by Metsy Hingle
Her words sent fear clawing down his spine. He couldn’t lose her, not now, when he had just realized how much she meant to him. “You once said you loved me. This…what I feel for you is as close as I can come to love. It’s all that I have to give,” he said, his voice cracking. “I want you, Aimee. And, heaven help me, I know I’m being unfair. But I need for you to want me.”
At her silence, Peter pinned her with his gaze. “Tell me I haven’t destroyed what you once felt for me. Say it, Aimee. I need to hear you say it. Tell me you still love me.”
Her emotions were already in turmoil, and the plea in Peter’s voice was her undoing. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
He crushed her to him. And this time when he kissed her, she could taste the hunger and the need. He loved her, Aimee realized. He didn’t know it, but Peter was in love with her. The realization sent a burst of joy surging through her, fueling her own desire.
And this time when Peter slid his hand up her bare leg and inside her panties, Aimee didn’t even think of protesting. She clung to his shoulders, her body hungering for and anticipating his touch. As he stroked the sensitive nub of her femininity, Aimee gasped. “Peter,” she cried out as the first wave of pleasure flowed over her.
“Promise me you won’t ever say no to me again, Aimee. Not about this. Never about this,” he murmured.
“I promise,” she whispered as he renewed the gentle stroking that sent her climbing toward the peak again. And just as the first shudder gripped her, Peter took her mouth and swallowed her cries of pleasure while she rode out the rest of the storm.
Eleven
Peter held Aimee in his arms for long moments as the last tremors of the climax ran through her. His own body throbbed with his need for her. He still desired Aimee desperately. Yet he had found great satisfaction in giving her this pleasure.
“Ma chére, if you will let go of me for a moment, I will get my key.” At the sound of Jacques’s voice, followed by a feminine murmur, Peter scooped Aimee up in his arms and started up the stairway.
“Peter, you can’t carry me up these stairs. They’re too steep.”
He silenced her with a kiss. Keeping one eye open, he managed to make it to the top of the stairs. He stopped in front of the door of her apartment. “Did you bother to lock this one?”
Smiling, she shook her head.
“For once, I’m glad you didn’t.”
“So am I.”
She began unbuttoning his shirt. The onyx studs hit the floor with a thud, and Peter kicked the door closed. Struggling against the fierce urge to lay her on the floor and bury himself in her sweet warmth, he whispered, “I want you. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone or anything. But if it’s still not enough…if you want me to go…I will.”
She touched his face. “Peter, I—”
“Wait. Let me finish. But if I stay, Aimee, it’s for keeps. I want more than an affair this time. I want you to marry me. I know there are a lot of things we need to work out, but I’m willing to try, if you are.” He searched her face for a reaction to his ultimatum. For once, her expressive face gave no hint of what she was thinking. Bracing himself, Peter asked, “What’s it going to be? Do I stay or do I leave?”
In answer, Aimee curled her arms around his neck and drew his head down to hers.
Foolish, stubborn, sweet Peter, she thought. Parting her lips, she offered him all that she had, all that she was, and took all that he gave in return. He was in love with her and he didn’t even know it.
Oh, he hadn’t given her the words, Aimee admitted, smiling, as he carried her into the bedroom. Perhaps he never would. But he had declared his love for her, just as surely as if he had shouted it from the rooftop.
His strong, sure fingers trembled as he unfastened the silver-and-pearl buttons of her dress. The garment fell in a puddle of white around her feet. “Ah, Aimee. You’re so beautiful,” he said, circling the tips of her breasts with his fingers.
