Forbidden Affair: The Bold and the Beautiful (10 page)

She pulled her hand away and climbed to her feet. “You don’t mean that,” she said walking toward the storeroom, trying to put some space between them.

Bill stood too. “Yes, I do.”

Steffy turned. “We can’t do this to Liam.”

“
Liam is my son and I love him but he loves Hope,” Bill said. “And he’s a big boy. He just needs to get used to the idea of you being with someone else. He’ll come round.”

Steffy opened her mouth to deny it again, to tell him no, but an aftershock jarred the floor beneath her—a big one. She flailed her arms as she stumbled, frightened by its intensity compared to the more gentle ones they’d been having.

Bill cursed under his breath, covering the few paces between them quickly, and dragged Steffy back to the doorway. He pulled her against him, tucking her head into his chest, feeling the frantic beat of her heart. A loud crack rent the air and he felt her burrow her head in further.

It was over in about twenty seconds but it still took a full minute for Steffy to surface from the protection of his chest.

“
Are you okay?” he asked, his hands cradling her face.

Steffy nodded, but she was not okay—she was not in the ballpark of okay. “That was a big one,” she said quietly.

Bill nodded. He let her go to find the flashlight as the aftershock had knocked over the lanterns but Steffy clutched at his arm.

“
Where are you going?” she asked.

Bill wrapped her up in his arms again. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m just going to crouch down and find the flashlight, okay?”

Steffy shut her eyes. No. The only place she felt okay was right here in his arms and she didn’t want him to let go. “Okay,” she said but her voice sounded small and uncertain even to her own ears.

Bill groped around for the flashlight at their feet, locating it fairly quickly, flicking it on, then standing again and pulling her against him. Silently, he shone the beam around the area. The pile of rubble where they’d raised the flag seemed okay and the piping was still anchored in place. But when he shone the light on the kitchen side, Steffy gasped.

A beam from the kitchen rubble pile had shifted and fallen sideways. It was large and clearly heavy, and it didn’t escape Steffy’s notice that it had come to rest in almost the exact spot she’d been standing when the aftershock hit.

“
Oh God,” she said, a sudden wave of nausea roiling through her intestines as she turned her face into Bill’s chest.

“
It’s okay,” he murmured, rubbing her back, flicking the flashlight off and plunging them into darkness.

“
No, it’s not,” she said, raising her head. “I was … standing right there.” She’d be dead right now if he hadn’t snatched her away. He’d saved her life again.

“
But you’re not now,” he soothed, his hand continuing its calm stroking.

Steffy looked into his earnest face. He was so heroic right now she could barely breathe for it—it was suffocating and oh so sexy. Everything about him was sexy. His impossibly square jaw, his neat beard, his strong chin. The way he oozed masculinity and confidence.

And his mouth. God but his mouth was sexy.

And he was right. They could die here. The building could collapse before they were rescued and they’d be gone. Wiped from the face of the earth.

And she’d never know what it was like to be loved by him.

“
Kiss me,” she said.

Bill blinked at the unexpected request. “Steffy, are you sure—”

She didn’t give him a chance to finish, just raised herself up on her toes and kissed him instead.

His lips were resistant at first. She wasn’t sure if that was from shock or from some kind of belated morality, given how much she’d been banging on about it, but the second she whimpered her frustration against his mouth, he opened to her and she took what she wanted.

He let her take the lead, his lips slanting in the direction she wanted them to go, his tongue stroking against hers when she commanded it to do so. Her hands bunched in the fabric of his T-shirt, her hips aligned with his and when she felt the hard length of him at the juncture of her thighs she rubbed herself against him, desperate to get closer.

Bill, his breath ragged, pulled away. “Are you sure?” he asked again, knowing this was escalating, feeling his own control at snapping point.

Steffy blinked, her head swimming from the overdose of testosterone and the sheer weight of her need. “I’ve never been surer of anything,” she said, dragging his head back down.

