This Perfect Kiss (24 page)

She closed her eyes. “Just for a minute,” she murmured.

His hand was so achingly tender against her cheek. “Take all the minutes you need.”

Greg watched Iris stuff a pink toy rabbit and her hairbrush into a purple backpack. “You’re only going to Mrs. Mack’s for dinner, bug, not a decade. Do you really need all that?”

She ignored the question, frowning as she pushed the bare feet of a baby doll into the pack’s opening. Frowning deeper, she pulled the doll free and tucked it under her arm. “I’m not putting Daisy in there,” Iris muttered to herself.

She named her dolls after flowers, as she had been.

Four-plus years ago, he and Kim had been in one of the Caidwater gardens. Kim had been wandering with a book in her hand, using it to identify the different kinds of flowers. He’d been pretending to be interested, when the only true fascination he’d had was in watching Kim. Suddenly she’d gasped, her palm flying to caress her round belly. Then she’d smiled—he’d never forget its glow—and looked at him.

So excited, so certain, so…damn happy. “Her name is Iris,” Kim had said. “She just this moment picked it out.”

As at just that moment his heart had picked out the woman he’d love for the rest of his life.

Now the baby named that day was sitting on her bed, cuddling a fluffy-haired doll. “You’re my
own special bug,” Iris whispered, then kissed a rosy, plastic cheek.

Greg briefly shut his eyes. “Bug” was his pet name for Iris, and hearing his own special girl use it for her own special baby cut through him.

She looked up. “Will you be here when I get home?”

He kept his voice upbeat. “When you wake up in the morning, for sure. Mrs. Mack will bring you home and put you to bed after you have dinner and watch a video with her granddaughter.”

Iris kissed the top of Daisy’s head, then looked at him again. “Where will you be?”

He smiled at the daughter of his heart. “Since my best girl is going to be busy, I thought I’d drive over to Malibu and check out the new house.” He was finally rebuilding on his beach property. Four years too late.

Iris played with the baby doll’s hair. “What about my room?” she asked offhandedly. “Did you paint it yellow? I want yellow.”

Greg sucked in a sharp breath. They’d been over this before. She knew that she was supposed to leave Caidwater and go with Rory to northern California. Greg hadn’t given up hope of convincing his brother—there was indeed an airy, creamy yellow room at his Malibu house—but he wasn’t going to make promises to Iris that he couldn’t guarantee.

“Rory still wants you with him, honey. But no matter what happens, we’ll see each other
lots
.”

Iris squeezed Daisy against her chest. “I want
you
,” she whispered.

The world ending couldn’t have stopped him from taking the little girl in his arms. He held her tightly, Daisy’s plastic heels digging into his ribs. “I want you, too, bug,” he said. “So much.”

“Then tell Rory he can’t have me,” she said fiercely. “Don’t let me get away.”

Don’t let me get away
. The words tumbled into Greg’s brain as he sat on the edge of the bed and rocked Iris back and forth. He’d tried to reason with Rory several more times in the past month. But it was clear his brother took his responsibility toward Iris seriously and Greg couldn’t fault him for that. On each occasion that Rory had refused to consider leaving Iris with Greg, he’d bitten his tongue and told himself to bide his time.

But time wasn’t going to change Rory’s mind.

Closing his eyes, Greg accepted the truth of that. He’d been too patient. He’d acted—once again, and just like always—the laid-back, easygoing character who used hope instead of action to get what he wanted.

He’d hoped Rory would see that Iris belonged with him.

He’d hoped Kim would come back one day and love him. He’d told her he’d searched for her—yes, he had—but once again he’d given up too easily.

Too soon.

And still he struggled with the hardest question of all. How much of this predicament was his fault, his punishment for loving Kim?

Mrs. Mack came to stand in the doorway of Iris’s room. “Is there a little girl in here who wants French fries?”

Greg reluctantly loosened his embrace. Iris slipped away from him after one backward glance and a wave of her small hand.

He rubbed his palms against his thighs, thinking about his choices and his past. When events at Caidwater had turned against Rory, he’d left and made his own way. When Kim had found herself alone and homeless, she’d built a new life for herself.

