Sleeping Arrangements (Silhouette Desire) (13 page)

Her mother’s hand stroked her hair with a soft touch.

“All will be well, I know,” Addy said. She looked up at her mother. “If only you could tell me how to make sure.”

“There is no making sure, sweetheart. There’s only being kind to each other and trusting in that to get us through. Now let’s take a look at that ankle.”

In the living room, ankle rewrapped securely with instructions to continue the occasional icing, Addy curled up on the couch next to Sarah. She turned down Maxie’s offer of coffee, not wanting to be kept up with her thoughts, and felt tiredness creep over her.

It had been quite a weekend.

She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until someone shook her gently awake. She opened her eyes to see Spencer crouched next to her, his eyes on a level with hers where her head rested on the arm of the sofa. Her mind stumbled on the thought that the last time he’d woken her up kneeling next to her in a cozy room, he’d kissed her.

“Hey, there, sleepy one.” He didn’t move as she reached out a sleep-slow hand to push a stray curl off his forehead. But his eyes gleamed. “Let’s get you home.”

“Home. Right.” She sat up and yawned. Better not to ask herself where that particular tender gesture had come from. The room was empty except for the two of them.

“They’re in the kitchen, packing up leftovers,” he said, answering her unasked question. “Your sisters have claimed the lot, I’m afraid.”

“S’okay. Mom can always make more.” Her coat and things were on the couch next to her. She let him pull her up and steady her as she wobbled on one foot and bundled herself up. Told herself that she was just folllowing her mother’s instructions to be kind as she leaned on him and thanked him for helping her.

“Anytime.” Surely it was okay for a husband to press a kiss to the top of his wife’s head. She smiled, guessing that she must still be half-asleep to be so mellow.

Goodbyes were quick and filled with love and promises made to come visit her soon at her new residence. Her mother was the last at the door, tugging Spencer down to kiss him on the cheek and then repeating the gesture with her daughter.

“Safe home,” she said.

The warmth of the car was surprising, until she realized that Spencer must have gone outside earlier to warm it up for her. She shifted her shoulders until she could watch him unobtrusively, his profile dimming and brightening in the glow of passing streetlights as they drove home. How did he manage it? She gave him little incentive to be nice to her and yet he found ways to be kind to her time after time.

At a stoplight, he turned and looked at her and smiled for a moment before the light turned green. Turning back to the road, he accelerated.

She would try to be kind, also, and trust in that.

“Thank you.” The words didn’t seem to be enough, so she rested her hand lightly on his arm for a moment, wondering if perhaps she could communicate her gratitude by her touch. “For being so kind to my family.” Which wasn’t precisely all she meant, so she forced herself to finish. “To me.” She leaned her head back against the headrest, satisfied that she’d gotten it all out. Her eyes drifted shut in the quiet hiss of tires speeding through slush.

“They’re easy to be kind to. I like them,” she heard him say as she slipped back into the sleep she’d found in her mother’s house and felt his hand reach over and take hers and squeeze gently. She meant to squeeze back but wasn’t sure her tired limbs obeyed her command. And she was sure she imagined it when she heard him say, “I like you, too.”

She dozed on the edge of sleep, barely awake to mumble a protest when his hand slid from hers and everything grew quiet. A moment later, the door at her side opened and she felt herself being unbuckled from the seat belt and lifted from the seat with the ease a parent would use on a sleepy toddler. She curled up and tucked her head into the warmth of his neck, knowing there was some reason she should be walking but drowsily breathing in the vanilla-and-leather scent of him as he carried her carefully to their house.

Only as she felt him mount the steps to the front door did she remember her protests of the day before. She stiffened for a moment as he fumbled with keys at the door until he hushed her.

“Shh, go back to sleep. It’s not a big deal.”

But it was. And she was wide awake as her husband of twenty-four hours pushed the door open and carried her over the threshold into their home.

“Y
ou shouldn’t have done that.”

