Ashley should have known that she would be in no way prepared for his kiss. Jeff's strong arms came around her and he pulled her against him. She'd barely absorbed the feel of his rock-hard body, so unyielding against her own, when his lips claimed hers in a moment of possessive need that robbed her of all will.
He didn't explore or ask or hesitate. Instead he pressed his mouth against hers as if his life depended on them kissing at that exact moment. His aggression should have frightened her, she thought hazily, except she felt that she needed him just as much. There wasn't any air in her lungs and he was her only source of life.
She parted for him instantly, not needing to be seduced, but instead wanting to be taken. She wanted to experience possession at Jeff's hands.
He was a man. She'd been with men before-she had the child to prove it. But no other man had kissed her in quite the same way. Maybe it was a soldier's attention to detail; maybe it was just good luck on her part. Because instead of accepting her silent invitation to invade her mouth, he continued to kiss her lips. He was aggressive and demanding, yet his barely suppressed violence left her feeling feminine and tender. He slowly explored her lips, making her shiver with anticipation.
Mouth on mouth, hands on body. Their breath became one. Finally, when he'd discovered her to his satisfaction, he finally stroked her bottom lip with his tongue. The damp heat made her knees tremble. She clutched at his shoulders, needing to anchor herself in a suddenly spinning universe.
Finally, when she was sure she couldn't take it anymore, he slipped into her mouth.
She gasped. If she'd had the breath or strength, she would have screamed. At the first stroke of his tongue against hers, fire ripped through her body. Her breasts swelled, and between her legs a sensation of heaviness and desire made her squirm.
He tasted completely masculine and perfectly of himself. He stroked her, teased her, discovered her. He was completely in control and she found that made her relax. There was no reason to worry about being awkward. Jeff wouldn't let her misstep. Lack of fear allowed anticipation to build. She raised herself on tiptoe so she could fit herself more fully to him, absorbing his strength. His large hands began to stroke up and down her back.
She arched into his touch. She wore a cotton nightgown and a flannel robe. Underneath both garments was a cotton pair of panties. Suddenly the layers were heavy and unnecessary. She wanted to feel his fingers against her bare skin. She wanted the same attention to detail that he gave to their kiss brought to her breasts and other parts of her body.
He cupped her face and held her slightly away from him. His gray eyes burned bright with need. His fingers trembled slightly, and she was aware of the hard ridge of his desire pressing against her belly.
"Ashley, I-" His voice was low and hoarse, as if it was difficult for him to speak. "I need you to be sure."
She managed a shaky smile. "I'm very sure," she whispered. "I know it's crazy for about a thousand reasons, but I want you."
She blushed as she spoke, not used to being so bold. But she didn't call the words back. She did want Jeff more than she'd ever wanted anyone. Even the man she'd been married to.
He ran his fingers through her mussed hair, then dropped a quick kiss to her mouth. "I don't have any protection with me." He shrugged. "I don't sleep around much, I've had a recent blood test and I'm not exactly a pregnancy risk."
She couldn't help smiling. How like Jeff to reassure her that she was safe with him.
She leaned forward and pressed her mouth against his bare chest. He tasted faintly of salt. "Did you think I would want to stop?"
He didn't answer with words. Instead he pressed his mouth to hers and hauled her up against him. They kissed deeply and she felt herself disappearing into the experience. Perhaps later she would think that she was crazy for giving in. Perhaps after they'd crossed the line that would change everything, she would have regrets, but not now. Not this night. She sensed that as much as Jeff wanted her, he needed her even more. And it was that need that made him impossible to deny. Well, that and her own aching body that longed for the release his body promised.
He moved his head slightly so that he could kiss her cheek, then her jaw. Damp kisses tickled her skin and made her gasp. He moved lower, down her neck to the collar of her robe. Once there, he exchanged lips for hands and continued his journey. She sucked in a breath as his hands found and cupped her breasts. Before she could beg him to never, ever stop, he slipped to her waist and her hips. His thumbs brushed the jutting bones there.
Ashley had a moment of feeling self-conscious. She knew that she was too skinny by at least ten or fifteen pounds. At one time she'd been a tad more lush, but a limited food budget, not to mention the need to provide for her child, had changed that. Still, Jeff didn't seem to be complaining.
Instead he dropped to his knees. Once there he pushed at her robe and nightgown, shoving them up to her waist, then moving her hands so that she would hold the fabric. He tugged on her panties, pulling them down. Without thinking, she stepped out of them.
