Tempting Mr. Forever
Page 14
Caleb tried to block the laughter outside his door. In the last hour, he’d scorned the love both Olivia and Austin had thrown at him. They hadn’t scratched his eyes out or acted like the world had ended. No, they laughed. In the deepest recess of his soul, he wanted to cling to their words and damn the consequences.
He beat aside the rebellious thought. Forever might not work, but love was not the answer either. His mother had despaired over and over that she still loved Ralph. Love did not generate a happy ending.
Liam fussed in his arms.
He sighed. How could he console the baby when he was such a mess?
After the things he’d said to Olivia, she probably hadn’t felt like wearing a happy face for Austin either. But she laughed with him anyway, putting her child first. She had her priorities straight. This time he needed to follow her example.
“How about a rousing game of peek-a-boo?”
Liam waved his arms and kicked his legs.
After setting him on the bed, Caleb let the bed sheet float down and cover the baby’s entire body. A moment later he ripped it aside to Liam’s unabashed glee. Soon the baby’s giggles drowned out those from Austin and Olivia, and he grinned in response to his son’s joy.
When Liam grew tired, Caleb picked him up and cuddled him on the bed, facing the window. Outside, Austin got into a car with his father. Olivia smiled and waved, her lips forming the words I love you.
The car crept down the driveway, and she blew a kiss. The moment the car disappeared down the road, her face crumpled and she bit her knuckle. Her shoulders shook, and she rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
The urge to comfort her propelled Caleb toward the door. Abruptly, he stopped. If he did, he’d only swing the emotional pendulum in the opposite direction. With nothing to offer her, he backtracked to his desk.
Shifting Liam in his arms, he freed one hand to pick up the phone. He’d give the media anecdotal evidence first, so they’d have a story to weave their reports around. Those stories would point to love as the enemy in a marriage, not the answer. Tomorrow morning, he’d commission his research firm to produce statistics to drive home the message, and he'd devote a book to presenting the evidence for the public.
He and Beth had lived through the hell of “the wrong way to conduct a marriage,” but he had no experience with the right way. He needed a Forever partner at his side as soon as possible. But first, he had to get out of Olivia’s house and track down his potential partner before his brother corrupted her.
* * * *
Liam’s cries roused Olivia from moping around her son’s room, and she descended the stairs to check on him.
Caleb paced the foyer again, his shirt hanging lopsided, half-untucked and open at the collar. Even while sledding, he hadn’t looked this disheveled. “Will you hold him? He won’t settle down for me.”
Her hands brushed his as she took the baby, bittersweet electricity slicing through her nervous system. She’d savor her time with Liam, not grieve the future she wouldn’t have with the baby or his father.
“When you read the Forever material, what position did you assume I held on love?” Caleb demanded, as Liam relaxed and snuggled against her.
After his horror over her confession, she hadn’t expected him to talk about love. “The underlying assumption was the reader loved her partner. What’s the point of contemplating marriage or trying to save a troubled marriage if you don’t love the other person?”
“So you loved Bryce?” he accused.
“Yes.” She braced herself for the hammer to fall.
“Do you still love him?”
She smoothed her fingers over Liam’s downy head. “You’re vindicated whichever way I answer, aren’t you? If I still love him and I love you, then I’m throwing my affection at everyone. If I loved him before and I don’t now, then you can blame my fickle, volatile emotions for the demise of my marriage. So take your pick. Believe whatever makes you feel better.”
“I’m past hanging onto what makes me feel better.” He slumped against the wall. “I want to know the truth.”
She couldn’t rejoice over seeing him so emotionally battered. He’d reject her touch, but she could allow her answer to touch him. “The truth is my love started dying when skiing became more important to Bryce than our relationship. The last of my love died when he chose to spend the night with another woman instead of coming to the hospital for the birth of his son.”
“I’m sorry.”
She hugged Liam tighter. “Austin doesn’t know, and they eventually bonded.”
“Austin bonds too easily.”
His complaint released her tension. “When he tied your shoes together, you made the opposite accusation. He took a while to warm up to you.”
“He’s a great kid.” Defeat and confusion laced his tone, while his sloppy, wrinkled clothes and uncombed hair destroyed his stuffy, polished image.
“You have a great kid of your own,” she pointed out, kissing Liam’s forehead. “Are you really bummed because my son is wonderful, despite my mistakes?”
“No, of course not.” He sighed. “I just made fifty phone calls to couples who participated in past Forever surveys. Of the people who didn’t hang up on the crank caller assumption, only two couples admitted to not loving each other, and they’re both in the middle of divorce proceedings.”
“Ouch.” If only she could get him away from his Forever fixation and channel his need to repair his childhood in a more healthy direction. “I’d like for you to look at my plans for renovating the guest rooms and see if I can make the setup more welcoming and easier for kids to adjust. I want them to feel at home for as long as they stay here.”
His gaze narrowed. “A floor plan doesn’t provide that. People do.”
“Yes, I know. But you’ve had experience being shuffled around. What physical arrangements worked best, and which ones made the situation worse?”
