They were both virgins.
He swallowed the thickness gathering in his throat. "Mandy, we've both waited so long. Are you sure?"
She nodded, and with a shy innocence more provocative than that of a more experienced woman, she slowly slipped the pearl buttons on her bodice through their holes. Fascinated, he watched the ever-widening gap of material reveal a cotton bra and the smooth, apricot-hued flesh of her stomach. Blood surged to his groin, straining his arousal against the fly of his jeans.
"Amanda-"
"If I'm going to marry you, there's no reason why we can't make love now," she said, her voice husky. "I've wanted you for so long. I want more than caresses and kisses." Giving her shoulders a delicate shrug, the dress slipped down her arms, over her hips, and down her legs to pool at her feet. She unhooked her bra and added it to the pile. She stood before him in nothing more than wispy panties and the moonlight from the window streaming across her skin. "I want to feel you inside me. Please, Johnny."
His mouth went dry as dust and a shudder ran the length of his body. Any good intentions he might have had to discourage her from this seduction vanished, along with his self-control. He'd seen her naked before, but the perfection of herlithe and supple body, the fullness of her breasts, the gentle flare of her hips, and the shadowed secrets between her thighs, never ceased to take his breath away.
Lifting her into his arms, he carried her to the twin bed in the corner of the shack. He took off her sandals and removed her panties. She reached for the buttons on his shirt, but he pushed her hands away, too impatient to feel skin against skin, softness against hardness, to let her help. A minute later he was as naked as she, and so powerfully aroused, he thought he'd burst before he had the luxury of being sheathed inside her.
He didn't want to hurt her, and even though his body demanded he ease his smoldering need, he took the time to prime her for his entry. Pushing her to the absolute brink of pleasure, he widened her thighs and settled his hips in that natural cove. He met immediate resistance, a blunt pressure, and she gasped, her fingers gripping his arms. Through the hazy fog enveloping his mind and the thundering pulse in his veins, he managed to murmur, "Sorry."
He shook with the effort to go slow and be gentle. Then male instinct took over and he thrust forward, pushing deeper and deeper inside her, until he passed that maiden barrier.
She arched against him and cried out, a sharp sound of pain and uncertainty. He groaned, awed by the incredible feeling of finally being one with her, of taking her innocence and giving her his in return. She was tight and hot, and as he slipped even deeper, she melted around him like liquid satin. As his hips began a slow rhythm, he watched her pained expression change to wonder, heard that soft, sweet moan that told him she was close, so close. The wave of tiny tremors tensing the muscles deep inside her triggered his release.
Sensations unlike any he'd ever experienced closed in on him: tingles, tremors, a building, roaring heaviness, and most pronounced was the desperate need to bind her to him forever. If he let go, if he succumbed to the pleasure whispering to his senses, he would lose her…
No!
The screeching sound of steel grinding into steel echoed in his head. Shattering glass. Shrill, agonizing screams that ripped into his soul. Then spine-chilling, absolute silence that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
"Amanda," J.T. groaned. She started to slip away and he tightened his hold. A crushing emptiness enveloped him, a loneliness so bleak he couldn't breath.Please don't leave me, Amanda. Please!
"Hey, wake up," a soft, feminine voice called.
She wiggled beneath him, soft and pliant, a vague reassurance that Amanda was still with him. He cupped a breast in his palm, confused by the feel of soft cotton and the restraint of a bra. She squirmed a little more, her jeans-clad legs tangling with his. In a fragmented part of his mind he realized she was fully clothed. How could that be when she'd just undressed for him?
"Amanda," he murmured, valiantly trying to pull himself from the murky depths of sleep.
"Wake up!"
Something hard shoved against his chest, and he grunted as a shaft of pain ricocheted in his skull. Groggy and slightly disoriented, he managed to open his eyes to mere slits. Blue eyes, so dark and velvety they reminded him of lush violets, met his. He smiled lazily. "Amanda," he whispered, relieved that her dying had been a bad, awful dream. Lowering his head, he pressed his damp open mouth to the warm skin of her neck. "Amanda."
"I'm not Amanda," the woman beneath him said, struggling to push his weight off her. "Please, you're crushing me."
Frowning, he forced the thick cobwebs from his mind and pulled back enough to get a clear look at the woman. The sunshine streaming through the window sharpened his blurry vision, and he found himself staring not at his blue-eyed, blond-haired Amanda in the throes of passion, but a blue-eyed, brunette stranger determined to fend off his advances.
"What the hell?" Lightning quick, he rolled off her, and the bed, to his bare feet. A sharp, brutal pain lanced through his head, and for a moment the room dipped and whirled. He sucked in a harsh breath.
Grabbing the back of the chair by the bed, he regained his balance and focused on the woman he'd left sprawled on the bed. She looked embarrassed and flustered by their encounter. Disheveled, chin-length, glossy brown hair rumpled around a face set with delicate features, and a slight flush painted her cheeks a rosy hue. Her lips were damp and a little bit swollen. He couldn't deny that he'd kissed her; he still had the honeyed taste of her in his mouth.
He closed his eyes and swore. For the sweetest moment he'd believed Amanda was still alive, that a drunk driver had never hit them head on, killing her, when he'd driven her home that night after they'd made love. It had been so long since he'd dreamed of her, and everything had seemed so real.
"Are you okay?" came the woman's worried voice.
He looked at her and suddenly realized he was completely naked and painfully aroused from his dream-and from having her pressed beneath him. Swearing again, he snatched the pillow from the bed and covered himself.
A half smile of amusement brushed her lips as she sat up and swung her legs off the side of the mattress. Self-consciously, she straightened her flannel shirt and ran her fingers through her hair. "No need to get modest on me. I saw everything there was to see last night."
"No kidding?" J.T. searched his mind for a memory, anything to explain why he was in the ranch's line shack with a woman he didn't know and a splitting headache threatening to explode his brain. He didn't drink, so he knew he didn't have a hangover. And he didn't pick up strange women. And even if he did, he wouldn't bring them to a one-room shack, the only accommodations being a twin bed, a woodstove, a table, and a few blankets and rations.
Whos, whats, and whys tumbled through his head faster than he could log them. He settled for the most basic question. "What's going on?"
Standing, she walked past him to the wood stove and added a few more logs to the fire. "You don't remember what happened?" She placed a metal coffeepot over a burner.
Another wave of dizziness assaulted him and he sat back down on the bed before he toppled over. Keeping the pillow strategically in his lap, he rubbed his aching forehead and replied with a bit of sarcasm, "Sweetheart, you can bet if I remembered bringing you here you'd be as naked as I am. I don't remember a damn thing."