When Night Falls

by Cait London

  He was bigger and harder than she remembered, but his smile was even more fascinating. Shelly tried to ignore the ripple of anticipation in her, that feminine urge to linger with him. But Roman was about as volatile as a flash fire and just as unpredictable. “Let me go, Roman.”

  “I did once. That was a mistake. I’m not going anywhere this time.” His smile slid away into an intensity that burned. Then the caressing fingers at her nape slowly drew her down to his lips. “This won’t hurt a bit. How I’ve missed you—”

  The gentle brush of his lips was a beckoning, an enticement of magic and beautiful secrets that she couldn’t resist…

  ELEVEN

  At home, Mitchell’s big screen television and reruns of NASCAR races weren’t any substitute for needing Uma. The house moved softly around him, soothingly—if he hadn’t been thinking about Uma and Everett, and the irritating way Everett held her hand to his chest. In the bare window, where Mitchell had drawn away the sheet he’d hung there, Everett’s car slowed on its way to Uma’s and Mitchell snapped off the television. Comfortable in only jeans, he sat in the dark, ignoring the beer and the decorating magazines on the metal tray at his side. He had no right to think he had any hold on Uma, that she had any commitment to him—one night of the best sex he’d ever had was no reason he could expect another.

  He’d been a powerful vice president of a national company, and he wanted to carry a damn tray of petit fours to a party more than he’d ever wanted to negotiate top money projects…

  Mitchell sighed heavily. At least Uma would be safe with Everett—maybe. Mitchell would wait until later, and then go out into the night, circling the Lawrence house to see if anyone was stalking her.

  Then Everett’s car prowled by in the opposite direction. Uma was either in it with him, or she was alone—and in danger.

  Mitchell sat in the dark, tensing as he heard a key rattle in the front door and the deadbolt turned, unlocking. He eased to his feet and flattened himself against the wall, next to the door. Whoever it was would think he was out for the night or asleep, and he intended to—

  The intruder stepped into the doorway and Mitchell grabbed a fistful of shirt, hauling him into the room.

  Delicate fabric tore and Uma’s body flattened against the wall with a solid thump.

  She glared at him while he tried to absorb that the “dangerous intruder” was just a woman whose dress was torn. He held part of it in his fist; and the rest was sliding down to her waist with her bra. She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  Then she let the dress and her bra slide to the floor, and still glaring at him, stepped out of it. She turned and walked down the hallway to his bedroom, an erotic picture with her tapered back, mauve cotton panties on her swaying hips, those long legs, and her practical flats.

  Mitchell let the torn scrap flutter to the floor. He wavered between going after her with excuses and picking up her dress, stuffing it in a bag, and waiting to see if she’d ever speak to him again. He sank into his recliner, which seemed to be the safest place in the house. Following Uma into the bedroom was definitely dangerous.

  He couldn’t face Uma when she came to stand beside him, but a side glance at those long, smooth legs said she was wearing his shirt. She picked up the remote and clicked through the stations—golf, world news, how to build a bird house, NASCAR races. “Anything good on?”

  “Not much,” he said as the lead car slowed with a bad tire and maneuvered into the crew pit; the crowd went wild as another car hit the side wall and ricocheted into the path of another, driving it off the track. But Mitchell’s heart was pounding for another reason—Uma had come to him. She needed him. “I’m sorry about grabbing you. I’ll get you a new dress.”

  “You bet you will.” Uma needed Mitchell’s truth after the blistering argument with Pearl, after hurting her. She felt guilty, yet Pearl had to be stopped.

  Mitchell had that closed-in look, as if he were expecting the worst. She couldn’t resist smoothing his hair…clearly he’d been running his hands through it, as it stood out in peaks. Uma noted the stack of fortune cookie paper strips piled beside his chair. “Find any answers?”

  “With you, there aren’t any,” he brooded.

  “That’s because I don’t know them myself. I feel like I’m being taken over. I like my independence, and I like being single, making my own decisions.”

  He felt bruised and vulnerable and shielded those emotions with a brusque “So? So do I.”

  “I know tonight was difficult for you and you’re upset, but don’t take it out on me.”

