by Alison Kent
And then there was the added seduction of the open bottle of Merlot... and the two inviting wineglasses on the coffee table. Carson had not only made himself at home in her home on her sofa with her movie and her wine, the thief had obviously settled in for the evening.
And he’d been waiting for her.
If she didn’t move from where she stood in the entryway from the kitchen to the living area, and demand Carson get off his duff and leave for wherever it was he was staying these days, she feared she’d give in to weakness and loneliness and female longing for a satisfying man and ask him, no, beg him to stay the night.
But it was too late. Because he stirred and he shifted and he sat up straight, sensed her presence, and smiled. He smiled before he turned and saw her. And knowing he was so in tune to her, that he knew she was in the room though she hadn’t made a sound, was almost Eva’s undoing.
She wrapped her arms tightly beneath her breasts in a rib-crushing, bracing grip. Right now, with tension running on live wires beneath the barest surface of her skin, any word he said, any move he made, could cause her to lose the precarious hold she had on her resolve. If she wasn’t careful.
Careful, Eva. Careful.
Approaching the back of the sofa that sat in the center of the large room, she leaned forward only far enough to drop the key to the rented Jeep in Carson’s lap. It bounced off his taut thigh and landed on the floor. He looked from the key to Eva, then repeated the process.
“Well, now. This is an interesting dilemma.” His voice was husky with half sleep, and suggestive because she knew him so well. “I can’t decide if you’re telling me to leave or asking me to stay.”
He made no move to retrieve the key. He made no move toward the door. What he did do was turn and brace his back against the sofa’s overstuffed arm, one knee angled in front of him on the cushion, his foot in the cast still on the ground.
With his hands laced behind his head, he studied her with audacious regard. The flicker and flash of the television screen cast light and shadow across his face. His lashes feather-dusted his cheeks when he blinked, and the oasis of his eyes was parched of true color.
Still, she felt the pull, the invitation, the draw of his gaze no less than she felt the allure of his mouth. The smile he offered was one of shared memories, one of shared anticipation. Which was why she had to be careful.
Careful, Eva. Careful.
Intent on being just that, on watching each step she took around him, on second guessing the purpose behind his every move, she set her purse on the butterfly table beneath one of the living room’s three narrow windows and circled the opposite end of the sofa.
Carson sat back like he owned the joint. The man may have lost much of his youthful impatience, but not an iota of his arrogance. Or any of his commanding presence, which made being careful a difficult task.
Keeping as much distance between them as possible, her arm stretching out and her body blocking Carson’s view of Hawkeye and Cora’s trek to Fort William Henry, Eva retrieved the key from the floor and held it out, waiting for Carson to extend an accepting hand. Which he did. Finally. Though he purposely drew out her excruciating wait.
It didn’t matter that she knew all there was to know about his affinity for mind games. Her heart still skipped a beat in expectation as the key fell into his palm. His fingers closed around the ring. And her throat closed around the air she needed so badly to breathe.
Would she never grow immune to this man and his charms, which at times weren’t in the least bit charming?
Careful, Eva. Careful.
“There,” she said. “Now you have your answer. Feel free to go at any time.” She crossed her arms over her chest, pressed her lips together in a line of disapproval, and waited.
Shoving the key into the pocket of his khakis, Carson looked beyond her to the TV and waved her out of his line of vision. “I want to see this part.”
Eva moved to the side a bit and glanced back at the flickering screen. Big guns and battle. She rolled her eyes.
“Sit down here and watch.” He patted the middle cushion of the sofa. Way too close to where he sat. When she made no move, he gestured toward the coffee table and cajoled, “I have wine.”
Eva continued to stand, continued to appear put out with his supposed subtleties. “You have wine, darkness, and an empty house. Not to mention a sexy romantic movie playing. I’m surprised you’re not already undressed.”
And even as she said it, she knew she’d set in motion the beginnings of a very male and female game.
Carson’s gaze moved from the French and Indian War on the screen to Eva’s knees, then to her thighs, where he lingered, taking his time moving upward and causing her to hold in her stomach once he’d made it that high. He tarried too long on her breasts, and she regretted having been so clumsy earlier at the shop and splattering mud on the hem of her over shirt.
She’d shrugged off the extra layer, which left her in the decidedly too tight pullover she’d worn for Zack’s shoot today. At least it was dark and Carson wouldn’t notice how tight the shirt had grown beneath his gaze, a gaze all the more intoxicating for appearing otherworldly under the flickering lights from the television screen and the shadows shifting through the room.
Eva’s standing vantage point caused Carson to continue to look up, and his eyes reflected the motion of the movie playing against her back. By this time his gaze had reached her face, and he blinked slowly, lazily, seductively, before saying, “I was waiting for you to undress me.”
She was not going to get into this with him. She refused to get into this with him. No matter how much she wanted to get into this with him, she wouldn’t.
He didn’t wait for a response, but straightened from his reclining position and poured the Merlot into both glasses. “Time out, Eva. Sit. Drink with me. Watch the movie. Let’s call a truce. Pretend we’re old friends.”
“I doubt we can do that.”
“We can give it the old college try.”
