On Pins and Needles (17 page)

He did a bit of a two-step himself to get his boots off and she knew he was as driven as she was because he was breathing so deeply that massive chest of his rose beneath her searching hands.

Then he slipped her other strap down and that was all it took for the whole dress to fall in a gossamer wisp around her ankles, leaving her with only nylons
to dispose of—some thing he did without hesitation, leaving her naked before him.

That was when his mouth deserted hers so he could look at her. Openly. As if she were a work of art.

And as he did he slipped out of what remained of his clothes.

Megan felt a flash of self-conscious ness but she forgot all about that the moment she could feast on the sight of him. There was no better word to describe him than magnificent. Sleek and muscular and perfectly pro portioned, it occurred to her that it was a crime to ever cover him up with clothes.

And he wanted her. That was more than evident.

He took her into his arms again, capturing her mouth once more with his, enclosing her breast in the warm grip of his hand, his desire for her nestled between them.

Then he took her the rest of the way to the bed, lying them down on their sides, facing each other. One of his arms was her pillow while he wrapped the other around her and pulled her closer, rubbing her back as he went on kissing her, plundering her mouth with his probing tongue in hungry abandon now.

His leg came over hers and once more she could feel the intensity of his desire for her against the lowest part of her pubic bone, long and hard and strong. And this time when that little voice in the back of her mind urged her downward she complied, encompassing that length and strength in her hand.

He groaned a groan that almost sounded like agony. But she knew it was an agony of pleasure as she explored
him, learned the wonders of that staff that was as magnificent as the rest of him.

Then he rolled her to her back, still kissing her, his mouth open wide, his tongue mastering hers before he began two descents of his own.

His hand trailed a caressing stroke to her stomach as he kissed his way to her abandoned breast, taking her nipple into the wonderful dark mystery of his mouth, teasing, tugging with his teeth, sucking it deeply in and flicking that incredibly sensitive crest with the tip of his tongue.

Then his hand went farther still, finding its way between her thighs, slipping his finger into that center of her that had wanted him from the very beginning.

But by then Megan was nearly wild with desire, with yearning, with need. Her spine arched all on its own, pulling her up off the bed as if she were riding an ocean wave.

Josh got the message. He tore his mouth from her breast and rose above her, fitting himself between her thighs and coming inside her in one fluid motion, embed ding himself into her, claiming her, making her his.

He drew out of her, slowly, slowly and so far that for one awful moment Megan thought he might pull free and steal from her the wonder of that stupendous body filling her the way her body was screaming to be filled.

But just as she was about to protest he plunged back in, even farther than he'd been before, so far that her spine arched a second time and her shoulders left the
bed again, thrusting her breasts impudently into his chest.

Josh in sinuated his hand underneath her then and, making sure to hold her firmly enough to him that they didn't part, he rolled them both to their sides again.

Once they were there his mouth recaptured hers in a wide-open, hungry play of lips and teeth and tongues as his talented hand returned to her engorged breast, to the nipple that was so taut it was like a tiny granite pebble against his palm.

He held her hips to him with one powerful leg thrown over them as he moved deeply into her yet again. In and out. Choreographing a perfect dance, a perfect union of pleasure, of passion as every sense played its part.

But that passion mounted and mounted until Megan's head fell away from their kiss. Until Josh's hand abandoned her breast so he could hold her tightly against him as he took total control, as he pushed into her so completely it felt as if he were reaching the core of her. Again. Again.

Each thrust took Megan a step closer to what she was striving for. To what she needed with increasing desperation. Higher. Faster. Harder. Straining to break free of the constraints of anything that bound her beyond the bliss that Josh alone could provide. Joining her to him body and soul, shooting them both through to the heavens.

They clung to each other, melded into one in that single, pure instant of ecstasy when Megan needed nothing so much as Josh all around her, inside her. As something she didn't even know she was capable of exploded
in a white-hot glory that caught her breath and held her suspended in some thing so blissful, so profound, that she wasn't sure she would survive…

But of course she did.

