Wonderful?
Niall turned around and forced her body to relax along his length despite the tension that had just leapt into her muscles. She stared at the newly painted ceiling but saw nothing.
When she’d had that seemingly random thought just now, she hadn’t meant it in the everyday sense of the word. Not like
I’m having a wonderful day today
or
The weather’s been wonderful, let’s go for a stroll.
No, she’d meant it in the truest sense of the word—awesome, marvelous . . . astonishing.
Anxiety warred with amazement for her full attention. She’d never had this reaction to a man before, not even in the full, flush excitement of meeting and dating Stephen.
She blinked and forced her dazed vision to clear. Did a woman who carried so much emotional baggage really have the right to be harboring such feelings?
Or worse . . . what if it was because of her emotional and psychological stress that she was having such a powerful reaction to Vic in the first place? That was certainly possible, wasn’t it? Being with Vic might be the equivalent of a drinking or gambling compulsion . . . a shot of adrenaline and euphoria to an otherwise lifeless existence.
The charging train of her anxiety was derailed by the sensation of Vic hugging her more tightly to him with his encircling arms at the same time that he wrapped her up with his long legs until she was encapsulated in a divine cocoon of male muscle and vibrant heat.
“You’re so little.”
Her eyes fluttered closed at the feeling of his rumbling voice vibrating into her neck. “I’m five foot four.” She’d meant to sound defiant, but was too sexually sated and mentally confused to sound anything but dazed.
The smug sound in his throat made Niall think she’d just confirmed what he’d said.
“That’s average for a woman,” she insisted petulantly.
“Ummm.”
That was all. Nothing else.
“I can’t wait to see one of your plays,” she informed the ceiling.
“Why’s that?”
“Most actors
talk
on the stage, don’t they? With you as their creator, I’m wondering what your characters are going to
do
up there. Emote with stares?”
For a few seconds she’d thought she’d offended him. Then he hugged her even tighter in his warm, safe embrace. “You forgot method grunting.”
Laughter erupted from her throat. “Right. Brando would have been the perfect actor for one of your plays.”
“You’re right. He would have.”
She continued to laugh, knowing that he shared in her mirth even though she couldn’t hear or see it.
“Are you going to stand me up again if I ask you to opening night?” he asked, making her laughter quiet and then still.
“I thought not even your mother could stand to be around you on opening night.”
“She can’t,” he said absentmindedly as he ran a hand along her flank, making her skin pebble. “But she never misses an opening anyway. She loves the champagne. She usually talks about the spread at the buffet for the opening night party until even the worst gossips at the Avery Bingo Club duck around the corner when they see her coming.”
Niall chuckled. She felt like her body melted like candle wax into his heat. “She still lives in Avery?”
“Yep.”
“What about your father?”
“Wouldn’t know. He took off when I was four.”
He must have sensed her unnatural stillness.
“It’s hard to miss what you never really knew. My mom always had more than enough energy to be both mother and father to Meg and me. She took it pretty hard when my dad ran off. Meg and I went to stay with my uncle on the farm here in Illinois for a while. But she got over it and ended up being sassier than ever.”
“Don’t you wish she lived closer?”
He sighed, making Niall’s body rise and fall with his own. “Both Meg and I have tried to convince her to move closer to us, but she’s got all of her clubs and her friends in Avery. She’s too busy and too ornery to be thinking about moving in with one of her kids.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Niall said as she smiled at the ceiling. She liked the sound of Vic’s mother.
“My sister, Meg, will be here for opening night, too.”
Niall moaned in appreciation when Vic ran the hand that had been tracing her sensitive side up over a thrusting breast. Her thighs pressed tightly together when he pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, then soothed her with his rough fingertips. “The three of us together should be able to survive your opening night wrath, don’t you think?” she asked breathlessly.
“The three of you together could probably survive the apocalypse,” he commented dryly. “Niall?”
