Marriage by Mistake (24 page)

Good
.

She held on and met his every move with one
of her own, her heart pounding, her blood rushing. It was
incredible, unbelievable, the sensations pouring through her. She
felt like a potent narcotic had been injected straight into her
veins. She felt like her skin was frizzling into steam and lifting
off of her.

She felt like she would die if she couldn't
eat this man up
. Her fingers dug into the toughened muscles
of his shoulders and a long, deep moan came out of her throat.

No wonder
, a voice mused, as from far
off.
Now wonder you always avoided this
.

Felicia stiffened.

"Good
God
, Felicia!" Troy wrenched his
mouth from hers with a gasp. For a moment they stood pressed close
together and staring into each other's eyes.

Good God, indeed! Felicia could feel Troy,
every inch of him, including the erection pressed hard against her
Christian Dior skirt. Even worse than that, she could feel a deep
and powerful thrill inside herself as she recognized what it meant.
Troy,
Troy
was aroused by her.

And
she
was excited by his
arousal.

Heaven's above. Out. Immediately. She had to
get out of there.

Fortunately, he didn't resist when she pushed
him away. No, he parted his body from hers most willingly. Maybe he
was as shocked and displeased with the turn of events as she was,
though Felicia sincerely doubted it. Troy wasn't dealing with the
emotional upheaval of a lifetime.

"I've    Good-bye," she told him,
very firm. Then, not daring to look his way, not knowing what might
happen if she looked into his amazing brown eyes, she remembered to
scoop up her purse, then whirled and stalked off down the street.
She tried to move as if there had been no interruption at all in
her progress. Just as if he hadn't kissed her.

And she hadn't kissed him back.

Oh, my goodness gracious
everything
.
Felicia ducked down into a subway stairway that opened fortuitously
in front of her. Her lips still tingled. Damn, but her whole
body
still tingled.

With pleasure, with desire, with yearning.
She wanted more!

Felicia paid the fare for a token and, with
trembling fingers, slid it into the slot and pushed through. She
struggled to control her erratic breathing as she waited for the
next train    to anywhere.

She'd kissed Troy, kissed
Troy
, of all
people.

And she'd
liked
it.

###

He'd just kissed the ice princess.

Troy walked back into the quiet restaurant,
every inch of him shaking; with sexual reaction, with self
disgust...with unfulfilled lust. God. Dear God, but that had been
   He wiped his forehead with the back of one hand and
walked over to the table they'd abandoned. He looked down at the
two plates of untouched food.

No way was he going to be able to eat that
pasta bolognese with Felicia's dainty Nicoise salad staring across
the table at him. Troy pulled out his wallet, removed a generous
number of bills, and slapped them onto the table. Then he turned
and walked out of the place for the second time.

Could he have screwed up a simple apology any
better, Troy wondered? He stood for a moment outside the
restaurant, then deliberately turned in the opposite direction from
the one Felicia had headed. As he walked, he tried to avoid
groaning out loud.

Felicia was very wrong if she thought Troy
could come anywhere close in a comparison with Dean. He was a
screw-up through and through. Look at today. He hadn't managed to
last half an hour in Felicia's company without insulting her yet
further.

And then kissing her.

Troy swallowed and started shaking again.
Now, that had to be the stupidest thing he had
ever
done.
Even giving Dean his hypnotic suggestion couldn't compare.

Because kissing Felicia had been both stupid
and    and
fantastic
. Troy's teeth gritted so they
wouldn't start chattering as he continued to shake. Kissing Felicia
had been shocking, exciting, excruciatingly
pleasurable...and...and...

Something more.

It had made him feel...good.
Somehow...right.

Walking fast, Troy frowned, and his shaking
managed to get worse. Right? What the hell did that mean, 'right?'
Felicia had to be the exact wrong woman for him to be kissing.
Totally
un
right. She compared him to Dean, for crissake.

Troy didn't scan the road for a cab. He
didn't walk down into any of the subway stations he passed. He just
kept walking while he tried to stop shaking.

