Quickly he reached down and captured her hands, forcing a smile when she looked up at him inquiringly. “Not a good idea right now,” he informed her. “I’ll take it from here.”
She smiled, and he dispensed with the pants and briefs in one smooth motion before straightening and holding out his hand to her. Celia’s eyes were wide and shadowed as she looked first at his body, then at the hand he extended. But finally she smiled at him as she linked her fingers through his, and he felt a tension evaporate that he hadn’t even fully recognized. As a wave of relief rolled through him, he pulled her against him.
Her body was long and sleek and beautifully muscled from the active work that was a part of her normal routine. She felt so familiar that his throat tightened with an unexpected surge of emotion and he closed his eyes before she could see his reaction. How had he managed to live without her all these years? Not just her body, although as her soft belly cradled his hard, aching flesh between them, he thanked God for it, but the way she smiled at him from beneath her eyelashes, her sly sense of humor, the way she threw herself wholeheartedly into anything she did.
Her hands ran over the solid muscles of his arms and back and she couldn’t help but compare his body with the one she’d known so long ago. There was nothing left of the boy in him now. Even his shoulders seemed broader. This was a man beneath her searching fingers—a heavily muscled, hairy-chested, undeniably aroused man.
He gathered her against him, palming her head in one large hand and holding her against his shoulder while he kissed her deeply, repeatedly, teasing her with his tongue while his free hand slid from her shoulder to her breast, catching the taut nipple between two fingers. Gently he pinched and rolled until she could barely stand, her whole body trembling with the need that shot down to pool between her legs, and she clutched at his arms. “Please,” she said. “Now.”
“What’s your rush?” He laughed, a low, growling sound, as he trailed his lips along the line of her throat and down the slope of her breast, and she cried out as his mouth took her in, suckling strongly. Her back arched and his hand stroked a path down her torso, spreading wide over her ribs, dipping lightly into the well of her navel, then brushing with the lightest of feather touches over the curls between her legs. She pushed her hips forward, wordlessly begging him, and suddenly she felt the sharp shock of one long finger sliding down, testing, tracing, gradually opening her as he’d done the night before, and she moaned, pressing her face against his shoulder. Her body trembled in the grip of sensual pleasure; her breath came in short pants.
Then she felt his finger again, slick and moist, seeking and pressing against the very heart of her, and her whole body jerked. She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked down, exulting in the contrast of his darkly tanned skin lying against her lighter flesh in that private part, loving the way he cupped her so carefully, aroused by the sight of his hand covering the dark curls there. She moved her hips against his finger and he immediately took up a rhythm, rubbing and circling the locus of her desire as she writhed against him.
Pleasure built swiftly, inexorably carrying her higher and higher. The world shrank as her whole being focused on the big hand controlling her, inciting her response. She sank her teeth into his shoulder, muffling the sounds she made as her hips shifted into a faster, primitive beat that could have only one conclusion.
Suddenly he thrust his hand forward, grinding his palm hard against her as one finger sank deeply into her and she screamed, throwing her head back as her whole body convulsed, reacting to the intense pleasure of the invasion.
“That’s it,” he muttered against her throat. “That’s what I want.” He touched her deeply, intimately, until she was a boneless heap of throbbing female moaning softly in his arms.
Finally she opened her eyes. Reese was staring down at her, his eyes brilliant slits of desire. He still cradled her body, his hand still nestled between her thighs. A fine tremor of tension shivered through his body and she drowsily lifted her arms, encircling his neck, lying her head against his shoulder. He bent and lifted her, laying her full length on the rug and coming down beside her.
Somehow the horizontal position seemed even more intimate than what had come before, although she knew that was just plain silly. He lay propped beside her, one leg bent and lying half over hers, and she could feel the very real need that surged through him pulsing at her thigh.
Celia swallowed. Milo had been thin and wiry, slim and slight…all over. The hard shaft pressing against her hip couldn’t be called slight in any sense of the word. She’d forgotten, or more likely, if she was truthful, hadn’t allowed herself to remember Reese’s solid build and how small and feminine she’d always felt in his arms. He shifted, bringing his full weight over her, supporting himself on his forearms, and she felt the first stirrings of panic. She was remembering, too, how uncomfortable their early lovemaking had been until they’d both learned to give her time to adjust to him.
“Reese, wait.”
“I’ve waited long enough.” His gaze was fierce and intense, burning with desire as he tore open a condom and quickly rolled it into place, but even then he recognized her unease and sought to allay it. His features softened slightly and he gave her a crooked smile as he pulled her into his arms again. “You’re ready, baby. Trust me.”
And she did. He moved forward, guiding himself to her, and she sucked in a sharp breath as she felt the blunt, probing force steadily invading her most private place.
“Slowly,” she breathed into his ear. “It’s been a long time.”
He tensed against her, buttocks tight beneath her stroking palms. “And you’re just a little thing.”
She relaxed, realizing that he understood and remembered the source of her hesitation. “I’m not sure that I’m the one who’s unusually sized.”
He gave a snort of laughter and she felt him push another small increment deeper. It didn’t hurt, and she opened her legs wider, inviting him in as he said, “As I recall, once we got the hang of it, you didn’t seem to mind.”
