Fool for Love: Fooling Around\Nobody's Fool\Fools Rush In (28 page)

“You do?”

“‘Don't leave home without it,'” he said, quoting the old commercial. “I always carry one, just in case.”

“Just in case.” She pretended to disapprove. “Is that some bachelor thing?”

“I always carry my cell phone. I always carry an ATM card. You never know.” He sat back on his haunches and stripped off his T-shirt, exposing the most beautiful male chest she had ever seen, streamlined with muscle and textured with a sparse patch of hair across his pectorals.

“So I qualify as ‘just in case,”' she murmured.

“You qualify as ‘you never know.”' He shimmied out of his boxers, then tugged her panties down her legs and off. He seemed oddly stunned at the sight of her. Yet she was sure that, given his “don't leave home without it” philosophy, he'd seen plenty of naked women before. She'd seen a couple of men herself. But no man had ever looked at her the way Mark was looking at her, his dark eyes luminous, his
expression awed. “I only have one,” he whispered, a rueful smile twisting his mouth. “We're going to have to make it count.”

If the keen, worshipful anticipation in his gaze was anything to go by, one bout of lovemaking with Mark might be intense enough to kill her. She'd die happy, though.

She lifted her hand and flattened her palm against his chest. His skin was warm, and it flexed at her touch. He stretched out next to her so she could reach more of him, and she touched everything she could—his hard shoulders, the ridge of his rib cage, the soft hairs along his forearm, the taut expanse of his abdomen. His buttocks, as unyielding as his shoulders. His thighs, covered in coarser hair. His erection, full and pulsing against the curve of her hand.

That one intimate touch caused him to groan and push her hand away. He pinned her on her back, pressed her arms to the mattress so she couldn't touch him any more, and then kissed his way down her body, taking his time with her breasts, lingering at her navel, causing her stomach to clench and her hips to arch. He kissed lower, nudged her legs apart and took her with his mouth, licking and nipping until her entire body convulsed with pleasure.

“Mark…” His name tumbled from her lips, half a sob, half a plea. No one had ever made her feel so resplendently alive—and so utterly weak. “Mark—”

“Shh.” He slid back up her body, slightly out of breath.

“That was—” What? She didn't think the English language had a word adequate to describe what she'd just experienced.

“Shh,” he said again, then silenced her by brushing his lips against hers, tracing his tongue over her lower lip and pressing his arousal against her belly.

She wanted him to feel what she'd felt. She wanted him to be as deliriously grateful to her as she was to him. Mustering what little energy she had, she propped herself up on her elbows, then pushed herself to sit. Mark sat back on his haunches once more, and Claire wrapped her arms around him. He was solid yet graceful, his physique sinewy rather than bulky. She ran her hands down his back, savoring the smooth, hot surface of his skin, the subtle motions of his muscles. When she kissed his chest he moaned.

Operating on instinct—she'd never done this before—she kissed a path downward, pausing to dip her tongue into his navel and sensing a tremor in his breath, grazing even lower, touching her mouth to the tip of his penis.

He moaned again, dug his hands into her hair and eased back her head. She peered up at him, worried that he wasn't feeling anything as wonderful as what she'd felt when he'd made love to her with his mouth. “Am I doing it wrong?” she asked.

“No. Oh, no.” A dazed laugh escaped him as he pulled her back up so he could stare into her eyes. “I want to be inside you when I come,” he said.

His words turned her on as much as his kisses had, his touch, his gaze. He released her and reached over the side of the bed, where he'd abandoned his jeans. The heavy denim rustled as he rummaged through his pockets. When he returned to her, he was holding his one precious condom. In a matter of seconds, he
had it unwrapped and unrolled. He drew her into his arms, guided her legs around his waist and pulled her down onto him.

She panicked. They were sitting up, and she didn't know what to do.

