Heather Graham (19 page)

She twisted her head against him, planting light kisses against his neck, teasing his throat with damp flicks of her tongue. “I told you I knew why I came,” she said huskily.

“Oh, God!” Kent groaned, and a shudder ripped almost painfully through his body. He embraced her with his arms and stood, unwilling to part with her even for a moment. And those eyes of hers, those beautiful sea eyes, continued to meet his.

He didn’t say anything else then; he strode with her down the hall, tense and electric with his desire. He carried her straight to the bed and laid her there, rising over her, falling beside her. He heard her quickened breath as he reached for the tie on her robe. When it gave to his fingers, he brushed the robe from her. His breath caught in his lungs as his heart assumed a frantic beat and his muscles contracted with longing. She was stunning; as perfect and flawless as the fresh snow beyond the window; full breasts to excite his touch; a slim waist his hands could span so easily; long, long legs to entwine with his. All this he had known somewhere inside of him, and yet he felt somewhat in awe. Her eyes, her face, were so beautiful, so trusting, filled with a desire that matched his own. Her hair was like skeins of gold spread across his pillow, ready to entangle him with silken magic …

Kent touched her chin with his thumb. He allowed that touch to fall to her throat, then follow a path along the shadowed valley between her breasts to her abdomen. She moaned softly and curled to him. Her fingers, trembling, moved to the buttons on his shirt, but the buttons refused to give. Kent sat up and impatiently pulled at them—three he unbuttoned, two he ripped away. He shifted to pull off his boots and stood to shed his pants, watching Katie smile in the moonlight.

Then he was beside her again, rubbing her body with his, searching for her lips. As he kissed her, he touched her, he knew her. His body hungered for her in a way he’d never known. His palms cupped her breasts, full with them, loving them, tantalizing her and drawing husky whimpers from her. He drew his lips from hers to make love to her breasts, kissing them, laving them with the rough touch of his tongue, taunting them with his teeth until she cried out. He felt her nails lightly raking his back, and he smiled with memory. Who could have known, all those years ago, that a time would come when he was ready to die with desire for the touch of those nails …

Hudson’s daughter, full-grown, a woman now in every sense of the word, possessing his body and his soul and all that was him …

“Kent,” she gasped, his name a sweet cry on her lips. She kissed his shoulders urgently, nipping at them, curing each slight bite with another kiss. Her hands, so soft and beautiful against his body, moved over him, sending wave after wave of pleasure ripping through him.

“Katie …”

He lifted himself away, watching her lovely body as he feathered his fingers over her thighs, between them. Her palms came to his cheeks, his throat, down his chest.

“Katie …” It was a whisper and a groan this time.

She rolled against him again, slipping her arms around him, begging him to come to her. He forced her to her back again and rose over her, parting her thighs with his knee, shuddering just to feel the length of his body against hers again. The feelings within him were almost frightening in their intensity; his body pulsed and screamed with desire and need, but he wanted it to go on and on …

Her arms were still entangled around his neck. He saw her eyes in the moonlight … wide and as lovely as the sea but no longer tranquil. They mirrored his need with crystal beauty, and he touched her cheek, as fascinated as he was fevered.

“Please,” she whispered, and he lowered himself, all too ready to please her. Her resistance stunned him, so much so that he would have drawn away had she let him.

“Kent!” she choked out his name with a sob, her arms clenching more tightly around him, her eyes at last closing with her plea.

“Katie?”

“Please!” She arched to him, breasts pressed high against him, her hips and the damp warmth he had elicited a welcome he could not refuse, no matter what the barriers of her body … or his mind. He lifted her buttocks and moved against her, slowly, gently, aware then with an aching delight that his golden goddess was virginal.

She gasped, trembling with the impact of his body. But when he stilled, she wound her legs about him and begged in the softest of whispers for him to love her.

