by Carol Caiton
She gasped and for a second, fear glittered in her eyes.
"Rachel—baby I'm sorry."
He started to reach for her, then stopped to give her time to adjust. He showed her his hands, then held one out and waited for her to come to him.
"You startled me, that's all," she said. She stepped forward, put her hand in his, and brought it up to her cheek. "Don't ever stop touching me, Michael. Don't ever stop."
Like that was gonna happen. If anything, he was gonna have to watch himself to make sure he gave her space. He already knew his first instinct was not to let her out of his sight.
Stepping closer, he wrapped his arms around her just to hold her for a minute. "Are you all done cleaning up?"
She nodded. "Yes."
He nudged her around and slid his palms up under her wet breasts, rolling her nipples between his thumbs and fingers. "Do your parents know you're pregnant?"
"No, I haven't told anyone yet."
"Okay." He bent his head, pushed her hair aside with his chin, and bit down on her neck. She moaned out loud and damn if he didn't spring to attention just because he'd turned her on.
He ran his tongue over her wet skin up to her ear. "I wanna be there when you tell them," he said.
"Why?" she asked, a little breathy.
"Because you shouldn't have to do it alone." He wanted her to know right from the start that he was gonna be there for her. "Unless you'd be more comfortable without me."
She turned in his arms and slid her hands up around his neck. "No, I'd like it if you were there. But it's not going to be a difficult ordeal if that's what you're thinking."
"No?"
"No. My parents . . . I think they're going to be overjoyed."
"Overjoyed, huh?"
"Yes."
He thought about the night her father had walked with him out to Mason's car. Her old man said he'd encouraged Dan Zeman to let her experiment at RUSH because she'd earned the right to make that call. But he hadn't liked it.
I had to leave the room.
Would he have to leave the room again when he found out Michael wanted to marry her? Fuck. He might come from the shittiest background imaginable, but he sure as hell could provide for her. In every way she needed.
Chest to breast, he backed her up against the shower wall.
Damn straight.
* * *
He sat beside her on the green striped sofa in the Oslund living room and felt her hand slip into his. He liked that she was aligning herself with him, even if it looked like there wasn't gonna be any need to join forces.
She'd called it right. Her parents were, in fact, overjoyed about her being pregnant and about him marrying her. Go figure that one.
All the same, he felt like he was on borrowed time, like once everything sank in, there wouldn't be any more smiles going around. 'Cause underneath the veneer of money, he was Michael Vassek, owner of a sex club . . . a man with a past so polluted it made even him sick. He was fucking their little girl and got her knocked up. So why wasn't anyone looking at the full picture here?
It's called love, Michael.
Her father kept glancing at their hands clasped together. Was he watching to see how long Rachel could stand his touch? If so, he'd have a long-ass wait. But the guy was smiling. It was a small, pleased kind of smile and it was genuine because the warmth in his eyes wasn't something he could be faking.
Would Michael love the baby growing inside Rachel the way her father loved her? He hoped like hell he wouldn't. The guy had devoted his life to healing kids so it must have sucked when he couldn't heal his own daughter. That kind of anguish . . . knowing some maggot had raped his baby . . . . No, Michael didn't want any part of it. Something like that would kill him. He wouldn't be able to live with the torment.
He looked over at Rachel's mother. The woman was fluttering all over the place, serving drinks, bringing in a snack tray, going on about organizing a wedding, even a small one, in two weeks time.
Michael gave Rachel's fingers a little squeeze and she turned to smile at him.
CHAPTER 23
Seven Over was working up to a packed crowd and Nathan wondered if that was the norm for the middle of the week. The parking lot always appeared full but until lately, he'd only frequented the club on weekends.
Tonight was Thursday, however, and he sat at a small table up on the second tier with his back against the wall. As always, the band played whatever music happened to be popular on the airwaves, and thick clouds of cigarette smoke floated up toward the colored lights. When he left tonight, his ears would be ringing and he'd smell like a chain smoker. But for now, seated in the shadows, he watched Jill out on the dance floor with yet another admiring partner.
She was good. Better than good. She was one of those people with an innate sense of rhythm that others found pleasure in just watching. Even standing at the bar, sipping a drink, her body would be in motion . . . as though the music moved through her and she had a natural inclination to move with it.
The problem was, he wasn't the only one watching. Between all that hair tumbling down to her waist, a sweetheart smile, and that good-time body, every unattached clown in the club wanted a piece of her.
On the positive side, she was a regular at Seven. She and Ali and sometimes Rachel came here on Friday or Saturdays nights. The bartenders knew her. She was a generous tipper and when you took care of the bartender, he watched out for you. It was something Nathan had drummed into all three girls. As a result, all three had had occasion to appreciate that advice when a bouncer was signaled to handle some bozo who got overly attentive.
The thing was, this wasn't a Friday or Saturday night. Neither was last night. Or the night before that. So the weeknight bartenders were getting to know Jill pretty well too. They would learn she started with a Bacardi and Coke, then stuck with straight soda for the rest of the night. And any drink she left on the bar would be promptly replaced with a fresh one when she returned from the dance floor—another rule he'd drilled into the girls. Date-rape drugs found their way into unattended glasses all too easily and young women disappeared every day. Bottom line though? If Jill didn't slow down, her bank account was going to show it and she'd make herself sick with exhaustion.
