He was counting? She stared at him. He’d been watching her that closely?
“From the moment you walked in tonight, I didn’t notice anything else.”
It was a good line and she was inebriated enough to like it.
“I’m not kidding,” Chris said, his voice deep, a bit husky, reminding her of a well-aged wine. One out of her price league. “I don’t play games with women.”
“I don’t play at all,” Emma said, her voice sounding tiny in the confines of the elevator. “This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this.”
A mood-killer if ever there was one. Yes, she’d discovered new things about herself tonight. But she was still Emma and now she was going to blow this whole thing.
If she did, chances were old Emma would win and she’d have to resign herself to a life of safety and security and settling for Robs.
She nearly laughed out loud at that last thought. Robs. Funny word.
But if she succeeded—if she made love with her piano man—she’d be forever changed. She’d no longer be the woman who’d never taken a chance, never faced danger, never had the nerve to do exactly what she felt like doing.
The elevator door slid open and Emma half expected Chris to gracefully bow out of his invitation.
Holding the door open with his body, he lifted her hand until her gaze followed.
“I’m glad you don’t make a habit of this,” he said, the smile in his eyes sending her spiraling as though he’d tipped her over the edge of a cliff. “You want to continue?”
“Yes.”
He guided her through the door, following closely, and when he came up beside her, he wrapped his arm around her waist.
They faced the elegantly appointed room together. And she tingled with anticipation. Not fear.
In that moment, Emma knew that if the night killed her, she’d die having lived.
And she’d prefer that to living her whole life as if she were already dead.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WASN’T SUPPOSED to happen this way.
The words repeated themselves in his mind. He wasn’t sure what they meant. But he heard them.
He probably even believed them. There just wasn’t a damn thing he could—or wanted to—do about them.
“I have a dry white or merlot,” he said as he peered into the stocked refrigerator in the living-room section of his hotel room.
The king-size bed was there, too, in plain view, about ten feet of plush beige carpet away.
Emma sat—still fully dressed down to the low-heeled shoes she wore—on the couch, but based on the stiffness of her posture and the way her gaze kept darting to the oversize armchair next to the couch he had the distinct impression that she’d have been more comfortable in the seat made for one.
He quirked his brow at her. “You ready to say stop?”
“Dry white, please.” Her brown gaze swung to him, and stayed there. Steady and strong.
“I’m glad.” Really glad. Abnormally glad—Chris had never been hard up for women.
He opened the small bottle, emptied it into one of two wineglasses on the bar, opened a miniature bottle of Crown for himself and poured it into a highball.
Handing her the glass of wine, he took a sip of his whiskey and sat down beside her.
The night might be late, but he felt like they had all the time in the world. And if they didn’t, he was going to take it, anyway. This woman, this experience, was not to be rushed.
“You want to know anything more about me?” he asked.
“Yes, but not right now.”
Fair enough.
She didn’t offer him the same privilege. She pushed her hair back away from her face and he saw that white band on her finger again. She’d said she’d never done anything like this before.
“I’m okay if tonight is a rebound for you. But I need to know that you aren’t married. I don’t take what belongs to someone else.”
“I’m not married.”
He felt like grinning. And it wasn’t supposed to happen that way, either.
“Have you ever been married?”
“No.” She glanced away, as though ashamed.
Chris lifted her hand that held the wineglass and brought it to her lips. “Sip,” he said softly. “I haven’t ever been married, either.” Almost didn’t count.
His words brought her gaze back to him. “How old are you?” he asked.
She was of age; he knew that. But he was curious.
“Twenty-nine.”
Younger than he’d expected. Younger than Sara by eleven years.
“I’m forty.”
She had a right to know.
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“That you’re eleven years older than me?”
His age had never been an issue for him before. He simply hadn’t cared to measure life in terms of time. He sipped his drink.
“It doesn’t bother me in the least,” she said, a small smile forming on the lips that had been calling to him all night long. “As a matter of fact, I find forty kind of sexy. You aren’t a kid all filled up with his own sense of importance.”
“I could be an older guy all filled up with my own sense of importance.”
“You could be.” She took a sip of her wine, still smiling. “But I know that you aren’t.”
“How do you know?”
“You’ve asked for my permission every step of the way,” she said simply. “If you thought you were life’s greatest gift, you’d be sure you knew what I wanted—which, by the way would be only what you wanted—and you’d have charged forward with the strength of a bull to get it.”
“Apparently you know someone who’s filled with his own sense of importance.”
“I don’t think a girl can escape puberty without meeting one or two or a dozen of those.”
“I wish I could believe you were wrong about that.”
