Mackinnon 03 - The Bonus Mom (10 page)

“Whit.”

“They’re watching one of those
Hunger Games
movies. I’m opposed to kids seeing violence and sex in movies, and even though they think they’re old enough, they’re only eleven. I went with them the first time, which mortified them to death—which they’ve told me over and over. Thank God I knew some other dads who insisted on going, too, so I wasn’t the only one embarrassing my daughters into an early grave, which they still bring up at every opportunity—”

“Whit. You didn’t come here for the girls.”

Finally. He stopped talking. Stopped stoking the fire and adding logs and poking it and being busy. He looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“You came for me,” she said softly.

“I know. I—”

“You came for me,” she repeated, even more softly.

The fire cracked and popped, shooting sparks up the chimney. She flipped off the overhead light—the only glaring light in the room—and then came toward him. She saw his head tilt, expressing a question about what she was doing, but she couldn’t have answered him.

She didn’t know what she was doing. At least not exactly. For sure she wasn’t seducing him, because George had scrubbed any aggressive sexual ideas out of her head with a Brillo pad. But Whit...

She’d seen how he looked at her.

He’d been celibate since Zoe’s death—she’d have bet the farm on it.

So he had to be horny. Probably horny times a million. And the girls still dominated his heart, his emotions, so that’s how it would likely be for a while yet.

But when she came close—close enough—to lift her arms around his neck, to lift up, to lift her lips to his...a low groan came out of him that was more primal than a wolf’s cry.

Just like that, she knew what Whit wanted for Christmas. And that she was likely the only one who could possibly give it to him.

It was easy, so easy, to love him. The first touch of her lips and he folded faster than a house of cards. His arms roped around her, his big hands sliding around her ribs, her waist, pulling her to him. Closer. Then closer yet, until she was leaning against him, her breasts crushed against his chest, her pelvis cradled between his hips. He was erect. In those two seconds, he’d already gone harder than rock, as if she had the precise key for his ignition switch.

His mouth took her invitation and made it into a party. A private party, involving intoxicants and sweets and music and firelight. He was the intoxicant. She was his sweet taste. The fire glowed on his face, on his harshly intent expression, on his closed eyes.

Then her eyes closed, too, taking in the rush of his wanting her, of his touch, the feel of him, the warmth and power of him. The need.

Her need, too.

For so long, she’d needed...without a name for what it was. Needed a man she could trust. Needed to love. To feel loved. Needed to express....

This.

Heat like a fire.

Need like a force. Delicious need. Luxurious, wicked need. Labor intensive need.

And yeah, she worked to provoke, to incite, to please. It was hard work, touching Whit. Yanking off his henley sweater, laying her cheek against his heartbeat as she slowed down, letting her fingers tickle through chest hair, discover the slope of his chest and ribs, find the iron in his shoulders and upper arms.

She tried a kiss on his chest after that, an eyes-closed, petal-soft trail of kisses from his Adam’s apple down, down...

Courage came easily. He was so responsive—the sounds he made, the way his body heated for her touch, tensed for her touch, so readily conveyed that he was starting to burn, hot and bright. Maybe he wasn’t thinking about her...but for certain he wasn’t thinking about Zoe and loss, about kids and loneliness, about life.

He was just...living. Not thinking, not analyzing.

He was just heart-beating alive. Heart-thundering alive.

With her. For her.

Even as those thoughts raced through her head in flashes, she was touching, stroking, learning him. A little fear seeped in there. Not fear of him. Not exactly anyway. It was just...he was so much bigger, so much stronger, so...much. The hammer in his jeans strained the zipper. Strained against her leg to free him, to uncage the tiger.

And that was when that unexpected worried quiver showed up again. She’d never teased a tiger before.

Back when, she’d thought George was. It had been more than startling to discover George had no more prowess than an alley cat.

And that was the thing she never let surface, didn’t want to ever surface, and for damn sure, she didn’t want to think about him now. But her history proved that she hadn’t been enough for George. Hadn’t been enough for a stupid, immoral alley cat.

So it was pretty darned hard to feel safe with a tiger.