The smile on her lips faded as he repeated the motion with his tongue. He planted a row of kisses down her midriff, along her waist, on her quivering stomach. He stripped away her panties, and his fingers sought out the dark curls between her legs. And when he eased opened her thighs, parted the feminine flesh and stroked her with his tongue, Aimee gasped. Curling her fingers into his shoulders, she hung on to him, afraid that her legs would fail her.
lightning flashed outside the bedroom window, and her heart thundered in echo. And when the first wave of pleasure shook her, Aimee wasn’t sure whether the crash that followed was from the fiery storm going on outside or from the one going on in her bedroom. Peter continued to taunt, to taste, to suckle, the tiny nub of her desire, until Aimee thought she would go mad. Each time he brought her to the brink, taking her higher and higher, to that precipice between pleasure and ecstasy. And when she thought she could stand it no longer, he carried her over the edge into the heat of the storm.
Aimee clung to him, her body shivering as another wave of pleasure took her. “Please, no more,” she pleaded, feeling as though she would shatter. Cupping his head, she drew him to his feet. “Make love to me, Peter. Let me make love to you.”
Rain pelted against the windows, loud slaps demanding entry. Peter ripped off his jacket and shirt in one movement. The rest of his clothes followed.
When he joined her on the bed, Aimee closed her fingers around his shaft. “Sweet heaven,” Peter muttered, sucking in his breath. He closed his eyes.
Aimee felt the shudder run through his body and delighted in the knowledge that she could affect him so strongly. As he eased his leg between her thighs, she guided him to her.
His face was so close, his mouth so near, Aimee wasn’t sure where his breath ended and hers began. She wasn’t sure if it was his heart she heard hammering, or her own.
When he thrust into her, Aimee caught her breath. He waited, giving her body a moment to adjust. Then, slowly, he began moving inside her, filling her, then withdrawing almost completely, only to enter her again, repeating the pattern of sensual torment and pleasure he had performed with his tongue.
“I can’t give you the hearts-and-flowers fairy tale you wanted, Aimee. But I swear, I’ll give you everything that’s in me, everything I can.”
“Then give me everything,” she told him, arching her body to meet him.
His eyes flashed, a heated silver that matched the lightning illuminating the night sky outside her window. The storm outside raged on, unleashing a fury that seem to echo Peter’s quickening thrusts. The storm outside exploded, and Peter lifted her hips and drove into her a final time. And as the thunder rumbled and crashed, Peter cried out her name, and Aimee followed him into the storm.
Peter opened his eyes to the sun filtering through the window and warming his cheek. He stretched. It had been the first decent night’s sleep that he had had in months. Not that he had slept very much, he thought, smiling. He and Aimee had made love long and often into the night. And each time, she had been more wonderful, more giving, than the time before. And between their rounds of lovemaking, he had slept. Peacefully. With no cursed nightmares.
Stretching out his arm, he patted the empty space where Aimee should be. There was a sense of rightness, of completeness, in awaking in Aimee’s bed. He had felt this same way last night, each time she whispered her love to him. Perhaps he was unable to give her the love she wanted. But he would keep his promise to her. He would give her all that he had to give.
His stomach grumbled. Flipping away the sheet from his naked body, Peter abandoned the bed and went in search of Aimee and food.
The sound of the shower running and an off-key show tune coming from the bathroom led him to her. For long seconds, he contemplated joining her, but when his stomach grumbled again, he headed for the kitchen instead.
After grabbing a cup of coffee, he started back toward the bedroom, but then he spotted the door to Aimee’s studio. It was open. Peter stood in the doorway and waited for the old familiar feelin
gs of failure to strike him. It was in this room, the room he had promised his father as a studio, that his sense of failure had always been most prevalent. Perhaps because it was this room that most represented his father’s dreams, and his own failure to see them to fruition.
The feelings never came.
Stepping inside the studio, Peter scanned the room and realized it held the same feeling of rightness that the rest of the apartment did. It was Aimee’s apartment now, just as this studio was now hers. And any feelings of failure he had once experienced here were gone, just as was his foolish desire to reclaim the building.
More relaxed, Peter prowled about the studio, suddenly curious to discover the work that she loved so passionately. He studied the paintings. She really was good, he thought, impressed by the sheer force of life that she had managed to imbue her work with. Sipping his coffee, he moved from one painting to the next. The art connoisseur and businessman in him grew excited by what he saw.
