Fifteen
“ALLIE? YOU STILL awake?”
Alessandra smiled. It was bizarre. She was starting to really like when Harry called her that. “Yes.”
She was lying nestled against him, his hand cupped possessively on her breast, his leg thrown across hers.
“I’ve been thinking.” His voice was rough from the lateness of the hour, and his breath was warm on the back of her neck.
Lord, all he had to do was breathe on her and she wanted him again. She could feel the tip of her breast tightening beneath his hand.
But it wasn’t just her. The relentless attraction was mutual. She could feel the weight of his growing arousal against her leg. He shifted slightly, as if to try to hide it, but there was no way she could have missed it.
Harry took his hand from her breast and pulled his leg back onto his own side of the bed, shifting so that he was sitting up and not touching her at all.
She turned toward him, missing his warmth.
“I know this is a little bit after the fact,” he told her. He’d turned on the bathroom light earlier and left the door open a crack so that it wasn’t pitch-dark in the room. But the way he was sitting, his face was completely in shadow. “And I probably should have said this before we … um, did what we did …”
“Made love,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, shifting slightly. “See, well, that’s kind of what we need to talk about because the words that popped into my head were ‘fucked our brains out,’ and there’s a big difference between those two definitions of the same event. Made love implies … certain promises that the other doesn’t. I really don’t want you to get the wrong idea about what’s happening here. I can’t make you any promises, Allie. And I’m sorry, I really should have told you that while we still had our clothes on.”
He took a deep breath, and she just waited for him to continue. “I feel bad about saying this to you now, you know? But it wasn’t an intentional oversight, I swear. I like you, I really like you—far too much to disrespect you that way. I just … I’ve wanted you for so long, and suddenly there you were, giving yourself to me. I wasn’t thinking about what expectations you might have. I wasn’t thinking at all.”
He didn’t love her. Harry was telling her he didn’t love her, and Alessandra nearly laughed out loud.
Too many men had said those words to her. I love you. They’d used it to try to lure her into their arms for an hour or a night or even longer. She’d heard it so often, starting back when she was a young teenager, it hadn’t taken her long to know it meant nothing. They loved the way she looked. They loved the idea of being seen with someone as beautiful as she had been. Even though they said the words, they didn’t love her.
But in her entire life, no man, not even Griffin to whom she’d been married for seven very long years, had ever told her that he liked her.
Until now.
Harry really liked her. It had nothing to do with the way she looked—how could it, the way she looked now? He liked her. He liked Allie, the person she was inside.
Her heart had never felt so full.
And she had never felt so uncertain and afraid. Had she found this potentially wonderful relationship with this impossibly honest, painfully attractive, down-to-earth man, only to have it taken away from her right away?
“I’ve known from the start that you’ve got to go back to New York sooner or later, so I guess my only expectations were that we’d end up in bed again during the week or so you stayed in town,” she said, choosing her words carefully. She pulled the blanket up so that it covered her breasts, aware that he was looking at her, aware that she was not hidden by the shadows. “But if you don’t want that—”
“Whoa,” Harry interrupted. “That’s not what I said. I’ll be in your bed every night as long as I’m here, if you’ll let me. I just didn’t want you to, you know, start choosing the china pattern, because that’s not where this is heading.”
“Harry, believe me, I don’t want to marry you.” She didn’t want to marry anybody. At least not within the next few years or so. It would be insane to get involved in a permanent relationship at this stage of her life. She didn’t even really have an identity yet. She was smack at the start of discovering who she really was, who she was going to be for the rest of her life. She needed to learn about herself before she could be effective as half a couple. Didn’t she? And on top of that, she was in hiding.
“I just spent seven years married,” she continued. “And as much as I like you, too, I have a feeling our relationship would be a little bit too much like the one I just got out of. As tempting as it is to be taken care of, I don’t want to be someone’s possession again.”
Harry was quiet for a moment. “Well, I’m a little insulted you think being with me would be anything like it was with Griffin. But it’s stupid to feel insulted because it’s a moot point, right? We’re not going to go past this.” He gestured to where they were on the bed.
“Maybe we shouldn’t make any rules about what we are or aren’t going to do,” Alessandra said, still carefully. “Maybe we can just play it by ear. I like being with you—you make me laugh, and you’re great in bed. And you said you like me, too, so …” She felt a flush of warmth as she said the words aloud. He liked her. “So let’s spend the next week … Well, you can call it whatever you want to, I still prefer ‘making love.’ ”
“No promises,” Harry said again.
There was a lot she wouldn’t promise him. She wouldn’t promise that she wouldn’t do something very foolish and fall in love with him. She wouldn’t promise she wouldn’t try to make him fall in love with her, too. Real love. True love. The kind that starts out as liking and grows from respect.
She loved that Harry respected her, nearly as much as she loved the fact that he liked her.
“I’ll only make you one promise,” she said as she straddled him, the sheet sliding off her. “And that’s that I intend to let you sleep very little over the next week or so.”
Harry laughed and pulled her up against him. “That’s the kind of promise I can live with.” Then he kissed her long and hard on the mouth.
