by Joan Kilby
She must have interpreted his silence as an expression of disbelief. Drawing back, she pushed her hands through his thick hair and held his head to look directly into his eyes. “I was proud of you when you were nominated for this award. I thought it was only what you deserved. I still think that. But there’ve been other times I’ve been even prouder.”
He raised his eyebrows at that. Thus far, the Stonington Award nomination had been the biggest thing in his career. “Like when?”
“Like when you waived the fees for designing the new maternity ward on the Hainesville Hospital. Despite the Ladies’ Auxiliary and Greta Vogler’s fund-raising efforts and a grant from the town council, construction would have been delayed another year without your generosity.”
“No one’s supposed to hear about that,” he reminded her. “Or every organization in the county will be after me to waive fees.”
“I haven’t said anything,” she reassured him with a pat on the chest. “I never even told Geena and Erin.” At his look of surprise, she added, “You asked me not to. Although I’ve always wondered why the maternity wing?”
He shrugged. “Your sisters were starting to have children. It was a gesture.”
“That no one is allowed to appreciate you for.” Shaking her head, she laughed softly. “Typical Max. I was also proud of you the time I took off on short notice to the Seychelles with Geena. You weren’t happy about it, but you looked after the kids without a murmur so I could have a holiday.”
He hadn’t been happy about that and he still resented Geena a little for giving his wife a vacation he couldn’t afford. There was nothing good he could say here, so he kept quiet.
Kelly didn’t seem to notice. “And then there was the time you gave up courtside tickets to the Super Sonics championship game because Beth had pneumonia and it was all I could do to take care of two-week-old twins who ate and slept at different times.”
“My six-year-old was desperately sick and you were up around the clock with newborns. What kind of guy would I have been if I’d left you alone and gone to a basketball game?”
“Not the man I married. And that’s my point exactly. You put your family first even when it means personal sacrifice. Then there was the time—”
“You’d better stop before I get a swelled head.” He rose and pulled her to her feet, linking an arm around her waist. The truth was, his heart had swelled, instead, with love and gratitude. Caught up in the daily routine, a man sometimes wondered if his efforts were appreciated. To know they were was nice.
“Okay,” she said, hugging him. “But if I was handing out awards I’d give you the grand prize.”
Max touched her lips lightly with his, resisting the urge to deepen the kiss. Here, among the cleaning staff and handful of lingering diners, was no place to prolong this warmth and intimacy. “Let’s leave,” he said huskily, “and go where we can be alone.”
Kelly gathered up her purse and, with a grimace, pushed her feet back into her shoes. “I just hope we don’t have to walk too far.”
He took her arm, supporting her painful walk. “How does a corner suite with a Jacuzzi and a harbor view sound?”
“Like heaven.” She stared at him. “Don’t tell me you have one of those tucked away somewhere?”
His smile was half smug, half sheepish. “I was pretty certain I was going to win and was prepared to celebrate.”
She paused in the lobby next to the elevators. “Were you also certain I would stay overnight with you?”
He sobered. “I was not.” Cupping her cheek in his palm, he bent to kiss her, savoring the sweet warmth of her lips. “Will you, Kelly? I’ve been so lonely for you.”
Kelly looked into blue eyes darkened with desire and her heart’s rhythm quickened. She’d told herself she wouldn’t give in, but tonight saying yes didn’t feel like giving in; it felt like giving to him. And receiving. The sentiments expressed in his acceptance speech had been a gift, unexpected and, considering her behavior these past weeks, somewhat undeserved. But then, Max always had been generous with love.
“I will.”
With a whoop, Max swept her up in his arms and whirled around to punch the elevator button. One high-heel shoe flew off.
“Max! Put me down.” She shrieked with laughter. “You can’t carry me all the way to our hotel room.”
“That’s for sure.” The elevator doors opened and he deposited her inside. He grabbed her shoe and stepped in himself just before the doors slid closed.
