A Match for Celia

by Gina Wilkins

  Reed grunted.

  “He is,” Celia insisted, gripping his shirt as though to force him to believe her. “Even when I told him this morning that he and I will never be more than friends, he was very sweet and understanding. He even insisted that I stay on here as his guest for as long as I want. As his friend.”

  Reed jerked his chin up. “You told him that?”

  “Yes. He…er…he asked me if my decision had anything to do with you.”

  Reed’s eyes narrowed. “What did you tell him?”

  Her temper kindled again. “I told him it did. That was before I saw you climbing all over that woman this afternoon. Just what the hell is it with you, anyway, Reed? If you’re interested in someone else, why should it matter to you who I spent my afternoon with?”

  He looked startled. “I wasn’t climbing all over anyone!”

  “I saw you,” she repeated. “On the bench with that redhead. You hugged her. And she hugged you back.”

  He stared at her a moment, then made a sound of utterly male exasperation. “It was just a hug, damn it. We’d been talking about you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course you were.”

  His fingers tightened again on her forearms, and for a moment she thought he was going to give in to his obvious urge to shake her. To his credit, he resisted.

  “We were talking about you,” he repeated much too evenly. “I told her that I had fallen for you. She wished me luck. Then offered condolences.”

  Celia wasn’t quite sure why he’d been talking about his feelings for her with a woman who was supposedly little more than a total stranger to him. And she still didn’t understand that all-too-friendly-looking hug. But she couldn’t resist asking, “Why did she offer condolences?”

  Reed’s smile was lopsided. “She said it was obvious that I’m no longer a free man. Said I might as well be wearing a sign saying I was taken. I don’t even want to look at another woman. Damn it, Celia, you’ve got me all but hog-tied and branded. I’m yours—if you still want me.”

  Her knees went weak. She clung to his shirt for balance.

  It hadn’t been the most romantic speech she’d ever heard. Damien would have phrased it much more smoothly, much more poetically. But he wouldn’t have said it with Reed’s gruff, painfully frank sincerity.

  “Oh, Reed,” she whispered, her eyes misting. “Of course I still want you. I’ve wanted you from the beginning, even when I didn’t want to want you. Why do you think it hurt me so much to see you with someone else?”

  “Celia.” He drew her slowly into his arms, his evening-roughened cheek resting gently against her softer one. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Don’t you know I’d rip out my own tongue before I’d hurt you?”

  She managed a shaky laugh. “There’s no need to be quite so graphic about it. I guess I overreacted when I saw you. It’s been a very stressful week.”

  He chuckled, his lips hovering only an inch above hers. “Tell me about it,” he murmured, his breath warm on her skin.

  He kissed her then, and this kiss wasn’t an angry one. His lips were gentle, caressing, his movements slow, tender. Rather than resisting this time, Celia wrapped her arms around his neck and melted into him.

  Almost immediately, the kiss grew heated, the flames fueled not by anger now, but by desire. A hunger that was getting harder for both of them to deny.

  Celia pressed tightly against him, craving his touch, his warmth. He gripped her hips and pulled her into him, letting her know without doubt that he wanted her. That he ached as badly as she did.

  “Reed,” she whispered, her fingers buried deep in his thick hair, her lips moving against his. “Make love with me. Now. Please.”

  He groaned. “I can’t. There isn’t time.”

  She didn’t know what he meant—and she didn’t want to know. She was tired of waiting, tired of being cautious—tired of being afraid. She knew what she wanted now, and she had somehow found the courage to ask for it. “Make love to me, Reed,” she whispered, rubbing her lips slowly, savoringly across his mouth.

  A hard tremor went through him. He wanted her. She smiled and kissed him again.

  “Celia.” His voice was hoarse. “I wanted to wait. We need to talk.” The words were broken, interspersed with hot, greedy kisses.

  She returned kiss for kiss. “I don’t want to talk,” she murmured, then moved boldly against him.

