Harlequin Superromance November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Mary Brady

  When they had been prudently distributed, she checked her hair in the hall mirror and smiled at what she saw. Wild hair. She felt a little wild.

  This time when the doorbell rang, she opened it to see Daniel MacCarey standing on her porch. His whiskers were turning into a beard, but they did not hide the deep distress carved into his face. His strong shoulders slumped and his eyes were red with fatigue.

  She stepped back so he could come inside her foyer. “You look terrible.”

  After she closed the door, she reached inside the jacket he had put on over his ratty sweater and pulled him to her for a hug.

  A moment later he lifted her chin and found her mouth with his as he backed her up against the wall and kissed her lips, her face, her neck. His whiskers were long enough to be almost soft but made his kisses seem more urgent.

  When his insistent lips crushed hers again, she brought her hands up under his sweater and curled her fingers over his hard shoulders so she could lift herself higher and on tiptoes press herself closer. From here, she could have her way with his neck, his ears, his mouth.

  The world suddenly became about him and the fire he lit within her.

  Daniel MacCarey stood her up in her own foyer and plumbed the depths in her no one else had ever even stirred.

  He was hard. And from being pressed up against the wall, she could tell all of him was hard.

  When he put his arms around her and lifted her, she wrapped her legs around him, kissing, licking, nibbling whatever felt best at the time.

  He somehow had the key to her passion and she couldn’t seem to get enough of him.

  If this was a dream, it was a good one.

  He carried her into the living room and leaned over the sofa with her still clinging to him. When she let go and dropped onto the soft throw cover, he sat down on the edge beside her and she pushed up to face him. With her hands free, she stripped off his jacket and tossed it aside. He did the same with her Henley top. She reciprocated with his sweater.

  She looked up at him. “Damn.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My friend said I should always wear a lacy bra that opens in the front.” She looked down at her sports bra that was no way going to fall off easily.

  The fatigue lifted from his face as he smiled and slid his fingers under the edge of her bra. She gasped when his thumbs brushed across her nipples. As she raised her arms, her bra followed the path the rest of their clothes had taken—somewhere else.

  “Good?” he asked as he touched her collarbone and then skimmed his fingertips down to her breast.

  She grinned. “It’s getting that way.”

  Scooting her back down on the couch, he gently lowered his weight until they were chest-to-chest, heat-to-heat. She arched for more and reveled when he slid his arm beneath her and molded their bodies together.

  She had not expected such a quick and fierce response from her body. There was magic between this man and her and she wanted to experience all of its bliss.

  He ran his hand down and up her thigh, teasing her sensitive skin. He smiled as he then cupped her breast, gently caressing and massaging until she moaned. Slowly, maddeningly slowly, he leaned over her breast, finally taking her nipple into his mouth. She let out a small cry as his tongue danced over the erect tip.

  “You do such nice things with your mouth,” she said as she kissed his hair and traced the smooth skin of his shoulders and back.

  He lifted his head and she thought he was about to fulfill her wish of nakedness, but he switched to her other breast and she almost forgot what her wish was. Her breasts had never felt so well made love to and when he brought his hand up between her legs and stroked her, she knew all of her was going to eventually feel the glory.

  “Daniel, this is wonderful.”

  “It is.” He lifted his head and watched her steadily as he unzipped her jeans.

  When she smiled, he removed her jeans and then her panties.

  He held the panties up on one finger. “These are lace.”

  “Thank you for noticing.”

  She plucked them off the tip of his finger and tossed them. All she wanted, and she wanted it right now, was to have all of him.

  When he didn’t strip off his jeans, she realized he hadn’t thought this out any more than she had. Thank goodness for a good friend.

  She pointed over her head to the end table. “Top drawer.”

  He reached in the drawer, pulled out a condom and put it aside.

  “Oh.” She was so ready to use the condom, so ready she could have cried, until he started kissing her again, her lips, her neck, her breasts, over and over.

  She panted, as happiness seemed to be the only emotion she could find, and then opened her eyes to find him studying her.

  He smiled and continued to gently stroke her with his fingertips.

  She gave a few more luxurious shudders. “That feels good.”

  “Yes, it does.” He tenderly kissed her mouth and kissed where the chain lay against her neck.

  “Am I having all the fun?”

  In answer, he stood and stripped down his jeans and shorts as a unit and when he was totally naked, she grinned up at him. “Magnificent.”

  He laughed and donned the condom. Then he carefully lowered himself down on her and into her in one fluid movement.

  The wave of pleasure hit her and instantly the world went away. There was nothing but the two of them.

  “Yeah, magnificent,” he said as she took all of him inside her.

  Slowly, relentlessly, he pushed her up the peak, nudging her with his body, his hands, his kisses until, at the top, pleasure burst within her again.

  He followed her and she knew for sure she wasn’t the only one having a good time.

