He was the one, everything inside Nev insisted, meant to breathe life into her. The one to believe in. The one who should know her better than anyone. The one she should know better than herself.
Slowly he drew back, never breaking gazes, until the door was closed and rain ran in rivulets down the glass.
Sweet girl. Only YaYa ever called her that. Her daddy’s nickname for her had been sugar pop, Lima called her Nevaeh in a tone that suggested she barely tolerated the name, and Marieka had too many names for her to count, none of them affectionate.
Neither of them spoke until they turned onto Easy Street. “Will your grandfather mind that I’m staying here?”
“He likes you. He likes me.” Ty shrugged. “He likes the idea of you and me. The only complaint he’ll have is that I should have brought you here after that first incident with the shaving cream.”
“But those Holigan boys are pretty harmless.”
“Yeah, and those Holigan girls are just misunderstood little angels.”
She imagined Daisy and Dahlia dressed in white with gold halos and feathery wings, but the picture kept morphing into dresses hiked up for better kicking and running, halos tossed like Frisbees and molting feathers drifting on the air, piling onto a cushion of cloud. “Angels trying to trade their halos and wings for devil’s pitchforks, maybe.”
Rain had collected on the street and turned both ditches into miniature torrents. Ty parked in his driveway, walked to the porch with her and then went back for the bags. While she waited, Frank rustled around on the other side of the door, not quite barking but unloosing a few short wails. When Ty opened the door, he commanded the dog to sit, which Frank quickly did, but he was vibrating so excitedly that his butt kept inching closer to them.
“I’m putting your bags in my room,” Ty said as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “If you decide you’d rather sleep in the guest room...”
“I’m not a foolish woman.”
“No, but you’ve been through an emotional trauma.”
“I am a Southern black woman. I am strong.” What was the worst that could happen now? Bad dreams? She was already having them. “Can I borrow your shower?”
“Go ahead. Be sure you lock the door. The door is so old that Frank can butt it open, and he likes to get in and play.”
Aw. Not the shower companion she might have hoped for. But if that was her only complaint, life was good.
* * *
After changing into dry clothes, Ty fixed a pot of coffee and then sat at the kitchen table, Frank resting his head next to the cup. The mutt loved coffee, the creamier and sugarier the better, but the caffeine didn’t love him back. “Listen up, buddy, you’re gonna sleep on the couch tonight. I’ll put your blanket there and your pig and your pillow, and then I’m closing the bedroom door and locking it. No barking, no scratching, no crying. Understand?”
Saliva puddled on the table beneath Frank’s long pink tongue.
“Sheesh, you’ve got to learn some manners. You’re lucky Granddad ever lets you in his house.” Ty swiped a towel across the wood as the dog cocked his head to one side. Ty cocked his head, too, and heard the unmistakable click of the bathroom door opening.
“Sit, Frank. She’ll come in here soon enough. You can see her then.”
The dog obeyed, but judging by his thumping, he was going to have a case of happy tail before Nev appeared in the doorway. Both males waited impatiently, until finally she came around the corner, a bundle in her hands, a towel draped over her shoulders.
“Trash?”
Ty stood, took the items—the clothing she’d been wearing, including the shoes—and tossed them into the rubbish can in the corner. When he turned back, she was standing beside Frank, idly rubbing his head, and he couldn’t help but smile. “You look so different.”
Instead of pretty lingerie or a silky gown, she wore pajamas. Red satin. Sleeves folded back at the cuffs, pant legs falling over her delicate feet and pooling on the floor. Her face was washed of makeup, just smooth skin, shades lighter than his own, the brown of her eyes mixed with lighter shades, a little green, a little gold.
Her hair, though... He’d wondered about its natural state, and now he knew. It was curly. Tiny ringlets of curls all over her head. It was inches shorter than the helmet-hair version, not one strand long enough to bounce to her shoulder. The texture was silken, shiny; she was blessed with what his girl cousins called the good-hair gene.
