It was Jonas’s turn to freeze as Verity’s body clenched in protest around him and her nails dug angrily into his skin. “Verity?” he got out thickly. “Verity, what the hell is going on?”
She had anticipated a feeling of fullness, perhaps a little initial discomfort until her body adjusted to the new experience. But this incredible, painful tightness was too much. Verity pushed at Jonas’s broad shoulders.
“That’s enough,” she gasped. “Stop it, Jonas. Now.” She was accustomed to giving him orders and she expected to be obeyed.
But Jonas didn’t move. His face was a mask of iron control, but he didn’t move. “Honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. Dammit, it’s too late now. Just relax. Take it easy. You’re too tense. You’re hurting yourself.”
“I am not hurting myself,” she said between set teeth as she continued to shove at him. “You’re the one who’s hurting me. Get off. I told you you were going too fast, but you wouldn’t listen. Men. You’re all so sure you know what you’re doing.”
“You didn’t tell me why you wanted me to slow down,” he defended himself. He was vibrating with tension as he fought to hold himself unmoving within her and at the same time keep her pinned carefully beneath him. The muscles of his back and thighs were as contoured steel. His forehead was damp.
“I didn’t know a simple request for gentlemanly restraint required a detailed explanation!”
“Verity, calm down. It’s too late. I made a mess of things. I’ll apologize later, I swear. But it’s too late to stop now. You’re okay, sweetheart. Just stop fighting yourself and me, too. Let yourself relax. It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be so damn good. You’ll see. You’re going to want me as much as I want you. I know there’s passion in you.” His lips were warm and soothing on her throat. Then he kissed the curve of her shoulder. “Please, honey. Let yourself relax.”
The desperation in his words got through to her. Verity breathed deeply, trying to rally her scattered senses. There was nothing really wrong with her, she decided objectively. It was infuriating to hear him say it, but logically she knew Jonas was right. She would undoubtedly be much more comfortable if she let herself relax.
What was happening wasn’t Jonas’s fault, she reminded herself grimly as she slowly retracted her nails from his shoulder. She always took responsibility for her own actions and there was no denying she had wanted this lovemaking. She had been longing to throw herself into bed with Jonas since he had kissed her in the spa; perhaps even before that. Maybe from the first time she’d seen him. She couldn’t blame him if she stumbled her first time out of the gate. Deliberately she tried to unclench her strained muscles.
“That’s it. You’re doing great. You’re going to be doing a whole lot better in a few minutes, believe me.” Jonas muttered encouragement as she stopped trying to shove him off of her. His hands were clamped around her arms, his body still taut as he dropped more reassuring kisses across her breasts and into the hollow of her shoulder.
Verity licked her dry lips. “Maybe…maybe we’re not physically compatible. You feel much too large and I don’t seem to be feeling whatever it is I’m supposed to be feeling. Maybe we both made a mistake.”
He made a small, husky sound that was part laugh and part groan: “No mistake. You’re perfect for me. Trust me. Just hang on and trust me.”
He slid his hand down her side to her hip and then he wedged one tapered finger between their bodies. Verity twisted slightly as he found the tiny nubbin of desire. When he began to tease it gently, she sighed and twisted again, arching upward against his hand. Pleasure began to replace the too-tight, too-stretched, too-invaded feeling.
“Better?” he whispered as she moved beneath him.
“I may survive after all.” She flexed her fingers on his shoulders but this time she didn’t dig her nails into him. Experimentally she lifted her hips and felt him move an inch or so within her. The sensation was interesting, she decided. She tried it again.
Jonas sucked in his breath. “I’m glad you think you’ll survive. I’m not sure I will.”
He began to move carefully within her as her body unclenched and began to turn soft around him. Slowly, with exquisite care, he measured the length of her feminine sheath, filling her to the hilt and then withdrawing slightly. “Oh, Christ, Verity. You’re so warm and tight,” he grated. “I’ve never felt anything like this. So perfect.”
“Jonas?” She sighed his name in a half-spoken question as a tingling, liquid heat began deep inside her.
“Honey, I’m trying to take this slow and easy but I don’t think I can last much longer. I’m going out of my mind.” He drew a savage breath and removed his hand from between their bodies. Then he gripped her with sudden fierceness, driving himself into her with increasing urgency.
The tingling feeling increased. Verity tightened herself around Jonas, seeking more of the delightful sensation. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around his hard hips and her lower body strained to hold him within her.
“Verity.”
She felt Jonas lose what was left of his self-control. With one last agonized groan, he surged deeply into her and went rigid. His muffled shout of satisfaction filled the room.
Time hung suspended for a few moments before Jonas sagged heavily on top of Verity, his head on her breasts.
For a long time Verity lay trapped beneath his weight, her hands moving on his back, unconsciously stroking him as she would a cat. She looked up at the ceiling and smiled vaguely to herself. She knew enough to realize that things hadn’t gone perfectly. She had missed out on something important, but she felt strangely contented nonetheless. There was a sweet satisfaction and pleasure in knowing that Jonas had been satisfied. And common sense warned her that first times for anything seldom went exactly right. Practice made perfect, and she was determined to practice.
