Lovers' Reunion (Silhouette Treasury 90s)

by Anne Marie Winston

  Not loved, but desired.

  His voice beneath her ear was a welcome distraction from the devastating realization that this man, and none other, would ever claim her heart.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied cautiously. Her emotions couldn’t stand a dissection right now, she thought dully.

  “I wasn’t thinking, that’s what I’m thinking,” Marco said, and the grim note in his voice brought her head up so that she was staring down at him.

  “What?”

  “Birth control.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and held her face between his hands. “I didn’t use any birth control.” He closed his eyes and shook his head wryly, then opened them and speared her with his sharp gaze. “For the first time in my entire life, I never gave it a thought.”

  “It’s all right—”

  “No, it’s not,” he said sharply. “I have no intention of getting you knocked up. At least, not until after—”

  “Marco.” Her palm over his lips sealed off the rest of what he was going to say. “It’s not the right time.”

  “Oh.” He thought about that for a moment. “Are you sure?” When she nodded, he said, “Well, anyway, that’s good. For now. Tomorrow I’ll take care of getting protection.”

  She didn’t answer as she lay her head down on his shoulder. In truth, she barely registered his words. Knives of despair sliced at her insides.

  She’d accepted the reality of this relationship, recognized the limitations. Marco might say he was staying, but she knew him too well. He’d be chafing at the bit if he were tied in one place very long. Right now he’d convinced himself his traveling days were done, but she knew that wouldn’t last.

  He’d go away again. And, just like last time, he’d choose to go alone. No matter what he said now, she knew him too well. If this time, a night, a week or a few months, was all she could have, then she’d take it. Kirk’s death had taught her how fleeting life could be. She didn’t want to wake up one day and realize she’d wasted whatever time she could have had with Marco.

  His hands stroking up and down her back brought her back to the present. “As much as I like this position, I think a bed would be a little more comfortable. How about if we go back to your place?”

  She lifted her head and summoned a smile, setting aside her melancholy thoughts. There would be plenty of time for them someday, she was sure. “Sounds like a plan I can endorse.”

  Reluctantly he lifted her off him, and they rose and dressed, laughing. As they retrieved their scattered clothing, he said, “I guess I have to rent this place now that we’ve christened it.” He returned the key to the landlady, then drove back to her condo in a comfortable silence, holding her hand lightly between them on the seat.

  But as he drove, his thumb stroked sweet circles around her palm, and between her thighs, the damp, slightly tender flesh began to throb. It had always been like this with him. She’d lived in a state of permanent sexual excitement when Marco was near.

  She glanced across the seat at him and caught him watching her through narrowed eyes. Her breath began to come faster and her body relaxed; her limbs felt sluggish and heavy. Slowly he lifted their joined hands and brushed them lightly over the sensitive tip of one breast, and she sucked in a surprised gasp as her whole body reacted to his sly teasing.

  He chuckled. Then he opened his door and she realized they were in the parking lot in front of her building.

  He hurried her out of the car and into her condo, slamming the door behind him and reaching for her the instant they were over the threshold. Drawing her against him, he immediately took her lips, his body reacting as if he hadn’t just had her naked and willing beneath him thirty minutes ago.

  He wanted her out of those clothes for good, and he made it so, leaving a trail of garments strewn through her apartment as he urged her toward the bedroom. She helped him willingly, and he was rocked anew by the unrestrained passion he sensed in her, by the sensual way she arched and writhed beneath his hands when he stroked over her pretty, silky flesh and tongued the hard points of her nipples.

  As he stripped off his shirt, her hands were in the way, and he nearly tripped as they both struggled with his trousers. He could hear her breathing hard, knew it matched the harsh rhythms of his own respiration. She slipped her palms inside his briefs and he groaned as she pulled the fabric away from his taut, throbbing length and replaced it with her hands. His control was slipping, and his hips urgently thrust between her warm palms as she caressed him until he knew that one more stroke would end it on the spot.

  It was still too new. Maybe in about a hundred years, when he didn’t want her so badly, he’d be able to wait and let her play, explore him as she wished, but right now his body was issuing commands that he couldn’t ignore. Sweeping an arm beneath her back and the other behind her knees, he lifted her into his arms.

  “Marco! Put me down. Your knee...” She struggled frantically, and he had to lean against the wall, bare-assed and stiff as a pole, gripping her tightly and hoping like hell he didn’t lose his balance.

  “My knee,” he said through gritted teeth, “is the least bothered part of me right now. Quit squirming and point toward the bedroom.”

  She giggled and stilled immediately, putting one arm around his neck and pointing back toward the little hallway. “That way. First door on the left.”

  Thank God it wasn’t far. He was limping at the unaccustomed weight, knew she must feel it, but he’d be damned if he’d put her down now.

  At the door of her bedroom he paused, seized by a jealous possessiveness that didn’t surprise him. He had to know. “Did you ever share this bed?”

  Fortunately he didn’t have to be more specific. She knew what he was asking. “No,” she said, turning her head to kiss his shoulder. “I bought this condo after—afterward, and refurnished it.”

