Think About Love (27 page)

Adrienne, he assumed, had managed some sort of extension or leave. He knew she meant well but felt irritation at the way she'd simply taken Dorothy off and left Sam in the dark.

The house was quiet. He rolled up the drive and parked Sam's Honda beside Dorothy's rattletrap. Had Sam been driving this thing? She'd promised him she would call a taxi if she went out.

She must have gone to bed. He closed the car door quietly, left his computer and bag in the car, and stepped up onto the porch. He saw a light through the window, the television playing in the living room. He could see Sam now, watching television.
 

She hadn't heard the car.

He crossed the veranda and lifted his hand to knock, but something about her pose stopped him. She was asleep.

He turned the knob and the door swung open. He shed his shoes and jacket, walked into the silence on stocking feet. On the television, Michael Douglas was dancing with Annette Bening at a formal White House dinner. Sam had muted the television, perhaps for a commercial. Or maybe she'd been sitting in the easy chair, watching their lips move without sounds.

Did she like to watch old movies with the sound off? He'd always found it amusing to speculate on the dialogue spoken by actors on a muted TV. He wanted to wake her, to ask if she shared his weird taste.

He slipped into the baby's bedroom and found Kippy lying on her back, snoring softly, an angelic smile on her face. Last night, Sam had told him Kippy had been babbling all afternoon and evening, a whole new vocabulary of baby talk. Then she'd changed the subject abruptly and began talking about problems with Tremaine's developer.

He felt a breeze blow in through the window and quietly moved to adjust it so the breeze wouldn't fall directly on the baby. Then he slipped out of the bedroom.

He was going to carry Sam to bed very carefully, and with luck she wouldn't even wake. She needed her sleep, and he had no intention of waking her.

She did wake, though, halfway up the stairs. He heard her gasp and looked down into her open eyes.

"Cal, what are you doing?" She looked started and confused, pulled from sleep.

"Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I'm just putting you to bed."

"Put me down."

"You're not heavy." Women were always worrying about their weight, but Sam had no cause. She was perfect, with real curves and her own slender beauty. "You're tired."

"Cal!"

It dawned on him that she was really upset and he finished climbing the stairs and stepped into her room, shut the door to keep their words from disturbing the baby's sleep downstairs. Then he set her on her feet and she immediately stepped back from him.

"What are you doing?" She sounded panicked now, not sleepy.

"You were sleeping. I was carrying you to bed."

She shoved her hair back, but it had become tangled in her sleep and it promptly spilled back over her cheeks and shoulders.

"I... you startled me."

"I gathered."

"I think I'll—I need to get to sleep."

He could see the nerves sparking in her eyes. She wasn't sleepy. Not now. They could have been back on the beach on their wedding night, with Sam jumpy and him not knowing how the hell to soothe her.

Everything should have changed. She'd walked naked in front of him, for heaven's sake, had seen his reaction and strutted, deliberately teasing him. She'd kneeled at his feet in the shower and made love to him with love flowing over in her eyes.

"Yeah," he said. "You'd better get some sleep."

"I... are you—I don't... I'm tired tonight."

"I've got work to do. I'll be up for a couple more hours."

He saw relief in her eyes and inside him, something snapped.

"Good night, then." She stood, waiting for him to leave. She was wearing the now-familiar jeans, but topped with a sweatshirt he hadn't seen before. He saw her bra lying on the top of the dresser behind her and knew she was naked under the shirt.

But he recognized the coolness in her eyes, and the wariness. While he was away she'd rebuilt her mask. Now, standing here, just staring at her, he could feel her slipping away from him.

"One thing," he said. His own voice wasn't working right.

She was his lover, his wife. What had happened to the intimacy they'd shared? What would it take before Sam would cease needing to restore the barriers every time they separated for even a few moments?

She shoved at her hair again, didn't seem to know what to do with her hands. He wanted to hold her, to feel her nestle trustingly against him as she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep. Maybe she wanted the same, but he couldn't see anything of the other Sam—of Samantha.

"What one thing?" she asked finally.

"A good-night kiss."

"What?"

"You're my wife. I'd like a good-night kiss before you go to bed." He needed her to look at him, to admit that she cared, that she ached for him as he ached for her. He needed her to be his lover, not just in passion but in life, and hadn't he seen that kind of love in her eyes, deep down, hidden behind the mask worn by the woman facing him?

"Cal, tonight I... you don't mean us to make love?"

"I want to kiss you good night," he said and admitted to himself that he intended to use that kiss to find the way through this mask she wore.

She stepped a few inches closer, offered her closed lips to him, her eyelashes dropped, concealing her eyes from him. Not quite trusting him. Did she think she would cool his desire by waving a challenge like that in his face? Passive lips, lowered eyes.

He took his time, sliding his hands into her hair first. She'd made a mistake, lowering her eyes, because he could study her freely. As he let her hair slide through his hands he saw the muscle jump in her throat.

"Sam?"

Her eyes fluttered open.

"Samantha," he said softly. His fingers stroked the curve of her cheek where the hair kept tumbling back. "You looked very beautiful sleeping in the living room." He smoothed the hair back and curved his fingers to the sweet contour of her cheek, her jaw.

He felt her swallow. Nervousness? Desire?

He intended to find out.

He covered her mouth with his, lips closed, and brushed her lower lip softly. His lips paused against the tiny dip at the corner of her mouth. Surely that was a tremble he felt go through her?

He angled her face just enough to allow him to seek the curve of her cheek, then the trembling fragility of her eyelids with his mouth.

Her eyes fluttered closed, then opened almost immediately. He pressed the softest touch to close them again and returned to her mouth.