“Hmph.” Eva reached for the wineglass, turned around, and sat on the edge of the sofa, not close enough to Carson to appear to be offering him any sort of invitation, but not far enough away to be rude.
They could do this. Drink together. Watch the movie together. Call a truce and pretend.
Of course she’d barely managed one sip before Carson scooted closer. She gave him a sideways glare, ignoring the tingle where his thigh brushed her thigh. Ignoring as well his hip nudged to her hip.
“What happened to the old college try?” she asked.
“What? Two friends can’t sit close and watch a movie together?” His arm went around her shoulder then, and he pulled her into his side, leaning them both back into the huge cushions. “Besides. I walked out in the middle of my second year.”
She knew she should be fighting harder against Carson’s hold, but was it such a bad fate, really? This temporary weakness of being held by a man who’d known her half a lifetime ago? Whose chest was strong and warm and supportive? Whose hip cradled the curve of hers? Whose thigh was solid beneath the length of her leg?
Oh, he felt so good. He felt so incredibly good.
This sitting with him here in her home on her sofa, even after so many years, seemed so right. And though she knew she needed to straighten her backbone, she slumped against Carson in the pure physical enjoyment of being with a man, savoring the textures, the strength and resiliency of his body so different from hers.
In silence they watched the movie for several minutes more. Or at least Carson watched as Hawkeye saved the life of a lone runner with his long rifle. Between the wine and the warmth, however, Eva was too relaxed to watch anything, or to notice much at all beyond how comfortable she’d become with the same man she’d slapped in her kitchen not long ago.
Eyes closed, she gave herself permission to enjoy this time with Carson, to take full advantage of these stolen moments, to not analyze the feelings and look for meaning and depth where none would be f
ound. But no matter how loudly repetitive were her mental admonishments to feel and not to think, she couldn’t rid her mind of the words proclaiming a thin line between love and hate.
What exactly did she feel for this man? What was she doing here with him, anyway? Were they friends? Or only old lovers who’d never learned to let go? And what did that say about either of them if the latter was true? How could two well-adjusted successful adults be so hung up, so caught up, so wrapped up in the past?
A part of Eva’s subconscious realized that Carson had grown still—not that he’d been overtly moving, but now he’d almost ceased to breathe. His body had grown tense. A different tension from the stiff supportive effort of sitting beneath her weight. This tension was bone deep, pore deep, and it seeped into Eva’s relaxed state of body and mind.
She lifted her wineglass for a thoughtful sip, her gaze caught by the picture displayed on the television screen. It was Hawkeye. Heading for the hospital in search of Cora. One-hundred-percent-pure-male intent darkening his expression. He found his woman. And Cora went with him willingly, placing her hand in his, welcoming him as his one-hundred-percent- female counterpart, his mate, his love.
Eva watched the on-screen lovers kiss and touch. Watched life flare between soul mates. Watched love weave golden ribbons in and out of their hair and sprinkle stars in their eyes. Watched as they took emotion to the end of the line while fiddles and soft flutes and deep bass tones spun a musical web of romance.
Eva wasn’t stupid. Nor was she unaffected.
So while the two lovers embraced, she leaned forward and set her wineglass on the table. Slowly, she eased back, fully aware that she was tossing caution to the wind. That she was taking a chance and reaching for whatever this night might bring.
Chapter Seventeen
TUCKING HER SHOULDER into the cove of Carson’s, Eva shifted on her hip to the side just enough to enable her to look into his eyes. What she saw there... oh, what she saw there. Her hands began to tremble. She held them still, lacing her fingers together. The look in his eyes promised rapture and Eva could hardly breathe.
He emptied his wineglass with their gazes locked, but didn’t bother with the coffee table. Instead, his glass disappeared between the sofa cushions behind him. The arm supporting Eva’s shoulders drew her closer. And then his mouth was on hers. His eyes remained opened. And while he kissed her, he watched her.
He tasted of Carson and he tasted of wine, dark and mysterious and rich and seductively warm. He was not gentle with his body when he turned and pressed her into the back of the sofa. He was not gentle with his eyes when he refused to release his hold on her gaze. He was not gentle with his tongue when he demanded she open her mouth.
She opened willingly. Tears rose in her eyes, tears that sprang from the sob lodged in a hard ball above her heart. Oh, Carson. He had never had to demand. He would never have to demand. She’d given him her all years before. And now she gave him even more.
She had never stopped loving him. She had never put her life on hold. She had never shut herself off from emotion.
The love she felt for Carson had continued all these years to reside in the deepest secret part of her heart. And in her mind as well, letting her know now exactly how strong a hold he had on her. As strong as the hold she had on him.
Whether fate or luck had brought them together this night, whether tonight was only a moment out of time or the beginning of a second chance, Eva wouldn’t take time to examine. That would come later. Much much later. After his hands had finished testing the elasticity of her pullover, after seeing for himself exactly how the fabric fit her rib cage and the not-so-flat flat of her stomach.
He didn’t bother checking to see how the material molded to her breasts—the one place she most wanted him to explore. He obviously found that endeavor a waste of time, moving instead straight to her hem and wiggling his big fingers underneath until he had the whole of his hand on her skin. The heel of his palm settled above the dent of her navel; the tips of his fingers grazed the cups of her bra.
