“I’m not hungry anymore,” he said quickly.
Her eyes glinted turquoise fire. “I’m starving.”
He shook his head. “You’re killing me.”
She smiled slowly. “Not yet.”
The food was tasteless. He wasn’t even sure it was warmed through. But she ate slowly, one bite of salad at a time. A dainty forkful of casserole.
He groaned. “Thank God I didn’t serve peas.”
Then she finished and they rinsed the dishes and she turned shy again. He liked this mood, too. He wanted to coax her back to coquette, preferably as he removed each piece of her clothing.
Finally there was nothing left to do but turn out the kitchen light. He snapped it off and she jumped. He took a step toward her. “Don’t be nervous.”
“Said the toothy grandma to Little Red Riding Hood.”
He tapped her nose with his fingertip. “Is that who you feel like?”
He could hear her breath hitch as she drew in air. “After that dinner? Maybe more like one of the Three Little Pigs.”
He laughed. “Why do I get the feeling I’m the Big Bad Wolf?”
Her voice sounded small. “A huff and a puff and you’re going to blow my house down?”
Michael tried not to sound too cocky. “Oh, honey, you’ve got that right.”
She giggled then and he took her in his arms, laughing, too. “Come to bed, Beth. We’ll have fun.”
She stilled. “Is that what it is to you?”
Tread cautiously, instinct warned. “Yes.” Because fun was what he believed in and what he had to offer.
A smile entered her voice. “’Kay.”
And so he bent his knees and put his shoulder against her belly. In an instant he hefted her into a caveman carry. No sweeping romantic Rhett Butler thing, but just something else to laugh about when he dumped her onto the king-size mattress in his bedroom.
He followed her down immediately and nuzzled her neck, kissing her with loud smacking noises. She giggled and squirmed beneath him and made him so hard he had to lift his body away from hers.
She used the release of his weight to push him over onto his back and tickled his ribs with her little hands until he had no recourse but to bop her over the head with one of the feather pillows. She grabbed another, of course, and whacked him back. A minor pillow skirmish led to the release of several buttons of her blouse. His shirt came off completely.
Pretending he didn’t notice, he challenged her to a leg-wrestle contest. The tangle of their lower limbs resulted in him popping the snap on her jeans. A second challenge caused her zipper to slip half-way down her belly. With a twist, he pinned her to the mattress, and his hands inched between her jeans and panties. In one swift movement he slid them off her.
They stared at each other, panting. The laughter died in her eyes as she seemed to realize what had happened. He was naked from the waist up. Only her panties and his jeans separated the hottest parts of their bodies.
“Michael,” she said, her hands climbing his arms to his shoulders. “I’ve never had such fun.”
He slapped on a grin, but something fun-ny was happening to him. Something that was making his hands tremble again as they moved to her blouse. He undid the last couple of buttons and pushed the two edges apart. With her quick breaths, her breasts rose over the top of her bra.
He put his mouth at that spot between them. He kissed her gently there and her soft, rising flesh caressed his cheeks. “Beth,” he said. He tried to think of something silly to tell her, something to make her laugh, but all he could think of was his need to kiss her.
He found her mouth and opened it wide with his. She took in his tongue as if it were a taste she was hungry for and a shiver rolled down his spine. He rose over her, not breaking the kiss, to push off her shirt, to unsnap her bra and drag that away, to catch his thumbs in the elastic of her panties and push them down her legs.
An answering tremble rose in her as he cupped his hands over her breasts. She moaned, and he slid his mouth to her neck, her ear, swirled his tongue in the hollow of her neck.
Her nipples pressed hard against his palms. Her skin tasted like strawberries and mint and he was so, so hungry.
One of his hands left her breast to skim over her ribs and clutch her hip. She moaned again, and he trailed his tongue down the center of her body toward her belly.
Slowly, he let his fingers wander toward the juncture of her thighs. She flinched when he touched her soft hair. He took a long breath. “You okay, honey?” That was as fun as he could get right now.
