Sensation swamped her. Pleasure, excitement, a heady joy. And need. So much need. Her head whirled and spun, as she met the demand of his mouth with a demand of her own.
He groaned, then shifted until he could ease one long leg between hers. Moisture pooled between her thighs as she felt his thigh rub the most sensitive part of her. She moaned, and he moved closer until she was riding his thigh.
Pleasure shot through her, so strong, she caught her breath. More. She wanted more. Needed more.
She needed him. His strength. His heat. His courage.
When he lifted his mouth from hers, she started to protest, only to have her words turn to a moan as he skimmed his mouth over her throat. Eagerly she tilted her head to give him freer access, and the scent of soap drifted over her. His morning beard rubbing her skin was a delicious contrast, an erotic reminder of the primitive part of him that lay just beneath the surface.
She arched closer, her fingers digging for purchase in the hard musculature padding his wide shoulders. Then his mouth was exploring her ear, his teeth teasing and tugging before he whispered something she couldn't understand.
Later she would ask about the words. All that mattered now was the desire building in her. With an incoherent murmur, she framed his face with her hands and dragged his mouth back to hers.
Morgan felt something rip inside him, like the last link on a painful chain. He hadn't known until this instant just how much he needed to know she still wanted him. At least sexually.
A start, he told himself as a wild painful pleasure bucked and raged inside him, desperate for release. His cheek grazed hers as he kissed one side of her face and then the other. He was desperate for the taste of her. The feel of her in his arms.
No one had ever wanted him the way Raine had wanted him. No one had turned to warm, sweet fire in his arms, her body trembling under his touch. She was balm for a lifetime of hurt, nectar to sooth a parched soul. Life to warm the icy hollows in his heart.
He felt his control edging away. It had been so long. So damn long. Needing more, he tangled his fist in her hair and smelled sunshine. He skimmed his palm over the graceful curve of her spine until he could palm the lush roundness of her bottom.
His body throbbed, so ready he feared he would burst.
Inside. He had to get them both inside the house where—
Water hit him full in the face, and he jerked back. Raine cried out, her fingers digging into his forearms for balance as he steadied her.
"Chloe, you little devil," she shouted, water dripping from her chin.
Hopping up and down in glee, Chloe giggled happily as she waved the hose nozzle in wild circles, soaking them both. Her short little legs were already dotted with mud from the puddle at her feet.
Laughing and groaning at the same time, Morgan stepped between their assailant and Raine, blocking the spray. The water plastered his shirt to his belly, and he gasped.
And he thought little girls were supposed to be timid.
He ducked his head and went in low, managing to grab the hose before Chloe caught him in the face again. Drenched and dripping, he followed the hose to the spigot, and twisted it nearly to off. Then, with the water running slowly, he splashed enough on Chloe's fat little legs to send her squealing to Raine for protection.
"Don't come to me, you traitor," Raine teased as she scooped Chloe into her arms for a smacking kiss. Chloe squealed and wrapped her arms around Raine's neck.
Raine's face was flushed and her hair was a tumbled mess, wet in spots, flyaway in others. The spray had drenched the front of her shirt and it clung to her breasts and ripe belly, sending a jolt of pure need racing through him. Still partially aroused, he sucked in a breath, then shook his head.
"Randolph owes me big-time for this," he muttered, only to have Raine burst out laughing.
It wasn't exactly the way he would have chosen to end their backyard romp, he decided as he cut off the water, but it wasn't half-bad. In fact, it was pretty damn good.
Chapter 10
« ^ »
"I swear, Pax, I didn't have a choice. Your wife can be damned persuasive when she wants something." Joel Bronstein's clipped New York speech sounded tinny coming over the phone line to Morgan's ear.
"You didn't have to give her my entire medical history."
Bronstein's sigh was long-suffering. "I didn't. I just gave her bare bones, I swear."
"Oh, yeah? What'd you leave out?"
"The part where they told us you had the highest fever ever recorded in a living patient in the whole damn sand-ridden country. And if packing you in ice didn't work, you were a dead man."
