Skin on Skin (22 page)

S
he looked stunned, surprised, shell-shocked, as she had once before. Rand’s stomach twisted. His grip on Anna’s hand firmed. This time, though, she wasn’t running away. He wouldn’t let her.

He guided her to a waiting car outside. The driver sprang out and held the door open for them.

“Your car?” Anna asked.

“Yes, get in.”

Docilely, she took a seat, slid over to make room for him. The door shut, encasing them in silence.

“Your apartment or my place?” Rand asked, not trusting himself to say more.

Anna swallowed, looked blindly ahead of her. “My apartment.”

Without surprise, she heard Rand give the driver her address. They drove in silence, sitting beside each other, not touching, but excruciatingly aware of each other, of each breath taken and exhaled.

The car pulled to a stop and the trip that had taken so long suddenly seemed too short. His hand wrapped once more around hers as the door opened and they stepped out. “Thank you, John. I won’t be needing you the rest of the night.”

“Good night then, sir.” A tip of the hat and he drove away.

A murmured greeting to the doorman, and then the elevator was taking them up. That little surging lift, another interminable stretch of time, and they reached her floor. He walked beside her, and the hand wrapped around hers was both security and shackle. The grip was loose and easy, but strong. Anna doubted she could break free from that hand unless he allowed her, but didn’t put it to the test.

The thick door shut behind them and then they were alone, inside where she lived. He released her then, watched her walk around the spacious living room turning on the lights. It was a lovely building, prewar, an architectural wonder lovingly preserved. And the inside was even lovelier, new blended with old. Tall windows, high molded ceiling with artful plasterwork, gleaming hardwood floors, Persian carpets, touches of cream and gold. Tasteful, elegant, rich. Like the woman.

Rand looked at her from across the room. “Are you happy to see me?” he asked, wistfulness seeping into his voice despite himself.

Anna stilled for a moment. “Yes,” she answered, but still she didn’t look at him. Toward him, but not
at
him.

“You don’t seem happy,” he said, walking toward her, and still she didn’t look at him.

She froze, standing there like a deer caught in blinding headlights. But he only sat on the sofa, and again, he was like a stranger. An elegant one now in his beautifully tailored blue jacket and brown slacks. A white silk shirt opened at the neck, bringing out his rich tan. Black onyx and gold winked from his cuffs. He was comfortable, casual, sophisticated.

“How did you find me?” Anna asked.

“Your address was in your passport.”

That made her finally look at him. “You looked in my purse?”

He nodded. No guilt, no apology.

“Then why did you wait so long before coming to me?”

He must have sensed or heard some of the plaintiveness, the longing within her. His eyes softened. “I had a report run on you. I made myself wait for that, first.”

“A report?” Anna said, a tremor in her voice.

“Yes.”

“So you know—”

“That you come from banking wealth, that you have a daughter, Lily, a former NYPD detective, recently married. That her father is listed as unknown. I know that you are forty-one years old. Happy birthday, Anna,” he said softly. “You should have told me it was your birthday that night.”

She just shook her head, lips trembling.

“Why did you run?” A gentle question. But his eyes…his eyes weren’t gentle. They were roiling, a blue-green turmoil. “Why did you leave me when you said you would stay with me?”

“I…I did stay with you for the night.”

“I never said it was just for the night.”

What was he saying?

“Anna, come here, please.” He held out his hand to her and she went to him, sank down onto the soft cushions beside him.

“Does it bother you so much, my age?” he asked.

“Isn’t the question really: Does
my
age bother you?” She looked into his eyes, then glanced away. “I know I look much younger. I should have told you, said something.”

“Why? It wouldn’t have mattered then. It doesn’t matter now. Is that why you ran?”

“Partly,” she confessed. “And partly because of how beautiful you looked.”

A sharp indrawn breath. “Tell me why that scared you away.”

She looked down. “I’ve only had one other lover beside you.”

“Lily’s father?”

“Yes. I met him in China the summer after I turned nineteen. I left China engaged, thinking I’d found true love, discovered I was pregnant when I returned to New York, and was eager to share the news with my parents and to start the process of bringing him over to America after our marriage. My parents were shocked, horrified, totally against my union to a poor, nameless man from a small village in China. But I was so stupidly, foolishly in love. He’d been so handsome, so kind and attentive, pledging his love and devotion to me. It wasn’t until I saw pictures of him with other women that I realized that handsome face hid a lying tongue. My parents had hired a detective in China, and the pictures he took were too explicit for me to mistake what my fiancé was doing with them. Not just one or two women, but four in the short month since I’d left.”

