Her breathing was ragged as she felt desire throb insistently within her loins. She grasped at his shirt, almost tearing it from him.
He caught her hands, wanting to prolong this just a little longer. The eagerness with which she touched him, with which she took possession of him, annihilated his self-control. There was just the barest shred left.
“Hey, slow down.”
It took her a moment to focus on the world, a moment longer to focus on his face. “Why?” she breathed.
He grinned, his mouth coming down on hers. Suddenly, he couldn’t remember the reason that had been there a moment ago. “You’ve got me.”
Did she, she wondered, her mind hazy. Did she really?
Just an expression, Marlene, don’t get carried away. You only have today. Tomorrow it might be a completely different story.
But she fervently prayed that the story would repeat itself, like a treasured rerun.
And then she couldn’t think at all. Her mind was filled with the sight, the taste, the feel of him and nothing more. There wasn’t room for anything more.
Marlene dragged the shirt from his arms, flinging it to the floor. She was anxious to feel his chest sealed to hers. Eager to have him make love with her.
She felt him smiling against her skin. The very sensation tantalized her. “I think you ripped off a button.”
Who cared about shirts or buttons, or anything else at a time like this? “I’ll buy you a new one for Christmas,” she promised, her voice thick. “We just landed a shirt company. I have my pick.”
With each pass, her excitement rose. Her mouth scrambled along his skin, tasting, savoring the dusky flavors, heightening the passion that burned between them like an untended grass fire.
Sullivan gripped her shoulders, trying to slow her down. He could hardly keep up. “Blue.”
She stopped, looking at him, confused. “Blue what?”
He dove his fingers into her hair, cupping her head. “The shirt. Make the shirt blue, like your eyes, so I can think of them when I wear it.” His words whispered along her face. “So I can think of you.”
They tumbled onto the bed, clinging to each other. He knew he’d said too much, exposed too much of himself. But right now, he didn’t want to think about anything except the delicious sensations that were battering against his body, demanding release.
A bittersweetness wove through him, and he knew she was the source. He felt sorry that it had taken him so many years to find someone like her, sorry that it would be over much too quickly. Circumstances would see to that.
And yet, he felt happy because he had snared this moment in time.
By his own example, he knew that there were men who had so much less and would never know this kind of feeling no matter how many women they had.
He didn’t have her, he reminded himself. She was only on loan. He had to be satisfied with that.
His fingers tangled in her underwear, almost tearing them aside. Sullivan ran his hands over the length of her body. She felt like ivory, like something far too precious to be real. But she was real, and for the night, she was his to adore and worship.
He worshiped freely, passionately and at length.
Marlene moaned, moving to the rhythm he created for them. His hands and mouth discovered all her secrets, all her pulse points which touched off alarms throughout her body.
Alarms that echoed within his own.
By all rights, the bed should have been on fire. Lord knew that she was. She twisted and turned, grasping the comforter and smothering the cries that leaped to her lips, begging for release as Sullivan, with his clever hands and questing mouth, brought her from one high peak to another.
How could he do this, over and over, make her climb a summit and explode into star bursts, only to begin the process again?
It didn’t seem possible. And yet it was happening. Deliciously, wondrously, it was happening. Her body wasn’t her own. She hovered over it, experiencing everything twofold and glorying in it.
She felt his mouth lowering wantonly, sliding along her belly. Her skin quivered as the heat from his lips burned his brand into her. Marlene thought her fingers were going to break off as she clutched the comforter, swallowing a scream.
His tongue worked magic.
Hot, sweaty, she slipped back to earth, knowing the spell was never going to be broken.
“I’m exhausted,” she fairly gasped as his mouth withdrew from the core of her femininity.
His body slid up along hers. She could feel the fire flaming again. His eyes were wicked as he looked into her face. “Too tired to do it one more time?”
She might have somehow found the strength to say yes, but she knew she would have regretted it forever. One look at his face had her regaining ground.
Marlene cleaved to him, her body invitingly sealed against his. Strength suddenly came from some distant, untapped source. She silently blessed it. “What do you think?”
Sullivan ran the palm of his hand along her arm. “I think I’m going to be a hell of a tired man by morning. But I’ll be happy. Very, very happy,” he promised her.
Happy for perhaps the first time in his life, he thought as he rolled onto her.
He sheathed himself in her and began to move. It was a familiar place and yet so new that it was overwhelming. He’d had sex enough times to know the drill, enjoy the feelings that came and went in flashes. But making love with Marlene was different. It brought a happiness with it that was completely unknown to him.
Quick of mind, able to handle himself in any given situation, Sullivan Travis had absolutely no idea how to handle happiness.
So he allowed it to handle him.
Her hips arched up to his. The movement that caught them both in its grip was so welcomed, so intense, it took his breath away.
As did she.
If he could have had any wish in the world granted, he thought some time later, he would have wanted to remain holding her like this until the world ended.
Sullivan smiled to himself. That was a strange wish for a cynic. But then, Marlene had rubbed that edge off him. He didn’t feel quite so cynical anymore. What he felt, he thought, was vulnerable.
