There was no doubt in Connor’s mind that Lacy had learned a few things since she’d lived at his other ranch. Learned more than a few things. The other night had proved it.
He felt his body heating at the memory.
Because he needed to touch her, he shoved his hands into his back pockets. Touching her would lead to other things, and he didn’t want that.
Or so he had to believe.
“I’m sure you have,” he said. “Lacy, what I’m trying to say—badly—is that I just want you to know that I won’t be taking advantage of you again.”
About to open the door to her room, she stopped and turned to stare at him. Is that what he thought? Hadn’t he been there the other night?
“You didn’t take anything, Connor. There was no theft of any sort involved in the other night or the night that you first made love to me.” Then it had been to, not with, because he’d been her first and she’d had no experience to show her the way. But it had been different the other night. They’d been equals. Which was why his apology rankled. “Taking would indicate that something was stolen from me. Nothing was. I was given something. I had nothing taken from me.” She could see by the look in his eyes that he was unconvinced. That he was determined to wear that damned hair shirt and atone for his sin when there’d been no sin at all. “Can’t you get that through that thick skull of yours?” As her anger rose, so did her voice. “You didn’t take advantage of me. You didn’t take anything. I gave it to you, without any strings of any sort.”
Anger suited her. She was nothing short of magnificent. And he wanted her all over again.
As if to hold her at arm’s length, he caught her by the shoulders. “Damn it, Lacy, how is it that I can have the noblest of intentions and you can blow them completely all to hell just by looking at me with those big blue eyes of yours?”
She grinned, lacing her arms around his neck, no longer tired. No longer sleepy. His hands dropped from her shoulders. “Just lucky, I guess.”
She was doing it to him again, warming him with her gaze, making him want her even when he knew it was wrong. As wrong now as it had been the other night.
As wrong as it had been almost two years ago. Why couldn’t he have more willpower than a debaucher locked in a wine cellar when it came to her?
Even as he asked the question, Connor felt himself weakening. “You know where this is going to lead, don’t you?”
Her eyes danced as they washed over the rugged planes of his face. “No, but I have my hopes.”
For her sake, he struggled. It was definitely not for his own, because for his sake, he would have taken her right there, in the hallway, nine feet away from their son’s room.
He began to remove her arms from his neck but only made a halfhearted attempt. “Lacy, you’re wasting yourself on me, you know that. You deserve to be with someone your own age.”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t know anything of the kind. I don’t want someone my own age.”
He’d never been as idealistic as she was. Not even when he had been half her age. It made him feel humble just to have kissed her. “How do you know? You’ve never been with a younger man.”
She raised her eyes to his, her mouth temptingly close. “You don’t have to go to hell to know what heaven is.”
He felt the last of his resistance snapping. “Oh, damn it, Lacy, I’m trying to be noble here.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, her breath tantalizing his mouth. Her eyes teased him. Tempted him. “Tell me what you want, Connor. What you really want. Right now. Right this minute.” Please let it be me.
He could lie to her. But she’d know it. He felt as transparent to her as a pitcher of water. So he told her the truth. And sealed both their fates.
Very gently, he framed her face with his hands as if it was some exquisite photograph. Because it was. “I want you in my bed, Lacy. I want you lying beneath me, naked as the day you were born, sweaty with my sweat, crying out my name as I take you—”
Her mouth curved, feeding the smile into her eyes. “There’s that word again.”
“All right,” he said gamely, “what do you want me to call it?”
There was no hesitation. She knew how she saw it. “Joining. As you join me. As I join you. Together. Sharing each other.” The words were whispered seductively around his senses “Having each other.”
He was beginning to believe a saint would have given in. “You make it so hard to be good.”
“Then be bad,” she said, coaxing. “Haven’t you heard? Women like bad men.”
“Women only say they like bad men.” He laced his hands around her waist. Holding her even as he should have been pushing her away. “What they want, ultimately, is bad men who are good.”
She cocked her head as she looked at him. “Well, then?”
He had no choice.
She drove him to it.
And to his knees, both figuratively and, later, literally.
Unable to turn his back on what she offered so guilelessly, Connor wrapped his hand around hers and, without a word, led her to his room. Once inside, he pushed the door closed behind them.
But when he began to undress her in the dark, she placed her hands on his to still them.
Something inside tightened as disappointment skewered through him. She was calling a halt to it. His words had finally sunk in. “Come to your senses?”
“I never left them.”
He could see her smile even in the moonlight. Turning from him, she switched on the lights. A dim, seductive atmosphere permeated the room with its massive, dark wooden furniture. Thrown, Connor looked at her quizzically.
Her reason was simple. “I want to see your eyes when you undress me. I want to see the way you look at me when we make love. When we join,” she added, a faint smile on her lips. “I want to seal away every moment so that when I’m old and gray and living in my own little world, I can remember every detail of tonight.”