"Cal?" Her voice sounded thin, fragile. "We... you said we weren't...."

He soothed her with kisses to her eyelids. "Hush, sweetheart."

She whimpered but didn't pull away.

He didn't take her mouth, which had relaxed enough that it might have given permission for him to slip his tongue into her. Instead he gentled her with his mouth on her throat, her earlobe. He felt her tremble again and he stroked her face, her throat, the slender curve of her shoulders through the sweatshirt, ran his hands down the outsides of her arms and linked his fingers with hers.

Then he angled his head and returned to her lips, but despite the slow hammering of his pulse, he forced gentleness, soothing lightly, refusing to slide into the temptation of her parted lips when she let out a long breath and her hands clenched in his.

He returned to her eyes, smoothed his hands up her arms. Her breath hitched.

"Should I stop, Samantha?"

She made a sound. It wasn't a word, more like one of the sounds she said Kippy had been making today. He stroked her with his voice. "I wouldn't want to keep you up when you're eager to go to bed."

When his hands slid down to her wrists this time, he felt her pulse hammer. She might hide her response from his eyes, but her heartbeat gave her away. He covered her lips with his and lifted her into his arms, lowered her gently onto the spread of her single bed.

"Good night, Samantha," he murmured, his lips against her throat where her pulse throbbed. Her hands clenched in his shirt and he knew he had to leave, now, before this went too far. She'd told him, trusted him when he said it wasn't lovemaking on his mind. But he'd needed....

This was wrong. She'd trusted him.

Then she opened her eyes and he was lost, because it was there. Open and fragile, vulnerable.

"I want to love you," he said, his voice hoarse.

Her fingers clenched tighter in his shirt. He unfastened them and kissed the tension from them; then he lowered them to her sides and began slowly stroking her through the big sweatshirt. Her shoulders, her arms, the soft trembling of her midriff.

When her hands moved to him, he stopped her. "Hush," he murmured. "Let me do this for you."

He held his throbbing need harshly under control, forced his hands and his mouth to slow, slow gentleness. When she moaned under his touch he slowly drew the clothes from her, kissing her hands when they grew restless.

"Let me," he urged softly, and something happened to the hard knot of need within him. It eased, soothed by the soft touch of her skin, arrested by the pleasure of stroking her so softly he could almost hear her pulse.

He rolled her over and slowly massaged her shoulders, her back, and the curves of her buttocks. He heard her breath grow soft, relaxed, then ragged, and each time she moved, to touch, to grasp, to ease her own growing passion, he soothed her with his voice and his mouth.

When she was a soft bundle of ragged breathing and flushed skin, he gently rolled her onto her back again and stroked her feet, her calves, and her thighs. When she was moaning, her head rocking on the spread, he gently opened her thighs.

She opened to him, moist and trembling.

He covered her with his mouth, and she swallowed a scream, convulsing under his kiss. He felt his own breath tearing, as if he'd come with her, and he gentled her with soft kisses to her thighs, his fingers stroking hips and buttocks.

Then he took her up again. This time, her climax sent shudders echoing through her whole body and she spoke to him in soft moans, and when he stroked her she opened to him again and he kissed her mouth and felt her arms cling, holding him, needing.

Her mouth against his, he slipped his fingers into her creamy folds and felt her groan in his throat.

"I can't...." And she shuddered, deeply, and opened further to him. "Please... inside me...."

He entered her, thrust deep into her and felt her body tighten on him in strong spasms as she screamed into his mouth, her passage milking him, her tears spilling onto their faces.

His tears, too.

Afterward, he managed to tug the blankets over them, and she nestled against his chest, her body trembling. He smoothed the hair back from her face, gently dried her tears with a corner of the spread.

"Samantha?"

Her eyes opened slowly, and he felt a shaft of pain at the vulnerability he saw there.
Tell me you love me,
he wanted say, because if ever she would love him, surely it would be now. But her eyes stopped him.

"Sam? I need to know—"

"We'll talk about it tomorrow," she said, her voice husky.

He held her as she slept, but he'd seen her eyes and he couldn't fool himself that he'd won any battles tonight. He might just have lost the war.

Chapter Twelve

Had she actually taken a walk with Kippy yesterday and told herself she would keep her head? That she'd talk business with Cal, discuss Jallison when he arrived Tuesday night, keep a bit of distance until she could handle intimacy without losing control?

Maybe she'd have done better if he hadn't caught her sleeping, if she hadn't woken in his arms, fighting the need to reach up and pull his head down to her, to tell him how desperately she needed him to be here, to be close, never to leave again.

Never to leave again.

She was in trouble. Big trouble, and she was lucky she'd woken in the bed alone, because if he'd been here, she would have curled right into him, would have melted, would have... might have started crying again, as she had last night. Crying when he made love to her.

I'm in love with you,
he'd said, but she hadn't understood. Last night... it was his tenderness that had undone her so completely last night. Loving her... so... so
lovingly,
as if he would stroke and soothe her forever, as if her needs overwhelmed his.

Cal's love.

She stared at her eyes in the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth. She didn't know how to face him, how to look at him after last night. She wanted to find him, to run into his arms, to cling. She didn't know if she could do that, if she could
make
herself do that. And even if she did, how was she going to face the moment when she needed to pull back and meet his eyes?

I love you.

No. No, she didn't. At least—maybe she loved him, but she wasn't
in love.

"Fool," she muttered at the woman in the mirror, a woman with big, vulnerable eyes, flushed face, and tangled hair. She couldn't handle
in love.
She really couldn't—she would cling to him, needy, as her mother had clung to so many men. Then time would shift everything, and she'd be screaming, demanding, out of control.