by Cait London
For an instant, she regretted her action, a strong athlete claiming a prize, rather than a woman softly welcoming a man to her. But Stefan’s smile said he was pleased.
It would be no gentle journey, she knew, for the need to devour him, to pleasure him rose too sharply within her. He came slowly upon her, pushed back a bit to study her in the shadows, his expression honed and tense before he kissed her throat, her breasts. She cried out, vibrating with excitement and pleasure, as he suckled gently there, pleasuring her. She couldn’t lie still, her body undulating, aching. Then, after reaching for protection, Stefan settled firmly over her with the caress of his hand sweeping her body, her thigh.
The nudge of his desire caused her to tense and Stefan paused as she adjusted, waiting for her. Their gazes locked, he began the sensual journey, entering her so gently that she cried out at the beauty.
She shivered and gripped his arms, her fingers digging in to hold him as the sensations of fullness riveted her.
He lay quietly, locked inside her, watching her, holding himself slightly away. He studied her flushed face, her shielded eyes, the lips that had opened for his. “I dreamed of you like this—warm and soft and fragrant, tight and damp and—”
Rose shook beneath him, her hips arching, her body taut and she closed her eyes as she sealed in the first rippling pleasure. When she opened her eyes, Stefan had begun to move gently, the rhythm so timeless she met and drifted in it, locking her gaze with his. Then suddenly, deep inside, the pounding, flashing heat would not be denied and she tightened around Stefan, meeting his feverish kisses, digging her fingers in to hold him just there. The riveting flash and thunder struck within her, she realized slowly as Stefan’s body stiffened, and there on that silvery, glittering plane, time waited and yet ran on in waves of pleasure.
He breathed unevenly, coming slowly down to settle against her, to hold her tight in the aftermath of that heat as her racing heart slowed, her breast against him quivering. His hands skimmed over her, defining the softness and the curves, caressing them lazily.
She wanted to talk, to tell him that now she knew—that now she knew what? How wonderful a caring man could be, a tender man? That she was woman and soft and melting and happy and…in the end, Rose settled against Stefan, wrapping her arm and leg around his so he couldn’t leave her. She drifted in the peace running through her, one she’d never enjoyed. Peace…whatever had been wrong in her life was now right, at least for the moment.
Then Stefan was kissing her again, his warm body seeking hers, filling her and suddenly she was flying and happy and hungry for him….
Rose awoke in the morning, her arms and legs tangled with Stefan’s heavily muscled ones, his heart beating slowly beneath her cheek. She breathed quietly, adjusting to the bold light skimming into the window and the icy slash of fear, the past churned and stormed and caught her.
She could ruin both of their lives, the dark shadows chasing her.
Her muscles ached slightly, her body tingling now, and she fought the tears behind her lids. He was already too close, and he wouldn’t be sent away so easily.
That afternoon, while repairing the barn’s stall, Stefan damned himself for his hunger, for his need of Rose. He’d taken her twice in the night and once almost before she awoke. No considerate lover would initiate his sweetheart so quickly—in one night—especially when she was so tight and new— Stefan held very still in the silence of the barn, the kittens mewing in their mother’s nest. His mind flashed back to that tightness, to Rose’s surprise, and he damned himself again. Whatever sex Rose may have had, it wasn’t with a demanding lover who also gave her pleasure. Her blush this morning, her hurried, flustered exit from his bed, leaving her bra and briefs behind, wasn’t that of an experienced woman. Stefan scrubbed his hands over his face, and shook his head. He’d wanted to say so much, but his body and heart had taken control. So much for a man, powerful in business and helpless in love—love?
Of course he loved her. Who wouldn’t? The whole town loved Rose Granger, a tall, fresh-faced woman with a beautiful, caring heart and a dazzling smile. They were a part of her life, just as she was of theirs. She was probably having a difficult time this morning, and seeing him might only disturb her. Stefan decided that the next time he saw Rose, he was going to draw upon whatever charm he could manage and tell her—what? In his stiff, rigid way when he was affected by his emotions, he could hurt her. But the next time, Stefan promised himself, he would not make love to her until she knew how much he cared. He should try that sexy telephone talk Estelle recommended. He should call Rose—it was almost quitting time and only hours since she’d awakened in a tangle of sheets and had blown the strand of hair from her face.