Instead of puffing up for one of his psychology lectures, he frowned. “Why don’t you ask Austin what he prefers? I’m not qualified to give you advice. You make your own decisions, since you have to live with them.”
He stormed away before she could point out his Ph.D. did, in fact, qualify him to authoritatively answer her question. When he’d first arrived, she’d wanted him to leave broken and defeated, but she could no longer bear the thought.
They both wanted the same thing, to give children normal childhoods even when their parents didn’t have the proper tools to offer normalcy. She would do whatever she could to help him achieve his dream and give him the peace to finally put his own childhood to rest.
Liam gurgled in her arms, and she pressed her cheek against his. “You’re the key. Love between a parent and child is the only lasting love. You’re going to get through to him and heal him.”
With any luck, her love would die quickly and completely. Because if she was wrong about which love lasted, her heart would beat forever in unrequited misery.
Chapter 17
In one evening, Penelope’s business had ballooned from one that couldn’t produce enough income for her to buy a late-night dinner to one with enough financial backing to wipe out global hunger. In a Manhattan restaurant where the prices matched the tasteful elegance around them, their investors departed, and a waiter set a folder with the check between her and Ethan.
Refusing to let him pay for her, she reached for her purse, but nothing hung over the back of her chair. She twisted to locate it on the floor. Of course, she hadn’t brought a purse. She only used one when trying to blend in at the department store perfume counter, and he’d assured her they wouldn’t bother with that.
She reached into the back pocket of her jeans—her only pair without a hole in the butt. Empty. In the other pocket, she scored a scrap of paper with the words “more jasmine” in an ink-smeared scrawl. With trembling fingers, she lifted her untouched wine glass and downed the liquid in three gulps as she tried to remember where she’d left her wallet.
Moron. What kind of person traveled across the country with two dozen bottles of perfume and no wallet? To make matters worse, she’d flown in an airplane with no money and no identification. Wasn’t security supposed to flag her as a terrorist or something? Instead, Ethan had introduced her to the pilot and she’d walked on board.
She raised her head to find him watching her. Refusing to show her mortification, she lifted her chin. “If you’re in charge of my business, you better open an expense account and put dinner on it.” And her hotel room and gas and breakfast and...Oh God, she would go bankrupt before she filled a single perfume order.
He reached across the table, covering her hand, his fingers both arousing and comforting. “Let me do my job of worrying about whether we can afford the expenses of this trip.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“Only because I watch you so closely.”
Not comforting. She pulled her hand free. “Why? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“I’ll wait until you’re ready. However long that takes.”
No, he wouldn’t. He’d jet off to Paris with a supermodel or someone equally sophisticated and sexy. And she—well, maybe she wouldn’t return to her basement. She had enough money to build a new lab befitting of the dazzling perfumes she’d make for Fortune 500 executives and their spouses.
But she’d still be geeky Penelope underneath. Anyone as worldly, handsome, and well-spoken as Ethan would see through her. And discard her.
* * * *
Caleb sat at his desk as Olivia, with Liam sleeping in her arms, tiptoed into the room. She bent over the crib, and Liam curled his fingers into the fabric of her shirt, clinging to her.
Caleb had become the very person he’d vilified for his entire adulthood. He’d let his child get attached to someone who would only be in his life for a short time. In a few hours he would uproot his son, and Liam would start over, searching for a mother figure, continually disappointed. The boy would blame his remaining parent, just as Caleb blamed his mother.
Olivia disentangled herself and covered the baby with a blanket. If children meant everything to her, she should be Forever’s biggest supporter. Her belief in love needed to be destroyed.
Without glancing at him, she started for the door. He dashed around the bed and blocked her path. “I need to talk to you.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He motioned for her to follow him into the adjoining room of his suite then closed the door, separating the two rooms.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Everything.” She’d messed with his head by telling him she loved him, and she’d convinced Liam she was his mother.
“Everything’s wrong and you want me to fix it? How? By sleeping with you? We’ll create more problems than we’ll solve, and you know it.”
He’d only intended to talk, but what better way for her to realize the absence of love between them than to clear their physical attraction from their system? “I think it’ll help you see me for the ass I am.”
“You’re not an ass. I trust you with my heart. I’m not sure I trust you on birth control, though. Do you have a condom?” She’d turned tables on him, calmly speaking of rational concerns, while need hammered through him, blocking every thought of practicalities.
“I do.” More importantly, he had to protect her in a way condoms couldn’t. He had to ensure her emotions weren’t touched by the experience. “If you trust me, close your eyes.”
She widened her clear blue orbs then obeyed.
He approached her, weighed by the responsibility of protecting her trust, shattering her love, and fulfilling her every sexual desire.
Plucking out her hair clip, he sent her wavy locks cascading over the bridge of her nose and the fullness of her mouth. She reached her hand up.
“I got it.” He gathered the silky strands and tucked them behind her ears.
She shivered and her eyelids flickered. But then she settled into a placid acceptance, masking her emotions. He would strip away first the calm then the emotions, until they met in a purely physical encounter. Love had no place in sex. Love had no place in life.
