In Protective Custody
Page 18
The sun sank low, slipping behind the mountain range. Long shadows danced around her. It would be dark soon. Night fell quickly in the mountains.
She stood and dusted the dirt from the seat of her jeans, suddenly eager to get back to the cabin. Back to Max.
Dried leaves crunched under her feet as she jogged down the path toward the cabin. When she reached the edge of the woods, she caught sight of the cabin and stopped.
In the gathering dark, the soft purple light of dusk cloaked the small wooden house. Max had lit the porch in anticipation of her return, and the yellow light greeted her like an old friend, welcoming her home. Nestled among the vibrant red, orange and gold trees, the cabin reminded her of a Thomas Kinkade painting. The faint scent of burning wood and the curling smoke that rose from the chimney testified to the fire he’d made inside.
The coziness and invitation of the scene stole her breath and centered around the man who’d dragged the rocking chair to the front porch to wait for her. Max held Elmer in the crook of his arm, rocking slowly.
At that moment, something made him look up, and his gaze fixed on hers. A sweet tingling swept through her. The embracing warmth of the cabin, of having someone waiting for her, showed her by stark contrast how empty and cold her life had been. She’d maintained a life of isolation to protect her heart.
But here in the mountains, at this cabin, with Elmer, with Max, she’d found her home. Her family. Warmth.
Coming home to Max felt right. Felt good. So good.
Tears of joy filled her eyes as she crossed the lawn to the front porch. Max rose from the rocking chair and met her on the steps, his eyes reflecting a certain wariness along with compassion and concern.
“I was beginning to worry. You were gone a long time.” The deep, sexy rasp of his voice wrapped her in a hug even before she stepped into the embrace he offered.
Holding Elmer aside with one arm, he pulled her close to his other side and buried his face in her hair. Laura closed her own arms around his broad back, curling her fingers into the soft flannel of his shirt. She inhaled the comforting blend of wood smoke, laundry detergent and sunshine that clung to him. He smelled like the mountains, like man, like home.
“Laura, I don’t know what else I can tell you to—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips to silence him. Tipping her head back, she met the question in his dark eyes and smiled. “You don’t have to say anything. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
His black eyebrows lifted, and hope shone from his eyes.
“The truth has been right under my nose from the beginning,” she said. “I see it in the way you look at Elmer, the way you worry about Emily, the way you…take care of me. You have my faith, Max. My trust. One hundred percent.” She rubbed her finger slowly along his bottom lip, pressed herself closer to his side.
His breath escaped in a hiss, just before she brushed her lips against his.
“Ah, Laura,” he murmured on a sigh. His arm tightened around her, and he skimmed his hand up her spine, sinking his fingers into her hair and pulling her closer.
He angled his head, capturing her mouth with an achingly tender kiss. The moist heat of his tongue traced her lips, and she opened them to accept his gentle probing. She wound her fingers in his thick hair, sealing their mouths with a more aggressive kiss.
He groaned and drew harder on her yielding lips.
Need and desire burst into flame inside her. The fire grew, licking her with more intensity for each stroke of his tongue, each sweet caress of his lips on hers.
Her lungs’ demand for oxygen finally tore her away from his kiss. They both panted for breath while their gazes met and sparks of longing arced between them.
“I know what we agreed on, Max. But I want…I need you to make love to me.”
He moaned, and she felt the shudder that raced through him. Pressing a kiss to her forehead, he took a step back, pulling out of her arms. “Laura, I…”
A cold shard of ice stabbed her. Was he rejecting her? Panic swirled in her gut. “Please, Max.”
A bittersweet smile brightened his face, and his eyes glowed with warmth and promise. “You’re sure?”
She nodded, more confident in this decision than any she’d made in years.
He slipped his hand into hers and stepped back. “Let me settle the baby in for his nap.”
Relief swamped Laura, and she dropped her gaze to the infant sleeping in the crook of Max’s other arm.
They put Elmer into his homemade cradle, careful not to wake the sleeping child. Laura paused only long enough to realize the picture-perfect family the three of them made. She would gladly live out her remaining days offering herself to this man and child. They filled her, completed her. They gave her life purpose and color.
Then Max raised a burning gaze, scorching her with the desire in his eyes, and she melted.
“Come over here, sweetheart,” he whispered.
She did.
Chapter 15
Max’s arms closed around her, drew her close. When his mouth descended to hers for a voracious kiss, pure pleasure skittered through her veins. Sighing, Laura sank against his solid strength, letting him pull her with him onto the bed. He covered her with his body, and she reveled in the weight and width of him pressing her into the soft mattress.
Max skimmed his hands over her hips, her waist, her breasts, lingering long enough to graze her nipples with his thumbs. Jolts of sensation spiraled inside her, and she shivered with delight. Anticipation made a powerful aphrodisiac, and she’d been waiting for this moment with Max for so long.
Days. Weeks. Years, really.
She’d never felt safe enough with a man to share her body, had never dared to risk her heart. She’d saved herself for this moment. For Max.
He moved his hands along the curve of her throat before sinking his fingers into her hair. He wound his fingers through her curls and buried his face in the unruly waves, inhaling deeply.
