Til Death Do Us Part (12 page)

“Why don't we go to the bunkhouse? I'll fix us both a drink and you can tell me more about Annabelle and Benjamin.”

“You're willing to do anything to cheer me up, aren't you?” she said teasingly.

J.T. let out a deep breath, pleased to see her smile. “Just about anything.”

“All right, why don't we go home to the bunkhouse? You can fix us both a drink, then you can tell me about what it was like in the Secret Service, and I'll tell you something you want to know about me.”

“What's wrong, Jo, are you afraid if we talk about our great-grandparents, we might find ourselves following in their footsteps and—”

She laid her index finger over his lips. “Shh.”

J.T. kissed her forehead. “I read Annabelle's first entry in the diary. The day she met Benjamin.”

Pulling out of J.T.'s arms, Joanna backed away from him. “The day we met, when I first saw you sitting astride Washington, I thought I heard drums.” Joanna turned and ran across the yard and toward the bunkhouse.

J.T. raced after her, catching her on the front porch. Grabbing her, he slowly turned her around. “You're hell on a man's nerves. Why did you have to go and tell me something like that?”

“What difference does it make?” she asked. “You don't believe I heard drums any more than you believe Annabelle heard them.”

“I told you that I don't know what I believe. Not now.”

“Come on, let's go inside and talk. You tell me about the Secret Service and I'll tell you about—”

“You tell me about your art. About when you first realized you wanted to be an artist and how you could draw better than anyone else in kindergarten.”

She slipped her hand into his. “Thanks, J.T.”

“For what?”

“For not paying any attention to my mother. For not letting her run you off.”

“Nothing and no one is running me off. I made you a promise, and it's a promise I intend to keep. You can't get rid of me, honey. I'm sticking to you like glue.”

Hand in hand, they entered the bunkhouse—a woman who, more than anything, wanted to be able to trust this man; and a man who, for the first time in his life, wondered what it would be like to truly love a woman…this woman.

J
OANNA AWOKE WITH
a start. At first, she had no idea what had awakened her and then she vaguely remembered hearing the front door open. Was J.T. awake? Had he gone outside? She got out of bed, slipped into her thin silk robe and walked into the living room. The floor lamp behind the plaid chair was on, and an open book lay, spine up, across the overstuffed armrest. Undoubtedly, J.T. had been unable to sleep and had been reading. She glanced over at the front door, which stood open, with only the screen door closed. The shadowy outline of J.T.'s broad shoulders caught Joanna's eye. He stood on the edge of the porch, staring out into the dark night sky.

When Joanna neared the plaid chair, she realized the book perched on the armrest was Annabelle's diary. Had J.T. been reading another entry? Joanna picked up the diary, turned it over and glanced down at the open page.

Tears gathered in Joanna's eyes. She closed the diary and hugged it to her breast. Had J.T. read a third of the diary tonight, or had he skipped through parts of it, coming to this account of the first time Annabelle and Benjamin made love?

Joanna padded across the room, her bare feet quiet on the wooden floor. She opened the screen door, stepped outside and let the door slam shut behind her. J.T. didn't flinch. He had known she was there; he had probably heard her stirring about inside.

“Did I wake you?” he asked, keeping his back to her.

“I'm not sure,” she said. “I think I might have heard the front door open, but I wasn't sleeping soundly anyway.”

The moonlight combined with the glow from the lone lamp in the living room, creating a muted illumination that cast everything into soft shadows. J.T. wore nothing except a pair of faded jeans. His broad, muscular back looked like polished leather. Joanna barely controlled the
urge to reach out and touch him. She wanted this man, wanted him in a way she had never wanted anyone or anything. He stirred needs in her that were new and powerful and frightening in their intensity. Yet, as much as she wanted J.T., she was afraid of the very virility and masculine power that attracted her to him.

“If I weren't working, I'd go somewhere and get rip-roaring drunk.” J.T. gripped the banister that bordered the front porch. “I never had any idea it was possible to want a woman as much as I want you.”

Joanna went hot all over; a flush of excitement and pure feminine exhilaration spread through her body. She reached out and touched his shoulder. He flinched. She withdrew her hand.

“You read some more of Annabelle's diary, didn't you?” Joanna's voice sounded strange to her own ears, its quality low and earthy and undeniably sensual.

“Yeah, I read a couple of entries after the first one, then I just flipped through the pages.”

