Derek saw her swallow. Good. Let her pretend to be unaffected all she liked, but he knew how to make her body sing and she wanted more even if she kept dragging her heels. He realized she wore a skimpy white tank top that had a fluorescent pink mouth across her breasts. The word sexpot was superimposed over the pouty lips.
“Are you advertising, sweetheart?” he asked, trying to throw her off balance. Now that he was in her bedroom, he had decided he wasn’t about to leave. She had a king-size bed. There was plenty of room in it for both of them without them even needing to touch. Of course, touching was his main objective, but he could put a platonic spin on it for tonight in the interest of escaping the clutches of the sofa from hell.
“What do you mean?” She blinked. She really did look adorable in those glasses.
“Your top,” he said, sinking down onto the bed. It was incredibly soft and cushy, a world of difference from the sofa. “Are you advertising for me?”
Belatedly, she looked down and realized what shirt she was wearing. Muttering something under her breath, she pulled her blanket up to her chin, glaring at him. “Hardly. I didn’t expect you to invade my bedroom.”
“You invited me in,” he pointed out, sliding completely onto the bed and stretching his legs out in front of him with a sigh. Much, much better.
“I thought you were Paige. And what do you think you’re doing on my bed?”
“I’m sitting on it,” he said, raking her with his gaze. She might have the covers pulled up to her chin like a quaking virgin on her wedding night, but Derek knew every luscious inch of skin underneath it and he had no trouble imagining what she hid from his view. “But I plan on sleeping in it.”
“Derek, you are not sleeping with me.” Her tone was prim and firm, completely at odds with the sexy, throaty voice that had moaned his name earlier in the evening. The shirt she wore might say sexpot, but his sexpot was currently hiding under a proper façade.
“Yes I am,” he countered, propping his arms behind his head.
“You think I’m going to have sex with you just because of what happened earlier tonight,” she said flatly, her eyes snapping fire at him.
“I don’t think you’re going to have sex with me, I know it,” he said with careful nonchalance. “Just not tonight. Tonight, I’m going to sleep on this side of the bed and keep my hands to myself like you want. But the sofa out there is like a torture device, and you can’t expect me to sleep on it.”
She closed her book and put it on the bedside table. “We’re not ever having sex, Derek, and you’re not sleeping in my bed, either. We agreed to the sofa and that’s where you’re going to have to stay.”
“I’m too damn big for the sofa. Besides, you’ve got this giant bed in here all to yourself and unless I’m mistaken, there’s even a feather bed too.”
“I have a giant bed because I like to move around at night. I take up the whole thing.”
“You’ll have to try sharing for tonight.”
“No I won’t.” Her lips thinned into a ferocious frown.
“I didn’t realize you wore glasses,” he said suddenly, noticing them again.
“Only for reading.” Wynne attempted to whip them off her face, but he reached out and stopped her, covering her hand with his.
As always, an electrical jolt passed between them. “I like them.” They were sexy on her. Somehow, seeing her with her face scrubbed of makeup, her glasses on, and her hair scraped back, warmed him. It felt somehow more intimate between them.
“You really can’t sleep here.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he promised. Feeling a sudden draft of air, he slid beneath the covers, catching a delicious glimpse of the curve of her bottom and the top of her thigh accentuated by a black thong.
“I’m in my underwear,” she protested, clamping the blankets around her as if it were a protective shield and she could somehow keep him out.
“I know.” He grinned. “And you look great in them. But you’d look even better out of them.”
“Derek,” she gritted.
“Go back to reading your book.” He settled down into her pillow, the delicate scent of flowers teasing his senses. The pillowcase smelled like Wynne’s hair. It was enough to make him groan. “I promise I won’t disturb you.”
“I can’t read with you here.” She sounded distinctly uncomfortable.
“Well if you’d like to have sex after all, I’d be happy to—”
“No.” She sighed. “You’re being impossible, you know.”
