Paradise

by Judith McNaught

  If sex was all he had on his mind tonight, why hadn’t he tried to persuade her to come to bed with him, when he’d made it eloquently clear he wanted her there? She remembered the tender look in his eyes when he’d asked if she was as sweet as he thought she was. That same look had warmed those gray eyes repeatedly while they sat on the porch.

  Why hadn’t he tried to talk her into going to bed with him?

  The answer hit her, and it made her feel weak with relief and strangely terrified. He’d definitely wanted to make love, and he certainly knew how to convince her they should, but he’d refused to do that. He wanted something even more tonight from her than her body. She knew it without knowing how she did.

  Or, perhaps, she was just being as overemotional now as she’d been for days.

  Meredith straightened, shaking with uncertainty, her hand unconsciously splaying over her flat belly. She was scared and confused and wildly attracted to a man she didn’t know or understand. Her heart thundering, she silently opened the door to Julie’s room. He’d left his door open—she’d seen that when she came out of the bathroom after her shower. If he was already asleep, she decided, she’d come back and go to bed. She’d leave this up to fate.

  He was asleep, she realized as she stood in his doorway, watching him in the moonlight that spilled through the sheer curtains on the window. Her heart slowed to a normal tempo, and still she stood there, marveling at this fierce tug on her emotions that had sent her to him in the first place. Awkwardly aware that she was standing in his doorway, watching him sleeping, she turned silently.

  Matt had no idea what woke him, or how long she’d been standing in that doorway, but when he opened his eyes, she was leaving. He stopped her with the first careless words that came to mind. “Don’t do that, Meredith!”

  The harsh order brought Meredith whirling around, her hair spilling over her left shoulder. Not certain what he’d meant or what he was thinking, she tried to see his expression through the darkness, and when she couldn’t, she started forward.

  Matt watched her moving toward him. She was wearing a short silk nightshirt that barely covered the tops of her shapely thighs. He shifted sideways and moved the covers back for her. She hesitated, and instead sat down beside him, her hip against his, her eyes wide with confusion as they searched his. When she spoke, her voice was low and shaky. “I don’t know why, but I’m more scared this time than I was the last.”

  Matt smiled somberly as his hand lifted to her cheek, then curved around her nape. “So am I.” In the lengthening silence, they remained perfectly still, the only movement the slow stroking of Matt’s thumb against her neck, as both of them sensed that they were about to take the first step down a new uncharted path. Meredith sensed it subconsciously; Matt recognized it with complete clarity and, even so, there was something infinitely right about what they were going to do. No longer was she an heiress from another world; she was the woman he had wanted to possess the moment he saw her, and she was sitting beside him, her hair cascading over his arm like a thick satin waterfall. “I think it’s only fair to warn you,” he whispered as his hand tightened on her nape, beginning to exert pressure to draw her mouth down to his, “that this could turn out to be an even bigger risk than the one you took six weeks ago.” Meredith looked into his smoldering eyes and knew that he was warning her about some sort of deep emotional involvement. “Make up your mind,” he whispered huskily.

  She hesitated, and then her gaze dropped from his compelling eyes to that mobile mouth. Her heart stopped, she stiffened and lurched back, and his hand fell away, “I—” she said, starting to shake her head and stand up, and then something stopped her. With a smothered moan, Meredith leaned down and kissed him, crushing her mouth against his, and Matt’s arms swept around, holding her close, then tightening like a vise as he rolled her onto her back, his mouth fierce and insistent.

  The magic began again as it had six weeks ago, only different this time, because it was hotter, sweeter, more turbulent.

  And a thousand times more meaningful.

  When it was finished, Meredith turned onto her side, limp and damp and sated, feeling his legs and thighs pressing against the backs of hers. She drifted toward sleep, his hand still moving lazily over her arm, then coming to rest against her breast in a way that was both possessive and deliberately provocative. Her last waking thought was that he wanted her to know he was there; that he was claiming another kind of right that he hadn’t asked for and she hadn’t granted. It was just like him to do that. She fell asleep smiling.