Why didn’t he have the same kind of courage? Dammit, why couldn’t he take what he wanted?

Kim. Iris.
Don’t let them get away
. Not this time.

Greg turned his hands palms-up and deliberately curled all ten fingers into two fists.
Don’t let them get away
.

The door to Kim’s apartment was at the top of a flight of steps cut into the stucco side of the Things Past building. Both Jilly’s apartment, “A,” and Kim’s, “B,” sat on the second floor over the shop itself.

A smile and an autograph had been all Greg needed to worm that information out of a Things Past salesclerk the day after Kim had left him in his car.
No matter what my heart says, my body’s just not in it
.

Those words had frozen him then, but now, now they gave him hope—at least her heart wanted him. But as he’d promised himself earlier that evening, he wasn’t relying on mere hope any longer. He raised his hand and knocked briskly on the door.

As if the occupant welcomed an interruption, it swung open quickly. “Jill—” Kim broke off.

“Surprised to see me?” Greg asked. She looked stunned, actually, and even tried to shut the door in his face.

He stuck his foot against the jamb and the door bounced off his cowboy boot instead.

She stared down at the scuffed leather, then stared back up at his face. “What do you want?”

With his palms flat to the wood, he pushed the door open wider and let himself in. When he closed it, he locked the two dead bolts and leaned back, his shoulders against the cheap raised panels and his arms crossed over his chest.

“I want what’s mine.”

Kim took a step back. For once, her long blond hair was down, and it slid over the shoulders of her T-shirt. His gaze followed it, and he could tell her breasts were braless beneath the thin cotton.

He set his jaw and raised his gaze to her face. “I’m tired, damn tired, of playing this same role over and over again.”

She shuffled back another step. It almost made him laugh, because in baggy sweatpants and bare feet, she looked so achingly young and vulnerable that he found it hard to believe he’d been more than half scared of her since the moment they’d met. But that was over.

He raised his brows. “Aren’t you going to ask me what role?”

She wet her mouth with her tongue. “What role?”

“I’ve played the guy who doesn’t get the girl so many times, I have all the lines memorized. And every single one of my cues.” He pushed away from the door. “I realize it’s a role that’s come too damn easy.”

Kim shuffled back again.

He smiled. “I let Roderick cast me in it. I’ve let your guilt cast me in it again. But no more.” Thanks to Iris, Jilly, Rory, even Kim herself. “I’m
holding out for the lead role this time, Kim.”
I’m holding onto you
.

She licked her lips nervously. “Greg, I told you—”

“But this time
I’m
telling
you
. After you were gone, I spent four years in that house, living with Roderick and the truth festering between us. But I didn’t tell him how I felt about you. I wouldn’t give him that excuse to throw me out. I spent four years there for Iris. First, because I loved her as your daughter, Kim. And second, because I loved her for herself.”

Kim’s hand flew to her chest as if to halt a sharp pain. Tears sprang into her eyes. With a visible effort, she blinked them back, then crossed her arms, hugging herself, and rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms.

Maybe she was feeling something after all. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Good. Because it didn’t matter what she said. Only what he knew. “For four years I lived in a kind of hell that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and you know what? I don’t give a damn if you don’t think you deserve any happiness. After these past years,
I
do.”

“Of course you do,” she choked out. “Of course.” She rubbed her arms again.

He smiled and came so close to her that he could see the pulse racing at her throat. “I’m glad you think so. Because I won’t get it unless I have Iris…and unless I have you.”

“No!” She shook her head vigorously, her golden hair swirling around her shoulders. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” Greg said, not the least deterred by her denial. He slid his hand into her long, silky hair and closed his fingers, holding it, holding her. He pulled her head back and leaned toward the mouth he’d never touched…never tasted.

That pulse in her throat thrummed wildly against her skin. “But I can’t—I don’t—”

“But you will,” Greg said with certainty. “And I’ll keep trying until you do. After four years, I’ve earned this.”

He touched her mouth with his.

The sensation blasted his senses. Groaning, he pressed harder, felt her mouth open, and he pushed his tongue inside as another explosion rocked his nerve endings. The heat, the blinding light that her mouth brought to his soul, burned away the years of pain. The years of shame.

