Page 67 of I Do, I Do, I Do
Gently, he guided her to her knees on the blankets and slowly withdrew the pins from her hair, catching long curls in his hands as they tumbled down her back and over her breasts. “I’ve wanted to draw out the pins since I first saw you.” Closing his eyes, he rubbed a curl across his cheek and mouth.
Easing herself down on the blankets, Zoe held out her arms to him, and he came to her with a groan, covering her. The cold snowy night lay ahead of them—there was no need to rush. He kissed her again and again, his callused hands excitingly rough on her smooth body, exploring, caressing, bringing her up and up and up to a level of urgency and need that shook her body and left her panting and gasping his name. Her thighs were wet with readiness when he finally came to her, filling a deep emptiness she had not known she felt.
She knew he battled an urgency of desire as great as hers. She saw it in his eyes, saw that he wanted to be gentle with her. But their hunger was too powerful for quiet pleasures. They moved together in a tangle of fevered kisses and deep strong thrusts, gasped and whispered and clutched with flying hands.
Afterward, they collapsed in each other’s arms, sated and happily quiet. Tom smoked, and Zoe lay nestled against his shoulder, listening to the odd silence of falling snow.
“Right now there is no place else I’d rather be,” she murmured, her lips against his bare chest. It was snug and warm in the lean-to. The clean fragrance of pine mingled with the scents of their bodies and their lovemaking. Never again would she sniff a pinecone or step into a forest without remembering the joy of this night.
“I love you, Zoe.” He stroked her hair, his touch so tender it was almost reverential. “And your secret doesn’t matter.”
She stiffened. Jean Jacques was the last person she wanted to think about right now. “You’re wrong. It matters. Besides, you don’t know what my secret is.”
“I think I’ve put it together. I think you cared for a man you met in Seattle. Something happened, and you didn’t get married. He went to Dawson City, and you’re here looking for him.”
Zoe sat up. His guess struck so close to the truth that goose bumps rose on her naked skin.
“There are two things I want to say.” His green eyes were clear and steady. “I know you well enough to know that you decided a lot of things when you came to me tonight. You decided it’s me you care about and not the other man. Your search for him is finished.”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t lie to him again. She knew she loved Tom, but her search for Jean Jacques had not ended.
“As for your secret—Zoe, it doesn’t matter that I wasn’t the first. People make mistakes. I know you’re an honorable woman, and you must have believed you loved him. I don’t want to know about him, don’t want to know what happened between you. But I want you to understand that none of it matters. We start fresh from here. You and me.”
He thought her secret was that she was not a virgin. Oh, Lord. And he believed she was an honorable woman.
Stricken, she lay down again and hid her face against his shoulder, blinking hard against the tears swimming in her eyes. She would have given ten years of her life if there had been no Jean Jacques Villette. She would have given another ten years if she were truly the honorable person he thought she was.
After a length of silence, Tom lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. Then he studied her wedding ring.
“This is an unusual ring. I’ve noticed that Clara and Juliette wear one like it. Is it club jewelry?”
“What?” Her voice was dulled and faint.
“I’ve wondered if you all belong to the same women’s club.”
“You could say that,” she said bitterly, withdrawing her hand.
Long after Tom slept and the temperature began to drop in the lean-to, Zoe lay awake in the warmth of his arms, mentally flogging herself for the mess she had made of her life.
Tom believed they had made a commitment to each other tonight. And it should have been that way. It would have, if she hadn’t been married. They would have found rapture in each other’s arms, joy in declaring their love, and pleasure and excitement in planning a future that both their families would have heartily approved.
Instead, she had dishonored him, because she would have staked her life that Tom Price would never make love to a married woman. Just as he would stake his life that Zoe Wilder would never betray marriage vows.
And Tom would know what she had done when they reached Dawson City and ran into Jean Jacques, damn him.
Near morning, she reached for him and kissed him hungrily, needing him desperately for the brief time she could have him. Her selfishness dismayed her, but she needed this moment of happiness.
He touched her cheek in the darkness. “You’re crying!”
“Just love me, Tom. Just for tonight.” While they could. Before shooting Jean Jacques completed the ruin of her life.
This time they made love slowly, tenderly, their caresses lingering and long. They drank deep of each other, not knowing if there would be another chance for privacy.
She couldn’t say the words aloud, but she said them silently. I love you. Oh, Tom, I love you with all of my heart.
Chapter 16
The group considered staying at Deep Lake for a few days because everyone was exhausted, but they voted to push on and spend Christmas at Linderman Lake, where a large camp had gathered around a collection of ramshackle buildings.
