Daniel skipped across the kitchen to where Pete wrestled with a massive turkey. Lucas turned to face Allie, a strange mixture of emotions playing across his face. His hands opened and closed in a restless pattern.
She stepped in close to him, threaded her arms around his waist. The muscles of his back felt rock-hard under his turtleneck. With only the barest hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her, bringing her into a tight embrace. He took a long breath, then as he released it, tension seeped from his body.
“My family can be a bit much,” she murmured into his ear.
“An understatement.” His soft chuckle sifted through her hair. “But no fighting. No arguments.”
She laughed. “You haven’t seen us play Scrabble yet. Pete has a nasty habit of throwing in words only another surgeon would know.”
His hands skimmed her back, warming her through her thick wool sweater. She imagined them holding each other like this when she was further along in her pregnancy. Would he press his palm against her belly, feel for a kick, send his love to his baby with the contact?
Or would their child growing inside her give him another excuse to keep his distance from her? She wished she could predict his reaction, could see the future and know how their lives would turn out.
“Hey, you two,” Pete called out, brandishing a drumstick. “You here to neck in the kitchen or are you going to give us a hand?”
Lucas pulled away from her, leaving her feeling slightly bereft. For a man used to calling the shots in his own corporation, he took Pete’s orders in good humor, locating the platters for the turkey, lifting the heavy pot of boiled potatoes from the stove. Allie supervised Daniel in composing the relish tray and filling the bread basket.
By the time they all seated themselves around the dining-room table, rubbing elbows in the tight space, Allie would have sworn Lucas had been a member of the family for years. He joked with Pete about his carving job, teased Daniel about the towering mountain of food the boy had piled on his plate, complimented Sherril on how quickly she’d recovered her figure. His openness both astonished and pleased Allie and hope bubbled up inside her.
Still, from time to time, she caught glimpses of the little boy in Lucas’s face as he gazed around the table. It was almost as if he couldn’t quite believe he was part of this noisy, happy group, as if at any moment it would be snatched away. At those times, she would reach for his hand under the table, give him a reassuring squeeze.
When they’d all eaten their fill and the children had abandoned the adults for a video in the living room, a rare quiet descended around the table. Sherril leaned against her husband, Brianna in the crook of her arm. Not sure of her reception, Allie rested her head tentatively against Lucas’s shoulder. To her delight, he curved his arm around her, nestling her against him.
Stephen, his hand linked with his wife’s, smiled at Allie. “So what’s this big surprise you’ve been teasing us with all week?”
“I almost forgot.” Although loathe to leave Lucas’s side, she eased herself away. “I’ll go get it.”
Hurrying into Sherril’s and Pete’s bedroom where she’d left her purse, she retrieved what she’d mentally referred to as her “Thanksgiving project.” A slim, comb-bound book full of family photographs of Thanksgivings past, she’d assembled it in secret at the office.
“I hope you don’t mind, Lucas,” she said as she reentered the dining room. “I used TaylorMade’s scanner and color printer. Jim in the print shop helped me put it together.”
She handed the book to Sherril first. “It’s a Thanksgiving memory book,” she told her sister. “Everyone’s in there—the ones that are here, the ones that are gone.”
Sherril’s eyes grew misty as she flipped through the book of family photos, stopping at the page that featured their mother and father. Once Sherril finished with the book, it was passed from hand to hand around the table.
Finally it was Lucas’s turn. He laid the book before him on the table, turned the pages. Allie had included captions under each photo, some humorous, some touching. She explained the relationships to Lucas and he listened with polite attention.
When he reached the wedding portrait Stephen had taken at the church, he gazed at it for a long time. “You were so beautiful that day,” he murmured. He turned to her, his gaze soft. “Almost as beautiful as you are now.”
He leaned over to brush a kiss on her cheek, ignoring Pete’s catcall. Then he turned to the last page of the book.
The moment he saw the picture, she saw hot color rise in his face. Allie realized she’d miscalculated badly. “Lucas…”
He turned to her, his rage burning in his metal-gray eyes. “Where did you get this picture?”
The tendons stood out in his hands; she tried to soothe them away with her touch. “From Teresa. I asked if she had a picture of your mother and she—”
“You had no right! No damn right!”
He ripped out the page, crumpling it as he tossed the book across the table. Shoving the balled paper in his pocket, he sprang to his feet, nearly toppling his chair. In three angry strides, he’d left the dining room. She heard Daniel call out “Uncle Lucas!” then the slam of the front door.
Her eyes filling with tears, she threw a quick apologetic glance at her sister and brother, then ran after her husband. As soon as she stepped outside, the damp November air cut straight to the bone. She looked up and down the street, searching for him.
He hadn’t gone far. His head down, shoulders hunched, he leaned against a lamppost three houses down. The lamp’s mist-haloed light cast him in shadow, starkly illuminated the rigid line of his body.
Allie approached cautiously, shivering in the cold. When she reached his side, she curved her hand around his arm, a featherlight touch. He whirled to face her, stared at her as if she were a stranger.
“Lucas…?”
