But when she turned her head and met his eyes, she saw that he wasn’t upset. Wasn’t morose or sad. She could read those eyes as well, if not better, than she could read her own. She knew every detail of his face, down to the smallest line, how to judge the looks on his face, how to judge his emotions.
He looked . . . happy. His impossibly blue eyes were smiling and a pleased grin curved his mouth. Cold chills ran up and down her spine. Had Nicole remembered him after all?
“How did your trip go?” she asked levelly as he walked over and studied the faint drawing on the wall.
“Great,” he answered, absently, stroking one finger along Pooh’s cheek. “Where’s Piglet?”
Piglet. “I haven’t decided whether or not to use Piglet. I just decided on Pooh today,” she answered. “You weren’t gone very long this time.”
Rising, he turned to meet her eyes, tucking his hands into his pockets. “No reason to be gone long. I took care of what I needed to. No reason left to stay.”
“Oh?” she asked, arching one eyebrow, pleased that her voice was even. “Didn’t mooning over Nikki take long this time?” Just the lightest touch of sarcasm in her voice, just to let him know what she thought of it.
“No mooning, Lauren. I saw her yesterday for the first time in three years,” he said, rolling his eyes at her disbelieving look. “I went out of my way not to see her ever since I saw her that summer, pregnant. But that’s beside the point.”
“And what is the point?” she asked, turning away to gather up her supplies. The job was simply busywork, to avoid looking into his eyes. Three years? she thought.
His hands came up to rest on her shoulders. Gently, he turned her to face him. “I don’t love her, Lauren. We only dated off and on a few times, right after Wade moved to Somerset. And it was Nikki’s idea, to try to get him to leave her alone. The few times I tried to get her to go out with me, when she first moved to town, she very politely brushed me off. I don’t love her now. Maybe I did at first, a little, but not the way I thought I did. I care about her, yes. But I don’t love her. And I don’t think I ever did.”
Her lashes dropped to shield her eyes and she sidestepped out from under his hands. “Took an awful long time to figure that one out, did you?” she asked, quivering inside and unwilling to let him see.
“You knew.” It was a puzzled statement. She knew he was thinking, how could you know how I felt when I didn’t know?
There was no way to tell him that she knew him the way no other could, knew him inside and out. She knew that what he wanted wasn’t always what he needed, and what he needed wasn’t necessarily something he wanted.
After all, he didn’t want her, she thought sadly. And she was the best thing to ever happen to him.
With a sigh, she said, “I knew she wasn’t the type of woman you needed. Maybe the type you wanted, but not what you need. You wanted to rescue her, like some cursed princess from a fairy tale. You were blind to the fact that you were all wrong for her, and she was wrong for you.”
“You don’t even know her,” Dale said, slightly irritated. How did she know him so well?
“I know you,” she said softly. “That’s all it took. She sounds too much like you, too volatile, too hot tempered. Do you have any idea how terrible you two would be as a couple? You’d kill each other in a matter of days.”
“We got along pretty damn good for a while,” he said, edgily.
Smiling, Lauren turned to face him. “That’s because you were friends. Just friends, no matter how much you wanted it to be otherwise.” She started past him, certain she had done the best she could at hiding the emotions running rampant within her. “I’m happy for you, Dale. You’re free now.” She patted his shoulder absently as she moved past him.
“No,” he said, reaching out and snagging her arm. “No, I’m not.”
She went still, turning her head, meeting his eyes. The look in those eyes made her knees weak, but Lauren locked them and remained upright, kept her eyes clear and focused on his. She knew what kind of crazy things hoping could do to her head. “Realize that you love your little actress, Dale?” she asked calmly, while his hand braceleted her wrist. “She steal your heart along with the show?”
He smiled, shook his head. “No.” Her pulse was rabbiting under his fingers and the thought of what might be causing that made his smile grow wider. She looked completely indifferent, one brow arched arrogantly, a half amused smile on her face. But her hand was shaking, he could feel it, and her heart was pounding.
