Texas Moon TH4 (28 page)

She was painfully aware of her body. She had never thought of it as more than a department store dummy to be dressed and kept clean. Now she had breasts that tingled and a hollowness on her inside needing to be filled and an ache where she couldn't mention. She curled into a ball to try to shove all these parts back into the numb whole she had once been, but it didn't work.

Peter had brought her to life again.

She didn't like it. She didn't want to feel. She didn't want to give in to these intruding sensations. They had led her to do mindless things once before, and the result had been disastrous. She couldn't allow herself to ever give in again.

But it was too late.

Even as her hand covered her breast in a futile attempt to erase the ache, the noise at the window drew her attention. Janice stared as dark shoulders emerged above the open window frame. That wasn't possible. The room was far above the trees. No one could come in from outside.

The open window went from floor to ceiling. Seemingly effortlessly, powerful arms and shoulders lifted a man through the opening to a kneeling position on the floor. Then he stood and stepped through the flimsy muslin curtains. Janice lay motionless, disbelieving. She wasn't afraid. She knew who it was. She just couldn't believe he'd done it.

"Peter?" she finally got his name out, although it was colored with astonishment. Perhaps the figment would disappear at the sound of a voice.

He didn't disappear. He moved closer to the bed, and Janice could see him unfastening his shirt. That sent a frisson of something through her, but she wasn't sure it was fear. She didn't entirely comprehend what was happening here.

"You must have locked the door by mistake. I didn't want to wake you."

She heard the lie in his voice. He wasn't angry. His tone was wry, as if he could scarcely believe what he had done, either. Janice stared from the window back to the man who now sat on the edge of the bed, removing his shoes.

"You climbed in the window?" That was a stupid question, but she was too amazed to think of another. Her mind wasn't quite functioning yet.

"Tyler's going to wonder about that ladder if he gets up before we do in the morning, but from the sounds of it, the party will go on until dawn. I don't think we have to worry."

This was insane. They sat here having this perfectly normal husband and wife conversation, and he had just climbed up four stories to come in her bedroom window. Janice stared at him as if he were crazed.

"If there hadn't been a ladder, would you have climbed the vines?" she asked, still incredulous, but her incredulity now wasn't so much for the fact that he had been able to do it, but that he had done it to get to her. She could see him shrug as he stood up.

"Probably." He began to unfasten his trousers.

He was unfastening his trousers, and she was lying here naked. And she wasn't doing anything about it.

She didn't know if Peter could see her in the moonlight. But she could certainly see enough of him to know what he was doing. And how he was feeling.

She stared as the patch of dark curls emerged from the unbuttoned material, and she couldn't look away when the rest of him emerged. The vigorousness of his arousal didn't leave any doubt as to what was in her husband's mind. Janice moved slightly away as he stepped out of his trousers and came to the bed.

"We're going to talk," he told her. But what he did next didn't feel like talking.

He climbed onto the bed and on top of her.

Janice sucked in her breath as Peter planted his knee between her legs. He didn't do anything more than prop himself on his elbows above her, but she was frantically aware of the heat of his arousal rubbing low against her abdomen. She wouldn't be in any condition to talk like this.

Neither was he. He hesitated briefly, then bent to place a kiss at the corner of her mouth. "We'll talk, but not now," he whispered against her lips.

Not now. Not ever. It didn't matter. She was on fire.

Janice opened her mouth for his kiss, and drowned in sensations with just the touch of his tongue. He caught her head and held her still while his tongue probed and explored and her body arched helplessly in some instinctive resistance to his possession. The move was a mistake, because now she was aware of the hardness of the male thighs capturing her own, of the length of the male organ searing her skin, and the need of her breasts to be touched.

Peter obliged this last without being told. His hand cupped her fullness while his thumb tortured the tip, driving her mindlessly to deepen their kiss. She returned the caress of his tongue, grasped the straining muscles of his arms, and lifted herself invitingly to his touch. He groaned and shuddered above her, and then his mouth moved from her lips to her breasts and she writhed in ecstasy.

She didn't know how she could reach this state so quickly. It didn't seem possible. She didn't want it. She wanted nothing to do with what he was doing to her. But she rubbed her hands up and down his arms, kissed his hair, and groaned helplessly as he ravaged first one breast, then the other. She was behaving shamelessly, for she knew of a certainty where this would lead, where she wanted it to lead.

He was too impatient to make her wait for long. Janice cried out when Peter slid his fingers between her thighs, but she spread them willingly at his caress. She ought to be fighting him, protesting, but he'd sapped her will and left her spineless. She cried out when his fingers pierced her, and she raised eagerly for more.

"Tell me when, Janice. I'll not leave you crying this time."

The whisper against her ear startled her. She had been so caught up in the sensations of her body that she had left her mind behind. She lifted her eyes to see Peter's hovering just above her. His fingers were doing unspeakable things to the lower part of her while his gaze followed the expression on her face. She ought to be embarrassed beyond redemption. Daringly she touched the muscular ridge of his chest. She felt the tension in him, knew the willpower that held him back, and knew she wouldn't fight him. She would curse herself in the morning.

"When, Peter," she whispered, and felt him crush her in his arms in reply.