“Hold on,” he murmured, his hands clamped to her hips. She clung to him and he rocked her, rocked them both, arching upward into her. As impossible as it seemed, this felt even more exquisite than what he'd done to her just minutes ago. Her body shivered, tensed, gathered him in. He slid his hands forward, his thumbs pressing lightly against where their bodies were joined, and she shattered inside, fierce pulses consuming her. He froze, barely breathing, embracing her as her throbbing body embraced him.

She buried her head in the curve of his neck and gulped in shaky breaths. As the storm ebbed, her hands relaxed against his shoulders. It was only then that he moved, guiding her onto her back and surging into her. This was for him. His thrusts were faster, harder; he no longer held anything back. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, wishing she could give him as much as he'd given her, wishing he could feel everything she'd felt, every magnificent, heart-stopping sensation.

He strained, his body tense and damp with sweat. She stroked his back, cupped his head and rose off the pillow to kiss him. Somehow that kiss unleashed something in them both. She heard his helpless groan an instant before yet another climax overtook her. He shuddered in her arms, his hips fused to hers, their souls merging for one blissful instant.

Slowly, slowly her soul pulled away from his and
retreated to a safe place inside herself. She remembered who she was, where she was, whom she was with and why. She remembered that today's mission had been to convince Mark's parents that she and Mark had no intention of forging a lifelong commitment to each other. In fact, to convince them of quite the opposite, that they were two strangers whose paths had crossed thanks to nothing more than a stupid practical joke.

Mark shifted onto his side next to her, one arm wedged under her and the other looped over her, his chin resting gently on the crown of her head. “Are you okay?” he whispered, the same question he'd asked her when he'd first climbed into bed with her, the question he'd been asking her ever since his car had been clobbered by a runaway kayak.

In terms of broken glass and air-bag burns, she was okay. In terms of being stranded overnight in some no-name village halfway between Williamstown and Boston, she was okay.

In terms of how she was going to recover from what she'd just shared with Mark, how she was going to get through the rest of her life without him—that she wasn't so sure of.

But that wasn't the answer he was looking for. So she said, “Yes, I'm okay.”

H
E COULDN'T SLEEP
.
At some point Claire drifted off; her head grew heavy against his shoulder and her breathing grew deep and steady. He envied her ability to slip into unconsciousness. He wished his brain would stop humming enough so he could rest.

It wasn't churning the way it had been earlier, when he'd taken his three-lap hike around the inn. Instead, it was still and bright, as if someone were beaming a high-intensity flashlight through his skull.

He didn't want this. He was one of Boston's top five bachelors, for God's sake. The new-car smell hadn't even faded from his Benz-mobile yet.

Now his new car was a mess.

And so was his life.

Sighing, he held Claire closer. Her legs felt sleek against his. He'd been thinking about her legs from the first time he'd met her—her legs, her hair, the whole damned package. And what was inside the package, too—the intelligence, the serenity, the sincerity. The sense of humor. The sympathy that would make a person risk a speeding ticket in order to reach a friend in need, even if that “friend” turned out to be a lying bastard. The passion for old buildings, old neighborhoods, old communities.

The passion she'd just shared with him.
Comely
…oh man, she was comely.

He held her closer. Her hair snagged in his day-old beard. Her breath whispered against his chest. It felt warm, right.

He didn't want this. It wasn't the plan. He was a freaking superstar bachelor, for crying out loud! What was that bull the innkeeper had said? Something about Cupid's arrow? The hell with Cupid. The only thing he'd been struck with was an air bag.

Claire had been thrust into his life and now his self-image, his future, his whole life—everything was on the line. What was he going to do?

 

M
ARK SEEMED
distracted to Claire when they arose the next morning. Shadows underlined his eyes and his beard gave him a scruffy, dangerous look. He didn't talk as he gathered his clothes—the jeans on the floor by his side of the bed, the sweater on the floor by hers, the T-shirt and shorts tangled in the bedsheets. Claire had left her own clothes laid neatly over the back of the easy chair. She scooped them up and shut herself inside the bathroom so she wouldn't have to deal with his silence.

