Forever After (11 page)

His tenderness tipped her emotional scales and tears burned in her eyes.  She gave him the key, mumbled a thank you, and hurried inside.  Switching on both the back porch light and the kitchen light, she stared at the floor then up at the Gingerbread Man cookie jar on top of the refrigerator.  Wandering into the living room, she threw her purse on the recliner and flicked on the Tiffany lamp.  The board game she and Jenna intended to play lay on the coffee table.  Darcy knelt down in between the table and sofa and lifted the lid for the game.  She opened up the color-blocked board and fingered the plastic playing pieces.

Seth found her that way when he came in.  He knelt down beside her.  Crooking his knuckle along her cheek, he nudged her to face him.  When she looked into his caring grey eyes, tears welled up and spilled over.  Seth pushed the coffee table away and pulled Darcy down to sit next to him, their backs resting against the sofa.  His arm circled her shoulders and she lay her head against his chest.

He soothingly combed through her hair.  "She's okay.  Kids are resilient."

"I know," Darcy murmured against his shirt.  "I just feel so responsible.  It's all my fault.  If I'd only gotten that stepstool, if I'd moved the cookies down where she could reach them, this wouldn't have happened.  She's so self-sufficient.  I should have known--"

"It was an accident.  All the 'if onlys' in the world won't change it," he said as if he knew.

Her tears ran faster as guilt thwarted her reasoning.  "But it was my fault."  Her voice was reedy.  "What if she had broken her arm or hit her head or something worse?"

Seth shook her gently and his timbre was rough.  "Stop it.  None of that happened."

Darcy couldn't forget her miscarriage, the feeling that hung with her that she could have prevented that too.  She stared up at the ceiling and said almost to herself, "I'm the adult.  I should know better."

"Darcy, she's a curious eight-year-old with a mind of her own.  You can guide her but you can't control all her actions."

Logically, she knew Seth was right, but doubts sabotaged her clear thinking.  "Marsha didn't say much.  I'm afraid she blames me, won't trust me."

Seth took Darcy's face between his palms.  "How long have you known Marsha?"

"Three years."

As if cross-examining a witness, he regarded Darcy with a level stare.  "How long have you known me?"

She swallowed hard, captivated by the burning intensity in his eyes and the stern expression on his face.  "About five weeks."

"I know how much you love Jenna.  And I know you'd do whatever you could to protect her.  I also know, like you do, that she has to learn to follow rules.  Now, if I know all those things, don't you think Marsha does?  My God, Darcy.  She's your best friend.  Of course she didn't say much tonight.  She was as worried about Jenna as you were.  But give her some credit.  Give yourself some credit."

Relief washed over Darcy.  Her arms locked around Seth's waist and she burrowed into the irresistible warmth of his chest.  He held her close, resting his chin on top of her head.  After long minutes of cuddling, Darcy's heart beat faster and she could hear Seth's accelerating too.  She could feel their heat mingling into a cloud around them as their sexual awareness of each other intensified a hundredfold.  Darcy's breast, tight against Seth's chest, tingled as a fire smoldered in the pit of her stomach.

Seth placed a feathery kiss on her brow.  As she lifted her head, his lips touched her temple.  She tilted her head up, trying to read his heart, his soul.  But she couldn't.  She stopped trying, giving herself up to the magnetism between them.  As she traced her forefinger over his generously mobile mouth, it stalled on his fuller lower lip.  When he took the tip of her finger into his mouth, sucking it gently, her respiration increased to an insane level of air consumption.

Her right hand slipped up to Seth's neck and her thumb outlined his ear.  She felt his sharp intake of breath.  With a kiss on the the tip of her finger, his head bent towards hers.  He rubbed his nose against her cheek, and set his lips on hers with firm insistence.  She opened her mouth spontaneously as she leaned into him, giddy from the swirl of desire overpowering her.