  “Did you sleep well?” Julie asked the next morning as she stood at the kitchen counter, buttering toast.

  “Very well,” Meredith said, trying desperately not to look as if she’d spent the night making love with Julie’s brother. “Can I do anything to help with breakfast?”

  “Not a thing. Dad’s working double shifts for the next week, from three in the afternoon to seven in the morning. When he gets home all he’ll want to do is eat and go to sleep. I’ve already got his breakfast ready. Matt doesn’t eat breakfast. Do you want to bring him his coffee? I usually bring it up to him just before his alarm goes off, which is”—she glanced up at the kitchen clock, a plastic thing shaped like a teakettle—“in ten minutes.”

  Pleased with the idea of doing something as domestic as waking him up with coffee, Meredith nodded and poured some into a mug, then she looked at the sugar bowl and hesitated uncertainly.

  “He drinks it black,” Julie said, smiling at Meredith’s confusion. “And, by the way, he’s a bear in the morning, so don’t expect cheerful conversation.”

  “Is he, really?” Meredith considered that new tidbit of information.

  “He isn’t mean, he’s just silent.”

  Julie was partially right. When Meredith knocked on his door and went inside, Matt rolled over onto his back, looking completely disoriented. His only greeting was a slight grateful smile as he levered himself into a sitting position, reaching out for the mug of coffee. Meredith hovered uncertainly by the bed, watching him drink it as if he needed it to survive the next few minutes, then she turned to go, feeling unnecessary and intrusive. He caught her wrist to stop her, and she obediently sat down beside him. “Why am I the only one who’s exhausted this morning?” he finally asked, his voice still a little husky with sleep.

  “I’m a morning person,” Meredith told him. “I’ll probably be drooping this afternoon.”

  His eyes moved over Julie’s plaid shirt which she’d tied in a knot at the midriff, then it slid over Julie’s white shorts. “On you, that outfit looks like it belongs on a billboard.”

  It was the first compliment he had ever paid her, except for the things he murmured to her when they were making love. Meredith, who normally didn’t think much of compliments, memorized that one. Not because of what he said, but the tender way he’d said it.

  Patrick came home, ate breakfast, and went to bed. Julie left at 8:30 with a cheery wave and the announcement that she was going to her girlfriend’s house after school and intended to stay the night there again. At 9:30, Meredith decided to call home and leave a message for her father with the butler. Albert answered the phone and gave her a message from her father instead. Her father said that she was to come home immediately, and that she’d better damned well have a good explanation for vanishing like this. Meredith asked Albert to tell her father that she had a wonderful reason for staying away, and that she’d see him Sunday.

  After that, time seemed to drag. Careful not to wake up Patrick, she went into the living room, looking for something to read. The bookshelves offered several possibilities, but she was too restless to concentrate on a long novel. Among the copies of magazines and periodicals on the top shelf, Meredith found an old pamphlet on crocheting. She studied it with mounting interest while fanciful and artistic baby booties took shape in her mind.

  With no other diversions available, she decided to give crocheting a try, and she drove into town. At Jackson’
s Dry Goods, she purchased a magazine dedicated to crocheting, a half-dozen skeins of thick yarn and a fat wooden crochet hook as big around as her finger, which the sales clerk assured her was best for a beginner to use. She was unlocking her car, which she’d parked in front of the Tru Value Hardware store, when it occurred to her that the responsibility for dinner tonight might fall to her. Tossing the bag with the yarn into the car, she recrossed the street and went into the grocery store. For several minutes she wandered the aisles, assailed by justifiable doubts about her cooking ability. At the meat counter, she scanned the packages, biting her lip. Julie’s meat loaf had been wonderful last night; whatever Meredith made was going to have to be simple. Her gaze drifted past the steaks, pork chops, and calf’s liver, then riveted on the packages of hot dogs as inspiration struck her. With luck, she might be able to turn dinner into an adventure in nostalgia tonight instead of a culinary catastrophe. Smiling, she bought the hot dogs, a package of buns, and a huge bag of fat marshmallows.

