His lean hand contracted at the base of her spine, rubbing her hungrily against his fierce arousal.
"I want you," he ground out. "Are you able?"
"Oh...yes," she whispered dazedly through swollen lips, her body already throbbing wildly from the contact.
He groaned. "Where the hell can we go?" He lifted his head, looking so haunted that she almost smiled. "Beryl's upstairs with the baby."
She glanced toward the barn. He shook his head. "No," he said unsteadily. "It's far too unsanitary."
"They do it in books," she moaned.
"That is fantasy," he whispered. He nuzzled his face against her full breasts and then back up to her mouth. “And what I feel right now isn't a quick lust that I need to satisfy. I love you. I want to make love with you, be a part of you."
"I want that, too," she said huskily.
He pulled her closer, kissing her again, his mouth slow and sensuous, loving. "Tess," he breathed into her mouth, and he shuddered. "Tess, I love you...!"
The back door suddenly opened, breaking them apart, and Beryl came out wearing a sweater. "John's sleeping soundly. Would you two mind if I ran down to see about Mrs. Jewell? I'll only be an hour or so...."
Tess could have hugged her. She probably knew that the two of them would have killed for some time alone together, even with a sleeping baby nearby. "You go right ahead," Tess said softly.
'Thanks. Mrs. Jewell looks forward to our afternoons," Beryl assured her. She left, smiling secretly to herself.
They waited until the car pulled out of the driveway before Dane escorted her upstairs with undue haste and locked the bedroom door behind them.
He lifted her quickly and carried her to the bed, easing down onto it with her. "Don't be noisy or you'll wake the baby," he breathed into her mouth. "God bless Beryl..."
"The door..." She choked.
"It's locked. Tess, it's been so long!"
He kissed her with aching hunger for a long time until the fever burned too high to contain. He smiled sensually as he proceeded to remove every stitch of fabric from his powerful body. Tess watched him unashamedly, her eyes wide and curious. He was beautifully made, she thought, scars and all. The most perfect man she could ever have imagined.
As she thought it, she said it, whispered it to him. He smiled as he eased back down beside her and removed her dress and under-things between soft kisses.
She was a little self-conscious about her own scar, but he kissed it gently and smiled. It was, he murmured, like a battle scar that she'd earned with exceptional courage. She relaxed then and smiled back, lifting her face for his kiss.
She couldn't have imagined the tenderness of his possession. It was slow and thorough and breathlessly gentle. In between kisses and erotic caresses, he told her that he loved her, that he needed her, that she was the most important thing in his life. The magic they'd shared in his apartment was still there, intensified. He touched her and she felt boneless, anguished with her need of him.
Her arms clung to his neck when he moved over her and hesitated.
"Wait," he whispered. He paused and removed something he'd stuffed under a pillow, taking time to put it in place. She stared at him shyly. "No more babies just yet, sweetheart," he whispered softly. "I won't let you take that risk again."
"I'm all right," she said unsteadily. "It was a rare thing, Dane, and it might never happen again."
"We'll talk about it another time. You're weak and vulnerable right now. I have to take very good care of you, Mrs. Lassiter," he whispered against her mouth. “I love you far too much to risk losing you twice." He moved over her, easing her body to accommodate him. Then he began to join his body to hers with exquisite slowness and tenderness.
She was uncomfortable at first and he had to pause, to give her time to absorb him.
"You're like a virgin all over again," he said huskily, shivering with the restraint he was exercising for her sake. "Relax. Relax, little one. Yes." He sighed and let his hips slowly merge with hers.
She moaned as he completed his possession, her arms clinging as she lifted to him. "Oh, Dane," she gasped, "it's been almost a year...."
"I know," he said with a heavy groan, and his body began to move with helpless urgency.
She laughed in spite of the pleasure and kissed him hungrily. He caught her hips in his hands, and in seconds she was incapable of laughter or speech.
