“I’m sorry. I know how much you want to remember.”
Not that. She hoped whatever had caused such torment remained lost forever. To know would mean living it again to some degree, and she couldn’t bear it.
They fell silent again. He continued to rock and to hold her, and she snuggled a little closer. On the wagon ride, she had enjoyed the closeness to him as much as the lights and the carols. To anyone who didn’t know better, they must have appeared no different from the other couples there—the happy ones, the ones in love, who’d gone home together, to bed together, and might even have made love together. In her head she’d known the appearance was deceiving, but in her heart she’d enjoyed the deception of intimacy just as she was starting to enjoy this intimacy.
She brushed her hair back—another deception—then, instead of returning it to her lap, she let her hand brush his chest, let them curl loosely as they came to rest at the waistband of his sweats. His muscles tightened, but he didn’t push her hand away. He didn’t dump her on her feet, say, Well, you’re all right now, and head for the safety of his own room. For that she was grateful.
“I meant to tell you thank-you last night,” she murmured.
“For what?” His voice was wary, tautly controlled. So were his muscles. She could feel them tightening everyplace their bodies were in contact.
“Everything. Coming here. Doing these things with me—Thanksgiving, the parade, the tour. I would have a wonderful time regardless, but it’s better with you to share it.”
It took him a long time to respond—partly, she suspected, because he wasn’t comfortable with his response. “I’ve enjoyed it all. It’s been fun.”
“Never thought you’d say that, did you?” she teased.
“No. But it’s a nice break from real life.”
“I bet the people here would be indignant at the implication that their lives aren’t real.”
“I meant—”
She rubbed her cheek from side to side across his shoulder, stopping him mid-explanation. “I know what you meant.” That this wasn’t his real life. That, although he’d enjoyed it, it would never be his real life. That she should never for one moment think that he might ever find himself happy, contented, and willing to stay in Bethlehem.
She had always understood that. She regretted it, but she understood. If things were different, though, if he could stay … She allowed herself a moment for the fantasy of the two of them passing year after satisfying year in this house, surrounded by friends, raising a family, belonging to each other and to this place in a way they never had before. It would be every wish, every dream and hope she’d ever had, all wrapped up in one.
But things weren’t different. They would stick to their original plan. He would return to Buffalo and his life there, and she would remain in Bethlehem and make a new life for herself. She would meet a man, fall in love, get married, and have his babies. Those were her goals. But instead of becoming easier to visualize as the time came nearer, they’d become more difficult. The only man she’d ever loved was Ross. The only babies she’d dreamed of having were his.
She couldn’t even imagine getting intimate with anyone else. Whenever she thought of making love, it was Ross’s hands, his kisses, his whispers, his body. She tried to picture herself with someone else, and the picture wouldn’t develop. She told herself that was natural. Once he was gone, things would change.
At that moment, in his arms, she didn’t believe herself.
A soft, regretful sigh shuddered through her, and he responded—shifted underneath her, sucked in his belly away from her fingers, started to swell against her hip. The instant she recognized his arousal for what it was, she was stunned. She’d known he could still arouse her with no more than a look or a simple touch, but it had never occurred to her that she might still possess the same power with him.
Then reality overruled feminine vanity. It was the middle of the night, a time when people were at their most vulnerable; she was sitting on his lap with practically nothing between them; and he’d gone as long as she had without physical satisfaction—since last year’s stay at the McBride Inn. Of course she could arouse him. Any living, breathing woman could.
She moved slightly, and he caught his breath. “I think—” he began.
“Don’t think. If you do, you’ll do the sensible thing and go back to your room and whatever sleep we each get won’t be worth having.”
His right hand slid marginally across her arm in the tiniest of caresses. “This is foolish, Maggie.” His words sounded certain. His voice, strained like his body, didn’t.
“I know.” She moved, and her knuckles grazed his stomach, then she flattened her palm against him. In an instant the temperature of his skin switched from warm to feverish.
“It will only complicate things.”
“Or maybe simplify them. Do you want me?”
His laughter was short, coarse, as he slid one hand to her hip, held her close, and rubbed against her. “Hell, what do you think?”
“I want you too. And I can’t think of anything more natural than you and me having sex together.”
“Maggie—”
She slid off his lap and went to stand by the window. “I could convince you if I wanted. I know that. But it’s your decision, Ross. You can go back to your room, or you can stay here with me. You choose.”
He was motionless for a moment. Then he stood, and the thin light coming through the window showed just how aroused he was. The sight made her throat go dry, made swallowing impossible. Again, for a moment, he stood still, and she thought with regret that common sense was going to win out. He was going to shut himself in his room—to shut her out. Part of her hoped he did, for their own good. The rest of her would regret it.
Moving with slow, taut grace, he closed the distance between them, maneuvered her with his body until the wall was at her back. He rested his palms against the wall on either side of her head, and he kissed her. It wasn’t the kiss she expected after so many long months—neither sweet nor gentle nor tentative nor shy. He didn’t coax or tease, didn’t play or manipulate, but claimed her mouth in a heated, hungry kiss, thrusting his tongue inside, demanding her own heat and hunger, accepting her pleasure.
