Part of the Bargain. Linda Lael Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ Jess could stop himself, he was striding along that small wharf, sinking down to sit beside Libby and dangle his booted feet over the sparkling water. He was never entirely certain what sorcery made him ask what he did.

      “What happened to your marriage, Libby?”

      The pain he had glimpsed before leapt in her eyes and then faded away again, subdued. “Are you trying to start another fight?”

      Jess shook his head. “No,” he answered quietly, “I really want to know.”

      She looked away from him, gnawing at her lower lip with her front teeth. All around them were ranch sounds—birds conferring in the trees, leaves rustling in the wind, the clear pond water lapping at the mossy pilings of the dock. But no sound came from Libby.

      On an impulse, Jess touched her mouth with the tip of one index finger. Water and electricity—the analogy came back to him with a numbing jolt.

      “Stop that,” he barked, to cover his reactions.

      Libby ceased chewing at her lip and stared at him with wide eyes. Again he saw the shadow of that nameless, shifting ache inside her. “Stop what?” she wanted to know.

      Stop making me want to hold you, he thought. Stop making me want to tuck your hair back behind your ears and tell you that everything will be all right. “Stop biting your lip!” he snapped aloud.

      “I’m sorry!” Libby snapped back, her eyes shooting indigo sparks.

      Jess sighed and again spoke involuntarily. “Why did you leave your husband, Libby?”

      The question jarred them both: Libby paled a little and tried to scramble to her feet; Jess caught her elbow in one hand and pulled her down again.

      “Was it because of Stacey?”

      She was livid. “No!”

      “Someone else?”

      Tears sprang up in Libby’s dark lashes and made then spiky. She wrenched free of his hand but made no move to rise again and run away. “Sure!” she gasped. “‘If it feels good, do it’—that’s my motto! By God, I live by those words!”

      “Shut up,” Jess said in a gentle voice.

      Incredibly, she fell against him, wept into the shoulder of his blue cotton workshirt. And it was not a delicate, calculating sort of weeping—it was a noisy grief.

      Jess drew her close and held her, broken on the shoals of what she was feeling even though he did not know its name. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.

      Libby trembled beneath his arm and wailed like a wounded calf. The sound solidified into a word usually reserved for stubborn horses and income-tax audits.

      Jess laughed and, for a reason he would never understand, kissed her forehead. “I love it when you flatter me,” he teased.

      Miraculously, Libby laughed, too. But when she tilted her head back to look up at him, and he saw the tear streaks on her beautiful, defiant face, something within him, something that had always been disjointed, was wrenched painfully back into place.

      He bent his head and touched his lips to hers, gently, in question. She stiffened, but then, at the cautious bidding of his tongue, her lips parted slightly and her body relaxed against his.

      Jess pressed Libby backward until she lay prone on the shifting dock, the kiss unbroken. As she responded to that kiss, it seemed that the sparkling water-light of the pond danced around them both in huge, shimmering chips, that they were floating inside some cosmic prism.

      His hand went to the full roundness of her left breast. Beneath his palm and the thin layer of white eyelet, he felt the nipple grow taut in that singular invitation to passion.

      Through the back of his shirt, Jess was warmed by the heat of the spring sun and the tender weight of Libby’s hands. He left her mouth to trail soft kisses over her chin, along the sweet, scented lines of her neck.

      All the while, he expected her to stiffen again, to thrust him away with her hands and some indignant—and no doubt colorful—outburst. Instead, she was pliant and yielding beneath him.

      Enthralled, he dared more and drew downward on the uppermost ruffle of her suntop. Still she did not protest.

      Libby arched her back and a low, whimpering sound came from her throat as Jess bared her to the soft spring breeze and the fire of his gaze.

      Her breasts were heavy golden-white globes, and their pale rose crests stiffened as Jess perused them. When he offered a whisper-soft kiss to one, Libby moaned and the other peak pouted prettily at his choice. He went to it, soothed it to fury with his tongue.

      Libby gave a soft, lusty cry, shuddered and caught her hands in his hair, drawing him closer. He needed more of her and positioned his body accordingly, careful not to let his full weight come to bear. Then, for a few dizzying moments, he took suckle at the straining fount of her breast.

      Recovering himself partially, Jess pulled her hands from his hair, gripped them at the wrists, pressed them down above her head in gentle restraint.

      Her succulent breasts bore his assessment proudly, rising and falling with the meter of her breathing.

      Jess forced himself to meet Libby’s eyes. “This is me,” he reminded her gruffly. “Jess.”

      “I know,” she whispered, making no move to free her imprisoned hands.

      Jess lowered his head, tormented one delectable nipple by drawing at it with his lips. “This is real, Libby,” he said, circling the morsel with just the tip of his tongue now. “It’s important that you realize that.”

      “I do…oh, God… Jess, Jess.”

      Reluctantly he left the feast to search her face with disbelieving eyes. “Don’t you want me to stop?”

      A delicate shade of rose sifted over her high cheekbones. Her hands still stretched above her, her eyes closed, she shook her head.

      Jess went back to the breasts that so bewitched him, nipped at their peaks with gentle teeth. “Do you…know how many…times I’ve wanted…to do this?”

      The answer was a soft, strangled cry.

      He limited himself to one nipple, worked its surrendering peak into a sweet fervor with his lips and his tongue. “So…many…times. My God, Libby…you’re so beautiful….”

      Her words were as halting as his had been. “What’s happening to us? We h-hate each other.”

      Jess laughed and began kissing his way softly down over her rib cage, her smooth, firm stomach. The snap on her jeans gave way easily—and was echoed by the sound of car doors slamming in the area of the house.

      Instantly the spell was broken. Color surged into Libby’s face and she bolted upright, nearly thrusting Jess off the end of the dock in her efforts to wrench on the discarded suntop and close the fastening of her jeans.

      “Broad daylight…” she muttered distractedly, talking СКАЧАТЬ