One Mom Too Many

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “How about newspapers?” Daniel asked.

  “I’ll get them.” She stepped over the barrier and scooped up an armful from a basket next to the fireplace. Then she recrossed the barrier and started spreading the papers around the kitchen.

  Daniel stooped down to help. “Are these local?”

  “Yes.” She laughed as St. Paddy tried to climb in her lap and nearly knocked her over.

  “Did you take out the comic page?”

  “Yes, but you just gave me an idea. I’ve got several extras.” She handed him the rest of the newspapers. “I’m going to get one for St. Paddy.”

  “He may be big for his age, but I doubt he can read yet.”

  “It’s symbolic. Be right back.” Soon she returned with the comic page from a recent paper and laid it ceremoniously down in front of the puppy. “For you, m’lord.”

  St. Paddy looked down at the paper and back up at her, his tail wagging vigorously.

  “See? He likes it,” Rose said.

  Daniel rolled his eyes. “He sure does. I think he wants you to read it to him.”

  “Why not?” She got down on her hands and knees, which the puppy acknowledged by licking her face. “Come on, Daniel. You read St. Paddy’s speeches, and I’ll be Flynn.”

  “Are you sure I’m right for the part? Don’t you want me to audition first?”

  “Just get down here and read, smart aleck. It was your idea.”

  Daniel sank to his knees beside her. “Here we have Daniel O’Malley, supercop, reading a comic strip to a dog.” He placed both hands on the floor and went nose-to-nose with St. Paddy. “Do you realize what this could do to my tough-guy image if anybody found out, pup?”

  St. Paddy responded by swiping a tongue over Daniel’s nose.

  “Tough guy, huh?” Rose chuckled.

  “Criminals tremble at the mention of my name. Come here, you,” Daniel said, wrapping one arm around the wriggling puppy. He adopted a thick brogue and started to read. St. Paddy grew still and cocked his head.

  “Daniel, he’s really listening,” Rose whispered.

  “Of course he is. Are you going to read your part or do I have to do everything around here?”

  Rose read the words of the little leprechaun in a lilting, teasing voice.

  Daniel glanced at her and grinned. “That’s so cute.” She blushed, suddenly self-conscious. “It’s just how I hear him in my head.”

  “I can tell.” Still smiling, he returned his attention to the strip and read the next St. Paddy line.

  she sensed he was watching her with that same smile on his face as she started to read her next line. She stopped halfway through. “Don’t look at me. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Nervous? With what you do for a living?”

  “This is different.”

  “But you look so adorable when you start talking like Flynn.”

  “Don’t look.”

  “Okay.” He shielded St. Paddy’s eyes. “Don’t look, pup. She’s shy.”

  Her color high, Rose continued reading in tandem with Daniel. When his rich laughter greeted her final line, she didn’t think she’d ever felt so validated in her life. She gazed at him. “Thanks.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” He regarded her with an appreciative light in his eyes. “Ready to try and settle him in now?”

  “Sure.”

  But Paddy didn’t seem to want to stay in the box.

  “Just sit on the floor by the box and keep petting him while he’s in there. I’ll bet he goes to sleep eventually,” Daniel said. “In the meantime I’ll make us a couple of sandwiches.”

  “I didn’t even remember about lunch!”

  “I’ll bet you don’t eat as much as I do, anyway. You’re probably not very hungry.”

  “No, I’m not, but it still doesn’t say much for my hostessing skills that I didn’t even bring up the subject.”

  Daniel opened the refrigerator and pulled out lunch meat and lettuce. “I thought we agreed that I’d think about the food this weekend.”

  “And what am I supposed to think about?”

  He shot her a quick grin. “Me.”

  As if she could help it. It might have seemed she had all her attention focused on the puppy curled up in the box, but she recorded every nuance as Daniel moved around the kitchen. She watched the way a lock of his dark hair fell on his forehead as he leaned over the counter to spread mustard on the bread. She noticed the way his jeans fit in the back as he walked over to pull a bag of chips out of the cupboard. When he came toward her, she noticed how they fit in the front, too.

