He’d barely gotten on the condom when Blythe grabbed his shoulders to wrap her legs around his waist, crying out her welcome as he drove into her. Except before he could pull back for another thrust, she clamped her legs to hold him still, her lips glistening in the dim light as she smiled.
“Don’t move,” she whispered, eyes and bodies locked in an excruciatingly exquisite suspension of time and space, giving him time to absorb the moment, to absorb her, before, on a sharp nod, her eyes drifted closed and her orgasm kicked in, then took off, inviting him along for the ride...a wild, crazy amusement park ride that left him dizzy and breathless and laughing into her moist neck when it was over.
Wes carefully set her back on the floor, pressed into her warmth, her nipples still hard against his chest. Their heartbeats were off-sync, knocking against each other. A breeze shunted across their damp bodies through the open window somewhere, making them both shiver. And laugh.
“This wasn’t exactly how I saw this playing out in my head,” he murmured, and she laughed again, then skimmed her hands down his back, cupping his backside.
“Considering how long it’s been for both of us, I’m surprised we made it upstairs.”
Except he saw the shadow in her eyes. The it-was-what-it-was, don’t-overthink-things warning.
So he didn’t. Didn’t play the let’s-talk-this-out card, didn’t give her a chance to explain the shadow. Just grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the bedroom, groping for the switch that illuminated the shaded sconces on either side of the whitewashed headboard.
“Again? You can’t be serious,” she said as he chuckled at the unmade bed, the explosion of color in the small room. Not to mention the explosion of everything else. She hadn’t been kidding about it being messy.
“You have no idea how serious I am,” he said as eased her onto the rumpled coral sheets that smelled of her perfume. “Sure, that was fun and all,” he said, bracing himself on his arms before leaning down for a kiss. “But as I said. Not what I had in mind.”
“Which would be...?”
“Something involving foreplay.” He kissed her again. “A lot of foreplay, actually.”
“But...the light?”
He sat back on his haunches. Let his gaze roam until she blushed. And shivered. Which made those cute little nipples perk right back up. “It’s okay, I’m good.”
She laughed, then hoisted herself onto her elbows to check him out, then frowned back up at him. “Um, can you...? I mean, so soon...?”
“First off, I’m in no hurry. Second, I imagine by the time I’m done looking and touching and tasting as much as I want to, we’ll both be more than ready again.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her smile teasing, she laid back down. “Sounds promising.”
“And I do not break my promises,” he said, proceeding to demonstrate forthwith.
* * *
Letting her eyes drift shut, Blythe let Wes have at it. Have at her.
Have her.
Brother, he hadn’t been kidding about the tasting thing. Or the touching. And here she’d thought she’d had some fairly good sex before. But this was like...like...
Like what it was supposed to be like. With someone who cared, that is.
Man, his wife had been one lucky lady.
And so was she, Blythe thought with a start when Wes stroked her to climax again—a much rarer talent than one might believe, if her own experience was anything to go by—then stretched out beside her to pull her close and kiss her. Slowly. Thoroughly.
Because, you know, it hadn’t been mind-blowing enough already.
That whole up-against-the-wall episode in her living room? There were no words.
The same as there were no words—a few moans, but no words—when he moved down to kiss her in places it had apparently never occurred to any other man to kiss her. Cripes, at this rate she was going to burst into flames. And then rise up out of the ashes like a phoenix, good to go all over again, she thought on a low chuckle—
“What’s so funny?” he murmured into her neck.
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“Thinking? Now?”
The combination of amusement and incredulity in his voice made her smile. And realize she wasn’t being a very good hostess, letting him do all the work.
So, not being exactly petite, she handily reversed their positions. Judging from his grin as he folded his arms behind his head, he didn’t mind. Lot to be said for a confident man.
“Women always think,” she said, looking down on him from her perch atop his thighs. “In this case, about whether you’d like this more...” She brushed her fingertips over his flat nipples, then lower. “Or this...” His abs jumped in response to her touch. “Or...this...”
And, yep, something else jumped. Bingo.
Wes peered down. “Well, would you look at that.”
“Oh, I am. I didn’t really get a good look before, but...very nice.”
“So glad you approve,” Wes said, reaching for another condom. “But it’s a lot more than a pretty...face.”
“Honestly, what is it with men? Uh-uh-uh...payback time,” she said, snatching the condom out of his hand and doing the honors. Nice and slowly, which produced some gratifying teeth-gritting and one very agonized hiss.
She fitted herself over him and began to rock, then paused to lower herself, kissing him, letting him kiss her breasts, tongue her nipple as she felt him swell inside her, and she caught her breath, let it out on a sigh.
And he somehow sat up, still inside her, so that she was cradled against him, in his lap—
“I’m can’t...I’m going to...”
“It’s okay, I’ve got you.” He rearranged them, his arms so strong and steady around her, his voice tender as he whispered, “Don’t worry, I won’t let you go...”
They climaxed in tandem, their combined tremors shuddering through her like a warm, gentle current illuminating every cell in her body. When it was over, she collapsed in his arms, reveling in the closeness, his heartbeat speaking to hers, a deep peace the likes of which she couldn’t remember ever feeling before.
