McKnight in Shining Armor (12 page)

His tongue stroked the aching peak, his teeth grazed across it, his lips massaged it. Kelsie drove her fingers through his hair and cradled him there at her breast, never wanting him to stop. She lay back, arching into the delicious heat of his mouth, gasping when his hand closed over her aching femininity and he began to explore her through her clothing.

His fingers touched and teased until she could no longer stand the barrier of garments between her and his caresses. Desperate for more intimate contact, she reached down and plucked at the drawstring waist of her sweat pants, lifting her hips for Alec to pull them down.

“So pretty,” he whispered, pressing kisses
along the fine line of downy blond hair that trailed over her tummy. His fingers slid into the nest of dark tawny curls between her thighs, wringing a soft moan from her as he parted the petals of feminine flesh and began his exploring anew.

Alec was amazed at his own patience. His body had been ready to take hers half an hour ago, and she was certainly ready for him, yet he was content to lay there, touching and teasing her and watching her sanity slip away. She would be wild in his arms, he thought, gritting his teeth at the surge in his loins as he imagined what their joining would feel like. Heaven—that was what he wanted to give her.

She chanted his name in a whisper-soft litany as his thumb found her most sensitive flesh and began stroking while he eased two fingers deep inside her.

“Alec!” she sobbed, writhing against his hand. “Alec, please!”

He stretched out on top of her, letting her feel his hardness through his jeans. He pressed against
her, rocked against her as he kissed her deeply. “Are you on the pill, honey?”

“Yes,” she whispered, glad she had renewed her prescription as her hands clutched at the sweater he wore, trying to drag it up his back.

“Maybe we should go to your bedroom,” he suggested, nipping on her earlobe.

“No,” she said, trembling hands reaching for him. He growled low in his throat as her fingers slid inside his pants and she touched him for the first time. He was solid and hot and as ready for her as she was for him. “Now, Alec, please.”

How many times had he dreamed of hearing her say those words? Now he wasn’t only hearing them, he was going to live out the rest of his dream of making love to Kelsie. He reached down to shove his jeans out of their way, but his hands stilled on his waistband as a plaintive voice called out from several rooms away.

“Mom? Mom, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

All the passion suddenly went out of their groans. Kelsie pushed her hair out of her eyes and hastily began to rearrange her clothes. Alec sat up, half laughing half crying, cradling his head in
his hands. Every inch of his body ached with frustrated desire. He felt like he’d been flogged from head to foot with a rubber hose.

“This is what I get for letting him have that last chili dog,” he muttered.

“O
UCH
! D
AMN
!” K
ELSIE
snapped as she stuck herself in the eye with her mascara wand. Tears dragged a stream of black down her cheek.

“Damn!” the parrot mimicked.

With one eye Kelsie peered at her son in the doorway of the bathroom. “Jeffrey, get that bird off your head.”

“But you said I could take him out of the cage.”

“I didn’t say you could wear him for a hat,” she said, dabbing at her stinging eye with a wet
wash cloth, dripping water onto her white silk robe.

The brilliant blue bird squawked and began chanting, “Love me, baby. Love me, baby. Love me, baby.”

“Pirate,” Kelsie said in a threatening tone. Hyacinth macaws weren’t great talkers to begin with, but this one’s vocabulary made Kelsie wish it were completely mute. The Humane Society had rescued him from a Mississippi River barge. What words and phrases the bird knew had been learned from sailors on a garbage scow.

Jeffrey and his pet made a hasty retreat. Kelsie returned to the mirror to start over on her makeup, calling out to her daughter, “Elizabeth! Did you find that black purse for me?”

Elizabeth appeared in the doorway and leaned against the jamb. “Yes, Mom. That’s the third time you’ve asked me.”

“Sorry.” Kelsie stared in the mirror, trying to decide if she had messed up her lipstick again or if her mouth was really that oddly shaped. Her stomach was dancing a jig.

“Why are you so nervous about this date?
You’ve been seeing Mr. McKnight for a long time.”

Kelsie watched the blush creep into her pale cheeks. Why was she nervous? Because she and Alec had very nearly made love on the couch last night, and tonight smart money would bet he was going to make certain they didn’t have any interruptions, and now that she’d had a whole day to think about it, she was getting cold feet.

