Christmas Eve (17 page)

Fearing he might be the cause, Nick chose not to ask her why.

Chapter Sixteen

After making love again, Eve fell asleep in Nick's arms. He lay there for a while, thinking about her and what they'd just shared.

An intimacy born from pain?

Eve's? Or something deeper and more meaningful that he was not ready to face?

He couldn't justify his feelings, no matter how hard he tried. She was like a fever taking over his body, and he had no hope of finding a cure.

She'd invaded his mind, too. Had him thinking up new ways of pleasing her, and in so doing, pleasing himself far more.

And then there was the satisfaction he got from the look in her eyes when she came. Like he was the only man in the world capable of sending her over the edge. Like her sun rose and set in him.

Like her world revolved around him and his needs
.

That part scared him the most.

He didn't want her dependent on him. He planned to go his own way in a few days and to have Eve go hers. He didn't need anyone and didn't want anyone wanting him.

Or needing him.

The way he'd needed and wanted Eve just now
?

Aggravated with the direction his thoughts were taking him, but careful not to disturb Eve, Nick slipped out of bed and returned to his work.

When she joined him later, smelling of roses when there were no roses around, and wearing the garments in which she'd arrived, he fully expected he'd have to convince her to stay all over again. Instead, she settled on the sofa, tucked her booted feet up beneath her skirt, and smiled winsomely at him.

With a smile of his own, he closed the laptop with a slap.

Oh, yeah. He could easily grow accustomed to having Eve around
.

She leaned back, relaxed. "When you were little, did you see yourself doing this?"

"Making love to you? Perhaps, in my wildest fantasies."

She laughed. "No, silly. I mean your...work. Whatever it is you do on that computer. Did you always want to be what you are today?"

He sobered. What he'd become went far beyond the realm of fantasy. His father never once bellowed the word "casino," and until he turned twelve and left home, his father's shouted commands were the only thing Nick had known.

"Hardly. Farm boys don't get much time to dream."

"What
did
you see yourself doing? Surely you had visions of a better life?"

"And they were that, just visions. Never as real as hopes or dreams. Visions of my mother returning. Of somehow making life easier for her when she did. Of seeing a Saturday movie with my friends." He strode across the room to add a log to the fire. "Of somehow going to school just once without the smell of manure on my boots."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you look back if the memories are all bad."

He glanced at her over his shoulder, his expression softening. "Not all the memories are bad. When I was young and the farming was still good, before the drought began, I looked forward to getting up with the roosters. Life was easy. Fun. I helped Mom with the milking and brought in the eggs."

Finished at the fireplace, Nick stood and turned toward her, his arm resting on the mantel, a faraway look in his eyes. "We laughed at the funny strutting roosters, cuddled each new litter of kittens, made our own plans for each holiday feast." His eyes darkened. "It wasn't until Mom left that daily living turned bad for me. That's when I began to see that things had been bad for her for a long, long time."

* * * * *

"Tell me about your mother," Eve encouraged, not wanting Nick's thoughts to dwell on whatever was making him sad.

"She was the prettiest mom around. Her thick black hair curled about her face and on Sundays for church, she'd tie it back with a red satin ribbon. When I was little, she read fairy tales to me. I didn't much care for them, but I liked to listen to her voice, so I didn't let on that the stories didn't transport me to another world the way they did her. She only recently confided that she felt like my dad was like a wicked stepfather forcing her to do all the work. And that he had frequently beat her when she didn't get it all done.

"Why hadn't I known?" Nick said the last so softly Eve wasn't sure she'd caught all the words but his pained face revealed the entire story far better than words.

"Then, late one night in a fit of rage, he ordered her to leave. Threatened to kill both of us if she darkened his door again. I woke up and she was just... gone. Christmas shopping, Dad claimed."

Silence hung in the room while Nick paced the length of the bookshelves, compulsively straightening their contents.

