Guardian's Joy #3 (44 page)

Moonlight Sanctuary had a new leader with the
Council’s appointment of Callista an Addison and even though she
wasn’t much liked by the members of the House, she had to be better
than the fool she’d replaced. To her credit, she’d recognized Deter
as a man she could trust and promoted him accordingly.

No one was sorry about the cancelation of the
Ball and Grace made Canaan promise them all a night on the town to
welcome in the New Year. JJ figured he used a little mind bending
to get them reservations at the ritziest place in the city and JJ
reluctantly admitted she was looking forward to wearing that killer
dress.

So she was thrown off balance when she took
her place next to Nardo and Canaan began to talk about division of
assets and asked Nardo to state his intent.

It all happened so fast it was hard to follow
and now that she had time to think about it, that was probably for
the best. She’d known that Nardo had money in the bank, but she’d
never guessed there was such an eye popping amount of it and he was
pledging a good chunk to her. Everyone laughed when she waved her
arms and objected.

“I don’t want your money. I don’t need it.
And what would I do with a piece of your company? I don’t know
anything about computers or games. Give it to Hope. She’s your
partner.”

“Over my dead body,” Nico said solemnly and
everyone laughed again.

She must have ranted for a good five minutes
about all the things she didn’t want until Nardo grabbed her by the
shoulders and laughingly asked,

“What do you want?”

“You, you idiot, only you!”

“Good,” he said and kissed her. He then drew
a long chain from his pocket and fastened it around her neck.

The platinum snowflake now hung between her
breasts. The filigreed design was so delicate it looked like it was
made by Nature herself and six tiny diamonds adorned the points. It
was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

And so it was done. According to Paenitentia
tradition she and Nardo were engaged. She was kissed and hugged by
everyone and awkwardly accepted their kisses and hugs, because she
didn’t know what else to do.

And then this evening she awoke to find Nardo
already up and gone. On his pillow lay a single red rose and a
note.

“Baby,” it said in Nardo’s chicken scratch
print, “I think we deserve some time together – alone. Grace has
packed everything you need and Manon left you an outfit in your
room. See you at sunset, Nardo.”

“Now we’re almost there.” Nardo pointed his
chin at the neon sign ahead. The Bide-A-Wee Motel it proclaimed.
“According to Hope it’s the most romantic place in Perryville,” he
told her as he turned into the lot. “Fortunately, Nico has better
taste and a friend named Sam who made all the arrangements. Be
right back.”

He returned with a key and scribbled
directions and after several turns onto twisty roads, they found
the red post marked TOLBERT. Nardo inched the SUV down the tree
lined drive and watched Joy from the corner of his eye. Her shining
eyes were proof he’d chosen well.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, “Like
something from a dream.”

The cabin was nestled among towering firs,
their branches laden with silvery white. Snow covered the roof and
smoke rose from the chimney. Faint yellow light glowed through the
windows from the fireplace within. Other than the path that was dug
to the steps and the porch, the surrounding yard was pristine and
untouched.

“Like something from a dream,” she said again
and stepped from the car, never taking her eyes from the cabin.

Nardo stood with the hatch open, forgetting
the suitcases within as he watched Joy approach the cabin. Her arms
were held wide as if she could embrace the scene. Halfway up the
path she turned in a circle, her head thrown back, taking in the
trees and the starry sky.

Manon had chosen well. The white leggings
were formfitting and the fur edging of her boots matched the fur
trim of her hood. The silvery jacket shimmered against the
background of snow. But as beautiful as the outfit was, it dulled
in comparison to the woman wearing it. Her smile was radiant and it
lit up his world. She was his angel, his Joy.

Her laughter broke the silence and she ran to
the porch.

“Hurry, hurry. The key, the key. I want to
see.”

The cabin was one large room with a loft
above for sleeping. Nardo added a log to the fire and checked his
watch. Joy never took off her coat. The sliding doors to the deck
caught her eye and she was gone. It gave him time to unpack
Broadbent’s contribution; a bottle of Pol Roger Winston Churchill
champagne along with two crystal flutes and a box of Teuscher
Chocolates with a silver plate for serving. Nardo had never heard
of either the champagne or the chocolates, but he trusted the
Professor to buy the best.

