She looked askance at him. “That was something to accept? The ‘I suppose… if you want to… I guess… maybe… if you give me some time'?”
“Christ, I was young, too. I don't know why I said everything wrong. But I did.” With a visible effort, he seemed to shake away the memories and his fingers twined strong and hard through hers. “All I know is that's past… it's over. About now,” he urged. “Can you stay with me tonight? Is that clear enough, Honeybear?” His glance was direct and imploring.
“Oh God… I have to go back. My daughter, my parents are-”
“Can you stay awhile?” His eyes were velvet soft and expectant as they always had been when he looked at her. Those breathlessly artful eyes, she thought, had the capacity to enter her soul.
Molly smiled at him, at the warmth and contentment washing over her, at the quizzical smile he was directing at her. “For a while,” she said.
“I'll settle for that,” he said quickly, like someone who'd had their hand over the buzzer on a quiz program, and, lifting her down from the wall with a light swinging motion, set her on her feet. “All the other Byzantine intracacies can wait,” he added with a grin, feeling as if divine grace had offered him a chance to relive his life. And he wasn't going to fuck this up.
Very politely, calling on all the courtesy he'd been taught and had acquired in the past thirty-three years, he said, “Come into my trailer. You can tell me all about your daughter and your new business, we'll have something to eat, we'll talk. And this time we're old enough not to be quite as stupid… We'll work something out.”
She grinned, his solicitude charming. “You're awfully cute.”
“And you're way the hell past ‘cute', Honeybear,” he said very, very softly. “You're a miracle of the heart, a million wishes fulfilled. And I'm seriously thinking about locking the door once I have you inside,” he finished in a whisper.
But he didn't because he was treading uncharted second-chance-in-life ground and reading the road map with caution. He said instead, the asterisk on his internal map denoting, GO SLOW, TRAVEL WITH CARE. “Why don't you call your daughter first so she won't worry. Tell her you'll be a little late.”
Molly hesitated. “I can't stay very long… I don't have to call.”
“This time I won't let you go so easily,” he said, handing her the phone. “Call.”
After speaking to her mother, Molly said, “Put Carrie on, will you, Mom? I'll explain to her that I'm running late and I'll pick her up at your house in the morning.” With her back to Carey, Molly didn't notice the startled look flicker across his face when she asked for her daughter.
After Molly hung up Carey challenged, “I thought you said your daughter's name was Charlotte Louise.”
“It is, but I call her Carrie. Char never appealed to me for obvious reasons, and Lottie always reminded me of a nineteenth-century tart. So… Carrie.”
“How old is she?”
“Eight.”
“And blond like you?” he asked more casually than he felt. Although he'd never met Bart, he knew he was dark-haired.
The eyes that met his were open, calm, proudly maternal. “Not exactly… quite a bit lighter. Pale, Nordic, more like yours, actually.”
Still no subterfuge Carey noted, and before he could ask the question that was bringing the adrenaline peaking in his nerve endings, Molly teasingly added, “Don't go getting a bigger ego than you already have. I did not name her after you.” And all the subconscious vaults Molly had securely locked years ago remained, through practice, secure.
While a suffocating sense of dйjа vu and subliminal fantasy held sway in his mind, Molly went on, “The name's only a coincidence. She was named after my grandmother whom I loved very much, and the diminutive was a simple process of elimination.”
“I see,” Carey replied with the same deliberate control that kept cast, crew, and the elements of nature in ordered compliance, and he dropped the discussion. Too many major upheavals had occurred in the past hour to add another unsettling speculation to an already overtaxed mind. Relax, he thought. There's plenty of time… for that. “Since you don't have to rush off,” he said like a congenial host, not a man whose life had just been turned upside down, “why don't I fix us something to drink or eat? Or would you rather go somewhere?”
“This is fine,” Molly replied, glancing around the tastefully decorated interior. It was the room of a successful man. Elegant but solid furniture. Lighting carefully designed to be both warm and unobtrusive. Some small, illuminated paintings. It was lived in, not cold like modern decor could sometimes be, but warm and relaxed. His desk was littered, a pair of riding boots were tossed in the corner near the door, and a splash of red carnations was casually spilling out of a clear glass vase on a small table.
