Sweets to the Sweet

by Jennifer Greene

  A small pulse in her throat decided to beat double time as she wandered to the next door. Owen’s bedroom. The carpet was a pewter gray, not unlike the color of his eyes. A small corner fireplace with a black marble hearth, a dozen logs stacked neatly next to it. His spread was a muted spray of burnt orange and gray, unusual colors together. They worked somehow.

  It was a big bed. There was no TV set for entertainment, not in this bedroom. She wandered in. Fading sunlight made a soft yellow halo around the balcony window. On a chair was a small case—Laura recognized it and frowned. Inside the case were silky white pants, a fragile mauve blouse, a zippered makeup kit, a toothbrush. All hers.

  The pulse in her throat suddenly hammered out a heavy-metal rhythm. More disturbing than finding her things was discovering that she wanted them there. In his room. By his bed.

  She wandered back out and paused in front of the last door before she headed downstairs again. His closed door. Her hand just touched the knob.

  “Don’t you dare!” Owen growled up the stairs.

  “I wasn’t,” she protested, her tone all innocence, and immediately ran to the top of the stairs. He was standing at the bottom carrying the baby football-style, his dark eyes glinting up at her. “Lord. Don’t you have any trust in womankind?”

  “You were going to peek.”

  “I was not.” She swept down the stairs, giving him an offended look, ruined by his knowing grin waiting for her at the bottom. She sighed. “It’s your own fault. Darn it, I respect your privacy—anyone’s privacy. I have never intruded on anyone’s privacy. But you sort of—”

  “Tantalized your curiosity?” He tsk-tsked, handed her the baby and moved toward the kitchen. “Let me tantalize it a little more. Come see what’s for dinner.”

  She saw, and momentarily forgot about everything upstairs.

  A champagne bottle, tucked into an ice bucket, was on the kitchen table. A huge pot of boiling water was bubbling on the stove. And she stared, mesmerized, at the two lobsters crawling around in his sink.

  He took one look at her and knew things were not going to go smoothly.

  “Laura. You told me you loved lobster.”

  “I do.”

  “They’re best fresh.”

  “I’m sure they are.” She smiled at him brilliantly, the color completely drained from her face. “They’re so…alive, aren’t they?”

  He sighed. “Laura, I can’t very well take them back to the store.”

  “I wasn’t asking you to. I would never have asked you to. Look, I’ll get over it.”

  He took them back to the store, and returned with Big Macs. They washed down the hamburgers with champagne, and neither of them could seem to stop laughing. The baby sat on Laura’s lap, spending most of her time trying to make her toe reach her mouth.

  Later, Mari sat in her infant seat at the counter, where she supervised a few glasses being washed. After that, she watched the evening news, perched on Owen’s stomach, and watched her mother watch Owen watch her mother as if Mari weren’t there at all. The baby yawned, bored with this nonsense.

  “You’re sure you’re not irritated about the lobsters?” Laura questioned.

  “You know I’m not.” Owen switched off the news, which neither of them had been paying attention to anyway, and readjusted the couch pillow behind his head. “I should have expected you to react that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Softhearted. I hate to tell you this, love, but you’re really Silly Putty.”

  “Would you like to die in a vat of boiling water?” she demanded.

  He chuckled. “How would you like to see a vat of liquid chocolate tomorrow?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Come with me to Reesling’s. Want to see how chocolates are made?”

  She opened one eye. Flopped on the couch across from him—one glass of champagne inevitably made mush of her bones—she viewed Owen through a spray of thick lashes. “Yes and no.”

  “Sounds like a Laura-like answer to me.”

  “Yes, I would love to see your chocolates.”

  “And no?”

  “And exactly why are my things upstairs in your bedroom?” Her tone was casual. Deliberately casual. Owen offered the baby his thumb. Mari immediately grasped it and swung it toward her gums. “I was hoping you’d spend the night.”

  “Were you?”

  “You and I,” he said gently, “are both tired of playing it platonic, sweet. And I believe you would have found some way to tell me immediately if your stitches weren’t out yet—if the doctor hadn’t given you a completely clean bill of health.”

