Rosalie had let herself sink too deeply into the music. She sat up with a start when Morgan drove into an underground garage and switched off the engine.
Contentment became excitement in a heartbeat. Tiny flashes of anticipation battled with more familiar clouds of doubt while she waited for him to open the car door for her.
Then her hand was in his. He smiled at her with such an intense look her insides leapt into flame. She was out of the car and in his arms before she was aware she’d moved.
He claimed her mouth with impressive expertise, her arms around his neck, her hands buried in the thick, black hair that curled around the collar of his jacket.
The night, the wine, the conversation had filled her with a need, a hope she couldn’t deny.
He must have nudged the door, because it fell shut. She leaned back against the car, her breasts hot with need and raised into his chest.
He took her face in his hands and deepened the kiss, plundered and teased her mouth until she moaned. Her arms dropped to his waist to draw his hardness tighter against her. He shifted closer still and ran his hands slowly down her neck, her shoulders …
Her whole body trembled when he caressed the sides of her breasts. The lace bra, already pulled tight against her nipples, teased them now in a heady pleasure-pain. She rubbed against the warm wall of his flesh, so close and yet still not close enough.
He groaned and rocked against the vee of her thighs. His thumbs reached out to caress her hard nipples.
All the desire she’d bottled up since she met him spilled out and transported her to the first moment she’d looked into his eyes and knew he was all she’d ever dreamed of in a man.
His hands dropped to her thighs to tug up the full skirt of her dress. She lifted her hips from the side of the car in a wanton invitation that made her want to laugh with joy.
Morgan had both hands fisted in Rosalie’s skirt before he remembered she wasn’t the kind of woman to have rough sex shoved up against a car.
She seemed fine with it, more than fine with it right now, but as soon as it was over he suspected she’d regret it. And regret was not what he wanted her to feel.
Her tiny gasp when he let her skirt drop echoed his body’s more vehement protest. He hesitated, but the image of the shame on her face after the lust wore off gave him the strength to put some space between them. He dropped kisses of regret on her face while he eased away.
“We need to take this upstairs,” he whispered.
She blinked owlishly, like a child awakened from a dream, which made him chuckle and kiss the corner of each eye.
Before either of them spoke, the metallic growl of the garage door opening echoed off the concrete walls around them.
Rosalie’s eyes went wide and a rosy flush crept up her cheeks.
“I guess I sort of lost track of where we were.” She looked away
He tipped her chin up with one finger and gave her a quick kiss. “We both did.”
He held his breath. Now her head was clearer, there was always the chance she’d change her mind.
Instead, she took his hand in hers, which immediately rekindled the banked fires inside him. He kissed her hand before he tucked it under his arm and led her to the elevator.
The whisper of the elevator doors closing behind them sent alarms bells off in Rosalie’s head. But the moment she tensed, before the thought of changing her mind could even form itself, Morgan swept her up in his arms again for a kiss as sweet as it was passionate. The sound of the alarm bells melted into the Mozart they’d listened to in the car.
One night. One night to make up for the boyfriend who wanted her to put her mother in a “home,” sell the house, put the money in a joint account, and move in with him. To make up for the law students who lost interest in her because she had the top grades in her class. To make up for grown men too focused on their pleasure, their needs. One night for her.
When the elevator doors opened again, he released her and crossed the private foyer to unlock the double door.
“Why do you own a condo in L.A.?” she asked in the almost palatial quiet despite the busy city far below.
“I don’t. My company does. It’s a first move toward a second office here, for better access to the Asian markets. That’s another reason the L.A. start-up is attractive to us.”
He opened the door and Rosalie stepped through, stunned into silence. The sheer opulence of the condo was beyond anything she’d ever seen before.
When she stepped into the huge leather, glass and chrome living room, her feet sank into the carpet. Fresh roses scented the air. Floor-to-ceiling windows filled one wall.
The penthouse condo sat atop the canyon of condos and luxury office buildings along Wilshire Boulevard, so the city lights spread far below them were like gems on black velvet.
Morgan pushed a button and the curtains swung closed. She was about to protest when she saw the painting over the fireplace.
“A Martha Ritchard.” The huge canvas was painted with thick slashes of vibrant color on black. The sheer emotional impact of it staggered her. “She was one of my mother’s teachers.”
“I’m not surprised to hear that.”
Morgan slid his coat off and loosed his tie. He looked uncomfortable, as if he didn’t know what to do or say next. Unlikely, given he must have had dozens of women up here before. Still, the touch of awkwardness made her smile. And made her brave. She dropped her shawl next to his jacket on the back of the gray-leather sofa and walked over to him.
He swallowed. “Would you like a drink?”
“No.” She lifted her hands to his shoulders and raised her lips to his.
He hesitated a moment before he wrapped his arms around her and turned her simple kiss into a lesson in sensual expertise.
Her whole body shivered with need the moment he plunged his tongue into her already-sensitized mouth. Ruthlessly he plundered, tasted, possessed, but the need only grew deeper.
He withdrew part way and she followed, half to quiet the alarm bells in her mind, half to ignite the same fires inside him that threatened to consume her as she stood there, fully dressed.
