While the Fire Rages (20 page)

The slow savoring could not last. For the first time in his adult life Brett’s control shattered completely. Never had he experienced the fullness of the love act—a joining of mind and soul as well as flesh—and only now with this most magnificent of women. Increasing the tempo, Brett moved faster, and still faster, thrusting his body against and into hers, thrilling to the feel of her legs embracing him tightly, exulting to the strength with which she thrust her body against his.

Brett’s body was bathed in sweat and his hands felt the slippery wetness of Jo’s, and still he prolonged the final moment, waiting for her. When that moment happened for her, he stilled, holding her close, absorbing the shudders into his own body. When her shock waves had subsided, Brett began moving again, stroking deeper, and yet deeper, desperate to possess, equally desperate to be possessed. The explosion came within seconds of her own, and now Jo clutched him to her to cushion the reverberations.

When total sanity returned, Brett carefully moved from Jo’s body to the bed. Without a word he drew her into his arms, close to his side. Then, his lips at her forehead, he murmured, “Thank you, water baby. Now, go to sleep.”

Long after Jo’s even breathing indicated to Brett that she was sleeping deeply, he lay awake, holding her soft body tightly to his own. Staring into the darkness, Brett attempted to sort out the tangle of conflicting emotions vying for supremacy in his mind. First and foremost was the indisputable fact that what he’d just been through had been
the
most shattering sexual experience he’d ever had. Even thinking it seemed strange, yet Jo had somehow enveloped him totally, not merely physically but spiritually as well! Stranger still was the stark realization that, not only did he not mind the ... ensnarement, for want of a better word ... he was actually rejoicing in it. He loved it! Hell, now, to himself, holding Jo close in a pitch-dark room, Brett felt free to revel in the truth that he loved her!

Pushing all other considerations aside, Brett whispered the words aloud.

“I love you, JoAnne Lawrence, completely, unconditionally, and, very likely, forever.”

The vow at last spoken, even to one who could not hear, Brett sighed contentedly and went to sleep.

Chapter 8

The sound of the wind, moaning like a soul in torment, woke Jo. Lying still, she listened to the shiver-inducing noise as gusts beat against the wide bedroom window in ineffectual fury. It was no longer dark beyond the pane, yet still not fully light, the time of morning when the lowest temperature reading is usually registered. In her mind, Jo pictured the ocean and breakers whipped to white-capped frenzy by the gale. All that potentially destructive elemental force, she mused sleepily. So very near.

A smile of contentment curved her kiss-swollen lips. She was warm and safe. The warmth came, Jo acknowledged, not so much from the covers tucked around her shoulders but from the heat radiating from the body beside hers. The feeling of safety came not from being inside a roof and four walls but from being enclosed within two strong, masculine arms. Dismissing the weather as not worth consideration, Jo snuggled closer to Brett’s body, luxuriating in the delicious sensation of his nakedness against her own.

God, he was wonderful! A grin tugged at Jo’s lips.
She
was wonderful too! She was a woman! Not merely a female, but a living, breathing, sexually responsive woman! Brett had proved it to her, proved it in the most primitive way possible. He had made her his, figuratively as well as literally. Brett did not know it, and Jo prayed he never would, but with his possession of her he had earned himself a slave. Jo had been in love with him last night. This morning, what she felt for him came so close to adoration, it scared the wits out of her. Still, perhaps enslavement was worth the price for enlightenment. All her fears and insecurities concerning her ability to respond physically to a man had been swept from her mind by the pulsating rush of sexual fulfillment.

Go to hell, Gary Devlin!

Jo gulped back a gurgle of laughter and snuggled still closer to Brett. She felt terrific! She felt fantastic! She felt ... Jo compressed her lips to contain a fresh surge of laughter. She felt Brett’s hand stroking slowly up the inside of her thigh!

“Are you trying to tell me something with all your wiggling around?” Brett’s breath whispered over Jo’s temple an instant before his tongue outlined the edge of her ear.

“I—I was just thinking how cold the wind sounds, and how warm it is in here,” Jo explained, her breath catching as his hand found the apex of her thighs. The entrapped breath vibrated in her throat producing a tiny gasp when his long fingers began combing through the dark thicket.

“I have a feeling it’s going to go from warm to red hot very quickly if you continue wiggling your fanny like that.” Brett punctuated his assertion by stabbing the tip of his tongue into her ear.

