But then he’d join her there, under her blankets.
And she might not ever be able to let him out. Or to crawl under them alone again.
Water splashed as she rose abruptly, reaching for her towel. This wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t do it.
Rubbing briskly, she was dry and in her nightgown before she had another coherent thought.
She wanted this baby. More than anything. Was ready for it. If she waited too long, she might not be able to conceive. Blake was everything she’d hoped to find in a sperm donor for her child. He was willing. And she was ready.
How could she pass up this opportunity? It was ideal. Safe. It was a chance to touch Blake again, as she’d dreamed of doing every night for years after he’d left. To know again the comfort of being close to him. Breathing with him.
She’d be a fool not to be ready.
She’d never be ready. Not to feel Blake’s body slide down on top of hers again, to accommodate his hips and legs between hers, feel him settle there as though he’d been made to fit only her. To look into those serious eyes and see herself reflected, along with the love she’d always found there.
The love he’d never once expressed in words.
Annie needed words. She needed reassurance. She needed demonstration and spontaneity. She needed openness.
She needed a glass of wine.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE LINCOLN DROVE to her house as though someone else was at the wheel, responsible for getting it to its destination. Blake had only been there twice before, but he made every turn without hesitation.
It was as if he didn’t think at all. Couldn’t allow himself to make too much of this. He was doing a favor for a friend. Performing a service.Nothing more.
There couldn’t be anything more. Ever.
People in his condition often found it impossible to coexist in a family setting. And always to the detriment of those sharing their lives. Whether he was one of those people, he didn’t know. He’d been living alone since his return from the bowels of Jordan. But he’d heard the stories in counseling sessions. Read the pamphlets. Knew the statistics. Knew, too, that it wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.
And with that thought in mind, he knocked on his ex-wife’s front door.
ANNIE STOOD AT THE DOOR in a gown he’d bought her for their third anniversary. He’d dreamed of that gown during his years in hell. The vision had sustained him through some of the toughest moments of his life. But tonight it hurt to look at her.
“Come in,” she said, as if she did this kind of thing every day.He stepped inside.
“Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Sure.” He did his best to lace the response with nonchalance, then added, “Thank you.”
And while she went to pour it for him, he stood in her entryway, wondering what he should do next. This wasn’t a romantic interlude.
But what about foreplay? Annie would need a little time to warm up to him. She always had.
Those minutes of touching and kissing before lovemaking had been sacred.
Would she want to tonight?
She was already nearly undressed.
Should he proceed to the bedroom? Undress? Hang his slacks and shirt on the back of a chair? Climb under the covers and wait for her?
She hadn’t invited him into her bed.
Perhaps she’d prefer to do this on the couch. He looked toward the mostly bare living room. And remembered that there was no couch.
A spare room, then?
“Sorry, it took me a minute to open a new bottle.” She was back. Handing him a glass of merlot. Her hair was down, silky and slightly damp, reaching almost to her hips. Longer than he remembered.
He lifted a hand to her head and dropped it again. Running his fingers through Annie’s hair was supposed to lead up to impregnating her. But to Blake, it was more the act of a man cherishing a woman. Loving a woman. Making love to a woman.
He sipped his wine. Held the glass in both hands. Wasn’t sure where to look. So he did what he couldn’t seem to help doing: he looked straight at her.
“You’re as beautiful as ever.”
“I’m six years older.”
Seemed like a hundred since he’d last held her.
“I’m starting to get wrinkles around my eyes.”
“Not that I can see,” he told her. “Not that it would matter. You’re going to be beautiful at ninety, Annie. I always told you that.”
She smiled, glanced away. Blake wondered if he’d seen tears in her eyes. Took a step toward her. And stopped.
“I…What do you want?” he asked, simply because he had no idea how to proceed. How to do her this favor without offending her.
He had no idea of her expectations. Knew only that he wanted to meet them. Whatever they were.
“What do you mean?” she asked, laughing shakily.
“I don’t think I know how to do this.”
Looking equally lost, Annie just stood there. Saying nothing. Which left the next step up to him. A man who had difficulty just trying to sleep through the night.
“Do you want to talk for a bit?”
“No. I mean, if you want to, okay.” Her glass shook as she raised it to her lips. “But we don’t have to on my account.”
He couldn’t say he was unhappy about that. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist at the best of times.
“So, where would you like to go?”
“My…The only place there is to lie down, beside the floor, is my bedroom.”
Deciding the floor was out, Blake indicated that she should lead the way. And followed her past the kitchen and down the hall he’d traversed by himself the week before, seeking her out. The night he’d come to tell her he was not going to father her child.
The door to the fairy-tale nursery was shut. As was the one across the way. From the last door, the one at the end of the hall, he could see soft light glowing. She’d prepared for him.
The gown. The lighting.