It was like the night they'd made the baby. She wept in his arms as the rhythm built in her body and in her blood, his possession of her so achingly complete that she went rigid with pleasure and stopped breathing altogether when the first heated contractions shook her under his weight. He cried out as she went over the edge, and her eyes opened at that instant, misty with her own helpless fulfillment. She saw him arch and his face clench just before her senses exploded, and she heard her own voice shattering....
She knew they'd never achieved such pleasure before. She lay heavily against his warm, damp body when they were coherent again, listening to his steady heartbeat, feeling him breathe against her breasts.
"You love me," he said with shaky humor. "I'd know it now even if you hadn't said it twenty times while we were loving just now."
"You said it several times yourself," she gasped.
He drew her closer and kissed her tenderly. "I mean it," he said. "Do you believe me now?"
She looked up into his soft, dark eyes. "Oh, yes," she agreed breathlessly, and blushed as she remembered the way it had been.
He bent and kissed her again with tenderness and possession. "I'd love to show you again, and again, and again," he whispered huskily. "But I hear the beginnings of a small thunderstorm."
She closed her eyes as he kissed her eyelids. "A small what?" She smiled lovingly.
"Listen."
A tiny sound exploded suddenly into a wail of pure fury in the quiet bedroom.
"Are you hungry again?" she asked, aghast. She threw her dress back on and got up to look at little John, who was waving his tiny fists and turning puce. "Or are you wet?"
"Better check for yourself," he murmured dryly from the bed. "As smart as he is, I doubt he's mastered enough English to answer you just yet."
She stuck out her tongue and proceeded to change a very wet diaper. As she was working on that, the telephone rang and Dane reached lazily across to answer it.
"No, I'm not coming in today. Why?" he asked. He frowned. Then he burst out laughing. "You don't mean it? When? Is she going to be all right?" He shook his head. "My God, of course I'll tell Tess. She'll die laughing. Tell her we'll be along to see her tonight, and for God's sake, confiscate her piece before she manages to do it again!"
"What is it?" Tess asked the minute he hung up.
"You'll never believe this," he said. He got up and pulled on his jeans, still chuckling. "You remember Helen was complaining that she was the only person in the office who'd never had a brush with a bullet?"
Her hands hesitated on the diaper she was fastening. "Yes."
“Well, it seems this afternoon she grabbed the wrong way for her pistol and shot herself in the foot."
"Oh, the poor thing!" Tess exclaimed, and ruined her sympathetic remark by bursting into helpless laughter. "I'm sorry, it isn't funny. She'll be all right?"
"Only a flesh wound. By the time she gets through embroidering it, she'll have had near-gangrene. They're keeping her overnight at the hospital just in case, so I told Nick we'd drop by to see her."
"I'll take flowers," she said. She grinned. "And a medal if we can find one."
He went to stand beside her as she finished changing the baby and lifted him into her arms. His eyes as he looked down at the two most beloved people in his life were stormy with happiness and love.
"He really does look like you," she said softly.
"Like both of us," he corrected, sliding a loving arm around her. His eyes twinkled. "Happy?"
"I never dreamed of being so happy." She reached up and kissed him. ''You're not s
orry it worked out this way, that you had to marry me?" she asked worriedly.
"I never had to marry you," he corrected with lazy tenderness. "I was only looking for an excuse, or did you really think I just happened into that restaurant the day you were having lunch with Kit?"
"You followed her!" she said, laughing. "She said you did."
"I followed her, all right. I'd brooded all morning about what I was going to do. Tess, I was going to ask you to come back with me," he confessed. "To live with me, marry me, to take a chance on a life without children."
She touched his face. "Oh, Dane!" she breathed.
"Then everything went wrong," he murmured. "And I got interrupted too soon."
"I was going to tell you about the baby," she replied, "and that man who approached you cost me my nerve."
He groaned. "All that time, wasted." He scowled suddenly. "You were having problems that day. It wasn't the ulcer, it was the baby."