Ashley felt heat climbing her face. He couldn't possibly be going to- It was too soon and he was… Well, he just couldn't.
But he could and he did. Before she'd figured out a way to act casual about the whole thing, he pressed his mouth to her belly. The kiss touched her down to her soul and made her gasp his name.
He tenderly nibbled along the sensitive skin there, pausing only to tease her belly button. Her legs began to tremble. She had to brace herself to keep upright. He moved lower and lower still until he reached the most secret part of her. Once there, he gently parted the protective folds of her feminine place and licked her.
Ashley bit her lip to keep from screaming. Inside her head, a thousand voices echoed with a single cry of pleasure. It was as if he knew her better than she knew herself, she thought hazily, barely able to remain upright as he kissed her over and over.
He urged her to shift so she could part her legs. She tried to do as he requested, but it was too difficult to maintain her balance. Suddenly she stumbled and was falling, only to be caught in his strong embrace.
Jeff smiled at her as he lowered her to the carpet in the living room. He settled her on her rear, then carefully drew her robe off her shoulders and pulled her nightgown over her head. She was naked and found that she didn't much mind. It felt right with him. Maybe a sensible woman would have been nervous or even scared, but all she could think was that she wanted him to pick up exactly where he'd left off.
Unfortunately he didn't read her mind. However, what he did instead turned out to be just as wonderful. He bent over her breast and drew one tight nipple into his mouth. The other received attention from his fingers. He licked, he nibbled, he teased until she was writhing on the floor and desperate for more.
After he'd switched so that her other breast had equal attention, he shifted so that he knelt between her legs and kissed his way down her stomach. Her breath caught as she stiffened in anticipation. Finally he bent low to give her the most intimate kiss of all. The one that made her cry out his name as she drew back her knees and dug her heels into the carpet.
His hands cupped her hips. His breath was hot, his tongue insistent. She couldn't stand what he was doing to her. Not for another second.
"Don't stop," she gasped. "Please."
She felt more than heard a low, throaty sound of laughter as he continued his ministrations. Then suddenly the world tilted and flew out of control. Before she could prepare herself, a powerful wave of release crashed through her. She was caught up and carried away, drowning in the most amazing sensations she'd ever experienced.
Once again Jeff caught her in his strong arms. Caught her and held her as she slowly, very slowly, returned to normal.
When she finally surfaced enough to open her eyes, she found herself staring into his face. He smiled down at her. She felt her own lips curve in response.
" Mission accomplished," she murmured. "They teach you that at boot camp?"
"No. In special forces. I took the advanced course."
Her own smile turned into a grin. "Jeff, you could teach the course."
He touched her face, then smoothed back her hair.
"I wanted it to be good for you," he told her. "I'm glad you were pleased."
"Pleased doesn't begin to describe it."
He was so gentle, she thought. Despite the fire still raging inside of him. She felt the insistent pressure of his arousal. He was as hungry as she had been just a few moments before. Yet he'd taken the time to satisfy her very thoroughly. This from a man who dreamed he wasn't human and kept mostly to himself?
She wanted to ask what it meant that they were doing this. But even more, she wanted to feel his bare skin against hers as he entered her.
She stroked his back, then slid her hands around to his chest. "I think it's time for the second act," she said and brought his mouth to hers.
As they kissed, he moved his fingers against her breasts, then slipped them lower. She was still slick and swollen and it didn't take much to get her blood boiling all through her. In a matter of minutes she was writhing against him, as hungry as she'd been before.
He shifted so that he could pull off his jeans, then returned to kneel between her legs. The only light in the room came from outside-a diffused illumination from the streetlights' glow in the damp night. His face was in shadows and she couldn't see his eyes. Yet she wasn't afraid. Not even when she felt his arousal pressing against her.
She slipped a hand between them to guide him inside. With one smooth thrust, he filled her completely. She gasped as her muscles relaxed to admit him, then immediately tightened around his width.
He braced himself on his hands and stared into her eyes. She kept her gaze on him. Even as he entered her again and again, even as her own body began to react to the tension filling her, she refused to look away.
Jeff knew he wasn't going to be able to last much longer. His lack of control wasn't about not having been with a woman in a long time, although that was true enough. Instead his legendary self-control was being destroyed by a wide-eyed gaze and the feel of slick walls contracting in pleasure.
