Maybe Eric wasn’t dating her, wasn’t looking at her now with molten eyes, only because she was “even prettier.” Maybe he was falling in love with her.
As, she thought with shock, she was with him.
CHAPTER NINE
“DESSERT?” THEIR WAITRESS at the small seafood restaurant smiled. In the background, conversation hummed.
Eric raised a brow at Madeline. She considered trying to stuff in a piece of cheesecake as a delaying tactic, but decided that might backfire. Chickening out was one thing; getting sick all over her date was another. She shook her head.
“Just coffee,” he said, never taking his eyes from hers. The waitress departed.
During dinner Madeline had—almost—been able to forget the unspoken ending to this evening. Eric had been affable, relaxed, willing to discuss anything, his sexual intensity banked. But now…
Madeline swallowed hard. Conversation. That was what they needed. If they talked, she wouldn’t think. Imagine. Discover that anticipation could teeter like a seesaw between excitement and terror.
“Do you know,” she said chattily, “we’ve gotten through an entire dinner without talking about your son or my mother?”
“Uh-huh.” A smile played at the corners of his mouth without altogether taking shape. He saw right through her. He must. “That was the general idea, wasn’t it?” he said lazily.
“I suppose…” Seizing gratefully on the arrival of the coffee, she thanked the waitress too profusely and took an immediate sip. And burned her mouth, at which Eric’s smile grew.
Dammit, no matter how amused he looked, that glow in his eyes remained, and she felt his sexual awareness like a space heater set too close.
“Garth is doing wonders with the kittens,” she said, trying to appear unruffled.
“The kittens are doing wonders with Garth.” Eric appeared momentarily distracted. “He still spends most of his time in his bedroom, but he doesn’t have those damn headphones on all the time. And he tells me about the kittens’ progress with reasonable civility. Even invites me in to visit them once in a while.”
“He’ll come around.”
Eric grunted. “I worry about what’ll happen when the kittens get adopted.”
She worried about that, too. The first time was the hardest. Eric’s son was younger, tenderer, than she’d been when she said goodbye to her first foster babies. “Do you want me to hold off? He could keep them all summer.”
“Then he’d be even more attached.” A twisted smile replaced the frown. “And I would have two more cats.”
“There are worse fates.”
“I think I have enough. Especially considering…” He clamped down on that one.
Thank God. What if he’d been about to say, Especially considering how many you have? If they got as far as combining households—
Don’t think about it, she told herself.
She lifted her coffee cup and discovered it was empty. A leisurely second cup was unlikely to be on Eric’s agenda. Fed by a burst of adrenaline, her heart took an uncomfortable leap.
Eric smiled and lifted one hand. The waitress appeared like magic. Of course. “We’ll take the check now,” he said.
Madeline had never felt so many complicated emotions, had so many unprovoked physical responses, all at once. She wanted nothing more than to have Eric kiss her until she couldn’t think at all; at the same time she was praying he’d drop her off at her door without even a hint that he come in. She wanted to stay the friends she’d come to think they were; but she also wanted him to say, I love you.
The truth was, she conceded ruefully, she couldn’t make up her mind. Or perhaps she wanted everything and was afraid to go after it.
But does it have to be tonight? that insidious cowardly voice whispered.
She drew in a ragged breath, squeezed her hands together—and saw in alarm that he was laying some bills in the open leather folder and rising to his feet.
“Ready?”
No, she was not ready. Far from it! But she managed to smile and get to her feet. “I need to stop in the ladies’ room.”
“Sure.”
He steered her out with a hand at the small of her back. So little, that touch, but it sizzled through her silk blouse, made her every nerve quiver. The door to the rest room looked like a rabbit’s hole did to a rabbit when the shadow of an eagle floated near.
There was, of course, a limit to how long she could linger. She couldn’t even brush her hair, because she’d twirled it into a French roll. She didn’t carry her makeup, so she couldn’t touch that up. She simply washed her hands and stared at herself in the wall of mirrors.
