by Judy Duarte
Anticipation sank iron teeth into him, jetting up a hundred more notches as he felt Brooke stripping away his jacket, tugging out his shirttails. Urgently working away his belt.
She was undressing him, and he didn’t know which excited him more, unwrapping her or having her do away with his clothes.
Every moment brought with it something more, something new. Something he wasn’t prepared for. It was like finally being resigned to a fate of dying of thirst, only to be thrown headfirst into a life-affirming pool of water.
She was his pool of water, his salvation.
And he had done nothing but lie to her from the very beginning.
But that was logic and sense, and right now all he knew was that he wanted her, here, now, before sanity and reason rushed back at any moment on winged feet, to take hold of him again.
There’d been less than a handful of women in the last five years. Faceless women just passing through his life. Women he’d slept with to fill a void that couldn’t be filled, to blot out a pain that refused to be made any smaller. He couldn’t remember their names, their faces, or anything else about them.
Brooke’s face was burned into his brain and always would be, no matter what happened.
And no matter what happened he was grateful to her. Would always be grateful to her for making him feel again, however briefly.
He knew that she would look back at this night and curse him, but he was determined that in the quiet moments of the night, when her anger had burned away, Brooke would look back on this and secretly smile.
It was about her pleasure, not his temporary salvation.
He made love with her, not as if this was their first time but their last.
Brooke felt arrows of heat and sunshine shoot through her, ushering in the brightest lights she’d ever seen.
This was beyond anything she had ever imagined. Her wildest fantasy couldn’t begin to hold a candle to what she was feeling right at this moment.
Anticipation came from nowhere, with no basis from which to draw, yet it scrambled her senses and whisked them up to heights Brooke had never conceived were possible.
Her body was vibrating like a struck tuning fork, its beat rushing along with her pulse and heartbeat. It seemed as if her entire body was singing a melody she’d never heard before as it rushed off to somewhere she had never been before.
She had no idea what was waiting for her at the end, only that if she didn’t reach it, she was going to die right here, right now, despite the wondrous journey he had already taken her on.
She felt as if all of her body was singing madly. She didn’t know the words, only that she had been waiting to hear them, to feel them all of her life.
Each time he moved from her, she cleaved to him, unwilling to let him pull away. Unwilling to bear the burden of separation.
Her body pulsed and craved something it had never had before.
Fulfillment.
He was laying her down on the sofa, anointing her body with hot kisses that sizzled along her skin a beat before they even arrived. She twisted and turned, arching into him, trying to absorb the sensation, wishing she knew what to do to make him feel just a little of what she was feeling.
She reached for him, but even as she did, she was surprised by the firmness that met her touch. For a moment she was almost frightened, but the next moment she left the child she’d been behind and raced across this new threshold that shimmered before her.
It was time. And he was her choice.
Her fingers wrapped themselves around him as she stroked him. The sound he made against her ear filled her with power. With excitement.
With hunger.
She raised her hips against his invitingly, her breath rushing away from her as she felt his mouth taking possession of her breast. She could feel his tongue teasing, suckling her nipple, and she moaned in ecstasy as waves of wild sensations danced through her. Her breathing became more and more labored as she grasped at ecstasy with both hands.
And then he was above her, parting her legs with his knee.
Her heart was hammering so hard she was afraid it was going to burst out of her chest.
An urgency seized her.
Raising her hips higher, Brooke gave herself up to him willingly. The first wave of pain came as a surprise and made her wince, just for a moment.
Brooke felt him hesitating, saw the surprised look in his eyes.
He was going to stop, she knew it. Panicked, not wanting it to end, not now, not so abruptly, Brooke pushed herself up against him.
Whether Mark drove himself into her or she pulled him in by pushing her hips against his wasn’t clear to her. But as the rhythm began, the questions, the order, none of it mattered. All that mattered was that this race that she was suddenly so wrapped up in be taken all the way across the finish line.
That it be won.
She moved with him, her own urgency almost out-stripping his. An explosion racked her loins, filtering out to all parts of her. And then a wild burst of colors and heat danced through her that she couldn’t begin to describe.
He’d erased every word from her head, and all she could do was gasp for air and hold on him.
If she could have picked her moment to die, this would have been it. Die in his arms, with a smile on her face. And her body singing.
He’d suspected.
Known.
In his soul he’d known, somehow known that Brooke was a virgin despite her age. There was something virginal about the look in her eyes. About her. And yet he’d completely disregarded that in pursuit of his own needs. How reprehensible was that?
But she’d given him no choice.
He’d always had a choice, he argued.
He had a will, damn it, a will that had been forged out of steel and coated with iron over these years. Why had he abandoned it, allowing himself to crumple just because the very sight of her, the very feel of her brought him to his knees, literally and figuratively?
What was he going to say? How could he make this up to her? Ever?
Drawing back, Mark slid off her warm, heaving body. He would have gotten up from the sofa entirely, except that there was this look in her eyes that forbid him to leave her.