He carried the tray out to the deck and
placed it on a table in the snow. Faint light beyond the tips of
the trees told him he was right on time. Thank you Professor.

“What’s this?” she asked eying the tray,
“Champagne, chocolate and a rose all in one starry night. I never
expected this.”

It was the truth. She’d never been and never
would be a girly-girl, but she’d wondered from time to time what it
would be like to be treated to a night of romance.

“But you should have. I should have brought
you flowers and candy and roses from the very beginning. I should
have asked you for a date, taken you to dinner, taken you
dancing.”

“It doesn’t…” she began, but he placed his
finger against her lips.

“Don’t. Please. Let me finish. I should have
done those things and more. I should have shown that you were more
to me than someone to share my bed. I should have, but I didn’t,
because I didn’t know how. The other night I surprised you with the
mating agreement because that was what Canaan and Nico did, but
you’re not Grace or Hope. It made you uncomfortable. I should have
told you how it was done. I should have asked you to be my
mate.

“I love you Joy Justice, but I don’t want you
to promise more than you can give. I want to love you and keep you
and care for you for the rest of my life. I want you to be my mate
and if you agree, I’ll try my damnedest to make the next twenty
years the best of your life and then I’ll offer you twenty more.
But if you can’t make that commitment, I’ll understand and I’ll
take whatever you offer and be grateful for it. If it’s only six
months, I’ll die a happy man because for six months of my life I’ll
have had Joy.”

She turned away from him and looked out over
the shallow valley below. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye
and he prepared for the worst. If she would only give him six
months, he would use every day of it to change her mind.

“I’ve been cold since I woke up on a trash
heap knowing only my name. Cold and dead, like I was living but I
wasn’t alive. I saw people around me laughing and loving. I could
go through the motions but I couldn’t feel a thing. That’s what all
those men were about, Nardo. I just wanted to feel something,
anything. I just wanted to be warm. And then I met you.”

She laughed a little though the tears were
streaming down her face. “You wanted to kill me and still, inside,
I felt something warm and alive. And the feeling grew into love and
then something more. Hope says it’s what the poets try to write
about, but their words are never enough. That’s what I feel for
you, Nardo. Something more. I wasn’t upset the other night. I was
overwhelmed. You offered so much and asked for so little.”

She bowed her head and reached for his hand
as honesty won out over bravado. “Okay, I was a little freaked.
I’ve been through a mating ceremony before.” She turned her head to
look at him standing there so patiently, waiting for her to go on.
“The memories are there now and they’ll always be there, but I
won’t let them rule my life. You told me once that it was good to
have someone you can believe in. Well, I believe in you and I want
you to know that you can always believe in me.”

JJ straightened her shoulders and threw her
head back and shouted to the stars overhead and to heavens above.
“I wish above all else to take Bernardo ad Tormeo for my mate
because I love him above all else. He’s the breath in my lungs and
the beat of my heart and the warmth of my soul and I promise to
spend the rest of my life showing him how much he means to me.”

The moon chose that moment to rise above the
trees. It cast its silvery radiance over the snow laden branches
and transformed the expanse of meadow into a sea of glitter and
glass. They watched the light creep up the hill until they were
captured in its glow.

“It’s a present meant only for you,” Nardo
whispered as he gathered her into his arms.

“Only for us,” she whispered back before she
kissed him.

A burning sensation stabbed through her chest
at the place right over her heart. Startled and a little afraid,
she stepped back and met Nardo’s eyes, alarmed and as wide as her
own. And then he smiled and the smile turned into a grin and the
grin turned into a shout of laughter. He lifted her by her waist
and whirled her around the slippery deck.

“We’re mated,” he laughed as he set her back
down. He opened his jacket and tore at his shirt. He showed her the
white rose nestled among the lilies over his heart. He placed his
hand above her left breast. “You have one, too. You spoke from your
heart and I spoke from mine. Nico told me it worked that way, but I
didn’t believe.”