Trailing his fingers along her neck and underneath her hair, he circled her. She trembled again, and his own skin prickled. Why had she trusted him so easily? She knew he would hurt her. He’d done so already.
He led her to the edge of the bed then nudged her shoulders until she sat on the mattress. The caveman impulse to claim her and mark her as his own tore through him, but he wouldn’t mark her as his. He’d set her free from him.
He knelt behind her on the mattress. Instead of leaning into him, she braced her arms on the edge of bed. He gritted his teeth, trying to rein in the red hot desire coursing through him. “You can touch me. Just keep your eyes closed.”
She didn’t move.
Please let her want him as much as he wanted her. He sat behind her, hugging her thighs with his own, his hard groin lodged against her backside. “Do you feel how much I desire you? I need your body to turn into an inferno for me. When I touch you, I want you soaking wet with need.” He pressed her palms to his thighs. “Touch me. Please.”
She skimmed her thumbs across the thin fabric of his suit pants, lighting fire to his trembling nerves.
With tentative fingers, he explored her neck, fascinated by the column of her throat. Her breath hitched, and she tipped her head, allowing him more access. Brushing her hair away, he bent his head and grazed his lips over her creamy, exposed skin.
She gasped, and he slipped his hands inside the neckline of her sweater, gliding his thumbs under her bra straps. As he peeled the bands off her shoulders, her hold on his thighs tightened. Desire shot through him, and he jerked against her.
Desperate to drive her to the teetering edge he clung to, he kissed her collarbone. After pulling her sweater over her head, he feasted on the sight of her bare back, marred only by the thin white band of her bra. He skimmed his fingers over her skin. She shivered beneath him, her sweetness and vulnerability slamming through him.
He flicked the clasp. A light red line indented her skin where the garment had pressed against her flesh. He smoothed his thumb over it then adjusted his position on the bed, so he could caress the abused flesh with his tongue.
“Mmm, that’s nice,” she murmured.
He’d been aiming for something significantly hotter than nice. He caressed the sides of her torso, gliding his fingers along the outer curve of her breasts. Her nipples hardened, causing his cock to throb. The higher his desire spiraled, the more his control slipped.
Pressing his lips to the base of her neck, he roamed his fingers down her spine. After lingering on the small of her back, he delved into the hint of derriere at the top of her jeans.
“I need to see you while you’re touching me. I want your mouth on mine,” she gasped.
He wanted those things too, but he couldn’t risk the personal connection they might spawn. By keeping the focus on the universal physical sensations of lust, he’d avoid anything that could be interpreted as truly making love.
“Keep your eyes closed, and tell me how hot and achy your body is.” He surrounded her from behind to ensure she didn’t turn toward him, his desire for her both agonizing and thrilling as his erection throbbed against her backside.
“Tell me,” he repeated, cupping her breasts in his hands.
She moaned and dug her fingers into his thighs. “My whole body is a lightning rod, and you are pure electricity.”
If he wasn’t careful, he was going to electrocute himself with his live wire. He massaged her luscious breasts, teasing his thumbs in circles around her nipples.
Her breath hitched. “Every time you touch me, you shower me with sparks, and a current travels straight to my core.”
Determined to transfer more of that electricity to her, he c
ontinued the circular motion of his hands until he reached the center of each breast then rolled her nipples in his fingers.
“Oh yeah. I’m so hot and wet.” She lay her head against his shoulder. “Slide your hand down and feel for yourself.”
His fingers twitched. “Not yet. I want you mindless for me first.”
“I am. Mindless and boneless. At least, kiss me. Please, Caleb.”
He laid her back on the bed and dipped his tongue in the hollow of her throat. Rolling on top of her, he sought her breasts with his mouth. He caressed, nuzzled and sucked, as she arched and jerked beneath him.
Eyes still closed, Olivia clutched the bedspread in her fists. “Caleb, please touch me lower.”
“I’m going to. I’m going to kiss your thighs until you scream. Then I’m going to rip off your panties and drive inside you.” Trying to ignore his pounding heart and ragged breathing, he tasted her navel while he worked on the snap of her jeans.
“I don’t know how you know what I want and how I like it, but I’m glad you do.”
“I know because we want the same thing.” Sweet Jesus, he wanted her. His fingers shook as he peeled off her jeans. He brushed the whiskers of his unshaven cheek against her silky inner thigh, kissing her as he’d promised.
She gasped and raised her hips again. Her hot core, covered only with a skimpy pair of lace panties, grazed his mouth. Fighting the overpowering need to taste her, he retreated to her ankles.
“What are you doing? Come back.” She spread her knees in invitation. “Can I look at you now? I want you so badly. I need to see you.”
“Eyes closed.” He licked up to the sensitive juncture of her legs.
“Stop teasing. I can’t take it. I need you,” she screeched.
Pushing aside her panties, he dragged his thumb over her clit and hot, wet opening. He pressed against her trembling body. “I’m not going to stop until you’re so crazy with lust you can’t remember my name.”
“I’m already crazy for you, but please don’t stop.”
“Crazy for this?” He trailed his thumb through her wetness and teased her clit.