  Back at the house, Meredith put away the groceries and sat down with her crochet hook and the magazine with the illustrated crocheting instructions. According to the introduction, the chain stitch was the basis for all crochet stitches and beginners were not to proceed to the next step until they were able to make at least a hundred perfectly uniform chain stitches. Meredith obediently began to make chain stitches, each one of which was about a half inch around due to the enormous crochet hook and thick yarn she was using.

  As morning wore into afternoon, the worries she’d been hiding from came back to plague her, so she crocheted harder to keep them away. She would not think about pediatricians . . . or what labor felt like . . . whether Matt would want visiting rights for their baby . . . nursery school . . . whether Matt really meant what he’d said about their having a real marriage . . .

  Chain stitches cascaded from her crochet hook, fat and uniform, landing in a large pool of soft cream rope at her feet. She looked down, knowing perfectly well it was long past time to stop and to proceed to step two, but she didn’t feel up to the challenge, and besides, there was a certain grim satisfaction, a sense of badly needed control, that came from the repetitive task. At two o’clock, the pregnancy that did not yet seem real made itself known with sudden demands for sleep, and Meredith put the crochet hook down. Curling up almost thankfully on the sofa, she glanced at the clock. She could grab a quick nap and still be up in time to put her yarn away and be ready when Matt came home. When Matt came home . . . The thought of him returning to her after a hard day at work filled her with delight. As she laid her cheek against her hand, she remembered the way he had made love to her, and she had to make herself think of something else, because the memory was so powerful and stirring that she ached for him. She was in serious danger of falling in love with the father of her baby. Serious danger? she thought with a smile. What could possibly be lovelier—as long as Matt felt the same way. And she rather thought he did.

  The sound of gravel crunching beneath tires drifted in through the open window, and her eyes snapped open, her gaze flying to the clock. It was 4:30. She lurched to a sitting position and combed her fingers through her hair, shoving it off her forehead. As she reached out to pick up the yarn and put it away, the front door swung open and her heart responded with a leap of joy to the sight of him. “Hi,” she said, and she had a sudden vision of other evenings just like this one, when Matt would come home to her. She wondered if he’d thought about her at all, and then chided herself for being foolish. She was the one with too much time on her hands; he had been busy and undoubtedly preoccupied. “How was your day?”

  Matt looked at her standing near the sofa, while visions of more days like this paraded across his mind, months and years of days when he’d come home to a golden-haired goddess with a smile that always made him feel as if he’d just single-handedly slain a dragon, cured the common cold, and found a means to world peace. “My day was fine,” he said, smiling. “What did you do with yours?”

  She’d spent part of it worrying and the rest thinking and dreaming of him. Since she couldn’t very well tell him that, she said, “I decided to take up crocheting.” She held up the skein of yarn to prove her claim.

  “Very domestic,” Matt teased, then his gaze slid down the rope of chain stitches that descended from the skein and ended beneath the coffee table. His eyes widened. “What are you making?”

  Meredith stifled an embarrassed giggle because she didn’t have the remotest idea. “Guess,” she said, trying to save face, hoping he’d think of something.

  Walking over, Matt bent down, picked up the end of the stitches, and began backing up until he’d stretched the chain out twelve feet to the end of the room. “A carpet?” he ventured gravely.

  Somehow she managed to control her features and look wounded. “Of course it’s not a carpet.”

  He sobered at once and started toward her, instantly contrite. “Give me a hint,” he said gently.

  “You shouldn’t really need a hint. It’s obvious what it’s going to be.” Fighting to keep her face straight, she announced, “I’m planning to add a few more rows to what I’ve already crocheted—so it will be wider—then I’m going to starch the whole thing, and you can use it to fence your property!”

  His shoulders shaking with laughter, Matt hauled her into his arms, oblivious to the crochet hook jabbing in his chest.

  “I bought some things for dinner tonight,” she told him, leaning back in his arms.

  Matt had intended to take her out. He tipped his chin down, smiling with surprise. “I thought you said you don’t know how to cook.”

