The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [129]
The moonlight slashed across his face, shrouding his eyes in shadows. She touched his shoulders, then his cheek. She moved until her body was brushing his. His face was hard, his chin and jaw sculpted with resolute lines. He looked strong, and suddenly she needed that strength.
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Hold me.”
“I’m not . . . I’m not . . .” His arms went around her. He held her, but a part of him remained out of reach.
She drew back and took his hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
He simply stood there.
“J.T., this is our last night together. Tomorrow we’re in Williamstown. I know you want me to do it differently, I know you’re worried the worst will happen. I made my decision. I accept that risk. And I know I have this night and I would like to spend it with you. Can you give me that much?”
He couldn’t find an answer.
Her face was pale and ethereal, her eyes huge, luminescent, and knowing. He thought if he remained silent and distant long enough, she’d give up and storm away. He’d forgotten just how well she’d learned to fight. She wrapped her arms around his neck. She pressed her slender body against his.
He wanted to be cold. He wanted to be unfeeling.
Her lips feathered over his gently, and he succumbed. He slanted his mouth and devoured her.
She haunted him and he didn’t want to be haunted. She consumed him and he didn’t want to be consumed. The emotions rolled over one another, churning his blood. He kept hearing Marion’s voice, the thin thread of vulnerability beneath her dispassionate words, the unspoken need he didn’t know how to address. He kept seeing Tess, her eyes dilated with horror as the ventilation grate came off and revealed once more what Jim Beckett could do.
Marion and Tess. The women he loved, the women he was so sure he would fail. The women he wanted to hold close and the women he wanted to push away because he couldn’t stand his own weakness. He couldn’t stand the fact that Tess was right and he couldn’t save the world all by himself or make it a better place.
Tess pulled herself closer to him, fragile and strong, needy and giving. He kissed her senselessly, trying desperately to overpower his desire, to crush true emotion beneath the leaden weight of pure lust.
He dragged her down onto the bed. He tasted the sweetness of her skin and inhaled the soft, secret scent of her body. He felt her rose-petal skin and unending warmth.
She thought he and Marion were the tough ones—she didn’t understand. The fire that had forged them had made them too brittle. Tess was the one who’d emerged as true steel.
He gave in to the pull of her fierce embrace and the whispered urgings of her lips.
Suddenly their lovemaking became urgent and fierce, a war fought amid tangled sheets. She rolled him onto his back and straddled him shamelessly.
“I love you, J.T.,” she whispered. “I love you.”
Finally she moved. Tears glittered on her cheeks. She cried and she rode him and she let him see her cry as she did so. He couldn’t look away.
“Don’t do this,” he muttered. “God, don’t do this to me.”
She kept moving. Suddenly his right hand was at her hip, his fingers digging into her flesh, his strong arm setting a furious pace. His heels dug into the mattress, giving him leverage as his hips thrust up hard. She had wanted to consume him, but now he consumed her because she was killing him with her silent tears and he didn’t know what to do.
Her head fell back, her climax long and racking and ripping his name from her lips. He didn’t relent, moving, moving, moving, and spiking her back up. He thrust harder, sweat building, teeth bared.
The climax eluded him. Fine tension corded his neck and rippled his body with unbearable pain. He wanted, he needed.
He didn’t know anymore. The emptiness was endless and he was dying and she was the only person who could save him and he didn’t even know how to say the words.
He rolled her over harshly, his body still joined with hers, and fucked her hard. She gasped. He couldn’t stop. The release