“I’ll call Bernie,” Miranda decided. “I’ll get him to come over and open it.”
She remembered the phone in her hand, and as she raised it to dial Bernie’s number, it rang.
“Have you opened the box?”
Miranda’s skin pleasantly prickled at the sound of Lucas’s voice. “I was just about to call someone to come over and open it for me. I’m worried that it’s a black widow spider, the perfect Valentine’s gift from one of your more unhinged fans.”
“Open the box,” Lucas said.
Miranda circled her dining table. It was set simply for two, and the flames of three candles danced merrily in anticipation of Lucas’s arrival. The box sat on the edge of the table. “Where are you?” Miranda asked.
“Open the box,” Lucas repeated, a faint tremble in his voice.
“Why do you sound so funny?” Miranda picked up the box and shook it. It seemed empty.
“Because it’s winter in New England and open the bloody box, woman!” he laughed.
“Okay, okay,” Miranda said. She pressed the phone to her ear with her shoulder while she peeled away the brown paper to reveal a black velvet ring box. She released a long exhalation with, “Lucas,” on the tail of it.
“Open the box, love,” he said tenderly.
She held her breath and snapped open the tiny lid. A nervous giggle escaped her when she saw a folded piece of paper tucked into the slot that typically accommodated a ring. She set down the box and unfolded the paper. Lucas’s bold, neat lettering was on it:
Sometimes a big rock does mean something.
“Lucas?” she said curiously.
“Hmm?”
“Where are you?”
“Right outside your living room.”
She hurried to the window and tossed open her curtains as she skidded to a stop. Her jaw dropped, and the phone fell from her hand to bounce on the hardwood floor. Lucas was right outside the window, indeed. He was across the street and twenty feet off the ground, on a giant hunk of black rock that had no earthly right being on a flatbed truck blocking the street. The rock, and the man waving his cell phone on top of it, belonged on a beach in Wales under the light of an orange-pearl moon.
He pointed to his phone and she scurried to pick up hers.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said.
Her smile was so big, it hurt. “Now I know why my street was closed off today, and why there are no campers in front of the building.”
“I do my best,” Lucas said.
“Are you coming up?” She glanced at the brownstones lining the opposite side of the street. “The neighbors are starting to stare. And take pictures.”
“I have to ask you something first,” he said. “It’s very important.”
Her smile wavered. Her heart slipped into her throat. Everything’s perfect, she thought anxiously. Don’t ruin it, please…
“Miranda?”
“Yes?” she croaked.
“Will you…buzz me in?”
A goofy belly laugh of relief burst from her. “Run!” she ordered before disconnecting the call. She raced to the buzzer and leaned on it until she heard his footsteps bounding up the stairs. She cracked the door open as she yanked off her sweatshirt and threw it at the coat rack, where it landed in a pool of blue at the base. She took her place by the dining table and was wrapping her hand around the neck of a chilled bottle of wine when Lucas tossed the door open.
Miranda turned with a flip of her shining hair. Lucas watched it fall softly in place around her shoulders. After kicking the door shut, he stood there, drinking in the mouth-watering vision of her. He had sprinted up four steep flights of stairs, but by no means was he out of breath. That didn’t happen until his gaze took in the full picture of Miranda.
From the top of her head to her knees she was as bare and beautiful as Eve before the fall. From the knees to the tips of her stiletto heels, she was something else entirely. Her skin seemed to glow from the fire of an all-over blush, and her hair was loose and voluminous. Her breasts were like dollops of caramel cream sprinkled with cinnamon, and they seemed fuller and jauntier than he had remembered. And her legs…her legs were twin towers of sensual elegance that beckoned him to discover the fleece-covered treasure at their convergence. The sight of her ignited him from the waist down, but her smile sent one of Cupid’s holiday arrows directly through his heart.
“You told me to wear something red.” She would have run to him if she hadn’t been sure that she would trip in her kidskin stilts and break her ankles. “I didn’t have anything to go with the boots, so…” She cast her eyes in a lingering gaze downward before meeting his once more.