She squirmed out of his arms, stripping off her gloves. He let her go slowly, so that she slid the length of his body before coming to a precarious rest at his feet, his arms still encircling her. She bumped up against him as the dog bounded into them, barking happily in joy at their return and in a clear request to be let out now.

Spencer reached behind him with one hand and yanked the door open far enough for Elwood to squirm through into the cold night air. He shut the door again and pulled Addy back to him before she could escape.

“Why not?”

There were no lights on in the hall, but she could see him well enough to know he wasn’t laughing at her. The cloth of his coat was cold beneath her bare hands, even as she felt his body’s heat beneath.

“Because,” she said, frustrated again by her lack of words in the face of the awkwardness of their relationship. Why
was it that he never seemed to get tongue-tied around her? She tried to explain. “Because it’s a symbol of something. Of a kind of love relationship.” She stuttered to a halt. “Of something we just don’t have,” she finished lamely.

His hands slid down until his arms rested around her waist. She still wasn’t going anywhere. In the darkness, she felt the pull of his gaze.

“I don’t know what we have.” His voice was low and husky and vibrated in her bones with the steady hum of a tuning fork striking just the right note. “All I know is that we’re married for the next six months at least. And I for one can’t get my mind off my spouse.” His hands began making small circles on her lower back. “I had a hard time concentrating during dinner. All I could think of was how it felt to have my mouth on you.”

Did men know that it was their words that seduced women more than anything else? Addy felt herself go under again at the spell of his.

“Me, too.”

Just once, she told herself as she pulled his face down to hers. Just once she’d let herself make the first move. Then never again. But she had to have this one time, so help her, or she’d go mad.

The heat of his mouth burned into her, a warmth that raced through her body as her mouth opened and she tangled her tongue with his. Tasting him was like drinking greedily of the richest wine, a heady rush into intoxication that sent liquid fire sparking over her skin until she tangled her fingers in his hair to stop their electric tingling. But she only pulled him closer. Fiercely she attacked his mouth, taking out her frustrations in sucking bites at his lips before welcoming the thrust of his tongue against hers once more.

God, she was hot. Stifling.

“Wait.” His protest as her arms left him turned to eager help as she shrugged out of her jacket and pulled her hat and scarf off to dump them on the floor. Finished, she kissed him again,
their mouths connecting awkwardly as both their hands tugged at the buttons on his coat until it, too, fell to the ground in a heap at their feet. Closer now to his body, but not as close as she wanted to be, Addy let her hands roam over his shoulders and the muscles of his back that she’d eyed so hungrily only hours before, and welcomed his mouth again.

When Spencer tugged on her hair until her head tilted back, and burned the skin of her throat with hot, wet kisses, she knew what it was like to live a fantasy.

The gentle stroke of his tongue on the pulse in the hollow of her throat had her breath hitching with desire. He tugged on the handful of her sweater bunched in one fist, bending her farther backward, and she gasped as the rough fabric dragged over her hardening nipples.

That he could read her every breath showed as he bent over her arched torso and captured one aching breast with his mouth. Her hands were back in his hair, pulling him closer, pushing him away—she didn’t know which, just that she was dizzy with wanting him.

When she stumbled and landed on her weak ankle, she tried to muffle her yelp, not wanting the pressure of his mouth dampening the fabric of her sweater to cease. She cursed under her breath when he stood up.

“Damn it.” His words echoed hers.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, hauled her off her feet and walked her backward through the dark room until his foot struck the bottom step of the staircase. He turned, sat down heavily and pulled her across his lap. He wrapped one hand around her shoulders, fingers stroking the side of her neck, as the other raced up under her sweater, popped open the front closure of her bra, pushed it aside and cupped her bare breast.