Nev shuffled side to side. “Is that a good thing or bad?”
He shook his head. “Just different. You, all dressed up with your straight hair, are beautiful. You, in pajamas and barefoot and your hair just being itself, are still beautiful.”
She brushed her hand along it. “YaYa keeps hers natural. It’s not much longer than yours. Mom wears a wig most of the time. She doesn’t like messing with it. Marieka’s too impatient to go natural, because her hair grows so slow, but she owns a fortune in weaves, extensions and wigs.”
“Do you have a picture of them?”
She got her cell phone from the living room and brought it back with a photograph of a striking woman who could pass for a model. Easily six feet tall, nicely muscled with legs up to her eyebrows and maybe three ounces of body fat, Marieka was the sort of woman men would look at three or four times. If Nev’s skin was milk with coffee, Marieka’s was more the shade of Ty’s, coffee with a spoon of milk. Her facial bones were more angular, her overall look more exotic.
The next photo was a middle-aged woman, wearing pale blue pants and a print blouse that matched exactly. Her shoes were ugly, the old-lady-comfort kind, and her jet-black hair was similar to Nev’s helmet hair. He could see a resemblance between Lima and her younger daughter—their skin color, their bone structure, the set of their eyes—though Lima obviously carried more weight and lacked Marieka’s flair.
YaYa came next. She wore cropped pants and a tank top and grinned big for the camera as she held up her laptop and pointed to the screen. YaYa Talks, the header read, and underneath it was her blog. A seventy-some blogging grandmother—Ty’s kind of woman. Again there was a resemblance—skin color, bones, eyes. There was no doubt these three women were mother, daughter and granddaughter.
And then there was Nev.
“Are you sure they didn’t find you in a cabbage patch somewhere?”
She came to stand behind him, scrolling once more to a picture of the three women. “Marieka dearly wanted to be an only child, so she always told me I was adopted. Daddy said I looked just like a great-aunt on his side of the family, but she died before I was born, so I never got to see for myself.”
He handed her the phone, his fingers brushing hers. They weren’t so cold now. “I made some coffee. Want a cup?”
“I don’t think I need caffeine this close to bedtime.” Her face heated, and she put a few steps between them.
“Nev.” He caught her hand. “Come here.”
She looked surprised as she obeyed, as if her brain had said no, but her feet had gone anyway. He spread his feet apart, making room for her, and laid his hands at her waist. “I’ve been waiting for this a long time, darlin’, but if you’re not ready, I can wait a lot longer.”
“It’s only been four days since we met,” she whispered.
“I’ve been waiting for you. I always believed the right woman was out there, that when it was time, we would meet.”
“I’ve been waiting for you, too.” Another whisper. Shy, breathless.
He pressed his cheek against the soft skin at the base of her throat, eyes closed, just breathing deeply of her scents, listening to the rapid beat of her heart. When she stroked his head gently, his muscles went taut and then relaxed. She was a woman who gave comfort naturally, like his mother, like her grandmother, and he wanted her to comfort him, Granddad, Frank and the beau
tiful babies they could have.
“Wait here.” He went into the bedroom, gathered Frank’s bedding and toy pig and then headed down the hall to the living room, though not fast enough to miss Frank’s whimper. After arranging everything on the couch, he whistled, but the dog remained beside Nev.
“I think he knows you’re kicking him out of his bed.”
“Yeah, we talked about it while you were in the shower.”
“And ended the conversation with differing opinions.” Bending, she scrunched up Frank’s face between her hands. “Poor baby, losing your bed for the night. But, sweetie, it’s just not big enough for the three of us.”
Hanging his head, Frank walked into the living room, surveyed the bed and pillow on the couch, the squeaky pig in the middle, heaved a sigh and stepped up onto the cushions. He propped his front feet on the sofa arms and then laid his head on them and watched with big, sad brown eyes.
“Aw, poor guy.”