He felt the first release ripple through Ashley's slender body. She clutched his arms and arched back her head, all the while gasping for breath and pleading with him to follow. He told himself to hold back. That his waiting would make it better for her. But suddenly he didn't have a choice. He couldn't wait, couldn't do anything but fill her again and again, shifting back on his haunches as he grabbed her hips and pulled her closer.
And then he was at the point of no return. He thrust into her deeply, making them both cry out. He surrendered to the release, losing himself in a perfect moment of paradise.
Jeff rolled over and pulled Ashley into his arms. The night was still except for the sound of their breathing. She cuddled against him, her head on his shoulder, her breath tickling his chest.
"When was the last time you did it on your living room floor?" she asked.
"Never."
He thought about telling her more. That he'd never invited a woman to his house. He'd never made love here before.
Made love.
The words stopped him, but he couldn't deny them. Ashley was more than just sex.
"What about you?" he asked.
She propped herself up on her elbow and grinned down at him. "I've never made love on your living room floor before, either."
Her humor made him wrap his arms around her and pull her against him. He liked the feel of her naked body pressing into his.
"How do you feel?" he asked as he stroked her from shoulders to rear.
"Good. Better than good." She sighed. "You were pretty amazing. All that ability to focus on the task at hand. I should have guessed how well it would translate. Now if only my rug burn will fade by morning."
"Rug burn?"
He started to sit up to look at her back, but she laughed and pushed him back onto the carpet.
"I'm kidding. My back is completely unscathed."
"Good."
She turned onto her side. He slid his hands over her hip and felt the prominent bone. "You're too thin," he told her.
She glared. "I take back all those nice things I just said. It's incredibly tacky to criticize a woman's body at any time, but never more so than after you'd just done the wild thing and while she's still naked."
She was being playful, but he didn't smile. "I'm not being critical, I'm stating a fact. You haven't been eating enough. Why do I know that it's more about money than looking good in clothes?"
She sat up and turned so she was facing away from him. "Don't, Jeff. I don't want to talk about that. Please don't spoil the mood."
Her request answered his question. He hated that money had been so tight for her that there were times when she didn't get enough to eat. He wanted to fix her life. He needed to make it better. Except he was the wrong person for the job. Nicole had been right when she'd pointed out that he didn't know how to be like other men. At least he'd given Ashley a good job. As long as she worked for him, she would be safe.
"You're supposed to say something reassuring," she muttered.
"I'm sorry." He touched her bare skin. "I don't want to spoil the mood. Please come back here and let me hold you."
She turned toward him. The lamplight filtered through the partially open drapes, illuminating her body. Her breasts were surprisingly full for her slight frame. The nipples were tight. As she moved, her breasts swayed slightly. She was an erotic image brought to life by the night.
Unable to stop himself, he leaned over and took her right nipple in his mouth. She grasped his head and moaned. Suddenly he was touching her everywhere, needing her, desperate for her. He told himself that it was too soon.
"I don't want to hurt you," he murmured.
"Don't worry about it."
She pressed herself against him as they kissed.
He was hard in a heartbeat. Hard and hungry, as if they hadn't made love less than an hour before. He cupped her breasts and teased her nipples. She ran her fingers through his hair and down his back. He put his hands on her hips and urged her to straddle him. She did so; then in one easy, sexy movement she settled on top of him and let him find his way home.
Ashley couldn't believe they were making love again. She was generally a once-every-three-or-four-days kind of girl. But with Jeff she couldn't seem to get enough. The second he began to fill her, she felt herself contracting around him. The first release made her arch her head back in an attempt to catch her breath. The second made her frantic to have him fill her more and more and more.
She raised and lowered herself with a pace she thought might be too fast until she realized that his hands guided her hips, keeping her in place and her rhythm steady for both of them. Every few seconds another contraction filled her. She hadn't known it could be like this.
Suddenly tension spiraled through her. Tension and need. It consumed her until she had no choice but to shudder with the glory of it all. Just as she reached her pinnacle, she felt Jeff stiffen and cry out. Together they clung to each other as their bodies reveled in the moment of being one.
Ashley slept like one of the innocent, Jeff thought later when they were both in his large bed. Her even breathing spoke of her rest. He couldn't find the same solace; he didn't dare.
When was the last time he'd made love? Not had sex, but actually made love with a woman? He couldn't recall. Not since Nicole. And with her it had been before things had started to go so desperately wrong. Sex was a bodily function. He understood and respected his body's need for release. But this was different.