Releasing her hair, he pulled her to him, her body aligning itself sweetly, so rightly, against his. Through their shirts he could feel her nipples harden. “Kim,” he murmured against her mouth. “All my life I’ve waited for this. This is what I deserve for loving you. Just this.”

She melted against him. There were tears running down her face and their saltiness only increased the poignancy of their kiss. He’d waited all his life to have her. Every day, every minute, every breath had led to this moment, this moment when she gave to him the strength that he needed, the strength to be the man whom he wanted to be.

He lifted his head and stared down at her wet mouth. She was trembling. “Maybe, long ago, we were wrong to feel the way we did. But we’ve
lived through the pain it caused us. It made us different. Stronger. Wiser, I hope. And maybe even deserving.”

Another tear rolled down her cheek.

“It’s made us better, Kim,” he whispered. “And you make me better.”

Her knees buckled and he tightened his arms around her. “You’re hurting me, Greg.”

He didn’t know if he was hurting her body or her heart. He eased his hold on her, then lifted his hand to palm her breast. Her nipple was still hard. “Do you feel that?” he whispered.

But she was already shuddering. “Yes, yes,
yes
.”

And Greg took that as the answers to all the other questions he had. Her bed was soft and warm, but she was softer and warmer, and when he felt her come and heard her cry out with shock, with joy, he wasn’t surprised to find his own face wet with tears.

Jilly’s eyes slowly opened. She blinked against the soft daylight, and blinked again. It was morning. She was in Rory’s massive bed, whose sheer white hangings were draped over its canopy and then tied back with tasseled cords to the heavily carved posters.

She’d slept the whole night with Rory. Naked. Every other time she’d left immediately after lovemaking, but last night he had bathed her, put her to bed, and then let her sleep.

Turning her head on the pillow, she blushed as she looked at him. He was fast asleep, his lashes dark crescents against his high cheekbones. The
sheet was pushed down to his waist and he slept on his back, one arm flung across the wide bed, the relaxed fingers of his hand just inches away from her breast.

With her gaze she traced the heavy muscle of his shoulder and then the hard expanse of his chest. Dark hair edged down its center to disappear beneath the sheet. Her body tingled and she felt her skin go even hotter as she imagined the intriguing shapes and textures hiding below.

But this beautiful man she’d made a bargain with had let her sleep—only sleep—beside him last night. She shivered.

Then jumped when he spoke, his eyes still closed. “You’re looking at me, aren’t you?” He let out a long, resigned sigh. “You can tell me. How bad is it?”

She scooted farther away from him and pulled the sheet up to her neck. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t help it,” he said.

She frowned. “Help what?”

One eye opened. “Morning hair. Really bad bedhead. It’s my curse.” He ran a hand over his dark hair.

It looked fine to Jilly, a little rumpled, but fine. “I thought
I
was your curse.” It was almost pitiful, how she wanted to be something of his. Even that. Then her thoughts suddenly jumped to her own hair. It had been wet when he’d brought her to bed.

She slid down farther under the covers and tucked a curl behind her ear. “But, uh, speaking of bedhead…” she mumbled self-consciously.

His other eye opened and he rolled onto his side so they were facing each other. He reached out to untuck the curl and played with it, pulling it straight, then releasing the tension so it twisted back to its natural spiral. “Your hair is perfect.”

Jilly’s stomach developed a bad case of the jitters. “It’s too wild.”

“Mmm.” His gaze transferred to her mouth and he moved closer.

Jilly scooched back, nervous. For the first time ever, she’d woken up with a man. The sun was shining. Rory had just complained about bedhead. This was way too intimate, even more intimate than his slow touch in the bathtub the night before.

He slid his hand beneath her hair to caress her neck. “What’s the matter, honey?”

She fought off her shiver. He knew so well how to touch her, that was the matter. “It’s just so—so light.”

He smiled indulgently. “I’ll fix that.” In one smooth movement he jackknifed up. The covers slid farther down and Jilly’s gaze stuttered at the sight of his naked hips. As he reached toward the softly draped bed hangings, she remembered their hardness cradled in her palms.

