Feel the Heat: A Contemporary Romance Anthology (5 page)

“That’s it,” he said, tugging and rolling her aching nipples between his fingers. “You are so fucking gorgeous. When I get you home and get my mouth on you, I’m going to keep you pinned to the bed until I make you come with just my lips wrapped around your nipples.”

The breath caught in her throat at his words. He knew exactly how to talk to her to take her closer and closer to the edge. Keeping one hand on her breast, his thumb stroking back and forth over her pebbled flesh, he slid the other hand between them again and back into her swimsuit. His fingertips skimmed over her clit and then he was inside her again, curling his fingers and moving inside her body with a rhythm that drew her climax relentlessly closer. He pressed his palm to her sex, grinding against her the way she needed him to, and her orgasm wound tighter, finally crashing over her in waves of pleasure.

Her body tightened and pulsed around his fingers. Covering her mouth with his, he caught the sounds of her climax while he held her in place, drawing out every last bit of her orgasm.

“I love you,” she murmured against his lips when she could breathe again.

“I love you, too,” he said. “More than I even knew was possible.” He tucked her body into his, pressing her still sensitive breasts to his chest and kissing the top of her head.

There had been a time not so long ago when he couldn’t say the words. Now every time he spoke them, it was as if he was giving her his most precious gift and one only she could hold.

“I love you, too, Claire.”

L
UKE WOKE UP ALONE
IN bed. After their afternoon on the water, they’d come home and made love for hours. Claire had been beautiful and so responsive, giving herself to him effortlessly. When they’d finally collapsed, exhausted and sated, they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, curled around each other the way they had from the very beginning of their relationship.
So where the hell was she?

He listened for the sound of running water or noises from the kitchen. When he heard neither, he threw back the covers and climbed reluctantly out of the bed that still smelled like Claire and sex. He was supposed to be waking up inside her, not alone. Grumbling to himself, he pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and went searching for his wife.

He didn’t find her in the house and a thin thread of worry started to creep in. Standing on the balcony, he searched the stretch of beach below them. He was just about to give up when he saw her sitting on the rocks. It was too far for him to see her face, but by the way she was curled in on herself, he was afraid she’d been crying.

Shoving his feet into shoes, he grabbed his windbreaker—more for her than for him—and set off for the beach. The previous day had been perfect. He’d loved walking through the building with her and seeing it through her eyes. He trusted her vision. Assuming they finalized the deal, he’d get the architects to design it, but he’d give them Claire’s input. Starting with the Triad building where they first met, everything she’d helped him with had turned out better than he’d planned. He wouldn’t add pressure to what she was obviously still feeling, but in addition to English Electric handling the electrical contract, he wanted her to be as involved with his projects as she wanted.

Seeing the look in her eyes as she walked through the building, he’d assumed they were on the same page. And then she spent all that time talking to the agent. He’d stepped back to give them their space, but it had seemed, at least from the outside, that talking to the other woman helped his wife. They’d spent the rest of the day eating, soaking up the sun and making love.
What the fuck had happened between last night and this morning?

He caught himself before he went stomping over the rocks. Slowing down enough to be sure of his footing, he worked his way over the volcanic rock, tempering his mood the closer he got. Claire didn’t overreact. His wife wasn’t prone to drama. If something was bothering her, it was real, and it was his job to help her fix it. He’d had different plans for their last hours on the island, but he’d adjust. Her feelings mattered more. She glanced up at him. Tears streaked down her face, and she looked more miserable than the day they’d figured out Bella was teething. Her expression cut straight to his heart, and he crouched next to her, balancing on the jagged rock.

“Claire, sweetheart.” He cupped her face with his hand and swiped at her tears with his thumb. “What’s wrong?”

She leaned into his touch, pressing her cheek against his palm. “I don’t know how to do this. I can’t figure out how to fit it all together.”

He settled the jacket over her shoulders. Picking out a relatively smooth spot, he sat and pulled his knees up in front of him, partly so he didn’t go tumbling off and partly to give himself time to figure out what to say. When they’d started, Claire had been the one to push him to grow emotionally. She’d been the one who called him on his shit and urged him to do better. He wasn’t used to this shift in their roles.