Momentary though it was.
Because, the fantasy now indulged, reality crept back out of the shadows, sneering and snapping at her consciousness.
That even if she trusted Wes—which she did, with all her heart—this wasn’t only about them.
Tears biting at her eyes, Blythe took Wes’s face in hers to lightly kiss him, then climbed off his lap and out of the bed, thinking that, sometimes, being a grown-up sucked.
* * *
Confusion knocked Wes’s postcoital mellow on its ass as he watched Blythe grab a lightweight robe from the pile of clothes on her chair, then pad across the carpet to smack down the light switch, plunging them into total darkness. A moment later the window blinds jerked open; bands of lamplight streaked across the patterned carpet, the bed, Blythe’s frowning profile as she stared out the window, her arms clamped over her middle.
His own forehead pinched, Wes hauled himself up on one arm. “You want me to leave?”
She laughed, the sound hollow. “Unfortunately, no.”
He levered himself off the bed and over to the window, wrapping his arms around her from behind. “We’re on the same page, then. Because I’m not going anywhere.”
“Ever?”
Laughing softly, he kissed her shoulder. “Metaphorically. For the time being, anyway.”
Wes’s skin prickled when Blythe’s forearms covered his. “Which is why you’re one of the good guys.”
“And this is a problem, why?”
Another sad little laugh. Then, “Dammit, Wes—that was the sweetest, the most incredible sex I’ve ever had. And I’m not saying that because it’s been two years since my last...encounter. You really
are good.”
He tightened his hold. “Only because I had a good partner. We work well together—”
“Wes. Don’t. This can’t...we can’t...” Her ribs expanded, contracted on her sigh. “You have to put Jack first.”
Startled, Wes tensed. “Do you really think I’d be here right now if I wasn’t absolutely sure you’d be a perfect fit? For both of us?”
Blythe turned in his arms to lay her hands flat against his chest. “Except you know he already feels as if he has to fight for your attention. I don’t mean that as a criticism, because what you’re doing...it matters. Which one day he’ll understand. But he’s not there yet. And I suspect he won’t be for some time.”
Wes carefully braced her long, lovely neck to skim his thumbs across her jaw. “You don’t think the two of you got over a major hurdle today?”
“That doesn’t mean...” She sighed. “I won’t put myself between you and your son, Wes. Which I more or less told him. Fine, so you caught me in a weak moment, when...” Her eyes sheened. “When I found myself thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to do this with someone who cared? But this, tonight,” she went on, shaking her head, “it was strictly between us. A onetime thing—”
“Says who?”
He watched her pulse tick at the base of her throat for several seconds before she said, “I can’t do this, Wes. Bad enough that I feel like I’m betraying Jack. But you don’t really know me—”
“I know enough. That you’re patient and generous and funny as hell, that you’re smart and talented. And good with kids. That you get kids. And don’t give me that ‘I’ve got baggage’ line, because I already know that, remember—?”
“Not everything. Because I didn’t tell you everything.”
He stilled. “What do you mean?”
Her breath stirred her tangled bangs. “The fall after that last summer in St. Mary’s with the girls, I got plastered and plowed my friend’s father’s brand-new SUV into a tree. On the other side of his neighbor’s yard. No one was hurt, thank God, but I chewed up their landscaping pretty badly. Not to mention the car. The judge gave me six months of community service, two years’ probation. Fair enough, considering what she could have handed down.” One side of her mouth lifted in a humorless smile. “Especially if she’d known about my other indiscretions.”
She spoke almost dispassionately, like a reporter relating the facts of an incident that had nothing to do with her. And yet it was the very lack of emotion in her voice that made Wes hold her more tightly, kissing her hair. “Where the hell was your mother during all this?”
“In her own little world,” Blythe said, her breath warm on his shoulder. “One which she seemed mildly pissed that I’d disturbed, but that was about it. In fact, as I recall she simply retreated even more into her work, as if to blot out that she had a daughter at all. Let alone one who smashed cars into trees.”
“Even so...” He set her back slightly to look into her eyes again. “How many teenagers do stupid things, or have a DUI on their records—?”
“Except that’s the very sort of detail that gets the bloodlust going, isn’t it? Sends the snoopers poking around, asking questions that plenty of people in my hometown would, I’m sure, be only too happy to answer. After all, we’re only talking ten, fifteen years ago.”
She pulled away to prop one hip on the broad windowsill, hugging herself as she looked outside. “As opposed to your squeaky-clean background. Oh, yes, I’ve read up on you, about how as hard as your opponent tried, he couldn’t dig up a speck of dirt about you. That you and Kym really were the ideal couple, that you truly had the perfect little family. That your integrity is real. Kym...she was wonderful, wasn’t she?”
Wes’s throat constricted. Not only at the mention of his wife, but at Blythe’s obvious self-deprecation. “Yes, she was. But I’m not looking for her clone.”
