Gateway to Heaven

by BETH KERY

  He had been confident of his complete disregard for about three seconds after he’d watched the man drive away, leaving Megan and the child on the sidewalk.

  He damned himself for a fool but what the hell? What kind of a heel would allow her to struggle, weighed down as she was with luggage and a child? Surely he’d absorbed something from of his parent’s moral upbringing and his strict Catholic education?

  Hadn’t Father Gregory said she was fragile?

  “That’s right, Lasher, you’re a real boy scout,” Christian muttered drolly to himself.

  His self-recriminations didn’t stop him from reaching out to touch Megan Shreve. He cupped her shoulder and squeezed gently. She turned, clear, green eyes wide in surprise.

  “Let me help with that,” he said.

  “Christian…oh, that’s okay. That is, maybe…if you’re going home too?”

  He didn’t bother to answer her but matter-of-factly eased the bag from her shoulder. She shifted Emily to her other hip and smiled in relief. “Thanks, it was pretty heavy.” She glanced down at Emily who was eying Christian with a mixture of anxiety and curiosity.

  He noticed the little girl’s wariness and lightly brushed the tip of his finger across her perfect nose. “Hi. You must be Emily.”

  He chuckled, not at all offended when Emily shyly buried her face in Megan’s breasts. Curiosity prevailed over her fear, however, and Emily peered cautiously up at Christian through tousled blonde curls. The mischievous smile that ghosted the little girl’s lips suggested that she and Christian were two of a kind.

  He was completely charmed.

  “You sure you don’t want to come, too?” Christian teased her as he held out his arms. His smile broadened when she shook her head adamantly and turned her face fully into Megan’s chest. “No? Ah, well, I can’t say I blame you, Emily. That looks like way too nice of a seat to give up.”

  Megan’s gaze flew to Christian’s face, sure she had misunderstood the intent of his warmly murmured words. Hardly no one spoke to Megan that way. But no, there really was a hint of yearning in his blue eyes as if he would have enjoyed having his head cushioned against the softness of her breasts just as Emily did. His gaze met hers only briefly, but Megan stilled at the flash of desire she saw there. She glanced away, unsettled, and planted a kiss on Emily’s warm cheek.

  “Don’t be shy, Em. This is Christian. Say hello.”

  “Hello,” Emily said obediently. She watched Christian, keeping her cheek resting on Megan’s chest. As they progressed down Adams Street the little girl shed her shyness like a winter coat on a sweltering day.

  “You’re tall. Taller than my daddy.”

  “And your hair is curly, curlier than your mommy’s,” Christian bantered with unaffected ease.

  Emily sat up straighter and gave a gamine grin. “Mommy’s would be curly like mine if she didn’t put stuff on it to make it straight. Your face is hairy. Hairier than my daddy’s.”

  “Emily,” Megan muttered in embarrassment. She quickly assessed Christian’s expression to see if he was put off, but his lopsided grin only widened. Her eyes unintentionally lowered to the goatee to which Emily referred. Megan hardly would have used the word “hairy” to describe it. It was very short, sleek and neatly trimmed. The hair was darker on his face than it was on his head, where sun-streaked golden strands intermixed randomly with brown ones. It only served to highlight the shape of his firm, well-shaped mouth.

  “My mommy doesn’t like hair on men’s faces,” Emily declared.

  “Her father is clean-shaven,” Megan mumbled by way of apology for her niece’s innocent candor, but she was ignored by both of them.

  “She doesn’t? Well, she doesn’t know what she’s been missing. Doesn’t your mom know what whiskers are for?” Christian asked in mock disbelief as he opened the condominium entrance for Megan. Emily’s eyes sparkled and she leaned toward the same man whom she had just been thoroughly intimidated by all of ninety seconds ago.

  She giggled as she tried out the new word. “What are whiskers for?”

  Christian unexpectedly draped his arm across Megan’s shoulders just inside the foyer, stopping her dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened when he drew her closer to the heat of his body and his head lowered over her. For a split second he pinned her with his penetrating gaze.

  Then his face lowered more.

  Emily’s shrieks of laughter pierced the fog of Megan’s stunned arousal. Her niece squealed with delight as Christian twisted his chin in her neck.

