Once Around (29 page)

"
Ride me slowly," he urged. "We have all night." She could take him an inch at a time, settle her body around him, let her muscles fit themselves to his size and splendor, until they were fully joined. His control was staggering. He balanced himself on one elbow, leaning forward to caress her nipples with his lips and tongue.

After
a while all the disparate sensations ran together in one warm run of free-flowing honey. He filled her as completely as a man could fill a woman, and when her muscles rippled around him; she thought she would die from the sweet pain of pure joy. She rocked against him then rose up on her knees, only to slide down again, welcoming him deep inside her body once more. She could do this forever, she thought. This was why she'd been put on earth, for this miraculous connection, this utter ecstasy.

Finally he couldn
't hold back any longer and he rolled her onto her back and settled himself between her legs. He plunged deeply into her, straight to her soul.

And he never stopped looking at her
, never once broke the connection between them. She saw herself the way he saw her, as a woman worth loving. A woman with the capacity to give and receive pleasure.

She saw herself as a woman for the very first time.

#

He was lost in the lush splendor of her body. Her body molded itself to his length with a silky
, sinuous strength that brought him instantly to the edge.

You couldn
't live a dream without courting madness. That was part of the gamble, the dangerous appeal of making fantasy come true. She loved him with a heart-wrenching combination of shyness and abandon. Coupled with her uncommon beauty and his good fortune, it was an experience matched only by the gods in the heavens.

His rhythm grew faster
, more urgent, and she matched it with a rhythm all her own. Their rhythm, that's what it was. A rhythm that hadn't existed before they found each other. He felt the slightest rippling movement from the baby, and for a moment he wished he could turn back the clock and claim the baby as his own. He wanted to erase her husband's existence, banish all prior claim to her body. He could love this child. In a way he already did. He wondered if Molly knew that, if she had any idea.

He could love her the way she dreamed of being loved if she would give him the chance.

He wondered if she knew that he'd fallen in love with her the first moment he saw her—no, from the first moment he heard her cry of pain piercing the gentle suburban afternoon air. She'd touched his heart, the heart he thought had died the day Karen and Sarah walked Out the door and left him behind. The moment he saw Molly in the foyer of her empty house his heart thundered back to life and fell at her feet.

It belonged to her now. Everything he was or would be
, everything he would ever accomplish or dream of doing was hers.

She cried out his name as she climaxed
, and that was all he needed to bring him home where he belonged.

#

He talked after making love. He talked and he held her close, held her as if the afterglow were every bit as important as all that had come before. She discovered that it was easy to let yourself sink deeply into contentment and never come up for air.

They lay together face-to-face. Her belly pushed up against his as if they
'd slept together every night for years. Even the baby seemed happy and serene. She had never been that comfortable with Robert. After sex he'd always leaped from bed, eager to shower and get on with it. She'd come to dread making love with Robert because the loneliness she felt when it was over came close to breaking her heart He hated the earthy messiness of sex. He never said as much, but she'd known by the way he recoiled at anything approximating body fluids.

She
'd always thought she hated it, too, until tonight.

It was so different
with Rafe. He didn't leave. He just held her close. She closed her eyes and let herself pretend, just for a moment, that this was real. That it meant as much to him as it did to her. That there could be a future.

It was nearly midnight when the baby woke her. She sat up
, rubbing her belly, trying to place herself in time and space. The night came rushing back at her in vivid sensual detail and the urge to run was overwhelming. Quietly she swung her legs from the bed and gathered up her clothes from the floor where she'd tossed them hours ago when passion ruled. This was how it was done, wasn't it? You gathered up your things and disappeared before it all got awkward.

She
didn't want to see his face the morning after, that look of apprehension and regret she knew would be there. And who could blame him? She'd been every bit as aggressive as Jessy had with Spencer, and with about as much of a chance for a happily-ever-after ending.

The best she could do was get out with her dignity
still intact.

He slept deeply. His breathing was regular. He hadn
't heard a thing.

She slipped out into the narrow hallway and quickly dressed. The house was chilly
, and she shivered. It had been so warm in his arms. That bed had been a haven. For a little while she'd had the feeling that she'd finally found what she'd been searching for, that elusive place called home. How easy it would be to climb back into that warm bed and curl up next to him, pressing her nose against the warm spot under his arm, and pretend she belonged there, that she'd never belonged anywhere else, that sex and love were the same thing.

She had to leave while she still had the nerve.

She took the stairs on the inside, praying they wouldn't creak. She didn't want to have to explain herself to Rafe. She wasn't sure she could. The only thing she knew for sure was that she'd rather die than be sent home the way Jessy .had been. Jessy had tried to put a good face on it, but Molly hadn't been fooled. Spencer had politely given her the boot, the Princeton equivalent of cab fare home.

For the life of her she couldn
't remember anything about the setup of the main floor of the carriage house.

She stood at the foot of the stairs
, trying to get her bearings, then took a step to the right and cracked her toe against something hard.