And the sheets pulled back on a simple twin bed set on a basic metal frame. That yawning welcome was all he could see as he stopped in the doorway to the room where Annie spent her nights. Alone. She’d pulled the sheets back for him. For them. For at least a short while, he would rest his head in Annie’s bed.
Blake had no real sense of how long he stood there staring.
But it was long enough for his starved body to grow hard with wanting her. He wanted nothing more out of life than to climb into that bed, take Annie into his arms and never climb out again.
Except he wasn’t here to want that.
He was here to do a job. And then leave. The thought didn’t lessen the tension in his lower body one whit.
Draining his glass, Blake took a couple of steps into the mostly bare room. Set the goblet on a plastic Parsons table that held an abundantly leafy green plant. Reached for the top button of his shirt.
Focusing on the potted ivy, his gaze following the vine as it curled down around the table to trail along the floor, he undid the second button, too. And then the third, and pulled the shirttails out of the waistband of his slacks.
He caught Annie staring at him, an unreadable expression on her face. Mouth open, brows drawn, she clearly wasn’t regarding him with anticipation. Or any of the eagerness his own body couldn’t seem to control.
Perhaps she’d expected him to leave his shirt on.
Dropping his hands, Blake turned toward her, facing her across the room, with no idea what to say.
“I’m sorry, Annie,” he finally rasped. “I have no idea how to give you a baby without making love to you.”
“I know,” she answered, as if she was fully prepared for the anticipated activity. Prepared, but not looking forward to it.
Frustrated, he began to wonder if he’d made a bigger mistake than he’d thought in coming here, agreeing to this.
And then he remembered why he’d said yes. The only reason. Because his friendship with Cole sure hadn’t p
rompted his decision. He’d do a lot to honor that relationship, give the younger man the shirt off his back, even if it was the last one he had. But not this.
“Are you certain you want to go through with this?” he asked.
Her nod was tentative at best.
If not Blake, there would be someone else. Of that he had no doubt. He knew Annie too well. She might be vulnerable in places most people didn’t see, but his lovely ex-wife was as determined as any human being could be. There was no stopping her, whether she was setting out, at age thirteen, to raise her eleven-year-old brother, as if they hadn’t both just lost their father, and most of their mother’s attention, too. At twenty, to put herself through college and work full-time. At thirty, to raise funds for battered women in San Antonio. Or at thirty-six, to have a baby.
And the idea of another man here, or in some clinic, impregnating the love of his life with a child who wasn’t Blake’s, had been more than he could bear the thought of. Since he’d had the choice. The idea of her being at risk to all the unknowns that could result from a stranger’s participation in this event had been more than he could allow.
Since he’d had the choice.
“Help me out here.” The words were almost torn from him.
She wrapped her arms across her chest. “I didn’t think it would be this hard. This…awkward.”
“How did you picture this happening?”
He and Annie had never talked about making love before. They’d just done it. Truth be known, they’d had a hard time not doing it. Anytime they were alone together. Sometimes it had seemed as if all it took was a look, a touch of their hands, and they’d be at it again.
“I didn’t think about it.” Her answer didn’t make any of this any easier. “Not this part.”
He’d liked to know what part she had thought about.
She waited, as if she was hoping he might figure it all out.
“I’d like to get undressed. If that’s okay with you.”
She nodded again. No more smoothly now than the time before. And her discomfort nearly broke his heart. He’d never, in all of his worst nightmares, imagined being alone with Annie and having her feel awkward. Unsure.
Of herself. Or him.
Even their first time—her first time ever—she’d been more eager and curious than apprehensive. He’d been the one trying to take things slowly. For her sake. Wanting to get her body ready, to introduce her to his in gentle increments, to ease the initial pain as much as possible.
All these years later, he could remember every detail of that time.
There was no chair for his shirt. Blake used the door handle instead. Slid out of his shoes. And then his socks. His T-shirt followed. And he stood there again.
“Annie, I want to make this whatever you want it to be.”
“Okay.” Her response, her body, gave no indication what that might be. And Blake finally realized that she probably hadn’t worked out any more of it than he had. Which changed things somehow.
“I don’t know how to just have sex with you.” Her indecision prompted his honesty. “I only know how to make love with you.”
“Okay.”
That stopped him. “Okay?” He held her gaze.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?” She knew what he was asking.
They’d promised that they’d never, ever let their relationship get to the point where it was only sex between them. Never touch each other intimately if they couldn’t do it lovingly.
“I’m sure.”
Those two words were all the invitation Blake needed. He reached her in two strides, but he didn’t immediately touch her. He couldn’t yet. He’d been without her for far too long.
His heart ached with desire. And the knowledge that this wasn’t real or lasting. A temporary pass to heaven.
For a moment, he wasn’t sure he could continue, for fear of what would happen to him when they’d finished and he had to leave. Annie wanted him to touch her. He could feel her leaning toward him.
He just looked at her instead. At everything. The half-slumberous, half-uneasy expression in her eyes.
“They’re as blue as I remembered them.”