“You read about the first time they made love.” Joanna laid her hand on his bare back. Dear God, how she longed to wrap her arms around him, to cuddle up against him and hug him close to her.

He whipped around, knocking her hand off his back in the process. “I wish I'd never made that bargain with you. I wish I'd never read a word in that damn diary.”

Joanna's heart roared in her ears. She swayed slightly. J.T. grabbed her by the elbows, steadying her. She looked up at him, and suddenly the whole world condensed into this time, this space, this one man.

“It's painful, isn't it?” Joanna realized that Annabelle's words had touched J.T.'s heart. “Reading about how she felt, how much she loved him and how hopeless their love was, always makes me cry. And of course, they'd both re
alized, from the very beginning, that they had no future together.”

J.T. knew what Joanna wanted him to say. She wanted him to admit he'd been wrong and she'd been right about their great-grandparents' summer love affair.

After reading her diary, it had become obvious to J.T. that Annabelle Beaumont had been deeply in love with Benjamin Greymountain, and that it had broken her heart knowing they couldn't spend the rest of their lives together.

How had Benjamin felt? What pain had he suffered? J.T. wondered. Unlike Annabelle, whose emotions lived on in her words, Benjamin's thoughts and feelings had died with him. Had he suffered the way she had? Had he lived out his life yearning for a love that could never truly be his, except in his memories? And how had he felt having an affair with a woman, knowing he had nothing to offer her? He'd been a poor Navajo silversmith and she a wealthy Virginia socialite. How many nights had Benjamin stared up at the stars and raged against heaven?

“Would you do what Annabelle did?” he asked, drawing Joanna into his arms. “Would you risk everything for a brief affair with a man who could offer you nothing more than heaven in his arms?”

“Yes.” She slipped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. Silently she added, “If I loved him, I would risk everything.”

“I promise that I won't hurt you. Not now or ever,” J.T. vowed. “I want you, Jo. I want to lift you into my arms and carry you to bed and make slow, sweet love to you all night long.”

“I want that, too, but—”

“You take charge, honey. You tell me what to do. Every step of the way. I won't do anything without your orders.”

He was promising her what she wanted to hear, assuring her that she would be in control of the situation. But could she trust him? J.T. looked like a man on the edge, a man ready to explode. He might promise her anything right now to gain her acceptance, but what would he do in the throes of passion?

“I'm not sure. I want you, too, J.T. I want you till I ache with the wanting. But I'm afraid.”

“Trust me to be true to my word.”

Lifting her head, she stared up at him. “You're so big and strong and…if I asked you to stop and you didn't, I'd be powerless.”

“If you ask me to stop, I'll stop. I promise.”

Closing her eyes against the sight of him, against the temptation of his pure masculine beauty, she took a deep breath and choked back her tears. Reaching into the depths of her soul she sought and found courage— Annabelle Beaumont's kind of courage; the courage to risk loving a man who could promise her nothing more than the moment.

“Hell, Jo, take your gun to bed with us if that'll make you feel safer!”

Tears escaped from her eyes, trickled down her cheeks and into her mouth. She smiled at J.T. “You want me so much you'd risk getting shot?”

If she refused him, he'd die. But if she accepted him, making love to her slowly and tenderly would kill him by degrees. He wanted her wild and furious this first time, wanted her passion to equal his. But if he acted on his instincts, he'd scare the hell out of her. “Yeah, I want you that much.”

“Then take me to bed,” she told him.

He thanked God that she hadn't denied him, and at the same time prayed for the strength to be the lover Joanna
needed, to be man enough to relinquish the power to her and allow her to make love to him. It was the only way, and he knew it. Yet every primitive, masculine instinct in him cried out for him to take her, possess her, dominate her and make her yield to him.

He swept her up in his arms, swung open the screen door and carried her into the living room, then closed and locked the front door. Joanna kept her arm draped around his neck as he carried her down the hall and into her bedroom. After laying her down, he stood by her bed and waited.

“I'm not sure what to tell you to do next,” she admitted. “I haven't done this sort of thing before and I… J.T., what do I do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to touch you.”

His already aroused body stiffened painfully. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “How's this?”

She scooted over toward him, wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek on his back. “You're hot.” She ran her fingers up and down, over his stomach and chest.

