In that moment, Renee felt as if every bone in her body had melted with relief. She’d wanted John to believe in her innocence—needed him to believe in her innocence—but what he’d just said meant something more. It meant she wasn’t alone in this any longer.
But as welcome as his admission was to her, she could tell it had taken a toll on him.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at his hands, his shoulders hunched, his face tight and drawn, and for the first time she saw that he wasn’t supercop at all. He was just a man—a man with some very tough decisions to make.
“What’s going to happen to me now?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
A long silence ensued. Finally John rubbed his hand over his mouth, then shifted around to face her.
“I talked to the woman who owns the convenience store that was robbed. Your eyewitness is a flake. She can barely see her hand in front of her face. Even a crappy defense attorney will discredit her in a heartbeat.”
Renee sat up suddenly. “That’s wonderful!”
“Don’t get your hopes up. It doesn’t prove you didn’t do it. It only proves she can’t positively identify you. It’s pretty meaningless in light of the physical evidence.”
“But it’s something, right?”
“It’s something. And you were right about the ladies in 317. They’re hookers. But they’ve got a pretty lucrative operation going, and I think we have to discount them as suspects. Another negative is that the original detective on the case has since retired. The guy who’s taking it over is worthless. We’re not going to be able to count on any help from official sources. They’ve got their suspect, and they won’t be looking for another one.”
“You actually checked all this out?”
“Yes.”
Renee couldn’t believe it. That was where he must have been this morning. While she’d been handcuffed to this bed, he’d been out investigating the crime.
“Do you think it’s possible that we could find out who really committed the robbery?” she asked him.
John shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
“But that’s the only way—”
“No. It’s not. We don’t necessarily have to find the person who did it. All we have to do is find enough evidence to put reasonable doubt in a jury’s mind that you did it. If we can do that, you’ll be acquitted.”
“And if I’m not acquitted—”
“You’ll go to prison.”
Prison. Just the word made Renee’s stomach churn with anxiety. “John. Please listen to me. Please. I can’t go there. If there’s even a possibility—”
“Our best hope is to come up with a piece or two of compelling circumstantial evidence. You say you didn’t see Steve at the right time that night to establish an alibi, but it’s close time-wise, so it might make a jury think twice. Your eyewitness can easily be discredited. A defense attorney can use those things to instill reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury members.”
The thought of being thrown on the mercy of the criminal justice system was just about the most frightening thing Renee could possibly imagine. But somehow it didn’t seem quite so ominous with John beside her, now that she knew that he’d been checking things out, going out on a limb for her when he could have done the easy thing and taken her straight to jail.
Sandy had been right about him. So very right.
“But I have to tell you, Renee—this could still end badly, no matter what I do.”
He didn’t define badly. He didn’t have to. And because she was still locked up, even though he believed she was innocent, she knew there would come a day when he’d be forced to take her in and let the court decide what to do with her. Luckily, today didn’t appear to be that day.
Then she had a terrible thought. He’d just told her he believed in her innocence, even though he had nothing to support that belief. But what if he discovered evidence that pointed to her guilt? How would he feel about her then?
When they were walking through the woods, he’d asked her if she had a record. She’d told him no.
What if he found out about her juvenile record? Would he understand that she wasn’t that person anymore? That the adult woman she was now didn’t so much as toss a gum wrapper down on the sidewalk? That the memory of the terribly misguided girl she’d been was so painful she didn’t even like to think about it?
No. She couldn’t risk telling him. The records were sealed, and they wouldn’t be brought into evidence at a trial. He’d never know.
Then again, it wasn’t the trial she had to worry about.
Leandro had known about her juvenile record because some cop couldn’t keep his mouth shut. How likely was it that John wouldn’t find out about it, too? If he ever discovered she’d lied to him—about anything—he’d never trust a word she said again.
“John?”
He turned.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
Her hands actually started to tremble. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to gain a little bit of control. “You asked me out in the woods if I had a record. I told you I didn’t, but…”
His eyes flickered with surprise, then immediately narrowed with suspicion.
“It was a long time ago,” she said quickly. “Juvenile. Five arrests, six—I don’t even remember. But I’ve been clean since then. I swear to God I have.”
