LOVE'S FUNNY THAT WAY

by Pamela Burford

  "I'm not the saint you seem to think I am."

  Hunter stared at Raven sitting there, heartbreakingly lovely in the warm lamplight. No, not a saint, he thought. An angel. A golden angel. Stark sincerity shone in her eyes. She really believed she was flawed, perhaps even unworthy of Brent. For responding to Hunter? He couldn't bear being the cause of her self-reproach.

  "My brother doesn't deserve you," he murmured.

  "You said something like that before. I wish you wouldn't."

  "It's true."

  "Why?"

  Hunter tried to make the words come. But he couldn't. Brent was still his brother. Brothers didn't inform on each other. He shook his head helplessly.

  Raven said evenly, "I know about the other women." She smiled gently at his stunned expression. "I'm not stupid, Hunter. And I'm no naive, besotted young thing. I've learned how to read the signs. It took a while to sink in because I guess I really didn't want to believe it."

  "But if you know—" he spread his hands, struggling to fathom the unfathomable "—why are you still with him?"

  Raven opened her mouth to reply, but the words died on a frustrated sigh. "I can't explain it."

  "Maybe I can. You're blindly in love with a man who takes you for granted."

  "No."

  Hunter rose to his feet. "You tell me you're not naive, Raven, not besotted. But how else can you explain putting up with his cheating?"

  "I'm not—not really. It's complicated. There are issues I have to … clarify. I need to talk to Amanda and the others. I really can't discuss it with you right now."

  "Because I wouldn't understand, is that is? I can't possibly comprehend the depths of your devotion—"

  "Hunter, stop it!"

  He seized the back of her rocking chair with both hands, leaned over her until they were practically nose-to-nose. She shrank back.

  "The man is cheating on you, Raven!"

  "He … never promised fidelity."

  Hunter made her look him in the eye. "Are you telling me the subject never came up?"

  She hesitated.

  "Let me guess," he said. "You told him he was the only one. Only, he didn't give you the same kind of assurance, did he? Maybe you inferred it at the time. Now you know better and you're hoping he'll change—"

  Raven tried to rise. Hunter damped his hands on her shoulders and held her in place. "What do you think—that if you just keep your mouth shut and tolerate it, that if you love him enough, you'll turn him around?"

  She glared up at him, her body rigid. "Let go of me."

  "You know he's lying to you. He didn't have any twenty-four-hour bug. He had a twenty-four-hour hot date, but he was truthful about one thing. He went to bed and stayed there—"

  She grabbed his wrists and tried to wrench out of his grasp, to no avail. Breathing hard, she said, "A minute ago you had me and your paragon of a brother picking out a china pattern. Now you tell me I'm throwing myself away on a lying cheat."

  "You may not have noticed, but I'm a little conflicted where you're concerned." With quiet condemnation, Hunter added, "If you stay with him now, knowing what you know, you're a doormat." And he abruptly released her.

  She sprang out of her chair and slammed her palms into his chest, shoving him backward with surprising strength. "How dare you!" she cried, as tears of fury gathered in her eyes. She lunged at him again and he captured her wrists. "What gives you the right to pass judgment on me!" she demanded, struggling to free herself.

  The tears streaked down her face. Hunter lashed his arms around her, binding her tightly against him. She fought him, sobbing. He pressed his lips to her wet, hot cheeks.

  "That's just it, angel," he said in a hoarse whisper. "I've got no rights where you're concerned, and it makes me mad as hell." He tipped her face up and kissed her quivering lips. "I wish to God I'd met you first," he murmured against her mouth. "I'd give anything…"

  This kiss was different from the first one a month ago. This time he was fully aware of what he was doing. He was aware and he did it anyway, because this kiss would have to hold him for the rest of his life.

  Raven tried to wrench away. Hunter backed her into the recliner and lowered them both onto it, tilting it nearly flat.

  "Hunter…!" she gasped, stiff with shock as he imprisoned her under him.

