CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

She screamed. Not loudly but deep in her throat, coming out more like a gurgle. But it was enough to wake herself up. It had been a dream, of course. She should have been ashamed, but the terror was as real as anything. Her heart was rattling against her ribcage and her body, causing the sheets to be damp with sweat. She dug her fingers into the quilt and pulled it up to her chin, cocooning herself.

 

Downstairs, a scraping noise. Except for her heart, she froze under the blankets, keeping utterly, impossibly still while listening. It was her imagination; it had to be. She was simply acting crazy and paranoid. Her dream had clouded her judgment.

 

But no. There was somebody on the porch, she realized with terror. Where was Colt; Holly? Didn't they hear it? The house was dark; everyone had gone to bed. She flipped on the lights and threw open the door to the hallway, hands brushing the wall blindly for a light switch. She couldn't stay in this room, walls closing in on her like a coffin. She needed air. She paused on the stairway landing, noticing a shapeless black form standing below. It grabbed her arm. She shrieked and tried to wrench away.

 

"Quiet, you're going to wake up the whole house," he whispered, laughing, and pulled her into him. When she didn't respond, only stood limp in his arms, trembling, his demeanor changed. "Are you okay, Ruby? What happened? I didn't mean to scare you."

 

Her cheek touched the black leather of his jacket, and her fingers curled around the cold metal of the open zipper. She inhaled, exhaled. It was all fresh air and night, and it was real. A living, breathing man, here in her arms. Not a dream. Not too late. “What--”

 

"Just tell me it's really you," she cut him off, knowing he wouldn't understand.

 

But somehow, he did. "It's me," he whispered. “Who else would it be?”

 

She guided his arms around her, and he didn't hesitate to follow her lead, his hands curling around her waist and brushing across the small of her back, then further down, cupping her ass, pressing firmly, almost experimentally. She knew he'd wanted to do this for a while, days maybe, and yet had resisted. She didn't mind. It comforted her and she eased into it like warm water.

 

"I'm sorry," she breathed into his chest. "I'm sorry I didn't come earlier. There's still time, isn't there? Please don't tell me I'm too late."

 

"What are you talking about?" there was whisper of amusement in his voice, and that, too, was inimitable, unmistakably Joe.

 

She melted into it, reached behind to touch his hands, cold from the outdoors as they always seemed to be. She slid her fingers past the inner arm with the tattoo that she couldn't see but knew was there, up to the curve of the broad shoulders that now felt so solid, so real, under her touch. No dream. “Tell me there’s still time. Please.”

 

"Of course there's time, Ruby. There always will be."

 

"How do I know that?”

 

He paused for a second. "What do you want me to do? Do you--" He sounded confused and at the same time, resolute--maybe he thought this was a dream, too.

 

She replied automatically. "Kiss me."

 

"Are you sure?"

 

She knew he wasn't just asking to be polite; she was spooked, and he knew it. He wanted to make sure she was talking out of desire rather than fear. She loved him for that.

 

"Yes."

 

He crouched a little, bent his head, then his mouth was covering hers and he was giving her everything she wanted. He pressed her to him tightly, lifted her to her toes, then off the floor completely as his tongue probed her mouth, as far as he dared. He lightly bit the corner of her lip, playfully at first, but he seemed to fall deeper into the kiss. She closed her eyes, coasting along with it, not daring to think about what might happen when he pulled away. "Tell me what you want, Ruby," he sighed into her ear.

 

"I want--" His hand was cold, his fingers rough, but beneath all of that, there was a warmth.

 

She could feel it. She wanted it on her; in her. Locking her fingers into his, he squeezed, and her clit cried out to be handled and to feel it all. "I want you to touch me. Here." She led him down her body, and his hand slid below the waistband of her pajama pants. The fit of his hand in the temple between her legs seemed god-given perfect, and the friction of his fingers on the skin of her inner thighs made the wetness and heat seemed to radiate out, like a rainforest, lush with fruit.

 

"Let's go to the bed," he whispered. She led the way back into the guest room, and sank down into the nest of blankets, still messy from where she'd thrashed; but it was welcoming now.

 

Nobody turned a light on, but she knew when he quickly took his jacket off and tossed it away. In the darkness, he eased himself down over her and replaced his hands where he'd left off, arching his broad shoulders and cradling his head in the hollow of her neck and, at the same time, increasing the pressure of his fingers between her clit.

 

Almost bucking, she peeled down her panties and pajamas, kicking them down to her ankles. Shaking them all the way off, he grabbed at the bottom hem of her camisole, pulling at in vain. She smiled and fumbled for it with one hand, getting it up almost up over her head, where he took over and got it the rest of the way off, tossing it across the room.

 

He dove down to her breasts, where he must have noticed how rock-hard her sensitive nipples were. He touched his mouth gently to one and she could feel it curl up instantaneously. It sent tiny tendrils of lightning over the surface of her skin, radiating out and down. One of his hands touched her navel, parting it like a flower, bending down to inhale it like a hummingbird.

