by Lucy Monroe
Some oils were obviously not done. There were watercolors, too, and acrylics…but they all had one thing in common. Their subject: Her.
Every single painting she saw was of her. Some were of her sleeping. When had he seen her doing that? One was of her standing over a burning toaster, her expression resigned. She remembered the morning not long after meeting him for the first time that she had burnt her breakfast toast. He’d teased her because she couldn’t blame it on the toaster. She’d been reading a programming manual and pressed the button down twice instead of taking the toast out when it was done.
She moved around the room, her heart pounding as she looked at one painting after another of herself. Each expressed some different facial emotion. She stopped in front of one that showed her sitting on the end of the couch, her expression vulnerable.
“I was thinking about you.”
“I didn’t know that, but something in your expression called to me.”
She turned and her breath came out in a loud gasp as she saw a life-size oil, definitely finished. “You never saw me naked before. How could you have painted this?”
“I saw you a hundred times in my dreams. Amazing how accurate it is, isn’t it?”
She couldn’t answer. Her tongue wouldn’t work, but he was right. For a man who had only his imagination to go on, he’d done an incredible job of portraying her nude body.
“A gallery in New York has been trying to get me to show for months, but this is my best work and I couldn’t share it with the public, not without admitting that you meant way too much to me.”
She reached out and touched the painting, running her finger along the line of the lifelike curve of her breast to a nipple beaded with desire. “I look like I’m waiting for you to come back to bed.”
In the painting, she was in the middle of a big four-poster bed with sheets the color of the sunset, and while the top sheet covered one thigh, the rest of her body was completely open to his view.
“In my mind you were.”
“I just cannot believe you painted all of these of me.”
“It was the only thing that kept my sanity while I was so busy trying to hide from the feelings you brought out in me. I told myself you were simply an interesting subject.”
She dropped her hand and turned to face him then. “What feelings?”
“I told you, but you didn’t believe me. But I love you, Claire. I have for a long time. I blinded myself to it because…” His voice trailed off and his expression was pained.
“You didn’t want to break your promise to Elena.”
He sighed. “That was part of it, but it wasn’t all.”
“What else?”
“I loved Elena, but duty meant more to her than I did. I was afraid of the feelings I had for you…they were powerful, more powerful than anything I’d ever known.”
“You were afraid I would hurt you?”
He frowned, looking way less than pleased to be discussing this aspect of his emotions, but he nodded. “I sensed from the very beginning that you could hurt me more than she had and that bothered the hell out of me. I was such an idiot, Claire. I told myself I didn’t love you, that I couldn’t, that what I felt for you was better than love.”
“Maybe—”
“It is better than love, or at least the love I felt for Elena. What I feel for you is so much bigger, so much stronger, so much more than what I had with her. You’re the whole package, sugar, the one woman who makes my life complete. Can you understand that? I need you.”
She was going to cry, but she didn’t care. She never would have thought her hardened ex-merc could speak so poetically. “I’m not perfect,” she said with a choked voice.
“And I’m glad, because you are perfect the way you are for me. I love you so much, it scares me.”
“It scares me, too. I love you, Brett. So much.”
“I know, sugar, and I’ll thank God every day for the rest of my life that you do. Do you know that?”
She couldn’t answer and he didn’t seem to need her to.
He kissed her and then picked her up with his lips still locked to hers. He carried her to a bedroom and laid her on a bed and she saw that it was the bed in the painting.
“Is this what you call living out your fantasies?” she asked as he stripped out of his clothes.
He started undressing her, his hands purposeful and insistent as he took off first her shoes and socks and then her pants and top. He left her in her bra and panties, feeling more exposed than if she were completely naked.
He stepped back and looked at her, his expression filled with desire and tenderness. “Every moment with you is living out a fantasy, Claire. The best kind. Now, put your hands above your head, sugar.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to like looking at you that way.”
She laughed, doing as he said, enjoying the way it made her nipples rub against the lace of her bra. “I like it, too.”