And when it was over, when both she and Josh came floating back to earth, Megan couldn't help wondering how she had ever lived without knowing such flawless rapture before.

How she could go on if she never knew it again…

But as she caught her breath she reminded herself that she still had that moment. That moment with Josh in her bed. Lying in his arms. And she didn't want to spoil it by thinking about anything that had come before making love with him. Or anything that might come later.

She just wanted to go on reveling in what she had right then.

And so, when he slipped out of her and settled her beside him, her head on his chest, she let herself slide into replete sleep, telling herself that she would deal with whatever came tomorrow when tomorrow came.

J
OSH SLEPT LATER THE
next morning than he had since he was a teenager. And when he woke up at nearly 10:00 a.m. he knew he should get right out of bed. He knew that, even though it was Saturday, he should go into the office to make some calls and close out the file on Pete Chaney and the Murphys.

But the bed he was in wasn't his own. It was Megan's. And she was asleep beside him, using his chest as her pillow, one of her legs slung over one of his thighs, her palm pressed to his shoulder, her breath soft and warm on his skin. Just the way she'd been when they'd fallen asleep after making love.

And he certainly had no desire to disturb anything.

Especially not when he wasn't sure where things between them would go from here.

He was very much aware that he hadn't gone a day without seeing her since they'd met. And last night, after Megan had solved the Pete Chaney case and just before she'd suggested they celebrate, he'd been wondering how he was going to keep on seeing her without the excuse of the investigation.

And now there he was, in her bed, back to wondering what would happen.

Wondering what would happen and knowing that the one thing he
didn't
want was to stop seeing her.

Stop seeing her? That was an under statement. He didn't want to spend five minutes away from her. Ever.

He didn't completely under stand it but there was some thing about having made love to her that had lowered the wall of self-delusion he'd been fortifying from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her. The wall of self-delusion that had led him to believe that while he might be attracted to Megan, he could keep himself from going any further than that. That he could keep himself from getting involved with her. From having feelings for her. From falling head-over-heels for her.

But self-delusion was really all that had been. And making love to her had shone a great big spot light on the truth.

The truth that he was most definitely involved with her. That he had feelings for her. Deep feelings that put him smack dab in the middle of being head-over-heels for her. That made him want never to let her go.

But wasn't he jumping from the pan into the fire with yet another mercurial woman? She was an acupuncturist, for crying out loud. She arranged her furniture according to Feng shui and hung crystals in corners. And by no stretch of the imagination had she led an ordinary life or been raised by run-of-the-mill people. All of which seemed like warnings to him that he might
be on the same path he'd been on with Farrah. A path of destruction.

He reminded himself that after Farrah he'd sworn that he would never have anything to do with another flaky, flighty woman. He'd learned his lesson—flaky and flighty translated into irresponsible and un re liable.

Off-the-wall women—and Megan qualified as
that
—couldn't be trusted. They were too capricious. Too fickle. Too unstable. And he'd vowed that there was no way he was ever going to give his heart to another woman like that.

Yet there he was with his heart on his sleeve, ready to hand it over to Megan.

But as he looked down at her sleeping so peace fully, he started to actually think about the kind of person she was. To separate her from the acupuncture and the Feng shui and the crystals and all the rest of that odd stuff she embraced.

Yes, the trap pings were, in his opinion, as weird as Farrah's interests in all things meta physical. But Megan didn't base her decisions on any kind of meta physical dictates. Well, okay, she based her decision of where to put her furniture on some thing not too far removed from it, but guidance in where to put a couch was hardly in a league with leaving him at the altar because a psychic had said to.

Megan the person was very different from Farrah. Megan had strong family values. Just like he did. She had the same goals he did—settling in Elk Creek, putting down roots, getting married and having kids. She was responsible. Loyal. Considerate. Caring. He'd seen
all of that in her response to Mabel. In her defense of her parents.

Megan just wasn't the norm for Elk Creek.