  “Whiskers are for tickling little girls, that’s what,” he growled playfully. The whisker-tickling persisted until Emily was hysterical with giggles and had grasped his hair, then his shoulders in her chubby hands. When Christian pulled back Emily determinedly held on, making it impossible for her new friend to fully retreat.

  Christian didn’t seem to mind. He turned his attention to Megan. Because of their positioning, his face was only inches away from both her parted lips and the softness where he’d previously referenced wanting to rest his head. Megan wondered at the sudden sensation of fullness in her breasts.

  She froze when Christian’s eyes went unerringly to the tips of her breasts, as if he knew exactly what she was experiencing. Pure deviltry sparked into his eyes.

  “What about you, little girl?” he asked in a low, rumbling voice. “Do you want to be tickled, too?”

  Megan stood frozen, shocked at his words…stunned by her visceral reaction to them. The seconds stretched. His gaze was glued to her mouth. His nostrils flared slightly when he inhaled, as though he’d caught her scent. A warm, swelling sensation expanded in her lower belly.

  She licked her lower lip in a nervous gesture. He blinked. His expression sobered. He straightened to his full height, as if he’d abruptly come to his senses. When he did, he effortlessly brought Emily with him.

  Megan trailed after them dazedly as Emily chattered away and Christian occasionally prompted her with a question. Jeff, their doorman, let them through the security doors. If she’d been completely tongue-tied by Christian’s audacious teasing about tickling her, then she’d been practically poleaxed by his lustful gaze. Men didn’t look at her that way. At least not men from St. Cat’s Parish. The sudden impenetrable veil that had seemed to drop over Christian’s gaze afterwards had made her reel with just as much confusion.

  More than likely, he was put off by her inexperience, her ignorance of how to participate in sexy, meaningless small talk, Megan reasoned as she watched Christian brace Emily so that she could push the “up” button on the elevator. She couldn’t help but feel a little defeated. Resentment seeped into her awareness. She’d never so objectively viewed her prescribed role or regretted it so deeply until now. Suddenly she longed to have the knowledge of how to attract a man like Christian Lasher, a man who exuded utter masculine confidence with every cell of his being, whose eyes gleamed with an incisive intelligence…whose sexuality was so potent it just might be addicting.

  Even her four-year-old niece was light-years ahead of her, Megan realized with self-disgust as she watched Emily hook her fingers behind Christian’s neck and unselfconsciously toss her blonde curls. Had there ever been a time in her life that Megan would have behaved in such a carefree way with a man, with so much innate trust and joy?

  If there had been, the memory had been crushed out of her consciousness long ago.

  “Let me push, let me,” Emily exclaimed once they’d gotten on the elevator. Christian handled her like a seasoned pro, shifting his hand to support the little girl’s upper body when she flung herself forward to punch the elevator button. Afterwards, Emily used the same chubby finger that she’d used to push the button to test out the texture of Christian’s goatee.

  “Emily, you are such a flirt,” Megan admonished with a roll of her eyes. Still, the honest part of her had to admit that she was a little envious of the privileged position her niece had. When the elevator door opened, Megan put out her arms. “Thank you. I can
take her from here.”

  Christian walked off the elevator, giving her a quizzical look when she held the elevator door. “Which way to your place?”

  “That one,” Emily answered enthusiastically as she pointed to a door down the hallway.

  Megan tried to remember if her condominium was reasonably clean as she unlocked the front door. She breathed a sigh of relief when she glanced around. Not perfect, but presentable.

  “I like your place,” Christian complimented as he surveyed the open floor plan of the loft, the floor to ceiling east-facing windows, the inexpensive, but carefully chosen furniture and decorations. Megan wasn’t rich, by any means, but she was proud of the homey comfort of her condominium. He bent his long legs at the knee and set the duffle bag down on an entryway bench, then transferred Emily to his other hip before he began an unhurried inspection of her home.

