Reunited with the Billionaire

by Sandra Marton

  She was dizzy with wanting him, terrified of the depth of that want. What if this wasn’t everything she remembered? What if lying in his arms didn’t match the memories of those stolen teenage years? She trembled and she knew Seth must have understood, because he caught her wrists, lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them, closed her fingers and sealed the kisses forever.

  “Slowly,” he whispered. “Slowly, sweetheart.” He brushed his mouth over hers. “No curfew, remember?” She felt his lips curve in a smile. “No gearshift knob to get in the way, no cold vinyl seat. We have a soft, warm bed and all the time in the world.”

  He kissed her again, gently, and she knew he was giving her time to adapt to what was happening. But she didn’t want time. She wanted Seth, his hands, his mouth.

  His possession.

  She moved against him, tilted her pelvis so that her flesh brushed against his erection. The breath hissed from between his teeth.

  “Wendy,” he said thickly, the word a clear warning.

  “Yes,” she whispered, “please, yes.”

  He swung her into his arms and carried her to the bed, laying her down against the pillows while the wind picked up and the blowing snow danced like a gypsy against the windows.

  Seth bent his dark head and kissed Wendy’s mouth and throat, trailing kisses to her breast. She cried out when his lips closed around her nipple, and rose toward him, her body arching with desire.

  “Seth. Oh, Seth. I need—I need…”

  He touched her, slid his hand between her thighs. Her head fell back, and when he bent to kiss her, he felt the warmth of her tears on his mouth, the warmth of her body’s sweetest moisture on his fingers.

  God, he was going to come before he was inside her. All these years. So many, many years—

  “Yes,” he whispered, “yes, yes…”

  Quickly, he took a small foil packet from a drawer in the bedside table. When he was ready, he knelt between her legs and slid inside her. Deep inside her. She was tight and hot, just as she’d been the first time they’d made love. Her sobs and soft cries of pleasure were the same, and when she clutched his biceps and lifted herself toward him, the years fell away. He was nineteen, she was eighteen, and nothing would ever be more important than this.

  “Seth. Seth…”

  Wendy sobbed his name in ecstasy. Seth saw her face, saw everything he’d ever needed in her wide eyes, and he let go of his loneliness, his denial, his anger, and poured himself into the warm, welcoming body of the only woman he had ever loved.

  * * *

  LONG MOMENTS LATER, Wendy stirred.

  “Mmm,” she said softly.

  Seth smiled as she bit his shoulder lightly. “Mmm is right.” He brushed his mouth over hers. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m very okay.” He started to move and she tightened her arms around him. “Don’t go.”

  “I’m too heavy for you.”

  “You aren’t. I love the feel of you inside me.”

  He rolled to his side with her in his arms and gathered her close against him. “That’s good. That’s very, very good, because that’s where I intend to spend a lot of my time.” He twined his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck, tilted her head back and kissed her again. “How’s that sound?”

  He felt her mouth curve against his. “Like a plan I could vote for.”

  “That’s two votes, so it’s unanimous.” They lay quietly in each other’s arms for a few moments. Seth shut his eyes. Was now the time to tell her about his connection to Pommier? Would it be better to wait? No. He’d waited too long as it was. “Sweetheart?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Sweetheart, we need to talk.”

  Wendy closed her eyes. He was right, of course, but she didn’t want to talk. Not tonight. Not with such new, wonderful joy in her heart.

  “Not now.”

  “Sweetheart—”

  “Please. No talking. Not yet.”

  She rolled over, lay on top of him and kissed him with slow, tender care, sinking her teeth gently into his bottom lip, teasing him with her tongue. She was taking control and, God, she had no mercy.

  Just that easily, his brain turned off.

  He tumbled her onto her back, clasped her face in his hands, kissed her hungrily. She felt soft as the snow and the night; she tasted like the nectar of a thousand flowers. He bit gently at her throat, her breasts, her belly. The musky female scent of her rose to his nostrils like a drug as he kissed her thigh.

