Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) (17 page)

Oh, Lord, it
was
strong enough.

He flicked open the waist of her skirt, and hauled down the zipper so the material rode over her hips. Not satisfied, he slid one hand lower, under the hem, and skimmed up her thigh and beyond to the top of her pantyhose, then immediately started back, dragging the hosiery along. She'd barely helped free her legs from the encumbrance when he was tugging at her panties and slip all at once. He clearly intended her to be naked as quickly as possible.

Naked.
The word sparked an image of blue froth, carefully saved for last in their game of show-and-tell.

"Wait." She gasped the demand, so it sounded more of a plea. Only a small part of her recognized the way he froze.

"Wait?"

Fighting the weight of desire, her eyes opened wide as she understood he was questioning more than the word. As he had in her garage, he let her see the desire and longing in his eyes, but also the question. He was leaving it up to her. She could stop this.

"No." She shook her head quickly, hoping to make him see he'd misunderstood. "I have one more thing to show you."

"To show me?" His question was followed by a grumbling curse that didn't entirely mask his relief. But he let her remove herself from his hold, and she dived for the tote at the end of the bed, extracting the negligee. As she stood, her loosened skirt slid lower on her hips and with an impatient twist, she sent it to the floor. Feeling a little shy, yet not really self-conscious, she held the floating material up to her, resting the straps at her shoulders.

"See?"

Oh, yes, he saw.

Oh, God, yes, he saw.

He swore to himself that he would never again make the mistake of thinking Bette was not romantic. She was romantic enough to just about kill him, and all she had to do was stand two feet in front of him holding up a bit of filmy material.

Through the sheer fabric he saw the lace of her bra, he saw the wetness he'd added to it, he saw the straining points he'd felt against his hands and mouth. And he could see her, smooth and pale beneath it. Lower, the draping skirt of the gown revealed the paleness of her simple, straight slip. Beneath the layers of material he knew what he would find there, too: heated silk.

If she put on that blue torment now, so that he caught glimpses of her with more than his imagination, he'd want to rip it off her.

But he also saw her eyes. The gown meant something to her.

"I, uh, I could put it on."

He swallowed hard. "I'd like to see it."

"Now?"

He knew damn well he wanted to delay seeing her in that material seduction, at least delay to some moment when he might stand half a chance of appreciating it.

But what did she want? He'd thought he knew, and he'd been prepared to give it to her, no matter what it cost him. But from that last question and from the heated look in her eyes, he wasn't so sure.

"What?"

She glanced down at the blue sheerness she held then back at him. "Do you have to see it right now or could it maybe wait until, uh . . . later? I mean, if you really want to see it now of course I could put it on, but -"

He ground out something he wasn't sure made any sense and yanked down the rumpled bedspread, far enough that it slid slowly off the foot of the bed along with most of their purchases.

"Later's good," he got out as he reached for her. With a smile that managed to melt his bones and harden his muscles, she sent the gown spinning in the same general direction.

"Later," she agreed on a breath shivered against his neck.

They stripped each other of their remaining clothes with fervent, unsubtle movements.

Her hands were cold at first, with the lingering chill of outdoors and perhaps nerves.
Don't rush her
, he reminded himself. Then gasped at her fingers' contact against his stomach, his abdomen, his hips. But it was a gasp of pleasured torture.

Who was rushing whom? He figured it was only fair her hands and her feet were cold, because the rest of her was burning up. He could feel the heat of her under his hands, like waves off a sunstruck sidewalk in July. And he craved it, absorbed it, matched it with his own.

With her hands and feet like small, smooth slips of ice being dragged along his skin, he relished the contrast to his own temperature. Told himself that maybe this way he'd slow down enough to have some control. And when her hands and feet passed the comfortable stage and became coals, stoking the fire that already raged in his flesh, he knew he'd never needed anything the way he needed that stoking.

Still, he wasn't fool enough to have her help with the contents of the packets spilled on the nightstand. A fire stoked too high could burn itself out.