“What the hell is this?” Kim stood in the dining-room doorway, holding her fake-fur coat closed, staring at the feast on the table.
“Wow, you got home fast.” George smiled, spreading his hands. “I figured since I can’t take you out to dinner, I’d get dinner to come to us.”
“Dinner?” Kim said. “This is about dinner? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, George!” She stormed down the hall toward the bedroom.
It wasn’t the response he’d expected. He’d imagined she’d be surprised in a positive way, pleased that he’d gone to such lengths to make her happy. He slipped his crutches under his arms and followed her.
“It’s Italian. From La Venitia. You love La Venitia.”
She whirled to face him, and he realized that beneath her coat she was wearing only a red velvet thong and matching heels.
“You scared me to death. I get off stage, and Carol’s standing there with a message that you called, that you needed me to get home quick, that it was urgent. Urgent, George! I’m having a heart attack, thinking you fell, thinking your stitches somehow opened up and you were bleeding to death, thinking something awful might’ve happened. I call you back, and the line’s freakin’ busy. I don’t even bother to change. I just grab my coat and run. I couldn’t find a cab—I ran all the way here.” She pulled off her coat and threw it onto the bed. Her bare breasts were covered with the body glitter she wore to dance, and they sparkled with each ragged breath she took. She sat down, pulling off her shoes. “Now I’m sweating like a pig and I’ve got blisters on my heels the size of donuts.”
George sat next to her on the bed, laying his crutches on the floor beside him. “Oh, God, babe. I’m so sorry. I had no idea you would be worried. I just wanted you to get home quick, while the food was still hot.”
He reached down and took her foot into his hands
. She’d only exaggerated a little bit about the blisters. While the skin hadn’t broken, her heels looked red and sore.
“Let me get a wet washcloth to put on those,” he said. “And I think I have some ointment in the medicine cabinet.”
“I’ll get it.” Her anger had vanished as soon as he’d touched her, and now she just sounded as if she were going to cry. She started to get up, but he pushed her back.
“No, I’ll get it. I’m doing okay with the crutches. Besides, this is my fault. You sit. Let me take care of you for once, okay?”
She nodded silently, wiping away the tears that had flooded her eyes.
George avoided his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he wet a cloth with cool water. This evening was turning out exactly opposite from the way he’d planned. He’d wanted to do something nice for Kim, and instead he’d completely upset her. He’d wanted to sit separated by the dining-room table and talk to her, take their physical relationship as far out of the picture as possible. He wanted to continue to let her know that every single evening didn’t have to end with her getting him off.
Instead, he was going to go back in there and sit on the bed, with her wearing only a pair of microscopic thong panties. God, he was already hard. It would take her about point oh-seven seconds to notice that, and then she’d be all over him.
And although she’d insisted otherwise, he still didn’t quite believe she really liked any kind of sex at all.
He maneuvered clumsily out of the bathroom. Kim had flopped back on the bed and lay staring at the ceiling, her feet still on the floor. She turned her head to look at him as he came into the bedroom, her mascara smeared slightly underneath her eyes, making her look even more exotic and sexy than usual.
Of course the fact that she was nearly naked helped.
“Did I mention how completely, absolutely, incredibly sorry I am?” he said as he sat next to her. “Scoot back, will you?”
She obediently moved back on the bed, and he took her feet into his lap, gently pressing the cool washcloth against her heels. “How’s that?” he asked. “Better?”
She nodded. “I thought … something awful had happened,” she said again in a very small voice. She was a performer, but this wasn’t any kind of act. The tears came back to her eyes. “George, would you mind holding me?”
Well, now let’s see. Would he mind touching all that smooth, sparkling skin? Would he mind pressing the softness of those goddess-quality breasts against his chest? Would he mind lightly kissing her full lips and breathing in the sweet scent of her perfume?
No, George didn’t mind at all. He kissed her, unable to keep himself from running his hand down her back, all the way down past the soft curve of her bottom. God, what a body.
He took care always to touch her gently, always lightly. Now that he knew, he never held her tightly in his arms. He always made certain she could pull free if she wanted to.
He let Kim be the one who deepened their kiss.
He just kept caressing her. Running his hand down her back and then across to her front, lightly brushing the soft velvet V of her panties with the very tips of his fingers, sweeping up her soft stomach, barely touching her breast, leaving just a whisper of sensation against her nipple, then up to her neck, her shoulder, and down her back again. And again and again and again.
She sighed, relaxing against him. “That feels so nice.”
“Mmmm. I could do this all night, if you want.”
He felt her open her eyes, her lashes brushing his neck. “You would … do just this? All night?”
“And love every minute of it.” He softly kissed her forehead.
As his fingers brushed her breast again, she made a soft sound of pleasure, pressing herself up toward him so that he actually touched her. But he didn’t let himself fill his palm with her, didn’t draw her nipple into his mouth, the way he was dying to do. What he wanted had to wait.
“You’re in control, babe,” he whispered, his hand sweeping down her back again. “You tell me or show me what you want, and I’ll do it, just the way you want. And if you want to stop, we stop.”
