by Leslie Kelly
She nodded, leaning her head back to rest on his shoulder, with her cheek rubbing against his neck. “It’s wonderful.”
They remained as they were for several long minutes. The silence was broken only by the sound of their own breaths, and the occasional muted drop of water falling from the faucet into the bubbles beneath it. And Melody’s nearly inaudible sighs.
She couldn’t do much other than sigh and quiver in delight as Nick continued a slow exploration of her body, lightly tracing patterns and swirls all over her with bubbles. On her rib cage. Around her belly button. Between her breasts, at the base of her throat. Everywhere but the one or two spots—the three or four spots, actually—that would likely send her flying out of her mind.
“Mmm,” she murmured when his touches grew a bit more deliberate. More heated. More intimate.
His fingers, slick and soapy, moved lower, dipping into the curls between her legs, teasing, promising, then pulling away. Dipping again, lower now, but tormenting her by brushing past to instead stroke her hip.
“Nick,” she said with a groan.
He laughed throatily, delighting in his own wickedness, and continued to torment her. Kissing the side of her throat, he increased the intensity. With one hand, he continued to caress her hip and her thigh, drawing closer and closer to the empty place between her legs, where she so wanted to be touched. Nick slid the other hand up her body to cup her breast, flicking his thumb over her nipple until she gasped, “More, please.”
“Where?” he asked teasingly.
She wasn’t going to allow any miscommunication this time. Covering both his hands with each of hers, she pressed one of them even harder against her breast, while showing him exactly where she wanted the other one.
“Oh, yes,” she groaned when he finally stopped torturing her and slid a finger into her wet folds.
He whispered sweet things against her neck as he continued to kiss her, to suck her earlobe and nibble on the skin beneath it. Mimicking the way he was going to be making love to her soon, he moved his finger in and out of her, slowly, deliberately. His thumb rubbed her a bit higher, where she needed to be touched most. And as everything spiraled together, with one of his hands on her breast, the other pleasuring her between her legs, and his sweet whispers in her ear—she came in a shaking rush of delight.
She arched back, kissing his jaw as she rode out the orgasm. When she could breathe again, she turned in his arms and covered his mouth with hers, needing to taste him. Needing everything he could give her.
Keeping her mouth against his, she maneuvered her legs around his waist. A tight fit in the tub, but so utterly worth it. “I want you so much,” she whispered, almost shivering as she rubbed against his body, now all hard and hot and wet.
“Wait, I need to get…”
“No,” she replied, knowing immediately what he meant. “I took care of it.” She wanted absolutely nothing between them this time…wanted to feel only skin against skin.
He cupped her face in his hands. “You’re sure? I’ll understand, and I want you to feel safe, Mel.”
“I feel safer with you than I’ve ever felt with anyone in my entire life.” Which was completely true.
He smiled, visibly pleased by her confession. Smiling, too, Melody began lowering herself onto him, taking him into her body a little bit at a time. Every inch was a revelation and a joy…obviously not just for her. Nick’s eyes closed and his mouth fell open as she wrapped herself around him completely, taking everything he had to give in one deep, deliberate stroke.
“I love the way you feel inside me, Nick,” she whispered in his ear as she remained still, savoring his penetration, the way he filled her, almost like her other half.
“I love it too, honey,” he admitted.
She began to move, the water and the bubbles and his skin combining to overwhelm her senses. Feeling so close to him—so incredibly close—she gently ran her fingers over a small scar on his chest. Then on another one lower, under his ribs, silently telling him how much she ached for any pain he’d ever endured. She kissed the military-looking tattoo on his upper arm, thankful his heroism hadn’t cost her the chance to know him. To have him.
Soon the intensity grew, carrying them higher until neither of them could speak. He began to give and she began to take and they both splashed and thrust and kissed and loved and came. Until the water grew cool and neither of them could move.
Finally she collapsed in his arms, kissing his neck, overwhelmed by two realizations. First, that with this man, every time they made love was more amazing than the one before.