So, clumsily now, he tucked his arm around her and held her to him.
If his guilt had weighed any more heavily on his chest, it would have suffocated him completely. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
A cold chill descended over her body.
The words felt as if they had been sealed with some kind of paste to the roof of her mouth and she had to peel them off one by one.
“Tell you what?”
Mark raised himself up on his elbow, furious with himself. He’d gone too far, and there was no way to make this right. You couldn’t unring a bell. “That you were a virgin.”
Her heart froze within her breast. She felt naked, exposed, and struggled not to allow the tears she felt forming to fall. He looked so angry. Had she been that much of a disappointment to him? Did he feel that cheated, wasting time with her?
She told him the truth. “Because I didn’t want you to stop.” Her eyes, bright with unshed tears, met his. “Because I didn’t want to be a virgin anymore.”
He dragged his hand through his hair, hating what he’d just done. Hating himself because he still wanted her. Again.
“Then why didn’t you pick someone else?” For lack of a name, he chose the first that came to him. “Why didn’t you go with that Holden character?”
“Because I didn’t want ‘that Holden character,’” She knew that now, knew that any daydreams she might have had were just that, daydreams. They didn’t involve a real person. Not like Mark. He wasn’t all about pretenses and ego, he was real. “I wanted you. I wanted you to be the first.” Unable to stare at the anger on his face any longer, she looked away. “I’m sorry if I disappointed you, but—”
“Disappointed me?” he echoed the words as if he was repeating something in a foreign language
, something that made no sense to him. “Is that what you think this is about?”
“Isn’t it?” She licked lips that were suddenly incredibly dry. “I mean, a man has a right to expect a good time if he—”
“No.” He cut her short, not wanting to hear any more. Not wanting to have her berate herself. “No, this isn’t about disappointment, at least, not mine,” he looked at her pointedly, “and this isn’t about a man’s expectations. If it was, then you more than surpassed anything I could have thought up.”
A half smile played across her lips. She wanted to take his face between her hands and kiss it. He was being incredibly sweet. “You’re a nonfiction writer, you don’t think up things.”
He would have been arrested for what he was thinking now, Mark told himself. “I’m a man and men have fantasies.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. Her eyes never left his face. “And?”
Unable to help himself, he slid the back of his hand along her cheek. She was so sweet, so innocent. And he had changed all that, damn it. But at the same time, he couldn’t help being touched by the import of her gift to him. No one had ever offered themselves to him, body and soul, this way.
It made him infinitely humble.
And infinitely guilty. He doubted if that weight was ever going to be lifted from his shoulders.
“And,” he went on to tell her, “I’ve never had a fantasy to match this.” His smile faded as he became serious. “But you have a right to have the first time be with someone who matters—”
She put her finger to his lips to silence him. “It was.”
His heart swelled. If he lived to be a tortured hundred, he was never going to forget the way she’d felt in his arms or the way she was right now. “Brooke, you don’t know me.”
He was beginning to feel as if he sounded like a broken record, but it was true. She didn’t know him. The real him. If she had, they would never have been here like this.
Brooke held her ground. “I know all I need to know.” She saw he needed more convincing. “Look, there’ve been others who tried. But I didn’t want them. You,” she laughed softly, “you didn’t even try. But I knew I wanted you. To be the first,” she tagged on, afraid that he would see through her, that he would suddenly realize that what she meant was that she wanted it to be him forever. Nothing made a man run faster than knowing his future had been settled without his consent.
She wanted him forever, but she was bright enough to settle for just a night.
But Mark remained unconvinced. It was just the moment talking. She was feeling euphoric. He was being sensible. And hating it.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes, I do,” she insisted. Her voice became sterner than he would have thought. She took his attention hostage. “Don’t treat me as if I were some addle-brained teenager, Mark. I might not be experienced, but I already told you, that was by choice. I had other…opportunities—” a smile played on her lips “—if you will, but I didn’t want them. I’ve even thought I was in love, but it still didn’t seem right. No one ever made me feel safe before. Not the way you do.”
Brooke took a deep breath, trying to fortify herself. “Now, if you’re disappointed, I am very sorry, but I’m not sorry this happened.” The tears she’d been fighting insisted on breaking through. She blinked them back as furiously as she could. It didn’t help. She began to rise off the sofa. “If you’ll excuse me, I have clothes to get into.”
But before she could move, he caught her by the wrist, stopping her. She looked at him quizzically, but he didn’t release his hold.
The deed had been done, there was nothing he could do to change that, to undo it. But he could change the way she felt right at this moment.
Slowly he began to brush his thumb along the inside of her wrist. He could feel her pulse begin to jump.
A shaft of guilt went through him, but he knew he had to do this. This wasn’t about his own needs, which seemed to be multiplying again at a phenomenal rate. This was about her.
It had always been about her.
He pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder and felt her shiver in response. “How long did you say it would be before your father starts to worry that you’re not home?”