"
Damn!" she murmured, hopping. about on one foot. Who would stick a road block in the middle of the traffic pattern? She bent down to inspect the culprit. A white shirt was draped across whatever it was. She picked it up and saw that it was the same dress shirt Rafe had worn to the dinner-dance Saturday night. Without thinking she pressed it to her face and inhaled. His scent lingered in the fabric and mingled with the evocative smell of raw pine. A work in progress, she thought, running her hand along the rough curves and angles. So he wasn't just a handyman.

Curious
, she knelt down to take a better look. The breath left her body in a sharp rush of emotion.

A cradle.

It was unfinished, more a promise of things to come than anywhere near the final article, but the sweet grace of it was unmistakable.

And so was its intent.

In the faint wash of waning moonlight she saw her initials. They were etched very lightly near the arc of the runner, a graceful, looping MKC that looked wonderful all by itself.

She covered her face with his shirt and cried as if her heart were breaking.

#

Rafe woke up the second she left his bed. He lay still
, listening. He heard her moving quietly about the room, then the sound of her footsteps as she walked down the hallway. The bathroom, he figured, and he settled back against his pillow to wait for her return. Except she didn't. He listened for sounds of running water or the toilet flushing, but everything was quiet.

He had a sudden
, terrifying image of her unconscious on the, bathroom floor, her hair red as blood, against the white tiles. The image was so real to him that his palms began to sweat. The hallway was pitch. black. She didn't know the first thing about the layout of the place. She could have stumbled and fallen, hit her head, hurt the baby somehow

He was out of bed in a flash and into the hallway. No sign of her there or in the bathroom. He checked the small office at the opposite end
, but the door was still closed. A sound caught his attention. Soft, almost inaudible, but somehow it reached him. He looked over the railing and saw Molly bent low over the cradle.

A moment later he was by her. side. He noticed she was dressed. Her car keys lay at her feet.

She tried to push him away, but he wouldn't go.

"
It's not finished yet," he said as she struggled to contain her tears. "I wasn't sure you'd want it." Or him, for that matter.

When she looked up a
nd he saw the expression in her eyes, he felt as if God had handed him a second chance at life.

"
You did this for me." It was a statement of wonder, the way she said it.

He nodded. The cradle spoke for him.

She held his face between her hands and looked at him for the longest time.

He had the sense of being in a dream
, that time and space no longer had any power over them.

"
Come back to bed," he said, brushing her hair off her face. "You need your sleep."

There was a moment after he said that when he might have lost her. He could feel the chill whisper of wind between them as she considered walking out the door and back into her
old life. He would never know what changed her mind and he would never ask. All he knew was that when she put her hand in his, he had everything in life he'd ever wanted and more.

Chapter Seventeen

The room was cold
, and he gave her a T-shirt to sleep in, soft, well-washed cotton that clung to her breasts and belly like a second skin.

"
I'm stretching it out of shape," she said with an embarrassed laugh.

He kissed her belly then each breast in turn.
"It's never looked better."

He brought her a. pot. of hot tea and a platter of bagels with cream cheese
, and they feasted in the middle of his big feather bed. She licked crumbs off his chest with the tip of her tongue. He kissed her while her mouth was still warm from tea.

He made her feel like a goddess. With
, every look, every touch, every word, her heart seemed to swell with emotions she'd never before experienced. Passionate, unruly emotions like love and desire and envy. Some woman had been his wife. She'd lain in his arms night after night, just like this.

You were
a fool to leave,
Molly thought as he drifted off to sleep next to her.
How could you leave a man like this?

She lay quietly
, listening to the night sounds outside the open window and the steady metronome beat of his heart. She smelled the river, that earthy wet smell of life, and the sharp scent of pine. The air was crisp and just cool enough to warrant the down comforter Rafe had placed over them. It was a thick, luxurious comforter, but it couldn't compare to the warmth of his body close to hers.

Nothing was the way she
'd expected it to be. She'd expected a shack somewhere near the river, with dirty dishes on the floor and a cot pushed up against the wall, but this was a real home—a man's home, sensual in a way that made her dizzy. The walls had texture to them, not just a layer of paint. Wooden surfaces gleamed. Nothing seemed planned, but everything was exactly the way it should be. As solid and real and masculine as he was.

It felt more like home than anyplace she
'd ever been in her life.

She got up twice during the night to use the bathroom. Both times Rafe woke up and turned
on the light so she could find her way through the unfamiliar darkness. When she woke up the third time, sunlight splashed through the windows, and Rafe was gone.

Her first instinct was to panic the way she used to in the mall when Robert disappeared
, but she forced herself to keep her imagination under control.

Rafe
's side of the bed was still warm. He was probably in the shower, she told herself as she swung her feet to the polished wooden floor. This was his house. He wouldn't walk out on her there.

Robert did. He walked out of his house and left you with the mortgage.

Rafe was nothing like her husband. If she'd had any doubts about that at all, last night had erased them. Still, her feelings of abandonment ran deep. She peered out the window and almost cried with relief when she saw his truck parked at the ,top of the drive, not far from where she'd left her Jeep.

He could leave the room without leaving her life. She had to remember that.