by Anna Adams
He laughed. “Sorry,” he said.
She grinned. “It’s nice to hear.” She reached for the tie on his flannel pajama pants, but her fingers drifted away.
He didn’t let her fade. He reached for the button on her jeans. She sucked in her belly and he dropped to his knees. When he kissed her, just beneath her navel, she cradled his head against her.
He locked his arms around her thighs.
“This is enough for now,” he said.
“Not for me.” Her fingers in his hair made him shiver.
After a second, he pulled her zipper down. She trembled, but she didn’t move as he slid his hands inside her jeans and pulled them down.
“I’m cold, Van.”
“The house is drafty.” Better if they both tried to believe she was cold because of the temperature. He picked her up, something she’d never allowed him to do because she’d been sensitive about being petite.
If she’d been a larger woman, maybe she’d have been better able to fight that guy off. He shook his head above her, glad she’d closed her eyes.
Gently, he laid her on his bed and stripped himself before he lay down beside her, pulling the sheets over them.
She turned into his arms. Her breasts teased his chest. His mouth went dry. She wrapped her leg around his.
“You’re warm,” she said.
“Yeah.” His raspy voice startled him. Five years was a long time to love a woman, want her and believe he might never touch her again. Now he just had to make sure he didn’t frighten her.
He tried to roll over and reach for the lamp. She tightened her arms.
“I want it on,” she said.
“You sure?”
She kissed his chest, tracing his breastbone with her lips. Maybe she nodded, too. He couldn’t tell. And he didn’t care.
Her mouth reached his nipple, already hard with desire, like every inch of his body. Her mouth, moist and hot, made him groan, and he half expected her to leap out of bed.
But she smiled. Her lips curved around him, and his body took over.
He slid her beneath him, running his hands down her sides, finding curves he’d cherished, finding welcome he wasn’t sure she’d still feel seconds from now.
He caught her nipple. She stiffened. Her heart beat so hard, she pulsed in his mouth. Her life was tied to his. He’d belonged to her before he’d ever known what love was. She was more precious to him than his own life.
As he splayed his fingers across her other breast, moaning again as her nipple rubbed his palm, she twined her legs around him again.
She threw back her head. He knew how she liked being touched. He followed the curve of her breasts with his mouth, open, wanting, needing until she curled into him so that he reached her nipple again. He reached between them and caressed her until she arched in his arms, crying out his name.
His name. Not in fear, not in anger. In wonder and the sheer relief of being sated. He knew the sounds she made when she made love.
“Now,” she said. “Can you—”
“I don’t have to. Isn’t this enough for now?” Shaking in her arms, wanting her so much he was clinging to his own need with a slender, breaking thread of control, he was still afraid that taking her would make him lose her.
“If you don’t, I might die.”
“Oh.” He lifted himself above her. Eyes half-closed, her body still moving, thrusting against him, she reminded him they were in this together. Not just this bed, but this life. “Where’s the—”
“Find it. Please.” She pushed her hair away from her face, her hands moving slowly as if she were touching herself in more intimate ways.
He stared, mesmerized. Her hands slid down her throat.
“Van.”
He found the packet on the floor and tore it open so urgently, he half feared he’d ripped the condom, too.
“Van.”
“I have to make sure I didn’t tear it.”
“Van, now.”
She held out her arms, and he was in them. Her hands slid all the way to his hips. She caught him between her palms and he thought he might die.
She opened her eyes wide. “Look at me,” she said.
He wanted to look away as she helped him inside. His need was too much. His love, too intense.
She opened his mouth with hers. “I love you,” she said against him.
He moved then because he couldn’t stop himself. He forgot to be gentle, forgot everything except loving her, wanting her with him like this.
She felt tighter. He mourned the lost years, for her as well as for him, but he couldn’t hold back. He drove the memories from his own head and shut the damn door on them. Never again would the past come between him and Cassie.
“I love you,” he said over and over. Her incoherent, breathy cries robbed him of his last vestige of control. When her body pulsed around him, he was lost. He rose above her, grasped her hips and gave himself up.
