“Van?” Her voice sounded unsure and he realized he’d been motionless for a minute or more. “Are you okay? Is everything all right?”
“Everything is perfect,” he said through a throat that had suddenly clogged with emotion. “You are perfect.”
Then he bent his head again, lower this time, to the neat thatch of blond curls at the apex of her thighs, then lower still to where her musky wetness called to him. Kayla’s thighs were trembling as they fell wider apart, allowing him to nestle between them, to feel their silky softness against the breadth of his shoulders.
He blew a cool stream of air against her glistening flesh and smiled as he heard the hitch in her labored breathing.
“Van Murphy, if you think you’re going to tease me now...” she threatened, closing her fingers in his short-cropped hair.
But he was far too much of a gentleman to keep her waiting. He nuzzled her tender spot and felt her thighs tighten around him.
“Yes, please. Right there.”
Her voice shook and he drew pleasure from the fact that he could make her feel so much. This woman, who was the light to his darkness, who was his polar opposite in so many things but who was his perfect match in bed. Van swirled his tongue around her clitoris, increasing the pressure with each moment and then easing it off. Kayla was begging him incoherently to give her the release he knew boiled just beneath the surface and it took every ounce of his considerable self-control to keep her teetering on that edge before he closed his mouth around her and sucked hard, flicking his tongue against the swollen bud.
Beneath him, Kayla’s hips rose involuntarily from the bed and her whole body tensed as the first wave hit her. He almost came in his shorts, her orgasm was so intense. Watching her, knowing he’d given her this pleasure, this moment of mindlessness beyond measure, made him feel stronger than anything he’d ever done before in his life. His shorts were an unwelcome constriction and he finally shucked them off. His erection, thick and heavy and aching so hard that he wondered if he’d be able to hold on as long as necessary, sprang free.
Van shifted, moving higher up Kayla’s body, positioning himself at her entrance. The sensation of her core’s heat against the sensitive head of his penis almost sent him hurtling over the brink. He paused, pulling on every ounce of reserve he had left.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he stated.
“For goodness’ sake, just make love to me, Van,” Kayla demanded, her voice sounding drunk on bliss and need.
Her hands were at his hips, the heels of her feet pressing on his buttocks as he slid inside her. A massive shudder shook his body as he sank full length inside. This was home, he realized. Not a house, not a place. But this woman, this moment, together.
He began to move, his hips thrusting with more vigor on each stroke. Kayla’s inner muscles tightened around him, increasing the intensity of his pleasure until with a cry she came undone again, her orgasm seeming to take control of them both as it pulled him over the edge and into a searing pleasure so powerful he felt as though his climax could go on into eternity.
The ripples of satisfaction were still running through him as he collapsed on the bed to her side and rolled her over him, still joined.
“If that’s the last thing I ever feel for the rest of my days, I’ll die a happy woman,” Kayla said against his chest before kissing him there. “I love you, Van.”
Her voice was thick, heavy, and within seconds she was asleep. Van lay there listening to her breathing, cradling her in his arms and waiting for his heart rate to return to some semblance of normal. But in the wake of her declaration, he knew that would be impossible. This should have been the moment when he felt at peace, but for some irrational reason, he’d never felt less peaceful in his life. The urge to get up and leave her was strong. He didn’t do this kind of thing, this depth of emotion, this level of connection to anyone. She loved him. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—love her. It was too much and too terrifying to contemplate. It left a person too open, too raw, too exposed.
His brain tried to argue with him. This moment with her, her declaration, it was too much to lose—she was too much, meant too much. Maybe he’d always known that deep down, always sensed that Kayla was the one who could make him this vulnerable inside. Make him want things he’d told himself it was safer to live without. She made him begin to believe that he deserved these things—a family, a rich life, love. But he knew he didn’t. All it would take was one slip. He’d screw it up eventually—people with his background always did.
She shifted a little in his arms and the warm puffs of her breath against his chest were painfully endearing. It would be all too easy to stay here, to wake with her later and to explore their sensual journey together over and over.
He had the sense that the walls were closing in on him. That he was being buried in a mire of emotion he had no idea how to handle. He knew he couldn’t do it. It had been a mistake the first time he’d made love with her and it had been a mistake this time, too. He couldn’t give her what she wanted, what she deserved. He would always let her down in the long run. It might as well be sooner rather than later, he decided as he gently extricated himself from her arms and slid from the bed, pausing a moment to pull the covers over her.
He picked up his towel and damp shorts from the floor and headed for the door. It wouldn’t have lasted between them anyway, even if he had been willing to try—he knew that. Nothing good ever did. Van flicked off the light switch and closed the door behind him.
* * *
Kayla woke the next morning and stretched languorously, reaching one arm over to stroke Van’s back. But her hand met nothing but cool sheets. It didn’t bother her at first. She knew he was an early riser and she’d become a late one recently with either Belle or Imelda getting Sienna up in the mornings. That would have to stop, she decided. It wasn’t fair to Belle to make her handle mornings when she was on call all night. And Kayla was feeling so much better now that she could take over her duties as Sienna’s mom properly again. Actually, today in particular she was feeling exceptionally well. She smiled and stretched again before swinging her legs over the side of the bed and getting up.
