My Funny Valentine

by Rhonda Nelson

  Feeling slightly melancholy, Bella paused and picked up a little toy car. Several others were strewn about the yard, leaving a map-like impression of Ethan’s wanderings. Not surprisingly, most of them were centered around his mud hole. Out of habit, Bella bent and began to clean up the mess. After she’d emptied her arms of the first load, she started to pull half-buried toys from the mud. The last toy, a shovel, lay just out of reach. Cursing under her breath, Bella edged forward and attempted to reach it.

  “Bella,” Gray’s voice boomed from behind her.

  Startled, Bella jerked and flailed her arms in windmill fashion, attempting to steady her balance.

  It didn’t work.

  She landed in the hole, knees first, with a sickening plop. Mud sprayed up, splattering her face.

  To her ultimate annoyance, Gray had the audacity to guffaw.

  Not laugh.

  Not chuckle.

  It was an all-out belly laugh…and, for reasons she knew didn’t have anything to do with her present, predicament, it infuriated her.

  Bella didn’t bother to wipe any of the mud away, but turned to glare at him from over her shoulder.

  “I’m s-sorry, Bella,” Gray sputtered. “I know I shouldn’t l-laugh.”

  Bella gave him a dark look, which to her further irritation, made the man heave and chuckle some more.

  “Sorry,” he started again. “I just—“

  A mud ball smacked Gray’s chin, cutting off the rest of his statement.

  A sharp burst of laughter erupted from Bella’s own throat at his thunderstruck expression. Eyes wide, he stared at Bella as though he couldn’t believe she’d had the impudence to hurl a mud ball at him.

  “You threw a mud ball at me,” he pointed out unnecessarily, as if she somehow weren’t aware of what she’d done.

  “You laughed at me,” Bella returned tartly. It was the closest thing to an explanation he was going to get. Bella didn’t understand her need to lash out at him herself, so what good could possibly do to try to explain it to him? Still, a tremor of unease tightened in her belly.

  He wiped a streak of wet earth from his chin and a predatory expression came over his too handsome features. “I didn’t know you liked to mud wrestle, Bella,” he murmured softly. So softly the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

  Uh—oh. Bella gulped. “I don’t.”

  “Funny. You could’ve fooled me.”

  Too late, Bella realized what he had in mind. She gazed warily at Gray, then started to bolt from the puddle.

  Gray lunged and caught her around her middle, then pulled her down with him. The mud hole became their battleground. Weeks of sexual frustration lent Bella amazing energy and she was going to use it. The man was outrageous. Made her want what she couldn’t want, made her pine for a love that could never be. Made her wish she’d never had a broken heart. She packed all that frustration into every mud ball she hurled at his perfect form.

  At last, however, when her irrational anger was spent, it was replaced with a sense of the absurd she couldn’t contain. Giggling, she scrambled to get away from him. She grabbed another handful of the slimy goo and smacked it against his chest.

  Gray abruptly returned the favor, sending a landslide of mud between her breasts. Bella gasped and glared at him. A wicked smile curled his lips as he watched his mud missile slide ever so slowly into her cleavage. Irrationally, her blood heated. Bella hurled another bomb at him…and watched it glide over his zipper.

  Gray stilled. He slowly raised his head and his gaze met hers with an almost staggering impact. Sexual tension vibrated between them, so powerful Bella imagined she could see the waves billowing over them. Her breathing quickened and her nerves vibrated. More than anything, she wanted him to make the first move…to take the decision out of her hands. If he so much as crooked his finger, Bella knew she’d be lost. Desire was a palpable force within her, and she instinctively knew that Gray Cameron was the only many who possessed the strength and skill to satisfy it. Just this once, she told herself. Just this once…

  Gray’s breathe hissed past his teeth. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to—“

  Bella lifted her chin, a silent dare. “Going to what?” Bella imagined Gray’s searching gaze unlocked all the secrets of her heart as he leaned forward and his lips at last touched hers. The kiss was soft and sweet, meant to seduce and Bella inwardly wept with joy. Her hands crept to his chest, reverently smoothing over the hard contours. She felt his heartbeat kindle beneath her palm. Just the knowledge that she could make this big man quiver with her touch was altogether thrilling.

