Then Jonas gave her the opportunity to stall by asking, “This doesn’t have anything to do with those elderly aunts who raised you? I can’t help but wonder if they were single for a reason.”
Zoey smiled. “They weren’t man-haters, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“No, it wasn’t like that,” she assured him. “My parents were killed in a boating accident when I was three years old. My father’s aunts—one widowed with no children, the other having never married—took me in after that. Neither of them was overjoyed about the prospect of raising a child. And neither of them had a clue about the needs of a growing girl. In spite of the giant steps forward in social progress that came with the sixties, Aunt Celeste and Aunt Millie remained pretty much entrenched in the forties where rules and manners were concerned. As a result, when I hit adolescence, they had no idea what to do with me.”
“They thought you should behave like Donna Reed’s kids, is that it?”
“Oh, no,” Zoey said with a smile. Nowadays, it was much easier to smile about her aunts than it was back then. “Aunt Celeste and Aunt Millie thought the television kids of the fifties were way too mouthy and undisciplined. To them, Ward and June and Ozzie and Harriet were the most permissive parents on earth, and their children were all headed straight to skid row.”
“I see.”
She chuckled involuntarily. “In spite of everything, I love them like crazy, you know? I mean, they’re still caught in that post=nWorld War II America state of mind, but they’ve accepted the fact that I have to do things a little differently than they did, and I’ve come to appreciate them precisely because they refuse to give in to contemporary society.”
Jonas smiled, and she could tell he was relieved that she was offering up her explanation, even if it wasn’t exactly the one he had asked for. He didn’t have to know that, did he?
“But the three of you didn’t always get along, is that it?” he asked.
She shook her head. “There was always that unspoken resentment on both our parts. I didn’t want to be there any more than they wanted me there. I couldn’t stand them when I was a kid. And they couldn’t stand me. I have to admit that there were times when I went out of my way to misbehave just to get a rise out of them. At one point, when I didn’t think I could tolerate their rules and regulations anymore, I even ran away from home.”
He had lifted his glass to his lips for another sip, but dropped his hand again to gape at her. “You did what?”
Without asking, Zoey moved to the bar and uncorked the bottle of brandy that still sat atop it. She filled the bottom of a tumbler with cognac and swallowed an ample mouthful before continuing. “I ran away from home,” she repeated.
“Why?”
“I was very unhappy. My aunts expected a type of behavior from me that I didn’t think was realistic. What was worse, though, was that I knew they really didn’t want me there—that I had upset their life-style without their willingness to have it upset. I felt unloved, unwanted. I turned into your typical rebellious teenager, and I ran away from home.”
“But obviously you came back, right?”
“Eventually.”
“How long is ‘eventually’?”
“I was on the streets for five weeks.”
Jonas came to stand beside her. “And just what exactly does ‘on the streets’ mean?”
Zoey swallowed more of the brandy without looking at him. “Just what it sounds like. I slept under bridges and behind Dumpsters, stood on corners holding out my hand to strangers for money, waited for people to throw food away so I could pull it out of the garbage can to eat it.”
“And exactly how old were you when you did all this?”
“Exactly? Fourteen.”
“You were sleeping behind Dumpsters and eating from garbage cans when you were fourteen?” Jonas asked, his quiet voice thunderous in the otherwise silent room.
She nodded. “Yeah, I was just a kid when I left home. But I was infinitely older and wiser when I returned.”
He was silent for a moment, digesting the information, she supposed, and probably wondering if he could potentially drive Juliana to the same type of rebellion. Then he said, “This still doesn’t tell me why you hate men so much.”
Damn, she thought she had sidetracked him enough that he would have forgotten about that. There was no way she was going to tell him that her brief stint on the streets had taught her nothing compared to the education she’d received later in her teen years. Because there was no way he could understand unless she told him about Eddie. And Eddie was something she didn’t talk about anymore. Not to anyone. There was no way she was going to open up her heart to that crippling grief again.
“It’s not that I hate men,” she said softly. “Everyone seems to think that I do, but that isn’t it at all.”