“Impossible is getting any sleep on that damn sofa out there,” he corrected, noticing the blanket had slipped to her waist again without her realizing it. Her breasts strained against the sexpot shirt as if they were trying to escape. Unless he was mistaken, he could even see the pink crests of her nipples through the thin white fabric. “By the way, your breasts look amazing in that shirt.”
“Derek!” Looking even more annoyed with him than she had before, she yanked the blankets back up over her chest, closing off his view.
“I seem to have limited your vocabulary to one word,” he teased, inching closer to her warmth. It wasn’t fair that she was so far away. He wouldn’t try anything, he told himself—he just wanted to feel her skin brushing against his.
Okay, who was he kidding? A mere brush of skin wouldn’t be nearly enough. Even so, he couldn’t seem to resist shifting closer to the warmth radiating from her body. He was so close he could smell her seductive scent.
Wynne ruined the moment by putting a hand smack in the center of his chest and shoving. “You’re getting closer to me. Stay on your own side of the bed.”
“I’m cold,” he lied, giving her his best innocent face. He hadn’t been an actor all those years for nothing. “You keep the thermostat so damn low I’m amazed I don’t have frostbite.”
Guilt flashed across her expressive green eyes and she nibbled at her lower lip pensively. Unfair, since he wasn’t currently allowed to do the same thing.
“This place doesn’t have the greatest insulation and oil is expensive this winter. Unlike you, I’m on a budget. But you can turn up the thermostat if you’re cold,” she said finally, pointing across the room. “It’s by the door.”
She wasn’t going to win that easily. “If I get out of bed I’ll be even colder,” he said reasonably. “And you know I’ll give you as much money as you need.”
“I don’t need or want your money.” She paused. “I guess you’ll just have to wait until the sheets warm up.”
“Or I could just scoot a little closer to you.” And while he was scooting, he could slide his hands up under her shirt and fill them with her fantastic breasts. Then, while he was teasing her nipples, he could kiss her, his tongue delving into her hot, wet mouth…
“I don’t think so.” Instead of scooting closer to him as he had hoped she would, Wynne almost fell off the edge of the bed in an effort to get away from him.
Things weren’t quite working out as well as they could be, he decided. If he had thought, even for a millisecond, that being in the same room and bed with her would extinguish his fantasies, he’d been wrong. Because now that she was lying next to him in those cute glasses with her breasts all perky in that sexpot tank top, he was fantasizing all over again. Damn the woman, she was just too sexy for her own good, and she was definitely too sexy for his peace of mind. If he didn’t make love to her soon, he was going to explode. Literally.
“Derek, I mean it.” Wynne’s eyes shot sparks at him. “If you don’t stay on that side of the bed, you’re going to have to sleep on the sofa. I don’t care how much you whine about it.”
Now that stung his masculine pride. “I don’t whine.”
She raised a brow at him. “Mmmhmm.”
“If anyone’s whining, it’s you with all that get-on-your-own-side-of-the-bed bullshit.” Derek couldn’t resist reaching out and skimming the top of her thigh with his fingers.
Jumping away from him, she leveled an accu
satory glare his way. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not going to sleep with you?”
“You can tell me as many times as you want.” Derek grinned at her unrepentantly. “But you and I both know that’s not true.”
“It would be a mistake and you know it.” She still had the covers firmly secured at her chin, refusing to allow him even a glimpse of her creamy neck.
He ran his hand beneath the covers and over her bare shoulder, toying with the spaghetti strap of her top. He stifled a sudden yawn. “But for tonight, I’ll agree to keep my distance from you.” With great effort, he pulled his hand away, rolled over and faced the opposite direction.
He was going to try to get some sleep, damn it. If only the images of perky breasts and a black thong could stop racing through his mind.
Derek had been quiet for an awfully long time. After he’d finally moved his gorgeous body back to the opposite side of the bed, she had retrieved her e-reader and attempted to read. Of course, it wasn’t working. She’d been on the same page for at least half an hour.