  A rumble of pleasure vibrated up his throat. Bella savored it and answered with a purr of her own. She felt Gray’s hands glide over her body. Felt his palm close over her tingling breast. Strangely, the warm mud produced an erotic sensation. A vague warning hovered in her mind, but Bella was too bombarded with sensual pleasure to puzzle it out.

  “Bella?” Gray murmured against her lips.

  “Yeah.”

  He feasted on her for another full minute. “We need…to go…inside.”

  “Go inside,” she repeated mindlessly. Bella suckled his tongue, drawing another shudder from Gray.

  Reluctantly, he drew back. “Your…neighbor with the…binoculars.”

  “Neighbor with the binoculars,” she murmured dreamily. Neighbor…with the binoculars. Bella’s heart seized with dread. Horrified, she gazed at Gray. She knew she wanted to make love to Gray, but certainly not in front of an audience. Good grief, she’d been so blinded by lust that she hadn’t even considered the fact that she was practically pawing him in her back yard!

  She wanted to paw him in private.

  Bella drew herself up and tugged Gray from the mud hole. “Come on,” she told him, her gaze steady. “Let’s go inside.”

  ***

  An invitation to sin…from the lips of an angel. Gray had never wanted a woman as much as he wanted Bella Valentine. As her small, capable hands pulled him toward the back door of the house he’d begun to call home, he was all too aware of his mixed emotions: equal parts of happiness and fear.

  Completely unaware of the feelings warring in his heart, Bella ushered Gray through the door and let him to the bathroom. She adjusted the tap, turned on the shower, then swung to face him. Desire glowed from her angelic face, arousing Gray even more.

  She grasped the hem of her shirt and drew it over her head, then unbuttoned her shorts, slid them down her hips and kicked them aside. Gray simply stopped breathing.

  Bella was utterly beautiful.

  Her long, slightly mudded moonbeam hair tumbled over her shoulders and the perfect globes of her breasts. Her nipples were the color of a pink rosebud, puckered as though waiting for his kiss. Her waist was small, flowing into the soft swell of her hips.

  Bella came forward and tugged at his shirt, “Take this off. I want to look at you.”

  Oh, yes Gray thought, his manhood swelling painfully. But wasn’t that supposed to be his line? He gave her a long, considering look—because he couldn’t readily figure her out—then compiled with her request. The undisguised longing and approval he saw in her darkened eyes as he shed his clothes gave Gray an unequaled sense of pride.

  She leaned forward and her pink tongue darted out and teased his nipple. Gray shuddered and reached for her. Steam had begun to billow around the spacious bathroom, lending an ethereal, almost heavenly quality to the room. Once again, Bella twined her fingers in his. This time she tugged him toward the shower.

  Gray met her in the hot, steamy spray. His lips instantly found hers and she clung to him. Her pert breasts grazed his chest, sending another arc of heat straight to his pulsating groin. Damn, if she didn’t stop this, he would be finished before they scarcely started. Gray snagged a washcloth and lathered it, then began to gently cleanse Bella’s perfect body. The cloth glided easily over her silken skin.

  Bella’s impatient hands roamed over his own flesh, then
glided down the taunted muscles of his stomach. She touched him then. Just one stroke, meant to excite…and then she grasped him and ran a fingertip over the swollen head of his arousal. Gray almost came, then and there, but he took a deep breath and moved her hand away.

  Seeking a way to regain control, Gray guided her to the seat in the shower. Trailing kisses along her creamy neck and down her breasts, he lowered himself to his knees before her. He suckled her nipple, tugged hard until he felt Bella’s answering shudder. A moan eddied out of her. His fingers traced a path to her center. The tight curls parted with a mere brush of his fingers, then he slid one long finger between the hot, slick folds of her essence. He found what sought and was rewarded when Bella reached climax just at his tender touch…and moaned his name.