“Don’t let him play you, darlin’. He lives like a king around here and gets his way most of the time. He’s not my dog. I’m his human.”
“As it should be.”
“I’d rather be your human.”
Her laughter was light and soothing. “Well, let’s see what we can do about that.” Taking his hand, she walked from the kitchen, waiting only long enough for him to flip off the lights, turned the corner into the hall and stepped almost immediately into the bedroom. “I do like this room.”
Letting her hand slide free, he watched, arms crossing his chest, as she walked to the bed, trailing her fingers over the comforter. The linens were white and so was the trim around the room. The walls were navy blue, the floorboards gleamed with an aged gold patina, and the rug centered beneath the bed was red, thick and soft. He used an old china buffet for a dresser and two peeling-wood stools for nightstands. The only other furniture was as much art as chaise longue: a padded curve of light blue, sort of a W with a lower middle swoop.
“Beautiful piece,” she remarked before sliding onto the chaise and striking a pose. With her soft totally feminine curls and the masculine style of her red pajamas, her teasing smile and one leg lifted, toes pointed to the ceiling, he couldn’t think of better words than her own to describe her.
“One of a kind.” The murmur was the best he could manage with the lump that had just appeared in his throat.
A tentative bark came from the living room, and Ty stepped inside and closed the door. The rain was still falling, drumming on the roof with a steady beat, but it was cool and quiet in the room. He shut off the overhead light and then the lamp on the dresser. That left only a smaller lamp on the nightstand, a small glow of cool white light that cast deep shadows outside its small circle.
He took a couple of condoms from the closet shelf and laid them on the table and then said, “Come over here, sweet girl. I want to look at you.”
She didn’t have a clue how gorgeous she was, how sexy, how damn hot she was—yet. He intended to show her until she was too tired to argue, and then do it again. She rose from the chaise with ease and walked across the room to him with a sweet sashay that he doubted she was even aware of. Her expression was serious, her ready smile gone, but not far. It danced into her eyes and made her mouth tremble a time or two.
You’re the one meant to live here, Anamaria had said.
He’d bet the kitchen remodel that Nev was meant to live there with him.
When she stopped in front of him, he tugged the tails of her pajama shirt. The material was slick and shiny, covering cocoa-colored skin that was soft and womanly. He unfastened each button from the bottom up, catching glimpses of her stomach, the curves of her breasts, the brown nubs of her nipples. Finally only the top button remained, and he toyed with it a moment before slipping it loose, sliding his hands beneath the lapels, pushing the top off her shoulders and down her arms.
“Beautiful.”
The smile appeared and then disappeared again. She didn’t flush, didn’t try to block his view by moving closer. He appreciated that.
He pulled off his own shirt, let it fall to the floor, unfastened his shorts and pushed them down, too, catching his boxers on the way, maneuvering over the erection that came all too easily at the thought of her. Before he could reach out to her again, she gave the pajama bottoms a shove, adding a little shimmy to get them past her hips, stepping out of the pile of red satin when it pooled at her feet.
With a groan, he wrapped his arms around her, tumbled back on the bed with her, brushed a line of kisses along her jaw and finally, finally, felt her hands touch him. “Nevaeh heaven-spelled-backward, I’ve waited forever for you. For this.”
Then he kissed her for real.
* * *
Heavens, where had all this heat come from? Nev was burning inside, flames so hot that she should have disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving nothing behind but a small, satisfied sigh. Her skin tingled, her muscles tensing, her nerves firing like the biggest display of fireworks ever. The bed underneath her was soft and cozy. The man leaning over her, kissing her, touching her in all the right places and all the right ways, was stone-hard, and she wasn’t referring to just his incredible muscles.
Ooh, mama, this man is hot! YaYa’s wicked laugh sounded in her head before Nev banished her. More accurately put, Ty moved his very hot mouth from her lips to her nipple, and thoughts, voices, everything besides sensation, vanished. He laved the sensitive skin with his tongue and then suckled it, increasing pressure until he gave her a little bite that sent shocks all the way to her toes.