  If St. Paddy would only drift off to sleep, she’d suggest they refrigerate the sandwiches until later. But the puppy continued to gaze up at her with his soulful brown eyes. And she had, after all, just deprived him of his nine brothers and sisters. Getting this puppy right now might not have been the brightest move she’d ever made.

  Daniel handed her half a sandwich. “Eat this. You’ll need your strength.”

  “Is that right?” Remarks like that made her heart race, but she felt uncertain about letting him know just how far gone she was when it came to his considerable sex appeal. She took a bite of sandwich, which was very good.

  He squatted down in front of her, part of a sandwich in his hand. “Yeah. I’m known as a regular love machine. Ask anybody.”

  “Hmm. A supercop and now a love machine.” She took another bite, chewed and swallowed before addressing St. Paddy. “Tell me, my good man, have you heard the news of this man’s prowess in the sack?”

  St. Paddy looked up at her and opened his mouth in an enormous yawn.

  Rose glanced at Daniel. “St. Paddy’s unimpressed.”

  “He’s a guy. Guys never want to admit someone is better at it than they are.”

  “And just how good are you?”

  “Keep petting that puppy, who is definitely getting sleepy, and in about five minutes you’ll find out.”

  “Oh, the experience lasts for that long, does it? The women must go wild over you.”

  “I meant in five minutes you’d begin to find out. I think I can manage a little more than five minutes’ worth.”

  “I see.” She took another bite of the sandwich, but it was merely for show. She couldn’t taste it as she looked into his eyes.

  “He’s asleep,” he murmured, taking the rest of her sandwich from her and putting it on the counter with his. “Take your hand away very, very slowly.”

  She eased her fingers away from the puppy’s fur.

  “I’m going to pull you to your feet. Just let me do the guiding, and you won’t bump the box.” He stood slowly and held out both hands.

  Her gaze locked with his. She put her hands into his larger ones and he drew her slowly to her feet. By the time he’d pulled her upright, her heart was hammering with excitement.

  “I’ll back out of here. Just follow me.”

  With that glow of sensuality in his eyes, she would have followed him to Outer Mongolia. They moved cautiously over the barrier across the doorway of the kitchen.

  Rose remembered the edge of the rag rug at the moment Daniel tripped on it and lost his balance. She tried to hold him upright, but he was far too heavy. They toppled backward, somehow managing to avoid the furniture, and landed on the floor with a heavy thud, Rose on top and Daniel on the bottom.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, raising herself up to look down at him.

  “Shh.” He pulled her back to his chest. “Be still. Let’s see if we woke him up.”

  “Oh, no doubt. Daniel, you probably hurt yourself. Let’s—”

  “I’m fine. Now be quiet. I think he’s still asleep.”

  She rested her cheek against his chest and listened to the rapid thump of his heart through the fabric of his knit shirt. Slowly she reached up and unfastened a button on the placket at the neck.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Checking to see if anything’s broken.”
She slipped her hand inside his shirt.

  His breathing quickened. “I’ve changed my mind. No telling what’s wrong with me after that fall. I think you’d better check everything. Thoroughly.”

  9

  DANIEL DIDN’T KID himself that this moment was the beginning of a long and glorious love affair. Rose needed someone right now, and thanks to his mother, he’d shown up. She was in transition between careers, between homes, between life-styles. Having someone to hold during a time like that could be a great comfort.

  He’d hurt like hell when she no longer required his company. Yet knowing their time together was finite, he still gathered her close as they lay together on the braided rug and opened his heart. It was the only way he could make love to a woman, and Rose needed everything he could give her.

  As Rose’s hands crept beneath his shirt, he rolled her to her side and began kissing every freckle on her lovely Irish face. As he moved his lips over her warm skin, he hooked a finger in the tie holding her hair and pulled it down and away. He wanted her hair loose and wild, with its heady fragrance surrounding him as he nuzzled behind her ear.

