
by
NINA MERRILL
Amber Quill Press, LLC
http://www.amberquill.com
An Amber Quill Press Book
Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 1-59279-554-4
Cover Art © 2006 Trace Edward Zaber
Layout and Formatting
Provided by: ElementalAlchemy.com
Published in the United States of America
Hot. So hot. And humid. Oppressively still air foretold an afternoon thunderstorm. Nona didn't bother turning on the air conditioner as she drove the pickup home from a long day at the citrus grove. It was more effective to roll down both the windows and drive fast on the short stretch of country road leading to Brookton and home. She wanted nothing more than a shower and a glass of lemonade, not necessarily in that order. The heat of June always came as a surprise after the mild winter and spring of Florida.
She had spent the morning on the mower cutting the weeds, and the early afternoon walking the grapefruit plantings with the grove man, checking the health and branch strength of the two-year-old trees. The grove man, Rogers, still seemed surprised when Nona climbed out of the truck without her father, but he had learned in the past two years that she meant business. Her father backed her, and she knew nearly as much about citrus as Rogers--and was rapidly learning more.
In some ways, she surprised herself with her determination and knowledge. But in other ways, she knew very well where the motivation had come from--her last semester at college in Miami. There was nothing like a disastrous love affair to make a woman want to reinvent herself. Grapefruit might be a poor substitute for romance, but it was a fine source of independence.
She turned on to her long street and saw the For Sale sign at the Brinkley place several blocks from home had already been uprooted and lay tidily on the lawn. Nona was aggravated the sale had gone through without anyone in town being aware the old house and groves were on the market. The sign seemed to have been a courtesy at best.
Nona parked the pickup in the garage next to her father's empty space and entered the kitchen through the back door. There was pink lemonade already in the refrigerator. She poured one glass and drank it down before pouring a second. Then she went straight upstairs to shower, letting the tepid water stream over her and rinse away dust, sweat and the itchy juice of cut weeds and grass. She washed her long brown hair in her favorite jasmine shampoo and then simply stood in the stream of water until her toes wrinkled.
Dry once more, she dressed in an old, yellow cotton dress whose emerald green collar brought out the flecks in her hazel eyes.
The ominous rumble of thunder drew her out her bedroom's French doors onto the second-floor veranda. She loved watching thunderstorms boil up on summer afternoons. They did little to cool the air, but they were good for the grove. She stood near the sturdy trellis supporting the night-blooming jasmine, the same trellis she had climbed in her youth to sneak away at night. The dark green leaves sheltered a multitude of creamy buds, furled like umbrellas, just waiting for night to lure the pale moths to pollinate them.
Deep gray clouds swelled behind the jasmine vines. The contrast caught her eye, so she turned back to her room for her easel and the tin of watercolors she kept for quick sketches. After returning to the veranda, she quickly captured the ominous bulging outlines of the clouds before becoming distracted by a dark-haired man far down the street. He stood for a while in front of the Brinkley place, hands on his hips in a way that plucked a strand of memory in Nona. She frowned and set down the brush, gripping the railing and leaning out to look at the man in his blue shirt. He began to walk down the street, and only two houses away he crossed at the corner and turned toward the Hartley house, set back from the street among its trees.
A few fat drops of rain struck her. She listened to the thunder, wondering what sensible man would be out with such a storm coming, then he was close enough for her to see his face.
That face--the same one she still found herself sketching from memory.
Nona flinched back behind the thick screen of the jasmine and closed her eyes against a storm of memories. Touches. Kisses. Rooms with tall open windows and blowing green sheers. A bed with crisp brown sheets. Dark eyes above her, dark hair across a damp brow. A mouth taut with passion. Long-fingered hands.
Jude.
Jude Danzig.
Here, in Brookton. On her very street.
Nona gave a convulsive shiver and felt all the downy hairs on her body rise. She told herself it had been an experiment, nothing more. She had decided at twenty-three it was past time to get rid of her troublesome virginity, to discover for herself whether what she'd heard about men and sex was true.
It hadn't been a lie. Jude's passion was like the storm surge accompanying a hurricane, a tide that made her frighteningly aware of the hugeness of the ocean behind it, and Nona found herself unable to fight it. The affair lasted fourteen weeks, while she flunked three tests in succession at college and fell asleep during lectures for the first time in her life. She had never thought to ask Jude how he had managed to steal time away from his import business to be with her.
It had been like a sickness, she thought. A raging disease, with her need for Jude and his body like an unquenchable thirst. She'd sought his heart as well, but the more she wanted him--the more they made love--the less connected she felt to him. It was as if Jude backed away, though physically he appeared to desire her more and more. The sex--after a while she couldn't call it "making love," if it had ever been that at all--satisfied only a physical need. When Nona found herself verging on obsession, she ended the affair with a craven telephone call. "You're running away, Nona," Jude had whispered to her. "Running away like a coward."
She left school and Miami on a plea of homesickness for her father and the tall white house under the water oaks and magnolias. In the years since, she'd thought she had succeeded in righting her perspective and regaining her emotional balance. She'd finished her degree at an extension college and gone on to manage the citrus grove for her father, who was happy to golf and fish, like any other retiree.
Jude walked to the foot of the narrow brick path stretching from the front door to the sidewalk, and stood staring up at her house. She remained hidden behind the jasmine as the storm released the rain. He was soaked in moments, but he merely turned his face up into the downpour. The blue button-down shirt clung to all the angles and slopes of his torso, and Nona could not push away her memories of Jude swimming, Jude in the shower, Jude, Jude...She fled inside and closed her balcony door, leaning against it with her heart pounding. When she could breathe again, she moved shakily to her bed and lay down.
For an hour she stared at the ceiling through the shirred lace canopy of her bed and tried to convince herself she was mistaken. It couldn't be Jude; Jude could have no possible reason for leaving his Miami business to come to Brookton. And if it really was Jude, what did that mean? And did she--should she--care?
Her door opened after a soft tapping. Her father leaned into the room. "Are you awake, honeygirl?"
"Hi, Daddy." She sat up, smiling and rubbing her eyes as if she'd just woken, and not spent the time wallowing in self-pity and dread. "I didn't hear you come home."
"It's catching up with you, you know," Rex Hartley said, crossing to sit on the side of her bed. "Delayed reaction. All those nights you don't sleep well."
"It's nothing," Nona knew she couldn't tell him the real reason for her insomnia.
"You were pacing last night at two."
"What were you doing up? I thought you had to be at the tee early."
"I did, but I was looking over the grove paperwork."
"Oh, Daddy, you don't have to keep doing that. Enjoy retirement."
"I want to help, and sometimes a second pair of eyes..." Rex ran his hand over her brown hair, pulling her toward him to kiss her forehead. "I remember all that miserable paperwork, you know."
Nona smiled. "I think it was just the night. The magnolias are blooming, and the jasmine. The scent woke me like orange blossoms do in February. I was restless." But truthfully, the source of her wakefulness was the same as it had been for the past two years--a shatteringly vivid and explicit dream of herself and Jude together in his brown plaid bed. It always ended the same, with his arching climax and her blurted, gasping confession--"I love you"--and Jude's sudden dark and furious look, and rough rejection: "There's no need to lie. I'll fuck you all the same."
