At last she felt him move away. He scrambled out of his boxers and rolled her to face him once again. She let her arms fall lax above her head, enjoying the way his avid gaze scoured her from head to toe.
It had been two years since she had seen him naked...two years since she had seen him at all. Beginning with what would have been their wedding morning, he had phoned her every single day for a week. Each one of those times she had let his call go to voice mail, telling herself he should have had the guts to face her in person.
Had she wronged him grievously? In her blind hurt, had she rushed to judgment? The enormity of the question made her head spin.
For weeks and months, she had wallowed in her self-righteous anger, calling Jeff Hartley every dirty name in the book, telling herself she hated him...that he was a worthless cad, a two-timing player.
But what if she had been wrong? What if she had been terribly, dreadfully wrong?
He used his thumb to erase the frown lines between her brows. “What’s the matter, buttercup?”
Hearing the silly nickname made the lump in her throat grow larger. “I don’t know what we’re doing, Jeff.”
His smile was lopsided, more rueful than happy. “Damned if I know either. But let’s worry about that tomorrow.”
She cupped his cheek, feeling the light stubble of late-day beard. “Since when do you channel Scarlett O’Hara?”
Without answering, he reached in his discarded pants for a condom and took care of business. Then he moved between her thighs. “Put your arms around my neck, Lucy. I want to feel you skin to skin.”
Fifteen
Jeff tried to live an honorable life. He gave to charity, offered work to those who needed it, supported his local civic organizations and donated large sums of money to the church where he had been baptized as an infant.
But lying in Lucy’s arms, on the brink of restaking a claim that had lain dormant for two years, he would have sold his soul to the devil if he could have frozen time.
Lucy’s eyes were closed.
“Look at me,” he commanded. “I want you to see my face when I take you.”
Her breath came in short, sharp pants. She nodded, her eyelids fluttering upward as she obeyed.
Gently, he spread her thighs and positioned his aching flesh against the moist, pink lips of her sex. When he pushed inside, he was pretty sure he blacked out for a moment. Two years. Two damn years.
It was everything he remembered and more. The fragrance of her silky skin. The sound of her soft, incoherent cries. His body and his soul would have recognized her even in the dark, anywhere in the world.
He felt her heart beating against his chest. Or maybe it was his heart. It was impossible to separate the two. Burying his face in the crook of her shoulder, he moved in her steadily, sucking in a sharp breath when she wrapped her legs around his waist, driving him deeper.
He thrust slowly at first, but all the willpower in the world couldn’t stem the tide of his hunger. His body betrayed him, his desire cresting sharply in a release that left him almost insensate.
Lucy hadn’t come. He knew that. But his embarrassment was blunted by the sheer euphoria of being with her again. He kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, love.” He touched her gently, intimately, stroking and teasing until she climaxed, too. Afterward, he held her close for long minutes.
But reality eventually intruded.
Lucy reclined on her elbow, head propped on her hand. “May I ask you a very personal question?”
Though his breathing was still far from steady, he nodded. “Anything.”
Lucy reached out and smoothed a lock of his hair. Her gaze was troubled. “When was the last time you had sex?”
Here it was. The first test of their tenuous reconciliation. “You should know,” he said quietly. “You were there.”
She went white, her expression anguished, tears spilling from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “You’re lying,” she whispered.
Her accusation angered him. But he gathered her into his arms and held her as she sobbed. Two years of grief and separation. Two years of lost happiness.
“I know you don’t believe me, Lucy.” He combed her hair with his fingers. “Maybe you never will. Don’t cry so hard. You’ll make yourself sick.”
Perhaps they should have talked first. But his need for her had obliterated everything else. Now she was distraught, and he didn’t know how to help her get to the truth. Was this going to be the only moment they had? If so, he wasn’t prepared to let it end so soon.