“Does she call them, or does Carter?”
Nina looked up to find a mischievous smile touching his mouth. Her gaze lingered on his mouth for a minute before she said, “Jessica does. Carter gives her input, and he runs the meetings, but in the end the decision is hers.” She returned her eyes to the path.
“They seem happy.”
“They are.”
“I think she’s pregnant.”
Nina’s eyes flew back to his. This time John seemed totally serious. “How do you know?”
“She has that look.”
“You mean, radiance? For heaven’s sake, John, that’s a crock.”
“It is not.”
“When a woman is pregnant, she feels sick. Then fat and clunky. There’s nothing radiant about being that way.”
“Fine for you to say,” John said, kicking aside a fallen twig. “You’ve never been pregnant. You don’t know what the feeling’s like.”
She laughed. “And you do? I hate to tell you this, John—”
“I remember when my wife was pregnant,” he said quietly. Coming to a stop, he looked off in the distance, seeing not the duck pond but another time years before. “She wasn’t real happy about it, but I was. I thought it was a miracle, the idea of this little life growing inside her. Long before the baby moved, I could see the changes in her body. First her breasts, then her waist, nature doing its thing in a totally generic way. Maybe she was too close to be able to appreciate it. I was just that little bit removed, so I could see things in a broader scheme. Then, when I felt the baby move in her stomach, everything that had been so broad seemed to focus in on the fact that it was my child growing there.” His breath caught on the intake. Seeming surprised by his own words, he looked quickly at Nina. “Sorry. I get carried away. It was an incredible experience.”
Standing still beside him, she felt goose bumps running up and down her arms. “You make it sound incredible.” And she could almost believe in radiance, because she could have sworn that was the look she had seen on John’s face for the few seconds before he’d caught himself.
The look she saw now was more earthy, and there was no way his glasses could mask it. His eyes were on her goose bumps. “Cold?”
“No.”
Lightly, starting at her wrists, he ran his hands up her arms. They stopped just shy of her shoulders to gently knead her skin. He watched their progress, first one, then the next. “It’s too bad you don’t want to have kids. You’d make a pretty mother.”
Her skin felt hot where he touched it, and the heat was stealing inside. “People would have trouble telling me from the kids,” she managed to say, though her voice was meager.
“Pregnant, I mean. You’d be pretty pregnant.”
Her heart was racing. “Maybe more substantial.”
“No.” His eyes touched her breasts, which rose with each shallow breath she took. “You’re substantial now. But it’s different when you’re pregnant. Not just added weight. Something else.” His eyes slipped to her stomach, caressing it through the thin jersey material, causing the same kneading sensation that was so seductive on her arms. She could barely move, barely breathe. Slowly, searing a path along the way, his gaze rose and locked with hers. “I keep thinking about you, Nina. I don’t want to, but I do.”
At the reluctant admission, she started to shake her head, but he made a shushing motion with his mouth and that stopped her. His voice was low, slow and sandy. “I keep remembering that kiss. It was so good. The only problem was that nothing touched but our mouths.”
“I know,” she whispered.
While his hands kept up their gentle motion, his thumbs slid sensuously up and down under the thin straps at her shoulders. “I keep wondering what it would be like to touch other places. I lie in bed at night imagining. It’s not fun.”
She swallowed. “Because you don’t want to like me?”
“Because I get hard.”
Her breath caught in her throat and stayed there despite the wild skittering of her pulse. She gave a short, sharp shake of her head.
“What?”
“Don’t say things like that,” she begged.
“Because it embarrasses you?”
“Because it excites me.”
The flare in John’s eyes told her what her words had done. His thumbs began moving more widely, stroking her skin in small patches that inched downward, under the edge of her dress, over the starting swell of her breast.
“I want to touch you more,” he said. With the lightest pressure, he brought her arms just that tiny bit forward to angle her body better for his seeking thumbs. They stroked deeper, even deeper, under her bra now, moving toward the center of her breasts.
