What a Woman Needs

by Judi Fennell

“Sweetheart, after this morning, I don’t think anything is going to kill your appetite.”

  God, he loved when she blushed. He pulled her chair around so she was beside him.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieked as she clung to the armrests.

  “I want you beside me.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her as close to him as the chairs would allow.

  It wasn’t enough.

  “Oh.” Her look of surprise melted into a big grin.

  He loved to see her smile even more than he loved to see her blush.

  Love. He was tossing that word around a lot.

  “The sunset is beautiful.” She swirled her wine glass as she looked at it.

  He looked at her. “You’re more beautiful.”

  There she went with the blush again.

  “God, Beth, do you know what that does to me?”

  “What what does to you?”

  “That little secret smile you get and the way you nibble the inside of your lip and the blush you can’t hide.”

  “You’ve been looking very closely.” There she went with the lip-nibbling.

  “I can’t not look at you, Beth. I can’t help myself. I’m with you and all I want to do is watch you.”

  “All you want to do?”

  “Okay, not all, but yes, I like looking at you. Not because you’re physically beautiful, though you are, but because I like seeing you. Beth Hamilton the woman. I can’t get enough of you.” He kissed her forehead, lingering as her scent filled him, that lilac shampoo she used and the rose-scented soap and the very essence of her.

  “I want you, Bryan.”

  His eyes opened and he looked into Beth’s dark eyes where the setting sun was reflected like a fire within her.

  “I didn’t come back just to make love to you, you know,” he said.

  “I know. But that doesn’t mean we can’t, does it?”

  “Oh, so who’s teasing whom now?”

  “I hope I can always tease you.” She turned in the chair and grabbed his face with both hands. “Let’s go upstairs, Bryan. I’ve wanted to be naked with you all day.”

  “That would have shocked the other people on the wine tour.”

  “Hence the reason I didn’t strip you down in front of them. But there’s no one here now and our weekend is almost half over. I want you. I want to be close to you. As close as two people can get.” She kissed him and it was all Bryan could do to recover enough to get them inside because he’d had half a mind to take her right there on the deck.

  Beth couldn’t wait to get him upstairs and naked. Like, literally couldn’t wait, and for the first time in her life, she had sex on her front hallway stairs.

  “You carried condoms in your pocket all day?” she said when they half sat, half slumped on the stairs after one of the most inventive lovemaking sessions she’d ever had. It was a good thing she’d had double padding installed under the carpet.

  “You’re complaining?” He grabbed her chin and gave it a playful little shake. “This couldn’t have happened if I hadn’t. Then where would we be?”

  “Upstairs?”

  “Except someone couldn’t wait that long now, could she?” Bryan leaned over and kissed her again, another heart-stopping kiss she felt all the way down to her toes.

  She’d almost told him that she loved him. Almost said those three words, and it was only the one iota of sanity that she’d retained as he’d driven her out of her mind with pleasure that had kept her from shouting it as she’d come. Instead, she’d shouted his name. Groaned it. Moaned it. Panted it. Gasped it. But she hadn’t told him she loved him. She didn’t want to ruin the moment and she wasn’t going to let herself think about why giving someone one of the greatest gifts—her heart and her trust—would ruin a moment of such pleasure. Enjoy the weekend; Kara’s words had become her mantra.

  “Come on, Ms. Impatient. I want you naked on that bed.” He stood up and held out his hand.

  “Naked on the stairs doesn’t cut it for you?” Beth took her sweet time standing. The padding wasn’t as thick some places as it was in others.

  “Oh it was great, don’t get me wrong.”

  As if she could. He’d growled her name for his entire orgasm. She hadn’t been aware that Beth could have so many syllables.

  “But . . . ?”

  “But I want to lie beside you. Feel you against every inch of me. I want to be able to wrap my arms around you and pull you against me and tangle my hands in your hair and caress your body and wrap my legs around you in a way that stairs aren’t conducive to. And maybe there are a few new things I want to try with you.”