Lucas quickly closed the distance between them. His hands were cold and seemed to sizzle when they touched the warm skin at her waist and her back. Underneath his long, black wool coat he wore jeans and a blue sweater, the same clothes he’d worn on their first date at Conwy, and she could almost smell the North sea air on him. His eyes searched hers, mutely conveying how much he had missed her.
He meant to speak to her, to tell her how happy he was to see her and how eagerly he had awaited their reunion, but his mouth had other plans. When he leaned in to kiss her, she sidestepped him, luring him toward the stairs. “I hope you’re hungry,” she said. She struggled to sound matter-of-fact and kept her gaze on his lips. “I sweated over a hot stove all afternoon.”
“You cooked?” His voice was gravelly. He followed her, his eyes devouring the sexy grace of her body as it climbed the first wide stair. He placed his hand low on her hip, stopping her. He liked the way her skin jumped at his touch. He was glad to know that she wasn’t the only one struggling.
“I almost burned the place down.” She turned. From her perch, she was able to face him eye to eye. She set her elbows on his shoulders and nipped at his lower lip, drawing out of reach when he tried to capture her mouth in a kiss. “I ordered in.” She gave him the full effect of her emerald and topaz gaze. “We could eat now, or—”
He tugged her roughly to him, clasping her buttock in one hand and gripping the back of her head in the other. He kissed her as though his life depended on the quality of the kiss, and she frantically peeled his coat from his body. She struggled backwards up the stairs. Her hair spilled from Lucas’s grip as he held her head to his, devouring her mouth in a kiss meant to show her exactly how much he had longed for her.
Lost to his kiss, Miranda stumbled. Lucas caught her, easing her onto her back at the top of the stairs. She shoved her hand under his sweater and down past his waistband. The hard, straining length of him overfilled her hand as he pressed his hips into her. She broke the kiss so she could look at him as she unfastened his jeans and lowered them. Lucas kicked off his boots and climbed out of his pants as they maneuvered into her bedroom in a wriggling knot of limbs and libidos.
Lucas yanked off his sweater and T-shirt while Miranda stretched an arm out for the box under her bed. She had it in her grasp when Lucas pinned her wrist to the floor and began kissing her from her elbow down to her breast. He used his tongue and teeth and lips to work her into a gasping, whimpering creature of carnal need before he moved to her other breast, and delighted it in kind. He was working his way downward, blissfully torturing her further, when she cupped his face and stopped him at her belly button.
She sat up, effectively rolling him onto his back with the motion. Wearing only her boots and a dazzling smile, she straddled his thighs and leaned over him. She guided her hair to fall over her left shoulder, and it tickled and caressed him as she moved lower down, removing his red silk boxers as she went. She took control, slowing the pace of their reunion and in so doing, making his want of her that much more demanding. His hands clenched into fists and he squinted his eyes shut to stop himself from taking her by the waist and burrowing into her.
“I’m glad you wore red.” Her words whispered against his aching flesh as her hair tickled over his lower abdomen.
“I didn’t want to get pinc
hed!” He sang the last word as her mouth closed over his velvet tumescence.
She subjected him to erotic torments that made him howl one moment and curse her the next. She used her hands and mouth and even her hair with maddening skill, and she ignored his pleas to stop before he reached his boiling point.
He took matters into his own hands by taking her under her arms and hauling her up the length of his body. With his last particle of restraint, he got her on the bed and himself into a condom before he drove home his mindless need of her. The buttery softness of her boots stroked his skin as her legs fastened around his middle, drawing him deeper. Her hands clasped his buttocks and her muscular control gave him no chance of prolonging their mating. He exploded with a grimace and a roar. He stilled, paralyzed by the riotous rapture spearing through him. He panted through gritted teeth, his arms rigid as Miranda clutched handfuls of her bed covers and arched beneath him. Lucas shifted his hips a bit and rested his weight on his forearms. He caught Miranda’s satisfied moan on his lips as he kissed her and tasted the perspiration beading above her upper lip. His strokes became deeper, longer, and he brought his seeking lips to her neck. When the pad of his thumb brushed the tight peak of her right breast, it was like putting a spark to dry kindling.
