Heard It Through the Grapevine

by Teresa Hill

  He looked polished and expensive, like a man who was used to getting exactly what he wanted in life, which she knew wasn’t true at all. At least, not until about seven years ago, when the world had turned his way. At least in terms of money, success, power and respect.

  But not love.

  Did he even want it? If she offered it to him, freely and fully, what would he do? Most likely, explain to her the fallacy of even believing in it.

  “Hi,” he said softly, still standing by the door.

  “Hi.” She felt more awkward than she had the first time she’d seen him after she’d thrown herself at him at sixteen.

  “It’s getting late. We need to hurry.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She pressed the bodice of the dress more tightly against her. “I just need to get out of this. It won’t take a minute.”

  Matt frowned. “Do you need help?”

  “Well…yes. If you don’t mind.” The dress was heavy satin and fully lined. She hadn’t worn a bra, which meant there was nothing between her bare skin and him except her own arms and a bit of satin.

  Cathie felt his gaze on her skin. Suddenly, she was warm and tingly all over, like he’d really touched her, not just looked at her.

  Did he really think she was beautiful?

  Would that help? After all, he’d been surrounded by gorgeous women for years, and none of them had won his heart. She didn’t think anyone had even come close.

  Still, if it was all she had to work with…

  Cathie tried to think logically. Sex was a perfectly normal part of marriage, and she was married. She loved her husband.

  But he didn’t love her.

  But maybe he would one day.

  But the marriage wasn’t supposed to be real. They’d made a deal.

  But he wasn’t happy the way he was. How could he be? And he’d probably never let another woman as close to him as she could get in the three years they were supposed to be together. He needed her, needed all the love she could give him.

  There, she’d almost managed to make seducing him sound noble. Her, a woman who had a God Box wrapped up in a negligee in the suitcase on her bed.

  Good girls just weren’t cut out for seduction. Were they?

  “It buttons here.” Cathie turned so her side was facing him and lifted one arm out of the way, so he could see all those tiny buttons. “I can’t get my hand twisted the right way.”

  Matt frowned down at her and didn’t move a muscle at first, something she found immensely encouraging.

  There had been a time when she could have sworn he was attracted to her, which had led her to throw herself at him one night when he was home from college. He hadn’t been able to get away from her fast enough. They really didn’t have to play that scene again, did they?

  Assuming it would end the same way?

  Matt sat down on the bed, which put him at eye-level with all her buttons, and right beside her carry-on. Cathie closed her eyes, held onto her dress and tried not to think about anything. The buttons were tiny. His hands were big and warm.

  He swore as he struggled with a particularly stubborn one. “How do women get in and out of these things?”

  “With help.” The dress gaped open. Cool air rushed over her heated skin, and she shivered.

  “Almost done,” he said.

  For one, wild, reckless moment, Cathie thought about letting the dress drop to her waist and throwing herself into his arms. Honestly, it seemed she had no shame.

  Well…obviously, she did, because she didn’t actually do it. She suspected most of the women he knew would have.

  “Done.” Matt stood up. She didn’t think his breath was quite steady, but didn’t have the nerve to look at him and make sure. But she could feel his gaze on her. It was like there were a million unanswered questions swirling around in the room, and neither one of them dared get near a one.

  Cathie thought about simply telling him she wanted to make him happy, really happy for the first time in his life. Which had her thinking of what she truly had to offer him. She believed in him, believed he could do anything, always had. But that wasn’t in question anymore. He was an amazing success. She’d tried making him a part of her family, but he’d always rejected that. She’d tried teasing him, tried making him laugh, but had seldom gotten very far with that. She could be kind and supportive. She doubted many people had been either of those things to him. But a man like him didn’t come to love a woman for her kindness or support.

  She was going to have to shake him out of his comfort zone, get behind those walls of his, if she had a chance of winning his heart. How did she do that?

  “Anything else you need?” he asked warily.

  “No.” Cathie hugged her dress more tightly to her, feeling ridiculously vulnerable and inadequate to show this man anything about love.

  “Good. Like I said, we need to hurry.”

  “Matt, wait.” She closed her eyes. “Where do we go from here?”

  “The Caribbean,” he said, surely being deliberately obtuse. He was a man, after all. “We have a reservation on a five o’clock flight out of Asheville.”

  “Oh.” A honeymoon with Matt? “We don’t have to do that.”

  “Cathie, I was going anyway. I couldn’t very well go without you. Especially not the day we got married.”

  “I know, but…it’s expensive, and—”

  “We promised not to argue about money, remember?”

  “I remember.” It was one of the few things he’d asked of her, and it was proving hard. “I thought we were talking about money for necessities.”

  “I consider it a necessity,” he claimed. Right along with the beautiful engagement ring he’d had made for her and the big, sparkly diamond earrings? “Besides, I want you to see the island. The water’s unbelievably blue and so clear. The first time I saw the place, I thought about you.”

  “Oh.” He’d reduced her speech capacity to a single syllable. He’d thought of her there? Well, okay. They could go. She wouldn’t even grumble about the expense.

