by Ruby Laska
“I should have talked to you,” Claudia said slowly, her voice careful. “I think I owe you an apology for that. It was—a rough time for me. A very difficult time.”
“Go on.”
She sighed heavily. “You keep saying that I left you, as though it were a—a whim, or a caprice. But you seem to forget the talk we had the night before.”
“I’ve forgotten nothing.”
“Really? Well, maybe there was something the matter with my hearing because...” She paused and chewed her lower lip, staring into the middle distance.
“You dangled a proposition in front of me,” Andy said. If she wouldn’t finish, he’d do it for her—anything would be better than sitting here mutely, avoiding the real issue. “You spoke of marriage, of family, as though you ever for a minute planned to have those things with me.”
“I did.” Sudden fury flashed in her eyes. “I did. Do you know how hard it was for me to bring those things up?”
“You were a child,” he said shortly. “Twenty-one. On your way back to a life you hadn’t even begun. A child with very particular tastes, schooled in your Daddy’s mansion. A child accustomed to having every fancy fulfilled.”
“It wasn’t a fancy,” she choked. “And I wasn’t a child. I was a woman by the time our affair was over. You can claim at least part of the responsibility for that.”
“Oh, you were a woman in my bed,” Andy said sharply. “Your skill there showed a wisdom well beyond your years. But you had never earned your own living, never balanced a checkbook, never held a job or helped others. And then you talked about a future. How could I believe you when you hadn’t yet even lived?”
“Because I told you,” Claudia said. “You should have believed me because I told you what I wanted.”
“Oh, come off it. You and I both know that you would have never lasted with me. The first time you saw some trinket that wasn’t in our budget, it would have all been over.”
“I told you I would pay my way. I offered to rent a place for us. I begged you to give up your job so you could concentrate on your studies—”
“—and return to you at night, your paid gigolo, right?” Andy saw the tears streaking down her cheeks but couldn’t stop. “No! I would not have you live with me unless I could afford to support us. At the very least to pay my half. You never understood that. Your money was an insult and every time you waved it at me you cut me deep. I knew that the minute things were on the line you’d bolt—and you proved me right, didn’t you?”
Claudia dug her fists into the soft fabric of the afghan, pressing her knuckles against her thighs, hard. His words were like icy rain. She hadn’t been able to convince him then—why should she think she could now? And why bother?
Besides, maybe there was some truth to what he said. Not much, but a little. Yes, she’d wanted to be with him, wanted something permanent after she’d shared a level of intimacy she’d never imagined possible. But it was true that at 21 her idea of a life together was naive, to say the least.
She’d imagined building a love nest for him, following him back to school, spending her days decorating the apartment and making wonderful meals for him. Marrying him, of course. It seemed as though there was enough money in her trust fund to last forever, if they were careful, and since she’d reached legal majority it was all hers if she wanted it.
That’s as far as she’d thought. There was nothing in her picture of her own dreams, her own plans. She had no goals of her own. Being his wife would be enough.
But he’d been wise enough to see that she was fooling herself. It never would have—never could have worked the way she had planned. He would have bridled at having his way paid—even she should have understood his stubborn pride enough to comprehend that.
And as for Claudia...well, that young girl quickly grew up and learned that she wanted to make something of herself as well, to have a career and keep learning and make her own way in the world.
And then there was Paul.
“I’m sorry,” Claudia said. “It’s all so long ago. I’m not trying to make excuses for myself. I know I didn’t handle things right. But you have to believe that—however wrong I might have been, I was acting out of love. I didn’t want to drive you away. In my own way I was trying to—I don’t know, tie you to me in some way. I saw how you worked. I saw the way you committed yourself to your future as if—sometimes it seemed like nothing else mattered to you. It scared me to think that there might not be room for me in your picture.”
Andy leaned slightly forward, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped, his expression inscrutable. “It was a long time ago,” he finally said. “I had a rough road to navigate. I gave everything to it. Maybe that was wrong. When my Dad died, I went through a lot of self-doubt. Thinking I’d cheated myself of those last months with him. But I knew he would have wanted it this way. For me to succeed, that’s all he ever dreamed of.”
Claudia saw the naked sadness on Andy’s face, and without thinking reached a hand to comfort, to soften the lines around his weary eyes.
She traced the network of lines down to the deep furrows around his mouth, lines she remembered well from concentration, from a focus so intense Andy was able to shut out the rest of the world. The sharp stubble of his beard under her fingers contrasted with the smooth warmth of his skin, igniting a response in the sensitive nerves that started in her fingertips and traveled to the rest of her body. Without thinking, she continued her exploration to his lips, soft and warm, parting at her touch so that she slid one finger along the edge of his mouth.
And then his hand shot out and gripped her arm, locked with the strength of iron.
When his voice came, it was coarse, thick with heat. “Don’t play with me,” he warned, “unless you’re ready to see this through until the end.”
Claudia heard. She heard and then, without thinking, she plunged ahead.
CHAPTER FIVE
Andy resisted.