Bill didn’t need any more convincing. And he didn’t do any more following either. He bumped her back against the door frame and flayed her with a kiss that left them both gasping.

“
More?” he asked roughly.

“
Oh God, yes!” Steffy begged.

“
All the way?” he demanded against her mouth.

Steffy whimpered. “I’ll die if you don’t.”

Bill reclaimed her mouth, his hands gliding down her body, skimming her waist and her hips and sliding around to her butt and squeezing. She cried out and he jerked her hips hard against him, using the angle of their bodies to his advantage, grinding into her.

“
You like that?” he muttered.

“
Yes,” she panted. “More.”

“
Hell yeah,” he groaned, tormenting them further as he rubbed against her. He wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot. He was just getting started.

But he needed more than this. He needed to touch her all over, to see her. His hands found the hem of her T-shirt and he wrenched it up. Steffy helped him, lifting her arms, and when she was free he feasted his eyes on her, his chest heaving.

“
Mmm,” he said, as his gaze roamed over the pink satin and black lace of her bra, the flatness of her stomach, the cute wink of her belly button.

He dropped his head and traced his tongue down the edge of a bra cup into the depths of her cleavage. Then he yanked the cup aside and claimed an erect nipple. Her harsh hiss and the arch of her back encouraged him further, and he reefed the other cup aside, his mouth again seeking the taut bud.

Steffy could barely think. Hell, she could barely breathe. All she could do was hold on and
feel
as fireworks exploded behind her eyes. Before she knew it, her bra was off and his hands were wandering south. Not gentle, not rough, just determined. Purposeful. Eager.

Resolute.

They brushed her belly, pulled at the stud of her jeans, pushed under the waistband at the back, beneath the fabric of her underwear until they were kneading her firm naked flesh, bringing her in close to him again. Steffy’s back arched again as his mouth teased her nipples and he rubbed himself maddeningly against her.

Heat flared and something tugged deep down and suddenly Steffy couldn’t take it anymore. Was he just going to torture her, standing here forever with all his clothes on?

She needed him naked.

She needed him on top of her.

She needed him inside her.

Steffy pulled at his shirt, tugging it over his head and when finally his magnificent chest was revealed, she pushed against it, pushing him to the other side of the doorway.

“
Steffy?”

“
Shh,” she said, thankful for her large pupils dilated with desire. Thankful they improved her night vision so that she could see every amazing inch of Bill’s chest. “Wow,” she said, running her fingers over his meaty pecs, fluttering them over his nipples, trailing her hand down the row of pillowed muscles bisecting his abdomen, watching them contract in her wake.

She hooked her finger under the stud that kept his jeans together and looked up to find him watching her with hooded eyes, waiting to see if she’d pop it and it was such a turn on she raised herself up on her toes to kiss him again. He kissed her back, deep and hard, and she whimpered because she wanted to stay right there but she needed to kiss his chest more.

So she dragged herself away and put her tongue to a nipple. His low expletive, his sucked in breath and the light bump as his head hit the door frame empowered her and she traced her tongue everywhere, trekking down to where her hand had gone, right down to the button sitting low on his hips. Then she tugged at it with her fingers and it popped. She straightened, her hips aligning with his, her finger at the top of the zipper, and waited for Bill to open his eyes and look at her.

His eyes fluttered open and Steffy slowly, very slowly, pulled the zipper down. Tooth by tooth it unfastened, scraping against the hard bulge as it went and Steffy smiled as Bill’s breath grew more ragged and his nostrils flared.

When it reached the bottom, Bill placed his hand over hers. “Okay, whoa,” he panted, his voice thick as syrup. “I think we need to get horizontal.”

Steffy couldn’t have agreed more and in the next few seconds she was on her back on the ground, Bill’s big, hard body beside her, all hot muscle and leashed desire, one heavy thigh trapping both of hers.

Bill looked down into her face. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

Steffy’s heart swelled at the reverence in his voice, at how right this felt. She traced the outline of his jaw with her fingertip. “So are you,” she whispered back.