Rand’s arm came around her, warm, comforting, strong. “I’m sorry, baby.”

Anna breathed in his scent, burrowed into the warm comfort of his neck. “But that was nothing. Nothing, really. I had a beautiful little girl, and I wanted her to know her father. So I took her to see him in China for the first time when she was six. And he was wonderful with Lily, buying her presents, fussing over her. Kind, attentive. He was good at that. I brought Lily to see him two more summers and each time we came, I gave him two thousand dollars because he was Lily’s father. Two thousand dollars was a lot of money back then—three years salary for a successful businessman, which he was not. But that last summer, he found out how truly wealthy I was, and two thousand dollars, a fortune before, suddenly wasn’t enough.”

“How did he find out?”

“Lily told him.” Anna lifted her head up and smiled sadly. “She wanted her daddy to marry her mommy and come live with us, and she thought he’d want that, too, if he knew how much money we had. So she told him. And the bastard kidnapped her. Told me if I wanted ‘the brat’ back, I’d have a hundred thousand dollars waiting for him the next day. He put Lily on the phone, pinched her and made her cry out so that I’d know she was still alive.”

“Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.”

The kindness in his eyes made tears well up in her eyes. She blinked them back furiously. If she cried now, she wouldn’t finish the rest of the ugly story, and she wanted it out of her, now, while she was still able to tell it. “I didn’t trust him. And he sounded so ugly on the phone, had hurt Lily purposely. I called the police. They were in place the next day. After I’d given him the money, he put a gun to Lily’s head, said he changed his mind, that he wanted more. And when he did that, they shot him and killed him.”

“He deserved to die,” Rand said roughly.

And then she did cry. The tears spilled over, the telling of it bringing back the ugliness of that day.

He rocked her, soothed her, rubbed her back, stroked her hair, murmured, “Shhh, baby, shhh. It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Anna choked. “When I saw your face, after you’d shaved, you were even more handsome than him. And not just handsome, but beautiful.”

Rand stiffened, drew away. “I’m not like Lily’s father.”

She scrubbed away her tears with her hands, looking so vulnerable and young. Twisting his heart.

“I know…I know that now. It was just a knee-jerk reaction. Handsome face, lying tongue. The two things always went together in my mind. But you’re so different, so different from him. Only when I found out how much younger you were than I…I panicked and ran. Why did you come after me?”

“I want to spend more time with you, Anna.”

Her heart paused, gave one painful beat. “Oh, Rand. I want to spend more time with you, too. I was going to hire an investigator to try to find you.”

He stroked the side of her face tenderly, and a tight knot inside him unraveled when she pressed her face into his hand, rubbed against it.

Smiling tenderly at him, she said, “For however long or short a time you want me for, I’m yours.”

His eyes gleamed and his voice thickened with emotion. “I’m going to hold you to that.” A promise. A warning. “I have something to confess, also.”

Anna stilled. “You slept with someone else.”

An odd look. “No.” A low careful rumble. “Have you?”

“No.”

He blew out a relieved gust of breath, pressed a hard kiss to her forehead, then drew back to look into her eyes. “Anna, what I’m trying to tell you is that, like you, I’ve only had two lovers. One of them, my wife. The other was you.”

“What?” Somehow this surprise was the most unexpected of them all. Men, especially beautiful men, just weren’t like that. “Why?”

“I didn’t want any other woman…until I saw you.”

It was unbelievable, yet she believed him. It was just so unexpected. Mind-boggling, in fact. But when you received a gift from the gods, you didn’t question it to death. You just accepted it. And were very, very grateful.

“Oh, Rand,” she breathed and kissed him.

He kissed her back. “I’ll grow my beard back.”

“No,” Anna cried. “I love your face.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, don’t hide it.”

“All right. What about my age, baby? I can’t change my age.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t change mine, either,” she said wryly.

“I wouldn’t want you to, even if you could.” He suddenly grinned. “Besides, you make a terrific Mrs. Robinson. Real wicked.”

