All or Nothing

by Catherine Mann

  He had her writhing on the comforter, aching to take this further, faster. His hand slid down to replace his tongue with a knowing touch. He inched his way back up her body until his mouth settled on her breast and his fingers between her legs teased in synchronicity, playing her perfectly. He knew her, just like the night at La Bohème. Except now she was naked and they were alone so he had free rein for more. He stroked the tight bundle of nerves with his thumb while sliding two fingers deep, crooking at just the right spot.

  She gasped and pressed harder against his hand even as she wanted all of him. “No more playing. I just want you inside me.”

  “And you can be damn sure that’s exactly where I want to be.” He rolled her nipple lightly between his teeth. “But I want that—want you—so much and it’s been so long, I’m not going to last. I need to take care of you first.”

  She circled him, stroking…her thumb rolling over the damp tip. And yes, she was every bit as close to coming apart.

  “That works both ways you know, the part about having gone without sex for too damn long.” She reached for the condom box and tugged free a packet. “No more waiting. If we come fast, then we get to linger later, but I can’t wait anymore.”

  Determined to delay not a second longer, she sheathed him with a familiarity and newness that she still didn’t quite comprehend. The fan rustled the curtains around their haven.

  He held her face, looked into her eyes and said, “There hasn’t been anyone since you. No one comes close to turning me inside out the way you do. And even when I resent it like hell, there’s no denying it. I only want you.”

  His words stilled her hands. No one since her? For three years?

  She wanted to believe him, ached to believe him. Because she felt the same. She even understood the part about resenting the way this feeling for each other took over her body and her life.

  And then he kissed her. He thrust his tongue as he pushed inside her. Filling her, stretching her with more of that newness after so damn long away from each other. The sweet abrasion of his chest rasped along her nipples. The hard roped muscles of his legs flexed with each pump of his body. She dug her heels into the mattress and angled up against him until the gathering tension in her pulled even tighter, bringing her closer.

  Her hand flung out to grab the headboard, the intense sweetness was almost too much. She wanted to hang on to the sensations as tightly as she held the headboard, but he’d taken her too close to the edge with his mouth and his skillful touch.

  One more deep stroke finished her. Pleasure rippled from her core, pulling through her, outward until the roots of her hair tingled. She bowed upward into him, even as her head thrashed on the pillow.

  He chanted encouragement as her release pulsed and clamped around him, his voice growing hoarse until he hissed between gritted teeth. And while she’d doubted so much about their relationship, she knew he’d told her the truth about the past three years. He belonged to her.

  She hugged him in the aftermath as he collapsed on top of her. The ceiling fan overhead click, click, clicked, gusts shifting the drapes around the towering teak bed. She trailed her fingers along his broad back, her foot up his thigh, and didn’t take for granted the feel of him.

  Not anymore.

  It was one thing to be angry at him for the past thirty-six months. And another altogether to accept he’d been every bit as torn apart by their breakup as she had. With what he’d shared about his father tonight, she started to realize she’d never fully grasped what made him tick. Maybe if she dug for more clues about his relationship with his father in particular, she might understand how he’d arrived at his place of such emotional isolation.

  Because she realized more than ever that she couldn’t just walk away again.

  * * *

  Conrad held his wife spooned against him while she slept. She was back in his bed. He’d won.

  And he didn’t feel one bit peaceful about letting Jayne go.

  Moonbeams reflected on the river water, the dock light glowing. If she was awake, he would have liked to sit out there with her and just listen to the night sounds, then walk with her up to the house, shower with her in the outdoor stall with the stars above them.

  He’d made love to her twice more and still it wasn’t enough. He rested his chin on her head, the sweat of their lovemaking lightly sealing their bodies, her spine against his chest. Each breath pressed her closer again, stirring his hard-on to a painful intensity. His hand slid around to cup her breast, filling his palm with her creamy roundness. She moaned in her sleep, her nipple drawing up into a tight bead.

  She was in his blood. Rather than clearing away the past, making love with her had churned up all the frustration of the past three years. The thought of letting her go—unbearable. But he couldn’t envision taking her back to Monte Carlo.

  Although, how to blend her into his old life could be a moot point. If his cover had been blown, his Interpol work would be over. He angled to kiss her shoulder over the light red mark of his beard bristle from last night. He could have Jayne back and no more unexplained absences.

  But the thought of ending his Interpol work…hell. He wouldn’t have considered it before. Although since Zhutov might have taken that choice from him, he might as well make the best of the situation. And he couldn’t just let Jayne wander off with God knows what kind of threat looming. These sorts of crooks did not forget.

  His path became clear.

  Protect Jayne.

  His life came into focus. He realized his past mistake. He’d tried too hard to blend her into his world in Monte Carlo. He’d let her too close to the darker side of himself. Somehow, he must have known that, since he’d chosen to bring her here, to a place that represented the man he’d once wanted to be.

  Jayne shifted in her sleep, arching her breast into his hand, her bottom wriggling against him. He throbbed against the sweet dip in her spine and the beginning of his need for her pearled along the tip of his erection. He clamped a hand on her stomach to hold her still.

