by Harper Allen
The large overhead light flicked off, leaving the golden glow of the dozen or so candles the sole illumination. Suddenly her easy mood deserted her, and it was with an effort that she smiled at him as he pulled her to her feet.
“Looks like fairyland, cher’,” he said softly. “And see up above? The heat from those pretty little things is making your mobile turn.”
He could make her laugh. He could make her knees go weak with desire. But at his inconsequential observation Marilyn felt her heart turn over. He couldn’t have said anything that would have taken away her nervousness so completely, she thought, sinking into the down-filled cushions of the sofa and watching as he loosened his tie enough to undo the collar button on his shirt. And he was right—the tiny pools of light threw the open expanse of the loft’s main floor into velvety shadows, creating an oasis of golden warmth that seemed mysterious and magical.
Truth, beauty and love…. She’d known when she’d impulsively added those words to the mobile now slowly swirling overhead that they completed her creation. But without those three sentiments, life itself was arid and empty.
He completed her. She’d waited far too long to tell him he—
“Open.”
Startled out of her thoughts, automatically Marilyn opened her mouth just as Con held a dipped strawberry to it, but she was a moment too late to catch the drop of melted chocolate that trickled warmly onto her bottom lip. She bit down, and immediately her taste buds were flooded.
The chocolate was bittersweet, its creamy richness a decadent contrast to the juice that exploded from the plump strawberry. She closed her eyes in ecstasy, and when she opened them she saw Con was watching her.
“Was it good for you, cher’?” His tone held a touch of hoarseness. Even in the flickering glow of the circle of candles the hard flush mounting his cheekbones was unmistakably evident. “’Cause it was good for me. You think you might be able to make that little groaning sound again?”
He sat down on the couch beside her, deftly swinging her legs up onto his lap and laying her back against the softly pillowed armrest as he did. He reached forward, selecting another gleamingly red-hulled strawberry and plunging it into the bowl of dark melted chocolate before sitting back again.
“Isn’t it your turn?” she asked unsteadily, still shaken by the rush of heat his not-quite-teasing words had sent through her.
“Yeah, it’s my turn. This is how I take my turn, honey.”
Even as he spoke he was touching the chocolate tip of the strawberry to her lips, and instinctively her tongue darted out to lick it. Her teeth closed on the luscious berry, and sweet juice spilled through her mouth. Through her half-closed lashes she saw Con’s gaze darken as her sigh of pleasure came out in a throaty purr.
“You missed some,” he rasped.
Leaning toward her, he nudged the other half of the strawberry past her parted lips at the same time as his tongue licked the smear of melted chocolate from her mouth. Liquid heat instantly suffused her, and from the sudden rigid hardness in his muscles she knew the same heat was running through Con.
“You’re a messy eater, cher’,” he whispered against her lips. Slowly he licked her again, his gaze never leaving hers. “Am I gonna have to do this every time?”
Marilyn didn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded, and even that small motion set the room spinning dizzily around her. Nothing she’d ever experienced had prepared her for this, she thought faintly. Who would have guessed that the simple act of eating could be so erotic?
But Con Ducharme could probably turn washing a car into a sensuous pastime. Those green-gold eyes, those thick dark lashes, the leanly muscled build under his suit—he was sinful delight personified. Add to all that his drawl and those skilful gambler’s hands that seemed to know just what to do with a woman, and it seemed almost illegal that he should be let loose to wreak havoc on a staid and inexperienced Beacon Hill female like herself.
She’d been nicknamed the Ice Queen, Marilyn thought, letting her lashes drift over her eyes as Con pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, but if anyone who’d ever called her that could see her now they’d realize she wasn’t anything—
A drop of chocolate touched her lip. She opened her mouth for the next strawberry, but as soon as her tongue flicked out her eyes flew open in shock.
“I skipped a step, heart.” Con’s drawl was lazier than she’d heard it before. “So sue me.”
He’d been inching her toward the far edge of desire from the moment he’d first kissed her tonight, she thought dazedly. Once or twice she’d come dangerously close to slipping, but this time he was coaxing her to step right over the line.
