Darling obstacles (12 page)

"Now what's going on in that ever-complicated mind of yours?" he asked. "I can almost hear the wheels spinning."

"Wheels? In my head? And you're a renowned neurosurgeon?"

"Oh, no, lady, you're not going to keep me at a distance with your little jokes. I made it past the doorstep and I'll make it past your attempts at humor. We have a lot to talk about, Maggie."

He was looking at her in that certain way and Maggie felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through her. But she wasn't going to give in too easily. Not after what he'd put her through this past week. "What do you want to discuss, Dr. Wilder? The children? Babysitting fees?"

"Neither of the aforementioned topics, Mary Magdalene." He smiled lazily. "In fact, I don't want to talk at all. You and I have a much more direct way of communicating." He reached for her. "Don't we, Maggie?"

breasts in my hands. I want to taste your skin and kiss your nipples until you cry out for me to— M

"Greg!" She drew a deep, shuddering breath.

"Yes, like that. I want to hear you cry out my name and moan for me to take you. " One hand moved up to possess her breast and a breathless little moan escaped her lips.

"Oh, Greg."

"My sweet Maggie." His voice was deep and sensual, as seductive as his lips and hands.

Maggie spun in a sensuous daze, overwhelmed by the need surging through her. She desperately wanted to feel his lips, hot and hard, upon hers, to have his tongue take possession of her mouth. She wanted to feel the hard muscles of his body against her, complementing her softness. She was an aching, burning void, wanting Greg, needing him with an intensity that both frightened and exhilarated her. Helplessly, hungrily, she watched his mouth lazily descend toward hers. When she felt the touch of his lips, her eyelids closed heavily and she opened her mouth to him.

She sighed deeply as his tongue probed the sweet warmth within. How had she managed to survive this week—this lifetime—without his kisses? she wondered dizzily. She leaned into him, allowing his strong frame to absorb her weight. It was sheer heaven to be held by him this way. She felt so safe, so secure, yet so excited in his arms.

His hands were all over her, smoothing the soft cotton of her nightshirt against her skin, caressing every curve as he pressed her closer to him. She permitted her own hands to wander over the rippling muscles of his back, but was frustrated by the clothing separating her from his bare skin. A T-shirt, a blue oxford cloth shirt, his vest and suit coat—four layers!

"You have too many clothes on," she murmured, her voice husky with an alluring combination of passion and humor. Standing on tiptoe, she nibbled

at his earlobe while his lips investigated the tender hollow at the base of her throat.

"Would you like to undress me?" he asked as he trailed a path of little stinging kisses along the curve of her neck.

"Would you like me to?" Her tongue daringly teased the inner shell of his ear and he groaned and lifted her slightly, positioning her firmly between the solid columns of his thighs. Maggie felt the burgeoning force of his need and clung to him. "Oh, Lord, yes, Maggie. Yes, please darling."

It was an urgent, heartfelt plea. Maggie gazed into his striking eyes and emotion surged through her, a warm union of tenderness and passion that felt strangely akin to . . . love?

"Let me stay with you tonight, Maggie," he said, holding her tightly as if he feared she might suddenly break away.

The mother in Maggie surfaced. "Your children are here tonight, too, Greg. What will we tell them, and mine, if—"

"Well lock the bedroom door. Well say I came over to pick the kids up and you offered to show me your photo albums or something. I don't know. At this point I don't care. Well think of something."

"But what if—" She broke off abruptly as he leaned down and swept her up in his arms. He lifted her as easily as he might one of the little children. "You re so strong," she gasped breathlessly, and then blushed. She sounded like the vacuous heroine of an even more vacuous teen movie. With her self-criticism came doubt. Did she really want to go through with this? Her stomach churned with nervous uncertainty. Everything had happened so fast. She hadn't had time to think things through. "Greg," she began hesitantly.

"You'll have to direct me to your room." He was already carrying her up the stairs, and he smiled into her eyes. "Left to my own devices, I'd probably stumble into the kids' rooms and wake them all up. Do you

think they'd believe you twisted your ankle and asked me to help you up the stairs?"

She managed to smile. "They'd believe it sooner than the photo album story. I keep the albums downstairs and all the kids know it."