He did, stroking her carefully at first, then venting free rein as she moved fluidly with him, tangling her fingers into his hair, meeting his kisses, learning all about hunger and need and fulfillment. He didn’t know how he did it—from the second he had touched her he had been explosive—but in that unique and special tenderness he had for her, he found control and physical patience. Sheer delight grew and spiraled, blazed and blazed again. Not until a strangled cry tore from her lips and he felt the release of her sumptuous body did he find his own, spilling into her a flood of warmth that sent them both shuddering again. They held one another as little waves of afterpleasure gently gave them back their breath and slowed their hearts.

Kent buried his face against her neck and whispered her name, tenderly threading his fingers through her hair. At last he raised himself and rolled to his side, rising on an elbow to stare into her eyes. They were still on his, lazy, sleepy, sensual.

“You should have told me.”

She shrugged and smiled, and her body curled to his once more.

“I told you I didn’t do much but work,” she teased.

“I should have known,” he murmured, idly running his fingers over her back, loving the fluid curve of her spine and the firm rise of her buttocks.

“Why?” She kissed the pulse at his throat. “I think you already had reservations about my being Dante’s daughter.”

“I did,” Kent admitted. “But it seems that my reservations were about other men, not myself. But—”

Katie laughed, hugging him. “I wanted you, Kent. I wanted you the night you hauled me away from the party. I wanted you when we were tumbling in the grass. And, as I told you tonight,” she added with pride and dignity, “I came here because I wanted you.”

He pulled away to kiss her forehead, and when he met her eyes again, he knew he was in love. “Katie—” he began but was startled from speech as his phone started to ring.

She pulled away slightly. “Shouldn’t you answer that?”

He shook his head. “The machine will get it.”

After three rings the phone was answered automatically. Kent listened to his own voice, then the beep that allowed for a message.

“Kent? It’s Sam. Pick up. Kent?”

Katie nudged him. “It’s Sam … aren’t you going to talk to him?”

Kent stared down into her eyes. He shook his head. “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

“Kent, dammit, It’s Sam. Pick up!”

“Kent …” Katie murmured.

He slipped both arms around her, luxuriating in the feel of her naked flesh, still slick with the sheen from their lovemaking.

“Sam’s just being a pain because he’s stuck in a hospital. I’ll call him tomorrow. He’s jealous. He probably has a good intuition of what’s going on.”

“Is something going on?” she teased.

“You bet it is.” Kent smiled broadly, kissing her lightly, running his tongue over her lips, then pouncing over her again. “Miss Hudson, you should know it takes more than one touchdown to win the game.”

“Does it?”

“Mmm …”

“Teach me.”

“With the greatest pleasure.”

Sam kept cursing over the recorder, but neither one of them heard him.

“I want to know all about the game,” Katie murmured. “Every last play.”

It would be later, much later, that Kent would remember her words. They were destined to haunt him cruelly.

“H
USH,” KENT WHISPERED.

Katie felt the light touch of his hands on her shoulders, and the more intimate touch of his body close behind hers. She held perfectly still, gazing in the direction of his pointing finger.

In front of her, frozen into a beautiful picture in the snow, was a large white-tailed deer with full, majestic antlers.

“He’s wonderful!” Katie whispered in reply, but even that soft sound of her voice was enough to startle the deer; he fled across the snowy plain, disappearing into the safe shadowland of the pines. “Oh! I’m sorry!” Katie exclaimed.

Kent laughed. “Don’t worry, they’re always around. That’s why I like this place. It’s so remote that you see everything, deer, raccoons, rabbits, even mountain lions. They’re all timid and run at your approach, but they’re always around, too, so you can come upon them again and again.”

“Mountain lions are timid?” Katie inquired dubiously.

“Unless they’re injured or harassed.”

“Something like a cougar?” Katie teased.

He grimaced. “Maybe.”

“Like when they attack the press?” Katie asked softly.

Putting his arm about her shoulders, he steered her back toward the cabin. “Come on. The sun is going down, and it will start getting cold. It may snow tonight. I’ll tell you about my feud with the press over coffee and brandy.”

Katie smiled and followed him. She realized then that she had been smiling continually for almost twenty-four hours. The muscles around her mouth actually ached from all the smiling she’d done, but it was the most delicious feeling she’d ever known. No, she corrected herself, Kent himself was the most delicious feeling.