Her gaze holding his, slowly Marilyn took Con’s chocolate-dipped middle finger into her mouth. Even more slowly, she let her tongue run along the length of it, licking it with languid deliberation. She saw his teeth catch hard on his lower lip, saw his eyes glaze over with heat, heard him exhale tightly.
Lightly she grasped his wrist with both her hands and pulled him closer. She gave a tentative little suck and felt a shudder run violently through him.
“Don’t do that, cher’.” His words came out in a strangled gasp. “Not if you want me to be any good to you when we get right down to it.”
She hadn’t understood, Marilyn thought wonderingly. She’d seen it as Con teasing her into losing all control, but what she hadn’t realized was that she had that same power over him. She could make bad-boy Con Ducharme melt. She could drive him crazy with desire. She—very pregnant ex-ice queen Marilyn Langworthy—could make this big and sexy riverboat gambler plead with her to slow down and beg her to keep going.
And she wanted to do all that, starting right now.
She licked the tip of his finger one last time, and let him withdraw it. Without taking her eyes from him, she reached over to the bowl of strawberries on the hassock beside her. Grasping one and still not breaking their locked gazes, she swirled it in the warm chocolate, coating it extravagantly.
“This is how I take my turn, Con,” she murmured, bringing the berry to just above the swell of her breasts revealed by the vee of the chiffon blouse’s neckline.
Dark and gleaming, the melted chocolate dripped from the rosy tip of the berry to spill across the creamy paleness of her skin. Slowly it pooled into the hollow between her breasts.
“Tell you a secret, sugar.” Con’s breathing was shallow and fast. He watched as the last drop of chocolate fell to her breasts, watched as she brought the strawberry to her lips and took a bite. “I’ve been known to finesse a card game into coming out in my favor once or twice. But what you’re doing here is stacking the deck, and that’s not fair. I don’t stand a chance, cher’.”
As if she’d pushed him past all endurance, his hands went swiftly to the beribboned neckline of her blouse. Almost impatiently he spread it wide, exposing the lacy trim of her front-fastened bra. The next moment his head had bent to her breasts, and his tongue was lapping at the sweetness pooled between them even as he one-handedly unlatched the small clasp holding her bra together.
It sprang open. His palms moved immediately to the twin globes now revealed, his thumbs circling tantalizingly around the raised peaks of her nipples. Looking down through her lashes at herself and at him, Marilyn felt an instant’s panic.
She was pregnant. What was she thinking, behaving this way? And could he really find her so attractive without a flat stomach, a tautly slim figure?
A strand of midnight-black hair brushed against her skin. One of his hands slid from her breast to the rounded curve of her belly. His palm caressed her there with the same attention he was giving the rest of her.
He was a man who was comfortable with his maleness. He liked embroidered vests, so he wore them without worrying whether they were old-fashioned or not. He didn’t apologize for the fact that the shoulder-holstered gun he wore when they were out and about was obviously a weapon he’d used in the past, and neither did he feel the need to explain why he’
d chosen a tough profession like law enforcement. Where another man might feel it necessary to remain gruffly inarticulate as a sign of masculinity, Con used words like “fairyland” and described her as a peony with no reticence at all.
He liked being a man, Marilyn realized slowly. And he loved it that she was a woman. He’d made it obvious that everything about her that made her different from him aroused him, including the fact that her rump snugly filled his spread palms when he held it, that her breasts needed a fuller cup size than she’d ever worn before, and that she was capable of nurturing a growing little life inside her.
She felt his mouth gently take in one of her nipples, felt his tongue teasing it to a tight pink bud. Everything else slipped away and a blissfully languid heat began lapping over her.
“I want to see you get bigger, month by month, cher’.”
Con’s whisper was barely audible against her skin. He kissed her nipple, kissed the soft underside of her breast, pushed the flimsy chiffon up and began leading a trail of kisses toward the fullest curve of her belly. Lightly he pressed one above her navel, and then began trailing down to the drawstring waist of her pants. Without conscious volition, Marilyn moved her hips restlessly toward his mouth. In the flickering light from the candles she saw him lift his head and flash her a quick grin.