“Now, keep them up there while I pull off your panties. Will you do that for me, sugar?”
“Yesssss.”
He didn’t remove her underwear right away, but first he traced all along the edges and then down over her mound, making her arch with need.
“That feels good,” she panted.
“Yes, darlin’, it does.” He played with her through the small patch of silk for a long time, until she was writhing under him and wanting his fingers on her naked flesh.
“Brett, please…”
Hotwire inhaled the sweet fragrance of Claire’s arousal and hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties. He wanted to touch her silky, wet heat as much as she wanted his fingers there. Having her here, in his bed, was something he’d fantasized about repeatedly, but never let himself contemplate really happening.
But now that she was his, he would never let her go. He started pulling them down her legs, going slowly, letting the silk caress her thighs as he went. “You are going to marry me, aren’t you, sugar?”
Her head was twisting side to side. “You…what?”
The panties came off and she spread her legs in open invitation to his touch.
He fluffed her curls and then dipped one finger into her honeyed heat. “Marriage. You and me becoming husband and wife. You’re going to marry me.”
“I love you,” she groaned.
“And I love you.” He thrust two fingers up inside of her.
She cried out.
“Say yes, Claire. I want to hear the words.” He didn’t know where the strength to talk was coming from, but he needed to know she was done balking at the last fence.
“Yes. Whatever you want, Brett. Anything. Just touch me.”
He crawled up so he was over her, their bodies aligned. He kept loving her with his fingers, but didn’t touch her clitoris or that special spot deep inside. “Now, that’s an intriguing proposition, sugar, but what I need from you is a cognizant acceptance of my marriage proposal.”
Her hands came down from above her head and she grabbed his penis and pulled it toward her opening. “Yes, I’m going to marry you, but I may kill you first if you don’t make love to me right this minute.”
He surged inside of her, kissing her at the same time. They came together almost immediately, their meshed mouths catching the other’s cries.
Afterward, he rolled on his back so she was on top of him.
She nuzzled his chest. “I wonder if we are going to have a girl or a boy.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not building any dynasties. I just want healthy kids.”
“Me, too.” She lifted her head so she could look him straight in that incredible blue-eyed gaze. “I don’t want a big wedding, like Josette’s. I’d rather get married on the beach with just you and me and our friends. And your immediate family. Okay?”
His heart tightened in his chest. “That sounds great, sugar. Perfect, in fact.”
“Can we go on a honeymoon?”
“Yes. Anywh
ere you want.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, laying her head on his chest. “I don’t care where. I just want to be with you and know that we’re there because we love each other and want to be together for our whole lives.”
“That sounds good, sugar, real good.”
“Yes, it does.” She hugged him tight and he wrapped his arms around her, accepting once and for all that there was nothing better than love, not the kind he shared with Claire, anyway.
They got married on the beach…in Mexico. His family came, and their friends. Queenie came, too, from her new home near Roswell where she, Josie’s dad, and his wife printed a small monthly newsletter that specialized in conspiracy theories and exposing government cover-ups. After the wedding, Hotwire took Claire to an all-inclusive resort and taught her to snorkel and scuba dive while she helped him perfect his kite-flying techniques.
William Keely died mysteriously while in jail awaiting trial. There were rumors that he had connections that would not like being sold out for a deal he was negotiating with the D.A. The D.A. had been reticent to cut the deal because evidence had been mounting that Keely had killed more than one person in his rise to power…starting with the problematic farmer who had stood in the way of his father’s land development.
Claire was just glad that some kind of justice had been served against Lester’s murderer. When she said so to Brett, he commented that she was awfully bloodthirsty, for a pacifist.
She pointed out that she wasn’t a pacifist.
She was just a woman who, when she loved, she loved deeply, and she was going to love Hamilton Brett Adams to the depths of her soul all the way into eternity.
Don’t miss MaryJanice Davidson’s latest book,
DROP DEAD, GORGEOUS!
Available now from Brava!