His expression changed again, this time displaying the one thing she’d never wanted to see on his face again: doubt. And it just about killed her.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he asked sharply.
“Because I was afraid you’d think I couldn’t possibly have changed since then,” she said, trying to keep her voice sure and steady and failing miserably. “I was afraid if I told you I had a record, any kind of record, I didn’t stand a chance of staying out of jail. But I’m not that person anymore. Just because I did a little shoplifting and joyriding as a teenager doesn’t mean I committed armed robbery.”
“Shoplifting and joyriding, huh? Anything else?”
“Uh…maybe a little vandalism here and there. And public intoxication. I only got arrested once for that, and I think the cop might have let me go if I hadn’t poured beer on his shoes. But that’s it, John. I swear it is.”
“You poured beer on a cop’s shoes?”
“It was light beer.”
“Jesus, Renee.” He dropped his head to his hands and blew out a long breath. Then he started to get up off the bed. She reached out quickly and grabbed his arm, clutching it desperately, praying he wouldn’t leave.
“I did those things when I was a kid. I was just a dumb teenager with a bad attitude who didn’t give a damn about—”
“Just a dumb teenager? Where do you think adult criminals come from, Renee? They used to be dumb teenagers.”
“I know I lied to you. But I never will again. Never. Please, please don’t let this change things!”
He expelled a breath of disgust.
“There’s more. Please let me tell you everything.”
He stared down at his hands. At the wall. Anywhere but at her. But at least he didn’t get up and leave.
“When I was seventeen,” she went on, “I got caught riding around with my boyfriend in a car he’d stolen, and the judge threw me in a juvenile detention center for three months. God, how I hated that. Hated it. I’d never really understood until then what it would be like to be locked up, and I was starting to think seriously about my future, about how stupid I’d been and how I needed to make some changes. But I was still way too cool to let anyone know that, so I got a special invitation to a ‘scared-straight’ program at the state prison.”
She paused, the memory so awful she didn’t even want to think about it, much less talk about it. But she had to. John had to know everything that had happened to her back then or he’d never understand where she was coming from now.
“I didn’t think it would be any big deal. See, I’d been through all the drug-and-alcohol-awareness stuff in high school, where they have a former addict or alcoholic come and tell his story and tell you not to do what he did. I guess I expected more of that. I was radiating my usual screw-you attitude, just daring them to slap my hand one more time.
“Then one of the women got up and started talking. No, actually she started screaming, like a boot-camp sergeant. I remember my heart was beating about a thousand times a minute.”
Renee paused again, the memory so vivid that even now it put her on the verge of tears.
“Then one of the women looked me up and down in this leering kind of way and ran her fingers through my hair. She told me not to worry, that a pretty girl like me would be real popular in prison. It was awful. I mean, awful. It was as if I were already in that prison, feeling every horrible moment of what my life would be like if I didn’t straighten up. And that was when I finally made the decision to change. No matter what, I was never going to step foot in a prison again. Just the idea of going back to a place like that terrifies me.”
He didn’t say anything. He merely stared straight ahead, his face tense and immovable, and she could tell he was still reserving the right to leave the room at any time and slam the door behind him.
“It was hard as hell after that,” she went on, “but I scraped myself off rock bottom. I got a waitress job at Denny’s. Polyester, sensible shoes. The whole ugly thing. After a while, though, I got better jobs. The night of the robbery, like I told you, I’d just gotten the assistant manager’s job at Renaissance. I’d wanted that job forever, and then I got it. I was so excited. I thought my life had finally turned around for good. And then…” She sighed. “And then this. I’m not that rotten teenager anymore. I didn’t rob that store. After what I went through at that prison, just the thought of taking one step outside the law makes me break out in a cold sweat. You have to understand that.”
He faced her. “Is that all?”
His voice had faded into a monotone, and she couldn’t read him. She couldn’t tell what he meant to do next. He’d put on that stoic cop face again, and she just couldn’t tell whether he believed she wasn’t that dumb, screwed-up kid anymore. Everything. You have to tell him everything.
“When I was in that prison, one of the women asked me if I screwed around. I told her no, but of course, that was a lie. I’d seen the back seat of every jacked-up, souped-up teenage hot rod in the city of Tolosa. And suddenly all I could think about was how lucky I was that in all those times I hadn’t gotten pregnant, because not one of those guys would have taken responsibility for anything.”
