by Judi Fennell
He kissed the hollow below her ear, then drew his tongue along the rim and Beth re-clenched her thighs.
“Want me?” he whispered in her ear.
She made some sort of response, half moan, half mew, and she felt his smile against her cheek.
“Hold that thought,” he whispered before he pulled away.
Completely away. As in, climbed-off-her-body-and-the-bed sort of way.
“Where are you going?” Dear God, he wasn’t going to leave her like this, was he?
“Right here, baby.” He picked up his shorts and pulled something out of the pocket that he tossed on the bed beside her.
Condoms.
“That many?” Either he had a very high opinion of himself or he had an amazing idea about her.
“Don’t you worry, Beth, we’re going to use every single one.”
“Bryan, there’s at least a dozen there.”
“Uh-huh.” He crawled back up the bed, straddled her again, his cock jutting out right over the very spot that wanted it so badly inside, and ripped a condom package with his teeth. “Want to do the honors?” He held it out to her.
Beth’s hands trembled as she rolled it on—awkwardly. Figured. She couldn’t be smooth in the moment, but she and Mike hadn’t used those in over a decade. It wasn’t as if she had tons of practice.
“You don’t have to be shy with me, Beth.” He covered her hands with his and worked it on the rest of the way. “I like that you’re not used to doing this. I like knowing I’m the only man other than your husband who’s been in this bed with you.”
“I thought you said you weren’t as generous as he was? You’re willing to share the so-called honors?”
“Baby, just being with you is an honor. Anything else is a gift and I’m so humbled by you allowing me to be here like this with you. For wanting me enough to welcome me in. I know you aren’t the casual kind of woman and I’m so touched by this gift.”
He kept talking about gifts and generosity as if she were making some sort of sacrifice, but the reality was, she wanted Bryan with a passion she’d thought she’d lost.
“Make love to me, Bryan.” She opened her legs and her arms. And her heart.
Because Bryan was right; she wasn’t the casual sort and for her to do this, to be so open and so welcoming and accepting, and not feel self-conscious or shy or nervous, that meant that she cared for him. More than just his public persona, more than a man who could take her to physical satisfaction, she knew Bryan and she liked that man. Wanted that man.
Loved that man.
The admission crept over her as he slid inside her and to Beth it was the most natural thing in the world, both to be with Bryan so intimately and to acknowledge her feelings for him. There was no panic, no worry, no indecision. The act of loving him emotionally was as natural to her as loving him physically, so the two became one.
Now where had she heard those words before?
• • •
BRYAN’S breath caught in his throat as he slid inside Beth. God, how he wished he didn’t have to wear the damn condom. She was the one woman he wanted to be skin-to-skin with. But that was a whole other level of trust and emotion and he was just thankful she was open enough for this.
She clenched around him as he started to move and Bryan had to squeeze his eyes, the pleasure was so intense, the emotion so powerful that he was afraid it was bringing tears to his eyes.
He slid his hands into her curls, those soft, silky curls that’d been teasing him for so long. He couldn’t have imagined just how perfect they were. Not like this. Not without touching them and inhaling the scent of her shampoo and feeling the fine strands caress his face. He kissed her jaw line, then along her hairline, wanting to kiss every inch of her face, but being drawn so strongly to her lips that he had to forcibly restrain himself or he might scare her with the passion he wanted to claim them with.
“Kiss me, Bryan,” she whispered as her hands gripped his lats and slid down over his ass, clenching him as her inner muscles clenched him. She wrapped her legs around his thighs and he felt her lock her ankles, her thighs widening, allowing him to sink deeper inside her, and the symbolism wasn’t lost on Bryan.
And he not only didn’t care, but he welcomed it. He wanted to be so close to Beth, so caught up in her, that he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. It truly was a gift, her allowing him to be like this with her.
It was also hot as hell. Especially when she pretty much forced his lips to hers—not that he was unwilling, but he’d wanted to kiss his way there from her earlobe again and she wasn’t having any of that.
So Bryan let her have him.
Beth kissed him with a passion he’d dreamed of and then some, because he hadn’t wanted to let himself imagine it being like this. But Beth was everything he wanted her to be. Sexy and giving and willing and wanting and taking everything he had to give.
He thrust inside her, wanting to be as close as two people could be physically, wanting to feel her around him, taking him in, wanting him, needing this contact between them, and when she called out his name, her neck arching as her fingernails scored his back, her thighs clenching him with each thrust, meeting him motion for motion, sweat slicking their skin as they glided against each other, Bryan felt a rush of emotion roll over him as if it were a wave on the shore, and he couldn’t contain the shudders that raked through him or the pounding he had to do inside her, to feel her, to bring her the same pleasure she brought to him, and it was all he could do to keep from coming until he felt her start to shiver, her breaths coming in short, quick gasps, his name lost among them. Bryan pushed them both a little further, a little higher, until at last, he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t halt the ride that was better than any of the roller coasters they’d ridden. The sensations overwhelmed him, and for a few seconds there—for a brief moment unlike he’d ever had before—Bryan thought he could see his future stretched out before him, as if heaven was giving him a glimpse of what could be.