  “No!” The word exploded into the silence. “Not my leg. Don’t. Oh, don’t. It’s horrible. Seth, please. It’s ugly!”

  “Nothing about you could be ugly to me.”

  She gasped as his lips sought and found the scars, the puckered flesh that would forever mark what had been pieced together with screws and metal plates.

  Wendy’s head fell back against the pillows. “Why did you do that?” she said in a broken whisper. “I didn’t want—I wanted you to remember me the way I was.”

  She spoke with such deep sorrow that it almost broke his heart.

  “You are the way you were. You’re better. You’re stronger and braver.” He turned her face to his. “I love you. Do you really think anything could change that?”

  Something could. Oh, yes, something could change that.

  Wendy shut her eyes, desperately blocking out the swift rush of memory, that last night when Seth had begged her not to go to Lillehammer, not to leave him. He’d said he was worried because she was so tired, too tired to ski such dangerous runs.

  Tears trickled from under her lashes. Seth murmured her name, kissed her closed eyelids, kissed her mouth until he felt it soften.

  He bent his head lower, kissed her breasts, lavished attention on the furled apricot buds until he heard her sigh.

  “Wendy,” he whispered. He sheathed himself again, then moved down her body, tongued her navel, nuzzled her thighs apart and kissed her there, where her taste was sweetest.

  She cried out and he slid his hands beneath her, raised her to his lips, let her soft, feminine flesh meet his seeking mouth.

  She moaned, writhed beneath him, cried out, and when she did, Seth rose over her and entered her, groaning as he felt the muscles in her womb contract around him.

  “You’re mine,” he said fiercely. “Forever.”

  “Yes,” she sobbed, “yes, yes…”

  And then they were beyond speech, beyond anything but love.

  * * *

  SETH AWOKE TO DARKNESS and an empty space in the bed beside him.

  “Wendy?”

  He sat up. It was late—1:05, according to the illuminated face of the bedside clock—and the wind was still blowing.

  Had she left him? She couldn’t have. She had no way to get down the mountain, and besides, she wouldn’t have left him, not after tonight.

  Somewhere along the way, he’d pulled up the blankets. Now he tossed them aside, swung his feet to the floor, felt around for his jeans and pulled them on. Maybe she was in the bathroom. No. The bathroom was dark, but now that he was standing, he could see a soft light seeping under the bedroom door.

  He went into the hall, leaned his elbows on the loft railing and saw Wendy in the kitchen, seated at the butcher block counter, her back to him. A thin plume of steam was rising from something in front of her. A mug, probably; there was a kettle on the stove and an open box of tea bags beside it.

  He went down the steps quietly. He’d dreamed of seeing her here just like this. Her hair was hanging down her back in the wild tendrils he loved. She was barefoot, dressed only in his flannel shirt; it was long enough to cover most of her scars, but he could see a small area of the puckered skin that he now knew stretched from her knee to her hip, and he wondered, not for the first time, how she’d survived such a brutal injury.

  Everything inside him wanted to go to her and press his mouth to the wounded flesh, but he knew it would be a mistake. She still insisted on walling him away from what had happened to her i
n Norway. It was bad enough she judged herself by the accident, but that she should even imagine he would…

  He must have made a sound because she spun around. “Oh,” she said, and grabbed for the hem of the shirt. In the process she knocked over the mug.

  Seth rushed forward. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. See?” She laughed shakily and set the mug upright on the counter. “There were only a few drops left.”

  He cupped her face, bent to her and brushed his mouth over hers. “Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “And I didn’t mean to wake you.” She glanced down at her leg, flushed and tried to tug the hem of the shirt lower. “I just…I couldn’t sleep.”

  He lifted her hair from the back of her neck and pressed his lips to her soft skin. “You should have woken me.”

  “It’s all right. I had to call home, anyway.”

  His eyebrows rose. “At one in the morning?”

  “Uh-huh. I figured my folks might be worried.”