And then she thought about how all those encounters had made her feel, as if she needed to take a shower to wash away the shame. Why was it that when John had touched her she hadn’t felt that way at all?
“What I said out there in the woods was true,” she told him. “I wasn’t trying to bribe you. All at once I thought about being locked up for years and never seeing a man, touching a man, and I remembered the way you’d kissed me in that cabin, and I wanted to…to feel that way again, feel more than that, just once, before…”
Frustration welled up inside her. “It’s not that I wanted it one last time, John. It’s that—” She closed her eyes and exhaled. “I wanted it for the first time.”
He looked at her with surprise. “But you said—”
“I know. I’m not a virgin. Not technically. But high school sex by the dashboard lights doesn’t really qualify.”
He looked at her with surprise. “How old are you, Renee?”
“Twenty-six.”
“You mean, in the past eight years—”
“That’s right. I haven’t.”
He stared at her, trying, she knew, to make some sense out of this mess he’d found himself in, trying to make some sense out of the way he felt about her. His dark eyes seemed deep and endless, and caught in his gaze now, she felt as if she’d only seen a tiny glimmer of the man he really was. His help was more than she ever could have hoped for. He was more than she ever could have hoped for. It wasn’t just any man she wanted so she could feel the heat of passion before the coldness of prison surrounded her.
It was John.
“You told me once that you like a woman who knows what she wants.” Renee spoke the words softly, singularly, her gaze never leaving his. “I know what I want.”
“What’s that?”
“You.”
He stared at her a long time. “Why me?”
“Because I trust you.”
“You might want to think twice about that.”
“Why?”
“God, Renee—don’t you know there’s only so much I can do where the evidence is concerned? I can’t guarantee—”
“When I say I trust you, I don’t mean just about that.” Understanding seemed to come to him slowly, and when she saw in his eyes that he knew what she was talking about, she felt embarrassment creep in. But she wasn’t about to turn away now.
“I don’t know what it’s like to have a man make love to me, John. I want him to be you.”
Seconds passed. She couldn’t imagine what he might be thinking, and for a moment she regretted everything she’d said. Then, slowly, the tension that had kept his body rigid and defensive seemed to melt away, and the wariness disappeared from his eyes. Very deliberately, he reached over to the nightstand and picked something up.
The key to the handcuffs.
“No matter what Sandy thinks,” he said, “the kinky stuff has never really appealed to me.”
He took her hand in his, then slid the key into the lock of the handcuff and twisted it. The cuff clicked open. Slowly he slid her wrist free, then disengaged the other cuff from the headboard and laid them on the nightstand. When he glanced back at her, she saw it in his eyes.
He wanted her, too.
At that moment, it was as if the very air in the room became electrified, molecules dancing between them, drawing them together, and she could barely breathe for the anticipation she felt. For the first time she felt free to look at him, to stare at his handsome face without fear of his looking back at her with anger or recrimination. She focused on the purplish bruise that still ringed his eye, a reminder of how quickly he’d jumped to her defense when Leandro had grabbed her. She touched his face.
“I never wanted you to get hurt,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’ll heal.”
He leaned toward her, moving slowly and deliberately, and when she realized he intended to kiss her, she literally stopped breathing. When he finally touched his lips to hers, he did it so softly she wasn’t quite sure he’d even made contact. Then he pulled back a scant inch, waiting several long, excruciating moments before kissing her again—a gentle kiss that was only a faint whisper of what she ached for.
She waited for him to kiss her hard and deep as he had out in the woods, but he didn’t. He slid his hand up and down her arm in slow, mesmerizing strokes, just firmly enough to make her realize he was actually touching her and just softly enough to drive her crazy. Still he was kissing her, always kissing her, every touch of his lips and his hands incredibly slow and endlessly erotic. It should have relaxed her. It didn’t. She grew edgier and edgier, her body sizzling, every nerve humming with anticipation.
Then he leaned away, and it was all she could do not to take him by the shirt collar and drag him back. His gaze drifted down her face, to her throat, to her breasts, and back up again.
“Take off the shirt.”