They tumbled across the bed, a tangle of arms and legs that drew a dual chuckle reverberating into a groan of need. A hip grinding into a hip, an elbow catching across a shoulder, a knee digging into a thigh. But then, somehow, amid the sounds of frustration, amusement and passion, the parts came into alignment.

It wasn't the slow, tender introduction he'd envisioned in aching detail for days, weeks on end. But it was right. Utterly, undeniably right.

He thrust into her welcoming warmth, faster than he'd intended, slower than he wanted. He went still, his eyes squeezing tight in an exultation he'd never known. Then the pressure inside forced him to move.

He felt her body adjust, accept, and another wave of sensation struck him. It flashed across his mind that this sensation flowed not from his nerve endings to his brain, but from somewhere deep inside him to where his skin met hers. He opened his eyes and locked with hers.

They were deep, deep blue. Bottomless and soft. The way they tugged at him took him off balance. No way to hold back against them . . . no way. He could fall into those eyes and keep falling. He was falling.

"Bette."

He whispered the name as his hips surged against hers, the pull of the rhythm too strong to resist, the beat that guided than too insistent to ignore. It rocked them when they strained together, it echoed through them as they slipped away from each other, it amplified as they rushed together once more, closer, ever closer. They pulsed with it. It might have been a heartbeat of something alive, magnified to roar in their ears.

He heard other sounds added to it. Her voice, stripped of the crisp coolness, only the spice and fire remaining. Cries to him, for him. His own call of her name, encouraging, invoking.

He cupped her buttocks, drawing her closer, straining to have her take all he had, to fill her ever more completely. Her cry turned sharp and triumphant. The thundering beat shuddered again through his taut-strung muscles one last, frenzied time.

IT WAS QUIET.
Except for their breathing. He heard his own harsh intake and her no steadier exhalation. She'd have an easier time if he took all his weight off her instead of remaining half-covering her the way he'd collapsed.

He didn't move. Not sure if he could, and certain he didn't want to. Macho, maybe, but even after what they'd just experienced, he relished the continued sense of possession from being connected this way.

What was this feeling, this draw to her, this need for her?

It frightened him - he admitted that - but it also attracted him, a magnet bringing him nearer to something he'd always avoided. Now, too weak with satisfaction and contentment to fight the idea, the suspicion floated into his mind that as much as he might try to dig his heels in against it, he wouldn't be able to stop his progress toward the pole she represented. Right now, he couldn't even find it in himself to care.

Soft and even, her breathing soothed him. She was asleep. A powerful sense of protectiveness swept into him; she trusted him enough to give herself up to him, then to give herself up to sleep in his arms.

He recognized the dangerous, sharp edges of this emotion. He even knew, at some level, how it could shred his independent life.

So where shall we stay?
One question, five words. That was all it had taken to blow his control to hell. So much for waiting until he knew what he was getting into. He was in, and he still didn't know.

He shifted slightly. Not away, but freeing her ribs of all but the weight of his arm. He thought that under the sigh of skin against sheets, he detected a breath from her. Perhaps relief, but he wanted to think it was also regret at even this minute distance. He pulled the rumpled covers over their cooling bodies.

The emotion he'd reined in from the time she'd said yes in his office was loose. He might soar with it now, but could he haul it back under control later?

BETTE WOKE UP
with no confusion. She didn't even need to open her eyes to know where she was or whose arms held her, whose legs weighed hers down, whose breath stirred her hair and whose shoulder pillowed her cheek.

She knew.

A powerful, potent drug this lust could be. It lulled her from the tenets of a lifetime, so that as she rested in the circle of Paul's arms, she found herself thinking not of the future, but of the past. The immediate, incredible past.

She felt her cheeks warming, not in embarrassment but in renewed desire.

He wasn't a smooth lover, or particularly gentle. But he was thorough. And powerful. The glimpses she'd had of his sensuality hadn't prepared her for the whole. She was honest enough with herself to admit that if they had, she might still be running.