So what if she
was
somewhat unorthodox? he asked himself. Was that so bad?

Okay, he'd thought the same thing about Farrah. But while Megan might be unorthodox she wasn't un dependable or fickle or self-centered or down right un balanced—all the things Farrah had proven to be.

Instead, Megan was interesting and unique. Not to mention smart and beautiful and funny and fun to be with and well-grounded and centered and sexy…

Oh yeah, so sexy she made his blood boil just by walking into a room.

And the bottom line, he realized as he held her even closer than he had been, was that whatever her views, whatever her back ground, whatever her occupation—and he had to admit that he hadn't had a single sneeze since her acupuncture treatment—he sure as hell didn't want to slip out of her bed and maybe out of her life.

He wanted to be with her every day. He wanted to build a life around her and have her life built around him. He wanted her to
be
his life.

Megan might not be like a lot of other women. She might not be what he'd thought he should be looking for.

But she wasn't Farrah, either.

And what she was, was everything he needed. Every thing he wanted.

Whole heartedly. From the depths of his soul. Without any doubt.

And ultimately wasn't that what mattered?

That and that she was someone he genuinely believed he could trust?

It was.

What mattered was that she was the person she was. What mattered was the way he felt about her.

And the way he felt about her was unique all on its own. It was like nothing he'd ever felt for anyone else. Farrah included.

And it was too strong to be denied for one minute longer.

 

Megan woke up to the feel of a feather-light tickle running from her shoulder to her wrist, from her wrist to her shoulder.

She knew instantly what it was, where she was and who she was snuggled up next to. And it made her smile against Josh's chest.

“That's a lot better than an alarm clock,” she said, her voice quiet and sleepy but slightly husky, too, from the other things that he was awakening in her body at the same time he was rousing her from slumber.

“And it can be yours every morning for the rest of your life for just a small price,” he said like an infomercial announcer.

“Mmm. That seems like a good deal,” she countered, assuming he was kidding. “What's the small price?”

“You have to sleep with me every night for the rest of your life.”

Megan laughed. “Wow, I must have really knocked your socks off last night. But I don't know if I could
keep it up every night for the rest of my life,” she joked again.

“Some nights we can just sleep. It's the
every
night that's the price.”

Some thing in his voice told her he wasn't kidding at all and before she said anything else she opened her eyes to glance up at him. Now
that
was some thing to wake up to every morning, she thought as she drank in the sight of him. His sharp jaw was stubbled with beard and while the scruffy look was not Megan's favorite, on Josh it was so incredibly sexy she was tempted to say anything to maintain the status quo.

But she had the sense that more was going on with him than she should disregard in favor of the pure sensual elements of waking up with him. “
Every
night, huh?” she repeated quizzically.

“
Every
night,” he confirmed.

“You aren't talking in your sleep, are you?”

“I'm wide awake. I have been for a while, lyin' here thinking.”

“About what?”

“About how I want every morning to be just like this.”

Every
night.
Every
morning. And he seemed serious.

Megan held the sheet to her breasts with one hand and sat up in bed, curling her legs to one side underneath her.

When she did, Josh pushed himself up against the head board, baring his glorious chest and distracting her
until she forced herself not to look at it. Not to think about how good it had felt to lie against it.

“You're not just teasing, are you?” she surmised.

“Nope. Is that so bad?”

She wasn't sure. For some reason it didn't feel good. It made her sort of panicky.

“I don't know,” she answered honestly. “I hadn't thought beyond last night.” Last night when all she could think about was not having her time with him end…

“Well, think beyond it now,” he commanded. “Would it be so horrible for us to be together as some thing more than partners in crime solving? I know it would mean meat in the refrigerator along side the tofu and maybe a chair in front of the TV where it might block some of the energy flow or some thing, but I think we could work it out.”

His tone when he talked about tofu and energy flow struck a sour note in Megan. She'd taken his comments about things like that before as simple skepticism, but they suddenly sounded disparaging to her. Worse than that, they also sounded like criticism. The same kind of criticism Noel had dished out behind veils of helpfulness and concern.