“Michael,” she whispered. Her hands pushed through his hair. “Michael, I want you.”
He wanted her, too. He had to have her. All the bits and pieces, the textures that had to be his. He came between her thighs, pushed them open as he slid down to kiss her where she was soft and ready for him. She called out his name, asked for him to take her, but he had to have this first.
He tasted her again and again, his blood pumping heavily toward his groin. It was blissful torture. And then she cried out and arched in his hands and he watched as she climaxed, never so serious about making love in his life.
Mischa’s cries pulled Beth out of sleep. She opened her eyes, blinked, realized she was naked and alone in Michael’s bed. An instant later he came into the bedroom, wearing a pair of sweatpants and holding Mischa in his arms.
“I don’t think I have what this guy’s looking for,” he said, smiling.
Heat rushed over Beth’s cheeks. She looked around the dimly lit room. That heap by the chair might be her clothes. “I’ll just get dressed and take him back—”
“Why?” The mattress dipped as Michael sat down. “Can’t you feed him here?”
Another rush of heat crawled up her neck. “Well…”
He ignored her hesitation. With one hand he propped a pillow against the headboard. “What else do you need?”
She inched toward the middle of the bed and held the sheet to her neck as she sat up against the pillow. Michael handed her Mischa and the sheet fell down. She hurriedly pulled it up as she brought the snuffling baby toward her breast. Mischa quieted as soon as he began to nurse. With her free hand Beth tried to arrange the sheets and blankets for maximum modesty.
She looked up to find Michael watching her with intense interest. She blushed again. “You’re staring at me!” she said, and laughed self-consciously.
He slid under the covers beside her. “I like watching you. I like making love to you.” His hand stroked her cheek.
She turned her face to kiss his hand. “Thank you,” she said.
He grinned. “You know the pleasure was all mine.”
She smiled back. “Not all yours.”
He laughed.
They sat in companionable silence for a moment. “How come Beth?” he suddenly asked.
She blinked. “How come what?”
“An Elizabeth can be a Liz, or Liza or Eliza. Lots of names. How come Beth?”
“I’m not Elizabeth. I’m just Beth. That was the name of the nurse who found me.” She shrugged. “Maybe she was an Elizabeth. I don’t know.”
The dim light from the bedside lamp shadowed Michael’s face. Stubble darkened his chin. It had erotically prickled all the places on her body he’d discovered. She couldn’t decide if the memory was exciting or embarrassing.
“A nurse found you?” His hand brushed the hair off her forehead.
She relaxed into the pillow. “Mmm-hmm. I was left on the doorstep of the Masterson Hospital in L.A.”
“So, Beth Masterson?”
She nodded and without thinking much about it moved Mischa to her other breast. “Voilà. Not quite like being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, huh?”
He slanted her a knowing look. “As opposed to me, you mean?”
“I guess.” Did her background make him uncomfortable?
“It doesn’t bother me, Beth.”
He was too smart.
“We’re both orpha
ns, if it comes to that”
“That’s right. But you had your grandfather, your sister Josie.” She took a tiny step toward becoming a real wife to him. “And Jack, of course.”
“Of course,” Michael said. “Damn Jack.”
They’d made love. Didn’t that allow her to try to know him emotionally? “Why did you call him that?”
Michael’s finger was tracing her ear. “Call who what?”
Mischa had fallen back asleep but she didn’t move to take him back to bed quite yet. “Jack. You called your brother ‘Damn Jack.’” Would their lovemaking open Michael’s heart to her?
He slid from beneath the covers. “Let me take the baby to his crib,” he said.
When he returned, he didn’t turn off the light. Beth thought maybe that meant he wanted to talk, hoped it would mean that she could finally start understanding her husband.
He slid off the sweats before he came back into the bed. Her breath caught as she glimpsed his body, powerfully aroused. “You…”
“Are.fascinated by you,” he finished for her.