She looked like her normal self. Maybe a little paler than usual, maybe her eyes were larger, darker, her breaths shallow. But no one who didn’t know her well would notice a thing. Her linen slacks were elegant; her amber silk blouse draped her breasts seductively. Too seductively, she thought, suddenly anxious. She turned this way and that, studying herself from different angles. Anxiety clogged her throat. Oh, no. She’d given the very signals she’d hoped to avoid. She’d thought to look businesslike. Reasonably attractive. Friendly.
All he’d been able to see across the table no doubt was the plunging neckline, the fabric clinging to her breasts, the shimmer of amber.
Yes, that nasty little voice in her head murmured, and you don’t really mind him looking, do you?
“Oh, shut up!” she snapped, and stalked out of the room.
Eric was waiting, his pose relaxed, patient; he leaned back against a railing, feet crossed at the ankle, arms braced to each side. The way his jacket hung emphasized his broad shoulders; the fabric of his slacks was pulled tight over the long muscles in his thighs.
Though the rest-room door closed silently behind her, his head turned as though he’d felt her body heat. He watched her come toward him, and he was no longer smiling. His eyes were narrowed, intent Hungry.
He still didn’t move. “Ready?” he said again, his voice low, husky.
Her uncertain nod apparently satisfied him, because he straightened, took her arm and propelled her toward the exit.
The drive home from the hilly seaside town of Edmonds was mostly silent. Her chatter had dried up. Eric pushed a CD into the player, and the clear piercing tones of a jazz trumpet filled the car. The music seemed to speak aloud her fear, her hope, her shimmering excitement and welling sense of inadequacy.
Letting the notes seep into her, Madeline closed her eyes.
What was so frightening about making love with this man? She wasn’t a virgin; she’d had a couple of relationships in the reckless period after she left home, full of anger. She hadn’t had time to date before; besides, late nights might leave bags under her eyes. Her attachment to a man, she’d thought bitterly then, might loosen her mother’s grip on her. So it had been inevitable, when she’d broken free, that she would plunge into all the experiences other girls had had in high school.
It was probably also inevitable that they would be unsatisfactory. She was like a girl let free from a convent, a girl who knew nothing about the real world. The knight in shining armor didn’t ride up on his white steed; true love eluded her. And sex was thoroughly disappointing.
Worse yet, sometimes it seemed she’d escaped nothing. Her looks were still all that mattered. Her two lovers had told her she was beautiful. They’d let her hair cascade through their hands as though they were adventurers who had found gold. Her breasts were perfect, her skin porcelain, they said. They stared as they undressed her, and she could feel their greed.
Each relationship had lasted a year. She hadn’t had one since. She’d told herself she didn’t want another. All men cared about was a woman’s beauty. She was more than her hair and skin and legs. Underneath she was different, unrelated to the face she saw on television and in magazine advertisements. She had nothing to do with the veneer that was all any man saw.
She sneaked a glance at Eric’s profile, unreadable in the dark interio
r of the car. Passing headlights reflected glints in his pale hair, shadowed his eyes, made him somehow mysterious, a stranger.
She felt a tremor, resisted it. He wasn’t a stranger. He was different from other men. He did see beyond the surface to her; he cared about the same things she cared about.
Didn’t he?
By the time he parked in her driveway, she was light-headed from imagining the best and the worst ten times over. Even so, her heartbeat sprinted when he turned off the ignition, abruptly silencing the trumpet. All she could hear was her pounding heart.
He turned to her, laid his arm along the back of the seat behind her. This much was familiar; now was when she always turned to him and lifted her mouth to meet his. She loved kissing him, being kissed by him. But other nights he’d walked her to her door, kissed her again, slowly, then murmured good-night and left. Tonight she knew he wouldn’t.
Unless she refused him. You can, she thought, to give herself courage. But she knew she wouldn’t.