And telling himself there was absolutely
nothing
right
about Felicia.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kelly and Dean made love again that Tuesday
night, as promised. Dean came home late, after everyone else had
gone to bed, and knocked on Kelly's door.

After thinking about it all afternoon, Kelly
had formed an opinion about what was going on. It was an opinion
strengthened by Dean skipping the family dinner that evening.
Still, she was taken aback by the expression on his face when she
opened her bedroom door. "Uh, hard day?" she asked.

"You could say that," Dean replied. Then he
removed her nightgown. In two minutes they were both naked on
Kelly's bed.

After a fine round of mutual orgasms, at
around two in the morning, Kelly asked, "Making up for lost
time?"

"Mm," Dean said. "I'll see you tomorrow at
noon."

"Let me guess. We'll make love."

"Mm," Dean said. Then he kissed her, put his
clothes back on, and left.

Kelly put up with this for the next three
days. She couldn't say she wasn't enjoying herself. Dean was a
superior lover, and whatever demons drove him made him more daring
every time. They made love in the back seat of his car, in an old
gardening shed, and behind a tree in Dean's forest. In one way,
though, Dean was very careful.

He never gave them a chance to talk. Not a
chance to talk, or do anything but make love.

On the morning of the fourth day, Kelly lay
on her bed watching him leave her, once again, and knew this had to
stop.

"Later," Dean said, with a smiling flash of
his teeth.

"Sure," Kelly replied, though she felt a
sinking inside.

He drew up the zipper of his fly, threw her
one more smile, and went out the door.

As Kelly stared at the cream-colored panels
of her closed bedroom door, the sinking sensation inside her grew.
This had to stop. Dean couldn't hide behind their sex life forever.
Not to mention she wasn't supposed to be sleeping with him at all,
not according to her policy. Well, yes, they were married
   technically. But they weren't married, really. They
couldn't really be married until Dean declared his true love and
respect.

He hadn't done that. He hadn't even come
close.

In fact, as he'd walked out her bedroom door
just then he'd given her no more than a lascivious grin. Kelly
rolled onto her stomach. She fought down a wave of
self-disgust.

She wasn't doing a darn thing to protect
herself, to keep herself safe from emotional harm. She was letting
herself get drawn deeper and deeper into intimacy with a man who
might never come to love her. True, he was tender at times, and
always considerate, but that didn't add up to love.

On the bed, Kelly buried her face in her
pillow. She knew her present actions were foolish, and she knew if
she had any self-respect at all, any intelligence, she would do
something about it.

If she had any self-respect, she would do
something, and soon.

###

They'd made love in the back seat of Dean's
Lexus, in Tom's old gardening shed, and behind the sugar maple tree
by the south fence. They'd done it and had it in every conceivable
style and position.

After three days of this, Dean was exhausted.
But he was far from ready to give up. He was just going to have to
try harder, he told himself, looking out the window of the limo as
Jackson drove him into town on Saturday. He was going to have to
exert himself yet further in order to run through this thing.

It was impossible to deny any longer that
there was a lot more than passion going on here. Indeed, an
astonishing, if not alarming, range of emotion was involved.

All the same, somehow, somewhere, there had
to be an end to it.

In the car, Dean clasped his hands and tapped
both index fingers against his lips. The problem was that Kelly
was...different. She wasn't sharp or sophisticated or demanding.
She was, well, innocent. Yes, innocent in her own crazy way. She
was innocent and generous and uncomplaining. She was the most
accepting woman Dean had ever met.

He released a deep sigh. Kelly was
too
different. Despite his certainty he would get tired of her, he
wasn't. On the contrary, there were moments he simply wanted to
hold her close; he wanted to hold her and never let her go. At
those moments he quickly roused himself from the dangerous
contentment into which he'd fallen and quickly brought the both of
them to some incredible orgasm.

But that didn't work, either. After he'd made
love to her, he ended up wanting to hold onto her more, wanting
less to let her go.