Particularly when she abruptly found herself on her back, on the hearth rug, and the look in Whit’s eyes was a whole lot hotter than the fire. “So,” he said, in a slow voice as if he had all the time in the world to spend on that one syllable, “we know you’re a hard-core giver.”

“Not necessarily,” she began, annoyed as the devil when some of those worried quivers showed up in her voice.

“Yeah. Necessarily. You’re a hard-core giver all the time. And as I keep discovering, you’re a relentless giver, as well.”

“That’s not—”

“Yeah, it is true. But the question is, the really serious question, is how good are you at taking?”

“Tak—?” She was utterly confused at the whole conversation, partly because her tongue was so thick, her mind so discombobulated, that she couldn’t follow much of anything. At least anything verbal.

The kiss that leveled her flat to the ground...her entire body comprehended that right off. Whit was a bully. Who knew? There were massive holes in his character she hadn’t been exposed to before. His bully side. His demanding side. His earthy, no limit to his bad ideas side. His...

She couldn’t breathe.... She sucked in a lungful of oxygen when he finally lifted his mouth. His mouth was wet from hers. Bruised from hers. He wasn’t breathing all that easily, either. But he looked at her hard again, with that same fire glow in his eyes.

“So...you’re not just a giver. You get an A for amazing in the giving category. But we’re going to have to work on the taking thing. Think selfish.

“Think greedy. Think ‘I want.’ Can you do that for me?”

He was talking gibberish. Not making any sense she could comprehend. But she heard the low, throaty tone in his voice. He was talking love words. He was talking coaxing. Wooing. Wanting.

And then he quit talking. Peeled off her sweatshirt, then fought and won her jeans, found bare skin.

Oh, man. He was deep trouble anywhere near bare skin. He sucked in a breath at the look of her, bare, in firelight, vulnerable like she’d never felt vulnerable. By the time he met her eyes again, she considered shrinking. All that concentrated danger in his gaze was downright scary.... At least for a woman who already knew she couldn’t make a man happy, not sexually, even when she thought she was pretty naturally comfortable with herself that way. Whit was just different.

Whit was more man.

More man times a million or so.

He changed gears, from high speed to a torturous crawl. Every little thing seemed to slow him down. Her tongue, her lips, her throat. He washed her navel with his tongue, flipped her over...made an adventure trail down her spine with his kisses, took a small, careful nip of her fanny...then flipped her over again.

The man was more powerful than a Hummer. She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t think. He wasn’t giving her a chance to do what she needed to do, knew how to do. She wanted to stroke him the right way, the kind of touch that made him feel wanted, desired. She wanted to remember to make the right sounds, the sounds that made a man believe she was enthralled, hot for him.

She knew what to do.

He just wouldn’t give her a chance to do it.

The fire hissed and crackled. Shadows danced on the wall, a slow dance of profiles, his, hers, always in motion. A coffee table pushed away. Couch pillows scattered. The dance of fire turned into a glossy sheen on his skin...on hers.

Every nerve in her body turned tense, fraught as wire stretched too tight. All the sensations that had been deliriously, wonderfully changed. Nothing was right. Her pulse picked up edgy, restless beats. Her heart picked up an unhappy thrum. She felt a confused myriad of feelings—thrills like skydiving, wild like running naked in the rain, restless that this would never stop, never get where she needed to go.

She wanted to tell him...something...but then his greedy hands claimed another forbidden spot. The inside of her thigh, behind her knee. Then his fingers found the nest of blond hair, combed through it, found the core of her, forced her to gasp.

He took that gasp seriously. Really seriously, as if world peace were at stake. Worked at winning another gasp out of her.

Then another.

She considered pounding on his head, but he studied the expression on her face and let out a throaty chuckle. “I think one of us is ready.”

“Did you get a degree in torture?”

“Thanks. I wanted to do better, but it’s been a while. I’m way, way out of practice.”

“Are you still talking?”

But then she couldn’t talk, either. He moved his hands under her hips, pulled her legs up and around him, climbed on and then in. She sucked in her breath at the sensation of him filling her, her being stretched to the maximum. The torture he’d inflicted before was nothing like this. This was misery at the most exhilarating level, need that took her over and under. Need for him. Need for fulfillment. Need she wanted to scream for.

