She couldn’t quite believe that. That first night, they hadn’t even liked each other. “You…imagined me?”
He nodded. “And then I knocked on your door and there you were, wearing almost what I’d imagined. Shocked the hell out of me.” His gaze scanned her face. “Take off the damn robe, Hannah.”
She opened her mouth, but then didn’t know what to say.
“Please,” he whispered. “Untie the sash.”
Her fingers moved to obey. Just one little tug, and the sash slithered free.
“Drop it.”
She did.
“Now, the robe. No—don’t move. Stay right there, with the light behind you.”
She gathered the facings and pushed the robe off of her shoulders.
“Let it fall to the floor.”
She straightened her arms. The robe slid away.
Cord stared at her. She knew he could see right through her white nightgown.
He said, “Exactly.” The word had a thousand meanings, every one of them sexual. The look in his eyes sent a hot shiver through her, caused a meltdown in her midsection.
Oh, my. They shouldn’t be doing this. She’d regret it come morning—but as long as they were doing it, she’d darn well better enjoy it. She let her lips curve into a naughty smile. “Cord Stockwell, shame on you.”
He laughed, a low, very suggestive kind of laugh. And then he was reaching for her, pulling her close. His mouth was on hers, stealing her breath.
He kissed her slowly, lazily, taking his sweet time about it. And while he kissed her, he began to get rid of his clothes.
He was very good at that—kissing her senseless and undressing himself at the same time. He made her help him, stroking her mouth with his tongue, teasing her lips between his teeth, as he guided her hands—to his tie, to his diamond cuff links.
He took them from her, the cuff links, once she pulled them from their holes. She heard him drop them on the nightstand. And then he caught her hands again and guided them to the buttons of his beautiful silk shirt. One by one, she slid those buttons from their holes. When she undid the final button, his hands were waiting—to guide hers upward, to his shoulders, where he indicated he wanted her to push the shirt off and away.
She did what he wanted.
The shirt landed at their feet.
His naked chest confronted her, so warm and broad and hard with muscle. Crisp dark hair grew across his pectorals and down the middle of his tight belly in a silky, tempting line. Hannah laid a hand on either side of his chest, feeling the power of him, the heat of him—and his heartbeat, too, so strong and steady.
He caught her hands again, first holding them tight in his as he kicked off his shoes. And then, a moment later, guiding them downward.
Her fingers surprised her. They knew exactly what to do.
She unhooked the hooks and took the zipper down. She was a little shy of actually touching him, there, so intimately, but once or twice her fingers did brush him in passing. He gasped, both times—and so did she—as she peeled open the plackets and guided the fine slacks down over his hips and his powerful thighs.
The slacks dropped around his ankles. He sat, on the edge of the bed, pulling her down with him, his mouth still holding hers. He kicked the slacks away and managed, with incredible dexterity, to shuck off his socks.
Hannah pulled away. She stared at him. All he had left was a pair of midnight-blue silk boxer shorts. He chuckled—probably at the look of pure surprise on her face—and he slid his hand around her nape again to bring her mouth to his once more.
Another kiss.
Oh, what the man could do with his lips and his tongue. His fingers started working at the row of buttons down the front of her nightgown. They worked fast. She felt the air—and his hand—slipping in. He cupped her breast. And he moaned into her mouth.
Hannah moaned right back as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and then spread his hand, to cup her again. The sensation was so lovely. It made her feel weak and hot and wonderful. Arousal spiraled through her, finding its way down into her very center, stoking the need there, turning warmth to flame.
They were sitting side by side, kissing, as he caressed her. But then, all at once, he was urging her to stand again. He stood, too, kissing her all the way upright. And then he put his hands on her hips. She knew what he meant to do—pull up her gown and toss it away.
She stiffened as it came to her: when he did that, he would see—
She sucked in a breath.
No. It had been years. And the marks had never been that obvious to begin with. Surely they’d faded enough that he wouldn’t notice.
And even if he did notice, so what? What was he going to say about them?
Hannah, how did you get these stretch marks?
Hardly. Cord Stockwell knew all about seduction. He would have learned a long time ago never to make an issue of a woman’s physical imperfections.
“Hannah?” His eyes probed hers. “What’s wrong?”
She licked her lips. “Nothing.”
He looked wary now. “I don’t believe you. There’s something.”
“There’s nothing.”
He frowned. “Is this your first time?”
Somehow, she restrained the sharp cry of frantic laughter that tried to burst from her throat. He assumed her hesitation stemmed from innocence.
Just the opposite was true.
“No,” she said. “It’s not my first time.”
His frowned deepened. “Well, then. What’s wrong?”
She put her hands on his shoulders and rose on tiptoe to brush his mouth with hers. “Nothing,” she lied again. “Nothing at all…” Another problem occurred to her. “I…well, I’m not on the Pill or anything.”
“It’s all right. I can take care of it.”
“Oh,” she said, rather breathlessly, thinking that she should have known she didn’t need to worry on that score. The man knew what he was doing. Of course, he’d have protection. He might have messed up once with Becky’s mother, but he couldn’t afford to have every affair result in a bouncing bundle of joy.
