As he mouthed phantom kisses across her eyelids, along her jawline, his fingers explored her most tender flesh. Laurel whispered his name, and need shuddered through them both.
He wouldn't be an easy man to love. He had branded himself unworthy, thought of himself only in terms of his flaws. He would push her away in the name of caring, break her heart and call it fate. But she went to him. She went to him and offered him everything she was, everything her heart could hold. Without words. Without strings.
He took her in his arms, and they fell across the bed. Springs creaked, linens rustled. The storm rolled on toward Lafayette, thunder sounding like the faint echo of hoofbeats, rain hissing like the sound of steam.
One arm hooked behind her gracefully arching back, Jack bent himself over her and took her breast in his mouth. Her nipple budded beneath the coaxing of his tongue, beneath the wet silk of her camisole, and he drew on it hotly, greedily.
His fingers caught in the hem of the garment and pulled it up. She lay back and stretched her arms above her head. He pushed the camisole to her wrists and held it there, held her there, pinned to the mattress. His eyes locked on hers as he kneed her legs apart and settled his hips against hers.
Laurel 's breath fluttered in her throat, not with fear but with anticipation. He would never hurt her physically. He would break her heart-of that she had little doubt-but she trusted him implicitly with her body. She offered herself totally, opened herself, wound her legs around his hips.
And he filled her. Slowly. Inch by inch. His eyes on hers. Giving her the essence of his maleness, being welcomed and embraced by the warm, tight glove of her woman's body. Pressing deeper, deeper, until she gasped his name. When the joining was complete, he cast the silk aside and gathered her to him in a crushing embrace.
It went on forever. It could never have lasted long enough. They moved together, body to body, need to need, heart to heart. Scaling peaks of pleasure, soaring from height to dizzying height.
Jack lost himself in the heat, in the bliss, in the comfort she offered him without words. He gave himself over to desire, thought nothing of right or wrong, only of Laurel. So sweet, so strong. He wanted to give her everything, be everything for her. He wanted to press her to his heart and never let her go. She filled up the hole inside him, flooded all the pain away, made him believe for a moment he could start over… with her… have a family… have peace… find forgiveness.
Foolish thoughts. Foolish heart. But for this night he would cling to them as he clung to the woman in his arms, and soothe his aching soul with visions of love.
Chapter Twenty-One
Laurel slipped from the bed at dawn and dressed silently in the soft light that filtered through the French doors and lace curtains. For a long while she stood by the balcony door and just studied him, as an artist might study a subject before putting brush to canvas, taking in everything about the man, the mood. The light seemed the color and consistency of fine sand, golden and grainy, and it didn't quite penetrate the shadows of the graceful four-poster. Jack lay sprawled on his belly, taking up most of the bed, his face buried in the crook of his arm. His bronzed back was a sculpture of lean, rippling muscle. The sheet, a drift of white, covered only a section of thigh and hips. One leg was bent at the knee, thigh and calf strong, masculine, dusted with rough, dark hair.
Laurel memorized the way he looked in that moment, this first morning after she'd fallen in love with him. It didn't seem any wiser today than it had in the night. She had no idea where these feelings would lead, but she wouldn't deny to herself that she felt them. She'd lied to herself enough in her lifetime. She had, however, refrained from telling Jack, knowing without being told that he wouldn't want to hear it.
Her heart squeezed painfully at the thought, but she pushed the pain away. She would let things take their natural course. The feelings were too new, too sensitive to be trod upon by something as heavy as practicality or an awkward morning-after scene.
She touched two fingers to her kiss-swollen lips and wondered how she had gotten in so deep so fast with a man like Jack Boudreaux. They were opposites in many ways, too alike in others. An unlikely match drawn together by pain, bound by something neither of them would speak of-love.
It had to have been love in his touch during the long, sultry night. The tenderness, the poignancy, the sweetness, the desperation-in her logical, analytical mind, those components added up to more than mere lust, she was sure. Just as she was sure Jack would never acknowledge it and she would never speak the word. Not now. Not when he was so certain he didn't deserve anything good. She wouldn't try to bind him to her with words and guilt. He had enough guilt of his own.
Unbidden, thoughts came of the wife and child he had lost, and she ached for him so, she nearly cried out. She knew about loss, and she knew about blame. She thought of the unloved, battered boy he had been, and the frightened, emotionally neglected little girl in her wanted to reach out and gather him close. And she knew if Jack had suspected any of what she was thinking, he would have done his damnedest to chase her away. He hoarded his pain like a miser, stored it deep inside, and shared it with no one. It stayed stronger that way, more potent, more punishing. She knew.
God, why him? Why did she have to go and fall in love with a man like Jack at a time like this, when all she really wanted to do was get her feet back under her and get her life back on track-any track?
No answer came to her as dawn broke over the bayou in ribbons of soft color. No answer but her heartbeat.
In the frame of the open French door a small dark spider was carefully spinning a web of hair-fine silk that glistened in the new light with crystal beads of morning dew. Laurel watched for a moment, thinking of her own attempt to build a new life. She had come home to heal, to start over, and she felt as if she were as fragile, as vulnerable as that newly spun web. She looked for toe holds and tried to weave back together all that had been torn asunder inside her, but the slightest outside force would tear it all apart again, and once again she would be left with nothing.
Her gaze shifted to Jack, who was still asleep-or pretending to be-and she felt that tenuous foundation tremble beneath her. With a heavy, tender heart, she tiptoed out of the room and left the house.
As he heard the hollow echo of the front door closing, Jack turned over slowly and stared up at the morning shadows on the ceiling. He wanted to love her. His heart ached for it so, it nearly took his breath. It surprised him after all this time, after all the hard lessons, that he could still be vulnerable. He should have been able to steel himself against it. He should have known enough to turn her away last night. But he had wanted so badly just to hold her, just to take some comfort in her sweetness.
He had wanted her from the first. Desire he understood. It was simple, basic, elemental. But this… this was something he could never be trusted with again. And because he knew that, he had somehow believed he would never be tempted. Now he felt like a fool, betrayed by his own heart, and he kicked himself mercilessly for it. Stupid, selfish bastard… He couldn't allow himself to fall in love with Laurel Chandler. She deserved far better than him.
And maybe, a lost, lonely part of him thought as the pain of those self-inflicted blows burst through him, maybe after all the penance he had done, he deserved to be left in peace.
Laurel went up to her room via the courtyard and balcony, not wanting to alert anyone else in the house that she was only just returning. Preoccupied with turbulent thoughts of Jack and the night they had spent together, she took a long, warm shower, then dressed for the day in a pair of black walking shorts and a loose white polo shirt. She assessed her looks in the mirror above the walnut commode, seeing a woman with troubled eyes and damp, dark hair combed loosely back.
There should have been some external sign of the changes made inside her during the last few days-the strength she had regained fighting for her new friends, the humility that remained after her pompous ideas concerning Savannah 's life had been shattered, the uncertainty in her heart about her own future.