by Carol Devine
"I like my independence. You know this about me. Why are you making this a big deal?"
"Why are you?"
His puzzlement was genuine. Mariah wrapped her arms around herself. Delving into this much emotional terrain was hard when her hormones were raging. "I want to be near the best medical care. Given my…" She started over, intent on communicating what amounted to her best common sense. "I like to plan ahead. Why chance going into labor and being stuck on the road somewhere? I will simply prevent the problem by taking a different approach."
"I'll take the same approach. A few weeks away from home base is doable when you look at it from a long-range point of view. Knowing you, once we're settled in Aspen, you'll drum up more business and pay for any unforeseen expenses yourself."
"I do plan to drum up more business. I'm hiring a full-time investigator to take over while I'm on maternity leave. And I have to concede it would be nice to have you with me."
"'Nice?'" he asked and raised an eyebrow. A very inquiring eyebrow.
Thank God he got the reference. Most couples had their 'song.' She and Shane had their 'word.' Nice. Using it meant she was changing of the subject, inviting him to dance, figuratively speaking. It dated back to his first time visit to her storefront-slash-office. She'd been standoffish, totally snotty, in professional mode. They engaged in 'nice' conversation.
They had discussed the silly: he'd pronounced her second-hand metal desk a safe choice; in case an assassin came in, guns blazing. And they had discussed the serious, from her criminal behavior dissertation to the alcoholism that ran in both their families.
It had been a verbal ping-pong match. His sense of the ridiculous had gotten under her skin. She declared him charming. She rationalized that the business referrals he could give her justified flirting.
She'd stuck to that principle. He tried pushing their relationship to the next level, literally charming the pants off her. She finally gave in, after months of pretending she was above it all, taking refuge behind her work, building her own business, swathing her dignity around her like a shield, controlling everything. But she couldn't control him. Shane was not a man who lived by other people's rules.
She learned that dependence wasn't a dirty word as long as she chose carefully. As long as Shane was the one she depended on.
But give in she did, swamped by human needs. She'd returned to her hometown to rebuild her life and though she'd done a decent job of reinvigorating her moribund career as an security expert and investigator, her lack of personal life had taken its toll. Shane was her bright spot, down-to-earth, full of sexual innuendos and the little zings that went with them, flattering her in ways that engendered erotic fantasies. Half the female population swooned over him.
At that time in her life, total focus and seriousness prevailed. After being betrayed by her colleagues at the FBI, frills like friendships had been nonexistent.
Shane was like a balm to her battered confidence. He was relentless, even convincing her introverted self to go to a party where she knew only three people, and those three she hadn't seen in fifteen years.
Yet secretly she welcomed his persistence and ready-for-anything-she-threw-at-him demeanor. The truth was, he'd impressed her from the day they met. She had fallen under the spell of a rodeo superstar and horse whisperer, and she hadn't regretted a single moment of it.
That was why she should give in to him now. She'd obtained her goal. She was moving to Aspen at the time she wanted. She had to take him at his word that he'd gotten what he wanted, too.
Her pregnancy was forcing her to rethink her beliefs about what should be important in life, bringing forth issues she was loath to deal with, much less admit. Her own birth had resulted in her mother's death, and though Mariah had researched maternal risks to the nth degree and been reassured by the facts, somewhere in the back of her mind lurked anxieties she couldn't shake.
But she could manage them, especially if Shane was around. She was leaving nothing to chance when it came to this baby.
"Back to nice," she said and linked arms with him, flirtingly outrageous because she wanted to make him laugh. "You are such a nice man, I can't argue with you. You win."
"Nope. It's a win/win. Nicely done." Going for his Clark Gable imitation from Gone with the Wind, he jerked her into his arms and waltzed her around the room. Her cheeks pinkened from the exercise and she awed him with her silly, razzle-dazzle moves.
He paused to twirl her in place, then caught her waist, holding her still. "Tell me why we play this game?"
"Because it's… fun?"
"I'll go along with fun. Aspen it is."
She followed his lead as he resumed the dance, except this time he led her into the box step, the slow-motion kind. Deliciously sensual, arousal overtook her in seconds. Pregnancy seemed to have an astounding affect on her libido, raising it to new and frantic heights. She undid his belt buckle in record time.
He stopped her, gripping her hands away from his body. "Not right now, darlin'. This isn't a good time."
She kicked her shoes off, worked the top button of her jeans. "This won't take time. My hormones are running rampant and I need some relief."
He backed away, shaking his head. "Later, Mariah. I need to get going."
Surprised, she halted, halfway unzipped. "But we haven't been together in days. You're not getting weird on me because of my pregnant vagina, are you?"
Sighing, he hugged her without words. There was a hushed quality to it she didn't understand.
"Shane?"
"Give me a minute." He shuddered and she felt hot tears on her shoulder. She tightened her hold.
"What is it?"
He cleared his throat. "It's scary."
"What's scary?"
"That we might hurt the baby."
"By making love? We won't. I promise."
He released her and wiped his eyes. "Sorry, I know it's dumb."
"No, it's not. Men get to cry, too."