He wrapped his big arms around her, bringing her close to him again, deepening the kiss that she had begun.
And when he put his hands on her hips that time and began to gather the fabric of her gown in his fists, she did not stiffen or try to push him away. She just lifted her arms. He swept the nightgown up over her head.
And then, there she was. Naked before him. He looked at her with heat and hunger. If he noticed the stretch marks, he didn’t seem to care. He tossed her nightgown over a chair and took her by the hand.
“Come here…” He pulled her onto the bed.
Then he buried his fingers in her hair and, kneeling with her in the center of the huge mattress, he kissed her some more, kissed her so long, her lips ached.
A delicious ache.
All of her ached. Her whole body throbbed, with wonder, with yearning, with sweet, hot desire. He grasped her shoulders. And he guided her down, so she lay on her back, resting on the fat pillows at the head of the bed. He began to caress her in earnest, those incredible hands of his trailing down over her body, lingering for a time on her breasts, her belly, the patch of soft curls at the juncture of her thighs.
His mouth followed his hands.
Hannah lost herself in the feel of that mouth on her body, in the tender, insistent touch of those hands. She cried out, repeatedly, and she opened for him when he urged her to. She gasped and she moaned as his hands had their way with her—and, minutes later, his mouth as well. She grabbed his dark head and shamelessly pressed herself against him, pleading with him not to stop.
He didn’t. The wonderful, liquid pulsing began, spreading from the point where his mouth was loving her, outward, all through her, hot and wet and wonderful: a river of fire.
She cried out again, louder than before. And then, with a final sigh, she went lax.
He waited, his incredible mo
uth still pressed to her most private place, absorbing the aftershocks as they quivered through her. Slowly she opened her eyes.
He lifted his head then, and he looked at her, his gaze deep and dark as the heart of midnight, his mouth swollen with what he’d been doing to her. Her breath snagged in her throat as he began kissing his way back up her body.
She whispered his name.
And he muttered, “Hannah…”
And then he was reaching for the nightstand drawer.
She couldn’t believe her boldness. She helped him to slide the thing on. And she reveled in the way he groaned at her touch.
He positioned himself on top of her, most of his weight on his powerful arms. Slowly he pressed in. Her body gave easily, primed by the pleasure he had just given her. She reached up, tried to pull him close.
He resisted at first. He looked into her eyes as he filled her. Never, ever, had anyone looked at her that way, a look that seared a path right down into her very soul. She wrapped her legs around his hard hips and she urged him again to come down to her. Still, he held himself away. He shook his dark head, as if clearing it, and he captured her gaze again.
“No,” he whispered on a hard breath. “I want to see you…”
“Please…”
“Don’t…”
“Please, Cord…”
He swore. And he let his arms relax. She gathered him to her. He tangled his fingers her hair.
And he kissed her, his lips claiming hers as, below, he was moving inside her. She couldn’t get close enough—that was impossible. But no one would ever be able to say she hadn’t tried. She pressed her hands hard to his powerful back and she held him so very tightly with her legs.
About then it began to seem as if they really did share one body. And one heart.
It was beating, that heart, so hard and insistently. She shared her breath with him and he gave it right back to her, their mated bodies rising and falling, now frantic and needful, now so slow and deep it hardly seemed they were moving at all.
He stroked her hair, his mouth on hers in a kiss that felt like eternity itself, a kiss that had no beginning—and that would never end.
He freed his hands from the wild tangle of her hair. His fingers skimmed down her body, striking sparks where they touched. He found her hips, cupped them and lifted them, so that the impossible happened—he surged in deeper still.
She moaned—or he did. It didn’t matter. It was all the same. They were the same: one body, one soul, one never-ending kiss.
She clutched him close, his body so hot, slick with the sweat of their loving, the two of them sliding together, perfectly connected, complete.
And then it happened.
The world burst apart, shooting out in a shower of light and heat, hitting the top of the universe, hovering there on a long, drawn-out sigh, then drifting down, bright sparks in the night, flickering out slowly, until there was nothing but velvety darkness—and the sad insistent wailing of the wind outside.
For a time, they just lay there, holding each other close, the sweat cooling on their skin. Eventually, though, Cord stirred.
Hannah protested with a sigh. “Don’t move. Please…”
But he rolled them both, so they lay on their sides facing each other. And he ran his hand down the bumps of her spine. It felt as if he was learning the shape of each one. “I want a bath. A bubbly one. With you…”
A bath.
That sounded kind of nice.
In fact, it sounded very nice.
But then again, maybe not. They were, after all, both naked. It seemed nothing short of natural to be naked, holding each other close, here on Cord’s bed. But to get up and stroll around his room in her birthday suit?
Uh-uh. She didn’t think so. She burrowed in closer to him, hoping that just maybe, they could stay that way forever…
He put his finger under her chin and made her look at him. “Are you okay?”
He looked so honestly concerned for her comfort and well-being, it wasn’t hard at all to say, “We are just so naked.”