She shrugged. “It’s not all bad,” she said, her gaze dropping to his shoulders—his chest—and lingering there. “Gives you the chance to discern between the good and the bad.”
Which didn’t mean a woman always was able to discern, he guessed, glancing again at that ring finger.
The guy, whoever he’d been, was a first-class fool. To lose a woman like this?
Chris drew himself up with a gulp of whiskey. Whoa. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The words came again.
He was not one who entertained thoughts of having a relationship with a woman. His associations with women were just that—associations.
She reached for the top button on his shirt. “Do you mind if I undo this?” she asked, her other hand still holding the glass of wine he’d poured for her.
“No. Not at all.” Chris’s penis forced the words out of his mouth before his brain had a chance to react.
Her hand shook and her fingers caught and pulled a couple of strands of his chest hair as she struggled to open the button. The stiffness in his groin intensified. If she’d been experienced, assured, he might have had a hope.
He could have helped. Could have disrobed completely without a care. The sweet torment of Emma’s soft skin scraping against his chest as she continued to try, one-handed, to get the button free from the hole had control of him.
Her attentions turned him on too much to deny himself. If the exquisite torture felt this good at the top buttons, he could hardly wa
it for her to tackle the buttons that were currently tucked into the fly of his dress slacks.
The wine sloshed a bit in the glass and she took a sip. The button was almost free and then she fumbled it and lost the ground she’d gained. She didn’t giggle. Or sigh. Slowly, patiently, she tried again. Then finding success, she moved on to the next button.
He felt his underwear getting moist. He was going to have to stop her. Or help her. Or explode before he ever got a chance to show her any pleasure at all.
His shirt parted; she smiled a Mona Lisa smile, and Chris’s body temperature grew.
He hadn’t seen an inch of her flesh. Hadn’t touched any private places. He hadn’t even kissed her yet.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
* * *
HIS CHEST WAS glorious. She wanted to run her fingers through the abundance of dark crisp hair there—man hair.
Wow.
Chris groaned, and she glanced up. He was looking straight at her with a desperate plea in his gaze.
She jerked back. “What’s wrong?” Had she hurt him? Had he changed his mind? Suddenly remembered a woman who was at home waiting for him? “You have a girlfriend, don’t you?” She’d only asked if he was married. Rob wasn’t married, either.
Dizzy with the effects of too much wine, she suddenly felt kind of sick.
“No, I don’t.”
His unequivocal answer sent a flash of relief through her entire body.
“And the only thing wrong is that I need to have you naked beneath me. I need to sink myself inside you and hear your cries of ecstasy within the next few seconds or I’m going to be in paradise all by myself.”
The wine dancing in her head again, she grinned. Hugely. “I have that effect on you?”
“Hell, yes.”
Irrepressible delight coursed through her.
“I have no problem with your plan, then.”
His eyebrows came together. “You’re sure? I haven’t prepared you.”
She nodded and set her wine down on the table with a small splash, refusing to listen to a faint voice inside of her that wanted her to come to her senses. “I’m pretty sure you have,” she said.
Chris’s hand was at her crotch before Emma had any idea what he was going to do. He rubbed right where she was hottest. And then, without taking his eyes from her face, he had her slacks undone with one quick tug.
He kissed her, attacking her senses on multiple levels. His lips were firm, his tongue urgent as it entered her mouth. Emma grabbed for his neck, holding on tightly while he lifted her, undressed her some and lowered her back to the couch as he partially undressed himself.
“I have to get a condom.” She barely understood the strained words. She saw him reaching back for his wallet and then she let go of him. But only long enough for him to slide the leather bifold from his back pocket, and find the foil packet tucked neatly in one corner.
With him suspended over her, she still had a chance to stop him. Her old self hovered above, watching what she was doing. Emma saw herself. But she didn’t stop. Making love with Chris was the right thing to do. She was sure of it.
She felt no regret. None. At all.
She had to have him and that was all that mattered.
There was no hesitation in her body. No resistance. No discomfort at all. Emma’s hips reached toward the force consuming her, welcoming him, urging him to fill her more deeply, with swifter thrusts. She had no idea who she was, or what she would be after this. She didn’t care.
Driven by something inside of her, Emma gave herself over to the man on top of her. He was taking her away and she went willingly. Climbing higher and higher beneath him, with him. Becoming thinner and thinner until she burst into an explosion of sensation, saw stars and experienced wave after wave of the most incredible pleasure.
She’d had her first orgasm. And she wasn’t the least bit sorry.