Sliding his hands down, he cupped her bottom and lifted her, rubbing, rocking his hips against her in a rough caress that made her weak. She raised her hands to his body, touching his face, his throat where his pulse beat hard and fast, his muscled chest, his narrow hips. She’d been hungry for this, she realized in a haze of sensation—for touching, for touching him. More than her husband and only lover, he was the other part of her self, and she’d missed her hands on his body as much as she’d missed his on her own body.
They were halfway across the room before she realized the wall was no longer at her back. Beside the bed, he broke the kiss, panting for air, and pulled her nightshirt over her head, kicked his sweats away. She had only an instant’s concern for the scars before he lifted her onto the bed, followed her down, and slid inside her without delay. This first time would be fast, she knew, with just enough wicked pleasure to take the edge off their desire. But the next time … Ah, the next time would be slow, torturous, a test of endurance and power—how much could she bear, and once she’d borne all she could, how many times he could make her plead for more. She would plead, and so would he, and the result would be soul-stealing.
He kissed her, teased her breasts, thrust into her fast, hard. He made her skin burn, her muscles quiver and twitch, drew from her body every need, every fantasy, and satisfied every one. He brought her to an orgasm so intense that it made her ache, then emptied himself into her with his own completion.
Then the real event started.
It had been so long, and she’d been so lonely. She’d missed this, had needed it—needed him. His kisses, lazy and hot and designed to make her weak. His caresses, all the right ways in all the right places. His mouth relentless on her breast, his hands tormenting between
her thighs. It was all too sweet, too cruel, too much but never enough. She begged for relief, and he promised it but held back, pushing her harder, making her need fiercer, until neither could wait one second more.
Some time passed before he summoned the energy to pull the blankets over them. This was what she wanted, she thought as he pulled her close, fitted his body like a glove against hers. This was what she’d always wanted—passion, intimacy, two-halves-of-a-whole satisfaction. So far she’d found it only with Ross.
Would she ever find it with somebody else?
How was a man supposed to act the morning after the second biggest mistake in his life?
Ross awakened early Saturday morning with that thought in his mind—and Maggie’s long, lean, naked body in his arms. He knew how he wanted to act, he thought with a scowl as his body hardened. He wanted to shift her leg, slide inside her, and wake her up with the gentlest lovemaking she could imagine. He wanted to roll her onto her back and fill her again, wanted to roll onto his own back and lift her above him. He wanted to give her again that hazy, supremely satisfied look that only he had ever given her, to take her again and again until she gave up forever the idea of another man. He wanted to brand her as his own, to make it impossible for her to ever forget it.
But she wasn’t his. He’d given up his right to her the day he’d decided to sleep with another woman.
The memory had the effect of an icy shower. It uncurled his arm from around her waist, lifted the covers, and slid him away from her soft, silky heat. After retucking the blankets around her, he pulled on the sweats he’d discarded on the floor, nudged up the thermostat, then went to the bathroom down the hall. He would shower and get dressed, make coffee and check his mail and messages. By the time Maggie woke up, he would know what to say, what to do, how to handle this potentially fatal mistake.
But when he finished dressing after his shower, he’d found no answers and had no interest in coffee or mail or messages. Though he knew it would be best to walk away—to treat last night like the aberrancy it was—when he left his room, he didn’t go away. He returned to her room, turned the rocker to face the bed, sat down, and watched her sleep.
He never should have come in last night when her tears awakened him, but he’d been frightened, panicked. He could no more have lain in his bed and left her to sob alone than he could go back and change their past. And so he’d come in and left his good sense and willpower at the door, and when things had turned sexual …
Hell, he couldn’t even completely regret it. Sex with Maggie had always been the best times of his life, and last night had been no different.
Except that they were supposed to divorce in another month or two.
The reminder forced his features into a deep scowl that eased only after several minutes spent studying her. She lay on her side, her hands folded beneath her chin. There were shadows under her eyes—restless sleep and heartbroken sobs could do that—but she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. He already knew he would measure every woman he ever met against her and find them lacking, which didn’t bode well for his future. She was everything he’d ever wanted—everything he’d once turned his back on. Now he found himself wanting her again—this morning. Next week. Next month.
Next year.
She shifted, sighed, stretched her arms above her head. Some mornings she was slow to awaken. Others, her eyes popped open and she was instantly alert. She opened her eyes, yawned, saw him sitting there and automatically smiled, then remembered last night and just as quickly did a mental retreat. “Good morning,” she said, not at all sure that it was. Her earlier stretch had pulled the covers to a point above the tips of her breasts. Even as he felt a stab of desire, she pulled them up tight around her chin. “What—what are you doing …?”
“I slept here.” His voice took on an edge. “Was I supposed to return to my own room when we were done? Was that a part of the agreement we didn’t get around to discussing?”