  Beth shivered in anticipation. “Oh? Such as?”

  He tugged her hand and picked up the pace. “You’ll see, Beth. You’ll see.”

  He was right, she was Ms. Impatient. Beth ran to her room in all her naked glory and threw herself onto her bed.

  “Make love to me, Bryan.”

  He fully intended to.

  And just as he covered her, just as he fell into that first wild and incredibly sexy kiss, it came to him. He was making love to Beth. They weren’t having sex or fooling around or hooking up or whatever other people wanted to call it when they were relieving an ache and making each other feel good, but he was making love to Beth Hamilton. Giving her his heart and wanting to cherish hers. Wanting to cherish her. For the rest of their lives.

  “Bryan? Are you okay?” she asked when he stopped moving. When he stopped kissing her and caressing her and . . . breathing.

  He wanted Beth forever. And the idea no longer scared him. He wanted her in his life, and the prospect of not having her in it was worse than never getting another script again, because he could live without being in the movies but he couldn’t live without Beth.

  “Bryan? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, sweetheart, you didn’t.” She’d done everything right. “I . . .” He couldn’t say it. Not yet. He had to figure out what it meant for him first. What it meant for them. And then there were the kids to consider.

  “You what?”

  He looked at her worried face. At that dear, gorgeous, sexy, wonderful, passionate face, and he smiled. “I lost my breath for a moment. Just looking at you . . . You take my breath away, Beth.”

  Tears sprung to her eyes.

  “Aw, shit. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  She shook her head and smiled. “No, they’re good tears. This is a good thing.”

  “If you say so.” He brushed the hair off her face and looked into those sparkling brown eyes he wanted to stare at for the rest of his life.

  He ought to tell her. She had to know it, right? Had to see it written all over his face? He loved her. He loved Beth Hamilton.

  And it didn’t scare him.

  No, it energized him. It gave him hope and a purpose and a sense of belonging that, until now, he hadn’t realized he was missing. He’d thought his brothers and his sister and his grandmother were all the family he needed. All the connection and ties he wanted in his life, but, God, how wrong he’d been.

  “You’re starting to scare me, Manley.” Beth bit her top lip.

  That was new. And he didn’t want to be the cause of any worry. “I’m just looking at you. Being amazed that I’m here. That you’re here.”

  “Why? This can’t be a surprise or you never would have come back.”

  How wrong she was. Nothing could have kept him away; he saw that now. He was drawn to Beth as if his life depended on it.

  And maybe . . . just maybe . . . it did.

  “That’s where you’re wrong Beth. I had to come back. This is too strong between us. I had to find out what was here.”

  “And . . . ?”

  He felt her catch her breath, felt her hold it, as if his answer was important to her.

  She loved him. He knew it then. As sure as he knew he loved her, he knew that Beth loved him.

  He bent down and kissed her. Not the passion-filled, couldn�
�t-get-enough-of-her kiss his body would demand in a few moments, but a pledging sort of kiss. One that said he cherished her and valued her and would honor her all the days of their lives if she’d let him.

  Holy hell. How was he going to pull this off? There was still the circus of his life to contend with. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that a declaration of love would make all the problems disappear, but there had to be a way.

  Her husband had figured it out. The guy had had to travel a lot as a pilot; he’d left Beth alone with the kids to raise them by herself. To handle all the problems and issues and whatever else came along while he’d been gone, and she’d still loved him enough to be mourning his death two years later. Beth knew how to love that way; it was something Bryan was going to have to learn if he wanted a future with her. Question was, would she want one with him?

  “You’re thinking again.”

  “Ah, so now you can hear my thoughts?” He worked that cocky grin onto his face, needing its cover to shield her from the thoughts filling his mind. Why would she want a future with him? She’d already said she couldn’t go through a media circus again, and even if he retired today, the press would be after him, wondering why he’d retired, what he was going to do next, and was Beth the reason? Then there’d be the stories about her history, and the kids would be dragged through the whole thing all over again. Of course she wouldn’t want that. Maybe this weekend was all she could handle. Maybe it was all she wanted. A memory-making time together that would have to last the rest of their lives, because getting involved on a permanent basis was too much work.

