by Vicki Hinze
He fought the urge to just tell her and have it done. But not only she was feeling vulnerable. And not only she was afraid. “If you could love, and you could choose, would you choose to love me?” Why was he pushing her? He knew the muddle her father had made of her emotions. He knew the risks his loving her would bring to her, as well. But he wanted her so—
Her lids dropped closed. A little shudder rippled through her. Her jaw lifted and her lips sealed together. A breathless moment passed, then another. She tensed, forcibly broke the seal, then opened her eyes and met his gaze. “I think I might.”
His heart nearly stopped. I think I might. The words echoed off the walls of his mind, slid down his windpipe, then rattled in his lungs. They pumped through the chambers of his heart, rousing emotions he’d thought dead and buried, then raced through his veins and pounded in his loins, swelling that turgid part of him until it thrust hard against zipper and placket, against the soft warmth of her side. The tender hitch he’d felt on her dragging him over the rocks, on seeing that tear slide down her cheek when he’d kissed her under the cobwebbed steps outside the Blue Moon Cafe, intensified, and more than anything he longed to tell her how much she meant to him. “You know I want you.” Want? Want? Crave. I crave you, Maggie.
He tried, but couldn’t make himself give her the words. They both feared them, he realized. But he could show her. Body and soul, he ached to show her. “Maggie,” he choked past a lump of emotion in his throat. “Let me make love with you.”
She shivered and stretched, looping her arms around his neck. “Yes.”
“Without regrets later?” He swallowed hard, let his thumb caress her creamy cheek. “I don’t want regrets between us, Maggie. Our bond is too... special.” He’d die a thousand deaths each time he saw regret in her, too. Nothing was worth that.
She slid over the cushion, then stood up and looked back at him, her silk blouse creased from where it had been crushed between them, her pulse pounding at her throat. “No regrets, Tyler.”
His heart ricocheting off his ribs, he stared at her bare toes and gave her yet another chance to change her mind, scared dry-mouthed that she would, and that she wouldn’t. “This is what you want, too?”
She nodded.
A niggling fear her nod didn’t nullify grew full-blown. “This has nothing to do with the entity, right? I mean, it didn’t tell you to—”
“No, it didn’t tell me to do this.” She smiled and let her appreciation for him shine in her eyes. “Is it that hard for you to believe that a healthy woman would find you attractive, MacGregor?”
“Not really. I mean, I haven’t had—” Well, hell. Now he was coming off as a conceited jerk. God, he hadn’t been this nervous since he’d hit puberty. Life-altering. This was. Changed forever. They were. Believe, Tyler. Believe.
She laughed. “I know what you mean.”
He gave her a sheepish grin. “I just thought that you might feel differently. You don’t, um, react to me as other women do.”
She laced her arms over her stomach, akimbo. “I hope not.”
He bit a smile from his lips, gave in to the urge to tease her. “Some of those reactions are darn nice, Maggie Wright.”
“And some of them, no doubt, are responsible for that attitude of yours. I adore you, MacGregor”—she walked the three steps to him and, breasts to chest, lifted her hands then curled them around his sides—“but your attitude just has to go.”
Sweetheart. Darling. I think I might. She adored him? This room definitely held magic. They might just stay in it forever. “I kind of like the attitude. Subtle revenge isn’t so hot, but I’m developing a real liking for avoiding it.”
She worried her lip with her teeth. “Then avoid it right now, mmm?”
Believe, Tyler. Believe.
Trembling inside, T.J. scooped her up into his arms, then walked with her over to the high four-poster bed.
The woman in his arms came across as sassy, nipping at his neck, but she was every bit as nervous as he. Her heart raced like a rabbit’s against his ribs. He lowered her onto the bed then pressed her shoulder back against the pillow. Her hair spilled over her eyes and, one knee near her hip, one foot on the floor, he threaded his fingers through the silky strands, smoothed it back from her face, stirring her intoxicating scent. Soft light from the lamp spilled over her cheek, and he saw it blush rosy. “I’m sure about this, Maggie. I want you to know that. I mean, this isn’t just sex.” What was it? What could he tell her to make her understand? He couldn’t love her. He didn’t dare to love her because his love could kill her. How could he explain? “It’s... more.”