While their tongues communicated with abandon, Seth imprinted his masculine flavor.  His hands voyaged to her breasts, shaping them to his palms, gently kneading, enticing.  A tornado spun inside Darcy and she surrendered to him, following his tongue into his mouth, searching, exploring, repetitively flicking against his.  She was defenseless against the surge of joy she experienced as his lips drugged and his hands seduced.  They slipped under her tee-shirt.

Darcy longed to feel his bare skin, the chest that had been so tempting but so untouchable a few weeks ago.  She slipped under his shirt, felt his shudder, and explored tentatively. 

"Don't be afraid, bright eyes.  I won't break.  Touch all you want."

All ten fingers slid up the middle of his chest, as she relished the lively, curling hair.  "It's so soft."

He closed his eyes.  "Not as soft as you."

Her knuckle grazed his nipples and he sucked in a breath.  "Does that mean you like it or you don't?" she asked, her voice catching.

"Lord, woman.  How could I not like it?  There's fire on your fingertips, honey on your lips, and God knows what other delights I haven't begun to find.  Come here."

Lifting her tee shirt, he ran his finger along the edge of her lace bra. 

"Seth, can I ask you something?"

He laughed.  "Sure.  Ask away."

"How do you feel about what I do for a living?"

He dropped his hand and shrugged.  "It's your profession.  It's what you do.  I haven't thought much about it."

"You don't think it makes me...less feminine?"

His eyes browsed over her leisurely, appreciating her high firm breasts, her slender waist, her shapely legs.  "Bright eyes, you're about as feminine as a woman can get.  Where's all this leading?"

"I always liked playing baseball more than putting on makeup.  It didn't bother me, but it seemed to bother plenty of other people."

"Gary?"

"He said a mechanic was okay for a summer fling, but he'd never want a wife who had grease on her hands when she made love to him."

"The bastard!  Darcy, what did you see in this jerk?"

"I was younger then.  He was talented, attractive.  He sang and danced at the Park.  Most of the guys I knew always treated me like their best pal.  I thought Gary was attracted to me as a woman."

"He had to be."

"I was an object to him.  A stop-gap until he got back to his fiancée."

Anger thundered on Seth's brow.  "I don't believe it."

"I didn't know!"

"I didn't think you did.  You were better off without him."

"That's what I decided."

Seth took her face between his palms.  "You are a feminine, beautiful woman." 

Instead of trying to convince her with words, Seth kissed her forehead, her brows, her eyelids, her cheeks...until she breathed his name in a soft gasping plea.  His tongue titillated the corners of her mouth before sliding into her warm inner recesses.

Darcy smoothed her hands over his chest, caressing his heated skin.  She ran them down the center and they tangled in his belt.  Somehow they dipped below his belt buckle. 

She hesitated and began to pull away, but Seth urged, "Yes.  I want you to feel how much I need you."

Her hand didn't resist his tumescence but stroked as well as she could impeded by his slacks.  He pushed against her hand with a low groan.  Suddenly, he pulled back.

Seth attempted to control his breathing as he studied her face.  No tinseled glamour or commercial artistry for this lady.  She was one-third innocent child, one-third vulnerable woman, one-third feline seductress.  He couldn't fight the resurgence of desire and he didn't try.

He pulled her close and kissed her again.  When her mouth, soft and warm, trembled under his, tenderness ballooned inside of him, glazing his passion with gentleness.  Still his thighs quaked.  His desire was constrictingly uncomfortable and his self control was frayed beyond repair.

He released her lips and whispered into her hair, "Darcy, I've got to stop now or I won't.  It's your decision.  Do I stay or do I go?"

CHAPTER SIX

Seth's heart was beating hard and fast and so was Darcy's.  She didn't want him to go.  But she wasn't sure she was ready to make love with him, either.  She had the feeling when she did, she'd lose her heart.  If it wasn't safe in his keeping...

She moved out of his arms and looked away.  "I'm sorry."