He levered himself above her, moving his knees to either side of her hips, bracing himself with one arm behind her head along the back of the sofa. His weight, she had forgotten. But she had known him at a different time. With a different body, yet a body that was still the same. His taste was the same as well. But his kiss was not one of memories. It was of the moment. And she felt that they were making love for the very first time.
The hand beneath her shirt made quick work of the clasp of her bra, and Eva quivered at the teasing flutter of his fingers. And then his palm was measuring her fullness, her weightiness, his fingers drawing her nipple into a peak. A peak that invited his mouth. He lifted her shirt hem to her shoulders, but that wasn’t enough for he was impatient.
He groaned and he growled. “Sit up.” Again demanding. Again there was no need. She even helped him strip off both the pullover and the bra he found to be such a nuisance.
And then he had her flat on her back, and he settled his knees deep in the sofa cushions on either side of her thighs, hovering over her and alternately kissing, suckling, licking, and learning the changes to the curves of the body he’d introduced to passion.
Her breasts were going on thirty-seven, not barely eighteen. They showed the effects of age and gravity and too many uncomfortably hot Texas summer days spent without a bra. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but filling himself with her. He hummed and growled, panted and blew, the noises and the brush of his breath as arousing to her as they were a release to him.
“I wasn’t lying, you know,” he said, dragging his tongue from one nipple, between her breasts, and taking the other peak into his mouth.
She arched her back. “Lying?”
“In the rain, at Blooms.” He dropped a line of soft kisses up the length of her neck to her chin. “When I told you how beautiful you are. That you’re more beautiful now than you were when we were lovers.”
“You’re just horny.” She laughed. It had to be nervous excitement. Then she swooped in a sharp breath as he pulled hard on her skin with his lips. “Don’t. You’re going to leave a mark.”
“I’ve had a hard-on since I walked into your shop, Eva.” He’d moved lower on her body and he mumbled the words against her rib cage, but she heard them clearly enough. “Don’t tell me. Don’t.”
Hours ago, days ago, she would’ve taken offense. Now she knew the nature of the beast that was this attraction between them. A beast with long legs and strong arms. A beast that fed on lust and drank of romance and cultivated a feeling strong enough to have lasted for so many years.
She wasn’t offended.
Only equally aroused.
And determined to take her equal rights.
She crawled out from beneath him, until her head hit the arm of the sofa. She used the heels of her palms to push herself into a sitting position, used the same two hands to push Carson down flat on his back.
He didn’t argue or complain. At least he didn’t after he had untangled his legs from hers and from the sofa cushions and returned his cast to the floor. She planted her knees over his in a mirror of his earlier position. She splayed her hands over his pectoral muscles, and regretted not stripping him bare before getting him where she wanted him.
He seemed to feel the same, because he quickly shed his black T-shirt and threw it over the back of the couch. Then he took her hands and returned them to their previous position on his chest. And he circled his arms around her waist, resting his wrists on her hipbones.
“Much better,” he said, and Eva nodded her agreement. How could she not agree when her skin was on his skin? Her hands, which were no longer a model’s hands, on the chest of the man who was no longer a boy?
The fuzz of hair on his chest was thicker but not too dense, just enough to tickle her palms and the pads of her fingers. Using only her fingertips, she gently massaged her way to his collarbone and his shoulders, then back down his chest to his flat belly a
nd the softer, longer whorls of hair bisecting the ridge of muscle below.
“This is better, isn’t it?” She continued to explore and indulge in the tactile feast beneath her. She’d forgotten he felt this good. He’d never felt this good. This man’s body rising beneath her, the pressure of his erection hard and straining upward in the cradle of her bottom, was at the same moment new and as old as time.
Carson reached behind her, moving his hands from her waist to her backside and lower, his fingers exploring, pressing, kneading, squeezing. Eva ground against him because he’d managed to find— or had he remembered?—that incredibly erogenous spot between her legs where her inner thigh met the curve of her pelvic bone.
She lifted her chin, tossed back her head, allowed him to work his magic. With her hands flexing into his shoulders, Eva’s frustration grew, climbing until she let out a near agonized cry.
“You know, this would be a lot better if you’d take off your pants.”
A thrill raced from Eva’s fingers twined in Carson’s soft hair down to that part of her beneath the black denim he wanted to remove. It was a tempting proposition, getting naked with this tempting man, and probably not the wisest move for her to make at this time in her life.
But she didn’t care. Not about wisdom and caution. Or about what was right and what she needed. Because this was what she wanted. This man, this night, all of the here and now for as long as it lasted.
She’d been alone for too long.
Pushing against Carson’s body for leverage, she got to her feet and there in her living room, with the renewed sounds of battle raging on the screen behind her, she stood half naked in the darkness and allowed Carson to watch while she worked open the button, worked down the zipper of her jeans.
And then she stopped and smiled down at Carson where he lay on the sofa, hands stacked beneath his head, watching her, waiting for her to finish. She could see by the hot gleam in his eyes that he was anxious for her to finish, way beyond ready for her to finish.