That's My Baby!

He traced her open mouth with his tongue. “Tell me how it was.”

“Sweet.” Her breath quickened.

He looked down at her upturned face, her auburn lashes lying against her freckled cheeks, her lips parted, her breathing uneven as he stroked her taut nipple. “So you liked it.” He was hard, so hard.

Her eyes fluttered open, and her glance scorched his. “I loved it.”

“I wish I’d been there.”

“So do I.”

Holding her gaze, he deliberately pushed aside the lapel of her robe. Lifting her breast in his hand, he leaned down, heart racing, and slowly drew her nipple into his mouth. She tasted like heaven. He closed his eyes in ecstasy.

She sighed his name and tunneled her fingers through his hair to hold him against her breast.

When he thought he might come apart from the pressure of wanting her, he lifted his head and gazed into her passion-dark eyes. “I’m taking you to bed.”

“What about…the phone…call,” she whispered weakly.

He scooped her into his arms and the robe fell away as he carried her to the bed and laid her on the quilted spread. His throat went dry at her beauty, and his vocal cords felt like the rusty hinge on an old screen door. His hand went to his belt buckle. “In the morning,” he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

WITH A SENSE of inevitability, Jessica abandoned control of the situation and allowed her desire to take her where it would. Making the phone call tonight wouldn’t get her to her baby any faster, anyway. Nat needed sleep before he went anywhere.

But sleep didn’t seem to be on his mind. She watched him shuck his clothes and remembered all the lonely nights she’d dreamed of his virile body moving in rhythm with hers. She wanted that as much as he did. Needed that, to give her a taste of what she was fighting for.

Her gaze swept hungrily over him. She’d always loved looking at him naked. Maybe it was the long absence, but he seemed even more beautiful now, leaner, stronger-looking, his chest and shoulder muscles more defined. With his thick beard, she couldn’t help thinking of some Norse god with thunderbolts in each clenched fist.

When he put his knee on the mattress and braced his hands on either side of her, she reached up to stroke his chest. The muscles under her hand were rock-hard.

She glanced into his intense blue eyes. “You must have worked like a field hand over there.”

“I dug a lot of ditches.” He leaned closer and nibbled on her lower lip. “I worked until I was so tired, I couldn’t stand. And still I couldn’t sleep for needing you.”

His beard tickled her skin. She longed to give herself to the sensuous delight of his kiss, but first she had to know. “And did you…find someone to help you with that problem?”

When he stilled, her heart twisted. Cupping his face in both hands, she drew back and looked into his eyes. She saw remorse there, and a crack started to form in her heart. “You did, didn’t you?”

“No,” he said quietly.

“No? Then why are you looking so guilty?”

“Because it just hit me how she must have felt when I turned her down.”

“A refugee?”

“God, no. I would never take advantage of those vulnerable women. Another camp volunteer, from England. She wanted me, or at least she wanted someone like me. I thought I could go through with it. I tried to go through with it.” His gaze bored into hers and he sounded irritated. Whether with himself or her, she wasn’t sure. “I wanted to forget you,” he said. “I wanted in the worst way to be able to make love to her.”

The thought of him even considering getting naked with another woman drove her crazy. “So, did you kiss her?”

“Yes.”

She couldn’t leave it alone. “French-kiss?”

“Yes.”

“You had your tongue in another woman’s mouth? How could you do that?”

A faint smile touched his lips. “Forget it, Jess. Nothing happened. Not that I wasn’t hoping it would. I just…couldn’t.”

Jessica was pretty happy about that. “Did you take her clothes off?”

“Yes, and now I’m going to take off the rest of yours.” His mouth came down, cutting off her next question as he worked her arm out of the bathrobe sleeve.

She shoved him away and gasped for breath. “Not so fast, buster. I want to get this straight. Were your clothes off, too?”

“Mostly.” In one smooth movement he pulled the robe off her other arm and tossed it on the floor.

“And even after all that, you didn’t make love to her?”

“No.” He pushed her flat on the mattress and followed her down, pinning her there with his chest.

Oh, yes. She loved the satisfying weight of him, the slight abrasion of his chest hair against her breasts. And he needed her. Only her. She gazed up at him, overjoyed with the news that he’d had a chance to make love to someone and hadn’t been able to.

Yet she still could hardly believe it. “Is that normal?”

“I doubt it. I think you’ve ruined me.” He framed her face in both hands, and his eyes searched hers for many long moments.

“What is it?” she questioned softly.

“I can’t believe I’m really here with you. I’m afraid I’m going to wake up.”

“Me, too.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “Make love to me, Nat, before we both wake up.”

With a groan he lowered his head and kissed her. His kiss was deep and sensuous, as it always was in her dreams, and she arched against him, praying that he wasn’t an illusion. Deepening the kiss, he slid his hand between her legs and caressed her inner thigh, but that had been a part of her dreams, too. Even when he slipped his fingers into her moist channel and stroked her until she whimpered, she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

But in all the nights she’d fantasized about loving him again, she’d never dreamed of the soft whisper of his beard against her skin. As if that alone could convince her that he wouldn’t disappear in a puff of smoke, she combed her fingers through it.

He lifted his mouth from hers. “I should have shaved,” he murmured.

“No.” Oh, his fingers could work magic, winding her tighter and tighter. “I…like it.”

“It must be like making love to a furry animal.” As if to make his point, he nibbled his way down her throat, his beard tickling her all the way.

“Uh-huh.”

He stroked his beard deliberately over the tip of her breast. “Or some caveman.”