He chuckled. “That we are.”
She suggested sheepishly, “Maybe if I had my robe…”
A teasing light danced in his eyes. “Ms. Miller, it’s not customary to bathe in your robe.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to take a bath in it—I just need it to get me from here to the bathtub.”
He ran his thumb across her lower lip. And then he bent close and kissed the place he had just touched. “No, you don’t. You’re beautiful naked. You don’t need any damn robe.”
Beautiful. Cord Stockwell had called her beautiful. The compliment delighted her.
Oh, she was such a dizzy fool…
“Well, thank you very much,” she said tartly. “But I still would like my robe.”
“You don’t need it.”
“Cord.”
“What?”
“Without that robe, I don’t leave this bed.”
“Ever?”
“Now, you stop it. You know what I mean.”
He studied her face for a moment, then gave her another quick kiss. “Tell you what. You stay here. I’ll get the water running and be right back.”
He didn’t even wait for her answer, just rolled away from her and off the side of the bed. She shut her eyes and curled into a ball, wrapping her arms around herself, protecting the modesty she really didn’t have anymore, considering all the naughty things they had recently been doing.
“Hannah.”
She opened one eye—just barely, in a squint.
“Here.” He was standing by the bed, buck naked, holding out her robe. Even through one squinting eye, she could see that he was quite a magnificent specimen of a man. He still wore the condom—and looked in danger of losing it.
“Uh, thank you.” She snatched the robe from his hand, yanking it close to cover the most crucial areas.
He grinned at her.
“Well, go on,” she told him. “Get the water ready.”
Still grinning, he turned to go.
She watched him until he disappeared through the door in the corner of the room. She couldn’t help herself. Watching Cord Stockwell walk away naked was something a girl couldn’t let herself miss.
As soon as he was gone, she shook out her robe and stuck her arms into the sleeves, wrapping it close around her. And then she looked for the sash. It was right there, on the rug by the nightstand. She grabbed it up and tied it firmly around her waist. In the pocket, she found the big clip she’d left there earlier, after her shower. She used it to anchor her hair off her neck. Then she sat on the edge of the bed to wait for Cord to return.
It didn’t take him long. He stole her breath away when he reappeared, as naked as before—well, technically, even more so, since the condom was gone.
Beneath the rise and fall of the wind, she could hear the steady drone of water running in the other room. He took her hand. She gave it shyly. He pulled her from the bed. She went with him, hanging back only a little.
The bathroom was huge, with lots of veined black marble, on the floors and halfway up the walls, lining the counters and the double sink. Tropical plants softened all that blackness. And the huge skylight over the raised tub showed a velvety night dusted with stars. There was also a big shower stall with brass fixtures, the door to which was clear glass. A girl would need a lot of steam to protect her privacy in there.
The tub was very large—more than big enough for two—and oval in shape. The water roared from the brass taps, beating at whatever Cord had put in there to make it bubble.
The bubbles were rising, fluffy as clouds. It looked very inviting. She couldn’t wait to get in there.
But first, she had to take off her robe.
Cord helped her with that, turning her to face him, pulling on the sash, tossing it away. He looked at her so tenderly as he peeled the robe from her shoulders and sent it flying to join the sash.
So there she was, naked again.
And Cord was kissing her again—a nice, long, thoroughly arousing kiss.
When he pulled away, she had to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing him back. He led her up the steps to the edge of the tub and then he paused there, beside her, with the fragrant steam rising up to surround them and the bubbles just waiting for her to sink down into them.
He touched her collarbone—traced it with his index finger. And then he let that finger trail downward, right along the center of her chest, between her breasts, where the nipples were already hard, in anticipation of his touch. She looked down, watched his big, tanned hand as it skimmed over her white skin.
His finger kept moving. It paused at her belly button and traced a circle, very slowly, around it.
Lower.
She caught her breath.
And then, very lightly, he ran the pads of his fingers along the almost invisible pale stretch marks at the base of her belly, right above the soft thatch where her thighs joined.
Hannah gasped and looked up. Their gazes met and locked.
She saw it in his eyes. He knew everything.
She drew in a breath.
No. No, of course, he didn’t. He knew nothing.
He only guessed. And there was more than one way to get stretch marks, after all. Any significant weight gain—and loss—could do it.
She opened her mouth to toss off some remark about how heavy she’d been as a teenager.
But she couldn’t quite make herself form the lie. Not now. Not after all that had happened between them.
The truth came out instead. “I…had a baby once.”
Chapter Fourteen
“A baby who looked like Becky?” he asked very gently.
Hannah closed her eyes. “Yes. Like Becky…the dark hair, the blue eyes, the stubborn little chin…” She faltered, her throat so tight, it ached—faltered and then waited for him to say more, to press for details, for explanations.
But he said nothing. He only took her hand and kissed the back of it, his lips a tender brand against her skin.
And then he guided her down into the steaming bubbles and knelt to turn off the taps. With the water silenced, the room was way too quiet. Even the incessant wind outside seemed to have died away.
The Tycoon's Instant Daughter Page 14
