by Grimm, Sarah
Heat spread through her belly.
Her nipples.
Between her legs.
He stepped closer. One hand held the door closed as the other skimmed over her shoulder and down her arm. He tipped his head and put his mouth to her ear, breathing heavy. “I’ve been looking at you all day. Watching you smile and laugh with my family. I can’t help but think that if things had been different, I wouldn’t have to wonder what you look like without that dress.” His tongue flicked across her earlobe. “What you taste like.”
She let out a helpless moan. Then his thumb shifted from the inside of her arm to deliberately brush across the outside of her breast, and her knees went weak. “You…” She couldn’t breathe. She had to drag in oxygen to speak. “You already know what I taste like.”
“Not all of you.”
“All of me?”
“All of you. Every. Last. Delicious. Inch.”
She breathed his name on a ragged sigh. Inside her bra, her taut nipples strained, crying out for his touch. It was a completely new experience for her, to be seduced by nothing but words and the brush of his hand on her arm. She didn’t like to be touched.
At least she never used to.
“Turn around, Isa.” His voice was gruff, but the hand he placed on her waist only exerted enough pressure to encourage her cooperation.
She turned slowly and came face-to-face with his desire. His skin was flushed. His eyes darkened with need. Against her stomach, he was hard. Very hard.
“Too bad what I have planned for you isn’t something I’m willing to do under my parent’s roof or I’d lay you on that bed right there and satisfy my curiosity.” Without her permission, her eyes darted to the bed. “When I finally get you alone, with no one to interrupt us, and nowhere we need to be…It isn’t going to be fast.”
“N-no?”
His thigh slid in between hers, pressed at the pulse between her legs. “What I have in mind for you is going to take hours.” He had her pinned to the door, their bodies flush. His mouth skimmed the muscle where her neck and shoulder connected. Bit down lightly.
With a gasp, she streaked her hands up, fisted her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth to hers. A sound of distinct male satisfaction rumbled from his chest when she sucked his tongue into her mouth and rocked against his thigh. Once. Twice.
Caught up in the flood of desire, the whirl of passion, Isabeau didn’t think, she felt—the roar of fire through her blood, the clutch of passion deep in her center. Releasing her tight hold on his hair, she reached between them and cupped her hand over his solid length.
He went utterly still. Grabbing her wrist, he lifted her hand and pressed it to the door next to her head.
“Noah?”
Noah buried his face in her neck and swore softly. What the hell was he thinking? He never should have touched her. Never should have given in to the lure of her dark skin against that pale dress. But he’d been watching her for hours. Wondering. Wanting. No way in hell was he going to be able to get any sleep now.
“What are we doing?” he asked softly, then sucked in a sharp breath when she used her other hand to cup him again.
“Do you really want a blow by blow?” she asked, stroking him through his jeans.
Her hair brushed across his chin and her scent wafted up his nose. She tugged to free the wrist he still held. “Isabeau, we can’t.”
She tipped her head back, her pale eyes filled with emotion as they probed his face. “We won’t,” she replied, and immediately began working his zipper open. “You will.”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t think, Noah, feel.” Somehow he wound up with his back against the closed door, unable, or perhaps unwilling to stop her as she shoved his jeans down his hips. “You need sleep, and you’ll never get it in this condition.”
She was right about that. He’d never been so achingly hard in all his life. Her breath came in quick, shallow gasps as her gaze moved appreciatively over his body. Heat followed the same path as her eyes.
“Take them off,” she ordered huskily.
He toed off his shoes, stepped out of his jeans.
“Look at you,” she whispered as she reached out and settled her hand on his chest. Her gaze following as her fingertips slowly outlined every muscle. Everywhere she touched, she left a trail of white hot sensation. Her hand dipped lower, smoothing over his abdomen, then lower still. He didn’t even try to hold back the growl of pleasure when she wrapped her fingers around him and slowly stroked her hand up and down his length.