“If you know me so well, Lauren, why don’t you tell me what I need? Why don’t you tell me why I’m not free?”
Through the lowered fringe of her lashes, she watched him. “Knowing you well doesn’t make me a mind reader, Dale,” she said calmly, tugging against his hold. “I don’t know what goes on in that thick head of yours.”
“Don’t you?”
Hot little flip-flops were turning in her belly, and her chest felt unbelievably tight. Keeping her voice level became an act of sheer will. “No, Dale. I don’t.” She tugged again, trying to free her wrist.
“Why don’t I give you a clue?” he murmured as he drew her closer, up against his chest. She was simply staring at him, those wide gray eyes locked on his face. Her hands came up to press against his chest, her fingers curling into the soft material of his T-shirt. With one arm wrapped around her waist, his free hand buried in her hair, he lowered his mouth to hers, his eyes on hers as he brushed her lips with his.
She gasped, eyes fluttering closed as he nipped at her lip. He angled his head and covered her mouth with his just as her hands crept up to lock behind his head, tugging him closer. Oh. Oh, my, Lauren thought, right before her mental capacity went out the window.
His tongue slyly darted across her tongue, danced within her mouth before withdrawing once again so he could nibble at her lower lip, her chin, her jaw. His hands, oh, his clever artistic hands cupped her breasts, gently, thumbs brushing over her sensitive nipples. Against her belly, she could feel the hot length of him. A slow, molten heat grew in her belly and spread throughout her body. She wanted that inside, that long, hard magical cock of his buried inside her. Whimpering deep in her throat, she searched for his mouth again.
So familiar, Dale wondered, dipping into her mouth again and again. How do I know how she tastes? How do I know that she whimpers like that when she’s excited? That whimper sounded again as his hands slipped under her loose shirt to find her flesh. Those lush breasts strained against her bra as he massaged the heated flesh with greedy hands.
He jerked her shirt up, dipped his head and caught the tip of her nipple in his teeth, tugging at it delicately before swirling his tongue around the crest. One hand streaked down her middle, and he knew the firm bulge hadn’t been there long. It was subtle, so subtle he shouldn’t have been able to even notice. He straightened, one hand resting protectively on her belly as he took her mouth again.
A hot thrill speared from her mouth down to her belly. Her hips arched up, seeking. Desperately, her hands unlocked from behind his neck as he lowered his head to nip at her shoulder. Her hands locked on his butt, tugging him closer, needing to feel his heat against her.
His eyes nearly crossed with pleasure as he tore his mouth from her. Her strong agile hands had already tugged his shirt free and one was currently trying to undo the buttons of his fly. “Lauren,” he said, his voice catching as her fingers brushed against him. How had one kiss led to this? he wondered frantically, pulling away from her questing fingers. He caught her hands in his, and in the name of self-protection, locked them both behind her back.
“Jeez, Lauren,” he gasped, moving back a step. “I was trying to give you a clue, not a quickie against the wall.” Even as he said it, that image loomed large in his mind, of him pressing her up against the wall, burying himself into that long elegant body. A fantasy, he knew. So why did it seem like a memory?
Knowing he had to either take her or move away, he released he
r hands and stepped back.
Scrubbing his hands over his face, he missed seeing her pale. Whirling away, Lauren cupped one hand over her belly, forcing down the panic. Tell him, something inside her whispered. Tell him now.
I can’t. He’ll be so angry. And what if he’s wrong about how he thinks he feels?
Lauren had played second fiddle for so long, had been his buddy instead of his lover, his confidant instead of soul mate. “I beg your pardon,” she said, embarrassment and fear making her voice icy.
“Don’t,” he said quietly, forcing her to turn around. “Don’t. That meant something, Lauren. You know it. I know it. That’s why I went back home. I had to see how I would feel if I saw her again.”
Lauren only continued to stare at him, wanting desperately to ask. Unable to find the courage to do so.