Those words had been a knife to her gut the day before she ended their affair.
"Come down to dinner." Rex ruffled his daughter's hair as he slid off the bed. "I've put a chicken in the oven, but you have to cook the broccoli. Lani's coming at six." Nona smiled up at her tall father's tanned, lined face. It was good to see him so pleased about Lani's visit.
They finished the dinner preparations together in the kitchen. Shortly before six, Lani Jorgensen knocked at the back door and let herself in. Nona had to turn away to hide her smile when her father kissed Lani chastely, with a sidelong glance Nona's way. She shooed them into the dining room to set the table and open the wine Lani had brought, while she transferred the meal to serving dishes.
Nona was only half-listening to the dinner conversation, her attention turned inward to replay those moments when she'd watched Jude Danzig walk down the street of her town. When she heard, through her fog, the words "The old Brinkley place sold last week," she dropped her fork on the floor with a clatter and retrieved it with a breathless laugh at her own clumsiness.
"Whoops! It was hardly for sale before the sign was down again this afternoon."
"The old man died two years ago. You were at school." Rex shook his head. "The estate finally settled and the heirs didn't want the groves or the house."
"Are they crazy? Brinkley grove land is some of the best around. It never freezes." She frowned. "I wonder why no one mentioned the land was for sale? We should've looked into it."
"I heard it was an inside deal. The purchaser knew the son, and it all happened privately."
"Oh, really?" Lani dug into the chicken breast Rex had put on her plate. "Who bought that white elephant?"
"Man's named Danzig. Up from Miami. Said he was in imports."
"You've spoken to him?" Nona casually lifted a forkful of broccoli to her mouth. She wondered if either of them could see the pulse leaping in her throat.
"A few times. Tall man; well spoken. I've given him a standing invitation for dinner after he's settled."
Nona swallowed the broccoli and drank down the remaining wine in her glass with a single tilt of her head. Rex looked at her curiously, then reached for the bottle and refilled her glass. Nona rubbed her arms, where gooseflesh rose at the thought of Jude in this house, at this table, likely seated across from her.
"What kind of imports?" asked Lani.
Art, treasures, European furniture. Nona remembered the late-night interior of Jude's exclusive, handsome showroom and the soft, thick rug of Persian lamb. Jude had stood her in its center before closing every window blind, and turning on a single spotlight above her. In complete silence he'd removed every stitch of her clothing, slowly and with such skimming lightness of touch that, by the time she was naked, she was shivering with both cold and desire. Jude circled her, posing her like a statue, touching every inch of her skin. He had never even undressed that night in the empty, echoing showroom. Everything he had done was for her alone, though he had controlled her pleasure utterly, pushing her to climax after climax with almost clinical precision.
She had seen a strange triumph flaring in his dark eyes as she'd writhed over the geometric beauty of the rug and he slithered after her in his suit pants and starched green shirt, never ceasing in his attentions to the throbbing flesh between her thighs. Each time she clutched at him in her passion, he forced her hands away from his body, denying himself.
"Nona?"
"What?" Flustered, she almost dropped her fork again.
"The salt, please, honeygirl."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"I don't think you feel one hundred percent yet, do you? Perhaps an early night?"
"I think you're right, Daddy."
Despite the wine at dinner, Nona lay sleepless in her bed, the sheet pushed aside, windows open to the sultry fragrance and humidity of the night. But unlike the sheet, there was no pushing aside her memories now that she had seen Jude again.
College. A time of intense personal growth for Nona--new input, new ideas, new ways of thinking, and an immersion in her art she had never reached before or since. Along with the business courses, she'd indulged her love for color and line, taking every painting, sketching and design course she could fit into her schedule. Her talent bloomed under such nurture, and she had been asked to demonstrate at the college's weekend art show.
It was the first time she ever glimpsed Jude, who had been stalking through the campus art exhibition with a spun-silver blonde on his arm. Nona had been on the demonstration dais, painting an abstract in her favorite shades of green, when Jude and his companion paused to observe her. She noted them out of the corner of her eye. He hardly looked the part of an artist, dressed in his business suit. She smirked to herself, wondering if they were shopping for art to hang in a guest room. The blonde murmured, "I think I could do that much."
The man said nothing.
Nona, her pride pricked by the blonde's tactless comment, flicked her sable brush and placed a subtle caricature of the blonde in the center of the painting. He laughed outright and said, "No, Alix, I don't believe you could."
The blonde was peeved by his amusement. "Anyone can paint blobs like she's doing."
Nona realized Alix hadn't seen the cartoon in the painting. She dipped her brush in blue and turned the profile into a sailfish arching out of green waters.
"Now that looks more like something real. I think paintings ought to look like the things they're about."
"If I wanted copies, I'd buy photographs," said the man.
"Pooh. You're always so smug, Jude. Take me to lunch. I'm starving."
Nona watched them leave, thinking, Jude. What an unusual name. When he had gone, she started another painting, this time finding his face in the wash of grays and browns like a ghost. A memorable face. An interesting face.
A week after the show Jude entered the studio where she was working with two other students. The sane, simple music of Bach's two-part inventions drifted from a player in the corner. Nona was deep in a woodland scene, brushing tender touches of autumn color over the paper when she heard his voice behind her and knew without turning who he was and why he had come.
"Nona Hartley, if I remember your nametag correctly?"
"Yes." She went on painting, not turning to look at him, conscious of a shivering sensation in her stomach. "What can I do for you?"
"The...sailfish painting. Do you still have it?"
"It was just a sketch. I threw it away." She dipped her brush in clear water and blurred the brightness of a leaf reflected in the rain pool.
"A pity. Are you hungry? It's almost lunchtime."
"Actually, yes." She turned at last.
He was just as she remembered him, just as he had emerged from her painting that afternoon. His eyes were night-dark, rimmed by a smudge of lashes too thick to be masculine, and separated by a nose like a blade, with fine, arched nostrils. His hair was dark, too, a deep brown with burnished accents gilding it where the light from the windows touched. His brows winged away in straight slants from his eyes. She especially liked the calmness of his hands, the way they rested naturally on his crossed arms without having to leap in mad gestures for expression. A very self-possessed man.
She reached behind her neck to unfasten her spattered smock, but he moved to her side and attended to the small task while she held her long hair out of the way. His fingers lingered on her shoulder, and it was at that moment her wild plan formed, fully fledged.
This was the man.
She looked pointedly at his bare left hand. "You aren't married, are you?"
He shook his head. "No. You?" His brow rose mockingly, and the left corner of his mouth curled.
Nona smiled back. "No. Let me put away my equipment."
Over coffee and shrimp cocktails at a small café across the street from the campus, he introduced himself. "My name is Jude Danzig."
"You already know who I am."
"So I do. Tell me about yourself."
An urge to parry rose. "What would you like to know?"
"How do you spend your free time? What kind of flowers do you like? And are you fonder of red or white wine?"
