was a part of her that didn’t want to be a part of Jace’s penance. If her relationship with him was tied to his sense of guilt about Casey Mercer and his own past, what would happen when the ache of that guilt dulled?

Jace didn’t comment on her lack of response. He warded off the hurt by simply ignoring Rebecca’s silence and telling himself they would be a family, a growing, loving family. All they needed was time. He couldn’t heal the wounds overnight, nor could he expect Becca to forget them.

Leaning on his elbows, Jace gazed down at her, his eyes midnight blue. “I love you, Becca. I’ve never said that to another woman.”

“I love you,” Rebecca whispered, reaching up to touch the silvery strands of his hair that spilled across his forehead. She had never said those words to another man; something told her she never would. For better or worse, Jace Cooper was the man who had captured her heart. She could only hope this time he wouldn’t break it.

He leaned down and brushed the softest of kisses across her mouth. “You’re everything a man could ever want. I don’t deserve you, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you go again.”

Then he switched off the Tiffany lamp, took Rebecca in his arms, and proved his love to her in the only way he could.

                  8                  

“Feelings” blasting from an electric organ—complete with boom-chukka rhythm sounds—was not what Rebecca was used to hearing first thing in the morning. Her head came up off the pillow. Beside her, Jace slept on, magnificently naked, having kicked the sheets off. His ash-blond head was burrowed under his pillow. Rebecca’s thoughts scattered as she feasted on the sight.

He was all lines and angles and lean muscle—except for a gorgeously rounded backside. He grumbled in his sleep and turned from his belly onto his side so he was facing her. Rebecca’s heart lodged at the base of her throat. She saw bodies every day—male, female, in shape, out of shape—but she had yet to come across a shape that made her mouth go dry the way Jace Cooper’s did. The scars he had acquired over the past seven years only enhanced his masculinity.

Jace was an athlete in every sense of the word. He was beautifully made and possessed strength and stamina. Oh, boy, did he have stamina, Rebecca thought, her cheeks blooming with the memories. When Jace made love to her, it was magical. Nothing and no one could compare. When they made love, it was as if the past had no power over them, as if nothing mattered but the beautiful harmony between them.

Lying on her side, studying Jace in the early morning light, Rebecca wished she could feel secure knowing he was that one special person.

Suddenly her face dropped. She had spent the entire night in Jace’s arms, and now it was morning and she was trapped in Jace Cooper’s room with his landlady sitting out in the hallway playing “As Time Goes By” on the organ. His landlady, who had strictly forbidden him to have any hanky-panky go on in the room he rented from her.

“Jace, Jace, wake up!” Rebecca whispered urgently, poking him in the belly.

“Mmmm…again, sweetheart?” he mumbled in a low, lazy voice, rolling on his back. “Let me sleep just five more minutes.”

Rebecca straddled him and pulled the pillow off his face. “Will you wake up?”

Jace’s eyelids rose as lazily as his smile. Rebecca leaned over him, her black hair mussed wildly around her head. Naturally, his gaze was drawn downward to her full breasts with their large, dark rose-colored nipples. It wasn’t at all difficult to remember how they had tasted, how they had felt in his mouth. He was also very aware of the heat of her femininity pressing softly against his bare belly. Lord, to share a bed with this woman for the rest of his life would be like heaven on earth.

In a smoky morning voice he said, “For a view like this I’ll not only wake up, I’ll jump through flaming hoops if you want me to.”

“This is hardly the time for you to get turned on.” Rebecca scowled at him and started to move away, but Jace clamped his hands to her waist and held her where she was, his thumbs rubbing seductively against the soft skin of her tummy.

“I always thought morning was the perfect time,” he said. “Especially when I wake up to find a beautiful naked woman sitting on my—”

“Jace Cooper,” she whispered, her face flaming, “your landlady is practically right outside the door.”

Jace shook his head, fighting back a devilish grin. “I’m not into threesomes. Becca, you surprise me.”