  “Bryan? Are you okay? Do you not want to do this?” Her hands stilled in the small of his back, and Bryan had to pull himself back to the moment.

  Stop borrowing trouble. Gran had always said that. Told him he was too introspective at times.

  “Of course I want to do this, Beth.” He pulled that cocky grin back out, his shield from the world, the one that covered what he was feeling inside and let everyone think he was okay.

  And no one had ever figured it out. Not even Gran.

  “I don’t buy it. You can smile like that at the rest of the world and have them forget what they asked you, but not me. What’s going on, Bryan?”

  Okay, so Beth was the exception to that rule. Seemed to be a theme where she was concerned.

  “Nothing’s going on, sweetheart. I just want to kiss you so badly, I’m almost afraid I’ll mess it up.”

  “Mess it up?” Beth shook her head. “How much wine did you have to drink tonight? You couldn’t mess this up if you tried.”

  He was pretty sure he could, which was why he didn’t say a thing and let his actions speak for him, cradling her head in his hands and kissing her. A deep, here-I-am sort of kiss that he poured every ounce of emotion he felt into.

  He had to smile when she looked at him with glazed eyes and gasping breath and her fingers trembling against his cheek.

  “Oh. My. God,” she said when she finally caught her breath.

  At least one of them was able to speak. Him . . . What he felt for her, the possibilities it held for him . . . He was incapable of speech.

  “I guess this means dinner is going to get cold?” She cocked her head to the side and nibbled her bottom lip—on purpose.

  “It does, but don’t worry. I’ll buy you chicken Marsala again tomorrow night.”

  “What if I want something else instead?” The teasing light in her eyes was just what he needed.

  God, he loved her. “I’m counting on it, woman.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  SUNDAY afternoon came much too fast.

  Bryan sat back against the tree with Beth in his arms as the sights and sounds of the park bustled around them, the remnants of their picnic scattered on the blanket. The half-finished bottle of champagne in the ice bucket he’d brought, the strawberries and chocolate, cheese and grapes . . . All the trappings of a romantic date with one final part burning a hole in his pocket.

  Gran’s ring.

  He’d left Beth’s place to pick up breakfast for them while she’d slept this morning—the only reason he’d been able to leave her was because he’d gone home for that ring—and it’d been talking to him all day.

  He wanted to marry her. The decision had come to him in his sleep, and when he’d woken up, he’d known it was the right thing to do. They loved each other; he’d seen it in her eyes when they’d made love last night, felt it in every caress. He knew why she hadn’t said it, knew that she wouldn’t because of his career, and her selflessness made him love her all the more. He had to marry her. Had to keep her in his life forever. That was what was important; everything else was just logistics they could work out.

  Now he just had to come up with the logistics of asking her to marry him. Something romantic but not cliché.

  He had to laugh at himself as he sat on the gingham blanket with a wicker picnic basket, the biggest cliché there was. But it couldn’t be helped; he didn’t have time to plan some elaborate proposal. He wasn’t leaving here to go back on location without knowing Beth was going to be his for the rest of his life. Then he’d head back, work his ass off, and come back to her and the kids as quickly as possible.

  “You’re thinking again.” She ran her palm up his calf.

  He threaded his fingers through her hair. “If my thoughts are that loud, maybe you ought to tell me what they are.”

  She sighed and leaned back against his shoulder. “I don’t want to think about what you’re thinking. I don’t want to think at all because if I do, I’m going to realize that this is almost over. That my kids will be back soon and you’ll have to go back to your movie and all of this will be just a memory.”

  Her words were like a stake to his heart. He didn’t want it to be a memory—unless it was one they’d share with their grandchildren.

  “Beth.”