S he found the minister in the men’s room. He was trying to talk the bad guy into giving up his gun. Their voices were bouncing off the tile and Jenny had just enough time to wish she’d knocked, but then it was too late, and she was standing under bright fluorescents and thinking, This is the cleanest men’s room I’ve ever seen. Also, the third men’s room I’ve ever seen.
“Don’t you think you should have planned this better?” she asked because, honestly, it was the first thought that popped in her head.
Not: “Help!”
Not: “Oh my God, he’s got a gun!”
The bad guy grinned at her. He was dressed, to her disappointment, like most bad guys: neck to ankles in black fatigues, and fairly bristling with guns and knives and armor. His hair was cut brutally short; no more than a dark brown fuzz covered his skull. His dark eyes almost disappeared into laugh lines while he smiled at her, but she could see they were tipped at the ends, not quite almond-shaped, giving him an exotic look. It was a little like being in the men’s room with a panther. Though without a firmer frame of reference, she probably couldn’t be sure.
“I planned things just fine, sweetie,” he informed her in a North Carolina accent. Ah planned things jest fahn, sweetie. “Is he dead?”
To add the final touch of weirdness to the day, the bad guy pulled out a spork from nowhere and nibbled on the end.
A spork? But the nearest KFC was—
She wrenched her thoughts back to a logical track. Sporks be damned. Time to focus. Caitlyn and James were somewhere else in the building. The Boss was probably in an ambulance by now. Stacy was a civilian. The minister probably wasn’t armed. All the urinals were empty. It was up to her.
“Hmmm-mmmm, hmm-hmm,” she replied.
“What?” he said, taking a step toward her, putting the spork back into his bad guy Bat belt.
She wrung her hands and moved closer. “Don’t hurt us, please! I’ll tell you where he is, only mmm hmmmm mmmm.”
“Don’t be scared, honey.” Don’t be scayed, honeh. She fought the mad impulse to giggle. It was a little like talking to Foghorn Legorn in Kevlar. “Now what’s that?”
She threw her bouquet in his face, poor thing that it was after she’d denuded it to make the cake. He flinched back and she clawed for the pistol in the shoulder holster, ducking as he swung at her with almost no force, what was that, was he really not trying to hurt her? Moron.
(You’d better be sure, if you try for a man’s gun.)
She was sure. The Velcro tore—
(If he’s any good he’ll have one in the chamber, one in the chamber, one in the chamber.)
—and she had the gun. She stuck it in his face the moment he cut his losses and backed up.
“You’d better come with me,” she said.
“Oh, dear God,” the minister said. He was in the far corner. Praying, not swearing. Funny. Half an hour ago, the guy had looked like he was in his early thirties. Now he looked ready for a retirement home. The black, of course, didn’t help.
The bad guy hadn’t lost his smile through the whole thing (weird!) and now he held his rifle out in front of him like a peace offering to a god, then carefully put it down, backed up more, and raised his hands. “You got me, honey. I’ll come quietly.”
“Oh.”
He laughed. A great laugh, booming and rich. It echoed off the tiles. “You sound disappointed, honey! Were you hoping for a smackdown in the boys’ room?”
“Never you mind.” She moved to the side, the gun never wavering; she had sighted on the middle of his forehead. “Let’s go, Carolina.”
“Aww. Who told you mah nickname?”
Two lovers. And an unforgettable passion
that transcends time in
AGAIN
by Sharon Cullars.
Coming in May 2006 from Brava…
I nner resolve is a true possibility when temptation isn’t within sight. Like the last piece of chocolate cheesecake with chocolate shavings; that last cigarette; that half-filled glass of Chianti…or the well-defined abs of a man who’s had to take his shirt off because he spilled marinara sauce on it. Not deliberately. Accidents happen. At the sight of hard muscles, resolve flies right out of the window and throws a smirk over its wing.