“That’s right, sugar.” There was a husky undercurrent in his tone. “That’s how you tease me till I can’t wait anymore. I told you you cheated.”
“And you said you’d been known to palm a card once or twice yourself,” she managed unevenly. “I think you’re doing it now, Con. Here I am with practically everything on display for you and you haven’t even shown me one teensy square inch of your hide. For heaven’s sake, you’re still wearing your tie. That’s cheating.”
“We’ll make a deal.” He pulled at the drawstring of the silky violet pants. “You let me slip you out of these—” The cord released and he shot her an innocent look. “And then I’ll slip out of everything I’m wearing. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” she agreed shakily. “But I’ll be watching you closely while you strip down, just to make sure you’re keeping to the rules.”
“Yeah, honey, I kind of thought you might,” he drawled, already tugging the stretchy jersey over her hips and down her thighs. “I’m gonna have to—aw, hell, heart. You’re a thong girl, and a low-rider thong girl at that. You win, I lose, no contest.”
Somehow during the last few minutes she’d sunk into the squashy feather-filled couch pillows. Now Marilyn raised herself up on her propped elbows, carelessly blew a tumbled strand of blond hair out of her eyes, and gave Con a more guileless look than the innocent one he’d favored her with moments ago.
“They’re comfortable,” she protested, glancing at the bra’s matching scrap of lace snugged under the curve of her belly. “And you didn’t lose because I’m a thong girl, you lost because you’re a rump man…and a weak-willed rump man at that.” She waited a beat, and then added wickedly, “Sugar.”
The candlelight emphasizing the hard planes of his face and picking out the reluctantly amused gleam in his gaze, Con slid the violet pants past her knees, her ankles, her arched feet. He stood and shrugged out of his vest before slipping the loose knot of his tie free and letting it drop to the rug.
“You know how to play poker, Mar’lyn?”
She watched as he unbuttoned his shirt. Against the white linen his skin was a dark gold, and a faint arrow of fine black hair shadowed his washboard-flat abdominals. She shook her head, her mouth suddenly too dry to speak.
“Good.” He let the shirt drop to the floor beside the vest, his hands going to the buckle of his belt. “Remind me never to teach you, heart.”
Marilyn barely heard his words. She’d seen his body before, she acknowledged, but the night he’d come to her in her office she’d been so trapped in guilt and grief only the physical act itself had gotten through, and that only as a way to alleviate the terrible pain wracking her.
He was big and rangy and even more heavily muscled than she’d realized, seeing him in the well-cut but necessarily concealing suits he favored. High up on one shoulder was what looked like an old scar, and as her gaze lingered on it Con gave an unconcerned shrug.
“Courtesy of a poor loser.” He unzipped his fly before sitting again on the couch to remove his shoes.
She wanted him, Marilyn admitted shakily—wanted him in her, wanted him to take her, wanted to give him everything he wanted from her. But she was over three months pregnant, and although the books she’d bought by the dozens all were comfortably reassuring on the subject, she still couldn’t repress the tiny flicker of doubt she had about making love in her state.
The missionary position was out of the question, she thought worriedly. What did that leave? She wished suddenly that her past experiences had been more varied and venturesome, but the few relationships she’d had that had progressed to the physical stage had been almost drearily conservative.
“It’s going to be all right, honey.”
As if he’d been reading her mind, Con’s soft comment broke into her thoughts. She blinked, and saw he was watching her intently. Without taking his gaze from hers, he got to his feet, and pushed the dark briefs he was wearing down his thighs before stepping out of both them and his pants. Showing no self-consciousness at all, he reached for her hand.
“No teacup ride for your little passenger, cher’,” he said hoarsely. “We’ll take it nice and slow and we’ll do the whole thing lying on our sides so we can watch each other, okay?”
