Double trouble

by Boswell, Barbara

  ''She told my brother Luke. Took him to lunch today, then told him the news over the pasta salad. He told me immediately afterward, of course. I drove down here as soon as I could."

  Kayla felt the color drain from her face. ''You shouldn't have come."

  He smiled crookedly. *'Give me a break, Kayla. I wasn't about to sit at home watching the ball game on TV after hearing that news."

  "Kristina shouldn't have done it! She promised she wouldn't tell you. She swore she wouldn't."

  "She didn't tell me, not directly anyway. She told my brother." Matt shook his head. "Luke likes to view himself as unshockable, but he was shocked by this, all right."

  "It was my secret! I know Kristina must've thought she was helping, but she had no right meddling in my life againr'

  "You mean you weren't going to tell me?" Matt's voice rose. "Not ever?"

  "That's correct," Kayla said tautly.

  "For Godsakes, why not? It's my—mine, too."

  *'It's your what? Your problem? No, it isn't. I was careless and rU take full responsibility for myself and the consequences of my actions."

  "It's my child/' Matt corrected sharply. "And you weren't the only one who was careless. Hell, neither of us was intentionally careless, Kayla. If anyone is to blame, it's those WINDS maniacs for spiking everything we ate and drank that night. As for letting you take full responsibility, forget it. I'm going to take care of you and the baby. I won't have it any other way. We're getting married, Kayla. Right away."

  "Have you lost your mind?" Kayla stared at him in disbelief. "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard! We can't even pretend that we know or like each other! We spent one night together and neither of us were in full possession of our wits at the time!''

  "We've been together more than that," insisted Matt.

  "Oh, of course. There was our two-minute confrontation at Rillo's and the fifteen-minute one later that same night at Bootleggers. Those encounters certainly cemented our relationship, didn't they? And let's not forget those meaningful moments we shared when you appeared at Kristina's apartment uninvited, to tell me that you didn't ever want to see me again because my job didn't make me a woman of quality, that I wasn't worthy of your exalted presence."

  A dark flush suffused Matt's neck and Kayla felt a momentary sense of triumph. She'd scored a direct hit with that one.

  "I didn't mean to sound so pompous or so arrogant that night," he said quietly. "What I said, my reasons for being there..." He paused. "It occurred to me afterward that I wanted an excuse to see you so I invented one."

  "You wanted to see me, so the reason you invented to see me was to tell me you didn't want to see me anymore?" Kayla laughed. "What you're doing is what we in the in-

  dustry call 'putting a positive spin' on a previously negative incident. Too bad you disapprove of media consultants. You certainly have the raw talent to be one."

  Matt's mouth tightened. *'What I'm trying to say is that I regret what I said that night and I—I'm sorry I hurt you, Kayla."

  "You didn't," she said quickly. "For me to be hurt, I'd have to care what you think of me and I don't. It's presumptuous of you to believe that you could ever hurt me! You walked out of my hfe that night and haven't bothered to see me or contact me since and I don't care a bit. I'm glad you didn't. I didn't want to hear from you, I never think about you..." Her voice trailed off. The old saw about "protesting too much" was beginning to seem depressingly apt.

  "I thought about you, Kayla," he said quietly. "Every day."

  "Oh, spare me the hearts-and-flowers routine, if that's what you're working up to. You feel guilty about the baby and now you think you owe me some fairy tale about yearning for me hke a long-lost lover. Well, you don't, so please save your storytelling skills for the voters."

  "You're really tough," he said.

  Kayla thought she noted a grudging admiration in his tone. No, she decided, it was just her foolish imagination working overtime, spurred on by his ridiculous claim of secretly and silently wanting her all this time. She was horrified that she could be swayed, even momentarily, by such insidious strategy.

  She glared at him. "Yes, I'm tough, and I don't need any lying sweet talk from you."

  "You're right, you don't need lies from me. What you need from me is my support and my understanding and my loyalty. And a wedding ring, of course."

