Come Up and See Me Sometime

by Lucy Monroe

  She'd been ready to give Alex her body the other night. Why was she so nervous now? Probably because the other night she hadn't thought in terms of a lifetime commitment and giving away her heart as well. Tonight she would go to Alex as his wife, the woman who loved him. He would come to her as her husband, but his heart was still his own.

  She'd known that going into the marriage. It was time to stop being a ninny and face him. She opened the bathroom door and entered the bedroom. Alex had transformed his … their room into a romantic paradise for lovers.

  Her eyes took a minute to adjust to the subtle glow of light coming from a dozen candles arranged on the dresser, nightstands, and armoire. Soft, sensual music caressed her ears like a lover's touch, and the bedding had been drawn back invitingly, but even more inviting was the man sitting against the massive wood headboard of the extra-long king size bed.

  Her breath whooshed out of her lungs at the sight. Alex's chest and legs were bare, his only article of clothing a pair of black silk boxers. He held a glass of champagne out to her, his hand and eyes steady. She walked forward to take it, wishing her body wasn't trembling like a kitten caught in a snowstorm.

  She involuntarily jerked her hand away when their fingers touched.

  "Nervous, sweetheart?"

  She nodded but didn't speak. She couldn't make her vocal cords work.

  "You don't need to be. I'm going to take very good care of you tonight." The sensual promise in his voice sent tremors through her senses, increasing the trembling until her champagne was at risk of sloshing over the sides of her crystal flute.

  Still mute, she nodded again even though she didn't agree. Oh, she knew he'd make it good for her, but could she make it good for him? That was the sixty-four dollar question and she didn't have the answer. She'd flunked her first test in this area and since then, she'd avoided the type of circumstance that could make her feel like such a failure again.

  He reached out and gently, inexorably pulled her down onto his lap. Silk whispered against skin as she settled stiffly against him. He took a sip of his champagne. What a good idea. She took a gulp of hers and wished it were whiskey.

  "It was a nice wedding," he said.

  "Yes." There. She'd said something.

  "Your pastor is a good man."

  "I agree." It was getting easier to speak.

  "I liked the flowers."

  It struck her that Alex wasn't going to insist they make love right this instant, and she breathed out a sigh, nestling more comfortably against him, only to draw up in another bout of nervous tension as she felt a hard ridge press against her thigh. "I was lucky to get the ones I wanted on such short notice."

  "Thank you."

  She raised her head to meet his gaze. Thinking he meant to thank her for putting the wedding together so quickly, she asked, "For what?"

  "For marrying me."

  Her throat closed, only this time it wasn't with fear. Tears burned at the back of her eyes. "Oh, Alex."

  "Can I kiss you now?"

  She choked out a laugh. "Yes."

  This kiss held a new element, something different from the other kisses they had shared. Though his lips were gentle, she felt as if he were marking her, possessing her.

  He lifted his head and stared into her eyes, his look almost frighteningly intent. "You belong to me now."

  "Yes." She didn't want to deny his claim. She liked the feeling of belonging to someone.

  He tipped his head down again, but she put her hand against his lips. "You belong to me, too." He had to know it was not a one-way street.

  His tongue flicked out and licked her fingers. "Forever."

  Her heart tripped. Sliding her hand up his jaw and then down his neck to his chest, she reveled in the feel of hard muscle and bone under hot skin. This incredible man belonged to her. She tucked the knowledge close to her heart.

  The feel of Isabel's fingers fluttering against his skin was about to drive Alex over the edge. She'd come out of the bathroom looking better than a fantasy in that see-through white nightgown, but nervous enough to bolt at his first move. He wanted to be patient. He really did, but he also wanted to be inside of her. He'd been thinking of little else for the past two weeks. He needed to feel her body tighten around him, to feel her shudder her release.

  The prospect had been driving him crazy since the night she'd agreed to marry him.

  He kissed her again, this time letting some of his desire show through. Taking her bottom lip between his teeth, he sucked—not too hard. He didn't want to scare her and she was still stiff against him, but he kept up the steady pressure of his lips while rubbing her back. Just when he thought he was going to go insane trying to hold it all in, she relaxed and opened her mouth. He swept inside. Yes. He wanted to devour her sweetness, but he held back even though it was killing him.

  It had to be right. It had to be damn perfect. He would do anything she needed to make this unforgettable for her. It was their wedding night and he wanted it to be special. So special that she would never doubt where her first priority lay. With him. He'd even lit a whole bunch of candles in an attempt to be romantic.

  He gently let his hand slide down her back until it curved around her backside. He squeezed. She moaned.

  He was so hard, he ached.

  "Alex?"

  "Yeah?"

  She kissed the underside of his chin. "I'm a little nervous."

  A little? She was acting like a cat taking its first car ride. "I could tell."

  "It doesn't make any sense."

  She was right. It didn't. She'd been hot enough for him the other night to catch his shorts on fire, but he didn't think she'd appreciate his saying so. "So, why do you think you're so uptight?"

  "Uptight doesn't cover it." Vulnerable green eyes begged him for understanding while his body demanded satisfaction. "I'm scared to death. I feel like an idiot."