He grasped her arms, pulling her to him, holding her tightly as he tipped back her head. Almost before she could take a breath, he lowered his mouth to hers. His rough kiss, the explicit thrusting of his tongue snatched the air from her lungs, sent heat searing through her veins.
There was a moment of fear when she thought his anger would take him too far. Then his kiss gentled, still on the outer edges of civilized, but less desperate. He pressed her back against the lamppost, his hips grinding into hers, the hard length of his arousal burning against her.
She pulled back, gasped for breath. “Lucas, we can’t.” She gulped in the cold moist air. “Not here.”
His chest heaved, a mix of passion and anger in his eyes. “Get your things. We’re going home.”
“But Lucas—”
“Now,” he ordered.
Beginning to feel angry herself, she opened her mouth, ready to argue with him. One look at his set jaw and stony expression and Allie knew she’d get nowhere with him. She hurried inside the house, pausing in the dining room where her family still sat, no doubt stunned by Lucas’s outburst.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze skimming quickly around the table. “We have to go.”
She hurried on into Sherril and Pete’s bedroom for her purse and their jackets. Sherril called her name and followed, watched from the door as Allie dug through the pile of coats and jackets on the bed.
“What is wrong with him?” Sherril asked.
Feeling the onset of tears, Allie turned her back to her sister as she continued her search. “Nothing. He’s just not feeling well.”
If she thought she could hide her tears from her sister, she was mistaken. Moving into the room, Sherril grabbed her, turned her toward her. “Damn, he’s got you crying. What did he do to you?” Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “Is he hurting you?”
Of course he was, but not in the way Sherril meant. “No,” she told her sister emphatically. “Lucas just…” How could she possibly explain her husband to Sherril when she didn’t understand him herself? Finally spotting their jackets, she untangled them from the pile, gave her sister
a peck on the cheek and hurried back outside.
Lucas waited for her on the porch, his warm breath roiling in the cold air. Slinging his jacket over the porch rail, he held hers for her while she slipped it on, then donned his own.
He cupped her elbow, led her to the Mercedes. Once they were inside and had pulled away from Sherril and Pete’s house, Allie tried again. “Lucas—”
Braking at a stoplight, he turned to her, his hard gaze quelling her words. In spite of herself, Allie felt intimidated by his harshness. It was too reminiscent of episodes with her father, and she hated the feeling.
She tipped up her chin in open defiance. “When we get home, then.” She kept her eyes locked with his, daring him to object.
His gaze burned into her a heartbeat longer, then he faced forward again, stepped on the accelerator when the light turned green. They didn’t say another word the rest of the drive home.
He followed her into the house silently, tossed his car keys on the kitchen counter, took her jacket and hung it with his in the coat closet. Then he turned without a word toward the stairs.
Damned if she would let him escape without a confrontation. “Lucas!” she called out sharply.
He hesitated only an instant before moving on. Anger bursting inside her, Allie raced toward the stairs, took them two at a time. “Lucas, I won’t let you run away!”
He reached the landing, headed for his room. One step behind him, Allie grabbed the sleeve of his turtleneck. “For God’s sake, Lucas, tell me what’s wrong!”
He rounded on her then, his expression so fierce Allie took an involuntary step back. “Who gave you the right?” he rasped out. “To expose my past, to invade my privacy?”
She tightened her grip on him. “Is this about your mother’s picture?”
He flung out his arm in denial, dislodging her hand. “That woman had no right to be called anyone’s mother. To include her with your family pictures was the worst kind of joke.”
He tried to turn away again, but Allie put both hands on his arm. With all her strength, she dragged him back toward her. “Lucas, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted you to feel—”
“No.” His hand flew up, covered her mouth to stop the words. “That was your mistake, Allie. I don’t want to feel.” His hand stroked across her mouth, cupped her cheek. “Except this.”
Fingers diving into her hair, he eased her head back, covered her mouth with his. When she raised her hands to his chest to push him away, he captured them both in one of his, relentlessly moving his mouth against hers.
Then the kiss changed from an angry assault to skilled seduction. Even as his hands loosened on hers, giving her the option of freedom, the pressure of his mouth softened. Whispering along her jaw to her throat, the shell of her ear, his practiced touch drove a moan from Allie.
In one fluid movement, he hooked one arm under her knees, the other at her shoulders to lift her. Pushing open the door to his room, he carried her inside and shut the door behind them. The light of a bedside lamp illuminated the large room with a soft yellow glow.
He set her on her feet beside the bed, one hand trailing down her body as he covered her face with kisses. He brushed his lips softly against hers, from side to side, his fingers massaging, sending a chill up her spine. She shivered, unable to hold back the reaction.
His hands roamed down her body, leaving searing heat in their wake. “Undress for me,” he said hoarsely.
His quicksilver gaze locked with hers, and her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t have the strength to deny him. Keeping her eyes fixed on his, she slipped out of her shoes, pushed off her black wool slacks and her black-and-silver sweater. He watched her every move, his chest rising and falling in an uneven cadence.
When she reached behind her to unhook her bra, he stopped her. “Let me.” One fingertip tracing along her ribcage to her back, he released the hooks, slowly drew the straps from her shoulders. He brought his hands around the front again, his knuckles grazing the tender undersides of her breasts.