Air stuttered into her lungs. Heat was in his gaze. “Let’s talk,” she said hurriedly. Come dawn, with clothes and daylight between them, she wouldn’t have the guts to probe Michael.
“Okay,” he said. He came close to her and turned on his belly. His breath heated the skin of her bare shoulder. With a casual gesture he pushed the sheet to her waist. “Let’s talk about your breasts.”
Beth’s abdomen clenched. “Michael!”
“What?”
His breath warmed the top of her left breast now. The springy texture of his hair begged her fingers to run through it. So she did.
“I was jealous of Mischa, you know.”
She tried to bring the subject back around. “Well, I’ve been jealous of Jack.”
Michael’s gaze didn’t leave her breasts. “Damn Jack? Why?”
She swallowed. “Because…” Michael seemed so determined not to talk about it. How could she be a wife to him if he wouldn’t let her into his heart?
Michael started tracing circles around her nipple with his forefinger.
“Michael,” Beth said.
He shot her a hot look. “It’s my turn,” he said, and then moved closer to greedily take her nipple in his mouth.
The room tipped. Darkness blocked the light. Maybe she closed her eyes, maybe desire blacked out other sensations, because now she only could absorb the feel of Michael’s mouth tugging on her breast, the fragrance of his hair in her nostrils, the taste of his finger as she brought one to her mouth.
He groaned—her hearing was working—and she opened her thighs and insisted he enter her—now. He grabbed for a condom and then she made him join with her. The wild pumping of her pulse matched the wild pumping of his body and she slowed him with her hands, because his hips felt so good against her palms, because her body felt so complete with his, because in deliberate slowness she could put her feelings into every movement of her body.
She didn’t know if her voice worked or not, because she didn’t let herself call out in case she might burden him with the truth of her love.
Sun streamed through the windows when the shriek of the phone awakened them. Her eyes popped open. Michael, his face turned toward hers, had his eyes open, too, and was looking at her as if she’d just screamed in his ear.
She took pity on him. “It’s the phone,” she said. “The phone’s on your side of the bed.”
His hand reached for it blindly. As he brought the receiver to his ear, he rolled over on his back. His arm slid around her and brought her close.
“’Lo?” he said.
A voice scratched back through the receiver. Beth turned toward the clock. It was 7:00 a.m. She and Michael and Mischa had all slept in this morning.
Michael grunted a few times and she slid toward the edge of the bed to get out and check on the baby. Michael’s hand tightened on her shoulder, preventing her from moving away.
He grunted one more time, then tossed the receiver in the direction of the phone. “Hell,” he said, folding his forearm over his eyes.
Beth’s stomach knotted. “What is it?”
“Grandfather’s going to pay us a visit.”
“When?” Beth squeaked out.
“In about an hour.”
9
Grandfather was making them wait. Michael shifted on the old couch in the ranch house’s tiny living room. “It’s a tactic, you know,” he told Beth. “Arriving late puts him in the position of power.”
She wore a serene mother’s smile as she rocked Mischa in her arms. “Hmm.”
Michael popped up from the couch. “I know it’s a tactic. Hell, I’ve used it myself, but it still drives me nuts.”
Beth didn’t stop rocking. “Have you considered he’s just running late? The man has been out of town for a month. I’m sure he has a lot to catch up on.”
Michael stared down at her, aghast. “He’s going to chew you up, darlin’. He’s going to gobble you down and leave nothing behind but the scent of your shampoo.”
Her smile didn’t budge. She kept rocking.
Michael groaned. “You just don’t get it. He’s looking for a crack, the tiniest fissure. To put this marriage past him we gotta be good.”
Her gaze snagged his. The turquoise of her eyes blazed in her face. “What about this marriage isn’t real, Michael? What part will be pretend?”
That look and those words sent him back to the couch. What about this marriage isn’t real? Last night, Beth in his bed, had been mind-blowing reality.
