Moonlight and Shadows (14 page)

Of course, he didn’t know she couldn’t cook.
For all of her other gaffes, Lila figured she’d keep that
particular fact to herself for a while—just in case he really was
falling in love.

Jack smiled wryly to himself as Lila sat
down, her gaze focused on her plate. If she weren’t so skittish,
he’d share the reason for the grin he couldn’t seem to get off his
face.

With typical brilliance, he’d gotten
everything backward. Most people made love, slept, then ate
breakfast. Not him though. Smooth Jack got right down to the
salient point, the cardinal reason, the sum and substance for
entertaining a beautiful woman—sharing breakfast. He’d
inconveniently skipped all the fun parts.

All the really fun parts, he amended, like
unbuttoning her shirt, starting with the pearly one at the very
top, the one almost hidden by her lace collar. He’d never forgive
himself for that oversight. Or sliding his hand over her breast.
He’d been a fool to forget that part. No other man on the face of
the earth would have forgotten to kiss her breathless before
breakfast. The more he thought about it, the more he was beginning
to hate himself and his dyslexic ways. He should have at least
kissed her. Any other man would have kissed her before
breakfast.

A quick check of her plate proved it wasn’t
too late.

The scraping of his chair was the only
warning Lila got of the meltdown headed her way. She glanced up,
and the impact of Jack’s steady gaze and the realization of his
intent shot through her like the finest, headiest wine. In seconds,
his mouth was upon hers, warm, insistent, demanding, and sweeter
than any memories she could conjure up. His tongue stroked down the
length of hers with drugging sensuality, blowing fuses in her nerve
endings. Her fork clattered to her plate. He slipped his hands
under her arms, pulling her out of the chair. Her napkin slid to
the floor, and only the strength of his embrace kept her from doing
the same.

From somewhere in the house she heard the
muted strains of a golden oldie tune, something about “Rescue me,”
and she prayed no one would bother. She didn’t need rescuing. She
needed Jack, and she showed him the depth of her need in a hundred
different ways—with the subtle pressure of her body against his,
with the slow caress of her hands through his hair, with the soft
sounds and softer sighs he elicited with his touch.

Every stroke of his hands left a shimmering
trail of sensation across her skin and deeper, where her emotions
were unraveling with unheard-of speed. He was kissing her crazy,
stealing her breath and whatever sense she might have brought with
her. She didn’t care, not even when she felt him tug her shirt out
of the back of her pants, not even when his hand slid up her back
and she felt the snap give way on her bra.

All she cared about was him pulling her
toward him, slanting his mouth across hers to deepen the kiss. She
cared about the heaviness of his breathing and how she wanted more.
She cared about the heat of his skin and the taste of his mouth.
She cared about making love now and making the loving last forever
. . . forever and ever with Jack Hudson. The hardness of him, his
strength and gentleness, the erotic power he wielded with his kiss,
intoxicated her.

He should have known it would happen like
this, Jack thought, fast and unstoppable. Breakfast had been
consigned to ancient history. The only reality was the woman in his
arms, Lila, she of the dark eyes and honeyed mouth. She of the
sultry curves, the full breasts, the sleek hips.

He slid his hands to the front of her pants,
released the snap, and undid the zipper. He wanted to slip his
hands inside, but he was no fool. He knew there were limits, and he
wanted to play them right to the edge. He wanted to savor and love
her. He wanted to take her clothes off and start at her toes and
not stop until her mouth melted under his again. He wanted her to
explore him.

He wasn’t letting her go this time. The
phone was unplugged. The doors were locked, and neither his sister
nor his father had a key. If he’d had time, he would have gone down
to the county road and hung a Do Not Disturb sign on his mailbox.
She was his. The magic of a long-ago night was coming to life in
his arms.

He’d been right to kiss her under the
harvest moon. The promise he’d felt hadn’t been forsaken by the
months of waiting. In truth, nothing could have been sweeter or
hotter than the fire she was lighting from one end of his senses to
the other. She touched him, and he wanted more. She kissed him, and
he felt the wild abandon of her heart match his.

She needed his loving. She pressed against
him, her hands pulling his shirt from his pants, her mouth
alternately teasing and aggressive. Jack knew the smartest thing
he’d ever done in his whole life was to kiss her before
breakfast.