“You won’t even ask, will you?” he said softly. “Not because it doesn’t matter. Because it does.” He pulled her close again, willing his unruly body to calm. “I think I know you pretty well, too.” Pressing his lips to her temple, he breathed in the scent of vanilla, musk and the innocence that was Lauren. Holding her against his chest, simply holding her, felt more right than anything in his whole life had ever felt. “I looked at her and felt no more than I would have felt looking at my high school sweetheart, Bobbi Jo Myers, who is happily married to the minister of my parents’ church. Just a little…smile, you know? The kind you feel on the inside when remembering something sweet.”
“And that was nothing compared to what I felt when I walked in here and looked at you,” he finished, drawing back, looking down into her eyes.
Her mouth fell open, and her eyes closed. He watched as she drew in a deep breath and opened her eyes, the sheen of tears that glistened there making his throat tighten in panic. “I love you,” he said rapidly. “I don’t know why it took me so long to see you. It’s real, though. I love you so much it makes my head spin to even think about you. I want this. I want to help you raise this baby. But I can wait until you’re ready to see me, too. To love me.”
Her heart pounded in her chest, swelling until she thought she’d faint from lack of air. Looking deeply into his eyes she searched for confirmation. He loved her.
A laugh bubbled out of her throat and she threw her arms around his neck.
She felt lightheaded and dizzy, and she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “You fool,” she whispered, twin tears spilling over to trickle down her ivory cheeks. “I already do.”
His hands, in the act of reaching up to hold her against him, went limp. “Lauren?” he asked, almost afraid to ask if she had said what he thought she had said. What if she hadn’t? Pulling back, he stared down into her tear bright eyes.
In response to that unasked question, she raised her hands until she could cup his face. Staring into those bottomless blue eyes that had haunted her dreams for years, she pressed her lips to his. A quiet groan sounded deep in his chest as he wrapped his arms around her waist, dragging her against him. The kiss was gentle, soothing, an answer all on its own. When she pulled her mouth from his, he rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. “Lauren.” Her name left him on a quiet sigh.
“I’ve loved you for so long,” she whispered, her breath coming in shuddering gasps. “All I ever wanted was to be with you. And every time you left to go home, you took a part of me with you. I thought I’d die when you went back this last time.”
Pulling back, he stared at her with bewildered eyes. “How long?” he asked, his voice rough. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
She smiled sadly, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t have wanted to hear it, Dale. I never thought you’d love me.”
“You never showed it.”
“I couldn’t. Friendship was all you wanted, so that’s all I gave,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
He pulled her back against him, holding her there, feeling her heart pound against his. “I want everything you have to give me, Lauren,” he told her, rubbing his cheek against her silky midnight hair. “More.”
“All you ever had to do was ask.” She rose on her toes, kissing his cheek, grazing his mouth with hers.
He captured her face when she would have pulled back after that butterfly touch. “I’m asking now,” he said, his voice rough and unsteady. “Lauren, lie with me tonight. Let me love you.”
A tingle of lust shot through her body, followed by the rush of love that nearly swamped her. “Tonight, and every night. For as long as you want me.”
“Always. I can’t even think of a life without you in it.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and he lifted her, boosting her hips up until she could wrap her legs around his hips. Silently, he carried her down the hall to her room, eye to eye. She pressed a kiss to that smiling mouth, as she had so often dreamed of doing.
It never dawned on him until later that he had never been inside her room before. He had glimpsed it from time to time, but the door, most often, was closed and he had responded to the unspoken need for privacy. He laid her on the pretty fancy of a bed, never realizing how little it seemed to suit Lauren, or suit the Lauren he had not seen until recently. Wrought iron black poles rose from the corners of the king sized mattress, each connected at the top by another pole. Swatches of gauzy white fabric draped over the bed, creating a canopy effect.