As he turned, he caught sight of a piece she had positioned in the center of the room. A drape covered the piece, but had slipped off of one end. From what he could see, it was a portrait, which surprised him. Although he knew she had done a couple of portraits in the past, most of the works in her studio were abstracts. Growing more curious, Peter set down his cup and moved over to the painting. He pulled the drape away.
His own face stared back at him. Peter swallowed. Stunned, he continued to stare at the portrait. It wasn’t the first portrait that had been done of him. He had been painted before—his father had done one of him as a child, and Leslie had given him one shortly after their wedding. But this one was different. The eyes of the man in this portrait had a warmth, a vulnerability, that he didn’t possess. His own eyes were cold, hard. Robotlike, Leslie had called them.
“Does that frown mean you don’t like it?” Aimee asked.
Peter looked up. She stood in the doorway, a thick pink towel wrapped around her body. Beads of water clung to the ends of her short dark hair. Several drops fell and slid lazily down her neck. Her face was free of makeup, and her ghostblue eyes were wide and uncertain. To him, no woman had ever looked more beautiful.
He loved her, Peter realized. All these months he had been telling himself it was the building, it was lust, it was sex. And all the while, he had been in love with her.
Aimee bit her bottom lip. Her face was a study of uncertainty. “For heaven’s sake, Peter, say something. I know portraits aren’t the norm for me. I mean, I’ve only done a few. And to tell you the truth, I like the freedom of expression in abstracts.” She pulled the towel more snugly about her. “But since my lessons with Jacques have been going so well, I thought I’d give it a try. I mean, I always thought you’d make a great subject. And I—” She let out a breath. “Well, if you don’t like it, just say so.”
“It’s wonderful, Aimee.”
Her eyes lit up, and she moved over to stand beside him. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes.” Peter slid his arm around her. “Do you really see me this way?”
“What way?”
“I have no delusions about myself, Aimee. I know what most people think of me, what they say. I’m not an easy man, and I’ve never been accused of being gentle. Yet here…” He motioned to the painting. “You make me look almost kind.”
Taking his face in her hands, Aimee whispered, “You are kind, Peter Gallagher. You’re probably one of the kindest men I know.”
“If there’s any kindness in me, it’s because of you. I love you, Aimee.”
Aimee’s heart stopped, then started again.
“It’s true. I only realized it myself a little while ago.”
Unable to speak, Aimee threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. How long had she waited, prayed, to hear him say those words? “I love you,” she whispered, but when she would have kissed him again, he pulled back.
“And I love you. But there’s something I have to tell you. A confession, really. It’s about this building…”
A short time later, when he had told her about once owning the building, and his quest to reclaim it, Aimee’s heart was beating wildly, making her afraid to ask the question that had been nagging at her since he began his story. But she had to know. “Getting the building—is it the reason you asked me to marry you?”
“At first, the building was the reason I told myself I became involved with you. I wanted it, but certainly never had any intention of asking you to marry me just to get it. I’d sworn that I’d never marry anyone again. But then I found myself asking you to marry me anyway.
“Once I proposed and you accepted, I told myself that if we married, I’d pay you fairly for the building and then convert it for Gallagher’s. But then you threw my ring and the prenuptial agreement back in my face. It wasn’t long afterward that I realized it wasn’t the building I wanted, but you. Only your being an artist kept getting in the way, confusing me.”
“Why?”
“It’s crazy, because I was, in a sense, willing to use you, but I was worried you’d end up using me, instead, to further your career. That’s why I refused to even consider your work.”
“That’s what I thought you were thinking,” she told him.
“But then Edmond showed up, and then I realized I’d really screwed up big-time. I didn’t admit it for a long time, but what I was really afraid of was that you would become a success and I would lose you.”
“The way you lost Leslie?”
“Losing Leslie hurt my pride and my bank balance, not me. What I felt for her wasn’t love. Not even close.”
“She broke your heart,” Aimee reminded him.