  “Sure. I understand.” He didn’t. Yes, the call home made sense, but there was a stillness to her. A removal. What had changed between the time they’d made love and now? He nodded toward the kettle. “The water still hot?”

  “I think so.”

  “Great.” He went to the stove, made himself a cup of tea he didn’t want. “Shall I make you some more?”

  “No. Thank you. This was fine.” Her eyes met his, then slid away. “Actually, I should go home.”

  You are home, he wanted to say, but instinct warned him to keep it light. “Have you looked outside? The drifts are probably four feet deep, and the wind’s still blowing.”

  “I know, Seth, but—”

  “Sweetheart.” To hell with caution. He went to her and took hold of her hands. They were icy in his. “What’s the matter? Did I…did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to. I would never—”

  Wendy shook her head. “Making love with you was wonderful. It’s not you. It’s me.” Her gaze dropped to the counter. “I shouldn’t have let this happen,” she said in a small voice.

  Seth slipped onto the stool next to her. “Why not?”

  “Because it only complicates things.”

  Her hair had tumbled forward, hiding her face from him. He smoothed it back, put his hand under her chin and tilted her head up, his heart constricting at the sorrow he saw in her eyes.

  “How can what we feel for each other complicate things?” he asked softly.

  “It just can.” She drew in a breath. “Everything changed, the day I took that fall.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t. Seth—”

  He put his finger across her lips. “You’re the one who had the accident, not me. I’ve been selfish, not fully grasping what that means.” His smile was rueful. “Took me a while to figure that out, huh?”

  “You’ve figured out more than I have.” Wendy gave a sad laugh. “I woke up in your arms. For a second, I thought I was dreaming—and then I realized it wasn’t a dream, that I was really here, with you.” She swallowed hard. “Everything seemed so clear in Paris. I would come home, I’d talk to this doctor, he’d agree to operate on me and…and I’d be myself again. But…”

  “But?” Seth urged softly.

  “But there’s more to it than that.” Her fingers tightened on his. “How could I have been so foolish, Seth? How could I have thought an operation on my leg could turn back the clock?”

  He could almost feel the flutter of hope inside him. “Are you saying you’ve changed your mind about wanting the surgery?”

  She smiled a little at that. “You still think it’s a mistake, hmm?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter,” he said truthfully, and wondered how he could not have admitted that all this time.

  She put her hand against his cheek. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for saying that.” She hesitated. “But I can’t answer your question. I don’t know what I want. Not now.” She drew back and her eyes met his. “The only thing I’m sure of is that we have to talk. About me. About us. About what happened in Lillehammer.”

  He looked at her, at this woman he had never stopped loving, and knew she was right. They did have to talk. He had to tell her about Pommier, and once he did, things would move quickly.

  And he might lose her.

  But not now, not at 2:00 a.m. under the cold fluorescent glare of the kitchen lights. Not now, after he’d only just found her again.

  “I agree.” Seth stood and drew her to her feet. “It’s time we talked about everything. And we will, in the morning.”

  She started to protest, but he kissed her to silence and swung her into his arms.

  “Seth,” she said with a little sigh, “we can’t keep putting this off.”

  “Okay. We’ll talk in bed.”

  “We can’t talk in bed.”

  “Of course we can.”

  “Liar,” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” he whispered back, and kissed her. He didn’t stop kissing her until they were naked in his bed again.

  She reached up to him in the darkness and clasped his face.

  “This is a strange way to start a conversation,” she said.

  “It’s the best way to start one.”

  “Seth? I love you. You need to know that. I love—”

  He took her mouth with his, moved between her legs and thrust deep inside her. Wendy cried out, lifted herself to him, and soon they were lost to the world, alone together on a turbulent sea of passion.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WENDY CAME AWAKE slowly, drawn from sleep by the kiss of morning sunlight, the scent of coffee and rich spices…and the warm whisper of Seth’s mouth against hers.

  “Mmm,” she murmured, her lips curving against his in a tender smile.

  “Mmm, indeed.” Seth’s voice was early morning rough. So was the stubble on his jaw as she cupped his face. “Good morning.”