The comforter beneath her was deep rose, shades darker than the walls she had painted herself. Throw pillows of hunter green were grouped at the head of the bed. With one sweep of his arm, they all tumbled to the floor. Straddling her hips, careful to keep his weight off of her, he settled back on his heels, his eyes on hers as he unbuttoned the practical white cotton shirt.
Beneath it was totally impractical white lace and satin. The white lace cupped the milky white skin of her breasts, the darker pink of her nipples pressing firmly against the lace, straining and swelling in invitation. Parting the shirt, he merely stared at her for a long moment before tracing one finger along the edge of the ivory satin, whispering, “You’re so damn pretty, Lauren.” Her slim torso narrowed slightly at her waist before flaring into rounded hips and long, sleek legs he hadn’t been able to keep from fantasizing about.
A quick smile lit her face, her cheeks flushing. “You’re not so bad yourself,” she replied, reaching up to run a hand through his gold streaked hair.
Rolling off of her, he pulled her up, until they were facing each other, kneeling on the bed. Slowly, he slid the open shirt from her shoulders. Her breasts filled that sexy bra to overflowing and he chuckled as he cupped her in his hands. “And these…how did I miss these for so long?” he asked, only half teasing. Pale blue veins streaked under the fine marble of her skin and he wondered why he was so certain those were new. Her rose colored nipples pressed hard against the lace, tempting him.
“Beats me,” she murmured wryly. “They’re kind of hard to miss.”
“Do you always wear things like this?” he asked, flicking the lace with one finger.
She nodded, ducking her chin. “I like pretty things. But I won’t be wearing them for much longer. Pretty bras in my size are easy enough to find, but I doubt they’ll be comfortable for much longer.”
“Do they hurt?” he asked, lowering his head to nuzzle the valley between her breasts. He locked one arm at the small of her back, pulling her up against him as he grazed her skin with his mouth.
“N-no,” she whispered, her head falling back as he worked his way up to her neck. “Just…sensitive,” she finished on a sigh as one warm hand closed over her, gently massaging the soft flesh.
He pulled back and released the front catch on her bra, watching in lazy satisfaction as her breasts tumbled free. Cupping her again, he gently urged her onto her back, bending over her. “I’ll be gentle,” he promised. True to his word, he caressed her lightly, lovingly, as Lauren sank into a deep pool of pleasure.
His mouth closed over one nipple, started a gentle suction that had her hips arching up in respons
e. “Dale,” she whimpered. So gentle, so tender, but the remembered fury of passion was sneaking up on her, turning her own hands greedy and demanding. “Dale.” She tugged at his shoulders, rubbed her hips against his when he lay down fully against her.
“Easy, Lauren. We’ve got all the time in the world,” he said, brushing his thumb over the stiff peak of her nipple.
“Maybe you do,” she muttered, eyes glazing over when one clever hand cupped her between her thighs. Opening them wider, she urged him on with a rocking motion. Her damn jeans were in the way, she thought disgustedly. She reached for the button only to have him brush her hands away.
“Let me,” he murmured against her ear. He eased the jeans down her legs slowly, pulling the swatch of ivory lace down as well before he settled back on his heels, staring down at her long pale body. Studying, memorizing. For this wasn’t familiar. Flashes and glimpses, the taste of her, the scent of her, they all seemed so damned familiar. But he knew, as certain as he was sitting there, he had never seen the glory of Lauren Spencer, naked as the day she was born. Her eyes, half closed, stared at him from a face flushed with need, that wide, sexy mouth curved up in a small smile. Long, strong limbs, lightly muscled and ivory pale. Those heavy, beautiful breasts tipped with rose nipples, long torso, belly just slightly curved, and the small patch of black down at the juncture of her thighs, gleaming wetly. He caressed her flesh lightly, just the tips of his fingers lightly grazing her skin as he studied her. Brushing against her nipples in a butterfly stroke, smiling when she gasped, before roaming down to circle her navel, then trailing one lone finger down her wet, hot cleft.
“Beautiful,” he muttered thickly, before lowering his head, nuzzling that downy patch.
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