What they'd done last night was a mistake. Mark obviously knew that as well as she did. She could put his mind at ease by telling him she recognized that their lovemaking had been an anomaly, a onetime occurrence. No promises had been made, no strings attached, no future acknowledged. Surely that would cheer him up.

But she didn't want to cheer him up. She wasn't in a particularly cheery mood herself.

For all she knew, his gloomy disposition reflected his concern about his car and had nothing to do with her or last night's intimacy. Ahead of them lay a long trip home in a tow truck, after which she would return to her routine while he wasted days haggling with insurance companies, getting estimates, filing reports and contemplating whether to sue Ray. His car would ultimately be repaired, but it would never be new again. No wonder he was sulking.

They picked at the jumbo blueberry muffins Betty set before them in the dining room downstairs, sipped the coffee she poured for them and declined the orange juice. Officer Beldon showed up at nine and drove them to the auto shop where Mark's car had spent the night. In the hazy morning light, it looked wretched, the windshield a ghastly lace of cracks and the hood dented and scratched. Mark winced at the sight.

“Sure, I can fit you both in the cab,” the tow-truck driver said once he and Mark had completed some paperwork. Mark gallantly took the center of the seat, as if to protect Claire from the driver. The man seemed pretty harmless, though, a skinny fellow in his thirties with a few acne scars pocking his cheeks, a wedding band on his left hand and a NASCAR cap perched on his head. The truck's cab smelled of gasoline and the seat's upholstery was as stiff as a wooden bench. “Mind if I turn on the radio?” he asked amiably once they were on Route 2, dragging the crippled Mercedes behind them. “Sometimes, when the weather patterns are right, I can pick up WBKX all the way out here. That's your station, ain't it?”

“Yeah,” Mark grunted.

Claire gazed out the window. None of the scenery they passed looked familiar to her, even though she and Mark had driven this road less than twenty-four hours ago. Then, she'd been a different person: confident that they could become friends, amused that his parents seemed as hung up on their fictional engagement as her mother had been, absorbed by the rustic scenery and exhilarated by the top-down drive in the powerful sports car. Never had she imagined that the day would end as it had, and that she would be feeling so bereft today, so alone.

“That weekend show your station does isn't so good,” the driver noted, punching buttons on the radio console and picking up only static. “Weekdays, that deejay Rex? He's great, when the station's coming in. Rex in the Morning. If it's just the right amount cloudy, we get pretty good reception in the shop.”

“You think he's great?” Mark muttered.

“He's hilarious. Some of his jokes have me laughing so hard I've got to stop working for a minute to catch my breath.”

“Some of his jokes are awful,” Mark snapped.

“You think so?”

“Look—I'm sorry.” Mark gave the radio's knob a sharp twist to turn off the static. “I need to talk to Claire for a minute, and I can't do it with that crackling noise.”

“Suit yourself,” the driver said with a shrug.

Claire braced herself for whatever Mark had to say. She hoped it wouldn't have anything to do with last night.

“About last night,” he began.

While she doubted she'd ever see this tow-truck driver again, she didn't care to discuss her sex life in front of him. Public discussions of her private life were what had caused this entire disastrous situation, even though Rex had invented that private life just to needle her and his boss. “No, Mark. Please,” she said, cutting him off.

“Claire.” Mark pried one of her hands free of her purse, which she was clutching as if it were a life preserver, and folded his hands around her fingers.

She drew in a breath and turned from the vista of trees and hills and ponds blurring past the window to glance at him. No man deserved to look so good with mussed hair and an overnight shadow of beard, she thought. No man deserved to turn her life inside-out the way Mark had, and then run off to be a bachelor.

“I've been thinking,” he said.

Wonderful. Should she contact
Boston's Best
and inform them that their esteemed bachelor had a brain?