  “I don’t know where any of this conversation is going,” he stated bluntly, needing to know if Uma had told Everett. He recognized jealousy and tried to push it away. It stayed to lurk and taunt. Everett was perfect for her.

  Uma straightened the sheet that Mitchell had drawn away for a clear view of the street. “Why didn’t you ask me for a dance?”

  Because he would have picked her up and carried her away. “You were busy. I was busy.”

  “I’m sorry Pearl can be so awful. But I’m glad you came. I needed you there. I’ve just had an incident with Pearl that I may regret. She’s so fragile that anything could push her over the edge. But sometimes, she just needs—I’m glad you’re here now. I needed to see you.”

  She needed him. Hope inched a centimeter higher in Mitchell Warren. He noted with an inner pleased smirk that she was wearing his rose, and not Everett’s. “Everett was there, fitting right in,” he nudged, needing to hear more.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me that you couldn’t fit in if you wanted, Mr. Vice President. I’m certain you’ve done your time at dinner chit-chat, and I’m certain that when you set your mind to it, you’re very good at anything you want to do. One chooses his own path and who he wants to walk with on it. Tonight, you chose to walk alone. Lonny returned the tray, by the way, and stayed to help himself to quite a bit of food while he chatted with the guests. Pearl was not happy. One who is not happy in her own home cannot be happy within.”

  In the shadows, Mitchell tried not to smile at the typical Charis Lopez notation. “Why are you here?”

  “To ask you not to be so distracting when Everett is nearby. You two were glaring at each other like dogs fighting over a bone.”

  Mitchell couldn’t resist running his hand over her smooth thigh. “The description doesn’t quite fit. He wants you back.”

  “Mmm.”

  Mitchell withdrew his hand and concentrated on that “mmm” it could mean anything.

  “You could do with some furniture.” Uma eased onto the arm of his chair and took his left hand, studying the webbed fingers, smoothing them. “You said earlier that you could sense Lauren’s feelings.”

  Mitchell didn’t want to explain the softness that rose in him sometimes, especially when he was working in Lauren’s garden or her kitchen. The feeling was stronger in the room that held her things, like a long, sweet aching sigh that couldn’t be heard—as if she hungered for life that would not come.

  He’d never been sensitive, but the uneasiness could curl around him, as if the shadows wanted something from him. What was that prowling inside him?

  Uma slid her fingers through his, holding their hands on his lap. Her finger traced the scarred, webbed fingers of his left hand, and when Mitchell would have drawn away, she held tight. “Lauren wants peace. I want her to have that. I think she’s talking to you and you’re resisting. Tell me what she wants.”

  The thought that a woman might be moving inside his mind took Mitchell to his feet. He rammed his hand through his hair and walked into the kitchen—a cozy kitchen where a woman’s love had created—he stalked past the laundry room where she had neatly folded towels and ironed tablecloths and—

  He jerked open the back door and surged into the cool, sweet night, with its fragrance of roses. The storm from the previous night had swept a flurry of color onto the lush grass and lavender bed. She’d wept here, sadly acknowl
edging that her husband was unfaithful and that she would never have the children she wanted. The incredible sadness enclosed Mitchell tighter than rope. Lauren would have loved to have held the baby he’d delivered in the taxicab that day.

  Mitchell rubbed his aching forehead; he sensed that Lauren did know about the baby, how just holding it had made him wonder about the “more” of life.

  Lauren should have had the babies she’d wanted; she should have been able to love them and see them grow—

  Women needed babies to cuddle, and Uma’s had died. The sorrow within him surprised him and clenched at his heart, an aching that Lauren would have felt for Uma. “Listen. About Lauren’s things in that room—I don’t have plans for it. Why don’t you do something with it—say, a nursery, or something she would have liked.”

  Uma was quiet, and then she said, “I don’t want to decorate another nursery ever again. But I will try to make it into a room Lauren would love.”

  Then her arms came around him from behind, her hand covering his racing heart. “She was the sweetest person, Mitchell. I wish you could have known her.”

