A Family Reunion (26 page)

“Taye,” Michael whispered softly as she slowly released him. But he replaced her arms with his own and wrapped them around her, pulling her to her feet as he stood on his.

“Michael?”

Her voice was shaking; he could hear it. Her body was trembling; he could feel it. He noticed the way she was looking up at him. It was the look of a woman who wanted the man she was with. That knowledge kicked low and seeped through his insides like a slow-burning flame. He wanted to fight his body’s response to her and couldn’t. He hadn’t been able to fight it since he’d seen her again at the family reunion, although God knows he had tried. He’d felt that flicker of guilt that what he was feeling for her was wrong. Although they were not blood relations, they were in the same family. It hadn’t been easy not wanting her. It still wasn’t.

He’d tried fighting the response he felt whenever he was around her. Some days he’d succeeded; some days he had not. And now at this moment, with her standing before him, close, with his arms around her waist, with her eyes searching his for answers, the only thing he could think about was tasting her. Tasting those sweet lips that looked petal soft and pliant, moist and ready.

He looked deep into her eyes and wished he hadn’t. They revealed so much. They showed signs she was going through the same torment that he was. Once again she was being faced with forbidden fruit. He wished that somehow he could find the strength to turn and walk away, to tell her good night and that he would see her in the morning, bright and early, well rested, ready to face another day, and all that good stuff.

But he couldn’t.

In fact, he didn’t want to.

He was losing a battle he’d never wanted to take on. For family’s sake, for sanity’s sake, he had tried resisting temptation. It hadn’t been easy and now, standing before him with dazed eyes, labored and shallow breathing, she wasn’t making it any easier.

“Damn, Taye,” he said huskily, in a tone intended to quell what was happening between them, then and there, here and now. He knew if he kissed her, things would change. Things would be different and it would mean they would be more than kissing cousins, because he didn’t think he would be able to stop at just kissing. The ache went too deep; the longing was too strong. If he kissed her, sooner or later, they would sleep together. He knew it and wanted to make sure she knew it as well. Understood it. Wanted it.

She spoke before he did. “We’ve got to stop what’s happening here, Michael,” she whispered softly, unconvincingly.

“I can’t, Taye. I’ve tried, but I can’t.” He slowly lowered his head, and with a groan of defeat and a moan of pleasure he covered her mouth with his own. The immediate response of his mouth on hers sent his pulse racing, sent his hormones into overdrive. Blood, thick, hot, passionate, ignited into a flame through his veins. He took her breath away with his tongue; he fed desire into his loins with hers. The taste of her was heady. The feel of her in his arms was mind-blowing. This woman was literally rocking his world.

His hands on her waist sought to hold her to him, sought to bring her closer. He groaned while grinding the lower part of his body against her, acting out a heated emulation of lovemaking while they were yet clothed. But the material of their clothing wasn’t a strong-enough shield against the fervor of what was taking place between them.

Both knew they should stop. But neither wanted to.

So they didn’t. They continued kissing. They continued to grind their bodies in heated erotic movements. It was obvious from the rock-hardness of Michael’s lower body that he wanted her, and likewise from the sound of her whimpering in his mouth that she wanted him.

They finally broke off the kiss to come up for air. Much-needed air.

“This is crazy, Taye,” Michael whispered as he feathered kisses along her neck.

“I know.” Those were the only two coherent words she could speak. They were the only two she could think of saying at the moment.

He kissed her cheekbone. “If the family knew we were carrying on like this they’d go bananas.”

“I know.”

He continued to scatter random kisses over her face, not able to get enough of the taste of her. “They won’t like it one hell of a bit.”

“I know.”

He licked the lining of her lips. “They’ll think we’re insane.”

“I know.”

Blood pulsed full force into his loins. He became filled with the want of her. He stopped kissing her and held her gaze in the moonlight off the lake. He wanted her to know something else, too. “But at this moment, I don’t give a damn what they might think or how they might feel. My mind is too concentrated on what
I
think and how
I
feel.”