  "If you belonged to me, I'd never look twice at another woman." He captured her mouth again, framing her face with his hands. Raven lay trembling beneath him, clearly grappling with her own opposing impulses. Hunter knew she responded to him on a purely physical level, and at the moment, he was greedy enough to take advantage of that primitive attraction.

  He shifted a little so that they lay snugly dovetailed in the narrow space, her calf-length skirt snarled around their tangled legs. The brooch Brent had given her poked Hunter, reminding him that he'd run out of excuses. He couldn't tell himself later that he'd simply lost his head, that he hadn't intended to kiss her this deeply or this long, or to touch her like this, sliding his hand up her hip and over her tunic to her breast.

  He inhaled Raven's soft gasp, which became a muted whimper as he stroked and molded the pliant softness of her breast. The wide, notched neckline of her tunic had shifted, revealing a gleaming shoulder and a white lace bra strap. Hunter touched his mouth to her satiny shoulder and kissed his way to the hollow of her throat.

  She clutched handfuls of his red denim shirtsleeves, neither clinging nor pushing him away. He stared into her slumberous eyes as he dragged the hem of her tunic to her shoulders. Her lips parted, her fingers tightened on his sleeves, but she made no move to stop him. He released the front clasp of her white lace bra and spread it open. Raven averted her face, struggling, no doubt, with her own conscience.

  Her breasts were even more beautiful than in his fantasies. He touched a fingertip to one erect nipple. Raven flinched as if in pain. He fondled her very lightly, stroking, plucking. Strangled sounds escaped her and she arched against him, prompting him to press even closer to her. She had to feel how hard he was.

  She was exquisitely sensitive, responding to the subtlest touch. Hunter lowered his head and flicked his tongue over one stiff peak. Raven cried out sharply, bucking off the recliner. He held her down and tasted her again, lingeringly, savoring her. She panted, clutching him.

  Her legs scissored restlessly. He pulled her knee over his hip and seized her bottom, fitting himself into the cradle of her thighs, grinding into her as he suckled her. Raven's hoarse cries echoed her frenzied movements. Her head whipped from side to side. She groaned his name, sounding both anguished and transported. In the next breath, she gasped, "Stop!"

  She was teetering on the edge of orgasm, and panicking, he knew, but it was too late to stop, even if he were willing to let her. "No…" she moaned, even as her breath snagged and her body bowed and her hips hitched hard and fast against him. Hunter pressed his hand between her legs, kneading her through her skirt until she collapsed, breathless, shuddering.

  He gathered her in his arms, tucked her face into the crook of his neck. Her tunic was still bunched under her arms, her bare, warm breasts pressed to his chest. He felt the staccato rhythm of her heart as it gradually slowed. The heady, womanly fragrance of her arousal mingled with her powdery perfume, pushing his self-control to the extreme. His aching penis howled for release, confined as it was in his snug jeans.

  Raven's lashes tickled Hunter's throat as her eyes drifted open. Automatically his arms tightened around her. He was prepared to hear her weep, or curse him—or, more likely, curse herself. Instead she lay passively in his embrace.

  Her hand rested on his chest. He lifted it and brushed his lips over her knuckles. He wished he knew what she was thinking, but he wouldn't ask. If she was consumed by shame, what solace could he offer her?

  So he held her and fantasized that he had the right to do this—to love this woman and pleasure her and hold her and dream.

  She stirred at last, and looked at him. Her eyes revealed no
thing of the inner turmoil she had to be suffering. He stroked her disheveled hair off her face.

  Calmly she said, "I won't be alone with you again."

  "I know."

  She watched him in silence for several moments and then rose on her elbow. Lightly she traced his face with her fingertips, as if committing it to memory. She kissed him, a solemn kiss imbued with all the frustrated longing of the past six weeks.

  Her hand drifted below his waist, where his erection strained the worn denim of his jeans. He made a guttural sound as she lightly stroked him. "Raven…"

  She pulled belt leather free of its buckle.

  "What are you doing?" he asked tightly.

  "I want to do for you what you did for me."

  "You don't have to do that, angel." He laid his hand over hers, halting her.

  "I told you, I want to."

