THE HONOR BOUND GROOM

by Jennifer Greene

  Restlessly she shifted, trying to hook a leg around him. Her breasts had been ultrasensitive since the baby was born, too sensitive, yet it was as if Mac knew. His whiskered cheek nuzzled the tender skin, tickling her, arousing a feeling like fever. Her breasts tightened, swelled, ached, and when his tongue stroked the tight rim of her nipple, desire coiled like a velvet hook in the core of her belly. Yet suddenly Mac lifted his head.

  "We have to slow this down." He touched her cheek, his voice rusty, his expression a study in harsh control. "I tasted milk. So sweet, so precious to share … but it hit me like a slap, how rough I was being. I was afraid if I touched you again, this is how it'd be. Not something I could stop. Not something I could control—"

  "Forget control. I don't want you to stop."

  His lips almost curved in a smile. But the intensity of desire was still in his eyes, still fierce, still grave. "You thought I didn't want you, Kel? It was never that. This was always the problem—wanting you too much. And we do have to slow this down, because I'll have to shoot myself if I hurt you."

  "You won't hurt me. And I don't care if you do."

  A fingertip nudged her chin, as if he were trying to tilt her face to get a clear look in her eyes. "The doctor. When you went this afternoon. Did the doctor say this was oka—?"

  "The doctor said I could do anything I want. She said not to waste any more time talking and that it was perfectly okay for you to love me witless. And that's what I want, Mac. You. Right now. Inside me. Right now."

  Possibly Mac didn't quite credit that precise interpretation of the doctor's words, because her lover turned churlish on her. Pokey. Dawdling. She pushed at his pajama bottoms until he made them disappear, but when she finally had him naked, he'd shifted so she couldn't touch him where she wanted. He could. As if he sensed where she felt flawed, he rained lavishly soft kisses on her embarrassingly poochy tummy, traced her new stretch marks with his tongue, kissing with tenderness, touching with savoring reverence. As if they had all night, he concentrated doses of softness, then fire, silken caresses and then the sudden nip of teeth. His hand strayed lower until his palm cupped her, a finger dipping inside, testing her readiness with such gentleness that he couldn't conceivably hurt her … yet still he made no move to take her.

  This was madness. She tugged his head up to claim a kiss, closing her eyes, pouring emotion into it. The fire in her belly was long past a blaze, frustration coursing through her like a burning ache that wouldn't be appeased. She wrapped a leg around him, feeling the weight and heat of his arousal. Still he kissed. Still he stroked. The frenzy of touching wasn't nearly enough. Rubbing against him wasn't nearly enough. "Mac…"

  He reached out blindly, his groping hand nearly knocking over the lamp. The bedside drawer creaked open. He muttered a swear word before his fingers located a condom. She only realized what he was doing through a hazy fog of sensation. "I'm not going to like this and expect you aren't, either. But you just had a baby, and I'm not risking you, Kel."

  "I didn't even think of—"

  Suddenly his brow pinched in a worried frown. "I don't want you thinking I had protection because I planned this to happen. There was no plan. I just knew how much I wanted you, and I was afraid—"

  She kissed him—to ease away whatever fears he'd had. And to push away her own. She knew making love didn't make a marriage. She knew about Mac's ceaseless sense of honor, but not if his feelings had changed about making a real marriage with her. But this night was about the magic they created together. Nothing else mattered. She wanted Mac to feel loved, and she pushed aside everything else in that quest. Maybe earlier she'd feared being an inadequate bumbling seductress, but Mac seemed to be turning her into an earthy, demanding lover with no trouble at all.

  All that other heat was just smoke. This was fire. When he swept her beneath him, her arms were already pulling him in, pulling him down, impatient for the feeling of him inside her. Slowly he probed, easing in with exquisite care until he was absolutely sure she could take him, but then that slowness was done. Longing, luscious and liquid, pulsed through her veins at those first strokes of possession. Excitement, heady and wild, charged through her heart on a race toward ecstasy after that. This was right. Nothing in her life had ever been this right. She belonged to him. With him.