“What, then?” he asked.
“It’s not men,” she insisted. “It’s involvement. I don’t want to get involved with anyone.”
“Why not?”
For a very good reason, she told herself. A reason that was really none of his business. “I had a bad experience once,” she said evasively.
She heard Jonas sigh beside her. “We’ve all had bad experiences with the opposite sex, Zoey. That doesn’t mean we give up on everyone else who happens to share the same gender-specific organs.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “Maybe not, but...”
“But what?”
Another memory flashed into her brain then, the recollection of a baby lying in a hospital crib—a baby who’d been pasty white and comatose, a baby she had been completely unable to help. And as quickly as the memory surfaced, Zoey tamped it down. That child was part of her past, part of another life. There was no reason to bring him into her present. Especially a present that was so well-organized, so utterly under her control.
“But nothing,” she said resolutely as she swallowed the last of her drink. When she finally mustered the nerve, she turned to Jonas and threw him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m really tired. I’m going to bed. Good night.” And with that, she turned to leave, praying that Jonas would let her go without pressing the issue further.
She should have known better.
“Zoey, wait,” he called out after her.
Reluctantly, she paused, but didn’t turn around. “What?”
“This conversation isn’t really over, is it?” From the sound of his voice, she could tell he still stood at the bar.
“Of course it is,” she told him. “There’s nothing more to discuss.”
“There’s plenty more to discuss.”
Still unwilling—or unable—to turn around and meet his gaze, she laughed. The nervous titter she uttered sounded as forced and hollow as it felt. “Like what?” she asked, certain she didn’t want to hear his answer.
She heard him place his glass on the bar, heard the brush of quiet footsteps on the carpet as he came to stand behind her. She felt his hands cup her shoulders and was helpless to stop herself when he urged her to turn around to face him. His eyes were clear and honest and curious. His mouth was set in a tight line. He wasn’t trying to invade her privacy, she told herself. He just wanted to understand.
“Like what?” he echoed her question. “Oh, how about, like the fact that I told you I’ve been wanting to kiss you since the day I met you. You never really did respond to that.”
Zoey’s mouth went dry at the way he spoke. His voice was low and languid and very, very seductive. His fingers curled ever so slightly, exerting just the tiniest pressure on her shoulders that bade her draw nearer. Without thinking, she took a step forward, until her body and his were separated by scarcely a breath of air. Her lungs filled with the clean, soapy scent of him, and she swore she could taste the smoky flavor of the brandy that clung to his lips. She opened her mouth to speak, then forgot what it was she had meant to say.
“How about it, Zoey?” Jonas asked her.
She closed her eyes lest the sight of him looking so warm and gentle and full of desire make her feel something she had no business feeling. Yet still she was unable to answer him.
So Jonas continued, “What if I told you the reason I wasn’t able to sleep tonight is that I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to make love to you?”
“Jonas, don’t.” She groaned softly.
“That all I could do was lie there in bed and wonder what you look like naked.”
Something hot and wild exploded in her midsection. She wanted to berate him for his boldness and assure him there was no way on earth he would ever find out. But all she could manage in protest was the whisper of his name.
“Wonder how you’d feel, warm and willing beneath me,” he added, pulling her against him as if to illustrate. “How I’d feel beneath you,” he added, his voice lowering even more. “How I’d feel beside you. Behind you. Inside you.”
“Oh...”
He buried his hands in her hair again, cupping the back of her head. “Wonder what you’d smell like, what you’d taste like.”
“Oh, Jonas...”
“Wonder what I’d have to do, where I’d have to touch you, to make you as crazy as you make me.”
“Jonas, please...”
“Please what?” he murmured, his voice raspy and low. He had pulled her closer still, had circled his arm around her waist, and his lips hovered only a hairbreadth over her own. “Please describe for you in explicit detail all the things I’ve already done to you in my mind? Or please just go ahead and do them?”