Stefan smiled wistfully. She’d looked like a faerie, all rosy and warm and tousled in his bed, bewildered as she slowly awoke to him. He frowned then, remembering her sharp knee as she quickly crossed him, scrambling on her way to the floor on the other side. Just awakened and rudely so, he wasn’t exactly happy, his unique ache not the one he had planned, as she hurriedly tugged on her clothing and muttered about being late to open the store. Stefan was still recovering when the front door had slammed behind her. Her pickup had skidded out of his driveway, hitting the already crooked post once more. Rose’s expression had been that of fear and shock and because of that, he’d decided to give her time to resolve what had happened between them.
She wasn’t afraid of him; she’d come too freely to him, opened for him. Yet another fear held her, that of loving and losing.
He watched his mother in her vegetable garden, the sound of her happy humming carried to him by the gentle summer breeze. Yvette snipped her roses and began filling her basket. When Stefan finished hammering the last board into the repaired stall, he had sorted his priorities for dealing with his long-term Rose-relationship. He would make her comfortable with him—how could he do that when his body ached for hers so passionately? Would she ever trust him enough to share her heartbreak?
He rubbed his forehead. If he were better at relationships, his words more smoothly crafted, he might be able to open the shadows she guarded so fiercely. They slithered between a complete relationship and full trust. Rose’s pain wasn’t something he could lay out as he might a problem on the business table.
Last night, one look from Rose and he had been stirred into desire that he couldn’t waylay. He looked at the bouquet of summer flowers his mother had stuck in front of his face. “Go to her,” Yvette ordered softly, an understanding, tender smile upon her face.
“Everybody knows,” Rose whispered urgently as she sat across the café booth from Stefan. She held the bouquet tightly against her, not yielding it to Peggy the waitress to place in water. “Don’t ask me how, they just know you and I…you know.”
Stefan smiled as he studied the café’s menu. He didn’t want to tell Rose that her expression hid little, that she glowed. Everyone in Waterville knew Rose’s very open expressions and when she was distracted and by what—rather, by whom. He was quite happy with that rosy glow, because it meant he had succeeded in giving her pleasure that wasn’t easily forgotten. Rose’s flustered expression when seeing him at the store’s closing time had shifted into a sensually hungry look. Stefan inhaled slowly; life was good. With Rose as a dinner enchantress, all rosy and warm and flustered and nervous of him, he could tolerate whatever the cook could serve.
“You’re not picking at the food,” Rose noted as they ate.
“It’s good,” Stefan returned lightly. “Filling, nutritious, fresh vegetables—a bit overcooked, but good.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked, leaning across the booth’s table to whisper to him. She glanced at Danny, whose hands were on his generous hips, his eyes narrowed on Stefan.
“Mmm.” Stefan scanned the small, comfortable café. He smiled at Danny and gave him a thumbs-up sign. After a warning frown, Danny shifted his three-hundred-pound bulk back into the shadows of the kitchen. Locals were enjoying familiar f
are, dining and talking and sliding searching glances at Rose and himself.
Rose’s foot came up to nudge him. “Stefan. Doesn’t it bother you that they’re looking at us, and what they must be thinking?”
He captured that slender foot, and surprised himself by grinning and slipping off her shoe. Her eyes darkened immediately when he caressed her foot, bringing it to his lap. Her eyes widened, her hand trembled and her water glass spilled. She hurriedly plucked napkins and covered the ice. Her smile at the waitress who came to clean away the mess was shaky. “Nice touch, Donatien,” sixty-year-old Suzie murmured with a wink. “You can do my feet anytime.”
“I am certain they are quite lovely.”
“Stefan!” Rose said in a hushed tone after Suzie left with a knowing giggle. “You can’t just do things like that.”