"Compared to yours, my childhood might not sound bad to you," Eve confessed after a while. "I was lonely. So lonely. My mother and father were constantly going abroad. I had a nurse, a governess, a tutor, a maid, a housekeeper, a cook. And every toy a child might want." She swallowed the lump blocking her throat. "The one thing I longed most for, my parents were incapable of giving."

"What was that?"

"Their love."

* * * * *

"What about
your
fantasies? What did you dream of doing when you grew up?" Nick asked quietly, joining her again, and was rewarded with a wide smile that lit Eve's face.

"That's easy. I dreamed of having my own little girls. Twins. And of taking them everywhere I went wearing pretty dresses just like mine. They would take tap and ballet lessons and when they performed at recitals,
I'd
be in the audience to applaud them. They'd always have me instead of someone paid to accompany them, and they'd always have my love."

Nick grinned. "I bet you looked adorable in a tutu."

"I wouldn't know. Those hired to look after me never thought to photograph me."

"Come here," Nick ordered, his words a throaty command.

Eve's lower lip trembled, but she walked straight into his arms.

"Trust me. You were the prettiest little girl there. And you still walk like a ballerina, so poised and straight. All self-possessed and sure of yourself. Just because your parents took no interest in their child does not make you less of a woman."

You're all this man could ever want
.

Although his heart raced, Nick stilled, drops of sweat breaking out on his forehead.

He did
not
want to fall in love with Eve.

All her talk of rich parents and parental neglect was just that. Talk. All part of her well performed act. An experienced courtesan knew how to work every angle. To tweak a few heartstrings along the way.

Not
his
.

Nick's attraction to Eve was purely physical. Croupier's present condition proved that.

Convinced his heart was in no danger, he let his hand slide down her spine to her waist, her butt. He held her tight against him, comforting himself as much as Eve.

"Why twins?"

"I didn't want to risk
my
daughter growing up lonely, an only child," she murmured into his sweatshirt.

Her head rested on his shoulder, her mouth pressed against his neck. He felt like a sailor who'd just weathered a storm and returned safely to the girl he'd left behind on shore.

No promises
. Nick St. Clair didn't make promises he had no intention of keeping. But he knew a lot about easing loneliness.

He tipped up Eve's chin. Let the warmth of his gaze comfort her. Let his arms possess as well as his lips. He drew her soft sigh into his mouth and explored the heated recesses of hers. As if yearning for fulfillment, she pressed into his embrace.

That, he
could
freely give.

"You have on way too many clothes." He lifted her in his arms and carried her down the hall. Stretched her prone on his bed and removed her boots.

Next came her thigh-high hose. He rolled each down, one kiss at a time, until her long legs were finally bare and she was writhing with need. He took his time, delaying her satisfaction, letting her need build while he flipped up her skirt. Peeled down her panties. Feasted on her bare flesh. Licked her inner lips. Once. Twice, then moved away, making her wait.

Slowly, he unbuttoned her skirt. Slid the zipper down. Lifted her hips and stripped the garment away.

Bared to the waist, Eve stared at him, her vulnerability a living, breathing presence that momentarily halted his breath.

His heated gaze reaffirmed his tender appreciation for the bared flesh so beautifully displayed and she relaxed by degrees, although her trusting gaze remained fixed on him.

"Lovely," he whispered, his spread fingers slowly sliding down her thighs, then up.

She gasped.

"Patience, Eve. Waiting prolongs the passion," he whispered, easing up her sweater, revealing a long sleeved silk T-shirt underneath. He dipped his tongue in her navel, laved the soft planes of her belly, the slight indentation formed below a rib. She writhed even more, her head turning from side to side.

Her sweater came off over her head, needing little more than a gentle tug. When he let her back down, Eve's hair fanned out on the pillow and tumbled over her shoulders, reddish-brown and provocatively erotic. Threading his fingers into the thick mass, he spread her hair across her chest, covering her breasts. Buried his face in the warm lemony-smelling nest, then shoved her hair aside to get to the sensitive treasures hidden beneath her undershirt.

