“Do all the women you’ve made love to know your true name?”
“Only two other living people know it, and neither of them are women.”
Well, that was something. Maybe being an obsession was more important than a casual bed partner.
Later, Josie’s heart fluttered in her chest as Daniel unlocked the door to their hotel room. Facing armed guerillas was not as intimidating as the unknown beyond that door.
She’d known soldiering her whole life, but the man/woman thing, seems it was all a complete mystery to her. Other women had started heavy petting when she’d been busy learning how to build and dismantle car bombs. The only orgasms she’d known had been of the self-made variety, and while they made pretty good battle tension relievers, they weren’t anything to get excited about.
Not like the way she felt when Daniel kissed her.
Which was why she was here, ready to make love for the first time to a man who until that very morning, she’d been convinced didn’t even like her.
He’d acted as though he liked her in the park. He’d played with her, and she had a feeling their tussling had been as new an experience for him as it had been for her, but the desire they felt was not.
He knew so much more about this than she did.
“My dad wouldn’t have taken you on as a partner if you weren’t a pretty good teacher, would he?”
Daniel turned his head to look at her, his hand on the doorknob. “What?”
“Your method of teaching isn’t tossing someone into a river and seeing if they learn to swim before they drown, is it?” Her voice was high-pitched, and her breathing had turned ragged at the edges.
He winked, shocking her to her toenails. “Don’t worry, Josette. I won’t let you drown.”
She swallowed and tried to believe him. He pushed the heavy, ornate wooden door open and indicated she should go in first, but her legs refused to cooperate.
His dark eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, but I can’t seem to get my feet to move.”
“You’re nervous.”
What had been his first clue? The way she equated making love for the first time with death by drowning, or the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look she knew was in her eyes? “I shouldn’t be. I’m not a child.”
“But you are innocent.”
“Only physically.” She’d heard and seen things women married for forty years would never experience.
He shook his head, his mouth twitching at the corners. “Your heart and your mind are very innocent still, no matter what you think you know.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
That sparked another set of worries that kept her feet firmly glued to the floor outside their room. “Won’t you be bored making love to me, seeing as how I don’t know anything?”
“Josette, I could spend the entire night just looking at you and not get bored.” His tone wasn’t reassuring so much as bewildered.
Which was actually pretty comforting. Later, she would probably feel flattered and special, but right now, she just felt relief. At least something about this was new for him, too. “I take it you’ve never been that way with a woman?”
“No.” And if the frown on his face meant anything, he didn’t like it.
“It’s a first for both of us.” She couldn’t help the satisfaction that laced her voice.
He let out an impatient breath. “It’s not going to be anything if we don’t get out of the hall.”
She sighed and looked into the room. It was a suite. She could see the bedroom through the sumptuously decorated sitting room. It was like a room out of time, the colors and decor something from a bygone era.
“It’s a pretty room,” she said without moving.
“Not as pretty as the woman I’m bringing into it.” Before she knew it, the decision was being taken from her as he swept her up in his arms and carried her inside.
“This isn’t our wedding night,” she said breathlessly.
“I know that.”
“But you just carried me over the threshold.”
“It was the expedient thing to do.”
Perhaps, but she liked the sensations zinging through her body as a result of being held securely in his strong arms. She looped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the warmth of his chest. He smelled so different than she did, but it was a good different. Masculine.
Maybe she wasn’t as lacking in the feminine department as she thought she was. At least she now realized she smelled like a woman, not a man. She should have caught on to that sooner, as much time as she spent around male soldiers, but she couldn’t ever remember actually smelling one before.
He carried her through the sitting room to the bedroom beyond, and her breath caught in her throat.
Did he want to make love right now, just like that?
Of course he did. She was his obsession. It wasn’t the romance of the century or anything schmaltzy like that.
Then another scent, one very different from Daniel, invaded her senses. Roses.
She lifted her head from his chest and looked around them.
The room was filled with flowers—red roses, white roses, yellow roses and even lavender roses. They were everywhere. Swags of dried orange blossoms hung off the ornate head and footboard of the antique bed, too, but the thing that caught her attention and kept it was a white silk gown spread over the burgundy velvet bedspread.
“Daniel?”
He looked down at her, the hardened mercenary she knew him to be not quite hiding the man who cared enough to make this night special. “It’s your first time. I want you to remember it for all the right reasons.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she couldn’t get a sound out past the big lump in her throat.
He let her down and stepped back, seemingly unconcerned by her display of emotion.
“I’m going to take a walk. I’ll be back in a while. The bathroom is through there.” He pointed to a door on the opposite side of the room. “Take your time getting ready. I’m not going to rush you tonight, in any way.”
She was still shivering from the promise in that last comment when the outer door closed.
When Daniel came back to the room a half an hour later, the door to the bedroom was still shut.
How much longer would she be?
He’d promised not to rush her, but he wanted her with a hunger that left him feeling hollow and achy inside. Calling his need for her an obsession had been pure fact. If she had turned him down, he would have been on a collision course with spontaneous combustion.
The closed door mocked his promise of patience. He wanted to pound on it and demand to know how long it took to put on a nightgown, but he had just enough self-control left to keep him seated on the oversized Victorian sofa.
This was too important to mess up with impatience, even if it was born of desperation.
She’d waited twenty-six years to share her body with a man. After their talk in the park, he understood that better, but still found it difficult to believe a woman as sexy and beautiful as she was could have remained innocent so long.
If Daniel had been one of the soldiers going through Tyler McCall’s training camp, Josie would have gotten educated about men and their desires a lot earlier. He would never have allowed the older man’s threats-slash- promises to deter him from pursuing a woman he wanted as much as he wanted Josie.
The handle turned on the door to the bedroom, and he surged up from the sofa. The door swung inward, and she came out, the sheer white silk gown clinging lovingly to her small curves.
His breath caught, and he had to clear his throat to talk. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you for the gown. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever worn.”
The exclusive boutique owner he had called earlier had followed his directions to a T. The nightgown was designed along the lines of a medieval dress. Its bell-shaped long sleeves floated gently around Josie’s slender