Her nipples tightened. “John,” she whispered weakly. Heat seemed to be gathering and pooling not only in her breasts, but down low. She clutched his hips for support.
“Let me,” he whispered back, as his thumbs reached their twin goals. He circled them once, touched their tips, then moved back and forth in a gentle rubbing.
Catching in a small cry, Nina bit her lip. But the feeling in her breasts was still too intense, so she closed her eyes and dropped her head back.
With a low groan, John caught her to him. His hands left her breasts and circled her, drawing her fully into his body at the same time that his mouth came down on hers. He kissed her long and deep, first with his lips, then his tongue. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she sought his firmness. Opening her mouth wide to his, she tasted his hunger. There was nothing in him that was either rapacious or arrogant. He kissed her like a man who simply needed to be closer.
And closer he brought her. His arms swept over her back, one lower, one higher, pressing her into him at every point. His strength came at her through his thighs, his chest, his arms, made all the more enticing to her by the faint tremor that spoke of his restraint.
When he finally tore his mouth away, his breathing was ragged. Dragging his arms from around her, he took her face in his hands. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”
She didn’t know what to say.
“Can you feel how much I want you?”
She hadn’t been that long without a man that she didn’t know the meaning of the hard presence against her stomach. Unable to take her eyes from his, she nodded.
“So?” he asked in frustration.
“So I don’t sleep around.”
“Me, neither.”
“I don’t take making love lightly.”
“Me, neither.
“So we can’t do it. We’re all wrong for each other. We don’t even like each other. And we have to work together.”
He looked at her for a long time, his amber eyes dark and hungry still. “You’re right.” His thumbs skimmed her cheeks. “But all that doesn’t take the wanting away. I haven’t wanted a woman—”
He was cut off by the intrusion of a loud voice on the approach. “Okay, you guys, I think you’d better break it up.”
Nina’s head shot around as quickly as John’s, and she found herself staring into the amused eyes of Carter Malloy, who was coming from the direction of the duck pond. Stopping not far from them, he said, “I think there’s something about the air out here. It makes you forget that just anyone could be walking through. Fortunately for you, it’s me. I understand these things.”
Nina knew her cheeks were red, but she didn’t say a word either in defense of herself or protest to John when he slowly released her.
Carter scratched the back of his head. “I nearly lost it with Jessica, just about a year ago, not far from where you stand.” He paused, looking from Nina’s face to John’s. “I think the ducks were less embarrassed then than you two are now.”
Nina took a deep, faintly shuddering breath. “You should have called from way back on the path.”
“I did.”
“Oh.”
John had his hands on his hips. “You should have called a second time.”
“I did. But, hey, n
ow that you’re awake and aware, I’ll just be moving along.” He gave them a grin and started off. “Catch you later.”
He’d gone a good ten yard when Nina called, “Carter, is Jessica pregnant?”
He stopped in his tracks and turned, wearing a guarded look. “Where did you hear that?”
“Is it true?”
Taking a deep breath that straightened his back and expanded his chest beneath the blazer and shirt he was wearing, Carter allowed himself a slow smile. “Yeah, it’s true. She miscarried in January, so we’ve been cautious about saying anything. But she’s almost into her fourth month. Things look good this time.”
Forgetting her embarrassment, Nina burst into a grin. “Hey, that’s great. I knew she wanted a baby.”
“We both do.”
“How’s she feeling?” John asked.
Carter shimmied a hand. “Sometimes nauseous, sometimes not. The doctor says the sickness is a sign that the baby’s really settling in, which is good news after the first one. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
“I’ll keep mine crossed, too,” Nina said.
John put a thumb up and said in a very male way, “Good goin’, Carter.”
Carter tossed him a macho smile before turning and continuing along the path.
Watching him go, Nina murmured under her breath, “Are you going to say, ‘I told you so’?”