And then he was kissing her again, with absolutely no reverence. He unleashed the hunger she’d felt trembling through his biceps and flayed her with heat and lust and need, drenching her with his desire, branding her with passion she’d never known existed, until all she could do was hold on and submit to the maelstrom.

With his mouth reducing her to a mindless mess, his hands were able to roam freely and he took ruthless advantage. They traveled everywhere: her breasts, her nipples, her stomach, her hips, the zipper of her jeans—and then inside her jeans.

She gasped when his long fingers slid into her slick heat, breaking off the hot, hard kiss, her fingernails digging into the broad sweep of muscle covering his shoulder.

“Take your jeans off,” he murmured in her ear as he sucked on her earlobe.

With his help, Steffy wriggled out of them and then she was totally naked and completely at his mercy as he ducked his head to kiss her again. But her senses were back and she wanted him just as naked.

“Oh, no, no, no,” she whispered against his mouth, turning her head so his lips slid to her jaw as her fingers reached for the fly of his jeans. “Your turn.”

Bill felt a jolt to his groin as her fingers brushed against his hardness and then stroked him through the fabric of his underwear. He shut his eyes, his forehead falling to the curve of her shoulder.

“I need to touch you,” she panted into his ear and he could hear her frustration as two layers of fabric and his position hampered her access.

Bill rolled onto his back and pushed his jeans and underwear down, kicking them off before rolling over again and slamming his mouth down onto hers. When her hand slid onto him his lips broke away with a guttural groan, his forehead pressed against hers. And when she palmed the length of him and squeezed, his ragged gasping sounded like a hurricane in the silence.

“Steffy,” he muttered.

“Now,” she said, stroking the side of his face with her other hand. “Now.”

Bill didn’t need to be told again. He kissed her hard as he moved over, plundering the softness of her mouth as he settled himself between her thighs, reveling in her response. She wrapped her legs around his waist, bringing all her slick heat into contact with his straining hardness and he poised himself there, levering himself up on his elbows.

He broke off the kiss, placing his forehead back on hers, struggling to contain his breath. He wanted to watch her face as they became one. He wanted her to know that this wasn’t some quick, dirty, end-of-life, going-out-with-a-bang, any-port-in-a-storm thing. He wanted her to look in his eyes and know it was
the real thing
.

“Ready?” he asked, his breathing ragged, his voice unsteady as he denied himself the overriding urge to thrust inside her in one quick, hard stroke.

Steffy looked into Bill’s eyes. She was. But it was also the first time she’d made love since losing the baby and she knew that meant something. Frankly, it scared the hell out of her.

“I haven’t done this,” she said, her whisper amplified in the minuscule distance between their mouths, “since the miscarriage …”

Bill felt everything inside him go still at her startling revelation. Then he silently cursed himself for his insensitivity. Granted, it wasn’t one of the things he was known for, but he could have thought about the situation a little deeper before coming over all caveman, all the-end-is-nigh, on Steffy.

To be fair, he’d have never guessed she’d been celibate for over a year. Sure, she’d made much of leaving the old Steffy behind but Steffy—old or new—was a sensual woman. It was a crime that someone hadn’t been showing her how much. “We don’t have to do this, Steffy,” he said, looking into her eyes as he started to pull away.

He probably wouldn’t die from sexual frustration. Probably.

“No!” Steffy said, grabbing his magnificent buttocks with her hands and clamping down tight with her thighs, refusing to let him move. “I want to. I just … wanted you to know. It sounds silly, I know that it’s not possible but, in some ways … I almost feel like a virgin again. I feel … new.”

Bill kissed her, deep and tender, reigning in his raging need as he assured her with his long, slow kiss that he understood. That she had chosen him. And he was humbled.

“Thank you,” he whispered as his lips drifted to her cheek, her eyes, her nose.

Steffy’s heart felt like it had grown to take up all the space in her chest as he trailed gentle kisses all over her face. “Make love to me, Bill.”

Bill brushed his mouth against hers. “Yes,” he said.

