by Nalini Singh
She looked up, her distracted air clearing. "Oh, you're home." Then she frowned. "What time … oh my God! Give me a few minutes to throw something together for dinner."
He caught her flustered body as she tried to rush by him. "I'd rather you spent that time kissing me."
"Caleb! Dinner—"
"—has been taken care of."
Looking guilty, she dropped her head on his chest. "Time got away from me. This fund-raising job is so interesting. I've been putting together a few ideas. I really want them to hire me when the month is up."
He'd never seen such excitement on her face. "Tell me about it over dinner." Then he kissed her the way he'd been wanting to do since he'd walked through the door.
She sighed and returned the kiss, using her mouth in ways that she'd learned pleased him. Groaning, he tightened his embrace, feeling his arousal grow. Forget about dinner, he thought, what he really wanted to gorge on was his wife's beautiful body. And it was about so much more than sex. Without this physical contact, both of them would flounder in their emotional healing. He'd learned that the hard way when he'd stifled his own tactile nature.
"I hate this room," he murmured into her mouth, telling her another truth he'd kept inside for too long.
She undid his tie. "Why?" The tie was flung to the side, her fingers on the button at his collar.
"You used to hide from me in here." It had compounded his feelings of rejection to know that his wife couldn't bear his presence. He still wasn't completely recovered, still not certain she wouldn't withdraw into her shell if he asked too much of her.
She didn't deny it. "Want to make new memories?" Pressing a kiss to the skin she'd bared at his throat, she smiled. "I could do with some happy ones, too. I think that side of our ledger is in serious debit."
He felt something in him lighten. "They'd have to be red-hot." When he pulled at the bottom of her turtleneck, she lifted her arms and let him peel it off. "Blazing hot." He ran his fingers over the satiny straps of her bra.
Her eyes were soft with welcome but it was with her actions that she spoke. She slipped button after button from his shirt and spread the sides open. "You are so perfect, Caleb. Sometimes it feels like you were created from my dreams."
No one had ever said anything so wonderful to him. No woman had ever looked at him as if he was everything she'd ever desired. Vicki wasn't merely accepting him, she was thanking him for coming into her life.
Lost, he began to slide one strap off her shoulder.
The doorbell pealed in the distance.
"Dinner?" Vicki's disappointed expression did nothing to quieten his arousal.
"Bad timing," he muttered. "Stay here. I want to eat my dinner off you."
Buttoning a few buttons on his shirt, he let the tails hang out as he walked to the door. In the minute that he was gone, he knew Vicki would cover up despite his request. The last thing he expected to see when he returned to the study was his wife waiting for him … naked.
She was lying on the sofa, her body flushed and pink, her eyes turned to the doorway. Against the deep blue backdrop, she looked like a glistening pearl but there was nothing cold about her. This woman invited touch, invited seduction. And he knew it was an invitation she would only ever extend to him.
He dropped the take-out box on the floor and tore the buttons off his shirt in an effort to remove it. She looked so delicious he wanted to lick her straight up from her curling toes to the blushing tips of her hair. "Why?" he rasped, crossing the distance to kneel beside the sofa, unable to wait long enough to get rid of his pants.
"Red-hot memories," she whispered, face pink from her blush.
He knew exactly how difficult this was for her, how much it must have cost her to let go of all the things she'd been taught for so long. How scared she must be that she'd done something that would turn him away from her. He'd never expected her to take such a chance and expose herself to rejection so soon after she'd broken through that shell of hers. And yet she had. For him. For them. To balance out the happiness side of their ledger.
He put one hand on her stomach, near the soft triangle between her legs. "Sweetheart, this is beyond hot. You're burning me up."
Some of the tenseness evaporated from her expression. "Why are you…?" She waved a hand at his pants.
"Because I think my very brave wife deserves some pleasure and if these come off, I'm afraid I won't last." He slid his hand down and tugged gently at her curls.
Her breath caught. "It's so bright."
"It's perfect," he told her, glorying in his ability to see every inch of her body. "I want to watch you come for me." He'd never talked so erotically to her before, had never been confident that she could take it. Even now, he watched her eyes, ready to pull back if she looked even slightly uncomfortable.
She swallowed and then spread her thighs just the tiniest bit. The musky scent of her arousal washed over him. He moved until he was able to take one of her legs and place her foot on the floor in front of him. She watched him drink her in, her pulse a thudding beat against his body.
"Hook your other leg over the back of the sofa." He wondered if he was pushing her too far.
She bit her lip. "Why don't you turn off the lights?"
"I want to see you spread out for me, wet and ready. I want to see what I'm tasting. Men are very visual creatures," he teased, telling her that he'd treasure her response.
To his surprise, she gave a soft laugh. "It's not only men." Her eyes skimmed over his bare chest. "Can we do it in stages?"
He'd never dreamed they'd ever come this far, physically and emotionally. The trust that had forged between them over the past few days was affecting every corner of their life. Who knew where it would lead? "Step by slow step." Pushing gently at the leg on the floor, he spread her just a little bit more. On the sofa, she bent her other leg at the knee.