“Christ, Isabeau.”
“Relax,” she purred. There was no other word for the sound.
As if he could. He reached out and sank his fingers into the ebony silk of her hair. But when he would have pulled her mouth closer for a kiss, she shifted and pressed her lips to the center of his chest. Her mouth opened, her tongue trailed along the same torturous path her fingers had just taken as she slowly sank to her knees in front of him.
He gathered up her hair, holding it out of the way so he could watch her mouth come closer. The wait was both excruciating and thrilling. Then finally it was over, as she leaned forward and kissed him, pressing her lips against the base of his shaft. He groaned softly as she worked her way up the length of him, felt his knees go weak as she opened her mouth and took him inside.
Wet heat. Torturous. Exhilarating.
His heart pumped harder. His muscles began to tremble.
He closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the door, only to force them back open as the need to watch her pleasure him swelled. She took him deep, sucking, then swirling her tongue across the very tip of him, sending currents of excitement up his torso, down his legs. He swallowed a sharp exhalation as he watched her, the sight of her lips surrounding him damn near as stimulating as her increasing tempo.
She sucked him rhythmically, softly and tortuously. He’d imagined her sexy mouth pleasuring him this way too many times to count, but fantasy didn’t hold a candle to the reality. Sensation rocketed through him. His hand flexed and fisted in her hair. His hips jerked.
He was close. So damn close. Her hands circled his hips to close over his ass. As her fingers kneaded his flesh, she took him a little farther into her mouth.
His testicles pulled up. Blood roared in his ears. His orgasm hit him with the force of a freight train, sending a deep shudder throughout his body. He swallowed a shout and pressed his free hand against the door to try to hold himself upright as he exploded in pulsation after hot pulsation. As she lapped at him, taking all of him until he had nothing left to give.
With one final kiss, she smoothed her way back up his body, shifting into his arms. She settled her hand against his chest as she pressed her face into the hollow between his shoulder and neck. His heart hammered violently against his ribs. Easing the hold he still had on her hair, Noah skimmed his lips over her temple.
“Hmm,” she murmured, tipping her head to place a kiss on the underside of his jaw. “Do you think you can sleep now?”
“I don’t think I’ll have any problem,” he replied, breathless and spent.
“Good, then let’s get you to bed.”
That might be a problem.
Somehow he managed to cross the room and set her suitcase aside, to slide under the covers without falling flat on his face. He snagged her wrist when she pulled the cover over him then turned away. “Where are you going?”
“I need to change.”
His gaze drifted from her face to her feet and back again. “You’re not trying to sneak out and sleep on the couch are you?”
She smiled, then bent down and kissed him softly, slowly. “I’m not sneaking away. I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry,” he replied. Then, with her taste still on his lips, he slept for the first time in days.
****
“How did your hand get scarred?” ten-year-old Robert Clark asked Isabeau the next day as they sat at a table in the large, walled gard
en.
With the funeral behind them, and most of those who’d stayed to offer proper condolences fed and gone, Isabeau was sitting for the first time that day. She might not be family or have ever met Noah’s grandfather, but she knew how to work a crowd and had done her best to assist in every way possible.
She smiled at Robert, who appeared so bored with all the adult conversations that she felt a little sorry for him. “I was in a car accident years ago.”
“How many years ago?”
“I was twelve.”
His head tipped and he looked up at her through eyes as blue as the sky above them. “Megan’s twelve.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Your uncle told me.”
“Oh.” He reached out slowly, and traced his fingers over the scars on the back of her hand. Because he was a child and the move stemmed from innocent curiosity, she let him. “You have a lot of scars.”
“I have more on my palm,” she replied and turned her hand over so he could see.
“It was bad, then?”
“Yes. My mother died as a result of it.”
He frowned. “The way my great-grandfather died?”
The urge to reach out and comfort the boy was strong. Not certain how he would take it, she left her hands where they were. “Yes. Like your great-grandfather.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Every day.”
