“To lick what wounds?” she asked hesitantly, fixing on that unexpected confession.
He lifted his head and studied his hand on her abdomen. “You wouldn’t let me kiss you, before I left,” he replied quietly. “You jerked away, as if I disgusted you.”
Her breath caught. “Oh, no!” she said, lifting her hand to his face. She touched his cheek, feeling it go rigid. He caught it and ground his mouth into the palm. “No,” she repeated, looking at his dark head as it bent. “It wasn’t disgust! I thought you hated me. And I knew if I let you kiss me it would be the way it was a minute ago, I’d go to pieces, and then you’d see that it was all a front.”
His eyes lifted, searching, waiting. “That what was all a front?” he asked in a deep, quiet tone.
“All that cold pride I was showing you,” she said simply. “You didn’t want me, and I knew it. I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
“I didn’t want you?” He laughed faintly, as if he found that amusing. He looked down at her bareness. “I didn’t want you!” His chest rose and fell roughly. “I stopped eating and sleeping. I lost a contract because I couldn’t think. I went to bed with the memory of your mouth on mine, I woke up aching because I wanted to roll over and kiss you awake and you weren’t there. I walked around as empty as a tomb for weeks and months, and came back hoping to make you see that you weren’t a medicine I’d only taken for temporary relief. And you were gone.”
“Worth, don’t let me trouble your conscience too much,” she said, touching his dark hair, as she felt a rush of compassion for him. He had wanted her, after all, even if love hadn’t entered into it. Perhaps, in a way, he’d suffered as much as she had. “I wanted you, too,” she confessed. “You didn’t force me.”
His fingers locked with hers and he sighed. “I thought you hated me for it, Amy,” he murmured. “I hate myself, because of the way it happened.”
“I was worried about Jeanette, too,” she told him. “Not as much as you were, I’m sure, but I understood what you were going through. I knew you weren’t thinking straight. It didn’t matter. And you gave me…more pleasure than I ever expected to feel. You showed me that I wasn’t too old to be a woman.”
“You’re more woman than I expected to find in a repressed twenty-eight-year-old virgin,” he murmured dryly. He shook his head as he looked at the bare pink flesh he’d exposed. “God, what a beautiful body you have, Miss Glenn.” His fingers brushed down her body to her abdomen. “Are you going to let me have it when we’re married, Amy? Are you going to sleep with me?”
Exquisite thought, it made her tremble with pleasure. “If you want me,” she said.
He only laughed. “Yes. I want you. I’ll try to curtail my traveling as much as possible, too, so that I’ll have more time to spend with you while you’re carrying the baby.” He took a last look at her nudity and slowly buttoned the dress up again. “That’s enough of that. Get some rest, darling. I’ll see you later.”
Her face colored as she thought about being with him, sleeping in his arms. There were deep hurts on both sides from the past few months, but she loved him. And he wanted her. Perhaps there was some hope left.
The wedding took place a week later, at a justice of the peace’s office, with Jeanette wobbly but radiant standing beside Baxter to witness the brief ceremony. Worth had seemed enthusiastic about marrying her, and Amelia was both surprised and pleased by his easy acceptance of her new status in his life. If anything, he seemed radiant. And he’d been so attentive in the past few days that even Baxter had started to grin behind his hand. One morning, Worth had brought her breakfast tray, and he hadn’t been satisfied with her nibbling, so he’d fed her every bite of it himself. The tender, caring way he acted made her feel exquisitely warm and safe. If only he loved her, it would be heaven.
They’d decided not to go away for a honeymoon, because Worth didn’t want Amelia on a plane again despite all her protests that she’d be fine. So Jeanette decided to spend a couple of days with a friend across town, and wouldn’t be argued with. They needed some time to themselves, she informed them, so shut up. She felt fine and wanted to get out of the house.
She left early in the afternoon. Worth and Amelia had a quiet dinner together and then went to watch a movie he’d bought for the VCR.