"Yes," she said quietly. "But when you held my hand, the pain went away. I thought later that it was as if the baby knew you were his father, and he was responding to you."
His eyes darkened as he looked at her. "I gave you a hard time. I'm sorry, about everything."
"I loved you," she whispered. "I thought you might learn to love me, if I didn't rush you. I didn't want you to worry, or I'd have told you about the baby as soon as I knew. I didn't realize how hungry you really were for a child."
"Not for a child. For our child. Part of us." He bent and brushed his lips tenderly over the baby's temple, then he lifted his eyes back to hers. "You don't know how I missed you when you moved out of the apartment, or how afraid I was for you when those drug dealers were after you. For a long time, I thought I didn't want marriage. And then you wanted me to show you what lovemaking was." He groaned. "I didn't think it was possible to feel so deeply. I'd have done anything to get you, except sacrifice your need for a child." He searched her eyes. "It makes me humble, thinking of how much you were willing to sacrifice for me."
"Didn't that work both ways," she whispered.
He kissed her softly. "I like learning about love with you. I must be an apt pupil, because you sure make a lot of noise when we're in bed together."
She flushed, and he chuckled at her embarrassment. He grinned, bending to kiss her nose. "The baby gave me the best excuse in the world to marry you and take you home with me, without having to tell you how desperately I loved you. I thought I'd killed everything you felt for me."
"Silly man," she said lovingly. "Love doesn't die that easily."
"So it would seem. You had a hard time carrying John. Next time, we'll plan the baby, and I'll be with you every step of the way."
"That sounds like you want me to stop seducing you," she remarked.
"Heaven forbid!"
She smiled. "I wanted you so badly that night. I loved you. I thought if I gave you all I had to give and asked for nothing in return, you might learn to trust me, maybe to love me."
"I loved you, all right," he said huskily. He drew her closer with her precious bundle in her arms. "My God, we've had a rocky road. I hope things will be a little smoother for us now."
She reached up and kissed him with aching tenderness. "Stand back and see how smooth. I'll love you to death," she whispered huskily.
He actually flushed, his darkening eyes almost a statement of intent.
"Want me to try?" she murmured provocatively, parting her lips to draw his eyes to them.
"Are you serious?" he asked unsteadily. "Come here."
But before he could get further, their son let out a wail and went searching for the rest of his lunch.
Tess laughed as he found it, smiling at the ferocity of her son's furious expression. She looked at Dane, and the love in his eyes made her warm all over.
"It seems that my son has priorities," he mused, fighting down the surge of desire. "But there's always tonight."
"Yes. I love you," she whispered.
"I love you, too, little one. So much!"
She nibbled softly at his lips. "When John starts school, how would you feel about letting me go back to work?"
He lifted his head. "As a skip tracer for Short?" he asked.
“As an operative for you,'' she corrected.
He pursed his lips. "Keeping it in the family, I gather?"
"Until John is old enough to look good in a trench coat," she agreed.
He hugged her close and drew his fingers lovingly over his son's head. He hesitated, but she looked determined. Well, if he taught her, and watched the cases she took, he could keep her safe. It wouldn't hurt to let her feel independent. At the same time, he wouldn't really mind having her underfoot half the time. He smiled at just the prospect. "Okay. But you'll start out as a skip tracer, and no Mike Hammer stuff, got that?"
"Of course!"
She leaned her head on his chest and smiled at their son. But behind her back, where she was sure he couldn't see them, her fingers were crossed. Seconds later, his smile almost a declaration of love, he reached slowly behind her. And uncrossed them.
END
2 The Case of the Confirmed Bachelor (05-1992)
To Diane, Sydney and my Roz
Chapter One
It was a lazy day in late spring. Nick Reed was feeling restless again. Working for Dane Lassiter's Houston detective agency had been exciting at first, and he'd enjoyed the work. But wanderlust called to him through the open window from the park across the way.