  He brushed her cheek. "Are you really scared to death?"

  She didn't answer right away, but her eyes reflected agonized uncertainty, and his gut clenched in rejection of the message he was receiving.

  What was she so afraid of? She'd said she wasn't a virgin, so it couldn't be the act of sex itself. Besides, she had responded too beautifully the other night to have a lot of hang-ups in that area. So, it had to be him. He frightened her. The thought was about as palatable as sushi left to sit out in the sun. So was the conclusion that accompanied it. She definitely wanted the baby more than she wanted him.

  In fact right now, he had a hard time believing she wanted him at all.

  She bit her bottom lip and his libido went into overload at the thought of how those sharp little teeth would feel on his body. As yet unaffected by the revelations tearing his thoughts apart, his erection shifted against her thigh.

  Her eyes grew wide and she swallowed.

  How had she expected to get pregnant with the baby she wanted so badly if she didn't want him enough to consummate the marriage? What the hell had she thought she was going to do? Close her eyes and think of pink-cheeked babies while she endured him making love to her?

  She smiled. "Don't look so outraged."

  That smile hit him on the raw. Using every vestige of his self-control, he lifted her away from him, set her on the bed, and then stood up.

  "Alex, where are you going?" She had the colossal nerve to sound surprised by his departure.

  She might be willing to go forward in the face of her obvious reluctance but he was not. Part of him realized his conclusions weren't necessarily rational, but he couldn't think past the ache in his flesh to come to any others.

  He stopped at the door. "I need a drink."

  She hopped off the bed with more enthusiasm than she'd shown yet. "Good idea. I was just thinking whiskey might be a better before-bed drink than champagne."

  Great. Now she was telling him she needed to get drunk before she wanted him to touch her. He glared at her, his jaw aching from suppressing what he wanted to say.

  To
o busy blowing out the candles he'd put on the nightstand, she wasn't paying any attention.

  "What are you doing?"

  She jumped and spun around to face him. "We don't want to leave burning candles unattended. We can relight them when we come back up."

  The whole damn room mocked him. He stormed to the armoire and opened it. With a savage push against the power button, he turned off the stereo. Then he flipped on the light. Isabel blinked at him owlishly. He ignored her and the deceptively sexy picture she presented in her floaty nightgown and lacy robe. Using his thumb and forefinger, he pinched the flames out on the candles on top of the armoire before going to the dresser and doing the same with the candles there.

  Isabel stared at him. "Doesn't that hurt?"

  "No." He finished with the candles on the other nightstand and turned to face her. "Come on, I've got some brandy downstairs."

  He didn't care what she said; he wasn't giving his wife whiskey on their wedding night.

  * * *

  Anger radiated off of her new husband in waves.

  He had poured them both a brandy and moved to stand on the opposite side of the living room from her to drink his. As far away from her as he could get and still stay in the room, her mind taunted her. Not that there were many places to sit, she tried to console herself. Alex had been right when he'd told her there was plenty of space for her furniture in the farmhouse. Other than a tweed sofa and ladder-back chair, the living room was bare.

  "Thank you for making sure Dad came to the wedding." She smiled tentatively at him, hoping he would accept her peace offering.

  "I knew it was important to you."

  She took a sip of her brandy. It burned going down. "You're right. It was. How did you manage it?"

  He shrugged. "I asked Marcus to do it."

  It struck her that Alex trusted Marcus a great deal. She made a mental note to thank Marcus the next time she saw him and wracked her brain for something else to say. "My living room furniture is going to look great in here."

  Alex looked around the room. "I'm sure it will."

  Frustration and fear gnawed at her. She knew that the tension vibrating between them was all her fault, but she didn't know how to fix it. She was much better at muddling interpersonal relationships than at making them better. She'd been afraid of messing up this night, and she'd managed to do it before Alex had barely laid a hand on her.

  He swirled the brandy in his glass, his gaze focused on the amber liquid.

  "Alex, are you okay?" It was a stupid question. Of course he wasn't okay. He had every reason to believe he'd married a sexually mature woman, when in fact he'd tied himself to a shivering ninny.

  He looked up from the brandy, his expression almost bland. "It might surprise you to know that most men would not enjoy the knowledge that their wives needed to get drunk to face making love with them on their wedding night." He spoke in such a conversational tone of voice that at first the heavy import of what he was saying did not register.

  When it did, she looked down with horror at the brandy glass in her hand. Is that what he thought? That she needed to get tipsy before letting him touch her? And why shouldn't he? She'd practically said as much.

  She set the brandy glass down so fast, it rocked precariously before settling on the small table next to the sofa. "I don't need this to want your touch, Alex."

  He looked at her broodingly. "Right."

  "I do want you, Alex, it's just…" Her voice trailed off as she lost the nerve to tell him what a fool she'd been in the past and how it affected her now.

  Would he lose his desire for her when he discovered that no other man had wanted her for anything but her connection to Hypertron? The confidence she'd built up over the years living her life apart from her dad and finding success in her own career was in jeopardy of dissolving.

  He raised his brow in question but didn't say anything.