As Claudia let her fingertips trail down the side of his face, he inhaled the faint scent of her perfume, some trace left on her wrist. He’d always loved her perfume, one he’d never detected on any other woman. It was deep and rich and spicy, not at all girlish, more pine and moss than flowers. She used to stand barefoot in her simple white bra and panties in the cold of the morning, taking her time, tracing the crystal stopper of the tiny vial of perfume along her pulse points: throat, wrists, between her breasts.
And sometimes she’d pause in her private ritual and lift her eyes to him, a smoldering challenge as he turned away from his desk across the room and watched, and trace the crystal down the flat plane of her stomach, dip it to the inside of her pale thighs. Then Andy would know the books would have to wait that day.
Claudia had been new to lovemaking the first time she’d shared his bed. But God, she was a quick study, somehow innocent and wicked at the same time.
And now she was tracing a single index finger along his jaw, down past his collarbones, slipping under the collar of his shirt, looking at him expectantly. Her lips were parted slightly and her breathing quickened.
He’d warned her, but she’d taken no heed. Reckless Claudia, always taking chances with everyone’s lives, even her own. No thought to the consequences, to the devastating effects her actions might have—
Andy seized her exploring fingers, crushing them roughly in his own hand, and glared at Claudia.
“You had better be damn sure this is what you want,” he muttered. But she met his gaze, with a look that was hungry and expectant and not the least bit intimidated.
And so he stopped resisting.
Slowly he lifted her fingers to his lips, kissing them softly. The feather light brush of his mouth on her knuckles was almost unbearably delicate, especially when he turned her hand and trailed his kiss up her wrist, up her arm to the crook of the elbow, and then slowly back down.
When he returned to her fingers, he slid one briefly into his mouth. His mouth was warm, his tongue velvet, a
nd the heat coiling in her core bloomed and traveled through her body.
“Kiss me, please, Andy,” she pleaded, holding her breath as he closed the distance between them on the couch. In one swift and fluid motion he lifted her legs at the knees and repositioned them so she was reclining against the pile of old down pillows. He lowered his lips to hers, meeting her hunger with his own.
She’d expected him to be rough, but his touch was soft, his tongue tracing a slow path along her lip before meeting her own. She opened herself to him, twining her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer to deepen the kiss. At her urging he finally tasted her, plunging his tongue into the reaches of her mouth with a rhythm that entered her body and translated itself into the press of her own body against his.
Long legs insinuated themselves around Andy’s own, and Claudia shifted deftly so that she lay under him. His body followed her lead, molding to her, meeting her thrusts solidly. She wore a simple sea-green shirt and short skirt, and his fingers found with pleasure that they were made of some thin, suede-like material that slipped through his fingers like liquid silk. Andy bunched the fabric of her taut skirt, pushing up to ease the tension on the seams, and as her legs opened he slid gratefully between.
Claudia arched against him, meeting his arousal, pulling him even closer to her. He fingered the buttons on her shirt, tiny pearl-like closures that evaded his hasty attempts, and Claudia’s fingers flew to help him. In seconds she’d released the buttons and Andy drew back to watch the silken fabric glide off her breasts.
She wore the same style of plain white cotton bra, the one he’d always found so sexy in its innocence, but her breasts seemed different somehow. A little larger, but softer, more...womanly. Andy released the front clasp and eased his body down, sliding deliciously along until he was able to examine one lush breast with all his senses.
Her skin was soft against his cheek, and he nuzzled briefly, the shudder that went through Claudia’s body his reward. He sought one nipple with thumb and finger while he took the other into his mouth. Small, rigid with desire, it was a small pearl against his tongue, his lips, and he rolled it with exquisite pleasure. Claudia’s moan resonated against his skin as he tongued her in widening circles, eventually trailing lower.
As he followed an invisible line down her stomach, pausing to dip his tongue into her belly button, Claudia arched her back and let a sigh escape her parted lips. It felt so right, his caress. Her body, which she had been convinced was closed forever to sensual ecstasy, had awakened, and right or wrong, she was riding a current she knew she couldn’t fight.
When Andy reached the sueded silk bunched at her waist, she met his hand with her own to loosen the clasp and slide the skirt down her legs. Andy’s hot breath at the top of her panties nearly drove her wild, especially when he caught the fabric in his teeth and tugged gently downward. Claudia slipped a finger under the elastic and sent the wisp of cotton flying off the couch to join the skirt puddled on the floor.
Naked. She was naked with a man for the first time since...him. A few times she’d come close, but her body had always shut down. The touch of other men felt clumsy, leaden. But not Andy’s: his strong hands were warm and confident against her skin, the stubble of his beard exquisite agony, his mouth hot and ravenous.
For a second he stilled, and Claudia tensed, afraid he’d changed his mind, that he was going to stop touching her when only his touch could ease her exquisite torture. Then he rested his face on the soft plane of her stomach and ran his hands under her waist, an embrace of surprising intimacy, a gentle pause in his quest.