Connor tried to laugh away the seriousness of the moment, though in truth it humbled him beyond words. “No pressure here.”
“No pressure,” she echoed in a whisper, lightly caressing his cheek as she looked into his eyes. “There’s only me.”
“There is no only about you, Lacy.” She was everything. The flame in his chest, the reason he woke up in the morning.
As his breath lodged in his chest, he slowly lifted the edge of the pale green sweater she wore and drew it up, over her head and her arms. Savoring every moment, every fraction of an inch of skin that was exposed.
Without a glance in its direction, he discarded the garment. Connor was completely captivated by the swell of her breasts directly above the white lacy demi-bra she wore.
Lacy’s blood churned as he pressed his lips first to one breast, then the other, before releasing the clasp at her back. The cups slowly slid away from her.
She could feel her excitement heightening as she saw desire flare in his eyes, eyes that seemed to caress her.
Eager not to be passive, she tugged at his shirt, releasing buttons from their holes and sending material away from his shoulders.
She wanted to feel his warm skin against hers, wanted to revel in the contact.
Held within the hypnotic gaze of his eyes, hers began to drift shut as she felt his hands skim along her curves, drawing her skirt away.
For a second, she held her breath, and her fingers froze as she drank in the delicious sensations swirling madly through her, playing a wicked game of tag. And then she remembered what she was about and unnotched his belt, pulling the leather from the metal loop. Coaxing the zipper down to its source.
She felt his desire harden as she tugged away first the denim, then the cotton.
The next moment, nude, Lacy felt herself being propelled backward. She fell onto the bed, landing beneath him.
After that, it was difficult to recall the order of things. One sensation mushroomed into another, battering her body, echoing the movement of his hands, his
lips, his body as he caressed, explored, anointed and generally turned her into a pulsating mass of needs that centered around him.
His hands and lips were everywhere, finding all of her erotic points, creating new ones. She discovered that the backs of her knees were incredibly susceptible to his sensual assault. As were the insides of her elbows. And as for her abdomen…
He left her almost mindless. Mindless and yet insatiably greedy for every shred of pleasure he could give her. Desperate to do the same to him. To make him want her the way she wanted him. To make him quiver at the hint of her lips on his flesh.
When he brought his mouth to the very core of her being, initiating her in all the pleasures that could be, she felt the urge to both scramble toward the wave that drenched her and pull away from it, wanting to draw the sensation out as long as possible, yet greedy for its culmination.
Spent, she struggled to rally. It couldn’t be one-sided. It couldn’t. He needed to be made to feel the way she did.
Lacy moved against him, coaxing his body close to hers. She heard him moan as she slid her hand between their bodies and touched him. A sense of empowerment washed over her.
Tangled together, they did their best to please each other. To share the sensations they felt, offering them like gifts to each other. Like silent pledges they had no right to make, but made just the same, because it was impossible not to.
Impossible not to offer their hearts, however mutely, to each other.
He came to her slowly, sheathed, protected, ever mindful of her. Drawing out each second, turning it into a lifetime.
As if a lifetime would even be one-tenth enough to show her what she meant to him.
Right and wrong ceased to have meaning. There was only here, only now. Only her.
As he filled her, she filled him. With so many wondrous feelings it was impossible to identify them all. All he could do was enjoy them.
And pray that the dawn never came.
She found it hard to catch her breath. It was snatched away at the final moment as his lips pressed against hers, as his heart beat wildly against her own.
Gasping, she drew back and realized that somehow, this time, she had managed to be the one on top. Now, without an ounce of energy to her name, she melted against him, her legs splayed around his like flesh and blood parentheses, her oxygen-depleted lungs heaving against his broad, muscular chest, her fingers limp in his hair as her hair curtained one of his shoulders.
“Tired?” His question skimmed the top of her head.
At first, all she could offer in response was a languorous sound. And then, from somewhere, words finally came. “This would be a very bad time to hold a fire drill,” she murmured against his chest.
Her breathing tickled his skin.
His arm tightened around her. She’d surprised him. Again. The woman had shared with him pure erotic sex at the end, and yet it was somehow still tinged with a sweetness that wrenched his very soul.
He knew at that moment that he would never be able to get his fill of her. No matter how exhausted he became, he would continue to want her, to want to make love with her.
“Then we won’t hold one,” he told her.
Though it wasn’t easy, she summoned the strength to raise her head. Blinking, she focused her eyes enough to look at him. Humor painted a smile on her lips. “Promise?”
He tried to sound solemn and had no idea if he failed miserably or succeeded. “Promise.”
She laid her head down, content to remain here like this, being held by him. Wishing she could stay like this indefinitely.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Uh-huh.” He wasn’t sure if he said it or just thought it. Connor concentrated on making his mouth work. “And I’ll just hold you.”
He felt her smile as it widened against his chest. “I’d like that.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
Connor remained that way a long time, just holding her to him. Vaguely aware that the minutes were passing, transforming into hours. It didn’t matter. There was nowhere else he wanted to be. Only here. With her.
