Forever After (36 page)

“You do that,” he whispered. “Because if I had known you then, that’s how it would have happened. Only I probably would have killed him.”

Under the pad of her thumb, his lips felt like warm silk. They fascinated her, and she fixed her gaze on his mouth. “If I ask you to kiss me, will you stop if I hate it?”

“You asking?” When she nodded, he smiled. “You’re not going to hate it, but, yeah, I’ll stop.”

As he bent his dark head, she gazed up at him, committing to memory his expression, the blur of his features as he moved closer, the smell of him, and then the way it felt as his lips settled over hers. For those first few seconds, she remained separate from it all, more observer than participant, testing the feel of his strong shoulders under her
palms, noting the way his hard chest tantalized the tips of her breasts when he shifted, absorbing the incredible feeling of his arms cradling her and his hands moving on her back, his fingers curling over her ribs and learning the shape of her waist and hips. It was like being traced, his fingertips the charcoal that lingered over each line and angle. Her last thought was that she was being recreated with every gentle touch, that Mary Calendri truly had ceased to exist and a perfectly new person was taking her place.

Then all she could do was feel. Drowning in golden sensation, melting into it, surrendering completely to it. His mouth was like warm, wet silk. He was hardness, then heat, and then fire, igniting her body with a yearning she’d never experienced. A trembling need pooled with electrical intensity in the pit of her stomach. She knew he felt it, too. With her backside on his lap, she could feel his hardness thrusting against his jeans—a throbbing pressure, like pulsating steel, against her softness.

For the first time in her life, she
wanted
. She wasn’t sure how, but somehow she opened his shirt. She ran her hands over his chest and shoulders, dived her hands down his shirt sleeves to discover the muscular bulges of his upper arms. His skin felt like satin over hard, mounded padding. Resilient. She pressed in with her fingers, testing the strength of vibrant tendons. With her fingertips, she followed the outline of his collarbone and then acquainted herself with the corded muscles in his neck. He was hers, all hers. Even his heart belonged to her. And she gloried in the experience of exploring him, marveling at the power she felt moving under her hands and wondering how on earth he could be so incredibly gentle.

As if he had magic in his fingertips, her shirt fell open. She hadn’t felt him unfastening the buttons. He was breathing hard, fast, his chest shuddering. With a push of his hands, he swept the cotton off her shoulders and down her arms. Then he settled his hot mouth over the pulse at the base of her throat, drawing hard on her skin as if he meant to imbue himself with the very essence of her.
Reaching behind her, he unfastened her bra. His palms slid up her back, his calluses like fine sandpaper and tantalizing her flesh, his fingers slipping under the cotton straps and lifting them away.

The next instant, she felt his arms coming around her, one at her waist, the other behind her knees, and before she could blink, she was flat on her back with Heath Masters looming over her like a broad canopy of oiled bronze. His eyes were storm dark, the glint of them like spikes of lightning, and she felt the shock as his gaze settled on her breasts. Her nipples went instantly hard and started to throb with every pulse beat.

His arms braced on each side of her, he held himself high, his chest heaving as he grabbed for breath. It looked to her as if every muscle and tendon in his body tensed. Suddenly he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, his firm yet full lips drawn back over gleaming white. The drawn, agonized expression that contorted his burnished features frightened her.

With a raspy curse, he shoved against the mattress and sprang erect beside the bed. Not sparing her another glance, he began pacing the floor, brutally shoving rigid fingers through his dark hair. With each stride, he hauled in a ragged breath, blowing afterward like a surfacing whale.

Meredith grabbed her shirt and bunched it over her naked front, stunned, embarrassed, and alarmed. Whenever he dropped his hands from his hair, he knotted them into fists. Huge fists. And he looked like a man in a rage.

When his breathing began to slow, he finally stopped pacing to rub his palm over his face. When he finally looked at her, his eyes were still shooting sparks. “I promised you I wouldn’t do that,” he said huskily. “I’m sorry for breaking my word.”

“It’s all right.” Her voice sounded faint, nothing like her own.