“Now, where were we?” His whisper vibrated against the sensitive skin of her lips. She licked them to still the sensation and then licked his lips because it seemed the better idea. His tongue chased after hers. His thumb was rubbing back and
forth over the pebble of her nipple while his fingernails scraped gently against the outer curve of her breast. She was moaning into his mouth as his hand shifted, his palm resting between her breasts as his fingers and thumb stretched wide until he was stroking both of her nipples at once.

Her insides melted into liquid heat. She ached between her legs with wanting him. She needed him, his clever hands and his hot mouth to be everywhere.

When his hand reached for the hem of her sweater, she was already tugging it off. Her arms were still tangled in the sleeves above her head when he bent down and sucked one nipple into his wet mouth. She arched her back, offering him more. She would offer him everything if only he wouldn’t stop.

Hands free at last, she was incoherent in her demands as her hands streaked over him, pulling at his sweater, until finally she forced her hands beneath his chin, pulled his mouth off her and got his attention.

“Off.” She pulled his sweater up over the smooth skin of his torso.

“Yes, ma’am.” He lifted his arms and let her pull the offending garment over his head. Finally. She pressed her breasts against the hot skin of his chest and reveled in the purely sensual feel of skin on skin. The scent of him radiated and she sucked it in like pure oxygen.

Until his mouth covered hers again and she breathed him in instead. She wrapped her hands around his biceps and felt the muscles, like stone under silk, tightening beneath her fingers. Then pulled her mouth from his and attacked him with lips and tongue everywhere she could reach, lingering in places that made him groan in turn.

The strong tendons of his throat. The almost delicate ridge of his collarbone. The small, hard bump of his nipple. She dragged her fingernails down the length of his spine past the waist of his jeans and felt him shudder beneath her. He returned the favor, making her back arch with pleasure like a cat, until his long fingers were buried down the back of her jeans.

When he flexed his fingers against the bare skin of her butt, she knew he’d realized something.

“Why, Mrs. Reed,” he drawled in the dark, “I do believe you aren’t wearing any drawers.”

“I know.” She felt his grin against her mouth as she kissed him again. “Don’t go thinking it’s because of you. I almost always go commando.”

“I’m never going to be able to look at you the same way again,” he said and flexed his fingers one more time. “I’ll always be thinking about getting my hands in your pants.”

“Whatever. Stop talking.”

Her hands framed his face as she pulled it back to hers, her tongue reaching for his as their mouths danced.

It seemed an instant and an eternity later when they paused. Spencer moved to reclaim her breast and Addy sucked in several deep breaths, flooding her system with sense-heightening oxygen. He stroked the nape of her neck with featherlight fingers and she shivered, but not from being cold. If anything, she was warmer than ever, sweating in fact, and seriously considering taking off both of their pants, when she heard Elwood bark.

She ignored the dog without a qualm and started working her hands between their two bodies, certain she could find the button fly of Spencer’s jeans if she tried hard enough. Besides, the dog sounded far away.

When the barking, polite but determined, continued, Spencer lifted his head from her breast and cursed in frustration.

“Why the hell do I own a dog?” He pulled her arms off his neck and scooted her butt off his lap and onto the stair riser. “I have to let him in or he’ll freeze to death. Don’t move.”

Five long strides carried him to the door. Elwood burst through as soon as it opened, and stopped to shake snow all over the hall and the heaps of their discarded clothing. By the time Spencer closed the door and turned back to her, Addy was on her feet, one hand braced against the wall.

The other hand she raised in front of her, palm out, to stop him where he stood.

“Aw, no, Addy. Don’t do this.” His request was quiet, the outline of his body dimly visible in the darkness. And the darkness made it too easy to pretend that what they’d been doing wasn’t real. Was simply a fantasy come to life in a dreamland of shadow that would never come to the light of day.

She shook her head and slid her hand along the wall until she found the plate of a light switch. Turned it on.

The flood of light made her eyes blink until they adjusted, but she welcomed it. Welcomed the light and the cold air that had swept in from the outside to chill the hallway. She needed these reminders of the real world.