Nona laughed. "So specific! All right. I paint, mostly, in my free time. I love jasmine, and I prefer red wine."
It was physical from the start. He drove her home after the light luncheon and escorted her up the four flights of stairs to her off-campus studio with its wall of windows. She asked him if he would like some almond and spice tea, and while the water boiled in the kettle, he took her in his arms. Nona fought down her first blink of surprise. His hold was light, tentative. She knew she could walk out of the circle of his arms and that would be the end of things. His thick lashes veiled his eyes, but Nona saw the dark glitter behind their scrim.
"You smell like magnolias and oil paints," he murmured to her. His fingers sought the hollows of her spine through the heavy cotton-sheeting top she wore.
"Not a very pleasant blend."
"On the contrary. It was your scent I noticed first. I smelled magnolias--light, musky, lemony." His left hand slid over her shoulder to touch the thinly-fleshed collarbones visible in the open neckline of her shirt. "I went...seeking"--Jude's nostrils flared once and briefly as his lashes lifted, and Nona was dizzied by a sweeping of sensuousness she had never known--"the woman who wore that scent."
He smiled the tiny, one-cornered smile she would come to know so well. "There you were, taunting Alix right before her eyes. You amused me. Do you know how attractive I found you just then? A dryness, a faint sharpness, like the first bite of a plum." His fingers touched a spot on her breastbone just above the warm hollow between her breasts. Holding her gaze to allow her to object, he bent his head and placed the smallest, lightest kiss where his fingers touched.
"Nona." Jude's low voice shivered through her. "Nona." His lips and fingers moved up along her throat, fingers leading with a feather touch, his lips following with a warmer, more devastating pressure. Nona closed her eyes. Her head fell back and her lips parted softly.
He took what she offered, tasting every curve of her lips with sweeping movements of his tongue, testing the edges of her teeth. The singing of the teakettle separated them only gradually.
Five days later Jude Danzig made love to Nona for the first time.
She still remembered everything, every look, every movement, down to the most intimate caresses of his quiet hands. It began with a late dinner at Jude's sophisticated home, served high above the Miami streets on his condominium's balcony, where green tapers streamed in the breezes and dripped wax down their lengths. He cooked for her--grilled salmon, asparagus with lemon butter, and a salad. He kept her wineglass filled until she looked at him and asked, "Are you trying to get me drunk, Jude?"
His smile was slow and sensuous. "Perhaps I'm hoping we can be each other's dessert."
Nona laughed nervously and blurted, "With whipped cream?"
Jude leaned forward and caught her eyes with his. "If you like, though I have a distinct preference for honey. Whipped cream can be chilly on the skin."
Though she'd been waiting for such an opening, Nona found herself at a complete loss for words, floundering in unfamiliar waters. A trembling began low in her stomach and she was glad the dinner had been light. "Really, Jude," she faltered.
"Really." He reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. "I won't rush you into bed, Nona, but I think you know I want you. And you want me."
Her eyes slid away from his. She wasn't sure she could voice her feelings quite so honestly.
Jude's hand closed on her fingers, and, with a little tug, brought her to her feet as he rose. One hand slid behind her waist and snugged her lower body to his. He bent to puff out the two candles on the table before he cupped her chin. He looked into her eyes in the twilight. "Tell me you do."
"Yes," she breathed.
"Tonight." Jude's lips feathered her ear. "Now."
A shiver passed over her skin. It was real, it would happen, she would at last know everything her girlfriends had whispered about for so long. She would know how a man's body fit with a woman's, feel skin on skin, be naked before another person. The waiting would be over, the curiosity satisfied.
He will be inside me. The thought burned down into her brain, into her loins, the hot and steady glow of incense. All she had to do was agree. Nona tried to summon a jaunty, "Sure? Why not?" but could not speak. She stared at Jude's mouth as he pulled back to look at her carefully. Let my kiss be my answer, she thought, and lifted her hands to hold his head for her kiss.
Jude took her kiss for assent, and opened his mouth on hers. What began as sweetness slanted sharply into sensuality. She could all but taste victorious celebration on the tongue that caressed her own, chasing through her mouth. She participated gladly...kissing was a skill she possessed.
Long moments later, Jude took her hand and led her back into the condo. He'd given her a brief tour earlier in the evening, but he had not shown her the master suite, and when he opened the door to it, Nona saw why. The bed was turned down, revealing smooth sheets of a soft fawn color, sprinkled with the petals of red roses. Next to the bed sat a bucket of ice with champagne and two glasses.
She laughed a little, nervous. "Welcome to Seduction Central. This took some planning."
"More hope than planning," Jude corrected, standing close behind her and slipping his arms around her, his hands rising to cup her breasts and tease their nipples. "Is it too much?" His mouth moved to her ear and brushed there as he spoke. "Does it make me callous or cold or scheming that I hoped to take you to bed tonight, and make it special? More importantly, does it change your mind?"
Nona turned in his arms, trying not to tremble in the combination of desire and nerves flooding her body and brain. "It doesn't change my mind."
This is what I want, she reminded herself between languid kisses, as a pile of clothing grew on a chair near the bed. With each piece went more of her nerve, until, at last, she stood naked in front of Jude, fighting the urge to cover her breasts with her arms. Despite the warmth of the night, she felt chilled. Jude eased her onto the turned-down bed. Nona could feel the silk of rose petals against her skin and smell their fragrance.
Part of her brain raced in circles, wondering what was next, what would be expected of her. Could he tell she wasn't experienced? Another part of her brain was entranced by his lithe, muscular body, the sensations of his mouth at her breasts, his hands arranging her limbs to suit him, fingers tracing erotic lines down her belly, over her mons and farther. Nona heard her own breaths, loud as thunder in her ears. The touch of his hand nearly obliterated coherent thought. She trembled.
It was happening. It was really happening. She wasn't sure what to do with her hands, but Jude made encouraging sounds low in his throat as she returned his caresses, shakily brushing her hands over his skin, but avoiding his erection. Some part of her was too timid to touch him, though Jude was touching her far more intimately than anyone in her life ever had.
There was a moment of stillness when Jude levered himself away to sit at the edge of the bed, and she heard a wrapper crinkling, but then he was back at her side, sliding her legs apart, moving between them, his hand stroking her there once again. She could feel her own slipperiness in the smooth glide of his fingers. Nona looked up to see his face in the dim light, taut and somehow hungry, a moment before his mouth dropped to capture hers, and his hips moved up, and up, and with a push he was inside her body.
It was done.
Nona wasn't sure what she had expected--a sting, a bruising pounding, pain, blood? Instead there was only an uncomfortable sensation of fullness, of something slick and too large moving within her, and a throbbing in her own body that was oddly anticipatory and yet unsatisfying. Jude's hips moved in a slow, smooth rhythm, and as he thrust, he spoke quietly to her. Nona tried to follow the directions he panted in her ear, knowing she wasn't doing this right, knowing he wasn't pleased when she tilted her hips and wrapped her legs around his lower back at his command. Minute after minute passed, with Jude urging her to move here, touch there, and Nona growing more and more tense. His brows drew together as he looked down at her in confusion.