And second…that for the first time in as long as she could remember, Melody was truly happy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NICK WOKE UP just before dawn, blinking and looking around in the darkness to get his bearings. The bed was smaller than the one in his apartment, but his feet weren’t asleep from the weight of a heavy, pain-in-the-ass dog sprawled across them for half the night.
It took only a few seconds to remember where he was, particularly because Melody was curled up beside his naked body. She sighed in her sleep and burrowed closer, as if sensing he was pulling away from her, even if only in her dreams.
Nick dropped an arm across her waist and watched her sleep. He hadn’t slept all night with a woman in years. Not since he was married, as far as he could recall.
It was nice. Damn nice.
The realization stunned him. Because it implied that he’d been lonely, or missing out on something.
He’d been alone for a long time—ten years—and he’d gotten used to that. He had friends and he had his job. In the service, he’d always had a mission. Now he even had a nutty dog who drove him crazy but still made him laugh and was a true companion.
But, he had to admit, he hadn’t had anyone he loved for a very long time. If ever.
Sure, he loved his mother…and his brother. But as far as romantic love? Well, frankly, he didn’t know that he’d ever experienced it. He’d thought he was in love as a teenager, but it had been just that—a teenage thing. He sure as hell hadn’t loved his ex-wife, Daneen. And he’d never loved any of the women with whom he’d had occasional sexual flings. So he’d almost gotten used to thinking of himself as incapable of it.
Why then, when he looked at Melody Tanner’s sleeping face, did he feel so completely overwhelmed with some nearly unidentifiable emotion?
Apparently realizing he was awake, one of Melody’s cats began to meow. Glancing down at the foot of the bed, he saw C.C. looking up him, her green eyes glittering in the murky, predawn light of the room. When she knew she had his attention, she turned her head to look at something above her. When he followed the cat’s stare, he realized what she’d been focused on.
“How’d you get up there, tough guy?” he asked, seeing the other cat, Oscar, way up on a plant ledge on the far wall.
Looking at the furniture in the room, Nick realized the adventurous cat must have jumped from the seat of Melody’s rocking chair to the back of it, then up onto her dresser. A hop to the top of her armoire would put the cat within claw-scratching distance of the ledge.
Which was exactly where he was perched.
“You’re stuck, aren’t you?” Nick asked softly, laughing at the animal who looked much too proud and disdainful to meow for help. Good thing he had C.C. looking out for him.
Carefully shifting his arm from under Melody’s shoulders, he got out of bed and padded across the room. Cats…almost as much trouble as dogs. Who knew? But at least his feet hadn’t fallen asleep under C.C.’s weight.
“Hold on, little guy,” he murmured to Oscar as he pushed the rocking chair close to the ledge. Getting up on it, he balanced carefully, holding a hand out for the cat. “Come on, bologna cat. Let’s go.”
Oscar sniffed his hand, then carefully put his paw out. And just as quickly pulled it away.
Bracing himself with one hand on the wall, Nick leaned higher, trying to coax the cat forward. “Come on, O
scar, my ass is hanging out in the wind here.”
Eventually the cat lurched forward, bounced off Nick’s hand to the armoire, then down to the floor, where he took off like a shot down the hall.
The cat had good reason to take off running. Because as he jumped, he managed to knock a small plant off the ledge, sending it careening toward Nick’s head. Only a quick leap from the chair and out of the way saved him from a thump on the skull. Nothing, however, could save him from the dirt shower he got as the thing tumbled end over end on its way down.
“Dammit,” he muttered, looking down at the specks of dirt covering him from shoulder to foot.
Behind him, he heard a snicker. Cringing, he slowly checked over his shoulder and saw Melody sitting up in the bed, watching every move he made. She was grinning widely, looking bloody adorable with her hair wildly tangled around her face and the sheet tucked up around her breasts.
“You think this is funny?” he said in a low growl. “Maybe I’ll rub this dirt off all over you.”
