Authors: Carol Rose
They lay together in silence, not stirring until Julia got up to go to the bathroom. Caleb watched her, a pale and lovely shadow in the dim light.
He stretched back on the pillows, feeling more complete than he could remember. The past hour had been a revelation. He hadn't known how desperately, hungrily, he could take a woman, lose himself in her, body and soul.
Brushing back the sheets, eager to tuck her glorious nakedness against his own again, Caleb glanced down.
There was a spot of blood on the sheets.
Instantly, he hoped she wouldn't be embarrassed. He'd heard that some women experienced their highest sex drive at the end of their cycles. It was a natural process and for some reason, Caleb hated the thought that she might be uncomfortable with him. Her body was a work of art. How could its natural rhythms be anything other than acceptable?
When she stepped out of the bathroom a moment later, he found himself wanting to reassure her, set her at ease. Being open about the blood on the sheet seemed the best course.
"I guess we didn't time this well," Caleb said gently, moving his hand
slightly to indicate the stain.
Julia stopped beside the bed, staring down, her expression unreadable in the darkness.
"Don't worry about it," he said, stretching his hand out to her. "Come on. We'll scrunch together on this side. I don't want you far from me anyway."
"Caleb," she said slowly, allowing him to take her hand and tug her back into bed. "It's not what you think."
"No?" He pulled her closer, reveling in the slide of her smooth skin against his.
"No," Julia responded, lying very still next to him. "It just surprised me because I'm a little old to have an intact hymen and there wasn't any pain."
"What?" He'd heard the words, but the obvious message didn't make sense.
An intact hymen? No pain?
"You were a virgin?" Caleb heard himself ask incredulously.
"Yes." She looked up at him, a question in her eyes.
He'd gotten his wish. Julia didn't seem the least bit embarrassed by the natural consequences of her first copulation. Caleb, however, felt stunned.
It just didn't make sense. Julia was the sexiest, most sensual, desirable woman he'd ever known. And she'd reached her late twenties without ever having intercourse? "You've never had sex before?"
"No, I haven't."
He shook his head. "And you didn't plan to mention this?"
She drew
a deep breath. "It didn't seem...
pertinent."
"Of course, it's pertinent," he retorted. "For one thing, I could hav
e hurt you. And for another...
didn't you think I had a right to know?"
"I knew you wouldn't hurt me," she said, sifting slim fingers through the hair on his chest. "If there had been any discomfort, I was so far gone, I wouldn't have noticed."
No man could help but be flattered by that, Caleb acknowledged to himself. But he still felt indignant for some reason. Making love to Julia had just about shattered him. He couldn't imagine better sex, but this had been a moment for her, a hugely significant initiation. He
should have known, should have...
shared it with her in a conscious way.
"Would knowing have kept you from being with me?"
Caleb looked down at her, her bare breasts gleaming white in the dark room. She smelled soft and sweet, her leg tucked intimately between his. He could feel himself getting hard again, his erect penis brushing against her soft stomach.
Nothing would have kept him from her. There were lots of reasons not to want her, but none of them had mattered.
"No," he acknowledged.
Julia ducked her head, snuggling closer. "Then let's just forget about it."
He should have, Caleb knew. But he couldn't.
How could she be a virgin at this point in her life? Julia was a doctor, for God's sake, not a nun.
"Julia," he started, sure he'd regr
et it. "Why exactly haven't you....
"
"I thought you'd ask," she said, a humorous tone in her voice.
"You don't have to explain."
"I know," she said reflectively, "but I think I should."
Caleb waited, his mind racing through all the reasons a sensual woman like Julia would withhold from such an important part of being an adult.
"I fell in love when I was seventeen," she said.
It wasn't what he expected her to say, but Caleb kept quiet despite the pit that had opened in his stomach.
"He was older," she murmured. "Only a little, but my parents were still hesitant to let me date a twenty year old."
"I should think so," Caleb interjected. The bastard must have hurt her badly.
"But Steven won them over. He was working, supporting himself and going to college all at once. I still don't know how he managed to find time for me."
She didn't sound like a jilted woman. Instead, her voice was warm with a remembered sweetness. Her fondness for this guy still threaded through each word. But how could a happy love affair keep her celibate even in the prime of life?
"I wasn't a very secure teenager," Julia said. "Remember I told you my father was in the service? We'd moved all over and it always took me a while to settle in. But Steven was so nice. I never felt uncomfortable with him."
It suddenly occurred to Caleb that she couldn't say the same about him.
She stirred against him. ''I'm sorry to say I've never had much of a relationship with my father. He was used to barking out orders and making decisions for everyone. That kind of thing leaves you wondering if you can do anything for yourself.
"But Steven believed in me," she said, unmistakable love in her voice. "I confided my most secret dreams in him and then he asked me over and over why they had to be just dreams. Steven was the one who insisted I plan to take pre-med courses in college. "When I questioned whether I should even go to college, he marched me to the SAT test and insisted I give myself a chance."
Listening without comment, Caleb couldn't help admitting that the guy sounded like an angel. Hell, who wouldn't fall in love with him? So where was he? And why hadn't this Steven been the one to initiate Julia into the world of physical desire?
"He was incredible," Julia said softly.
"So why wasn't he your first lover?" Caleb asked, more bluntly than he'd intended.