“I've been thinking,” he elaborated, “about where I am in my life, where I thought I was. Where I ought to be. There is always a choice, you know? Not a single answer. But a choice.”

This was a bit too philosophical for her. Maybe she should have drunk a second cup of coffee, but even extra caffeine wouldn't have put her in the right frame of mind for a discussion on the concept of choice.

“Actually, that's wrong,” he refuted himself. It occurred to her that he hadn't really worked out what
he was trying to say. He was fumbling, struggling to put into words concepts that were far from clear in his mind. “I thought I had a choice. I guess I do, but it's not really a choice, because the choice is between clinging to a stupid idea or grabbing hold of something that will make me happy and fulfilled.” He paused. “Does any of this make sense?”

“No,” she said.

The tow-truck driver glanced toward them. “Doesn't make sense to me, either.”

“I'm not talking to you,” Mark said. “This is between me and Claire.”

The driver shrugged and raised his eyebrows. Mark shifted on the seat to face Claire. “What I'm saying is, marry me.”

“What?” She definitely should have had a second cup of coffee. Maybe a third and a fourth. She might have fantasized about such a moment last night while lying in the warm shelter of Mark's body, but this was the morning, the sun was burning through the windshield and the tow truck was carrying her back to reality.

“Marry me,” he repeated. “That's the choice that will make me happy and fulfilled. The bachelor thing won't. It just won't.”

“I thought she was your fiancée,” the driver interjected. “Betty told my wife—”

“Stay out of this, would you?” Mark said, silencing him, then turned back to Claire. “You heard him. You're my fiancée.” He smiled hesitantly. “We've already gotten to that point. We may as well go the rest of the distance. What do you say?”

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to believe he
meant every word, however incoherent most of those words were. But he'd been in an accident last night. Maybe he'd struck his head on something at the moment of impact and had suffered a brain injury. Or he could be experiencing post-traumatic stress. “I say you're crazy,” she answered.

“No, I'm not. Really. Everyone who knows me thinks I'm sane.”

Her heart started pounding, the way it had pounded last night when he'd kissed her, when he'd told her he loved her hair, when he'd done everything he'd done to her. “What about being one of Boston's top-ranked bachelors?”

“The hell with that. I thought that was what I wanted. But then we got engaged and I just don't want to be a bachelor anymore. I want to want it, but I don't. I can't make myself want what I don't want.”

Anyone who heard some of his convoluted statements would definitely doubt his sanity. But she was able to decipher his meaning. “Mark.” She drew in another breath, this one tremulous. His hands felt so warm and strong around hers. His voice sounded so positive. “We didn't get engaged. We never were engaged. It was just a silly joke Rex played on us.”

“I know. I'll deal with Rex,” Mark promised. “But he's not important right now. What's important is that…” He sighed. “I love you.”

“You hardly know me.”

“I know everything I need to know.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed her fingertips with a kiss. “What I know is that the thought of going home and being a bachelor depresses me. I don't
want that. I want
you
—everything you are, everything you'll ever be. I want to fall asleep every night with your hair touching me. I want to canoodle with you. Marry me, Mary Claire O'Connor.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She no longer noticed the gasoline smell, the uncomfortable seat, the reflection of the truck's yellow flashing lights in the side mirror. She loved Mark. She wanted so badly to say yes. “You'd be giving up so much,” she pointed out.

“What? My title as a prime bachelor? Ask me if I care.”

“You're really serious?”

“He's serious,” the driver chimed in. “You're already engaged to him, so you may as well marry him.”

“Thank you,” Mark said, sounding genuinely grateful for the driver's comment this time. He gazed at Claire. “You heard him. You may as well marry me.”

“I may as well,” Claire said, then laughed through her tears.

Mark arched his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She rested her head on his shoulder. Behind them trailed his battered sports car. Ahead of them lay a future filled with everything Claire could possibly desire. And next to her sat Mark, her fiancé, her wonderful April Fool's Day gift.