What had she been afraid of? A woman’s body was so subtle she could have hidden her response if she’d tried. He could hide nothing. He melted into her with the gratitude of finding lost love, and he felt so naked he couldn’t speak.
MINUTES PASSED. They didn’t move. Cassie smiled against his chest as he grew hard inside her again. He wanted her. Why had she ever doubted?
“Cass?”
“Hmm?” She kissed him, loving the scent and the taste of his skin.
“I think you can do it.”
“I was just thinking the same about you.”
“Did you bring more than one condom?”
“I’m sorry.” She stroked his back. This man, virile and gentle, and all male, belonged to her. And she belonged to him. “I’m tempted to say it doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” He pulled away, reluctance in his slow withdrawal, in the sigh of his breath. “We need time together with Hope before we add to our family.”
“You do love her?” As he lay on his back, she lifted herself above him. “You’re not just taking her on because of me?”
He twisted a strand of her hair. “That day, with Barr’s kid—she stopped being yours. I forgot about that bastard who hurt you. She was just mine, my child to protect. Imagine, wanting to make a little boy pay for his parents’ gossip. But the idea that someone could hurt Hope…”
“I know.” She kissed him. “Being a parent is tricky business, huh?”
He nudged her elbow off his chest and caught her in a delicious kiss that put even Hope out of her mind. As his hand cupped her breast, she caught his wrist.
“What time is it?”
“Why?” His hand, sure and tender, made her dizzy. She seemed to be all nerve endings.
“We could go to my house,” she said, “I need to be home when Hope wakes up.”
“Maybe we could stop along the way.”
“My thoughts, too.”
He looked in her eyes, his own hollow with desire. Need swam through her veins. Her body—her soul—belonged to him. She recognized her mate.
AS DARK BLUE CREPT into the black sky, they showered together at Cassie’s house. Even without closing his eyes all night, Van felt more awake than he had in five years. He handed Cassie a lacy camisole she’d dropped on the bed, thinking how much he’d enjoy peeling it off her later.
She pulled it over her head. “Are you sure about all this?”
“What?” He buttoned his shirt. “Not that I’m bothered if you’re having second thoughts, because they’re not about anything real.”
She put on a sweater with a V-neck that dipped low enough to expose her camisole. The shadow of her skin beneath the lace fascinated him.
“Look at me,” she said. “I mean, look at my face.”
“For now.” He kissed her forehead. “What’s up, Cass?”
“When we walk out of this room, we’re saying something to my father and Hope.”
“Everything I want to say.” He put on his jeans. “That I want to marry you again and I want to be Ho
pe’s father.” He shook his head. “And Leo’s son, though I may have failed him more than anyone.”
“Dad should have told us something was wrong. I should have stayed in touch.” She leaned down to kiss him as he bent for his shoes. He rubbed his cheek, liking the warmth of her lips. “Today isn’t a time for recriminations.”
“You’re not bolting at the mention of marriage.”
She sat on the bed as if her legs had given way. “Yeah,” she said. “Funny enough, we’re giving each other everything I want.”
A knock at the door made them stare at each other.
“Cass,” her father said, “time to get up. We have to make cocoa for Hope when she gets up.”
“Tradition.” Cassie stood, her eyes a little wary.
At last Van felt sure when he put his arm around her waist. “Here goes,” he said. “I don’t think your dad will mind.”
“But what if you change your mind?”
“About the time the earth starts revolving backward,” he said, and opened the door.
Leo’s mouth dropped open. He shut it. “Van.”
“Morning. I should have asked you before I stayed the night, but Cass and I got home in the early hours.”
“She’s your wife,” Leo said.
“Not yet, but she will be again soon.”
Down the hall, another door opened, and Hope burst out. “Santa,” she said, dancing. Then she saw Van and she stopped dead.
“Hey,” he said, lowering his voice, hoping she wouldn’t be upset when she realized.