Brooke felt her pulse quickening, beating erratically. Could feel her inner core moistening again. Monitoring her heart was out of the question. It was doing things she hadn’t thought possible.
Her body was beginning to turn fluid again. She relaxed…and tensed with anticipation at the same time. She was no longer sure what was up, what was down—and didn’t care.
“Not for another few hours or so.”
Damn it, just looking at her made him feel happy. He knew it wasn’t right, and yet he couldn’t help himself. Very slowly he ran his fingertips along her lips. Lips that had already sealed his fate once. “How would you like to kill that time?”
“How do you think?”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth before her breathing became labored. Mark was pressing his lips to the hollow of her throat, short-circuiting all her nerve endings within her.
Knowing what to anticipate, she felt as if her body burst into flame almost instantly.
But this time, she promised herself, she was going to show him. This time, he wasn’t going to feel as if he was making love with a dewy-eyed novice.
She wrapped her legs around his torso, locking them together and then rocked so that their positions suddenly became reversed before he knew what was happening.
The unconscious anticipation of pleasure had him smiling as he looked at her in surprise.
“Brooke?”
She grinned from ear to ear just before she brought her mouth down to his. “I’m not a virgin anymore,” she whispered against his lips.
The next moment, her body splayed across his, she began to make love with him as if they had always done this, as if they had always been two halves of a whole.
His pulse began to throb, alert, ready.
A very special corner of hell, Mark thought again, that was the place reserved for him. He was going to burn for all eternity for this.
But if that was so, he was going to need memories to last him for all eternity.
He started gathering them.
Chapter Twelve
The phone had been ringing off the hook all morning. Which was good for her business but bad for the headache that was beginning to grow right behind Emily Parks’s eyes. What’s more, she felt as if her face had frozen in place. She’d been perky, smiling and sharp since she’d sailed into work at eight.
Because of the preponderance of couples who had decided that they just had to make August their wedding month, there hadn’t even been time for lunch today. Six straight hours was an awfully long time to be perky.
The wedding planner, Emily decided, is taking a break.
And with that goal in mind, she closed the door of her office, shut off the phone and poured herself a much-deserved cup of coffee.
Maybe the extrastrong shot of caffeine would do something to make her headache go into hiding. It was worth a try.
Pretending for a moment that she wasn’t addicted to the fast-paced life she was living and that she would actually want to have it any other way than it was, Emily sat down at her desk and spread open today’s copy of the as-yet-unread San Francisco Tribune.
Miscalculating, she hit her coffee cup with the California section. Within less than a horrified heartbeat, a black river was suddenly running down her desk.
Not bothering to swallow the curse that rose swiftly to her lips, Emily grabbed the tissue box off her desk and proceeded to stem the tide, dabbing madly at the desk and the newspaper. She offered up a silent thanks that none of her disks had been haphazardly left there to meet the flowing liquid.
Emily Parks’s green eyes widened as the words beneath the soaked tissue in her hand came into focus. The article, no more than two inches in height, was buried on the last page of the
California section.
Appropriately enough, it was an engagement announcement. One of Rowan’s old girlfriends was getting married. Not to him.
She smiled to herself. Probably knew that if she waited for Rowan to pop the question, she was fated to wait forever. Rowan wasn’t the marrying kind.
Rowan also wasn’t the orthodox kind. Rules, proper behavior, thoughtfulness, all that was completely foreign to her motorcycle-loving sibling. The last time she’d seen him, he was riding that bike off to parts unknown. Right after he’d told them at the family gathering their father had called together that he wanted no part of being Walter Parks’s son. Moreover, that he was ashamed of her, Cade and Jessica if they were going to continue to knuckle under to the old man.
Her younger brother by only a year, Rowan had always been the black sheep of the family. Or maybe the white sheep, she amended, thinking of the reputation their father had earned over the years.
But she hadn’t heard from him since then. Not that he made a habit of clocking in. Still, she’d called a couple of times and not gotten a call back.
She glanced at the paper. This was as good an excuse as any to call him again. Pulling the telephone over to her, she hit the familiar number on the keypad. This time, as she listened to the answering machine, she struggled to hold on to her patience.
“Rowan, it’s Emily, I—” A shrill sound met her ear. It meant his machine was too full for another message. Which meant he hadn’t listened to any of his messages so far.
Which meant he hadn’t been home in days.
The tips of her fingers suddenly felt icy. Something was wrong.
Ordinarily levelheaded and driven, able to multitask in her sleep, twenty-eight-year-old Emily suddenly felt a chill passing over her spine as she struggled with a premonition. Something had happened to Rowan, she just knew it.
The first thing she needed to do was to call her twin brother, Cade, and see if maybe he’d heard from Rowan. But even as she dialed, she knew what the answer would be. Cade would have mentioned something, if only to voice his displeasure with Rowan’s actions.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that Rowan was missing. And that he was in trouble.