She grabbed her pillow and thumped him in the face with it. “I’ll surprise you all right—”

The next thing Rebecca knew, she was flat on her back and Jace’s body was lovingly pressing hers down into the mattress. It happened so fast, she didn’t even have time to squeal in surprise. She stared up at him as Muriel segued into “You Light Up My Life.”

“Jace, this is serious,” she said, trying to keep his mind on the topic. “What are we going to do?”

He bent his head and whispered a scenario in her ear that made her go weak.

“I meant about Muriel,” she said, trying her best to ignore the way Jace was nipping at her collarbone. “If she catches me sneaking out of your room, she’ll be furious with you.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to keep you prisoner here in my bedroom. Mmmm, I like that idea,” he said against her breast. He raised his head, his hair falling into blue eyes that gleamed with mischief. “Will you let me tie you up?”

“Jace!”

He slid up her body, growling and chuckling devilishly. As his arousal probed the juncture of her thighs, he stuck his tongue in her ear.

“This isn’t funny.”

“I agree,” he said on a groan. “Wrap your legs around my hips, sweetheart.”

A heat wave swept over her body at his words, but Rebecca refused to comply. “Muriel is from a different generation. She will not find it the least amusing that I spent the night with you. She’ll probably throw you out.”

Jace nibbled at the corner of her frown. “Then I’ll have to come live in your bedroom. I’ll let you tie me up.”

“You ought to be
locked
up,” she said, giggling as he tickled her ribs.

“Come on, honey,” Jace cajoled in his most persuasive tone. He slid his hand between their bodies and made her gasp as his fingers found her most sensitive flesh. “Open up for me, baby. I can’t think of a more wonderful way to start the morning than making love with you. And we can be as loud as we want. No one on earth could hear us above Muriel’s playing.”

The music stopped abruptly. Rebecca took advantage of Jace’s surprise to scramble out from under him and off the bed. As she scavenged for her clothes, the organ burst into “Some Enchanted Evening.”

“She’s improved since she got her hearing aid, don’t you think?” Jace asked, sitting back against the headboard and admiring the view as Rebecca bent over to pick up her panties.

“You’ll have to go out in the hallway and distract her so I can sneak out the back door,” Rebecca said as she struggled with the buttons that ran down the back of her blouse. This hardly seemed like the time to critique Muriel’s organ playing.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.” Jace stepped off the bed and sauntered toward the bedroom door as naked as the day he was born.

Wild-eyed, Rebecca jumped in front of him, plastering her back against the door. “For heaven’s sake, put some clothes on! I said to distract her, not give her a coronary!”

“You’re the expert,” he said, his warm gaze traveling the length of her, taking in her long legs and white silk tap pants. He planted a hand on either side of her head and leaned toward her until their lips practically brushed when he spoke. “You sure know how to distract me.”

Rebecca closed her eyes against the involuntary surge of desire his nearness evoked, and groaned in frustration. It was all she could do to keep from running her fingers through his chest hair. Sometimes she thought her weakness for him was more dangerous than any chemical addiction. It was certainly as strong. “Jace…”

“Okay,” he said, running a forefinger along the sleek line of her jaw. “I’ll get dressed. I’ll behave myself. You have to give me a good-morning kiss first.”

The look she leveled at him was patently unamused.

“Just a little one,” he said with a sweet smile. He brushed her hair back behind her ear. “You don’t want to make me feel like a cheap one-night stand, do you?”

“Heaven forbid.” Rebecca’s tone was dry, but her eyes twinkled.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she tilted her head up and kissed him, fully expecting him to try again to lure her back to bed. When he didn’t, when he kept the kiss tender, she was surprised. She searched his face and was stricken yet again by the age in those indigo eyes she knew so well.

“I don’t think I thanked you for staying with me yesterday,” he said softly. “I don’t just mean last night. I mean—”

“I know what you mean.”

“I wasn’t sure how you would feel about me after meeting Casey.”

“I love you,” she said, amazed by how simple those words sounded. There was nothing simple at all about her relationship with Jace or the feelings that tangled inside her, leaving her feeling uncertain.