“I like the chairs where they are,” she said stubbornly, the only concrete thing she could come up with.

“Okay, then we'll move the TV to the chairs. What I'm telling you is—”

“How I can change things to suit you.”

That had come out more harshly than she'd meant for it to. But she was beginning to feel a little harsh. And defensive. And afraid. And disillusioned.

“I'm talking about compromise, is all,” Josh said reason ably enough. “So we can be together.”

“And what compromises would you make?”

He shrugged one broad shoulder and it occurred to Megan that he was causing her a terrible tug of war between what her head was telling her and the response her body had to nothing more than the knee-weakening sight of him. But this time she had to let her head rule. She
had
to.

“I'd make whatever compromises I'd need to,” Josh said. “The point is, I know we're pretty different and I can't help thinkin' some of the things you're into are a little weird, but what I've come to realize is that
you're
not weird. That Megan Bailey the person is sweet and kind and compassion ate and has the sort of character that makes her a decent person. That makes her everything I want. And since there's no question that I want you…”

Megan was holding up the sheet with only one hand and Josh took the other from where it rested in her lap, holding it gently as he continued.

“Since I want you so much it's like I'm under the influence of some magic spell, I'd really like it if we could work around the differences and be together.”

In all he'd just said two things kept ringing in Megan's ears—that what she was interested in was
weird
to him, and that they were so different.

Too
different, she couldn't help thinking. Too different if he considered anything about her weird.

She felt her head shaking before she was even sure why it was. Then she said, “No,” with enough force to
make Josh rear back slightly and look at her through shocked eyes.

“I know where this leads,” she went on as her panic grew. “It starts here, it starts out nicely, but it ends with you trying to reshape me into some thing that fits the image you want me to be.”

“No, it doesn't,” he said, his handsome face sobering into a frown that looked on the verge of anger. Anger that echoed in his voice, too. “Compromise—that's all I'm talking about. People
have
to compromise to be together.”

“Except I still haven't heard what
you're
going to do to compromise. I've only heard what you want
me
to do.”

“Only because that's all that came off the top of my head.”

“I know that's how it seems but the truth is, what comes off the top of anyone's head is very telling. Sure, meat in the fridge and a chair in front of the TV are small things but they're still things connected to me that you want changed. And this is only the beginning. Pretty soon there would be some thing else. Some thing bigger. And then some thing after that. And some thing after that. You've spent the whole time since the first day you walked into my office thinking I'm some kind of freak. And you told me yourself you wanted the tried and true. I know how one fits into the other and it doesn't involve you embracing the
weird
stuff I'm into, it involves you trying to show me just how weird it is and why it should be left by the wayside. It involves you trying to change me so I don't embarrass you.”

“Farrah embarrassed me, you don't.”

But Megan didn't believe him. She'd had too much experience with Noel, with a man who wanted something she wasn't and thought a few
compromises
on her part could give him that. She simply could not now feel confident that the same thing wouldn't happen with Josh. That before too long he wouldn't try to fit her into a mold that made him more comfortable.

She shook her head again. “We're too different, Josh.”

“Deep down we
aren't
too different. That's part of what I realized when I started thinking about the two of us. We want the same kind of life in the same place. We enjoy each other. We're good together.” He paused a moment, watching her with those midnight-blue eyes of his. “The differences between us are all just trap pings. Outward stuff. Nothing that really matters.”

“It all matters. It matters when you have some big dinner with the head of the sheriff's department and you worry that I might tell him what herb would help his psoriasis or that his wife's back problem could be helped by acupuncture because you think I'd sound like a nut. It matters when you take me to a barbecue at your friend's house and wish I'd eat the ribs he's cooking so I wouldn't seem rude. It's all small stuff, but it adds up. It all counts as the
weird
ness about me that you
don't
like. And what it adds up to is not wanting me to be me.”