“I love your hair,” he murmured. “The way it smells, the way it moves, the way it feels against my skin. So silky and soft.” He dropped a light kiss on her lips. “It’s sexy as hell.”
While combing his fingers through her hair, he flashed her a sly grin. “Do you have any idea how many times in the last couple of weeks I’ve fantasized about doing this, just running my hands through all your gold curls?”
She could only manage a lazy “hmm” in response. The gentle massaging of his fingers on her scalp left her thrumming with a heady lethargy.
He nudged her chin up with his thumbs to gain a better angle to seize her mouth again. He nipped lightly at first then staked his claim with a deep, searching kiss.
The muscles of his back rippled under her fingers as she stroked her hands over the expanse of his shoulders. The cottony fabric of his shirt felt good to her fingers but didn’t satisfy her. She needed to feel Max, heat and skin. Tugging on his shirt, she pulled it free of his jeans and bunched the material in her fingers until she could work her hands beneath. With a yank, he brought the shirt over his head, leaving her hands free to indulge.
She smoothed her palms down his chest, luxuriating in the strength and firmness of his muscles, the warmth of his skin and crispness of his dark hair. When she lightly dragged her fingernails over him, he groaned and caught her hand, kissing her fingers. “My turn.”
He tugged on her T-shirt, and her breath caught. Anticipation made her breasts tingle and her nipples peak. Max peeled her shirt and bra out of his way in one pass, and cool air nipped her skin. A husky growl rumbled from his throat as he raked his gaze, his fingers over her. “You are so beautiful.”
She gave him a nervous laugh, a shy smile and shook her head. “You don’t have to flatter me, Max.”
His dark eyes found hers, and a gentle glow lit his gaze. “You are beautiful, Laura. All the way to your soul.”
His words stirred something deep inside her. Her heart thumped harder, and emotion tightened her throat.
His hands roamed her body, his strokes charging every nerve ending until her whole body hummed. She sighed, dizzy with her growing need.
Plowing her fingers through his thick hair, she guided him back up and captured his mouth with hers.
While he reciprocated her kisses, his hand insinuated between her legs. The shock of his fingers against her most intimate spot jolted through her, and she gasped, tensed.
“Easy, sweetheart. You’re okay,” he murmured against her lips. The deep, velvety voice he used to calm Elmer soothed her, intoxicated her.
She was much better than okay. His fingers worked magic on her, probing, gliding, arousing. The rush of sensation, hot and tingling, hard and fast, stole her breath. “Ma-ax!”
Her climax crashed through her before she could do more than squeeze the sheet in her fists and bite back the moan that burgeoned in her throat. As the waves of pleasure strumming her body crested and receded, she released a slow cleansing breath.
“Not bad, hotshot.” She sighed, giving him a drowsy grin.
He levered up to brace on his arms and cast her a dark, irritated look. “Damn it, Laura. You did it again.”
She blinked at him, puzzled by his frustration, and more than a little concerned that she’d done something wrong out of inexperience. “What did I do?”
He pushed off the bed and unbuttoned his jeans. Shoving them down his legs, he held her gaze with a hot, hard stare. “A man needs better than ‘not bad.’ I need more.”
Despite the intensity in his burning gaze, her eyes shifted to admire his masculine beauty. Max naked was an impressive sight, and a thrill chased down her spine.
“I’ve had all the cold, boring, clinical sex I can stand in this lifetime.” His frustration, his complaints confused her.
Had she been boring and cold? The idea mortified her.
“Max? I—”
“You know what I want, Laura?” His obsidian eyes drilled into her as he climbed onto the bed and hovered over her. She saw more than just his irritation blazing in his gaze. She saw desperation, pleading and a need that reached deep into her soul, even though she didn’t understand it. More than anything, she wanted to give him what he sought.
“Tell me, Max. I want to give you what you need….”
“I want sweaty, satisfying, frantic sex,” he murmured on a low growl. His raspy voice stirred a tingle of expectation. His tone, his heated stare, the hard set of his jaw hinted danger. But she didn’t fear him. Instead, the rough edge, his intensity was provocative, breathtaking. He worked himself between her legs and ground his hardness against her, as if to leave no doubt how aroused he was.
“I want it raw and wild,” he muttered darkly, his lips ghosting over her cheek before he bit gently on her earlobe.
She worked hard to swallow, finding her mouth had gone dry. Just his words, the way he whispered them in her ear, set her on fire. She panted for air, her anticipation allowing her to draw only shallow breaths.
He captured her head between his hands, and his penetrating gaze seemed to ask permission to satisfy the needs he’d spelled out to her in graphic detail.
She couldn’t speak; her voice had fled from the first press of his naked body to hers. Instead she answered with a kiss. She fused their mouths, showing him with her ardor, her willingness to give him whatever she could, surrendering herself to his mercy.
He groaned and gathered her closer, squeezing her so tightly in his arms that she could barely breathe. But she didn’t care.
Their tongues dueled and danced; their mouths searched and seared. There was an urgency about the way he held her and kissed her that she couldn’t quite understand. But she didn’t question his need; she only sought to satisfy it, to fill him the way he did her. She’d give him whatever it took to quiet the demons that tortured him and drove him to this frenzy.