He’d never known such contentment.
But he wasn’t a fool. He knew he was living in a fool’s paradise and that soon, all too soon, he’d be forced to evacuate and stand helplessly by as the locks were changed on the doors, barring his entry.
She murmured something in her sleep. He tried to hear what it was, but it was too soft. Probably nothing, he knew. But he’d still wanted to hear.
He was too old for her, he thought, and she’d realize that soon enough, when the novelty of their affair wore off.
There was nothing else he could classify it as in his mind. An affair. To think of it as anything more would be to feed himself false hopes, and he had never been guilty of that.
Above all else, Connor knew he had to stay grounded. The reality was that Lacy would find a younger man to love her all too soon. A younger man whose stamina promised to last years before it eroded.
A younger man who could grow old with her, not before her.
But for now, he could just lie here, holding Lacy to him, listening to her breathe. And pretend that what they had would continue forever.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THERE WAS no doubt in her mind.
Though a single test hadn’t been done to support her suspicions, Lacy knew the signs. Remembered them well from the last time.
A bittersweet sadness pervaded her. All it had taken then was once.
All it had taken this time was once, too. By her calculations, it had happened the first night, after Megan had come to dinner and then gone home.
She was pregnant.
They’d used protection, and still she’d gotten pregnant. She knew these things happened, but the odds were supposed to have been in her favor.
They weren’t.
Standing with the cool tile pressing against her bare feet in the bathroom whose renovations she had so carefully overseen, Lacy felt tears gathering in her eyes.
This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not unplanned.
Although she already loved this unborn child forming beneath her heart, she couldn’t help feeling that it simply wasn’t fair. This would push her further away from Connor instead of closer.
She couldn’t tell him about this, couldn’t stand to see him stoically accept this newest addition into their lives. She wanted happiness, and there wouldn’t be any.
And what if this second unscheduled pregnancy changed the way he felt and acted toward Chase? The little boy was responding to Connor so well. Responding to his daddy. She couldn’t just rob Chase of that.
So this was what she got for falling head over heels for the same man not once in her life, but three times. Three times, because she’d fallen for him as Sara, as well, when she couldn’t remember anything else about herself, not even her name. But the moment she’d seen him, her heart had remembered. Without knowing who or why, it had remembered how she had felt about Connor. Remembered and opened itself up all over again.
And now she was pregnant with his child for the second time.
Lacy blinked back tears. She couldn’t do this to Connor. To them. Or to Chase. Couldn’t put Connor through the awkwardness of having two children with a woman he wasn’t married to. And she wasn’t about to put him in the position of proposing to her again.
There was only one thing she could do.
PULLING HIS HAND back from the rim of the hot frying pan, Connor stifled an oath, then quickly stuck his hand under the faucet so cold running water would cover the grazed area. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but he was trying.
He shook his head at his clumsiness. This was completely unlike him. He’d be the first to admit it. But it felt right just the same.
Damn, but even with his fingers smarting, he felt like singing. Not just with his lips, where the tune would emerge completely off-key, but with his entire being. He felt as if he’d swallowed a six-piece band. A band that could only
play one tune, one song.
And its name was Lacy.
Part of him still knew he was living in a fool’s paradise, but after the other night, he was determined to hang on to that paradise for as long as possible.
Maybe, if he behaved a little nicer to her, took more care of her feelings, she wouldn’t notice all the things he knew she eventually was destined to notice.
Now was all he had, and he wanted to make the most of it. If he didn’t wind up burning his fingers in the process.
“What’s this?”
Surprised, Connor turned from the stove and saw that Lacy was in the doorway, holding Chase. She was earlier than he’d anticipated. He’d hoped that she would sleep just five minutes longer. He’d wanted to take this up to her on a tray.
The best laid plans of mice and men…
She still looked under the weather, he thought as she crossed to him. She’d had that faint pallor for at least a couple of weeks. Because he liked his privacy, he wasn’t the kind to butt in on anyone else’s business. But she wasn’t just anyone else, she was Lacy, and he cared about her. Maybe after she’d eaten, he’d insist that she see a doctor.
Or at least suggest it.
“It’s called breakfast. Or at least, it will be once I get it on the table.” He pulled a plate out of the cupboard and tilted the pan, emptying its contents onto the plate. “Scrambled eggs and toast,” he announced needlessly, feeling a little awkward. He dumped the pan into the sink and surrounded the yellow mound on the plate with two slices of buttered toast. “I was going to make bacon, but you’re out of bacon. We’re out of bacon,” he corrected.
She could only stare numbly at the offering, not knowing what to think. “Why?”
He shrugged, his awkwardness mounting. She wasn’t sitting down. “Because I ate the last of it the other day, I guess.”
Holding Chase closer, she raised her eyes to Connor’s face. “No, I mean why did you do this?”
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