Zoey’s senses were spinning out of control. She was confused and confounded by the emotions he had set reeling inside her. Part of her knew she should push him away and run in terror for her life. But another part of her, a bigger part, was eager to discover more about these new sensations—sensations she’d never felt for Jonas Tate. Sensations she hadn’t felt for anyone in a very long time.
Why did it have to be him? she wondered. Why did Jonas Tate have to be the man who would stir her again when she had been so certain she would remain dead inside forever? What was it about him that made her willing for the first time in nearly two decades to put aside her fears and risk everything?
Maybe because he was the first man in two decades who had tried to understand her withdrawal, she thought. Even a knee to the groin hadn’t dissuaded him.
Before she realized what she was doing, Zoey lifted her hands to his face, brushing her fingertips gingerly over his cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d touched a man’s face, had forgotten how rough and angular they could be. When he did nothing to stop her explorations, she ventured more boldly, stroking her thumbs over his cheekbones and temples and eyebrows. Then she dropped a hand to his lips, skimming over them with the pads of her fingertips.
And that’s when Jonas became undone.
It was too much, he thought. Too much like his imaginings about her. The way Zoey was touching him now was precisely the way she touched him in his dreams. And suddenly, he couldn’t be satisfied with a fantasy any longer.
His hand joined hers at his lips, slipping her fingers into his mouth for an idle taste. Zoey’s eyes fluttered closed, and her own lips parted on a soft gasp. Jonas smiled, skimmed his tongue softly across her fingertips, then opened her hand to brush his lips over her palm. When she sighed, he moved his mouth to her wrist, kissing the rapid-fire pulse once, twice, three times. Then he tucked her hand inside his robe, flattening her palm over his bare chest where she would feel his own heart beating as quickly and frantically as her own.
Her eyes flew open, and when she smiled at him nervously, he knew she understood. He was no less confused and uncertain about what was happening between them than she was.
Zoey dropped her hand to the knot in his sash, fumbling to untie it without much success until he came to her aid. When his robe gaped open, she buried her fingers in the tangle of dark hair scattered across his chest and abdomen, and he was barely able to keep himself in check. Almost automatically, he lifted a hand to the first button on her pajama top and slipped the button through its hole. Then he moved to the second and freed it likewise. Then the third, and the fourth and the fifth.
And then Zoey was as accessible to him as he’d made himself to her. For a long moment, he only gazed at her, at the creamy length of bare flesh revealed by the scarcely open pajama top. He contemplated the perfectly round navel above her dangerously low-riding pajama bottoms. He noted the dusky valley between her breasts, and savored the lower curve of one he itched to explore more fully. Her chest rose and fell with each erratic breath she took, offering him a bit more of her to view with every exhalation.
Unable to tolerate not touching her, Jonas reached for her, dipping his hand just inside her pajama top to push one side away. And when he beheld the exquisite perfection of her breast, he naturally wanted to touch it. Splaying his hand open over her, he fitted the soft flesh perfectly into his palm before closing his fingers more fully over her with a gentle squeeze.
Only then did he detect that something wasn’t right.
When he looked at Zoey’s face, that look was back in her eyes—the one that told him she was scared of something. He noticed, too late probably, that she wasn’t touching him anymore, realized for the first time that at some point in their mutual exploration, she had taken a step away from him. She hadn’t fled, however, he tried to reassure himself. And her knee was still exactly where it was supposed to be.
Nevertheless, she was scared again. Scared of him. And for the life of him, Jonas couldn’t figure out why.
“What?” he asked. “What is it? What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing,” she told him, her voice trembling as much as the rest of her suddenly appeared to be. “It’s not you. It’s me. It’s... I...” She shook her head mutely, clearly unwilling or unable to explain.
“Zoey, tell me,” he said, forcing his voice to stay level and calm when inside he was ready to burst. “What is it? What are you so afraid of? Surely you’re not scared of me?”
For a moment, he didn’t think she was going to answer. Then she pulled her pajama top closed and began to redo the buttons with shaking fingers. She seemed to have her attention utterly focused on the task, but she missed a hole without realizing it until she was at the top. When she discovered her gaffe, she dropped her head into her hands and sighed.