“What makes you think you’re the one who has to figure it all out?”

The look she gave him tempered some of his goodwill, but he managed to hold his tongue and wait for her to speak.
Extra points for being a fucking grown-up
, he thought.

“Because it’s my stuff. It’s my company and my job that I have to figure out how to balance it with…our daughter.” She caught herself before she said
my daughter
, but he knew it had been on the tip of her tongue.

“Exactly,” he said, striving for calm and worried he’d come up short.
Interesting—he couldn’t remember the last time he got to be the indignant one in any situation.
“Bella is
our
daughter. She’s not yours to parent alone, and she’s not a problem that needs to be solved.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Some of the green he loved flashed in her eyes, and he waited her out, needing her to really see the fault in her thinking. “It isn’t,” she said, more to herself than to him.

Her shoulders slumped, and he broke down and reached for her hand.

“I keep thinking if I just work at it hard enough, that I’ll be able to figure out how to do it all. She’s my baby. I love her. I wasn’t trying to see her as a problem. I want the best for her—she deserves it—and I keep feeling like all I do is fail her. I love her so much. I don’t want to fuck this up.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He brushed a kiss over her knuckles, cold from the early morning chill. “You won’t. You’re not. Our daughter is lucky to have you for her mother. But you have to stop beating yourself up. It isn’t good for any of us.”

“I keep thinking about what it was like when I grew up. My mom was home all the time. She took care of everything my dad and I needed. She sewed patches on my Brownie Scout sash and made sure I had cookies and whatever else I needed for school things. She was waiting every day when I got home from school and I knew without having to even think about it that Dad and I were the most important things in her world. I want Bella to have that kind of security too. I owe it to her.”

“You owe it to our daughter to sew patches on a uniform she might not ever have?” He knew he was oversimplifying, but he was out of his depth.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

“You want our daughter to know—without a moment’s doubt—that she’s loved and cherished.”

She nodded and he could see the tears filling her eyes again.
Great
. He’d been trying to get her to
stop
crying. He obviously sucked at this.

“Claire, how could she possibly think anything else? We’ve both loved her since the moment we knew she existed. Every day it seems impossible to love her more and every day we do. That’s not going to change because you have a career you love too. You can show her both things.”

He could tell from the look she gave him that she didn’t believe him, but he was also pretty sure she wanted to and that was something he could work with.

“I know the patches thing sounds stupid.” She stared out across the ocean. The waves crashed against the rocks; the roiling water echoed the turmoil just under the surface of their conversation. “But it’s not the same thing if the housekeeper is the one who makes cookies with her. It just isn’t.”

“Of course not,” he said. “But just because it doesn’t look the way it did when you grew up, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Why can’t it be extra love instead of a lack of love?”

He could see her turning that over in her head. Esmeralda had been taking care of his house and running errands for him for years. She’d liked Claire from the moment she moved in and the feeling was mutual. When Bella was born, she was beside herself. Luke didn’t need to remind her that Esmerelda adored their daughter. She was the closest thing Bella had to a grandmother—at least one he’d want her to spend time with.

“Listen,” he said, trying to find his way to the essence of her concerns. “Our family is going to look different than your family because it’s ours. Your mother stayed home and took care of things. My mother ran off because she felt trapped. Our picture will look different than either of those.”

They watched the waves. The tide had shifted and the waves weren’t hitting as high up on the rocks anymore. He hoped Claire’s feelings were smoothing out too.

“I understand what you’re saying.” He snorted in disbelief, and she held her hand up. “I do,” she repeated. “I understand, but it’s the logistics that keep twisting me up. There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to give our daughter the kind of attention she needs and take care of the things the business needs. Even if we give up the flips, I still have more work to do than there is time to do it.”

“Do you want to quit?”

“Do you want me to?” she flashed back.

He paused, all too aware of the dragons surrounding them.

“I want what you want, Claire. Whatever you want. When I married you, I promised to spend my life seeing to your happiness, but you have to decide what that means.”

“That makes me sound like a selfish princess.”