“Of course not. The important thing is that it’s true.”
“Mmm. She did tell me she wanted a baby. I’m excited for her.”
“Excited about the baby?”
“Excited because she’s getting what she wants. I don’t know enough about babies to get excited about them.”
“Don’t have any friends with kids?”
“A few. But I’ve never been terribly involved. I’m too busy with work. My friends seem to know that. When they meet me for lunch, it’s without the kids.” She allowed herself a glance at John. “Which is another reason why you and I are no good. You have a kid. I wouldn’t know what in the devil to do with one.”
John didn’t say anything. He stood there, looking down at her, looking into her, seemingly, for something she was sure wasn’t there. Looking back at him, all she could see was the random brush of his hair on his brow, the lean contour of his jaw, the straight slash of his nose, the tightness of his lips. It was a face that drew her even when she told herself that it shouldn’t.
Finally he raised his head and looked away. “We’d better get going.”
Nodding, she started off toward the duck pond, but the glow that had earlier been on the day was gone. In its place was a tension that began in the body and ended in the mind, causing an awkwardness that was underwritten with need.
They walked through the condominium that was to be the model, then through two others. Nina pointed out various features and options, just as she might have if John had been an interested buyer. They avoided looking at each other, avoided standing too close, but that didn’t ease the wire that seemed strung taut between them. Whatever the distance, it hummed.
By the time they returned to the mansion, Nina was feeling strung out, herself. She was only too glad to put together a hasty goodbye to John, climb into her car and drive off. She wasn’t used to confusion. Hitherto in her life, she had been the sole master of her fate. Now, though, it seemed she was losing control, if not of her fate, then of something.
She wished she knew what that something was.
She wished she could stop it from slipping away.
She wished she didn’t feel hot, then cold, light, then dark, good, then bad.
Mostly she wished she understood what she was feeling for John. He wasn’t like any man she’d ever known. He was maddeningly laid-back, but she respected him. He saw the world differently from her, but she trusted him. She liked him, but she didn’t.
And she wanted him. Wanted him. He haunted her for the rest of the day and all that night. She lay in bed wide awake, remembering how he’d kissed her and held her, how safe she’d felt, how valued, how hot and needy. The need returned, making her flop one way then the next, but no position was better for the aching within. I lie in bed imagining, he’d said, and she imagined him imagining. She also imagined him hard, and the fever built.
She slept for an hour, then awoke, slept for another, awoke again. When her skin grew damp in the warmth of the night, she sponged herself off, but no sooner did she return to bed than she was sweaty again.
By dawn, she was fit to be tied. No man, no man, she vowed, could do this to her. No man was worth it. She had her life, and it was free and independent, just as she wanted. Once she had her own agency, that independence would increase. She was well on her way to where she wanted to be. She didn’t need any man, any man.
Then, at eight o’clock, her doorbell rang. Sticky, tired and more than a little cranky, she plodded down the stairs. “Who is it?” she yelled through the wood.
“John,” he called back.
Moaning softly, she put her forehead to the worn pine. It was cool, with a faint musty scent that took her out of time and place, but the relief was short-lived. John was on the other side. She didn’t know what to do.
His voice came more quietly, as though he’d moved closer. “Open the door, Nina. We need to talk.”
“I don’t think,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut, “that this is the best time.”
He didn’t answer. Had he been another man, she might have wondered if he’d left. But this was John.
After a minute, he spoke again, still quiet, still close. “Nina? Open the door, Nina. Please?”
She might have had a comeback had it not been for his tone of voice. Not even the thickness of the door could muffle the quiet command. But there was something else there, something even more potent. Beneath the quiet command was a hint of pleading.
Fearing she was making a huge mistake but helpless to avoid it, she gave a tiny sound of frustration, took a small step back and opened the door a crack.
