by Arlene James
As he filled her, she caught her breath, and her breasts seemed to swell toward him, nipples hard. She bowed her back, and he met that silent plea with the firm wall of his chest, his hands going into her hair as his mouth captured hers. The sensation of being filled by him was incredible, but it only seemed to awaken the need for more. She had to move, simply had to. He answered her by withdrawing and plunging in again. Of its own volition, her head went back and a sound somewhere between a groan of ecstasy and a howl of torture came up out of her throat. She was embarrassed—somewhere in the back of her mind. He was inflamed.
Suddenly he was stroking into her with swift, sure precision. Calling her name, he surged deep and rocked his hips with the same maddening pace. She wrapped her legs around him, her head starting to spin. She heard him gasp into her ear that it was too late, and she wanted to say that she was sorry about that, but she was soaring so high and fast that she couldn’t speak. She heard someone crying out, and then dimly became aware that he was stroking into her again while she did nothing but float somewhere inside her own mind. Only when he collapsed atop her did she realize that she hadn’t left him behind, after all.
With great effort and tremendous force of will, she lifted a hand and stroked it through his dark hair. He breathed gusts of fire against the curve of her neck, his heart beating like a jackhammer against her breast and keeping time with hers. After a long while, he lifted his head and shifted to one side. His hand drifted up to one breast, stroking it reverently. He kissed her temple, wrapped his arms around her.
Gradually, gently, he began to make love to her again. Only when he left her briefly and returned did she realize that he had done so in order to avail himself of a fresh condom. She was intensely grateful—and too ashamed to admit that she hadn’t even thought of protection.
Shame and all else burned away in awe as he lived up to his reputation, inciting her body to the peak of desire and satisfying it utterly. She could not believe it when he began again, could not believe, even, that she could respond, until he proved much more knowledgeable than she. The words of love that he whispered and the compliments that he heaped upon her worked magic that even his hands and mouth could not replicate, and yet she dared not believe them. How could she? How could she, plain, efficient Emily who had sat beneath his nose for two long years, be his one true love? How had she suddenly become beautiful in his eyes? How could her breasts be perfect and her belly make him insane with need? She tried not to listen, but failing that, she determined not to believe. For the moment, it was enough that she loved him.
Thankfully Amanda Sue never woke that night, not that it mattered, for they never slept.
Twelve
Amanda Sue dug a determined finger between their mouths and pried them apart. Logan laughed indulgently and spoke to the child on his hip. “Don’t you want Daddy to kiss Emily?”
Amanda Sue shook her head. “No! No tiss Mimly.”
Logan pushed out his bottom lip, pretending to pout. When the lip began to tremble, Amanda Sue threw back her head and laughed, then pointed a finger at Emily and ordered, “Tiss! Tiss Mimly!”
This time it was Logan who shook his head, his grin as wide as his face. “I’d better not,” he said, cutting a heated look at Emily. “If I kiss her again I may not leave for work at all.”
Emily couldn’t help smiling, even if it was all a farce on her part. She’d known with a dead certainty from the moment she’d left the bed this morning how this would have to end for her, but he was happy, if only for this moment, and that was enough to smile about. So she gave him the smile, as she had given him her body and her heart and the next weeks. Besides, she had best smile while she could, for the time was coming when smiles would be in very short supply and pain all too abundant.
“I’ll call you,” he whispered, nuzzling her temple, “and if I can, I’ll be home early.”
She kissed his cheek and pulled Amanda Sue into her arms. He ruffled his daughter’s hair. “See you later, sweetheart. I love you.” He kissed Emily on the top of her head, a nice, safe, chaste farewell. “I love you, too.”
She knew he wanted to hear the words in return, but she couldn’t say them, not because they weren’t true, but because they were. “See you,” she said lightly, lifting Amanda Sue’s hand in a wave. “’Bye-bye, Daddy.”
“Seeouuu!” Amanda Sue cried as he moved down the entry hall.
“This afternoon!” he called, going through the door.
Emily felt the tenseness in Amanda Sue, understood the niggling of doubt that shadowed her brilliant eyes. She looked at Emily and pointed at the door at the end of the hall. “Daddy,” she said in a small, questioning voice. Emily smiled and kissed her.
Talking, she carried Amanda Sue to the couch. “Your daddy loves you. He’ll be home this afternoon. He doesn’t like to be away from you, but he’s an important man and a lot of people depend on him to do his job. He’ll always come home to you, Amanda Sue, because you are the one true love of his life. Even when I’m not here, he will take care of you, always. I know it.”
The child seemed to be listening, but Emily could only guess how much she understood. Emily hugged her and turned her thoughts toward the day ahead. She would not dwell on tomorrow or last night, only now, this day. Maybe she could survive what she had to do that way.
Logan watched Emily moving around the room, picking up this toy, straightening that cushion. They were little things that occupied her, little homey things that made him feel warm and content and gave him an odd pleasure that seemed to wrap around his heart. He loved to just look at her, to measure the grace with which she walked and bent and grasped. She used her hands with such delicacy, and yet their strength was evident. The way she turned her head, lifted her chin, quirked her mouth, smoothed her hair, pushed her glasses up on her nose and swung her foot when reading: it all fascinated him and made him think that he was the only one to ever see, appreciate and revel in all that was Emily.
