“You are not funny,” Diana said, a sharpness in her voice, Nick hadn’t heard before. She put a hand on her hip and glared at her father. “How much more are you going to humiliate me?”
“Who, me?” Harry asked innocently. “Are you talking to me?”
“Just give me a match.”
“What do you call that dessert you’re making?” Patricia asked.
“Bananas Foster Flambé. Now, don’t say anything negative, because everyone has a right to experiment I’ve eaten this at Brennans, and I know it’s wonderful. I’m pretty sure of the ingredients.”
“Whether you’ve got it the same way or not, it looks and smells fabulous. Jessica and I will love to have some.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for Jessica. There’s rum…” Diana hedged.
“You’re right I’m new at being a grandma.”
“Here’s a match, Diana,” Nick said, handing her the kind of matches he’d use to light a fireplace. The ones with the very long, twelve-inch wooden handles. “I have faith in you.”
“Thanks, Nick,” she said gratefully.
The way she looked at him made him feel as if he could walk on water.
Nick watched everyone in the kitchen as Diana started to light the match. His mother and Jessica were standing near the doorway leading out into the hall. Another glance in their direction, and he saw they were no longer in the kitchen, but safely out in the hall. Everyone else slowly started walking backwards. Except for Sheila. She was so busy doing a touch up on her fingernail polish, she didn’t move at all. In fact, Nick doubted she even knew what was going on.
Diana sniffed the ingredients in the skillet, and said, “Um, this does smell wonderful.” She lit the match, touched it to the liquid in the skillet, and…it exploded!
Nick reached under the sink and grabbed the extinguisher. The fire was out in a matter of seconds.
“Diana, are you all right?” He wrapped her in his arms and held her tight
“I jumped back just in time.”
Nick kissed her lips, her cheeks, her neck, her head. Everywhere he could find, he kissed. “You scared the hell out of me. I don’t know what I would have done if anything happened to you.”
“Don’t you see, this is a sign?”
“What sign?” he asked.
Diana gazed into Nick’s eyes. She put both her hands on his head and brought his face down to hers and kissed him on his lips, over and over, and didn’t stop. The kiss soon turned deep, and he pulled her close, knowing that life was precious, and he needed her in his.
Finally Diana pulled back and took a deep breath. “Oh, Nick, Whenever I’m near you, there’s fireworks.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard this hour.”
“It’s been a good day for you, hasn’t it?”
“A great day.”
“Is it safe to come back in the kitchen now?” Patricia asked, peeking around the doorway with Jessica, and grimacing at Sheila’s now slightly-scorched appearance.
“Come on back, Mom,” Nick said. “Everyone sit back at the table, I have something I want to say.”
It took a few minutes for the families to find their way back to the kitchen table.
“I guess we won’t be getting dessert here,” Harry grumbled.
“You’re too fat anyway,” Charlie told him.
Harry started to get up. “You want to meet me outside?”
“Stop it,” Nick said, his voice broaching no argument. “Diana has put together this elaborate plan so everyone would get together and actually talk to one another. Why don’t you two men, and I use the term ‘men’ loosely since you’re acting more like two year olds, grow up.”
Harry pointed. “He should grow up. Never even seen his own granddaughter.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Mr. Smith—Harry.”
“Call him Dad,” Diana said.
Harry glared. “I don’t think so.”
Diana had to hide her smile behind her hand. Nick was discovering all kinds of things about her tonight. He particularly liked her wicked sense of humor.
“Not talking to Cathy was Patty’s idea. Not mine,” Charlie said.
“You’re your own man. You should have done what’s right,” Nick told him.
“Where Cathy’s concerned your mom and I are both sorry. We forgive her for what she did and we want to make it up to her.”
“Charlie,” Diana said. “Why would you have to forgive Cathy? She didn’t do anything wrong. She fell in love and the product of that love is Jessica. It was the baby’s father who did wrong, not Cathy.”
“That’s not the way I see it.”
“The way I see it, Cathy is going to have to forgive you. Poor Jessica’s had to suffer because of your misplaced pride.”
Diana turned to her father. “We’re all going to suffer because of your stupid pride. Nick and I have decided to live in sin. I know that if I tell you that, it will drive you crazy, since no father wants to know his daughter is shacking up with a man without the benefit of a marriage license.” Then she turned to Charlie. “And you, Mr. Logan, I’ll tell you that Nick and I are going to be married, because I know that if you think we’re getting married, it will drive you insane, since the idea of Nick being married to a Smith is about the worst thing that could possibly happen to you.”