He supposed that was the price he had to pay in exchange for the feelings that he had been showered with.
Sullivan gathered Marlene against him. “You look very pleased with yourself.”
She sighed, contentment seeping through her like honey coating the side of a glass. “I guess I am. I never thought I would be, not outside the perimeter of my career. Not that I was outside the office all that much before…” She was about to say before him, but knew that placed too much pressure on Sullivan. “…the baby.”
He toyed with the ends of her hair. “Why did you feel you had to work so hard?”
“To make it up to my father.” Her response was automatic. “Because I wasn’t Robby.”
Sullivan thought of the baby. “Robby?”
She nodded, leaning her head against the crook of his arm. “My brother.”
He remembered now. Curiosity and concern prodded him. “What happened to him?” he asked gently.
Marlene hesitated. Over the years she’d buried the need to mention the brother she had loved so very much. But now, she wanted to share the memory with Sullivan. Needed to share this hidden part of herself. She wanted him in her world completely, without reservations.
“He died when I was ten.” She smiled sadly, remembering her brother through the haze of time. She’d adored him. “Robby was as outgoing as I was shy. He called me Mouse and tried very hard to make me feel brave.” She felt Sullivan’s arm tightening around her. It made her feel safe from the hurt. How could such a little thing be so terribly comforting?
“He was always there between my father and me, like a buffer. I thought he was the best brother in the whole world,” she whispered with feeling.
Marlene sighed and was silent for so long, Sullivan thought she had retreated from the topic. And then she
continued.
“The summer I turned ten, after my mother left us,” Sullivan heard her voice quaver, “my father took the three of us to the mountains on vacation. It was a working vacation, but that didn’t matter to us. Robby made everything fun.
“The first morning we were there, Robby wanted to go exploring.” Her voice grew very still. “Nicole hung back and I wanted to, but Robby dared me to go with him, so I did.”
She pressed her lips together as the memory suddenly grew too large to bear. She felt tears in her eyes and held them back, but they welled up in her throat.
“Robby liked to climb trees. He said that when he was in them, he felt tall enough to touch the sky. Climbing always scared me. So did watching him.” She swallowed, but the lump refused to leave. “I begged him not to do it, but being Robby, he did.
“He seemed to be part squirrel. He got up high and then looked down at me. ‘C’mon up, Mouse,’ he called. ‘The view’s great.”’ The words came slowly from her lips. “He lost his balance then and fell out of the tree, almost at my feet. I screamed and held him in my arms, begging him to wake up, calling for help. I held him until he died.” The tears were sliding down her cheeks now, but she forced the rest of the words out. They had to get out, out of her heart and into the open. “And I held him after that, until they found us.”
“Oh God, Marlene.” There were no words to offer. Sullivan couldn’t do anything but hold her and try to absorb her pain.
A bitter smile twisted her lips. She stared straight ahead, seeing the past. “My father said it was my fault, that Robby was showing off for me.”
It was difficult for Sullivan to bridle his anger. “How could he have laid that kind of a guilt trip on a ten-year-old?” His own father had never done anything that heartless. He’d merely appointed him Derek’s keeper in what he thought was everyone’s best interest.
She shrugged. Her father had been what he had been. Nothing could change that. She knew. She had tried. “Probably because he didn’t even know how old I was and because he was angry. That was the last time he mentioned it, though. The last time he mentioned Robby. I wanted to talk to him about it, about how much I missed Robby, about his death. But my father never let me. I knew he was hurting.” She looked up at Sullivan. “He had to be. He’d lost his only son. And I tried to make it up to him.” The futility burned into her soul. “I spent most of my life trying. And failing. My father was very good at pointing out how much I failed.”
She realized that she was crying and brushed the tears away. She felt embarrassed. “I’m sorry. First I decorate you with tinsel, then I cry all over you…”
He kissed the top of her head, wishing there was something he could do, something he could say that would erase her pain. “It’s all right. I don’t mind—as long as I’m not the one who made you cry.”
She let out a deep sigh that was more of a shudder. “You’re not.”
Marlene raised her eyes to his. There was a deep-seated need to draw closer to him, a closeness that arose from intimacy of the soul. And there were things she knew he was holding back, things that he’d bottled up inside. “Tell me about your brother.”
The request caught him off guard. “There’s not much to tell.” But he saw that she was waiting, so he forced himself to relax and remember. If he went back to the beginning, when they’d both been very young, there were more good memories than bad. He harvested them.
“All right.” He settled back, holding her against him. “Derek was tall, good-looking, with a great sense of humor.” Sullivan’s voice softened as the image took form. “He could have been anything he wanted to be. What he chose to be was a thorn in my father’s side. He did that very well.”
Sadness and anger welled up inside of him. Sullivan closed his eyes and shook his head, emitting a sigh he was unaware of. “What he was, in the end, was a jerk. He had everything going for him, and he blew it because he was angry at my father for making demands on him.”
Marlene saw his rigid jaw, the feelings that were sublimated. She understood. “But you loved him.”
