Into His Keeping (9 page)

Chapter Four

Holdin dragged his sweaty body back to the main house ninety minutes later. The exhaustion would pass, though he should have eaten something before working that hard. In the shower he tried to formulate an apology and decided confessing he was a witless idiot around her wouldn’t be a newsflash to anyone. It probably wasn’t the most reassuring thing he could say to her but it was honest. They had to start at honest.

Fifteen minutes later he strode into the kitchen. Even though the room was a large country kitchen, the two women sitting at the table took up all the space in the room. At least for him.

“Good morning, ladies,” he acknowledged as he went to the microwave. It was a sure bet his mother had saved him a plate of food from breakfast and left it in there. There it was and he pulled it out without warming it. At the table, he took the chair beside Jill, who was holding a mug, as was his mother. Holdin made sure he took a stealthy look at its contents as he sat down and was pleased to see that it was green tea.

“Thanks for the plate, Mom. I’m starved.” He picked up the fork that was still by Jill’s elbow to start eating.

“Wasn’t me.” Carol smiled. “Jill set that aside before we all started eating.”

“Oh?” Holdin glanced at Jill, who’d been studying her mug since he stepped in the room. “Thank you, Jilly-girl.”

Jill didn’t look up as she nodded. Then quietly, as he dug his fork into the eggs, “Holdin, I should apologize.”

Holdin stopped and carefully put his fork back down, watching the woman beside him who hadn’t lifted her eyes from her mug.

“I was rude. Um…sorry. I could have been tactful instead of reacting emotionally.”

Across the table Carol pushed back her chair and stood. “I think there’s something that needs my urgent attention. Somewhere. See you later, Jill. I’ll be in the family room and we’ll go over those things we discussed.” She smiled and left.

Holdin reached over and gently pried one of Jill’s hands off her lukewarm mug. After less than a second she let him have it. Her small hand rested on his and he drew it to his face, placing her palm against his cheek without saying a word. Pressing it there, Holdin closed his eyes as he dragged it down his cheek to his mouth. Softly kissing her palm, he opened his eyes to look into hers.

“You were afraid,” he said into her flesh as their eyes met over her hand. “Still unsure if you can trust me so you reacted defensively to a hard push from me. It’s not your fault. I’m the one who needs to apologize, baby.”

Inside he felt deep relief. Her soul was reacting to his. Conflict with him was difficult, more than it would be for most women. It was that beautiful submissive in her. His need to protect the sweet spirit clawed at him. It really was his fault. Pushing her meant hurting her and he was so damn used to pushing for what he wanted.

Jill sucked in a gasp as his teeth nipped at her palm and then his tongue bathed the spot. Their eyes not leaving each other, he pulled her hand down his neck to the center of his chest. Holding the contact to him, Holdin asked quietly, “Forgive me? I have no right to question the years we were apart. I don’t want to know about the men in your life. Everything else, but not that.”

Her body was turned to face him as a little smile flickered across her lips. Even when they were sitting side by side, she had to tilt her head up to be face-to-face. Something about her leaning into him with her face tilted up moved the animal in Holdin. It was an instinctual response from eons ago, but the act of exposing her neck was so submissive a posture. It triggered the parallel aggressive response in him and he tensed to restrain the impulse to drag his tongue over the exposed creamy flesh.

His eyelids were heavy with the desire to consume and he couldn’t hide it as she looked at him with those wide eyes and her tempting lips slightly parted. Her hand over his heart had to have picked up the increase in rate. Holdin dragged in a deep breath and regretted it. She invaded his every sense with her mysterious night flower scent. Lush and round, her curves had him salivating as her supple form swayed toward him a little.

“We have so much history, so much baggage.” Jill sighed. “How do we get past it?”

Holdin leaned into her, his lips a whisper from the mouth he wanted more than life at this moment. “We can’t. We have to deal with it.”

Her body gave a slight shudder as her eyes focused on his lips. “I’m afraid. I’m not one of those perfect women you’re used to. I’m…well, me.”

“Damn it, baby girl. Don’t you get it? They were never as perfect as Jill. Not the other way around.”

“Really?” Her eyes flicked up to his as she reached for the sincerity in him.

Holdin’s head shifted a fraction to the side, tilting his mouth to match hers though not touching. “Do you feel me wanting you? Desperate for the taste of you? You make me desperate, Jill. No one else. Ever.”

“How do we do this to each other? Why do I want you so bad I burn every time I look at you? I tense up and pull back,” Jill whispered into his lips.

“I know,” he breathed. He let go of her hand to run his up the outside of her arm, around and under it to her side. Not touching her breast, he slowly stroked her rib cage. The effort not to pull her into him was a battle he was determined not to lose. “I’m not taking what I need, Jill. I’m trying not to scare you. Can you give me that? At least that?”

“What do you need?”

Holdin smiled that slow grin that had always made her catch a breath in sharply. “You know what I need, Jilly-girl. You’ve always known. But I’ll settle for a taste. Tell me I can have a taste, baby.”

“No.” Jill pulled back and stood as Holden clenched his jaw and immediately took his hands off her. His eyes narrowed as he gazed up at her standing beside him.

“Testing me?” he asked tightly.

“Stand up, Holdin. I’m not having my first kiss over a plate of eggs and bacon. I want to feel you hold me. All of me.”

Holdin’s chair crashed backward on the floor. His big body was directly in front of hers as his hands rested lightly on her hips. His head bent and their lips were again a breath apart. “Meet me halfway, Jill. Don’t make me take. Please, baby, don’t push me that far,” he growled fiercely, and stood still waiting for her.

