The questions were there, on the tip of her tongue. But she didn’t ask them.
She was too afraid of what his answers might be, too unsure of what she wanted in the end, anyway—oh, not about the love thing. She most definitely did want his love.
But the marriage thing...?
She was all turned around about that. They had come a long way together. But marriage seemed so huge. So final.
Better not to go there. Not yet...
“Clara.” He cradled her so tenderly. And he watched her so closely, still with that worried, wary frown. “Are you all right?”
She held his gaze and nodded. “I am, yes. I...suddenly it just seemed so funny, that’s all. You and me. Setting down our forks. Preparing to do battle.”
With his thumbs, he wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks. “I can’t promise I’ll never be overbearing again. I’m an overbearing kind of guy.”
“True.” But she said it fondly, wearing a smile that trembled just a little.
He tipped her chin up with a finger. “Clara...” And his head swooped down. His lips met hers.
It felt so good, so right. His arms around her, his mouth brushing hers. She let out a small cry of eagerness and delight and slid her arms up to wrap around his neck.
And then they were really kissing, in the way that they hadn’t done since the island. His tongue touched her lips and she opened for him and...
Oh, it was lovely. Her whole body tingled, coming alive. Her skin felt extra-sensitized as sweet, hot arrows of sensation zipped through her, shooting off sparks. Her breasts ached a little and she had a moment’s fear that her milk might come.
But then she realized she didn’t care. He wouldn’t care. After all, he’d seen her on her hands and knees in a soggy-hemmed T-shirt in the foyer, weathering a contraction. He’d seen her push their baby out. And he was still here, still kissing her as though he couldn’t get enough of her. What was a little leakage compared to all he’d already seen?
She could have stood there by the table and kissed him for hours. But then he lifted his head and framed her face in his two lean hands. For a long, glorious moment, they simply looked at each other. She stared up into those blue, blue eyes of his and never wanted to look away.
He said, “I want...” And then he didn’t finish.
Tenderness filled her. He was a man who always knew how to finish whatever he started to say. But now he seemed strangely stymied.
Gently, she prompted, “You want what? Please tell me.”
He touched her hair, stroking. She leaned her head into his touch. And he said gruffly, “I want to sleep with you. I want to move out of the room upstairs and into your room.”
Okay, she liked that idea. She really, really liked it. “You should know that I can’t have intercourse for—”
He stopped her with a smile—and a finger against her parted lips. “Four weeks, at least, maybe five or six. I know. I read the books.”
“Um...what books?”
“The ones you left on the floor in the baby’s room.”
A few minutes ago, she’d been laughing hysterically. Now she wanted to cry. But in a good way. A very good way. “You read my baby books?”
A hint of alarm crossed his face. “Wait. I didn’t ask you, right? You’re mad because I didn’t ask you...”
“Dalton, I think it’s beautiful that you read those books.”
He made a low sound in his throat, a totally charming, embarrassed sort of sound. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. It was purely practical. I needed information, and those books provided it.”
“Information...”
“So I would know what to do, how to help, how to take care of you—and Kiera, too.”
Tears filled her eyes again. “Dalton.”
“Now you’re definitely going to cry. Why are you going to cry?”
She sniffed and swallowed. “I’m not. Truly.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Positive—plus, if I were to start crying now, they would be happy tears.”
“Happy.”
“Yes. Happy.”
His slow-growing smile made her pulse race. “So, about your bed...?” She tugged on his collar, though it didn’t need adjusting. He said, “About me. In your bed...” He cleared his throat officiously and declared in a thoroughly bankerlike fashion, “I think it’s a logical next step for us.”
She almost laughed again. But she didn’t want to scare him. “Logical, is it?”
“That’s what I said, yes.”
She pretended to have to consider. “It would certainly be easier for me, with you right there when Kiera cries.”
“Exactly. I need to be there, not all the way upstairs when you need me.”
“You’ll get less sleep,” she warned.
“As though I’m getting much now. No, I’ll sleep better, if I can be there in the room with you.”
It occurred to her that she might sleep better, too. Especially if he wrapped himself around her and held her close the way he used to do on the island.
“Say yes,” he commanded, all gruff and low and overbearing.
She thought how sometimes his being overbearing wasn’t such a bad thing. Sometimes it was a very sexy thing, a totally exciting, manly thing.
He bent his head and kissed her again. “Repeat after me. It’s only one word. Yes.” He said the word against her lips, pressing it there, feeding it to her.
“Dalton...”
“Yes.”
She pulled away enough to tell him, “Sometimes there’s just no backing you down, is there?”
He swooped in for another kiss. “Yes. Say it. Yes.”
She wrapped her arms around him again, because she longed to hold him, because it felt so good. “All right, yes.”
“Excellent.” And he took her by the waist and lifted her high—and kissed her long and slow and deep as he let her slide down his big body until her feet touched the floor.
Unfortunately, that kiss got interrupted by Kiera, who needed a diaper change and some dinner. Dalton changed her and carried her around, patting her little back, soothing her, while Clara finished her pork chop and string beans.