“It isn’t all right, Meredith.” He jabbed a finger at her. “I told you, when you’re ready. And I’ll by God keep my
promise. I apologize for losing it like that, and I won’t again.”

He scrubbed at his face, then
whooshed
out air, making her jump. Then he strode over to the bed. “It’s late. Let’s get you settled for the night.” He bent, grabbed the quilt, and jerked it back until the weight of her rump got in the way. “Up you go.”

Meredith scrabbled off the bed like a startled crab, grappling to keep her shirt over her breasts. When she was standing, he started ripping the bed apart as if it had committed a crime punishable by death. Meredith stood frozen, gaping at him, wondering if he’d lost his mind, then concluding that he obviously had. He tore off the quilt, jerked off the sheets, stripped the cases off the pillows. When the mattress was bare, he grabbed the corded edge, heaved upward, and flipped it over. Then he picked up the bottom sheet and snapped it in the air, the crack of the linen so loud she fell back a step.

Why was it, she wondered, that it was always her misfortune to pair up with lunatics? He turned the cases inside out, shaking them like a terrier shakes a rat, then reversing them to stuff the pillows back inside.

When the bed was completely remade, he straightened and flashed her a strained grin. “Can you sleep all right now?”

“What?”

He gestured at the bed. “Spider free.”

It took her two heartbeats to register the words, and then tears sprang to her eyes. She’d forgotten all about telling him of her phobia. That was why he’d attacked the bed. He wasn’t a lunatic, after all, but the sweetest, most wonderful man on earth. She couldn’t believe he’d done all that, just for her. Or that he loved her so much that he’d bother.

He stepped around the end of the bed to her, bending his head as he drew to a stop to plant a light kiss on her forehead. “Goodnight, sweetheart. Have sweet dreams, all right? I’ll stand watch until morning, just to be safe, and you can spell me tomorrow so I can grab some shuteye.”
He moved past her to the nightstand to huff into the open chimney top of the lantern, dousing the flame. Amber light from the sitting room streaked the dark shadows that swooped down over them. “Don’t be nervous. I give you my word, nobody will get past me.”

With that, he left, softly shutting the door behind him. Meredith stood there in the blackness, still hugging her shirt. She’d neglected to tell him she was also afraid of the dark and had to have at least a night-light burning so she could go to sleep.

Tossing, turning. Onto her back. Onto her stomach. Hugging the pillow. Pushing it aside and lying flat. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t go to sleep. Maybe, she decided, she’d dozed for too long in the truck.

Liar!
a little voice whispered inside her mind.
You’re a spineless coward. If you had any backbone at all, you’d go after him
. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a backbone. She was a pathetic fraidy-cat, phobic about spiders, frightened of the dark, and terrified of having sex. It had been easy not to feel scared with Heath’s strong arms around her. But now? The thought of going out there and asking him to make love to her made her stomach quiver.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!
He loved her. He truly did. With all his heart. He would never hurt her. Never. And the very fact that he’d torn her bed apart like a lunatic gone berserk should have been proof enough that he’d never get his kicks by scaring her.
She
was the lunatic, huddling here in the dark, clinging to a pillow. She trusted him. She did. Absolutely. She could strip off naked and walk out there, bold as brass. That was how much she trusted him. Being in his arms had been wonderful. Fantastic, even. What in her wildest imaginings was there to be afraid of? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

She swung out of bed. Stood there, debating. Then she stripped off her shirt. Bare as a newborn baby, she groped her way to the door, then stood there grasping the knob. She would just walk out there. Smiling would be a good
idea, of course. And then she would simply say,
Heath, I love you. Would you please come back and make love to me?
And he would sweep her into his arms, carry her back to the bedroom, and make love to her so gently that she’d never worry for a second about going through the ordeal again.

She tightened her hand on the knob, urging herself to open it. When that didn’t work, she counted, determined to throw the door open on three. At ten, she scuttled back to the bed and searched frantically for her shirt. When she finally found it and got it on, she was panting as if she’d run six miles.

Oh, God. She hated herself. She was a human jellyfish. Lower than low. Despicable. She kept remembering that lost-little-boy look on his face just before he threw away his badge. And then the agony in his expression a few minutes ago as he’d pushed himself away from her. After all the times he’d been there for her when she needed him, the one time he had needed her, she’d let him down.

The rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the small kitchen. Heath stood at the front window, the handle of a stout porcelain mug hooked by his finger, the steam from the piping hot coffee drifting up to move over his face. Shifting his shoulder against the window frame, he searched the darkness beyond the glass for any sign of movement. He didn’t actually expect company. He’d taken every precaution to cover his tracks in coming here. No one was ever going to find them, not even by helicopter, because they wouldn’t recognize the vehicle.

Standing watch was just something to do. God knew he couldn’t sleep. He was as horny as a three-pronged billy goat and feeling twice as cantankerous. Trapped inside jeans that suddenly felt eight inches short at the inseam and a couple of sizes too small, Old Glory was as rigid as a steel pipe, bent almost double, and throbbing like a son of a bitch. Heath was tempted to strip down to his boxers and let the poor old guy poke through the opening of the fly.
If he hadn’t been afraid Meredith or Sammy might catch him, he would have.

Taking a careful sip of the boiling hot coffee, he smiled slightly, picturing himself scrambling frantically for his britches, looking like a maniac who was water-witching the kitchen with a short stick. Well, not
short
, exactly. Impressively stout.

Not
a good plan. Sammy was of tender years, and Meredith would probably drop dead of cardiac arrest. He would just have to suffer. It wasn’t as if it was his first experience with the problem, after all, and he’d lived through it. Hell, how many times? Since knowing Meredith, he’d taken more cold showers than he ever had in his life. He remembered comparing her to Popeye’s girlfriend when he was pissed off and grinned. No resemblance. For a little gal, she had plenty of everything and was perfectly proportioned. A body to die for, in miniature.

Against the glass, he envisioned her, standing before him naked. The longer he stared, the more detailed the image became. Her body gilded by the amber glow cast by the lantern. Her hair falling in tousled, golden-streaked ribbons of rich butterscotch to her alabaster shoulders. Breasts just large enough to fit a man’s cupped palms, the hardened tips the same delicate rose as her parted lips. A waist he could easily encircle with his hands. A thatch of honeyed curls at the apex of her slender thighs. Cute little knees with dimples in them.

The hair stood up at the back of his neck.
Knees?
He had a vivid imagination, but
knees
? He blinked.
What the hell?
And just about then, he heard a tremulous little blowing sound coming from behind him. He whirled, slopped scalding hot coffee over the back of his hand, and swore, ripely and loudly. When he jerked at the burn, he lost his grip on the handle. The mug dive-bombed, hitting the floor in an explosion of sound. Shattering porcelain and hot coffee shot upward like a geyser. Meredith leaped like a startled gazelle.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Moving toward her, Heath swiped at
the searing damp spots on his pants. “Honey, did it get you?”

She crossed her arms over herself, trying without much success to hide everything with her splayed hands. “No-o-o. I’m f-fine.”

She’d been trying to whistle. Bless her heart. She was so nervous, he could see her shaking.
Just whistle, and goddamned fool that I am, I’ll probably come running
. Instead, he had slopped hot coffee all over both of them, and she was standing barefoot in shards of porcelain. If it had been someone other than Meredith, it might have been funny. He could have said something witty, like, “Leave it to me. I could screw up a wet dream without half trying.” And they could have moved past it. But she wasn’t someone else, even though she was trying very hard to be.

That was what got to him, way down deep, knowing what it had cost her to come to him like this. And she thought she had no courage.

“Mommy!” The plaintive cry came from the rear of the house.

Meredith’s eyes went wide with horror. She whirled and bounded across the kitchen to the bedroom. Heath couldn’t pry his gaze from her sweetly rounded backside, the jiggle of those dimpled cheeks mesmerizing him.

She’d been trying to
whistle
! Son of a bitch. She’d been standing an arm’s length away, offering herself to him, and he’d screwed it up. The sweetest gift anyone had ever tried to give him, and he’d
totally
screwed it up! He wanted to run after her. As a matter of fact, he felt as if he were attached to her by invisible strings. But Sammy was wailing. He had to go settle her down first.