Thrown By Love (15 page)

“You okay?” he asked, hovering over her. She looked at him like he was a madman.

“Don’t,” she said with a shuddering breath. “Don’t talk. Just take those off.”

He stood and stripped off his jeans. His erection pressed against his briefs, the tip demanding release above the band at the top.

“Those too.”

He would’ve checked for permission to go further, prided himself on never coercing a woman, but she saved him the need.

He peeled off his briefs, and his erection sprang free. She leaned up on one elbow and ran her fingers up the length of him.

“Not so fast,” he said, pulling back and kneeling beside her. “Slow, Chloe. Slow.”

He bent to her and ran his tongue along the curve of her lips, sliding one hand between her legs and caressing her. He stroked slowly, gently, taking her to that blissful place that women can go, that place he enjoyed watching them go. She was already slick and warm, but he couldn’t get enough of watching her, feeling her body prepare for him. Feeling her body . . . he pulled back and watched as she arched and pleasure took her. He wanted to drink in her every movement, to know her, to read her and take her as far as he could, wherever that might lead them.

He wanted to try things with Chloe that he’d never tried. Never imagined.

She tensed in the grip of her orgasm and arched her hips against his hand as she let go with a shuddering cry. As she quieted, he began to stroke her again. She whispered his name, soft and low, and reached for his hand, stopping him. She levered herself up and curved her hand around his erection. The gentleness of her touch was more erotic than any expert stroking could’ve been.

He rocked with her strokes, pushing himself into her hand until he thought he would explode. He fought to open eyes he hadn’t known he’d closed.

“Enough. I want to come inside you.”

He pulled her hand away and pressed her down to the soft carpet. He drew a condom from his wallet and tossed the wallet to the floor. He slipped it on and with one knee, he eased her legs apart. The sight of her below him forced him to grit back the power that wanted to explode. He laid his body on hers, felt the curve of her breasts against his chest. He wanted every possible inch of him to touch Chloe as he entered her, so he aligned his legs along hers, locked their fingers together. He hovered for a moment and watched the quivering smile come to her lips. But when he began to press into her and heard her gasp of pleasure, all thoughts drained away and the fury of desire transformed into unimaginable sensation, beyond words, beyond time.

They eventually managed to get outside for a walk in the gardens.

The late afternoon sun glinted off Chloe’s hair and seemed to shine from within her. In this light her eyes were an almost midnight blue. They sparkled with merriment. Scotty was sure he’d never meet another woman like her, even if there was one.

But the emotional tug that pulled at him kept him silent as they walked through the gardens closest to the house. He’d expected the sexual tug and his own strong reaction, but as he’d slid into her body, he’d had the haunting thought that he was crossing into a world far beyond fantasy, a world with a power that eclipsed any he’d known—a world that materialized whenever she was near him and sometimes when she wasn’t.

He’d had a taste of that world, the world and its power. The first time it happened was at the Mt. Wilson Observatory. That night he’d sat at the massive telescope staring at the Andromeda Galaxy. He’d focused on the light pouring toward him—light that had left the galaxy over two million years before and was just then reaching him—and he’d felt as though he’d stepped into time itself. The second time he’d been on the mound, pitching in the late afternoon light in Colorado. As he’d moved into his windup, he had the uncanny sensation that he and the ball were one, and he felt the seamless connection endure as the ball rolled across his fingertips, as if he were flying along with it toward the hitter. Only the thud of the ball as it landed in the catcher’s mitt had broken the trance.

Pitchers were known for being superstitious; books could be filled with the quirky rituals that most might not admit to but wouldn’t live without. But he knew the experiences had been more than ritual or mere momentary emotion, just as he also knew that he couldn’t chase such experiences, couldn’t go after them as if they were prizes. They came of their own accord, like an unexpected gift. He’d never told anyone about either incident, but they’d marked him, marked his life.

Making love with Chloe had stepped him back into that world. She was proving to be a force with a magic of her own.

“You okay?” She searched his face.

“Beyond okay.” He swung her around and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. But he needed more, so he cupped her jaw in his palms and kissed her. “You’re beautiful. I hope you know that.”

“You don’t have to flatter me,” she said with a hesitant smile. “You had me at ‘shall we dance.”

He doubted that.

She tugged him through a garden filled with lily ponds and out toward the wilder spaces beyond.

“How old is this place?” he asked, seeking a grounding through simple conversation.

“My mother’s family built it in the late 1800s. It was built with Gold Rush money. When my grandparents passed on, Mom wanted to live here. It’s why Dad wanted the Sabers to be based in San Jose.” She stared out over the pond. “She loved it here. I wish I’d known her better.”

There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, so much he wanted to know. But her grief was fresh and from the sound of it, her loneliness ran deep. His questions could wait.

“It’s so quiet.”

“I gave everyone the day off including Agostin, our gardener who lives in the cottage you passed on your way in. He’s gone off to visit his daughter in San Francisco.” His pulse jumped as she squeezed his hand. “I figured we’d want privacy.”

He nipped her cheek. “You figured right.”

She led him to a pond surrounded by oaks and willows, stopping near the largest of the oaks.

“This is my favorite place to dream and scheme. I’d sit in this tree and read until my dad called me in. Sometimes I’d sneak out here after everyone went to bed to look at the stars. It’s where I fell in love with them.”

