The Hometown Hero Returns

by BETH KERY

  She released him and stood abruptly.

  “I’ll just go change then, for our walk.” She didn’t wait for him to respond before she hurried out of the room.

  Mari hadn’t been to Chicago for any extended stays since she was a child. She’d come for performances with the orchestra on several occasions, of course, but was usually too tired from traveling, practices and the performance to see much of anything but the interior of Orchestra Hall and her hotel room. She’d forgotten what a lovely city it was sitting next to the topaz jewel of Lake Michigan. Its towering, glittering high-rises and big-city sophistication blended seamlessly with the Midwestern friendliness of its residents.

  They walked north along the lakefront among bikers, skaters, joggers and beach-goers. Such a vast sampling of humanity rolled by Mari’s view that she challenged herself to be objective in her assessment of the man who walked next to her in comparison. That jogger, for instance, had Marc’s height and lean, muscular build, but he didn’t move with the confident, easy grace of a born athlete like Marc did. A dark-haired man with an intense, handsome face held his girlfriend’s hand as they walked in the other direction, but he didn’t look down at his companion with a hot gaze that could make a woman feel like she was the only female on the planet.

  “What?” Marc asked when he caught her trying to covertly study him.

  “Nothing,” Mari said. She tried to hide her smile.

  He started laughing at her mysteriousness, and she joined him.

  She was being a fool, and she knew it. Wasn’t that what they said love did to you?

  They walked all the way to Lincoln Park on the lakefront and ate lunch at a little bistro in the park. Afterward, they wandered around the Lincoln Park Zoo without any serious intent and paused at whatever caught their eye. Marc bought her a lemonade, and Mari happily sipped it while she watched from a below-water-level window as a playful polar bear swam back and forth.

  “They say humans project all sorts of things onto animals, but I would swear that bear is flirting with you,” Marc mused.

  Showing off his sidestroke in front of the viewing window, the frisky polar bear plunged in the other direction in the water. It did appear as if he was staring directly at Mari.

  Mari glanced at Marc, and merriment swelled inside her. “Jealous?” she murmured.

  He just muttered under his breath, grabbed her hand and led her away from the adorable, amorous bear.

  On the way back to Marc’s, they window-shopped in boutiques on Rush and Oak Street. When Mari saw a swim-and-dive shop, she asked Marc if they could go inside.

  “Didn’t you bring along the gold swimming suit?” Marc asked when he saw her holding up a sleek mail-lot.

  “Yes,” Mari murmured distractedly. “But I’d feel like an idiot wearing that thing in public.”

  She glanced up when he made a disgusted sound. “You’re not going to buy a one-piece, are you?” he asked, sounding like she was considering the ultimate sellout.

  She just gave him a condemning glance and kept browsing. She lost track of what he was doing, but he reappeared by her side a few minutes later.

  “Here. How about this one. It’s not quite so skimpy, but it’s sexy as hell, like something a James Bond woman would wear,” he growled near her ear.

  Mari glanced over and saw him dangling a white bikini on his index finger. An innocent smile crossed his face.

  “It’ll look great with your tan,” he coaxed.

  “All right. You have good taste,” Mari conceded after a moment. The suit really was cute and had a good deal more coverage than Deidre’s bikini. She reached for it, but Marc yanked it away.

  “I’ll get it for you. What?” he asked when she protested. “It’s the only time a woman has ever told me I had good taste in clothing. I want to be able to brag about it every time I see you in it.”

  A few minutes later they exited the air-conditioned boutique and stepped into the sweltering heat of the midday sun.

  “Let’s catch a cab home,” Marc suggested, already stepping to the curb in search of a taxi. They were back inside his pleasantly cool condominium within fifteen minutes.

  “Do you want anything to drink before we go up to the pool?” Marc offered as he headed directly to the kitchen.

  “No, thanks. I’m going to change.”