  A wave of exhaustion swept through her. He was so tenacious! Why didn't he just give up and leave? "It's sin-

  fully Stupid for you and me to even mention the word marriage, " she said wearily. ''We have nothing upon which to build a future together."

  ''We have a kid on the way, Kay la. That's a major cornerstone to build on, in my book."

  "You're afraid it will tarnish your sterling reputation if word gets out that you're having a child out of wedlock!" Kayla accused. Hot angry tears stung her eyes. "What a hypocrite you are! You condemn so-called image-makers for what they do, but you're just as obsessed with keeping your own image untarnished, even to the point of offering to marry a woman you despise."

  Before she realized what he intended, his big hands were cupping her shoulders. "This isn't about images, Kayla, not mine or yours or anybody else's. It's about a child. Our child. The one we made that night in the hotel. The one you're carrying inside you right now."

  Tension and strength vibrating through him, he pulled her into his arms. Kayla felt the taut virile power of his arousal against her and gazed up at him with wide hazel eyes. He had barely touched her and yet...

  "You shouldn't be surprised," he murmured huskily, reading her mind. "Just thinking about you makes me burn. And every time I'm near you I get so hard so fast that I—"

  "No, stop it!" Kayla tried to draw back. His words, his tone were undermining her resolve to resist him. "Let me go! This isn't going to solve anything!"

  "I disagree. It proves that we're compatible in at least one major way. What you neglected to mention when you were reminiscing about our previous encounters is that they invariably ended like this.''

  His mouth opened over hers, drinking in any protest she might have made. His tongue thrust deeply and seductively into her mouth while his hands boldly shaped her body against his hard masculine frame.

  Kayla stood passively in the circle of his arms for as long as her willpower held—which, to her shame, wasn^t very long at all. And then, with a whimper, she gave in to the hot ribbons of sensation streaking through her. Slowly, in sexy feminine submission, she sHd her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Her mouth opened wider under his, and her tongue answered the hot demands of his.

  Matt's breathing was becoming as rapid and shallow as hers. He moved against her, once again vividly demonstrating his swift, hard arousal. His hands moved boldly, possessively, over her, his fingers exploring the curves of her buttocks and hips, then the slender hollow of her waist before sliding upward to cup the soft weight of her breasts. He rubbed them through the yellow silk of her dress, fondling the softness with an expertise that made her moan. When his thumb unerringly found the ultrasensitive tip budding tautly, she cried aloud.

  ''Matt!" she whispered his name as she threaded her fingers through the dark springy thickness of his hair. His touch was burning her through the material of her dress and she knew a fierce, wanton longing to feel his fingers on her bare skin, to touch the hard naked warmth of him, to lie with him

  ''It's such a risk," she murmured feverishly. "Such a risk."

  "You've already taken it," Matt soothed. "We both have. The baby is a reality now."

  He thought she was talking about lovemaking, but she wasn't, Kayla realized. She'd meant that loving was a risk. Did she dare take it?

  There was no more time to think. They kissed and kissed, until she stopped worrying about all the reasons why this shouldn't be happening and let her emotions carry her, just as they had that first night she and Matt had been together. It seemed so inevitable, as if fate and nature had both com-

  bi
ned forces to overcome all the barriers they had constructed to stay apart.

  Matt muttered something dark and sexy under his breath and then lifted her in his arms. The sudden change in position made her head whirl. Kay la gulped for breath and instinctively clung to his shoulders.

  Eight

  In a few swift strides, he was in the bedroom. A pink light bulb glowed in the small bedside lamp, casting soft shadows over the room. Matt lowered Kayla onto the thick flowered comforter that covered the double bed and came down beside her, pulling her back into his arms and fastening his mouth on hers with a passionate urgency that matched her own.

  The barrier of their clothing was an intolerable one that they tried to dispose of as quickly as possible. Matt tugged at the cloth-covered buttons of her dress, that stretched from the high collar to her waist. When they were finally opened, he pushed the material off her shoulders and swiftly dispensed with her yellow lace bra.

