Her Passionate Need Read online

  "Oh yes." His voice was nearly as low as hers had been. "You're human all right." As if to prove his point, he slid his fingers under the pajama neckline and began tracing the length of her collarbone. "I thought, after what took place earlier, you didn't want anything to do with me."

  He shouldn't go there! Didn't he know how close she was to bolting? She was gun shy about testing self control, wasn't she?

  "This isn't about me," she told him. "I'm trying to help you deal with something."

  "Are you?"

  "Yes!" she snapped, suddenly and unexpectedly angry at him. She'd made an offer; he could either accept it or not. She didn't care.

  Yes, she did care, she almost immediately amended. An owl called out, reminding her of their isolation. Whoever she'd been before this moment didn't matter. Here, with his hands on her and her belly and private parts hot and hungry, she cared only about the here and now. Him. Her.

  "All I know is that you got lost out here when you were a boy."

  "Ten. I was ten."

  Good. He was speaking. "And you were with...your grandfather, right?"

  "And my uncle."

  "Oh. What were the three of you doing?"

  "Hunting."

  Had he already told her that? It sounded like a male right of passage that had gone horribly wrong. "You…you knew to stay with your uncle and grandfather, didn't you?" she managed. Determined to focus on his needs and not hers, she ran her hand under his shirt. Her fingertips caressed his flesh. "They must have lectured you about how important it was for you not to get separated."

  "Yes." He sounded unsure of himself.

  "But something happened. What?"

  "I don't know. That's the hell of it. I don't know."

  Was he still with her, or had he been sucked into the past? Determined not to let the old nightmare have too much of him, she traced the ladder of his ribs the way he'd done to her earlier. A small part of her still insisted she was insane to be doing this, but she couldn't remember who she'd always been and only wanted to be part of him. Help him.

  "When you first realized you were lost, what did you do?"

  His hand had stilled on her flesh, but now it started moving again, inching toward her breasts. "Don't," she whispered.

  He touched the space between her breasts. "You don't want this?"

  "I want…I want you to make your peace with the past."

  "Later."

  Later was good. Later was safe. No, it wasn't!

  "Devin, my husband's cancer was a closed subject between us. Oh, we talked about treatments and insurance and expenses and the inconvenience, but not about the important part. Even when we both knew he was dying, we didn't say the word." She calmed herself with a deep breath. "I'll regret that for the rest of my life."

  He closed his hand over her breast, cradled what made her a woman. She felt safe…and alive. "Regret won't change anything," he whispered. "Let it go."

  She wanted to; damn, how she wanted that. "It isn't that easy," she retorted, experience ruling her words.

  "No, it isn't. I don't know where we're going with this conversation." He caught her nipple between the sides of his middle and forefinger and began sliding it back and forth. The resultant friction made the nub so sensitive that the line between pleasure and pain blurred. "What I do know is that it can wait."

  He kept throwing up roadblocks; she'd call him on it except if she did, he might not want anything to do with her, and the thought of returning to her tent and lonely sleeping bag frightened her. Soon, she told herself. Soon she'd make him understand how important it was for him to exorcize the past. But now. . .

  He was still massaging her nipple, but he'd added to the mix of sensations by running his thumbnail over what he could reach of her swollen breast. She responded by seeking out his own breast and gently pinching the hard nub between thumb and forefinger. Stretched out against him the way she was, she easily sensed his growing erection and wondered how his penis would feel in her hand, how much of it she could manipulate, control, and contain, how he'd react. She'd occasionally touched John's penis, but because they'd never talked about what he did and didn't want her to do with it, she'd done so tentatively and briefly. A man's penis was his most private part. Did they feel invaded when a woman touched it?

  "Ana, what's wrong?"

  "What?"

  "You're tense."

  "Am I?"

  "You want to be doing this and yet you don't, is that it?" He still had his hand on her breast, but it now simply rested over her. She wanted him to release her; even more, she needed him to help her feel alive.