Because of her, he was absurdly happy. Amanda Sue had brought depth and meaning to his life, qualities he hadn’t even known he was missing, and somehow his little girl had become absolutely essential to his well-being. But it was Em who made him sing in the shower. Em who made him believe that anything was possible, that life could be good even at its worst.
He wanted to go to bed. Nothing was as perfect as holding Emily in his arms in the dark of night, but it was only seven. Amanda Sue wasn’t even down yet. She lay on the floor next to Goody, trying to purr with sublime concentration. In just a moment he would have to get up from the couch and take her upstairs for her bath. He hoped she slept through the night. It was an iffy thing just now; some nights were good, some nights were not.
No one in this house was getting as much sleep as needed, but at least when he did sleep it was deeply, almost profoundly—and it wasn’t just because of the sex. Truth be told, he’d noticed Emily sometimes held herself back in the bedroom. But he knew that each time they made love was a step toward deepening trust and intimacy, drawing them closer and closer together.
Yet Emily was holding back emotionally too. He knew it, even as she stopped straightening the room and smiled at him in that almost secretive way that told him she, too, was thinking of bed. Yes, she was holding part of herself back from him, but he couldn’t fault her. His reputation worked against him, and he had no one to blame but himself. Given time, however, he believed that she would come to trust and accept his feelings.
On occasion he found himself worrying that her trust and acceptance would not be enough, but he talked himself out of that quite easily. Emily simply would not sleep with a man for whom she had no genuine feeling. Fun and games in bed with no strings attached was simply not part of her makeup. No, his Emily was one of those women who he’d spent his life avoiding, the type who needed commitment, and he found to his bemusement that he couldn’t be happier about that fact.
He’d learned as much about himself lately as he had Em. For one thing, h
e simply could not stop saying that he loved her. Both the feeling and the words came so easily that they were like breathing. Trying not to tell her how he felt was like trying to hold his breath. At times these past days he’d silently vowed not to say those words again until she could say them to him, but that pledge rarely endured longer than several minutes. Better that he should say it until she believed him.
Suddenly the compulsion to be near her, to touch her reasserted itself strongly. He got up and stalked across the room. Coming up behind her as she bent to swipe a tiny sock off the seat of the armchair, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him, his imagination conjuring any number of ways to make her dissolve into mindless rapture. Noting that his daughter’s head had come up with interest, he contented himself with the jolt to his groin that came from Emily suddenly straightening against him.
He nuzzled her ear, whispering, “Have I told you how happy you make me?”
She laid her head back against his shoulder. “I wish it could always be like this.”
“Why can’t it?”
She turned her head and kissed him quickly but firmly on the mouth, saying, “Because your daughter needs her bath.”
That was mere half-truth, and he knew it, but he didn’t press her. Instead he slid a hand downward, splaying it across the gentle mound of her belly. “When we find a nanny,” he said, “we’ll have more time together, just the two of us.”
For a moment she said nothing, then, “I’m glad you brought that up. I’ve been meaning to speak to you about it.”
He smiled against her ear. “Spending more time together?”
She turned in his arms. “Finding a nanny.”
“Ah.” He locked his hands together against the small of her back and rocked his pelvis into a perfect fit with hers. “Unfortunately we have no new applicants at the moment, but we can go back to the agencies, if you want.”
“That might be best,” she said, running her hands up his arms but not quite meeting his gaze. “I have too much invested in my career to stay out of play indefinitely.”
“I understand,” he said, “but you know you don’t have anything to worry about. We’ll find a place for Hal when you’re ready to come back—or we can find another place for you. I think you’re due a promotion.”
She shook her head, pushing away. “No. No, that wouldn’t be right.”
“You’ve earned it,” he said, reaching out for her again. “You earned it a long time ago, but I was too selfish to let you go. I still am.”
She smiled as he pulled her to him. “We can talk about this later.”
If something about that smile spoke more of sadness than joy, he ignored it, concentrating instead on the kiss she granted him, deepening it until her hands were knotted in the fabric of his shirt and the quickening rise and fall of her breasts against his chest told him that she was as needful of more as he. Only then did he rein in this desire that she alone could sate but never tame. “Any chance we can turn in early?” he asked raspily.
Emily turned a look down at Amanda Sue, who was lying on her back, one ankle crossed jauntily over the opposite knee, watching them avidly. “You’re asking the wrong person,” she said with a meaningful chuckle.
“Don’t ever let her think she’s the boss,” he warned with deadpan sincerity. “It’s bad enough that she is.”
Emily laughed as he pulled away to swoop down on his daughter, exclaiming, “Bath time, ’Manda mine.” Amanda Sue practically hurled herself into his arms. Of course, getting his darling daughter into her bath was never as difficult as getting her out of it again. Ah, well, the sooner wet, the sooner the battle won.