Carey was quickly picking up a variety of clothes that had been dropped and draped on the furniture. Rolling them into a ball, he tossed them behind the couch.
“Still neat,” Molly remarked with a smile.
His head swiveled back around and he winked. “You gotta have the touch.”
“If you're that good about the cooking, maybe I should help you… or do you really know how to cook?”
“Sort of,” he answered, his grin infectious. “Remember the fettucini I made at my apartment on Third Avenue?”
It was incredible how perfectly it all remained in her mind. “I remember,” Molly murmured, and every wall, corner, picture, and chair of the tiny apartment Carey had rented above Mrs. Larsen's house came back in a warm rush of pleasure. It was there Carey had made love to her the first time… on the old iron bed on a warm spring night in April. He'd sneaked her up the outside staircase, past Mrs. Larsen's kitchen window, hoping his landlady wouldn't hear because she had strict rules about “female” guests. The bed was big and soft; they'd whispered in the dark room; only the light from the streetlamps had shone through the opened windows.
He'd undressed her with shaking hands, this young man who'd survived the horrors of Vietnam with unflinching boldness, then carried her across the patterned carpet and placed her gently in the center of his bed. She'd watched him undress. His movements were hurried, swift, shoes kicked off, his shirt pulled off male-fashion, with one sharp tug over the back of his head. She still remembered the play of golden light on his lean, muscled shoulders and curved torso, waist, and hips, as he stepped out of his jeans. Aroused and urgently ready, his maleness had brought a small gasp from her.
“I won't hurt you, Honeybear,” he'd whispered as he lowered his strong body next to her. “I'd never hurt you.”
“Drink first?” Carey asked, moving toward the compact, chrome kitchen. “Coffee, tea? Wine? Scotch?”
And Mrs. Larsen's rented room abruptly changed to an ultra-luxurious trailer-studio, all burnished metal and pale wheat wool and Bauhaus functionalism. “God, no,” Molly replied, shaking her head, “no wine or scotch. We were at the Holiday Inn drinking until four this morning. By the way,” she added, noting that his rangy frame limned against the entrance to the lighted kitchen hadn't gained an ounce, “I saw you walk in with Christina around three A.M.”
“If you're hung-over,” he said, as if she hadn't mentioned Christina, “you have to try my famous ‘morning after' remedy.”
“What's that?” Molly asked, somehow pleased he hadn't wanted to talk about the woman. And suddenly, all sorts of rockets began detonating in small, heated explosions through her senses when she recalled with a startling vividness what Carey was like “the morning after.” His remedy in those days hadn't been a drink. The memories were so real she could almost feel his hands on her body.
“Tried and true formula,” he casually replied. “Orange juice, honey, tonic water, and a little champagne.” If he felt the charged memories in the air, he was deliberately ignoring them. “Absolutely foolproof,” he declared, already pulling bottles out of the refrigerator. “Sit down, make yourself at home.”
In short moments, the drink was prepared. It was ma
rvelous, she thought, taking a sip-crisp, cold, sweet. Slipping his arms into a shirt that had escaped his cleaning because it was a part of the litter on his desk, Carey dropped onto the couch opposite her, slouching low along the wide cushions. His shirt was unbuttoned, his long legs stretched out so they almost reached Molly's chair. As they talked, his arms were lightly crossed on his muscled chest and he looked at her in that same brooding way, so achingly familiar it seemed she'd seen him just yesterday. He'd always listened to her that way, intense, concentrating, as though he were watching, not only listening, but watching the words come out of her mouth.
The lamplight caught the modeling of her classic cheekbones, accentuated the shadowy dark blue of her eyes, underscored the fullness of her bottom lip, highlighted the pale yellow of her linen blouse. Her breasts strained against the light fabric, the outline of her nipples tempting jonquil buds.
Carey shifted his position slightly, his body warming too fast, her nearness too provocative. He concentrated on the conversation, wrenching his mind from the sensual feeling bombarding his brain.