  "I don't know what I want," she whispered. Immediately regretting her admission, she shifted to a sitting position. Now separate from him, separate and free and lonely, she struggled not to cup her unbelievably heavy feeling breasts.

  "Maybe neither of us knows what we want."

  In the inky darkness, he was nothing more than voice and heat. She could leave him and in the morning pretend this had never happened, but the thought made her shiver. She tried to tell herself her reaction was because nothing had been resolved about his nightmare, but she knew that wasn't it. She'd come in here, not just because she cared about him, but because she needed him and his body.

  She'd be. Simply be.

  Her fingers trembled so that it took several tries before she managed to unbutton her top, and slipping it off was an unbelievably complex task. He couldn't see what she was doing, but her movements surely telegraphed themselves to him. She imagined him staring up at her, his mind supplying what his eyes couldn't. Thank goodness for night; this way she didn't have to struggle to keep her emotions from showing. And locked in the dark and herself, she wouldn't ask what she was doing.

  Pulling off the pajama bottoms in the cramped quarters proved to be a nearly impossible task, but finally she'd tossed them aside. On hands and knees, her naked ass sticking out and her breasts hanging down, she contemplated her next move. Amazed at her reckless courage, she settled back on her haunches and fumbled around until she found first Devin's chest and then the t-shirt hem. She pulled up on it until it bunched around his armpits. She tugged again, frustrated because unless he lifted his arms over his head, she'd never get it off. Being naked while he was still semi-dressed made her feel as if she was at risk.

  Fool! A damned fool.

  "Devin." She tugged. "Please." I've never done this before; I need all the help I can get.

  With a sigh, he took over what she'd been doing while still lying down, which meant he had to briefly lift first his back and then his shoulders off the open sleeping bag.

  As soon as he'd tossed the garment aside, she took hold of his brief's waistband and pulled before she lost her nerve. He hoisted his hips so she could finish the task but did nothing else to help. Always before she'd been shy about seeing a man naked, but she now would have given anything to be able to gaze at him. At the same time, darkness made what she was about to do easier.

  "You were a boy alone in a world beyond your comprehension," she whispered so she wouldn't have to think about what she was doing. She placed her hands on his knees, feeling their strength. She thought his hands were by his side, and if he didn't want her to do what she was about to, he could stop her at any time. However, even if he tried, she wouldn't easily give up. "Overwhelmed. Maybe you cried for your mother. It's all right if you did." She began walking her fingers upward, testing the hard swell of his thighs as she went. "Where was she? Had she come along?"

  "No." He didn't move, but his breathing, like hers, had picked up.

  "When did she learn you were lost? Who told her?"

  "My grandfather."

  "Where was your father?"

  "Working. He'd had to go somewhere on a trip; he was always flying off someplace."

  Was that anger or regret in Devin's voice? She'd been wrong about his thighs—the thighs she couldn't get enough of exploring. Yes, the muscle beneath the surface put her in mind of forged iron, but the
flesh was soft, not silken like hers, but smooth and laced with fine hairs. She moved her fingers to the outside of his upper legs and continued her minute exploration. This is for him. Don't think about yourself.

  "You hated that, didn't you?" she asked.

  "You want to talk…at a time like this?"

  "Yes." For all his size and hard edges and the walls he'd built around him, was it possible that Devin needed the kind of gentleness only a woman could give him, a woman like her? She loved the possibility. "You hated it when your father put his job before you, didn't you? That other relatives were the ones to take a boy on one of his first hunting trips." She spread her thumb and forefinger, then pressed down and drew them together, trying to capture a little of the flesh over his hipbones, but it was so tightly stretched that she managed to capture only a tiny bit.

  Beneath her, she felt his muscles jump and twitch and guessed that his penis was becoming even more erect. If it wasn't, she didn't know what she should do to help it along. "Is that what you thought about while you were lost, that finally you'd get your father's attention?"

  "Maybe."