His fingers dipped inside her panties, drifted along the elastic at her waist. “I have protection tonight.”
Even as she trembled in response, guilt lanced through her. She had to tell him it no longer mattered. That she was already pregnant, expecting his child.
But looking into his eyes, courage failed her. After all the emotions of the evening, there was no telling what his reaction would be.
Instead she put her hands over his, pushing down. As he removed her panties, he let his knuckles skim down the skin of her thighs, her calves, her ankles. She stepped out of her panties, standing before him naked, in body and emotions.
Kneeling at her feet, his mouth swept across her belly, teasing, tasting. When she couldn’t hold back a ripple of reaction, he gripped her hips tightly, keeping her still. Then his lips brushed across the nest of curls at the V of her thighs, his tongue dipping in briefly.
She threw her head back with a gasp. As pleasurable as the sensations were, she wanted him to rise so she could feel his body pressing against the length of her. But when she tugged at his hands, he resisted. He just splayed his fingers out wider, his thumbs stretching to part her folds.
Now his onslaught grew more fierce, his tongue laving wet heat over and around her sensitive nub. His lovemaking seemed almost ruthless, as if he demanded control of even her pleasure. If her mind wanted to object, to slow him down, to ask to participate in the give and take, her body would have none of that. With each stroke of Lucas’s tongue, the fire inside her flared ever higher into a devastating conflagration.
As climax hit, crashing through her like storm-fed surf, she moaned a long low note and nearly collapsed. If not for his strong arms holding her up, her legs would have given way. He held her while she fell apart, his lips still pressed intimately to her, drinking up each convulsive shudder.
Finally, he rose slowly, keeping his hands on her to steady her. She swayed slightly as his gaze swept her body. “Get into bed.”
Even as she complied, climbing under the covers while the last of her trembling pleasure faded, doubt assailed her. Something felt wrong here, something in the tenor of Lucas’s passion, a mystery behind his arousal that teased her to decipher it.
He undressed quickly, barely taking his eyes from her as he jerked open the drawer of the nightstand beside the bed and pulled out a foil packet. He ripped open the condom, applied it with shaking hands.
When he pulled back the covers, one hand fisted around the bedding, the tendons standing out sharply as he strafed her body with his molten silver gaze. Then he climbed into bed, covered her body with his. His heated skin burned her as he parted her legs with his. He kissed her, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth as his pelvis mimicked the sensual act.
The hard length of his arousal jutted against her thighs, and she felt breathless anticipating their joining. But when she moved her legs to allow him easy passage inside her, he suddenly stilled.
He dipped his head, buried his face in her throat. “I want you, Allie,” he said harshly. “I want you.”
Allie stroked the length of his back, her fingers gentle over the rough scar. “I want you, too, Lucas.”
He kept his face hidden. “It isn’t right. I shouldn’t…”
She brought her hands up to his head, urged him up to look at her. “Lucas, what is it?”
Finally he met her gaze. “Allie,” he said, her name a harsh whisper. “I’m sorry. For what happened at your sister’s. For the way I…”
He glanced away briefly as if searching for strength. Then his gaze met hers again.
“It was all too much for me. The noise, the laughter, the…love and caring.” He dragged in a breath. “I never had that. At least until the Calderas and by then it was too late.”
How could it ever be too late to be loved? “They care for you, Lucas.” Her thumbs stroked the tense line of his jaw. “You’re part of our family now.”
In his face, frank d
isbelief warred with a young boy’s hope. Silence throbbed in the air between them, one beat, two. “Stay with me tonight, Allie,” he rasped finally.
She would stay with him forever if he asked. But she knew that was more than he could offer. So she just nodded, raised up to press a gentle kiss against his lips.
He moved away from her long enough to dispose of the condom, then he gathered her in his arms. Although he was still obviously aroused, he just held her, as if she were the most precious treasure in the world.
He might not love her, but in that moment, Allie felt cherished. With his warmth seeping into her, she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke, it was barely dawn, the watery winter light sifting through the shutters. Lucas still had her body tucked in close to his, his strong arms holding her close. His breath warmed the back of her neck with each exhalation, the slow, steady rhythm telling her he still slept.
She wanted to lie like this forever, skin to skin, secure in his embrace. But the first twinges of early-morning queasiness had started up; she’d need something in her stomach soon. Besides her body’s imperative, a quick glance at the bedside clock told her she’d need to get up soon to be on time meeting Sherril and Stephen this morning. They’d moved their usual Sunday visit with their father to today.
Still, she hated to leave Lucas’s warmth, hated to risk waking him. She gave herself another five minutes, then her recalcitrant stomach became too insistent to be ignored. Easing Lucas’s hand from her waist, she carefully extricated herself from the circle of his arms.
But not carefully enough. He stirred, reached out for her, eyes still closed. “Come back to bed.”
“I have to go.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, shivering in her nakedness, she took his hand. “We’re visiting my father today.”
“It’s not Sunday,” he muttered.
“We changed the day because of Thanksgiving.” Goosebumps rose on her arms and it took everything in her not to climb back into bed with him.
“I’ll go with you.”
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