It was a love story, something she hadn’t expected that he’d like, with a wildly adventurous theme and some uproarious comedy. By the time it was over, her stomach ached from laughing.
He grinned at her. “I saw it in New York on a business trip,” he told her, “and I had to have it. The heroine reminded me of you. Impulsive and adventurous and very, very lovely.”
She blushed at that personal remark and smiled up at him shyly. “I’m plain, actually,” she whispered.
“You’re pregnant, actually,” he returned, letting his dark eyes wander over her. They were sitting together in a love seat in the big living room, with the doors closed, the curtains drawn, the lights off. Except for the light from the screen and the whir as the videocassette automatically rewound, there wasn’t a noise or light in the room.
His breathing became audible, over the soft sound of the recorder. He touched her throat, brushing it, teasing it. He bent and slowly put his mouth over hers. She let him kiss her, turning to him, glorying in his slow, sweet ardor.
“I want you,” he whispered into her lips. “I want to have you, right now.”
Her lips parted as he touched her body with hands that were softly arousing, tender. “Worth, the servants…”
“It’s nine o’clock, they’ve all gone.” He kissed her again. His breath was coming quickly, his heartbeat was audible. “Amy,” he groaned as the kiss grew deeper. “Oh, God, Amy, I’m burning up,” he breathed into her open mouth. His kisses were harder now, his hands urgent. “Amy, let me,” he whispered, easing her down into the cushions. “Let me.”
“Worth…you’re so big….” she protested breathlessly as his weight settled on her, as she felt the sudden, swift pressure of his aroused body.
“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt our baby.”
“Oh, I know that.” She laughed unsteadily. “But, darling, the love seat is so short!”
“Call me that again,” he murmured, nibbling her ear as his hands searched for fastenings and slowly eased her clothing away between kisses.
“Darling,” she obliged. Her fingers unbuttoned the casual shirt he was wearing, and she caught her breath as his broad, hair-matted chest lay bare to her hands. She caressed him wildly, on fire with the long abstinence, with remembered passion and fulfillment. “Darling, I want you, too, I want you so much, Worth!”
“I’ll give you my body,” he whispered, reaching down for his belt. “All of it, here, now. It’s been so long. I’m so hungry for you, Amy.”
Her arms enfolded him as he moved, and she kissed him fiercely as his body found adequate space to maneuver and took slow, sweet possession of hers.
He laughed shakily, delightedly. “Oh, yes,” he breathed as the rhythm built and she made a wild little noise under his mouth. “Yes! My God, you burn me…!”
She wanted to repeat that for him, but it was happening already, much too soon, much too soon. She closed her eyes and felt the exquisite tension build and build until it snapped like a spring and sent her down into the exquisite flames, and she burned up in a kaleidoscope of ecstatic color.
He was trembling. She came slowly back to awareness, feeling his heavy heartbeat, his ragged breathing, the dampness of his skin on hers, the force of his formidable weight. She caressed his shoulders and smiled into his throat.
“Worth,” she murmured drowsily.
“I lost it,” he whispered. “I’m sorry….”
She bit him delicately and laughed when he stiffened. “I lost it, too, so there’s no need to apologize.”
He lifted his head on a steadying breath and searched her drowsy, sated blue eyes. “I love doing this to you,” he whispered. “I love se
eing your eyes afterward. We didn’t hurt the baby?” he added suddenly.
“No.” She smiled as his hand touched her abdomen. Her long fingers pressed his closer. “It’s only the last six weeks or so that they don’t want me indulging.”
“You’re almost three months along, aren’t you?” he asked, counting mentally.
“Almost. He’ll start moving in another month and a half,” she added, and laughed at his expression. “Didn’t you know, Worth? They kick. At first it will be tiny flutters, but eventually we’ll be able to feel little hands and feet…. Worth!”
His eyes had misted. He made a rough sound and buried his face in her throat. She held him, shocked.