J.T. sucked in his breath. Her hands stilled on his chest. He laid his hands over hers gently. “It's all right. You didn't do anything wrong. I love having your hands all over me.”

“Would you…would you lie down and let me look at you?”

Slipping out of her arms, he rolled over and lay down flat on his back, then raised his arms and crossed them behind his head. “How's this?”

Joanna edged backward, easing her knees up in front of her and hugging her arms around her legs. “You're a beautiful man, J.T. The most beautiful man I've ever seen.”

He grinned. She smiled. And the bottom dropped out of his stomach. “And I'm all yours,” he told her. “Putty in your hands. Yours to command.”

“I guess I'm just a bit overwhelmed with all this power.”

She surveyed him from the top of his head to the tips of his bare feet, taking inventory of every inch of his big, hard body. He lay there watching her watch him. His arms bulged with muscles. She reached out and ran her fingertips over one arm from elbow to armpit, then slid her nails down his side and over across his broad, sleek chest. When she touched one tight little nipple, he made a sound, and Joanna knew he was trying to stifle a groan.

She wondered if his body ached the way hers did; if he throbbed with desire, wanting her the way she wanted him.

She couldn't mistake the evidence inside his jeans—the truth about the way he felt. His body revealed his need for her. “Would you take off your jeans?” she asked.

“Why don't you help me take them off?” He took her hand, brought it over to the snap on his jeans and placed it directly over his zipper.

Her hand trembled. She'd never touched a man this way. Shaking like a leaf, she unsnapped his jeans and undid the zipper, then jerked her hand away.

He lifted himself up off the bed, tugged his jeans down his legs and tossed them on the floor. Joanna watched his every move, becoming more and more fascinated by the sheer masculine glory of J.T.'s body.

“I suppose I should take something off, shouldn't I?”

“Only if you want to, honey.” J.T. wasn't sure he had the strength to resist his need to take this woman. But, God in heaven, he had to resist. He had to be strong for
Joanna. He had to give her all the power; otherwise, she'd be lost to him forever.

Joanna removed her thin silk robe. She sucked in several deep breaths, then dropped the robe on the floor and edged her way closer to J.T. Sliding close to his side, she eased one leg up over his and rested her elbow on the bed as she leaned over and kissed his chest. She explored his body, touching, kissing, licking him from forehead to feet.

J.T. could imagine no torture more unbearable. He called upon every divine force in the universe to help him.

Suddenly his prayers were answered when Joanna said, “Touch me, J.T. Please, touch me.”

Touch her? Where? How? What he wanted to do to her would be too much too soon. Slow and easy, Blackwood, he told himself. Don't do anything to frighten her, to take away her sense of complete control.

He lifted her up and on top of him, showing her how to straddle him the way she did a horse. He sat her down directly on top of his arousal, allowing her to feel his throbbing hardness through the thin cotton of his briefs.

“Oh,” she gasped. Her body clenched and unclenched with pulsating need. She braced herself by placing her hands on his shoulders.

J.T. bucked up against her once. She gasped again. Still clinging to his shoulders, she clenched his hips with her knees.

“Do you like that?” he asked, and circled her waist with both hands, urging her to lean forward.

“I'm tingling all over,” she said. “Tingling and aching and—”

Her breath caught in her throat when she felt his hands spreading out from her waist, slowly covering her buttocks. He caressed her through the silk gown, the feel of his big hands gentle yet sensual.

“I'd like to kiss you,” he said. “Would that be all right?”

“Yes. Please.”

Every muscle in his body strained, every nerve roared like a wounded beast. Take her! Take her now! his body ordered him. Be patient. Wait. Make sure she's ready, his mind told him. While his body and mind fought, his heart won the battle. He brought her downward, inch by inch, until she lay atop the full length of his body. She lowered her head and touched her lips to his.

She played with his lips, licking, nibbling, and then finally enticing him to open his mouth and allow her tongue entrance. Once she had initiated the dance, he fell into step, thrusting and tasting, becoming a full participant in the wild fandango their kiss became.

J.T. eased her gown up her hips, one tiny piece of material at a time. When he slipped his hands beneath the silk and stroked her bare buttocks, Joanna moaned into his mouth and shivered violently.

He ended the kiss. They both gulped in air. She cuddled up against him like a sleek, purring kitten. He wrapped his arms around her.

“I want to kiss your breasts and your belly and taste the sweetness of your body,” he said. “Will you let me do that?”