He released her foot and took her hand, toying with it. “I would like to have you for dessert,” he said quietly and enjoyed her rising blush. “No one eats pie like you, sliding it from the tip of your fork into your mouth. Closing your eyes as you take the pleasure into you—”
Rose blinked and her mouth parted and moved as if she were trying to speak and couldn’t. She swallowed finally and managed unevenly, “I’ve got plans for tonight. And you’re not them. I’m going to take a long bath and read updates on the paint catalogs and—”
“I held a faerie in my arms last night,” Stefan heard himself say quietly. “I would very much like to hold her now and taste the unique flavor of her desire—”
Rose’s delicate shudder said his statement had had the impact he’d sought and meant. “I think we should leave,” she said breathlessly. “People are staring and you can’t talk like that here.”
“So proper,” he teased, enjoying himself, feeling very young and carefree and reckless. “What did you come to see me about last night? Before we were…distracted?”
“I forget. But I remember it wasn’t good. You’ve got to go home now, and I’ve got to go to my house, before…you know,” she said urgently as she watched him bring her palm to his lips to kiss the center.
“Why?”
“You know,” she said more urgently.
“Can’t you be trusted?” He almost released his laughter, the joy warming him. He wondered when he had enjoyed life so freely and the answer came back—never.
“Not with you,” she answered as if the words were dragged out of her. The admission was enough to soothe whatever doubts Stefan had about her attraction to him. Flirtation was new to him and he reveled in his success.
“You’re leering. Men do not leer or look steamy and all revved up at me. It has to do with my low sexuality,” Rose said darkly as she stood, holding her bouquet close to her.
“That has been disproved quite efficiently, I believe,” Stefan returned and watched her rising blush. Then because nothing else would do, and because Stefan had definite delicious proof that he wasn’t in Rose’s “bud bin,” he swept her into his arms. He bent her back, crushing the flowers between them and kissed her as his hunger demanded.
A half hour later, Rose broke her silence with a curt, “When they started cheering, you didn’t have to take a bow. Arrogant, full of yourself, crappie-catching, lip nibbling— The next thing you know, they’ll be watching us instead of television soaps.”
He studied how sweet she looked, framed in the cab of his old beloved pickup. “You’re quite enchanting when you’re in a snit.”
“I don’t do ‘snits.”’ She bashed him with the bouquet and petals flew fragrantly into the air, reminding him of the scent of her body.
She studied him, silence within his pickup quivering louder than the evening crickets and frogs along the lake. “You’re all warmed up right now, aren’t you?”
“Did you think last night was all there was between us?” He carefully took the battered bouquet from her and placed it on his dashboard. Rose inhaled sharply, and his gaze jerked down to the nipples pushed against her T-shirt. “Yes, I want you,” he admitted, his mouth aching to taste her.
“Men don’t usually come back for a second helping.”
Stefan brought her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers. He studied her before stating gently, “You are not an experienced woman. Your body says more than your words.”
She shivered, closing her eyes. “Just once. I gave myself to that stupid idiot because I thought that would make everything right. It didn’t. It hurt and he fell asleep right away.”
Stefan wished he could see Mike once more—the mechanic needed lessons in consideration. Stefan had little time for anger in his life, plowing through it with schedules and demands, but now it flamed inside him. “You’re right. He was an idiot. Not worth a moment’s thought. Discard the incident. It never happened.”
“You think so?”
“Erase it. You should know how attractive and desirable you are. How natural and sweet and feminine. You’re a perfect jewel, a dewdrop on the soft petal of a rose. Only a fool would let you slip away.” Stefan wanted to give her more than the truth in his words, but they were the best he could manage without getting into his rigid-emotional mode. He put his arm around her and drew her close to him, nuzzling her hair. He smiled softly into it—he felt as if all the pieces in his life were placed together at the moment—a man, his beloved pickup, his love sitting close to him in the night while the moon rose over the lake. Its silvery trail slid amid the lilies where the faeries slept curled and safe.
Then Rose lifted her face, studied him and placed her hand along his cheek to draw him down for a short, light kiss. “You’re basically a nice man, Stefan. I don’t regret making love with you.”