The hand still tracing her scars flexed. “I miss Grandpa, too.”
Suspecting this was the real reason he started the conversation and that he had something more to say, she waited silently. She didn’t have to wait for long.
“So does my dad. He was crying at the funeral.”
“A lot of people were. Funerals are for those last good-byes, and people get sad when they have to say good-bye.”
“Boys aren’t supposed to cry.” With his face aimed down at the table and his voice pitched low, she had to strain to hear his words. Her heart bled for him, so young, so unprepared to deal with his loss.
“Everyone feels pain, Robert,” she assured him, as a tear streaked down his cheek. “Even boys. Crying is a natural result of that pain.”
He swiped the back of his hand under his nose. “Uncle Noah didn’t cry.”
Her gaze drifted to Noah, at the far side of the garden, deep in conversation with his brother Paul. He’d sat beside her, dry-eyed and stoic throughout his grandfather’s service, while those around him wept. She had hoped he would come home, find a quiet place where he could be alone and finally grieve. The rigid set to his shoulders, combined with the smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes told her he hadn’t.
She sighed. “I know he didn’t, but that doesn’t make him more of a man, it only makes him stubborn.”
She gave Robert a moment to compose himself before turning back to find him studying her intently. “Are you going to marry Uncle Noah?”
Startled by his abrupt shift in conversation, she stuttered, “Um…”
“It would be okay if you did, you’re nice and all.”
“Thank you,” she replied, not knowing what else to say.
“How many scars do you have?”
Wondering where his shifting conversation would go next, she replied, “There are twenty-three scars on that hand.”
“Cooool.”
“You’re such a boy, Robert,” his sister, Megan, stated as she sidled up to the table. “It’s not cool. It’s rather sad, actually.” Megan looked like her mother, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. There was a maturity to her, beyond her years. “Dad says you can’t play the piano anymore after the accident. But Uncle Noah says you can play, you just don’t anymore.”
“Your uncle is right. With therapy, I regained the use of the hand, and I can still play the piano. Just not as well as I used to.”
“Is that why you quit?”
So most of the world believed. The truth was much more complicated. Painful.
“Megan,” her mother chastised as she stepped to the table. “Whatever Isabeau’s reasons, they’re personal, and you should not meddle.”
Megan pursed her mouth. “I love to play the piano,” she said to Isabeau. “I could play a song for you sometime.”
“I would like that.”
“Grandma doesn’t have a piano, so it would have to be some other time. I’m pretty good, but I’m not as good as you.”
“Keep practicing, you will be.”
“I don’t think so,” Megan stated matter-of-factly. She leaned closer as if she had a secret to share. “I write my own songs.”
Isabeau smiled, genuinely pleased by the declaration. “Now that is talent. A person can be taught how to play, but a mind for composition…you either have it or you don’t. That’s wonderful, Megan.”
A flush colored her cheeks. “Thank you.”
“Megan?”
“Yeah, Mum?”
“You and your brother go tell your grandmum and granddad good-bye and collect your things.”
“We’re leaving? Why?”
“Because your grandparents are probably ready for some peace and quiet,” Anne replied. “I know I am.”
Megan and Robert muttered good-byes to Isabeau and then headed into the house.
Anne took Robert’s vacant seat. “You’re very good with kids.”
“I love kids,” Isabeau admitted. “And you have truly great kids.” Not for the first time she noted the circles ringing Anne’s eyes, the pale cast to her skin that she’d tried to hide beneath expertly applied makeup. “You’re a good mother, Anne.”
Anne’s gaze darted away at the compliment, and Isabeau knew her suspicions were correct. Anne Clark was pregnant, and she wasn’t happy about it.
Pain welled up and grabbed her by the throat. She curled her right hand protectively around her left and struggled to appear calm and unaffected.