Their gazes locked and Steffy made sure she kept her eyes wide open as Bill nudged against her then slid deep inside her, hot and hard. She gasped as he eased right in to the hilt, her back arching, her teeth digging into her lower lip.

“You okay?” he asked, his gaze earnest, his voice so husky with restraint it actually curled Steffy’s toes.

“Amazing,” she whispered. “Again.”

Bill kissed her then, kissed her as he gave her what she wanted. He moved out and in again.

“Again,” she demanded against his mouth, wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders.

He pushed in and she gasped. He pulled out and she whimpered.

“More,” she said.

Bill gave her more. And more. The pace inexorably picking up until she was panting and demanding.

“Don’t stop,” she muttered, her voice husky. “Don’t you dare stop.”

Stop? Bill was so hard and so turned on the whole building could fall down around them and he still wouldn’t stop. He’d found heaven in her arms—there were worse ways to go.

Steffy reveled in Bill looming over her as he stroked into her. He felt good and hard and solid, and she loved clinging to the broad expanse of his shoulders as he rocked them both to another plane.

He’d long since given up kissing her, and buried his head in the curve where her shoulder met her neck, and she could tell from the tremble in his arms and the low groan with each thrust that he was building as steadily as she was.

A buzz started behind her belly button. Slow, gentle ripples undulated to a hundred different pulse points, spreading the buzz. Each thrust intensified the ripples until the buzz became a murmur, contracting through muscles and nerve fibers until it became a mighty roar.

Steffy gasped as her body was smashed with electric intensity, drumming her feet against Bill’s naked buttocks. “Yes,” she cried, digging her nails into his back.

Bill groaned. “God … Steffy … yes …”

“Bill … Bill … Oh God … yes. I’m … I’m—”

And then she couldn’t talk. She couldn’t think or form a coherent thought as a tsunami of sensation wiped all higher functioning from her brain. She could only feel, as Bill’s long, guttural groan and desperate cry of, “Steffy!” flung him into the stratosphere with her.

They held on as popping lights and tentacles of pleasure stroked and flayed in equal measure, tossing them around and suspending them in a state of unbearable ecstasy until it released them in an exhausted heap, where all they could do was breathe and embrace the fading mist of pleasure.

“Please tell me we’re going to do that again,” Bill gasped as he rolled onto his back long moments later, pulling her with him and tucking her into his side.

“I think that may be impossible to repeat,” Steffy murmured with a smile, her eyes fluttering shut as a heavy malaise invaded her bones and she drifted off to sleep.

*

They made love twice more through the night. The last time, a small aftershock rattled the ground beneath them as they climaxed and Bill asked, “Did the earth move for you too?” as they lay gasping.

When Bill woke in the morning, Steffy was still plastered to his side, her head on his shoulder, her leg draped over his thighs and, despite the numbness in his arm, he dropped a kiss on her head in gratitude. He wasn’t sure if Steffy was going to have doubts in the clear light of morning as another day of being trapped stretched before them. He hoped not, because he had no doubts. No regrets. He was one hundred percent in and he would spend every second they had left letting her know it.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that she hadn’t said the L word last night. He’d lain himself bare, told her he was falling in love with her, but she hadn’t reciprocated. Sure, she’d said, “Make love to me.” But that wasn’t the same thing as “I love you.”

Steffy had been hurt and she’d been trying to reinvent herself, he knew that. He figured she probably didn’t want to go too far, too quickly with him. With anyone. She’d been in love with Liam for a long time and she’d come back from Paris to be a better person. And he knew that she needed time to do that, time to love herself, first.

He could be patient.

But he wasn’t going to let her back away from this either. He wasn’t going to let her put Liam or their work relationship or their age difference or any other obstacle in his way.

He loved her. He was in.

Bill shifted a little to ease the numbness and tingling in his arm. Steffy stirred, muttering something, and kissed his shoulder before sleepily rolling onto her side. Bill took full advantage, rolling on his side too, sliding his arm onto her belly and scooping her into him, wrapping his chest around her and bending his legs in behind hers.