Elizabeth was watching her with amused blue eyes, calmly waiting for an answer.

“Because. Alec said he’s taking me somewhere very special for dinner and dancing, and I want everything to be perfect, that’s why.”

“Where’s he taking you?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“He’s
sooo
cute, Mom. Do you think he’s getting serious? Maybe he’s going to pop the question tonight! Maybe that’s why he’s taking you someplace special. Are you going to say yes?”

Kelsie leveled a stern look at her daughter. “I think you’re getting way ahead of the game. Alec and I have known each other only a few weeks,
honey. We’re having a nice time together, but I wouldn’t start looking for a bridesmaid dress if I were you. I couldn’t honestly say either Alec or I are ready to get married again, and I don’t want you asking him about it either.”

“Mom! What do you take me for, some kind of geek?” Elizabeth asked, looking highly offended—a look that almost instantly transformed itself to one of excited conspiracy. “You’d say yes, wouldn’t you? He’s
sooo
cute!”

A scowl from Kelsie sent Elizabeth away giggling. Giving up on her makeup, she padded barefoot to her room to dress. One of the great advantages of selling Naughty Nighties lingerie was the huge discount she got on merchandise. Over the last few years Kelsie had not been able to splurge on anything other than necessities, but, because of her discount, she had accumulated a lot of nice underwear. When she hadn’t been able to treat herself in any other way, she had been able to go to her dresser and pull out something wonderfully silky and lacy and sexy to wear.

She surveyed what she’d laid out on the bed for
this very special night, wondering what Alec would think when he saw it. Dropping her robe on a chair, she slipped into the brief black lace panties. The matching garter belt came next, followed by the sheer black stockings with the seam up the back. Finally she wiggled a snug, lacy black camisole on over her head, tugged it down into place, and took a look at herself in the mirror above her dresser.

She looked as if she had a hell of a lot more experience than she did. Quelling the urge to tear the garments off and replace them with more ordinary versions, she turned away from the mirror, hoping Alec wouldn’t end up accusing her of false advertising.

She stepped into a black lace petticoat and fastened it, then she put her black velvet dress on and turned back to the mirror. It was her one really fancy dress, which she’d picked up at an after-Christmas sale the year before. The lines were simple: a snug bodice with a simple round neckline that revealed nothing, a gently gathered skirt that stood out a bit with its petticoat beneath. The one sexy feature of the dress was the back. The upper
part was cut out and crisscrossed with two straps studded with rhinestones. The look was demure yet alluring. The rich black velvet invited one’s touch and turned Kelsie’s fair complexion to pearly cream.

She was just finishing tying a ribbon of black lace into her hair when she heard the doorbell ring.

“Hi, Alec.” Jeffrey greeted his new friend at the door with a high five.

Alec grinned. “Hi, sport. Nice hood ornament you’ve got there.”

“Jeffrey, I told you to get that bird off your head!” Kelsie yelled, hobbling into the room with one shoe on and one in her hand.

Pirate shrieked and stretched his wings out. “Hot mama, hot mama, hot mama!”

“I’ll have to agree with him there,” Alec said smoothly, his laser-blue gaze burning down from the top of her head to the tip of her one bare big toe.

Kelsie turned scarlet. That patented skin-searing look of his combined with his cat-that-got-the-canary smile was almost enough to send her running
for cover. Her body’s response to him was so strong, so swift—and he was half a room away! What was going to happen when he got his hands on her?

Her massive attack of nerves automatically flipped her switch for inane prattle. She forced her eyes to focus on the parrot, still perched atop her son’s head as he reached up to feed it a palm nut. “Like most hyacinth macaws, he has a very limited vocabulary. We got him from the Humane Society. He had a severe vitamin deficiency and had lost a lot of his plumage due to—”

Alec held up a hand to cut her off. “I think I caught the special on PBS,” he said, amused at her obvious nervousness. He winked at Kelsie’s daughter. “Hi, Elizabeth.”

The girl’s blush rivaled her mother’s. She glanced down and murmured a hello.

“Now, we’ll be kind of late, honey,” Kelsie said to her daughter, jamming her foot into her other shoe. “But I’ll call and check on you—”

“Mom!” Elizabeth groaned.

