Nick took the rose and tossed it aside to the Carpet. Then, planting his hands on her butt, he lifted her to him letting the tip of his erection jut barely into her waiting flesh--yet he paused just short of entry, as if giving he the opportunity to change her mind.
Not a chance, not possible. She shook her head and whispered. "Don't make me wait."
She placed her palms on his shoulders and stared into those dark, dangerous eyes. He pressed her hips, pushed her down onto him. She cried out at the quick burst of pain-it had been too long since her last sex-but the deep pleasure, the fullness of having him inside her, overrode any discomfort in a heartbeat.
She wanted to whisper his name, whisper crazy things like, "I love you," because that was what she did when she made love to a man. But this wasn't making love, she had to keep reminding herself. This was just sex, and it was about nothing but physical sensation, how it felt. And it felt incredible and hot and powerful, so that's what she tried to focus on. She stayed blissfully aware of his size as he thrust up into her. She could feel how wet she was, could hear it. It was a raw reminder of what they were doing, but she kept gazing into Nick's eyes and simply let herself feel everything, every hot, sexy, dirty part of it.
It didn't take long before she sensed herself climbing, rising higher and higher on a mountain of heat and pleasure and need. And then things slowed-she hungrily met Nick's eyes as she moved on him in tight, deliberate circles that worked everything inside her just the right way. Oh, yes.
"Oh God," she said as the climax began. She had reached the peak of the mountain and now tumbled hard and fast and furious down the other side without an ounce of control. "Oh God, Nick ... Oh God." She let go of the world for a moment and let the harsh pleasure consume her, pound through her.
And then it was over, leaving her drained and relieved but all too aware of what had just happened, what she'd just done. The orgasm had ended, yet the feelings it left in her were only the beginning.
It was impossible-she should have known that! It was impossible for her to have sex with someone without feeling that enormous, unbreakable connection, and that's what she felt now for Nick, that quickly. In the few heartbeats it had taken her to come, she had fallen-not just down the mountain, but also for him.
The need was more than physical now; even if it didn't make any sense, it just was. She bent to rest her head on his shoulder and prayed she wouldn't cry. He ran his hands over her back and breathed, "You're so beautiful." She let that fuel her, let it be enough to get her through this.
"I wanna make you come, too." The tiny whisper left her unplanned, near his ear, and his entire body shuddered beneath her.
"Oh, baby," he breathed hotly, pulling in his breath.
"Oh, baby-yeah." Then he shuddered once more, pressing her hips down hard, and she felt him emptying inside her. And she thought, Oh God, we didn't use a condom! while in the same moment thinking, I'm glad we didn't because I feel him so much.
When she drew back, he lifted his large hands to her face, kissed her intensely, then stared at her hard. She thought the frozen moment of stillness might never end, and she almost never wanted it to. He was making her feel beautiful again.
Yet finally he lowered his hands to her waist to gently lift her off him. She rose awkwardly to her feet, wondering what came next and suddenly feeling more self conscious about her nudity than she had since his arrival.
Nick stood, pulling up his briefs, zipping his pants.
Then he silently walked over to where he'd tossed the rose, stooping to pick it up. Returning, he held it out.
She accepted it once more, but pricked her thumb on a thorn, crying, "Oh!" before finding a better place to hold the stem. "Careful," he whispered. Their eyes met and for the first time she thought she saw something in them other than heat. Something like sadness, desperation, worry something she couldn't understand.
"Nick, I-"
"Shhh." He lifted one finger gently to her lips.
Then he turned toward the back door, and walked out. He left her there, without another kiss, without another word, with nothing to hold on to but a rose that, before tonight, had only been imaginary.
Chapter Eight
Lauren's hands shook as she reached for a bud vase in an overhead cabinet, as she turned on the faucet to fill it, as she lowered the rose into the narrow opening, cupping the bloom in one hand, using the other to guide the stem.