  More likely she felt obligated. Hunter couldn't escape the irony of it—she hadn't wanted to climax in his arms, had been clearly distressed when it had happened, and yet she felt compelled to reciprocate.

  "I don't want you to," he said, threading his belt back into the buckle.

  "Hunter—"

  "I've given you enough to regret."

  Hunter struggled to make sense of his own actions. Three weeks ago he'd turned down the favors of a nubile young lass because she wasn't the woman he loved. Now he refused to let the woman he loved gratify him, because she was doing it for the wrong reasons.

  He never used to be so damn noble, and now that he'd gotten a taste of it, he didn't like it one bit.

  Of course, there was noble and there was noble. He figured what he'd just done with his brother's woman kind of canceled out the rest of it.

  He fastened Raven's bra, pulled down her tunic and got up from the recliner. She sat there watching as he slipped his jacket on. Perhaps the single-digit temperatures outside would cool his ardor. If not, there was always the option of a solo act once he got home—an option he'd exercised all too often these past weeks, thanks to his dormant love life.

  As Hunter pulled on his gloves and prepared to leave, the only thing he could think to say didn't bear saying.

  Tell me I still didn't do anything wrong.

  He leaned over Raven, kissed her on the forehead and let himself out of the house.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  «^»

  "Just a sliver for me," Amanda said.

  Raven watched her friend's eyes pop as Grandma Rossi cut her a slab of Italian cheesecake that would choke a rhino.

  "I said just a sliver!"

  Grandma Rossi snorted as she plunked the heavily laden dessert plate in front of Amanda with a resounding thud.

  Charli said, "Amanda, you've known my grandma for a quarter of a century. Have you ever known her to cut a sliver of anything?"

  "You're too skinny." Grandma pinched Amanda's upper arm. "The men, they like something they can hold on to, capisce?"

  She rested her plump, gnarled hand on Raven's shoulder. "How about you, little bird? You ready for seconds?"

  "Little bird" had long been her pet name for Raven, although it was Grandma Rossi herself who bore a physical resemblance to a raven, widowhood having turned her wardrobe a uniform black nine years earlier. Otherwise she hadn't changed much over the years. Her iron-gray hair was still twisted into a tight bun on the back of her head, she still made the best gnocci in Queens and she still had an opinion on everything, most notably the disappointing marital status of her granddaughter and her friends.

  Raven laid her hand on Grandma Rossi's. "Thanks, Mrs. Rossi, but I'm stuffed. Everything was delicious, as always."

  Grandma Rossi squeezed her hand. "You're a good girl. How come you're not married?"

  Raven grinned. "I can only tell you what I've told you the last couple of hundred times you've asked. I haven't found the right guy."

  "My Carlotta, she tells me you got a fella. A nice boy. You get his ring on your finger, little bird. You're not getting any younger."

  "I'm not so eager for this man's ring."

  Grandma Rossi made a rude noise accompanied by a dismissive wave. She waddled to the dining room's ornate sideboard and lifted the carafe of espresso. Raven and her friends knew better than to insist the old lady sit and let them wait on themselves, and her. Grandma Rossi had moved in with Charli and her parents when Grandpa Rossi had passed away nine years earlier, and she fussed over the three of them with the same pugnacious zeal with which she'd fussed over her husband for six decades.

  All this fussing did Grandma Rossi good, but in actual fact, the ninety-three-year-old needed plenty of fussing over herself, for everything from help getting dressed to remembering to take her potassium supplements.

  And it wasn't just Grandma Rossi who needed assistance with day-to-day tasks. Her son and daughter-in-law, Charli's parents, were in their seventies, and it was a rare week when Charli wasn't called on to accompany one or both of them to the family doctor or some other specialist. She did the daily laundry and the weekly grocery shopping. She supervised medications, finances and the running of the house. All this on top of her career as a high school music teacher.

  Charli was the youngest of eight siblings, her sisters and brothers all married and raising families of their own, ostensibly too busy to help care for the old folks. Thus the job of caretaker had naturally fallen to her, reinforced by her strict upbringing, which had taught her that the only acceptable move for a woman was from her parents' home to her husband's. "Nice" single women didn't set up their own households.