  Cathie finally looked up at him and might have caught him looking down her dress. She couldn’t be absolutely sure. A soft heat flared between them. She took a breath, and it was only in the midst of it that she felt her breasts rise against the bodice she clutched against her. He sucked in a breath of his own, and she wished she had the courage to just throw herself into his arms once again. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to repeat that scene. Maybe it would end differently this time. She wasn’t sixteen anymore, and she was his wife.

  “Anything else you need?” he asked warily.

  “No.” But suddenly, three years seemed like a desperately short amount of time. “Wait. Yes. There is. Just one thing.”

  As she saw it, there weren’t a lot of options here. She didn’t think she could pull off a seduction of any kind. Not her. Brutal honesty? That wasn’t all that appealing, either. Directness? She could do direct, couldn’t she?

  “We never settled anything before,” she said. “When we were talking about how we were going to handle things, now that we’re married. About you and…sex. What are you going to do, Matt?”

  He backed up and frowned at her, as if he couldn’t quite believe she’d said it. She couldn’t, either. How was that for direct?

  “I’m not going to do anything tonight. That’s for sure,” he said. “It’s been a long day. It’ll have been an even longer one by the time we’re settled on the island.”

  “I wasn’t talking about tonight. I was thinking about three years—”

  “Cathie, we don’t have to figure this out now.”

  “I know. I just…I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t feel like I have the right. But, just so you know, when you’re trying to figure it out…” She closed her eyes and rushed on, forcing out the words. “We could…well, you could be with me.”

  Dead silence greeted her words.

  Finally, her desire to know what he thought about her offer overcame her embarrassm
ent. She opened her eyes. He stood before her like a man who might have been carved in stone, one who wasn’t moving a single muscle in his entire body.

  “If you wanted to,” she added. Then thought of one more thing. “Just me. For the time we’re together.”

  “What is this?” He swore softly into the darkness, turning his head away, then faced her again, something that looked near to fury on his face. “Some new form of thanking me? No more, Cathie. I’m the one paying back a debt here. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought…it made sense.” It did to her. She was in love with him. She wanted to be with him. “If you wanted to be with me.”

  “If I wanted to?” he repeated.

  Her face positively burned. She managed to nod somehow. “It just seems…easier.”

  “It would not be easy,” he argued.

  She wasn’t at all sure what he meant. He was a man. She was a woman and his wife. How difficult could it be? “Look, if you don’t want to—”

  He swore once more, then sucked in air, his shoulders rising and falling slowly and deliberately with the effort. When he turned to face her, he said, “Are you trying to make me crazy?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I’m trying to make things…easier.”

  But he’d said, It would not be easy.

  So, what would it be?

  She risked a glance at his face, got scared at the harsh expression there and let her gaze drift downward. He’d always had a sleek, powerful build, but over the years he’d filled out beautifully. Wide shoulders, muscles she could feel in his upper arms, a hard, flat stomach, nice, slim hips and thighs.

  He was dark and dangerous-looking and beautiful.

  Her experiences with that other man…it had been fine. Better than fine. It had been…well, it was hard to say exactly. She’d waited so long, had so many dreams about it, years of restless longing. Understanding the mechanics of it couldn’t come close to the experience of the real thing.

  It had all been so new and good, and she’d tried to convince herself it had been more, that she’d been in love and that it hadn’t been awkward or a little bit sad. That she was growing up, and this was what grown women did, and they liked it. She’d liked it. But, standing here with Matt, she couldn’t help but think there was so much more she’d feel with him.

  Cathie worked up her courage and took a step closer to him. She could swear he was fighting the urge to back away, that it was only force of habit—he never backed away from anything—that kept him where he was.

  “I’m just trying to be reasonable about this,” she claimed. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “I mean, we’ll be living together in the same house for three years. It just seems natural that at some point along the way, we’d…be together. Doesn’t it?”

  “Really? How many guys have you lived with, Cathie?”

  “None.” He would be the first for that. She was starting to regret ever starting this conversation. “Look, it’s no big deal—”

  “Oh, it’s a big deal all right.”

  Now, that was definitely sexual innuendo. She couldn’t help but take the briefest of glances down at his waist, and then below…. “Oh.”

  He made a choking sound, and he was furious. He grabbed her by the arms and her dress began to slip down, and the only way he could catch it quickly enough was to pull her hard against him.

  “Oh,” she said again, feeling…everything.

  He was still choking. She was struggling not to let sheer elation show.

  His hands went to her back, catching the dress and pulling it up, then sliding around to the sides, tugging it up some more. At least, she was sure that’s what he meant to do. But on her left side, where the buttons had been, there was nothing but bare skin. Very sensitive, bare skin.

  His hand landed there, at the side of her breast. He sucked in a breath. His hand hovered, not quite touching her, and she couldn’t have that. She leaned into him, put the soft weight of the side of her breast into his hand.