“Yes?” she asked, her voice sounding husky with rising sexual tension when she felt him stir and harden against her sensitive flesh.
“Turn around. I don’t think the house christening is finished quite yet.”
Vic started into wakefulness, surprised to see the gray light of dawn peeking around the blinds in his bedroom. It gratified him that he’d slept for a good majority of the night. The reason for his profound sleep was enfolded snugly in his arms.
He’d never really had to convince Niall with words to sleep in his bed that night. After they’d finally left her new condominium, exhausted and completely happy from their multiple rounds of phenomenal lovemaking, they’d ducked into a Thai restaurant for dinner. Vic had guessed from Niall’s heavy eyelids after she’d drunk a glass of wine and devoured almost her entire portion of chicken pad thai that she wouldn’t be long for the waking world. So he’d suggested they watch a DVD together at his place, and sure enough, within forty-five minutes he had an armful of soft, warm, sleeping woman.
He nuzzled the hair at her nape and inhaled her scent. Maybe it was the dampness he found at her neck, or maybe it had been the sensation of the tremors that periodically shook her body that had awakened him in the first place. Or perhaps the primitive part of his brain recognized the scent that mixed with the residual fresh, floral scent of Niall’s perfume.
It was the smell of fear.
His fingers skimmed along her neck and back. Sweat soaked through her shirt. She moaned in her sleep. The sound pained Vic on some deep, indefinable level.
“Niall. Wake up. Wake up, baby,” he murmured as he stroked her sides and pressed his lips against a flushed cheek. She whimpered, the noise reminding him of a trapped animal, both mournful and panicked at once.
He couldn’t stand it.
“
Niall.
”
She jumped in his arms.
“Vic?”
“You were dreaming,” he muttered close to her ear. He continued to rub her body from her thigh to her ribs, attempting to soothe her. She moved restlessly in his arms and finally sat up. For a few seconds she just sat on the edge of his bed as her breathing slowed, her face shadowed by the dim light and her huddled posture. Neither of them spoke when she finally rose and went to the bathroom.
She returned to the bedside a minute later. “I’m sorry for waking you,” she said in her low, smoky voice that seemed perfectly suited to the muted, gray light of dawn.
“I slept better last night than I have in weeks. You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Vic told her when she perched on the edge of his bed. He wanted to reach out and pull her back into his arms. He wanted to keep her safe from whatever plagued her dreams. But something in her tense posture made him wary about touching her.
“Maybe I should just go,” she whispered.
“Don’t.”
He saw her head fall forward, sensed her uncertainty . . . her vulnerability.
“I’m all sweaty.”
“So we’ll take a shower in a little bit,” Vic stated with more ease than he actually felt. His jaw clenched when she still didn’t move. This dawn encounter with Niall struck him as heavy . . . even threatening, although why that should be, he couldn’t say. The eerie mist of dreams must be clinging to him as well.
“I’m leaving for Manhattan later today,” he heard her whisper.
“You told me you’re not taking off until four o’clock. There’s plenty of time. Niall?”
“Yes.”
“Come here,” he said softly.
It was only after she’d slid back into bed and was fast asleep in his arms that he finally exhaled the burning air in his lungs.
NINE
Three nights later Niall followed the hostess at The Art, still breathless from her sprint from the museum. She’d landed late at O’Hare and gone straight to her office at the museum without dropping off her suitcase, so that she could make an important conference call. The call had gone frustratingly long. She hated to be late for the dinner that she’d planned with Vic, knowing how little time he had, given his frantic schedule during these last few days before opening night. She knew he could get away for only a limited time tonight for dinner, so she regretted not being able to spend every second of it with him.
She’d missed seeing him these last few days—more than she cared to dwell upon. She’d been busy in meetings with a curator at the Metropolitan Museum, but she’d always been all too glad to receive Vic’s phone calls in the evenings. The fact that he’d hardly said anything during those phone calls only endeared him more to her. She felt more connected to Vic in the silence than she did with most people after an extended heart-to-heart chat.