“What’s that grin for?” he asked as he ushered her into the cabin.

“Nothing,” she said with a shake of her head.

He raised a brow but didn’t press her. “I’ll start the coffee. You can get the brandy.”

Katie shed her jacket and did as he told her. “Kent,” she said, reaching into the cupboard, “what
did
happen to make you so antagonistic over the press?”

He grimaced as he measured out spoonfuls of coffee. “Exaggeration and innuendo,” he told her. He filled the pot with water and set it on the stove, then faced her and leaned against the counter. “Paula had never been fond of the idea of being married to a pro football player.” He lifted his hands. “Maybe it was more than that. We’d been college sweethearts and probably married too young. Anyway, we’d been married several years when the trouble really started. A paper did a big write-up on me, accompanied with a picture of one of the cheerleaders. All I was doing was opening a door for her, but along with the reporter’s determination to prove that I was leading a wild life, it looked pretty bad. I think Paula might have trusted me, but … Well, about a week later I was away from home for a game, and I read a clipping that she was suing me for divorce and didn’t intend to allow me anywhere near our daughter. Consequently, she read an article that said I intended to go for child custody. We were divorced before either of us realized that neither one of us ever really wanted to hurt the other.”

Katie turned around to fiddle with the brandy bottle. “Then the two of you really are very good friends?” How good? her heart clamored to know.

She felt his hands on her shoulders, massaging them. “The best,” he said cheerfully, but he spun her around so that she was in his arms, and she saw his affectionately taunting grin—along with that glitter to his eyes that warmed her with every touch. “I spend a lot of time with Paula and her husband. He’s a great guy.”

“She’s remarried?” Katie was surprised how relieved she felt.

“For a long, long time.”

Katie lowered her head quickly so that he wouldn’t see her quick smile. He lifted her chin and kissed her lips lightly. The kiss deepened. She broke from him, breathlessly pressing her face against his sweater.

“No fair,” she moaned. “I still need a story.”

He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek with a subtle smile. “Quiz away, Miss Hudson.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hart. Would you check on the coffee, please?”

“Certainly.”

Kent poured out large mugs of coffee, and Katie laced them with brandy.

“Can I sit by you while you quiz me?” he asked her innocently.

Katie pressed her lips together and swept past him without a reply. I should tell him no, she thought. She’d tried to question him that morning in bed, and she hadn’t lasted a full minute. They’d laughed and then made love. And in between they’d wound up carrying on serious discussions about football. It had been strange. She had, in her way, despised football ever since her father’s injury. But she had been able to listen to Kent. She had even felt okay about it. He had described plays and strategies to her—and she had responded intelligently. She knew he appreciated the depth of her knowledge. She had told him she was worried about the upcoming game, worried about Sam and about him, but he had only laughed, then loved her again. And she hadn’t gotten a single question in.

Falling in love … it was so nice, so perfect, so warm and wonderful that she couldn’t really care.

But now it was her turn, Katie determined. And at least they were dressed now! She should do okay. She should be able to get somewhere. And she had discovered that she was out for far more than a story. She had plenty to write about—this was for her.

Because, like it or not, sensible or not, stupid or not, futile or not, she was falling in love with him.

She sat on the sofa, sipping her strong, fortified coffee. “Okay, Mr. Hart, why the nickname Cougar?”

He sat beside her, drawing her against him, slipping his hand warmly about her midriff.

“Well, at one time I was the fastest thing going in the NFL—
on
my feet, so don’t get any other ideas. Actually, the cheetah is the fastest cat, but someone started this thing with ‘Cougar,’ and it stuck.”

“I’ll bet you’re still the fastest thing in the NFL,” Katie murmured dryly, drawing a quick pinch from him.

“Shall we proceed, Miss Hudson … or do you want a demonstration?”

Katie laughed as his hand, which had been idly playing along her ribs, cupped her breast. She grasped at his fingers, fighting the breathless feeling his slightest touch could create. She didn’t want to succumb to sensation—not yet. She had a few more questions to ask beneath her reporter’s guise before she gave in to the need to simply be with him.