As for his own presence here, she didn't know he'd been keeping tabs on her. But with her and Rachel being a fixture in his life since they were eight-year-olds, watching out for the pair of them came as naturally as watching out for Ali. And Jill, right now, needed a lot of watching.
The problem was, complications that had never existed before were now part of the equation. Things weren't the same as they used to be. When he looked at Jill he had a fuller perception of the whole person, as though he'd only had a partial image before but never knew it. Not that she exasperated him any less, but the flighty, colorful butterfly had flown through his radar just long enough for him to catch a deeper glimpse and he was intrigued. He had a crystal clear memory of that good-time little body in the nude. He knew the weight of her breasts in his hands, the taste of that sweetheart smile on his lips, and the passion of her orgasm when she arched up in his arms from the force of it. Just watching the bozos hanging around her at the bar annoyed him in a way it never used to. But he was able to sit here, peeling the label off his beer bottle as though it didn't matter, because he knew Jill wanted to have fun on the dance floor, nothing more. This—the bozos—had been going on for years. It wasn't anything new. But beneath the surface it had become one more item on the list of things about her that pushed his buttons. And that list was long enough already.
Nevertheless, he had the flighty butterfly in his sights now, and it wasn't brotherly concern that kept her there. He wanted to know what she'd been hiding under those wings all these years. He wanted some time to dig deeper into this new perception he'd discovered. And he wanted her back in his bed, however screwed up that might be.
Peeling off another strip from the bottle label, he rolled it up between his thumb and forefin
ger and dropped it onto the table. He'd known things would change the night he made love to her. Granted, he hadn't anticipated this new fascination with her character. But he was a cop. Puzzles nagged at him until they were solved and Jill had become a puzzle with no guiding picture on the box. She no longer belonged in the same slot with Ali and Rachel. But she didn't fall into the category of women with whom he enjoyed casual sex. He didn't know where she belonged now. The protectiveness he'd always felt toward her had a new edge. And the attraction? It not only surprised him, but the depth of it was unsettling.
Regardless, two burning questions were branded on his mind. Rachel and Jill were a reflection of one another in more ways than just appearance. Neither one ever did anything without the other somehow mirroring the experience, from cuts and bruises all the way to post-traumatic stress disorder. If one had a cold, the other had an ear infection. Hell, he'd even overheard Jill tell Ali that she and Rachel had started menstruating the same day.
And now, impossible as it seemed, Rachel was pregnant. And that put a whole new spin on the messed up relationship he currently had with Jill. Because those two burning questions? First, he wanted to know —wanted to know so bad it gnawed at him—if Jill was pregnant too. And second. if she was, who was the father?
* * *
When she wasn't at his side, Michael kept Rachel in his peripheral vision. He didn't know why her family put him on edge. It wasn't like they could take her away from him now. She was his wife.
His wife.
That thought should be sending chills of what-the-fuck-have-I-done-now down his spine. Instead, he wished he could bundle her into the Lotus and take her away. An hour ago. How long did a wedding reception have to last anyway?
"She's beautiful, Michael," Simon said beside him.
Michael turned his full attention across the Oslund's living room, decorated for the day with fresh flowers on every surface. He swept his eyes down the length of Rachel's dress, then back up to the fall of her hair. Her spiraling waves were sprinkled with tiny white baby's breath. He knew what it was called because she'd smiled and told him when he asked. She'd planned to wear a pink dinner dress for the occasion, but he'd told her no. He wanted her in virginal white because as far as he was concerned, she'd been a virgin the first time he took her to bed. And he wanted her in a wedding dress, not a dinner dress. They might be getting married in her parents' living room in front of a notary public, but it was the only wedding she'd ever have.
So she'd relented, and he liked the dress she'd picked out. It wasn't all stiff and full, it was soft white wool with little pearls scattered over the top and a bunch of pearl buttons along each sleeve. It scooped snugly over her breasts, tapered in at her waist, then flowed gently to the floor. Elegant. Beautiful. Just like Simon had said.
"Yeah, she is, isn't she?" he answered. He wondered if he'd ever get tired of looking at her.
Simon picked up a spicy cheese canapé thing when one of the waiters catering the small reception paused in front of them. "Her twin sister was engaged to Mason's brother, wasn't she?" he asked.
"Yeah," Michael said. "Her name is Jill." He glanced over at his new sister-in-law. "She had a tough time of it when Luke died. Rachel says she's still having a tough time."
Simon bit into his hors d'oeuvre, then washed it down with the drink in his other hand. "There's something fascinating about identical twins," he said. "Mason once told me his brother was engaged to the most naturally beautiful woman he'd ever seen."
Michael shifted his gaze down the length of the living room to where Mason stood talking with Malcolm. Rachel's father joined them, cheerful, making easy conversation. It was plain to see he was pretty damn happy. And Mason seemed relaxed and at ease. But seeing Jill and her family had to bring thoughts of Luke to mind and Michael wondered if it was difficult to be around them.