  Sighing, she looked back over her shoulder at him with sleepy half-awake eyes.

  “Is it morning?” she asked in a groggy voice.

  “Not yet. Keep sleeping.” He had a packed day planned, showing her the full extent of the compound he’d built here. “We have plenty of time.”

  “Hmm… Except I’m not sleepy.” She reached behind her to stroke his hair. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

  He nuzzled her hair. “I have some ideas. But what do you want?”

  “At some point, breakfast. A very big breakfast, actually. After last night, I’ll need more than pastries and tea.”

  “I’m certain I can figure something out.”

  “You cook?”

  He was a little insulted by the assumption that he didn’t, until he remembered all the times he’d burned toast when they were still together. His cooking was a more recently acquired skill. “I make some pretty fierce eggs Benedict these days.”

  “Sounds heavenly.” Her head rested back against his chest. “I also noticed you’ve taken up redecorating.”

  Did he detect a note of pique in her voice? He opted for honesty. “Having your things around brought back too many memories. It was easier to move forward if I got rid of them.”

  Her feet tucked between his. “But you didn’t replace everything. The red room stayed the same.”

  “That was the only room in the penthouse where we never had sex.”

  “So let me get this straight. You tossed out every piece of furniture that reminded you of the two of us having sex there.”

  “Pretty much.”

  She stayed silent, and he wished he could see her face to gauge her mood. So much of her was familiar and then other times not so much. She’d changed. So had he. They were both warier.

  Finally she smiled back at him over her shoulder. “Good thing we never made love in the Bentley. It would have been a damn shame for you to have to get rid of such a
cool collector’s item.”

  “You have a point.” He kissed her, wondering if he would have to burn this bed if she walked out on him again. “I guess we’ve both made some changes. What prompted you to swap from being an E.R. nurse to Hospice care?”

  “You’ve obviously kept tabs on me. Why do you think?”

  Was that a dig? “You know you don’t have to work, right? No matter what happens between us, I will take care of you.”

  She flipped back the covers and started to sit up. “I don’t need to be ‘taken care of.’”

  “Whoa… Hold on now.” He looped an arm around her waist. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just commenting on the fact that we’re married. What’s mine is yours. Fifty-fifty.”

  “Don’t let your lawyer hear you give up your portfolio that easily.”

  “Not. Funny.”

  Still, she sat on the edge of the bed, the vulnerable curve of her back stirring his protective urges. She could shout her independence all day long. That wouldn’t stop him from wanting to give her nice things. And more importantly, it wouldn’t stop him from standing between her and anything that threatened her.

  Shifting up onto an elbow, he rubbed her back and tried to backtrack, to fix what he’d screwed up. “Tell me about your new job.”

  Was it his imagination or did the defensive tensing of her shoulders ease?

  “When I came back to Miami, my old job had obviously been filled. I took the Hospice opening as a temporary stopgap until a position more in my line of expertise became available. Except I found I didn’t want to leave the job. It’s not that I was unhappy with my work before, but something changed inside me.”

  “Like what?” He smoothed his hand down to the small of her back, the lolling of her head cluing him in to keep right on with the massage.

  “I think I was drawn to E.R. work initially because there wasn’t as much of a chance of my heart being engaged.” She glanced back. “I don’t mean to say that I didn’t care for the patients. But there wasn’t time to form a relationship with someone who’s out of your care in under an hour. I had a set amount of time to help that person, and then we moved on.”

  He massaged along the tendons in her neck. “Your dad’s stunt hiding a second family really must have done a number on you.”

  “I had trouble connecting with others.” She sagged back onto the bed and into his arms. “Now I find there’s a deep satisfaction in bringing comfort to people when life is at its most difficult. It may sound strange…”

  “Not at all,” he said as he tucked her tight against him, this amazing woman he damn well didn’t deserve but couldn’t bring himself to give up.

  “Enough depressing talk about the past. I don’t know about you, but I can think of a far more enjoyable way to spend our time now that I am completely awake.” She stretched out an arm to slide a condom from the bedside table and pressed it into his palm.

  Smiling seductively over her shoulder, she skimmed her foot along his calf, her legs parting ever so slightly for him, inviting him. And call him a selfish bastard, but he wasn’t one to turn down an invitation from Jayne. He’d been without her for so long he couldn’t get enough of her. Time and time again he’d been tempted to fly to Miami and demand she come home.

  Like that would have gone over well.

  Instead he’d sent back those damn divorce papers repeatedly, knowing eventually she would have to come to him. She’d been well worth the wait. He skimmed his fingers around her again, slipped them down between the damp cleft, stroking as she opened farther.

  With two fingers, he circled, faster, pressing and plucking with the amount of pressure he knew she enjoyed, bringing a fresh sigh from her. And just when he’d brought her to the edge, he hooked his arm under her knee and angled his sheathed erection just right, so close to everything he’d dreamed of and fantasized about when he’d taken those long and unsatisfying showers without her.

  As he slid inside Jayne, his wife, he vowed he would not lose her. And he would never, never let anything from his past touch her again.