But Claudia didn’t want to wait. She slid one leg along his thighs, teasing his rigid arousal with her calf, and he responded with lightning speed. He growled and slid out of her reach, and his movement brought his face down a few critical inches. Before Claudia could catch her breath he began an achingly slow, wet exploration of her femininity. Under the ministration of his tongue and lips Claudia writhed, her hands seeking purchase in the scratchy wool of the couch. And then, just as she was convinced she couldn’t possibly feel any further sensation, Andy slid a finger deep inside of her, then joined it with another.
She bucked against him as he focused his tongue on the tiny nub of her passion, sucking gently and swirling. With his fingers filling her, she couldn’t hold on any longer, and as she let go she felt Andy reach up with his free hand and seize hers and she held on fiercely until the last wave had shuddered through her.
But it wasn’t enough. Even as she came down on the other side of the majestic peak she’d scaled, Andy trailed kisses back up her body, reversing the path he’d taken before, and desire edged back into the pit of her belly. She fiercely needed to join her body to his. For real. His body on hers, his mouth covering hers as they moved together.
“Andy,” she whispered. “I want you inside of me.”
Andy tensed, the muscles in his shoulders hardening beneath her fingers. Did Claudia have any idea what it was doing to him, feeling her skin, moist from exertion, next to his? Breathing the heady scent of her pleasure?
“I want to,” he groaned, “more than you can possibly know. But—I don’t have protection with me.”
There was a pause, and then Claudia squirmed out from under him. He watched without breathing as she retrieved her purse from a small table across the room and rifled through it. She was a glorious creature, unselfconscious without clothes, standing tall in her bare feet as she padded on the worn carpets.
Rejoining him she offered a small packet.
“The only thing is, this is kind of old,” she said. “Do you think—I mean, do they expire or something?”
Andy took the packet from her and squinted, but in his current state he could barely hold the thing still, much less make out the tiny lettering. “How old?”
“I don’t know exactly. A year...maybe two.” Even in the dim light he could see that Claudia was blushing furiously, and once again her combination of innocence and natural sensuousness claimed him, and he made short work of the foil wrapper.
Claudia had her arms around his neck before he could balance himself carefully on the narrow seat of the couch.
“Whoa, girl,” he said. “I’m hoping to get out of this with only minor abrasions—”
His voice was lost in a kiss that Claudia claimed, all hesitation gone. She slid the soles of her feet along the backs of his calves, igniting tiny flash fires along the way, until she found purchase, and leveraged her body against his.
Andy’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as she deftly moved beneath him, joining him to her. But he was ready. God, was he ready. He moved inside her, trying with all his might to go slow, but after a couple of strokes Claudia bit his lower lip impatiently and dug her nails into his shoulders.
At that he drove himself deep within her, unable to withhold any longer. Claudia met his thrust squarely, a cry of pleasure escaping her lips. As he moved against her, pulled by a force more powerful than anything he could imagine, she broke their kiss and pressed her face against his shoulder. He heard her moans deepening, her breath coming more quickly, and then he heard nothing at all other than the pounding pleasure in his head as he rode a wave with her. At the moment of his release, she grabbed his hips with incredible strength and held on, melded her body to his until it seemed as though they had joined into one being.
Long after the last of his essence had been released, they remained that way. Slowly, slowly he felt his own heart calm, felt a cool breeze from the window on the skin, moist from exertion. Claudia kept her eyes closed, and he took advantage of the moment to watch her. She stretched one arm luxuriously and then let it fall behind her head, and her mouth curved slightly at the corners, the ghost of a smile. That look of feline satisfaction: he remembered it now, the way she liked to take her pleasure and then stretch her body, drifting off to sleep naked, curled like a cat.
“Claudia,” he finally said, “am I that hard to look at?”
Her eyes fluttered open
and she looked at him thoughtfully, taking his question more seriously than he’d intended.
“Not at all,” she said. “It’s just...it seems like a dream, what happened just now. I was just hoping to enjoy it a little longer before I have to wake up.”
“Why would you have to wake up?” Andy asked softly, brushing a few strands of hair off her forehead as her eyelids slid down again. “This is better than a dream. It’s real.”
“No,” she murmured, voice trailing as though she were nearly asleep. “It was wonderful. More wonderful than anything I’ve felt in a long time. But it was definitely not real.”
Andy opened his eyes one at a time in the near-darkness. A sliver of light from the hall traveled across the bed, slanting through the warm nest of linens where Claudia had been wrapped in his arms.
How she’d managed to extricate herself without waking him, he had no idea. He’d never been a sound sleeper, and during his grueling residency had learned to force himself from sleep to total concentration at the slightest sound.
But tonight, after loving Claudia, after carrying her sleeping form to the bedroom, he’d slept better than he had in months. Years. Still, small sounds from the other room slipped into his dreamless slumber: a chair being slid on a tile floor, a soft voice.
Claudia was talking on the phone.
Andy swung his legs over the side of the bed, sheet still twisted around his body. Then he thought better of it. He glanced at the digital bedside clock: 3:00 am. Who the devil could she be talking to at that hour?
Slowly, Andy lowered himself back to his pillow, but he was now fully alert. He shouldn’t listen. Had no business doing so.
But there was nowhere else to go, no way to block out the soft, warm tones of her voice, and a word here and there drifted into the bedroom.