Diana took a deep breath. Nick thought she was magnificent. She had everyone in the room hanging on to her every word.
“So,” she finished. “You can all go home and be miserable.”
Nick put his arm around Diana’s waist and said to the men. “Our children will lose out since they’ll never see their grandparents at their birthday parties, or Christmas or Thanksgiving. Because whose house would we go to? How would we choose? Is that what you want?”
“Absolutely not I can forgive him.” Harry stood up and pointed to Charlie. “After all, I’m a big man.”
Charlie stood, too, and towered over Harry by barely half an inch. “I’m a bigger man.”
Harry snorted. “Not where it counts.”
“That’s not what your wife just said,” Charlie sneered.
“Why you friggin’ twerp.”
“You’re a bas—”
“Dad. Stop it right now. Please. This isn’t why we’re here.” Diana put her elbow on the table and rested her forehead in her hand. “If you two had been talking from the beginning, I may have graduated college by now.”
“Diana,” Harry said. “I didn’t mind you going to all those schools. Really I didn’t. Except I missed you a lot”
She looked at him. “I missed you, too.”
“Why don’t we take Jessica home with us tonight, and we’ll pick Cathy up from the airport when she comes in. We can start over. If she forgives us.”
“If you hurt her again you’ll have to answer to me,” Nick said. “She’s not the same little girl who left your home two years ago. She’s a woman now, and she’s been on her own, and doing very well.”
“I know,” Charlie said. “We’ve been keeping track of how she’s been doing.”
“We love her, Nicky,” Patricia added. “Both of them.” She gave Jessica a big hug.
“Nick,” Diana said as she went to the refrigerator and pulled off the instruction sheet. “You’ll have to help them with the car seat, and make sure your dad reads all these instructions. I don’t want anything to happen to that child.” She reached back to the refrigerator and took off the poison control number, too.
“I don’t either,” Charlie said softly.
“You know what, Nick. When everyone goes home tonight, I’m going to feel like celebrating,” Diana said, giving Nick a hug.
Her father looked at her suspiciously. “When you say celebrate, are you talking drinking champagne, going to a movie, or using those condoms?”
“Why, Daddy, how nosy of you to ask.” She reached inside her back pocket and pulled out a handful of the foil packages Jessica had thrown around earlier.<
br />
Harry started to choke. Sheila, her face flushed, said “Come on home, Harry. I’m feeling inspired.” She picked a condom out of Diana’s hand. Then she went back for another.
After her father and Sheila left, Diana went to the bedroom and packed a suitcase for Jessica. Nick grabbed a box of diapers, and threw bottles and some of the baby books Diana had bought into his backpack.
They met in the hallway. Diana held Jessica one more time. “I’ll miss you so much, sweet thing,” she said. “And remember, I owe you big time. You name your prize and it’s yours.”
“Nooo-nooo, bye-bye.”
“Bye-bye,”
Nick kissed Diana briefly on the lips and said, “I’ll help them load the car, and then I’ll be right back. We need to talk.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “We can talk.”
Nick hadn’t been gone more than thirty minutes, but when he came back to the apartment, he was struck by the silence. His first thought was that Diana had left him.
Then he saw the condom on the floor by his feet. There was another next to it, and another and another. A trail of condom packages, like the bread crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel.
“Diana?” he called out. She didn’t answer.
He picked a few foil packages up off the marble, then followed the trail through his bedroom, the dressing area, and into the whirlpool bath area.
“Why are you just standing there staring?” Diana asked him.
Staring, is that what he was doing? Wasn’t it normal to follow a trail of condoms to a room where a woman lay naked in the tub. Not naked exactly, she was definitely covered up. With whipped cream.
She reached for the can on the ledge and shook it. “If you get rid of your pants, I can make you good enough to eat, too.” She squirted some of the whipped cream in her hand, then licked it off. “Yum.” She smacked her lips and smiled at him. “Come on, Nick. I’m waiting.”
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. She put the can back on the ledge then dipped her finger into some of the whipped cream covering her breast, and held the finger up for his inspection. He inched closer to her, hardly breathing, his erection so tight against his zipper he hurt Then she put her finger in her mouth and slowly, lavishly, licked the cream off, and he knew what she really said was that if he hurried, it could be him.