“He’s real.” She pressed her palms together, linking her fingers so tightly the tips turned white.
“Who’s real, baby?” Cassie went to her first, but Hope ran around her, flinging herself into Van’s open arms.
“Santa’s real.” She locked her arms like a vise around his neck. “Josh Barr told me Mommy was my Santa, but we saw Santa at the mall, and I asked him for you, Mr. Van, and here you are. He’s really real.”
Van held on tight. How long had she been his daughter already? Before he’d even known. “You’d better believe.”
He couldn’t see for sure through his own tears, but he thought Cassie and Leo might be crying, too.
EPILOGUE
LAST ON THE JUDGE’S DOCKET, they waited until afternoon turned to an early January evening. Cassie held a wriggling Hope. Leo snoozed, jolting every so often when he woke himself snoring. Van just held her hand and looked like a man in a maternity waiting room.
“Are you worried?” she finally asked.
“I’m scared out of my wits. What if I’m a bad father?”
“Every parent feels that way.”
“Can I call you Daddy now?” Hope asked. “I don’t care what some man says, and it’s taking too long.”
Van glanced at Cassie. She’d thought waiting for the actual adoption would make calling Van Daddy more special for Hope. “Go ahead,” she said. “We can’t get any closer, and Van couldn’t be more your father.”
“I know that.” Hope bounced again. “Why does some guy have to tell us it’s okay?”
“That’s the way it works,” Van said. They’d agreed to wait until Hope asked for the truth to give it. Her teenage years weren’t that far away. “Why don’t you give Mommy a rest and sit with me?”
“Okay, Daddy.” She hopped on his lap, and the door opened to the judge’s chambers.
His clerk beckoned them. “Sorry we’ve been so long. We’re still dealing with cases from the New Year’s Eve roadblocks. A small-town judge…”
Cassie barely understood what the woman was saying. Judge Jake Sloane rose from behind his desk, younger than she’d expected.
“I think we have all the paperwork in order.” He held out his hand to Hope. “You must be Miss Warne.”
Clinging to Van’s hand, she looked up. “I thought I was going to be Hope Haddon.”
“In a few minutes,” he said.
Cassie tried to breathe. Their wedding next week couldn’t be more stressful. She loved Van with no doubts whatsoever, but she’d been Hope’s only parent for a long time.
“We don’t really have a ceremony,” Judge Sloane said. “Mrs. Haddon, will you step over here?”
She moved to Hope’s side. “I’m still Cassie Warne until next week. If the name matters.”
“Next week?”
“The wedding,” Van said. “We wanted to do this first so Hope knows she’s my daughter, no matter what.”
“Okay.” Judge Sloane didn’t understand, but there were no rules against an adoption before a wedding. “Mr. Haddon, do you want to be Miss Warne’s father from now on?”
“For good,” Hope said, as if it were a test.
“For good and bad and everything else,” he said. “How about you? Do you want to be my daughter?”
“I already am.” Hope didn’t seem to feel the portent of the moment. “Mommy—” she grabbed Cassie’s hand “—are we all married together now?”
The judge shrugged, the shoulders of his robe looking awfully wide. “As married together as I’ve ever seen a family.”
Cassie hugged Van, loving the strength of his body as he instinctively leaned into her. She lifted Hope between them. “We recognized each other all by ourselves—a husband, a wife, and our own little girl. How lucky are we?”
“Luck has nothing to do with being smart enough to grab love and never let go of it again,” Van said. “Like I’m hanging onto you two.”
“Uh-oh. Grampa’s still asleep in the hall.” Hope wriggled to get down, and Cassie shared a stunned glance with Van. They’d marched in, the three of them, alone. Hope tugged at the judge’s voluminous sleeve. “We gotta start over, Mr. Judge, or he’s gonna be ma-a-d. This was his idea. Him and me talked about it before Mommy and Daddy knew anything.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0457-1
THE MAN FROM HER PAST
Copyright © 2007 by Anna Adams.
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