“No?” he managed to say as he reveled in the sense that Rose thought well of him. “I thought it was an especially nice occurrence.”
She laughed knowingly then, an enchanting, husky laughter that was more like music. The next thing Stefan realized after a clumsy scuffle on the front seat, in which his tall body demanded that the door be opened, while his hand found Rose’s breast, was that he was lying beneath her. “You’re an unusual man, Stefan Donatien. You try very hard to smooth the rough edges of life. I heard how you donated money for the school’s playground and for the town library, and how you’ve been helping the elderly whose pensions don’t meet their medical expenses. Yvette asked me to suggest names and said that she was acting on your orders, paying bills they couldn’t. You’ve got a good heart, too,” she noted raggedly before she came down upon him in a storm of quick, hungry kisses.
Dazed and floating in pleasure, Stefan forgot notions of a proper bed and how respectable lovers acted who were his age. His hands roamed up her shorts and found the petals of Rose’s desire. It was some time later, while Rose lay draped and soft upon him that Stefan looked up into the blinding flashlight beam. His daughter’s shocked voice came from above him. “Daddy!”
“Turn it off, Estelle,” he said as quietly as he could manage. When the night was black and safe again, Rose pushed herself from him, and he grunted as her knee hit him again. She hurried to straighten her clothing, bumped her head on the ceiling as she buttoned her shorts, and her elbow hit Stefan’s eye as he was sitting up. He rubbed his eye, and to protect Rose at her vulnerable moment, got out of the pickup and faced his daughter. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you? Daddy, did you know this is the local lover’s lane? I hope you know about protection and that—”
“Stop. Be quiet.” Stefan ran his hands through his hair and stuffed his cotton shirt back into his jeans.
“You could at least take Rose someplace nice, Daddy. Wherever old—I mean, older people go to be alone,” Estelle continued in a hushed voice.
Stefan inhaled deeply, wondering why privacy was so difficult to find in Waterville. With Rose in his arms, he had not felt old at all. “I repeat—what are you doing here?”
“Louie came to visit. We were…ah, checking out the local flora and fauna. Grandma is staying with her friends again tonight.”
Louie appeared behind her and placed a possessive arm around her shoulders. He smirked at Stefan. “Hi, Pops. You look like you’ve been steamed, rolled and pressed. Next time you try reverse psychology, like telling me how much work there is here and how much you’d like me to visit, remember that you’re dealing with Louie-the-dude.”
Before he could stop, Stefan’s hand shot out to grasp the front of Louie’s shirt. He hauled the youth up close to him. “Listen, you—”
“Daddy…don’t you dare!” Estelle cried.
Rose moved from the shadows and stood by Stefan. “Louie, I’ve heard so much about you,” she said in a delighted tone while she pinched Stefan’s butt. Stunned, he held very still. The next movement against his bottom was an affectionate pat.
Rose’s warning look at him was too deadly to mistake. Stefan released Louie and smiled tightly. After loving Rose, he didn’t want an all-out yelling match with his daughter. Donatien tempers, when aroused, weren’t sweet. “I’ll take Rose home now and see you later.”
“You do that, Pops. Rose is hot stuff with all her motors humming, a real biobabe,” Louie said with a knowing wink and as Stefan tensed, Rose gave him another warning pinch.
Later, while walking her to her front porch, Stefan finally managed to speak. “I dislike that boy intensely. I do not understand what Estelle sees in him.”
“Mmm. Are we having a bad day?” Rose asked in a teasing, cooing tone. “Estelle will handle him.” Then, just before she disappeared into her house, she took his face in her hands and pressed tiny kisses all over it. Stefan forgot about Louie and found himself humming as he drove home.
Back home, his head filled with delicious thoughts of Rose, he forced himself to settle Louie comfortably on the downstairs couch; he made certain that Estelle was in her upstairs room. Then he lay down on his bed, still sweetly scented of Rose, and shook his head. Life used to be uncomplicated. Why wasn’t Rose in his arms now, breathing that soft, panting way, her muted cries curling around him?