Just like that, her doubts fled. Marilyn let him pull her to her feet, and as he snugged her up against him and thumbed the flimsy waistband of her thong down her thighs she let her fingers trail daringly down the vee of hair to the shadowed tangle between his legs.
Her hand closed around him. She caught her breath and heard him do the same.
He was warmly and solidly big in her nervous grasp. As they sank to the deep-piled fluffiness of the rug her gaze sought his.
“You don’t have to teach me how to play poker, but you’re going to have to guide me through this, Con.”
To cover her discomfiture she began fumbling with her blouse. He pushed her hands aside and pinned both her wrists in an easy, one-handed hold.
“Rule number one, then. The blouse stays, cher’. It’s practically falling off you, and I’m finding it sexy as hell to keep catching glimpses through that see-through stuff.”
Why did it seem somehow more wanton to be lying here half-clothed with him, rather than totally nude? she asked herself as soft tufts of the rug lapped sensuously against her legs and her derriere. Not only did it feel wanton, she knew she looked wanton, too. The expression on Con’s face was proof of that.
“Messed hair, juice-stained mouth, satin-doll skin.” His throaty murmur was accompanied by a slow licking of her lower lip. His tongue went farther into her mouth, and then out again. “Back home we got voodoo women who couldn’t mix up a love-potion stronger than what you’re puttin’ on me, shug. Gimme some of that.”
Even as he growled the teasing plea his mouth covered hers, and as his kiss went deep Marilyn felt a lean leg move underneath her. Instinctively she hitched her top leg closer to her body and over his, and it was only when she felt him entering her that she realized the opportunity she’d given him.
Being Con he’d taken that opportunity, she thought, her eyes widening as the gentle pressure between her legs increased. And being her, she wasn’t sure if she was absolutely ready.
“Li’l tight, sugar, but we gon’ love it in a second,” he slurred against her mouth, still kissing her as he muttered the words. “You got the promise of a Creole gentleman on…okay, now, baby, that’s where we wanted to be, f’true. Tell me you like that, honey. Tell me how I make you feel.”
He was completely inside her. She could feel every hard inch of him. Heat blossomed through her, and she felt the same heat dewing the swollen curve of her top lip.
Con licked it away. The action was startlingly, shudderingly erotic. Marilyn opened her eyes fully and saw a corner of that bad-boy mouth quirk briefly up.
“Hell, cher’, I’m from New Awlins, and down there we like our sex like we like our rice—just a little bit dirty, heart,” he muttered, his hands moving down her body to spread wide against her derriere. “I tell you lately you got a beautiful—”
“Ask me again, Con,” she breathed. “Ask me again if I like it. Ask me to tell you how you make me feel.”
“I know you like it.” He’d withdrawn slightly. Now he moved into her again, and a long sigh escaped her. Con tightened his hold, his capable gambler’s fingers pressing into the softness of her rump. “I think you love it. How do I make you feel, Mar’lyn?”
“Like…like I’m being ravished.” She sighed again, and mingled with the breathy exhalation was a low groan of pure pleasure. “Like I’m a princess and you’re the intruder who’s slipped past the castle walls. How do I make you feel?”
Every time he moved into her he pulled her to him. When he withdrew, his fingers spread open on her flesh. He was controlling his motions, Marilyn thought dazedly, unerringly rocking her higher and higher, pushing her closer to the point where she would have to cry out for release.
“I feel like I’m going out of my mind, sugar.” His voice was strained. Through her lashes she saw the gleam of candlelight gilding his cheekbones, touching his parted lips. “And I love it, honey. Tell me I can bring it on home to you now, okay?”
He clasped her to him and she received him, he withdrew and her head arched back on her neck. “Yes, Con,” she breathed. “You can—you can bring—”
The heat that had been mounting in her exploded shockingly into flame as Con thrust into her one final, overwhelming time. Marilyn heard her own voice, cracked and ragged, calling out his name, heard his voice rasping out incoherent endearments, felt the shuddering rush inside her as he pulled her to him and this time kept her desperately, inseparably close. She felt as if she was being buried in black roses, felt as if she was flying through black stars—
