ONCE MORE A FAMILY

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  "Hell!"

  A quick look-see wouldn't hurt, he told himself as he stalked down the hall. He found her in the kitchen, bent over the stove. He heard the hiss of the gas burner, smelled melting chocolate.

  His face turned to fire. All the time he'd been working his gut into a hot twist, picturing her huddled in a heap, sobbing her eyes out, she'd been cooking.

  Score another one for the dumbest of the Hardin boys. He was already turning around when he heard the funny little half hiccup she made when she was upset and trying not to show it.

  This time it was his belly that burned.

  "Need some help?" he asked, careful to sift just enough careless unconcern into this tone to save her pride.

  The elegant shoulders he'd dreamed of tracing with his mouth went rigid. "No, thank you." Her voice was muffled and a little tense the way it got when she was busy convincing herself her life was ticking along just fine.

  He started to tuck his hands into his pockets, then realized he was still half-naked. Hooking his thumbs in the elastic of his shorts instead, he ambled closer.

  "Smells good, whatever it is."

  She cleared her throat, surreptitiously scrubbed her cheeks with her free hand.

  "It suddenly occurred to me that I always made fudge to take to the lake," she said, her head still bent over the stove.

  "Ah." He'd conducted enough interrogations to know when to push and when to hang back and wait.

  "Jimmy—if he remembered being Jimmy that is, which he doesn't but he will—would have expected fudge."

  He considered it a mark of his experience in the surreal world of the streets that he understood the twists and turns of her logic.

  "Sure would. Heck, he's probably dreaming about his first bite as we speak."

  Her laugh almost fooled him. Almost. "Remember how he screwed up his face and made smacking noises the first time you gave him a tiny piece?"

  "I remember how you reamed me out when he woke up screaming with a tummy ache," he countered with just enough dryness to let her keep on believing she had him fooled.

  "You walked him for hours, even after he was asleep." She stopped stirring. "I wanted to be furious with you. I should have been, but … you were so contrite."

  What he'd been was terrified, his own belly full of acid at his carelessness. "Contrite, hell. I was damn deaf. The kid always did bawl loud enough to crack glass."

  He shifted, remembering how he'd buried his guilt in making love to her.

  "Yes, well…" She cleared her throat, as though she too remembered. "The sense of taste often triggers memory."

  She banged her wooden spoon against the side of the pan, then for good measure, banged it again before fiddling with the burner control. When she had it exactly right, she resumed stirring.

  "Ree, he'll come back to us. All he needs is some time."

  "I know. I've told myself that same thing a thousand times, but it's tearing me apart to be so close to him and not be able to hug him the way I used to. Or kiss him or even nuzzle his neck." She drew a shaky breath.

  He wanted to touch her so badly his muscles burned. "You'll do it again."

  "I know I shouldn't complain. I'm not, really. It's just that I have so much saved up."

  "I know, sweet. But you'll get to hug your little cub soon. He's a Hardin. No way will he be able to resist a pretty lady."

  She dropped the spoon and turned, challenge in her eyes and her cheeks an adorable pink. "Make love to me, Grady."

  His mind went blank. His throat closed. He opened his mouth, then shut it, almost certain he would stammer something damned embarrassing.

  "Is that a yes or a no?" she asked, her voice a little hoarse.

  He felt the world tilt as she framed his face with her small hands and tugged his head closer until she could press her mouth to his. Desire had sharp, painful claws, tearing away layers of armor until he was raw with need. Still, he'd been bloodied too often to step blindly this time. So he made himself draw back, his hands cuffing her wrists.

  "What's going on, Ree?" he demanded, his body already hard and ready. "Why the sudden change of attitude?"

  Her lashes flickered, and her breath stuttered. "I want you. Isn't that enough?"

  Not in a million years. But a man who was starving to death took crumbs and was grateful.

  "It's enough," he grated out an instant before crashing his mouth down on hers.

  He put all the years he'd spent dreaming about this into his kiss. The longing, the regret. The love he couldn't kill.

