Shotgun Honeymoon

And all the while he leaned close to her ear and told her to mind her driving, to watch the road, to concentrate on the horizon and not on what he was doing to her….

Thank God there’d been little traffic to speak of.

Even though she’d done as he’d instructed and kept as much of her mind as possible on the road, if he touched her again, she’d explode, she was sure. Because by telling her to concentrate on something else, he’d heightened the suspense, sensitized her awareness of him at the same time that he kept her focus elsewhere, sharpened the surprise behind what he did to her, and intensified the sheer eroticism and anticipation of what he didn’t do to her.

She was beyond needy, beyond ready, beyond…fevered. Her body wept to hold him, cried for his touch, begged—no, pleaded—to take him in. Literally ached to do so.

She had to do something about that. Had to. For her sake, his sake and the safety of any other driver on the road, she had to find some quiet little private nook and do something to relieve that ache.

Soon.

Russ glanced up at her from under the hood of her car and his hot gaze lingered on her mouth, her breasts, her legs, her thighs—the places he’d touched and the places he hadn’t quite—and Janina’s breath tripped, heart hammered. She felt the heat everywhere his gaze touched, as though he made physical contact.

She had to have more than his teasing.

Quickly.

The corner of his mouth tipped up. He knew, damn him. And then she didn’t care what he knew. Because he gently closed the hood, leaned on it to make sure it snapped tight and moved toward her. And backed her into the side of the car, between the open driver’s door and the back door he also opened to keep them out of the way of prying eyes.

Belly to belly, loin to loin, they rocked together lightly. Frustrated, tormented, tempted; his breath on her neck was ragged, and then his mouth closed on her pulse, his hands molded her rump, hoisted her against his erection and he ground himself against her. She whimpered softly and her body quickened instantly. She arched her throat then hooked an ankle around his calf both to balance herself and to give him better access to the center of her need.

His need.

Her entire body sang, from her belly outward, inward, hot and hotter, seeking flame to flame…when Russ abruptly gasped and raised his head. Untangled himself and thrust her away.

Separated himself from her, breathing hard.

“No,” he said emphatically—and more to himself than her, “Not yet. I promised. Not yet.”

Dazed, needy, frustrated and more than a little bewildered, Janina could only blink at him, reaching to draw him back. It didn’t matter where they were, he couldn’t leave her—them—now. He couldn’t.

“What? Russ, please. I need to finish this. We need to—”

He looked at her, stunned, and ran a hand over the side of his face, trying to collect himself. “I can’t, Janie, we can’t. Not yet. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that to you. Not yet. Not here.”

“Why, Russ, why? Please. You don’t know where you’re leavin’ me hangin’. I need you.”

His snort of laughter was short and harsh. “Trust me, you don’t know what need is till you’re standin’ in my skin. If I can’t have you soon…” He shut his eyes and swallowed.

She’d dated, been married, and there’d been other guys. A few at least. It didn’t matter. When he’d met Janina she’d been too young and too innocent, and he’d never quite been able to get over thinking of her that way.

He’d known that no one else would satisfy, no other woman would do since very shortly after he’d first seen her. Known it so hard that he’d been Celibacy R Russ because he didn’t want anyone but her.

But he also understood that most people wouldn’t understand things the way he did. They wouldn’t believe that he, a man—and not a particularly tame one at that—could live his life in so-called innocence—or at least without the trappings of sex—while the woman he craved seemed to live hers on the other side of it, because marrying Buddy certainly hadn’t kept Janina innocent. But he didn’t see it that way.

Because the one thing he knew after a lifetime of living, of friendship with Maddie, of growing up Indian on the reservation in Supai long before he’d become a Winslow cop, of watching people and being a cop was, that innocence was not a by-product of virginity the way the romance novels Mabel was always reading suggested. Janina had been married to a bully and dated and probably had sex, but compared to him…innocent of the world’s evils didn’t begin to cover it.

He knew in his heart which of them was innocent and which of them had never been. And sex and virginity had nothin’ to do with it.

Wherever she’d been, whatever she’d done, Janina had managed to come through it with hope, faith and self-possession intact. For whatever reason, he’d been born wearing the raw material of an adult: uncertainty, cynicism, irony, a sense of desperation and fear. And he knew gut deep to the soles of his feet that she would be better for him than he could ever possibly be for her, and that if she ever figured that out…

She couldn’t be allowed to ever figure that out.

He shut his eyes, rested his forehead on hers, put an infinitesimal distance between the length of their bodies with great care and cupped her face between his palms. “Just leave it at I promised myself I wouldn’t do that to you. Wouldn’t use you. Wouldn’t be anybody else you might…know. That for us—between us—it’d be different than…anybody else. Any other guy and you. That we’d be married first. Do you see?”

“No.” She couldn’t understand anything yet. Her body was still too focused on what it wanted and needed from him. She caught his hand, held it, grounded herself. Her body was still on high alert, strung taut, but her immediate concentration was on him. “No, I don’t quite see. No.”

He swallowed and looked down at their joined hands then turned his gaze to the desert for several long moments before bringing it back to her face. The sober man was taking over and the Russ who’d seduced her at the Bloated Boar fought him valiantly, warred to communicate with her still.

And then he did.

“I promised myself a long time ago to wait to bed my woman until after our wedding,” he said simply. “We’re getting real close to me breaking that promise and I don’t want to, not with you. You’ve been hurt enough. You’ve had enough promises made to you and broken. I don’t want something to happen to get in the way of the wedding even for a minute, so…” He hesitated. “I want you badly. I also very much want to marry you. But I don’t have a lot of control left on the want you part. So if we could just get in the damn car and break the speed limit to Vegas I’d appreciate it.”

Chapter 4

Puzzled, Janina stared up at her fiancé, trying to sort out the subtleties of what he hadn’t said.

And then she did.

Stunned, dumbfounded, she swallowed. Hard. Waited, had he said? As in waited? As in there was nobody before her? Not even…

Maddie?

With all that history, all that time, all that everything?

She looked up at him for confirmation. He shrugged.

“Why?” Not, perhaps, the most sensitive thing she might have said, but her mouth wasn’t taking orders from her brain at the moment. “How?”

He snorted. Grinned. “Opportunity. Desire. Your lack of availability at the…ah…fitting moments. My lack of verbal…um…eptitude in the dating game. Never got around to it I guess.”

“That’s not a word.” Obviously she was in shock and couldn’t be held accountable for what she said.

He canted her an odd glance. She deserved it. “What’s not?”

“Eptitude.”

Another snort. “Sue me. It fits.”

“But, Russ, what about Maddie?”

“Who?” The uncharacteristic looseness, the remaining uninhibitedness brought about by his beer consumption faded. “What?”

“Everybody said…they knew…they thought—” She floundered, lost in repeating gossip from the trial.

Thirteen-year-old gossip that had followed him from the moment he’d started defending Madelyn Thorn from an overabundance of small-town speculation. Because he’d known Maddie since long before either of them came to Winslow.

He went rigid beneath her hands. “Everybody knew nothin’,” he said harshly. “Everybody knows nothin’. Not about Maddie, not about me. What they think or thought’s got nothin’ to do with anything.”