All Tied Up
Page 21
Chuckling, Leo found a clean mug and poured coffee and amaretto in equal parts, then added cream. He stirred the brew with a fondue fork. “Guess everyone left with a lot of cold beer stories to share.”
Macy wasn’t sure if he was making a dig or an apology. She wasn’t sure where anything he said was coming from. Or why he seemed so…mellow. “You missed a good time.”
Cradling the mug between his large hands, he sipped, swallowed, sucked air through clenched teeth and shuddered. “I did think about coming for the party.”
“But decided instead to perfect your fashionably late arrival?” She skewered a marshmallow with the fondue fork and tested the consistency of the softening chocolate.
“What I decided—” he set his mug firmly on the table “—was that I’d rather give you my list in private.”
Oh, boy, Macy thought. This was it. The big kiss-off. She swirled the marshmallow in a nervous figure eight. “Well, if you’re waiting for an invitation…then consider yourself invited.”
His mouth quirked and he leaned back, lifted his hips, dug into the back pocket of his khaki slacks and produced the sheet of blue paper. He took his time smoothing and unfolding the list, finally spreading it out on the table for Macy to see.
What she saw was nothing. The list was blank except for the printed questions. She stopped stirring the chocolate and stared, blinking, thinking, then slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. “I know I’m pointing out the obvious, Leo, but all you’re giving me is a blank sheet of paper. The same one I gave you.”
Slowly, he shook his head, his hand flat on the paper on the table. He flexed his fingers once, twice, and then he said, “No, Macy. I’m giving you more.”
He turned the paper facedown. And there, on the back of the blue page, written in black ink and block letters, were three words. Three words that had her eyes blurring and her ears ringing and her pulse bursting in her veins. If this was a dream, she never wanted to wake up.
She pulled in a deep breath and swore she’d hate herself forever if she cried. Her voice was level and low when she asked, “This isn’t because of my tragic childhood reenactment yesterday, is it?”
He shook his head, but she cut him off anyway. “Because if it is—”
“Trust me.” He reached across the table to still her trembling hand, which rattled the fondue fork against the side of the pot. “It’s not. I knew how I felt before you walked through my door.”
“But you didn’t say anything.” This time all she could do was whisper. “Why didn’t you say anything then?”
The smile he offered was tender and sweet. “Because I didn’t want you to think what you just thought. That I was reacting to what you’d come to tell me.”
She didn’t know how to respond. From totally out of left field, he’d said the very thing she would’ve died to hear him say. Well, he hadn’t said it. He’d written it. As if she was going to quibble.
“But you left. We made love and you left.” This was what she didn’t understand. “Lauren had come back and you’d already been run off once that night and I don’t even know the meaning of peace and quiet and what kind of successful, driven attorney wants to live in a madhouse?”
“Is that a lawyer joke? Or just a really long run-on sentence?”
She shook her head. She nodded. She wanted to laugh. But her breath caught and she could do little more than sniff back the emotion puffing up in her throat like a hot air balloon. She had so much to say, so many things to ask. But her big fat mouth wasn’t working, damn it.
Leo stood, came around the table and pulled her out of her chair and to her feet. He cradled her face in his hands, brushed his thumbs over the tears clinging to her lashes.
“I left because I didn’t know what else to do. Lauren needed you.” He paused, hesitated, finally said, “And what I needed could wait.”
She moved her hands to his chest, beneath his blazer, feeling the warmth of his skin, the hard beat of his heart through his white oxford shirt that wasn’t stuffed or the least bit stiff. How could she ever have thought otherwise? “What was it that you needed?”
“I needed you to kiss me.” He pressed his fingers to her lips when she opened her mouth to interrupt. “Not because of any dare or any game. Not because it was what I wanted.” He ran the barest tip of a thumb over her lower lip. “I needed to know you wanted me then as much as you’d wanted me in bed.”
Closing her eyes and clutching the lapels of his blazer, Macy buried her face in Leo’s chest and breathed in the scents of his clothing and his skin and his soap, and knew nothing in the world could possibly smell as sweet as love.
She used her tongue to part the lapels of his shirt and kissed his breastbone, sighing into his damp skin. “I love you, Leo Redding.”
“I love you, Macy Webb.”
For several long moments he stood quiet and still, stroking his hand over her hair. Macy refused to move. This moment was too fairy-tale perfect and she didn’t want it to end.
Of course, Leo, being Mr. Practical, had to bring her back to the real world. “So, how’d you do on your list?”
“I did okay.” She did better than okay. She’d won the biggest prize of all. And, no matter what Leo said, size did matter.
“Are you going to show it to me?”
Macy opened her eyes, bit her tongue on the comeback his comment deserved, but didn’t move another single muscle. She was too comfortable, and moving would mean she had to let go when she never ever wanted to let go.
“Macy? Your list?”
She looked down at the table. At the warm liquid chocolate. And at the marshmallow that would serve quite well as a sponge brush for painting…
“It’s in the bedroom.” She grabbed him by the tie with one hand, took hold of the fondue pot’s handle with the other. “C’mon. I’ll spell it out for you. But you’ll have to get naked.”
Both brows went up over his pewter rims. “Naked?”
She licked her lips. “Yep. Chocolate is hell on white dress shirts.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5329-6
ALL TIED UP
Copyright © 2002 by Mica Stone.
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