Looking up into his amazing eyes as he literally vibrated with restrained tension, Jill let her hands rest lightly on his upper chest. Warm, breathing steel met her touch. His nostrils flared and she watched him endure the pleasure of her touch. As her hands glided up to his shoulders, his eyes changed, going dark and almost glassy. Jill noted each change as very slowly her fingers traveled his corded neck to tunnel under that golden crown of hair and cup the back of his skull.

“Could I step away now?” Jill questioned in a breathless whisper.

That’s when she felt living steel tremble. His eyes squeezed shut and his lips brushing hers, he surrendered his strength to her. “No. My Jill would never be that cruel,” he told her softly.

“No.” Jill paused as he opened his eyes—no, she couldn’t be that cruel to herself. “Please kiss me, Holdin.”

His mouth came the millimeter to her lips. Slowly he brushed back and forth as both of them opened. His arms tightened around her to bring her body firmly against him as a hand slid to the small of her back. The other traveled up her spine to press her into him. Firmly, like a man savors the taste of fine food, he licked across her lower lip. His hand at her back moved up her neck to cradle the back of her head as he dragged his tongue over her top lip. He seemed in no hurry but the feel of his clenched body pressed into hers couldn’t lie.

Jill moaned and closed her eyes. The hand low on her back moved down in a long, hard caress to span her bottom and press her hips firmly into his. He burned her through her jeans as that large hand pressed into her and went even lower to cup her curves. His middle finger had traveled the crease of her cheeks and now his fingers curled under to intimately press the ridge in the crotch of her jeans up into damp panties and suddenly engorged folds.

His mouth moved over hers, not pressing into her, sampling her in long licks and featherlight brushes. They were both open-mouthed and panting but he still didn’t accept that damp invitation. His fist closed in her hair to hold her head firmly beneath him, but he didn’t kiss her.

“Holdin!” sobbed out of her as he held her there. She felt surrounded, suspended in a hellish middle ground of razor-sharp touches that cut her with pleasure. Drowning in the emotional intensity of his tantalizing touch, her hands turned into claws as she tried to bring his mouth to hers. He had no trouble resisting and might not have noticed. “Holdin!”

“Right here, baby,” he murmured into her mouth.

“No! More. Now!”

“I can’t.” His hand rocked between her legs from behind, shooting blistering sparks up her body as his fist in her hair turned her head fractionally so his open mouth could glaze over her cheek to her ear. “I need you too much, Jilly-girl,” he confessed in rumbling growls, his mouth moving over her as if he needed to sample every inch of her for taste. “Don’t let it scare you, baby. I promise, nothing happens you don’t want. Nothing.”

“I want, Holdin. I want already!”

His mouth moved around the base of her neck in nipping kisses and then he seemed to get stuck over her pulse, sucking tender skin into his mouth to bathe it with his tongue. Jill raked her fingers down to his shoulders as the beast in her arms ate at her flesh in maddeningly tender nibbles and shattering kisses. He was sucking her neck and he’d found the spot with a mysterious bundle of nerves just under her skin. Jill groaned loudly and her hips moved as if his lips had them on puppet strings.

“Oh God, don’t! Holdin, please,” Jill sobbed as he let go of the spot and licked it tenderly.

“Don’t what?” he asked softly.

“Don’t make me like this. You know where, how to touch me. Don’t hurt me with it.”

“Jesus, baby.” His head lifted to look at the woman who inhabited his soul. “Why would you think that? This is me, Holdin. I’d rather lose a limb than hurt you.”

Jill looked into his face. Her body trembled in his arms and her hands dug into his shoulders. “I’m afraid of wanting you this much. You haven’t even really kissed me and I’m lost. What happens next? I’ve never been this lost since being with you and that was so long ago. I’m not young and firm. I’m not that uninhibited anymore. I can’t handle this. I don’t know what to do.”

Holdin let go of her hair and wrapped both arms around her in a hug that was suddenly more comfort than seduction. He folded her into his body as she buried her face in his chest, her arms now linked around his neck as she clung to him. “Shhhhh, Jilly-girl. Shhhh. You’re so afraid, little one. Try to remember you’re safe with me. Safe in me. I want you any way I can get you. God, I can’t believe you’re worried about this body. You’re going to have to let me prove something to you.”

Holdin shifted a step to put his back to the door. “But we’ll have to prove it later. I believe company is on the way.”

“What?” Jill’s head lifted off his chest to glance up in alarm.

“Relax. No makeup dripping down your face. No clothes undone. Even the hair is good.” He smoothed a hand down the back of her head. “Only problem might be the hickey.” Holdin’s head swooped down and he took her open mouth, swallowing the words of surprise and thrusting into her.

Jill’s body responded to the dizzying invasion with a flash fire of reaction. This was what she’d been hungering for with the intensity of a starvation victim. Opening wider, she sucked him in and promptly forgot every word he’d just said. He invaded her with that kiss. Claiming her. Her arms tightened around his neck and her fingers sank into his hair again as she strained to get closer to him.

“How many rooms does a house have to have for y’all to find a private one?” Drifter drawled from the kitchen doorway.

Jill’s body jerked at the sound of his voice but Holdin’s didn’t. He ended the kiss gently and smiled into her face. Blinking up at Holdin dazedly, Jill couldn’t make sense of things for a moment. Holdin loosened his arms and stepped back from her while still holding her shoulders.

“Doesn’t matter, buddy. You’ll get used to it.” Holden flashed a grin at his son as he pulled out Jill’s chair for her. A bit unsteady, Jill sank into it. Holdin picked up his own chair and sat down to his plate again. “You get the brake pads?” he asked Drifter.

Drifter dropped a bag on the floor by the door and headed to the fridge.