They quickly, casually, covered the how, what, and where questions, the physical details of their lives in the intervening years, carefully avoiding the interior shots, the close-up exposures revealing emotions, hopes, and dreams. Molly was saying, “So when the reunion came up, I was-”
“Come here,” Carey said, so quietly that at first she thought she'd misunderstood. Her sentence remained unfinished, her expression inquisitive. “Come here,” he repeated.
“No,” she answered when she was sure what he'd said. “No.” Her refusal was almost a desperate whisper.
“Please?” he pleaded softly and held out his hand.
She gazed at him for a long time, at his eyes, those gorgeous black eyes staring straight into hers, at his hand, strong, sure, well-formed, only a yard away.
“Please,” he said again, and after a moment of taut silence, he exhaled a rush of breath. “God, Honeybear, do you know how long it's been since I held you last?” His voice was hushed, with a quivering thread of undisguised longing vibrating in the deep, rich tone.
“Nine years, nine months, twelve days, seven hours,” she whispered and rose to go to him, no more able to deny him now than in the past.
CHAPTER 18
T heir fingers touched like a bridge between poignant memory and hope, and he pulled her into his arms, folding her against his chest, her head cradled with the gentlest pressure close to his heart. She heard the quickening acceleration of his heartbeat through the muscle, sinew, and bone of the honed athletic body that had altered so little. He held her lightly, tense and rigid despite the tenderness of his embrace while a warmth and wonder inundated their souls. It was as if time had been turned back, all the pages of the calendar in some bizarre time warp had flipped backward, and they were transported to an enchanted long-ago summer. He felt the warm tears first, and then looked down at her, lifting her face gently with a crooked finger. “Don't cry, Honeybear,” he murmured. “We're together.” His lips touched her eyes, lightly kissing away the tears, his fingers reaching up to slide through her golden hair. “Oh, Honeybear,” he groaned, “I've missed you so.” And his hands slipped to her shoulders, tightened, almost hurt as he covered her mouth with his, tasting her lips and the sweet interior of her mouth with a desperation that would have startled any of his current friends and lovers. Carey Fersten was never a desperate man.
Molly's hands smoothed over his pale hair, moved down over the powerful muscles of his neck, glided laterally and clung to his solid shoulders while she cried tears of joy, her mouth welcoming his fevered urgency. And when the first powerful demand to feel and touch and know for certain had diminished, they nibbled between soft sighs and giggles, delicately exchanging low murmurs of pleasure.
Long moments later, Carey drew back enough to look into Molly's face, his dark brows slanted in raven-winged swoops over deep-set smoky eyes that always had the power to melt her at a glance. “Welcome home, Honeybear.” His smile was warm, tender, soul-shattering. “No more tears… never any more tears for us.”
Feeling enchanted, content, as if she'd arrived in a safe fjord after a calamitous stormy sea, Molly raised tear-splashed lashes. A blissful radiance filled her eyes as she murmured, “Sure as ever.”
“Not as ever,” Carey whispered, his glance smoldering. Molly's cheeks were brushed with a rosy glow, her lips reddened to bright cherry by his bruising kisses, her mouth slightly open as though the warming pleasure coursing through her needed release. “But older and much, much wiser,” he added, lowering his head to recapture the passion her melting lips offered, “and damn sure, this time.” His breath was warm on her lips, his mouth brushing a seductive caress back and forth as he eased her down on the couch, his hands insistent on her body, arranging her carefully beneath him.
His fingers moved to the buttons of her blouse. Between tantalizing kisses, between gentle nudges of his lean hips which enticed with the magnitude of his need, he deftly opened her lemon-colored blouse. Deliberately sliding the fabric aside, he exposed her full breasts, the slender curve of her rib cage, the unmistakable arousal of her peaked nipples.
He touched one begging peak with a delicate fingertip and watched its swelling response. Molly felt the cushioned couch under her melt into mythical, pink-tinged olympian clouds, felt the spiral of flame spin downward to the throbbing center of her trembling senses. And when his slender hand moved to her other breast, his warm palm rubbing its crested point, she moaned a low, purring sound.