  He thrust and withdrew, again and again, each time accelerating the rush in her heart, each time giving them both a taste of almost, almost, reaching the peak of completion … until she was arching for him, clinging to him, her breath was as raspy as his, her heart thundering in unison with his.

  "I love you, Kelly. Love you…"

  She felt his love more than hearing the words, and it tipped her over the edge. She called his name on a sharp cry as pleasure speared all through her, one wondrous spasm cresting into another and another. And when it was over, Mac sank onto the same pillow, as spent as she was, the kiss on her temple the last thing she remembered.

  At three o'clock, Mac heard the baby's distant cry. Although Kelly's eyes were still closed, she automatically stirred in his arms. "Shh, no, don't wake up. I'll get the tiger," he whispered. She was snuggling so tightly around him that it took a minute to ease away from her and climb out of bed, but she promptly drifted off again.

  He padded down the dark hall into Annie's room. A night-light illuminated his daughter's cherubic face and the rosebud mouth already open to let out another plaintive wail. He halfway expected hunger was the problem, even though she'd been skipping the middle of the night bottle for a week now, but it wasn't that. Instead she'd flipped over on her back—her newest acrobatic move—and was whimpering frustration at being unable to turn herself back over. He gently eased her onto her tummy, but after a couple of soothing pats, she drifted back to sleep, too.

  It seemed everyone was snoozing great this night but him. Trying to be as soundless as a cat, he walked back into the bedroom. Moonlight shone from the French doors on the curve of Kel's cheek, her tousled pale hair. She'd scooched over to his warm spot and stolen all the covers, making him smile, but recalling their lovemaking put a worry beat in his pulse.

  Stark naked, he opened the French doors and stepped out. The woods were silent, breathless, the green-young scent in the air promising spring, but the night was still bite-cold, the decking like ice beneath his bare feet. The sudden bracing cold suited his restless mood. From the shadowed woods he heard the lonely, mournful cry of a hoot owl, calling for his mate. There so obviously was no mate. Night after night, the owl kept up with that incessant hooting. Mac could never figure out why the damn owl couldn't accept his loneliness, move on, take care of business, do whatever owls did with their lives.

  But after tonight, Mac felt on an empathetic wavelength. Being alone wasn't the same as loneliness. Once a guy discovered what having a mate really meant, nothing was right without her.

  "Mac? What's wrong?"

  Hearing Kelly's sleepy voice, he immediately stepped back in and latched the door. "Nothing. Everything's fine. I didn't mean to wake you—"

  "You didn't … I was sort of half awake from the minute I heard Annie cry. She's okay?"

  "She was fine. Just practicing her acrobatic flip-over thing…" He slid in beside her, making her yelp in startled humor.

  "You horrible man! You're freezing! And those hands are like icebergs!" He'd have removed his offending iceberg body parts, but she'd already grabbed his hands and was kneading them warm with her own. And then she snuggled full-length against him to warm the rest of his cold body, too. "You couldn't sleep?"

  "I've always been more of a catnapper than a solid sleeper."

  "Like your daughter." When she finally warmed him up to her satisfaction, she took over his shoulder as if it were her personal pillow. "If I haven't told you before … you're an incredibly wonderful dad, Mac."

  Her whispered praise made him feel warmer yet. He'd told himself a dozen times that he was too old to need approval, even from Kelly. But it deeply mattered to him, that Kel not onl
y completely trusted him with the baby, but had never referred to Annie as anything but his daughter. The way she snugged a leg between his, though, there wasn't a single fatherly thought in his head. "You're a natural mom."

  "I was always crazy about kids. You going to tell me what's troubling you?"

  "Nothing. Really."

  "Uh-huh. I'm not buying that Brooklyn Bridge. If you were standing outside in the pitch cold at three in the morning, something was on your mind." She hesitated, her voice suddenly turning silky-light as if just making idle chitchat. "Are you regretting what we did?"

