by Alison Kelly
Her head dipped at the words. A heartbeat later it came back up; the tears in her eyes brought an instant crippling pain, momentarily robbing him of the ability to recognise the shy, uncertain smile hovering at her mouth.
‘Is it any consolation to know it’s been driving me insane too?’
He had no idea who moved first, but once she was in his arms and he could hold her, kiss her, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except knowing that moment carried the same wonder, bliss and overwhelming relief for her as it did for him.
Trusting her arms to keep her body tight against his, he clamped his hands on her face to rain kisses over every molecule of her flawless skin and each incredibly gorgeous feature. Her perfectly arched jet eyebrows, the delicate lids of those eyes which had stopped him in his tracks the first day he met her, and her nose, which was as elegant yet unpretentious as she herself. Only then did he return to pay homage to the sweet, sensual mouth that created smiles which captivated his heart and revealed a joyful spirit which had refreshed his jaded soul.
Over and over again he worshipped with his lips the face of this woman whose beauty encompassed so much more than the mere physical that it had driven him beyond reason. And he had been beyond reason. Until today. Until a fool had sacrilegiously claimed this woman needed changing. Only a fool would mess with perfection. And only a far bigger fool would willingly surrender it to another. The recollection of how seriously he’d contemplated disregarding the strength of his feelings for Joanna drove him to deepen his kiss in the search for yet more assurances that this moment exceeding even his wildest imaginings was in fact reality.
The sensations created by her eager response to the insistent demands of his tongue had his heart bursting with love and tenderness, yet simultaneously they provoked a panicked desire to touch and explore every part of her. It was a desire both eased and fed by her hands’ frantic movements up his chest, across his shoulders and back.
It was some time before the initial frenetic excitement of finally being able to release his deepest feelings abated sufficiently to allow Brett to try and verbalise them in semi-coherent speech as they stood hugging each other in limp breathlessness.
‘Oh, Lord, Jo...’ The words were a prayer. A plea. A substitute for all the things he wanted to say, but which he couldn’t hope to articulate in the short span of a lifetime. It hardly seemed enough to have just said he loved—
His thoughts skidded to a halt. Frowning, he tried to recall if he had actually told her how he felt somewhere amid the jumbled semi-articulate words he’d uttered in his haste to physically express himself. He supposed it hardly mattered, for it was evident that she knew exactly how he felt from the way she was nestled against him. Yet for some reason he wanted to hear himself say the words.
Smiling, he placed a finger under her chin to lift her head from where it rested against his heart. ‘In case you haven’t noticed...I’m crazy in love with you, Joanna Ford.’
She lifted a hand to gently run her knuckles along his jaw, and he felt fire ignite down his spine. ‘I think I fell in love with you, Brett McAlpine, within the first minute of seeing you.’
‘Gotta query that,’ he said, bending so his mouth could nibble on the silky skin of her neck. ‘You thought I was gay.’
‘Not right away. Not until I mentioned to Karessa about moving out. And the only reason I did that was because you made me feel so...’
‘So what?’ he prompted.
‘Sooo...’ A shiver of delight went through her as, watching her intently, he slid the camisole straps from her shoulders. ‘Aware.’
‘Aware of what?’ he teased, earning an amused glare.
‘You know what...you!’ A tinge of pink rose on her cheeks and she lowered her eyes to where her fingers were playing speculatively with his top button. ‘You were the most fascinating man I’d ever met. At first it was a relief to think you were gay, because I knew you’d never be interested in me. I thought that would make my attraction fade, but it didn’t, and I started to think there was something wrong with me, and I was so terrified I’d embarrass you, and—and...’
He tilted her head back, so she was looking at him. ‘Oh, sweetheart...I was interested.’ He smiled, grazing his thumbs over her cheekbones. ‘I walked into that foyer, instantly drowned in these incredible eyes, and a second later I had you mentally stripped down to nothing but those damn sexy boots you were wearing.’ His fingers felt the heat of her flush. ‘I mightn’t have known then that I’d already fallen in love with you, but I sure as hell knew I wanted to fall into bed with you.’
There was genuine feminine pleasure in her shy smile. ‘And...do you still want to...’ She paused and nibbled her lip, but her gaze didn’t waver from his. ‘Um...fall into bed with me?’
‘No... Now I want to make love to you. There’s a difference.’ Both his body and heart tightened at the flare of desire that sparked in her eyes.
‘I...I didn’t know that.’
‘That’s because I’m the only man in the world who’ll ever love you enough to show it to you.’
She smiled. ‘Will you show me now?’
Choking on too many emotions to frame an answer, he tumbled them onto the bed and let his mouth respond with wordless affirmation. An affirmation that commenced with a thorough exploration of her mouth and engaged her agile, eager tongue in a duel which on its own had him rock-hard and threatened his control. To avoid being wiped out by the tidal wave of passion building within him, he turned his attention to the creamy smoothness of her neck. But she arched against him, and the need to feel and see all of her created havoc with his best intentions. But then from day one his best intentions had done nothing but keep him on a road to hell, and—
‘Ah, hell,’ he muttered, pulling back from her. ‘Honey, we need to talk.’
She blinked. ‘Now?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, irritated as hell at his timing. ‘The thing is, Jo, I’m crazy about you. I love you more than I even imagined it was possible to love someone. And I want to marry you.’