"Jeez, Mariah, the dumb part is I can't have sex with you. I even checked with the doctor and the internet and the websites. They say it's okay to have sex early on, men and women have been doing it from time immemorial, for thousands of years. Look at how many of us there are. The human race, we're what, 7, 8 billion strong?"
Trying not to laugh, Mariah pressed her fingers to her mouth. "Are you saying you're scared to get inside me no matter what?"
"No, it's worse than that. It's the stupidest thing of all. I'm so scared, I can't get it up."
"Oh."
"You're laughing."
She dug her fingers into her palm. "No, I'm not. I understand. Performance anxiety is common under these circumstances. I'm anxious, too. I called the doctor, too."
"You did?" His voice had gone up an octave.
She dug harder. "Yes, for my own peace of mind."
"You're smiling."
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to..."
"It's funny to you."
"Maybe. Just a little."
"It's funny to me, too. But if I start laughing, I'll probably start crying and then what are you gonna do? Handsprings, probably."
"Shane, what am I going to do with you?"
He looked at her for a long moment, then knelt on one knee. "Mariah, will you marry me?"
The room got deathly quiet. Mariah put her hands to her cheeks, helplessly, as though to stop herself from saying something awful. She choked as her nose reddened and tears ran down her face.
Shane leapt to his feet. "You don't have to answer. I wasn't even planning to ask. You know me. Sometimes my mouth starts moving before my brain. I told you before, marriage was not in the cards for me, and I meant it."
Mariah knuckled her eyes. "Shut up, will you?"
"Christ, I'm blowing it left and right. I tell the mother of my child I can't get it up, then I ask her to marry me. Makes perfect sense." He searched her expression.
Mariah flattened her shaking hands on his chest, warm and wide beneath her fingers. Underneath his shirt,
his heart pounded, echoing hers. She tried to talk, tried to moisten her lips, tried to get past the enormous emotions clogging her throat. Fortitude was required because she had a question for him, a question needing an honest answer, one that might be hard for her to hear.
"Shane, I have to ask you. Why do you keep saying marriage is not in the cards for you?"
Tension muscled his jaw. He used his thumbs to trace the remnants of her tears, soft on her cheeks. "I never thought the right woman would come along. Then you happened."
Mariah gripped his arms, showing every bit of love possible. "Yes, Shane, I'll marry you."
His breath caught, freezing his expression. "Wait."
"Wait?"
"Why do you want to?"
"Umm, because I love you?"
"There was a time you wouldn't say it. There was a time you were pretty adamant against loving me. You have to be sure."
Mariah did everything she could to ease the worry in his eyes, taking his hands, shaking them with the strength of her conviction. "I promise I won't be that stupid ever again. I won't leave you. I can't. I love you too much."
He knelt on one knee. His smile crinkled his eyes, sparking an electric blue.
"Mariah, will you marry me?"
She brushed his hair with both hands, messing it up. "Yes and yes, you dope. Now get up and kiss me. You're not supposed to go up and down on bended knee like a yo-yo."
He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. As was usual for them, the kissing intensified.
Mariah went dizzy with it. She pushed him towards the sofa in the living room, kissing while walking him backwards, unwilling to break their intimate contact. He scooped her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist the same way her arms were wrapped around his neck. He backed against the sofa and controlled their fall against the cushions, kissing her the whole time, using lips and tongue and play biting her lower lip with his teeth.
Breaking apart for a minute, they stared at each other, made more than breathless by this new knowledge that they wanted to get married.
It was an incredible sensation for Mariah. The idea that she could love any man this much… to this point, it had been impossible for her to contemplate, to wrap her head around.
As a child, the idea of Bird having a relationship special enough to include marriage to her mother didn't compute. How could he have truly loved the first Mariah if he couldn't honor her memory enough to properly take care of their baby, their girl? Every day, he rejected sobriety, unwilling to be the husband or the father both Mariahs deserved.
What did love mean, really, if your only parent refused to be responsible for his own child? Worthless in her mind. And public confessions of the heart? What was love when half of all marriages ended in divorce? Too risky, too messy, too frightening to believe in, to depend on.
Shane changed that. He'd somehow changed her. He was worth the risk. She was willing to gamble her heart. She didn't know their future, didn't know if her baby would be the death of her. In this world, nothing was certain. She'd learned that the hard way. But here she was, smiling in wonder at Shane, believing and certain down deep in her gut.
Who could conceive of such love? It had never been possible for her. She studied his face, knowing it well and not knowing it fully, even now. As masculine and confident as he was, he needed reassurance like any other human being. He once said, she had put him through hell, and her goal in this moment was to prove how committed she was to making up for past mistakes.
"You're the one person I love," she said. "I love your smile and the furrows in your brow and the way your eyes crinkle at the corners and the way you always look like you're ready to laugh. I love the way you talk, your sense of humor and the funny things you say. I love your body, all of your body, even the way you smell like leather and horses sometimes. But especially, I like the way you smell when you get out of the shower and it's just you. I love you, Shane."
"I love you, too, Mariah, but I'm pretty much at a loss for words because I'm horny as all get out. Excuse me for being such a guy." He kissed her nose. "You know, I never asked if you have a middle name."