  “Mia, that was amazing.” He held her close, nuzzling at her neck.

  “Exactly what I was thinking, Daniel.”

  He kissed her long and soft and she felt their bodies respond again.

  * * *

  A HALF HOUR or thirty seconds or whatever later, after they had used a second condom, he propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her.

  “What?” she demanded after he had been staring at her for several seconds.

  “I keep wanting to say thank you, but I don’t want to push my luck.”

  She pushed up and kissed his lips and then his whiskered chin. “Thank you. Though, I do know what you mean. Since we’re supposed to be on opposing teams, enemies, and since I just had the greatest sex I’ve ever had, I’m thinking it’s appropriate.”

  “The greatest ever, heh?” He licked below her ear. She hadn’t realized until that moment how sensitive that spot was and she shivered.

  “Call me sheltered, but greatest by far.”

  “Okay, Miss Sheltered, I am honored and pleased to have been a part of that action.”

  She ran her hand from his hip, across the ridges of his belly and up to his well-defined chest. “I wasn’t kidding about the magnificent comment. You have taken very good care of your body. For that alone, I say thank you.”

  He chuckled and she realized what a nice, soft wonderful sound that was—intimate, unguarded and for the moment all for her.

  “And you are even more lovely than I imagined.”

  A stomach growled loudly and she laughed. “Well, that puts all things into perspective.”

  “Mine or yours?” he asked.

  “Maybe it was both of us.” She massaged his shoulder. “Let me up.”

  Chilly, she scampered for the stairs. Her robe seemed more appropriate than putting her jeans back on.

  “There’s a bathroom off the kitchen,” she called over her shoulder.

  She donned her warm robe and slippers and then dug for a wrapped Christm
as present from the back of her closet.

  When the water was still running in the downstairs bathroom, she smiled and tapped on the door. After a moment, she opened the door a crack and stuck the present inside.

  “And I didn’t get you anything,” he said, taking the box.

  In the kitchen, Mia loaded up a tray with bowls and flatware and bread and butter, Daniel came out of the bathroom wearing a brand-new robe and slippers. “I don’t know who he was, but tell him thank you for me.”

  “He is currently and forever relegated to the category of nobody.” Mia realized she meant those words and the realization brought a kind of freedom with it.

  She opened her robe and then his and reached inside to press their naked bodies together. He leaned down and kissed her long and hard as he reached around her and pulled them closer together.

  When he lifted his mouth from hers, he asked, “How many condoms do you have?”

  She laughed and pulled away to tie both of their robes. “I’d hate to faint. I need some nourishment.”

  He picked up the tray. “Dining room or living room.”

  “Near the fire in the living room, please.”

  By the time she had stirred the pot on the stove to make sure it was still warm enough and had gotten into the living room with the open bottle of wine and two glasses, he had moved the coffee table and stoked the fire. On the floor between the table and the fire he had spread a quilt and put out the two large wedge pillows she kept stored in the corner. He had even taken a placemat off the pile for each of them and spaced them on the table with a bowl, knife and spoon on each.

  “Aren’t you handy.” She held out the bottle and glasses and when he took them, she leaned in for a lingering kiss.

  “Pour. I’ll be right back.”

  She brought in the steaming pot of Lobster bisque.

  They ate all they could, moved the table out of the way, drank the last of the wine and then lay on the floor, shoulder to shoulder with their feet toward the crackling fire.

  “So whose dinner did I just eat? I hope it was the guy who’s going to get a used robe and slippers. Though there seems to be something extremely survival-of-the-fittest about something like that.”

  “No such luck, tough guy. It was my friend Monique’s dinner.”

  “That’s a good friend.”

  “You have no idea.” She thought of the remaining condoms now in the pocket of her robe and hoped there would be enough for the night.

  “Now you can tell me, if you want to, why you looked so miserable when you got here.” She brushed at the hair that was almost long enough to lop onto his forehead.

  He put his hand on her thigh and smiled. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a frank person?”

  “I’m not always. You bring that out in me, and, hey, was that a dodge?”

  “It might have been.”

  “Okay, new subject. Concerning you and me.”

  He looked at her curiously but didn’t say anything.

  “As far as I’m concerned, whatever is between us is just between us. If it’s a night, a week, a millennium, each of us gets to decide for ourselves. You don’t want anything long-term and that’s your stuff. I, on the other hand, just love to have my heart broken, and I can’t do that without falling for someone first. That silly habit of mine, in fact, netted you a robe and slippers for the evening.”

  “A very comfortable robe and slippers, too,” he said, and then his brows drew together in concern. “I don’t want to break your heart.”

  “I did this to myself. I wanted you, Daniel. I wanted you badly, and I got you.” She squeezed his hand. “I guess breaking my own heart is, I don’t know, just one of the things I do. Lets me know I’m alive.”