There was an energy surging in her body right now that made her want to step out onto her balcony, throw her arms out to the world and give thanks for the exceptional lovemaking she’d had with Van. That she was stark naked and that she could spy Jacob working the garden on the perimeter of the property were two very good reasons not to, she thought with a private smile.
She went to her bathroom and quickly showered and dressed for the day—eager to see Van and maybe suggest another family outing. Now that she’d admitted to herself and to him that she loved him, she wanted to explore those feelings further and, if possible, to coax his feelings out of him. The fact he’d come to her last night was a revelation. For once he’d put aside the distant businessman and become purely the man. And what a man. She still tingled and throbbed in the parts of her body that hadn’t experienced such rich sensual pleasure in a very long time.
Kayla skipped downstairs and went to the kitchen. As she approached, she heard Imelda coaxing Sienna to eat her cereal.
“Good morning!” Kayla said.
She went straight to her daughter’s high chair and plonked a kiss on the top of Sienna’s head.
“Good morning to you, too, Ms. Porter. You’re obviously feeling on top of the world today.” Imelda smiled back.
“I am. And I’m starving. I might even manage two slices of toast today,” she answered with a wink. Kayla then looked around. “Is Van around? I thought he might like to go out with Sienna and me today.”
“No, Ms. Porter. He left while it was still dark.”
A cold, sick sensation rippled through her. A sensation that was rapidly chased by a series of questions. He left? Where to? When? Why had he gone without saying goodbye?<
br />
“He didn’t mention anything about that to me. Did you know he was going away?” She was proud of the fact that none of her shock filtered through her voice.
“Not in advance, no. Some emergency overseas, apparently.”
“Doesn’t he have staff to deal with things like that?”
“You know Mr. Murphy. Always with the personal attention to detail. He takes a lot of pride in his work.”
“So where did he go?”
Imelda mentioned a well-known trouble spot and Kayla felt a fist of fear clutch her heart. “So you see,” Imelda concluded, “he wouldn’t have sent a staff member into an area like that. It’s such a volatile region and he’s always said he’d never send anyone anywhere he wasn’t prepared to go himself.”
Wouldn’t he? Kayla asked herself. Or had he, in the face of her declaration, just grabbed hold of an opportunity to run away—like he always did? With no goodbye, no message of when he’d be back. Tears burned in the back of her eyes and her throat choked on emotion. She thought he’d changed, that he was prepared to live up to his responsibilities here—to her, to his children. But she’d been so very wrong.
“He’ll miss Sienna’s first birthday,” she said bitterly.
Imelda nodded. “I know.”
How could he do this? Leave now after everything they’d shared? Kayla automatically went through the motions of putting her breakfast together but found she had no appetite at all when it came to eating it. She felt as if all the sunshine had suddenly fled her world. It was the past repeating all over again. Why, though? she asked over and over. Even if he wasn’t ready to pursue something with her, why would a man deliberately put himself in danger when he didn’t have to and when he had a responsibility to children here at home? It didn’t make sense to her at all. His children needed him in their lives. Not just as some transient male role model who turned up from time to time, but as a father who would guide them and love them and teach them about life and living it.
None of it made sense at all. He was the one who’d threatened to take both kids from her. He was the one who’d ensconced them here in this house and took over her life. He was the one who’d come to her last night and who’d made love to her like a man who felt love, not fear of where love would lead.
On the heels of her sorrow at discovering he’d gone came a sudden rise of burning anger. How dare he? He’d changed the parameters of their relationship with his actions last night—he had no right to renege on that by morning. And his duty to Sienna—how could he expect to swan in and out of her little world and choose to go somewhere from where he might not return?
Kayla had no trouble feeding the flames of her fury. In fact, they buoyed her through her day and the days that followed until Van’s return. The sweet, passionate, loving night they’d spent together was nothing but a distant memory two weeks later when he finally returned home, and she wasted no time cornering him in his office.
He was pale with exhaustion and still dressed in dusty fatigues, his T-shirt stretched across the broadness of his shoulders and his chest like a second skin.
“So,” she started without even a greeting. “You decided to stop hiding.”
* * *
Her words and tone were as sharp as shattered glass. It was no more than he deserved.
“Hello to you, too,” he replied, looking up from a stack of papers that had been couriered from his office in San Francisco earlier that day.
“Why, Van?”
He continued to look at her, drinking in her beauty. Even as angry as she clearly was, she pulled at him like a powerful magnet. A magnet he’d tried to ignore when he’d chosen to leave the way he had. The similarities between that night and their first together hadn’t escaped him. He’d slipped away like a thief in the night, telling himself it was for the best even while his heart argued that he should stay. But then, he’d long since gotten accustomed to ignoring his heart.