  Somehow, some way, a door had opened to his closed heart. Although Gray had no experience with love, his heart recognized the emotion all the same. Fear momentarily immobilized him. Panic rocketed through his veins and seized his heart.

  Then Bella said, “Please.”

  One word, yet it was packed with more emotion that any thousand he could have written…and he was lost. His gaze found Bella’s heavy-lidded one. Her hair was damp and tousled, and her cheeks red from the steam and exertion. She’d parted for him, another wordless trusting invitation. Not to sin, he decided…to heaven.

  ***

  “Please,” Bella uttered again. Gray loomed like a fallen angel before her. Dark. Dangerous. Wonderful. His long hair hung in a tangled mane, like a stallion after a hard ride. His body was absolute perfection and Bella craved every inch of it.

  Gray brought out a side of her nature that she hadn’t known existed. The fierceness of her attraction no longer scared her, because it virtually possessed her. She wanted—no, needed—to feel him. Bella didn’t bother deny to herself that she’d fallen in love with Gray Cameron… She knew it with every fiber of her being. What she felt was more than mere lust. More than mere attraction. It wasn’t in her nature to want as she did now. Her fingers traced the muscled terrain of his body. His broad shoulders, heavily muscled chest, washboard stomach. Bella caressed those sinewy ridges, happy to return the sensual delight he’d given her. She didn’t feel like she was borrowing his body for pleasure—she owned it. He was hers.

  Though a part of her knew only heartache could come from this brief union, Bella no longer cared. She only wanted him…at least for a little while. It wasn’t so much to ask, was it?

  Gray’s mouth settled over hers once again. His tongue, hot and moist, sampled her mouth as though she were infinitely sweet to him. Bella felt her feminine muscles tighten, her nipples tingle as the silky hairs of his chest brushed her sensitive peaks. Murmuring with pleasure, she clutched him closer to her—she had to get closer. Instinctively, she arched up, seeking his weight. Gray answered the silent plea and slid into her with one bold stroke.

  Bella’s thoughts fractured. Intense pleasure momentarily blinded her. He body gradually grew accustomed to his hard length, then began to tighten around him.

  For the first time in years, Bella felt whole. Pleasure built within her with each sensual stroke, steadily increasing until she cried out, lost in his lovemaking, as one with him, body and soul.

  Then it happened.

  Just as she thought she couldn’t possibly endure another moment of his sweet torture, her pleasure reached a precipice…then plunged into a sated abyss. A cry of unadulterated joy rolled past her lips. With a feral growl of utter pleasure, Gray thrust a final time, spilled his hot seed into her and joined her there. He collapsed against her, his head buried in the curve of her neck.

  Then, since it was against her nature to share something so personal and not confide the feelings of her heart, Bella silently mouthed three words. I love you.

  She certainly couldn’t confess them aloud.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dusk had given way to dark, plunging Bella’s bedroom into inky blackness. Not even a shadow lurked in the room. But Gray didn’t have to see Bella to know exactly the way she looked.

  He could feel her.

  Bella’s silken legs were entwined with his, her soft cheek pillowed against his chest. Gray could feel her slightly dampened hair trailing over his shoulder. One warm hand lay gently against his heart as though she needed to feel the steady beat beneath her palm. Bella’s breathing was slow, deep, and steady. She murmured occasionally, snuggled closer to him, and the protectiveness he felt toward her made something in Gray’s heart pitch and shift. He felt embraced by her love, cradled in angel wings—and it scared the hell out of him.

  Having no experience with love, Gray wasn’t prepared to deal with the emotion. He simply didn’t know how. Rather than sort out and consider the myriad emotions roiling through him, he forced the troubling thoughts from his head and concentrated on the present.

  Bella stirred. He felt her smile against his chest, her lips giving him a feather-light kiss. “Sorry I dozed off,” she murmured, her voice drowsy and sated.

  A grin curled Gray’s lips. “No apology necessary. I wore you out.”

  Bella chuckled. “Hmmm. Well, since you didn’t go to sleep, I must not have done a proper job of tiring you.” She moved sinuously against him, pressed a kiss to his neck.