  His jaw went tight, his body rigid. Everywhere. Against her belly, he was hard and throbbing.

  “Would it be so bad?” she asked, letting her entire body sink into his. Honestly, it was like her body had a mind of its own and had turned positively shameless.

  “Yes,” he said. “Give me a minute and I’ll remember why.”

  But she couldn’t afford to give him time to think. She gave up on salvaging her pride, on her natural reticence when it came to men and even her concern about holding up her dress. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers, his mouth meeting hers eagerly. His hand slid inside her open dress to her back, gliding across her skin, down to cup one of her hips in his palm and settle her closer against his lower body. The throbbing intensified.

  She held his face in her hands, felt the slight roughness to his jaw and thought about how much she liked the feel of his skin on hers, his mouth, his hands.

  His thumb teased at the tender side of her breast, stroking it, taking in more and more of it, until she ached to have his whole hand on her. Just his hand. Surely she could have that. Her body felt aching and empty and on fire in a way it had never been before, and he was her husband. He backed her up against the wall and devoured her with his mouth, while she clung to him and tried to get closer, to get completely inside him.

  Finally, finally, his thumb rubbed across her nipple, and he buried his face in the side of her neck. She gasped and shivered, joy shimmering through her entire body.

  She was going to be his.

  His mouth came back to hers. She smiled as his lips closed around hers. Couldn’t help herself. It was Matt.

  And then from what seemed like a million miles away, someone called her name. She frowned, not even sure what planet she was on at the moment. Matt swore softly and pulled away.

  “Cathie, it’s almost three, and Matt said you two had to hurry or—”

  Her mother stopped abruptly, two steps inside the room. Matt was standing between them, his body blocking as much as he could of Cathie’s. She peered around his shoulder and gaped at her mother, while Matt, as discreetly as possible, pulled up her dress.

  “I’m so sorry.” Her mother grinned, not exactly looking sorry. “I thought…well, never mind. It’s almost three.”

  Her mother backed out as fast as she could.

  Cathie caught her breath and reminded herself she was over twenty-one and married. Getting caught in her bedroom in her parents’ home with her dress down and with a member of the opposite sex was not really a problem.

  Then she looked up into Matt’s face.

  Okay, it was a problem, because now that they’d been interrupted, he had time to think, and he obviously didn’t like what he was thinking.

  “Hold this,” he said, putting the bodice of her dress into her hands.

  “Okay.”

  He glared at her. “What the hell was that?”

  Her trying to seduce him? No way she was going to admit that. Was this a trick question?

  “It’s all right,” she said. “We’re married.”

  He threw a look of sheer disgust. “Cathie, you know exactly what we are. This was not supposed to be a part of it.”

  “No, but why couldn’t it be?”

  It was like she’d told him the Earth was flat. What was so wrong with this idea? She could pick up with her It would be so much simpler argument, but that one hadn’t gone over well the first time.

  What would a woman of the world say now?

  “Matt, if we both want it, why shouldn’t we be together?”

  He glared at her. “How long has that been your philosophy about sex?”

  “Well—”

  “I can answer that. Never.”

  Okay, so he was right about that.

  “You went to that jerk who got you pregnant a virgin, didn’t you?”

  Her first idea was to shoot back with something along the lines of What if I did? But th
at sounded particularly childish. “What does this have to do with anything?”

  “It has to do with you and sex. This thing we’re not supposed to have.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know you. You don’t do this just for the hell of it. Hell, you’ve hardly done it at all.” He was practically shouting he was so mad.

  “And why is that such a problem for you?”

  “Because it’s who you are, Cathie. What happened to you? How did you end up in this kind of a mess? Because you are the last person in the world I would have ever expected to find pregnant with some jerk of a guy’s baby, especially a guy who’s married and fooling around with one of his students.”

  “Well…” Cathie backed up against the wall, clutching her dress to her, tears filling her eyes, unable to believe how things had been going so well one minute and so completely wrong the next. Her bottom lip started to tremble. “That’s what I did.”

  “Oh, hell, I’m sorry, Cathie. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “No, it’s true. It’s what happened.”

  “Don’t cry,” he said, coming reluctantly toward her again. “Please don’t cry.”

  “I won’t,” she said, turning away to avoid his touch.

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” This was definitely hers. “Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll be right down.”

  “Okay.” He left without another word.

  She stepped carefully out of the dress, hugged it to her while she leaned against the wall and imagined a dozen different turns she might have taken in her life that would have changed everything. And wondering exactly why she’d ended up here, pregnant with another man’s child and kind of married to Matt.

  Chapter Six

  They hardly said a word on the first, quick, commuter flight out of Asheville, then changed planes in Atlanta for a direct flight to San Juan.

  Cathie sat silently in the first-class seats Matt had reserved, while the pretty, blond stewardess fussed over him, as she supposed most women did. She wondered if he’d ever thought about sharing his life with a woman? He seemed so terribly alone, always had. Success hadn’t changed that in any way, and she didn’t want him to be all alone, even if he didn’t end up with her.