Her eyes widened and she scooted back in the bed. Holding the sheet with one hand, she stuck her index finger at him. “Back off, big man. Step away from the bed and proceed directly to the shower.”
He threw his head back and groaned. “God Almighty, another shower? Am I never going to get to eat?”
Melody’s wicked laugh told him exactly where her X-rated mind had gone at that one. The way his cock perked right up told him his had followed suit. His mouth went wet with another kind of hunger…the hunger to lick the inside of her thighs and taste her warm, womanly folds the way he had a few hours ago.
“Scratch that. Food’s overrated.”
Brushing the loose bits of soil from his shoulders, he stepped toward the bed, giving her the kind of lascivious look that made nuns clutch their habits. But before he could get too far, something crunched under his foot. Something hard and jagged.
“Shit,” he muttered, figuring he’d stepped on a piece of the planter. But looking down, he saw the small terra-cotta pot a foot away, still remarkably intact, lying on a few crumpled palm fronds and a pile of dirt. “What the hell…” he murmured when he saw just what it was he’d stepped on.
At first, he almost scratched his head, his not-quite-awake brain not processing the small box, the wires spilling out of it, and the tiny glass circle that looked like an eye.
Then he realized what he was looking at. And froze.
“Melody,” he murmured, very slowly bending down to look more closely at the broken square of plastic, “are you into kinky stuff like making sex movies?”
She laughed, then throatily said, “No, can’t say I am. Why, do you have some naughty ideas going on in your devious mind?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he carefully picked up the twisted, broken box by the tip of a torn internal wire and rose to his feet. Absorbing what it meant, he immediately looked around the room. At the phone, the pictures on the wall, the grate for the heater. Any number of hiding places.
His whole body growing tight as raw anger washed over him, he somehow managed to keep his voice steady and calm. “Honey? I want you to get up and get dressed, okay?” His jaw so tight it hurt to get the words out, he added, “But keep the sheet around you.”
She immediately opened her mouth to question him but quickly fell silent as she saw what he was holding in his hand. He lifted it higher, letting the first rays of the dawn slanting in through the gaps in the curtain illuminate it.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asked, looking stunned then horrified.
“Yeah.” Feeling violated on his own behalf, but way more on hers, he said, “It’s a hidden camera.” His whole body shook with fury as he said what they were both thinking.
“Somebody’s been watching you.”
BY THE TIME Dex showed up at her house at eleven o’clock Saturday morning, Rosemary had worked herself into an absolute state. Watching from her upstairs bedroom window while he parked on the street and walked to the front porch, she seriously contemplated pitching a vase out the window onto his head.
“Thinks he can ignore us, huh?” she muttered, her hand resting on her flat stomach. “He’s got another think coming, sweet angel. That man is not a coward, so we sure aren’t going to let him act like one.”
When the doorbell rang, she took her good sweet time going downstairs to answer it. Dex was obviously in an impatient mood today, because he jabbed at the thing three times before she swung the door open. “Well, Detective Delaney, isn’t this a nice surprise.” Steeling herself not to notice the fatigued look on his unshaven face, or the way his hair was sticking up and his usually immaculate clothes were rumpled, she added, “Stopping by to invite me to join the neighborhood watch program?”
“May I come in?”
“Oh, by all means,” she replied with exaggerated Southern hospitality. Stepping back, she gestured widely with one arm. “My home is yours.”
His whole body stiffened, which, she instantly realized, was one of the problems. As if she hadn’t known already. He didn’t like her home. Which basically equated to her life.
“How are you?” he asked quietly as she closed the front door.
“Oh, I’m peachy. Unless, of course, I think of peaches. Or any fruit that might go in a tart. Then I just want to throw up.”
His green eyes shifted down and he looked at her stomach. Rosemary put a protective hand there.
“How far along are you?” he asked, still so quiet, so focused, so tired.
“Three months,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning against the foyer wall.