They were alone. And Max had a look in his eyes she hadn’t seen since they were newlyweds. Too late, Kelly started having second thoughts about the wisdom of this impulsive overnighter. “What about the kids?”
“I told them we’d probably stay in town and arranged for Nancy to come over. Don’t even think about the kids tonight.”
“What’ll I do for a change of clothes?” she protested. “I didn’t bring so much as a toothbrush.”
“Beautiful women in designer dresses don’t worry about where their next toothbrush is coming from.”
He backed her against the wall, his tall, athletic frame looming over her with an air of authority that was dangerously attractive. This whole scenario was so far outside their usual routine, it was exciting and unfamiliar and…seductive.
“Who are you?” she murmured.
He dropped kisses down her throat as his hands settled on the curve of her hips. “I’m the man who’s going to make love to you.”
A delicious shiver ran down her spine and she tilted her face, asking to be kissed. He took her mouth with a ruthlessness unlike the Max she knew. When her stomach dropped she wasn’t sure whether it was from the swift rise of the elevator or the suggestive foreplay of his tongue. His large hands moved restlessly over the delicate silk of her gown. She could easily pretend they were two strangers, powerfully attracted and fated to be together, ready to abandon all responsibility to make passionate love in a luxury hotel suite.
Or an elevator. Kelly was a heartbeat away from pushing the stop button, when the elevator made a little ding and came to a halt of its own accord.
Max led her a short way down the corridor and paused to open the hotel suite with a card key. Then he scooped her up and carried her over the threshold.
The room was unlit but for a small table lamp next to a floral arrangement that gave off enough scent to make her giddy. The undraped windows displayed an expanse of glittering lights, bisected by a dark finger of Puget Sound. A fairy-tale setting for what was turning out to be a fairy-tale evening.
“Oh, Max,” she said as he set her back on her feet. “This is fantastic.” Extravagant, too, so soon after their weekend in Snoqualmie, but she didn’t care and she certainly wasn’t going to break the spell by mentioning one word about the expense.
“Champagne?” He indicated an ice bucket and two flutes next to the flowers.
“I’ve had enough to drink.” She’d nursed half a glass through dinner, not wanting to risk harm to the baby. Sliding a hand inside his jacket, she murmured, “I want you.”
“Babe, I’m yours.” He shed his tux jacket and loosened his tie with a look in his eyes that dried her throat.
She reached behind her neck to undo the row of tiny buttons, but he shook his head.
“Turn around,” he ordered. And she did.
Kelly trembled as the buttons fell away beneath his fingers, and instead of silk, Max’s warm breath caressed her back. The dress fell to her waist and he turned her back to him, her arms pinned by the sleeves. His gaze dropped to her breasts, curving above rose-colored lace, and she heard his indrawn breath. Max was handsome and breathtakingly sexual. She was as nervous and excited as if this were her first time. Unlike her first time, she knew how good making love with the man she adored could be, and thrilled to the prospect.
His hands, familiar yet new, traced over her breasts until her nipples ached with the need to be squeezed. She wanted to touch him, too, but the dress had her hands trapped, leavin
g Max free to taste and touch and tease. She could do nothing but shiver and throb and wait for him to release her.
Max tugged her bra down, exposing one nipple, hard and erect. Kelly’s eyes shut as he drew it into his mouth and sucked, released and sucked again, setting up a throbbing between her legs that threatened to buckle her knees.
“Max.” She strained against the dress, just aware enough not to struggle too hard and damage the fabric.
He took pity on her, stepping back to let the dress slide down her slender hips, past matching rose-colored lace panties cut high in the leg and dipping low in front. Panties so sexy Kelly had become half aroused just putting them on. Anyone would think she’d been hoping the night would unfold in this way.
Smiling a secret smile, she captured the dress before it pooled on the floor and carefully laid it over the back of a chair. In the dresser mirror she caught a glimpse of her and Max and was mesmerized by the erotic image they made—she in her scanty lingerie, he still in dress shirt and dark pants. As she watched, he reached around from behind to cup her breasts and pressed his steel-hard erection against the softness of her buttocks.