And then he came. That stomach-twisting moment when it rushed upon him and Bryan couldn’t see anything but the insides of his eyelids as he had to pound into her to feed this unbelievably, amazingly intense ache that he never wanted to end.
It doesn’t have to . . .
He wasn’t sure if she whispered it or he’d thought it, but the idea stayed with Bryan as he felt the tremors shudder through her, heard her call out his name in a way that was guaranteed to prolong his orgasm—which it did—then wrapped his arms around her so tightly to stop them both from coming apart at the seams in the aftermath, until he spooned himself around her, kissing her cheek, her ear, her shoulder, his fingers intertwined with hers against her breasts, his foot rubbing her smooth legs as he curled his leg over them. For a moment, just a tiny one but it was there, Bryan almost said the three words he hadn’t thought he’d ever say.
Almost.
But he didn’t.
Idiot.
Chapter Thirty-five
SHE was in bed with Bryan Manley.
The man she loved.
Beth let the smile curve over her lips in the early morning sunlight. He was asleep at her back, his face buried in her hair, the soft puffs of his breath tickling the curve of her shoulder, but Beth wasn’t about to move. She was in love with Bryan Manley. And not the Bryan Manley, the heartthrob millions of women thought they were in love with, but the Bryan Manley who cleaned toilets and rescued her dog and taught her son to build a clothesline. Who colored with her daughter and didn’t mind putting on a tiara or having a tea party to make a child—her child—happy. That was the man she was in love with.
Unfortunately, that man was also the same person as the heartthrob, and the heartthrob had dreams that didn’t include kids and dogs and tea parties.
This weekend was a gift. A moment in time. She was going to enjoy it while she had it and treasure it when he was gone. And she’d let him go back to that life with no pressure from her.
“I can h
ear you thinking.” His breath tickled her ear now.
She scrunched up her shoulder. “You can’t hear thoughts.”
“Sure you can. Your breathing picked up and your fingers are twitching.”
“That’s not hearing; that’s feeling.”
He spread his palm over her breast. “Feeling has a lot to recommend it.”
She put her hand on his and pressed it against her. He might think she was pressing it into her breast for sexual reasons, but she was really pressing it against her heart because that’s where he’d always be.
“Ah . . . It’s true what they say.”
“Oh?”
“Great minds do think alike.” He gently squeezed her breast.
Okay, so it wasn’t just because he was in her heart that she wanted him to touch her there.
She wiggled back into him. Yup, another part of him was just as awake as she was.
“God, Beth, don’t do that. I don’t know if there are any more condoms left.”
“We did not go through a dozen of them.”
“Close.”
“Bryan, you’re exaggerating. You’re not Superman.”
“But I could play him on the screen.”
She wiggled again, one time. Hard. “Tease.”
“In a good way, I hope.”
She wiggled again. “Appears so.”
“I meant for you. If you’re too sore, Beth, or too tired, or sick of me . . .”
She flipped around so fast she could tell he hadn’t been expecting it. She cupped his face. “Bryan Matthew Manley, don’t you dare say such a thing. I chose you to be the first man in my bed since my husband’s death; that’s not a decision I took lightly. I’m very glad you’re here and you’re welcome to stay for as long as you like.”
That was the problem; he wanted to stay forever. But he didn’t do forever. Not here and not at this point in his career. People’s Sexiest Man Alive was just around the corner, according to his agent, once this movie released; he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. A wife and five kids would take him out of the running—
Whoa whoa whoa! A wife and kids? So you’re thinking along those lines, are you?
He didn’t know what the hell he was doing; he just knew he couldn’t do it here in this town. He was here for the weekend; that was it. Then it’d be back to the hot lights, er, bright lights of Tinseltown, and on his way up the ladder of his career.
Oh crud, he’d meant to get her ladder out of her shed and move it to the garage. The gutters were going to need to be cleaned before fall.
“Okay, what are you thinking now? Your face just got a funny look on it.”
“Gutters.”
“Gutters? I mean, I know I was a little uninhibited last night, but I don’t think anything we did could be classified as in the gutter, do you?” Beth nibbled her bottom lip.
That move was sexy. Everything she did was sexy. Kissing him, moaning his name, undoing his shorts . . . Even picking up Sherman’s toys and hanging laundry were sexy when Beth did them.
Speaking of Sherman, there was some scuffling going on in the kitchen. “The dog’s up.”
“So is Mrs. Beecham. Which is why Sherman’s up. She likes to poke him in the morning.”
Bryan arched his back. “I’m not averse to poking in the morning, either.”
Beth rolled her eyes with a smile. “I have to let Sherman out or his ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ is going to start any second.” She kissed him quickly—too quickly—and got out of bed.
She picked up her T-shirt.
“Don’t.”
She looked at him with the shirt over her arms, just ready to stick her head through. “Don’t?”
“Don’t put that on. Can’t you let him out like that?”
“Naked?”
He didn’t know if she was more appalled at the idea or the fact that she actually was naked in front of him. “Yes, naked. I want to think of you walking around like that and I’m the only one who can see you.”