“That far…?” he asked, sounding slightly dazed.
Loosening up a bit since she’d heard genuine emotion in his voice, she grudgingly added, “My cycle’s been off, but I’ve never been exactly regular, so it didn’t sink in at first.”
He nodded slowly. Unable to stand the small lines of weariness beside his eyes, or the tired slump of his shoulders, Rosemary sighed. “Come on in and sit down.” She tried to brush past him to go into the living room, but Dex caught her arm and stopped her. It was the first time he’d touched her in three days. And she suddenly wanted to cry. To throw her arms around him and ask him where he’d been. To hit him. To make love with him. To beg him to want the baby as much as she already did.
“Rosemary…”
She also wanted him to call her Rosie.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, running his hand lightly up and down her arm.
Sorry that she was pregnant? Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth? “Sorry for what?” she asked, hearing the almost desperate note in her own voice.
“Sorry I disappeared. I had something to do.”
She pulled her arm away. “Oh, right, I’m sure there were tons of things that were more important than this.”
She tried to walk away, but Dex stopped her, this time putting both hands on her upper arms. “Not more important. But something I had to do.”
Without another word, the man she loved reached into his pocket, retrieving something. “Rosemary Chilton, I love you.”
Oh, God, such relief…
“I want you. I want the baby. I want us to be a family.”
She closed her eyes, sighing loudly and deeply.
“I want to take care of you. To provide for you,” Dex said. “I want you to come with me, to raise our child…to be my wife.”
She opened her eyes with a little gasp. She and Dex had never talked marriage. And even though she knew he was a very moralistic man, she wasn’t sure he’d want to take that step yet.
When she saw what Dex held in his hand, she began to understand where he’d been and why he’d had to go away.
It was a ring. A stunning old-fashioned ring, with a square-cut diamond surrounded by tiny sapphires. Probably an antique, most likely an heirloom. Almost certainly something important to Dex.
“I went to Pennsylvania to get this from my grandfather. He’s been keeping it for me since my grandmother
died,” he said, lifting the jewelry for her to see. “It’s for you.”
Okay, so he wasn’t on his knees, and he hadn’t exactly asked her to marry him so much as he’d told her he wanted to. But this was as close to a marriage proposal as she’d ever gotten. And she was pregnant. So she started crying anyway. “Oh, Dex, why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? I’ve been out of my mind with worry.”
“I’m sorry. I needed to pull my head together. It hasn’t been easy to figure out because of…” He looked around her house, his mouth tightening as his gaze fell on the elegant furniture, the antiques, the artwork. “Because of all this.”
The money. She’d always known he had a thing about her money.
“But I have decided we can make it work, Rosemary,” he continued, stiffening his shoulders.
A man shouldn’t have stiff shoulders when he proposed. That should go in wedding planners’ handbooks. It just looked…ominous.
“All you have to do is walk out of here and come with me. I don’t make a great salary, but if we move back to Pennsylvania, I could make a good bit more to support us.”
She laughed a little. “Sugar, you don’t need to go to work for your father. I know that’s never been what you wanted.”
Something flashed in his eyes, maybe a hint of relief that she truly did understand him. But it quickly disappeared. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“I don’t care how much money you make, I’ve got plenty of that.”
Whoops. Wrong thing to say because Dex’s jaw tightened. “I’m not touching your money. I’m not living in your house.”
Rosemary’s head started to pound. This stern, harsh-sounding man was so unlike the Dex she knew. The Dex she loved.
“If this is going to work, you have to leave all this, Rosemary. Live within my means and raise our child the same middle-class way I was raised.”
She didn’t think she’d heard right at first. This hard-sounding person standing in front of her couldn’t be the same man who’d playfully smeared an entire jar of raspberry jelly all over her—and then licked it off—a few short weeks ago. Dex wouldn’t possibly ask her to move far away from her family, to give up everything she had—her home, her life, her career—because his pride wouldn’t allow her to keep any of it.