Anne cleared her throat. “I apologize if Robert brought up any painful memories. He…well, Megan said it best, he is a boy.”
“It’s all right,” Isabeau assured her.
“You don’t have twenty-three scars, do you? I mean, you were exaggerating for the boy, right?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Anne leaned forward slowly, and cupped Isabeau’s hand in hers in a move that was so maternal, it brought tears to her eyes.
“So much pain,” Anne said softly. “You lost so much in that one moment, didn’t you? You were so young, just Megan’s age. I can’t bear to think about it.”
Isabeau squeezed her eyes shut and fought to steady herself. It took a couple of seconds for her to regain the ability to speak. “Everything happens for a reason, Anne.” She opened her eyes and gazed into the woman’s disbelieving, unsmiling face. “We don’t always understand why, but there’s always a reason.”
“How...You can’t possibly know.”
The kids streaked out of the house, Robert in the lead, Megan hot on his tail. They darted across the manicured lawn circling Noah and Paul at the far end. Unable to look away, Isabeau watched Noah reach out and grab Robert around his waist. The boy squealed in delight, his volume increasing as he was pinned to the ground by his uncle and held there so that his sister could exact her revenge for whatever wrong Robert had done.
Isabeau pressed her hand to her stomach and tensed against the pain that lanced her like a scalpel. “Children are a gift,” she managed past a throat that had gone dry. “At any age.”
Anne withdrew her hands. Isabeau could see her mentally struggling to figure out how she had guessed correctly. “It comes with the job,” she explained. “I have to be good at reading people.”
“Well, congratulations,” Anne replied, her words sharp, biting. “You must be very good at your job.”
Isabeau went back to watching Noah play with his niece and nephew. He seemed so genuinely happy, so at ease with them.
He had quite a family. Close-knit. Loving.
It made her feel alone.
N
ext to her, Anne let out a slow breath. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to snap. It’s just, I’m too old to start over—the diapers and the tears, the sleepless nights.”
“The joy of holding something born of love, the satisfaction of helping to shape a young life. I envy you. Not everyone gets that.”
“You’re still young. You have plenty of time to…” Her words trailed off as Isabeau turned her head.
Squeals of laughter erupted from the far end of the garden.
Emotion swam in Anne’s eyes. “I feel selfish and petty.”
“That was not my intention.”
“You must believe me horrible.”
Isabeau dragged in a deep breath. There were tears in her throat now, tears welling in her eyes. “You’re struggling with a major life change. You’re feelings are understandable.”
“Are they?” Anne asked quietly. “You can’t have children, can you, Isabeau?”
She didn’t want to cry. She’d accepted her fate years ago, why would talking about it now bring her so much pain? Shifting her gaze, she stared across the yard at the answer to her unspoken question. Then she said aloud what she’d never told anyone before. “I suffered more than a crushing hand injury in that automobile accident, I also had internal injuries. The damage was so extensive that…I was told I’ll never conceive.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” she reiterated, then stood and went in search of a quiet place where she could be alone and grieve.
****
Noah finally located Isabeau inside the house, sitting on the stairs. Can of soda in her right hand, she sat on the fourth step from the top, her eyes closed, the fingers of her free hand slowly massaging her temple. For a moment, he stood there and gazed at her, while a kaleidoscope of emotions ran through him. She still wore the simple black dress from the funeral, her dark hair smoothed away from her face and off her neck. But surprisingly, her feet were bare—her customary spike heels kicked off and resting a few steps below.
Watching her, he felt something inside of him shift, something he wasn’t ready to look at too closely. All he knew was he liked waking up with her in his bed—nestled against his side. Her face pressed into his neck, hand atop his chest. His right hand had been curled protectively over her left, his other hand buried in the inky black silk of her hair. She’d been wearing the T-shirt he’d tossed on the chair and little else, and although she’d brought him to mind-blowing orgasm a few hours before, he awoke wrapped in her scent, wrapped in her. Aching.