  No maybe to it. "It's all right." She leaned over, meaning to kiss his belly but finding the tip of his penis instead. Despite her shock, she didn't retreat but brushed it with her tongue. Her head roared; her eyes felt hot. Who was the bold and insane woman doing this thing?

  "Everything you thought and felt back then is all right," she told him when she could speak.

  "You're making me crazy."

  Then that makes two of us. "What happened?" she demanded, her mouth still so close to his cock—yes, his cock—that she was certain he could feel her breath on it. The thought sent blood to flood her cheeks and neck. "Did…did your father return home and come looking for you?"

  "The…not at first, but before I was found."

  How much more of that experience could she draw out of him, and did she know what the hell she was doing? She rocked back a little and continued the exquisite trip from his hips to his sex. She was still shaken by what she was doing, but by focusing on him and his physical and emotional needs, she kept uncertainty tamped down.

  Grow up. Become a woman.

  "And your mother?" She pressed. "Did she search too?"

  "Yes." There was a long pause, but from the way he was breathing, she didn't think his silence—at least not all of it—was a reaction to her fingers reaching toward his balls, finding them, touching, then retreating like some frightened animal. "But she didn't stay?"

  "No. All right. No."

  Don't go there; he doesn't want to explain. "Why not?" she asked.

  "She was pregnant. She'd started to miscarry."

  Ana's temples pulsed and so distracted her that her hands stilled. They continued to rest on the inside of his slightly spread legs, quiet and yet, maybe, continuing to give him warmth and strength.

  "And you blame yourself for that, don't you? Did she lose the baby?"

  "Yes," he whispered hollowly.

  What do I do now? How do I reach him and put the past to rest? But she couldn't; she could only help him embrace the present.

  "Did you talk to your mother about that?" she asked. She managed to start her fingers moving again. This time she was careful to keep her touch gentle, a woman's caring caress instead of designed to sexually stimulate. Just the same, his groin muscles jumped, as did hers. "When you told her how you felt, what did she say?"

  "That…that it wasn't my fault."

  Thank you, she whispered to that wise and loving mother. "But you can't let it go?"

  "Right now it's not on my mind."

  Because of what I'm doing to you. But she hadn't done enough, certainly not everything she was capable of—if she found courage she'd never had before.

  She could! She wasn't some man's wife any more and acting according to the rules set down in their marriage. Instead, tonight, here with Devin, she could become someone new. Someone bold and strong.

  Once again she leaned forward, and although she could have kissed his belly the way she'd intended earlier, instead she opened her mouth. She hesitated, nearly lost her courage. Bold and strong. A woman.

  Sustained by that, she came even closer to him, commanded her heart to stop hammering wildly, and drew the tip of his penis into her mouth. She held him for a moment, full of wonder at doing something she'd hardly dared fantasize about. She hoped this was what he needed and was surprised by the juices dribbling out of her pussy, the way her belly had sucked in without her being part of the movement. Why was she so turned on when this was about him? Why had she taken off her clothes? She released him.

  "Wh—" he began, reaching for her.

  "Don't." She leaned away from him. God, she was sweating. . .shaking. At least you did it. "I gave you something personal. Now it's my turn to get something."

  He groaned and fell back.

  "The past is still there, standing in the way." At least it will until I can figure out what's supposed to come next and go through with it. "You've always blamed yourself for your mother's miscarriage, haven't you?"

  "My parents separated shortly after."

  "And you think that's your fault too? What is this? Some crazy need to take on all burdens that come remotely close?"

  "They divorced."

  Maybe because her mouth still held the remnants of his taste, maybe because her fingertips and his thighs were the same temperature, she wasn't able to hold onto her anger. Instead, she nearly cried for the confused boy who hadn't understood what had happened between his parents and had blamed himself.

  "Did they tell you why?"