“That’s the Italian in my ancestry coming out,” he murmured, not at all embarrassed. He nibbled at her neck. “It’s an emotional thing, fathering a child. And to think about tiny hands and feet!” He took a deep breath. “My God.”
“You really do want the baby, don’t you?” she asked gently.
“I want him, all right.” His face nuzzled hers. “I’ll love him like mad, Amy.”
“Yes. So will I.” Her eyes closed as she drew him down hard against her. “He’ll be someone of my very own to love and to love me. My parents care, but they love each other so much, there’s hardly enough left for another person.”
“I saw that,” he whispered. He kissed her ear, her cheek, her temple, her eyes. “All I’ve ever had was Grandmother. And until Jackie died, I was second best even then.” He sighed. “There was a woman who said she loved me and only wanted what I had. I’ve got a lousy track record with love, too, Amy.”
Her hands touched his dark, cool hair. “Worth…I…” She swallowed and searched for the words while his big, warm body went curiously still. “Would you mind very much if…well…if I…someday…fell in love…with you?”
His breath started again, in spurts, his hand slid under her neck and began to massage the nape absently. “Do you think you could?” he whispered hesitantly. “I’ve been cruel to you, Amy.”
“Only because I hurt you, and didn’t realize that I had.” She kissed his throat, his chin. “Oh, Worth,” she whispered, pressing wild, sweet little kisses all over his face. “Worth, if you’d let me love you, I think I could give up breathing!”
An odd sound tore out of his throat. His mouth slid across her cheek to find her own, and he kissed her into a sobbing, trembling submission with lips that were hungry and possessive and urgently demanding. His body trembled, and she felt a wetness on her face that she wasn’t sure had come only from her own eyes.
“Let you,” he ground out, and he sounded hoarse. “Oh, God, don’t you know what I feel for you? Can’t you see it, hear it, feel it?” He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes with a wild hunger that a blind woman couldn’t have missed. “Amy, I love you, too! I love you so much!”
Her arms drew him down to her; her eyes bled tears as she kissed him, savoring him, adoring him with her mouth and her hands and her body. It was a dream come true. It was the world and the sun and moon, it was breath itself.
“Now make love to me,” she whispered brokenly, nibbling at his mouth. “Now, take me, and we won’t hold back anything, anything at all, darling.”
He framed her face in his hands and his lips moved against hers. “Yes,” he whispered. He made her part of him, he watched her as he rocked against her, seeing the love, feeling it. He smiled shakenly and bent to her mouth, trembling all over. “And so we truly love,” he whispered as it began all over again.
It was midnight before he carried her into the bedroom, leaving discarded clothing all over the living room and the VCR still purring away.
“Everybody will know,” she murmured drowsily.
“They’re all human,” he reminded her. “And all married, too. Let them snicker. I’m a bridegroom, what the hell do I care? I’m not supposed to have any sense on my wedding night.”
“If you did have any, I’ve deprived you of it,” she teased gently, her eyes loving as they met his. “Worth, if Jeanette had kept improving, would you still have come after me?”
“Of course,” he said. “She wasn’t all that ill, you know,” he added with a smile as he closed the door behind them. “She was lonely. And so was I. I couldn’t live without my heart, so I went to Georgia to find it again and bring it home.” He drew her closer. “I won’t ever let it go, now.”
She reached up and kissed him. “I’m very glad. And the baby? You really don’t mind.”
He laid her down on the bed, standing over her magnificent in his nudity, faintly amused. “Well, let me show you how I feel about the baby.”
He opened his closet door. Teddy bears and baseball bats and gloves and dolls and rolling toys and mechanical toys and stuffed tigers all rolled out onto the carpet in glorious profusion.
“Now,” he said, hands on his hips, “do you have any more questions?”
She could only laugh. “No, darling. Not a single one.”
She held out her arms and he went into them, and the eyes of one of the teddy bears reflected the lamp. The bear seemed to be laughing as the light switch went off and plunged the room into a warm, secret darkness, full of love and new promise.