"Are you close, Nona?"
Nona tried her best to speak. "Close?" How could she be closer? He was inside her, inside her--
"I want to make you come, baby. What can I do? Tell me. Anything you want."
"I..." Nona reached for the only thing she could think of. "Kiss me, Jude."
The kisses helped. In the familiarity of his mouth she began to find a thread of pleasure. A new heat prickled along her skin, especially when his mouth left hers and nibbled along her jaw and throat. But then Jude's body pressed her hard into the bed. He tensed, his back curving. The smooth rhythm staggered into a shuddering staccato, and he smothered his groan in the flesh of her neck.
Nona felt a sudden urge to hold him, help him somehow, in this new desperation she sensed. She wrapped her arms around him and heard his soft hiss. More shudders, and at last she understood what was happening to him when he lifted his head and looked down at her. Nona had never seen such a mixture of emotions on another person's face. Intense pleasure and frustration warred there.
His hips pulled away from her and she felt a peculiar void as his body left hers. "I couldn't wait any longer. I'm sorry." Jude sagged to the side and looked down at her. "You've got to tell me what you like, sweetheart. I can make it good for you, but I don't know what you like." His hand trembled with passion as it brushed over her humid belly.
His dark intensity frightened her a little--wasn't the sex over? She thought he'd finished--surely that convulsing meant an orgasm--and when he felt her shrink from the touch of his fingers high on her inner thigh, he glowered down at her for a long moment. She was on the verge of leaping out of the bed when he asked quietly, "Am I your first lover, Nona?"
Her eyes slid away from his, and he cupped her chin to make her look at him again.
The glower vanished, replaced by confusion and a tired regret that was somehow worse than the glaring frustration. "I am. Christ. For God's sake, why didn't you tell me? There are things I'd have done for you. It doesn't have to hurt."
"It didn't, not really," she objected. "It's okay."
"It's not." He brushed her hair back from her damp brow. "But it will be. I'll make it better." Jude vanished into the suite's bathroom and she heard water running. When he returned, he carried a warm washcloth.
Nona took it from him, color mounting in her face, embarrassed both by his utter nakedness and his solicitude.
He bent and kissed her parted lips slowly, lightly, as he drew up the sheet. "I'll give you some privacy, while I take the champagne into the kitchen--despite this little set-back, I think a celebratory toast might be in order." He kissed her again, deeper this time, and Nona could feel a tingle beginning somewhere beneath her ribcage.
She crept into the bathroom to tidy herself while he was in the kitchen. When the time came to open the door again, she felt shy and knew a strong urge to wrap herself in one of Jude's large green bath sheets. There was no robe to borrow. She stood behind the closed door trying to calm her breathing. What was there to be anxious about, except Jude's disappointment, and wasn't that more than enough? At last Nona opened the door, to find him lounging on the bed, propped on pillows, waiting for her. He was still completely naked, and she could not stop herself from staring.
"Look all you like," he murmured seductively, holding out a glass filled with rosy champagne. "But allow me the same courtesy. Come here, Nona."
She went, her entire body blushing, and perched on the edge of the bed. Jude had no patience for her shyness and tugged her to lie next to him, where he tipped champagne into her mouth and kissed her afterwards. Kissing led to touching, touching to teasing caresses and the chilly tingle of champagne and the wet, hot sweep of Jude's tongue in places that shocked Nona, even while they made her blush still darker in pleasure.
Jude proceeded slowly, so gradually, so sensually, that when he finally entered her a second time she felt no discomfort, only herself melting, dissolving with him, taking each breath as he breathed, moving as he moved, clinging as he gripped her hips.
It seemed he made love to her all night. Her memory of the long hours in his bed was fractured, filled with glimmering after-images. Brilliant splinters of ecstasy had lodged themselves forever in her mind, bright lights to make the shadowed corners of her eventual obsessive passion all the darker.
And now, two years later, sleepless in the canopied bed of her childhood, she stared up into the darkness and wondered when her path would cross Jude's. But more than anything, she wondered why he had come to Brookton, and how he had already met her father.
The axe fell two afternoons later at the tiny market eight blocks from home. Nona needed the air, even in the late afternoon heat, and after checking the street to be sure Jude was not in sight, had walked to the store.
She had a market basket over her left arm, with her father's list in that same hand and a frozen chicken in the other, when the bell over the shop door tinkled. She looked up out of habit to smile a greeting. Her heart plunged and the chicken fell back among its cousins in the freezer. Jude saw her immediately. His dark eyes met hers and held for long, unbearable moments.
Dizziness flowered swiftly, darkly. Nona knew that for the third time in her life she was going to faint. Once, after a childhood accident, when she'd gashed her arm at play. And then at church one airless summer Sunday, trapped close between her father and another adult in the crowded pew. Both episodes flashed into her mind now, and she watched the basket tipping, sliding, falling. Eggs shattered on the hard floor, the yellow of the yolks blindingly intense. She could not bear to look at such violent color, and closed her eyes.
Arms went around her before she struck the floor. Quite clearly Nona heard the storekeeper, Martin Brown, say, "Did she slip in the eggs?"
"I don't think so." Jude's voice.
Nona heard everything. She wanted to tell them she was all right, but she couldn't seem to do anything. Even her eyelids were too heavy to move.
"Nona." Jude's voice was harsh and imperious. "Nona, wake up." He smacked her cheek lightly.
Nona resented this cruel attention and muttered a protest, which only made Jude work harder at rousing her. He patted her cheek again, then pushed her hair back from her clammy brow. "Nona!"
"Nona, hon," said Martin.
Nona opened her eyes slowly. Martin's face swam into focus. He was bent over her with a look of such concern on his face she wanted to ask him what was wrong. Then she saw Jude's face to her left, and her attention riveted there instead. She shivered and struggled to sit upright.
Jude shook his head. "Just stay where you are for a little, Nona." His dark eyes were commanding, and Nona lay cradled across his thighs without protest for the moment.
"What happened, hon?" asked Martin. "Did you slip in the eggs and hit your head?"
"No." Her tongue felt thick and she pressed it against her teeth. "No," she repeated. "I fainted."
"Why?" Martin had hold of one of her hands and was chafing the wrist. "I mean, are you sick?"
She shook her head. She couldn't say, "Jude Danzig came into your store, and seeing him is obviously too much for me." Instead she said lamely, "I must've forgotten to breathe, or something."
"That doesn't sound very likely, Nona. Now, if--"
"Do you feel like sitting up? Slowly now. And keep breathing." The teasing humor in his eyes was cruelly familiar, as was the hard curve of his mouth.
"I'm fine," said Nona crossly, struggling to her feet with Martin's help. There was a smudge of flour on her wrist where he had touched it, and Nona found herself staring stupidly at the white streak until Jude spoke again.
"I think I'd better take you home, Nona."
"No!" She realized Martin was staring suspiciously. "I--I mean, I've got to finish the shopping--"
"Leave me your list and I'll pack it up and send it to the house. Do you know where Nona lives, Mr. Danzig?"