  Marc had more than good taste when it came to swimsuits. He knew her coloring and figure to a T. The suit not only fit her perfectly, but it played up all her assets without seeming indecent. The halter-style bra had sufficient padding in it to make her feel covered but still managed to shape her breasts in a flattering manner, creating a sexy, but tasteful, décolletage. The bottoms were very abbreviated boy shorts that hugged her hips and rode low on her belly. Mari turned back and forth in front of the mirror in the guest bath, inspecting her stomach critically. Was it, indeed, swelling a fraction of an inch farther than its usual limit? She didn’t think so, but maybe…

  “Mari? You almost ready?” Marc called down the hallway.

  Mari started, her hand perched just below the slight convexity of her belly. It all hit her in a rush again; that was Marc Kavanaugh calling for her to join him.

  She was cradling the tiny beginnings of their baby in her palm.

  “I’ll be right out,” she shouted.

  She scurried into her sundress and studied her face in the bathroom mirror. When Dr. Hardy had consulted with her, she’d mentioned that many women chose to wait to tell family members, friends and acquaintances about their pregnancies until after the eighth week. Miscarriages could occur, and if everyone already knew about the pregnancy, it made it all that much more difficult to have to break the news at every turn.

  Most couples were cautious, even when they might be married and have loving, supportive families. She was willing to bet that the majority of the couples Dr. Hardy talked about were married and didn’t live thousands of miles apart. Most of those couples didn’t have the emotional baggage and charged history she and Marc shared.

  Surely she wouldn’t be doing too much harm by keeping quiet about the pregnancy for the time being. Surely she’d be doing Marc a huge favor by sparing him this news for a short while? He’d feel obligated to make major, life-altering changes, and what if those changes weren’t even warranted, in the end?

  Mari honestly couldn’t decide if she was being selfish by harboring that thought, or if she was being caring toward Marc by shielding him for the moment. She could see the argument both ways.

  Nothing had seemed certain to her since she’d seen Marc in the lobby of the Palmer House. It seemed as if the ground beneath her feet had become prone to frequent earthquakes, and her typical confident stance had turned wary with every new step.

  She entered the living room and saw Marc standing near the door wearing board shorts and a turquoise T-shirt. His briefcase was on his shoulder, and he had several towels tucked beneath his arm. As usual, his gaze struck her like a sensual caress.

  Marc’s desire was the one thing she could count on with the certainty of the rising sun. But was that enough to cushion them for what would undoubtedly be the rough ride of the future?

  Marc was glad to see they were the only residents on the pool deck besides an older woman who was doing laps. Hopefully the lady wouldn’t linger once she’d completed her exercise, and he’d have Mari all to himself. He set his briefcase on a table shaded by an umbrella and joined Mari by a couple of recliners in the full sun.

  “It’s beautiful up here,” she murmured, walking over to the view that featured Lake Michigan to the east and the skyscraper-packed shoreline to the north and south. She turned and smiled at him as he removed his T-shirt. “I can’t believe we’re nearly the only ones up here.”

  Marc shrugged and sprawled on the deck chair. “It’s like anything else. People tend to ignore luxuries after a while,” he murmured distractedly, most of his attention focused on Mari’s fingers as she unbuttoned her sundress. “I’ve only been up here a c
ouple times this summer myself. Holy… I’m a genius.”

  He raised his sunglasses. Mari paused in the action of tossing her sundress on a chair. Marc was too busy checking her out in her new bikini to really take in the amused expression on her face. Maybe the new suit did have more coverage, but it did amazing things to Mari’s figure.

  “I’m never going to hear the end of it, am I?” she said under her breath as she came down next to him on a recliner.

  “Never,” he agreed. “A man has to take credit where credit is due, and I definitely deserve huge accolades for finding that suit.” He unglued his eyes from the swells of her breasts in the V of the top and lazily trailed his gaze down her belly and curving hips. Her smooth, golden skin looked downright edible next to the white fabric.

  “Marc.”

  He blinked and glanced up from her lap to her face. She was staring incredulously at him.

  “What?”

  “We’re not alone,” she whispered.

  “All I was doing was looking,” he said, flipping his sunglasses back into place.

  “Somehow it didn’t seem that innocent,” he heard Mari say under her breath.