  Her mouth trembled, then met his eagerness with hers. She arched up, her hands diving into his hair, her nails raking his scalp. She was heat and hunger and soft, moaning pleas that fired his blood and shattered his control.

  He found a breast, his fingers trembling slightly as he teased the nipple with the flat of his hand. She gasped, then moaned. He drew back, breathing hard, to see the glitter of passion in her half-closed eyes.

  "Not here," he managed, his voice thick. "I want you naked and sweaty."

  Her breath shuddered out, then splintered into a little cry of alarm as he swung her into his arms.

  "Wait, Grady, the burner!" Leaning down, she turned off the flame, then burrowed against him, her breath warm against his neck. Pulse pounding, he carried her to the bedroom, pausing only to kick the door closed behind him before striding through the sudden velvet darkness to the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his knee as he deposited her on the rumpled sheets.

  "Lock the door," she whispered, impatience and need in her voice. "Jimmy might hear another scary noise in the closet and come looking for his new hero."

  "It's the scary noise in the bedroom I'm worried about," Grady said with a grin that felt cocky as he snapped on the lamp by the bed.

  "That's something else that would be familiar," she murmured, blinking like a little owl in the sudden splash of light.

  "Somehow I don't think that's what Dr. Roth had in mind."

  The door safely locked, he slipped off his shorts with hands that fumbled with impatience.

  "Oh, my," she said on a rush of air.

  "Well, it's been a while," he muttered.

  "I'm glad," she whispered, lifting her arms to pull him down.

  "Not yet," he said gruffly, his hands already on the hem of her gown. "Not until I can see all of you."

  Ria went hot all over, even as she fought down a fast flurry of trepidation. They weren't getting back together, she reminded herself. Simply satisfying perfectly normal urges.

  Perfectly glorious urges.

  Impatient to feel those wonderfully rough hands on her, she sat up quickly, feeling as awkward as a virgin. His movements were jerky, his expression harsh with need as he pushed the gown over her thighs. His callused palms brushed her skin, arousing little tremors of reaction beneath her skin. Tiny urgent pulses of need, spreading heat.

  "Lift your arms," he ordered, his eyes glittering.

  "Hurry," she begged as she obeyed. A flip of his sinewy wrist sent the ugly gown flying, and then he was looking at her intently.

  Reverently.

  "God, sweetheart, I'm not dreaming here, am I?"

  Ria heard the harsh need in his voice a split second before his mouth took hers. Over and over the rough silk smoothness of his lips teased and tempted, while his clever hands stroked her hair, the line of her jaw, the vulnerable skin of her throat.

  "So good," he whispered before touching his tongue to the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat.

  He drew back to look down at her again, his dark eyes hot and hungry before he bent to salute one breast, then the other with a long, moist kiss.

  "I love kissing your breasts and knowing I was the first to take those hard little nipples into my mouth," he whispered with a catch in his gruff voice.

  "There's been no one but you," she murmured, running her hands over the padded steel of his chest. Bending forward, she kissed the curved birthmark on the slope of his shoulder.


  He groaned, then sent her reeling with another searing kiss that went straight to the liquid core of her. His hands were gentle yet sure as he found all the secret places, until she was writhing helplessly, swept along on a tide of sweet pulsing pleasure.

  Grady heard the pleas she breathed and knew bliss. She was his, only his. No other man had ever made her senses swim. No other man had felt the urgent shivers that grew more and more frantic as he stroked and kneaded.

  He knew he should feel humble. Instead he wanted to shout to the heavens. He settled for murmured endearments, whispering praise for the softness of her skin, the sleekness of her thighs, even as his fingertips traced circles just above the indentation of her navel. When she was writhing, he let his fingers trail lower, into the silky curls, over the sweet mound and into the slick, moist heat. He heard the plea in each breath she exhaled, the gathering impatience in the helpless little noises she made deep in her throat.

  He slid one finger into her, then two. She gasped, twisted, clawed at him, but he knew there was more he could give her. Much more. Everything he was and hoped to be.