  He squeezed back. “You don’t need to break your heart. You are one of the most alive people I’ve ever met. You’re so alive, you’d scare the hell out of most of the staff in my department.”

  “Do I scare you?”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the mouth, a lovely lingering kiss. “You scare me silly.”

  “But you don’t mind.”

  “You’re like skydiving.”

  “And you like screaming all the way down?”

  “So much that I want to go up again.”

  She turned on her side. “I can help you with that.”

  He got up and put another log on the fire and closed the glass doors.

  “I have something I need to tell you,” he said when he was finished with the fire and came back to the quilt.

  “We’ve already got the ‘I can’t get involved’ and ‘the university rules my fate’ stuff behind us, so let’s have it.”

  He laughed.

  “Oh, good, it’s funny.”

  “No, it’s not funny at all. I should have told you when I first got here tonight.”

  “I think the entire conversation between us when you first got here tonight was You look terrible. Pretty hard to squeeze any more in between the lines there.”

  * * *

  DANIEL REACHED OUT and played with one soft wisp of Mia’s hair.

  Propped up on one elbow with the neck of her robe gaping open in such a tantalizing way, one breast sloping down until the edge of her nipple showed was almost enough for him to push her on her back and take her again, well and without mercy.

  But he needed to get this out.

  “I told you my department head wanted me to keep everyone away from the site until a determination was made.” What a hideous contrast to speak about his boss when he wanted to make love to Mia until the sun came up. He’d never seen such ecstasy before and he wanted to see it again and again.

  “Go on.”

  “What?”

  “You seemed to get lost somewhere.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did. My boss also told me, if this is Liam Bailey, and if I take my time, get all the evidence, I can put myself back on the tenure track. I got diverted from the track several years ago.”

  She stayed up on her elbow and watched him. There was no anger in her face, not even disappointment.

  “I should have said something before we had sex. Heck, I should have said something before I kissed you the first time.”

  “Listen, Daniel.” She rolled onto her back. “I do appreciate that you are telling me now. I can see where it might get difficult between us. There was a time in my life when I would have been really mad at you.”

  He suddenly wondered what she knew about him. How much had the chief told her? “And now?”

  “I have learned to deal with more in the past two years than I ever dreamed I’d have to put up with—”

  He frowned in concern.

  When she said nothing, he took a hold of the collar of his robe and raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah, that guy would be one of them.”

  “I’m making things harder for you.”

  “Not tonight you aren’t, but I get the feeling we are— You are—” she turned her head and looked up him “—dancing around something, something dark.”

  Grief socked him so hard in the midsection he almost gasped and the harder he tried to push it down, the more it streamed forward around his barricades. Tears sprang to his eyes and trailed down the side of his face.

  He tried to stem the flow.

  No one, absolutely no one since Mandy had seen him cry, and she had not seen his tears since he had held his son in his arms the last time. Yet here he was, in the home of a woman he barely knew and whose life he could ruin and he was practically bawling.

  She leaned over and dabbed at the corner of his eyes and the sides of his face. “It’s okay. These are old tears.” She spoke softly. She understood. “They need to be shed.”

  He couldn’t form the wor
ds. Couldn’t talk about a child who had been cursed with the genes of his father, cursed until death at the age of thirty months. Couldn’t talk about the woman who loved them both and who had been decimated by that love until she had to flee just to survive.

  Mia gathered him into her arms. “Thank you for sharing these tears with me.”

  He pulled her to him and hugged her for her compassion. She returned the hug and put her quilt over both of them.

  If there were ever another woman he could love, it would be Mia Parker.

  After a while, she opened his robe and put her hands on his chest, exploring. She kissed his neck, his chest and down his belly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “HOW’D IT GO?”

  On Wednesday morning, eight days and counting, minus a little change, since the find in her wall, Mia sat in Monique’s small neat kitchen sipping lapsang souchong tea and trying to behave as if all were fine with the world.

  “Well. Very well,” she responded.

  “Details!”

  “No.” Mia plunked her teacup down on the old wooden table, shined to the limit of its patina.

  “All right.” Monique scrunched up her forehead and if Mia knew her friend well, she was looking for an end run around no.

  “No and no,” Mia said to ward off any attempt at getting details about the night. And she didn’t want to think about this morning—at all.

  “Awright, a’right, a’right, just answer me one thing. How many of those condoms I brought to you did you use?”

  Maybe a bit of the truth might just shut her friend up.

  “All of them.”

  “All of them?” Monique pounded her fists on the tabletop, slopping tea, and in an almost continuous motion fetched the dishrag to clean it up.

  Mia raised her chin and did the slow nod of smug.

  “Oh, my God, you, you, what’s female for dawg?”

  “What was I supposed to do? He has a six-pack.” Mia pointed to her abdomen and moved her hand up and down to illustrate she was not talking about beer.

  “I would have thought getting it that many times would make you much less grumpy. Wait, where is he? Why are you here?”