She'd shaken as she'd showered, and she'd shaken as she'd dressed, forgoing her terry robe for a pair of full length satin pajamas. She needed clothes, around her, cocooning her. She wanted to be covered now, wanted to forget all about her body and the way he'd touched it, the way he'd made her feel.
She'd considered throwing the rose into the garbage.
After all, it was more than a little rumpled now, and the gesture of giving it seemed greatly overridden by the way Nick had walked out on her. And yet, being the rose from her fantasy, she hadn't quite been able to discard it. If she did, she might somehow convince herself it had never existed, that she'd imagined his bringing it-a pale pink rose. Shaking her head at the wonder of it, she carried the vase to the mantel, squeezing it between a pillar candle and a brass bookend in the shape of a cat.
Not quite sure how to resume normal life at the moment, she stepped back, her eyes still on the flower, until she lowered herself to the leather sofa that matched the chair where they'd just had sex. She glanced at the chair, almost disbelieving. And truly, she might not have believed it if she didn't have the rose as evidence. She might have convinced herself it was all a hot, wild dream. A fantasy like the ones in her journal.
Letting out a forlorn sigh, she thought, What was I going to do tonight? Oh yes, curl up with the cat and a book. But she'd have no hope of focusing on a book now, and the cat was currently AWOL; she hadn't seen Izzy since Nick had shown up. Well, looked like there was no chance of simply going on. simply acting normal. She' d finally quit shaking, but her chest ached with a searing intensity she knew well from the past-heartbreak. She shut her eyes, but it wasn't enough to block a tear from rolling down her cheek.
It had been one thing to understand that having sex with him would be a terrible mistake because her heart would get involved, because she'd feel that horrible emotional pull she'd feared last night, and because she'd know, in his eyes, they'd shared nothing but sex. Yet it had never occurred to her-never even once-that he'd just leave, that he wouldn't at least hold her for a little while, that they wouldn't at least talk afterward.
"But what the hell did you expect?" she muttered aloud, angry at her own sugary-sweet attitudes. Monet and roses aside, she'd known the kind of man he was, she'd known better than to expect the tenderness and closeness she craved-that was why she'd stopped last night at the beach. Yet now she'd knowingly traded that tenderness for sex, for the act, for an orgasm, for the sensation of having him inside her. Clearly, she'd forgotten how bad it hurt when you shared that and it was over and the man was gone.
Nick swung the Jeep into the driveway and climbed the steps to his place quickly. He hadn't exactly wanted to leave her, but something inside had made him do it. He'd had a plan-a plan to prove himself worthy of her-but he'd never bothered devising an end to the plan. And when that part had come, he'd been unable to forget he still wasn't really good enough for her, in her mind anyway. To her, he was just a house painter, a nobody, and he especially wouldn't be good enough for her if she knew who he really was. So as she'd stood gazing up at him, her eyes as warm and velvety as the night sky, he'd felt the bitter old man inside him take hold, then he'd left.
Stepping into the quiet condo, he didn't bother turning on any lights. He simply went to the empty second bedroom-the room he planned to make into an office if he ever got around to it-and stared out the windows that bowed around one wall to look out over the dark ocean. The same windows lined the wall in his own bedroom, but he came into this room sometimes seeking solitude. He liked the barrenness of it, the starkness of the empty walls and the smooth, bare hardwood beneath his boots. In here, the view was the only thing that mattered; it gave the feeling that if you stepped through the window, you could walk on the water and keep going forever. It was a moving. living canvas. a Monet come to life.
He ran a hand back through his hair. every side of him tense. The question rumbled through him again. Why the hell had he left?
And then a horrible answer bit at him.
Had he done it to hurt her? The same way she'd hurt him by calling him nobody?
Maybe that was why he'd kept telling her not to talk.
The emotion edging her soft voice had made it seem ... more real, made her seem more real, not just the Barbie doll daughter of the man who'd ruined his family. Suddenly, he hadn't wanted to hear her say his name, hadn't wanted to let himself believe even for a second he was anything more to her than a nobody. As long as he remained nobody to Lauren Ash, her feelings didn't have to concern him. But if that changed, if he didn't believe that any longer ... things got a hell of a lot more complicated than they already were.