"Of course." Jude nodded and put an arm around her waist.
Nona struggled, pushing at his hand, but he gave her a black look and she subsided before she embarrassed herself in front of Martin any further. In seconds Jude had her out of the store and halfway down the sidewalk.
Nona had all she could do to concentrate on not falling, and when he helped her up the wooden steps of the Brinkley place, she made no protest, until he was reaching for the knob on the front door.
"Jude, no!" Nona pulled away and staggered slightly, heading for the steps.
"Yes." Jude caught her wrist and tugged her back. "Come in the house, Nona. Don't make a scene where the neighbors can see."
And suddenly she was inside, blinking in the green darkness after the glare of afternoon.
The house looked surprisingly well organized for being occupied only a short time. Nona recognized a few of the items scattered about the room--a pre-Columbian statue in a glass case, an ivory fan open on a low table, an Arabic carpet in front of the fat, boxy sofa. The sofa where Jude had once knelt on the floor in front of her, pushed her knees apart and pressed his mouth to her slippery crease, sucking and nuzzling her to a shattering climax--
"No," she said again, choking on a lump in her throat, turning blindly for the door.
But Jude was there before her, closing it, taking hold of her shoulders. She pulled away from him and stumbled farther into the room, staring down at the ivory fan on the table.
Jude's voice came, as she had known it would. "Why did you leave, Nona?"
She didn't pretend to misunderstand him. "How can you ask me that? You were there. You know what you said."
"I guess I need you to tell me. What was it?"
Nona clasped her hands together to keep them still. "Us. You and I. Together..."
"Making love? Is that what you're talking about?"
"It was never love. As you told me, Jude." Her words hissed out between her teeth, which were clenched tight. She closed her eyes as well, replaying the same bit of memory that troubled her dreams. There's no need to lie. I'll fuck you all the same.
Jude's hand slid down her shoulder and arm to close around her wrist. Nona shuddered. He repeated the caress down her other arm, and then his hands linked in front of her waist. Nona gave a little moan and sank back against him when he tightened his arms.
So quickly lost, she thought. Two years of struggle so easily forgotten. Every nerve in her body cried for his touch. And her heart still cried for his love. The knowledge crushed her utterly. "Please don't do this, Jude. Why did you come here? Can't you go away and leave me in peace?"
"You make me so crazy." His head dipped, his mouth searching the taut cord along her neck. "God help me, Nona. Don't ask me to go away. I've thought of you every day for months."
Nona knew her breath was already quickening at the touch of his mouth and the movements of his hands as they sought to turn her in his arms. She tried to resist, she tried...but there was his mouth at her neck, nuzzling the places that made her tremble. Habit and desire won out and her face automatically lifted. She would have expected a kiss given after two years apart would be tentative or slow, but not with Jude. His tongue swept across her lips and pushed inside. His hand cupped the back of her head and tilted it to the proper angle, and a moment later he owned her lips and the soft cavern behind them. Nona thought she might fall, her knees weakened so rapidly in the force of the kiss, but his arms were tight around her. He was devouring her, and all she wanted was to be consumed.
"Yes...oh, yes," Jude gasped against her lips. "Two years too long, Nona." His hand fought with the tail of her blouse, trying to tug it from the waistband of her slacks.
Nona pictured the two of them sinking to the rug beneath their feet, feverishly undressing, and the hasty, desperate sex that would surely follow. Jude would, as always, ensure she had at least one orgasm and probably more, but Nona didn't want a meaningless fuck, which was all their coupling would be. Physical perfection, blinding pleasure, and zero emotional connection, at least on Jude's part. She couldn't do it again.
"Stop," she whispered, when she could tug her lips free. "Jude, stop."
"You're not escaping me again."
She looked into his black eyes and saw the need brimming there as it always had. "We are not having sex, Jude." She didn't know where she found the strength to speak the words.
"Why not? You want me. I can feel you wanting me."
A short, harsh laugh forced its way out of her. "And I can certainly feel you wanting me. But what we had--it's over, Jude. Done."
His brows drew together in his familiar black scowl. "There's no other man in your life. I made sure of that before I--" He broke off, and when she pushed out of the circle of his arms, he allowed her.
"Before you what? Before you started stalking me? Before you met my father behind my back? Before you moved into my hometown? God, Jude--what does it take? It's been two years!"
Jude crossed the few feet between them in less than a second, and took hold of her again. "Yes, God damn it, it's been two years!" His mouth crushed down on hers, and this time there seemed to be no way to stem the tide of his passion. He pulled her body hard against his, this time finding a way under her blouse to the warm skin of her back. One hand slid around to the front and teased her breast from its lacy cup so his fingers could toy with her nipple.
Nona moaned, a low sound of reluctant surrender, but she could tell Jude heard it. His body hardened even more, his erection straining against his tailored slacks. And, as his body hardened, his mouth softened, slowed, and became coaxing and sweetly seductive. He licked at her lips and tongue and nibbled his way over her mouth. And then, surprisingly, he lifted his head and straightened her clothing. Nona stared up at him, bemused.
Jude cleared his throat. "I'll take you home."
She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her wits. What just happened here? She had not the slightest idea why Jude had given up seducing her, but she was grateful. Her defenses had already been breached. She would not have stopped him a second time.
Jude's car was just as she remembered it, a smaller, elegant sedan in pearly cream with taupe leather interior. It smelled of his fresh, woodsy cologne. After less than a minute's drive, he slowed in front of her house. Rex was standing in the driveway and motioned to Jude to pull in.
"Oh, God." Nona moaned, her hands flying to her hair.
"You look fine," Jude said quietly. "You fainted, remember? Damn it, I should've brought you straight home. I might have known Martin would call your father."
Rex opened Nona's door after Jude stopped the car and killed the engine. "Martin just stopped by with a box of groceries, and said you'd fainted in the store. Where have you been? Did Judas take you to the clinic?"
Judas? Nona blinked. Judas. He'd never used that name with her. Yet he had apparently given her father what could only be his full name.
Jude got out of the car and came around the back to help her out. She took his proffered hand cautiously and met his gaze. Somehow they were conspirators here. She might have told her father the truth--she had the opportunity--and yet she could not.
"I took Nona to my house to rest for a few minutes, Rex." Jude spoke before Nona could open her mouth. "I didn't think to give you a call to let you know she was all right."
"Oh, well then," said Rex. "That's all right. Come on in. I'll get us some iced tea. Nona looks like she could use something cool."
Jude kept a proprietary hand on her waist as they walked up the drive. Rex led them into the kitchen, poured iced tea for each of them, and shooed them into the living room. He took his armchair near the windows, leaving the sofa for Nona and Jude. Jude sat with his usual lithe grace, and Nona perched on the sofa arm farthest from him.
"Sit before you fall," Rex growled at his daughter.
"I'm fine, Daddy. It was just a little dizzy spell. I was probably too warm."