Jonas was silent for a long moment, apparently enjoying the soothing feel of her hand. Then, with a low, lazy sigh, he eased himself out of her and rolled to one side. He gathered her against him and kissed her ear.
“You should have told me this was going to be new for you,” he chided gently.
“The subject never arose. I didn’t expect everything to happen so quickly. I thought I’d have weeks, maybe months to get to know you and be sure.”
“Really? Do you think I could have waited even a few more days, let alone weeks or months?” He squeezed her rounded buttock. “Don’t you know what you’ve been doing to me ever since I first saw you?”
Verity smiled dreamily against his chest. “What have I been doing to you?”
“Driving me wild. Verity, you’re twenty-eight years old. Why in hell did you wait this long to go to bed with a man?”
She shrugged unconcernedly. “Haven’t you heard? There’s a man shortage.”
“Don’t give me that bull. Why, Verity?”
“It never seemed right before,” she said with simple honesty.
He pulled away so that he could see her face. His eyes searched her expression. “And it felt right with me?”
“Mmm.” She tried to snuggle closer, hungry for the warmth of him.
But Jonas continued to hold her where she was, his face intent. “Honey, I want you to know you won’t regret it.”
“Good. I never did believe in useless regrets. When do we do it again?”
He laughed, the sound deep and husky in the darkness. “I should have known you’d be a tyrant in bed as well as out of it. Serves me right, I guess.” He tangled his fingers in the jumbled mass of her hair. “You know, you remind me of someone.”
“A former girlfriend?” Verity was not pleased.
Jonas shook his head. “Nope. Not a former girlfriend. It’ll come to me one of these days.”
“And in the meantime?” she asked invitingly. She wriggled her toes along his leg.
&
nbsp; “I’ll be damned. I’ve created a monster.” Jonas’s grin was wicked as he released her with a proprietary slap on her rear and climbed out of bed. “Stay where you are.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back,” he promised, disappearing into the small bathroom.
Verity saw the light come on behind the half-closed door and heard water running in the sink. Idly she stretched beneath the sheet, taking inventory of the tiny aches and pains that were the silent protest of formerly unused muscles. She felt languid and happy, eager to explore the wonderful feeling of closeness she had just discovered with Jonas.
She felt as though she had opened the door to a whole new world tonight; a realm in which her relationship with Jonas governed everything. It was as if her life were being realigned along a new axis.
During the short time she had known him he had dominated her thoughts, intrigued her, compelled her to learn more about him. Tonight he had taken her into the uncharted waters of physical sensation, and she had navigated by hanging on to him. In that moment Verity knew she never wanted to let go of Jonas Quarrel. The intuitive knowledge that he had wanted her and needed her filled her with unlimited delight.
She wondered if this was what it meant to be falling in love. Somehow the notion didn’t seem nearly as anxiety-provoking as it once had.
Verity leaned over the edge of the bed and eyed the heap of clothes Jonas had left there. He had been impatient for her, she reflected happily, so impatient that he had left his pants and his shirt in a tangled pile.
Enjoying a novel feeling of domesticity, Verity sat up and reached down to pick up Jonas’s clothes. She would fold them neatly and stack them on the chair.
As she picked up the jeans, the earring she had lost two months ago in a Mexican alley fell out of the pocket with a tiny, tinkling clatter. She recognized it instantly when it rolled into the shaft of light that crept out from under the bathroom door.
Verity stared down at the golden circlet and her new, bright, sensually warm world began fading around her. Her fingers clenched around the jeans in her hand as she tried to understand what was happening.
There was no sound from the bathroom doorway, but the pattern of light shifted on the floor and Verity looked up to see Jonas watching her. He had a damp washcloth in one hand. His eyes followed hers to the golden earring on the floor. The relaxed, satisfied expression he had worn on the way into the bathroom was gone.
Verity stared up at him, asking silent questions with her eyes.
Jonas exhaled a deep sigh and walked slowly to the bed. “It’s a long story,” he said.
Chapter Six
He had been careless. Stupid and careless. Too late Jonas realized he’d been so hungry for Verity when he’d emerged from the psychic corridor that he hadn’t even stopped to think about the earring in his pocket or the risks it presented if she discovered it. It had been all he could do just to maintain some semblance of superficial calm when he walked her back to her cabin. When he finally had gotten her into bed, the urgency of his desire had blinded him to everything, including her obvious lack of experience, until it was too late.
Not that it would have made any difference in the final outcome if he had known she was a virgin. He’d been consumed with his need to possess her and she had welcomed him. That was more than enough. He was damned if he would feel guilty on top of everything else.
But he hadn’t expected the violent sexual arousal that had accompanied this latest trip into the dangerous corridor in his mind. He’d never had that particular problem before after making the connection with an ancient object of violence. True, he’d nearly killed a man the last time he’d gone into the corridor, but he hadn’t come back out wanting to throw himself on the nearest woman.