She nodded and looked up at him. No words passed her lips, but she lifted a fingertip and touched it to his nose, let it drift down its slope, then settle over his mouth.
Needing reassurance, he nipped at her fingertip. “Are you sure?”
Maggie didn’t smile. Deep down inside, a part of her wanted to, but she couldn’t do it. Words once spoken flashed through her mind, declared war within her. And the battle raged. When you only have a little left and you lose anything at all, it’s a lot, Maggie. How right he’d been. How very right he’d been. She had so little left to lose! It’s like quicksilver. Don’t let it slip through your fingers. No, no she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. If not that rare love like Cecelia and Collin’s, like Miss Hattie and her soldier’s, if not love at all, then whatever these feelings for MacGregor inside her were, she wanted to share them with him. “I’m not sure about anything. Not anymore,” she said, giving him the only answer she could.
Oh God. Was she going to change her mind? He stilled, stared at her, his breath trapped somewhere between his throat and lungs, knowing if she stopped now he couldn’t blame her, he wouldn’t blame her, but he’d regret. God, but would he regret. Them stopping was the sensible thing to do. Already the emotions stirred between them raged too powerfully. They both should be sensible. Should... God, but would he regret..
The wait for her decision ended. Possible regret died. Her hands skimmed up his sides to the buttons of his shirt, her eyes determined, courageous, her chest heaving and the side of her left breast brushing against his ribs. When the last of his buttons came undone, she tugged the tail of his shirt from his slacks and it fell open, baring his chest to her. Trembling, she slipped her fingers beneath his shirt, then smoothed their tips over his shivering skin, clavicles to navel then ribs to back, as far as the fabric stretched taut would allow, studying the peaks and coves and contours of him. Pressing her palms flat on his chest, she hissed in a slivered breath and a little moan erupted from her throat. “Tyler.”
“Mmm?” It was all he could manage.
She tilted her chin ceiling-ward and smiled. “Hurry.”
Something warm and wonderful burst inside him, and he pushed himself onto the bed and claimed her lips. Her arms closed around him. She hooked the back of his knee with her foot and urged him closer, then closer still, her silky blouse sliding between them like a thin, slick film, and again he heard her words race through his mind: Believe, Tyler. Believe...
Awash in a sea of sensation, Maggie slid over the threshold from lucidity to sensual madness. For a man she’d so often accused of blowing her fantasies, MacGregor had created even more. And those fantasies, borne of deep-seated needs and hungers unfulfilled, all paled to the reality of being in his arms. He trembled at her slightest touch, whispered lover’s secrets into the shells of her ears, the soft hollow of her throat. Husky, tender words so dear to the heart, awaited so long with the fear she’d never hear them. Breast to chest, his heart clamored in sync with her own, and she cursed her clothes yet again because they touched him, an unwelcome barrier that kept her from feeling him flesh to flesh. He lifted her, jerked at the coverlet beneath her, then tossed it back to the foot of the bed. With a muttered oath and a lack of patience, he sprawled out. MacGregor was a big man, and that he wanted lots of room to love her had a thrill of sheer pleasure rippling through her woman’s heart. H
e shoved a pillow aside. It tumbled onto the floor. He kissed her triumphantly, then stretched over her to turn off the lamp. She locked her arms tighter around him, refusing to let him. “No, leave it on. I want to see us loving.”
He smiled.
She smiled back and rubbed his calf with the arch of her foot.
“Maggie,” he murmured throatily and took her mouth in a searing kiss.
The swirl of tongues, the roaming of hands, the luxurious sounds from deep in his throat had her senses rioting, rich and thick and as sweet as honey. Nuzzling her thigh with his hips, that part of him most longing strained, seeking that part of her most yearning. She twisted, knees bent, feet flat on the crumpled sheets, then let them fall slack and he stretched out full length atop her, his placket and the hardness of him surging against it, burrowing deep at her belly. His lips glided over her face, cheek to chin, down her throat to the vee in her blouse, then he nibbled at the top button, working it loose, mimicking his fingers, freeing the others. His breath hot against her quivering flesh, his welcome scent filling her lungs, he ignited fire upon fire in her, flames that burned far deeper than the skin he touched.