"Bull. Someone read the damn thermometer wrong, that's all."
"Guess they were wrong when they warned you not to catch the same thing again."
"Right."
He drew a tired breath and cast a gaze around the cozy, book-lined room. He felt at home here. Welcomed. It was the one room in Raine's various houses that always stayed fundamentally the same.
"Look, Joel, about that other thing you called about yesterday—"
"It's all arranged." Morgan heard the excitement in his boss's voice and bit of a sigh. "As soon as you get here—"
"I'm on leave."
"But—"
"Stow it, Joel. Get somebody else to meet with Josefa."
"She wants you."
Morgan stared down at the glossy surface of Raine's desk and rubbed two fingers over the dull ache in one temple. "The last time I dealt with that woman she had me running down one false lead after another for six rotten months. Damn near made me crazy."
"Yeah, well, she's got the hots for you. She wanted to keep you around."
"Uh-huh. Exactly my point. I'm not interested in being some kind of toy boy. Get someone else to play her little game."
He heard his boss inhale. "She's hinting about a new hard-line fundamentalist group that's emerging, one that intends to start taking hostages again."
Morgan felt a familiar tension seize the back of his neck. "That's nothing new, Joel. I've been hearing rumors like that since Desert Storm."
"Stebbins says she swears it's good info. And that she'll only give you the particulars."
"What particulars?" he asked warily.
"Names, affiliations, the so-called 'manifesto' they're planning to release after they've snatched the hostages."
A spasm of coughing had Bronstein gasping for breath. The last time Morgan was in New York for contract negotiations, Joel had never been without a cigarette smoldering between his nicotine-stained fingers.
"Sorry," Bronstein muttered before clearing his throat. "According to Stebbins, Josefa's hinting about high-profile types as hostages."
Morgan frowned. Was it possible? He thought back over five years of dealing with his mercurial Lebanese informant. In the beginning she'd given him some good solid leads, but recently he'd been doing little more than chasing dead ends.
"Look, I can't leave now. Have Stebbins explain to her that I'm stuck in the States. Pay her for the info if you have to. She likes emeralds. Claims they match her eyes."
"You sure you can't get away early?"
Morgan let his gaze rove the shelves, seeing familiar titles mixed with new ones. "Damn sure."
"Hmm. How about this? Split your sabbatical into two parts. I could maybe get you a few extra weeks as a payback for your sacrifice."
His gaze halted at a photo of Mike he'd never seen before. Mike was wearing the ski sweater Morgan had sent him, posing next to the new skis Morgan had given him for Christmas that last year. Racing skis.
Designed for an expert skier, not an overconfident kid.
Cool, Dad! Just like yours. When can we hit the slopes so's I can try them out?
They'd planned the trip, but never taken it. Things had heated up on a story he'd been tracking, and he'd left several weeks before they'd been scheduled to leave. That had been the last time he'd seen his son. His last words to the boy had been a promise to take him s
kiing the next time he got home.
Morgan closed his eyes and tried to erase the memory of Raine's drawn face at Mike's funeral. It didn't work. It never worked.
"Get someone else," he told his boss in a flat tone.
"Pax—"
"No."
Bronstein cleared his throat. When he spoke again, Morgan heard the subtle change in his tone. It was his hardball voice. "If I have to, I'll take this upstairs to the guys in the penthouse."
"Covering your ass, Joel?"
"Damn straight, Paxton. You have a responsibility to this network."
Morgan took a deep slow breath and felt some of the pounding in his head ease. "In 117 days I have a responsibility to the network. Until then, I'm off the clock."
He hung up before Bronstein started screaming.
"Is that dirt I see in your ear, Chloe Randolph?" Towel poised, Prudy pretended shock, and her daughter chortled.
"Chloe aw wet!"
"I'll say." Prudy dried her daughter's legs, tickling each fat little foot in turn while Chloe's bare bottom squirmed on the kitchen counter. "Your daddy never should have taught you how to turn on the faucet. Not until you were in college, anyway."
Chloe grinned and pointed a stubby finger toward the table where Raine was sitting, nursing a glass of orange juice.