Miranda’s fingernails dug crescents into his skin as her body locked around him. Low, unintelligible syllables issued from her with each muscular flex within her. Lucas, transfixed by the glowing beauty of her face, eased her back from the summit of her pleasure by catching his name on her lips as it left hers. The rest of her went limp even though her hips continued to buck against him. He kissed her shoulders and upper arms, dampening his lips with her perspiration.
She took his face in her hands and kissed his chin before smoothing a sweat-soaked lock of hair from his face. “Thank you for the big rock,” she said. “I’m embarrassed that I didn’t get you anything.”
“You gave the rock its meaning,” he said. “That was the best gift anyone’s ever given me.” He took her hand and kissed it. The sweetness of the gesture deepened the intimacy of the moment.
“When I saw that box, I thought…for a second or two…that you had some other surprise planned.” Her mouth smiled, but her eyes didn’t. Lucas eased off of her, and they lay on their sides, facing each other.
“I did.” He placed a hand behind her knee and tugged her leg over his. He unzipped her boot and tossed it to the floor. “My original plan was to cart you off to Las Vegas and marry you this very night.” At her look of horror, he laughed and kissed her cheeks. “I’m kidding. That would have created the very sort of media circus that you and I both detest.”
“And a giant piece of Wales on my street won’t?” Miranda sat up and removed her other boot. Lucas played with the ends of her hair, which tickled along her spine.
“It’ll be gone soon, love,” he said. “My permit to transport it expires at midnight.”
“Where will it go?”
“Back to the ship at the harbor, where it will wait.”
“Until what?” Miranda asked warily.
“Until all my surprises have been spent this evening.” Grinning, he turned onto his back and rested his head on his hand.
“What kind of surprises?” Miranda demanded.
Looking like one of Shakespeare’s merry heroes, he refused to divulge anything further. She touched a fingertip to his chest. He watched that soft, delicate fingertip stroke a feathery path down to the crisp whorls of dark hair at the place where his thighs met. “I’ll get it out of you,” she said. “One way or another.”
“You’ll find my will is as hard as iron.”
Miranda took him in her hand, and she smiled when that part of him became as hard as iron. Torture meant to make him spill his secrets backfired when she let him assert his mastery of her. He primed her, kissing, stroking, and caressing her until her insides liquefied. He turned her onto her stomach and propped a pillow beneath her abdomen before he lovingly invaded the last unexplored territory of her body, bringing her to a climax so keen and powerful that she nearly wept as she bit into her mattress.
* * *
“How was St. Louis?” Miranda used a crust of warm garlic parmesan bread to dab up some of the De Viseu red wine mushroom sauce dotting her dinner plate. She stared at the remains of her beef tenderloin as she awaited Lucas’s answer.
“I didn’t go,” he said around the last bite of his own tenderloin.
Miranda stopped chewing and looked up at him.
“It took time and planning to have a five-ton Valentine’s Day present shipped and delivered from Conwy to Boston,” he said. “I had to be there to coordinate the process. And sign various forms and documents and to bribe the proper barge captains and government officials.”
Miranda’s mouth curved in a reluctant grin. She didn’t want to think that Lucas had changed his plans because of her shrewish response to his interest in Tess Cullor…but she was glad that he had. “Calista called this afternoon to tell me that Alec gave her two dozen red roses and a diamond pendant for Valentine’s Day,” Miranda said. “I can’t wait to tell her that you gave me a five-ton rock. She’s the only one who’ll understand how much I appreciate that gift.”