Actually, for once, she didn’t put up much of a fight. Either that, or he was getting better about quelling her little shows of temper. Whatever, he had her clean and in a dry diaper and a footed sleeper with only a few squirms, squeals, kicks, screams and a halfhearted selection of phony sobs, grunts and pleas from her vast repertoire of theatrics. Emily showed up to provide counterpoint, smoothing barely ruffled feathers with suitably sympathetic gestures. Once settled, Amanda Sue dropped off with a minimum of fuss, and he summarily hauled Emily straight to the bedroom, where she thrilled him with a slow striptease.
Hours later, he was roused from the edge of sleep by the sounds of mewling cries coming from the monitor on the bedside table. Realizing that Emily was deeply asleep, he quickly reached over and turned down the monitor before slipping out of bed and into his jeans. Carefully zipping up, he padded barefoot out of the room. Amanda Sue was just truly waking when he reached her. It was almost as if she dreamed her distress. She reached for him with a little sob, and he gathered her into his arms, hugging and kissing her.
“I’m here, angel. Daddy’s here.”
“Mimly?” she asked, sleepily rubbing her face against his chest.
He smiled and whispered words of comfort. Within moments she sighed contentedly. Mindful of what Emily had repeatedly said about giving reassurance but letting Amanda Sue learn to get herself back to sleep, he tucked his little daughter into her crib, stroked her curly head and whispered a good-night. Stepping back into the shadows, he waited a few minutes until he was certain that she had dropped off again. Then he turned and quickly retraced his steps.
When he slipped back into bed beside Emily, she roused enough to ask if Amanda Sue had awakened. “Yes,” he told her softly, “but I took care of it.”
Emily rolled onto her back, pushing hair out of her face. “She didn’t ask for me?”
“Actually she did,” he said, smoothing that hair with one hand while he balanced his upper body weight on the other elbow. “But I told her that you were asleep in my bed where you belong, and that seemed enough. She went right back to sleep.”
Emily looked at him as if she didn’t believe him or as if she might scold him, but then she smiled. “As long as she’s okay.”
“Amanda Sue’s fine,” he promised.
She closed her eyes and rolled onto her side. He cuddled up next to her, fitting his body to hers and sliding his arms around her. Sleepily, she tangled her legs with his and threaded her fingers through his where they lay against her abdomen, getting comfortable. A moment later she sighed peacefully and suddenly he was so overcome by those simple gestures of acceptance and completion that he felt close to tears.
“I love you, Emily,” he whispered. Then he closed his eyes and silently begged, Please let yourself love me, too. Just give us a chance. Give me a chance to finally get it right.
Logan got up from his desk and hugged his sister, smiling. He couldn’t seem to stop smiling anymore. Every night with Emily was more amazing than the one before, and he felt like the luckiest of men.
Eden pulled back and looked up at him knowingly. “Who is this absurdly happy man?”
He laughed and brushed back the sides of his jacket to slide his hands into his pockets. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, he’s not our father.”
Eyebrows aloft, Eden sat down in one of the chairs facing his desk and crossed her long, slender legs, tucking a small pocketbook into the seat beside her. “I never realized you felt that way.”
He shrugged and walked around his desk to retake his chair. “It’s not something you talk about casually.”
She nodded and templed her fingers, elbows braced against the arms of the chair. “I’ve always feared being attracted to men like him, with good reason, but it never occurred to me that you or Holden might worry about being like him. I always thought he was the ideal for other men.”
Logan shook his head. “I never wanted to be like him and always feared, perhaps even believed, that I was.”
“And now?”
He smiled, linking his hands over his middle in a gesture of satisfaction. “Amanda Sue and Emily have changed everything,” he said.
“Amanda Sue and Emily?”
He went on smiling.
Eden sighed and tilted her head. “I thought something had changed. I saw E
mily and Amanda Sue yesterday, you know, and I sensed it.”
He nodded. “She doesn’t completely trust me yet.”
“Emily, you mean,” Eden prompted.
“She’s holding back,” he said. “She makes love with me.” He closed his eyes overwhelmed with joy. “Oh, how she makes love with me! But she’s keeping her distance still. She insists on occasionally going out in the evening alone or with her friend Ciara Wilde. She’s kept her apartment, says she has to have a little time for herself. I think that’s understandable after spending all day every day with Amanda Sue, who is a delight but difficult, all the same.”
“Are you going to marry her?” Eden asked bluntly.
It was a question he had tried not to ask himself, but now that it was out there in the open, he was surprised to find that he knew the answer, had known it for a long time. “Yes.”
“Have you asked her yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
He took a deep breath but couldn’t bring himself to do more than skirt the issue. “I will, eventually.”
“Why not now, Logan?”
“I want her to get comfortable with the idea,” he said lightly. I want to know that she loves me first, he thought, and his happiness dimmed somewhat. He pushed the thought away, telling himself how lucky he was already to have found Amanda Sue and her. Eden, he noticed, seemed about to say something else, but then she decided not to, subsiding with a lame smile. He let it pass, knowing without admitting to it that he wouldn’t like what she’d considered, that it would dim the light of his happiness again if he was stupid enough to pry it out of her.
Abruptly, Eden uncrossed her legs and cleared her throat. “Are you still looking for a nanny?”
“Yes, actually we are. Why?”