She stretched her arms to the sky. The simple, unguarded move pierced him, reminding him that she, as he did, harbored dreams too fragile to be casually shared. He found himself wanting to win her trust, wanting to create the time to truly get to know her.

She drew her arms down and wrapped her hands around her elbows and sighed. “The world seemed simpler then.”

He couldn’t imagine how tough it might be for a sensitive woman like Chloe to deal with the rugged tactics of sports professionals.

She reached for his hand and twined her fingers in his. “This is the first peaceful moment I’ve had in two months.”

“You have an odd sense of peace, Miss McNalley.”

“Is that so? You mean you’re not relaxed?”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. Though there was only grass below them, she tugged him down. He savored every touch, lost himself in the honeyed tasted of her lips, memorized the feel of her skin against his. His hands found their way along her beautifully sculpted muscles and came to rest cupping the graceful curves of her exquisite breasts. Her light laugh as he gently, slowly, entered her transported him into the realm he was sure beat at the very heart of the universe. She sighed as she met his lips and arched against him, and he knew that she was there, with him, in that mysterious place where souls and hearts and bodies melded into enchantment beyond anyone’s command.

Chapter Twelve

Chloe woke to a chilling breeze. Scotty was gone. And the sun had already slipped below the horizon. She pressed her palms into the now cool grass and sat up. The heavy afghan from the couch in the library covered her from breast to toes.

It wasn’t the twilight breeze stirring the leaves of the old oak tree that made her shiver.

It was knowing that her life had changed, the knowledge that, wish all she might, she didn’t control all that lay ahead.

She drew in the cool night air and ticked off in her mind the
hows
, the
whens
, the glances and the words that had led to this time, this place, this man. She understood from her studies that life first had to destroy the old before there was room for the new, but never before had she felt the knowledge so deeply, so personally. Awareness rushed into her, as if each cell of her body anticipated what was coming, knew what would happen. But she didn’t know.

She didn’t.

The familiar was receding. Already she felt strange to herself. She was falling, tumbling, like Alice through the looking glass. Yet all along she had believed she was already on the other side.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

She saw her dress, neatly folded next to the blanket. She thought of how Scotty had watched her the first time she took it off, eyes hot, concentration fixed on her. And how he laughed with joy when he freed her from it the second time, his hands sure as they found the hidden zipper. Already she missed his touch. She stood and slipped into the dress, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. The fog had to be heavy at the coast to send such coolness over the mountains at this time of year.

The French doors leading into the library gaped open. She slipped inside. Scotty knelt in front of the fireplace, silhouetted against the crackling blaze. If she used every atom of her imagination, she couldn’t have conjured the gentle, handsome,
sexy
man kneeling in the dappled light.

“I thought you’d gone,” she said in a hoarse voice as she crossed the room.

He raised his head. “I didn’t want to wake you, you looked so peaceful.” He nodded toward a loaded tray that sat next to him on the carpet. “Hungry?”

“Ravenous.”

He rose and turned to her. She thought he’d kiss her, but he wove his fingers through her hair and pulled out tangled blossoms and grass.

A slow smile curved into his lips when he pulled out an oak leaf. “You might need a gardener rather than a stylist.”

“I prefer gardeners.” She rested her cheek against his chest. He smelled of smoke and man. “Particularly those who bring me food.”

They ate dinner in front of the fire, with the rising and falling chorus of frogs drifting in through the open doors. A new moon cast a faint glow, and stars arched diamonds of light across the ink-black sky.

Scotty’s attention was snared by something on the desk, and he bounded across the room. He picked up her binoculars, then returned to her and lifted her by the hand.

“I think it’s just dark enough to show you one of my favorite nebulas.”

Still holding her hand, he led her to the door.

“If you sweep up from Sagittarius,” he said, pointing with the binoculars, “you can see two of the brightest nebulas just above the Milky Way’s core—Messier 8, the Lagoon Nebula, and Messier 17, the Swan Nebula.” He handed her the binoculars and guided her as she searched the darkness. “I love looking at them,” he told her, one arm wrapped around her waist. “It fascinates me to think about new stars forming there, all those new worlds being created.”

His enthusiasm wrapped around her like a loving embrace. She felt comforted and intrigued, soothed and excited, at the same time.

“I see one of them,” she said. “Just a bit of a blur and faint shades of gray?” She lowered the binoculars. “I’ve missed this, looking at the night sky. Really looking. I’m out of practice.”

He swept his hand toward the darkness. “It’s hard to see.”

For a moment she felt captured by his gesture, as if some unseen force moved between them, connecting them. Watching an outstanding ballplayer or dancer, she’d sometimes felt a similar luring power, but never like this. Never so strong.

She remembered what a colleague had said about the newly discovered Higgs particle, one of the deepest mysteries of the universe. He’d told her that the field that created the Higgs particles was an energy field, one that made all mass possible, one that might be a bridge joining ordinary and dark matter. The field couldn’t be seen but without the power created by it, nothing could exist. She wasn’t sure which stunned her more, the power of such a mystery or the energy she felt when she was anywhere near Scotty. Maybe what she felt was simply a potent allure. Maybe it was dark matter at work on an intimate level.