“I didn’t.” She was intoxicated with the sexual innuendo, overwhelmed now with memories, and she playfully reached down between them, curling her hand around him. “I won’t.” She stroked him lightly and he shuddered.
“Whoa.” His voice sounded choked. “I’m trying to make this last, woman.”
“Why?” She didn’t stop. “We can start all over again as soon as we like.”
“There’s a thought.” With that, he reached down and took her hand away. Holding her gaze, he pushed himself steadily forward, forward, forward, until Celia was gasping and he was lodged deeply within her. He stopped and looked down at her, and her heart turned over at the tenderness in his gaze. “I was afraid I might never get to do this again,” he said in a low tone.
Then he twined his fingers with hers, supporting himself on his elbows and holding her hands to the rug.
And he began to move.
How could I have forgotten this?
Celia fought tears, overcome by the wonder of the feelings that flared, new and familiar at the same time, as he established a strong, steady rhythm, advancing and retreating, building another small fire inside her that quickly threatened to explode as his rhythm disintegrated into a frantic maelstrom of movement. He pounded into her, their slick, wet bodies making a satisfying slap with each surge, his breathing hoarse gasps in her ear, his heart thundering against hers.
She could feel herself gathering into a taut knot of need, writhing beneath him as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He touched every part of her with each stroke and as the pace increased, she began to moan again, then to cry out until finally she reached her peak a second time and her body bucked wildly in his arms. Her release triggered his, and with a rough groan of pleasure, Reese finally shuddered and arched against her, his strength shoving her hard against the rug until he slowly relaxed, slumping over her heavily.
After a long moment, he heaved himself onto his elbows ag
ain, then dropped his head and sought her lips for a gentle kiss. “No wonder I couldn’t forget you,” he said. “This was meant to be.”
Then he rolled to one side and gathered her into his arms, her back to his front, spoon fashion.
She was lying there, trying to decide how to respond to his statement, when she realized that he was fast asleep.
She lay there for a while, listening to the wind howl around the cottage, feeling safe and secure and happier than she’d been in a long, long time.
This was meant to be.
Was he right? Could it be that easy?
He whistled all the way back down to the marina the next morning. Even the sight of the mess the hurricane had left couldn’t dampen his mood. At the last minute the full brunt of the storm had moved off to the east, out to sea, and though the Cape had taken a beating, there didn’t appear to be widespread destruction, just a whole lot of annoying junk to clean up.
He’d promised to help Celia with marina repairs—
Celia. He could almost feel his chest swell like a cartoon character guzzling spinach. She made him feel as if he were ten times the man he’d been before he’d found her again.
And he’d better quit mooning around and get busy or he’d never get anything done.
The first thing he did after getting to his boat and finding everything still undamaged was to call Velva and Amalie to let them know that he was all right. The sound of his daughter’s cheery little voice lifted his spirits even higher. He missed her like crazy but he wasn’t really worried anymore. The kid sounded happy and busy and much too well-adjusted to make herself sick missing him. He couldn’t wait to introduce her to Celia.
After the phone call ended, he showered and changed, then went topside for a closer look around the harbor. He was just about to head for the harbormaster’s shack to see if Celia had arrived yet when a shocked cry and a rising murmur of distressed voices had him turning in the opposite direction.
Debris littered the coastline. Down the shore a short way, a knot of people in small boats gathered around a stand of grass. He hopped a ride with a guy in a canoe and they headed over to see what was wrong.
As they neared the site, the other man yelled, “What’s the matter?”
“There’s a body here,” said a woman who sounded as though she was one step away from losing it altogether. “I came along here to retrieve some stuff that got away and there she was.”
“Guess she got caught in the storm and washed into the water,” said another man, shaking his head. “Young, too. Anybody know her?”
Reese gazed down on the battered body wedged into the marsh grass. The woman’s long blond hair floated eerily around her head. Her limbs were tangled in a fishing skein that had gotten caught on a dead tree stump and held the body in place when the storm surge receded. The body was facedown, features hidden, clad in a torn bathing suit top and ragged cutoff jeans.
As he studied her, he realized the man who’d just spoken had missed one critical detail. The woman might have gotten caught in the storm all right, but that wasn’t what had caused her death. A neat bullet hole in the barely visible right temple probably had been responsible for it.
Just then, a strong wave lapped against the grass and the body did a graceful roll. The hair streamed back in the undertow, exposing a ghostly pale face. Reese swore.
The body in the fishing net was Claudette Mason.
Celia felt numb with disbelief. Claudette was dead. And she hadn’t died in a storm-related accident. She’d been murdered in cold blood. Whoever had done it clearly hadn’t expected her body to be found. The fishing skein had been wrapped around her too neatly to have been accidental, and it was torn in places that suggested that it had been weighted. Investigators theorized that the force of the hurricane had torn the body from the weights and left it tangled in the marsh.
Celia sat quietly in a corner of her office as two FBI agents questioned members of her staff. Angie was answering a query at the moment, telling the two men that she had seen Claudette walking around Neil Brevery’s yacht the morning before the storm, but that they hadn’t spoken.