  She stared at a fascinating spot in his ceiling. “You said—you promised—you’d be patient.”

  “My patience isn’t the problem. You are. If you need a year to think, love, I’ll give you that year, but there’s a difference between thinking and stalling. Now, at this point you’ve got shadows under your eyes, and you’ve buried yourself under a pile of work, trying to pretend something isn’t there that is.”

  “Owen—”

  “We’ve tried it your way. Now we’re going to try it mine,” he said mildly.

  She turned to look at him. At the man who’d returned the lobsters and brought back Big Macs for her. At the man who hadn’t laid a finger on her in two weeks. At the man who could have tried to seduce her after a few more glasses of champagne, but instead insisted on being honest. At the man holding her baby on his stomach and looking at her with stark, raw desire.

  “No,” she said hesitantly.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve been doing fine—”

  “The first time,” he said gently, “may be rough. You’re scared as hell. I’m not sure I understand why, but I know your fear has to do with your ex. We’ll work that out, Laura.”

  “Owen—”

  The baby let out one sharp wail, irritated at being ignored.

  “I can’t,” Laura said softly. “I can’t, Owen.”

  Owen sat up and lifted the baby in his arms. “You want a bath, don’t you, Mari? And your mother needs a little laughter. You’d think I’d just told her we were going to shoot the Snake River rapids without a raft, and here all I want to do is make love to her.” He shook his head despairingly, looking down at the baby. Behind him, his hand reached out for Laura’s. “Upstairs, ladies. One thing at a time.”

  Chapter 8

  “Laura, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your daughter has one small problem.”

  “Yes?”

  “She thinks she’s a porpoise.”

  From across the huge circular tub, Laura bent an elbow on the porcelain edge and cupped her chin in her palm. Her eyes danced over to Owen. “Are you ready to cry uncle yet?”

  “Of course I’m not crying uncle. One grown man should be able to handle the bathing of one small infa— She splashed me!” he said indignantly. He raised a winsome grin. “A few short years from now, we can enter her in the Olympics. Freestyle, of course. Fast, but no discipline. In the meantime, have you had lifeguard training?”

  “Think I’m going to need it?”

  “It’s a possibility— Dammit, she’s as slippery as a greased pig.” Abruptly, he bent over a vigorously kicking Mari. “I apologize for calling you a greased pig, princess.”

  Chuckling, Laura rocked back on her heels and again surveyed Owen’s “secret room.” The huge bathroom was divided into two parts by a glass door. The front section was a luxurious blend of black marble and brass, with lots of mirrors and man-size towels and thick pile carpeting.

  Beyond the glass door was what Owen called a “climate room.” Laura realized that was a euphemism for a hedonist’s dream. The black marble tub was circular and large enough for three people. Recessed lighting reflected off smooth ebony tiles, streaked with gold. Behind Owen’s head was a control panel. A punch of a button ordered up music. At the touch of another button, the scents of a rain forest filled the air with the earthy smell of wet leaves and fresh,
warm breezes. A push of another button produced rain. Tropical rain, drizzling down like a warm, wet whisper.

  Her gaze wandered back to Owen. Foolishly, he was still wearing his good shirt—which was soaked now. A lock of dark hair hung rakishly over his forehead, which was also good and wet. A rivulet of water was ribboning down his cheek, and Laura watched the play of emotions on his face as he bathed the baby—amusement, frustration, surprise, delight, and even pride. The bond between man and infant was already strong.

  That tug of laughter, the caring he showed for Mari, the honesty of the man—dammit, she loved him.

  But the blatantly sensual room also unnerved her. It was a playground for the uninhibited, and every time she met Owen’s gaze, she saw the steady, insistent male promises in his gray eyes. He wasn’t pressing her…but she knew something was coming.

  “Uncle! Uncle, uncle, uncle—”

  “I get the message!” Laura held out a velour towel toward Mari, who protested being taken from the water with a sleepy wail. “You lasted longer than I thought you would,” Laura teased Owen.