"Cassandra. It was supposed to be my first name. It was the name my mother picked out for me."
"Mariah Cassandra McBride. What a mouthful."
"Mariah Cassandra Youngblood is a mouthful, too."
His eyes widened in surprise. "You're taking my name and dropping yours?"
"Maybe I'm more traditional than I thought."
"Do you want an engagement ring?"
"Yes, and I want you to spend a ton of money on it. Like four carats worth, studded with diamonds and rubies…"
"And emeralds like your eyes."
"And sapphires like your eyes. And what else? Pearls. I forgot pearls."
"Pearls. I'm making a mental note."
"No, you aren't. I can tell you aren't." She wiggled her hips and peeked down between their bodies, checking the intimate contact between them. Even clothed, they fit together, hand in glove.
"I'm back and running on eight cylinders. All it took was a marriage proposal."
"I think my saying yes helped."
"I might have to hear it again a few times to get it to truly sink in."
"Yes, I'll marry you."
"I have another question."
"Yes?"
"Will you take your jeans off?"
"Yes."
"Will you take my jeans off?"
"Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times, yes. There aren't enough words..."
"I guess that'll do for the next minute or two."
He kissed her, probing her with his tongue in the way that resembled the probing he was about to give her once they rid each other of their clothes. He was busting out of his jeans, hard and hungry, harder than he'd ever been.
"Make that 60 seconds," he said.
"I'm not as flexible at the moment as I used to be. We're going to need at least two minutes."
"Twelve if we want simultaneous orgasms."
"Fifteen if I want multiple ones."
"An hour or two if I want multiple ones."
Mariah cocked her head. "I didn't realize what a competition this was."
"It'll take days."
"Weeks. Months. Years."
"We might grow old together."
"Do you think we'll always be this happy?" she asked.
"I think there might be a time or two when you might get a teensy, weensy bit angry with me. Not that I would ever do anything to deserve it."
"Nor would I, if you ever got a little bit angry with me."
"This minute, I can't imagine it ever happening."
"Me, neither," she said. "It seems impossible that I could ever want to do anything but make love with you."
"I can't take anymore. Pants off, Mariah."
Grinning, she backed off his lap and stood up, bending her knees and shimmying, giving him a little show as she unzipped her jeans and pulled them down, taking her panties along with. She worked the buttons on her blouse from the bottom to the top but kept the blouse on because it was silk and she felt extra sexy in it.
Kneeling, she went down on all fours, pantomiming a tigress stalking her prey. Reaching him, she pounced and spread his legs in aggressive fashion. Scooting into his personal space, she started undoing his belt.
She unbuckled slowly, mischief in her eyes, sliding the leather in provocative ways as she drew off the belt. Faced with his button fly, she undid each button, taking her time, and felt his temperature rise.
He laid back against the cushions, watching her with half-closed eyes, eyes that glittered with erotic desire and sensual heat.
Grasping his shirttails, she ripped the snap buttons apart and pushed the shirt off his shoulders, drawing it away from his body, tossing it on the floor. She ran her fingers down the hair on his chest, following the hair down, down, down, to where it disappeared under the cotton of his boxers, where he
r fingers played and tangled and rubbed.
His chest muscles flexed when she found the right places and the sound he made reminded her of a big, satisfied cat, purring with pleasure at being petted.
She slipped her fingers under his waistband and drew down the layers of fabric, taking his jeans along with his underwear and socks and pulling everything off.
Naked, he reached for her but Mariah would not allow it. She pushed him firmly back into the sofa and used her mouth against him, forcing him to lay bare the most sensitive parts of his body, a sensual wonderland, giving her full access.
She used her breath to warm him, used her tongue and teeth to tease him, crawled her fingers through curly soft air, creating slickness and throbbing and more heat, sensual and body heat, pushing them into one consuming fire.
He grunted and groaned, this man, who had no defense against what she was doing to him. Her power excited her, inspiring the same kind of exploration and aggression she used when they kissed open-mouthed, sucking tongues and lips and skin, becoming hungrier and hungrier until Shane could not stand it anymore.
He couldn't stop himself, couldn't help himself. She drank of him. That was what she wanted, to be thoroughly wanton so he knew he was thoroughly loved. She kissed every part of him, following upwards past his groin, belly and chest, to bury her face there, then turn and place her cheek within the hollow of his chest. It was sweaty from the pleasure she'd given, damp with his essence. She gloried in it, closing her eyes to stamp this memory in every detail, deep in her mind to recall whenever she wanted. He was hers and she was his.
They lay that way for a good long while, he too replete to stir, she too content to stir. Eventually, Shane played with her hair, fingering the strands with his eyes closed, unable to move except for the dancing of his hand, touching her scalp, tracing it's curves and textures.
She inhaled when he traced her tender ear, left exposed by the laying of her cheek against his chest. The tracing down her neck to her throat made her swallow, a tiny movement that drew him to explore further with both his hands. He sifted past the length of her hair falling across her shoulders, tracing the line of her spine down her long and elegant back, all the way to where it ended in a sweet rise of curvaceous flesh, round and firm with skin so soft, he regretted his weather-roughened hands.