  He gasped, and she smiled in satisfaction, sensing victory. “Make love to me, Reed,” she demanded again.

  This time he didn’t even try to resist. He swept her into his arms, and it was she who gasped as her feet dangled several inches above the floor.

  The phone started ringing when he carried her swiftly into the bedroom. Reed grunted a curse and paused in the middle of the room.

  She nestled her head into his shoulder. “Let it ring,” she murmured, suspecting that it was Damien, asking about dinner.

  Reed seemed torn for a moment. Celia settled the matter by reaching up to kiss him, her tongue sliding between his lips.

  They let the phone ring. Neither of them even noticed when it stopped.

  Reed removed Celia’s clothing with unsteady fingers. Her cheeks were hot when she stood naked in front of him, but she lifted her chin proudly. The open admiration in his gaze boosted her ego as nothing ever had before.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, then shook his head impatiently. “I wish I could think of something more original to say. I’m afraid I’m not very good with flowery words.”

  She touched his face. “You’re doing fine,” she assured him, her throat thick with emotion. And then she reached for the buttons of his shirt. It made her feel too vulnerable to be nude while he was fully clothed. And, besides, she wanted very badly to touch him.

  His chest was as broad, as tanned and firm as she remembered. She stroked her hands slowly, reverently over his skin, testing the muscles beneath, the light dusting of hair tickling her palm. She’d thought before that he seemed to be in awfully good shape for someone with a desk job. The solidness of the muscles beneath her hands made her repeat that observation. “Do you lift weights?” she asked, touching her lips to his right nipple.

  Though he didn’t move, she felt a faint quiver of reaction beneath her touch. “Sometimes,” he said, sounding as though he were choking.

  “It pays off,” she murmured dreamily, snuggling against him. His arms closed around her, a tender trap. She made no effort to free herself. She was too happy where she was, held against his hard, warm, throbbing body.

  Reed gave a broken groan and lowered her to the bed. He shed his slacks and briefs with more haste than grace and joined her on the huge, soft mattress. Celia welcomed him with open arms and an encouraging smile.

  Whether out of consideration for her inexperience, or simply to prolong their pleasure, Reed moved very slowly. So slowly that within minutes, Celia was clutching at him, urging him to hurry. She felt as though she would shatter from a delicious combination of excitement, desire, anticipation and nerves.

  He explored every inch of her with his hands, his lips. Her breasts, her throat, her stomach, her legs. Places so intimate that she blushed when he touched her there, then cried out with pleasure when he lingered.

  Celia was a quivering mass of flesh long before he’d completed his investigation.

  “Reed,” she said, her voice a shaken whisper. “Please. I need you.”

  He moved upward and lay draped across her. He was so hard, so tense, that she knew it was difficult for him to wait. But still he moved slowly, pausing to smooth a strand of hair away from her damp cheek. “I want you so badly,” he said, his tone gruff, his eyes glittering with barely repressed need. “Don’t let me hurt you.”

  “You won’t hurt me,” she said, trusting him then as she’d never trusted any man before. “You could never hurt me, Reed.”

  He seemed to flinch. “I hope you remember that later,” he said obscurely, but he kissed her again before she
could ask him to clarify. By the time he released her mouth, she’d forgotten the question.

  He made love to her so gently, so tenderly. If there was pain, it was fleeting. And the pleasure that followed more than compensated for any discomfort.

  Dazed and sated, Celia lay for a long time against Reed’s damp, heaving chest. She moved one leg experimentally, finding that she was sore—but delightfully so. On the whole, she’d never felt better.

  So this was love, she thought dreamily.

  It seemed strange to her, now, that she hadn’t recognized it immediately.

  “Are you all right?” Reed asked, tucking her tenderly into his shoulder. “I didn’t hurt you?”

  “I feel wonderful,” she replied, then laughed softly. “I had no idea what I’ve been missing all these years.”

  “You wouldn’t have felt that way with anyone but me,” Reed told her sternly.

  She smiled at his tone. “Is that right?”