He felt cotton slide from beneath denim,
then her hands were on him, warm and small, flattening against the
tense plane of his abdomen and making it even tenser. His breathing
stopped of its own accord. His hand stilled on the nape of her
neck.

With the gentlest care he rubbed his mouth
over hers, dragging a deep breath into his lungs. Her response was
immediate and surprising. Her fingers slowly curled around his
waistband, and one by one she undid the buttons on his jeans.

“Ah, Lila,” he murmured, feeling a rush of
arousal spread through his body.

They left a trail of clothes from the
kitchen to his bedroom. Jack shrugged out of his shirt and spent
thirty seconds fighting with the cuff button on his left wrist
before he broke it off and wadded the shirt into a pile, which he
inadvertently dropped into the hollandaise bowl in the sink.

Lila slipped out of her shirt like cream
pouring from a pitcher, smoothly, with flowing grace. The
midnight-blue silk blouse floated toward the floor, catching on a
cupboard handle and hanging there like a testimonial flag to love.
He kissed her exposed shoulder, his mouth running in a hot trail
down the side of her neck, his hands pushing the tiny white straps
of her bra off her arms. The delicate piece of lingerie ended up
draped across the fruit bowl.

Jack kicked off his tennis shoes in the
hall. Lila stepped out of her flats in front of the “undersea”
bathroom. They paused beneath the two-by-four, where Jack taught
her the delights of a bare bosom pressed against a hardened,
muscled chest covered with silky dark hair. It was a lesson she
never wanted to end, not when he simultaneously whispered erotic
promises in her ear.

His previous kisses should have been fair
warning of the fire he was igniting all along her body. His
sculpture should have prepared her for the imagination inherent in
his words. But five years of marriage and one three-week debacle of
a love affair had obviously left some blanks in her sexual
experiences.

“No,” she exclaimed softly, her face flaming
even as her own imagination embellished his sensual murmurings.

He grinned and gently bit her neck.
“Yes.”

She tilted her head back, another denial on
her lips, but what she saw in his eyes left it unspoken. The man
loved her. He wanted to give her everything, and she had a sneaky
suspicion he could—like nothing and nobody she’d ever dreamed
up.

“Jack, I . . .” Her voice trailed off in
uncertainty. She wanted to tell him something, say something to
explain how she felt about him, but she couldn’t find the right
words. “I’m—I’m glad I came this morning.”

“Good.” His mouth brushed across her brow as
his hand caressed upward toward her breast.

“But . . .”

“Shh.” He filled his palm with her, and she
felt his sigh against her skin.

“There was someone else.” The words came
hesitantly, and she wondered if that was what she’d meant to say
all along. Somehow she didn’t think so.

“You don’t have to tell me.” He stepped
backward, continuing down the hall toward his bedroom, pulling her
with him, kissing her cheek, her temple, the side of her nose.

“It wasn’t very good,” she added haltingly.
“Or admirable. It was pretty terrible.”

“I’ll make it better.” He tunneled his hand
through her hair and lifted it away from her neck. His mouth traced
a path along her nape, his tongue searing her skin.

Breathless, her heart pounding, Lila let him
lead her into his bedroom. A part of her mind kept wondering where
all the extraneous doubts were hiding and when they would jump out
and fill her with guilt, embarrassment, reticence. Her confession
certainly hadn’t done it, but something had to happen to ruin these
marvelous feelings. Some internal switch must have been
delayed.

Or Jack had derailed it, she thought,
because no anxiety surfaced when he backed her up to his bed and
pushed her slacks over her hips. Only excitement happened—deep
down, thrilling, sensual excitement laced with a heady dose of
anticipation. His hands, so strong and sure, were on her, all over
her, guiding and pleasing, and undressing her with a confidence she
responded to without hesitation.

Her limbs were heavy with the need to hold
him closer. Her mouth searched for his as he followed her down to
the bed, leaving his jeans in a pile on the floor next to hers.

“I’m in love with you,” he said between
soft, slow kisses. He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs
tracing her cheekbones, his warm masculine body pressed against the
length of hers. “I wanted you to know that.”