But not for long. He ended the kiss gently, his hands still on the nape of her neck to caress and tease them both as he stepped away.
“Are you sure?” His voice was rough, his jaw tight.
She dropped her gaze from the intensity in his. “Yes.”
His posture softened and he grinned
“Good, because those buttons have driven me crazy all night.”
He drew his hands from her neck to trail fire down her shoulders and along the top of her dress until his fingers reached the first button.
When he bent his head to lick the rounded flesh above the cloth, she stifled a gasp that shivered through her body in little bursts of delight.
Morgan took another deep breath to calm the almost unbearable need to rip those buttons apart and fill himself with the sight, the feel, the taste of the breasts he’d daydreamed about since the first day he walked into Rosalie’s office. But a quick roll on the couch wasn’t her style any more than rough sex in the garage. She needed, she deserved, tenderness.
He undid the first button and spread the fabric it released. He lifted his hands away, and she let out a long, slow breath, then gasped in more air when he repeated the process with the second button.
He’d expected to find white, boring cotton under the blue of her dress. A bra Joey’s mother would wear. The silky blue lace he’d revealed brought a new burst of lust that made him grit his teeth against the increased pressure down below.
She hadn’t dressed like Joey’s mother. She’d dressed like a woman who wanted to have sex with him.
He smiled and rewarded her with a kiss just below her ear. She sighed and pressed her body toward him in encouragement.
He didn’t need to be reminded twice. The next two buttons went quickly, despite the tremor in his hands.
He spread the fabric open again to reveal tw
o hard, pink nipples behind the blue lace, their eagerness so obvious he couldn’t resist the urge to catch each one between a thumb and finger.
Rosalie stopped breathing again while he decided between a tweak and a tug. In the end, he did both. The air swooshed out of her in the tiniest of moans. His body tightened another uncomfortable notch, but he turned his attention back to the buttons and the remaining treasure they concealed.
Three more and he’d be able to slide the straps of the dress off her shoulders.
A faint flush rose on the creamy skin. Reverently he raised his hands to her breasts, the way she leaned into his touch as much an enticement as the soft flesh itself. He caressed, weighed, tweaked and tugged again at her engorged nipples until she trembled and pulled away.
He made short work of undoing the remaining buttons. When he dropped his hands, she stepped away to let the dress billow to the floor around her feet. Her eyes were green pools of wonder and desire. Along with a tinge of the wariness that made her the woman she was.
But, to his surprise and delight, she blinked the wariness away, slid out of her slip, reached behind her and dropped her bra to the floor beside it.
“Maybe we should take this to the bedroom.” His voice was rough with desire.
She hesitate a moment before she nodded and held out her hand.
To touch only her quivering fingers with all of her lush body within his reach was exquisite torture, but he led her down the short hall to the bedroom, kissed her palm before he released her hand, and pulled down the duvet.
She stared a moment at the bed, then turned to him.
“You’re overdressed.” Her voice was a thin thread of sound, as if she hadn’t taken a full breath since they stepped off the elevator.
“So I am,” he said in mock surprise. “Do you want to do the honors?”
She pursed her lips. “I’d rather watch.”
This woman with her unique blend of shy and brazen would be the death of him.
Self-consciously he took off his shirt, shoes and socks, but faltered with his hands at the buckle of his belt.
She’d sat on the edge of the bed, her legs tucked together and her hands at her sides to hold her up.
She looked up at his eyes when he stopped and licked her lips.
The rest of his clothes fell away as if of their own accord and he walked to the bed, his swollen flesh inches from her sweet mouth.
She touched his hardness with one hesitant finger. “I never …”
His control snapped. He tumbled her on the bed and feasted on those creamy breasts, those sweet-as-berries lips, and the nectar of her mouth. Her little sighs, the way her hands stroked his shoulders, his back, his butt, fed his hunger for her.
He returned to the rose-bud nipples to lick and suck until she moaned and gave a tiny shudder of delight. Damn but this woman was hot. All he’d ever dreamed of—and more.
He eased back to take his time, despite the urgency gnawing at him. He let his hands explore the secrets of her body, find where his touch made her tremble, where it made her gasp, where it made her moan again.
He marked her with every kiss, every nibble, until she was his completely.
Which should have frightened him to death.
A cloud of fear hovered beyond the dizzying pleasure that had taken possession of Rosalie’s body. Not physical fear. She’d trust Morgan with her life. But she’d never trust any man with her heart.
Still, she let him take control of her every sensation without a second thought. She owed herself the pleasure he could give her, just this once.
She squirmed with erotic eagerness as his kisses and caresses made her senses dance. Her body became pure need under his gentle fingers, his hot mouth, those perfect teeth that knew exactly how to use a gentle nip to send her into new spirals of ecstasy.
His hand found the center of her need and slowed the caresses to pay minute attention to her every breath of desire. The effort it must have cost him made her smile until all reason slipped away.
She was already on the verge of ecstasy when he slid down her body and used his clever tongue to tease and sample and drive her wild, every muscle tight.