"Auntie Waine aw wet, too."
Prudy shot Raine an amused look. "So I see."
"We were doing fine until Morgan showed up," Raine said with a sigh. Her cheeks were still warm, and her chin tingled where his beard had rubbed. She could still hear his laughter as she'd anchored Chloe on her hip and stalked off toward the Randolphs' house.
"Morgan started the water fight?" Prudy sounded confused, and far too amused.
Raine scowled. "Indirectly."
Prudy slipped a clean shirt over her daughter's head and helped Chloe find the arm holes. "I'm surprised Boyd let him go home so soon."
"I doubt Boyd had much say in the matter."
Prudy looked up. "Now why does that sound familiar?"
"Because your husband is just as bullheaded and impossible to handle as my—as Morgan."
Glumly, she watched while Prudy helped Chloe into clean panties and dry shorts. The two females Case liked to call his "ladies" were so much alike. The same delicate bone structure, the same fiery hair, identical green-colored eyes. But Chloe's square little chin had come directly from her father as had the widow's peak.
Raine bit her lip as she tried to imagine the combination of features her twins had inherited. Her dark hair or the lighter hair of the donor? His hazel eyes or her brown ones?
Mike had gotten Morgan's light hair and golden eyes. Her contribution had come in the form of a button nose and an inability to carry a tune. Mike had had her feet, too. Short and wide. An interesting combination.
Morgan wasn't the father of the babies she carried now, but it wouldn't surprise her if they resembled him. She hadn't deliberately set out to select a donor whose physical characteristics replicated Morgan's. Only after she'd filled out the form had she realized what she'd done. It had been too late then. And even if it hadn't been, she wasn't sure she would have changed her mind.
"Okay, tootles, time for milk and cookies. And then I want you to take a teensy nap before Daddy gets home."
Raine laughed. "Poor Chloe. That's a real good-news/bad-news scenario."
Prudy lifted her daughter off the counter and helped her climb into her youth chair. "I started out determined not to resort to bribery to motivate my child. I intended to use logic and reason and infinite patience. That lasted about seven months. Now I use bribery every chance I get." She scooted chair and child close to the table, then bent to drop a kiss on Chloe's curly topknot.
"Cookies," Chloe demanded, slapping both hands on the table.
"Such a patient child," Prudy muttered as she took two peanut-butter cookies from a large ceramic jar on the counter. She was about to replace the lid, then shrugged and took two more.
"Want some?" she asked when she caught Raine watching her.
"Yes, but I'm being strong this week."
Prudy laughed as she returned to the table. "I'm not."
"More," Chloe demanded when her mother placed two fat cookies on a napkin in front of her.
"After dinner, sweetie," her mother told her before fetching milk and two cups.
"So you're going to let him stay?" Prudy asked, pouring Chloe's milk.
"Short of getting a restraining order and having the cops throw him out, I don't know how I can keep him from it."
Prudy watched while Chloe lifted the plastic cup to her mouth and drank. Satisfied that her daughter was in one of her neater moods, she returned the milk to the fridge, then sat down and reached for a cookie.
"You know that if he stays, he'll want to make love with you," she said quietly.
"That would be a mistake."
"Probably." Prudy bit into a cookie, her gaze still on Raine's face.
Raine took an impatient breath. "There's no 'probably' about it, Prue. That's how I ended up married to Morgan in the first place."
"Fortunately, that's not a risk this time, since you're already married—and definitely pregnant."
"You sound as though you want me to become involved with the wrong man again."
"Sweetie, you're already involved."
"That's the point. I'm trying to become uninvolved. No one but my attorney seems to be taking my side."
Prudy crunched another cookie between her teeth. Her expression was sublime.
"What does that tell you?"
"It tells me that the legendary Morgan Paxton charisma is alive and well on Mill Works Ridge. And after only three days."
She wasn't surprised, of course. The man had a magic about him. Some indefinable magnetism. Or maybe it was simply an abundance of testosterone. Whatever. Bottom line, she'd been half in love with Morgan by the time he'd finished giving a two-hour talk. A talk that she hadn't even planned to attend. Somehow she'd found herself swept into the lecture hall after showing him the way.