She was going to regret this, she knew, but nothing short of death would stop her now.

Chapter 23

Peter kissed her—a kiss so deep and full of longing that it released the locks on her own carefully shielded emotions. Janice thought she would drown in the flood of unleashed desire, and she clung to Peter's shoulders as her only anchor in a tide of uncertainty.

But the flood found an outlet in the things he did to her body. All the tension and passion rushed to her loins, building up a powerful tide that waited only for the dam to be breached. Touching wasn't enough. She needed more.

And he gave it to her. With a muffled groan of triumph, Peter surged into her, and she no longer had any need to hold back. Janice cried out her joy and pain as he took her, stripping away all the ache and loneliness, penetrating the vacuum that she had been.

He was fast and fierce in his possession, as if fearful he would be denied again and determined not to be. He wasn't any faster or fiercer than Janice wanted. She had no knowledge of the joy of this joining until now, when it welled up in her and built with every stroke of Peter's hard body. She reveled in the power of this happiness, understanding it wasn't just her own joy but his also that came with this blending of their bodies.

And then he erupted inside her, burying himself so deep and with such passion that he forced open yet another lock. Janice screamed at the explosion as her womb seemed to take on a life of its own. As her insides clutched him and pulled him deeper, Peter laughed and moaned and held her close, until they were both too weak for more.

He finally found the strength to roll his weight off her, but he gathered her close against his side. Janice went willingly, not yet ready to return to a state of separateness. As long as she sprawled along Peter's side, her perspiring flesh stuck to his, she could remain part of him. She was so very tired of being alone.

His hand skimmed her side, touched her gently at the hip, moved upward to curve around her breast. Janice sighed and snuggled closer. She would undoubtedly regret this later, but not now.

"You're more generous than I ever dreamed, Mrs. Mulloney," he murmured. "And so good that I want you again already."

She ought to be frightened at the thought, but she wasn't. "I didn't know it could be like that. You'd think we could hurt each other."

His hand trailed down to the apex of her thighs and rested there. "I didn't want to hurt you. I suppose it's kind of hard for two people living together not to sometimes hurt each other, but I didn't want to hurt you this way. I don't want to just use you."

This time what he said and not just the sound of his voice caused a warm little shiver in her middle. She understood now that she had been used before, that what they had just done was so completely different that she couldn't grasp the whole of it yet. She ran her fingers daringly up his chest, exploring previously forbidden territory.

"You didn't hurt me," she said slowly, looking for ways to explain. It wasn't easy. What they had just done was a topic never spoken about to her knowledge, and it certainly wasn't a subject she had ever dared to think about. Finding words for it now seemed an impossibility. "I didn't know.... I thought it was different for a woman than for a man."

The hand under her stroked her hair. "It doesn't have to be, although I'll admit my experience in that department is limited. With you, I know the pleasure isn't faked. I don't think any woman has ever made me feel so good. I want it to be the same for you." Peter turned his head to look down at her. "Will you tell me about that first man? Is he the reason you were afraid?"

Even now, feeling so relaxed it was a wonder she didn't melt, Janice could feel the old protective barriers snapping into place. But they didn't snap quickly enough to keep everything out. "How do you know there hasn't been a dozen men?" she asked with a hint of anger. "Isn't that what men usually think? Once a woman has fallen, she's eager to sample everything that comes along?"

Peter snorted and shoved her over on her back, trapping her there with one strong leg. "I probably would have thought something equally asinine about any other woman but you. You don't know a damned thing about making love. You didn't even know how to kiss. And you did your damnedest to hide behind that schoolmarm disguise so no one would ever attempt to teach you. You're hiding something, all right, Mrs. Mulloney, but it isn't a trail of lovers."

He was coming much too close. She could see no reason in the world why he should know the whole truth when no one else did. It would serve no purpose. As a mother duck will protect her young by leading intruders astray, Janice gave him enough to lead him away from more dangerous shoals. "I thought I was in love once. I was very young and he was very selfish. That's all there was to it."

Peter brushed her hair back off her face. "He must have been more than selfish. He must have been crude and stupid. How could he hurt a beautiful young girl and then walk off and leave her?"

She could tell him that part easily enough. Peter had just said people living together would occasionally hurt each other. She had a bushel basket of hurts to distribute. If it would keep him away from Betsy, she would willingly stab herself.

"Stephen was young too, young and ambitious," she answered slowly. "When your father fired all the railway workers, Stephen lost the only employment he knew. He went in search of work. He never came back."

Even after all these years she didn't know what had become of him. She had thought he would write. There had been six terrible months while she waited to know where he was so she could tell him about the child they'd made together. But she'd never heard from him again. He could be dead now for all she knew. She didn't mourn him.

Peter fell silent at this admission. He teased her hair with his fingers, drew soft circles on her cheek, then drew one hand downward to fondle her breast. The tip rose in instant response, and he shifted his weight so he could look at her there. Just his look brought a rush of desire to her midsection. Janice shuddered and tried not to rise to meet the press of his fingers.

"My family destroyed a lot of lives," he admitted sadly. "I can't bring them back. I can't even mend them. If it were up to me, I'd give all the money back, but the money was never mine. Did you love him very much? Should I have Daniel look for him?"