“How many calories are you?” he asked, his voice heavy with desire and need.
“It depends,” she teased. “Do you plan to swallow?”
He gulped. “Diana,” he breathed out her name, hardly able to concentrate on anything except what waited for him in the tub.
“Diana Foster Flambé,” she corrected She held the rum bottle up and slowly dripped the liquid over the whipped cream. The rivers of rum that intersected the white cream tantalized him, teased him, but still didn’t uncover the Diana underneath. Only he could do that.
“Don’t light a match,” he said.
“There’s already a fire burning inside me, and only you can put it out”
He didn’t need a second invitation. Within seconds he joined her in the tub. He covered her body with his own, kissing her, licking her, tasting rum and whipped cream and the familiar, wonderful exotic taste of Diana.
He started at her neck and slowly worked his way down, hungry for dessert, eager to expose what lay under the creamy white topping. Her breasts were delicious, her belly button fine, but what came next, was exquisite, and special, and his to lay claim to forever. He held her by her hips and drank of Diana, not able to get enough of the taste of her, the scent of her. When he felt her shudder, and he knew he was close to his own release, he protected himself and her, then entered her swiftly.
He thought it would end right there, only she held him by the hips and stopped him from moving. “Slow,” she whispered. “I want this to last forever.”
“I’ll do my best. We’ve got all night, and at least sixty condoms left.”
She smiled, reached for the can of whipped cream and sprayed him. Before he could move she began her own game of torture, licking the cream off his shoulders, and arms and chest. He couldn’t take it anymore. His selfcontrol was gone. He put his hands under her bottom and lifted her to meet him, needing to go deep inside her, to stake his claim on her forever. He didn’t know how he held himself back until he heard her soft whimpers and felt her shudder beneath him. But he did, and when he reached his own peak, he thought he had died and been reborn.
“Nick,” Diana called his name softly.
“Hum?” His eyes were closed, and he couldn’t move. He could fall asleep right here with her under him. He wondered if they could stay this way for a few weeks.
“Let’s take a bath and start this all over.”
“That’s a great idea. I’ll be right back.”
He got out of the tub, and headed for the dressing area, needing to take care of the used condom, and clean himself up. He came back with a warm washcloth, and slowly, languishingly, wiped the remaining whipped cream off Diana, down her neck, her shoulders, her creamy white breasts, the pink tips. He reached her ribs, the indentation of her waist, and paid special attention to her core.
Before he could finish Diana’s sponge bath, Diana reached for him, stroked him, kissed him. “Is this how you are all the time?”
“Only with you, Diana. Only with you.”
“I know you don’t want commitment,” she said, moving her hand down his shaft, cupping him below, making him groan with desire like he had never desired a woman before. “But we can date, if you want, and we agree on a time and place mutually convenient to both of us.”
“Diana, we aren’t going to date.”
“Maybe we should for a while. I have so many fantasies. I could act them all out.”
He groaned. A life with Diana meant more whipped cream. He could die right now a happy man. But he wasn’t ready to go yet. He wanted her, and he wanted her permanently. “We aren’t going to live in sin, either. We will live in marriage, but we’ll do sinful things, like this. Making love to you feels so good it must be sinful. You got that?”
“Marriage?”
“You and me, we’re getting married and I won’t take no for an answer. It’s commitment or nothing.”
“Children?”
“They like me. I’ll make a great dad.” He smiled at her. They were meant to be together. “I’ll make you the best husband. I love you. I think I have since the first time I met you at the awards dinner for our fathers. That was a long time ago.”
“Really?”
“Do you remember the dance?”
“I’ll never forget that dance,” she said softly, brushing his hair off his forehead, outlining the lines of his face with her hand. “Nick, I love you, too.” She kissed his lips tenderly, and the gentleness of her kiss had as much power to move him as the whipped cream did before.
“Diana, I feel that when we’re together I’m the one who explodes.”
She nodded. “That’s the way with me, I’m afraid. Whenever I think of you, something eventually does blow up. But you know, when it’s you, inside me, then I know all is right with the world.”
HARLEQUIN DUETS
eISBN 9781459281165
KIDNAPPED?
Copyright © 1999 by Jackie Hyman
I GOT YOU, BABE
Copyright © 1999 by Bonnie Tucker
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Kidnapped / I Got You Babe Page 33