When Somebody Loves You (16 page)

Long, silken moments later, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him. Exhausted, deliriously sated, he lay spread-eagle on the fur rug with her sprawled across his chest.

“It’s never been like this for me,” he whispered, a little awed at his gruff admission.

“It’s always been like this for me,” she murmured, brushing her fingers across his chest. “Since the first time you touched me. Since the first time you told me you wanted to make love with me.” She raised her head so she could see his face. Her gaze, though heavy-lidded in the aftermath of passion, was fierce and sure. “I love you, Michael. I didn’t want to . . . I’m still not sure I should, but I do. With everything that is me, with everything that I have, I love you.”

He’d waited a lifetime to find her, had endured a private, painful hell waiting for her to say those words. Hearing them now, seeing the proof in her eyes, he felt a fullness he could compare to nothing he’d ever experienced.

He closed his eyes against the pressure building behind them. “You are the damnedest woman,” he said raggedly. “And you picked the damnedest time to spring an admission like that on a man. I’m out of commission, Counselor. I can’t do a thing to show you how much I needed to hear you say that.”

Locking her gaze with his, she eased slowly down the length of his body. “It’s not up to you to show me anything,” she whispered huskily. “It’s my turn to show you.”

“January . . .” He sucked in a harsh breath and dropped a hand to her tangled hair. “Baby, sweetheart, I can’t . . .”

She touched him, tentatively, inexpertly, but with so much love he groaned and burned and bucked against the shimmering caress of her mouth.

Her eyes were dark and liquid, her smile sultry and victorious with the knowledge that she’d proved him wrong.

Loving her more than life, he knotted his hands in her hair. Helpless to stop her, he succumbed to her slow, velvet torture and to the blissful, consuming oblivion of her selfless loving.

Nine

It was late the next morning when January slipped out of Michael’s bed. Shivering as the cold air hit her naked skin, she found a navy blue robe—probably Michael’s—and wrapped it around her.

Downstairs, she stared out the kitchen window, deciding that beyond a doubt, this was the most beautiful morning of her life. Even with the brilliance of daylight clarifying what she’d done, she didn’t regret confessing her love to him.

Set free, her love grew in layers, drifting softly around her like the snow that was accumulating again outside. A distant dread niggled at her, for experience, her best and most formidable teacher, had taught her that anything this good wouldn’t be allowed to last. But she wasn’t going to let herself think about that. Not today, not when life seemed as full as a goose-down quilt and as perfect as the man sleeping under one in the big bed at the top of the stairs.

Grinning proudly at the first fire she’d ever coaxed to life in a fireplace, she dug around in the cupboards until she found a skillet.

The eggs were done and she’d just finished setting the table when Michael, looking sinfully rumpled and beautifully mussed in nothing but bare feet and blue jeans, sauntered down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Would her heart never fail to melt at the sight of him? she wondered, stepping into his arms and returning his warm, lazy kiss.

She nestled against him as he looped his wrists at the small of her back. “We’re looking very domestic this morning,” he murmured in a voice as sleepy as his smile. His gaze strayed to the table before returning to prowl her face and her own sleep-tousled hair. “And very sexy.”

She brushed the hair from his eyes, then reluctantly disengaged herself from his arms. “You’d better be hungry.”

His patented bad-boy grin suggested he was.

“For eggs, Hayward.” Arching a chastising brow, she returned to the stove. “I hope you like them scrambled. Now sit. Eat.”

“Domestic, sexy, and bossy,” he said, sounding intrigued. Making it obvious he was enjoying himself immensely, he sat back and watched her fuss around, serving him his breakfast. “And subservient. This has definite possibilities. We might be able to negotiate a deal here. How does me, lord and master, you, cook and love slave, strike you?”

“And last night you accused me of having a problem with attitude.” With a cheeky grin she sat down across from him and reached for a piece of toast.

He caught her hand. Laughing, she met his gaze across the table.

“Okay,” he said, sobering abruptly. “How does me, loving husband, you, adored wife, sound instead?”

She stared transfixed as all traces of teasing vanished from his face. His eyes, too, had darkened. They searched hers with a probing, heated intensity.

Her smile froze. The crackle of the fire, a soft whisper of wind scuttling around the corner of the cabin, and the beat of her rapidly hammering heart were the only sounds in the suddenly quiet room.