His voice was raspy as he tilted his chin up and let her compose herself.  "No reason to be.  Kissing and touching you is fast becoming one of my favorite pastimes."

"But it's not fair to arouse you and then--"

He caught her hand and firmly held it under his on his thigh.  "What about you?"

Finally, she faced him.  "Women are different.  Once men get started...Gary always told me..."

Seth threw back his head and groaned.  "We've already established the fact that guy was a jerk."  He took Darcy by the shoulders.  "A man, a real man, controls his needs.  Just because his engine gets revved up doesn't mean he has to run the Indianapolis 500."

The tension inside Darcy relaxed.  Seth wasn't angry as she'd expected.  His cheeks were still darkly flushed, but he seemed more perturbed than anything.

He rubbed his thumbs back and forth across her collarbone.  "I want you, lady.  But not through coercion.  I won't coax to have a woman sleep with me.  When you're ready to give me an unqualified 'yes,' then we'll make love."

His words sent a lightning bolt through her almost as potent as his kiss.  Making love.  That's what it would be for her.  She didn't know what it would be for him.

Taking a deep breath, she smiled.  "Thank you for being here tonight."

"You're welcome.  It felt kind of...good."

"You seem surprised."  She gave him the time to explain if he wanted it.

He cut the silence with, "I don't usually get involved."

So strong, so confident, so removed.  "With anyone?"

He frowned and somehow she knew he wasn't used to anyone questioning the way he lived his life.  "It's not so strange, Darcy.  I've never had close ties."

"Because of your work?" she pressed, wondering how far he'd let her push.

"Because I didn't want them.  I learned early getting close to someone hurts."

The bitter knowing in his voice tore at her heart.  But part of her rejoiced.  Finally, he was giving her an important piece of himself.  Maybe he was beginning to trust her.  "When you were a child?"

"Yes."  He looked over her shoulder as if he was seeing scenes he'd rather forget.  "So I've always kept myself safe.  Except for my dad, I don't let anyone in.  I don't need anyone and no one needs me.  That's always been my freedom and my protection."

"And now?"

He swung back to her, back to the present, and played with a silky strand of hair on her neck.  "Now, a green-eyed temptress is confusing my life.  Maybe it's all the change at once.  But I'm not so sure that the path I've taken is the right route to travel."

He thought she was tempting.  She knew he was.  "Change affects different people different ways.  Maybe I seem tempting because Hershey's different from Philadelphia."

"You think the smell of chocolate has drugged me?"

"Something like that," she answered softly, attempting to control responses that didn't want to be controlled.  His crooked smile teased her as he played with her collar.  The motion moved the cotton against her breasts, making her nipples draw into hard buds.

"Darcy, you'd be tempting any place I found you."

His expression was sincere but the words sounded smooth, so much like Gary's when he told her she was his world.  He hadn't told her it was only for the summer.  She hadn't realized how much her trust had been shattered until this moment.

"I still can't decide if you're handing me a line."

Seth brushed her hair back from her cheek.  "No line.  Haven't you learned yet lines aren't my style?"

She assessed him, trying to find the real Seth, trying to find their common ground.  "What is?"

"We're a lot alike.  I shoot from the hip.  So do you.  No games.  We know where we stand."

If she knew where she stood, why did she feel as if she was sinking in quicksand?

***

Monday evening, Seth finished the extra tuna sandwich Vic's secretary had brought him when she'd gone for lunch.  He'd stuffed it in the small office refrigerator, knowing he'd probably be working at his desk through supper.  All he'd thought about most of the day was Darcy.  Despite what he'd said about a real man controlling his needs, Seth knew he was getting close to the limit with Darcy.  Leaving her in her house alone Saturday night was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.  She must be a witch to have this power over him.

Even yesterday at the amusement park, all he could think about was kissing her, holding her, consummating the need that was eating at him even when he wasn't with her.  Once they made love, he could put her in perspective.  She wouldn't take up so much of his thinking time.  Would she?