 

Meanwhile, she reached up behind his head and grabbed one of his thick locks of hair, squeezing where the dampness of his exertion met the coldness of the outdoors, breathing in his scent of earth and sun and gravel and the wind of the road he loved so much, to the deepest place, as her legs went stiff, urging every sensation to converge there.

 

He worked his lips and tongue down the center line of her torso to the top of her pubic mound, and she arched her back and squeezed him tighter, letting out a natural sigh of bliss. She wasn't consciously urging him on--it was instinct. His lips were warm and perfectly soft now, leaving a slight dampness on her bare skin, open to the night. She was vulnerable, unshielded, and unarmored, as she had vowed never to be.

 

He could touch and kiss every inch of her; she had no respite. As nude as the day she was born, she pulled him closer, and his touch was indeed like being in some warm womb, swimming, reborn in him.

 

She placed her hand on top of his, curling her fingers over his, guiding him to the place where the pressure was starting to build, throbbing, small now, like a seed beginning to sprout gorgeous leaves.

 

"More," she breathed, urging him on. "Higher."

 

He parted his mouth to kiss her neck gently, then nip at her ear, claiming her with his teeth, and she clenched her jaw with the pressure of it all. If he wanted to claim ownership of her, that was okay, and it was a release for her.

 

It was a new kind of freedom, to be free in him. The sting of the bite coupled with the thrust of her hand on his, urging him deeper, and she could hear the intake of breath to his lungs. He drew in air as he concentrated, taking it so seriously, determined, she knew, to get it right, to touch her the way she needed him to. The way they both realized she had craved since the very first time she turned around in her apartment and found her body crashing into his.

 

She wanted to feel every ounce of his weight coming to bear on her, his weight pushing her to the edge. She let out another little cry as he followed her lead, urging him further still. There had to be more, and her hands clamped down on whatever she could reach--his hair, the back of his neck, the t-shirt he still wore as she dug her fingers, claws into him. She went stiff, but she poured into him as the pounding increased, her walls broke down; he was going to take her there.

 

"Yes." She finished with a spontaneous cry of glee, then sighed, the pressure draining away like a pool of clear water. She sucked in lungfuls of air. Her eyes had been closed, and she hadn't even realized it. When she opened them, blinking like a newborn child, she regarded the sweet amber pupils gazing back at her, eyelashes blinking as if to ask if everything was okay.

 

Her fingers were shaking as she fumbled for the waistband of his dark-denim jeans, for the button and zipper, but he was ahead of her already. Their hands met as he quickly stripped himself down, his clothes ready to come off of his pulsating cock, whose contours she could already feel almost bursting through the fabric. She'd done it; just fingering her, bringing her to the edge, had gotten him hard as steel, and that delighted her. Joe reached over to the bedside table and pulled out a condom from the drawer.

 

"Good god, who uses this room usually?" she breathed through laughter.

 

"Me," he joked as unwrapped it. "No, but seriously. Colt, after causing three unintended pregnancies himself, looks after his houseguests."

 

Taking the opportunity, he threw off his damp t-shirt, and it thrilled her. The vision that he was now almost as bare as she was, pillowed in the warm privacy of this quiet room. There was silence for a second as he rolled on the condom, but he perched on his knees, and pitched forward, hands braced on either side of her. He flipped up the lock of hair that hung down over his eye and bent down again.

 

"Things will change if we do this," he murmured in her ear, a warning, but also a question. "Not in a bad way. But they will. You know that, right?"

 

"Everything changes," she replied. "I have to change, too."

 

The corner of his lip turned up at that; a nod, a pact between them, as she readied herself for his entrance. It was as primed as a flooded river, its walls engorged with fluid, and she could feel the way it took up Joe as she moved up to tunnel inside her. She arched again, letting out a little puff of air, almost a grunt, as he crossed the threshold, claws digging into the sheets. The way he fit inside her was nothing short of ideal, and now that she could see him as he thrusted, characteristically patient and serious. Encouraging him, she reached up to caress his shoulders, delighting in the tautness and the intentness of the arch of his back over her as he rose and lowered.

 

"I'm close," he whispered. A few strands of hair had gotten caught in Ruby's mouth and, amid his thrusting, he reached up to gently remove them and tuck them behind her ear. "Open your eyes, Ruby," he said in a voice that was both labored and ecstatic. "I want to see them."

 

He kissed her as he came, as if to share it and transfer the energy of the release. She took it in, all of him, as he collapsed gently onto her chest, her fingers flexing on the warm, smooth dampness of his upper back, the broad shoulders that she knew had borne so much.

 

She wanted to ask if they could bear more, if they could bear her and all of her ghosts. Would that be too much? Not for tonight, she decided, as she cradled her head where it had started, at peace in this strange new realm.