  He was glad he’d been interrupted back in her apartment. This was the place to make love to Rose, in this whitewashed cottage with its thatched roof and drifts of snowy lace at the leaded-glass windows. She tasted like the country, smelled like the country—fresh cream, wild honey, sparkling streams and grassy meadows. For a city boy, that was quite a treat. And Daniel feasted.

  Her clothes came away with surprising ease as he uncovered more and more of the wonder that was Rose. Her skin seemed almost translucent, and her bones were so delicate that he was reminded of a Lladro porcelain figurine he’d broken as a child. Yet the heat pouring from her and the urgency of her touch told him she didn’t want him to be gentle. He was gentle anyway. She had no idea of the brute strength in the hands of a well-trained cop, and she’d never find out from him.

  Briefly, he thought of taking her into the bedroom so she’d have the softness of the mattress at her back, but then she unbuttoned the fly of his jeans and stroked him. He gave up the idea of moving anywhere as he became hard as a nightstick and crazy with the urge to bury himself inside her.

  Gasping, he lifted his head to see if anything was handy that he could place beneath her. Two toss pillows were on the couch within arm’s reach, and he grabbed them both. He tucked one under her head as he rolled her to her back and leaned down to explore her mouth once more. She’d worked her hand inside his briefs by this time, and he groaned with the intense pleasure. He would have to have her soon...very soon.

  But first he wanted to take those saucy little breasts in his mouth. Their pert upward thrust enticed him far more than abundance would have, and the obvious sensitivity of her nipples as she whimpered and writhed beneath his ministrations converted him forever to the magic of small breasts.

  He moved between her slender thighs and lifted her hips for the second pillow. As slight as she was, he might drive her right into the floor with the force of the desire building in him. He’d never before felt the blood roaring in his ears like this, or his hands trembling so much when he dug into his pocket for the condom he’d put there this morning.

  It wasn’t easy finding the condom and putting it on while he continued to kiss her mouth and caress her passion-slicked body. And her eyes—how he loved to slide his hand down between her thighs and watch the turbulent reaction in her green, green eyes. The way she lifted into his caress when he probed her moist channel told him he could bring her to climax that way, but he was too selfish. He wanted to be inside her when she felt the first explosion. He wanted those spasms to set off his own.

  At last he managed to get the condom on. Braced above her, he fastened his gaze on hers and eased forward, stopping when he was just barely inside her. She made a sound low in her throat and grasped his hips, her whole body radiating impatience.

  He resisted her urging. “We’ll only have this moment once in our lives,” he said.

  Her voice was ragged with passion. “So you want it to take forever?”

  He laughed. He didn’t think he could laugh when he was worked up like this, but it turned out he could. “Yes.” He leaned down and kissed her.

  She nipped at his lower lip.

  He lifted his head and gazed down at her. “You’re a handful, Rose Kingsford.”

  “Then use both hands, Officer O’Malley.”

  So he did. He slipped one arm under her shoulders, holding her a little off the floor, and slid his other hand under her firm behind. Then, when he was quite sure he wouldn’t slam her against the hard floor, he pushed deep.

  She gasped.

  He withdrew in concern. “Rose?”

  “That was lovely,” she said in a breathless whisper. “You come right back here, Daniel.”

  With a soft moan he came back, back to paradise, back to the place it seemed he’d been seeking all his life. Nothing had ever seemed so right as locking his body tightly with hers, moving only enough to increase the delicious pressure for both of them. He’d wondered if he’d ever feel this perfection or if it was an impossible dream.

  “Oh, Daniel,” she murmured, her eyes closed and her voice full of awe. “Daniel.”

  “I’m here. Open your eyes, Rose.”

  Slowly her eyelids fluttered upward.

  He looked into those green depths and saw more than momentary pleasure. In that moment he knew that Rose had opened her heart, as well. Perhaps she, like he, couldn’t help herself.