His voice wasn’t demanding. Instead, it was full of desire, and the very sound of it sent a wave of excitement sweeping through her. She wanted this. God, how she wanted it. So why was she still sitting there, frozen in place?
He watched her intently, waiting, she knew, for her to do as he asked, to take off her shirt, to initiate a far deeper intimacy with a man than she’d ever experienced before. But she remembered how things had been out in the forest, when she’d wanted him so much, only to feel shock and humiliation when he’d suggested she had an ulterior motive. He didn’t feel that way now. She knew he didn’t. But still she couldn’t get it out of her mind.
She swallowed hard. “You first.”
He gave her a tiny smile. “A show of good faith?”
“I’m sorry, John. It’s just that—”
“It’s just that this has been a game between us up to now, and you want to make sure the games are over.”
She turned away, feeling totally transparent, wondering how he could have known exactly what she was thinking. Was he thinking, too, about how she told him she trusted him, and now she was acting as if she didn’t?
He caught her chin with his fingertips and eased her back around. “It’s okay,” he whispered, then got up off the bed and stood beside it, reaching up to unbutton his shirt at the same time. Inch by inch he revealed himself, until finally he tugged the tail of the shirt out of his jeans, unbuttoned his cuffs, and pulled it completely off, revealing a lean, muscled chest that flexed sharply with every move he made.
She remembered how she’d stared at him when they were out in that cabin, after he’d taken a shower and had been naked from the waist up. He’d noticed her staring, and she’d felt so embarrassed. Now that she could look at him all she wanted to, she took full advantage of the opportunity. Gorgeous. That was the first word that came to mind to describe him, followed by strong and sexy and a dozen more adjectives of total appreciation.
He tossed the shirt to the floor. “Okay, sweetheart. Your turn.”
It was now or never. And no matter how apprehensive she felt, never wasn’t an option.
She took a deep breath, then grasped the hem of her sweatshirt and pulled it off over her head, her long blonde hair swooping through the neck. She held it up against her for a moment, then dropped it to the bed beside her. She leaned back against the pillow, trying desperately to be cool about this; at the same time her cheeks were so hot it felt as if they’d caught fire.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her bra before, or even her bare breasts, but they weren’t in the middle of something hot and wild and mindless now as they had been out in that forest, moving so fast she couldn’t get her bearings. This was slow and sensual, his eyes taking in every square inch of her exposed skin. She’d never felt so naked in her entire life, and she wasn’t even naked.
Yet.
“Your turn,” she said, barely able to speak, because she knew what his next was going to be.
He reached for his belt and unbuckled it. She watched his dexterous fingers at work, her pulse skittering wildly. He pulled the belt out of its loops, moving slowly—so slowly that either her perception of time was really warped right now, making her feel as if every second were an hour long, or he was deliberately teasing her, making her want it. Making her want him.
If so, it was working.
Finally he dropped the belt, its buckle clinking against the hardwood floor. She waited for what came next, but he just stood there expectantly.
“Your turn,” he said.
She blinked with surprise. Technically she guessed the belt qualified as an item of clothing removed, but fair or not, it put her in a precarious position.
She touched the button of her jeans, then changed her mind and fingered the clasp of her bra. John’s gaze followed the path of her hands, attentive to the tiniest movement they made. His breathing had quickened slightly, and there was a look in those dark eyes that said patience really wasn’t one of his virtues. She wavered back and forth between the two options, either of which would leave her nearly naked and completely vulnerable.
Suddenly she had a flashback to the teenage boys she’d had sex with, who’d been so hell-bent on getting her to hike up her skirt and pull down her panties that they’d say anything, do anything, to make it happen. And then began the frenzied thrusting, the grunting, the sweating, accompanied by the hollowness she felt inside because she could have been a blowup doll for all they cared about her, and when it was over, it was over. Oh, the more chivalrous of them might have offered her a cigarette, or maybe a ride home, but that had been about it, and she felt shame rise up inside her as she remembered how easily she’d sold herself for a few minutes of something resembling closeness to another human being. Only somehow she’d always been left feeling even emptier than before.
She swore she’d never feel that way again.
She fumbled around on the bed and finally grasped her sweatshirt, pulling it up in front of her. “I’m sorry, John. I wanted to do this. I thought I could do this, but I can’t. Please don’t be mad. Please.”