Because another question lingered in his mind, and he couldn't block it out. If he'd wanted to hurt her, was it only because she'd called him "nobody"? Or was it also because of their fathers, the past? What happened between their families wasn't her fault, but had he somehow wanted to hurt her in return for the Ashes hurting the Armstrong's?
He clenched his fists in frustration and wished he could see more than the occasional streak of light crossing the water; he wanted something to distract him from this confusion, something to relax him. What was the problem here anyway? Why was he so goddarmned tense? What more had he wanted than to seduce her?
He'd gotten what he'd craved from the moment they'd met, and it had been spectacular. He wished it had lasted longer, but when she'd come, when he'd seen that sweet ecstasy wash over her face, take over her body, it had pushed him too far. And when she'd whispered in his ear that she wanted to make him come, too-she had.
Still, even having told him last night she wanted meaningful sex, she wouldn't have wanted it with him. not if she knew who he was. Besides, was he expected to believe she wanted to form a long, lasting relationship with a house painter? Nope, wouldn't happen. Not in a million years. Hell, he'd had every reason to leave, every reason to treat it like what it was: casual sex.
He let out a long sigh. Ah, shit.
Maybe he wanted it to feel more like some kind of justice, more like you-wound-me-and-I-wound-you back, but it didn't satisfy him in that way. Why did his every move with this woman leave him filled with remorse?
On impulse, he went to the empty room's closet, pushing the sliding door aside and pulling a chain that lit up the inside. He kept spare paint in here, cans of odd colors that had been opened on a job but not all used.
His eyes fell on a small container of sea-foam pinka Florida favorite, the same color he was covering up on Lauren's house-and beneath it a larger can of ecru toffee. They were the wrong kinds of paint, but he could probably make them work. Leaving the room, he headed for his bedroom closet, flipping lights on along the way. Reaching to the top shelf, he pushed past high school yearbooks and a box of old pictures to find an ancient set of paintbrushes his mother had given him for his eleventh birthday. He'd acted like he thought it was a boring gift at the time-all his friends had been there for cake and ice cream and he'd had a reputation to maintain -but he'd secretly liked them, and used them. Damn things were now, though, they might fall apart as soon as he touched them.
Nonetheless, knowing it would be hours before he was tired enough to sleep, and still desperate for some kind of distraction from what he'd done to Lauren, he opened the case, then returned to the spare room.
It wasn't yet five o'clock on Monday morning when the phone rang, jarring Nick from sleep. He thrust a hand out from beneath his pillow and found the cordless. "Yeah?"
"Nicky, it's me." Elaine. "What the hell ... ?" "We're at the hospital."
Panic shot through him. "Is Davy all right?"
"Davy's fine," she said, and a blanket of relief dropped over him even as she added, "It's Dad. He was having some kind of attack, trouble breathing. They're looking at him now. Can you come?"
Christ. "What hospital?" "Morgan Plant. We're in the ER."
Twenty minutes later, he walked into the emergency room feeling like hell. Davy ran to greet him, wearing cotton pajama bottoms and a faded Tampa Bay Buccaneers T-shirt, his eyes red, his cheeks tear-stained. Nick gave him a hug. "He'll be all right, Davy. Don't worry, okay?"
Davy nodded bravely, and Nick remained in awe of how much his brother trusted his word. even at a time like this when he had no idea if their dad would be all right.
Elaine rose from a waiting room chair. "You just missed the doctors." She sounded anxious. "They say it's heart failure." He flinched-he' d figured the old man was imagining it. "Heart failure?" His arm still looped loose around Davy's shoulder. "They said blood is accumulating along the path from his lungs to his heart, and it's making his lungs congested. But it might not be as bad as it sounds; they say it can usually be controlled with drugs."
He nodded, a little dumbfounded by what he'd expected to be a false alarm.
"They also think it might be a symptom of something else. Cardio myopathy, I think."