A gentle smile curved Julia's lips. "Steven said I was too young. He could wait, he said. I didn't like it at the time, but what choice did I have?
"Later," she continued sadly, "I almost hated him for it."
"Later?"
"After the accident." Her voice was even. "For years I wished I could have had one night with him."
"Steven is dead?" Caleb recognized how sick at heart he felt to be glad of this.
"Ten years," Julia told him. "A car accident. He was in a coma for days. I'd never felt more frustrated and helpless in my life. I remember standing by his bed, holding his hand and trying to make all kinds of deals with God."
Julia shook her head slightly, her face somber. "My father didn't want me at the hospital. He said it was better for me to 'forget' Steve since he'd be a vegetable if he survived."
Okay, so her father was a bastard.
"I suppose he thought he was trying to protect me. I know down deep my dad really loves me, but at the time it felt like my whole world was ending."
She'd been only eighteen, in love for the first time, and facing her lover's death alone. How had she managed? Who'd comforted her then, when the most important person in her life had been so cruelly ripped away from her?
"Even though I knew Steven less than a year, he made a tremendous impact on me. After his death, I determined to do all the things he thought I could do. I'd prove him right about me. If it weren't for Steven, I'd never have gone to medical school."
"So his death prompted you to make good," Caleb concluded, still not clear about the central issue. "And you've been mourning him all these years, too much to date anyone else?"
Julia shook her head. "I did mourn a long time, but you know the demands of med school. There's no time for anything."
"Sweetheart," Caleb said, "I remember how hectic it was, but I still found time to get laid."
She drew another deep breath and let it out with a sigh. "That was the trouble. I didn't just w
ant
sex. What I had with Steven showed me how special it can be between a man and woman. I did
n't want to make love until
it was right."
Even though he was still wrapped around her delectable body, Caleb felt himself growing cold, as if the temperature in her bedroom had dropped twenty degrees. From the moment he'd discovered her recent virginity, he'd known the situation couldn't be good.
Julia was an amazing woman, strong at her core. It was as if she could step into the fire, feel the heat and come out only slightly singed.
Caleb knew, however, what it felt like to be burned almost beyond recovery.
Here he was again, in the arms of a woman who wanted more than he could give. There were differences, of course.
Erin had loved him more than he'd loved her. He'd felt as responsible for that, as well as for her eventual death. As he was trying to withdraw from the relationship, she was on the brink of death. He'd thought her symptoms the result of hysteria.
Julia bore no real resemblance to Erin, except that she, too, had expectations of him that he could not fulfill. He was no one's white knight, no woman's ultimate completion.
Erin's death had taught him lessons not to be forgotten, and had proved beyond a doubt that he couldn't handle a relationship.
If it hadn't been made so clear to him two years ago, he'd have stepped into this relationship without a qualm.
Julia. Sweet, sassy and sensual.
He couldn't give what she needed, couldn't risk failing again. With Erin, he'd known for months that he couldn't match her love. He'd cared for her, certainly never wanted her harmed. But he hadn't loved her.
This situation with Julia was both the same and different.
Caleb lay cradling her in his arms. She seemed half asleep, replete and content with having shared her story. He, on the other hand, felt a new tension cording through his body.
Honor had held him in the relationship with Erin. He had no honor now, recognized in himself no integrity. If he'd vowed never to allow another woman to rely on him, to put herself in his responsibility, it wasn't out of any sense of morality.
He was protecting himself, that's all.
But need held him to Julia at this moment. Even with a dose of reality tightening his stomach, he
needed
to lie here next to her, needed to bask in her warmth, just a little more.
Then he'd disconnect, disappear from her life before he did too much harm.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Julia sat back in her office chair, idly tapping a pencil against the desk top.
Caleb was avoiding her,
that much was obvious.
In the week since they'd first made love, he'd been like a phantom-there, but never there. Whenever she dropped by the house, the man was always knee-deep in projects that couldn't wait, always taking deliveries and giving orders. Unlike before, he left the site early every afternoon.
Even his foreman, Dan, had commented, laughing that Caleb had a new habit of joining the guys for a beer after work.
For two or three days, Julia couldn't help wondering if their one night together had satisfied his hunger for her. Some men operated that way, interested only in the conquest.
Then two days ago, she'd answered a late-night knock on her door to find Caleb standing there. With hardly more than two words, he'd swept her into a passionate embrace and made love to her all night long. She'd known then, as he held her, that Caleb felt more for her than fleeting lust.
Somewhere in the haze of passion, his kiss had turned pierci
ngly tender, his touch
ardent. He'd held her afterward. Never had she felt more loved, more secure.
She'd woken the next morning to find him gone. No note, no sign that he'd ever been there.
Maybe all he wanted was a warm, willing body, but she couldn't quite believe it. She knew there was more to Caleb.
Everything came back to his abandoning his career in medicine. Julia had no idea what had prompted such a life-altering decision. What would make a man with his family background, his drive, give up a career he'd put so much into?
She found the questions dogging her through the days, seeing patients and doing rounds. Even now, in the half hour she'd snatched for lunch, Julia brooded over the mystery.
Whatever had happened had affected Caleb to his core. It had driven him to change not only his job and give up a real home, but also convinced him to mistrust the most basic emotions between a man and woman.
She couldn't fool herself that easy solutions existed in this relationship. Nothing was easy with Caleb.