by Lori Wilde
“She’s your mother. She’s just not Honey Montgomery.”
“I don’t understand how that can be.” From the moment he’d first told her that, she’d been trying not to think about it. The idea was so ludicrous she couldn’t really wrap her head around it.
“Her real name is Fayrene Doggett. She’s been pretending to be Honey Montgomery.”
“I find that hard to believe. How can she possibly be someone else?”
“Identity theft is not indigenous to the computer age.”
“There’s got to be some kind of mistake.”
“I’m afraid not. I have proof. Birth records. Fingerprints. The real Honey Montgomery’s death certificate.”
“May I see it?”
“It’s back at my apartment. I know you told me to stop investigating, but my PI friend had already collected the information and I knew I couldn’t leave it alone.”
Delaney pushed her hand through her hair. How could her mother not be who she thought she was? What about all that high-society, blue-blood stuff Honey had drilled into her head? How could it all be a charade? “But that means she’s been living a lie for thirty-four years.”
“That’s right.”
She glanced at Nick. His eyes were full of understanding and compassion. That look, along with the second glass of champagne, caused her to feel a little dizzy. “Do you think my father knows?”
“I’m guessing he doesn’t.”
She could barely comprehend that her mother had been living a lie. All her mother’s rules, her proper code of conduct, had been based on big fat lies. For years she’d been toeing a false line. Trying to live up to an image that was exactly that and nothing more. An image. An illusion. She felt totally betrayed. Her mind spun in turmoil.
Pushed by anxiety, fear, and confusion, she reached to pour another glass of champagne. Nick closed his hand over hers. “You don’t need any more of that. It’s not going to change things.”
His fingers rested across the knuckles of her left hand, and they both ended up staring down at Evan’s engagement ring on her finger. Delaney took it off and slipped it into her pocket, and then she raised her head and met Nick’s eyes. “There’s no other man’s ring on my finger now.”
Desire glazed his eyes. He reached up to cup her chin in his palm. “You need time,” he said. “To sort out your feelings. I won’t take advantage of you when you’re so susceptible.”
His thumb brushed her bottom lip and she shivered. “Nick,” she whispered softly. “Nick.”
He leaned in close. “Yes.”
They hung there, leaning over the table, staring into each other’s eyes, his thumb on her lip, his hand on hers, Delaney’s heart beating crazily in her chest.
If he didn’t kiss her she would come unraveled. He had to kiss her. He was the only solid thing she could trust, the only sure thing in her life right now. Everything else was quicksand under her feet.
“Nick.”
“Delaney.”
He took both his hands and interlaced them with hers on the table, his body heat radiating through her. The act of joining hands was highly underrated, she decided, as the current of possibility flowed between them, electrified.
His gaze searched her face and she searched his. Her heart just bloomed big as roses in springtime. Looking into his eyes she forgot about her parents, about her mother’s true identity, about Evan, about the wedding, about everything.
Nick had so many layers she had yet to peel back, so many things about him she did not know. The edges of his mouth were angular and unyielding, but she knew his lips were soft. The contradictions in him were exciting. She felt as if she was teetering on some great chasm and he was her only ally.
She was caught up in the moment and the sweet vortex of Nick’s dark eyes. With a groan, he pulled her to her feet, took her from the table to the balcony railing, and then his mouth was on hers, tasting of champagne and raw vulnerability.
Who was he trying to kid? Nick was as susceptible as she. Maybe even more so. He was the one who’d been hurt in so many ways. She was merely confused about her place in the world. He had a lot more at stake than she did.
His kiss was tender, almost reverential. Delaney wanted wild and impudent, but she would take whatever he was willing to give. For almost two months she’d been fighting the attraction, and now she was finally free to give in, let passion sweep her away.
Ah, yes, this was what she craved. Sexual oblivion.
His hands were at her back, smoothly sliding down her spine. She arched into him. He didn’t close his eyes and neither did Delaney. They stared into each other, searching deeply and both finding what they were looking for.
Acceptance.
Delaney couldn’t stop looking at him. She felt like the bride off a cake topper, but instead of going home with the perfect plastic groom, she’d tumbled off the cake and fallen into the arms of a very sexy bad boy. She told Nick this and he laughed.
She liked making him laugh.
“There goes the bride,” he said ruefully. “But this time it’s into my arms instead of away from them.”
He undressed them both, slowly, seductively. First came her top. Then his T-shirt. Followed by her shorts and his. Her bra was a showstopper. He groaned softly at the sight of her breasts and had to dip his head to kiss first one and then the other before he could continue with the undressing. Delaney felt a hot flush rise to her cheeks at his careful attention.
“Ah,” he said and traced a finger over her blushing cheek. “There’s my Rosy.”
Nick kicked off his flip-flops and then knelt before her in his underwear. He kissed her navel and sent a jolt of awareness angling straight for her crotch. She fisted her fingers in his hair and gasped when he took her white lace panties between his teeth and pulled them down the length of her legs.
She shuddered against him and he buried his face in the triangle of her hair.
“Get out of your underwear,” she commanded.
