The Next Right Thing (Harlequin Superromance) (18 page)

Without warning, he ripped his mouth from hers and lifted her off the floor into a crushing embrace. She buried her face in the thick strands of his hair, inhaling scents of shampoo and the salty night air.

Panting, holding each other, they stayed immobile for a long, stretched-out moment. Then Marc eased her down until her feet again touched the cool floor. Leaning over, he gently kissed her, once, before pulling away. He closed the door, which shut with a resounding click.

It was as though a blanket fell over the room.

The breezes hushed.

The thrashing surf quieted.

Running a hand through her hair, he looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “I’ve waited days for that kiss.”

“For me,” she murmured, “longer.”

He studied her face, his blue eyes glistening like the vast Colorado skies. Then he pulled her to him, grazing her cheek with his stubbled chin. “I was a fool to not realize—”

“Let’s not.” She didn’t want to dissect and analyze her confession. She only wanted these moments, this now with him. Sweet bits of time that she’d hold forever in her heart.

He pressed his lips to the sensitive hollow behind her ear. “Then let me say,” he whispered, “we both waited too long for our first kiss.”

“Second,” she whispered back.

“Second?” he murmured, nuzzling her lobe.

“That was our second kiss. At the Christmas party, year before last—” her breath caught as he nibbled on her neck “—you’d drunk a bit—”

“And?” he growled, his fingers sinking into the flesh of her behind as he tugged her even closer.

“You—” she fought to keep control of her voice “—asked me for a dance...”

He dragged his mouth to hers again, his lips lightly brushing against hers as he spoke. “And you said...”

“Yes.” The word escaped on a sigh as his hand crept under her top, the pads of his fingers burning a path along her skin as he stroked and caressed her back. “You took me outside...we danced on the lawn...under the shadows of a pine tree...”

“Like this?” He pulled her against his hard body and pressed her head against his bare chest. As they swayed in rhythm—one, two, one, two—he slow-danced her to the light switch and flipped it off. The room submerged in shadows.

“Yes.” She rubbed her cheek against his chest, liking the feel of his strength against her skin.

“Was there moonlight?” he asked.

“A little.”

He steered them another few steps to the window and pulled back the curtain. Hazy moonlight filled the room.

They danced in silence for a minute or two, keeping time with the distant waves that crashed far, far away in another world.

“Did I tell you how beautiful you were?” he murmured.

“You compared me to a painting by Chagall.
La Mariée.
”

“One of my favorites,” he murmured.

“I had to look it up after that. The woman is in a red dress with a white veil.” She’d also learned the translation of the title was
The Bride,
but skipped that part.

“She had long, dark hair...” He tangled his fingers in her hair. “And she’s quite beautiful, the focus of the painting.”

“There’s also a goat playing a violin.”

He chuckled under his breath. “Actually, I believe it’s a cello. Behind him is a man playing a clarinet and a fish jumping over a table. It’s about joy, and yearning for what is lost.”

He dipped his head and played his mouth along her throat. “Speaking of which, I yearn to remember kiss number three...”

Closing her eyes, she parted her lips.

But he didn’t kiss them.

Instead he planted gentle kisses on one eyelid, then the other. “For your green eyes,” he whispered. “Sometimes they sparkle like emeralds, other times they turn turbulent and gray, like a storm at sea.”

She opened one eye and peered at him. “I hope you see emeralds more than storms.”

He smiled. “I do. Are your eyes still closed?”

She closed them. “Yes.”

A light, soft kiss on the tip of her nose. “That’s for being a great private investigator who’s always sniffing out clues and following the trail until you solve the case.”

“What’s next,” she muttered, “a kiss on my cheek for being cheeky?”

She felt a peck on her cheek. “Anything else, Miss Smarty Pants?”

“Yes. Are we still on kiss three?”

“Merely opening arguments... Now for the evidence.”

But it wasn’t just a kiss.

He made love to her mouth.

His tongue lightly flicked across the sensitive inside of her top lip, then her bottom lip, asking permission. When she opened wider, he emitted a low-throttled groan as his tongue slid slowly inside, exploring the wet warmth. His mouth was knowledgeable, his tongue gentle yet demanding, causing her senses to spin higher and hotter until she couldn’t think, only act.

She returned his passion, entwining her tongue with his, their kisses growing searing in their intensity. White heat sparked and caught fire in her as their tongues darted and plunged with building compulsion. He tugged off her top, finally breaking the kiss to pull it over her head and toss it aside.

They stood there, breaths heaving.

He made a sound somewhere between a curse and a prayer.

“I like it when you don’t wear a bra,” he murmured huskily.