Her blouse fell open and he let his weight slide down, angling his hip close to hers, sandwiching her legs between his thighs. His chest tight against her side, he reached up and spread the silk, baring her smooth stomach, a scrap of enticing lace, then looked down into her eyes. ‘I’ve dreamed of this, Maggie,” he whispered, trailing his fingers over the cut-lace iris that shielded her nipples and dipped low in the valley between the swells of her breasts. He traced the edge of the lace, let his full palm smooth over and cup her gem-tipped fullness, then fit fingertips between band and skin beneath the center clasp. The fabric went tight, digging into her flesh, then fell slack, baring her breasts to the cool night chill, to his hot, hungry eyes.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to the valley between, the mounds grown heavy, eagerly awaiting his touch.
With lips and hands he adored her, fulfilling dreams she never dared to acknowledge must less to dream. Slumbering nerve endings awakened a gnawing need to rid them of barriers of clothes and secrets and lies, to feed the desire to give and give and give. She grazed his sides, rib to hip, circled the waist of his slacks, supped on his skin at shoulder and throat. Squaring her hands, she loosened hook from eye. Her hands grew sensitive, the fabric grew rough, and feeling him beneath it, hard against her palm, she stroked him once... twice... then a third time with the heel of her hand. Feeling his tremors brought sheer delight and, empowered to explore, she caught the zipper between her forefinger and thumb then lowered it to the sounds of metal teeth grinding, to breath being sucked in that hollowed abdomen. He shuddered hard. It rippled through her fingertips to her core and she whispered urgently, “MacGregor, hurry.”
He reared back onto haunches, then hauled her up. Kneeling face to face, he reached for her zipper with unsteady hands, desire’s fire burning deep in his glazed eyes. “God, woman, I do love your appetite.”
She raked at his nipple with her teeth. “If you don’t feed me soon, I’m going to die, MacGregor. Starved-to-death women don’t do much redeeming.”
He laughed out loud. “Can’t have that.”
“Certainly not.”
In a tangle of arms and legs and giggles of pure delight, they shed the rest of their clothes. A sock slung left, the other right. His slacks heaved to the floor, a jangle of keys and change and a roll of wintergreen mints that skidded across the planks then thumped into the wall. When she wound up her arm to toss her panties aside, he snatched them from her, grinned wickedly, then draped them on the bedpost, setting off another round of laughter. They fell into each other’s arms, kissed longingly, lovingly, teeth grazing at teasing taunts and answering smiles, and explored those parts of them that until now remained hidden and secreted and often imagined. His hands grew less gentle, more greedy, her mouth less tender, more demanding. The laughter lingering in their spirited foreplay died on their lips, its presence usurped by needs of their bodies and hearts and urges to meld grown fierce.
“Maggie?”
“Hurry!”
He laid her back against the pillow, fitted a condom on himself then nestled between her thighs. “I’m going to love you like no man ever has loved you,” he whispered, his voice full-throated and raw. “I want you to feel everything you make me feel. I want—”
“To show me.” She cupped his face in her hands, the look in her eyes tender, twin mirrors of understanding.
“Yes.” He kissed first her one palm and then the other. “Yes.”
Maggie didn’t hesitate. The need and longing he willingly let her see arrowed straight to her heart. She arched her spine, thrust her hips to welcome him.
Seeking, he found, then sank into her body in a fluid stroke. Like hand to glove they fitted together, and he nestled, then stilled, murmuring not a sound.
Impatient, she pushed against him, urging him to move.
“Wait, Maggie. Wait.” His arms bent on either side of her head, he reared back on elbows, eyes closed, expression enraptured. “I knew it’d be like this. I knew...” He shuddered and found her lips.
What he meant, she’d no idea, but if he didn’t move soon, she’d die of impatience. “Darling, please.”
