Andrew let go of the hand he held, wrapping one arm around her to bring her nearer, and slipping his other hand behind her head. With more aplomb than she would have expected him to have at such a thing, he removed the clip that held her hair in a ponytail and combed his fingers through her pale blond locks.
It made her secretly smile inside to think that he'd wanted her hair loose and had taken the initiative to free it. She only wished she had the courage to take that same initiative when it came to his T-shirt. The T-shirt that stood between her other hand at his back and the feel of his bare skin beneath it.
She was brave enough to caress that broad back, though. To massage it and explore every rise and fall of muscles she remembered ogling as they'd snorkeled in Tahiti—honed and tanned and gleaming with wetness…
Had she been the first to open her mouth even wider than his? To deepen that kiss? To take it up another notch?
Maybe. Not that it had been premeditated. It was just that picturing him in Tahiti, having him there with her now, holding her, kissing her, was turning her on with such speed her thoughts couldn't keep up.
Andrew could though.
With their mouths still locked and tongues still tantalizing each other, he lowered them both to lie on their sides on the thick mat of new carpeting. His body ran the length of hers but with enough of a separation to make her wish there wasn't one.
She felt her nipples knot and push against the confines of her lacy bra as if reaching out to close some of that distance between them. Her back arched all on its own in silent plea, bringing those tight crests into scant contact with his pectorals. Scant enough that it didn't seem as if it would arouse him even more. But a quiet groan rumbled in his throat and he seemed unable to resist drawing a hand down her side, to the hem of her sweater where he slipped underneath it.
Oh, better still!
Warm and big and strong—that was how his hand felt on her bare rib cage before he let it rise higher. High enough to encompass her straining breast.
It was Delia who moaned then. She couldn't help it. She'd been aware of the fact that pregnancy had rendered her breasts more sensitive, but she'd had no idea just how sensitive. She actually writhed beneath his touch, pushing herself more deeply into his palm, begging him with her body to get that bra out of the way, to give her the full, unfettered sensation.
Which was what he did. Sliding fingertips first inside that cup, replacing it with that hand she was in awe of as it kneaded and massaged and explored the nipple that stood proudly out to meet him.
Andrew rolled her to her back and came to lie half on top of her then. Mouths were wide and seeking and growing more insistent by the minute. Both of Delia's arms were around Andrew and her fingers were digging into his back, urging him on.
And on he went, insinuating his leg between hers, pressing the proof of what she was stirring in him against her thigh, raising his leg high enough to awaken that portion of her body as well.
He ended their kiss then, at the same time his hand left her breast long enough to raise her sweater so that he could take that yearning orb into the hot cavern of his mouth. To suck and knead and flick the kerneled crest, to only lightly nip at it with careful teeth, to tug and tease until Delia was nearly wild with the need for even more.
More of him that merely plunging her own hands underneath his shirt to his naked flesh didn't satisfy. More of him that merely flexing into the juncture of his legs didn't complete. More of him in every way…
But just when she wanted more, she got less.
Slowly, as if it was the fight of his life, Andrew stopped. One final, deep pull of her breast into his mouth and he released it, kissing her stomach as he replaced her bra. One final pulse of his knee into her most private spot, of his most private spot against her, and he took his leg away. Two very, very cautious fingers at the hem of her sweater tugged it down over her exposed torso again.
“I want to do this,” he said then, his voice deep and gravely, confirming his claim. “But I won't. Not again. Not until you marry me.”
“Oh sure, take me to the brink and then give me an ultimatum,” Delia joked, staring up into that exquisitely handsome face, into those dark, penetrating coffee-bean eyes.
He smiled crookedly. “Whatever it takes.”
He sat up and tugged her to sit up, too. Then he got to his feet and helped her to hers.
“Marry me, Delia,” he ordered forcefully.
A flood of things went through her mind. Her conversation with her brother and the points he'd made. The nursery they were standing in and all Andrew had done to finish it. The lengths Andrew had gone to in so many ways to persuade her to make a go of things between them. All he'd said himself and the points he'd made—better points even than Kyle's.
And it suddenly occurred to Delia that maybe she should give Andrew the benefit of the doubt. That maybe she should swallow her pride about the differences in their ages. That maybe, like that night in Tahiti that had been like no other night of her life, she should throw caution to the wind. That she should give in to what he wanted. To what Marta and Kyle thought she should do in providing her child with the father none of the McCrays had been allowed. That she should stop suppressing her own feelings for this man who never left her thoughts, who she wanted with every ounce of her being no matter how she denied it. That maybe, she should take the leap of faith….
“What if I say okay?” she tested.
“Okay, you'll marry me?”
Delia nodded. Tentatively, but she nodded.
Andrew's responding smile was a bit lopsided. “You'll make me a happy man,” he said softly.
“Will I really?”
“You really will.”
Still Delia hesitated, hoping, praying, that she was doing the right thing. For herself. For Andrew. For the baby.
But then she said, “Okay. I'll marry you. If you're sure…”
Chapter Twelve
The collar was too tight. It was choking him.