"Yoo-hoo, anyone home?" Without waiting for a reply, Stacy opened the screen door and walked in, carrying a sleepy-eyed Shelby on her hip.
"Hi, Stace," Prudy chirped, waving her in. "Join the party."
"What's the occasion?"
"Raine has decided to have an affair with her husband."
Raine shot Prudy a look dripping with reproach. "I certainly haven't decided any such thing, and you know it."
Stacy glanced from one to the other, then grinned. "This sounds promising." She carried Shelby to the cupboard and took out a cup.
"Careful, Stace," Prudy warned with a grin. "She thinks we're ganging up on her."
"You are!" Raine told her.
"Sounds like you two need a totally objective third party to mediate. I volunteer." Stacy put the glass on the table, pulled out a chair and sat down with Shelby on her lap. "I have exactly forty-seven minutes before Tory gets home from her play date at Lance's house, so talk fast."
The two little girls jabbered greetings to one another before Chloe offered her mother a crafty look.
"Shelby wants cookies, Mama."
"That's my little opportunist," Prudy muttered as she got up to fetch the cookie jar. Raine noticed that she pressed one hand to her lower back and frowned.
"Prue, are you sure you're not having pains?"
"Nope, just little warning twinges. I had them for two solid weeks before I delivered Chloe." She set the jar in front of Stacy before carefully easing onto the chair she'd just vacated. "And don't try to change the subject, Raine Paxton."
"I wasn't aware that there was a subject to change," Raine bluffed.
Prudy and Stacy exchanged knowing looks. "Prickly, isn't she?" Stacy remarked airily.
"A mere hormonal imbalance," Raine maintained.
"I'll say," Prudy said, nodding sagely. "I don't know about you, Stace, but I detected a definite spark between our neighbor and her estranged hus
band the other day."
Stacy handed her daughter a cookie, then reached for the juice pitcher. "I noticed the same thing. In fact, I told Boyd that there'd been enough sexual electricity rocketing around in our neighbor's backyard to light the entire north end."
"Excuse me," Raine said archly. "It's getting so deep in here, I think I need to fetch my boots."
Stacy took a sip of juice before offering some to her daughter. "How is our illustrious visitor feeling?" she asked, her expression suddenly serious.
"As domineering as ever," Raine muttered. "And wet. Chloe turned the hose on us while we were, um, discussing his departure date."
Stacy laughed. "Oh, my."
"'Oh, my' is right." She started to take a drink, then realized her glass was empty and reached for the pitcher. "Actually, I should be grateful to the little darling. I strongly suspect I was about to do something I would have regretted."
"Aha, I knew it!" Prudy crowed. "You're still in love with him."
It was on the tip of Raine's tongue to deny it. Then she realized that she would be lying. "Did I ever tell you how much I hate it when you're right?" she muttered with a sigh. "And don't think this changes anything, because it doesn't."
"So have an affair with him," Prudy said matter-of-factly. "Enjoy yourself. Risk free."
"Which is saying a lot in this day and age," Stacy chimed in. "What with AIDS and … stop squirming, lamb."
"Down," Shelby demanded, kicking her feet.
"Okay?" Stacy asked, directing an inquiring look Prudy's way.
"Sure. Do me a favor and help Chloe get down, too."
Stacy set her daughter on the floor, then got up to help Chloe. "Play nice, you two," she called as the two little girls sprinted for Chloe's bedroom and the bulging toy box.
Stacy settled back in her chair and offered Raine a smile. "Don't you want to sleep with the guy?"
"No!" She sighed. "Yes."
"Then do it."
"We did," Prudy added, winking at Stacy. "And look how happy we are."
Raine looked from one to the other. Both had faced the pain of loss and hurt. Both had been divorced. Prudy from the man she eventually remarried. Stacy from a policeman who had developed an incurable psychosis after he'd been injured in the line of duty. Both had found the courage to love again.
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