He let himself linger just a moment longer on the gentle mound beneath her velvet panties before moving up to touch her stomach. She didn’t pull away, so he slid his hand back down and touched her again, still lightly, still through her panties.
She made a noise, deep in her throat, that might’ve been pain or fear, and he quickly withdrew back to her stomach, tracing circles around her belly button. “Did you want me to stop?” he asked. “Is that what you wanted?”
“No.” She spoke so softly he almost didn’t hear her.
He touched her breasts again, both of them this time, not quite as lightly, but still taking care to be gentle. Her nipples were taut with desire and he wet them with the very tip of his tongue as he slowly trailed his hand down to her panties. He traced the edge of them with one finger. “May I?”
She was trembling, drawing in one ragged breath after another.
“I’m just going to touch you like this.” He demonstrated on the outside of her panties, just the same light, barely there caress. “Okay?”
He held his breath, both terrified and elated that she would trust him as much as she already had. He prayed that she wasn’t doing this because she thought he wanted her to. He prayed that he could make her see that whatever had happened in her past wasn’t about sex and pleasure, but rather violence and power. And that while they might seem similar on the surface, they were two entirely different acts.
George didn’t have much he could give her, but he could give her that knowledge, that truth. If she’d only let him.
He kept touching her, and she opened her legs slightly for him. Just a little bit, and then just a little bit more.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” he whispered, slipping her panties down her thighs. She kicked them free—another sign of agreement—and then he touched her. Lightly. Gently. Just the way he’d promised.
Touching her was like touching satin, smooth and warm and perfect. And still she didn’t pull away.
He kissed her breasts, tugging gently on her nipples with his lips. She moaned, lifting her hips to press herself against his fingers, surprising him and surprising herself even more.
Then she froze, and George lifted his head to look down into her eyes. She was still breathing hard, still trembling. As he gazed at her, she moistened her lips and gave him a shaky smile.
“Oh, my,” she said.
He smiled, feeling a burst of pleasure so intense, it nearly brought tears to his eyes. It was amazing really. He had a hard-on the size of the space shuttle, yet it was his heart that seemed to explode in his chest. “More?”
She nodded.
He pressed his fingers more deeply inside of her, watching her eyes as he used his thumb to slowly caress her.
“Oh,” she breathed. She moistened her lips again. “Can you …”
“Yes,” he said. “Whatever you want, babe, absolutely, unequivocally yes.”
She actually blushed. “Can you make it feel this good with your … you know?”
He did know. “Yes.”
He rocked onto his back, grabbing for a condom from his bedside table drawer with one hand, while still touching her with the other. He had his pants open and pushed down and himself covered, all with one hand, in the blink of an eye.
“You say stop, we stop,” he told her again as he rolled her onto her side and nestled himself behind her. This way he wasn’t on top of her. This way she wouldn’t feel pinned down and out of control.
And still he touched her, still gently, his arm around her. He pressed himself against her from behind, slowly entering her with just the tip of his arousal before just as slowly pulling back again. He did it again, going a little bit farther this time, careful not to move too fast.
She made a soft sound, and when he did it again, she moved with him.
She didn’t tense up, she didn’t pull away, she didn�
�t tell him to stop. Slowly, impossibly slowly, he made love to her. Each stroke seemed to take a lifetime in which he lived and died and lived again.
Dear God, this was probably going to kill him—but what a way to go.
She began to climax with him deep inside her, and he felt his own release begin, but still he kept it slow, pulling back in a movement that felt so good, he was certain this was it. His brain was definitely going to explode. The next slow thrust pushed him over the edge as she continued to tremble around him, and he came in an eruption of pleasure so intense he saw lights and colors behind his closed eyes.
But his physical pleasure was nothing compared to the joy of the knowledge that he’d taken this woman to a place she’d never been before.
“Omigod,” Kim was saying. “Omigod, omigod. I didn’t know. I never knew.”
She turned toward him, her beautiful brown eyes brimming with tears. She was shaking, and he held her, still gently, still making sure she knew she could pull free.
But she reached up and touched his face, surprise in her voice as she looked at him. “You’re crying.”
He was.
She kissed him. “Oh God, George,” she whispered and her own tears overflowed. “What am I going to do? I don’t want to be in love with you.”
Shaun went into the playroom to find Mindy upside down on the couch, watching Gilligan’s Island.
“I think this time they’re really going to make it off the island,” she told him. Her head was dangling off the front of the couch, her long legs stretched up against the wall behind it. Gravity was doing funny things to her breasts.
Shaun looked away, uncomfortable at the thought of Mindy having breasts. He didn’t really think of her as a girl. Not the way he thought of the redhead from California.
“The Professor’s built a radio out of coconuts,” Mindy reported. “If he’s smart, all he needs to do is use one of Ginger’s underwire bras for an antennae.”
Shaun walked to the window under the front eaves, bending slightly to keep from hitting his head. “I hate to break it to you, Mind, but they never get off the island.”
Bodyguard Page 22