  “You’ll understand when you see what I bought,” she said, and he put his arm around her shoulders and walked into the kitchen. She took out the hot dogs and his gaze shot to the marshmallows.

  “Very clever,” he said with a grin. “You figured out a way to make me do the cooking.”

  “Believe me,” she said gravely, “it’s safer this way.”

  He’d been home for less than ten minutes and it was the second time Matt had felt as if life was suddenly filled with joy and laughter.

  She brought out a blanket and the food, and Matt eventually built a campfire. They spent the evening outside, happily eating hot dogs that were overcooked, buns that were undercooked, and marshmallows that dripped into the fire; they talked about everything from the terrain of South America, to Meredith’s unusual lack of troublesome pregnancy symptoms, to the proper degree of doneness for marshmallows. At twilight, they’d finished eating and Meredith cleared away the plates, then she went into the kitchen to wash the dishes. With his knee drawn up, Matt waited for her to return, his gaze drifting idly from the darkening sky above to the leaves he’d just gathered up and heaped on the fire to surprise her.

  When Meredith came back out, the air was pungent with the delicious aroma of autumn, and Matt was sitting on the blanket, trying to look as if there was nothing whatsoever strange about the smell of burning leaves in August. She knelt down on the blanket across from him, looked at the fire, then she raised her face to his, and even in the darkness Matt could see her eyes shining. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied, his voice strangely husky to his own ears. He held out his hand to her, then had to fight down a wave of desire when she misunderstood his invitation to sit beside him and, instead, moved between his legs so that she could sit with her back against his chest and watch the fire. Desire was followed by exquisite delight a moment later when she softly confessed, “This is the nicest night I’ve ever had, Matt.”

  He slid his arm around her waist from behind, his fingers splaying protectively across her flat stomach, and tried not to sound as touched as he felt. With his free hand he brushed her hair aside and kissed her nape. “What about last night?”

  She bent her head forward, offering his mouth better access, and promptly amended, “This is the second nicest night I’ve ever had.”

  Matt smiled again
st her skin and nipped her ear, but passion was already erupting through his body, raging through his veins like wildfire, refusing to be delayed or denied. Shaken by the force of it, he turned her face up to his and captured her mouth. Her lips moved against his, sweetly, softly at first, then deliberately provocative as her tongue slipped between his lips. Matt lost control. He forced his hand inside her shirt, his fingers closing over her breast, and her moan of pleasure broke the last fragile thread of his restraint. Turning her in his arms, he laid her down on the blanket, his body half covering hers, and shoved his fingers into her hair, holding her captive for a plundering kiss. He was so attuned to her that he sensed her momentary hesitation as the ferocity of his ardor stunned her into immobility. It stunned him too, this desperate, demanding need to possess her completely, this necessity to make a conscious effort to slow himself down. It consumed him so completely that he never realized her hesitation came not from fear of his stormy passion, but from her inexperience and uncertainty about how to return and stimulate it. Even if he had realized it, he’d have hesitated about showing her how to do it right then, because pacing himself so that he could prolong their lovemaking was already incredibly difficult. And so he undressed her slowly, with fingers made awkward because they trembled, and he kissed her until she was writhing beneath him, her hands rushing over his heated skin. The touch of her hands and mouth set him on fire, and each soft sound she made sent his blood roaring as he led her from one plateau to the next higher one, whispering hoarse, heated words of pleasure to her. She followed him, joining him, until he finally made her cry out, her body racked with tremors, and then he poured himself into her.

  Afterward, he wrapped the blanket around them, and lay beside her, gazing up at a sky quilted with stars, inhaling the nostalgic fragrance of an early autumn. In the past, making love had always been an act of mutual pleasure; with Meredith it was an act of spellbinding beauty. Exquisite, tormenting, magical beauty. For the first time in his life, Matt felt utterly contented, completely at peace. The future was more complicated than it had ever been, and yet he had never felt more confident that he could shape it to suit them—if only she gave him the chance and the time. Time.