“I can’t believe it,” Angie said, a lone tear streaking down her cheek. “Murders just don’t happen here.” Then, as if realizing what she’d said, her eyes darted to Celia in silent apology.
“We believe Miss Mason may have been involved in a drug transaction,” said the taller, older agent. “As you know, Harwichport was the focal point for drug activity several years ago and the DEA has acquired recent evidence that suggests it hasn’t ceased.”
“What evidence?” Did they know things they hadn’t told her? Celia understood, on an intellectual basis, that the FBI couldn’t go around blabbing their information to civilians, but her interest was far from casual and they knew how she felt. She hadn’t had any idea they were still actively investigating in the area.
“Sorry, Mrs. Papaleo, we can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.” The younger agent sounded sincere. He and his partner had spoken with her a number of times after Milo’s boat exploded, so she was familiar with them. “We’ll let you know personally if there’s any new information released.”
That evening Reese walked her home and they made dinner together while they discussed the bizarre turn the day had taken. Celia seemed jittery and upset and he imagined that Claudette Mason’s shocking death had stirred up a great many memories she’d prefer to have left at rest. He could only be thankful she hadn’t been with him when the body was discovered.
They sat down afterward to watch the news and he wondered if she would let him stay tonight. He put his arm around her and she turned to him, smiling and snuggling into his side in a motion so natural it felt as if she’d done it for years.
Stretching up, she put her mouth against his jaw, and he could feel her hot breath feather over his neck as she said, “Would you like to stay tonight?”
He grinned, tilting his head and catching her mouth beneath his. “Would you believe I was just plotting a way to do exactly that?”
Her lips curved as she shifted in his arms, her hands sliding up over his shoulders. “I’d believe it.”
Much later, they lay together in her bed. Moonlight silvered a patch across the quilt over them.
In the darkness he felt melancholy steal over him. They could have been married for years by now, with children of their own. If he hadn’t left. If she had gotten in touch. “We’ve lost so much time,” he said quietly.
She hesitated, her palm creeping up to lie over his heart. “Yes.”
“When did you first hear the rumors?”
As he’d expected, she knew what he meant. “About a week after you left. People started saying…that you’d gotten a girl pregnant.” Her voice shook.
“Yeah.” He still couldn’t prevent the hurt that had sliced at him that day from echoing in his voice. “The worst thing was, my father didn’t even consider that maybe I hadn’t done it. He assumed I was the father of that baby. Do you know he actually thought he could force me to marry her?” He shook his head. “We had the mother and father of all fights. I swore I was never setting foot in that house again until he apologized. But now…now I realize I was as unfair as he was. I didn’t just shun Dad. I left my entire family.”
He sighed. “Being back here with you, realizing this is the life I should have had, makes me miss them so damn much. It doesn’t seem nearly as important to me anymore to hang on to all that anger. What do you think? Should I extend the olive branch and forget about the apology?”
Celia’s body stiffened again, surprising him. He hadn’t thought the question was that big a deal. He tried to hold her but she struggled until he let her go.
Pushing herself out of his arms, she sat up and turned slightly to face him. “Reese, I owe you an apology.” She took a deep breath. “When I heard about the other woman’s pregnancy, I was shattered. And when you left without even getting in touch, I was so hurt. I…”
Her voice beg
an to recede as incredulity crept in. She hadn’t believed in him. All these years, that had been the one equation he’d never figured. Never considered.
“You believed it. You believed it, didn’t you?” The ugly truth was beginning to register and his voice was harsh. He surged out of bed, yanked on his shorts and plunged one hand recklessly through his hair, leaving short spikes sticking out at wild, stiff angles. “All these years you thought I was the kind of guy who would tell you he loved you at the same time he was screwing around with somebody else.”
“Well, what was I supposed to think?” she shouted.
She clapped a hand to her mouth, clearly appalled at her loss of control. Then her defiant gaze dropped and she pulled the sheet up, concealing her body from him as if she were no longer comfortable with the intimacy they’d shared.
“Reese, I was a very naive seventeen-year-old. You tell me you’re going back to Boston to start school but that you’ll be coming back the following weekend. The next thing I know, everyone’s buzzing about you getting some girl pregnant and having a big fight with your father—and I never hear another word!”
“The letters weren’t good enough, I guess,” he said sarcastically. “You didn’t waste any time writing me off.”
“Letters?” Her head came up and her face was a study in troubled disbelief. She shook her head. “I never received any letters from you.”
He went still. Hurt continued to slice through him, and he fought the urge to hurl words at her in return. But there had been a note of truth in her tone that he couldn’t ignore. “Celia, I sent you three letters. If you never received them, then…someone kept them from you.”
She stared at him, silent and clearly shocked, and he could see in her eyes the dawning of a terrible truth. “Oh my God,” she whispered. She shook her head blindly. “My father wouldn’t have— Daddy would never— Oh, God!” She buried her face in her hands. “He worried about me that summer,” she said in a muffled tone. “He was a good man, despite the drinking. But if he thought…he might have…” She raised her face and Reese saw in her expression a sad resignation. “My father kept them from me. What did the letters say?”
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