“Thank you.” She sighed the words and heard
his deep chuckle echo against her skin.

“You’re welcome.” He kissed her once more,
then lifted his head. A lazy smile graced his mouth. A slumberous
passion darkened his eyes. “You’re very pretty”—his gaze drifted
down in perfect tandem with his hand—“everywhere.”

“Thank you,” she said again in a hushed
whisper, all of her senses intent on the path he was taking.

“You’re welcome,” he drawled, and she felt
the smile in his words. He stopped at her knee, then lightly
stroked up the silky length of her inner thigh. Her eyes fluttered
closed as she moaned. How did he make her melt with each touch? she
wondered. What instinct gave him the magic to thrill her with such
sensitivity?

What manner of man had she fallen in love
with? And where were all her inhibitions?

Fallen in love with?

“Jack?”

“Hmm?”

“Something is happening.”

“No kidding.” He slid his leg between hers
and lowered his mouth to her breast. After several tantalizing
moments, he moved to her other breast, and Lila felt his low groan
ricochet through her chest. He was devouring her sweetly,
completely, his mouth roaming at will over her body, teasing her,
tasting her, fulfilling the promise of his whispered words.

She sank deeper under his spell with every
second of pleasure, until the pleasure grew too intense and her
need for more of him grew undeniable.

With a slight shift of her body and the
guiding tenderness of her hands, she silently asked him to return
to her mouth for her kiss. When he did, the magic started all over,
heightened by the pressure of his arousal between her thighs. He
slipped partway inside, deepening the kiss to match. Slowly, degree
by breathtaking degree, he made her completely his own.

She didn’t remember love ever being so
intensely sweet, with each movement lifting them to a higher level
of sensation and her feeling so safe in abandoning herself to the
moment and the man who held her. She placed wild kisses on his face
and throat and mouth, always his mouth, his divinely designed mouth
so adept at drenching her senses in passion.

Jack matched her kiss for kiss, until he
felt time running out. He wanted to be inside her forever, playing
on the edge of maximum excitement and total satiation, but she had
a way about her, a way of tightening around him with each thrust, a
way of sighing in his ear and driving him over that sweet, delicate
edge. All of his energy coalesced into one urgent desire—to take
her, and take her quickly, to the place where she was taking
him.

He plunged deeply and stopped long enough to
capture her gasp with his mouth. Then he moved again, and again,
quickening his tempo in response to the thousand subtle signals her
body sent to his.

When the end came, he found his eternity in
her sweet contractions around him, in the whisper of his name on
her lips, in the tightness of her embrace.

* * *

Cocooned in contentment, Lila nuzzled her
face into the broad shoulder supporting her head. Every atom of her
being felt worked over, supremely used and renewed. Her skin still
tingled, nerve impulses still imploded softly along the length of
her body. She’d never known love could feel the way it felt with
Jack. She’d loved Danny, but there had always been something
elusive about him even in making love, something distracted and
dreamy. He’d been hard to hold on to, and ultimately, she’d lost
him.

But Jack, for all the sensitivity of his
artistic soul, was there with her one hundred percent. She’d never
been the recipient of so much concentrated attention, and she liked
it—a lot. Even after only one dose, she suspected she might be
addicted.

She turned her face up to his and kissed his
jaw, eliciting a heavy sigh from deep in his chest. He rolled on
top of her, his eyes still closed, and began to love her all over
again.

* * *

“We can’t go on like this,” she murmured,
snuggling closer to his warmth, her legs tangled with his.

“Speak for yourself,” he muttered in her ear
before proceeding with the path he was gently gnawing down her
shoulder to her breast.

“I’m hungry,” she said, her sigh quickly
turning into a catch in her throat.

Jack was torn. He had food, lots of food,
but he also had her in his arms, and she was starting to do all
those little things she’d been doing all morning to tell him she
was ready to make love again. He’d never known a woman to be so
innately responsive. She did things, wild things, to his ego and
his desire that both surprised and fascinated him. The softness in
her eyes pulled on him; the other-worldly rapture she bestowed on
him bewitched him. She’d blossomed under his caress, giving him
more than he’d seen in the photograph, and she was ready to give to
him again, as he was ready to give to her.