“You haven't changed,” he breathed in a husky tone. He glanced down at her gently undulating hips, and his hand moved to the waistband of her slacks.
Suddenly, she saw herself as naive and vulnerable, a prey to his expert seduction. How could she, she anxiously thought, when every rational argument decreed Carey Fersten not only unreliable but inconstant? He was hardly the kind of man who offered a stable future, despite the honeyed words. He hadn't been years ago and certainly wasn't now, with his star status. She felt foolish, confused. “No.” On impulse, she pushed him away. “No, please don't.”
Raised on his elbows, he gazed down at her. Her eyes, full of entreaty, held his. “I want to,” her voice shook, “and I don't want to. Do you know what I mean?” she inquired with candid honesty.
His body tense, he exhaled slightly. “No,” he said. Balancing on one elbow, he covered her hands pressing against his chest. His eyes were pitch-black with desire. “You told me that once before. Remember?”
Molly nodded mutely, her breath shallow and labored.
“And do you remember what I did then?” His voice was hushed, shaken.
Her eyes were large, infused with sudden tenderness.
“I told you what holding you did to me. I told you how every touch of your small hands set me on fire. Touch me. Touch me again, now, like you did then,” he implored, pulling her hand downward, “and you'll see the power you still have over me…”
She hesitated, but in her mind's eye she saw the hard length of him, and a shiver raced up her spine. “Could I take this a little more slowly?” she asked on a long exhalation of breath, trying to deal with ten years of longing and instant gratification simultaneously.
“As slow as you want, Honeybear.”
“I'm sorry.” She felt guilty somehow for her green uncertainty. “I want you very much,” she added in a whisper.
“I know.” She didn't have to tell him when their heated bodies were talking in their own fervent dialogue. “You're my sweet and earnest virgin,” he whispered back, lying over her with his erection hard against her stomach, their naked chests only inches apart, her hands trembling in his.
“I thought I was more blasй.”
“I'm glad you're not. I know half a world of blasй people, but I don't know any sweet and earnest virgins.” His grin was intoxicating, like a drug that touched your senses, curled into your nostrils, drifted down the back of your throat so you could taste its o
ffered pleasure.
“I'm too old for trepidation,” she murmured, trembling.
“You're forever young to me. I'm feeling sensations-” He stopped to swallow, staggered by emotions he would have written off as mawkish sentiment two hours ago, seeing Molly as he had the first time…
His hand still covered hers, the heat of his palm so much warmer than her skin. “Do you remember what you used to call me?”
Tiger, tiger, burning bright… she silently recited, seeing Blake's potent icon, its animal spirit boldly evident in Carey's burning eyes. “Tiger,” she whispered, and the softly uttered name brought back every bittersweet memory of her youthful love. It brought back warm summer nights at the lake, lying in Carey's arms. It brought back the scent of wild roses and pine trees and crushed meadow grass. It brought back a rumpled bed in the moonlight, a strong young body holding her, filling her, teaching her about love and pleasure and fierce contentment.
“And do you remember,” he went on in a low voice, “what I said at the very last, after you'd whispered that to me?”
A hot rush of pleasure stabbed through her body, and though she didn't answer, her eyes told him she remembered.
His words were hushed, just as they'd been when his young body had hovered above hers on Mrs. Larsen's rented bed. “Try and stop me,” he said.
After that she was lost. Reaching up, she pushed his shirt from his shoulders. He helped, and with two impatient shrugs it was off completely and sliding to the floor. Molly's hands were trembling when they touched the zipper of his jeans. His hands covered hers, sliding them down over the strained denim. Pressing against his maleness, feeling the hard desire, the enormous size, she whimpered in shivering excitement. Carey's eyes closed for a brief moment, his breath in abeyance, then he swung up from the couch in one swift movement and stood. In a few seconds he was stripped to the naked beauty that always reminded Molly of sheer male strength. She caught only a glimpse of his marvelously made body, his maleness so rampant it hugged his belly before he was back beside her, unbuckling her belt, undoing buttons and zippers, slipping off her shoes, slacks, lace panties, all with a quiet haste that beat like drum rolls, that spread a fiery ache of anticipation through her.
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