Hero by Nature (Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero 3) - Page 54

Autumn lifted a questioning eyebrow.

“I was always a guy who liked little kids,” he explained with a slight smile. “When I was in high school, playing football and doing other macho things, I Was still a sucker for babies and toddlers. You never saw me without a few younger kids tagging at my heels, imitating everything I did, taking everything I said as gospel. I loved the adulation, of course,” he admitted with gentle self-mockery, “but more than that, I was fascinated by the way their minds developed and interpreted things. And I couldn’t stand it when one of them got hurt.”

“So you became a pediatrician.”

“Yeah. It’s perfectly acceptable now for me to like kids, but at the time I took a lot of ribbing. The other guys my age couldn’t understand my affection for the little yard-apes, as they called them. It was okay for teenage girls to like children, but not teenage boys.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Autumn admitted, struck by his words. He did understand. At least as much as a man could understand a woman’s rebellion against society’s restrictions.

“What I don’t understand,” Jeff continued, “is why I brought out such panic in you. From the beginning I accepted your career and never made demands on you to change. Couldn’t you tell that I wasn’t a rigid traditionalist, despite my traditional upbringing? After all, your own background was pretty traditional, and look at the way you turned out.”

“I know. I was using that for an excuse,” Autumn confessed, hanging her head. “I didn’t realize it until the past few weeks. I wasn’t really afraid of loving you or of you trying to change me. I was afraid of needing you.”

He nodded. “I figured that out after you hurt yourself and you were so careful to point out that you would have been just fine without me. Were you afraid that you’d grow to need me and I’d let you down?”

“That’s it, I guess. At first, I thought my fear of need was another facet of the man-woman thing. You know, not wanting to be one of those clinging, dependent women who needs a strong, dependable man to make her whole, to center her life upon. And maybe that was part of it. But today I finally understood what I was really afraid of.”

“Which was?” he asked, going very still.

She squirmed around on the couch until she was facing him directly. “Don’t you see? I didn’t want to need you because I couldn’t imagine that you really needed me.” She raised a hand to silence him when he would have spoken impetuously. “No, listen, Jeff. You’re handsome, popular, a successful pediatrician. You have many friends, a close family, a beautiful home. You could have any woman you wanted with very little effort. You seemed completely at ease with yourself and your life, happy and content. I couldn’t see you needing me the way I was beginning to need you because I couldn’t see anything missing in your life, any void I could fill.”

Jeff had flushed uncomfortably at her matter-of-fact description of him. Now he shook his head in disbelief. “Really, Autumn.”

She giggled a little at his embarrassment. “Oh, Jeff, I didn’t realize that I had such an inferiority complex until I met you. I couldn’t understand what a man like you could see in a semigrown-up tomboy. I was terrified that, just about the time I allowed myself to admit my love and my need for you, you’d wise up and decide that I had nothing to offer you.”

“You are an idiot,” Jeff told her in mock disgust, his gaze caressing her rueful face.

“I know that now. I’ve done a lot of thinking for the past few weeks. Today I started remembering a few times when you did need me. The time before Christmas when Julian paged you to tell you that the little girl with CF was dying. I didn’t know how to reach out to you then, but I wanted to so badly. The time you lost the little boy in the car accident. The time you were up forty-eight hours straight and needed me to make dinner for us and then make sure you were allowed to sleep uninterrupted for eight full hours. The time your head hurt and I rubbed your temples for you. And I thought of all the many times I’ve needed you during the past few months and you were there for me. And I realized that I was the one who’d walked out. You’d allowed yourself to need me, and I wasn’t there for you. I’m so very sorry, Jeff.”

The last words were spoken in a thin whisper. Autumn’s eyes had filled with tears as she thought again of how deeply she’d hurt him, how deeply she’d hurt both of them with her insecurities. One of those tears escaped to trickle down her cheek. She swiped impatiently at it.

Jeff caught her close, shaken by the tears. He’d never seen her cry, he realized in near awe. She’d never allowed herself to be that vulnerable to him before. Now he knew that everything was really going to work out. She was offering him all of herself. Just as she already possessed all of him.

“I love you, Autumn. I love you so much. And God knows that I need you like I’ve never needed anything before. I’ve always needed you. Don’t ever send me away again. Please.”

“No,” she murmured brokenly, her damp cheek pressed tightly to his. “Never again. Do we have to talk anymore now, Jeff?”

“No, honey. No more talk for now.” He stood abruptly, his movements sure and smooth as he lifted her high in his arms. “Let me show you how much I love you. How much I need you.”

“Yes,” she answered trustingly, smiling through her tears. “Show me, darling.”

And though both of them knew she was strong and healthy and fully capable of walking, he carried her to his bedroom as if she were a ra

re, precious treasure. And she allowed him to do so, and gloried in the gesture, because she felt the same way about him.

It took several minutes to shed their clothing because both of them were trembling so hard that their fingers were clumsy and awkward. Jeff swore beneath his breath, then laughed shakily when the zipper of her jeans refused to cooperate. “Maybe you’d better do this,” he told her unsteadily.

“Maybe I’d better,” she agreed in tender humor and swiftly removed her remaining garments. Then she held out her arms to the beautiful, strong, vulnerable man that she loved.

Jeff kissed her deeply, falling with her to the bed, his hands feverishly reacquainting themselves with the soft curves he’d missed so desperately during the past weeks, that he’d been so afraid he’d never hold in his arms again. His breathing was ragged, his heart thudding frantically, and he had to pause and take a long, deep breath in an attempt to regain control. He felt like a nervous teenager, overwhelmed by the depths of his needs and emotions. He wanted to go slowly, to love her with skill and patience, to take her again and again to ecstasy before allowing himself his own relief.

But then Autumn’s hands were on him, caressing, demanding, and he groaned and drove himself deeply into her, fiercely welcoming her cry of pleasure. Skill and patience were abandoned, control willingly relinquished, and they loved each other with all the passion and hunger inside them. Kissing, arching, rolling, panting. Gasping out their love and their pleasure. And when they reached the point where neither could postpone their climax, they shuddered together, their delirious cries echoing from the evening-shadowed corners of the room.

And then there was silence, except for their gradually slowing breathing. The shadows lengthened, spreading like a warm, soft blanket over the glistening, damp bodies entwined in the middle of the big bed. Peace was a living, palpable entity in the quiet room, guarding the doors against the outside world until the recuperating lovers were ready to face it. Together.

A very long time later—hours? days? eons?—Jeff’s voice inserted itself smoothly into the silence. “Marry me, Autumn.”

She smiled into his shoulder and wrapped herself more tightly around him. “Yes.”

Tags: Gina Wilkins Reed Sisters: Holding out for a Hero Romance
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