Greg had reached the top of the stairs. "Left or right?" he whispered, brushing his lips against her temple.

She turned her face into his shoulder. "Greg, I know this is going to sound foolish—I mean, I am thirty-two years old and the mother of three children—but I'm"—she swallowed—"I'm as nervous right now as I was on my wedding night." There, she had said it. She waited apprehensively for his reply, expecting either a flippant joke or a well-oiled statement designed to soothe her nerves and allow him to proceed.

"I know, honey," he said. "I feel a little nervous too."

She blinked in confusion. Whatever shed been expecting him to say, it hadn't been that!

"You're . . . special, Maggie," Greg said slowly, as if groping for the words. "And I want it to be so good for you, for us. I'm not saying this because I think it's what you want to hear. I want you very badly, you know that, but if you have any doubts, sweetheart, I—I can wait until you're absolutely certain."

The tension and the nervous uncertainty were dissolved by the sincerity in his voice. Greg Wilder was only a few steps from her bedroom and her imminent surrender, yet he had the strength of character to stop if she wished. Just knowing that erased her doubts. She cared for Greg Wilder; she wanted him. He was thoughtful and generous, a caring father, a dedicated doctor. She admired him and respected him. There had been only one other man in her life with whom she'd felt this sense of lightness, and that had been her husband. But not even with Johnny had she experienced this passionate hunger, this

burning drive to be one with him. "I'm sure now, Greg," she whispered. "My room is on the left."

Greg carried her into her bedroom and laid her gently down on the bed. He lay down beside her and they kissed, lightly at first, then with increasing demand. "When are you going to get me out of these clothes?" he teased as she clung to him.

"I'm trying, Tm trying." Maggie laughed as she fumbled with the buttons on his vest. "I haven't had a whole lot of experience with custom-tailored suits." She was no longer embarrassed, but felt relaxed and at ease with Greg. There was no awkwardness between them now. It was as if they had lain in bed together many times before.

"Maybe I'd better take off my suit and hang it up," he suggested. "Unless you wouldn't mind doing a quick steam and press in the morning?"

"I'd mind." She gave him a playful push. "Hang up your clothes and hurry back to me."

He did, carefully locking the door before he returned to the bed. "That should discourage any nighttime visitors," he said with a wolfish grin. "And now, my sweet..."

Maggie quickly reached up to turn off the bedside lamp. "No." Greg stayed her hand. "Leave it on, Maggie. I don't want to grope and fumble in the dark. I want to be able to see you, to watch you."

She felt a flush of hot color slowly suffuse her body. No one had ever watched her. "Greg, I'd feel, er, more comfortable if—"

"I'll make sure you're perfectly comfortable, sweetheart," he interrupted, a devilish gleam in his eyes. "Come here." He pulled her into his arms and sighed. "Maggie, I don't know what I would have done if you had sent me away tonight."

"I—I couldn't have, Greg," she confessed. Her hands glided over the satisfying smoothness of his bare back and slid round to tangle in the wiry mat of dark blond hair on his chest. She touched a hard nipple, then caressed it lightly with her thumb. "I like to

touch you," she said shyly, feeling the need to explain herself.

He caught her hand and kissed the palm, then each finger in turn. "I like to have you touch me." His hands slid under the hem of her nightshirt and lifted it slowly, carefully, over her head. He tossed it casually to the floor. "And I love to touch you, darling, to look at you." His eyes swept her body and Maggie caught her breath.

She knew what her body looked like and it wasn't like the Playmate of any month. She had stretch marks on her abdomen, courtesy of three pregnancies. Her stomach muscles were too soft, her belly slightly rounded. If only she'd stuck to that killer regimen of sit-ups. Alas, she hadn't. What was Greg thinking? she wondered. Was he comparing her to other women he had known, young goddesses with firm, beautiful bodies? She trembled slightly, asking herself why she had ever let herself in for this intimate appraisal.

"I told you it would be better with the lights out," she said, making a brave attempt at humor. "Then you could pretend I was lithe and firm and twenty-two."

"Is that what you think I want?" He held her eyes with his.

"What man wouldn't?" she retorted flippantly.

"Me, for one."