She didn’t scream. But she called out. His name. Furiously, fiercely. Over and over. He was calling hers as well, not in a scream but in a soft, urgent hiss of a whisper. The hot, wild ride headed for a cliff, tipped over.

He collapsed on top of her, then seemed to realize that his weight could crush her and immediately flipped her on top of him. He tried collapsing again, then seemed to realize that she could be cold, so he lifted up, tugged off a throw from the couch, draped it over her, then crashed for the third time.

This time he was out for the count, breathing hard, eyes closed. Recovery wasn’t about to come fast.

Recovery was never going to happen for her. Rosemary figured she wouldn’t survive making love with him a second time. She was beyond sated. A stupid smile had become glued on her mouth; she still hadn’t caught her breath; and her heart was still slamming like a jackhammer. If there was an earthquake, an avalanche, a tornado all at once, she still couldn’t have moved. Not then.

Her skin was slick, against his sweat dampened skin. Her cheek rested right in the curve of his shoulder. Her ear pressed against the wild pulse in his throat. She felt his arm around her, his big hand still securing the blanket over her. She tried to grasp a little reality again.

Couldn’t.

There was nowhere else she wanted to be than right there, hot and naked in his arms. She didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t need to think about it. Ten minutes from now, the world might well crash on her head. But not at this second.

Nothing was wrong. Everything was right. For the first time in months. Maybe for the first time in forever.

Days passed. Maybe months.

Maybe just minutes.

She felt the stroke of his hand, his fingers combing into her short hair. “I need to tell you something.”

Instinctively she braced. “Sure.”

“I meant to tell you before.”

“It’s all right. Just say it.” Whatever it was, she was positive she wouldn’t want to hear it.

“The first time I saw you, I thought you were extraordinarily beautiful. The kind of beauty that I couldn’t get out of my mind. Special beautiful. Uniquely beautiful. Your heart shows up in your eyes.”

“Pardon?”

“I didn’t know this was going to happen. But I’d thought about it.” Again, his palm stroked her hair, her neck. “I wanted this. Wanted you. The more time I was around you, the more I was...drawn.”

“You’ll get over it,” she assured him. “I’m feeling delusional right now, too. But then, I’ve never made love with that much energy. It probably blew out most of my common sense brain cells.”

“You’re funny. But you’re still beautiful. Even if you don’t want to hear it. And I’m confused.”

“I know you are,” she said sympathetically.

“Rosemary. You don’t have to fake it. And if you felt you needed to fake it with that ex-fiancé of yours, then he had to be damned stupid and a jerk you’re well rid of.”

“Fake it?” Now she propped herself up on her elbows, using his chest as a table, and the look she leveled on him wasn’t sweet.

“Okay. I’m sorry I brought it up. Not a time to be blunt. I’ve been accused before of having the finesse of a junkyard dog.”

“I never faked it.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. I was way off base. And I shouldn’t have said anything anyway.”

“You’re right. You shouldn’t have.” She repeated, “I never faked anything.”

“I’d be willing to offer diamonds or rubies or a Mercedes to get out of trouble.”

“And furthermore, you have plenty of finesse. Loads. Heaps.”

“Um, was that a compliment or a complaint?”

“A compliment, you idiot.”

He was still stroking her hair. Still looking into her eyes...as a lover. Possessively. Greedily. Intimately.

“I’m thinking this would be a great time for the phone to ring. Anything to get me out of hock until I figure out how to get my foot out of my mouth.” Abruptly a cell phone went off from the pocket of his jacket across the room. “Damn. I didn’t mean it. I swear.”

“It could be your girls.”

“It has to be my girls. At this hour. At this time of night before Christmas Eve tomorrow. Do I have to answer it?” he asked her plaintively.

“Afraid so.”

“But I don’t want to leave you.”

A minute before he’d been so aggravating she wanted to strangle him. Then he said that, and she remembered they were both still naked, still glued together, and maybe her fresh arousal wasn’t as public as his, but she wanted him again. Right then. As hard and wild and scary as the first time had been.