He closed his eyes but didn't allow himself to sleep because the dream lurked in the world of the unconscious and he didn't want to have it twice in one night. Not with Ashley sleeping so peacefully beside him. She might think that she understood him, but she had no idea of his real self.
So instead of sleeping he held her close, ignoring the very male part of him that wanted her again. He told himself that the wanting was allowed for this night but no longer, because wanting was dangerous. Wanting made a man weak and careless. Either could get him killed.
In the morning he would walk away without looking back. He would never allow himself to do this again or even to think of it. That would be best for both of them. But until morning there was the night. He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of her skin.
The next morning Ashley was fighting both a mild case of rug burn and a major case of the guilts. She tried to act as normal as possible as she fixed her daughter's lunch, even though Jeff was also sitting at the table, looking as if nothing had happened the previous night. Fortunately Maggie didn't sense the tension between the adults and chattered away as if this was an ordinary morning.
Ashley had awakened to the sound of Jeff in the shower and had used the moment of privacy to escape to her own room. When they'd met up in the kitchen, she'd managed to greet him and pour him coffee without melting into a puddle of desire, or worse, clueing in her daughter that something was different.
As she spread peanut butter on bread, Ashley tried to reconcile the well-dressed conservative man sitting at the table with the one who had licked her entire body the night before. Or the one who had awakened her just before dawn so they could make love yet again. She couldn't wait for round two.
Just hold on one minute, she told herself as she reached for the jar of jelly. There wasn't going to be a round two. Last night had been amazing. It had been special and perfect and it had to be a one-time event. Jeff wasn't the kind of man a woman like her settled down with, and she didn't want a casual, sexual relationship. For her, the act of physical intimacy had always been closely tied to love. She didn't love Jeff, she didn't want to love Jeff. To make sure that didn't change, she was going to have to stay out of his bed. She would tell him as soon as they were alone.
That decided, she finished her daughter's sandwich and put it in the small, plastic, cat-covered lunch box.
"It's gonna be Easter soon," Maggie was saying.
Jeff smiled at the little girl over his coffee mug. "What happens then?"
Maggie looked shocked that he didn't know. "Mommy and me go to church where they have lots and lots of pretty flowers and we listen to the min-min-" She glanced at her mother for help.
"The minister," Ashley said.
Maggie beamed. "And when we come home we find what the Easter bunny left for me. Last year he was very nice and left me lots of chocolate." She leaned toward Jeff and lowered her voice. "I'm hopin' he's nice to me this year."
Maggie turned to her mother. "Mommy, can I take my new book to school to show my teacher?"
Ashley nodded.
Maggie jumped from her seat and raced toward the stairs. Which, unfortunately, left Ashley alone with Jeff. He turned his attention to her.
"How are you feeling?"
Was it her imagination or did his tone sound different this morning? She barely stopped from slapping herself in the forehead. Of course it was different. They were different. Their intimacy the previous night had changed everything.
"I, ah, I'm fine," she said, barely able to meet his gaze.
She could feel the heat flaring on her cheeks. What was he thinking? Was he, too, remembering what it had been like when they'd been together? Should she tell him now that it had been wonderful but really couldn't happen again?
"Jeff, I-"
"I found it! I found it!" Maggie's singsong voice filled the kitchen as the little girl flew into the room, her new book clutched to her chest.
She dashed over to Jeff and flung herself into his arms. "Thank you for my book. And the kitty. They're my bestest presents ever."
Ashley watched her daughter's small arms go trustingly around Jeff's neck. She saw the large man she now knew to be tender and considerate, hug her back. Suddenly she was aware of the sound of her own heartbeat and the way the room seemed to tilt slightly.
She'd been worried about getting involved with a man who wasn't right for her. She'd been concerned about having her heart engaged in futile longing for a man who could never love her back. But she'd never once thought anyone else was at risk.
Now, as she observed the tall, dangerous man and the trusting little girl, she knew that Maggie was the one who had already given her heart away. Maggie had bonded with Jeff, viewing him as the father she never had. Maggie would have dreams and expectations, and there was nothing Ashley could do to warn her about holding back.
An ache filled Ashley's chest. She wanted to protect her daughter, but she didn't know how. Should they leave? Should they-
Jeff whispered something in Maggie's ear and her daughter laughed. Ashley knew it was too late to keep Maggie from connecting with Jeff. And taking her away now, before they had to go, seemed cruel. Perhaps it would be best to let the child enjoy Jeff while they were in his house. Later they would both have to deal with the impossible task of getting over Jeff Ritter.