His hands explored her restlessly. He moved against her, rubbing himself along the heat between her thighs. She responded, meeting his thrusts with her own, undulating her hips in the rhythm and sway that came naturally. Her body grew damp with perspiration, and his skin became equally slick. She lost herself in the frenetic meshing of their lips, the pulsing pace of their overheated bodies.
He shifted, reached between them, and she felt him poise himself, ready to enter her.
She opened herself to receive him, with her body as well as her heart.
Max groaned and plunged into Laura’s welcoming warmth with a long, smooth stroke. She cried out, her body bowing up beneath him, and he muffled her moan with a kiss.
Her body was so tight, so sweet and slick that he, too, could have shouted from the ecstasy. He’d suspected he was her first, but now he had his proof. The lonely woman who’d learned to keep herself emotionally isolated, who had no friends checking up on her, wouldn’t have allowed a man close enough to give him her virginity. Bittersweet humility for the gift she’d given him burrowed to his core. He hesitated several excruciating seconds, giving her body time to adjust to him, time to relax.
He’d make her first time special. His pride demanded it. He might not be able to give her a baby, but he damn well could satisfy her in bed. He could, would make her first experience memorable.
She stroked his cheek. “I’m all right, Max. Really.” The tiny grin that tugged the corner of her mouth, curving her sexy lips, was playful, naughty. “In fact, I’m better than all right.” She moved her hips, taking him deeper into her with a sigh. “You’d better finish what you’ve started, hotshot. Don’t hold out on me now.”
He kissed her hard, kissed her thoroughly. Then he moved again, slowly at first, stroking her with long, easy motions.
When he teased her nipples, they beaded in his fingers. Her quick response to his touch was deeply satisfying. And a tremendous turn-on.
She whimpered as he nibbled her chin, sighed when he pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses at the pulse point of her throat. The sounds rippled through him like lava, heating his blood. He watched her face, gauging her progress and her reactions. She held his gaze, and the faith he saw reflected in her expression reached deep inside him, turned his heart inside out.
Then she closed her eyes tightly, arched her throat and made a little mewling sound. Her legs gripped him harder. Her fingers dug into his back. Max thrust deeper, harder, his own body shaking from the effort not to shatter before she was ready. Ladies first.
The first pulse of her body contracting around his sent him careening into nirvana. With a roar of sweet release, he pumped into her three years of waiting for the right woman, three years of abstinence.
He clutched her close as she trembled and clung to him, his own body quaking. It had been a long time, granted, but he couldn’t remember anything close to the powerful and moving experience he’d just shared with Laura.
He collapsed, rolling her on top so that he didn’t crush her. And he held her while they gasped for a steady breath.
“Well, hotshot, I’d say—”
“Don’t you dare say that was not bad.” He opened an eye and quirked a grin.
She laughed. “I was going to say that it’s a good thing your nephew is a sound sleeper. We haven’t exactly been quiet.”
He caught her fingers and pressed a kiss to her palm. “One thing we Caldwells do well is sleep. Emily was always a bear to get out of bed in the morning.”
He thought of his sister, lying in the New Orleans hospital unconscious, and grief twisted inside him.
“Max, what is it?” Laura rolled off him and cuddled under his arm. She flattened her hand on his chest and raised a gentle, searching expression to meet his gaze.
&
nbsp; “Emily’s worse. She’s had a setback.”
Laura propped up on an elbow, and her brow puckered in concern. “Oh, no! What happened?”
He explained what the doctor had told him over the phone, and her hold on him tightened.
“Her doctor is hopeful, but…”
She settled under his arm again and sighed. “I could tell you were upset earlier, but I let that dumb article throw me. I should have known it wasn’t the whole picture.”
“The whole picture, darling, is worse than you think. Don’t suppose the article mentioned the Rialtos’ connection to drug smuggling?”
Laura bolted upright in the bed. “What?”
He frowned and nodded. “Emily found out after she married Joe. Now the Rialtos want to raise Elmer in their world of drugs and violence.” Max drilled Laura with a determined glare. “But I won’t let that happen. Emily entrusted her son’s life, his protection to me so that he didn’t grow up in a crime family.”
She nodded. “I believe you.”
He absorbed her words, her faith in him like a dry sponge soaking up water. She quenched a part of his soul that thirsted for just the kind of affirmation and respect she gave him. But he sensed something more. Something Laura didn’t verbalize, though it shone in her eyes.
She was falling in love with him.
His gut tightened. He hadn’t meant for that to happen, but he should have seen it coming. Laura was an all-or-nothing kind of person, devoting all of herself, as she had to Elmer, or giving nothing, as she had earlier with him.
But they’d made love, and she’d crossed the line with him. A heartsick, sinking feeling settled in him. Bitter disappointment clawed his heart. He couldn’t give her the future he knew she dreamed of. The family. The commitment.
His infertility made him the wrong man for Laura.
“Sweetheart, there’s something else I think you should know.” He tipped her chin up. Better to set the record straight now.