  “We’re in trouble now,” he whispered, gently increasing the rhythm.

  “I know.”

  As the motion carried them both beyond reason, her body grew taut beneath his and her breathing came quick and fast. He focused on her face, suffused with desire and something more lasting than desire, and knew that he never wanted any other man to touch her like this, to possess either her body or her heart. Her violent climax triggered his, and at the moment of truth, her name was wrenched from him in an involuntary plea.

  He was in trouble. Big trouble.

  ROSE LAY in the tangle of clothes and wondered how in the heck she’d gotten herself in such a mess. For the first time in years she’d allowed a man to get under her skin. Daniel’s sweetness and sense of humor had her questioning all her assumptions about marriage and happily-ever-afters. But this wasn’t a very good time to be doing that now that she’d finally figured out what she wanted from life—a child, a new career and a charming country place to live in. A mounted policeman with the NYPD didn’t fit in with any of that.

  And as for Daniel, he’d been quite plain about his need for freedom. What it amounted to was that she’d picked a hell of a time to fall in love, and the worst person in the world to fall in love with.

  Daniel’s face was buried in her hair, but his weight didn’t rest fully on her, so she knew he wasn’t asleep. She ran her finger up his spine and felt the quiver of response. “I respect a man who can back up his boast,” she murmured. “I haven’t experienced the blanket, but you’re heaven on a rug.”

  He stirred and nuzzled the side of her neck. “It helps to be holding paradise in my arms.”

  “Spoken like a true Irishman.”

  He raised up on one elbow and gazed down at her. “Go ahead. Make fun of what we just shared. Make fun of me. But I saw your eyes, and I know you’re making jokes because you’re scared to death.”

  She swallowed. “Okay, I’m scared. I’ve never felt anything quite like this.”

  He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “Doesn’t fit into your scheme, does it?”

  “Does it fit into yours?”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  He lifted his head to look into her eyes. “I’m not sure yet. When the whole world shifts, a wise man gets his balance before he goes off in any direction.”

  She smiled. “Now that really sounds Irish.”

  “Must be the influence
of this little cottage. I feel like John Wayne in The Quiet Man.”

  Rose wondered just how deeply he felt that role. John Wayne had played the part of a man who marries in that film. As she gazed into Daniel’s dark eyes, she gradually became aware of another pair of brown eyes staring down at her in solemn wonder. She started to giggle.

  Daniel looked puzzled and turned his head to follow the direction of her gaze.

  St. Paddy licked his face.

  “Yikes! Prison break.”

  “So much for your barrier theory.”

  “Keep an eye on him while I go wash up. We’ll figure out something.” He eased away from her, stood and walked unself-consciously into the bathroom.

  Rose gazed after him. Sure enough, he had a small purple scar on his left buttock. He didn’t seem the least worried about showing it off, either. She smiled to herself as she sat up to locate her underpants. While putting them on, she turned to St. Paddy, who was having a great time investigating the clothing scattered around the area. “Be a good dog,” she said. “Don’t—uh-oh.”

  St. Paddy scampered a short distance away with Daniel’s briefs between his teeth.

  “Come here,” Rose coaxed.

  The puppy edged forward, ready for a game.

  “Just give them back.” Easing forward, she made a grab for them and was instantly in a tug-of-war. “St. Paddy! Let go!”

  The puppy tugged harder, his hind end in the air and his tail wagging madly.

  Daniel walked in. “I need my—” he paused at the sound of ripping cotton “—duffel bag,” he finished, going back to the bedroom.

  “Daniel, I’m sorry,” Rose called after him. “I’ll buy you a new pair.”

  “Not on your life,” he called back from the bedroom. “Those are my insurance policy against you telling anybody I read a comic strip to a dog. If you ever do, I’m telling the world you ripped my underwear in a fit of passion.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “Just try me.” He came back into the room wearing only a low-slung pair of navy briefs.

  Rose looked him up and down and ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. “Is that an invitation, Officer O’Malley?”