Beverly Barton - Defending His Own

While he suckled at her breasts, his fingers delved between the delicate folds of her body, finding the sensitive, hidden peak. She unzipped his trousers and reached inside to cover his arousal with the palm of her hand. Their kisses grew hotter, harder, longer, as they moved to the rhythm of nature's mating music, their bodies straining for closer and closer contact.

Lifting his hips, Ashe removed his wallet, then tugged his trousers downward and kicked them into the floorboard. "I'm dying," he groaned. "I wanted to wait, to take more time, to—"

Leaning over him, she covered his mouth, silencing him with the fury of her kiss. He ran his hands up and down, over her shoulders, down her back, pulling at her panties until she helped him remove them. He eased her over and onto her back, drawing her body beneath his as he ripped off his briefs, sheathed himself and positioned her for his possession.

"Now, honey? Now!" He was fast losing control.

"Yes, now!"

He plunged into her, lifting her hips, delving deep and hard. She gripped his shoulders, rising to meet his demands. Sliding her legs up his until she reached his hips, she whispered his name over and over, telling him with the tone of her voice and little moans of pleasure that she was near the brink. He didn't want this to end, wanted it to go on forever, but knew he couldn't last much longer. The pleasure was too great, too intense to slow the upward spiral toward completion.

"It's too good, honey. Too good."

He felt her tightening around him. She clasped him like a tight fist. Crying out, she quivered in his arms as spasm after spasm of fulfillment racked her body. His release came hard and fast, shaking him to the core of his being.

He cried out, losing himself in her, kissing her as they shivered from the aftershocks of such a powerful loving.

Lifting himself, Ashe pulled Deborah up off the seat and into his arms, holding her against him, listening to her rapid breathing.

"I want to make love to you again," he told her. "Tonight. Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow."

She didn't say anything; she couldn't. She knew he was telling her that, this time, there would be no rejection and no regrets. She lifted her face to him, glorying in the feel of his arms around her, the passion in his consuming kiss.

Dawn spread a honeyed pink glow across the horizon. When Ashe parked the Caddy in the driveway, Deborah awoke. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she smiled.

"It's 5:40," he said. "Mazie is going to be up and about any time now."

"Think she'll catch us sneaking in?"

"Would you care if she does?" Ashe opened the car door and assisted Deborah. Wrapping his arm around her, he led her to the front door.

"She'd probably be shocked. She's not used to me sneaking into the house at all hours."

Ashe unlocked the door. They walked into the entrance hall, arm in arm. "What do you usually do, stay overnight at your lover's house?"

Shadowy morning light coming through the windows illuminated the stairs. Deborah stopped dead still in the middle of the staircase.

"I haven't had any lovers," she said, then pulled out of Ashe's arms and ran up to the landing.

He caught her just as she flung open her sitting room door, whirling her around to face him, pulling her into his arms. "What do you mean you haven't had any lovers?"

"There's never been anyone else. Only you." Lowering her head, she looked down at the floor.

He lifted her chin in the curve of his thumb and forefinger. "Honey, I—"

"I never fell in love again, that's all. I hoped that sooner or later the right guy would come along and I'd be ready, but it just didn't happen."

"Just Mr. Wrong again, huh?"

"No, Ashe, not Mr. Wrong. Just not Mr. Right." She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him, then stepped back and smiled. "This time we're lovers. Remember? Mutual desire?"

"You'd better get in your room and lock me out or we'll be right in the middle of some mutual desire any minute now."

"Good night, then." She laughed. "Or should I say good morning."

"Next time, we're going to have to find some place else to make love." He rubbed the small of his back. "I'm too old to do it in a car, even a big Caddy."

"Next time," she whispered to herself. Next time. She knew she would never be able to resist him and that for him this was only an affair. But not for her. She was already so in love with Ashe McLaughlin she couldn't bear for him to leave her.

He kissed her with a passion that told her that even if he wasn't in love with her, leaving her was as difficult for him as it was for her. Releasing her, he shoved her into her room and closed the door. She took a deep breath, turned and raced into her bedroom, falling in a heap on her bed. Hugging herself, she rolled into a ball and closed her eyes.

This was what she had dreaded since the moment she'd walked in and saw Ashe talking to her mother in the living room. And, if she was honest with herself, this was what she had wanted to happen. No matter how hard she had tried to deny it, she still loved Ashe McLaughlin. She had never truly stopped loving him.

What on earth was she going to do now? She had rushed headlong into an affair with her son's father. How could she continue lying to Ashe, keeping the truth about his child from him? The longer she waited to tell him, the more difficult it would be—for both of them. But did she dare tell him? Would he understand? Or would he hate her for keeping his son from him all these years?

Chapter 10

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" Please, tell us, Ms. Vaughn, what happened when you took that wrong turn off Cotton Lane?" the district attorney asked.

"I realized I'd gotten off on the wrong road and was looking for a place to turn around." Deborah sat straight, her hands folded in her lap. "I noticed a truck pulled off the road. One man jumped out of the truck, but I couldn't see his face. There were two other men behind the truck, one holding a gun to the other's head."

Deborah's stomach tightened into a knot; she gripped her damp hands together. Glancing out into the courtroom she sought Ashe. Their gazes met and held. She took a deep breath.

"Are you all right, Ms. Vaughn?" District Attorney Jim Bitterman spoke softly, his voice a light tenor, a distinct contrast to his rugged, almost ugly face and wiry, muscular body.

"Yes." Deborah kept her vision focused on Ashe for several seconds longer, gaining strength from his presence.

"Will you continue, please?"

"The man holding the gun was Lon Sparks."

"Objection, your honor," the defense attorney, Leland Prater shouted, rising from his seat and moving his short, rotund body around the desk. "Ms. Vaughn was not acquainted with Mr. Sparks and therefore could hardly have recognized him."

"Ms. Vaughn later identified Mr. Sparks from a photograph, your honor," Jim Bitterman said.

"Overruled," Judge Heath said.

"Please continue." District Attorney Bitterman stood directly in front of Deborah. "Tell the jury what you saw."

"Lon Sparks shot the man in the head." Deborah closed her eyes momentarily, the memory of that dreadful sight closing in around her, filling her with the sense of fear she'd known in those horrific seconds when she'd witnessed the murder.

Jim Bitterman allowed her to continue recalling the events at her own pace. Leland Prater, long known as an old bag of wind and one of the most crooked lawyers in the area, objected every chance he got, deliberately unnerving Deborah as much as possible. But she did not waver in her testimony, not even when Prater cross-examined her.

She'd been warned, by Jim and by Ashe, that Prater's strategy would be to bring her to tears, show her to be a highly emotional, hysterical woman, who had allowed her hysteria and fear to wrongly identify Lon Sparks.