The First Love Cookie Club (20 page)

Except he couldn’t deny the bond his daughter had forged with her. He’d never seen Jazzy this happy. Sure, part of it was due to her renewed health, but the way her face lit up whenever Sarah came into the room did strange and wonderful things to him.

And around Jazzy, Sarah opened like an unfurling rose. They seemed to feed off each other in a way he could not comprehend. They talked of magical cookies and fairy tales and castles and princesses and once-upon-a-time in way he didn’t get. It was like they created their own little world. He might think that was a bad thing, except when they were together, they laughed in a way neither one of them laughed when they were apart.

“I’ve waited a long time for you, Travis Walker,” Sarah said. “Don’t disappoint me now.”

Travis fell into those amazing blue eyes, darker now with a sheen of desire. All traces of the girl next door were gone. She was a grown woman in every sense of the word. He reached to cradle her chin in his palm and felt the pulse under her ear skitter beneath his fingers like a wild thing desperate to escape a trap.

He lowered his head and kissed those sweet salmon-colored lips. A tender kiss that contradicted the savage urges raging inside him. It was all he could do not to yank her clothes off her and tug her down on the hardwood floor. But he didn’t surrender to the blood pounding through his veins, surging hotly through his body. At least not completely. Instead, he just kept firm pressure on her mouth while he stroked the side of her neck with his thumb.

Her lips parted on a soft sigh and she sank against him, her breasts pressing against his chest, her warmth seeping through his skin, stoking the blaze growing inside him. His erection jumped, demanding attention, but Travis held on to his control. Being a father had taught him the value of patience.

He could wait, no matter how painful. He had to take care with her. She was precious cargo and she’d just entrusted him with her darkest secret and he wasn’t about to disappoint her.

Sarah’s heart pounded. She was scared, yes, but she wanted this more than anything in the world. They’d been building toward this moment since that day on the parade float. No, longer than that. Since the day she’d burst into the church and told him he was her destiny. This was the moment she finally revealed her secret to him.

Even though he’d said it wouldn’t matter to him, that no matter what, he would think she was gorgeous, she worried it wasn’t true.
What if…

No. She wasn’t going there. She was going to live in the moment, experience everything he had to offer her, and let the future take care of itself.

She looked at Travis, saw the nervousness in his eyes, and knew he was feeling just as vulnerable as she was. He was taking a big risk too. Going out on a limb for her, trusting that she wouldn’t abandon him as most everyone else in his life had done in one way or another.

He trusted her, made her feel safe, and she had to trust him.

She reached for the hem of her sweater, intending on pulling it up, pulling it over her head, exposing her scarred, fire-ravaged body to him, but he reached out to still her hand with his. “Let me.”

Trembling, she dropped her arms.

His touch was cautious and incredibly gentle. Slowly, he raised her sweater, but his eyes stayed on hers. He didn’t look away as his hands touched her feverish skin and his fingertips skimmed along her sides. Like a blind man, he explored the ridges of the scar that fanned out across her belly from her ribs to her pelvis. Then his fingers reached up to remove her bra.

Emotion clogged Sarah’s throat as she stared into his face and never once saw a flicker of anything but tenderness and caring. Outside the ice storm raged, but in her head she could hear Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” and she was fifteen again, innocent and unscarred and madly, truly, deeply in love with this man.

He pressed his face into her hair and inhaled deeply. “God, you smell so good, Sarah. You smell like home.”

Finally, he tugged the sweater over her head and flung it over the chair. She tensed, waiting. But he didn’t look down, just kept looking at her. She reached up to splay her palm over his chest, felt his heart thumping hard and steady.

He kissed her; long, lingering, sweet. Then he lowered himself to his knees, eye level with her damaged belly.

Fresh fear flashed through her. What was he seeing? What did her body look like to him?

He pressed his warm lips to the scar, kissing herwhere no man had ever kissed before. “Beautiful,” he crooned between each kiss. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”

As he kissed and crooned, he undid the snap on her jeans, eased them down—along with her panties—over her hips, to her ankles. She kicked them off and stood naked before him.