She didn’t want to say they’d been in such a rush to get to California that she hadn’t bothered to put one on. Instead, she soaked in the compliment, her hands hanging at her sides, letting him see her, wanting—no, needing—to know he liked what he saw.

“Lovely,” he murmured in a low, throaty voice. Stepping closer, he slowly circled one nipple, then the other, with his index finger. Under his laser-hot touch, her nipples pebbled as electrical currents shot straight to her groin. She stifled the urge to whimper, but it came out anyway in a lengthy, reverberating moan from someplace deep inside that she hadn’t even known existed.

He dropped to one knee and undid the button on her jeans. “I want to see all of you,” he murmured, plucking the zipper. He pulled down her pants, and she stepped out of them, grateful she’d worn her pink briefs. Then realizing in this light, who knew the exact color or style?

And who cared? They were off in seconds anyway.

Now she stood fully naked in front of him.

“Cammie,” he murmured, “you’re a beautiful woman.”

That was the kind of compliment she’d been waiting for. But she didn’t waste time savoring his words. She wanted his body. She wrapped her hands around the nape of his neck, threading her fingers through his hair. Boldly, hungrily, she pulled him forward, felt as he placed a single kiss on her stomach before he stroked his cheek against her soft skin, brushing slowly back and forth, the sensation prickling but surprisingly pleasurable.

She looked down at him just as he looked up at her. In the muted light, his eyes were dark pools, his hair a wild black mass. Moonlight rippled over his back and arms, skimming muscles with silver and delving into shadowed ridges. In between the worlds of light and shadow, real world and fantasy, he looked mythical and powerful, a savage knight who knelt before her, ready to do her bidding.

“Take me,” she whispered.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

H
EAT
SHOT
THROUGH
M
ARC
like a gamma ray blast. Lunging to his feet, he scooped her into his arms and carried her—his prize, his woman—across the room. When he reached the bed, he gently lowered her onto the mattress.

Perhaps it was the moon rays sifting through the window, or the play of shadows and light in the room, but her skin had a soft, almost luminescent glow. Her hair fell in ebony curls around her pale face. He couldn’t see her features clearly, just the impressions of her eyes, mouth and, below, the dusky circles of her nipples and triangle of her sex.

She looked like the shadowy essence of the woman in
La Mariée,
the real maiden underneath the colorful dress and whimsical caricatures in the painting.

Maybe what lay in the shadows was what was most real.

Maybe what he’d thought he’d lost, he’d found.

“Cammie...” His throat felt tight, parched.

The moment was more powerful than he’d anticipated.

Leaning over, he lifted her hand and gently kissed the inside of her palm, then pressed it against his cheek.

“Your hands are so soft,” he whispered.

Taking her other hand in his, he gently pulled her to a sitting position. She glided her hands up the sculpted ridges of his chest, burrowed her fingers into his chest hair, then let her fingertips trail slowly down to his waistband.

She popped the button and pulled down the zipper, followed by his pants and shorts. Even in the shadowy room, his erection had a rock-solid silhouette.

“Wow,” she whispered, staring at it.

Her eyes looked like large, dark orbs. Or maybe his male ego wanting her to be that impressed.

“It’s
huge,
” she murmured.

“I assure you,” he said, fighting a smile, “it’s average. Maybe you’ve lost your sense of perspective.” Another thought surfaced. Maybe she hadn’t been with that many guys.

Or
any
other guys.

No, impossible. She was thirty-one, maybe thirty-two—he forgot exactly—which seemed one hell of a wait to lose one’s virginity, but he’d never heard of her romantically linked to anyone in the entire time he’d known her. And she’d never shown up at any company parties with a date. And she’d made that comment about loving him for years....

“Cammie,” he murmured, “is this...your first time?”

After an instant of silence, she stifled a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I— It’s just...you’d said...and I thought—”

“It’s been a while,” she admitted, probably to save him further embarrassment. “Okay, four years, to be exact, and before that there’d been a few...involvements. I’m not exactly what you’d call a fast-track kinda gal, but I know enough to judge size, thank you.”

Well, that wrapped up that conversation. And nearly wrapped up his hard-on, which had started flagging with the conversational right turn.

She ran a fingernail slowly from the end of his shaft to almost the tip, then back.

“Plus,” she said in a throaty whisper, “as you probably recall, I have a killer memory when it comes to numbers.” She circled his penis with her hand and gently squeezed. He hissed a breath between his teeth. “And this bad boy is
big.
”

He started to laugh but his mind rocketed to another dimension when she flicked her tongue slowly around the ridge. With a strangled moan, he took her hands into his and squeezed them tight as he caught his breath.