Jo’s tiny gasp matured into a deep-throated moan as Brett’s fingers slid lower to explore the moist heat of her core. And it was heated! The realization was both a shock and a delight to her. She, JoAnne Lawrence, the woman who had believed herself incapable of responding physically to any man, had become meltingly hot by the simple process of snuggling closer to Brett’s warm, naked body. She was ready for him! To a sexually experienced woman that sudden arousal would not have come as a surprise. To Jo it seemed a miracle.

Go
with the flow.
The old buzz phrase drifted through Jo’s mind and, reacting to it, she moved her hips sensuously. Brett reacted to her movement by exploring the region in depth. Soft, inarticulate sounds she was barely aware of making tickling the back of her throat, Jo arched her body, instinctively inviting deeper penetration.

“You like that, do you?” Brett murmured into her ear.

“Yes!” Jo admitted between shallow gasps. “Oh, yes!”

“Then you might return the favor,” he chided softly.

Return the favor? For an instant Jo’s passion-clouded mind grappled with his request. What... Oh! Did Brett mean for her to ...? But, of course, what else could he mean? she thought fuzzily. Were men also turned on by having their bodies stroked and caressed? Brett answered the question for her in a low groan.

“Touch me, Jo! Please. You can’t imagine how long I’ve ached for you to touch me.”

Shyly, hesitantly, Jo lifted her hand and placed her palm against his chest. Then, slowly, she stroked, a growing sense of wonder widening her eyes at the smoothness of his skin. When her fingers brushed lightly over the flat male nipples she paused, a question rising to tantalize her mind. All too vividly Jo remembered the piercing pleasure she had experienced from the touch of Brett’s lips to her breasts. Would Brett experience a similar reaction? Intrigued by the idea, Jo shifted her body around until she was positioned almost on top of him. With a soft sign, Brett obligingly made a half turn onto his back. Lowering her head, Jo dropped a string of delicate kisses across his chest. When her lips reached the tight nipple she hesitated and a shiver rippled through Brett’s body.

“Jo, please, don’t stop now!”

His hoarse, excitement-tinged groan encouraging her on, Jo closed her lips around the taut bud and laved it gently with her tongue. Amazingly, Brett gasped and actually writhed beneath her. His response had the strangest effect on Jo. She was suddenly filled with a heady sense of power. She could make him writhe in pleasure! At the same time, Jo recognized that her own sexual tension was increasing. She’d had no idea of how exciting making love to a man could be!

All timidity forgotten, Jo continued to explore Brett’s body with her lips. By the time she dipped her tongue into his navel, Brett’s breathing had a raspy, uneven sound and his hands moved restlessly over her upper arms and shoulders. All the while her lips dropped tiny kisses her palms were absorbing the feel of his skin. At his navel she again hesitated briefly then bravely skimmed her lips down the concave of his abdomen to a hair-rough thigh. Now Brett’s hands were in her hair, stroking, tugging gently in a silent plea for her to bestow the ultimate caress.

Understanding immediately, Jo stilled for an instant. During that instant a mini-battle raged. Could she? Did she want to? No! Yes! Damn it! Was she not a woman after all? Brett’s hips thrust provocatively. The feeling of power washed over her again. Swiftly, before she could change her mind, Jo bent her head, sank her fingertips into his hard buttocks, and granted his mute request. Brett’s low groan of intense pleasure urging her on, Jo caressed him gently, finding to her amazement that the more pleasure she gave him, the more she received herself.

Brett withstood Jo’s ministrations for several moments, then he grasped her shoulders and growled softly, “Come up here and kiss my mouth, water baby, I want to feel your body covering mine.”

Slowly, tormentingly, pausing at strategic spots to kiss teasingly, Jo sinuously slid up his body, unashamedly reveling in Brett’s raspingly uttered words of praise.

“You’re fantastic, do you know that? You’ve made me want you so badly I’m trembling all over.” Then, when her mouth lightly touched his: “God! The scent of you! The feel of you! The taste of you!” Digging his fingers into her hair, he pulled her head to his, his mouth taking hers hungrily, his tongue a hot spear branding her mouth as his own. Brett’s lips locked onto hers, he grasped her by the hips and lifted her up, then settled her onto his body, branding her again with another spear.