“Uh, hate to burst your bubble, Bryan, but the curtains are all open downstairs. The entire neighborhood could get a good view if I went down like this.” She pulled the shirt over her head. “But I’ll keep the panties off if that’ll make you feel better.”
The little imp was out the door with a shit-eating grin while he was still trying to absorb that mental and visual blow.
She was walking around her house without her panties on. The ones he’d peeled off her.
Bryan groaned while he smiled. God, this was fun. And amazing. And absolutely perfect. Beth was absolutely perfect. And maybe if she didn’t have a ready-made family, they could give this a go.
Seriously? You’re going to toss the kids out?
He sat up and raked his hands through his hair. No, of course he wasn’t. Beth and the kids were a package deal and, honestly, he liked her kids. Really liked them. Jason, and his wanting to be a man but needing someone to show him how. Kelsey, with her approaching womanhood and needing the guidance of how not to behave around horny teenage boys. The twins, with their energy and just wanting to be seen as individuals while still being a team . . . He and his brothers were so close in age that he could give them pointers. And then there was Maggie. Sweet, loving Maggie, who just wanted a daddy to hug her.
Give it up, Bryan. You want them. This isn’t just a fling for you. You want Beth and the kids and you’re going to have to figure out a way you can have them because you are not going to be able to walk away from them. Not if you want to be the man you say you are.
He stood up and arched his back, a couple of kinks needing to be worked out from some of the positions they’d done last night . . .
God. Last night. It’d never been more perfect. More real. More natural. Beth felt something for him. He knew that as well as he knew she’d never say it. She respected his decision to have his career, and she loved her kids enough to not drag them through the circus it could become.
But could he honestly say he wanted this to be their relationship? This weekend and maybe one or two more over the next couple of years until the kids were older and on their own? Hell, that was thirteen more years for Maggie.
No. He couldn’t let this be all there was. He wanted Beth in his bed every night and every morning. He wanted her in his home all the time, taking care of the little things that she did so much better than he did. He wanted her kids running around during the day and plopping on the sofa at night with a bowl of popcorn to watch some silly sitcom and talk about their day. He even wanted Sherman and Mrs. Beecham, though he would try to get them to like each other instead of chasing each other all over the place.
He wanted Beth and her family . . . to be his family.
He leaned an arm against the doorframe and rested his forehead against it, looking out over the backyard. There was the clothesline he and Jason had built. The fence he and the twins had fixed when Sherman had gotten out. The yard where he’d posed for pictures for the kids’ friends.
The deck where he’d kissed Beth.
What the hell was he going to do now?
Chapter Thirty-six
BRYAN couldn’t remember a more perfect day, and it’d started so mundanely, so “suburbia.” Well, after he’d made love to Beth again. Twice.
Okay, so that hadn’t been so mundane, but after . . . Well, okay, after the shower they took together, and after the oral he’d given her in that shower . . . then it’d gotten mundane. He’d let Sherman out again, fed the dog and the cat, even stuck a couple of carrots in the hamsters’ cage, grabbed the newspaper from the front porch and read it aloud to Beth while she’d made them omelets for breakfast, er, brunch.
Of course, he’d made sure that she’d sat on his lap while they ate, but still . . . suburbia all the way.
He was kind of liking suburbia . . .
Then they’d gone on a bike ride and decided to take a tour of a local winery. Well, half toured it. The other half of the time, they’d made out among the vines and i
n the cellars when they could slip away from everyone.
Bryan smiled as he poured the Cabernet they’d bought into the new glasses they’d found in the gift shop—new relationship, new wine, new glasses. That’s what the owner had said, and he and Beth had just smiled and gone along with it.
But Bryan had put a lot of thought into that word. Relationship. It rolled off his tongue so easily—well, his mental tongue because he wasn’t ready to say the word out loud yet. Hell, he didn’t even know if he could say the word because a relationship needed two people to work, and he wasn’t sure what Beth wanted to call this thing between them. He didn’t even know if there was a thing between them or merely a one-weekend event.
How weird was that? He was used to having to fend women off, yet here he was with a woman he wanted to do the complete opposite, and he had no clue what she’d think of the idea of being in a relationship with him.
“I don’t know if this is warm enough.” Beth carried plates of the Italian take-out they’d picked up on the way home—
Back. The way back. To Beth’s house. This wasn’t home.
But it could be . . .
“That’s okay. If they’re still as good as I remember when I worked there in high school, it won’t matter that they’re not piping hot.”
“I think something’s up with my oven. It seems to be acting up. The other day I had to throw out a whole tray of brownies because the outside was hard as a rock but the inside was still all battery.”
“Battery?” He took the plates of chicken Marsala, Beth’s favorite. He hadn’t known that, but now that he did, he’d never forget. “I don’t think you mean that the way you think you do.”
“Batter-ee. As in, like batter, not a battery.” She sat down. “Well I’m hungry enough to eat a horse, so I don’t care how hot it is or isn’t.”
“I can vouch for the fact that there is no horse in here, so no need to worry about that.”
She grimaced as she speared a piece of the chicken. “If I weren’t so hungry, that might have killed my appetite.”