He obeyed, whipping off his briefs. Delaney stood before him totally naked.
“I know you have trouble believing this, but Delaney, you are so beautiful.” He breathed in a reverential sigh.
When he said it, she did feel beautiful. He made her feel beautiful with the way he looked deeply into her eyes. Without taking his gaze from her face, he held out his hand and led her to the bed.
The sweet magic of the moment of their first time together made her heart ache. In her head, she heard music. Soft and low. Irish music. The music of the veil. Morag’s song. It was low and lyrical and haunting.
He looked at her so long and deep she thought he must have heard it too—the sound of Celtic harps and flutes binding them together.
It occurred to Delaney her wish had come true. She’d wished on the veil, wished to get out of marrying Evan and she had.
Nick lay down on the bed and pulled her gently on top of him, holding her close, smiling into her face. She curled into him. He made her feel cherished, treasured. He made her feel like she mattered.
He touched his lips to hers. Time spun away from them, ceased to exist. Such exquisite tenderness.
Delaney had thought she wanted raw sex but this was so much better. Ten times better, this leisurely journey of discovery. Touching each other softly, lingeringly, finding the spots that made each other wriggle and wiggle.
He held up his palm. “Press your palm against mine.”
She did as he asked, and she could feel the powerful strum of energy flowing between them. Their hands were fused, and it was as if there had been no other before them, nor would there be any others after.
Magic. There was no other word for the sensation she was feeling. Unbelievable magic.
Except she was a believer—fully, completely, unequivocally. In the veil, in Nick, in magic.
He kissed her and then his lips slid down her throat to her breast. He kissed each nipple, then after a time began to suckle them with his mouth as his hand crept to the apex between her legs. G
ently he pushed her legs apart and began to do amazing things with his fingers, finding tantalizing spots she never knew existed.
He kept touching her there and tenderly nibbling her nipples, and the next thing she knew she was moaning softly and slipping toward oblivion. Lost in the wonderful moment of discovery.
Slowly, he drew his fingers up the sensitive underside of her arm and took her hand in his. She watched transfixed as he brought her knuckles to his mouth, kissed each one separately, then opened her hand and moved his tongue in small circles around her palm.
“You taste so good,” he murmured.
Delaney shivered.
Nick propped himself on his elbow and looked down at her, eyes shining with emotions she couldn’t name.
Heat filled her cheeks and then abruptly embarrassed, she felt her old self again, nervous, aiming to please, but terrified of falling short of his expectations. She reached for a pillow and pulled it over her face.
Nick grabbed one corner of the pillow and tugged at it. “What are you doing?”
Delaney clung to the fluffy rectangle of goose down. Wrapped both arms around it. Buried her face in it.
“Stop hiding behind the damn pillow,” he growled. “I want to see your face when you come.”
“I can’t… I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Like what?”
“You know, with my mouth all twisted up and my eyes rolling back in my head. I don’t want you to look down and think, ‘Good God, I never noticed before, but when she’s in the throes of an orgasm she’s got the tackiest double chin.’ ”
“Come on, I’m a guy.”
“Meaning what?”
“I would never think that.”
“You wouldn’t?” She uncovered one eye to peek at him.
“No, I’d be thinking, ‘God, I love the way her tits jiggle when she wriggles.’ ”
“Really?” She lowered the pillow and peered up from behind a thick strand of hair that had fallen across her face. “Should I put my bra back on while we have sex? You know, so I don’t jiggle so much?”
“Good grief, woman,” he exploded. “I love your jiggling breasts and orgasm chin. I want to see your face while we’re making love. I want to see what I’m doing to you and I want you to see what you’re doing to me. That’s what intimacy is all about. Sharing what’s going on between us, whether we look good doing it or not. Stop being so self-conscious. You’ll never fully enjoy sex until you do.”
She relinquished her grip on the pillow. Nick sailed it across the room.
“There now,” he said. “No more hiding from me.”
She stilled and looked up at him and her heartbeat stalled.
His mouth came down hard on hers and she tasted the yearning on his lips, the urgency on his breath. Delaney’s body responded with a craving so intense it stunned her.
Whenever she was around him her perfectly structured control just shattered. She didn’t fully understand why, but around him she felt freer, more like the person she was supposed to be. But letting go of the old Delaney was pretty darn scary, no matter how much she wanted to let go.
Even though he’d chased after her, Nick hadn’t promised her anything. He offered her nothing but his loyalty and his help facing her family.
Was it enough? Could she just surrender to him, make love to him, without any expectations? Without any need for everything to be perfect? She wanted to, but she didn’t know if it was really possible.
Shake it up.
The phrase drifted into her head. Shaking it up meant letting go of everything. Of her fears. Of her old self. Of the way she’d always believed things were supposed to be. Her old world was gone forever, it was time to adapt to new situations and circumstances. Time to live in the present.
Her ache for him was undeniable, and she just stopped resisting.
She didn’t need any promises. All she needed was Nick.
His calloused hands moved down her shoulders and her body came alive with pleasure. She whimpered helplessly into his mouth as he kissed her.