  Maybe I do. He tossed that thought away, fearing it. “I knew her as a kid—remember, we grew up together. She was always with you and Shelly and Pearl. How the heck did you and Shelly and Lauren stay friends with Pearl all these years?”

  Uma nuzzled his bare back, kissing his shoulder. “Pearl needed us. She’s been wonderful to Shelly. We’ve dug old pioneer roses from the homesteads together and with our mothers. Our mothers were in the same activities—your mother, too.”

  “Leave Grace out of this.” I’ve always loved her…go to her, Fred had whispered as he died. Mitchell had forgotten that echo through the years, and now it was back.

  When he began to move away from her, Uma linked her hands, holding him tight. “Dani wants to know her grandmother. She has that right. You should know her, too. Fred loved her.”

  “You can’t make this work, Uma. Don’t try.”

  “One question: Roman was driving the night your father died, and you were in the back of the pickup with Fred. Did he say anything?”

  You’re all I’ve got left of her. You and Roman. I loved that woman with all my heart. Tell Grace I’ve always loved her, his father had whispered amid his pain. Everything was my fault. Take Roman and go to her—

  “Did you ever tell Roman whatever Fred said?” Uma pressed gently.

  “No. It’s better he doesn’t know.”

  “You should tell him, no matter what it was.”

  She nuzzled his back and Mitchell’s anger slowly slanted precariously into soft wooziness and hunger.

  “I missed you today,” he admitted roughly, and sucked in his breath as she eased away slightly, her hands sliding from him. His shirt fluttered to the ground, covering the rose petals and the lavender, followed by her panties. Then she was back, her breasts bare and warm against his back. “Tell me what you feel, Mitchell. Just what you feel….”

  “That this is right,” he whispered rawly as he turned to catch her in his arms, seeking those soft lips. Uma’s lips opened to his, the seal perfect and hot and tormenting, pulsing with hunger, her arms tight around him, her body waiting—

  He couldn’t wait, bearing her gently down to the shirt spread upon the lavender bed. In his mind, he wanted to take her gently, yet that plan slid away into the rose blossoms crushed by their bodies. Uma unfurled to his needs, hungry, stormy, her hands gripping his hair, holding him as he stripped away his jeans.

  She was ripe and sweet and tender and intense, flowing beneath him, closing her eyes as he entered her.

  “Does it bother you?” he asked roughly, needing to know. “The scars on my leg?”

  Her hand smoothed the uneven skin, and Mitchell waited, his heart pounding. Early in his life, more than one woman had hated the sight of the scars. “No, they’re a part of you. A badge of your bravery. You’ll always face what comes, even this, between us,” she whispered unevenly.

  He lifted her face to the moonlight and Uma kissed his hand. “I don’t know that I can wait, honey.”

  “It is wise to take what is right for one when the moment arrives.”

  “Good advice.” Then Mitchell couldn’t think any more, his body needing the depth and the heat and the tightness of hers, the flowing together that made them one—a oneness he’d never had, diving into the tempest, feeding on it…the Oneness…

  Uma understood the primitive taking, welcomed it. Mitchell’s honesty was undiluted, stripped of civilization. His breath became hers, his body lodged deep within hers, surging powerfully as she met him thrust for thrust. His lips, his whispers driving her on, that tight clenching taking what she needed to soothe the ache within her.

  For just one heartbeat, she opened her eyes to the man above her, the power and truth in him, his features taut with desire. His hands ran down her body claiming her, finding her, and the first jolt of pleasure tossed her against him, his mouth sealing hers as it went on and on.

  Uma tried to breathe, fought for control, needing to make the pleasure she’d waited for all day last and last. When it came, peaked, and drove her higher, Mitchell held her tightly—she gave him everything, trusted him to care for her.

  Then he was lifting her gently into his arms, easing her into the house and placing her upon his bed.

  Mitchell came to her again, needing her, filling her, hungry for her just as she was for him, meeting him passion for passion, taking and giving—

  Later, a very well-loved Uma sighed and drifted off to sleep in his arms. The soft drape of her arms and legs was luxuriously feminine and sweet. He liked holding her, listening to her sigh sleepily, wondering at the slight frowns and secret smiles as she slept. The scent of crushed rose petals filled the room, and shadows stirring softly as if Lauren hovered nearby, pleased at the tenderness he felt for Uma, the need to protect her. Mitchell looked at the moonlit shadows on the ceiling and smoothed Uma’s hair, easing the soft strands across his chest.