"Oh, I see. You prefer women over thirty with stretch marks and flabby muscles to gorgeous young creatures like Francine and Sandy Strayer. Now why am I having a hard time believing that?"

Greg astonished her by grinning. "Oh, no, Mary Magdalene. I see what you're trying to do and it isn't going to work. You're feeling scared and hoping to start a fight that will send me away—or permit you to send me away."

"That's not true!"

"Isn't it?" He ran his fingertips lightly over the tops of her thighs. "Isn't it, Maggie?"

She swallowed, her green eyes clouding. "I don't think it's true." His fingers darted teasingly to the apex of her thighs and she quivered.

"Now why am I having a hard time believing that?" he drawled mockingly. He chuckled softly, dangerously, and grazed her parted lips with his mouth. "What do you really want, Maggie?" His long fingers took possession of one taut, aching nipple. "Tell me, honey."

A soft, high-pitched moan escaped her throat as he continued to tease her with that maddening finger. "I think I already know." His hand closed over her breast as he tantalized her mouth with his. "You want me to love you, don't you, sweetheart?"

"Yes," Maggie breathed, and she knew in that instant that she really did want him to love her, and not just physically. She wanted what the songwriters called true love, a physical and emotional and spiritual commitment to last forever. "Oh, Greg," she murmured. The realization shattered her final inhibitions and replaced her feelings of inadequacy with the powerful urge to please Greg, to give him whatever he needed to make him happy. "I want you so much."

"No more nervous little doubts?" he whispered softly.

She shook her head with a loving smile. "I want to make love, Greg."

His hard body shuddered with the words and his hands moved over her in enticing exploration. Shivering with sensation, Maggie did a little exploring of her own. "Yes, love, touch me," he said, then groaned as she found the straining force of his masculinity. "Ok, Maggie, I feel like I'm going out of my mind."

Maggie was filled with a heady sense of feminine power. It was thrilling to know that she could arouse Greg to such a state. Conversely, she wanted to relieve his need, to give him a kind of pleasure he could never find with anyone else.

His fingers tangled in the thatch of auburn curls

and she sucked in her breath as he caressed the ultrasensitive core of her passion. The flowing warmth he found there told him that her desire was as strong as his own.

"Greg," she cried out as waves of sensual rapture consumed her. "Oh. Greg, please!"

"Yes, Maggie, yes, love," he said thickly. "Are you protected, Maggie, or shall I . . .?"

She blinked in momentary confusion. "I hadn't even thought about it," she whispered, and he smiled.

"Then 111 take care of you, darling," he said softly as he eased off the bed. Moments later he came back to her and she welcomed him, their bodies merging slowly and completely.

She emitted a wild little cry and arched upward to meet the hard, urgent thrust of his body. Greg whispered something incredibly dark and sexy before he took her mouth with bold possession. Maggie felt the stirrings of a wild, savage sweetness as her body tightened with a violent intensity. It was happening, she thought dizzily. What she had read about, what she had assumed was mere media propaganda, was actually happening to her.

"Don't hold back. Maggie." Greg whispered. "Just let go, baby. Give yourself to me, come to me."

She did and he took her with him on an ecstatic, mind-shattering ascent to the summits of rapture. She had never experienced anything quite like it. And when Greg joined her in the shimmering release of their passion, she felt a wholeness, a completeness she had never known. . . .

Maggie snuggled deeper into Greg's arms, her head on his chest, her legs comfortably entwined with his. He stroked her hair lightly with his big hand. / love him, she thought drowsily. Her defenses completely eradicated, it was easy to admit the truth to herself. But saving the words to Greg was another

matter. "You're wonderful" was the closest she dared to come, and she sighed and said it again. "You're wonderful, Greg. It was wonderful." Beneath her ear she felt Greg's chest rumble with soft laughter.

"One always likes to be praised for a good performance. Thank you, gracious lady. You were rather wonderful yourself."

Maggie considered setting the record straight, telling Greg that it wasn't his performance she was praising, that he'd misinterpreted her, that she'd really meant to say that she loved him. But she decided against it. He had set the mood as playful and light. It was not the time for heavy emotional confessions. So she reached up to tweak his nose mischievously and murmur sexily, "Only rather wonderful, Dr. Wilder?"