She pressed her hands to the center of his chest as their gazes continued to hold. “At this moment, I feel the same way, Michael.”

Her admission to him was breathtaking. It was the thing that drove him over the edge when he pulled her back to him and took her mouth again as his heart pounded rapidly with his need for her, his want of her.

They immediately broke apart when they heard the phone ring.

Michael’s heart clamored against his chest when Taye pushed herself out of his arms and raced off to answer it. Eyes closed, he took a deep breath. When he reopened them he didn’t have any regrets for what he and Taye had shared. Something feeling that right couldn’t be wrong. And he was determined for her not to have any regrets, either. They would take things slow if they had to, but they wouldn’t have any regrets, and they wouldn’t go back to status quo.

Never had he been driven to such need. If that phone hadn’t rung, he probably would have taken her right there on the chaise lounge. He had wanted her just that much. Every time he was around her, new currents of awareness would sizzle within him. Even Stephanie hadn’t been able to do that to him. She hadn’t come close and deep down he knew why.

Even with his and Stephanie’s close friendship, there had always been something that held him back from ever wanting more. He’d been complacent, knowing things between them would never go anywhere. They had been good friends, and their lovemaking had been an extension of that. With Taye it was different. Tonight, she had touched a part of him that no woman had touched since Lynda. Kissing her had affected him in a way he didn’t think was possible—again. And even though he’d been without a woman for close to six months now, he knew it wasn’t about lust. It was something deeper, but he shouldn’t have found that thought surprising. Taye Bennett had always been able to get next to him. There had always been this special bond between them from the time they were kids. But now the question of the hour was just what he planned to do about it.

He lifted his head when he heard her return. “That was Momma,” she said softly from where she stood across the patio. “She hadn’t heard from us and was calling to see if we made it here OK.”

Michael shook his head and snorted. “Figures.”

Taye lifted a brow. “What figures?”

He slowly walked over to her. “That some member of the family would call right when we were on the path to doing something they would see as total damnation.”

Taye lifted her gaze upward. “Maybe someone up there is trying to tell us something.” She then lowered troubled eyes to him.

He decided to squash that look and that thought. “No. I doubt that very seriously. We weren’t doing anything wrong, Taye.”

“Weren’t we?”

Michael frowned. “No.”

Taye was silent for a moment. Then she said, “We’re family, Michael.”

“Yes, but we aren’t blood-related. There’s a difference.”

She shook her head. “Everyone won’t think so. Especially the family.”

“They’ll eventually accept it.”

She walked across the patio to stare out at the lake for a moment before turning around. She had already disappointed the family twice; she couldn’t risk doing it a third time. “What about the girls?” she asked softly. She swallowed hard and her eyes were glued to his.

“I don’t think they’ll have a problem with the idea of you and me together.”

“It will be too confusing for them,” she murmured. “Normally two people who consider themselves cousins don’t suddenly become boyfriend and girlfriend.” Taye paused. She studied him, realizing that she might be getting ahead of herself, since she had no idea what Michael wanted or where this attraction between them could be headed. “Maybe I’m reading more into this than what’s really there. What do you want from me, Michael? A one-night stand? A week fling? A secret affair?”

Michael quickly covered the distance between them. “The first thing I want is for you to have no regrets. Then the next thing is for you to believe that I wouldn’t use you that way, Taye.”

She shrugged. “But you said…you told me that you’d had a lover, a secret lover, for four years and that Kennedy hadn’t known about her.”

“That’s the way Stephanie and I wanted it for our own personal reasons. But with you I’d want things to be different. And I see no reason why they can’t be.”

Taye chuckled. “Oh, they’ll be different all right. I can just see the family hauling us before Reverend Overstreet to talk some sense into us, if they don’t try knocking it into us first themselves.”

“Do you think we’re crazy, Taye?”

She held his gaze. “Do you?”

“No. I think we’re two people who’re attracted to each other, who have been attracted to each other for a while, and who finally decided to take the first step tonight.”