All she could do was whimper and try to catch her breath and touch him, her hands roaming restlessly over his body, every hard plane, muscle and bone, all that dark soft warm skin, so much like her own yet so different, so masculine, so...hot. It was the word of the day.
She wasn’t a virgin. Hadn’t been one for a long time. Needed more than one hand to count the men she’d been with. But it had never been like this. Never felt so good. Never made her so weak. Never filled her with yearning she’d only read about. She felt brand new, inexperienced, nothing but greedy, fierce hunger demanding a feeding. She wasn’t there yet, but she knew with absolute clarity that for the first time in her life, tonight she was going to be complete.
Ending the kisses, Ty rose onto his knees, took her wrists and gazed down at her. This was where the self-consciousness always kicked in. She was modest. She wasn’t accustomed to someone examining every inch of her naked body. With any other man, she’d be twisting, trying to slide underneath the covers, pulling him down on top of her, anything to hide herself.
But the way Ty looked at her...the warmth, the arousal, the appreciation, the desire, the plain bone-deep wanting... Sure, he’d told her Sunday that he liked curves, but she could see now that he found pleasure looking at her. It was smoldering in his eyes and in the smile that touched his mouth. He said she was pretty—beautiful—and he believed it. Even more, she believed it.
She believed Ty Gadney, the handsomest, funniest, kindest, nicest, most decent and sexiest man she’d ever met, truly thought she was beautiful. Even if he didn’t have all those other good qualities, she could probably fall in love with him for that one thing.
When he released her hands, she rested them on his thighs, as solid and muscular as he was everywhere else. He traced his fingers lightly over her ribcage, following random patterns that only he could see, leaving little shivers of pleasure in their wake. When he stopped on her right side, her dazed brain wondered why until he bent forward and oh, so tenderly touched his mouth to her skin. It was where the mugger had kicked her. She hadn’t noticed a mark in the shower, but Ty was paying much closer attention than she did.
“Does it hurt?” His voice was harsh and thick, anger and arousal.
“N-no.” When his doubting gaze met hers, she playfully pinched his thigh. “No more than
that.”
He kissed the spot again and then stretched over her, reaching toward the night table. The almost-a-virgin quivered with anticipation; the newly discovered beautiful woman did, too. The promise of pleasure, of sex, of such intimacy, was sweet and scary, and she wanted it more than she wanted her next breath, wanted to feel his weight pressing her down, to hear his even breathing come faster and more ragged, to see his face so close to hers, to feel the glide as he pushed himself inside her, as he pulled out, as it went from slow and easy to hard and fast and, Lord, needy.
Hungry, greedy, shivering, ready. She wanted him now. Needed him now.
He nudged her knees apart, positioned himself and then slowly filled her. The tension that made her tremble held him statue-still for a long time, as if that was all he could handle. She liked it, so very much, but she needed more, so she moved against him. Demanded more.
And he gave it.
Chapter 9
Nev woke slowly. Keeping her eyes closed, she stretched, luxuriating in the feel of the sheets against her skin, the heat pressed to her back in the bed, the even breathing on her neck. The lamp on the nightstand was still turned on, and thin slivers of pale light leaked around the corners of the blinds. It was early, and her first impulse was to curl up and go back to sleep.
The dream hadn’t come last night, she realized, and the reason was so obvious: she’d been too tired, too safe, too amazingly sated to have energy for anyone else’s problems.
A tongue touched her bare shoulder, and she smiled. She was under the sheet, Ty on top. The man put out so much heat that he didn’t need cover, but the air-conditioning that had been kicking on and off all night had sent her scurrying sometime after their second bout of lovemaking.
The mattress shifted, the deep breathing moving along her neck. “Wow,” she murmured. “Even the seriously godlike Tyler Gadney has morning breath.”
Copper Lake Encounter Page 15