He let out a sigh, opening his eyes wider. "And what the hell's that?"
"It has to do with a lack of nutrition," she explained, then lowered her voice. "In Dad's case, they think it might be a result of alcohol."
"Ah," he said, leaning back his head. There for a minute, he'd almost started feeling sorry for the old man, but this sort of changed things. His father's drinking had cost them all more than Nick could ever add up; now it would likely cost their dad what remained of his health, too. He wasn't surprised-he'd actually been waiting for this for years; he'd just expected it to be the liver, not the heart. He tried not to be too cynical, though, or at least not to let it show, for Davy's and Elaine's sakes.
An hour later, he'd talked to the doctors, who reexplained everything he'd gotten from Elaine and been more thorough about it. All he really heard, though, was that his father would now have medical bills to worry about The little salary he earned at the bait shop where he worked part-time wasn't gonna cut it, nor was the measly insurance the job provided. And he would have doctors and appointments and medicine, and taking care of all that would fall mostly on Elaine. Nick had a business to run, a business that supported all of them, and since Elaine didn't work in order to be with Davy, she had more time for such unpleasant tasks.
When the doctors left, after saying their father would need to be kept overnight in order to run some tests, as well as stabilize him and start medication, Nick turned to his sister and spoke softly. "I'll try to help out a little more than usual, Lainey." But she only shook her head. "You help plenty, Nick, in different ways."
Money, she meant. And taking care of the house. He sighed and gave a slight nod. "Will you guys be okay here if I don't stick around?"
"Yeah. You go on. I know you've got work."
"All right," he said, then looked at Davy. "I gotta go, buddy. But listen, how about if I knock off early today and we'll drive down to the marina and watch 'em bring the fish in? Then we'll go get a pizza at Post Comer."
Davy's eyes lit up. He loved to watch the day-trip boats bring in the catch. And Post Comer Pizza had been a favorite place since they were kids. "Cool!"
"We'll be here for a while yet," Elaine said, "but I'll make sure we're home by this afternoon."
As Nick headed for the door, she grabbed his wrist. "What? I gotta run if I'm gonna get Davy to the fish on time." She stood on tiptoe to plant a small kiss on his cheek.
Sometimes she did that, turned all tenderhearted on him, but he only rolled his eyes. He didn't do mushy. "What was that for?"
"Just to let you know you're not always such a bad guy."
He rolled his eyes again and said, "Gee, thanks," but had the feeling his expression showed something softer than intended. "Gotta go," he told her, then headed out the door.
Since he'd decided to make it a short day, he had to go home and change, get over to Lauren's, and get in as much painting
as possible. As he drove, he thought about what had just happened. One more small disaster in their lives, one more little tornado sweeping through, and whether it knocked anything down remained to be seen.
Goddamn Henry Ash, he thought, letting a familiar anger build inside him as he headed toward his condo. Without Henry's deceit, his father never would've turned into the useless alcoholic he was today. His father wouldn't have cardio myopathy and heart failure. Davy would've had a normal life, and Elaine would've gone to college, and they'd all live more like Lauren did.
Shit. He hadn't meant to let himself get upset over this again. But forgetting about it now was impossible. By the time he was in his van headed toward Bayview Drive, he was clenching his teeth in frustration over his whole damn life and the man who had caused it to take a left turn.
Nick was having a rotten day. Of course, that stood to reason considering the way it'd started, but nothing had gone right after he'd reached Lauren's, either. For starters, he'd spilled half a can of ivory seashell in the back of his van, which-besides wasting paint-had made one bodacious mess. He'd SOP with a drop cloth, but would have to do a better job later. Next, he'd tripped over his own damn ladder and nearly broken his ankle. Then, the first time he'd wanted a drink of water, he'd realized he hadn't brought any because his trip to the hospital had fouled up his normal morning routine-but he didn't want to ask Lauren.