  Raven knew that even if Charli didn't have to look after her folks, she considered herself too plain and timid to attract a husband. She also knew that it was with a mixture of trepidation and giddy anticipation that Charli looked forward to her thirtieth birthday in April, when she would become the object of the second Wedding Ring husband hunt.

  "Well, I won't turn down seconds, Mrs. Rossi," Sunny said, handing over her plate. "Listen, Raven, if you don't want Brent, maybe I'll take a crack at him."

  "I'm not so sure you'd want him, either."

  Four sets of eyebrows lifted skyward. Raven knew what they were thinking. If her marriage-minded "stone hunk" possessed some fault that even Sunny would reject him for, it had to be bad news.

  "So he's what?" Amanda asked. "A cannibalistic serial killer?"

  "He's cheating on me."

  Charli's jaw dropped. "That's terrible!"

  Amanda uttered a disgusted huff and lifted her demitasse cup to her lips.

  Grandma Rossi muttered something evil-sounding in Italian.

  "Hmm," was all Sunny said.

  "It's been going on for the whole two months we've been together," Raven continued. "Last weekend he went skiing at Catamount—an overnight outing with the guys, supposedly. Only, yesterday I was at his place, opening drawers looking for a coaster, and I came across these snapshots from the trip, and they're all of Brent cuddling up to this gorgeous woman with long black hair down to her skinny little butt.

  "Anyway, under the circumstances, I think I should be released from the three-month rule."

  Grandma Rossi knew about the three-month rule. She was the only outsider they'd let in on the Wedding Ring pact. She poured herself a cup of espresso, lowered her bulk into a dining chair and said, "Not so fast, little bird."

  "What's the point in prolonging it?" Raven asked. "I'm not going to marry a man I can't trust."

  "Maybe he'll change," Charli said.

  Amanda sent Charli a look that said, Get real. "Take it from me. Cheating men don't change." Amanda hadn't been nearly so cynical before her two failed marriages.

  "Let me ask you." Sunny propped her elbows on the table and leaned toward Raven. "Did you and Brent agree on an exclusive relationship?"

  "Not exactly." Raven should have known Sunny would try to rationalize Brent's womanizing. Before her friend could get too smug, she added, "What I mean is, he made sure I wasn't seeing other guys, but he kind of e
vaded the issue himself."

  "You see why I'm never getting married again," Amanda said. "They're all like that."

  "No they aren't," Charli protested. "My dad never cheated on my mom. And Grandpa never cheated, right, Nonni?"

  "Men and women, they're different," Grandma Rossi said. "A man will love you and make a home with you and raise bambini with you, and still he's always looking—and more than looking if he gets the chance. It's in their nature. A clever woman, she knows how to please her man, how to be all women to him so he doesn't stray like a dog off its leash."

  Raven could only assume Grandma Rossi had been one of those clever women who knew how to keep her man on a short leash. If her adored Sergio had slipped up once or twice during their sixty-year union, she wasn't about to make it public at this late date.

  Amanda said, "You're right about one thing, Mrs. Rossi. Men are dogs." She asked Raven, "Would you like me to fire Brent for you?"

  "No!"

  Grandma Rossi said, "I could have his legs broken."

  "No!"

  "I was kidding!"

  Sunny asked, "Don't you think Brent will settle down when things get more serious?"

  "Frankly, I doubt it."

  "Have you talked to him about it?" Charli asked.

  "No." Raven fiddled with her napkin. "He doesn't know I know."

  "Why not?" Sunny asked. "Maybe you could clear everything up."

  "I'm just … not comfortable talking to him about this."

  "Well, get over it," Amanda advised. "Confront the cheating cur and watch him squirm."

  Raven directed her gaze to the lace tablecloth. "It's complicated."

  Grandma Rossi made a humming sound—a gruff, prolonged and very knowing kind of sound.

  Sunny sat back. "Uh-oh."

  "You've got it all wrong!" Raven cried.

  Charli's face fell. "Raven? Are you cheating on Brent?"