“What?” she prompted, folding her arms across her midsection. The look she gave him should have withered him on the spot. “Got nothing to say? Well, that’s just dandy because I have plenty.”
He stood there and took it as she unleashed her wrath with guns blazing. He’d earned it, every word, every accusation, and he hated every second of it—especially when she brought up Sienna’s birthday, which had been last week. He honestly hadn’t known—hadn’t bothered to find out. But it hurt to realize he’d missed it. Not that he’d ever show it.
It was one thing to come to a moment of truth by yourself; it was quite another to have it hurled at you. And everything inside him urged him to fight back. To tell her the truth. But he couldn’t find the words to say that he wasn’t enough for someone like her and he never would be.
“Are you quite finished?” he said when she finally wound down.
There were tear tracks on her face and he battled himself to ignore the deep regret that shafted him, together with the knowledge that he was the one solely responsible for putting them there.
“I’ll be finished when you can admit that you choose to deliberately put your life in danger rather than face up to your issues!” she raged once more. “I’m guessing you ran away because I told you I love you. Well, guess what—that’s not the worst thing that could happen to you. You won’t die because someone loves you—or because I love you. You don’t have to always be the hard man, the defender of the weak. You are allowed to show weaknesses yourself and to be vulnerable to another person, someone you can trust—like me.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t run away. I had work to do,” he said dismissively, even though he knew he was lying.
She hadn’t said anything that he hadn’t already thought of himself these past two weeks. But he wasn’t ready to admit that to anyone—not now, not ever. That would mean opening up a part of himself that had been locked down and secured far too long for him to even consider changing. Not for her, not for anyone.
He continued, deliberately choosing the words that would push her away. “I wasn’t running away from issues. I was running away from you.”
She whitened and appeared to sway a little under the cruelty of his words. Van fought back every instinct to claw the words back, to apologize, to put out a hand to steady her when she was so obviously shaken. Instead he remained very firmly where he was.
“I see,” she said quietly. “Well, thank you for being honest about that, at least.”
She turned and walked away. Van’s fists clenched tight at his sides, every muscle in his body locked as he held back the need to follow after her. It was better this way, he kept telling himself. She couldn’t love him; he wouldn’t let her. As vicious as he’d been, it was the right thing to do. It had to be because if it wasn’t, then he’d just sent away the best thing that had ever happened to him his whole miserable life.
Thirteen
Loving a man who didn’t love you and never would was a great deal more painful than Kayla could ever have imagined. Oh, sure, she’d had crushes on boys growing up, boys who hadn’t returned the favor, but this was another thing entirely. It left her heart sore and miserable to the extent that it was an effort to be upbeat for Sienna each day. Even Imelda had noticed, and between her and Belle, they seemed to be hell-bent on trying to cheer her up. But this wasn’t just a funk; this felt like the end of everything she’d never known she’d really wanted. And she wanted out.
She’d admitted to herself that despite everything, she truly wanted a real, permanent relationship with Van. But now she knew it to be an impossible dream. And living here, sitting across the table from him on the nights he was home for dinner or watching him spend time with Sienna, coaxing her to walk on her chubby little legs, was killing her inside. He’d never love her—she accepted that now—and she wasn’t about to be a moth to his flame until she drove herself senseless
with it. But she had to be here to fulfill the terms of their contract, even though staying in his house was a living hell—when he was here anyway, she reminded herself glumly.
Van was gone again on business—safely stateside this time, to her untold relief—when Imelda called her to the phone.
“Who is it?” Kayla asked as she reached for the handset Imelda held toward her.
“Ms. Matthews,” the housekeeper answered with a sour twist to her mouth.
There weren’t many people that Imelda disapproved of but there was no mistaking the antipathy reflected on her normally jovial face right now.
“Did she say what she wanted?”
“She didn’t deign to tell me,” Imelda sniffed.
Kayla took the call off hold and said hello.
“Kayla, I trust you’re well?” The other woman’s faultlessly modulated tones came down the line.
Kayla stifled the urge to rub her ear. “I’m fine, thank you. Van’s not here right now. Did you want to leave a message for him with me?”
“No, it’s you I wanted to speak to.” Dani paused a moment before continuing. “I wondered if you and I could meet and have a chat. Perhaps tomorrow morning at Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey, say eleven thirty?”
Kayla couldn’t hold back her surprise. “Why?”
“Let’s discuss that then. Can I take it that you’re amenable to that time and place? I trust you’ll be able to find a babysitter.”
Who the heck used words like amenable in conversation, Kayla thought before answering. Imelda, who could hear the conversation, rolled her eyes before nodding her assent.
“Yes, that’s not a problem. Eleven thirty it is, then.”
Dani mentioned the name of a restaurant and then ended the call.
“Mark my words,” Imelda said taking the phone back from Kayla. “She’s up to no good.”
“I have to admit I’m surprised she wants to see me. What on earth do we have in common?”
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