He sat down on the bed beside her, running a calming hand along her thigh. “Now, why would you think I’d be mad?”
She looked away. “When we were in that cabin, and I told you no…”
Her voice trailed off. When she finally dared to look back at him, he was shaking his head. “Sweetheart, a lot has happened between us since that night out at the cabin.”
He reached up and took hold of the sweatshirt, carefully extracting it from her hands and dropping it on the floor. She folded her arms across her chest, amazed she could want him so much and feel so vulnerable all at the same time.
“You’re shaking,” he whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Cold?”
“Scared.”
He skimmed her cheek with his fingertips. “You don’t have to be afraid.”
“Do you have…protection?”
“Yes,” he said. “You’re not a teenage girl anymore, Renee. And I’m not a teenage boy.”
At least part of that was true. He was a man. All man. But where sex was concerned, she was still stuck at age eighteen. “I’m not going to be very good at this.”
He smiled. “Sweetheart, there’s no way you could possibly be bad at it.”
He hooked his finger into the silky strap of her bra and pulled it down until it rested against her upper arm. He kissed the place where it had been, at the same time running his fingertip along the swell of her breast.
“Take your bra off for me,” he whispered against her ear. “I want to see you.”
He leaned away and stared down at her. He could have removed her bra himself, and her shirt, too, but something had changed from that encounter they’d had in the forest. He wasn’t taking what he wanted from her in a wild, heated moment. He was asking her to give it to him.
She moved her hands to the clasp of her bra, his gaze following every nuance of the path they took. She unhooked it, paused a moment, then took it the rest of the way off and let it fall to the floor. She leaned back against the pillow that was propped up against the headboard, and as the cool air of the bedroom spilled over her naked breasts, she resisted the urge to fold her arms and hide herself from his view.
Why was this so hard? Was it because she was twenty-six years old and barely knew what sex was? Or was it because she was afraid of being a disappointment to a man she wanted so much to please?
He curled his hands around her rib cage beneath her breasts, his eyes shimmering like black diamonds as he stared down at her. For a moment she felt self-conscious again, but then he leaned in to kiss her, coaxing her lips apart and sweeping his tongue against hers, and she practically melted into the pillow. At the same time he circled her breasts with his hands, caressing them, teasing her nipples with his fingertips and sending currents of electricity pulsing through her. Boys had touched her breasts before, but not like this, never like this, and when he bent his head to swirl his tongue around her nipple, the onrush of pleasure she felt was so great she thought she’d die from it.
He kissed her again, but his hands were never still, finding erogenous zones she’d never even known existed. She moaned softly and clutched his shoulders, wanting this to go on forever, but the longer she reveled in the touch of his hands and his mouth, the more she felt a harsh, persistent pulsing between her legs she just couldn’t ignore.
“John…” she said softly, squirming against him, her fingers digging into his shoulders. She didn’t know what to say to put it into words, but somehow he knew. He trailed his hand down her stomach to the fly of her jeans. He unbuttoned them, then slid the zipper down. He tried to tug them off, but they stayed stubbornly up over her hips.
“I swear to God I’m never doing your laundry again,” he murmured.
“Cold water,” she said on a breath. “Air-dry.”
“I’ll remember that.”
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet beside the bed, and somehow, despite the fact that the jeans couldn’t have been tighter if they’d been painted on, and despite the fact that it meant she’d be standing in front of him wearing nothing but a scrap of pink nylon, she managed to wiggle out of them. He nudged them aside with his foot, then pulled her into his arms. His strong hands moved down her back, and as his lips descended on hers again, he slid his hands beneath her panties and cupped her buttocks. She gasped a little as he squeezed and kneaded them, urging her closer, so close she could feel his erection hard against her abdomen, straining against the fly of his jeans.
Then he backed away and sat down on the bed, pulling her along with him. He leaned against the headboard, and before she knew it, he’d turned her around and positioned her so she was sitting between his legs, her back to his chest. It felt awkward for a moment, but then he kissed her neck, sending shivers down her spine, and slid his hands around from behind to touch her breasts, strumming her nipples until they grew even hotter and harder than before.