In fact, he hoped she wasn't around, since he didn't know how to act toward her now. He was acutely aware that the last time he'd seen her she'd been beautifully naked and on top of him, and the memory stirred something inside him-but it had only been sex, right? Besides, the thing with his dad this morning, and then getting mad again about her dad. had him in no state of mind to be particularly nice to anybody just now. He only hoped he could talk himself into being in a better mood by the time he picked Davy up this afternoon.
By eleven o'clock, though, with Florida's summer sun blazing down, he needed a drink. And he could run to the 7-Eleven, but he didn't really want to take the time since he was leaving early. Or he could resort to using the outdoor hose, but drinking un-purified water in this area was like drinking sand. He'd caught flashes of Lauren through the lower windows today and happened to know she was in the kitchen right now, so he finally thought, What the hell-I'll ask her for a glass of ice water. And I'll try to keep my temper in check. I won't allude to Friday night and hopefully neither will she. Either way, he realized he was curious to find out how she'd react to seeing him. He knew. of course, that she'd likely been hurt when he'd left; he supposed that was what he'd stupidly intended. But he didn't think she'd want to talk about it.
After backing down his stepladder. he knocked on the same back door he'd carried her through the other night, the same door he'd let himself in without her knowledge on several occasions. When she answered, she looked stunned, although he didn't know who else she could've possibly expected at her back door.
"Hi," she said softly. Didn't quite smile. Didn't quite frown. Sounded tense.
"Hi." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a little taken aback by bow pretty she was. Not seeing her for a few days had dimmed his memory. "Listen, I forgot my cooler, and it's awful damn hot out here. Can I get a glass of water?" She nodded quietly, then padded on bare feet through the breakfast area to the kitchen. Nick followed, noting the denim shorts that showed off her tan legs, and the snug T-shirt that hugged her breasts and reminded him how gorgeous they were with nothing hugging them but his hands.
She filled a glass with ice water and passed it to him over the counter. "I'm going to be working upstairs, so I'll leave the back door unlocked. If you want more, you can help yourself."
"Okay. Thanks."
They stood looking at each other then, like a flashback to every other time they'd gazed into each other's eyes, until prickles of desire began to tingle down Nick's spine. Shit.
He didn't want this, didn't want to keep wanting her.
But had he actually thought one time would be enough? Had he thought it would squelch the heat that grew inside him every time he was near her?
Maybe he had. Maybe he'd convinced himself that the heat was all about seduction, some sense of seducing her, but as he'd begun to understand on the beach, there was more to it than that. One part of him considered reaching for her, taking her right there on the kitchen counter. But another part thought of Henry. And the princess's palace. And every reason he was angry today. In one sense, seeing her had calmed that, making room for desire, but in another, it had stirred it up, made him feel volatile, dangerous.
"How's ... the painting going?" she made the mistake of asking in the awkward silence.
"Lousy, actually. I don't know who planted those trees so close to the house"-he pointed over his shoulder to the south side-"but I don't know how the hell I'm gonna paint around 'em." It was, in fact, the most recent thing to piss him off and he knew he'd make little progress around the trees before it was time to pick up Davy.
She swallowed, looking nervous, but her response came out sounding stronger than he might've expected. "Look, you saw the place before you took the job. I know there was a misunderstanding about the wall, but those trees were there when you gave Sadie your estimate."
Damn, she was coming right back at him. And he didn't have a clever reply, since she was right. He emptied his water glass and lowered it to the counter. "Sorry," he murmured.
Just then, something tickled at his ankles, and he glanced down to see Lauren's fluffy white cat rubbing up against him. He stepped around the damn thing, but it followed, weaving a path around one leg. "Knock it off, cat."
"She's only being affectionate."
"She's a nuisance."
Appearing even angrier about the insult to the cat than his tree complaints, she bent to scoop the white ball of fur up into her arms. "Be careful, Izzy," she said, glaring at him. "The mean man might punt you across the room."
"Listen," he said, thoroughly disgusted now, "I'm just not a cat guy. And I don't need one hanging allover me." "Well then, maybe you should find your water somewhere else, since the cat lives here, and you don't."