“Jeffrey, put the bird away and behave yourself.”

“There’s a buck in it for you,” Alec whispered to the boy as Kelsie slipped her coat on.

Jeffrey’s eyes lit up. “All right!”

Once they were in Alec’s car and on the road, Kelsie began fidgeting in her seat. “Where are we going?”

Alec smiled enigmatically. “It’s a surprise.”

“I hope I’m dressed right. Do I look all right?”

“Gorgeous
is the word I’d use,” he said, sending her a slow, bone-melting smile as they waited for a traffic light to change. “Beautiful.”

The word caressed her like a silken hand. Kelsie shivered in spite of her heavy wool coat. Remembrance of last night glowed in his eyes and started a steady burn in the pit of her stomach. To distract herself she said, “It’s not too much?”

“No.”

“Too little?”

“Honey, I promise you, you are dressed perfectly for where we’re going.”

“Good.”

She looked him over as he piloted the car north.
GQ
would have loved him; he wore clothes with such ease. They draped over his body
the same way Kelsie wanted to—gracefully, lovingly. He wore a trendy casual suit of black tweed flecked prominently with the same riveting blue of his eyes. His shirt was the same color—the color of seduction, Kelsie thought to herself. People thought red was sexy. They obviously had never encountered Alec McKnight’s eyes. There couldn’t be anything more sexy than the way his eyes had looked as he’d gazed down at her the moment before they’d been so rudely interrupted last night.

There won’t be any interruptions tonight, she thought. A wave of heat engulfed her. Her nipples tightened on her suddenly heavy breasts. She crossed her legs to try to ease the dull ache that had begun between her thighs. She turned up the radio and forced herself to memorize the words to every song she heard in an attempt to get her mind off sex.

Alec did nothing to help the situation. He remained unusually silent, tuned in to Kelsie’s sexual tension, content to let it build until the air in the car hummed with it.

Finally he turned the BMW off the street. A paved wooded drive led them to a fancy triplex cedar-sided town house.

“Where are we?” Kelsie asked cautiously.

“My place,” he said, helping her out of the car.

Her pulse jumped erratically. “Forget something?”

“Not a thing.”

“I thought we were going to dinner.”

“We are,” he said, leading her up the walk. He opened the door, bowing to her as he motioned her inside. “Welcome to Chez Alexander, where the dance floor is never crowded and the service is
very
personal.”

Kelsie stepped into the foyer, then followed Alec up the steps to the upper level of his home. Soft lights reflected off the highly polished oak floor in the kitchen and formal dining area. Beyond, a thick off-white carpet stretched across the living room to a wall of glass. The deck on the other side overlooked part of Lake Minnetonka. The furniture looked comfortable and expensive, but what really impressed Kelsie was that the
place was immaculate. There wasn’t so much as a throw pillow out of place.

Alec hung her coat in the closet, then went to turn on the music. Notes from a soft, bluesy sax drifted on the air from the stereo speakers as he lit a fire in the brick fireplace. Kelsie was looking over the table set for two when he came and pulled a chair out for her.

“Did you do all this?” she asked. A navy blue homespun tablecloth stretched under two settings of gleaming white china but no flatware. He lighted a trio of tall white tapers in silver candlesticks. A small silver bowl was overflowing with white carnations.

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured, his teeth nipping at her pearl earrings as he bent over her from behind. “For you. For us.”

A shallow, shuddering breath failed to fill Kelsie’s lungs. She forced herself to glance to the open kitchen with its oak cupboards and tiled counters. “Are you a good cook?”

“I have my specialties”—his voice brushed over her as his fingertips trailed down her throat—“in the kitchen… and out.”

“Oh.” The word was little more than an exhalation of breath, a puff of air that didn’t disturb the flames at the tops of the candles.

Flames. Oh, dear. Kelsie groaned inwardly. You’re way out of your league here, kid, she told herself. Everything Alec said and did seemed purposefully seductive. He was trying to arouse her to a flash point of desire and was succeeding famously. Her skin was alive to every sensation, her breasts felt as if they were straining the bodice of her dress, and he hadn’t even served the appetizer yet. She was going to be frantic by the end of the meal. She crossed her legs and tried to think of unsexy things like iguanas and spotted hyenas.