“I want to see,” she said and reached for the
zipper on her jacket, but Nardo stopped her.

“And so do I, my snow angel, but not here.
Let’s go in by the fire where we can drink our champagne, where I
can kiss you and not worry about frostbite.” He turned and picked
up the tray. “Your chocolates are probably ice cubes by now.”

JJ followed him into the cabin. It was only
twenty feet to the fireplace where her mate had already thrown
pillows on the soft rug before it, but in those twenty feet, she
had time enough to think about what was about to happen. They would
make love and then…

“Nardo,” she whispered and waited until he
looked up from removing the cork from the champagne.

He set the bottle down and came to her when
he saw the look of apprehension on her face. “What is it, baby? Are
you sorry it happened this way?”

JJ placed her hands on his chest. “No, no,
not sorry. It’s what I wanted more than anything, but…” She closed
her eyes. “Do you want a blood bond?”

He kissed her forehead. “Yes,” he said
quietly and began to unzip her jacket. “I want it, because it means
I’ll be bound to you for the rest of my life, but that doesn’t mean
it has to happen. For most people, it doesn’t happen.” He slipped
the jacket from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. “But
more than a red rose or a white, I want you.” He slid his hands
beneath the white silk shirt and raised it up over her breasts and
she lifted her arms so he could remove it. He fingered the bloom
above her breast. “You are my Joy and this is all I need.”

“I want it, too, but…” She hated the tremble
in her voice. She hated that what that bastard had done to her so
long ago still had such power over her tonight of all nights.

“I know, baby, I know.” He drew her down to
the floor. “Make love to me Joy, make love with me.”

He was slow and gentle in his lovemaking,
almost reverent. He removed the rest of her clothes and then
removed his own, never taking his eyes from hers. He covered her
body with his, resting his weight on his forearms and he kissed
her. His kiss was soft and tender and his tongue played across her
lips seeking, but not demanding entrance and when she invited him
in, he was careful to let her set the pace. Her body relaxed and
her arms wrapped around him. The tips of her fingers played up and
down his spine.

JJ felt the heat rise between them and knew
it was more than the firelight that played along their bodies. The
warmth seemed to radiate from the tiny white rose at her breast and
when Nardo moved his attentions from her mouth to that breast, it
ignited a fire within her that was more than the passion of sex
alone. At her urging, he returned to her mouth where she kissed him
with a hunger that ignited his lust.

He tried to keep his weight from crushing the
graceful body beneath him, but Joy was having none of it. She
wrapped those long, lithe legs around him and pulled him to her.
They rolled together; kissing, sucking, licking, tasting every inch
of each other in a tangle of arms and legs and lips and teeth. He
was so aroused that when she knelt beside him and took his
throbbing erection into her mouth, surrounding him with her silken
warmth, he hissed with sweet agony.

His hand stroked and squeezed the firm
muscles of her ass. There was nothing soft about his warrior mate
in spite of her delicate looking dancer’s frame. He loved her
strength, her power. Her vulnerability, he knew, lay within and she
had shared that softness and precious fragility with him and he was
honored by it.

His hand slipped between her legs and his
fingers found her sweet, moist core. His middle finger plunged
within to search for that spot he knew would drive her wild while
another finger toyed with her clit. His rhythm matched the rhythm
of her mouth. He felt the tension began to build in Joy’s body and
the movement of her hips drove his fingers deeper.

The pressure of the coming orgasm built and
built and then exploded with a vibrant release of energy and
ecstasy, but even as JJ threw back her head and cried out Nardo’s
name, she knew it wasn’t enough. She needed more.

“Please, please, please,” she chanted, her
voice little more than a hiss of breath.

Nardo must have understood her need because
he rolled her underneath him and entered her in one smooth move.
She wrapped her legs around him and raised her hips to meet his
thrusts. Still, it wasn’t enough. She wove her fingers through his
hair and drew him into a kiss. Through it, she poured out her most
profound desire.