And Lara was the right woman.
If he’d had any doubts, the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her on his lips, the subtle, soft sound of her breathing, the passion she was no longer trying to disguise would have assuaged them. But he was way past doubts now. Way past the point of no return. He was either in love or falling too fast to make any difference.
And in all the times he’d been in love before—which numbered plenty—it had never once felt like this. Never come close to feeling this right.
“Lara?” He grazed the lobe of her ear with his tongue, breathed in the scent of her perfume and whatever aromatic potions she put on her hair. “I left something very important undone tonight. Something I need to do.”
She drew back, her expression a study in containing disappointment. “Can’t it wait?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Her gaze dropped, then lifted to his on a sigh. She looked resigned, as if having offered herself, she wasn’t surprised to be rejected. “Oh, well,” she said. “I understand. You…can’t stay. All right. We’ll be fine. Cal and I. I’ll be fine. You go and do whatever you…you must.”
He loved that this beautiful, articulate, intelligent woman, who regularly floored him in verbal combat, was reduced to a staccato maze of sentence fragments at the thought of his leaving. He hated that she so quickly assumed anything could be more important to him than she was at this moment. His hand shook just a little as he let it drift down the silky skin of her bare arm, caressing her with the touch, reaching her fingertips and enfolding them within the span of his palm. “Come with me,” he said. “There’s something you need to see.”
“No, I should probably check on Cal. You can let yourself out.”
“Trust me, Cal hasn’t moved a muscle since we tucked him into bed.” He tugged on her hand, gently bidding her to walk with him. “And I want you to come with me outside.”
“Outside?”
Reaching the back door, he flipped the latch and opened the door, still holding her hand, urging her to follow, to trust him. “There’s a moon out here I want you to meet.”
“I saw it earlier on the way to Rosecliff.”
“That was yesterday’s moon, which is nothing at all like this morning’s.”
She stopped in the doorway. “It’s been a long night, Bryce. Let’s not drag this out. You said you needed to go, so please, just…go.”
“I said there was something important I left undone. This is it.” He drew her outside, past the overhang of the porch, across the tiny stone-patched patio, to the edge of the small lawn. Stopping there, he put his hands on her slender shoulders, turned her and pulled her back against him as he pointed between the sprawling limbs of an old oak to the round silver medallion of a moon, nestled like a locket around the throat of a star-drenched night. “Now,” he said, leaning his head in next to hers, savoring the silky smooth feel of her cheek against his, as they looked up at the sky together. “Tell the truth. Have you ever seen a more beautiful moon at three o’clock in the morning?”
She made no answer, unless he counted the way her body relaxed against him, unless the whisper-soft sound of her sigh was her reply. Night noises surrounded the two of them in a busy silence, with the faraway sounds of a Sunday morning city hushed, but waking, in the distance. After a while, she lay her head back against his shoulder. “Looking at the moon is what you left undone?” she asked softly.
“Looking at the moon with you,” he corrected, then added. “I promised myself I’d dance with you in the moonlight, but this is almost as good.”
“I never figured you for the kind of guy who would be content with almost as good.” She turned slowly into his arms, a smile beginning on her kissable lips, an invitation in her night-blue eyes. “Mr. Braddock,” she whispered. “May I have this dance?”
“You’re a surprising woman tonight, Ms. Richmond.” He gathered her in, held her close, bewitched by her smile, dazzled by her nearness. “And lucky, too, because I believe I can do a reasonably good rendition of humming our song.”
“We don’t have a song,” she said. “Let’s just dance to the rhythm of our beating hearts.”
“This could be even better than I imagined.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It could.”
He closed his eyes, thanked his lucky stars, and danced with her in the moonlight to the music of the night and two seeking hearts.