She’d sensed this was coming. In all honesty she’d even wanted—just once—to hear the words. She’d wanted the proof that she’d been wrong, that she meant something more to him than a diversionary affair.

Tears stung her eyes, reminding her of all the things she wanted. If they were to have a future, she’d have to tell him the truth. Faced with that reality, she realized she could never tell him, that she’d only been fooling herself into believing she could. She was too much of a coward.

The panic she felt at the thought of him finding out about her past was so profound, it paralyzed her with fear. If he learned about the travesty that was her childhood, about the lie that was her life, he’d never be able to look at her again with anything but pity and disgust. And after experiencing his love, her pride would never allow it.

Aware of his eyes quietly assessing her, she pulled herself together and laughed nervously. “Would you listen to him,” she implored the ceiling. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying. One day in the wilderness and the man already has cabin fever.”

She knew he saw right through her pitiful attempt to avoid dealing with his proposal. But even with her trembling voice betraying her, she kept it up, praying he wouldn’t corner her, that he wouldn’t press his advantage.

“Eat your breakfast, Michael,” she said, trying for playful but achieving only pathetic. “Food will give you strength of mind and body. Heaven knows, you must need it. Then we’ll get you outside and clear the cobwebs from that poor, addled little brain of yours. You’ll be thinking straight again in no time.”

Never more aware of the inevitability of losing him, she forced herself to hold his gaze. She wanted today so badly. She wanted tomorrow. Several tomorrows. But she wouldn’t even have the rest of the weekend if he insisted on pushing this now.

Blessedly, if belatedly, he released her hand and slouched back in his chair. “You step one foot outside that door,” he warned, “and you’re doomed.”

“Doomed?” she asked in a thready whisper. She knew she’d hurt him. His eyes revealed a raw and unmistakable pain.

He nodded gravely. “I saw you in action yesterday, Stewart. Now it hurts me to have to be the one to tell you this, but you can’t throw a snowball for love or money.”

He was giving her an out, she realized. The pressure in her chest eased. The ache behind her eyes, however, intensified. She watched his face carefully as he drizzled honey over his toast, and with feigned arrogance added, “Of course, if you
do
offer me money, I might decide to go easy on you.”

Grasping at the straw he was offering, she forced herself to play along. “Go easy on me? You forget,” she said with false brightness, “I saw your form yesterday too. You throw like an old lady.”

He cocked a dark brow. “An old lady?”

Ignoring the dangerous glint in his eyes, she reached across the table for the honey so she’d have something to do with her hands. “You’ll be begging for mercy before the end of my first volley.”

He snagged her wrist and with little effort pulled her around the table and onto his lap.

“Mercy, she says.”

A wicked grin crawled up one side of his mouth. Though his manner was playful, his eyes were still hard and hurting. “We’ll see who begs for mercy. As a matter of fact . . .” He cleared away his breakfast dishes with a negligent sweep of his hand. “. . . I’m open to the idea of entertaining a little begging right now.”

Gripping her by the waist, he lifted her and set her in front of him on the edge of the table. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he moved his chair closer and, taking his slow, deliberate time about it, untied and opened her robe.

Locking his gaze on hers, he slid his hands in an agonizingly slow journey up the length of her thighs. She shivered with a mixture of apprehension and desire as he pushed her legs apart and slipped between them.

“Michael . . .” she gasped.

“That’s a good start, Counselor,” he said. Then he reached for the honey dipper. “Let’s see if you can do better.”

January watched the play of muscles over Michael’s back as he fed the evening fire. When he settled back down on the sofa, she snuggled against his side like a docile, sleepy puppy.

She was exhausted, but pleasantly so. Michael had wanted her exhausted, and that morning he’d told her as much. He wanted her defenseless, her guard down, the way she’d been when he’d made love to her on the table.

His proper little Victorian lawyer, as he was so fond of calling her, had turned into a wild, uninhibited wanton. She suppressed a groan, recalling how she’d been willing to tell him anything, to promise him anything . . . anything but what he thought he wanted to hear.

Marriage. The word brought a cold, clammy sweat to her palms and a wild, desperate terror to her heart.

He touched her hair. “Did my little snow bunny hop a little too hard today?”

She smiled despite her troubled thoughts. “It’s only because I’m saving my strength to breathe that I’m letting you get by with that condescending, sexist remark.”

“You mean you’re not my little snow bunny?”

That earned him a semiaggressive elbow in the ribs.