  He chuckled and stood. “Want to get in?” he asked.

  “I’ll wait. I think it’s you who needs to cool off,” she said wryly as she dug around in a canvas bag and retrieved a magazine.

  He laughed, tossed off his glasses and dove into the deep end of the pool. The water was refreshing, but nowhere near as cold as he needed it to be. After he’d swum some laps, he raised his head. A quick survey of the pool told him Mari and he were alone.

  He swam to the side and poked his head up over the ledge. Mari was watching him over the top of a magazine with a smirk on her face. He crooked a finger at her in a come-here gesture. She shook her head, her gaze returning to the page. He continued to beckon her silently, however. She finally stood and sauntered toward him. Instead of sitting on the ledge and easing down into the water next to him, giving him the opportunity to touch her honey-colored, smooth skin, she dove straight over his head into the water. He grinned as he watched her swim underwater toward the shallow end of the pool. He plunged after her. When she reached the end of the pool, he was there a split second before her. He leaned his back against the wall, his feet on the bottom of the pool and his legs bent, like he was sitting on an invisible chair. He grasped Mari’s shoulders.

  “What are you… How did you get there so fast?” she sputtered as her head came out of the water.

  “I was inspired,” he told her as he pulled her over a few inches so that she was above him. As her buoyant body drifted down to touch bottom, she encountered him instead. She scooped up some water and splashed him in the face.

  “Hey,” he murmured, not at all bothered. He wiped the water out of his face while Mari pushed her long, wet hair away from her eyes. There was laughter in her whiskey-colored eyes when they met his.

  “I’ll race you to the other end,” she challenged breathlessly.

  “Uh-uh,” he said quietly as he arranged her so that she straddled his belly in the water, his weight bracing her. Grasping her upper arms, he brought her closer with his hands until her heaving breasts tickled his chest. It felt good—really good—to have Mari’s naked skin sliding ever-so-subtly against his in the cool water. “I like it too much right here.”

  “Do you?” she murmured, her mouth hovering just inches from his, her breath striking his lips in warm, fragrant puffs of air. He placed his hands on her hips, loving the way the curve of them fit into his palms.

  “I think you know the answer to that.” He slid his hands along her water-lubricated skin. He felt her go still as he traced the beguiling swells of her hips and the indentation of her waist and then her heaving ribcage. “Do you recall how you told me not to come on so strong during this visit, Mari?”

  “Yes,” she replied, her eyes glued to his mouth. She gasped softly when he shifted his hands so that his forefingers were just below the fullness of her breasts and his palms cradled her ribcage. He felt her heart beating into his palms, rapid and strong.

  “If you kissed me right now,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t be breaking any rules.”

  “Well, I’d hate to be the one to turn you to truancy.”

  He held his breath as she slowly leaned forward. She very carefully kissed the drops of moisture off his lips one by one, and then rose to do the same for his nose. He closed his eyelids when she transferred her attention there, her quick, elusive caresses creating a riot of sensation in his body. By the time she’d dried his whole face with her sweet, seeking lips, he was starting to hurt with desire.

  Her mouth settled on his. He could just as easily have single-handedly stopped the rotation of the earth than prevented himself from transferring his hands to her upper arms and sliding her closer to him. He gave himself twenty seconds to drown in the taste of her, twenty seconds to show her how much he wanted her, twenty seconds to glory in the fact that her hunger seemed every bit a match for his.

  She whimpered softly when he sealed their kiss and moved away from her.

  “I think I’ll do a lap or three dozen,” he muttered before he plunged into the water. He tried to banish Mari’s dazed expression and flushed cheeks from his mind’s eye as he set a hard, brisk pace for himself, but it didn’t really work.

  Not in the slightest.

  Slightly winded from his swim, he finally rose from the pool. Mari glanced up from her magazine. He gave her a reassuring smile when he saw her uncertain look. The last thing he’d meant to do was make her feel guilty. He was the one who’d asked for it, and, given the same circumstances, he’d gladly suffer his momentary discomfort again just to feel her supple body gliding next to his and her lips caressing every inch of his face.