He dropped a kiss on her shoulder and smiled when she sighed and said, “Good morning.”

“Are you awake?” he asked, his mouth against her skin.

“Not as awake as you are,” she murmured and he shut his eyes as she squirmed her butt against a part of him that was
very
awake.

“Mmm,” he said kissing her again. “That feels good.”

“What?” she asked, squirming again. “This?”

Bill chuckled, enjoying the sensation. “Keep doing that and there’ll be trouble.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “That’s what I was hoping. Do you need a written invitation?”

Bill’s breath caught in his throat at the frank suggestion in her eyes. “No ma’am,” he said as his hand slid slowly north from her belly.

And that’s when they heard the wail of a siren getting closer and closer.

Bill’s hand froze as Steffy’s head rose off their makeshift bed. “That’s really close, isn’t it?” she said, looking over her shoulder at him, her heart beating a mad tattoo in her chest.

Bill withdrew his hand and sat up. He could hear car doors slamming and distant voices. “Yes,” he said. “Really close.”

They looked at each other for a long moment. “Get dressed,” he said, grinning down at her. “We can’t make our appearance in public after being trapped inside a collapsed building looking like Adam and Eve.”

Steffy grinned back as Bill got to his feet. It had been a surreal thirty-six hours. If anyone had told her a week ago this—any of it—was going to happen, she would have laughed hysterically. But an earthquake really had hit and she and Bill really had been trapped in a collapsed building together and survived to tell the tale.

And they’d really become lovers in the process.

She wondered how many magazines like
Eye on Fashion
would want their story and how much they’d pay to get an exclusive—a Forrester heiress and a media mogul.

But not her new and improved
Eye on Fashion
. She looked down at her arm; Bill’s written contract was still mostly visible despite the activities of the night.

Bill reached for his jeans and Steffy temporarily forgot their urgency as she admired the long, lean lines of him. His muscles were magnificent, so beautifully delineated he could have sat for any of the great artisans who’d sculpted athletic naked men out of marble.

Bill smiled at her as he climbed into his jeans. “Come on,” he said as he zipped up. “We should be over there—” He jerked his thumb to the rubble behind him. “—waving the flag around and yelling to get their attention.”

He threw her jeans at her and they landed on her head, temporarily blocking her view. “Hey,” she protested as she pulled them away. But he was already pulling his T-shirt over his head. “I was enjoying the view,” she grumbled.

Bill held out his hand to help her up. “Now it’s my turn.”

Steffy was hauled to her feet, straight into his arms. And when he swept her into a passionate kiss, she didn’t protest, nor did she protest when his hands came to rest on her naked butt and he squeezed. She just wanted to pull him back down again and have one last time with him. One last time before they went out into the real world.

Where things weren’t so black and white.

A voice interrupted their kiss. “Hello? Anybody here?” Other voices joined in too, calling for survivors.

Bill broke away and slapped her bottom playfully. “Get dressed,” he murmured. “I’ll go flap the flag and make some noise.”

Steffy nodded, turning to pick up her jeans. She watched as Bill gingerly untethered the bottom of the pipe and pushed it gently through the hole.

“Here! Down here!” he yelled, cupping his other hand around his mouth to direct the sound upward. Steffy jumped a little as the noise reverberated around their rubble kingdom, loud after the eerie silence of the last couple of days.

“Stop,” someone from up top called and then, “I heard something, I heard a voice. Get the dogs and the equipment.” There was more yelling back and forth, still distant, before Bill heard: “Hello? Hello, where are you? Call again.”

Bill was hoping they could see the flag but one of his worries had always been that the destruction was so great on the outside that the flag would be obstructed by debris they couldn’t see from underneath.

“Here,” Bill called again, his hand still cupping his face. “I’m waving some pipe through a hole in the rubble. It has a flag attached.” Bill pushed the pipe higher into what he hoped was free air, and twirled it, so the flag would flutter about and be easy to see.