6
John pushed the door open only enough to slip through. Watching him from the corner by the hinge, Nina felt beset by every one of the wild imaginings she’d tried to stifle through the night. The fact that he wore a T-shirt and shorts didn’t help any. The sight of leanly muscled legs spattered with warm brown hair stirred the fire inside her to a greater head.
“I brought donuts,” he said quietly, but his eyes hadn’t risen above her neck.
She was in the short nightie that she’d put on in the wee hours, and wore nothing beneath it. “I was in bed,” she said, feeling the need to explain. She wouldn’t normally have answered the door dressed that way. But she felt reckless, at the end of her tether. “It was a bad night.”
At that, he did raise his eyes. He’d left his glasses at home, and it struck her that he looked every bit as sweaty as she felt. His hair was damp and disheveled, his skin moist. “I ran.” His eyes were intent, the deepest, richest amber she’d ever seen. “I thought we could talk.”
“I don’t know if I can.” Her need was written all over her face, she knew, but she couldn’t erase it.
John seemed to see it, consider it, fight it—with about as much success as she had. After an eternity of searing silence, he muttered, “I don’t want these.” Dropping the bag of donuts onto the stair, he reached for her.
Coming up against his body, winding her arms around his neck, feeling him lift her nearly off her feet, Nina felt the first relief she’d had in hours. She sighed his name and held tighter, burying her face against his neck.
For the longest time, they stood like that, holding each other tighter, then tighter still, making no sounds but those of quickened breathing and the occasional whimper or moan. Nina might have stayed that way forever if it wasn’t for the gradual awakening of her body to the one molding it. She began to move against him in small ways to better feel him, and when that wasn’t enough, she started to use her hands.
John’s own hands made slow sweeps of
discovery over her back. She could tell the instant he knew for sure she was bare under her nightie by the sharp catch of his breath. Fingers splayed, his hands stole up the back of her thighs to her bottom.
“Tell me to stop if you don’t want this,” he said in a gravelly voice she’d never heard before. It was laced with raw need and was a stimulant in itself.
“I want it,” she breathed frantically. Exploring the lean line of his hips, she pushed her fingers over his thighs. The hair there abraded her palms delightfully. “I need it,” she confessed just as frantically, then let out a cry when he touched the fire between her legs. “Help me,” she begged, and to convince him, she worked her fingers up under his shorts. He wore cotton briefs, but they were stretched taut.
Clearly he didn’t need any convincing.
Before she had any inkling of what he was doing, he slid his hands under her thighs and lifted her. When her legs were cinched around his hips, he covered her mouth with his and devoured it whole as he started up the stairs. He didn’t stop until he was in her bedroom, where he lowered her to the rumpled sheets and crouched over her.
His voice a rough burr, he drew up her nightie. “I haven’t been with anyone since my wife. Do I need a condom?”
Nina helped him pull the thin fabric over her head. As soon as one hand was freed, she reached for him. “It’s been longer than that for me,” she whispered hurriedly as she tugged at his shirt. It was over his head in an instant, revealing a chest that was well formed and tapering. A wide wedge of hair narrowed, arrowlike, toward his fly. She reached there and touched him. “No condom.”
John lowered his zipper and shifted to thrust both shorts and briefs aside. “Babies?”
“I take pills,” she gasped, then, “Hurry, John, hurry.” His large hand swept her under him, and no sooner did she open her legs when, like a heat seeker, he was in. Stunned by the force of his impaling, she cried out and arched up.
“Nina—”
“No, no, it doesn’t hurt, it feels good, so good.”
But that penetration, that first feel of his masculine strength, was only the beginning. What he proceeded to do then nearly blew her mind. He stroked her inside and out, using his hands, his mouth, his sex. He nipped, he laved. He quickened the pace and the force when her breath came more quickly. At times his movements were rhythmic, at times less so. At times he filled her to the utmost, withdrew nearly all the way, then reentered with a sharp pulsing burst that she might have feared was climactic if he hadn’t continued right on again.
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