  “Shh.” He dropped his head and sought her lips, replacing passion with a sweet comforting kiss. “I’m sorry. It was a dumb thing to ask.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” She still had her arms around his neck, her face only inches from his. “I want this to be new, too...a new time in each of our lives.”

  He made it to the bed and turned, sitting down with her in his lap. He hoped she hadn’t noticed how his leg was trembling. But right now his leg was the least of his concerns. Other parts of him were taking full priority.

  Slowly he lifted her, turning her toward him, and she caught on right away, spreading her legs to drape over either side of his hips. He knew she probably was a little sore, but she was as frantic as he, willingly letting him pull her down onto his engorged flesh, pressing wild little kisses over his chest and shoulders as he impaled her on his aching erection and thrust strongly up to embed himself deeply with her.

  “Take me,” he muttered. She was incredibly snug and tight around him, her warm channel wet and slick from his recent use, and when she pushed at his shoulders, he let her lay him back so that he was lying on the bed with her astride his body. She threw her head back as her hips began to move, and he put his hands up to catch her full breasts in his big palms, roughly thumbing her nipples until they stood up in response.

  But she was riding him hard, fast, frantically, and the sweet friction was mounting. Between his legs he could feel himself drawing into a taut knot of anticipation, tension pulling him into a desperate arch beneath her on the bed until, with a guttural sound that was part unbearable pleasure, part exquisite pain, he poured himself into her for the second time, overwhelmed by the unexpected bonus of unfettered, uncovered flesh—oh, hell! Protection!

  But his body was galloping full out toward satisfaction, and the thought was lost. As he climaxed, he reached between their bodies and pressed relentlessly against the swollen bud he found hiding beneath her ebony curls, and she convulsed over him immediately, her body violently jerking and rolling in huge waves of rhythmic release, her inner muscles tugging at his shaft so tha
t they shuddered and clung together, heaving in the throes of passion until she collapsed against him.

  He was so spent that he couldn’t even lift his arms to embrace her. He released a great sigh, and she crawled off him to sprawl against his side, her head flopping onto his upper arm.

  For a long, long time, they simply lay there, too limp and drained to move. Their bodies cooled and their breathing steadied.

  When he’d regained a small flicker of energy, he said, “I thought I remembered what it was like with you, but I was wrong.”

  He felt her face shift against him as she smiled, and she turned her head and caught the flesh at the ball of his shoulder in a gentle bite. “I know.”

  For some reason the words made him feel defensive. “I was doing what I thought was best for you.”

  There was an instant of charged silence, and then she shrugged. “You were wrong about that, too.”

  The afterglow in which he’d been basking vanished abruptly. Suddenly he had an all-too-vivid image of Sophie allowing some other man to touch her the way he had. Sitting up, he shoved himself from the bed and headed for her bathroom, where he used the brief moments to get a firm grip on the fury that blasted through him, pulling his hands into impotent fists at the thought of another man teaching her about making love.

  She was his, dammit! She’d always been his, and he should have been the one. The fact that he’d walked away because he’d thought it was the right thing to do wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of consolation right now.

  When he returned to the bedroom, she had donned an oversize T-shirt. She turned, and in her heart-shaped face he saw uncertainty. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked.

  It was a polite, neutral question that demanded a polite, neutral response. One he didn’t have. “No.”

  Her eyes widened at the curt tone.

  He walked to the side of the bed and flipped back the covers, then grabbed her hand and dragged her onto the mattress, stripping off the shirt with impatient hands until she was bare again. Reaching down, he flipped up the sheets to cover them, then drew her into his arms with her head on his shoulder. “I want,” he said, “to hold you. I want to sleep with you in my arms. Do you have a problem with that?”

  She lifted a hand and gently ruffled the thick hair that covered his forearm where it lay across her body. “No,” she said, and there was a warm, satisfied lilt in her voice now. “I have no problem with that whatsoever.”

  In the middle of the night he woke, and this time he did want a drink. Sophie was sleeping soundly, still in his arms, and he carefully shifted her to the mattress, then rose and went to the kitchen, where he knocked back sixteen ounces of ice water. He carried a second full glass back to the bedroom, grabbing a coaster from the living room on the way, and set the water on the table beside the bed, then climbed back into the bed and reached for Sophie again.

  When she turned into his arms, he realized she was awake, and without really thinking about it, his arms tightened possessively. “Sorry if I woke you.”

  “It’s all right.” She snuggled more fully into his embrace.

  It was a good feeling. A damned good feeling. He’d never slept—in the literal sense—with a woman in his arms before. He rarely even had slept with one in his bed. His bedroom encounters weren’t geared toward slumber, and on those few occasions when he had spent the night somewhere, he’d never slept well. It was even worse when a woman had stayed all night with him. The rustle and shift of another body in the bed was unsettling; he wound up hugging his side of the mattress, trying to avoid contact and wondering if it would be too rude to ask her to go the hell home.

  But with Sophie ... sleeping with her all cuddled up in his arms felt right.