Then he passed her the baby, gave his hands a quick wash and finished his dinner as Kiera nursed.
* * *
Dalton moved into Clara’s room with her that night. She had plenty of space for his things in her walk-in closet.
As he put his clothes away, he felt pretty good. Even a little smug. Those kisses at the table earlier had been deep ones. She’d seemed to enjoy them as much as he did.
Getting into her bed with her had been a stroke of genius, if he did say so himself. From now on, he would be right there beside her nightly. All kinds of good things might happen while sharing her bed with her. True, weeks of sleeping next to her without actually having sex with her could end up driving him close to insane. But a man always had the option of a cold shower or his own hand. Not ideal solutions, but he would work with what he had.
“What are you grinning about?” Clara stood in the doorway to the master bath, barefoot in shorts and a striped T-shirt, watching him.
He pushed in the drawer he’d just filled with his boxers and turned to her. “I was just thinking over my plans to seduce you now you’ve let me in your bed.”
She was grinning, too. And her cheeks were pink. “You’re a dangerous man, Dalton Ames.”
“No. Just determined.”
Those brown eyes narrowed. “Determined to do what?”
“Come here.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“And I’m not going to. Come here.”
She took two steps—and then hung back, tipping her pretty head sideways so that her shining sable hair tumbled down along her arm. “What are you up to?”
“Come here. I’ll show you.”
She laughed. It was a happy sound. He drank it in. And then he reached out and grabbed her wrist and pull
ed her to him. She tipped her beautiful face up to him and teased, “So show me, then.”
He did. He lowered his head and kissed her, right there in her closet. He took his time about it. And she lifted her slim arms and twined them around his neck and kissed him right back.
* * *
The days went by.
They were good days, Dalton thought. Long, full days. His daughter enchanted him. He’d never planned to have children, had considered himself a little too distant, too well trained by his aging, cool-natured parents to be a good dad.
But now there was Kiera, and he could hardly remember the time when having kids had seemed like a bad idea. When his daughter looked up at him, her little fingers clutching his thumb, making those goofy, chortling baby sounds...damn. He was done for. Kiera owned him, body and soul.
And being with Clara—really being with Clara? The best part of any day or night. He slept with her in his arms, the way he had during those unforgettable two weeks on the island. And when Kiera needed him, he was right there, just a few steps from her bassinette, ready to change her if she needed it, to hold her and comfort her until she went back to sleep.
Twice a week, Earl took him to Denver for meetings and to deal with anything that couldn’t be handled from Justice Creek.
It was working out well, he thought. He could do much of his work remotely, but could always get to the main office in an hour and a half by car if he just had to be there for some reason. He was beginning to see that living in the town Clara didn’t want to leave would be fine for him.
He would sell the ten-thousand-square-foot house in Cherry Hills Village and build another house, here in Justice Creek. And he could expand the Justice Creek branch of the bank and install himself in an office there. Myra, his longtime and extremely able assistant, probably wouldn’t be willing to make the move with him.
But he would find someone else for Justice Creek and leave her in Denver. The woman could almost run the damn bank anyway. Might as well give her a promotion—chief operations officer, maybe. Dan Foreman, the current COO, was ready to retire. Myra could be groomed to take over for him. It would give her a chance to spread her wings.
It was all going to work out at last. He couldn’t wait for Clara to have that checkup, the one where her doctor gave her the go-ahead to do more than sleep in the same bed with him.
Then he would finally make love to her again, after which he was sure he could convince her to say yes to that diamond ring he’d bought back in April.
She had to say yes. He refused even to consider that she might still hold out against him.
Because they needed to be married. They had Kiera, after all. And their daughter deserved everything—including a mother and father who were married to each other.
Chapter Eleven
“I’ll reschedule the meetings, move them to tomorrow, and go with you,” Dalton said at breakfast on the thirtieth of May.
Clara shook her head. “Some things a woman needs to do on her own.” Like find out from her doctor if she was healthy enough to resume sexual relations.
Okay, it was kind of silly. They’d seen each other naked—oh, did he look good naked! As good as he’d looked on the island. No, better. She slept with him every night now. And they had been fooling around a little. And it had been lovely and intimate and she really, really wanted to be freed up to let that intimacy go wherever the feeling might take them.
But she did not want him sitting there beside her when Dr. Kapur gave her the go-ahead. She just didn’t. End of story.
He said, “If it helps, I won’t go into the exam room with you. I’ll stay in the waiting room, look after Kiera.”
“Dalton.”
“What?”
“No.”
He studied her for several seconds. She was certain he was regrouping to keep pushing until she gave in—which she would not.
But then, wonder of wonders, he let it go. “You need me, you call me.”
She thought how dear he was. A little overprotective, maybe—or even a lot. But so wonderfully manly and hot. And so very, very good to her. “I will. I promise.”
Half an hour later, with Kiera in her arms, she kissed him goodbye at the front door.
“Back by six at the latest,” he said. “If you need me—”
“Dalton.”
“What?”
“Have a good day.”