  "One day my father came home early from work. I'd just gotten in from school so it was just the two of us. He started throwing his clothes in suitcases. I asked if he was going on another trip, but I knew he wasn't. All he said was that he couldn't do this any more, and he was going to find his own life."

  "He didn't…he didn't say anything—personal—to you?"

  "As he was walking out the door, he hugged me. He might have had tears in his eyes, but I was crying and couldn't be sure."

  Damn Devin's father; damn him. "I'm…I'm trying to see this from his point of view," she said. If she pressed her fingers into Devin's muscles, would it help free him from that awful time? Maybe, and yet they'd come too close to a breakthrough for her to back off now. "He was confused and hurting. I'm thinking…maybe your being lost had brought things to a head between your parents. They'd been avoiding facing a situation that wasn't working for either of them, skating along, maybe hoping having another child would save them. But then there was a crisis and—"

  "More than a crisis. They lost the baby and nearly lost me."

  "Their lies or avoidance or something blew up in their faces. The facade they'd hidden behind disintegrated. In the end, they were both able to start over. Are they happy?"

  "I don't know. Yeah, I think so."

  Any moment now Devin could close the curtain on this conversation, but she'd keep going until that happened. Naked and exposed, she'd prod and question. "Do they ever talk to you about that time?"

  "My mother does, a little."

  "But not your father?"

  "I hardly ever see him." He was quiet a moment. "My uncle said…one time he told me…"

  "What?" she asked when his silence stretched out.

  "That when my father finally showed up, instead of helping them search, he yelled at everyone that it was their fault. My mother was already cramping but trying to ignore it. My uncle told my father to back off, but he wouldn't stop. He insisted he was doing his part by earning a living, and the least she could do was hold things together at home."

  "My God. He wasn't scared for you?"

  "I don't know. When…when the rescuers found me and took me to the hospital where my mother was, my father didn't show up until the next morning. I don't know where he went to."

  Devin might not be crying, but she was. Afraid he needed more warmth than she was giving him, she on
ce again leaned forward, this time resting her forearms as well as her hands on his thighs. She closed her fingers over his hipbones but wasn't sure how long she could keep them there. Soon—she had no doubt about that—she'd need to touch his penis again. And when she did, she'd no longer be able to talk.

  "But he did come eventually," she managed. "What happened then?"

  "He wanted to know how I'd gotten separated from the others, what happened to my backpack; he'd bought top quality and was angry that I'd lost it."

  "Damn him. Damn him."

  Devin's hands had been still for so long that she was slow to react to the feel of his fingers circling her wrists.

  "I'm not sorry for what I said." She forced herself to continue. "I'll never understand a man who lets anything get between him and love for his child. To put anything else first. He's a sad, sad man."

  Devin lifted her hand off him, then drew it to his mouth and kissed her palm. "You're putting this on him, not me?"

  "Of course I am. Something was wrong with your father, something not wired right. Something missing."

  "Missing?"

  His voice was filled with wonder, and hope.

  "The ability to connect with his son, to love him. You were a normal, adventurous boy who'd made a human mistake and yet survived." Thank God. "It says something terribly sad about your father that he couldn't see that."

  "My father? Not me?"

  She could have reassured him again, repeated what she'd just said, but she felt exhausted and emotionally worn out. At the same time, her nude body was alive in a way that demanded exploration. She placed her hand over his mouth and waited while he kissed her palm again. He made the gesture slow, almost tentative. Gentle. When he was finished, she drew out of his grip and repositioned herself so that this time she was stretched out between his legs, her arms braced against his thighs to support her upper body. Although she wasn't what she could call comfortable, that was all right because her mouth was free to do what she needed to—she who'd only fantasized about this before.

  Instead of trying to draw part of his cock into her again, she tilted her head to the side to give herself full access to his scrotum. She stroked him with her tongue, tasted him, felt his reaction. They were both breathing as if they'd been running a race, and she had to fight the impulse to turn tail and run. He gripped her shoulders, caressing her, sometimes digging in almost painfully.