He watched a particularly trim young woman strolling along with a small furry dog and he smiled, because her pert figure reminded him of Tabby.
Tabitha Harvey. Shades of the past, he mused, leaning back in his chair. He'd deliberately avoided thinking about her over the past few months, because of what had happened when he and his sister, Helen, had flown back to their childhood home in Washington, D.C., on business. The trip had been right before New Year's, and Tabby had been around. That was natural, because she and Helen had been friends forever. They'd all been invited to a party together.
Nick had noticed that Tabby was watching him with unusual interest that night. She'd gone back to the punch bowl several times, as he had himself. But the punch had been spiked and Tabby hadn't known. She'd cornered Nick in a deserted room and started kissing him.
He could still feel her fervent, if untutored, mouth trembling under his lips. For a few seconds, he'd returned her kisses with everything in him. But he'd stopped her then, and demanded an explanation.
Fuzzily she'd explained that she knew he'd come all that way just to see her, that she knew he was finally ready to settle down. They'd be so happy, she said dreamily, smiling through an alcoholic haze.
Nick had no idea where she'd come up with those wild statements. If he'd ever thought of Tabby romantically, it had been years ago. Her remarks had come right out of the blue, and he'd reacted with shocked anger. He'd said some cutting and sarcastic things about her confession, which had sent her running. He'd gone back to the house with Helen and packed to leave D.C. He'd never told Helen exactly what happened, but he imagined Tabby had. He and Tabby hadn't had any contact since. Not that he wasn't sorry for the things he'd said; apologies were just hard for him.
He was scowling over the memories when Helen tapped at his office door and let herself in.
"Have you thought it over?” she asked eagerly.
He glowered at her, swinging his chair back around with a long, powerful leg. His blond hair gleamed like gold in the light from the window. His eyes, as dark as her own, had a hard glitter.
"Yes."
"You'll do it?" she asked with a grin, pushing her long hair back from her elfin face.
"Yes, I've thought about it, and no, I won't do it," he clarified.
Her face fell. "Nick! Please!"
"I won't," Nick said firmly. "You'll have to get your information some other way."
"Blood is thicker than water, remember," Helen Reed persisted hopefully. "I'm the only sister you
have. There's only the two of us. Oh, Nick, you've got to!"
"Not really," he said with maddening indifference and a grin.
There were times, she thought, when he'd look really good hanging from a long rope. But then she'd be alone in the world except for Harold, to whom she was engaged.
"You're the only ex-FBI agent we've got at the Lassiter Detective Agency," she reminded him. "You've got contacts in all the right places. All you have to do is make one little-bitty telephone call," she persisted.
And she fixed her big brown eyes on him in their thin elfin face in its frame of long, straight brown hair. Except for his blond hair, they looked very much alike. Same stubborn chin, same elegant nose, same spirited dark eyes. But Nick was much more introverted and secretive than she was. He'd been that way all their lives, since they'd grown up in Washington, D.C.—where she attended college and he worked for the FBI.
Over the years, he'd done a lot of traveling, and she hadn't seen him for months, sometimes years at a time, until he'd received the offer of work from Richard Dane Lassiter. He'd met Dane on a case just before the Texas Ranger had been shot to pieces. When Lassiter began his own private detective agency, he coaxed Nick away from the FBI and Nick volunteered Helen as a paralegal, with her two years of business college giving her an edge over the competition. She'd come hotfoot from Washington to be with her brother. Their parents had been dead for some time, and she'd liked the idea of being near the last of her kin.
She did miss Tabitha Harvey very much at first, because she and Tabby had been friends since they were children. They still corresponded, although Tabby was very careful not to ask how Nick was. Obviously her memories of Helen's brother were painful ones.
"No," he said again. "I won't call the FBI for you."
She grinned at him, her slender hands together. "I'll tell."
"You'll tell what?"
"That you were out with that gorgeous blonde when you were supposed to be on stakeout for Dane," she said.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 111