He should be grateful to Grandfather instead of grouchy. The old man’s inspection would be the last hurdle to getting his trust released. Once he had the money, he wouldn’t need the marriage.
Beth and Mischa could begin their new, secure life. He’d welcome back his playboy identity.
She’d find someone else to really marry.
What about this marriage isn’t real?
“Damn, I hate this!” he said aloud.
Beth’s eyebrows rose. “The waiting?”
“Of course, the waiting,” he snapped. “What else could I mean?”
The runners of the rocking chair squeaked against the floor. “Ah. I see. You’re really the Big Bad Wolf the morning after.”
He smiled, he couldn’t help himself. The memory of the night before was too sweet and too hot not to relive. He found himself off the couch again, kneeling at her feet. With his hands on the arms of the rocker, he stopped her movement. “Beth.”
What to say next? Did he thank her for their lovemaking? Did he beg her to do it all over again? Did he make another promise like he had last night—that she would be the one to call it quits?
Which would be fair? Which would be right? What could he say when he anxiously awaited his grandfather to approve their marriage in order to end it?
“You understand why we’re here, right, Beth?” His voice croaked her name.
She nodded. “One man needs to retrieve control of his company. Another man needs to be freed from it.”
“Freed from family,” Michael corrected. “The responsibilities.” And then he made himself say it. “And so that you can have your freedom, too, Beth.”
Her eyes widened. Did. he imagine hurt there? But he’d never promised her forever. “Beth—”
A preemptory knock sounded on the front door. They stared at each other. Then, inhaling a deep breath, Michael stood. Beth did, too. “Stay put,” she said, her face unreadable. “Let me get the door.”
The first few minutes were a scramble of introductions. Grandfather, looking tired but stern, had Josie in tow. Michael groaned inwardly, unsure whether his older sister’s presence would make things better or worse.
If it didn’t go better, he’d find himself at Wentworth Oil Works for life and his grandfather would shortly die of a combination of grief over Jack and retirement boredom.
The old man conceded to sitting down and being served a cup of c
offee. Beth and Josie wanted coffee, too. Michael, needing something to do, insisted on serving them, then joined the two women on the couch. Josie, pregnant with her first child, was talking over babies with a blank-faced Beth. Had he blown it by talking about her freedom? Grandfather sipped his coffee.
“Well,” Michael said to Joseph.
The old man grunted.
Michael tried again. “Any luck in Washington?”
“I’m not here to talk about that,” Joseph said.
Michael figured that meant no.
Joseph relapsed into silence.
Two could play that game. Michael ignored his grandfather and directed his attention to his sister and Beth.
Josie was talking. “And then my husband said—”
“I have three questions for you,” Joseph interrupted.
Michael, mentally donning battle gear, raised his eyebrows. “And they are?”
“Not for you. Her,” Joseph said, nodding at Beth.
Beth stilled for a moment, then put her hand over one of Josie’s. “Pardon me,” she said quietly, then turned to the older man. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wentworth. Did you ask me something? In case you didn’t catch it, my name is Beth.”
Josie shot Michael a look and a bemused smile.
Michael suppressed his own amusement. One point to Beth.
Joseph frowned. “How old is the baby…Beth?”
Wary, Michael slid to the edge of the couch. “Why are you bringing Mischa into this?”
Beth spoke over him. “Mischa is six weeks old,” she said calmly. “And as Michael told you before, he isn’t his.”
Joseph crossed one leg over the other. His Ferragamo shoes, glossed high-beam bright, were as tightly laced as the old man’s hands. “Who is the father?”
Beth’s face flushed.
“I’m Mischa’s father,” Michael said tightly. His jaws hurt from keeping his voice level. “He isn’t my child, but I’m his father. No more questions, Grandfather.”
Joseph stared hard at Michael.
Michael stared back coldly. He let the old man have his way much of the time, but about this—about Beth and Mischa—no.
The Millionaire and the Pregnant Pauper Page 10