  Half-wild with longing, he dug deep into himself for the discipline he'd learned so painfully, narrowing his mind until it was focused on the tiniest shift of breathing, the smallest change in her expression.

  Tonight she would accept his love, like it or not.

  "That's it, sweetheart, fly for me," he whispered against the perfumed skin of her shoulder. "Let it go. For once, let it all go."

  Ria arched upward, close to sobbing, desperate for relief. Each stroke of his raspy fingers brought her closer to the brink, closer to that moment when sweet ecstasy would be hers. A wanton madness seemed to have entered her body, crowding out the lingering agony of her lost love. Bathed in the heat of his massive chest with its cruel scars, she felt her bones melting under her skin, dissolving under his passionate assault.

  She whimpered deep in her throat as the urgency built. Her fingers bit into the hard texture of his back muscles as she arched against him, eager to feel him sliding inside her, hot and thick and potent.

  "Please," she whispered, clutching at his arm even as she bucked against his hand. "I want you now."

  "Soon," he promised, his voice rasping.

  Teeth gritted, sweat making his skin slick and wet, Grady thought about the nights he'd spent alone, aching for her. He'd dreamed of this for so long. He wanted this night to last. Another memory to add to his wall against the loneliness.

  "Yes, baby, that's the way," he urged as she let out a low, keening moan that ended in a shuddering gasp. Her eyes popped open and she looked at him with glazed shock.

  "Oh," she said. "Oh, my."

  He palmed the delta between her thighs, his fingers still slick with nectar, and squeezed, bringing her down slowly, gently.

  "You're so dear to me," she whispered, running her palms up his arm.

  Dear? Hell, she said that about his brothers, too. Especially Flynn when he was being charming. Selfish bastard that he was, Grady wanted to be special to her. As special as she was to him. More than that, he wanted her love.

  Battling disappointment, he bent to kiss the damp curve of her breast.

  "Come inside me," she whispered, sliding her hands up his thigh to touch him. "I want to feel you explode."

  He groaned as his body threatened to do just that. Reminding himself to be gentle, he stroked thighs already widening to welcome him. He chewed the inside of his mouth to distract himself from the punishing urgency, fought to keep from plunging hard and deep. Because he remembered the last time—each mindless thrust that had hurt her, each bruise he'd left—he settled himself slowly, testing her with his fingers, watching the pleasure gather and seethe in her eyes. Finally, when she was hot and dripping, he pushed himself into her with a slowness that had sweat pouring from his skin and his nerves screaming. Still he let her take him gradually, feeling the velvet walls stretching to accommodate the thick hard width of his need.

  "Yes," she cried, clutching at him. "Oh, yes, that's the way. Yes, yes!" She arched, writhed. "More, give me more. I need…" Her voice shuddered into a gasp and her eyes widened. "All of you, I need to feel all of you."

  And then he was welded to her, a part of her.

  Home.

  The sound he made was strident and primitive, a man's cry of possession and triumph. His control broke; his patience drained dry. Hands fisted in the sheets, legs braced, he drew back, his muscles shuddering with restraint and his teeth gritted, then thrust into her, alive for the first time in years.

  She was his love. His happiness.

  Gasping, she matched his rhythm, wildly responsive. He felt her muscles squeeze him, sensed her hover, then flash. Even as she cried out, he came with a splintering force that exploded white in his head. Dimly he heard himself shout her name and then he was spiraling into a sweet welcoming pool of heat.

  He had just enough mind left to roll to his back, his arms still locked around her. "Sleep," he murmured. She sighed, linked her arms around his neck, snuggled. Murmured words he couldn't hear. And then he let himself shut down, taking her with him.

  * * *

  Ria surfaced slowly, feeling wonderfully sated. She was also smashed against the hard wall of Grady's chest, which meant that she was being cooked by the heat pouring from his naked skin.

  She smiled into the dawn light filtering through the loosely woven drapes. Sleeping with Grady had always been a battle for space. Even deep in sleep, he was restless, sprawling from one side of the bed to the other a dozen times in the course of the night.