  “Thank you.” Owen used a towel to dry his hair. “I’m soaked.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Bathing babies is obviously not a spectator sport.” Behind her, Owen handed down Mari’s sleeper and diaper.

  “Thanks. Owen?” Having been fed and bathed, Mari decided she wanted instant sleep, making it difficult for Laura to wiggle her into the summertime sleeper. She smiled, unable to resist planting a kiss on her daughter’s cheek. “Did you put this bathroom in yourself?”

  “Believe it or not, this room was here when I moved. A little old woman owned this house before me. She was about five foot two, two hundred pounds. The first time I saw the room, I figured she must have had one hell of a fantasy life.”

  Laura chuckled, then sobered quickly. Owen crouched down beside her, close enough to brush her arm. Her heart set up a triphammer beat. He’d removed his wet shirt, and his chest was bare. Bare, warm and vibrantly male. “I’ll take the baby and put her to bed,” he said casually. “Then it’s our turn to take a bath. Sound good?”

  She hesitated, hoping the cotton wool in her throat would dissolve. He wasn’t asking her simply to take a bath with him; he wanted to make love to her. She knew that all she had to do was say no. Someone else’s voice murmured yes, and then far too swiftly, the baby was stolen from her arms.

  Sitting on the thickly carpeted floor, she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them as she waited for Owen to return. She wished suddenly that she had had other men before Peter. A hundred affairs or a dozen one-night stands, it didn’t matter. Any experience that might have lessened the well of dread in the pit of her stomach. But her marriage to Peter hadn’t prepared her for lovemaking, only for rejection. Every time she’d let go that secret well of sensuality in herself, Peter had pushed her away, appalled at her show of passion. Every time she’d initiated a caress, he’d made her feel ashamed. In her head, she knew it would be different with Owen, but in her heart, she was so afraid.

  Owen carried the baby into the spare room where he’d fashioned the makeshift crib. Mari was yawning, but the minute Owen laid her down, she opened bright blue eyes and blinked. Don’t you dare, little one.

  He covered her with a soft cotton blanket and bent down to press a kiss on the crown of her head. “Listen, princess,” he whispered. “Tonight, you sleep hard, understand? I hate to introduce you to bribery this early in life, but I’m willing to talk furs, Porsches and trips to Europe when you’re sixteen—as long as you sleep tonight. Agreed?”

  Mari snuggled to her blanket, her eyes closing.

  Owen switched out the light.

  Laura hadn’t moved before he was back in the doorway, his body a rough outline against the night. He could have been a thief, a pirate in the dark; he stood so still for a moment. And then he moved forward, a tall bare-chested man with golden skin and hooded silvery eyes. “Foolish one,” he murmured gently. “Nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want to, Laura. Don’t you know that?”

  “Yes.” She smiled suddenly, meaning it. And then started unbuttoning her blouse as he flicked the faucets on full to fill up the bath. He was undressed and in the water before she’d dropped her blouse to the floor, and her fingers started fumbling suddenly, aware he was watching her.

  “Want help?” he asked teasingly.

  She shook her head and wished he’d help…except that she knew he didn’t want to. He wanted her to come to him. He wanted her yes loud and clear and honest. And he had that yes, but her eyes lowered as she slipped off her bra, then reached for the buttons of her skirt.

  “Hurry.”

  Her head whipped up for that sudden urgent whisper from Owen. She peeled off the skirt, pushed down the panties and stepped out of them, and she couldn’t stop looking at his eyes, her face pale. This is all there is, you know. One imperfect woman, stretch marks, inhibitions and all. If you were expecting Lolita…

  The water was warm and infinitely soothing as she stepped over the side and crouched down, facing him, not touching. Her chin was tilted up with bravado, her voice a little huskier than it should have been. “Feels…wonderful.”

  “It does,” Owen agreed. With his arms stretched out along the sides of the tub, he relaxed, regarding her with a winsome smile. Then his smile died, and his eyes darkened just like coals turned over to show their fire side.