“She wounded my pride and forced me to break a promise I’d made to my father. You on the other hand,” he said, gathering her into his arms, “you can break my heart.” A shadow crossed his face, and he pulled her even closer, holding her so tight Aimee thought she would break. “Tell me you love me,” he demanded, as though he were afraid she would disappear.
Confused, Aimee didn’t understand the source of the demons that drove Peter. She only knew she wanted desperately to drive them away. “I love you, Peter,” she whispered. “I’ll always love you.”
“Show me,” he said, his voice a husky plea.
Seconds later, when he had stripped away her towel and guided her onto his hard shaft, Aimee lifted her face to the sun streaming through the windows. And as she gave him her love and her body, she told herself that somehow, some way, she would find a way to banish Peter’s demons and teach him to trust once again.
“I hate like hell the idea of leaving you for so long,” Peter told Aimee several hours later.
“Me, too.”
He bit into the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, the only food he had deemed edible in her apartment. It had been nearly thirty-six hours since he had forced himself to eat the chicken salad Doris had left in his refrigerator with a note instructing him to eat. Food had been the last thing on his mind once he and Aimee returned from the exhibit. After sleeping most of the morning away and spending the rest of it making love with Aimee, he had given little thought to his stomach.
Until now.
Peter smiled. Now, even peanut butter and jelly on wholewheat bread tasted delicious, although he had forgone the addition of the sliced bananas that Aimee had offered. Lord, but he was going to miss her. “Are you sure you can’t come with me? I could extend the trip another week or two, and we could take a real honeymoon. You’ll love Paris, Aimee. There’s so much to see, the museums—”
“Stop! You’re not playing fair,” she complained, holding up her hand in protest.
“I know,” he admitted. But it didn’t make his wish for her to accompany him any less.
“As much as I’d like to go with you, it really would be a mistake for me not to capitalize on last night’s success. Not to mention how unfair it would be to Kay. I’m supposed to be meeting with her tomorrow afternoon. She’s trying to get the state to fund more art program
s, and she’s hoping to use the success of last night’s exhibit as an example. I owe it to her to follow through on the publicity she’s lined up. I hope you understand.”
“I do.” Leaning across the table, he wiped a smudge of grape jelly from the corner of her mouth with his fingertip, then brushed her lips with his own. “But I still had to ask.”
“And I’m glad you did.” Aimee smiled. Her eyes sparkled like pale blue diamonds as she took another sip of milk. “How long will you be gone?”
“Almost a month,” Peter said, dreading the idea of being away from Aimee for that length of time. Now that he had finally realized he was in love with her, he wondered how he had ever managed to get through the past few weeks without her. One thing was sure, once they were husband and wife, there would be no more long separations and no more nights when the two of them did not share the same bed. “I could kick myself for telling Doris to schedule all those appointments. If it wasn’t so late, and I wasn’t sure I’d offend some of my best contacts by not showing up, I’d cancel the entire trip and reschedule it later, when you can come with me.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I probably won’t be having much free time, anyway. Kay told me last night that she had had a couple of requests from the local media for interviews, and she suggested the artists involved participate. Between that, Jacques’s second show next week, the shop, and the new painting I’m working on, I suspect I’m going to be pretty busy myself.”
“Not too busy to plan a wedding, I hope.”
“Oh, I think I can squeeze it in,” she said, grinning.
“You’d better squeeze it in,” Peter said in a mockthreatening voice. Standing, he moved to Aimee’s side and pulled her to her feet. “But in case you forget, I plan to call and remind you.”
Laughing, Aimee wound her arms around his neck. “I love you, Peter Gallagher.”
“And I love you, Aimee Lawrence. I don’t intend to wait a minute longer than I have to before I make you my wife.” The thought of Aimee as his wife sent a thrill of anticipation down his spine. She hadn’t mentioned the prenuptial agreement again, and neither had he. Even though he knew it was only fair to tell her she would still have to agree to sign it, he couldn’t bring himself to do it now. Not when he would be too far away to make her see reason and the need for the document.