Nick licked the crests of her firm breasts, liking the way the silky lace covering them abraded his tongue, loving Eve's moan and the way her palpable flesh swelled to fill his mouth.

He unhooked her bra. Tossed the garment aside.

Eve sighed and he knew she thought her wait was over.

Not so. He had more delights for her in store.

He licked each breast from rounded base to nipple, traced each sloped peak, and like a mountain climber unable to get his fill, returned to repeat the climb.

Only then did he take a pert nipple into his mouth.

Eve mewled, and her fingers twined in his hair.

"If you liked that, you'll love what else I have in mind," Nick promised and, opening the bedside table drawer, removed a long white feather.

Slowly he skimmed the tip of the feather over the smooth flesh of Eve's belly and down her thighs. With a pleading moan she crossed and uncrossed her legs.

Sitting back on his heels, he peeled off her undershirt, trailed the feather over her breasts, then followed the feather's path with his lips. Her pliant flesh dipped, anticipating the feather's advance. Grinning, he stripped off his sweats.

She reached for him but, evading her hands, he rolled her onto her side. The swell of her hips intrigued him, drawing the feather to that generous curve, and to the dimple at the base of her spine.

Then he drew the feather between Eve's legs, her desire evident in her long moan.

Wait
.

Nick moved in closer and passed the feather over her butt, then followed the soft graze with the feathery brush of his mouth. A mistake. His flat nipple brushed her butt and his plan to keep Eve waiting ignited like dry tinder in a fire storm.

Nick flipped her onto her back, then groaned. Legs spread and arms reaching for him, she gave him an approving smile. Giving in to his own need at last, he entered her with one deep thrust, loving the way her hips rose from the bed to meet his, her eyes locked with his, her smile sublime.

If there was ever a woman he might give his heart to, that woman was Eve, he thought, ramming Croupier home to the gentle slap of flesh.

Home
.

... Where loneliness and pain were forgotten.

... Where the comforting flesh of Eve's thighs held him in a tight embrace as she matched him stroke for stroke.

... And where he had never felt more like a man.

Chapter Seventeen

After lunch, while Eve enjoyed another lengthy nap, Nick grew restless waiting for her to wake. Finally, warmly dressed, he went outside and began chopping wood.

Sweaty after splitting enough logs for one day, he shed his coat, then gathered freshly split pieces in his arms. He carried load after load to the deck where he stacked the firewood in the shelter of the overhanging roof.

As he turned to go back for more kindling, a flash of movement caught his eye and Nick paused, then stilled. Eve, her statuesque body naked as the day she was born, and far more beautiful, he imagined, stood in his shower, her eyes tightly closed while she lathered her hair with shampoo.

He'd insisted the architect include this exterior wall of glass in his plans, and now was doubly appreciative of his decision. His original intent a selfish one: to admire the dense stand of trees on his property while taking a bath.

Nick grinned. He'd never dreamed that someday he'd be standing on the outside, looking in. A far more delightful view.

Eve's upraised arms lifted her breasts to the perfect angle to fill palms already itching to feel her soap-slickened flesh. The gentle spray made Eve's fair skin glisten.

And Croupier surge to life.

She turned, giving Nick a tempting view of her butt as she tilted her head and rinsed shampoo from her hair. He let his gaze roam freely over her body, caressing the straight line of her perfect back, the gentle curve of her buttocks, the tempting length of her thighs and calves, right down to her carefully painted toenails, all the while with Croupier trying to escape the close confines of Nick's jeans.

Eve shook her head, sending wet drops in every direction, then tossed back her hair, an action that made her butt shimmy. Nick's mouth went dry.

She straightened and reached for the soap. Lifted one arm. Soaped that armpit and the other, then cupped both rounded breasts in loving admiration before swirling lather over each bronze peak.

Nick moistened his lips, longing to suck those pert nipples into his mouth, but destined to only watch. Rooted to the spot, he silently applauded the show Eve was unknowingly putting on for his benefit, a captive audience of one.