  Taking a deep breath, she decided that the only solution to their dilemma was honesty. Even if it made her look more of an idiot now than she had upstairs in the bedroom. "Do you remember when I told you I didn't have a lot of experience in this area?"

  His gorgeous brown eyes narrowed. "What area?" He looked around the living room. "Decorating?"

  All right. So, she'd messed up, but his sarcasm wasn't helping anything. "Making love," she spelled out for him.

  He nonchalantly leaned back against the windowsill, his almost-nude body mocking her nerves that were strung so tight they were in danger of snapping. "You said you weren't a virgin."

  He didn't sound like the conversation interested him all that much, but she refused to be daunted by that. She'd messed up their wedding night and now she was going to fix it. If he'd let her. "I'm not. I had sex once before."

  His body stiffened. "Once?"

  She nodded, dreading telling the rest of the story. "I didn't date a lot in high school."

  "Your last experience with sex was in high school?" He couldn't have sounded more appalled if he'd shouted the words.

  "No." She frowned. "Do you want me to tell you this or not?" If he did, she had to tell him her way because it all fit together, even if he couldn't see that at first.

  He swept his hand out in a lazy gesture. "By all means. I can't imagine anything I'd rather do on our wedding night than hear about your dating history since high school."

  Hurt by his sarcasm, her mouth closed on the words she'd been about to say. What was the use? He'd probably think she was just as stupid now for letting her past affect her this way as she had been then to be taken in so easily. She couldn't even blame him. He wasn't the one who had behaved like a complete twit at the prospect of making love.

  And it wasn't as if she didn't want to make love. She did. Desperately. If she disappointed Alex, she would deal with it then. Her fears had done enough damage for one lifetime.

  She tried to give him a confident smile. "Shall we go back upstairs?"

  He didn't budge. "Why? I'm not tired. Are you? Or maybe you've psyched yourself into letting me make love to you, for the greater good, of course."

  His thoughts so closely matched hers that she felt a guilty blush stain her cheeks.

  His brandy glass splintered against the fireplace's slate hearth, the sound shattering the nervous silence in the room and the final shred of her self-control. She screamed.

  "For heaven's sake." If anything, he looked even angrier. "What do you think I'm going to do to you, Isabel? Rape you? Believe it or not, the prospect of taking a woman to bed who wants me about as much as she wants a raging case of the mumps does not appeal to me."

  She stared at him, shocked by his assertion. Though why she should be, she didn't know. She'd been acting exactly as he said since walking out of the en suite a half hour earlier. "I do want you, Alex. You've got to believe me."

  She knew she sounded needy, desperate, on the edge. She didn't care. She loved him and from the look on his face, she was in danger of losing him before they'd been married twenty-four hours. This had to be some record for her. It was one thing to be bad at interpersonal relationships and another entirely to go down in flames in her first attempt at making a permanent one since becoming an adult.

  His jaw tightened and a look of disgust filled his features. "I'm not interested in bedding a martyr tonight, Isabel. You wanted a baby and I married you knowing that. It's my own damn fault I tricked myself into believing you wanted me at least as much."

  "But I do want you," she insisted, not sure where this stuff about a baby was coming from. He had to realize she'd never have married him just to get pregnant. "If I was willing to get married just to have a baby, I would have married Brad."

  "He didn't fit your requirements." Alex's derision cut through her, leaving a bloody trail of slash marks on her heart in its wake.

  "This is not about my requirements!" Her entire body vibrated with the need to make him understand. "I'm scared I'll fail. I'm afraid you'll wake up tomorrow morning wondering how in the world you were
stupid enough to marry a woman with no talent for sex and even less desirability."

  Every ounce of Alex's self-righteous anger and macho mental posturing went up in smoke at the desperate pain he heard in Isabel's voice. Why hadn't he seen it? It had been so obvious. The idea that Isabel did not want him made no sense whatsoever in the light of her earlier reaction to him.

  There had to have been a different reason for her fear, but instead of looking for it, he had allowed his own insecurities about Isabel's strong desire for a baby to override his common sense. She'd never before implied she didn't want him.

  He opened his arms. "Come here, baby."

  She flew to him without a second's hesitation, filling him with relief that he hadn't screwed up so badly she no longer trusted him.

  Once she was settled against his heart, where she belonged, he said, "Tell me about it."

  He wanted to know what he was up against when he made her his tonight, what he was fighting in his effort to make her see herself as the enchantingly desirable creature he saw when he looked at her.

  She started talking, her voice muffled against his chest, her warm breath fanning his bare skin. "I didn't date a lot in high school because I was shy, scared of letting people close to me. I guess it had something to do with my dad and the way I kept losing the people I loved, whatever. Anyway, I started dating this boy in my sophomore year. He was a total hunk and I couldn't believe he was interested in me, only it turns out he wasn't."

  "Idiot."

  She pulled back and smiled ruefully up at him. "Thanks. He wanted the lead pitching position on the summer league baseball team my dad's company sponsored. When he found out I didn't have any sway with my dad and that he wasn't going to meet the great John Harrison by hanging around the man's house with his teenage daughter, my boyfriend dumped me."