  “Do you mind if I look over a couple things in the shade?” he asked, pointing toward his briefcase beneath the umbrella.

  “No, of course not,” she assured.

  He dried off and settled himself for the next forty minutes, going through his phone messages and making a priority list for things that needed to get done in the next few days. He was proud of himself for staying on task with the alluring distraction of Mari reclining just feet away in a sexy bikini.

  Everything was going great until she pulled some suntan lotion out of her bag and started smoothing the emollient onto her long legs. Like a bee drawn to honey, he rose slowly from his seat at the shaded table and walked toward her.

  “You need any help with that?” he asked as he plopped down into the recliner next to her.

  “I think I can manage.”

  He didn’t reply as he watched her work the lotion into her thighs. She glanced over at him as she poured some more into her palm.

  “I thought you were working,” she said with a touch of asperity.

  He studied every detail of her hands smoothing over her belly.

  “I was. I’m not anymore. You have beautiful arms,” he said distractedly.

  Mari snorted. “Thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever received that particular compliment before.”

  He smiled and just continued to watch her. He might have looked relaxed to a casual observer, but in fact, his body was tensed like an animal’s ready to spring. Why wouldn’t anyone tell her she had gorgeous arms? They were like sensual poetry, the way they gleamed in the summer sun, the way she moved them. Why hadn’t he told her before?

  He sat up when she reached her shoulders.

  “Here,” he said, reaching for the bottle. “You’re going to get it on your new suit.”

  She glanced at him doubtfully but released the lotion, nevertheless.

  “Lean back,” he encouraged as he transferred positions so that he was sitting beside her on her recliner. “It’s best to be in the exact spot where you’re going to lay when you put the stuff on, or else you take the risk of missing the exposed parts.”

  “You sound like quite the expert on suntan lotion application,” Mari said sarcastically as sh
e reclined in the chair.

  Marc poured some of the warm liquid in his palm. “Well, I don’t want to brag or anything…”

  Mari rolled her eyes, but he sensed her focused attention as he carefully began to rub the emollient onto her shoulder, careful not to stain the fabric of her suit.

  “You really take this seriously. You’d think you were doing surgery,” Mari murmured as she watched him work the lotion into her skin along the line of the suit.

  “I’m a perfectionist,” he said in a deadpan tone.

  She laughed. The smile remained on her mouth while he did her other shoulder. It faded when he squeezed more lotion in one hand and started matter-of-factly working it into the exposed skin in the V of her halter top. From the periphery of his vision, he saw her mouth open to protest, but he just continued rubbing the lotion over the top of a breast with two fingers, sliding and circling over firm, curving flesh. He leaned down farther, taking his time and true to his word, completing the task with meticulous attention to detail.

  It was with great disappointment that he finished covering the last, tiny patch of satiny-smooth skin between her breasts at the very bottom of the V. He straightened and screwed the cap on the bottle.

  “There. Not a drop on your new suit,” he said as he handed the lotion back to her.

  He paused when he finally glanced up into Mari’s face. Her cheeks had turned pink. Her lips were parted as she panted shallowly.

  He’d been so absorbed in the erotic task of putting lotion on the upper and inner swells of Mari’s breasts he hadn’t really noticed the effect he was having on her. He opened his mouth to apologize, but wouldn’t that be a bit disingenuous? Was he really sorry?

  “I think I’ll go take another swim.”

  She didn’t reply as she watched him stand. He hoped she wasn’t angry at him, but Christ… How much temptation could a man take?

  You’re making a lot of selfish excuses, he remonstrated with himself as he sliced through the water. Mari meant a lot more to him than sex. A hell of a lot more. She’d made a point of saying she wanted to see if there was a chance for them beyond their obvious sexual chemistry. She’d said she didn’t want to be pushed. And look at how he was behaving. He couldn’t help but recall that both Mari and his mother had made a point of saying he always got what he wanted. Was this the kind of thing they were referring to? He wanted Mari—a hell of a lot—and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from touching her, no matter what the circumstances.