Part of it was her fault. Tyne had offered him a shoulder rub, because during the meal he had seemed tense, and she’d suspected that his mind was still on the occurrences of the day. After dessert, he sat in one of the chairs in the living room while she stood over him. Even though he had put on a clean shirt, she could feel every tendon through the material, the image of his naked torso playing in her mind as her fingers kneaded the taut muscles.
As David started to relax, he leaned back to rest his head on her stomach. The lights were at half-dim. Neither of them was playing fair. Especially when a hand reached up to caress her cheek.
“Stop it,” she whispered.
He seemed to realize he was breaking a promise, because the hand went down, and he said, “I’m sorry.” But his head remained on her stomach, his eyes shut. From her vantage, she could see the shadow of hair on his chest. She remembered how soft it felt, feathery, like down. Instinctively, and against her conscious will, her hand moved to touch the bare flesh below his throat. She heard the intake of breath, felt the pulse at his throat speed up.
She told herself to stop, but there was the throbbing between her legs that was calling attention to itself. It made her realize she had lied. When she told him she wanted to take it slow, she had meant it. Then. But the declaration seemed a million moments ago, before her fingers touched him again, felt the heat of his flesh melding with her own.
He bent to kiss her wrist, and the touch of his lips was the catalyst she needed. The permission to betray herself again.
She pulled her hands away, and he looked up like a child whose treat had been cruelly snatched away. She smiled and circled him. Then slowly she lowered herself to her knees, reached over, unbelted and unbuttoned his pants. Slowly, pulled down the zipper.
“But I thought you wanted…” he started.
“That’s what I thought I wanted.” She released him from his constraints. “But right now, this i
s what I want.” She took him into her mouth.
She heard an intake of breath, then a moan that seemed to reverberate through the rafters of the room. She felt the muscles of his thighs tighten beneath her hands, relax, tighten again. Her tongue circled the furrowed flesh, running rings around the natural grooves. She tasted him, realized that she liked him. Liked the tang of the moisture leaking from him. And the strangled animal groans her ministrations elicited.
There were pauses in her breathing, followed by strained exhalations. Then a sudden weight of a hand on the back of her head, guiding her. She took his cue, began sucking with a pressure that drew him farther inside her mouth. Yet there was more of him than she could hold.
He was moments from coming. She could feel the trembling in his limbs. But suddenly he pushed her away, disgorging his member from her mouth with the motion.
He shook his head. “No, not yet,” he said breathlessly. “Why don’t you join me?” Before she could answer, he stood up, pulling her up with him, and began unbuttoning her blouse, almost tearing the seed pearls in the process. The silk slid from her skin and fell to the ground in a languid pool of golden-brown. He hooked eager fingers beneath her bra straps, wrenched them down. Within seconds, she was naked from the waist up, and the current in the room, as well as the excitement of the moment teased her nipples into hard pebbles. His fingers gently grazed them, then he grazed each with his tongue. Her knees buckled.
“How far do you want to go?” he breathed. “Because I don’t want you to do this just for me.”
Her answer was to reach for the button of his shirt, then stare into those green, almost hazel eyes. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m being totally selfish. I want you…your body…” She pushed the shirt over his shoulders, yanked it down his arms.
“Hey, what about my mind?” he grinned.
She smiled. “Some other time.”
They undressed each other quickly, and as they stood naked, his eyes roamed the landscape of her body with undeniable appreciation. Then without ceremony, he pulled her to the floor on top of him so abruptly that she let out an “oomph.” His hands gripped the plump cheeks of her ass, began kneading the soft flesh. She felt his hardened penis against her stomach and began moving against it, causing him to inhale sharply. His hands soon stopped their kneading and replaced the touch with soft, whispery caresses that caused her crotch to contract with spasms. One of his fingers played along her crevice as his lips grabbed hers and began licking them. His finger moved to the delicate wall dividing both entryways, moved past the moist canal, up to her clitoris, started teasing her orb just as his tongue began playing along hers. She ground her pelvis against him, desperately claiming her own pleasure, listening to the symphony of quickly pumping blood, and intertwined breaths playing in her ears.