After he’d thoroughly kissed her, he got to his feet again and removed his own pants. They stood naked together and she saw nothing on his face but admiration, respect, and—did she dare hope?— love.

“Sarah Collier, you’re beautiful inside and out and no scar is ever going to change that and I want to make love to you more than I want to breathe.” He stripped off his own shirt and tossed it beside hers.

He took the elastic band from her braid and slowly unwound it until her hair was a wavy cascade around her body. “Jazzy calls you Rapunzel. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair so I may climb your golden stair.”

“You know your fairy tale princesses.”

“I have my daughter to thank for that. Come down out of your ivory tower, Sarah, and be with me.”

She kissed him this time, and in her head Bing switched to her second favorite Christmas song, “Christmas Canon” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The smooth romantic music tugged at her heartstrings. She tried to block it. Tried to detach and stop feeling, but all her defenses were gone. In his arms, she was fully, completely exposed.

And then Sarah just started to cry as she’d nevercried before. This moment was too beautiful to be believed. Every dream she’d ever dreamed, every hope she’d ever dared hope about Travis Walker was coming true and her heart filled with more love than she could ever express. It leaked from her in great rolling sobs.

Travis’s eyebrows rose in alarm and he enveloped her in a tight hug. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she blubbered through the cascade of tears. She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t, and that scared her because she’d never had much problem detaching. But with Travis, there was no detaching. She felt him everywhere.

“Sarah, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m fine. Everything is wonderful, perfect.” She swiped at the tears with the back of her hand.

“Please, Sarah,” he said, his voice raspy, “please don’t break me.”

“Never, Travis, never,” she pledged.

“C’mere.” He took her hand, guided her across the room, and sank down onto the cool blankets, pulling her with him. The white winter sunlight glinted off the icy wonderland outside, spilling the bright white color through the window, slanting over the bed. Sarah realized she’d never made love in the daylight. Before, no afternoon delight. But now, everything was pure delight. How had she gotten here, to this most exalted place?

They were belly to belly—hers scarred, his flawless—gazing into each other’s eyes.

He rolled her over in one fluid movement until he was on top and she could feel his body heat radiating over her. “Like it or not, Sarah, this means something,” Travis murmured.

“Yes,” she said, wondering again how in the world she’d gotten here, to this cabin in the woods with the man of her dreams.

“This isn’t like the night I pulled you from the lake. That was hard, frantic—“

“Lust.”

“This is different.” He stroked a finger down her cheek and briefly she closed her eyes against the intimate feel of his work-roughened skin. “We’re both going to be different after this.”

“I know,” she whispered.

She felt the head of Travis’s penis expanding against her thigh. Gazing into his eyes, she could feel the shift start, subtle in the beginning, but definite, concrete, something you could bank on. It was like the unexpected ice storm, slipping into the midst of a warm winter morning, inconvenient and sharp, but exciting and dynamic, a blast of frisky freshness upsetting the languid status quo. It made her feel incredibly alive.

“I’m going to make love to you now, sweetheart,” he whispered.

The rising wave of her desire swept her along as if she was a grain of sand sucked into the undertow and carried out to sea.

“Make love to me,” she murmured, and ran her palms over the hard plains of his masculine shoulders, his muscles tensed with holding his weight above her. She wanted him so desperately. Even more than the night he’d saved her from drowning in the lake.

He kissed her then. Each kiss growing sweeter and sweeter.

She felt his erection stretch and tighten. Justthinking about having his cock inside her made her arch her pelvis upward. But, simultaneously, he arched his back, pulling away, teasing her.

“Hey, no fair,” she whispered, and reached up to splay her palm against his beautiful ass.

He laughed. His penis hard as cement jutting into her scarred belly.

She pushed his ass down with her palm, letting him know where she needed for him to go.

He lowered himself down, but did not enter her. Instead he moved against her, rubbing the head of his penis against her straining clit, a perfect rhythm building. Then suddenly he stopped and looked deeply into her eyes. “You are an incredible woman, Sarah.”