A shadow swallowed her face when she turned. “And I’m sure as hell not that. In fact after a lifetime of ‘safe,’ I think you’re looking for something different. Someone different. Maybe with a little more edge? I intrigue you, don’t I? Probably even more so now that I’ve bared all my dirty secrets. Not that I’m not grateful for your kindness, but—”
“Kindness? Is that what you think this is?” When she averted her gaze, Wes sighed. “Honey—that messed-up kid doesn’t exist anymore. And you can give as much credit to teachers or counselors or shrinks as you want, but you were the one who turned your life around. Nobody else. I don’t find it intriguing, I find it admirable.”
“And that doesn’t change the fact that this is all new and exciting and fresh for you—”
“Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s not real,” Wes said in a low voice, the only thing keeping the lid on his temper his realization that all her excuses, tossed between them like marbles to keep him off balance, were fueled by one thing: fear. And that broke his heart.
A breeze made him shiver; he grabbed a lightweight throw off the end of the bed, knotting it around his waist. “So I’ve only had one intimate relationship. And maybe it’s been twenty years since I last tried to get a girl’s attention. But I haven’t lived in a vacuum since then, for God’s sake. No, sweetheart,” he said when she opened her mouth, “hear me out. If I’m any good at all at what I do—and I’d like to think I am—it’s because I can tell within twenty seconds of talking to someone whether they’re genuine or trying to sell me a load of bull. And while I have no choice but to deal with the bull-sellers, I sure as hell don’t have to make them part of my life. I have no use for fantasy. Or flings. Let alone the time or energy to indulge, either.”
He squatted in front of her, taking her hand. “Your confession doesn’t change how I feel about you—”
She shoved off the sill, backing into the room with her hands held wide. “Maybe you don’t care about my past, but that doesn’t mean everyone else won’t! And they will dig it up, you know they will...”
Shaking her head, Blythe spun around, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach as Wes got to his feet. “I get that you want to find someone to fill the hole in your and Jack’s life,” she said, her voice more steady. “Which you both deserve.” She faced him again, remorse littering her eyes in the low light. “But I can’t be that person. And if you thought about it for two minutes, you’d know I was right. Because they’d drag out my past. Trolling for dirt is our national pastime. And what would that do to you? To your future—?”
“And aren’t you the little optimist?”
“And, more importantly, what would that do to Jack?”
Wes stumbled over that one, but only for a moment. “What does your background have to do with Jack?”
Her laugh was dry. “Nothing. Now. But if we were to...” She stabbed her hand through her hair, then released a sigh. “I’ve seen the toll these sorts of revelations take on ordinary families, let alone ones in the political spotlight. Heaven knows I’ve tried to move on. Except not everyone believes that’s possible. I’d also like to think Jack’s finally to the place where he can get back on an even keel with his schoolmates. Start to, anyway. But if...if you and I were to get together, how long would it be before the other parents got wind of my background? And used that as an excuse to wipe out whatever damage control he’s been able to do?”
“You’re still getting ahead of yourself,” Wes said, not wanting to admit how much truth there was to what she was saying. “I don’t even know what my ambitions are past the next election.”
“Of course you do,” she said with a gentle smile. “It’s your destiny. And you know it.”
“Even if that’s true,” Wes said, his heart hammering, “you’re still projecting. There’s nothing saying that would happen—”
“And is that a risk you’re really willing to take? For all those people who are counting on you? For your son?” She shook her head
. “I spent way too many years living in the moment, convinced that there were only consequences if I believed there were. Well, guess what? Consequences happen, whether you believe in them or not. Like, for instance...” He saw her swallow. “What could happen to people I’ve grown to care a great deal about if I listen to my heart instead of my head.”
His heart slamming against his sternum, Wes searched her eyes. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Another one of those sad smiles cut him to the quick. “Told you I’ve learned to be honest with myself. And with everyone else, for that matter.”
Wes briefly considered using the ammunition she’d just handed him to blast her objections out of the water. Except...he couldn’t. Because no matter what Wes wanted, what he might personally be willing to risk, he still had an eleven-year-old son who didn’t need anything more to handle after the pain and upheaval he’d already been through. Not when, as Blythe herself said, they were beginning to see the tiniest glimmer of light at the end of that particular tunnel.
That the person responsible for that glimmer could also be the source of more pain...
A particularly choice cussword popped into his brain.
After a moment, Wes closed the space between them and gently kissed her forehead, then walked back to her living room, the euphoria of minutes before disintegrating with each piece of clothing he thrust his limbs into. He heard her come to the door, felt those sad blue eyes on his back as he dressed.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Checking his pockets to be sure he had his wallet and keys and phone, he looked back at her, his chest constricting at her ravaged expression. Dammit, if anyone deserved to be happy, to be loved, it was Blythe. But as much as it killed him to admit it, she was right. No matter how they felt about each other, no matter how good they were together or how good she was with Jack—how good she was, period—he didn’t know how to make the pieces fit.
“I know, honey,” he said over the emotion jammed at the back of his throat. “Me, too.”
The Marriage Campaign Page 15