  Maybe he was just getting older. Or maybe it was because he knew he had to start thinking about settling down. That made the most sense. With Sophie, the sex was fantastic. More than fantastic. And they were comfortable together, probably because they’d grown up side by side and had been in each other’s lives forever. With little effort he could imagine a lifetime of making love with her, of sleeping with her in his arms every night and waking there every morning.

  He was going to marry her. He’d already decided that. Marry her and get her pregnant as fast as possible. Fill the house they were going to buy with lots of little noisemaking midgets who would keep him too busy to think about why he’d had to settle down in the first place.

  “What are you thinking about?” Her soft, husky voice interrupted his thoughts.

  He wasn’t quite ready to share what was going on in his head, but there was something else he wanted to get settled between them.

  “I guess there’s no need to sign the lease on that place I showed you.” He ran a hand idly up and down her spine, his long fingers kneading her flesh.

  “There’s not?”

  “No.” He continued to stroke her body as if he hadn’t noticed the subtle tension that stiffened her body. “Now that we’re sleeping together, it would be silly for me to get a separate place.”

  “You want to move in here?” There was a distinctly wary tone in her voice that he didn’t trust, but he forced himself to sound lazily amused, as if they were just having a casual conversation.

  “You’re catching on.”

  She didn’t move, but in the dark room he sensed her withdrawing as completely as if she’d left the bed. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “I do.” He couldn’t prevent the confused irritation he felt from seeping into his tone. “What’s the matter with the idea?”

  She took a long moment to give herself time to frame her words. “I’m not ready to share my personal space with anyone,” she said.

  “I’m not ‘anyone,’” he pointed out, an edge in his voice.

  “No,” she agreed, “you’re not.” She lifted the hand that lay across her belly and kissed the tip of one finger. “You’re ... very special to me. You know that. But I’ve just gotten used to living alone, and I’m not ready to change that.”

  Well, it was going to change. And there was no point in letting her think otherwise, though he was willing to give her a little time to get used to the idea. “All right,” he said in as mild a voice as he could manage. “But don’t get too used to it, baby, because we’re getting married before this year is over.”

  She sat up, twisting to look down at him in blank astonishment. “Married!”

  He grinned. “I told you I was staying in your life.” Taking her arm, he tugged her back into his arms.

  She came willingly, but her face was still a study in shock. “I know what you said,” she told him quietly. “But I didn’t think you meant it.”

  “I meant it,” he said, more grimly than he intended. “I let you get away from me once—”

  “You were the one who went away,” she reminded him.

  “And you’re never going to let me forget it, are you?” He was all too aware that she hadn’t responded in an enthusiastic manner to his declaration.

  She smiled at his grumpy tone. “Probably not”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. You can remind me about it for the rest of our lives. You can tell our grandchildren someday if you want.”

  A tremor rippled through her. He couldn’t miss it, as closely as he was holding her, and she didn’t say anything for so long that he got worried. “Sophie?”

  “Let’s not rush into things,” she said in a strained voice. “Can’t we just take it a day at a time?”

  He wanted to press her for more of a commitment. Hell, he wanted her to agree to marry him tomorrow. But she sounded so shaky and vulnerable that he couldn’t bring himself to distress her more. “All right,” he said. “We have lots of days ahead of us to make decisions.”

  She turned to him then, sliding her arms around his neck, and her bare body shifted against his, arousing within him the desire that had been temporarily slaked. He stroked his hand over her silky skin to her hip, pulling her against h
im. As he rolled atop her, he had a moment’s astonishment at his body’s stamina. He should be exhausted. Especially the part of him that was coming vigorously alive and hungry for more of Sophie’s soft flesh.

  Her legs parted and she made a low hum of approval as he settled himself between her thighs. He slid into her in one long, smooth stroke as he dropped his head and sought her lips. And as he began to move within her, he decided that if he had to make a life-style change, this was probably the very best option he could have chosen. No sense in thinking about what would never be. No, he’d make the most of what he’d been offered, a woman whose mere presence could lighten the cloud of despair that had woken with him his first day in the hospital in Rio.

  Eight

  He was with her every moment that she wasn’t working, for the rest of the week, except for the hour in the morning when he swam. Every moment. At the breakfast table, in the shower, at lunch, over dinner, and in her bed every single night.

  His first class at Purdue started during June, and he had two weeks yet before the first day. Already he was driving to and from the university, doing research and preparing for the courses on a daily basis but he came over every evening when she returned from work, and he didn’t leave again until she did in the morning.

  Sophie floated to and from work in a sensual daze, too content even to blush when her co-workers teased her after one of them caught her locked in Marco’s arms on the front stoop of the center one day.

  Was she being silly, refusing to let him move in with her? She pondered the question one afternoon as she changed from the clothes she’d worn to work into a short skirt in vivid aqua and a matching top, then went to the kitchen to start some dinner. Marco was still over at Purdue, but he should be home any minute—he should be home. It was a shock to realize she already felt as if they were sharing a home, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

  He was spending every moment there now, and she’d noticed he’d appropriated part of a drawer and a shelf in her bathroom cabinet. He had told her she had time to think about marrying him, but she’d seen Marco in action before. Once he’d decided on a plan, he quietly went about making it happen, regardless of what stood in his way.