The Temptation of Rory Monahan
by Elizabeth Bevarly
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
One
Miriam Thornbury was testing a new Internet filter for the computers in the Marigold Free Public Library when she came across hotwetbabes.com.
She experienced a momentary exhilaration in her triumph at, once again, foiling a filter system—score one for the anticensorship campaign—but alas, her victory was short-lived. Because in that second moment she saw what, precisely, the Web site claimed as its content.
And she began to think that maybe, just maybe, censorship might have its uses.
Oh, dear, she thought further, alarmed. What was the world coming to when librarians began to advocate such a thing as censorship? What on earth was she thinking?
Of course Miriam knew librarians who did, in fact, support censorship. Well, maybe she didn’t quite know any; not personally, at any rate. She was, after all, one of only two full-time librarians in all of Marigold, Indiana, and Douglas Amberson, the senior librarian, was as vehemently opposed to censorship as she was herself.
But she knew of colleagues like that out there in the world, few though they may be, fortunately. Librarians who thought they knew what was best for their patrons and therefore took it upon themselves to spare the poor, ignorant reading public the trouble of weeding through all the icky things in life, by doing the literary gardening—so to speak—themselves.
Worse, Miriam knew mayors like that. Mayors of towns like, oh, say…Marigold, Indiana, for example. Which was why she was sitting in her office at the library on a sunny July afternoon, trying to find an Internet filter that would effectively screen out things like, oh, say…hotwetbabes.com.
It was a task Miriam had undertaken with mixed feelings. Although she by no means approved of some sites on the Net, sites such as, oh, say…this one, she had a hard time submitting to anyone who deemed him—or herself so superior to the masses that he or she would presume to dictate what was suitable reading and viewing material for those masses. Anyone like, oh, say…Isabel Trent, Marigold’s mayor.
Miriam glanced down at the computer screen again and bit back a wince. Hotwetbabes.com, however, did rather give one pause. All those half-naked, glistening female bodies right there on the Internet, for anyone to stumble across. That couldn’t possibly be a good thing, could it? Especially since these particular half-naked, glistening female bodies were so inconsistent with what real women looked like, even
wet.
Inescapably, Miriam glanced down at her own midsection, well hidden—and quite dry, thank you very much—beneath her standard librarian uniform of crisply ironed cotton blouse—in this case, white—over crisply ironed straight skirt—in this case, beige. Then, inevitably, she glanced back up at the screen. Not only was her midsection sadly lacking when compared to these women, but the rest of her suffered mightily, too.
Where the women on the computer screen had wildly billowing tresses—even wet, they billowed, she noted morosely—in hues of gold and copper and ebony, her own boring blond hair—dishwater, her mother had always called it—was clipped back at her nape with a simple barrette, performing no significant billowing to speak of. And instead of heavily lined, mascaraed eyes of exotic color, Miriam’s were gray and completely unadorned.
No, the women on this particular Web site certainly were not what one might call usual, she thought with a sigh. Nor were they what one might call realistic. Of course, she reminded herself, the site was called hotwetbabes.com, so she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised to find all those photos of, well, hot, wet babes. Still, she did wish someone would try to impose some measure of…of…of accuracy on existing Internet businesses.
There. That wasn’t advocating censorship, was it? Who in his or her right mind would object to accuracy, after all? Accuracy was a very good thing. The world needed more accuracy. And in Miriam’s opinion, it was high time the Internet became more accurate.
Yes, indeed.
She positioned the mouse to close the program with a convenient click—clearly this filter wasn’t the one the Marigold Free Public Library would be using, if sites such as these found their way through—but her hand, and therefore the mouse, must have just missed the mark. Because she accidentally—and she was absolutely certain it was indeed an accident—clicked instead on an announcement. An announcement which read, of all things, Visit our brother site! Hotwetbods.com! And before she had a chance to correct her mistake—drat these fast new modems, anyway—a different screen opened up. And she suddenly found herself looking at—
Men Made in America Mega-Bundle Page 156