  “Thanks,” she murmured. She got the impression that nothing was left unobserved by him. She watched as he walked slowly through her living room, presumably on his way to look at the view of her floor-to-ceiling windows. He paused to glance at her book and music collection. He took considerably more time to study a rare bronze figurine that Megan had kept for herself instead of selling. It was of a young Asian woman looking upward, her expression rapt with sensual gratification.

  Megan swallowed with difficulty when she saw one long finger gently touch the cool metal surface of the woman’s upturned lips.

  “Yours?” he asked, his back still to her.

  When she didn’t immediately answer, Christian’s head swung around. A lock of untamed hair fell over his brow. Megan gave a strained smile and nodded.

  “She looks like she’s looking up at her lover. Is she?”

  Megan made a startled sound at the unexpected question. Suddenly she laughed. “I guess you could say that.”

  His dark eyebrow quirked up in a query but otherwise his face was marble-like, impassive. His silence seemed to demand an answer.

  “That’s my good friend Tina, who is a bona fide sun worshipper. She’s downright hedonistic when it comes to sunbathing. Her face was turned up toward the sun when I photographed her for the sculpture,” Megan finished with a shrug. Her explanation sounded lame, nowhere near as erotic as Christian’s question…or the manner in which he’d asked it.

  “You don’t like it when people take notice of your artwork. Still Father Gregory wasn’t exaggerating. You are very talented,” he commented as he glanced out the windows.

  Megan moved restlessly. His shrewd observation about her reaction to praise hit a little too close to home. She floundered to find a safer topic.

  “The view is good, isn’t it? It’s what sold me on the unit. It’s funny isn’t it, how the working class, industrial neighborhood we grew up in has been transformed into such a desirable place to live?”

  “Umm,” Christian agreed absentmindedly as he examined the spectacular view of Chicago’s skyline. “Quite a few more BMWs than there are Fords parked along Adams and Monroe Street these days. I have to admit, I miss the way it was. I can’t believe they closed down that old roller rink on Ogden.”

  “The Silver Flame?” Megan asked. He turned, his gaze fixed on her smile. “I had my first date at the Silver Flame.”

  Christian walked back to where she stood. “Oh yeah? Well, I kissed my first girl at the Rialto on Jackson, and they closed that down, too. How old were you?”

  Megan blinked at the unexpected question. Embarrassment flooded her, a remnant of her parents’ extremely strict prohibitions regarding dating. “Uh…fifteen, maybe? It wasn’t an ‘official’ date. My parents wouldn’t have allowed it then, I’m sure.” She glanced away self-consciously. In truth, her parents had never allowed Megan to date. “How old were you?”

  “At the Rialto, you mean?” He was standing only feet from her now. Megan nodded, once again caught in the spell of his magnetic blue eyes.

  “Eleven.”

  “Eleven,” Megan exclaimed in disbelief. She couldn’t help but smile, though, when he raised his eyebrows in mock lechery. Emily giggled at his silly faces and batted her fingers at his dark brows. “You must have been a very charming eleven-year-old,” Megan conceded with dubious amusement.

  He shrugged. “Tammy Dupree thought so. Who am I to argue? I set the romantic mood with chilled Coca-Cola and Milk Duds for an appetizer, than went in for the kill during the second scariest part of the movie. Not the first scream scene, because that was reserved for nonchalantly putting my arm around—”

  “Tammy Dupree, otherwise know as your victim,” Megan finished for him with a censorious expression that couldn’t hide her smile “I feel sorry for that poor little girl. Eleven years old, indeed.”

  “Tammy wasn’t eleven. What do you take me for? She was almost thirteen. An older woman.”

  “Your seduction sounds suspiciously sophisticated for an eleven-year-old.”

  “Tammy never complained,” Christian deadpanned. But he could only hold the expression for a second before he grinned hugely.

  Megan laughed in earnest. His grin seemed to falter at the sound.

  Emily protested loudly when he gently set her on her feet.

  “I should be going.”

  Megan took a step forward in unconscious protest at the obvious alteration in his mood. One second, he had been laughing, silly, charming and the next, he was making a polite but cool exit. When she realized that she couldn’t prevent him—a practical stranger—from doing whatever he wished, Megan hurried toward the door to say goodbye.