"You're not resting properly, that's what's wrong with you." He turned to Jude. "Remember I was telling you Nona runs the grove now, so I can golf and fish? She works herself too hard, but she's the one you really need to see with your questions about what to do with the Brinkley groves. She can probably find you a good grove man, too. You'll need someone soon. It's never too late to start planning for picking time. Honeygirl, I promised Judas--hell of a name your mama gave you, son--I promised him you'd take him around our groves one day real soon and show him the ropes."
Nona felt her skin flushing to the roots of her hair. The two men had obviously spoken at length about her. What else did Jude know she had never intended him to? She decided to play it lightly. "What? Help the competition, Daddy?"
Jude slid her a dark-lashed glance. "Afraid to give aid and comfort to the enemy, Nona?"
Rex chuckled. "We're not so bad off we can't afford to help a friend."
Nona decided to ignore her father's comment, though the knowledge Rex Hartley considered Judas Danzig a friend was startling. They'd met more often than she'd thought. "Whatever happened to Jarvis, Brinkley's grove man? Why didn't he stay on when the place was sold?"
"I...chose not to keep him on. There were problems with the accounts. I think Jarvis had been siphoning off whole truckloads of fruit for the past ten years, and the old man never knew the difference. It looked like Brinkley'd turned over almost everything to him."
"Really?" Rex was all ears, leaning forward.
Nona slid off the sofa arm and slipped away to the kitchen, but her father noticed and called after her, "Thaw another of those steaks, honeygirl--Judas is staying for dinner."
Of course he is. "Okay, Daddy." Instead of refreshing her iced tea as she'd planned, she quietly took down a bottle of whiskey and had a stiff shot, neat. It burned all the way down and brought tears to her eyes. It solved nothing.
Nona tried to hide in the kitchen to make dinner, but her father chased her out once she'd tossed the salad and the potatoes were baking. "I can grill steaks better'n you," he announced. "Go see to our guest. Talk some shop."
To her everlasting astonishment, it was an entirely professional dinner. Jude sat across from Nona and quizzed the Hartleys about pruning, irrigation, rootstock, graft vigor, smudge pots for winter, picking by hand versus machine. From the start, Rex answered few of Jude's questions, deferring to Nona. As she warmed to the subject, she saw respect grow in Jude's eyes. She supposed she was a different woman from the artsy, innocent girl he'd had an affair with. That's right. I'm more than your equal in this subject at least. I'm not who I was. I'm not even the person who fainted at the sight of you in the grocery this afternoon! Would you fuck me just the same now, Jude? The thought made her lift her chin.
She recalled another dinner party where she had slipped off her pump and toe-walked her way up his leg to press her foot firmly at his crotch. She wondered if he remembered her wantonness, if he had thought about the way his cock twitched and rose under her instep, and how he had subtly shifted in his chair and opened his legs to increase her access. He'd gone on talking with their host, but Nona saw him flush with pleasure and could feel him trying not to thrust his hips.
After the meal, she had beckoned him into the glitzy bathroom and he had taken her against the cool tile wall of the large double shower stall, the tight skirt of her dress shoved above her waist, and the ventilation fan running to mask Jude's growls of passion. Her panties were in Jude's pocket the rest of that night, and he never let her forget it. He never gave them back either.
Even now, if she thought hard enough, she could feel the cold tile through the low-backed cocktail dress she'd been wearing, and the heat of Jude's body inside her as he satisfied them both. A small smile curved her lips at the memory, and she glanced up from her plate to find his gaze fixed on her mouth. His own lips tightened, whether in passion or fury, she couldn't tell. Shaken by her own thoughts, she turned her attention to her potato instead.
Rex seemed to tire of the business discussion as he pushed his empty plate away. He looked up at Jude and asked bluntly, "Now, where did you get a name like Judas? Seems like that name would just curse a child."
There was a long pause, and Nona grew tense. Jude had never spoken much about his youth. Any conversational gambits she'd opened along those lines had met with grim looks and kisses designed to better occupy her mouth.
"Daddy, that's such a personal question!"
"It's all right. Everyone's curious about my name." He refilled his wine glass and tipped a little more into Nona's. "It's not a pleasant story. I was born out of wedlock. My mother had an affair with a married man. When he found out she was pregnant, he promised to divorce his wife and marry my mother, but somehow it never happened. And by the time I was born, he'd packed up and moved to another city. My mother never saw him again. So she named me after the most heinous traitor of all time. And gave me 'Benedict' for a middle name."
"That's horrible!" Nona gasped. "Why did you never tell--I mean, you could've changed your name anytime. Why didn't you?"
Jude looked at her sharply. Nona knew she'd given herself away with her reaction. He could tell she still cared.
"It's who I am." He began stacking empty plates to carry into the kitchen. Clearly dinner had ended, and not on the best note.
"I'll do that," Nona said. This new knowledge required thought. Did he remember his bitter mother every time someone called his name?
"I truly didn't mean to stir up bad feelings," said Rex. "Sit down, son. Have some more wine."
"I'm not...angry anymore. It was a long time ago."
In the kitchen, Nona put the dishes in the sink and leaned her hot face against the cool enamel of the refrigerator. She could hear the men murmuring in the dining room. Dessert remained, and then, blessedly, she could escape. Her thoughts and emotions were completely confused. Jude had done nothing she'd expected him to do. At the Brinkley place, he had tried to seduce her, but he'd stopped and brought her home because she was distraught. He'd stayed and talked shop all evening in an engaging, interested and knowledgeable fashion. He'd behaved himself at dinner, and even revealed a few tidbits she'd never known before. He genuinely seemed to like her father.
Nona needed the world to hold still a while so she could find her way through the collision of her emotions and longings. Two years hadn't made a difference to the way she felt about Jude...not really. The months had made her determined and cautious, but no less in love.
She reached for cut-glass dishes and spooned watermelon sorbet into them, squared her shoulders, and marched into the dining room. Jude was shaking hands with her father, who said, "Judas--Jude--needs to get on home, Nona. He's just saying his goodnights."
"Th-there's sorbet for dessert," she stammered, setting the dishes down.
"Another time, perhaps." Jude's gaze met and held her own, darkly serious and confusingly gentle. "I'm sure I'll see you again soon. Thank you for today, Nona."
Nona lingered over tidying the dishes and kitchen. She heard her father wander off to bed in his part of the house, and then the low mutter of his television. Nothing short of a bomb would blast him out before morning. She dried her hands, poured a glass of chilled water for the night, locked the back door, and went up the stairs. In her room, she undressed in the dark, kicking off her comfortable pumps, shimmying out of the slacks, and tossing the blouse and bra into a hamper. She could already smell the jasmine blooming. Her white sleeveless eyelet gown, knee-length and billowy, hung inside her closet door on a padded hanger. Nona lifted it over her head and moved toward the bedside table, where she groped a moment for the switch. The mellow light showed her the dozens of tiny white stars of jasmine blossoms tucked into the lacy mesh of the closed canopy.
Nona froze, staring at them in shock.
"God, but you're beautiful."