Lucas grinned and shook his head, wondering how she could be so playfully sexy and wholesome at the same time. She was wearing a plain white cotton camisole and a pair of white, man’s-style knit sports briefs. The outfit covered her, yet still revealed the feminine shadows of her body. She had pulled her shower-damp hair back into a loose ponytail secured by a black elastic band. Sitting across from him over a pair of burnt-down candles, one foot flat on the seat of the chair and her other leg folded beneath her, she had the rosy sweetness of a forest nymph perched on a sugary toadstool. But as she licked the sweetly spicy De Viseu sauce from the tips of her index and middle fingers, she stirred the animal resting within his boxers.
Her middle fingertip popped from her lips. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Like what?” He took a sip of red wine, then licked his lower lip. The subtle movement turned her nipples to pearls against the thin fabric of her top.
“Like you have tonight’s winning Powerball number.”
“I care little enough about that,” he said. He crossed his arms and leaned on the table. “What I do know is that a five-ton rock isn’t all I gave to you tonight.”
“I’ll say.” She smiled, comically bouncing her eyebrows. “Four times is a personal best.”
“You had five by my count, thank you, and look at your fire escape.”
She gave him a quizzical stare before turning toward her living room window. She uttered a small squeak of surprise as she set both feet on the floor and stood, one hand hovering over her heart. A bright star of moonlight glinted off the shining dome of a dark red barbeque grill. The long tails of the silver foil bow tied around the lid floated on the light crosswind between buildings. She didn’t hear Lucas leave his side of the table and come to kneel before her. She flinched and dropped heavily into her chair when he took her hand.
“I love you,” he said.
She tore her eyes from the grill and stared at him. The simple truth of his statement shimmered in his clear, beautiful eyes.
“Marry me.”
It was question, wish, plea and prayer. Most women would have imploded with joy at a proposal from Lucas Fletcher. But Miranda wasn’t most women.
“Your lips are moving but no sound is coming out.” Lucas gave her a hopeful smile.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“May I make a suggestion?” he chuckled. He ran his hands along the outsides of her thighs.
Miranda picked up her wine glass and gulped the contents down. She pressed the back of her trembling hand to her moist lips. “I want to say the right thing.”
“Do you need some time to think about it? I know this is a big decision.”
Miranda nodded and reached for the wine bottle. She took a swig directly from it,
and then pressed it to her forehead to cool her suddenly sweaty brow. “That would be good,” she said. “A little time. You don’t mind?”
Faint lines formed at the corners of his smiling eyes as he took her hands. “I’ve told you, Miranda. You’re worth waiting for.”
* * *
They had dessert, a delicious coconut cheesecake, in front of the television. Lucas delighted in each squirm of Miranda’s supple body against his as she fed him bites of the sweet dessert from the plate propped upon his hard belly. She was cuddled into his side, her head resting on his shoulder as they watched a worn videotape of one of Miranda’s favorite movies: Slap Shot.
The movie was much better than Lucas had expected it to be, and every time he laughed, he threatened to overturn the cheesecake plate. Miranda’s quick reflexes saved it again and again, but she lost it when she applauded the arrival of the Hanson brothers. Lucas adored her enthusiasm for the movie. He shared it, but not because of the great performances. Lounging on a sofa, watching a movie with Miranda was the most sublime pleasure he could imagine. It was such a simple thing, yet something he had never been able to experience honestly.
He’d spent evenings watching movies with women before, certainly, but the women had generally spent more time watching him. They saw what he wanted to see, insisting they had no opinion on the matter. They laughed when he laughed, or they clutched at him at all the appropriate horror bits. They even sobbed, on occasion, and attempted intellectual discourse of the film if it merited such. But at no point had Lucas ever felt that a woman was watching a movie with him because that was what she truly wanted to do. The movie had seemed a chore to be endured until they got what they really wanted. Him. He inwardly acknowledged his hypocrisy. He had wanted the physical, too, there was no denying that.
But he had wanted more to go along with it. Miranda gave it to him. She had chosen Slap Shot because it was something special to her, something that she wanted to share with him, and not because it was what she thought he wanted. Piece by piece and moment by moment, she was inviting him into her life. Never had she tried to conform her personality or behavior merely to fit her life into his.
Crush Page 22