  She twisted around and put her fingers on his lips. “Don’t, Bryan. Let’s enjoy the fantasy a little longer.”

  He kissed her fingers. “Actually, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”

  She pulled her fingers away. “Oh?”

  He moved around on the blanket, trying to keep her close, get the ring, and not give the whole thing away before he could ask her.

  “Bryan, what are you doing?”

  “This.” He pulled out the ring and held it up. “Beth, I love you and I want you in my life forever.” He swallowed a ball of emotion. “As my wife.”

  “Oh my God.” Beth touched the ring with trembling fingers.

  But she didn’t take it.

  “I love you, Beth.” His voice was as shaky as her fingers. “Will you marry me?”

  She looked at him, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, Bryan.”

  She still hadn’t taken the ring. And she still hadn’t answered him.

  “Mommy!”

  It took Bryan a second longer than it took Beth to recognize Maggie’s voice and he barely got the ring into his pocket before Maggie leapt onto her mother.

  “Mommy! I missed you!” Maggie’s little face was all scrunched up as she hugged Beth with everything in her.

  Bryan could so relate.

  “Bryan!”

  “Hey, Bryan’s back!”

  Tommy and Mark launched themselves onto him and all of a sudden the picnic blanket was covered with Hamiltons.

  And their mother still hadn’t answered him.

  “What are you doing here, Bryan?”

  “Are you back for good?”

  “Did you miss me?”

  “Was Sherman surprised to see you?”

  “Did you clean Mrs. Beecham’s hair out of my dollhouse? I think she’s making a nest in there.”

  “Cats don’t make nests, stupid.”

  “Don’t call me stupid.”

  “Well you are if you think cats make nests.”

  “Mommy, Mark called me stupid.”

  “Well she is!”

  “Guys! Maggie!” Bryan got
to his feet. “No one’s stupid just because they don’t know something. It’s an opportunity to learn something, and an opportunity for you guys to be big brothers and teach your sister something new.”

  He reached down to help Beth stand, ironically holding her left hand. The one where he wanted to put his ring.

  She still hadn’t answered him.

  And she didn’t for the next three and a half hours until they got the kids in bed, the grandparents gone, and an awkward silence waltzed into the family room when Beth came down from her last hug from Maggie.

  “She said she was scared I wasn’t going to be here when she got home.” Beth grabbed a throw pillow from the sofa and wrapped her arms around it as she sat cross-legged in the corner of it.

  “Separation anxiety?”

  “Yeah. They all have it, but Maggie’s the most vocal. The twins actually climbed into the same bed when I was reading the nightly comic book. That started right after Mike died and had let up, I thought, about four months ago.”

  “And now they’re doing it again.”

  “Well, at least for tonight.”

  And what if she married him and the media frenzy did this to them as well? She didn’t have to say it, but it was floating between them like a big giant blob of ain’t-gonna-happen-Manley.

  “You haven’t answered my question.” Just call him a glutton for punishment. But if this was the end of his dream, he wanted it spelled out for him.

  “I know.”

  “And?” The fact that he had to prod her like this didn’t bode well.

  Neither did the big breath she took nor the way she turned to face him with the pillow clutched to her abdomen. Protective. Alone.

  “I want to say yes, Bryan, but I can’t.”

  There was a buzzing in his head; he hadn’t really believed she’d say no. He’d known there would be issues, but he’d expected a compromise of some sort. Maybe even talk about him getting out of the industry. But he’d never really believed that the only woman he’d ever wanted to marry would turn him down.

  “. . . just me, I’d take the chance, but the kids, Bryan.”

  “Chance? Take the chance?” Bryan leaned forward. “I didn’t ask you to take a chance on me, Beth. I asked you to marry me. I’m not taking a chance on you; I want to spend my life with you. I want to be part of your family. I’m not taking a chance like . . . like . . . some poker game. I’m dead serious about this and yeah, you’re right. If you’re seeing it as taking a chance, then maybe this isn’t a good idea.”