  Lifting her head, she looked past his bullet-scarred chest at the clock. It wasn't quite six. She resettled her head on the pillow that was half-buried under his shoulder and drew in the soap and male-musk scent of him—as familiar to her as her baby's, she realized as she exhaled slowly.

  Letting her lashes droop, she studied the harsh planes of the face turned her way. Though more relaxed now, he still wore that slightly dangerous look that had fascinated her from the moment they'd met. The eyes that crinkled beguilingly when he laughed could narrow to lethal warning in the span of a thought, and the sensuous mouth that coaxed helpless moans from her throat could harden into an implacable line.

  Hard edges on an even harder man, Kate had described it once. Deliciously potent—if a woman was strong enough to handle all that soul-stirring power.

  She let out a careful sigh and tried to wiggle her way into more breathing room. He stiffened, his face going hard and the steely muscles already bracing. During his years undercover she'd learned to call his name even before his eyes were open.

  Grady dived a hand under the pillow and came up grasping air instead of the weapon that should be there. His gut screamed danger a split second before he heard Ria's voice—in his head, he thought—until he opened his eyes and saw her face.

  Her eyes were soft and luminous, her lips a little swollen from the kisses he'd tried so hard to keep gentle—until her wild little cries had driven him past his control into a wildness of his own.

  Because his fingers were too clumsy and too rough, he used the back of his hand to nudge the wispy curls away from her cheek.

  "Was it all right?" he asked because he had to know. "I didn't hurt you?"

  "It was very all right, and no, you didn't hurt me," she murmured with a drowsy smile.

  He let out the air he'd been holding, and some of the hot tension in his gut eased. "Not sore?" He stroked her hair and inhaled the faint scent of flowers.

  "Only a little." The corners of her mouth curled up in an imp's grin. "How about you? Did I hurt you?"

  He lifted the sheet and pretended to look. "He's pretty bruised but still up for a challenge."

  She choked a laugh and he felt wild with happiness. Since she didn't want the words, he rolled her on top of him and kissed her forehead.

  "How about a morning quickie?" he proposed with a grin.

  "Hmm?" She rubbed against him and he groaned.

>   "Not that quick, sweetheart," he begged, earning himself another laugh to add to his hoard.

  "Jimmy was always an early riser," she reminded him before nipping his chin with her teeth.

  He wrapped his arms around her and rolled to his side. The sheet grabbed at him, and he jerked free. She giggled, and he wanted to shout.

  "Not funny, Victoria," he scolded before covering her mouth with his.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  Since Grady would be commuting to the city from the cottage for at least part of their stay, it seemed logical to take both vehicles. Ria led the way, with Grady and Jimmy following in the truck.

  One of two lakes created by damming the Tippecanoe River, Lake Freeman was thirty-five miles northwest. Sunday-morning traffic was light, and the day was sunny and clear. On one memorable occasion, when Grady had come off the night shift hot-wired with too much energy and eager to make love to his bride, he and the Charger had managed the drive in eighteen minutes flat. Even in the truck that had the pickup of a tank, he'd figured twenty-five max once he got the sucker up to speed.

  With Ria driving the van as though it had bald tires and iffy brakes, they were working on forty minutes and counting. It was making him crazy. Every five miles or so he reminded himself that he was a patient man.

  Besides, any morning that he woke with Ria wrapped around him like a soft blanket on a cold night was a darned good day, no matter what the weather was like.

  "Pretty day, isn't it, son?"

  Jimmy answered with a grunt. Belted into the seat next to the passenger door, he was playing a computer game he'd picked out in the Discount Mart where they'd stopped on the way in order to supplement the meager supply of clothing Grady had picked up for him in California.

  Grady hated computer games. Forty minutes of electronic beeps and screaming riffs was his personal limit.

  "You like rock and roll, Jimbo?"

  Shoulders hunched as his fingers flew over the buttons, Jimmy spared him an impatient look. "S'okay," he muttered, returning his attention to the small screen.