He was totally into her. She could see it in the hotness of his gaze. He made her feel like she was the center of his universe, cherished, admired. A heated flush rushed up her chest to her neck to burn her cheeks. How she’d once fantasized about a moment just like this one!

Everything in her universe dissolved except for this man—the bed, the cabin, the storm. Nothing existed but the two of them, floating on the up-draft of something monumental.

And then slowly, he eased into her.

She hissed in her breath on a sigh and let her legs fall fully open to him. His strokes were easy, tender, careful, but sliding in deeper with each controlled thrust. A groan of pleasure slipped from his lips and Sarah smiled up at the ceiling, her heart overflowing with joy.

“Oh my, this is …” She had no words to describe what she was feeling. Phenomenal, sensational, extraordinary, no superlative seemed accurate enough. Instead, she reached up to thread her fingers through his unruly locks and gave a gentle tug.

He laughed. “I feel it too, sweetheart,” he said huskily, and kept the rhythm unhurried and deliberate.

She spun on the specialness of the moment. Appreciating every movement, every sound he made, the way her body responded to his. It was as if he was the sun and she was a budding flower soaking up his rays, expanding in his warmth. She squeezed at him with her internal muscles, clamping down, drawing him in.

“Whoops,” he said. “What was that?”

The look on his face was wild, feral, and it yanked at something primal inside her. She loved watching him lose control, loved knowing she was responsible for his headlong rush to ecstasy.

She did it again.

“You keep up that little trick and I’m done for, darlin'.”

She laughed.

“God, I love to hear you laugh.” He buried his face against the curve of her neck and nibbled lightly.

Sarah moaned softly.

“Ah, so you like that?”

“Uh-huh.”

He kept nibbling while he picked up the pace, his body sliding in and out of her as his tongue did wicked things to her neck.

Her breathing shot from her in heavy gasps. He was driving her berserk.

But she wasn’t the only one going berserk as she rhythmically squeezed and released him. “That’s right, I’m giving it right back to you,” she murmured.

She felt a fine sheen of perspiration slick his back and the air filled with the smell of his masculine scent. She loved this, loved the way he was pushing into her.

“Drive into me,” she coaxed shamelessly. What was it about him that brought out the animal in her? “Come on, give me all you’ve got.”

He did as she asked, ramming into her so quick and hard that his balls slapped against her. She curved her body upward, getting as close to him as physically possible. She clung to him, doing her best to keep up with his delirious sprint. “That’s it, babe, give it to me good.”

Travis was coming undone, she could feel his hold slipping, but that was okay, because she was losing it too.

No, no, she was already lost. Gone, swirled away inside the tempo, caught up in the vortex of sensation, rising higher and higher. She gave a strangled cry, a sharp, keening sound as if she’d been hurt. But it wasn’t a cry of pain, rather one of most supreme pleasure.

She squeezed. He pushed.

Higher and harder and faster until the bed was banging against the wall … and then just when she was on the verge, when they both were so close they could taste it, Travis stopped.

He posed over her, every muscle in his body tensed; sweat breaking out on his skin, every nerve cell quivering hotly. He held them both on the ra-zor’s edge, knowing instinctively when to stop and still having the ability to do so. The man’s control was beyond astounding. He stayed buried deep within her, his penis a constant throb at her womb.

Waves of undulating energy flowed through her feminine core like ripples in a lake dotted with rain. They were pressed so close together, the fire between them raging. Sarah felt as if she was melting, dissolving into him and he into her, mingling together in a sticky, wet pool.

“Please,” she whimpered, “please.”

“Not yet,” he whispered with his mouth pressed against her ear. “Not yet.”

He kissed her gently, his cool mouth belying the inferno surging through them both. He slid his mouth down her body, his tongue skimming her skin. Slowly, he eased out of her and she whimpered again at the loss of him.

“Easy,” he murmured. “Easy.”

She slanted a glance downward. The head of his engorged penis was swollen and discolored. It must hurt him to be so close and not yet come. She reached down a hand to touch him, and he let out a long hiss as if her fingers had burned him to the bone.