The low voice made her blood pound. She turned towards the darkest corner of her room. Jude was sitting on the frilly white stool from her vanity, which she hadn't even noticed was moved from its place. He rose smoothly. Her fingers locked into the canopy lace. She was riveted.
He was dressed in pale colors, nothing like the dark slacks and blue shirt he'd been wearing only a short time ago. The white shirt could only have been silk from the way it moved and gleamed as he walked toward her. His pants were heavy cream-colored canvas duck with a rope drawstring closure. His feet were bare. Nona shut her eyes and swallowed back the soft moan filling her throat. White had been the color of her sanity because Jude preferred greens and browns and the simplicity of black. She had never seen him in so much as a white shirt, even at a fancy dress dinner. Now he had invaded the white lace and silk of her room, and in so doing, her last bastion of strength and willpower.
"How did you get back in the house?" A pulse throbbed like a trapped moth in her throat.
"I climbed the trellis. Just call me Romeo."
Nona wished she hadn't told him so much about her youthful exploits. "Jude, I--it's late. It'll be midnight soon." The protest was faint. Had midnight--or the hour at all, for that matter--ever been something to consider when the world narrowed down to the two of them?
"I know." He came closer, reaching out to touch her hand where it tangled in the canopy. Nona flinched backward, groping for the bedpost to steady herself. Jude followed slowly. Lamplight slid over his face and revealed the darkness of his eyes, seemingly blind with the hugeness of his pupils. For the first time she could not see herself reflected in those night-dark depths. She stared, trapped, until he glanced aside at the bed. He reached for a fallen blossom.
"I've never seen you in a nightgown before."
The flower in his hand caught her attention and she answered him absently. "Only those dorm shirts."
"Or mine." His voice was husky.
She shivered as she recalled how much he'd liked seeing her in nothing but one of his starched shirts, buttons open nearly to her waist, long legs bare beneath the cutaway hem, and the glimpses of her nudity beneath.
She felt his eyes traveling over her, but her gaze remained on the flower. It was easier, safer, to look at that tender whiteness--until he crushed it between his fingers and drew the bruised petals along her skin just beneath the eyelet bordering the low neck of the gown. The scent of jasmine rose anew. Nona shivered, reaching for the straps of her gown. Her intention was to tug them higher, but Jude's hands covered hers and brought them away to flatten them on his chest.
"Oh, Jude." The name sighed out of her and she slid her arms around his neck, molding herself close against him. She exulted in his instant response, more than plain in the swift bending of his head, in the hard pressure of his mouth against her own, in the way his hands pressed downwards along her spine to her hips to cup her buttocks. Exulted, even as she regretted it.
"I want you so." He breathed unevenly against her neck, a spot of heat. "I want you, Nona."
Want, and not love. Nona felt a whimper rising from her throat. "You should go. My father will hear."
"He won't. You don't want me to leave." As he spoke, his mouth brushed over her collarbones and the soft hollows at the base of her throat, while his hands gathered the skirt of her gown and bunched it at her waist, muttering. "Let me take this off you."
"I don't want you to leave. But I don't want this to be the same as it always was either." She needed to hear the truth... It couldn't just be about sex because a man like Jude could have any woman he wanted. A flicker of hope blossomed into a flame and she shoved it down.
Jude's hands rode up along her ribcage, carrying the gown with it, fingers sliding beneath the snug bodice. "You can have anything you wish." He skimmed the gown over her head and arms, and let it drift to the floor. Jude tugged her hand to cup his erection. "Anything. Just tell me."
Nona pulled at the drawstring and the soft trousers loosened. He was naked beneath, and smothered his gasp as she pushed the trousers down so he could step out of them. She slipped off her panties and tossed them away, and the flaring of desire in Jude's eyes almost scorched her skin. He reached up to part the lace of the canopy before urging Nona onto the bed, where the sheets were already turned down and more jasmine flowers dotted the sheets.
"Anything?" she breathed.
Jude caressed the inside of her right thigh.
"Anything." His hand slid upward, his palm pressed against her mons, and his long fingers slipped between her nether lips, finding the places that most aroused her. Nona squirmed beneath his knowing touch, trying to keep hold of her common sense for a little while longer. Jude's erection was warm and snug against her thigh as he lay alongside her, and she could feel its pulsing as it stiffened more. His mouth explored the underside of her right breast, trekking to the hard nipple pointing into the night.
She took the plunge. "I want you to answer my questions."
Jude's mouth stilled. His head lifted and he stared down at her in the dimly lit room, but his fingers kept moving between her legs. He found the small bud of her clitoris and circled it, circled, circled. Nona's breathing hitched and she shook her head. "I won't be put off, Jude. Not like that, not again."
His fingers missed only one beat as he said, "Ask then."
"Why did you never tell me your full name? Why didn't you tell me your mother was so bitter?"
Jude's face grew hard. "What would you have thought of me?"
"I'd have thought you had an unfortunate name."
"It's made me who I am." He dipped his head to her breast again, catching the nipple between his teeth and biting--not so gently.
"It's nothing to do with who you are," she insisted.
"It's everything, when all you hear from the time you can talk is how men are hateful, liars, cheats. Nona--please, let me give you pleasure." His fingers moved, thrust slowly inside her, and touched the place that made her splinter into shards of golden glass. She cried out, her hips lifting as her heels braced against the mattress, and could clearly see the triumph on his face as he made her come. "I promised myself I'd be different."
"You're not hateful!" She gritted her teeth against the waves of pleasure clenching and unclenching her body. "Jude!"
"Yes, call my name, Nona." He moved over her, nudging her thighs apart, ready to slide inside her while she was climaxing, but she writhed away.
"Not--yet--"
"Christ, Nona, don't do this to me. It's been so long since I--"
"Since...you?" She reached down to grasp his wrist and pull his hand away from her body. "Are you telling me there's been no one since I left you?"
Jude's face darkened.
"You promised me anything I asked," she reminded him, panting a little. "Tell me."
"There has been no one." He looked away from her in fury, and moved to lie on his back. His fingers sought a jasmine blossom and crushed it.
Nona turned, trembling, onto her side and pressed her breasts against Jude's ribs, running her hand over his chest, following the trail of dark hair down his belly. "For me, either," she whispered.
Jude stared up into the canopy, not responding.
"Now tell me why you're here in Brookton, Jude."
"I found a good investment." He spoke through clenched teeth.
Nona glanced down at his pelvis, where his erection was flagging slightly. Not unexpected, for someone so accustomed to controlling every aspect of his life. To have given himself into her hands this way spoke volumes. Some of the ice around her heart began to thaw. Nona bent to lick at the nipple closest to her. Jude's fist clenched in the sheet.
"And that's all?" She blew a cool breath over the wet skin and watched in the dim light as his nipple puckered. He swallowed hard. "Jude."
"Not all."
"It was me, wasn't it? It was a way to get close to me." Her hand slid down his belly and she traced the vein on the underside of his cock with the lightest of touches. It leaped eagerly beneath her touch, and Jude cursed.
"Christ, Nona! Fuck me or don't, but don't play with me like this!"