LARA COULDN’T BEGIN to explain why her world suddenly seemed a better place because Bryce Braddock was in it. She didn’t want to analyze the feeling and had absolutely no desire to think about how much she would probably regret her actions in the light of day. She wanted him in her bed. She wanted him naked and hard and hot. She wanted him tender and teasing and attentive. She needed to be touched. She needed to be held. She needed to be kissed. She needed a man to make desperate, passionate love to her…and Bryce was not only here, but willing to accommodate her.
In fact, he was probably the perfect choice for the flinging of her heart over her, usually, level head. In one single act of lovemaking, she’d accomplish the goal of not being alone, of finding comfort in his arms, and the bonus of ending the game of romantic intrigue he was playing with her. Afterward, he’d lose interest. That’s the kind of guy he was. But that was okay. She didn’t want him forever. No. She wanted him for tonight. That’s what she told herself while they were dancing. It was the line of thought she kept in her mind when their kisses segued into heated passion and they made the transition from outside to inside, from the back door to the door of her bedroom, from the tantalizing possibility of sex to the certainty of their intentions. And she held her own against the doubts, against the idea that maybe, maybe, her heart was somewhat involved, right up until the moment he fumbled with the looped closure of her evening gown and whispered a low, husky, “Sorry. I’m out of practice.”
Bryce Braddock, God’s gift to the women of New England, out of practice?
But his whispered confession was borne out by the unsettled rhythm of his breathing, the trouble he seemed to have figuring out how to unloop a, really, very simple closure, the sheer sweet pleasure he took in simply touching her, as if he needed to convince himself she was really there. When she lifted her arms and reached back to undo the dress, he stopped her. “Please,” he said. “Let me do it.”
Then he drew her arms down and kissed her shoulder, sending a delicate shiver rippling down her spine before he led her to the window where moonlight filtered through the summer leaves, spilled over through the glass, and provided enough light for him to see how the gown was held together. Success came easily then, and if he was nervous or out of practice in undressing a woman, he concealed it well because the champagne silk grew loose around her as the buttons were freed. The gown slipped down, slowly at first, then as he eased it from her shoulders and down her arms, it fell with a quicksilver rustle of fabric and pooled around her feet.
Her stockings were next, drawn from her legs by his caressing hands as he kneeled before her, followed by kisses that trailed leisurely and randomly from her thigh to the back of her knee, from her right leg to her left leg, across the taut, quivery surface of her stomach…and even lower. She wore nothing else…no sexy Victoria’s Secret undergarments, no silk teddy or tempting scraps of lace…only the shadows and light cast by the moon through her window. And finally, then, his gaze.
As he stood and stepped back, his gaze covered her with subtle, sure longings, clothed her in admiration and tender respect, robed her in honored regard and sincere appreciation. Bryce was a man who honored women, who valued them, who reveled in the distinct differences of body and mind that set them apart from him. He might have looked at any woman the same way he was looking now at her, but Lara felt somehow that it wasn’t so. She felt, as his gaze traveled over her, that he was as fascinated by her body, by her uniqueness, as if he had never seen another woman. Ever.
She realized that wasn’t true, had heard rampant rumors about his resumé of
experience with women, understood that his knowledge of lovemaking had to be broad and varied. But it didn’t feel that way here in her hushed and shaded bedroom. It felt as if she was the only woman in the world and he the only man, and this was the first time either had ever looked at the other.
The power of seduction swelled within her and she reached up to undo the restraints that confined her hair. The sleek style came apart in increments as the pins and clips came out, and gave way to the wild abandon she so seldom allowed. Her hair fell forward and downward in an appealing descent of silver gold around her face and shoulders, tumbling to the middle of her back and setting something free inside her. Something wild and needy and passionate.
“Wow,” he said, his breath shaky as he sucked it in. He stepped forward, then, framed her face in his large, gentle hands and looked deeply, reverently into her eyes. “I have never seen anything as beautiful as you,” he whispered. “And that includes every moon, every star and each and every lovely morning of my life.”