The denial rose quickly and dissolved just as fast. For her there could be nothing but the truth. She knew it anyway.
“But I loved him.” He shrugged. “Didn’t help him any, and it didn’t do a hell of a lot for me, either. I couldn’t change him.”
“But you tried. There’s only so much you can do. Some people won’t, or can’t, change, no matter how much we love them.” She brushed her hand along his cheek. “And don’t knock love. Love of any kind sees you through. If I hadn’t had Nicole, even though most of the time I feel responsible for her, I don’t know if I’d be here today.” She smiled, looking into his eyes. “Love gives you a nice warm place to go to in the middle of storms.”
That’s what she was to him, he thought, a nice warm place. And he wanted to go back there now.
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Can we stop trading family histories for a while?”
Marlene could feel her pulses beginning to scramble. The past and the future disappeared, leaving just the two of them. “Sure.”
Sullivan’s lips slowly wove their way along the outline of her cheek. “Good, because I’d like to make love with you again.”
She turned her body to his, issuing an open invitation. “That’s what I like. A man who knows what he wants.”
Chapter Fifteen
Osborne looked surprised to see him, but quickly took Sullivan’s coat. “I would watch my step if I were you, Master Sullivan. His mood is raw this morning.”
Rather than going to the office from Marlene’s bed, Sullivan had decided to stop at his father’s house first. They needed to talk.
“It shouldn’t be.” Sullivan looked toward the closed doors. Beyond them was the living room where his father liked to sit by the fire for hours, pouring over photographs of projects he had coheaded in years past. “The rains have finally stopped for a while. We might even be able to dry out and do a little construction for a change. Building always makes him happy.”
Hanging the coat up, Osborne shook his head. “I’m afraid that won’t help this time.” Osborne gave him a knowing look as he retreated. “Good luck, sir.”
Why did he feel as if he were going to need it? Taking a deep breath, Sullivan opened the double doors. The smell of scented wood, lemon polish and old cognac wafted to him. He saw the decanter on the coffee table. It was unopened. Was his father celebrating, or mourning?
“Good morning, Dad.”
Oliver turned his chair so abruptly, it sent the album on his lap falling to the floor. “You weren’t home last night.”
Sullivan picked up the album and placed it on the table beside the decanter. “I know.”
His father’s eyes scrutinized him shrewdly. “I called you several times, and each time your answering machine picked up. It’s not like you to stay out during the week.”
Cognac wasn’t just for celebrating or mourning, he realized. Sometimes, it was for taking the edge off and warming chilled bones. Such as now. Sullivan poured himself less than one finger and sipped it before answering. “It’s not a school night, Dad.”
“Don’t get sarcastic with me, Sullivan.” Oliver moved his chair so that he was directly in front of Sullivan. “That’s how your brother started, and look at how he ended up.”
Sullivan took another sip to wash away the bad taste in his mouth. It was all there in front of him, and the old man just couldn’t see it, could he?
“Maybe you should take a look at how Derek ended up and change your approach.”
Rage crept through the whiskers of his beard and colored Oliver’s entire face. “What are you talking about?”
His father had to stop thinking that he could orchestrate everyone’s life. Last night, lying beside Marlene, Sullivan had finally gotten his priorities completely in order. And he knew his father’s place in the scheme of things. It wasn’t at the helm.
“Marlene Bailey.”
Olive
r had no idea where this was leading. All he knew was that a pretty face had scrambled his son’s razor-sharp mind.
“Was that where you were last night? With her?” Oliver frantically searched his son’s face. No, Sullivan wouldn’t just turn his back on everything. He was proceeding according to plan. That had to be it. Oliver relaxed. “Wonderful.”
The shift in inflection, in manner, stunned Sullivan. He stared at his father. “I don’t think I managed to jump that transition in the road with you.”
The incredulousness in Sullivan’s tone failed to register. Of course, it was so simple, Oliver speculated. He hadn’t thought of winning the woman over with romance, but perhaps Sullivan’s unorthodox methods were best.
“Of course you did,” Oliver insisted. “If you wine her, dine her, get her to trust you, then we can proceed according to plan.”
Sullivan sighed. He should have seen that one coming. “There isn’t a plan.”
Confusion mingled with annoyance rose in Oliver’s gray eyes. “What are you talking about? Of course there’s a plan.”
Sullivan regarded his empty glass and thought of filling it, this time to the top. But alcohol wasn’t the solution here, especially at this hour. There probably wasn’t a solution, he thought with regret. But he had to try.
“I’m talking about leaving that boy where he is. With his mother.”
It took Oliver a moment to assimilate what he was hearing. In all these years, Sullivan had never crossed him. If they’d had a difference of opinion over a project, things were always resolved rationally and quickly. This situation had the makings of something very different.
His son had changed since Derek’s last folly had come to light. Changed so that he hardly recognized him.
Oliver waved a dismissive hand at Sullivan. “You’re obviously not going to be any use to me. Somehow, she’s turned you into her stooge. But make no mistake about this, Sullivan, I am going to sue for custody. And I’m going to win. That boy belongs in this family.”
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