Andrew ran his index finger around the inside of it and stretched his neck.
No, there was plenty of room. Maybe it was the tie.
He loosened it but that didn't help either.
“Dammit!” he muttered under his breath, not wanting his voice to travel outside of Delia's downstairs bathroom where he'd just dressed and was on the verge of going out to greet his family and the judge his brother had arranged for to perform the ceremony.
The wedding ceremony.
It was Saturday evening, a week and a day after Delia had agreed to marry him. A whirlwind week in which he'd had to make up the time he'd missed the week before that at work and help arrange for tonight's wedding. A week in which he'd hardly had time to think.
But now here he was, on the verge of actually getting married.
And he felt as if he were being choked by the collar of the white silk shirt and tie he had on under his best Italian suit. Even though neither the collar nor the tie were anywhere near to choking him.
Was it the idea that he was getting married that was really doing it?
Married. He'd be married. Married, with a job and a kid on the way.
And he just kept thinking that this was going to be his life from now on—up every day at the same time to go to the same place to do the same things before he came home each night to a wife and a kid and that whole bucket of responsibilities. No more hopping a plane for places unknown when the mood struck. No more free and easy living when he was in town. No more lying on a beach for endless days until he was good and ready to go home, regardless of how long that took. No more random pursuit of any and every woman who caught his eye just to see if he could make the conquest.
No more life.
At least no more of life as he'd known it. And enjoyed it. And wanted it to continue.
“Not what you're supposed to be thinking half an hour before your wedding,” he lectured himself with a glance up from the vanity to the mirror above the sink as he put the folded w
hite silk square into his breast pocket.
But he didn't seem able to stop the thoughts.
Thoughts about how his entire life had changed and was changing in ways he hadn't been prepared for it to change. Ways he wasn't sure he was prepared for it to change now. Thoughts about the fact that he hadn't had a choice in any of this. About the fact that a part of him felt as if he might never have another free choice at all. Ever. Not another choice that wouldn't have to be made with a wife in mind. And what she wanted and approved of and consented to and wouldn't be hurt by. Not another choice that wouldn't have to be made with a kid in mind…
Choking. There was the choking sensation again.
Obviously not the shirt or the tie. Obviously the situation.
But there was no way out. Not this time. This time he had to stick around. He had to marry Delia. He had to work for a living. He had to be a father….
The walls of the bathroom seemed to close in on him. The room suddenly seemed too small a place for him to be shut up in.
Too small a room.
Too tight a collar and tie.
“Get a grip,” he told his reflection. “You can do this. Last-minute jitters—that's all you have. Everybody gets them.”
Of course not everyone took a job they didn't want and got married because their family forced them to.
Never in his entire twenty-eight years of living— including since his brother and uncle had dumped the job and the ultimatum and the pressure to marry Delia on him—had he wanted so badly to run….
A knock on the bathroom door startled him to such an extent that his body jolted as if he'd had an electrical shock.
“It's me,” his roommate announced from outside. “You all right in there?” Mike asked.
Andrew didn't feel all right. But he said, “Yeah. Sure.”
Mike apparently knew him well enough not to believe that because after a moment's pause, his roommate's voice came again in a confidential whisper, “Hey, man, it'll be okay.”
Andrew laughed a mirthless laugh and opened the door a crack. “Easy for you to say.”
“I know. But it's the truth,” Mike assured. “Delia's great and you like her. Everything else will fall into place.”
“Is there a manual for best men that tells you what to say?”
“Nah, I mean it,” Mike claimed. “I was just upstairs and I got to see her. If you don't want her, I'll take her.”
That made Andrew chuckle more genuinely. “She looks nice?”
“Too good for you,” Mike goaded.
“There's never been any question about that,” Andrew answered wryly.
“Seriously—are you gonna make it? You look kind of green around the gills.”
“I'm fine,” Andrew lied.
“Then I'm supposed to tell you it's time to get started.”
Suddenly there was such a knot in Andrew's throat that he couldn't speak. He merely nodded and closed the door, trapping himself inside again and suddenly finding that preferable to the idea of leaving the bathroom to face what he was about to face.
“What are you going to do?” he whispered to his reflection as if he were challenging someone else. “Are you going to leave Delia standing at the altar while you hide in the bathroom?”
He didn't know why, but hearing her name when Mike had said it and again now that he said it himself, thinking about her, actually helped.
Delia.
He never had these feelings when he was with her.
He felt great when he was with her. He felt as if he could be with her forever. That was not only okay, but also a good thing.
Delia—just keep thinking about her….
He did have fun with her, he reminded himself. He could be himself around her. He could talk to her, trust her, tease her, joke with her. He could relax with her. Totally and completely.
Oh, yeah, it helped to think of Delia.
She was beautiful, too, his friend was right about that. He could stare at her for hours and not get tired of the way she looked. One flash of those big baby blue eyes and he felt as if the sun had come out from behind clouds. And she had a tight little body that didn't quit.