  Laura had been careful to keep her eyes properly averted. Before. When his body had been in shadow and she’d been busy removing her clothes.

  Not now. There was nothing to keep her from looking now. He was so very much a man. Water glistened in the fur on his chest, slid down his sinewed shoulders. His skin was all dark gold, his legs long and strong, and in water, his arousal was magnified. The arousal she’d been pretending she hadn’t seen. And his dark eyes shone with fierce, male, pagan lights, craving the pale flesh they wandered over. “You’re beautiful, love. Even more beautiful than I imagined. Close your eyes for me?”

  When she obeyed, Owen reached behind him for the buttons on the control panel. The bright light over the tub softened to the whispered blue of twilight. An infinitely warm breeze brushed her skin. The murmur of music seemed to come from far away, faint and seductive and soothing.

  She relaxed a little. When he reached out to pull her close to him, she tensed again, but only for a moment. He settled her between his thighs, her back to his chest, and it was Laura who drew his arms around her, Laura who invited that tight possessive hold under her breasts. He needed her to do that. He had to be absolutely sure that her nervousness was not unwillingness.

  His lips started a trail at the crown of her head and wandered to her cheek. Beneath his palm, he could hear her heart beating, beating, beating. Her breasts were full and white and firm, with a satin flush from the glow of light on water. If he moved a finger, he could touch them. He didn’t. “You know what I want to do to you, don’t you?”

  Warm water lapped around her bare skin; she was conscious of the music and the soft light and the texture of that silky summer breeze. Yet she felt surrounded by Owen, by the look of his darker skin in the water next to hers, by the feel of the damp hair on his chest against her spine, by the secure hold of his arms. By his wanting. She could feel, sense, breathe, inhale…his wanting.

  And his voice continued to woo, to seduce. “I want to kiss you naked, sweet. I want to feel your belly against mine and your breasts grow heavy in my hands. I want to bury myself inside you, with your legs wrapped around me. I want to hear you cry out, with my name on your lips, Laura. Mine. You’re not going to have time to think about anything else, to worry about how it was with anyone else…”

  “Owen…” She leaned her head back. His eyes were a cool, watching silver. A mist clouded her own. Keep control, warned her head. But his words had made pictures that sent a fierce, sharp, desperate ache shooting through her body.

  “You like my secret room?”
/>   “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?” His breath whispered over her throat.

  She was trying hard to concentrate on the question. Or on reading the odd catch in his voice. Both were difficult to think about when his lips were distracting her, making soft forays down the side of her neck. “Your room is beautiful.” Was that her voice, sounding as if she’d been running a long distance? “But it doesn’t matter, Owen.”

  He breathed out a gruff, “I agree.” He sounded oddly relieved, but before she had the chance to interpret the thought, he was surging up from the water, raising her with him, water splashing around them. His movements were lithe and sure, and so damned fast.

  He enfolded her in a huge dark towel and quickly dried her, not very well. She was still damp when he tossed aside the towel and kissed her, once, then again and again, each one harder, more demanding than the last.

  Keep control, the little voices roared in her ears.

  But her head tilted back, absorbing the pressure of his mouth. He gave her no choice. Lightning streaked through her bloodstream, a tense bright streak of incredible power. The mat of his chest, his muscular thighs, his smooth shoulders, his arousal…her softness yielded to the bold, warm length of him. Not a choice but an instinct.

  His head lifted, his eyes searing hers. “The first time, I thought…in water. Darkness and music and water, all soft and easy for you. Or champagne and firelight.” He shook his head. “That’s not the way. You don’t need props, Laura, and neither do I. All I want is you, just you, and a damned hard mattress.”

  God, he was wild. Desire, raw and urgent, tightened his body against hers. She could taste hunger in his mouth, an intimate, gnawing hunger that matched something long-buried in her. The hall was a blur, the air suddenly cool on her bare skin. Keep control, shouted those voices again, but in his room there were only cool, smooth sheets and Owen lying down beside her. Devil fingers cupped her breasts, lifted them to his tongue, the graze of his teeth.