He took her lips then, in a kiss that was both exquisitely tender and laced with a desire so strong, so hot, it scorched her carefully thought-out premise. She was going to get burned this time. For all her sophistication, for all her woman-of-the-world demeanor, she was vastly inexperienced in the bedroom, and even less so, in the art of being loved. But Bryce was about to change that. She knew it with that first touch, felt the shift inside her soul, recognized finally the hope of her heart that this night, this first time together would lead to more, to a lifetime of making love, to a forever after of sharing a life.
Impossible, of course. Another coming disappointment in a life of trying so hard to want only what she, alone, could achieve for herself. But as Bryce put her hands to his shirt, encouraged her to undress him as he had undressed her, smiled at her hesitation and waited for her to take pleasure in him, she understood there would be no going back. Not for her. She’d bargained for an hour or two of escape from being achingly vulnerable and unbearably needy. What she was getting instead was the start of a journey. His kiss, his touch, his amazing enthusiasm for living would be her guides. Her own unmapped passion beckoned her on to the adventure. She wanted this, needed him, hoped her heart wouldn’t break with the sweetness of this uncharted pilgrimage.
Wherever this goes, whatever happens, we’re going to share it, he had said.
In the next few minutes, Lara began to learn that he meant it. He teased her with kisses and whispered enticements, but he let her remove his clothes at her own pace. He let her discover his body as he had discovered hers, and her shyness fell away with his shirt, her residual temerity fled as her hands became acquainted with the feathery texture of the hair on his chest, the healthy slope of muscles beneath. She kissed his chest, tongued the pebbled knots there and lost her inhibitions entirely when he groaned softly, sweetly with pleasure.
Lara had done very little in her life without reservation, without setting a limit on how much she would give. But as first his hand and then his mouth closed on her breast, as a low cry of desire broke free, she felt her soul take flight as well. Passion rose like a rushing, mighty force inside her and she knew no way to contain it, had no hope of restraining it.
He took her to the bed then, and loved her, expertly, purely, fervently, requiring her complete participation, her ardent collaboration. When she thought she might die of anticipation, he moved above her and her body took his weight, took him in, locked him to her with a feverish claim that would not be denied. They moved like dancers along the path of timeless intrigue, pursuing, capturing and then releasing each other only to begin the dance all over again.
Each time it was new. Each time the passion grew stronger. Each time she lost more of herself to the ascending pleasure, and more of her heart to him. And each time he returned her gifts in full measure and with more impassioned tenderness than she’d ever dreamed existed in the world. When he tensed and called out her name in a voice low and thick with desire, her body, too, surrendered to the glorious release and together they soared and then drifted, sated and whole, back into the moonlit world of her bedroom.
“Wow,” he whispered a little while later. “Wow.”
Her heart echoed the wonder, gathered the awe of feeling womanly and powerful and sexy…and completely, forever his.
She ought to be scared out of her mind at the way he’d just possessed her, taken her heart as his willing hostage. But instead she felt safe. And honored.
And loved.
Blissfully, beautifully loved.
He kissed her with bated passion, seeded with the promise of a swift recovery. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered. “I’m just going to check on Calvin.”
She remembered then and felt guilty for having forgotten her nephew was only down the hall. She shouldn’t have invited Bryce to stay over, should have considered the consequences of Cal waking unexpectedly and coming innocently into her bedroom, as he did sometimes in the middle of the night. She should have thought about Cal’s tender heart, the effect finding her with Bryce—a man he already felt some attachment for—could have on him. It had been irresponsible to take that chance, clearly emphasized how unfit she was to be his caretaker.
But when Bryce returned, slipped back into bed beside her, and cupped his body around hers, she didn’t ask him to leave for Cal’s sake. She stayed silent so he would stay for hers.
“Still sound asleep,” he said, reassuring her without removing a trace of her guilt. “Don’t worry. I’ll slip out to the sofa long before he’s awake.”
It was then she admitted to herself what her heart must have known from the start.
She was in love with Bryce.