With a flick of his hand he loosened the tasseled cord nearest him, releasing the sheer overhanging fabric. Then he leaned across her to do the same on her side of the bed, cutting the sunlight in half and cocooning them in an almost tent-like atmosphere.

The sheik and his slave girl…

Jilly scooted farther away from him.

“Where are you going?” he asked softly. “Another few inches and you’re going to fall off the bed.” He shortened the distance between them.

Her body instinctively moved back.

He frowned. “Am I going to have to tie you up?”

Her breath caught. A white horse galloped across the sand. The desert prince was coming. Her breath caught again.

His eyes narrowed and his mouth twitched. “You
are
wild.” Without taking his gaze from her face, he reached back to snag the tasseled drapery cord from the bedpost. “Is this what you want?”

Her eyes widened and she inched away again. “Of-of course not.”

“I don’t believe you.” Before she could protest, he grasped her nearest wrist and hauled her close. The hand holding the cord found her other wrist, and he wrapped it with the cord and stretched it over her head.

“Rory!” She was shocked. Shocked at how excited just the very loose binding could make her.

He lifted her free arm and pressed her hands together, twisting the cord around both of them. Then he pressed the tasseled ends to her palms. “Hold it,” he ordered, his voice quiet but firm. “Hold it just like that.”

Jilly’s fingers automatically closed over the cord, and then they clenched spasmodically as Rory began to draw the sheet slowly down her body. She started to bring her arms down, but Rory clapped one big hand over her two bound ones. “Trust me, Jilly,” he said.

When he released her hands, she kept them
over her head. They’d made a bargain, she thought dizzily. Yeah, that was why.

The sheet rasped over her nipples. They were stiff already, and she felt his gaze on them, and then his warm breath. When his mouth closed over one, she involuntarily tried to bring her hands to him, but Rory foiled her again. He firmly lifted her arms back over her head and held them there as he licked her breasts, then blew cool air over the aching tips.

Her legs shifted restlessly and he dropped his hand to caress her sheet-covered thigh as his mouth slid down to her navel. When he encountered the edge of the sheet, he grasped it with his teeth, and pulled, taking it past her hips, the tops of her thighs, her knees.

Goose bumps burst over Jilly’s skin. Her hips twisted and when Rory dropped the sheet, he smiled. “Pretty,” he said. Then he placed his hands inside her knees and pushed her legs apart.

Jilly closed her eyes. It was so much, the erotic trick of being “tied,” Rory’s so-knowing touch, his obvious desire as he looked at her body.

He positioned her and she didn’t resist, letting him splay her legs wide and then lift her knees so her feet were flat against the mattress. She kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, so aroused and so embarrassed by her arousal she didn’t think she could look at him.

Her skin was hot and tingly and she knew he was looking at her, but she held herself still until she felt something wet and soft between her legs. Her stomach jumped and she immediately tried
to close her thighs, but his wide shoulders were there, holding her open for…his mouth.

“Rory.”

His touch was merciless. He ruled her, controlling her responses, licking softly, blowing cool air gently, then exploring her body avidly as if he couldn’t hold himself back.

Her hips rose to his mouth and he held them in his big hands as he kept up the intimate, glorious play. She’d never known…she’d never thought…

And then she couldn’t think, because all the warmth and all the tingles converged where his mouth tasted her body and she found herself flying forward, her body lifting off the bed.
“Rory.”

Without a hesitation, he kept kissing her, loving her, but his hand reached up and pushed her down onto the bed. Her hands twisted against their soft binding, passion twisted tighter in her belly, and under Rory’s controlling hand and his commanding tongue she flew forward again, but only her passion and her spirit this time, flying somewhere where only he knew to find her.

He caught her as she fell, and she grasped him by the shoulders to pull him up to her.

“No,” he said, spreading her thighs wider. He slowly drove two long fingers into her and bent his head once more. “Again.”

When he was through with her this time, she could only moan as he slid up her body and teased her with the hard tip of his arousal. She tilted her hips to lure him deeper and linked her still-joined wrists around his neck. His chest just brushed the tips of her breasts.

His blue eyes glittered as he looked down at her. “I have you,” he said, pressing home.