He suckled the exquisitely tender flesh until she gave a low wail, then she crashed over the edge with a single word. “Now!”
He moved away, but before she could protest she heard the tear of foil, and her heart filled with warmth.
He’d remembered to protect her from her own mindless need for him.
Then he was on her, in her, and time stopped, circled, spun with the ancient dance. The frenzy of pleasure grew hotter, sweeter until he made a low, questioning sound and she lifted her hips in eager response.
He raised up on his knees, grasped her hips and plunged home one last time. Her pleasure echoed his as they soared high into the midnight-blue sky and sank together back into the silken darkness.
A quiver of delight brought Rosalie back to reality some time later, with the dim awareness it was not the first aftershock to what had been the best sex of her life. She let the words echo through her brain, surprised to find they seemed to belong there, as if good sex was part of her, not something she might find time for someday.
Sensations drifted through her muddled mind. The sleekness of silk sheets. The warmth of the duvet. The heat of the hard male body next to her. Shock reverberated through her.
She’d done the deed with Morgan Danby!
He protested sleepily when she jerked to a sitting position, the duvet wrapped around her.
She glanced around the room. If she could get dressed and sneak …
Her clothes weren’t in this room. Just the tiny scrap of blue lace he’d pulled off her body …
Or did she pull off her panties? She wasn’t sure. Shame washed over her.
No, not shame. Embarrassment. Shame would mean she was sorry for what happened, but to her surprise, she wasn’t sorry at all.
She was still trying to sort out her tumbled emotions when a muscular arm wrapped itself around her waist and tried to tug her gently back down toward the undertow. It slid away at her resistance. Morgan raised a sleepy head to frown up at her.
“Regrets?”
She felt her face go hot, but she owed the man honesty. “No. Just …”
He sat beside her, the duvet across his lap. “Not sure?”
“Closer.”
The air turned thick, not with the sexual heat from before, but with unruly thoughts, unsaid words. She didn’t have much experience with situations like this, and none with men like Morgan.
He stared at the painting on the wall across from them—another Ritchard, maybe a nude, but she wasn’t sure—as the minutes stretched out between them.
“Rosalie?”
The tone of his voice, the way he didn’t look at her, made her heart race. Was he the one with regrets? Was he eager to get rid of her?
Or did he want to tell her he loved her?
He cleared his throat. “Rosalie?” he asked again.
She held her breath.
“Will you marry me?”
Her mind went blank. “What?”
“Will you marry me?”
“Are you crazy?” She couldn’t suppress a laugh—half genuine surprise, half unexpected disappointment that cut her in two.
The sound froze his face into the mask she remembered too well from the day they’d first met. The memories crashed through her post-orgasmic haze.
Please, she urged silently, don’t let this be about Joey.
“It makes perfect sense,” Morgan said. “You love Joey.”
And I almost fell in love with you, you almighty jerk! But no way would she ever let him know. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold inside.
“If you marry me,” he went on in a much-too-reasonable tone, “we’d be able to adopt Joey together and Lillian can see him whenever she wants.”
“All this,” she waved one arm at the rumpled bed, “to make Charlie’s mother happy?”
>
“No. It was to make you happy. I don’t want you to lose Joey.”
“I can fight my own battles, thank you.” Her voice quavered. “Why not just tell me what you had in mind? Why pretend you liked me? Why have sex with me?”
“I do like you. I wanted you to feel safe with me.”
Outrage burned away the threat of tears. “Safe with you! So you could manipulate me better? What kind of safety is that?”
“Think for a minute. If you marry me, everyone can get what they want. Lillian gets her grandson. You get to keep Joey.”
“And what do you get?”
Chapter Nine
Morgan already knew he’d blown it, but Rosalie’s question had sent a new shock wave through him.
“I get a wife.” For the first time in his life, he found no other words for how he felt, what he wanted from a woman.
“For how long?”
Forever.
Nothing is forever. Not even a mother’s love.
“Until one of us wants out,” he said instead
“Not good enough.”
“Maybe bed isn’t the best place to discuss this. Why don’t you shower and get dressed while I make coffee?” It’d be easier to focus on winning her over without her warm, naked body next to him. “I have a plan. You’ll see it’s the best solution all the way around.”
“If I listen to your plan, will you go away and leave me and Joey alone? For good?”
Reluctantly, he nodded. One chance was better than none.
Not that he could stay away from her, not after tonight. He closed his eyes, remembering the heat of her mouth, the way her body melted into his, the gasps of pleasure he’d coaxed from her. As she’d once said, he liked to win. And he knew of no battle more important to win than this one.
Rosalie waited until Morgan left the room before she crept out of the bed. The opulent marble and chrome of the en-suite bathroom was wasted on her as she tried to scrub away the memories of what she’d done in the hot flow of the shower.
The clash between the warm water and the arctic chill inside dizzied her. Each beat of her heart, each breath, was an effort. She felt like Lucifer, plunged from the heights of heaven to the icy depths, but couldn’t for the life of her figure out what she’d done to deserve it.
Found: One Secret Baby Page 12