  "You're beautiful, beautiful," he said hoarsely, and the rough desire in his voice made her feel sexy and voluptuous and utterly irresistible. It was the way Matt's immediate and hungry desire for her always made her feel, Kayla realized dizzily. He was the first and only man to make her feel that

  way, as if she were truly the only woman in the world who could assuage him.

  '*So pink and white and soft." His lips closed over her nipple, sensuously sucking it into his mouth. His tongue circled and laved the taut bud, and pleasure flowed through her like a wild, surging river.

  A hot velvet blackness cloaked her, blocking out everything—common sense, the baby, their past antagonisms, everything that she'd used to keep away from him—and sent her spinning into a purely sensual realm where only the passion that burned between them was relevant.

  She slipped her hands under his sweatshirt, reveling in the smooth flat warmth of his belly and the dark, curling hair on his chest. She loved to touch him, loved the feel of him, so male and hard and strong. Combing her fingers through the dark mat of hair, Kayla traced it downward where it disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. Through pas-sion-slitted eyes, she saw the burgeoning distension behind the metal buttons of his jeans. Daringly, she closed her fingers around him.

  Matt drew in a sharp breath and trembled at her intimate touch. ''Easy, sweetheart," he said raspily. He reluctantly removed her hand and carried it to his mouth, pressing his Hps to the center of her palm. ''If you don't stop now, it'll be all over."

  Kayla laughed shakily. "It's flattering of you to say so, but I'm hardly the type to induce an orgasm with merely a touch. Let's at least keep it honest between us."

  "I am. And you definitely are the type. I'd let you prove it, but I don't want a quick—"

  "My former fiance proposed to another woman while he was still engaged to me," Kayla blurted out. "An experience like that tends to ground you in reality when it comes to assessing your own appeal."

  "The guy was nuts to give you up," Matt growled. ''He wasn't grounded in reality. Now it's time to stop talking

  about him. I don't want anyone else in bed with us, Kayla. There's only you and me here. No ghosts, no specters from the past. Just the two of us."

  'There are three of us here now," Kayla whispered, catching his hand and placing it on her abdomen. An evocative, provocative action, to be sure, and she felt vaguely guilty for using their baby to further incite him, to bind him to her.

  Why had she done such a thing when she'd been so adamant about his not even knowing about their child? If she ever came up with the answer to that, she could ponder an even more difficult question: Why was she making passionate love with a man she claimed she never wanted to see again?

  "Oh, God, Kayla. I didn't think it was possible to want you more than before, but I do." His voice was thick with passion. 'Tve never wanted anyone more than I want you right now."

  He swiftly, deftly pulled her dress over her hips and down her thighs, tossing it off with one smooth sweep. Remaining were her yellow bikini panties, which matched her bra and yellow-tinted stockings that ended at the top of her thighs.

  Kayla's cheeks burned as Matt gazed at her appreciatively. ''You look like one of those models in a lingerie catalog." He ran his finger around the yellow lace top of her right stocking. "How do you keep these things up, anyway?"

  She explained that the lacy tops were elasticized and he slipped his fingers underneath to test. When they strayed to the soft skin of her inner thigh, Kayla felt electric tingles all through her. She caught her breath and shifted her legs. "How do you happen to be so familiar with lingerie catalogs, anyway?"

  "I saw one at my sister's place," Matt confessed rather sheepishly. "I glanced through it and wow! it was as sexy as

  Playboy, I wondered how I could get my name on the mailing list."

  She gave him a playful pinch. ''Are you one of those maniacs who slobbers over racy pictures?"

  ''Nope." He rolled over on top of her, letting her feel the full warm weight of him. "Just a normal, red-blooded male who knows a good thing when he sees it." He buried his lips in the curve of her neck, tasting her skin. InhaHng, he smelled the sexy, womanly scent of her.

  He knew a good thing and she was it, Matt thought, his head spinning. He was truly under her spell, but he couldn't seem to get alarmed about it. He knew he should, for her sensual power over him was intense and extreme. Yet at this moment, he couldn't even remember why he'd been determined to keep away from her.