  “That’s fact. So don’t even think about broadening your horizons to find out. I intend to be the only one to demonstrate anything you think you might have missed.”

  She propped her chin on her hand and looked at him through her lashes. “You sound very fierce. Very possessive.”

  His hand tightened in her hair. “You can bet on it. You’re mine now.”

  “I didn’t know tax accountants were such a primitive breed,” Celia mused teasingly. It seemed safer at the moment to keep the conversation light—though Reed didn’t sound at all as if he were joking. The thought gave her an odd little thrill that seemed to be a mixture of nerves and pleasure.

  Too fast, she found herself thinking. It’s happening too fast.

  She tried very hard to ignore that annoying voice of warning.

  Reed didn’t answer her comment about accountants. Instead, he kissed her until she was clinging to him again, teasing forgotten.

  How could she want him again so soon? So desperately?

  The very intensity of her hunger frightened her a bit. It was almost as though she felt she had to take advantage of every minute she had with him. Almost as though she knew their time together couldn’t last.

  Impatiently calling herself a compulsive worrier, she pushed those worries aside and gave herself up to enjoyment.

  Neither Reed nor Celia said anything for a long time after that. Celia simply didn’t have the energy for conversation, and as she lay bonelessly in Reed’s arms, she suspected that he felt much the same way. The thought made her smile in secret satisfaction.

  When he finally shifted his weight beneath her, she thought he was only getting more comfortable. And then she realized that he was looking at his watch.

  She groaned. “Don’t start that again.”

  “I have to go.” His voice was a husky growl that sounded so sexy she was tempted to attack him again.

  Except that she didn’t at all like what he had said.

  Startled, she lifted her head. “What do you mean, you have to go? Why?”

  “It’s getting late.”

  She ran her fingertips over his whisker-roughened jaw. “Spend the night with me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?” she persisted, beginning to frown. Why was he suddenly acting so distant? Surely he wasn’t having regrets about making love to her. She knew he’d been as well satisfied as she had…hadn’t he? “Reed?”

  He brushed a strand of hair away from her anxious eyes. “Celia, I have to go,” he said gently. “There are some things I have to do.”

  “Don’t try to tell me you have more calls to make. Not at this hour.”

  “I can’t explain right now. I don’t have time. I promise I’ll tell you everything you want to know—and probably a few things you don’t want to know—tomorrow.” He slid from beneath her and reached for his clothes.

  Propped on one elbow, Celia watched him in growing dismay. “I can’t believe you’re leaving like this. Reed, why won’t you talk to me now? What do you have to do that’s so important?”

  He looked at her as he stepped into his dark jeans. His eyes were troubled. “I don’t want to go,” he assured her, and he sounded so sincere she had to believe him. “There’s nothing I want more than to sleep with you in my arms tonight. I promise I’ll make this up to you, Celia—but I have to go now.”

  She didn’t understand. What would a tax accountant on vacation have to do at this hour? What could be so important? “Reed?” Her voice came out small, vulnerable.

  He paused in buttoning his black shirt. “Yes?”

  “Are you sorry that we—you know?”

  Almost before she knew he had moved, he was sitting on the bed beside her, his arms locked tightly around her, his face buried in her hair. “No,” he said roughly. “I’m not sorry. And you’d better not be, either, damn it. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Celia Carson. And I’m going to prove it to you.”

  “Then stay with me tonight,” she whispered, suddenly unaccountably worried—but not knowing why.

  “I can’t.” He kissed her once, then again. Hard. “I’ll explain tomorrow, when there’s time. I promise.”

  He paused only a moment in her bedroom doorway, looking back at her as though to memorize the sight of her lying there with her hair tangled, her body covered only by a thin white sheet. And then he groaned. “Tomorrow,” he repeated, whether to her or to himself, she wasn’t sure.

  And then he was gone.

  Celia lay for a long time just staring at the empty doorway where Reed had stood. What on earth…?

