Some Enchanted Season (28 page)

Some time passed before he summoned the energy to pull the blankets over them. This was what she wanted, she thought as he pulled her close, fitted his body like a glove against hers. This was what she’d
always
wanted—passion, intimacy, two-halves-of-a-whole satisfaction. So far she’d found it only with Ross.

Would she ever find it with somebody else?

H
ow was a man supposed to act the morning after the second biggest mistake in his life?

Ross awakened early Saturday morning with that
thought in his mind—and Maggie’s long, lean, naked body in his arms. He knew how he
wanted
to act, he thought with a scowl as his body hardened. He wanted to shift her leg, slide inside her, and wake her up with the gentlest lovemaking she could imagine. He wanted to roll her onto her back and fill her again, wanted to roll onto his own back and lift her above him. He wanted to give her again that hazy, supremely satisfied look that only he had ever given her, to take her again and again until she gave up forever the idea of another man. He wanted to brand her as his own, to make it impossible for her to ever forget it.

But she
wasn’t
his. He’d given up his right to her the day he’d decided to sleep with another woman.

The memory had the effect of an icy shower. It uncurled his arm from around her waist, lifted the covers, and slid him away from her soft, silky heat. After retucking the blankets around her, he pulled on the sweats he’d discarded on the floor, nudged up the thermostat, then went to the bathroom down the hall. He would shower and get dressed, make coffee and check his mail and messages. By the time Maggie woke up, he would know what to say, what to do, how to handle this potentially fatal mistake.

But when he finished dressing after his shower, he’d found no answers and had no interest in coffee or mail or messages. Though he knew it would be best to walk away—to treat last night like the aberrancy it was—when he left his room, he didn’t go away. He returned to her room, turned the rocker to face the bed, sat down, and watched her sleep.

He never should have come in last night when her
tears awakened him, but he’d been frightened, panicked. He could no more have lain in his bed and left her to sob alone than he could go back and change their past. And so he’d come in and left his good sense and willpower at the door, and when things had turned sexual …

Hell, he couldn’t even completely regret it. Sex with Maggie had always been the best times of his life, and last night had been no different.

Except that they were supposed to divorce in another month or two.

The reminder forced his features into a deep scowl that eased only after several minutes spent studying her. She lay on her side, her hands folded beneath her chin. There were shadows under her eyes—restless sleep and heartbroken sobs could do that—but she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. He already knew he would measure every woman he ever met against her and find them lacking, which didn’t bode well for his future. She was everything he’d ever wanted—everything he’d once turned his back on. Now he found himself wanting her again—this morning. Next week. Next month.

Next year.

She shifted, sighed, stretched her arms above her head. Some mornings she was slow to awaken. Others, her eyes popped open and she was instantly alert. She opened her eyes, yawned, saw him sitting there and automatically smiled, then remembered last night and just as quickly did a mental retreat. “Good morning,” she said, not at all sure that it was. Her earlier stretch had pulled the covers to a point above the tips of her
breasts. Even as he felt a stab of desire, she pulled them up tight around her chin. “What—what are you doing …?”

“I slept here.” His voice took on an edge. “Was I supposed to return to my own room when we were done? Was that a part of the agreement we didn’t get around to discussing?”

Her cheeks flushed the same becoming rosy shade they took on when she was in the throes of orgasm. “I—I didn’t … I just … of course not.”

He should have gone downstairs—should have left her to wake up alone, to deal with what had happened before she had to deal with him. He should have given her a chance to face the dismay and the regret—because he would bet this year’s profits that that was what she was feeling—but now it was too late. Now they had to face it together.

“Do you expect me to apologize?” he asked when it became clear that she wasn’t going to speak.

“Of course not,” she said indignantly. “Do you expect me to?”

“For what?”

“It was my idea.”

“An idea I’ve been fighting for more than a week.”

“Why?”

He gestured impatiently at the distance between them. “Isn’t it obvious?”