“It makes you sound like a woman whose husband adores her because you showed him how to love someone besides himself.” He waited, judging her mood before he pushed ahead. “I love working with you. I value you and what you do, but we’re lucky. If you want to stay home and take care of Bella, you can do it. If I never make another dime, we could live comfortably for the rest of our lives. I will support you no matter what you decide.”

“But that’s it exactly,” she said, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead. “When you say it like that, how could I choose anything other than staying home with Bella? It feels selfish.”

“Why is it selfish for you to work, but it’s not selfish for me?”

“It just isn’t, Masters.”

“Bullshit. If it’s true for you, it’s true for me. How many years have you spent proving yourself to asshole contractors before they realized you’re not only as good as the men, but in most cases, you’re a hell of a lot better? What makes you assume that doesn’t work in the other direction?”

The noise she made made it clear she thought he was full of shit and for the first time since he’d woken up and found her gone, he started to get angry. When she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d run off, assuming he couldn’t handle it. This was just another example of her underestimating him.

“You run a multibillion dollar company,” she said, looking at him as though the rest should be obvious.

“Which means I can hire people to do the things I need to have done, including covering things at work so I can take care of my daughter.”

“What are you saying, Masters?” She went very still beside him.

“What I’ve been trying to say for weeks now. When you were nursing, it made sense for most of the baby stuff to fall to you, but now that you’re done we can figure it out together. She’s not a problem to solve and you’re not the only one with choices to make. I’ve worked damn hard to make sure you understand that I know your career isn’t any less important than mine. You’re not alone in this, Claire, and it pisses me off that you’d try to close me off. We’re a team. We build things together. Our buildings. Our family. Our love.”

He let the words hang in the air between them. And then he stood and started back across the rocks toward the house. He’d said everything he needed to. It was up to her to decide whether she believed him or not.

C
LAIRE PULLED LUKE’S
jacket tighter, not because it was cold—the sun had already moved high enough in the sky to warm the rocks she sat on. She liked feeling him around her, smelling him on her skin. The man she married never ceased to surprise her. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he turned around and knocked her on her ass.

She couldn’t argue with anything he’d said. She wanted to because to admit he was right meant she’d been operating under false assumptions, trying to control everything around her when it wasn’t hers to control. She’d taken the picture she’d grown up with and tried to shove her life in it, crying like a child when it chafed instead of fit. Luke saw a different picture. One that included the two of them side by side, figuring things out together. Building things together.

Careful to keep her footing, she pushed herself to standing and headed back to the beach house to tell her husband one more time that he was right.

She found him at the kitchen island, studying something on his laptop. He looked up and for a moment she could have sworn the expression on his face was hopeful.

“I’m sorry,” she said, closing the distance between them. “You were right.”

He reached for her, tugging her into his arms until she landed against his chest with a
wumpf
. Sliding his hand up her back, he grabbed a fistful of her hair, just hard enough to make her gasp, and then he kissed her, and she lost the thoughts she’d been holding onto so tightly.

“Elaborate,” he said, when he broke the kiss and she was finally able to catch her breath again.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to feed your ego.” She smiled up into the eyes of the man who owned her—body and soul.

“Too late. You already said it. I heard you.” He kissed her again, gently dragging her bottom lip between his teeth before pulling back to meet her gaze. “Tell me what you mean, Claire.” His voice turned serious.

“I was so caught up in trying to figure out how to do everything by myself, I forgot I didn’t have to. That I shouldn’t.” She cupped his face, loving the sandpaper-rough feeling of his jaw against her hand. Luke turned his head and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm, but he waited, not speaking, clearly intending her to say more. “I still don’t know how any of this is going to work. I… we,” she caught herself, “both want Bella to have the best we can give her. I’m not sure how to balance her needs with two careers, but I know I’m not the only one trying to figure it out any more.”

“I have some ideas,” he said, turning his laptop to face them.

She settled deeper in his arms, looked at the image on the screen and laughed.

“Colin is going to have a fit.” She searched his gaze to see whether he was serious. It was a big change, but if they did it, it could benefit more than just their family.

“It’ll be good for him.” His assistant could use a push every now and then.

Claire wrapped her arms around Luke’s neck and pulled him down for a kiss. “I like the way you think, Masters,” she said, her lips a breath away from his. “And I love you.”