"So," he said to Simon, "did Mason have a thing for Rachel that I didn't know about?" What a small frigging world. He would have ended up semi-related to Mason if Luke hadn't died.
"No, nothing like that," Simon answered. "It was a matter-of-fact comment. He wasn't interested in making a play for his brother's future sister-in-law—his words. But he seems pretty focused on the maid of honor. She was at the funeral as well," he added, leaving out any mention of the kiss that ended up on the news. "Mason's son was determined to roll that pumpkin across the floor and give it to her."
"Yeah." Michael smiled and followed Simon's gaze. "That would be Ali." The cop's sister. The third twin . . . who had grown an appendage in the form of Joshua Ingersol. The boy's legs were wrapped around her waist and had been for the last ten minutes. He was real happy to be where he was, too, playing with the long streak of blonde that added a flare of drama to her dark brown hair. "Looks like father and son have the same taste in women."
Simon chuckled. "I think you're right." He paused, then said, "I wonder if Mason will be next. You sure surprised the hell out of us."
Michael let his eyes drift back over to Rachel. He hadn't told any of his partners about the baby, not even Simon who was his best man and as close a friend as he had. They'd find out soon enough, but he didn't want them thinking he'd married her because she was pregnant. Men had a thing about that. They figured any woman who got pregnant wanted to get pregnant 'cause it was sure easy enough to prevent.
But he'd done that little deed without any planning on Rachel's part. He wasn't used to wearing protection. He didn't even keep it on hand since RUSH took care of birth control and scanned for STDs. And Rachel? She wouldn't have been thinking about birth control or pregnancy at all. There'd been no premeditated trap. Nope. The reason he'd married her was because he couldn't stay away from her . . . and because he felt more complete when he was with her . . . and because he knew she needed him to be complete too . . . and because the sex was phenomenal . . . and because he was pretty goddamn sure he was in love with her. And if that cop didn't stay the fuck away from her, Michael was gonna invite the asshole outside and take him apart.
"Yeah, well it took me by surprise too," he told Simon, one eye on the asshole. "The right woman came along and I didn't want to lose her."
Simon didn't answer right away and Michael suddenly realized his blunder. It pulled his attention away from the cop. "Ah, hell, Simon, I'm sorry."
"No need to be sorry. It was my ego that took a hit, nothing else."
"You weren't in love with her?"
"No. It never got that far." He swirled the ice cubes in his glass. "I made some mistakes with Nina. Big ones. We spent more time at odds with one another than we did getting to know each other, so I'm more sorry for the loss of a good friend than anything else." He changed the subject. "Are you and Rachel going away for a honeymoon?"
Michael went along with the change. "Not right now. She's still in school. But later. After she graduates."
* * *
Nathan had been biding his time. Eventually Ali, Rachel, and Jill would converge to form their usual threesome and then he could make his move. It was just taking longer than usual because Rachel was busy meeting and mingling with Vassek's friends—the head honchos of RUSH, for Christ's sake. All but one of them was here . . . Ethan Something-or-other, who was working on a job out of state. The media would have a field day if they knew these guys were gathered here. Of the seven of them, only Mason had voluntarily gone before the cameras to give an interview. And he'd done so only because he'd been caught in digital detail making out with Ali at his brother's funeral. With his five-year-old son and the rest of the country looking on, damn it.
Until today Nathan hadn't known about the fallout Mason was facing as a result of that kiss. He knew only that Ali was being raked over the coals—at her job, at her church . . . . No one seemed to recall that Mason stepped in front of those cameras while the public poked its nose into his private life. He'd told the world he was attracted to a woman who wouldn't give him the time of day until he told her he was in the process of leaving RUSH. But they'd seen that
kiss. And today Nathan learned that Mason's in-laws were trying to get custody of his son and that DCF had him under investigation.
Nathan was pissed off at the guy and pissed off for him at the same time. He liked him after being fully prepared not to. In fact, he didn't want to like any of them. But he'd done some mingling of his own and couldn't find a damn thing not to like about any of them. Even his mother had been introduced—to seven men who owned a sex club in the middle of Vacationland, USA—and she'd described them as charming. Right. Just regular pinnacles of the community. If the neighbors knew who was inside this house right now, they'd be circling like buzzards on human legs.
He skimmed the room until his eyes landed on Rachel again. She sparkled. In that quiet way of hers, she was so damn happy. He, on the other hand, felt like his life had fallen into limbo. He had no direction now. At the same time, though, he felt like a parent whose dying child had been given a new chance to live.
He looked away. And sure enough, there went Jill. The pale green dress she wore brushed against her legs, blonde curls swaying at the small of her back. And right on cue, just as though they'd coordinated it ahead of time, Rachel finished her conversation with RUSH's CEO, and turned to join her, both of them meeting midway and heading across the room toward Ali, just like always, as though one sent a radio signal to the other and got a transmission back. Aaaaaaand . . . yes. There went Ali. Her back had been facing them, but you'd think she had some sort of radar because she turned, a smile softening that strained look she wore lately, and started toward the twins. All three gravitated toward one another. And every one of RUSH's elite was watching.