His lips came down on hers, hard, hungrily. Her mind blurred. His hand stroked her throat, angled her head so his mouth could claim hers more completely. She gave a small whimper, and he groaned.
“May I come in?” he asked roughly.
Trembling, she whispered, “Yes.” Of course he could.
She’d been living for this moment. Doubts were gone, swept away by passion and a sense of inevitability.
“You know I want you.”
“Yes.”
A jolt ran through him, and his grip on her arms tightened for an instant. “I wasn’t sure…”
She wished she could see his face better. “Sure you want me?”
He made a sound in his throat. “I’ve always wanted you. I wasn’t sure you wanted me. You’ve been…skittish.”
She was still skittish. If only he’d kiss her again. Talking gave her the space to think, to replay all of her “should I or shouldn’t I” debates. She couldn’t tell him that.
“I’m not one of your patients.”
He pulled back a few inches. “My patients?” His mouth quirked. “Oh. Can’t ‘skittish’ refer to people, too? Don’t worry. I didn’t mistake you for a horse.”
Laughter helped. So did the next kiss. They parted only long enough to stumble out of the car and meet around by the front bumper. He’d never before done more than brush the sides of her breasts. Now he did, molding them with his palms, stroking them, kneading gently. Her hands, in turn, found their way under his shirt to his bare hot skin. Muscles rippled under her touch, and the sense of power was a marvelous aphrodisiac. He groaned, low and harsh, and yanked her to him for another deep kiss.
Every now and again they took a step—she was dimly aware of that much—but she was still befuddled when he prodded, “Key?”
She gave a dazed look around. They’d reached her doorstep and she hadn’t noticed. Thank God she’d had the presence of mind not to leave her purse in his car; she dug blindly through its contents. Keys. They had to be in here somewhere. Eric’s mouth on her neck didn’t help, but her hand at last closed on their jagged edges.
“Here,” she whispered.
He had to back up while she fumbled for the house key and inserted it into the lock. She turned the knob, and they nearly fell in, staggering and then regaining their footing.
Humor threaded the ragged sensuality in his voice. “If we’d gone down on the floor, we wouldn’t have gotten back up.”
Even as she chuckled, her breath caught. “I wouldn’t have cared.”
“Good.” His hands gripped her buttocks and he pressed her tightly to him.
The feel of his erection against her belly awakened long-buried desire. Her hips lifted, sought a natural resting place.
“If we don’t make it to your bedroom in the next thirty seconds, it’ll be too late,” he growled. “Last door?”
She murmured wordless agreement.
He didn’t give her a chance to lead the way. With startling abruptness, he lifted her off the floor. She gave a squeak, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.
“I don’t want to let go of you,” he told her, his eyes glittering with pale green fire.
She touched his mouth, which slanted into a purely male smile that did nothing to lessen the impact of that gaze. Her fingers trailed to his jaw, shaven but rough, then to the long grooves carved in his lean cheeks.
“Don’t let go of me,” she said as he shouldered open her bedroom door, sending cats scattering from her bed and out of the room.
Eric lowered her onto the comforter. In a voice that had the texture of corduroy, rough and velvety at the same time, he said, “Never.”
A thrill quivered through her.
And then his gaze swept over her with the possessiveness of a man claiming something as his own. “God, you’re beautiful.”
She wanted to hear, “I love you.” But she had to admit he was beautiful, too. As he unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it aside, she did the same to his shirt, fumbling with the last few buttons. He gave a sound of satisfaction at the same moment she did. His fingers felt callused against the tender skin of her breasts. That texture, like the grittiness of his jaw and the roughness in his voice, only heightened her excitement.
Oh, his shoulders were wonderful, broad and smoothly muscled under tanned skin. No mat of hair disguised the contours of his chest; he was sleek and brown and warm under her exploring hands, and his heartbeat drummed as frantically as her own.
“Your breasts are perfect,” he murmured, and bent to kiss first one nipple, then the other, before drawing one into his mouth. The vibrations of his voice played on her skin as he freed his mouth enough to nuzzle her. “I knew they would be.”