When his hand stroked the silky skin of her inner thigh, she gasped and he saw her fingers clench on the thick fabric that covered the sofa. With his free hand, he repeated the caress on her other leg. Her whimper meant everything to him. Slowly, she was starting to talk to him in bed, starting to give him more than her body alone.
"I'm going to kiss you," he warned her, looking up until she met his eyes. "I'm going to savor every sweet inch of you. And then I'm going to do it again."
She swallowed and lifted her foot off the sofa. He was so hard that he felt as if he would break. He slid one hand down to her calf and helped her get the leg over the back of the sofa. He was almost afraid to look at the beautiful sight of her lying open and ready for him, terrified of the hunger that had him in its grip.
He looked at her face to find that she'd closed her eyes, as if to watch him adoring her would be too much to bear. His own hands were shaking. Taking a deep breath, he allowed himself to look at what she was offering. Need overwhelmed him in a violent wave.
With a groan, he slipped one hand below her bottom and lifted her to his bent head, his free hand on the inner face of one thigh. She shuddered as he blew hot breath against her open lips and her entire body went taut with anticipation. Flicking out his tongue, he teased the nubbin hidden in her curls.
"Oh!"
The cry acted like lightning in his bloodstream. He bent to his task in earnest, treating her sweet flesh like the most exotic of delicacies, something to be enjoyed slowly and with the greatest attention to detail.
"Caleb!" It was a sobbing scream.
"Yes, honey," he said, against her. "Let go for me." He kissed her again, using his mouth to wring another scream from her before her body started to ripple in climax. Drawing back, he did as he'd said he would—he watched her shatter from his touch, watched her back arch, her breasts flush, the nipples standing out in sharp relief as she rode the waves of pleasure until there was no breath left in her.
Only when she was gasping in recovery did he stand and strip himself. Putting one knee on the sofa between her spread thighs, he took the leg she'd hooked around
the back and urged her to wrap it around his hips. It put her in the perfect position for his ultimate enjoyment.
Her eyes fluttered open a second before he slid his hand beneath the thigh wrapped around his hips, held her tight and pushed. Slow and deep. The maleness in him was very aware of the precious life inside his wife's body and he took every care with her, pushing in and out with a deliberation that made her buck toward him. He did it again and again. And again.
Until Vicki screamed and he had no choice but to follow her over the edge.
* * *
Eleven
« ^ »
"I love this room," her husband whispered in her ear as he handed her his shirt.
She pulled it on, blushing. "Caleb, that was… I can't believe… Oh, just get the food."
Grinning, he kissed her once then went to pick up the fallen box, which was amazingly still in one piece. Her mouth dried up at the sight of his beautiful body laid bare for her perusal.
As he returned to her, he raised an eyebrow. "Don't look at me like that. You've finished me off completely, you insatiable woman." He put the box in her lap and looked around until he found his briefs and pants.
"Are you sure?" she teased, put at ease by his irreverence. She wanted to groan as she watched him zip the pants but leave the top button undone. Her husband was the most unbelievably sexy man she'd ever met and she craved him. Her body was sated but she continued to want to touch, to adore. Somehow she didn't think it was the fault of her misbehaving hormones—not when she'd wanted him like this forever.
He sat beside her. "Feed me, woman." The laughter in his eyes had her making a face at him.
"It's almost cold." She opened the box and lifted out a container of fried rice.
"And you are hot." Leaning over, he bit her earlobe.
She giggled and handed him the container. "Behave." But she didn't really mean it. The last thing she wanted was for her husband to behave, to go back to the cool formality with which he'd once treated her. This was what they'd been like in the very beginning, before everything had gone wrong.
The difference was that now a deep vein of loyalty ran between them, a shockingly intense commitment Vicki wasn't quite ready to explore. But at least she was no longer hiding from his needs or her own.
As they ate, the talk turned gradually to Vicki's ideas for Heart. Caleb had every intention of being involved in this new part of her life. There would be no more walls between them, no matter how exposed that made him feel. Compared to the agony of isolation, naked vulnerability was almost easy. Almost.
"So," she said after finishing her sweet-and-sour chicken, "I thought if we could get a spot on that radio show, we might be able to lure in the people we need most."
"Sounds like you'll be busy."
The joy on her face faded. "You don't think it'll work? Me doing this and the baby? I mean, day one and I forget dinner—"
He halted her by the simple expedient of a kiss. "I didn't mean anything like that. It'll work. You aren't superwoman so we'll get a cook and cleaner, but it'll work."
"No nanny," she declared, mule-faced. "I'll raise our baby."
"No nanny," he agreed.
"Caleb," she took a deep breath, "I know how important it is to you that I be at home, so thank you for supporting me in this."
Surprised, he said, "I never expected you to be a housewife if that wasn't what you wanted."
"But you prefer it. Tell me the truth."
He took a moment to think about it, remembering the fantasies of the perfect wife and family he'd created as a teenager—sure enough, his dream wife had always been a homemaker. Somehow, Vicki had picked up on something he'd shoved to the back of his consciousness. "It is nice having you at home, but only if you're content to be here. I want you to be happy, whatever that takes."
"Really?"