She gave no response, but after a time she asked a cautious question of her own. “Is this what it was like after the last time?”

His smile was thin and humorless as he shook his head. “I wanted to make love to you again the next
morning, but when I woke up, you were gone. When you finally came back, you pretended as if nothing had happened, and”—the male sexual ego being the fragile thing it was—“I let you. Things went back to exactly the way they were before. You lived your life, and I lived mine, and we never deliberately touched again.”

After another moment’s silence, she asked in a hesitant, fearful whisper, “Would you be interested in making love to me again this morning?”

For a long time he simply looked at her. When finally he offered an answer, it was simple, quiet, all too aware of the rejection she had risked, that he was risking. “Yes. I would.”

She swallowed hard, then pushed back the covers in silent invitation. Slowly his gaze slid from her face to her throat, over her breasts to her belly, one smooth hip, one shapely thigh. He knew she watched him—to see if he lingered, looking for scars he’d never seen?—but he didn’t.

His clothes came off easily, landing in an untidy pile on the floor, then he joined her in bed. His first simple touch sent a delicate shiver through her. The second made her breath catch. The third made his own breath catch. By the time he took her, her skin was slick with sweat, her breathing ragged, her responses raw and shocky. She welcomed him into her with a gasp, then a long, low moan that vibrated through him. She felt so incredibly good. So incredibly
right
.

They took it slowly, as if years hadn’t passed since they’d shared a lazy Saturday-morning seduction, and yet always there, always present, was the need—sharp, demanding, building. Turning onto his back, he lifted
her over him, then relinquished control to her, lay still, and simply looked at her. With her face flushed, her hair mussed, her body all soft and quivery, she looked like a woman on the verge of pure, sweet delight. She was the only woman he’d ever seen like this.

The only woman he’d ever loved like this.

He knew the exact instant she relinquished control too—knew when the need for satisfaction became desperate and drove her faster, harder, deeper—and then for one incredible moment he knew nothing. Nothing but pleasure so intense that he groaned with it. Nothing but heat, sensation, throbbing, filling, dying.

Nothing but Maggie.

Quiet settled around them. Her breathing eased. The rushing in his ears quieted. The shudders that racked them both calmed. She lay against him, still astride him, still gloving him. Her hair fell forward to hide her face, but he didn’t need to see. He knew the sweet look she wore, the one he took such pleasure in, the one that was a twin to his own expression.

Finally, after time, she lifted her head, pushed her hair back, and somber green eyes met his. “This changes things, doesn’t it?”

He nodded.

“How?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It doesn’t have to.” Her voice took on a casual tone that he didn’t like. He didn’t want casual from her. He wanted passion. Need. Greed. “We can behave like two intelligent, mature adults and accept that sex between two healthy people who have been a couple as long as we have is a perfectly normal occurrence. We
can ensure that it doesn’t happen again, or we can fulfill each other’s needs, indulge that aspect of our marriage for the time that remains, and then go ahead with our plans as intended.”

He scowled at her. “We amend the terms of our agreement to include sex, then in another four or six or eight weeks we both just walk away as planned. You think it’s that easy?”

She ducked her head and answered so softly that he barely heard. “No.”

“And how would we ensure that it doesn’t happen again? As you said, we’re two healthy adults. We both enjoy sex, particularly with each other, and we’ve had damn little of it in the last three years. How—”

“Four years,” she interrupted. “And whose fault was that? Who was always working? Who was always gone?”

He arched one brow. “So now you want to lay blame. Of course. You always get around to that sooner or later. Well, let me save you the trouble, Maggie. It was
my
fault. I was obsessed with work. I spent more time at the office than I did at home. I forced you to go to boring parties. I dressed you up in gowns and jewels to show you off and then I put you away and forgot about you until I needed you again. I made you live in a house you hated and gave you money you didn’t want. I neglected you, ignored you, used you, manipulated you, abandoned you. It was all my fault. Everything that ever went wrong between us was all my fault. Are you satisfied?”