Gasping aloud at the depth of his penetration, Jo let her head drop back and began to move her body in a slow, undulating motion.

“Yes, Yes,” Brett crooned unevenly. “Perfect. God! You’re perfect.”

The lazy tempo was maintained for several minutes during which Jo felt the tension twisting into a wildness inside. She moaned as Brett’s hands stroked lovingly over her tautly arched neck to her shoulders and then to her aching breasts before settling firmly on her hips. Slowly, directing her with his hands, Brett increased the tempo, his own body arching to meet hers. His action fed the wildness growing in her, and, grasping his wrists with her hands, Jo accelerated the tempo to a frenzied crescendo. Brett exploded under her. There was no holding back for him this time. Jo sensed his loss of control and gloried in the realization of having been the instrument of his loss. Reality receding, Jo had the uncanny sensation of soaring through space, and then simultaneously they went crashing through the time barrier. For sweet, pulsating seconds time stood still while their entire beings experienced the highest of the highs. Then, slowly, gently, they drifted back to earth together.

Jo opened her eyes to the awareness of her head resting on Brett’s shoulder, her face pressed to the curve of his neck. In gratitude and unspoken love she placed a kiss on his moist skin. Brett’s arms tightened around her momentarily, then relaxed.

“Are you uncomfortable, sweetheart?”

Wanting to lock the sound of it in her mind and heart, Jo closed her eyes at the endearment. Uncomfortable? How could she possibly tell him that, at this moment, she desired nothing more than to remain coupled to him forever? Dreamily, she murmured something unintelligible and allowed him to disengage her body from his.

“Are you going to sleep again?” Brett teased, lightly caressing her thighs with one hand.

“I hope so,” Jo murmured drowsily, lifting a lazy hand to cover a yawn.

“Self-indulgent wench,” Brett chided. “I was hoping you’d come with me.”

“With you?”Jo forced her heavy eyelids up. “Where are you going?”

“I thought I’d run on the beach.” That quirky smile twitched his lips. ‘That is, after I’ve rested a bit. You do take it out of a guy.”

“Run on the beach!” Jo exclaimed, choosing to ignore the double meaning attached to his assertion. “Are you mad? It’s cold out there! And windy! Don’t you hear it screaming around the building?”

“I’d have to be stone deaf not to.” He laughed. “I’m not afraid of the wind.”

“I’m not either,” Jo assured him around another yawn. “But that doesn’t mean I want to run in it. Good night, Brett.”

Brett’s laughter grew stronger. “But it’s morning, honey. See? It’s broad daylight.”

Casting a narrowed glance at the window, Jo obligingly observed the broad daylight.  Yawning again she pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes. “So it is,” she agreed. “Good night, Brett.” Inside her mind, Jo was savoring the taste of his “honey.”

“It
is
cold out there.” The statement was made through lips that moved against Jo’s ear. “And you
are
so nice and warm.” His hand wove an erotic pattern up her thigh to cup the tightly curled thicket. “Wonderfully warm.” With his other hand Brett drew her head back into the curve of his neck. “Maybe I’ll sleep awhile with you.
Then
I’ll run on the beach.”

The second time Jo woke that morning she noticed three things at once. The wind had died down; the sun was shining brightly; and she was alone in the bed. Apparently Brett had decided to run on the beach. In Jo’s opinion, anybody who would even consider running on the beach, or anywhere else, on a cold December morning was slightly nuts, but, she thought shrugging, each to his own brand of self-torture. For Jo, the torture would come in the form of the first meal of the day. Jo was a lousy cook. Turn her loose in the kitchen and within minutes it was a disaster area.

After a warm, revitalizing shower, Jo tugged skin-tight jeans over her slender hips and pulled a thigh-length, baggy sweatshirt over her head, then winced as she stroked a brush through her mass of tangled hair. When the dark mop had been beaten into submission, Jo tossed the brush aside and padded barefoot out of the bedroom. She was standing at the kitchen sink, filling the coffeemaker with cold water, when Brett swung into the apartment, out of breath, sweaty, and looking sexy as hell in a windbreaker and sweatpants.

“Hi,” he panted, flashing her an ice-melting grin. “If you give me ten minutes to jump in and out of the shower, I’ll prepare brunch.” Not waiting for a response, he loped across the living room and disappeared down the short hall to the bedroom.