“Let’s take this a bit slower,” he rasped. “I might have forgotten our first kiss, but I don’t want to forget our first time.”

As he lay next to her, the words he’d spoken resonated through his mind.
Our first time
connoted more times, as in months, maybe even years or a lifetime. A twinge of uncertainty rose within him, but he shoved the question down. He’d spent enough time lately worrying about the future.

Tonight was about living in the present.

Cradling her head in his hands, he reveled in the feel of their naked bodies pressed together. He loved how her long legs intertwined with his, how her curves fit snugly against his angles, how her round, pert breasts flattened against his chest.

This time when he kissed her, he took his time, letting his lips discover her warm, soft, pliable mouth. Tasting the faint buttery chardonnay from dinner, he flashed on their talk, how close he’d felt to her.

“Don’t close off from me,” he whispered huskily. “Let me know you.”

He nuzzled her ear, his senses taking in the flowery scent of her perfume. He kissed then suckled her earlobe before seizing it lightly with his teeth, liking how his warming breaths triggered goose pimples to flare lightly over her skin.

Returning to her mouth, he resettled his lips on hers and whispered the things he wanted to do, encouraged by her responding soft whimpers.

Cradling her face with one hand, he slid the other down her body, sculpting her rib cage, her waist, then back up, pausing just beneath her plump breasts. Slowly, he caressed and cupped one mound, letting his fingers draw up until they lightly pinched the pebbled tip. He rolled it gently, teasingly. Her breathing grew rapid, choked.

He dropped his head to the other breast and laved it with his tongue while stroking and plucking the other. Continuing those ministrations with his hand, he wrapped his lips around the other morsel and flicked his tongue on the hardening nub.

Hearing his name escape her throat in a groan, he opened his mouth wide and sucked, nipped and licked until she writhed, pushing her cleft restlessly against his erection.

He released the breast and dragged his fingers slowly down her middle, over her stomach, and lower. Reaching between her legs, he slipped his middle finger through the slick crevice, straight to her wet core.

Her body shuddered. “Marc, I want you...”

Starting slow and building, he circled her crux with his fingertip while simultaneously clasping his lips around her nipple again, sucking it firmly into his mouth. As his fingers glided and plunged, she convulsively drove herself against his hand.

“I want you,” she cried softly, tilting her hips, “now...oh, please,
now
.”

“Let me get...protection,” he said between pants. He fumbled in the dark, mentally congratulating himself on finding his wallet. “I’m like a prepared Boy Scout,” he said lightly. “Always carry one, just in case.”

He slipped it on, then, with a growl of need, rolled on top of her and spread her legs. As he inched his shaft inside her, she mewled into his mouth, shifting and grinding to more deeply accommodate his entry. Finding their rhythm, she wrapped her legs around his waist, her fingernails digging into his back.

Propped on his elbows, he pushed harder, deeper, their bodies slick with sweat and heat and need. He thrust again and again, riding her cries of pleasure, gritting his teeth as her insides convulsed in paroxysms of contractions until, unable to hold back any longer, his breath ripped loose in a hoarse cry as he reached a mind-rattling climax.

Afterward, he rolled onto his back, pulling Cammie into an embrace. They lay there, breaths heaving, their bodies wet with exertion.

“That...was...spectacular,” Cammie whispered.

“Unbelievable,” he murmured.

He stared out the window at the moon, Cammie close in his arms. After a few moments, her head sank heavily against his body and she started snoring lightly.

He scanned the shadows in the room, lingered on spots lighted by stray beams from the moon, until eventually he stared at the pale form of the woman slumbering in his arms, her dark hair lying splayed across his chest.

“La Mariée,”
he murmured softly, stroking her hair.

* * *

C
AMMIE
AWOKE
TO
THE
SCENT
of coffee and something sugary and fragrant. She forced open one eye and saw a dark blurry figure hovering next to the bed. After several blinks, the image sharpened into focus.

Marc, dressed in slacks and his Chicks Dig Me, Fish Fear Me T-shirt, stood next to the bed, holding a mug of coffee.

He smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Thank you.” Her voice sounded like something that had been dragged along a dusty interstate. She cleared it, tried again. “Thanks, charming prince.” She accepted the mug with a grunt of pleasure.

After swallowing a sip of coffee, she smiled. “You remembered I like cream in my coffee.”

A glazed doughnut magically appeared in his hand. “And that you like these.”

“It’s not vegan, is it?”

“No, flour, lard and sugar.”

She waggled the fingers of her free hand. “Come to mama.”

Munching on the gooey concoction, she looked out the window at the dull gray-blue skies. She looked around the room for a clock.

“It’s a little after 6:00 a.m.,” Marc said.