The physical arousal he’d experienced this time must have had some direct link with discovering that Verity too could enter the corridor. The sense of possessiveness he felt toward her now was almost overpowering. He wanted to shout his triumph and exultation to the stars. The indescribable relief at having found her was enough make him lightheaded.
But there was no way to explain it to her yet. She wouldn’t believe him; wouldn’t understand the truth. He had only the vaguest comprehension of it himself. How could he tell her that she was the key to controlling his talent?
“I don’t understand.” Verity looked down at the earring again. “I just don’t understand how you could have that earring.
Jonas sat down slowly beside her on the bed, afraid that if he made any fast moves he might panic her.
“I was the other man in the alley the night good old Pedro tried to rape you. I was the one whose face you didn’t see. You never even stopped to look at me. You just turned and ran.”
Verity looked dumbfounded. “You found my earring and followed me here to Sequence Springs?”
“It wasn’t easy. Took me two months.”
“But why? It doesn’t make any sense.”
He tried a smile. It came out crooked. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“No,” she retorted flatly. “And I don’t believe in Prince Charming, either. Men don’t follow a woman a couple of thousand miles because they happened to find her shoe or her earring. Besides, you couldn’t possibly have gotten a good look at me that night.”
Jonas thought back to that evening in Mexico. He could still hear the raucous calls of the cantina’s patrons as they caught sight of the redheaded gringa in their midst. “I saw your red hair in the light of the cantina as you stood in the doorway looking for your father. I saw your face and the color of your eyes. I’d never seen eyes that shade of green before.”
“Where were you?”
“I was on the street outside, watching you.” No point in explaining that he had followed her from the cantina down the street where she had stopped previously. She would only ask other questions that would be even harder to answer.
“Jonas, this doesn’t make any sense. Are you trying to tell me that because of a brief glimpse and a broken earring, you tracked me down here in Sequence Springs? You expect me to believe that?”
The washcloth grew cold in Jonas’s hand. He looked down at it. He had intended to use the cloth to bathe away the pungent, sticky residue of their lovemaking. He had thought Verity might appreciate the warm bath. He had also wanted to soothe the tender female flesh he had taken with a lot of heat but not much finesse. Something told him Verity would not welcome such intimacy now. He put the cold, damp cloth on the table beside the bed.
“I followed you, Verity, because I had to,” he said simply. “I wanted to see you again. After all, I’d saved you from Pedro. Is it so strange I would want to find out more about you? You ran from that alley as if all the demons in hell were at your heels.”
“I thought you were just another would-be rapist.”
He watched her profile. “Well, now you know I’m not, don’t you?”
She pulled the sheet around herself, withdrawing from him. “I’m not so sure. Maybe you’re just more subtle than Pedro.”
Anger flared in him. He caught her shoulders and forced her to face him. “That’s a hell of a thing to say. You know damned good and well that what just happened between us wasn’t rape. Don’t you dare accuse me of that. When I left the bed a few minutes ago, you were practically begging me to rush back and make love to you again.”
She flinched, her eyes faltering beneath his momentary fury. “You’re right,” she said grudgingly. “It wasn’t rape. But it wasn’t love, either. So why are you here, Jonas? Why did you follow me and go to work for me and then take me to bed?”
She would never believe the real story in its entirety. All he could do was stick by the bare bones of the tale. “I told you the truth. I wanted to see you again. If you’d stuck around that alley until I’d finished with Pedro, I would have introduced myself then. Bu
t you ran. So I followed.”
She edged away from him. “Jonas, don’t hand me that kind of line. Men don’t do things like that.”
He shrugged. “I did.”
He watched her chew on that undeniable fact. Then something flickered in her eyes and she astonished him with her next leap of logic. “Does this have anything to do with my father, by any chance? Are you here because of him? Do you work for that sleazeball who’s after him to repay the gambling debt? So help me God, Jonas, if you followed me and used me to get at him, I swear I’ll slit your throat.”
Jonas was startled at her deduction. “No, I don’t work for anyone but you. I knew nothing about your father’s problems until he told us both about them tonight. That’s the truth, Verity. The only reason I came to Sequence Springs was to get to know you better. Can you blame me? I saved you down in Mexico and you didn’t even stick around long enough to thank me. A man can weave a lot of fantasies about a woman he rescues. Human nature. Male nature. And there was nothing to keep me in Mexico. I was free to follow you and learn more about you, so I did just that.”
She eyed him warily. “A true drifter. You just go where your fancy takes you, is that it?”
He gritted his back teeth but kept his voice casual. “That’s it.”
“I’m not sure I believe you, Jonas. You’re making me very nervous.”
Jonas kept a tight rein on his self-control. “I’m sorry, Verity. I guess my following you out of Mexico doesn’t strike you as a romantic gesture, does it? Four hundred years ago someone would have written a ballad about it.”
“Times change,” she informed him. “Maybe women today are a little more savvy than they were back then.”
“Times change,” he agreed. “Human nature doesn’t. If you’d been born four hundred years ago you would have been the same arrogant, stubborn, infuriating little shrew you are today.”