And she had no choice now but to let it be.
Chapter Nine
Bryce awakened slowly, and knew immediately he was in unfamiliar territory, with not one, but two blondes nestled snugly under the covers with him. One of them was awake, too, and looking at him with wide brown eyes and an impish smile. “Hi, ya, Cal,” he whispered. “Feeling okay?”
Cal nodded against the pillow and yawned a mighty, musky smelling yawn, before he wiggled deeper under the covers. So much for slipping out of Lara’s bed and onto the sofa before the little guy woke, Bryce thought. So much for the fleeting dreams of waking Lara with kisses and a cup of coffee long before Cal was out of bed and needing attention. So much for the possibility of seeing Lara naked and with her glorious hair down around her shoulders before her nephew made it a necessity to be decently clothed and covered and behaving in a responsible manner.
“Hey, pal.” Bryce’s whisper stopped the kid from tunneling to Lara’s side of the bed. “Are you hungry?”
Cal popped upright like a jack-in-the-box and his head bobbled like it was attached to a spring.
Must be hungry, Bryce decided.
“Let’s go to the kitchen and fix ourselves a manly breakfast.”
“Yeah,” Cal agreed, forgetting to whisper and causing Lara to stir under the covers. The sheet slipped down her arm, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of soft, bare skin, which Bryce immediately blocked from four-year-old view.
But not fast enough. Cal’s hand came up to cover a giggle. “Aunt Lara’s not wearing her pajamas.”
“Maybe they’re sleeveless pajamas.” Imaginary, too, but no need to mention that. “Sshhh, she’s asleep.” Bryce put his fingers to his lips, hoping to stop this discussion before Cal hit a question Bryce couldn’t answer, and wondering how he was going to get out of bed without the kid noticing he wasn’t wearing any pajamas, either. Who knew a little boy could create such a dilemma first thing in the morning? Obviously, having Cal around would make courting Lara more of a challenge. “Listen, Cal, I left my watch on the table in the kitchen. Would you go get it for me?”
The child considered, probably sensing a ruse of some kind or another. Smart kid.
“It’s my Captain Hook watch,” Bryce lied in desperation.
That did the trick. Cal bounced up and space-walk
ed to the end of the mattress, where he jumped off, hit the floor running and raced down the hall. He was feeling better already, apparently. Bryce was out of bed and stepping into his clothes faster than he normally moved at any time of the day, much less at—he glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table—7:32 a.m. He was zipping his pants when Calvin zipped back into the room.
“I didn’t see a Cap’n Hook watch.”
Dressed, but at the price of a lie. Bryce frowned, then hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I forgot,” he whispered, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t wear it last night.”
Cal looked suspicious, but Lara turned over just then and his attention was diverted back to the bed and its bouncy mattress. Before he could scrabble up onto the bed again, though, he coughed. A hoarse, hacking sound. And his little hand went to his throat as his face screwed into a pained expression.
“Let’s go get you a dose of medicine.”
Cal shook his head. “I don’t wanta go to the hossp’l.”
“I don’t blame you. The doctor sent the medicine home with us. It’s in the kitchen.”
“With the Cap’n Hook watch?”
No fool, this little guy. “How about some pancakes, Peter Pan?” Bryce grabbed Calvin, tucked him under his arm like a football in long johns, and headed out of the bedroom. Cal squealed, then coughed again and Bryce decided Lara slept like her nephew…comatose and dead to the world. Which, right now, was a good thing.
“What does a great kid like you do after breakfast?” he asked, wondering how couples managed to get time alone with a precocious little boy under the same roof.
“Watch cartoons,” Cal replied solidly. “Scooby Dooby Doo, Where Are You?”
“Okay,” Bryce agreed, new to the ways of children and a Sunday morning at Lara’s house, but eager to get with the program. Because it was his sure intention to spend a good many mornings here from now on. “Cartoons and pancakes, coming right up.”
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