  "No." His lips pressed to her temple—a damn dumb thing to do when her supple warm body was already reigniting desire. But he couldn't have her doubting that even for an instant. "I'll never regret making love with you."

  The way her soft eyes turned luminous, she'd needed to hear him say that. Like a stubborn hound, though, she wasn't finished probing. "Then it was something else bothering you. Mac … you can't possibly believe I still have feelings for your brother?"

  "No." His voice came out quiet, firm. She'd left him no doubt whatsoever whom she loved. Or that she felt love.

  She hesitated again, as if determined to uncover whatever had troubled him. "There's only one other thing I'd like to bring up about Chad. It occurred to me tonight, that maybe you'd have believed me before—if I'd just been more clear, more frank. But it was hard to be frank, when I didn't—and don't—want to put him down to you. Maybe you two aren't close, but there's a loyalty of blood there. I don't want you shutting a door because of me."

  "He hurt you." Instinctively his fingers sifted through her hair, a caressing gesture. A protective one.

  "Maybe, but that's past tense. I don't feel hurt now. I do feel some lingering shame—that I was so foolish and naïve—but that blame's on me, not on your brother. But I would feel hurt, Mac, if I were responsible for causing a rift between you. I know you don't respect your brother's behavior or lifestyle. But he can't ski through life without coming to the bottom of the slope sometime. I think he's lost. As a man. If there ever comes a time he wants to make something of his life, I think you're the only one he even thinks about listening to."

  "Tiny … did I ever tell you that I think you're ten feet tall?"

  "Huh?"

  "You're the last person in the universe I'd expect to give him any sympathy. I won't shoot him. I promise. And I won't forget he's my brother, even if I feel like shooting him. I promise that, too. I'm even glad we got all this sticky air cleared, but can we quit taking about this now?"

  Immediately she murmured. "It's ridiculously late. I don't know why you started this discussion, for heaven's sake. You know what a full day you've got tomorrow, and you need your rest. Now just close your eyes and go to sleep."

  Damned if she didn't make him grin. She was the one who had started this whole hairy discussion in the middle of the night. She was the one coping with Annie all day and who needed her rest. Sometimes—okay, often—she completely bewildered him with her pure-female thinking.

  And then there were other times. Like now. When her pure-femaleness ransacked every sane thought in his head. As if she'd slept with him forever, she naturally snuzzled up tighter against him. He heard her soft sigh. Her warm, bare breasts molded against his chest. Her silky hair tickled his nose; the scent of her skin drifted like an aphrodisiac to his nose, and she bent her leg, edging her upper thigh against his arousal.

  He was harder than stone—had been from the minute he climbed back into bed with her. But there was no question about their making love again. It was too soon after the birth; he'd been conscious of her being tender and exquisitely sensitive that first time, and he hadn't been as gentle as he should have been. He'd been petrified of hurting her, but her earthy, passionate responsiveness had gone straight to his head. It was his job to take care of her. His right, as her lover and husband. And knowing now how dangerously she uncorked his self-control, there was no chance—none—of their making love again tonight.

  "Mac?" she murmured.

  "What?" Hell, he'd been praying she'd fallen back asleep.

  "I just want to tell you one more thing, and then I swear I won't say another word. I promise."

  "Okay."

  "I know this is the nineties. And some of the old traditional values—we just don't feel that way anymore. And I don't, either. But I just wish … that I'd been a virgin for you, Mac."

  When she twisted her head so that he could see her eyes in the darkness, Mac mentally swore. He had to kiss her. She wasn't giving him any choice at all.

  Her hand climbed up his arm, skimmed over his shoulder and then roped around his head to coax his mouth on hers. Her slim, lithe body arched against his both in vulnerable yearning and invitation.

  In his head were a thousand worries that this was wrong. Loving her … he couldn't help that. But loving her made it all the more important that he not fail Kelly, and haunting his heart was a new, painful awareness that he wasn't strong. Not near her. Maybe she was okay with his blundering fears the night Annie was born. Maybe she hadn't guessed how unsure he felt at doing the right things as a father. And maybe they'd even settled the business of Chad.