“Where’d you find doughnuts at this hour?”

“Across the street. Place opens at five. Several surfers were already there.”

“I like swimming, too, but not at predawn hours.” She took another bite.

“I have good news and bad news,” he said solemnly. “Good news is Laura got home around two this morning. There’s video of her stumbling about her living room, cleaning up plates and cups.”

“Had she been drinking?” Whether or not the baby was Marc’s, Laura shouldn’t be boozing it up.

“I sure as hell hope not. She was wearing a robe, so I couldn’t see the baby bump.” He paused. “A man was with her.”

She nodded, wondering how that had affected Marc when he saw it. After taking another sip, she set down the cup and tossed back the blanket. “I’ll get on my clothes. We need to serve her.”

“If you serve her around eight, that’d be good. Considering the late hour she got in, I doubt she holds down a regular job.”

She picked up what was being said between the lines. “You’re leaving soon.”

“That’s the bad news. Not that it’s negative news, just that Emily texted me about the Eco-Glitter rally today that I’m accompanying her to. She begged me to please pick her up at Delilah’s by one at the latest. Seems there’s an eco-radical band called Flames of Dissent performing at the rally and she has her heart set on seeing them. I’ll need to leave fairly soon to get to Vegas in time.”

“I understand.”

“I started a fire in the pit outside. Thought you might enjoy the warmth, as it’s chilly out there.”

“Great idea.” She stood, naked, and looked around. “I seem to remember being dressed when I entered this place.”

With a low chuckle, Marc retrieved a folded blanket from a shelf in the closet. Shaking it open, he wrapped it around Cammie’s shoulders, pulling her closer.

“You’re beautiful in the morning.”

She hiccuped a laugh. “Now I’m wondering about
your
perspective.”

He grinned, his eyes shining. “Making love with you last night...I’ll never forget it.” He gave her a soft pat on the behind. “The fire pit is just outside the door. You can snuggle up in this and enjoy your coffee and doughnut.”

She stepped outside in their private court, a small grassy yard with palm trees, a rock-lined fire pit and two white Adirondack chairs that Marc had positioned next to the pit. The yard was rimmed by a privacy hedge, over which Cammie had an unobstructed view of the Pacific Ocean and the distant San Clemente pier. In the sparkling ocean, half a dozen surfers bobbed on surfboards.

Cammie sat, adjusting the blanket, warming herself next to the fire. Marc brought out her doughnut on a plate, and her mug.

“I’ve already reserved a rental car for you,” he said, sitting in the chair next to her. He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip.

“This early in the morning?”

“Don’t forget we’re in the sprawling L.A. metropolis, not some small town in the Midwest. I called a lawyer I know in the area, and he connected me with a car rental agency that offers twenty-four-hour service. Car will be delivered by seven-thirty.”

She recognized his lawyer persona—in control, officious. A necessary defense to the upheaval in his life, but she sensed the pain roiling beneath that together surface. Had to hurt like hell to be wrestling with the repercussions of “Gwen’s” deceit, to know this was his best, and maybe only, chance to make her accountable. And then there was the baby, a child he so desperately wanted. He hadn’t said it in those words, but Cammie knew.

She couldn’t fail him. Wouldn’t fail him.

“May I see the video?” she asked.

“Sure.” He retrieved his phone from his pants pocket and handed it to her.

She set the doughnut aside and checked out the video. It’d been dark outside, with lights blazing inside the house, so the recorded image was startlingly clear. And different. Gwen-Laura’s long blond hair was now dark brown and cropped close to her head in a pixie cut. She wore a low-cut caftan that would have made Delilah jealous, and bloodred lipstick that would have driven Philip Marlowe crazy.

In the video, she staggered around the room while picking up the dirty plates and cups. A slim man with graying hair, wearing a white T-shirt that emphasized his tan, sat on the couch smoking.

“Ever meet him?” Cammie asked.

“Yes.”

She looked up. “And?”

“I saw him outside her apartment twice, figured he was visiting somebody in the building or that maybe he lived there. Once we commented about the Rockies’ new pitcher. A passing conversation, nothing special.”

“Did you ever see men’s clothes—or other personal items—around her apartment?”

“Never.” His voice was hard enough to ward off any hint that Laura’s boyfriend had lived with her in Denver. “But I wasn’t at her apartment all that much. We usually met at my place.”

She handed back the phone. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “I was played. But we’ve found her, and I’m going to bring her to justice if I have to drag her there, kicking and screaming.” His voice dropped. “Because if I don’t—”

“You will, Marc. I promise you.”

Holding the blanket around her, she crossed to him. Standing before him, she asked softly, “May I?”