She smiled. But her lips trembled.
Taking in everything, her cheeks, her chin, he stopped at her throat. It was smooth and white and silky looking. Tenderness swelled and an unexpectedly sweet anticipation almost overcame him as he considered kissing her there again after all this time. And knew that he was going to be doing so. Very soon.
He trembled, faltered for an instant, as the full realization settled on him. This was happening.
After six long years, he was here in Annie’s bedroom. About to touch her. To hold her again.
God couldn’t have granted him a more precious moment.
Her breasts stood out against the silky gown, her nipples already hard. So, she wasn’t as uninvolved as she’d looked. The knowledge calmed him. Gave him a confidence he hadn’t known he’d lacked until that moment.
He might not understand the rules they were playing by, or even know the name of the game, but this was Annie. And loving her had always been natural to him.
“Come here,” he said, waiting for her to step toward him before he touched her. This had to be what she wanted. Or it wouldn’t happen.
It took her several long minutes, full of searching looks and silences. Just about the time Blake was convincing himself it wasn’t going to happen after all, she took one step forward.
Where he got the willpower to wait for her to continue he had no idea.
When she took the second step, he almost moaned with the mixture of pleasure and pain that swept through him. Lifting his hand again, as he’d started to do earlier, he ran two fingers through her long curls. And then again. Pretty soon an entire hand was buried in the silky locks. And then both hands.
“Ah, Annie, you have no idea how good this feels,” he said, shaking as he reacquainted himself with this first tender experience.
She didn’t say anything, but when she shifted forward still more, pressing her mouth to his, Blake pulled her against him and thought that he wasn’t going to ever let her go.
Even while he knew full well that, when he’d done what he came to do, he would, indeed, have to.
And never come back.
Annie might still share the intensity of his sexual desire, but beyond that there could be nothing between them.
She craved emotional strength and reassurance.
And Blake saw devils on his chest when he went to bed at night.
SHE’D PROMISED HERSELF to be detached, not to give in to the experience of being in Blake’s arms again. She’d promised herself not to lose all the strength and perspective and control she’d so painstakingly gained in the years since his disappearance. She’d promised herself that being with him one more time wouldn’t matter.
And then he touched her.Standing rigidly, Annie distracted herself with thoughts about nursery furniture, and yet she was completely, stunningly aware of Blake’s fingers brushing her neck, her shoulder, as they ran through her hair. She analyzed the sensation—or tried to.
Her entire body weakened with the need for more. Thought was harder to hold on to. Focus impossible.
Instincts she didn’t know she possessed took hold of her, wiping away memories that were too painful to bear, ideas and plans and thoughts that served no purpose here. She had to lean forward. To find his lips.
So she did.
And knew at once that she was in the right place. She belonged here. Blake’s taste was exactly the same. As if she’d had her mouth open to his only moments before, instead of years. She hadn’t even known he had a taste. Or that she’d recognize it again in an instant. His scent spoke to her, as well, as if it were a part of her. And she couldn’t get enough of either.
She kissed him, again and again. Mindless of the fact that they didn’t need to do this to make a baby.
There was strength here. Something mu
ch more powerful than muscle or one person’s determination. A cord that ran from some greater source through him to her. Pulling her in.
She had no chance to resist. No desire or power to resist.
And when his tongue met hers, she didn’t remember why she could possibly have wanted to resist. Nothing was better than this. Nothing was safer or seemed more right than being skin to skin with Blake, connected to him, on the way to being one with him.
Unless it was the act itself.
NOT QUITE SURE HOW THEY’D gotten from half-dressed, beside the bed, to nearly naked and on the bed, Annie had at least one lucid moment when Blake reached for her panties.
She wanted them off as much as he did. Needed to make room for him. To invite him in where she needed him so badly.To feel his hands upon her, working magic that only he could work.
To replace the feel of another man’s hands, body, in a place she’d once promised Blake for all time and eternity.
And yet, as his fingers slid beneath the thin elastic band that ran across her hips, she hesitated, knew a moment of unease. Her frightened eyes sought reassurance from his. Or maybe understanding.
She could lose something vital in these next moments. Exactly what, she couldn’t grasp. She just knew that to allow this one last bit of lace to be eased away, to be so completely exposed to him, she was crossing a line and would never be able to come back. She’d no longer be free of him.
“You want to stop?” His voice was raspy, but his question completely sincere.
Did she? Trying to control her reasoning, Annie stared silently at Blake. Upon what should she base her decision? The past, which she couldn’t remember at the moment? The future, which was unknown? Reason? A powerful need was running through her body, driving her onward to join with a force she’d existed without for far too long.
Blake drew back, gave her space, breathing room between them—time.
And then, with no articulate thought, no perception of making a decision, she slid her own fingers beneath the waistband of her panties, lifted her hips off the thin mattress and pulled them down, watching Blake’s eyes follow every movement she made.
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