She took a firm hold of his erection, and moved to lie on his chest, where she could look right into his eyes. "It's not about fucking anymore, Jude. Answer me. Did you buy the Brinkley place as a way to get close to me?" Her thumb moved in a slow caress across the weeping tip of his penis.
Jude himself had taught her what he liked best on all those hot nights in his apartment, or in his car with the seats tipped all the way back, or on a blanket in the hot Miami sand long after dark. Nona could feel him tensing as his body reacted to this treacherous pleasure, and knew she was moments from being thrown on her back and ridden roughly, hungrily. Something in her wanted him to lose control, wanted to feel that hot hardness parting her, filling her, pushing her to the edge, but not before she had her answers.
"What do you want? What the fuck do you want, Nona?"
"I want you to admit you came to Brookton for me, and me alone, and buying Brinkley's place was just a way to get to me. Admit it, Jude."
"All right, yes, I admit it. Is that what you wanted?" He erupted from beneath her and tossed her onto her back as he arched over her. Jude pulled her wrists above her head and pushed his knee rudely between her thighs.
Nona opened her legs without a word, staring into the black fury of his eyes. There was a moment when she thought he might walk away, might leave them both thrumming on this fever pitch of unsatisfied desire, but then his hips drove forward and he entered her as swiftly, as unerringly, as ever. And her body lifted, curved, arched to receive him.
"Yes, that's what I wanted," she whispered on an sigh of breath that matched his long sliding entry. Her legs lifted to lock her ankles behind his thighs. She rocked with every motion of his body.
"God." His groan seemed to come from his very spine. "It's like coming home. Why did you leave, Nona? How could you give this up? It's...so...good. So...oh, Christ...so good."
"Let go of my hands, Jude. Let me hold you. Let me touch you." It wasn't yet time to say it. Not quite, though she had her answer at last. It wasn't that he didn't love her.
He simply didn't know how to love her. He'd never known love, and this thing that had happened to him--every bit as much an obsession as her own--had turned her into something else entirely, an object to be acquired and controlled. The knowledge that she had controlled him all along made her tremble. She could teach him what love meant. It might have begun with physical attraction, but there was more, buried deep inside him. It would be enough.
The sick feeling of the past two years eased at last. When Jude released her wrists, it was to twine his hands in her hair, so he could hungrily capture her mouth with his. He thrust into her body almost harshly, but Nona wanted all of him this time. She pulled his chest down to press hard against hers, arching up to meet each ramming push, feeling his pubic bone pressing hard against her mons, spiking her own pleasure into wave after wave of heat.
"Harder," she breathed into his mouth.
"Nona." He was resisting her urging, and she knew it. Even in his harsh passion he was holding back from her as he had always done. This time she would not let him.
"Harder." She clenched her hands, digging the tips of her fingers into the small of his back, pressing him so tightly to her she truly could not tell where their bodies separated. "Give it all to me, Jude. Jude...Judas...Judas..."
"Nona...Christ, Nona!"
And as she tangled her legs with his, locking him down so he had to buck hard against her, she felt Jude coming inside her, a hot, drenching pulse, and another, and yet another, so deep he was touching bottom.
"Nona. Nona..." Jude's lips brushed her throat, and then her mouth, and then he lifted his head to look down at her. The fury was gone, and in its place she saw a yielding lassitude. Nona lifted a hand and pushed back the sweaty hair from his forehead.
"I love you, Judas Benedict," she breathed.
Jude flinched.
Nona held him tightly and wrapped her legs around his waist. "You're not going anywhere."
"There's no such thing as love. Don't confuse intense sexual pleasure with something as stupid as infatuation."
"Ah, what your mother did to you." She cupped her palms to his cheeks. "I wish you'd told me! Think of the time we've lost."
"You don't know what you're talking about, Nona. This is some sort of--"
"I do know what I'm talking about. I love you." She pulled his mouth down to hers, though he resisted. One light kiss. "It's not obsession, not anymore." A second kiss, longer than the first. Jude held himself tensely. "And I'm not a possession to be bid for at auction. If you want to win me, you'll only do it with the truth. I'll start...how's that? I fell in love with you two years ago. I've been in love with you since. And this afternoon, I knew it all over again. I wanted nothing more than to go into your bedroom, or have you pull me down on that rug and--"
"Shut up." He stopped her mouth with his. A long, dizzying kiss, with his tongue shoving between her lips. Nona ground her pelvis against his, and felt his body stir inside her. "Damn it, Nona!"
"It's been two years. I don't think you can say 'There's no need to lie. I'll fuck you all the same' anymore, can you? Because you know it's not a lie."
"There's no such thing as love," he repeated. "It's only a construct, a daydream, a way to bind someone."
"Then I'm bound," she said. "Call it what you will...go ahead, be a coward. Don't face the truth. But don't lie to me either." She moved beneath him, starting a slow, steady rhythm as she felt him hardening inside her. "Come on, Jude...make love to me this time."
"It's sex, nothing more."
"Your mother lied to you because she was hurt and she wanted to hurt your father, even if it was by hurting you. But I won't lie to you...I never have, and you know it."
"All you wanted from me was sex, Nona." Jude was beginning to catch her rhythm, though she knew it was reluctantly.
"At first, yes. But not later. Later, it was love. And love's what made you follow me here after all this time." She squirmed beneath him, pushing at his chest, and Jude allowed her to shove him onto his back and slip atop him, settling him deep inside her body as she rode him. He looked into her eyes.
"I don't believe in love." He shuddered. His hands clung to her hips now, helping her move, building up friction.
"Do you believe in me?" Nona leaned down to let her nipples brush against his. She was almost undone. All that remained was one final admission from Jude.
"Christ--yes--here, move like this--ahhh--sit back--"
"Oh, yes. So good. Do you?"
"I believe in you, Nona. I believe in this."
Nona smiled before her head tipped back and her body convulsed around Jude's willing cock. He moved her body harder, faster, against his, groaning as he came.
"I believe in us," she whispered into his ear when she slumped onto his chest. "You're not unloved. Not at all."
"Us," sighed Jude.
"It may take a little getting used to, but I'm sure I can help."
Jude's kiss, when it came, was slow and sweet. "I believe in you," he said again. "Nona."
Nina Merrill started writing stories in elementary school and wrote her first full-length novel in a spiral-bound notebook at age thirteen, followed by several practice novels. Her favorite Christmas present was a typewriter and a ream of paper. After college, she took a job with a large international corporation, programming computers and writing technical documentation. A few years ago, she rediscovered writing during a prolonged period of insomnia and began to indulge her passion with a vengeance. Nina is currently making the leap from corporate drone to mild-mannered bookseller in an independent bookstore in Washington, where she can feed her addiction to fiction. Nina currently lives with her computer geek husband in a quiet happy house full of books, animals, and dust.
You can learn more about Nina by visiting her website: http://nina\_merrill.livejournal.com/
In Both Print And Electronic Formats
Romance
Fantasy
Mainstream
Young Adult
Science Fiction
Suspense/Thriller
Action/Adventure
Non-Fiction
Paranormal
Historical
Western
Mystery
Erotica