  Gray swallowed a groan. “Trust me, you were wonderful.”

  She paused in her ministrations. “No need for improvement?”

  If she improved any more, he might just die of pleasure. “Not that I can see, angel…Though if you were hellbent on bettering yourself, I would gladly offer myself to your services.”

  “How generous of you.”

  He heaved a put—up sigh. “I like to think so.”

  Bella laughed and playfully swatted him. “Has anyone ever told you that you were incorrigible?”

  Gray pretended to give the question serious consideration. “Actually, I think that a literary critic might have written something to that effect.”

  “No,” Bella breathed. “You’re kidding. That must be difficult.” She shuddered distastefully. “Strangers picking apart your work.”

  “Nah. It’s their job.”

  “Still, it has to annoy you sometimes.”

  “It bothered me the first couple of years,” Gray admitted, surprised at himself. Normally talking about his writing made him uncomfortable. “Now the only people I aim to please are myself, my editor, and my readers.”

  Bella leaned up on one elbow and gazed at him through the darkness. “How do you do it?” she asked. “How do you think of all those stories?”

  He’d been asked this dozens of times and still didn’t have an answer that could really be put into words. “I don’t know, really.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I get ideas and imagine what if…and it all comes together. No, that’s not right. My characters pull it together.”

  She hummed in response and her silence encouraged him to try and explain.

  “Sometimes I get lost in the story. I start it, then my characters take over. And when that happens, I don’t eat, sleep…anything I can go for days like that. I just sit at my computer and let my fingers race over the keyboard. Does that make sense?”

  He felt her smile. “Well…no. But it sounds awfully mysterious. Kind of like a séance. Guess it goes with your brooding author persona.”

  Gray chuckled. “What do you mean?”

  Laughing softly, Bella said. “I’m teasing.” She snuggled closer to him. “You have a rare gift…and you’re brilliant at it.”

  Touched, Gray’s throat momentarily closed up. “Thank you,” he managed at last.

  Bella’s breathing once again slowed and Gray’s own lids felt heavy. Slumber tugged at him, pulled him deeper into a blissful void. A sense of contentment, homecoming, joy, surrounded him as he slowly drifted off to sleep. Mindlessly, he secured Bella’s feminine form more closely to him and murmured, “I love you,” into her hair.

  ***

  Bella awakened by degrees. Birdsong drifted through her bedroo
m window and the occasional sound of a car driving past. Smiling, though she didn’t know why, she stretched lazily and winced as her newly worked muscles protested the movement.

  Gray. His name fluttered through her still-sleepy mind, bringing yesterday and last night’s events slowly into focus. Aroused all over again, Bella instinctively reached for him, as she had so many times last night.

  Her hand didn’t land upon his hard male form—it landed upon her cold sheets.

  Frowning, Bella sat up, tugging the sheet with her as she went. She called his name, but knew before the single word left her lips that she was alone. The house was too quiet. Too still. Bella’s heart slowed disappointed that Gray hadn’t wanted to linger in her bed. Then a flash of yellow caught her eye.

  A rose. With a note.

  A smile tugging at her lips, Bella lifted the flower from his pillow and brought the silken blossom to her nose, then quickly scanned the brief message. Gray’s masculine script filled the little page.

  Bella—

  Don’t make plans for tonight. Be with me.

  Yours,

  Gray

  Be with me. Three simple little words, hardly poetic, and yet they packed such an amazing punch. She did want to be with him, almost as much as she needed her next breath.

  Though she knew she should think about her feelings, the emotional complications that might arise out of her recent night spent in Gray’s amorous company, Bella avoided the idea. A grin tipped her lips. No doubt were Gray still here, they would most likely be doing exactly what they did last night. Her flesh warmed at the thought.

  Gray was an incredible lover. Considerate…attentive…energetic…enduring. Mercy, simply the thought of him made her body react.

  Even were her heart not engaged, Bella knew last night would have affected her deeply. Since her heart was engaged, to say that she’d been moved seemed too paltry a description for the torrent of emotions Gray had let loose.