  But whether Kelly really wanted to be married to him was a question of another color. She'd married him because she needed protection. That need was real. No one could be more vulnerable than a pregnant woman, and Kelly had particularly been unschooled in the kinds of problems affected by wealth and influence. Everything about the pregnancy and new baby had put her normal life on hold for a while. But Kelly was healing from the birth. Her choices were going to be very different shortly.

  Honor had never been a lip service word to Mac, but the code of how a man lived with himself. He didn't want to pressure her about what she did or didn't want this marriage to be … and their becoming physically involved unquestionably complicated their relationship emotionally. He wanted to do the right thing. Needed to do the right thing. To give her time.

  But honor didn't seem worth dried beans. Not when he was holding her, never when he was kissing her. She was the mate that the hoot owl kept crying for. The woman he'd never expected to find. The wonder of his life, the sunshine. And he could no more resist making love with her than he could stop himself from breathing.

  * * *

  Most people daydreamed about money. For the most part Kelly thought of the Fortune-money as troublesome—more worry than fun—but the domestic scene, now, that was her daydream. And this morning was just about perfect. Sunlight streaming in. Birds singing. Blueberry pancakes sizzling in the skillet. Annie cooing from her baby seat, next to an adorable man with a hickey on his neck. Mac, asking about her day, with one hand on the baby and the other on the morning paper.

  Kelly flipped the pancakes. "Me, I have nothing special on my agenda today. I just plan to loll in lazy decadence. But Annie now … she plans to make cookies this morning, and then do an exercise video, and then take a big noisy bath … and after her nap—if it really does warm up to sixty … I have my doubts the weatherman was telling the truth—she told me she wants to stroll outside and soak up some spring sunshine."

  "Sounds exhausting to me. But if Annie's mom isn't too tired from that day of sloth, maybe Martha and Benz could baby-sit and the grown-ups could slip away and go out to dinner."

  Kelly's head shot up. No sense in taking this domestic bliss business too far. "Out to dinner?"

  "You know. It's when there's no dishes to do, no cooking, someone else waits on you. I know it's a wild concept, but—"

  "I'm ready. What time?" Mac grinned at her obvious enthusiasm. She was just about to grill him—she wanted the details pinned down in blood—but just then the telephone rang.

  She hooked the receiver in the crook of her shoulder as she spatulaed pancakes onto a platter. "Well, hi, Aunt Marie, how nice of you to call…" Twisting the phone cord to reach the table, she kissed the top of Annie's head—who was helping Mac read the morning paper—then Mac's head, t
hen set down the platter. "Why yes, we knew Chad was in town … yes, we've seen him … yes, he saw the baby, uh-huh … uh-huh … well, no, actually…"

  A few moments later she hung up the phone and plopped down at the table next to Annie. "Now, about the time for this dinner tonight—"

  Mac swallowed a mouthful of pancakes. "Are you getting a lot of those calls from my family?"

  She lifted her finger in a "wait" gesture, because the telephone had rung again and she was already charging out of her scat to grab it. This time the call was Renee, and Kelly had barely had a chance to talk with her maid of honor since the wedding. "Hi, you, I … you're kidding! I wondered what happened when you disappeared right after the service, but I'd never have guessed anything like that. I can't believe your dad is serious. Come on, sweetie. No one can make you marry anyone. It's not like this is the Middle Ages. I … yes, Chad is home. You heard too, huh?"

  Kelly started piling dishes into the sink, since she was already up. "No, no … really, it's gone just fine … yes … forget Chad, I'd rather talk about your problem with this guy. Okay, but if you need any help, I want you to call us, you hear me…?"

  It took another minute before she could hang up, and then Kelly whirled around to tell Mac the story about Renee—he knew her, too, and maybe could offer some advice on the problem Renee was dealing with. But Mac was distinctly tuned to another conversation channel, and right then he obviously didn't want to let the subject drop.

  "Kelly, how often are you getting calls about Chad like that?"