Anna slapped his arm, blushing hotly, though a smile teased the corners of her mouth. “Oooh. That was so mean. You’re going to have to pay for that.” She pounced on him and he allowed himself to fall back beneath her slight weight, laughing.

“Are you going to have your corrupting way with me now?”

Her eyes narrowed. “If I’m Mrs. Robinson, that makes you my boy toy.”

“Boy toy?” His eyes positively sparkled.

He was asking for it. She decided to give it to him. Deliberately, with a wicked leering smile that would have done Mrs. Robinson proud, she smoothed both hands down over his butt. “Nice ass,” she said, and squeezed hard.

He coughed-choked for a moment, his face flushing with desire and embarrassment, delighting her.

“Hmm. Maybe there are perks to being the older woman here that I should explore.” She left those wonderful buns of steel and moved in front, on to more interesting exploration. “Ah, yes,” Anna murmured, finding him long and thick, ready and aroused. She smiled at him and his eyes burned like green fire suddenly ablaze. “A wonderful boy toy. Come here, lover. Come give me some joy.”

He growled, surged up suddenly, twisted, and pinned her beneath him. “It sounds like a challenging job. One requiring a lot of stamina and endurance. A strong back and an unending well of creativity and drive.”

“Umm, yes, drive. You up for it?”

“I certainly am.” And proved it by rubbing himself against her notch, making her lashes flutter down at the lovely grinding sensation of him pressing there. “I’ll take the job,” he muttered and swooped down to capture her lips.

They tasted and touched, licked and nipped, while their hands flew over each other. Her zipper rasped down. He lifted away, pulled down her long dress. Glued his mouth to her hungry one while he blindly found the clasp of her pearls, unhooked them, set them safely on the coffee table while she sucked and sucked on his tongue, making him groan. He came up for breath, gasped wildly, gazed hotly at her sprawled beneath him, her lips red and swollen, curved in a teasing, tantalizing smile that only a woman could give a man, driving him mad with desire. Panting, breathless, he shrugged out of his jacket with more haste than finesse, driven by a terrible need to feel her skin naked against his. Driven by the same need, she yanked his shirt free from his pants, then used his shirttails to pull him back down on top of her. His hands dove into her hair, sent pins scattering on the floor. Her hair fell loose and long while she ripped off his belt, pushed down his pants and underwear so that he spilled free and hot and hard in her hands. She pulled on him, then when he moved forward at her beckoning, she pushed him back down, their joint actions moving him in her soft strong hands, holding him so achingly, wonderfully tight.

“Anna,” he growled, groaned, reared up to push his pants completely down, then cried as she lifted up and took his thick shaft into her tiny mouth, making him curse, pant, throw back his head and make an arching sound of pained pleasure that was so sweet to her ears. Almost as sweet as the taste and feel of him in her mouth. Spicy. Addicting. A wonderful full load going in and out. Both hands played with his hard arousal while she licked and laved that cushiony, sensitive head, seeking out his pleasure.

“Oh, God, baby. Please, no more. No more,” he groaned, even as his hips moved in uncontrollable tiny surges, his hands in her hair. Their rhythm. That familiar yearning, straining, gentle, dancing rhythm.

She hummed in disappointment, in acquiescence. One last lick and suck. Later. She’d taste him again later.

He shuddered, swayed. What was he doing? Oh, yes. The bloody pants. He kicked them off, stripped off her pantyhose, bra, and underwear, baring her finally, blessedly naked, and fell upon her with hands, lips, teeth, and tongue like a starved man greedily gorging, filling his hands with her delicate flesh, drinking down her cries. Teasing, tasting, laving her tongue, then moving down to nip her responsive nipple. Wetness, hardness, taste, smell. His arousal and hers. Silky hair down below, a parting of her soft folds. Sliding into her with one finger and then two, stretching her, preparing her, while he sucked and pulled on that lovely nipple, throwing her over the edge.

Her turn to throw back her head and arch her back, lifting them up, so strong, so unexpectedly strong, clamping ferociously down on his fingers, milking them in a sweet release as she shook and shuddered so beautifully beneath him and around him. They sank back down and she shivered as he drew his fingers gently out of her, watching him with slumberous eyes, so dark, becoming even darker as he licked his fingers, tasted her, and found it good. Her eyes drifted closed.