"Fine, damn it," he bit off. Fed up with everything, he turned and stalked toward her back door.
"Why do you hate me so much?"
The words cut through him, stopping him in place.
Stunned, he slowly turned to look at her. "What?"
"You heard me." She spoke softer now, even though her eyes stabbed straight through him. "Why do you hate me?"
He could've given her some toss-off line, could've claimed he was having a lousy day but that it was nothing personal. Yet he supposed she had every reason to ask, and he supposed he had no real reason to hide the truth any longer. "I don't hate you. I hate your father."
She tilted her head, clearly dumbfounded. "My father? Why?"
He took a deep breath and tried to think where to begin. "My father is John Armstrong." He waited to see recognition in her eyes, but it didn't happen, so he went on. "When you and I were kids, our fathers were business partners. Double A Construction? Now Ash Builders? Ring any bells?"
Her pretty blue eyes widened. and she hastily lowered the cat to the floor. "You're Nick? That Nick?"
"In the flesh."
She seemed almost speechless. "I ... I remember you. I just ... didn't put two and two together. I guess I didn't know your dad's last name then. I just knew him as John."
For a moment, Nick didn't know why he was telling her who he was, but now that he'd had sex with her, now that he knew her secrets, maybe something had started niggling in his gut, making him wonder how she would respond, if she would treat him with disdain. Yet all he saw in her eyes was understandable shock. "I still don't know, though," she said, "why you hate my father."
Now it was Nick's tum to tilt his head in confusion.á "Because of what he did. Because he stole my dad's half of the company."
Lauren knit her eyebrows. "Stole? What are you talking about?"
She didn't know? Well, hell, of course she didn't.
She'd been a little girl. He suddenly felt thickheaded to have assumed she'd be aware of the details. "Yeah," he said. "That's what happened."
She stiffened. "I don't know what you mean. My father bought your father out."
"Lauren, your father asked my father to sign some papers, but he lied about what they said. Henry claimed he needed my dad's signature on some things for routine business operations, and Dad signed, but he was really signing away his ownership of Double A Construction." Nick had witnessed the whole thing himself. His father had been wallowing in depression over his wife's death, and Henry had shown up at the house with the papers that would change their lives. Lauren pulled in her breath, looking defensive. "I was a little girl then, but one thing I do know is that your father received a reasonable amount of money for his half of the company. I ran across the papers once, going through some old files when I started working for Dad, and I asked Sadie what they were about. She hadn't worked for Ash when it happened, but she knew they were from the buyout."
"My dad didn't want money. He wanted his half of what he'd built. It was all he had-all we had-after my mom died, and Henry took it from him."
She shook her head helplessly. "I'm sure you're mistaken, Nick. I can't exactly argue it since I don't know the facts, but I'm sure my father didn't take anything from yours."
Nick just sighed. "Believe whatever you want." Then he turned and walked out the door.
Lauren reached for the counter to steady herself, then lowered her gaze to Isadora, who sat licking her paw and swiping it over her face. "You really are a traitor where he's concerned," she said. After all, Izzy seldom rubbed up against her ankles, but Nick Armstrong walks in the door and the cat's all over him. "And I don't know what you see in him, either." Or what I see in him, for that matter.
But really, she did know. Monet. The rose. The ocean.
Tender touches and unnameable emotions in his eyes. Little though it was, those were the things that kept her hanging on to her feelings for him.
His accusation just now made her head spin.
She'd gone into the conversation deciding there was more dignity in appearing calm and unaffected than by ranting about their last encounter, yet he'd quickly quashed the dignity right out of her. She couldn't quite believe she'd been so bold, asking him why he hated her, but over the weekend she'd had time to reexamine all that had happened, and it had been the only real conclusion she could draw. What she hadn't expected was the news that he was the same Nick she remembered from when she was a little girl. The Nick she'd had a crush on.
In fact, it was just corning back to her that he was the first, the very first boy who had stirred any female interest or awareness in her, childish affection though it was.