He smiled against her neck, raked at her skin with his teeth, clearly pleased to find her as thirsty as he, then bowed his back and slowly began the rhythm as natural and innate as drawing breath, as lacking in guile as smiling on feeling joy, as honest as weeping when that joy grew so great that it made tender the heart.
Maggie matched him stroke for stroke, need for need, and totally indulged her every lavish whim in loving him. They might only have this once, and she wanted no regrets, no part of him secret to any part of her. She committed every nuance to memory, every lush and shuddered sigh and soft gasp, every ripple and quiver of muscle and flesh. In the nights ahead, when alone and remembering this night, she would recall with perfect clarity each beloved sensation, each resonant sound and heady scent, and each gentle touch of his hand. She would, God help her, have the opportunity. When he learned the truth, she’d have only these memories, never again the loving man, to hold her.
Desperation fired in her soul. Coherent thought lapsed. Feelings, senses, and unquenchable heat reigned. The whorl of their loving spun around her, through her, coiling magic that wound tighter and tighter in her thighs. Certain if ecstasy could kill, she’d surely die, she let it reach in and claim her.
Rocked by tremors, she watched him, pumping hard above her, his shallow breaths thrusting from his lungs, his skin sweat-sheened and glowing in the soft lamplight. He rounded his back then thrust, hollowing spine and buttocks, driving her deep into the bed, then cried out her name.
She stroked him until his spasms ceased, until their sweat-soaked bodies dried then grew cool, unable and unwilling to let him leave her. When his breathing slowed to a canter, he rolled onto his side, bringing her with him, and nose-to-nose, kissed her with tender and light loving brushes of lips to her eyelids, her nose, the tip of her chin, giving her the gentleness now that before hunger denied them.
He broke their kiss, his hand cupping her jaw and looked at her, unsmiling. “I believe in you, Maggie.”
Her heart already full, overflowed, and tears swam in her eyes. A lot of miracles have happened inside these walls. Miracles... Miracles... Miracles...
Life-altering.
He believed.
Far too emotional to speak, she nodded.
Curling her close, he buried her face to his chest and sighed contentedly. “Honey?”
Satiated, limbs heavy, eyelids drooping, she mumbled, “No regrets, darling.”
“No regrets.” He let out a totally masculine growl and cupped her breast in his warm hand. “I still want you in that garden tub.”
She wanted that, too. Oh, how she wanted that, too. Lies between you. When you only have a little left and you lose... “Not ye
t, Tyler.” Not until we can do for our hearts what we’ve done for our bodies. No barriers. No secrets. No lies.
“Soon, mmm?”
Settling her head on his chest, she snuggled closer to him and gave him the one lie she prayed proved truth. “Soon.”
Maggie awakened during the night. MacGregor’s arm lay over her bare breast, their thighs and calves were tangled with the sheets. Did she love him? If for a second she believed she could love, she would say she did love MacGregor. But it’d take a miracle for her to believe.
Her heart heavy, she looked into his sleeping face. Relaxed and at ease, he was even more gorgeous to her. A flow of tenderness washed through her, and more guilt settled in its wake.
She’d shared her body and part of her heart with this man, but not all of her. She hadn’t let him into her soul. She’d wanted to, but she hadn’t been able to do it. Lies by omission were still lies. And her lies stood between them like a concrete wall.
Their lovemaking had been wonderful—a perfect blend of laughter and intense, sensual delight—but it had suffered from the slight of her holding back. She didn’t regret making love with him, but for the first time in her life she understood the costs of those barriers that sealing off a part of herself while making love with a man who meant so much to her entailed. For a moment—one very brief, very shining moment—she’d let down her guard, let him touch that innermost part of her, and she’d glimpsed what their lovemaking could be like. But her guilt had intruded and that perfect unity of body and spirit had disappeared in a flash. She hated it. And she prayed that someday she’d have the courage to tell him the truth. That he wouldn’t hate her for it. That she’d again have the chance to make love with him, holding nothing back. From that glimpse, she knew it would be the most magnificent, fulfilling experience of her life.