"Really. See? No big problem." He was trying very hard to be encouraging, though he worried that the more involved she grew with her new job, the less time she'd have for him and their child. The voice of the boy inside him, the one who'd been pushed to the periphery of everyone's life, wasn't quite as easy to silence as he'd believed.
"You know, for the first time in a long, long while, I'm starting to feel good about myself, like I'm worth something," Vicki said, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
He frowned and copied her gesture, looking at the silhouette of her face. "You're worth everything to me."
She smiled but it was bittersweet. "Until a few days ago, I thought I was an afterthought in your life." When he would have spoken, she stopped him with one finger against his lips. "I'm not blaming you. This has to do with how I see myself, not how you see me."
"How do you see yourself?" he asked, aware that she'd taken his accusations during their blowup on Sunday night to heart. Without any prompting on his part, she was telling him her secrets.
"I'm not proud of who I am and I want to be. I want to be a woman with goals, ambitions, dreams." Her eyes held such determination when she turned to him that he was stunned. "I want to live, Caleb. I want to look back on my life without regrets."
His gut tightened. "Why didn't you ever say anything before?"
"I was fine with the situation at first." She reached out and tangled the fingers of one of her hands with his, giving him a little peace. "It was kind of nice to be taken care of. No one had ever done that for me without making me feel like a burden."
"You were never that." To him, she was a gift, a creature of grace who'd found him to her liking.
"I know. That was what was so seductive. I let myself believe that it was okay to be looked after, to merely exist." Her fingers squeezed his. "I should've been looking after you, too—you needed the care as much as I did."
"How could you have known about Max?" Caleb scowled. "I was too bloody stubborn to talk."
"Don't you see, even if Max had been the perfect father, as your wife, I should've been fulfilling your needs, whatever they were. But I wasn't. I was letting you do all the work while I sat back." She tried out a smile. "I think I'm getting better at that part of it."
"You're perfect." He repeated her statement about him.
"But I can't build my whole sense of self around you. That's not healthy. It would suffocate you and negate my own strengths. I want to achieve things in life on my own. I want to find passion for something like you have for the firm."
"What about us? Not you or me, but what we are together?" He raised their clasped hands and kissed her knuckles. "We burn up together."
Her cheeks flushed. "Yes, we do. And I wouldn't change that for the world."
"But you need something else." Something he couldn't give her. His ego was taking a battering. He would never stop her doing what she wanted, but he couldn't understand why being his wife and the mother of his child wasn't enough.
"It's the same reason you go to work every day," she whispered. "You're living your dream. That's all I want—a dream of my own."
Caleb felt his heart break. He'd been focusing on the effect of her actions on him, when he should have been listening to what she'd been trying to say almost since the moment they'd gotten back together. His Vicki hadn't ever been given a chance to find out what her dreams were, much less whether they lay in being a wife and mother or something else entirely. What right did he have to deny her the same joy he'd found chasing his own?
"Then go out and find it." She could have had no idea what it took for him to say those words. After the life he'd lived, he was possessive beyond reason. She was his, the only person who'd ever been his. Except she never really had been. That woman had been a shadow of the one he was now beginning to know.
This new woman he was learning layer by layer would have to decide whether or not she wanted to belong to him, body and soul. And if she decided to give her passion to something else, leaving him the dregs? A good man, an unselfish man, would have let her embrace that new passion without hindrance. But Caleb found that where his wife was
concerned, he wasn't a good man. He was damn selfish. Though he'd let her chase her dreams, he'd fight for her passion.
He'd fight to be her dream.
* * *
The next day, Vicki was alone in the house when she got a call from her grandmother. Ada wanted to know why she hadn't seen Caleb and Vicki for dinner since they'd begun living together again.
"We've been very busy," Vicki said, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"I know he's a busy man but you could've made the time." Ada knew precisely what to say to hurt the most.
"I've started a new job."
Ada laughed. "What? Some charity thing? Really, Victoria, I've been doing that all my life."
Vicki didn't want to sully her hopes by putting them out for Ada's examination. "I know."
"So you'll come to dinner tonight at seven. I'll have the cook make something Italian. I know Caleb likes Italian." Without another word, she hung up.
Vicki groaned and dropped her head into her hands. Why had she let her grandmother bully her like that? She wasn't some weakling. She'd proven that again and again in the past few days. But it was as if the years of her life that she'd lived under Ada's control had scarred her permanently. When her grandmother had started browbeating her, she'd withdrawn into the protective shell she'd thought she'd never need again.
Picking up the phone, she called Caleb and told him what had happened. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't say no." She winced at how pathetic she sounded. "I did the hermit crab routine." Even though she could now see her coping tactic for what it was, it was hard to break out of the instinctive reaction.
To her surprise, he chuckled. "As long as you don't do it with me, you're allowed the occasional relapse."
"I feel like such a pushover."
"Don't take it so hard, honey. Both of us have our weak spots. Who says we have to deal with them alone? You keep Lara at bay. I'll take care of Queen Ada."
His willingness to accept her help made her feel better. "Do you want to go?"
"Might as well. Otherwise she'll keep hounding you. Tell you what, I'll charm the old bat into donating a ton to Heart."