Taye lowered her head in thought. She could just see her mother pointing an accusing finger at her and saying, “Once again you’ve shamed this family, Octavia.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do. I need time to think.”

“Take your time. I don’t plan to go anywhere. And while you’re thinking, think about the fact that tonight, for the first time in nearly six years, I felt something, Taye. I felt something with you in my arms, and I want to explore just what that something is. It shocked the hell out of me and it made me think. It seems we aren’t thinking along the same wavelength, but that’s OK. You continue to do your thinking and I’ll continue to do mine. But sooner or later we’re going to have to admit there is something between us, something deep. And it’s going to take more than the family’s disapproval to destroy it. Think about that.”

With those final words, he turned and left her alone on the patio.

Even after she heard Michael’s bedroom door closing behind him, Taye continued to stand on the patio. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she felt breathless. Kissing Michael the way she had, had rocked her world. It had been over ten years since she had been kissed. Ten years since she had been held in a man’s arms and made to feel soft and womanly, desired.

She took a deep breath. She then searched her mind for an answer as to what she should do. Michael wasn’t just any man she was attracted to; he was someone she had known all her life, and he’d always been a hero figure to her—
her hero.
And most important, he was her cousin. There was no way the two of them could ever let anything develop between them. It wouldn’t work. She would have to act responsibly and make sure nothing did develop. It would be better for everyone in the long run.

Taye felt a heavy weight settle in her stomach with that decision. How was she supposed to be around him for the rest of the week and act like nothing had happened between them tonight? Now that she had gotten a taste of him, how was she supposed to put that taste out of her mind and forget about it? And how could she forget that for the first time in over ten years, she wanted a man? A man who was definitely forbidden fruit of the most delicious kind.

It wouldn’t be easy. But the fact was—she had to do it. She turned to look at the lake and suddenly realized just how lonely she felt.

A little after 2:00
A.M.
, Michael found himself still awake, unable to sleep. He’d heard Taye go to her room and close the door hours ago and wondered if she was doing a better job of getting some rest than he was.

With a sigh he pulled his body up in bed and levered himself on his elbows. He was still not believing what had happened between him and Taye on the patio. Talk about spontaneous combustion. Once she had reached out to him, to hug him, that had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Her touch had made immediate heat race through his solar plexus. His reaching for her had been automatic, elemental. And their kiss had been everything he’d known it could be and more.

Tonight he had fulfilled part of his fantasy. It was a fantasy he’d tucked away in the back of his mind and had only allowed to surface at night while he slept. The fantasy had extended to his kissing Taye in every way a man could kiss a woman, his touching her breasts and seeing them become responsive to his touch and then having those long, gorgeous legs of hers wrapped around him in the heat of passion while he made love to her.

Then there had been another fantasy that had recently taken shape in his mind, one he couldn’t get rid of. And that was the one of Taye’s body rounded and ripe with a baby. His baby.

Michael ran his hand across his face, trying to remember just when that particular fantasy had begun. Maybe it had been that day the two of them had taken the girls out for pizza and the couple sitting at the booth across from them had their three-month-old baby with them. Taye, being the ever friendly person that she was, had struck up a conversation with the couple and had asked if she could hold their little boy, whose name, coincidentally, was Taye. The baby’s mother was a big Taye Diggs fan and had named the child after the popular actor. Michael had watched while Taye had cuddled the baby to her, smiling and cooing down at him. The happiness on her face had been priceless. It had touched Michael deeply, resurfacing longings he’d always had for another child.

He released a deep sigh. All those feelings he’d been experiencing for Taye over the past two months no longer perplexed him. He suddenly remembered the promise he had made to Stephanie and the words she had spoken:
I believe there is a special woman out there for you. And although she won’t ever take Lynda’s place, I think she’ll be able to carve her own special place in your heart if you let her. Promise me that when you do meet her you’ll give her a chance and that you won’t let anything come between you. You will need her and Kennedy will, too.