In fact, something about the fragile connection of those phone calls between Chicago and New York seemed to signal a shift in her relationship with Vic. Or maybe the change had begun last Sunday morning, when she’d awakened from her typical nightmare and allowed Vic to soothe her instead of withdrawing into her typical solitude.
She doubted the wisdom of deepening the relationship with Vic. If what was between them became more serious, she’d have to tell him about Stephen. She’d have to tell him about Michael. She’d experienced a powerful urge to do just that the other day on the stairs of her new condominium. Vic had guessed that there was some story behind the “emergency” that her parents had come to retrieve her for last week. He wasn’t stupid.
But Niall was so used to vigilantly keeping her life private. It was a difficult habit to break.
And there was always the chance that he would judge her—judge her as her parents had, judge her as Stephen had . . .
It should have been you, Niall
.
No. She didn’t want to dwell on that now. Right now she wanted to think about Vic, about how wonderful it would be to see him again. Had it really only been three days since she’d lain in his arms as the light of dawn broke around the shades in his bedroom?
Something in her chest seemed to lurch when the hostess led her to the private booth where Vic sat. He stood. As usual he showed not the least bit of self-consciousness about eating her up with his eyes. Every time she saw him after a brief absence she was struck anew by his rugged, elemental male beauty. He looked movie-star handsome in a pair of khakis that fit his lean hips to perfection, a casual green and ivory button-down shirt with a white T-shirt beneath it. She recognized his well-worn brown bomber jacket hanging on the coat hook attached to the deep booth.
Her eyes swept the length of him hungrily and lingered for a moment on his brown leather belt. She must have made some kind of face, because when she met Vic’s stare, the humor and heat in his gaze made the apologies for being late for their dinner date melt on her tongue.
Her silly smile faded almost as quickly when Vic leaned down and covered it with his mouth. His kiss resulted in even worse breathlessness than her sprint had caused, not to mention a slow, hot burn in her pussy that Niall had never experienced in such a public place before. His tongue swept her depths thoroughly, just as it did that first time he’d kissed her. After he’d seemingly been temporarily sated by her taste, he tilted his head, held her chin steady with his fingers, and slowed to a tender, hot slide.
That kiss kept Niall right at the boiling point, much as the previous one had turned her up to full power as easily as if he’d flipped on a switch.
“You’re the only woman I know who could look like springtime wearing black,” Vic murmured several knee-weakening seconds later. A shiver went down her spine at the sensation of his warm breath next to her ear.
She smiled and turned her head, nuzzling his cheek with her nose. Her heart beat erratically in her chest. It felt indescribably good to be in his arms again . . . to inhale his singular scent.
“I see that you got a new belt.”
“There’s plenty more where that came from,” he murmured through a grin before he bent his head and tasted her lips again.
The hostess cleared her throat. “I’ll just set these menus down here.”
Niall started in embarrassment, realizing that the woman had been witness to her and Vic’s entire exchange. How easily he made her forget herself. But Vic would have none of her embarrassment. He tilted her chin up to meet his mouth for another hot, possessive kiss. Only after he’d had a sufficient taste of her and the unacknowledged hostess was long gone did he finally release her from his arms.
They were back around her soon enough once he slid into the booth after her. She saw that he’d already ordered her a glass of wine.
“I’m sorry for being late. I never even got a chance to drop off my suitcase before I went to the museum. How much time do we have before you have to be back at the theater?” she queried anxiously.
“I have to meet with my lighting designer in an hour.”
“Oh . . . so soon,” she murmured regretfully. She blinked after a moment when she realized that she’d been staring hungrily at his mouth. “How is everything going with the play?”
He shrugged. “It’s going.”
She smiled as she took a sip of wine. Vic’s fingers stroked her nape slowly, the seemingly casual touch setting off a series of fire-works along her sensitive nerves. He abruptly removed the clip that held her hair, allowing it to fall around her shoulders.