  * * *

  Jayne stood at the river’s edge and watched the gazelle glide through the tall grasses on the other side of the mangrove swamp. The midmorning sun climbed up the horizon in a shimmering orange haze, echoing the warm glow inside her after a night of making love with Conrad.

  Again and again. He’d given her explosive orgasms and foreplay to die for. He’d brought her a late-night snack in bed of flatbreads and meats, fed to each other. He’d fed her perfectly prepared eggs Benedict this morning. They’d talked and laughed, everything she’d dreamed could happen for them again.

  How different might things have been if they’d come here for their first anniversary? If they’d talked through all the things they were only beginning to touch on now?

  And she couldn’t completely blame him anymore. As she looked back, she accepted the times she’d let things slide rather than push him, because deep in her heart she was scared she wouldn’t be able to walk away.

  Her mother hadn’t deserved what happened to her. God knows Jayne hadn’t deserved it, either.

  But she refused to be passive any longer. If—and that was a big if—she and Conrad stood a chance at patching things up, he needed to be completely open with her. They needed a true partnership of equals.

  Glancing over her shoulder up to his home on the plateau, she saw her husband pacing, talking on his cell phone. He’d said he needed to check in with Salvatore before he took her on a tour of the property. Apparently there were other buildings and even a small town beyond the rolling hills and she had to admit to curiosity about what drew him here. The home—the whole locale—was so different from the glitz of his other holdings.

  It gave her hope.

  So much hope that she’d called Anthony. She’d arranged for a friend from work to pick up Mimi. If she was going to even consider making things work with Conrad, she had to cut off any ties to Anthony, a man she’d considered dating.

  Watching Conrad walk down the incline toward her now, she wasn’t ready to pack her things and bring Mimi across the ocean yet, but for the first time in three years, she was open to the possibility. She just needed the sign from Conrad that he would compromise this go-round.

  He closed the distance between them, stopping at the shoreline with tall grasses swaying around his calves. He draped an arm around her shoulder. “Salvatore’s staff is still wading through backlogs of visitors, letters, emails, any contact with the outside world. A suspicious amount of money was moved from Zhutov’s wife’s account. Salvatore hopes to have concrete answers by the end of the day.”

  The threat sounded so surreal, but then Conrad’s whole hidden career still felt strange to her. “What about Troy and Hillary?”

  “They’re safely in the Bahamas at a casino and no signs of anyone tracking them, either. By all accounts, they’re enjoying the vacation of a lifetime.”

  “So this could all be a scare for nothing?”

  He kissed her forehead. “Not nothing. We’re here, together.”

  For how long? Long enough to find a path back together? She wished they could stand here by the river watching the hippo bathe himself in mud.

  She tucked closer to Conrad’s side, the sun beaming down on them. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “Three or four hours. I’m good.”

  “Yes, you are.” Turning in his arms, she kissed him good-morning and wondered just how private this spot might be. She looked at the dock, then up the incline at the deck and the outdoor shower stall. Her mind swirled with possibilities….

  With a final kiss to her forehead, he angled back. “Ready to go for the tour?”

  “Absolutely.” Walking alongside him to the Land Cruiser, she tucked away her fantasy for another time, intensely curious about this tour and the opportunity to dig deeper into what made her husband tick.

  The wilds of Africa were definitely a world away from Monte Carlo. Instead
of flashy royalty in diamonds and furs, a spotted cheetah parted the grasslands not far from a mama giraffe with her baby. They walked with a long-legged grace much more elegant than any princess.

  She rolled down her window, letting the muggy air clear away the images of the glitzier lifestyle, immersing herself in the present. “We know each other well in some ways and in others not at all—no dig meant by that. I feel like it’s my fault, too.”

  “None of this is your fault. I’m the one responsible for my own choices and actions, no excuses from the past.” Wind tunneled in his white polo shirt, his faded jeans fitting to his muscled thighs.

  It wasn’t about the clothes with him. She couldn’t help but think—not for the first time—how he had a powerful presence just by existing, whether he was in a tuxedo in Monte Carlo or dressed for the desert realms of Africa.

  She studied the hard line of his jaw, peppered with stubble. “Why can’t you let me feel sorry for what you went through as a teenager?”

  “I don’t want sympathy. I want you naked.” He shot a seductive grin her way. “We can pull over and…”

  “You’re trying to distract me.” And she was determined to talk. “You promised to answer my questions.”

  Only the wind answered, whispering through the window as they drove toward a small cluster of buildings in the distance, with cars and lines of people, adults and kids. Perhaps this was a school?

  Regardless, her time to talk would be cut short soon.

  “Conrad? You promised,” she pressed as birds ducked and dove toward their windshield only to break away at the last instant.

  He winced, looking back at the narrow rural road. “You’re right. I promised.”

  “Where did you stay on school breaks? Or did you stay at the school, like juvenile hall or something?”

  The smile left his eyes. “I went home for holidays with an ankle monitor.”

  Thoughts of him as a teenager walking around with that monitoring device chilled her. “That had to have been awkward after you tried to turn in your father.”