  This was turning out to be one hell of an “adventure,” she thought with a sigh. The men she’d been interested in had spent an awful lot of time taking care of business—even the one who was supposedly on vacation!

  She flopped onto her back against the pillows.

  Okay, so she was no longer a virgin. Funny. She still didn’t feel like the wild and wicked woman she’d set out to become when she’d left Percy.

  She felt…

  Claimed.

  Hog-tied and branded, Reed had called it.

  That pretty well summed up the way she felt.

  She sighed and glanced at the clock. It was late, but she was too wired to sleep.

  She glanced at the clothing lying in a shameless tangle on the floor beside the bed. The intimate memories flooded her, making her shiver and then feel warm all over. She groaned.

  How could Reed have left her like this?

  She lay still for a moment, fantasizing about having him still with her. Making love to her again. Sleeping in a damp, tangled heap. Waking to make love again.

  It should have been that way, damn it. A woman’s first experience shouldn’t be wham, bam, thank you, ma’am! Especially when she was so dizzy in love with the guy that she couldn’t even think straight.

  She couldn’t lie there any longer, or she’d start crying. And she had no intention of ending this amazing evening in tears. Shoving herself off the bed, she wrapped herself in a short terry-cloth robe and started straightening the room. She would hate for the maid to see it that way—and maybe doing something would help her relax enough to get to sleep.

  She tossed her discarded underthings into the bag with other items to be washed, and neatly hung the oatmeal-colored slacks-and-top set in the closet. A lock of dark hair fell into her eyes, and she blew it back. Which reminded her…

  She looked around the room, then frowned when she didn’t see the silk scarf she’d tied her hair back with earlier. What had she done with it? Had she been wearing it when Reed had undressed her?

  Undressed her. She smiled and half closed her eyes, remembering…

  And then she shook herself back to the present and started searching for the scarf. It was her favorite, a special gift from Granny Fran. She would hate to lose it.

  Fifteen minutes later, she had to concede the scarf wasn’t in her suite.

  Sitting back on her heels after a futile search beneath the bed, she mentally backt
racked, trying to picture the last time she remembered wearing it. Had she lost it sightseeing?

  No. She could distinctly remember her hair whipping in the wind as she’d toured the aquariums. She’d been too distracted with her worries about Reed to pay much attention then, but obviously the scarf had already been lost.

  Her mind flashed a sudden, painfully clear image. Reed and the redhead, sitting so cozily on the bench, Reed’s arms around the woman’s sexy shoulders. Celia whipping around, storming away. Her hair streaming behind her as she bolted.

  She must have lost the scarf then. She’d had it until that point, as far as she remembered.

  Was Reed with that woman even now? Was the redhead the reason he’d hurried from Celia’s bed?

  She shuddered as the unwelcome questions pushed their way to the front of her mind. Was this why she’d been concentrating so hard on the missing scarf? Had she been trying to distract herself from the ugly suspicions that had crept into her mind even as Reed had left her?

  There was no reason to think he was with the other woman, of course. No reason at all.

  But still Celia worried.

  As Damien had pointed out, she really didn’t know Reed at all. The only thing she really knew about him was that she’d fallen deeply, desperately in love with him. And that she would be devastated if he’d been using her, for whatever reason there might be.

  She took a deep, sharp breath, forcing herself to be calm. Reed wasn’t with the other woman, she assured herself. He couldn’t have made love to her so tenderly, so perfectly, only to leave her for someone else.

  “Hog-tied and branded,” he’d called himself. He’d damned well better believe it.

  She was snapping a pair of jeans at her waist when it occurred to her that “hog-tied and branded” had seemed an odd way for a tax accountant from Cleveland to describe himself. He’d sounded like a typical Texan when he’d drawled the words.

  She impatiently pushed the thought aside. Reed had been in Texas for almost two weeks now, steeping himself in the history and flavor of the area, even spent several hours at the Alamo. Was it any wonder he’d been so heavily influenced by his surroundings?