* * *
HIS BODY PULSED again and again, until he wasn’t sure he could stand the glory of it. Chris cried out.
Oh, God. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He was always in control.
And now he wasn’t. He wanted more.
Gasping, sweating, he fell to Emma’s side. He should be exhausted.
“Now, if you will allow me, I’ll show you real pleasure,” he drawled, hardly recognizing his voice. Without waiting for a response, he undid her blouse slowly, pausing after each button to run the backs of his fingers along the skin he was exposing.
She stared up at him, watching. “You want me to stop?” he asked, remembering her earlier warning.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.” Her gaze didn’t waver in spite of the tremble in her voice.
She moved her hips against him, sending another surge of blood along his muscle, pulling him in farther, and Chris had no choice but to take her at her word.
The woman wanted his loving and, God help him, he had to give it to her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EMMA GAVE ROB a couple of extra hours to vacate her house on Saturday. She blamed her inability to get out of bed and leave the hotel room on her late night. It certainly wasn’t a man keeping her there.
Her companion in crime was no more than a vivid memory. Sometime before dawn he’d kissed her one last time, told her to sleep, then, when she was more unconscious than not, he’d dressed and left. She hadn’t even known his intent until she’d heard the latch on the door click behind him.
She’d risen then. In the restroom she’d found the note he’d left for her on the marble sink, telling her to stay as long as she liked. He’d arranged a late check-out. He told her to order breakfast on him.
“I hope that our night together is a memory that will last you a lifetime,” he’d written. “I know that I will never forget you. Chris.”
That was it. Just Chris. No last name. No phone number. No way for her to contact him. No request for a way to contact her.
After reading the note half a dozen times Emma had told herself to dress, find her car and get the hell home.
And then she’d remembered Rob’s deadline, which wasn’t yet past, and had crawled back into bed. What the heck. Chris had presumably paid for the room. She might as well get some rest.
With the help of the wine she’d consumed the night before, she’d slept for several more hours—waking around noon to glasses half filled with stale wine and whiskey, the scent of lovemaking and her clothes in a neat pile on the table in front of the couch.
The note Chris had written was still there, too, crumpled on the bedside table. Right where she’d left it.
* * *
WITH HIS FADED orange coveralls stripped down to his waist, Chris dropped the wrench and swore. He was stranded on his boat about ten miles out. And saw a flash of long legs in his mind’s eye.
At his father’s insistence, he’d learned how to repair a boat engine before he’d pulled up his first trap. But there was only so much a guy could do to an engine with pistons that were done being overhauled. New rings weren’t going to do it this time. He’d had no black smoke warning this time. Only a rough idle when he’d taken the boat out.
Maybe he’d have taken the engine coughs more seriously if he’d had any sleep. If he’d been able to wipe out the image of dark curls spread across his white pillowcase. He couldn’t afford to miss another day’s catch. And engine coughing could be healed after
he’d brought in the haul. Usually.
At least he’d brought in a better than average catch. More than seven hundred pounds. At only three dollars a pound—less than half of what he used to sell for—he was going to gross twenty-one hundred. He could get the catch in to Manny. With the cost of running a lobstering operation coupled with his living expenses, he was going to be lucky to make this month’s bills.
Which was another reason he didn’t date. He couldn’t afford to wine and dine a woman. He couldn’t afford the time.
Forgoing the radio—and the coast guard—Chris pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
He couldn’t afford a new engine, either. Or a day off work. He damn well couldn’t afford to be distracted by thoughts of a woman—no matter how good the night before had been.
“Jim, it’s Chris. I need a tow.”
He gave his father’s best friend his coordinates. Jim wasn’t fishing anymore. He’d bought a new boat just before the economy failed and had lost it to bankruptcy a couple of years later. Now the sixty-seven-year-old fisherman drove a towboat for Manny.
If Chris couldn’t find a way to fish and fix his boat at the same time, he could end up just like Jim.
“Be there in twenty,” Jim told him, and hung up.
No questions asked.
* * *
EMMA PUSHED THE button on her car visor, activating the automatic garage-door opener at four o’clock Saturday afternoon and paused in the driveway. Rob’s silver Ranger was still parked inside.
The tall, lanky, boyishly good-looking man came out of the kitchen and into the garage before the outer door was fully raised.
She had a choice. Back up and speed away. Or stay.
Emma pulled into her garage.
“You didn’t change the locks.” Rob was there, opening her door for her. “I spent the night praying that you’d give me another chance, Em. This was the first time since we got engaged,” he said, his tone pleading. “I swear to you, it won’t happen again. Ever.”
She got out of the car, pulling her purse out with her.
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