“That’s right, Rosy, just let go,” he said, giving her permission to do the one thing she’d been dying to do for years and years and years but hadn’t known how until now.
Until Nick.
Surrendering to the moment, she became the Delaney that she was always supposed to be. Boldly, she pulled his bottom lip into her mouth with her teeth. The feel of their colliding mouths curled her toes.
This was the magic she’d been missing.
She’d been so placid for so long, not rocking the boat, letting herself be swept away by her mother’s dominant personality, that she’d been unable to express her repressed will.
But Nick’s blunt directness gave her the permission to discover what she needed.
Firmly, he tilted her chin up with his thumb and index finger, snaring her so he could thrust his tongue deeper inside her. He pressed his body closer until she could feel him everywhere. With each bold stroke of his tongue, he dared her to resist him, challenging her to deny what they both wanted so desperately. His kiss taunted, punishing her for provoking him.
Even through the haze of their mind-soaking arousal, there was no denying that she provoked him to levels to which he’d never before been provoked. Intensity rose off him like heat off the desert sand. His biceps nearly quivering beneath her fingertips. His hips pressed into her as if he would never let her up off this bed.
Desire ignited, hot as gasoline, and surged through her veins, snatching her entire being on an upswell of yearning.
He kept kissing her, doing these absolutely amazing things with his tongue.
Her breasts ached, heavy and taut, eager to feel the caress of his fingers, to construct memories she would never forget. If this was the only night she spent with him, Delaney would remember it forever. They might be fated for only a hot, quick fling, but this joining would stand out as one of the greatest points of her life.
For better or for worse, she was going to make love with Nick Vinetti, and she knew without a doubt that it was going to be the most splendid sex of her life.
Her abdomen melted into a steamy puddle of hungry lust, and the most feminine part of her clenched in a desperate cry for release.
As if reading her mind, Nick pushed her legs apart with his knee and leaned forward until his erection branded her skin. The head of his penis thrust firmly against the throbbing head of her clitoris.
Delaney could not have prevented her hips from arching upward if a tornado had blown the roof right off the building, swept them over the rainbow and into Oz.
Nick groaned, his lips vibrating against her mouth. He broke their kiss, trailed his lips down to the underside of her jaw, and nipped her skin just hard enough to send a jolt of powerful need straight through her entire body.
While planting more erotic love bites along her throat, he ground his pelvis against hers, in long sinuous strokes that let her know she had not been mistaken about his potency.
He kept up the steady rocking, driving her deeper and deeper into the savage wanting that was changing everything she had ever known about herself and what she was capable of.
She reached up and pressed a palm to his chest, intending on restraining him until her mind caught up with what her body was doing. But instead of putting on the brakes and telling him she needed more time, that this was moving too fast, her head was reeling, she felt the wild pounding of his restless heart.
He was as crazy for her as she was for him.
I’m responsible for this, Delaney thought in awe. She’d never caused Evan to react in this manner, and she felt as giddy as if she’d drunk a whole bottle of champagne by herself.
She couldn’t get over how wonderful he looked—firm biceps, taut abs, manly shoulders, tousled hair. Or how powerful she felt. It was freedom of the most delicious kind. With Nick, she didn’t have to gauge her response and adjust accordingly. She didn’t have to pretend. She could just be.
H
is eyes were open wide, and he was staring at her as if she was the most incredible thing he had ever seen. The look made her blush. She felt the hot flush.
“Rosy,” he whispered. “Oh, Rosy, don’t be embarrassed with me.”
“But that’s just it,” she whispered. “That’s the glory of it. I’m not, I’m not.”
“So why are you blushing?”
“Because,” she said, “all my life, I’ve tried to be perfect and fell far short of my goal. But then you came and I stopped trying to be perfect and now, when I look into your eyes and see the way that you see me, I finally feel perfect at last.”
Tears misted his eyes and he swallowed hard. “Damn, Rosy, that was some speech.”
The pounding thrust of their lust had slipped a bit, but in its place came a softer, kinder desire. She still wanted him, oh, yes, with a need that would not be denied. But there was something deeper too. Something more than lust and hunger and wanting.
There was love.
Big and rich and true.
She didn’t know if either of them was ready to say it, but she felt it to the depths of her soul. He didn’t have to say it. She knew.
Happiness erupted from her lips in a giggle.
He kissed her again, swallowing her giddy sound. She tasted her joy on his tongue.
They danced together in a ritual as old as time, moving in perfect union, their bodies pressed close, smoothly, in tandem.
A heated calm seeped through Delaney’s body as she experienced a blissful sense of homecoming. A wondrous peace unlike anything she’d ever known.
She understood the mystery of creation, recognized the cosmic connection between herself and Nick. They were one soul, one entity. His eyes latched on to hers and she could not look away. Did not want to look away.
They climaxed together like that, locked in each other’s embrace.
And in that moment, two souls became one.
Chapter 20
They spent the entire weekend holed up in the room with only brief forays down to the beach. For two glorious days they made love. In the bed, on the floor, in the bathroom in front of the mirror, and even on the terrace late one night.