She chilled a little, but the pull of his mouth had an electric effect on her body. Her hips lifted and pushed against his thigh, braced between her legs, and he gave a soft laugh of triumph before suckling her other breast. This time she felt his teeth, and she cried out from the intense pleasure of it.
But then, oh God, then, he reared up to gaze at her, a fierce grin of male satisfaction on his face. With the air of a connoisseur, he stroked circles on her belly with his fingertips. “Your skin is incredibly soft. How the hell do you stay so white, so silky?”
She said nothing, only stared up at him.
He reached behind her head and deftly pulled the pins from her hair, tossing them to the carpet, sifting her curls through his fingers. “Your hair is glorious.”
Still she gazed up at his face, so taut and male, but his face had become their faces, and his words, his compliments, bled together with their words, their paeans to her beauty, never to her.
He wasn’t different. She’d been fooling herself.
Madeline was suddenly cold. Her muscles tightened and her hands curled into fists.
Above her Eric noticed and he stiffened; his gaze sharpened. Her hair slipped unnoticed from his fingers.
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes.” The word was bald, as icy as she felt. “I can’t do this.”
“You what?”
“Would you please get up?”
He swore and rolled to one side. “What the hell…?”
“Nothing’s changed, has it?” Madeline said bitterly, scrambling from the bed. “I should have listened to my instincts in the first place.”
“Instincts? Goddammit!” he roared. “Tell me what’s going on!”
Feeling naked in a way she hadn’t two minutes ago, Madeline turned away from Eric as she shrugged into her blouse. “Only one thing counts, doesn’t it?” she said. “You want a beautiful woman to show off, a beautiful woman under you in bed. You’re just like all the other men I’ve ever met!”
Eric uttered a sharp profanity and jackknifed to his feet. “You are beautiful! What do you want me to do—poke your hipbones and tell you you’re bony but I’ll have you, anyway?”
Facing him, she cried, “I want you to see something besides my ‘perfect’ breast
s! What if they weren’t perfect? What if they were drooping or covered in stretch marks? Would I qualify as a potential bed partner next time? Oh!” Infuriated and sick, she spun around again, shutting out the sight of him. “Garth was right!”
“What?” Teeth set, Eric caught her arm and pulled her to face him. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“He said you dated me because I was pretty,” she said, wrenching herself free. “Fool that I am, I told myself it wasn’t true.”
“You are pretty!” His voice rose to a bellow. “That doesn’t mean I don’t admire your soul, or whatever the hell I’m supposed to be commenting on when I have a hard-on for you!”
Hot and cold at the same time, she clutched her blouse together. “You never did answer my question. What if my breasts weren’t perfect?”
He grabbed his shirt from the bed and, with quick angry movements, yanked it on. “I wouldn’t have wanted you of course! I’m so goddamned perfect myself I won’t settle for anything less in a woman. You know me—I have to have the best of everything.” He stopped after having shoved three buttons through random buttonholes. Slinging his tie around his neck, he went on with icy contempt, “Yeah, I drive a Rolls, buy my clothes at Brooks Brothers. Nothing but show-quality purebred pets for me. Hell, I may make my living treating other people’s mangy animals, but I wouldn’t have one in my house! I admit it. You’ve got me pegged.”
She pressed a hand to her stomach to quell her nausea. “You know I don’t mean—”
“No?” He stopped in her bedroom doorway and gave her a look so scathing, she had to close her eyes. “Then just what do you mean?”
Even if she could have answered, he didn’t give her a chance. When she opened her eyes, he was gone. The front door slammed so hard pictures on the wall vibrated. Eyes saucer-wide, Maggie shot into the room and dove under the bed.
The car engine gunned in the driveway, roared as he backed out. A moment later the sound receded as he drove away. Out of her life, in every way that counted.
Starkly she wondered which was worse—to think she’d been right, or to think she’d misjudged him totally?
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