Her knees weakened and she leaned forward, supporting her weight on the dresser. Behind her in the mirror, Max, blue eyes burning, ripped off the dangling bow tie and tore open his shirt studs. His tanned chest glowed in the lamplight, shadows forming in the hollows of his muscles. He undid her bra strap and freed her breasts, only to immediately capture them in his hands. One arm banded her chest while his other hand slipped down, beneath the front of her panties. Simultaneously seeing and feeling what he was doing turned her on and made her pleasurably confused.
But the mirror also made him seem too distant so she turned, sliding shaky hands up his chest to smooth his shirt off his shoulders. For weeks she’d longed to touch him. Now she savored the taste of him, kissing and licking until his rigid muscles quivered with the effort to maintain control. An almost painful groan erupted from his chest, and he dragged her head up to capture her mouth in a kiss so deep and long she almost forgot her own name.
Wanting more of him, she tugged his pants down. More? She’d certainly gotten what she asked for. This man was a colossus, powerful and sexual, who clearly wanted her in the worst way.
Suddenly, she was consumed with need. Every minute of the past three months of celibacy focused her desire on one thing—having him inside her. Taking him in both hands, she brushed her naked breasts back and forth across his chest. “I want to make love now.”
Max groaned at the erotic sensations bewitching him. With the dropping of his trousers, the sweetly sexy woman in his arms had morphed into a sensual wildcat. Was this Kelly? She’d never been shy in bed, but this woman was shameless—stroking and teasing him into the biggest, hardest erection of his life. All thoughts and feelings coalesced into a single driving desire.
He tumbled her onto the bed, slid the last scrap of lace over her hips and explored with his fingers. She was slick and hot, swollen and ripe.
“Hurry, Max,” she panted, parting her legs for him.
“Hang on,” he gasped. “Condom.”
“Never mind. Please, Max.”
No condom? Okay by him. With one long, deep stroke he entered her.
He began to move inside her, establishing a rhythm, then changing it. Everything about this night had turned out unpredictably, most of all—the sex. Had he ever known Kelly to moan with such passion when he touched her just there? Had she ever taken him into her mouth with such eagerness? They experimented with every position they knew and invented more. But the tension couldn’t last forever. It built and built until, he erupted in a rush of pleasure, a shattering, blinding cascade so pure and intense he lost awareness of self. Descending, he floated in a sea of primordial bliss.
When he opened his eyes, she was Kelly again and he was Max. Even better than the hot sex was their emotional closeness. They’d been estranged for too long and now they were intimate again.
“Like the first time, only better,” she murmured, eyelids fluttering shut.
“Yes, better,” he agreed hoarsely.
Now, there was an understatement.
KELLY AWOKE SLOWLY, filled with a warm fuzzy feeling, the cause of which she couldn’t immediately place. Her eyes opened a crack, but the room was so dark she couldn’t see anything. She knew she wasn’t at home and she wasn’t at Gran’s. Then she heard the soft sound of Max breathing and, stretching a foot, encountered his leg. Ah, here was the source of the warm fuzzies. Her very own Love Machine.
The previous night came flooding back to her in sequence: the sharp sense of loss on Max’s behalf, the reminders to herself and him of all the reasons she loved him and, as if that wasn’t enough, the most earth-shattering lovemaking.
Had he wondered why she hadn’t insisted on a condom?
Deliciously achy, fully contented, Kelly pushed the thought from her mind and luxuriously stretched her limbs. Eyes still shut, Max reached for her and she slid over and into his arms.
“Morning,” she murmured, kissing his jaw.
He rumbled something in her ear and shifted so they were facing each other.
“Somebody’s up early,” she teased, feeling him hard against her belly.
Max opened his eyes. “He’s been up most of the night, but you were snoring so loudly I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”
She’d been sucking on his earlobe; now she nipped with her teeth. “I do not snore.”
“Do, too,” he said lazily.
“Do not.”
“Do, too.”