  “Thank you for carrying the bag and Emily. They were really heavy. I don’t think I would have made it without—”

  Christian turned around and lowered his face close to hers.

  “Why didn’t your husband help you?”

  “My husband?” Megan asked thickly. His eyes were like twin lasers. She was momentarily too stunned to speak. Any possibility of being able to utter coherent speech was squashed out of her when Christian slowly lowered his head even nearer to her upturned face.

  “Aunt Meg, can I have a juice box?”

  Christian’s eyes flashed. “Aunt Meg?” he repeated Emily’s question.

  Megan blinked once. Twice. Why had he sounded so stunned?

  “Uh…okay, Em. In a second. Say goodbye to Christian first.”

  Christian didn’t miss a beat when the rambunctious little girl ran into his arms. He lifted her up high above his head until she was shrieking with excitement.

  “It was nice meeting you, Emily. I’ll see you sometime soon, okay?”

  “When?” Emily asked enthusiastically. “Tomorrow?”

  Christian swung her around once before he lowered her to the floor. Megan noticed with bewilderment that his expression easily matched the carefree happiness in Emily’s face. His moods shifted so quickly that Megan felt disoriented.

  “Maybe. That’ll be up to your aunt. Now I’ll bet that you’re big enough to get a juice box out of the fridge yourself, aren’t you?” His eyes swung to Megan’s for confirmation and Megan gave a tense nod. Emily scampered off toward the kitchen.

  Megan swallowed uncomfortably when Christian raised himself to his full height. She tried to read his expression, but it was impenetrable once again.

  “Thank you again. I hope that…”

  Her inane words stilled in her throat when she realized he was coming toward her. His gait was predatory, his eyes were a barely banked flame. A muffled sound of uncertain surprise rose in her throat and she slowly began to back away from him until she bumped up against the wall behind her. He didn’t still his forward motion until she was trapped between the wall against her back and the almost equally hard wall of his body at her front. He placed his hands on the wall next to her head. His thumbs gently levered her face upward.

  “You could have let me know, Megan,” he admonished in a low, gruff voice.

  “Know what?” Unlike her breath, which was caught painfully in her lungs, Christian’s exhalation
softly fanned her face, fragrant and warm.

  “That you weren’t married. That Mr. SUV wasn’t your husband.”

  The air finally released from her aching lungs as understanding dawned. “That’s Terry, my sister Hilary’s husband…Emily’s father. Emily’s been staying with me a lot while Hilary is at a sales conference.”

  Christian nodded. His voice had sounded matter-of-fact, conversational, but the way he pressed his hips gently into the softness of her flesh felt anything but run of the mill. The tiny part of her that was still capable of rational thought wondered why she didn’t feel alarmed. He felt hard against her, very male…indescribably good.

  “Do you know I’m going to be thirty-four years old in a few months and I’ve never once in my life been with a married woman…at least never intentionally. Maybe it’s because of my Catholic upbringing or maybe it’s just because the hassle was never worth it, but I’ve never broken that code. I’ve never even been tempted. Until just now.”

  The sight of his lowering mouth mesmerized Megan. “But I’m not married,” she mumbled almost incoherently.

  “Exactly,” he murmured.

  “Uh…Christian, what are you doing?” Megan asked throatily when his lips were almost touching hers and their breaths were mingling intimately.

  She saw his dark eyebrows go up at her question, but otherwise there was no sign of hesitation or retreat. His gaze never left her lips.

  “Given the fact that I was about to go against my personal code of ethics and kiss the living hell out of you when I thought you were married, do you really believe I’d leave without at least tasting you now that I know you’re single?”

  Then he lowered his head and did just that.

  Chapter 2

  After a few seconds, desire burned away Megan’s shock. Christian obviously knew what he was doing when it came to kissing. He must have put in a lot of practice since Tammy Dupree.

  His mouth was gentle, firm…very persuasive. He used it to fully discover the shape and nuances of her lips. He sipped, he nibbled, he sucked at his leisure. His mouth slanted unevenly over hers, sandwiching and caressing first her upper lip and then her lower lip. A cry caught in Megan’s throat when he bit with exquisite care and dragged his white teeth over the sensitive skin of her lower lip, prying her…