Moonlight in the Morning by Jude Deveraux Page B

chin, that ancient sign that signaled male. It had been a while since he’d shaved, so they were almost soft. She wanted to put her lips to them, feel them on the tip of her tongue.
    “Jecca,” he whispered.
    She straightened her spine. “None of that now, I’m Psyche, and I want to feel what you look like.” With her fingertips on his whiskery cheeks, she ran her thumbs over his lips. They were full and soft.
    “Psyche wanted her husband to make love to her,” he whispered.
    She could feel his breath on her skin, feel the way his lips moved under her thumbs.
    He leaned toward her, and she knew he was going to kiss her—and she wanted him to.
    But just then lights came on in the big house behind them and she turned to look at them.
    Tris said, “Damnation!” then he was gone.
    Jecca looked back at him but he wasn’t there. It was as if she’d made up the whole incident, dreamed it all.
    But then Tris’s voice came to her from the woods. “Psyche!” he called to her.
    She said, “Yes, Cupid?” and smiled at the joke.
    “Tomorrow at nine,” he said.
    “At nine,” she answered, then she heard his footsteps on the forest path.
    With a sigh of regret for the sweet, dark encounter being over, Jecca turned toward the house.

    On the way back to his house, Tristan couldn’t stop smiling. Tonight he had liked her as much as he had the first time. It had been great talking and flirting with her in the dark, teasing her. He’d liked that she hadn’t been coy, hadn’t giggled or been flustered. Since so many of the women in his life had seen him as an unmarried doctor and therefore marriage material, he’d tested Jecca. He told her right off that what he wanted was a wife and kids. Tris knew from experience that most women would have said that’s what she wanted too—even if she didn’t.
    But not Jecca! She’d told him right away that she wasn’t staying in Edilean. Didn’t want to get married, and that she wanted a career in art more than she wanted any man.
    He couldn’t help admiring her honesty as well as feeling, well, a bit challenged by it.
    Tonight, he’d felt something stir inside him that he’d never felt before. He had liked Jecca. Old-fashioned liked her. Forget that the way she’d run her hands over his face had made him want to toss her to the ground and make love to her. He had very much enjoyed laughing with her and talking about a Greek fable in a sexy way.
    Once he was inside, he stretched out on his bed and began go C an"0em" widting over the whole evening in his mind, starting with the way she’d been calm and cool when he’d fallen on her. Most women would have been hysterical, but right away, Jecca had figured out who he was. And she even remembered that his father was acting as the town physician.
    He still couldn’t believe he’d told her about Gemma. He’d told no one how he’d felt about the young woman who came to Edilean so recently. One time, in anger, he’d nearly told Colin, the man she married, the truth about what he felt for Gemma. But other than that, he’d never come close to telling anyone that he’d been near to falling in love. Gemma had fit in his house; she was easy to talk to. He’d found himself revealing things to her that he’d told no one else.
    In the last weeks since she’d married his friend, Tristan had wondered what would have happened if he’d done as his sister advised and made an effort. Showed up at her house with a bottle of wine maybe? Or asked her out to dinner?
    But he’d done none of those things.
    He’d left the old photo of Jecca in his bedside table drawer, and he got it out to look at it. Each time he looked at it, she seemed to get prettier. Her nose sort of turned up on the end. And her eyes looked like they were two seconds away from laughing. But her mouth wasn’t cute. It was beautiful. Her lips looked like something off a lipstick ad, utterly perfect and oh so kissable.
    “Come on, Aldredge,” he said aloud. He put