“Past mistakes and all?” he asked.

“We can’t change the past,” she said sadly. How much easier their lives would have been had they been able to go back in time. She could have been spared a broken heart. Jace could have been spared a broken life.

Rebecca couldn’t change the past, nor was she willing to forget it, Jace thought. She might have been in love with him, but she still had reservations about him. He could see it in her eyes. He could hear the subtle edge in her voice that asked him not to probe too deeply or push too hard.

“Maybe we should talk about the future, then,” he said, knowing he was crossing a line, knowing she would back away from the issue. Funny, he thought, he’d never considered himself a masochist.

Rebecca gave him a look designed to be teasing, but she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. “I think we’re a little underdressed to have a serious discussion.”

Jace glanced down. She had a point. It was difficult to have an important talk standing naked while one’s landlady played a tango on the organ in the hall. Maybe this wasn’t the right time for their talk. He could content himself to going on with Rebecca as they were for a while, giving her time to come to trust him, giving her time to see the love he was offering now wasn’t a shallow imitation but the genuine article—straight from his heart.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, stepping back. He picked her skirt up off a chair and handed it to her. “Here. You’ll be less conspicuous sneaking out if people can’t see your underwear.”

She pulled his briefs off the doorknob and tossed them to him with a wry smile. “And you’ll be less conspicuous if people can’t see your…attributes.”

They dressed quickly, hoping Muriel would quit practicing and go to the kitchen for her daily dose of oatmeal and stewed prunes. To their dismay, she played on and on with exceptional enthusiasm, going through her entire repertoire. Jace and Rebecca sat on the fainting couch in his sitting room playing “Name That Tune” as they waited.

Finally the last few bars of “A Groovy Kind of Love” faded away. Jace went to the door and stuck his head out, then drew it back in.

“The coast is clear.”

“I’d better make a break for it,” Rebecca said, clutching her sandals in her hand.

“Kiss me good-bye first.” Jace snatched her against him and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “I love you. I’ll see you later. Hugh and I are going to try to work the bugs out of Merlin this afternoon.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later.”

When Jace pulled the door open, Rebecca turned and tiptoed out into the hall—directly into the path of her father. For an instant they both froze. Then each jumped back, staring at the other in wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock.

Hugh stood there in his stocking feet with his shoes dangling from one hand. Muriel stood behind him, her pudgy cheeks as red as ripe tomatoes. She couldn’t have looked any guiltier had she been holding a smoking gun in her hand. Rebecca was so stunned, she dropped her sandals. A cat jumped out from behind an umbrella stand and ran away with one.

“Dad!” she exclaimed belatedly.

“Daughter!” Hugh said with a gasp, his face flaming red.

“Oooohhh…kitty litter,” Muriel muttered, her dimpled hand clutching and unclutching Chester’s fur until the gray cat howled a protest and jumped out of her arms.

It was fairly obvious to Rebecca that her father and Muriel Marquardt had spent the night…
together
. When she’d told Jace that Hugh and Muriel had fun together, she hadn’t realized just what kind of fun. It was Fun, the grown-up kind, the romantic kind. Her father and Muriel the cat lady were having a fling!

Not quite knowing how she should react, Rebecca glanced back over her shoulder. Jace leaned lazily in the doorway of his sitting room with a big grin on his face, obviously finding the situation wildly amusing. He waved to Hugh and Muriel. “Good morning, everyone. How about those Mavericks?”

The Mishawaka Mavericks had to rank among the most hapless teams in the history of the great game of baseball. Other teams set the league championship as their goal for the season. The Mavericks aspired to nothing more than mediocrity. Most people agreed, they set their sights too high.

The Mavericks were a team of has-beens, would-bes, and misfits. Their players were too small, too old, too slow, too green, too weird. They had a left fielder who would have been great except for a nervous condition that made him hyperventilate and pass out along about the sixth inning. They had Pat Wylie, a former big-league catcher whose arm was shot. They had Turk Lacey, who had a smoking fast-ball and a talking hand puppet.