  Matt kissed her neck, then along her jawline until he reached her mouth. He took it hungrily, with unrestrained mastery.

  Kay la lay beneath him, her arms wrapped tightly around him, her legs entangled with his, responding to his kiss with every fiber of her being. In a fog of sensuality, she vaguely recalled her resolute vow not to succumb to the chemistry between them again. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, and she'd had every intention of keeping him out of her Ufe.

  So much for vows and intentions, it seemed. Where were her much-heralded wits when she needed them? Her mind was as blurred as it had been during their first night together, but she had no alcohol-spiked excuse for it nov/, except that she wanted Matt Minteer with a fervid desperation that could not be denied.

  They were kissing deeply as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her panties and stripped them from her. Her stockings were next; he smoothed them down along the shapely, silky length of her legs. Kayla shivered a little as she

  lay naked under his ardent gaze, not from cold but from the heat of his hungry, intense blue eyes.

  "This is the first time Tve really seen you," he marveled, almost to himself. **Last time it was so dark in that hotel room..." He stroked her skin, savoring its smooth softness as his eyes feasted on her generous curves. ''I don't know how I managed to stay away from you for so long, Kayla."

  "It's easy to stay away from someone you detest," Kayla said huskily, reaching up to caress the enticingly sensual lines of his mouth.

  "I don't detest you, Kayla."

  "Not at this particular moment anyway," Kayla murmured, drawing him down to her. She didn't want to argue the point or press the issue. Not now. Right now she needed to believe that he really didn't detest her, that he actually meant all the seductive things he was saying to her.

  He slipped his hand between her thighs, seeking the throbbing feminine heat of her. His long, deft fingers caressed her, evoking spiraling waves of intimate, wonderful sensation. Kayla nearly sobbed as pleasure flooded through her; the remaining shreds of her control dissolved and she cried out his name, clinging to him.

  Matt thought he might explode with raw desire. It took every bit of willpower he possessed to leave her long enough to pull off his clothes, but he couldn't keep away from her a second longer. He had to be inside her! With one powerful, deliberate thrust, he entered her. Locked together, they lay still for a few silent, sensuous moments.

  He moved slowly, deeply, possessing her with a fierce passion that she returned in full measure. She moved with h
im and for him in erotic tandem, until they were both panting and breathless, their skin slick with sweat. Kayla gave herself to him completely; there were no reservations or inhibitions between them, no holding back. But even as

  they took, they gave to each other, their surrender as mutual as their sensuous demands.

  And though they tried to prolong it, the wild, hot pleasure finally flared to flash point and the sweet flames engulfed them into a tumultuous, simultaneous climax.

  Afterward, they lay in each other's arms, silent and replete in the afterglow. Kay la's eyehds began to feel heavy; it was an effort to keep them open. She shifted to her left side, her favorite position for falling asleep. Matt reached over to turn off the lamp, then tucked her into him, spoon-fashion, and draped a possessive arm around her. The lights in the living room, still on, shone dimly into the room. Matt considered getting up to turn them off, then reconsidered and didn't.

  **Are you falling asleep on me?" he asked, stroking her hair lightly.

  ''I guess I am," she murmured drowsily. She didn't want to talk or think. She just wanted to float away on this sweet cloud engulfing her.

  *'Then now is probably a good time to ask if I can spend the night here."

  "It probably is because Fm too tired to say no and face the argument you'll put up if I do."

  "I left an overnight bag in my car." Matt pulled her closer. *'But I'll get it later." He heaved a contented sigh. ''This is great, isn't it? Not having to worry about birth control and protection and all that. I've always hated condoms and—"

  "Don't press your luck, Matthew." She cut in sharply. "I said you could stay here tonight but I don't want an analysis of what is undoubtedly going to turn out to be a huge mistake on my part."

  "It's not a mistake, but there'll be no analyses." He kissed her temple. "See how easy to get along with I can be?"