“You trying to pick a fight so we can make up?” She’d missed the bantering almost as much as the lovemaking.
“No, I like you angry. You’re feisty when you’re angry.”
“Feisty? You make me sound like a militant granny.”
He laughed. “I mean, sexy feisty. Spunky. Like last night.” His erection pressed harder.
“Mmm, I’m feeling too laid-back to be feisty this morning. But give me a back scratch and I could do languorous. I’ll even purr like a cat.”
“Purr away, kitty cat.” Without changing position, he ran his short nails up and down her back, all over, not too hard and not too soft, just the way she liked it.
“No one scratches backs like you,” she murmured, pressing kisses into his neck while she slipped a hand between them to begin a manual caress of her own.
Slow and easy, they made love. Their gazes locked; she watched pleasure suffuse his smile and his eyelids droop, heard his breath shorten and inhaled his deeply male scent.
If last night’s sex had been earth-shattering, this morning’s was soul-connecting. Afterward she touched her lips to the moisture rimming Max’s eyes, in awe of the way he could make her feel after all these years together. Golden silence enveloped them, eliminating the need for words. She lay lost in his gaze, as he was lost in hers, sharing the same small smile that expressed so much.
Then, to Kelly’s surprise, Max’s smile faded. “Kelly, I…I’m sorry.”
“Max, honey,” she said wonderingly. “Whatever for?”
He’d never looked so open, so raw and vulnerable. “For Lanni. For hurting you. I knew that summer that you still loved me, would marry me when we had a chance. Away from you I got all mixed up. I was angry at you, afraid of losing my freedom. I loved you and at the same time I resented you for tying up my heart so completely.”
Wincing at his brutal honesty, she asked, “Why did you come back to me?”
“I knew I’d never love anyone the way I loved you.”
“Oh, Max.” She kissed him gently on the lips.
“After my fling with Lanni I realized how much I appreciated you. How much I wanted and needed you.” He paused. “I’m also sorry I never told you about Randall. That was unforgivable.”
Finally, finally, he’d given her the apology she needed to restore her dignity within their marriage. Her heart swelled to bursting. “Even so, I forgive you.”
Eyes downcast, he trailed a fingertip along her collarbone. “Can you like Randall, do you think?”
“Oh, Max, I feel ashamed of the way I’ve treated him at times. He’s really a sweet kid.” She paused. “I just wish I had given you the son you always wanted.”
Max rolled on his back. “It’s not so important—”
“Max…”
He faced her again, his mouth strained with the difficulty of confessing. “It’s not that I don’t love the girls with all my heart—”
“I know. I know.” Hand splayed against his chest, she could feel his heart beat beneath her palm. “It’s okay to admit it. You want a son. And you have one. You have Randall. I won’t try to keep you away from him again.”
“I want us to have a son.” He smiled. “Maybe this time.”
Kelly froze, her heart in her mouth. “Wha-what do you mean?”
He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “You didn’t insist on a condom. I took it you’d decided you want another baby.”
“No! I haven’t decided any such thing!”
“Then why did you agree to unprotected sex? This time I double-checked that I had condoms. There was no excuse.”
Kelly sat up in bed, clutching the sheet to her with one hand, while the other hand raked wildly through her hair. “I…I got carried away. Stopping would have spoiled the moment.”
Max’s face darkened as he rolled to the side of the bed and sat up, facing away from her. “Don’t screw me around, Kelly. You’ve got to make up your mind, one way or another.”
The way he said it made her think he was talking about more than just a baby; he was talking about their marriage.
She put her arms around his shoulders and laid her head on the back of his neck. “Max, I love you.” She felt the deep breath that shuddered through him and clung tighter.
At last he turned and took her in his arms. “I love you, too, Kel.”
They held each other, and Kelly gratefully absorbed the warmth and comfort of his arms. Then Max drew back, his eyes searching hers. “Our marriage is being tested more than I ever thought possible. We’re on a cliff edge, one minute soaring, the next plummeting. We can either end it or enlarge it.”