In the light, she saw him as he saw her. Stripped to the waist, both with jeans and boots still on. She didn’t try to cover herself. The time for modesty was long past. She watched his eyes move over her nakedness and felt pleasure when their gazes locked again, knowing he wanted her even more at the sight of her.

“I want you.” She saw the electricity of her words race over his body before leaping back to her own. Her knees trembled with the truth of the words and she said them again. “I want you.”

The silence between them was broken only by the sounds of the dog noisily galloping off, in search of food no doubt.

“But.” It wasn’t even a question.

She answered it anyway.

“But I have to know what’s right for me. And at the moment, that’s unclear.” She grimaced at the understatement of the year. “I’m not going to let myself get hurt.”

“And I don’t plan on hurting you.”

“Plan it or not, if this goes too far, you could. Hell, you could be nothing but kind—” that word again, refrains of her mother’s voice at this definitely inappropriate time “—and I could end up hurting myself. Because in six months this all comes to an end.”

Her words sat between them like the uninvited guest at a party. His lips tightened. She could tell he was debating whether or not to say something, and waited for him to decide. A moment later he spoke.

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Doesn’t what?”

“Come to an end.” He was watching her closely. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to speak, Spencer continued.

“What if in six months’ time we still like each other? Get along fairly well, even. What’s to stop us from letting things go from there?”

“You mean, if one of us hasn’t killed the other by then, let’s stay married?” She could have grinned at her phrasing—almost.

Spencer wasn’t smiling. “Something like that.”

“We may be legally married. And I may want the hell out of you.” She reached out a hand and gripped the stairway banister. “But I am always going to want more out of marriage than that.”

She turned and began making her slow way up the steps. She stopped on the third stair and looked over her shoulder at him where he stood still in front of the door. He hadn’t moved an inch since she’d thrown her hand out and stopped him.

“You were right earlier,” she said, trying to offer him something in the face of her withdrawal. “It’s
when
I decide to go to bed with you. Not
if.
”

She continued limping upward, not stopping even as she heard his voice call her name.

“Addy.”

She knew he was putting something important into the shape of her name but chose to answer him lightly.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know when I make up my mind.”

Once in her room, she headed straight for the bathroom, where she cranked on the hot water in the shower and finished peeling off her clothes. I probably ought to be taking a cold one, she thought, if only I weren’t using the shower as an excuse to close one more door between myself and temptation.

Ten minutes later, hair wrapped in a towel and emotions wrapped in a firm grip of controlled reason, she stepped back
into her room. The tableau that met her stopped her in her tracks.

An old-fashioned mahogany bed tray rested on the foot of her bed. On it sat a still-steaming pot of tea, a flowered teacup and saucer, a towel and a sealed plastic bag of ice in a metal bowl. A note card rested on top of the teacup. She picked it up.

She tucked the note into her sock drawer with its mates, removed the tea fixings to the safety of the nightstand and climbed into bed with the bag of ice. She draped the towel over her ankle, plopped the bag of ice on top and leaned back against a stack of pillows, determined to close her eyes and relax.

After ten minutes of staring at the opposite wall, her ankle was thoroughly chilled and her mind as thoroughly tangled in knots.

If only the man would stop being so goddamn
nice
to her, she might be able to think straight. She dropped the sloshing bag into the bowl on the floor beside the bed, turned out the light, rolled over and punched a pillow into suitable submission beneath her head. She muttered the name of her husband-slash-tormentor with evil intonation and willed herself to sleep.

At some wee hour of the morning, after slugging back two cups of cool chamomile tea, she finally managed to drift off. Her dreams were filled with a darkly sardonic Mr. Darcy in the grand romantic tradition—
but he’s blond and has blue eyes, her sleeping mind protested dimly
—who loomed over her and never ran out of subtly persuasive words. She felt herself as Elizabeth struggling to fence back with a wit that seemed barely sufficient.