  “G’morning,” Wendy muttered, and rolled onto her belly.

  “Come on, sleepyhead.” Seth planted a kiss between her shoulder blades. “Rise and shine.”

  “Wha’time izit?”

  “Not a morning person, huh?” He sighed dramatically. “Terrible, the stuff a man learns about a woman the first time they spend the night together.”

  Wendy smiled into the pillow. She rolled onto her back and looked up at him, her eyes filled with warmth. “It was, wasn’t it? Our first whole night together.”

  “And the first time we ever made love in a bed.” He grinned and kissed her. “Whatever will they think of next?”

  She sniffed the air. “Coffee?” she said hopefully.

  “Uh-huh. And fresh orange juice. And a stack of cinnamon French toast with maple syrup. How’s that sound?”

  “Decadent.” She smiled and linked her hands behind his head. “Cinnamon French toast, huh? I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t get too impressed, babe. I should warn you, that’s it. Fresh O.J. and French toast is my entire gourmette repertoire.”

  He said the word with a grin that made it clear the mispronunciation was deliberate. Wendy laughed. It seemed as if she’d done more laughing in the past few days than she had in a very long time.

  She touched her fingers to his mouth. “Well, I’m impressed anyway.”

  “Good.” He caught her hand and bit lightly into the pad at the base of her thumb. “It was a toss-up between cinnamon toast or a bowl of cornflakes. The toast won.” He leaned down. “How about a kiss for the cook?”

  Wendy pondered the question. “If I kiss you, will you tell me the time?”

  “Deal.”

  Their kiss was long and sweet. Seth leaned his forehead against Wendy’s and sighed.

  “Better than my toast.”

  “Don’t change the subject. It’s early, isn’t it? Really, really early.” She sighed. “You have to go to work.”

  “Nope,” he said, his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. “My boss gave me the day o
ff.”

  “Your…?” She smiled. “Ah. I forgot the benefits of working for yourself.” She drew his head to hers and kissed him again. “Then what are we doing up so early?”

  “You have an eight o’clock appointment.”

  “What eight o’clock appoint—” Wendy gasped. “Amy! I promised to meet her at Twin Oaks.”

  “The kid’s probably awake already, just killing time while she waits for the next installment of Akela the Wolf Dog.”

  Wendy scrambled up against the pillows. “I can’t believe that I almost forgot!”

  “I can.” His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “And I’m flattered.”

  “Take that ego of yours and get out of the way, Castleman. I have to shower and dress.”

  “And have breakfast.”

  “Is there time? If the roads aren’t clear—”

  “They are.” Seth planted a hand on either side of her. “There’s plenty of time. It’s just after six, and before you shriek and scream that I shouldn’t have awakened you…” He eased her back against the pillows. “…I did it because I thought we’d start the day off slowly.” His eyes locked to hers as he drew down the blankets and bared her breasts. “Any ideas how we could manage that?”

  Wendy caught her breath as he stroked the tips of his fingers over her skin.

  “Lots,” she whispered, and drew him into her arms.

  * * *

  THERE WAS NO SOUND but that of Wendy’s voice in the gathering room at Twin Oaks as she told more of the wondrous story of Akela the Wolf Dog and his beloved companion, Janie.

  She’d said the other children would have to wait until evening to hear it, but they’d all been waiting for her when she and Seth reached the B and B. The children’s parents were there, too, and now they were all hanging on every word.

  “Akela laid his massive head on Janie’s shoulder. `I promise,’ he said softly, `that I’ll always love you.’“

  A soft sigh rose from the children seated on the carpet in front of Wendy, their faces turned up to hers. Not one of them had moved in the past twenty minutes. Even Robin and Randi were motionless.

  “Janie felt tears sting her eyes. She wanted to cry with happiness for the wolf dog and with sorrow for herself. But she was a brave little girl. Akela had always said she was, so she blinked hard against the tears and wrapped her arms around his neck.”