Although he'd given her chances to run. She thought of the moments he'd hesitated long enough to let his eyes ask her if she wanted to back out. Not once, but twice.

A slight frown of concentration tightened muscles in her forehead. She had the impression a pattern was there somewhere, a pattern she hadn't recognized yet. What was it?

Still sleeping, Paul shifted, drawing her closer and making a low sound against her hair. Her eyes opened, the frown disappearing as her mouth curved.

Patterns and contemplation could wait. If she'd learned one thing tonight, it was the power of the moment. Under Paul's touch, now was the only time that existed for her.

The room was softly aglow from a single shaded lamp on the nightstand. Sometime while she slept, he must have gotten up and switched off the other lights. How long had she slept? She really didn't care. Still night, she thought. The drapes showed no crack of morning light and the city seemed hushed beyond them.

The light burnished his skin and the blaze of hair, darker than on his head and arms but still with a glint no one would confuse with brown. It trailed the valley between his ribs only to disappear under a tangle of covers at his waist. Their earlier urgency had left no time to contemplate and explore his body.

Her fingers lightly dusted along the tickling cover of hair. She lifted her head, and considered the form that had pillowed hers.

He was beautiful.

His eyes still closed in sleep, his personality for once stood second to his physical presence. His shoulders were broad, his torso narrowed to taut waist and slim hips, though she knew the power those sleek lines could produce. A swimmer's body, rather than a weightlifter's, she thought. Strength without bulk, hardness without display.

She bent, putting her lips to the flat brown disk where the dusting of hair grew thinner. She let her tongue taste it, taste him, and felt the response - in him, and in herself.

He muttered something she chose to take as encouragement. When her stronger ministrations brought his hands to her hair, holding her tightly against him, she knew she'd been right. Tension hummed along his skin, a vibration that communicated itself to her through her tongue and lips.

His hands tugged at her, drawing her over his body, holding her shoulders above him.

"Bette, let me kiss you. Open your mouth to me."

The kiss started as a gentle one, then deepened and quickened to pulse with a beat she recognized and welcomed. Paul's hands clenched hard around her upper arms, then purposefully loosened, and the kiss eased back to tenderness.

He parted their mouths, and hitched himself to a sitting position against the padded headboard. Still lost in the kiss and her sense of loss that it had ended, she allowed herself to be twisted and adjusted until she sat back against his chest with his arms around her, the covers up to her shoulders.

"Are you okay?" His lips followed the question with a whispery touch to her temple.

The question and the concern of voice and touch surprised her.

"Fine," she said first. Then amended it to, "Wonderful." And turned to kiss his chin.

"Really? I was rather rough. And in a hurry."

She tilted her head to see his eyes. He wasn't searching for reassurance on his performance, but was truly concerned.

"Yes, you were," she answered slowly, remembering. "And it was wonderful."

The concern in his eyes lessened, but didn't leave.

"You're sure you're okay?"

She kissed his throat, just under his jaw, then nipped at it before kissing the spot once more. "I'm sure. Though I might be a little sore . . ."

He grinned. "You know what they say is the best cure for sore muscles?"

"What's that?"

"Use them."

"Ah, why'd I have a feeling you'd say that?"

"Because great minds think alike?"

"I don't think that was it."

"Because you'd heard that wisdom before?"

"Not that, either."

"Because you've known that I've been fantasizing about you for nearly a month now?"

It was odd the things that could catch you off guard. "Fantasizing? About me?" She wasn't a woman to spark fantasies. Respect, yes. Maybe even admiration. But fantasies?

He must have heard her disbelief. He placed a hand on each side of her head and turned her so she had to see the utter conviction in his eyes. "You better believe it, Bette Wharton. Fantasizing hot and heavy."

Feeling part of him harden against her hip lent credence to his statement.

"Like what?" She could feel her cheeks burning under his hands, and this time there was embarrassment mixed with the desire. She couldn't believe she'd asked the question, but she sure as hell wasn't going to stop the answer.