He splayed his palm against her abdomen, then hooked his bare foot around her calf and eased her leg outward. Slowly he moved his other hand downward, pressing it against her panties, finding the tender, sensitive spot at the apex of her thighs. His touch was so unexpected and so intimate that she gasped and tried to twist away. But with his other hand pressed against her abdomen, he held her in place.
“Relax, sweetheart,” he whispered, his breath warm against her ear. “Trust me on this.”
He began to stroke her, but his touch felt so acute, so invasive, so embarrassing that she was on the verge of begging him to stop. Instead she tolerated it, and after a moment she felt the strangest little swirl of pleasure. It flared gently, like a match against kindling, and any objection she’d thought about voicing slipped her mind. She relaxed against him, letting him hold her and touch her the way he wanted to, his hot breath spilling across her neck and shoulder. Soon the pleasurable feeling grew stronger, and she felt a sudden compulsion to move her hips in sync with his strokes, wanting, needing him to do it harder, faster…
Then suddenly he stopped. Before she could cry out in protest, he slipped his hand deftly beneath her panties and delved his fingers into her slick, moist cleft. She froze, gasping with surprise, but he held her tightly, whispering calming words in her ear, then began stroking her again. It wasn’t long before she was moving against him in cadence with his strokes, desperate to reach that indefinable something she trusted would be there if only she gave herself completely to it.
To him.
She gripped his hand where it rested against her abdomen, barely able to catch a breath. As the flame inside her flared more brightly, she moved in tempo with his strokes, pressing harder against him, reaching…reaching…
“John…please…”
More words wouldn’t come. All she could do was moan deep in the back of her throat, a strangled, needy sound that caused him to tighten his hand against her abdomen and increase the pressure, the rhythm, until she thought she’d go out of her mind.
“I know, sweetheart,” he whispered, his voice deep and ragged. “Let go. Come for me.”
The moment he uttered those words, something swooped together inside her, then broke apart, bursting with the brilliant intensity of a thousand stars. She clutched his hand and dropped her head back against his shoulder, rocked by wave after wave of pure pleasure.
“Yes,” he murmured, enveloping her in his arms as she spiraled downward. “Yes.”
The sensations pulsed through her with a wild, sensual rhythm, then slowly, slowly wound down. It seemed that a very long time passed before the last contraction faded away and she could breathe again. But still she clung to him, feeling so warm and safe that she never wanted to let him go. This was so different from anything she’d ever experienced before. This was John, whom she’d gone to war with for the past two days over a terrible situation neither one of them had asked for, only to realize he was the one man in the world she trusted her life to.
John wrapped his arms around Renee and held her tightly, feeling a rush of emotion he couldn’t put a name to, but it was so powerful it nearly knocked him unconscious. Up to now, she’d shown him just how tough she could be, from escaping Leandro, to fighting him all the way out of that forest, to keeping her cool through Sunday lunch with his family. Only there was nothing tough about her now. She was a soft, sweet, vulnerable woman who’d just dissolved in his arms, who clung to him so tightly and so trustingly that he wanted to hold her and protect her forever.
Then she turned in his arms and met his gaze, and the sight of those beautiful blue eyes glazed with passion just about sent him over the edge. She shifted around, draped her arms around his neck, and kissed him, and he kissed her back with every bit of enthusiasm he had to give. He would have sworn she wouldn’t have had a bit of energy left, but here she was, moaning softly against his lips and pressing herself against him, as if she were getting hot all over again. She might not have a lot of experience in lovemaking, but everything she was doing was making him want her desperately. Could he ask for more than that?
“I’ve got to get out of these jeans,” he whispered harshly. She rose from his lap. He came to the edge of the bed, but before he could stand she gently pushed him onto his back. In seconds she had his jeans open. She slid them down his thighs, taking his underwear with them. She got them down to his knees, then she glanced back up and froze.
“My God,” she said, her voice choked.
“Don’t stop now, sweetheart.”
She pulled his jeans the rest of the way off, staring at what lay beneath with an expression of total awe. And he couldn’t ask for more than that, either.