Fighting a strange species of panic, Dean
rubbed his fingers up and down his lips. He had to try harder, that
was all. Surely this bounty of feelings had to change, and
diminish.

He just didn't know how much longer he could
go on until they did.

###

Kelly waited in her bedroom that night,
knowing Dean would come. Just past ten there was a knock on her
door.

Oh yeah, big surprise. Well, she had a
surprise for him. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, she
opened her door. "Hi, Dean," she said.

"Hello." If he were disappointed in her
casual attire, Dean didn't let on. He stepped toward her.

Kelly stepped back. "Come on in."

Dean hesitated, apparently noticing her small
physical evasion. But he put his smile back on and came in.

Pretty confident, Kelly thought, but then
she'd been giving him every reason to believe she was his sexual
slave.

Halfway into the room, Dean came to a halt.
"You don't know how happy I am to see you."

No, but Kelly had a pretty good idea he was
about to show her. "I'm happy to see you, too," she said.

He smiled and began loosening his tie. For a
moment Kelly marveled at how far he
had
come. He was in her
bedroom, wanting to make love to her    and smiling.
Could she have imagined such a thing on that horrid airplane ride
from Vegas?

But enough was enough.

She had to retrieve her self-respect, stop
playing the doormat. And Dean had to stop evading. They had to see
if they really had something going here.

She sashayed toward him. "I am happy to see
you," she repeated. "Very happy." She got close enough to stop his
hands on his tie. "But it so happens I have a headache
tonight."

"What?"

"A headache," Kelly repeated. She tried to
soften the blow by tapping him on the chin. "You look awfully nice,
though."

It took him a second to get it. His
expression went flabbergasted. "You mean you don't want
   ?"

Kelly's eyebrows rose.

"You don't want    " He stopped
again. A strange sequence of emotions crossed his face. "No," he
then said, his eyes narrowing. "You're not tired of me. That isn't
it."

"Well, no, of course    "

"Then I must have angered you." He took a
step back. "Done something to displease you."

"No    "

"Yes." He bit the word out. "You're unhappy
with me."

"Dean    "

He waved an imperious hand. "Tell me. What
have I done? I'm not ready    That is, there's no reason
I can't change it, make things better. Tell me."

"No!" Kelly made an effort to calm herself.
At least one of them should keep their head. "Listen. Just
   sit down." She pointed to a well-stuffed armchair.

He turned his gaze toward the chair. "Ah," he
said. "So it's a long list."

"Dean..." Kelly wavered. Perhaps they should
make love, after all. He was taking this wrong, so ready for
rejection.

But Kelly steeled herself. Making love to him
would only reinforce the notion that sex was all they had to offer
each other. And it would be disastrous for her self-respect. "The
only thing you need to do to please me," she enunciated carefully,
"is sit."

His brows jumped. But he turned. With long
strides he made for the indicated chair. Brusquely, he sat.

Kelly suppressed a sigh as she took the
armchair next to Dean's. She leaned back and smiled.

"Are you pleased now?" Dean asked.

"Yes." Kelly bit her lip. "How about
you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Are
you
pleased?"

His brows lowered. "Oh, I'm just peachy."

Kelly felt her heart skip around. This wasn't
working. They had to do something together, something to
demonstrate they could enjoy each other's company other than in
bed. Assuming, of course, that was even true. "Uh, would you like
to play checkers?"

He stared at her. "No."

"How about watch TV?"

His amazement abounded. "No."

Kelly got desperate. "Well how about
   taking a walk?"

Some of her desperation must have gotten
through. Dean gave her a close look. "This would please you, a
walk?"

Kelly smiled. "Yes." Oh, anything.

"Fine." In one smooth motion, Dean stood up.
"Let's take a walk."

###

She wanted to take a walk. Taut as a
bowstring, Dean led Kelly out through the kitchen. She wanted a
walk
.

He couldn't imagine what he'd done to turn
her off, but it must have been something. Just before they went out
the door, he flipped on the exterior lights. They walked into a
landscape of glowing trees and flowers.