  Who would want to hurt her? Or Shelly? Or Pearl? Why?

  Someone did, that was a certainty. Another certainty was that he wanted nothing to do with his mother.

  Mitchell gathered Uma closer, smiling a bit at her notation that he cuddled. He really had to read her book, he decided sleepily as Uma began to stir beside him. Her eyes opened slowly, silver in the night. “You’re not getting your way,” he whispered.

  “Oh, aren’t I?” she asked as she rose to straddle him, her eyes silvery in the night, then closing as she accepted him gently into her warmth. The rosy flush of her cheeks told him that she was unfamiliar with taking what she wanted, and yet she wanted him enough to step outside her boundaries.

  “Well, maybe.”

  Mitchell frowned at the doorbell. He was just studying the grass stains on his shirt, the rose fragrance delicate and precious as he remembered Uma arching up to him, her body pale and curved in the moonlight—

  One petal clung to the material, pressed and flattened and bruised into the fabric and he smiled fondly at it, remembering. He brought the shirt to his face, nuzzling it and inhaling the scent.

  He frowned again when the doorbell rang again and the tom who had clawed at the back screen, ruining the wire mesh to get inside, raced to the front door.

  Mitchell didn’t want company; he had other plans—like joining Uma in bed with the breakfast he’d just cooked and a bouquet of freshly picked roses; making love on a bed of rose petals was an experience he intended to repeat. He glanced at the filled plates he’d placed on a scrap of board and the huge bouquet of roses. He’d chosen “Paul Neyron,” a cabbage rose with blooms of six to seven inches wide—more petals to lie on with Uma. Lauren had left excellent notations in her handwritten garden book, “Big and juicy and luscious, but a little overpowering. Quite persuasive when used in the proper setting.”

  The shower sounded in his bedroom and he smiled to himself, picturing Uma wrapped in steam and nothing else. He just had time to
scatter the rose petals on the bed—

  Mitchell shook his head; he was not thinking like Lauren. He was not influenced by her gentler, feminine romantic notions. Her presence was not in the house…just the showering woman he intended to join. He wanted to persuade Uma—of what? To live with him? That he was a stable, well-rounded, courteous guy capable of intimate feelings and sharing himself?

  He jammed on the jeans he’d worn last night and hurried to the front door before the intruder could ring again. On his way, he jerked on the shirt Uma had worn, wanting to keep her close to him.

  Maybe he was beginning to understand intimacy, yin and yang. One thing was for certain: he was on a winning roll that he wanted to strengthen this morning—without the intruder.

  As a man with deep upward mobility tendencies, Mitchell was dizzingly happy. “I might even make it to the petit four tray-carrying stage, at this rate.”

  One jerk of the door opened it to a familiar woman. Through the screen, she was older, harder-looking, and definitely uncertain. There was no mistaking the thick ring of diamonds that glittered on her shaking hand as she raised it to smooth her bleach-damaged hair. “Tessa?”

  He sensed rather than saw Uma behind him in the hallway. “I invited her, Mitchell. Please come in, Tessa. We’re just about to have breakfast, weren’t we, Mitchell?”

  Caught between the two women, Tessa Greenfield, who years ago had accused him of being her lover and had fueled her husband’s rage, and Uma, the woman who had just taken his hand, the woman whose hair still carried the scent of roses, freshly showered and dressed in one of his shirts, his jeans rolled up at her ankles, Mitchell said bluntly, “Not with her, we’re not.”

  Tessa paled more beneath her heavy makeup and Uma’s dark smoky eyes locked with his. “I invited her, Mitchell, after…yesterday morning. She has something to say, and it will not be said with a screen door between you and on a front porch that everyone in the neighborhood can see.”

  “Busy little bee, aren’t you?” he asked, and didn’t spare the sarcasm as he withdrew his hand from hers. “One should not act in the business that does not concern one.”