She scrambled out of bed, snatched up a robe from
the floor, and fumbled it on, in the process giving him his first look at the scars. Guilt overwhelmed him as he stared. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but reach out a trembling hand, utter a stricken whisper. “Oh, God, Maggie …”

Shame flooded her face. She pulled the robe tight and tied the belt with a savage yank. “Get out.”

Her voice was deadly calm, deadly angry, and too late he realized that the horror he felt must have shown on his face. He slid to the edge of the bed, but she stepped away. By the time he was on his feet, she was in the bathroom, slamming the door in his face, locking it before he thought to push his way in.

He rested his palm against the wood. “Maggie, I’m sorry.” Sorry and sickened by the evidence of what he’d done to her.
He
was responsible for the obscene scars and all the pain behind them. If not for him …

“Maggie, please open the door.”

There was complete silence in the bathroom.

“Please, Maggie, just let me explain.… ”

The sound of rushing water broke the quiet as she turned on the shower. A moment later, from the change in tenor, he knew she’d stepped underneath the spray and, frustrated, he banged his fist on the door. “Damn it, Maggie! I didn’t mean …” The frustration dissolved, and he turned slowly away from the door.

She’d been right about one thing. It
was
all his fault. Everything. And he had to live with that.

•   •   •

W
hen her skin had shriveled and the water had turned cold, Maggie shut off the shower, but she didn’t get to her feet. She remained where she’d spent the last twenty minutes, huddled on the tiles. The water had sprayed over her bowed head, cocooning her in a loud, wet world, but she’d still been able to hear Ross.

She’d still been able to see his revulsion, to feel his disgust.

Tears welled, and she angrily dashed them away. She wouldn’t cry over this. So she was damaged goods. So he probably wouldn’t have wanted her if he’d seen her first. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want any man who could look at her that way simply because she was flawed. There were worse things than having a few scars—like dying.

Like seeing that the very sight of your body sickened the man who had just made love with you.

Lifting her head, she listened to the room outside the door but heard nothing. He was gone, thank God. She didn’t want to see him again, not yet.

Slowly she got to her feet, stiff, a little sore. She dried her body, combed her hair. Opening the door just a crack, she peered out and saw that his clothes were gone from the floor. Quickly, she dressed, applied makeup, fixed her hair, then ventured into the hallway, half expecting to find him waiting.

His voice came faintly from downstairs. Even at a distance she recognized anger. Once he’d satisfactorily ruined her day, he must have decided to do the same for Tom or some other poor sucker who worked for him.

Downstairs she tiptoed to the hall closet. She took out her coat and purse, added a scarf and gloves, then slipped out the side door. She needed time alone, and a walk to Harry’s for breakfast seemed just the ticket.

The snow was heavy on the sidewalk but not impassable. Out there in the cold, the quiet, the solitude, she could be numb to the hurt, the shame. She could be alone and pretend that it was what she wanted. She could recapture her dreams for the future—for getting Ross out of her life and falling in love with someone new.

By the time she reached Harry’s, though, she was cold but far from numb, and she hadn’t come close to finding her way past the fear that a future without Ross was no future at all.

With her arms full of dishes, Maeve greeted her cheerfully. “You just find a seat wherever you can, Maggie, and I’ll be right with you.”

She was scanning the café for a seat when a wave from the last booth caught her attention. It was J. D. Grayson, inviting her to join him. Because any company was better than her own this morning—except Ross’s—she accepted the invitation.

“Are you out alone this morning?” he asked.

“I’m a grown woman. I’m allowed to go out by myself.”

“Hey, you’ll get no argument from me. This is just the first time I’ve seen you out without Ross.” When her only response was to look down at her hands, in a more serious tone he asked, “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing you’d want to know about.”

“I’m a psychiatrist. I want to know about everything.”

She shook her head as Maeve arrived with coffee. After Maggie placed her order, the waitress asked, “Is that handsome husband of yours joining you?”

Smiling tautly, Maggie shook her head.