Her cheeks flushed the same becoming rosy shade they took on when she was in the throes of orgasm. “I—I didn’t … I just … of course not.”
He should have gone downstairs—should have left her to wake up alone, to deal with what had happened before she had to deal with him. He should have given her a chance to face the dismay and the regret—because he would bet this year’s profits that that was what she was feeling—but now it was too late. Now they had to face it together.
“Do you expect me to apologize?” he asked when it became clear that she wasn’t going to speak.
“Of course not,” she said indignantly. “Do you expect me to?”
“For what?”
“It was my idea.”
“An idea I’ve been fighting for more than a week.”
“Why?”
He gestured impatiently at the distance between them. “Isn’t it obvious?”
She gave no response, but after a time she asked a cautious question of her own. “Is this what it was like after the last time?”
His smile was thin and humorless as he shook his head. “I wanted to make love to you again the next morning, but when I woke up, you were gone. When you finally came back, you pretended as if nothing had happened, and”—the male sexual ego being the fragile thing it was—“I let you. Things went back to exactly the way they were before. You lived your life, and I lived mine, and we never deliberately touched again.”
After another moment’s silence, she asked in a hesitant, fearful whisper, “Would you be interested in making love to me again this morning?”
For a long time he simply looked at her. When finally he offered an answer, it was simple, quiet, all too aware of the rejection she had risked, that he was risking. “Yes. I would.”
She swallowed hard, then pushed back the covers in silent invitation. Slowly his gaze slid from her face to her throat, over her breasts to her belly, one smooth hip, one shapely thigh. He knew she watched him—to see if he lingered, looking for scars he’d never seen?—but he didn’t.
His clothes came off easily, landing in an untidy pile on the floor, then he joined her in bed. His first simple touch sent a delicate shiver through her. The second made her breath catch. The third made his own breath catch. By the time he took her, her skin was slick with sweat, her breathing ragged, her responses raw and shocky. She welcomed him into her with a gasp, then a long, low moan that vibrated through him. She felt so incredibly good. So incredibly right.
They took it slowly, as if years hadn’t passed since they’d shared a lazy Saturday-morning seduction, and yet always there, always present, was the need—sharp, demanding, building. Turning onto his back, he lifted her over him, then relinquished control to her, lay still, and simply looked at her. With her face flushed, her hair mussed, her body all soft and quivery, she looked like a woman on the verge of pure, sweet delight. She was the only woman he’d ever seen like this.
The only woman he’d ever loved like this.
He knew the exact instant she relinquished control too—knew when the need for satisfaction became desperate and drove her faster, harder, deeper—and then for one incredible moment he knew nothing. Nothing but pleasure so intense that he groaned with it. Nothing but heat, sensation, throbbing, filling, dying.
Nothing but Maggie.
Quiet settled around them. Her breathing eased. The rushing in his ears quieted. The shudders that racked them both calmed. She lay against him, still astride him, still gloving him. Her hair fell forward to hide her face, but he didn’t need to see. He knew the sweet look she wore, the one he took such pleasure in, the one that was a twin to his own expression.
Finally, after time, she lifted her head, pushed her hair back, and somber green eyes met his. “This changes things, doesn’t it?”
He nodded.
“How?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It doesn’t have to.” Her voice took on a casual tone that he didn’t like. He didn’t want casual from her. He wanted pass
ion. Need. Greed. “We can behave like two intelligent, mature adults and accept that sex between two healthy people who have been a couple as long as we have is a perfectly normal occurrence. We can ensure that it doesn’t happen again, or we can fulfill each other’s needs, indulge that aspect of our marriage for the time that remains, and then go ahead with our plans as intended.”
He scowled at her. “We amend the terms of our agreement to include sex, then in another four or six or eight weeks we both just walk away as planned. You think it’s that easy?”
She ducked her head and answered so softly that he barely heard. “No.”
“And how would we ensure that it doesn’t happen again? As you said, we’re two healthy adults. We both enjoy sex, particularly with each other, and we’ve had damn little of it in the last three years. How—”
“Four years,” she interrupted. “And whose fault was that? Who was always working? Who was always gone?”
He arched one brow. “So now you want to lay blame. Of course. You always get around to that sooner or later. Well, let me save you the trouble, Maggie. It was my fault. I was obsessed with work. I spent more time at the office than I did at home. I forced you to go to boring parties. I dressed you up in gowns and jewels to show you off and then I put you away and forgot about you until I needed you again. I made you live in a house you hated and gave you money you didn’t want. I neglected you, ignored you, used you, manipulated you, abandoned you. It was all my fault. Everything that ever went wrong between us was all my fault. Are you satisfied?”
She scrambled out of bed, snatched up a robe from the floor, and fumbled it on, in the process giving him his first look at the scars. Guilt overwhelmed him as he stared. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but reach out a trembling hand, utter a stricken whisper. “Oh, God, Maggie …”
Shame flooded her face. She pulled the robe tight and tied the belt with a savage yank. “Get out.”
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