Plus, she was nice. Sweet. Pleasant. Smart. And he was hot for her. Hell, he'd just about gone out of his mind keeping his hands off her this past week.
But marriage? Shouldn't marriage be based on more than what amounted to a strong attraction? Shouldn't it be based on feelings people had for each other?
Okay, he was headed for dangerous territory again, he warned himself.
Just think about Delia. Only Delia…
Besides, he reasoned, it wasn't as if he didn't have any feelings for her. He did. He even thought he cared for her. In a way that he'd never cared for any other woman.
“So maybe Mike is right about that, too. Maybe it will all be okay,” he said.
Hell, it was going to have to be because he couldn't get out of this now.
Just think about Delia, he repeated. Just think about Delia….
And that's what he did.
Steadfastly.
To get himself out the bathroom door.
Where all the eyes on all the guests seated in her living room waiting for the ceremony to begin suddenly turned towards him.
And if there had ever been a time he'd actually considered booking it the hell out of someplace, it was at that moment.
But he didn't do it.
He tried to smile.
He moved into place beside Mike.
And he waited for his bride.
“Congratulations, Andrew. It was a lovely wedding.”
Andrew had avoided his stepmother all evening but she was standing with his brother Jack and his Uncle David when David motioned for him to join them, so he couldn't put off talking to her any longer.
He also couldn't help stiffening up when she squeezed his arm and raised up to kiss his cheek.
“Wouldn't it be more apropos to say 'Thanks for taking one for the team'?” he responded snidely.
“Oh, I hope not. I know everything that's come about for you in the last two weeks has been thrust upon you to a great degree, but I really like Delia and I think she'll be good for you. I would hate to believe that's honestly how you feel about her or about marrying her,” Helen said.
Andrew's late father's widow wasn't the stereotypical-looking trophy wife. She was attractive but not in any overblown way, and she was nothing if not impeccably tasteful. But Andrew's remark had caused her flawlessly made-up face to sober into a forlorn-looking frown that, when Andrew had been a teenager, would have pleased him.
Now he just felt guilty for the petty comment. Not because it had been an ungracious way to accept congratulations from Helen, but because Andrew regretted making such a tasteless comment when it came to Delia. She didn't deserve that.
“You did the best thing,” David praised, taking up where Helen had left off. “All the way around. For yourself, too. At least I think that's what you'll come to see in time even if it isn't clear to you now.”
“Finding good women has only improved David's and my life,” Jack concurred with a glance in the direction of the buffet table where Jack's own bride, Samantha, and David's former personal assistant and new wife Nina were chatting amiably.
“Might have been nice to be able to take my good woman on a honeymoon,” Andrew countered pointedly, since his brother and uncle had both vetoed that notion.
“We know your pattern too well,” Jack said. “If we let you out of here for a honeymoon it'd be the last we saw of you for who knows how long. Besides, you just came back from a three-month vacation and now you have a job to do.”
“You did terrific at work this week, though,” David added, clearly to soften the blow of Jack not mincing words. “That new chewing gum account is a big one. It's going to help.”
“Don't tell me you even managed to get a new advertiser this week while planning the wedding?” Helen inquired.
Andrew thought he knew where that
was headed. Helen had been expressing an unusual interest in the business lately and it seemed to him that she might well want more involvement. She never had liked being excluded. From anything.
But when it came to the company, that was the way it was and Andrew wished she would get used to it. She was his late father's trophy wife and nothing more. And she'd never be any more. Not in the eyes of Andrew or his brothers and not when it came to Hanson Media Group, either.
He wasn't in the mood for it tonight, however, and assuming his brother, uncle and stepmother had summonded him to give him the family pat on the back for doing what they'd wanted him to do, he figured he could make his exit from their little gathering.
With that in mind, rather than addressing Helen's comment about the new account, he said, “I should get back to Delia.”
“Wait,” Jack said to delay him. “We've finally heard from Evan.”
That did spur Andrew's interest.
“Finally,” David repeated with a full measure of his own irritation over the middle Hanson brother's tardiness in responding to every attempt to contact him.
“I got an e-mail from him just before leaving home tonight,” Jack continued. “He'll be in Chicago Thursday. I called the estate lawyer the minute I got the e-mail and arranged for the reading of the will.”
“Again—let me just say finally,” David said.
“When will it be?” Andrew asked.
“Friday morning. The attorney is coming to the office to make it convenient for us. We can all meet in the conference room,” Jack said.
“And we really need to get your father's will read,” David pointed out. “We've gone too long with things up in the air waiting for you and Evan. That's another reason we couldn't have you taking off on a honeymoon—we knew Evan had to get back to us any time now, and then we could get this all taken care of.”
“Hanson Media Group first and foremost,” Andrew muttered like a fight song.
“Things do need to be settled,” Helen said in a conciliatory tone of voice.
Which, for no rational reason, just rubbed Andrew wrong even when he knew she was only trying to make nice the way she always did, and that they were all right and the will did need to be read so the company and everyone connected to it could proceed from there.
The Baby Deal Page 14