She dropped his jeans to the floor and stood there, her eyes wide, and he knew she wasn’t quite sure what she should do next. He sat up and held out his hand, coaxing her to sit down on the bed. Then he went to his dresser and fished around in the top drawer. He found one of the plastic packets he was looking for, ripped it open, and slid its contents into place, astonished to see that his hands were actually trembling. He hadn’t been this shaken up over the prospect of sex since he was a teenager.
Take it easy, he warned himself. She’s looking for a man, not a kid. A man in control of himself.
He only hoped he could live up to that.
He was dying to rush right over and plunge himself deep inside her, but he knew he couldn’t. She’d had enough of that kind of behavior years ago, when she’d let herself be used by any horny teenage kid who’d been persuasive enough to talk her panties off her. She’d never forgive him if he acted like that. He had to take it slowly, even if it killed him. And it just might.
He turned back around and was surprised to find her lying on the bed, her arm tucked behind her head, staring at him. She’d taken her panties off. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of her totally naked, and when she pulled one leg up and dropped it to one side, then ran her hand sensuously over her inner thigh, his mouth went bone-dry.
“John,” she whispered. “Hurry.”
Thank God.
By the time he got to the bed, she’d dropped her other knee to the mattress, too, and was reaching out for him. He moved between her legs and sank into her.
He froze suddenly, gritting his teeth, the intensity of being inside her so great that he was afraid of losing control right there. But she refused to let him pause, even for a moment. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him deeply, wrapping her legs around him and thrusting her hips upward to take even more of him. He moved inside her, trying to take it slow in spite of her enthusiasm, trying to make this last longer than he’d been able to at age eighteen, but she was so hot and so tight that he knew he didn’t stand a chance of that.
She ran her hands over his back and whispered his name with increasing urgency, and he thrust harder and faster, his body throbbing, aching for release. He’d been so afraid of moving too fast with her, but here she was capturing his rhythm and moving right along with him, any shyness or fear she’d expressed earlier only a distant memory.
“John!” she cried out. “Oh, God…”
He stopped, thinking he’d hurt her. “Renee?”
“No!” she said. “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”
She pulled his hips toward her and arched to meet him, and as he buried himself deep inside her again, he realized, unbelievably, that she was teetering on the brink of orgasm right along with him. It was such an incredible turn-on to know he was taking her there again. No way would he be able to hold back now. He had to, though…just enough…just long enough…
Then she cried out his name again, clenching hard around him. He knew she was coming, felt her coming, and that was all it took to send him over the edge, too. He shuddered as pulse after pulse of white-hot electricity shot through him. For several seconds they clung to each other, breathing wildly, riding out the last few ripples of sensation together.
Slowly the intensity of the moment gave way to relaxed euphoria. John rolled to one side and pulled Renee into his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder, her warm breath tickling his chest. He held her tightly for a long time, so tightly she couldn’t possibly take a good, solid breath. She clung to him just as tenaciously, as if breathing were only a secondary priority and being wrapped in his arms were number one.
John couldn’t believe how he felt right now—as if he’d die if he ever let her go. With all the other women he’d ever known, he’d started planning his escape almost from the first moment he touched them. Why was Renee so different? For the first time in his life, he wanted more than right now with a woman. How ironic was it that she was a woman who might not have a future to offer him?
When she had first told him about her juvenile record, his belief in her innocence had wavered. But her story about her time in juvenile lockup and her “scared-straight” experience rang true. Those kinds of things were very effective with some kids, and clearly they had worked with Renee. They had terrified her so much, in fact, that he was sure she couldn’t possibly have committed that robbery.
Had it terrified her enough that she’d still consider running?
The moment that thought entered his mind, he felt a jolt of apprehension. No. Surely she wouldn’t do that. Surely after what they’d shared tonight, she’d trust him to help her.
But what if he couldn’t help her? What if she realized that the possibility of his amassing enough evidence to give her a chance with a jury was very small? What then?
Just the idea of going back to a place like that terrifies me, she’d told him earlier, her eyes awash with dread, as if she were reliving every moment of the experience she’d had as a teenager. I’ll do anything to stay out of jail, John. Anything.
A terrible feeling of foreboding overcame him. If he closed his eyes and went to sleep right now, would that be the last time he ever saw her? Would he wake up to find the bed beside him empty?
He couldn’t let that happen. No matter what he had to do, he couldn’t let that happen.