He grunted, then laughed. “You’re just sore because I clobbered you good in the snowball war.”

“I’m sore,” she countered gravely, “because you had me traipsing up and down thirty acres of timber like a mountain goat.”

“You saw some beautiful scenery, didn’t you?”

“Breathtaking. I’m going to hate leaving here Sunday. You must have such wonderful memories of spending your weekends and vacations here with your family.”

She heard loneliness creep into her voice, the longing for something she’d never had. She hoped he hadn’t heard it too.

He had, of course. He heard everything.

“You don’t ever have to leave if you don’t want to,” he said. “It’s yours, January. Yours for the taking. I tried to offer it to you this morning, but you didn’t want to listen.”

He wasn’t any better at concealing his hurt than she was, she thought. She had hurt him badly that morning. The pain poured out with every word.

“Talk to me,” he commanded softly.

She didn’t have to ask what he wanted to talk about. She didn’t have to see his face to know he was tired of waiting. She could feel the tension in his body, the frustration in his hands as he held her.

The frustration wasn’t all his. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. It had haunted her all day as she’d tried to come to terms with the fact that she would lose him. If she trusted him with the truth of her past, she’d lose him. If she didn’t tell him, she’d still lose.

Wanting to hold on to him for as long as she could, she’d concluded, out of desperation, to compromise. He needed something from her. She’d give it, but only enough to satisfy his curiosity. Not enough to condemn her.

But since revealing any part of her past was going to be difficult, she hedged. “How easy?”

“How easy, what?”

She heard the impatience in his voice and knew he was struggling to control it.

“You told me once that you’d always had it easy. Now that I’ve met your family, I understand where you get your confidence. How easy was it for you to sustain it? I mean, are we talking captain of the football team, here, or water boy?”

He gave her a hard look. “For the record I want you to know that I realize what you’re doing. You’re stalling . . . and very badly, I might add.”

She sighed deeply.

“I know it’s hard, babe, so I’m going to play it your way, okay? Just don’t push me too far. It’s show-and-tell time. Before this night is over, I expect you to spill it. All of it. Are we clear?”

She nodded grimly.

He gentled his edict with a caressing kiss to her forehead. “Good. But please keep in mind that it’s going to take everything in me not to throttle you into cutting the damn small talk. Now, what was the question again?”

She cleared her throat delicately. “Captain or water boy?”

He snorted. “I’ll have you know you’re lying in the arms of one of U.S.C.’s finest tight ends ever to catch a forward pass.”

She smiled against his chest, loving him, knowing he was trying to make it easy for her. “I wouldn’t touch that line with a hot pad.”

“I’ve always been big on contact sports.”

She chuckled. “I think I’ll let that one go by too.”

“Chicken.” He gave her a quick hug. “Speaking of chickens—and pay attention here, because this is a brilliant segue designed to loosen your tongue—when did your transformation to legal eagle begin?”

She groaned. “That wasn’t brilliant. It was awful. I think we need to get you out of the high altitude.”

“Nothing on earth could compel me to leave this sofa or back away from this conversation. It’s already been too long coming. Now answer the question.”

“Actually,” she admitted after a deep breath, “transformation is a good word. Just substitute jailbird for chicken.” She squeezed her eyes shut while the impact of her remark settled. Telling him even that hurt more than she’d anticipated. Her heart slammed erratically against her chest. Instinctively she tried to put some distance between them. He only tightened his arms around her.

“There is nothing,” he said firmly, “that you can tell me that is going to make a difference in how I feel about you. Nothing. I love you, January.”

She knotted her fingers around a fistful of his sweater. “This is so hard.”

“I know, love. But what’s more difficult, now? Telling or concealing? January, it’s past time for secrets between us.”

Secrets. She felt her body tighten into one huge, aching knot. Her life was based on secrets. And lies. Would her half-truths help or complicate the issue?

“Come on, babe. I started with something you should feel comfortable with. Tell me why you chose law.”

“Law. You’re right. That should be an easy one.” Focusing on the blue-orange glow of the flickering fire, she drew a steadying breath. “I finally realized I wanted control of my life and that I could have it if I knew how to deal with the system.” She hesitated. “Like Toby, I knew all about the system.”

“How are you like Toby?”

She sifted and sorted and finally decided to be direct. “Because I was angry, and for similar reasons. Toby doesn’t know his parents, and that hurts him. I knew mine. And that hurt me.”