Why did the man have to make it so difficult for her to resist him? First of all, when he’d walked into her bedroom wearing nothing but black boxer briefs, she’d almost swallowed her tongue. Everything about him was incredibly attractive—addictively, mouthwateringly so—from his chest, to his abs, to his strong thighs and honed arms, to his face. Not to mention that the man knew exactly how to make a woman’s body feel the height of exquisite pleasure. Between that and all his sexy grins and sex-between-us-is-inevitable talk, she was lucky she hadn’t just jumped on him and let her lust take control.
She was lust crazed, she decided. All she could think about was Derek, regardless of whether or not he was in the same bed with her. She couldn’t erase from her mind the feel of his hands against her skin, couldn’t forget the way he kissed her. And how could she possibly get the memories of what had happened earlier in her shop to disappear? The more she looked at him, the more she loved about him, and the more she craved him. Tonight, she’d noticed his beautiful forearms and his large, masculine hands. Just staring at those hands of his made desire snake through her belly like hot molasses.
What had happened to sensible, boring Wynne Carter whose only concession to the wild streak she’d once nursed were her short skirts and spiky heels? If he had just kept his hands to himself, and his mouth, and his tongue, for that matter, she wouldn’t be having a hard time keeping herself from scooting onto his side of the bed and begging him to finish what he’d started earlier. She wasn’t ordinarily this way. In fact, she had met many attractive men in the past five years without ever once turning into a quivering blob of lust.
Wynne snapped her book closed and set it aside, looking over at the current bane of her otherwise sane existence. His golden hair had a soft sheen in the lamplight and the covers sagged at his neck, revealing a tempting patch of tanned skin and strong upper back. She swallowed heavily. He was so still he looked as if he were asleep.
But he couldn’t be asleep, could he, after the way he’d been carrying on with all his sexual innuendos?
Feeling unaccountably miffed at the thought, she poked his back with her index finger. “Derek.”
He didn’t respond, so she tried again.
“Derek.”
Still nothing.
She was torturing herself over him and meanwhile, he was sleeping. Sleeping, the irritating man. Even though she knew she should be pleased, Wynne was offended. Damn him for making her feel this way and then having the effrontery to fall asleep on her before she could decide whether or not she wanted to act on all her pent-up emotions.
Still annoyed, she switched off her lamp, turned so her back faced him, and hugged the edge of her bed. There was no way she was going to lose sleep over Derek Shaw. No way at all.
Wynne kissed Derek in her dream, a wet, hungry kiss that fused their lips together and had their tongues tangling. Her fingers sank into his thick hair, then raked down over his bare back, her nails scraping languorously over his skin. His hand slipped under her shirt, cupping her breast, immediately finding and stimulating her nipple. Moaning, Wynne arched her body up and into his. His knee rode high between her thighs, pressing against her throbbing sex, and his body was a tempting weight on hers.
Mmm.
Dreams could be so wonderful, so delicious…so realistic. So realistic that Paige’s sleepy voice suddenly intruded in the dream. Wynne couldn’t make out her daughter’s words at first, over the pounding of her frantic heart. Then it became clear.
“Mama? What’s Daddy doing in your bed?”
As though coming out of an alcohol-induced stupor, Wynne pried her eyes open, blinking into the dimly lit semi-dawn glow of her bedroom.
And realized she was still locking lips with Derek. It hadn’t been a dream.
“Mama?”
Paige’s voice got louder and closer. Frantically, Wynne shoved at Derek’s chest and pushed him away from her. He groaned and rolled over, blinking blearily, rubbing his hand over his bare chest.
“What’d you do that for?” he asked, his voice low and raspy.
“Our daughter,” she whispered.
Paige hopped up onto Wynne’s side of the bed, crawling across Wynne to settle between her and Derek. As she wriggled beneath the covers, Wynne sighed. Thank God for her daughter’s habit of climbing into bed with her whenever she had a bad dream. Paige had just saved Wynne from yet another lapse in judgment.
“Did you have a bad dream, sweet pea?” Wynne asked, smoothing a silken blonde curl away from Paige’s face.
Paige nodded, sticking out her lower lip and giving Wynne puppy eyes. “I dreamt that a big red dog came and bit Daddy and he had to go away.”