He started to say something else. She braced herself to hold her ground. But then he only eased the blanket away from Kiera’s face and kissed her on the cheek.
Rocking Kiera from side to side, Clara lingered in the open doorway and watched him go down the steps and along the walk. He gave her a wave before he ducked into the waiting car.
At five forty-five that evening, she was standing in the same spot with the baby in her arms when Earl dropped him off. Dalton ran up the steps to her, eyes locked with hers.
She stepped back so he could come in.
He knocked the door shut with his Italian shoe and dropped his high-dollar briefcase on the floor. “Well?”
And for some ridiculous reason, she was blushing. And then she was smiling. And then she nodded.
He said, “Tell me that’s a yes.”
And she said, “Yes, Dalton. It’s a yes. We have the, um, all-clear.”
And he reached out, wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck and pulled her close, bending his dark head for a scorching-hot hello kiss. Oh, my! If the baby hadn’t been between them, she would have dragged him to the bedroom on the spot.
“Go on,” she said with a nervous giggle. “Change into something you don’t mind Kiera drooling all over.”
Dalton traded his suit for jeans and a knit shirt. Then he set the table. By then, Kiera was snoozing. Clara took her to the bedroom and tucked her into her bassinette.
She rejoined Dalton in the kitchen. They sat down to eat.
It was a quiet meal. They didn’t say much, but they kept trading glances. Every time he looked at her, she felt shivery flashes of heat sizzle across her skin. Her pulse beat a little too fast in anticipation of the night to come.
“Eat,” he said finally, in that overbearing way of his. “You’ve hardly touched your food.”
“It’s the butterflies,” she answered softly.
“Not following.”
“In my stomach. Taking up all the room...”
He gave her a glance filled with equal parts desire and tenderness. And then he slid his napkin in beside his plate and pushed back his chair.
She rose to meet him as he came for her, letting out a cry of nervous joy as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he gathered her in good and tight. “Kiss me. Please...”
He answered by lowering his mouth to hers. She gasped in excited delight as his tongue swept past her parted lips.
Kiera chose that moment to start fussing. Whiny, questioning little wails erupted from the baby monitor propped on the edge of the counter.
Dalton kept kissing her. She kissed him back. Sometimes Kiera only fussed for a few minutes and then went back to sleep.
But not this time. The wails got louder. And longer.
Finally, he lifted his head. “Does she have radar for exactly the wrong moment?” He listened, cocking his head. “I know that cry. I think she needs her father...”
She laughed, took him by the shoulders and gave him a playful shake. “Go.”
He turned and headed for the side hall. She cleared the table and put the food in the fridge.
When she entered the bedroom, he was sitting in the rocker. He sent Clara a wry smile—and kept on rocking the baby. Clara continued on through the bathroom and into the walk-in closet.
* * *
Dalton glanced up from the bassinette and his sleeping daughter to find Clara standing in the doorway to the bathroom, barefoot, wearing the same short, low-cut, man-destroying red and yellow summer dress she’d worn on the island that first night. Just weeks after Kiera’s birth, it practically
fit like a glove. Her dark eyes were full of secrets. A soft, tempting smile curved her lips.
His throat seized up and his heart felt suddenly too big for his chest. He tried to speak through the tightness, to tell her she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.
But she put her finger to her lips and came toward him. He watched her approach, his mouth gone dry, his weirdly expanded heart pounding way too hard. A few feet away from him, she stopped. He started to reach for her, to gather her close.
But she shook her head and held out her hand.
He took it.
She turned and pulled him toward the hallway door, leading him on through it and out to the great room, where she scooped up the baby monitor from the kitchen counter. Then she was moving again, taking him back toward the front of the house, but this time through the dining room.
“Where are we going?” he croaked, feeling ridiculous, sporting serious wood when all she’d done was take his hand and drag him around the lower floor of the house.
“You’ll see.” They entered the foyer. She headed straight for the stairs and started up them, pulling him along behind.
On the upper landing, he saw light spilling out of the bedroom he’d been using until three weeks before. She led him in there, where the bed was turned back and the lights were on low.
At the side of the bed, she set down the monitor next to the strip of condoms waiting on the nightstand. Then she let go of his hand and turned her back to him, smoothing her hair out of the way, indicating the zipper at the back of the dress.
She looked amazing in it. It seemed a shame to take it off so soon.
But then again, the sooner she had it off, the sooner she would be naked.
He took the zipper down and she eased the tiny red straps off her shoulders and let the dress drop.
She had nothing on underneath it. She turned to him. So beautiful, all womanly curves in all the right places. “Your turn.”
He couldn’t get out of his clothes fast enough. A little smile ghosted across that soft mouth of hers as he ripped his shirt over his head, whipped off his belt, and dropped trou—boxers included.
She pushed him back to sit on the bed. He went, his pants in a wad around his ankles. He really liked where this was going and saw no reason to take issue with any of it. She dropped to a crouch. In no time, she had his shoes and socks off. He kicked off his pants and boxers. She picked them up and tossed them across a nearby chair.
Not Quite Married Page 15