‘Oh, Brett, I—’
‘Shh. Don’t answer until I explain everything. I know you’re only twenty-two, but I swear I’m not going to hold you from your dreams. I’m happy to wait ten years if you want to, to have kids. And as soon as you get a passport I’ll take you anywhere in the world you want to go. We can take a year off now and go overseas, and then travel four months of every year after that. We’ll go anywhere you like and do whatever you want,’ he vowed. ‘But, honey...I need to know you really believe I can make you happy before I make love to you...because once I do I’m never going to be able to walk away from you.’
‘Oh, Brett!’ She launched herself at him with such force he ended up on his back. Her kiss was long and lingering, and when she pulled back she was smiling as tears seeped from her eyes.
‘I don’t need all those trips to make me happy. I just need you.’
‘But you want to travel,’ he insisted. ‘You’ve always said that it was your dream.’
‘Only because I couldn’t ever imagine someone I loved would love me back. Travel just seemed a more attainable source of happiness to me. Brett, you’ve already fulfilled my most exotic dream. I don’t need a passport...I just need you.
As his heart began to well with the most glorious joy, she took his face firmly between her hands.
‘So, yes, you can make me happy.’ She kissed him. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ She kissed him again. ‘But, no, I won’t wait ten years to make babies with you. I know what it’s like to have old parents and I don’t want that for our children.’
The way she said ‘our children’ spread a liquid heat through Brett’s loins, and this time when she kissed him he locked a hand on the back of her head to stop her withdrawing and engaged her in something more sensory than words.
‘If you’re all through talking now,’ he teased, ‘here’s a man here who really wants to make love to you.’
Those magic eyes of hers dilate
d with desire. ‘That’s good,’ she said, lowering her head with a look that was pure seduction. ‘Because I’ve dreamed about him doing it...’ She paused at the last minute so that her lips brushed his as she spoke. ‘Oh, and by the way, I’m not twenty-two. I’m twenty-four.’
Then her mouth opened over his and her hands slipped beneath his shirt and Brett forgot every thought he’d ever had. The lazy exploration of her hands against his flesh inspired his own to seek similar pleasures, and he tugged the satin camisole to her armpits before rolling her onto her back so he could savour the view as her breasts were exposed.
He only managed a groan of awe before he was compelled to draw one of the cherry peaks into his mouth and relish its pebbled hardness against his tongue. Her throaty moan as she arched closer to his mouth inspired him to transfer his attention to the other, before nuzzling the valley between them. With her hands in his hair and the whimpering sound of her growing arousal ringing in his ears he blazed a trail of hot, hungry kisses across and down her abdomen, until the open zipper of her jeans scratched against his cheek to remind him that clothing still hampered his intention to worship every centimetre of her skin.
Shrugging free of his shirt, he stood and proceeded to dispose of his trousers and boxers in one effort.
‘Y-you’re beautiful,’ she whispered, and pride almost brought him to his knees.
‘And you,’ he said, gently taking the camisole over her head and then placing his hands on the denim riding low on her hips, ‘are exquisite.’
Yet even as he’d said the words he hadn’t been prepared for the almost spiritual impact of her nude perfection, and it was necessary to close his eyes and regather his control before he again trusted himself to rejoin her on the bed. When he did, he once more sought her mouth and feasted upon her sweetness for gloriously long minutes before starting a secondary oral excursion down her body. Her startled gasp of air as he nuzzled the jet down at the junction of her thighs gave him pause, so, too, did the sight of the knuckle-white grip her hands had on the bedding. Reaching for her hands, he closed his own over them, and as he met those magnificent thick-lashed eyes they were all the colours of love and trust.
‘Love me...’ she urged, turning her hands beneath his and linking their fingers. ‘Love me as no one else has ever or will ever love me.’
And he did. He felt and tasted her fly apart in her passion. He heard her chanting his name at her moment of release. And when his own could no longer be denied he rose above her, and as their gazes met he claimed her for always and fulfilled his own dreams.
EPILOGUE
THEY married six weeks later, necessitating an early return from Europe for Brett’s mother, who really didn’t mind in the slightest and proclaimed she thought Joanna showed real flair for interior design. It also required a hastily created wedding dress by Carlo, who minded a great deal because ‘true genius cannota be rushed!’
Jason was, of course, flattered to be asked to be best man, and even more flattered by the charming Steve Cooper, who gave Joanna away.
Karessa was thrilled at being a bridesmaid, and requested that as her bridesmaid gift she’d like Brett and Joanna to bring her something back from their honeymoon in Germany; preferably a tall, blond ski-instructor.
And Meaghan, who’d decided the London deal wasn’t a goer after all, continued to swear black and blue that she’d made an honest mistake about Joanna’s age and asked if Brett was planning on getting off her case any time before Joanna’s fiftieth birthday. Brett said no.
For their first anniversary Joanna saw Scandinavia.
For their second Brett took her to Disneyland.
For their third they conceived their first child in Paris, and fittingly named her...Paris.
For their fourth anniversary, Joanna flatly refused to go anywhere outside of a hundred-kilometre radius of her three-month-old daughter, because she’d recently read an article that advised against separating mother and child in the first year. So Brett secretly booked an airline ticket and a Sydney hotel room and took her to see a sister who was desperate to be forgiven and experience the spiritual love of real family...
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6232-4
MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE
First North American Publication 1998.
Copyright © 1998 by Alison Kelly.
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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