Wynne’s heart squeezed in her chest. Paige’s nightmares frequently featured dogs since she was terrified of them in all shapes and sizes. But that her daughter was dreaming Derek had to leave broke Wynne’s heart.
Derek gathered up Paige in his arms and snuggled her against his chest. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetie.” He kissed the top of her head. “Nothing could ever make me leave you.”
“Not even if you had to go back to work in Californium?” Paige asked, wrapping her arms around Derek’s neck.
Derek’s eyes met Wynne’s in the dim light, filled with an emotion she couldn’t quite discern. “Not even then,” he said quietly.
She tried not to feel a pang of loss that her daughter had sought comfort from Derek instead of her. For four years she’d been the only one with Paige in the middle of the night, from breastfeeding to nightmare banishing. In just a short period of time, Derek had stepped in and become another important link in Paige’s life. It still took some adjustment on Wynne’s part to grow accustomed to her shared role of parent.
“Why are you in Mama’s bed?” Paige asked, her voice sounding sleepy again. She yawned, confirming Wynne’s suspicions.
“It’s more comfortable than the sofa,” Derek replied. “Mama asked me to share.”
The grin he sent Wynne’s way was unmistakably wicked.
Liar, she mouthed back at him. Derek just winked.
“It’s nice to share,” Paige chirped. “I share Barbies with my friend Lisa sometimes. ’Cept when she wants to use the fairy princess one ’cause that’s my favorite.”
If only Derek’s sharing had been as innocent, Wynne thought wryly. “I thought I told you to let Lisa play with the fairy princess the last time you had a play date,” she reminded her daughter.
“I was gonna, but then Lisa didn’t want to let me play with her teddy.”
“You should always share, even if you don’t want to,” Wynne offered, performing her motherly duty and ensuring her daughter played nice with others. Nobody, after all, likes the kid who hoards all the toys.
“Mama’s right,” Derek chipped in. “You should always share.” The look he sent Wynne was meaningful.
Wynne made a mental note to tell her daughter the rest of the always-share maxim
in about fifteen years. The don’t-share-anything-with-a-sexy-man part. Because men always wanted to take more than you were willing to give. Derek was no exception to the rule.
“Can I sleep with you and Mama?” Paige asked, her voice barely a whisper of sound.
Wynne almost laughed aloud at the thwarted expression on his face. He looked as if he were in pain. Good. She hoped he was. Not only had he fallen asleep on her last night, he’d also more than crossed over to her side of the bed sometime this morning.
“Of course you can sleep with us,” Derek said, his voice sounding grim. Paige didn’t answer. She was already in the world of dreams.
Wynne sent him a blindingly bright smile.
“Don’t think you’ve won,” he told her, his voice low. “This is only a reprieve.”
Her suspicions got the best of her. “Were you awake?”
“Would it make you angrier if I said I was?”
“Just answer my question.”
“I plead the fifth.”
“What?” Wynne glared at him. “You can’t do that.”
“Can too.”
She sighed, thoroughly annoyed with him yet again. “You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve heard you say before.” His tone was bored and amused at the same time.
“That’s because it’s the truth,” she retorted.
Derek’s fingers suddenly tangled in hers, startling her. She looked down at their hands atop the covers and was somehow unwilling to pull hers away from his.
“As much as I would like to be doing other things with you right now,” he paused and flashed her another seductive grin, “this is just as nice. In a different way, though.”
It was nice, in a strange and unexpected way. She could almost believe they were a real family. Her heart constricted in her chest as she realized for the first time that she wanted to be a real family. As impossible and absurd as it was, she liked the idea of spending every day with Derek and Paige. Spending nights with Derek held some definite appeal of its own.
There were just a few problems. He hadn’t even mentioned commitment of any sort, nor was he likely to do so. Famous Hollywood actors didn’t tend to tie themselves down to no-name women in tiny Maryland towns and live happily ever after.
Win My Love (Love's Second Chance Book 3) Page 10