A MAN LIKE MORGAN KANE

by Beverly Barton

  "It's all right, babe. I'm going to make the hurt go away." Caressing her, his touch wildly erotic, he eased his hands down her rib cage and around, dipping one of his hands between their bodies. He speared his fingers through the triangle of dark hair and cupped her intimately, then when he eased his finger over her sensitive kernel, he encompassed one begging nipple with his mouth.

  Bethany fell apart, her whole body becoming a throbbing, aching mass of need. She felt herself building toward a climax as he suckled one breast and then the other, his touch masterfully fondling her. It had happened too quickly. She'd been too hungry. She wanted to tell him, to beg him not to let it end so soon, to make this wild pleasure go on and on forever.

  She cried out as fulfillment claimed her. Trembling from the force of her release, she clung to Morgan. He lifted her into his arms and carried her across the room and laid her down on the bed. As the aftershocks rippled through her body, she watched while Morgan tore off his clothes and threw them haphazardly on the floor. Within seconds he eased himself down on top of her, bracing his big body with his arms. Waiting, wanting, her passion ignited anew by the very sight of him, large, hard and gloriously male.

  "I want you." The words rushed out of his mouth on a harsh, heated breath as he wedged his knee between her thighs and opened her up for his invasion.

  She reached for him, digging her nails into his buttocks, encouraging him to take what he wanted. "Take me. Please, Morgan. I want you, too. So very much."

  He eased his finger inside her, retrieving her moisture, preparing them both for his possession. Shivering and whimpering, she arched her back, lifting her hips off the bed, inviting him in.

  Groaning with savage satisfaction, he plunged into the depths of her receptive body, but stilled instantly when she cried out and bit her nails deeper into his taut buttocks. Realization hit him suddenly. Bethany hadn't been with a man in twelve years, but even when they had been lovers, taking all of him into her body had never been an easy feat.

  "It's all right, honey." He soothed her with kisses and tender caresses as he eased himself, inch by inch, deeper and deeper into her body.

  For a moment, Bethany felt impaled as he embedded himself inside her, but gradually her body became used to the pressure of his fullness.

  He lifted her hips as he plunged to the hilt, filling her completely. Once she had adjusted to him, he eased himself out by slow degrees and then thrust again, repeating the process until she writhed beneath him, crying, moaning, pleading.

  He felt her tightening around him, urging the inevitable explosion. She clung to him, absorbing every ounce of pleasure from their wild mating. He hammered into her until, with one final lunge, he erupted, just as she spiraled out of control for a second time.

  His shouted grunt was that of a powerful male animal in his prime. She lay beneath him shivering uncontrollably as her pleasure continued on and on until only the fluttering shock waves of completion echoed through her body.

  Falling to her side, he drew her into his arms and kissed her full on the mouth, loving the sweet, salty taste of the sweat that dampened her upper lip. Running his hand up and down her arm, he nudged her other shoulder with his nose, then planted a soft kiss on the same spot.

  "You are the sweetest thing I've ever known," he whispered. "It has never been like this with anyone else."

  "Only with me?"

  "Yes, Beth. Only with you."

  Sighing with satisfaction, she cuddled in his arms and drifted off to sleep. He lay there for a long time and watched her while she slept, thinking how peaceful she looked, how completely sated. In a little while he closed his eyes and rested.

  * * *

  Awakening with a start, he sat straight up in bed. He heard a car door slam. Checking his watch, still strapped to his wrist, he realized how late it was. James had probably dropped Anne Marie home after school. Hell, he couldn't let her walk in on them, couldn't let her find him naked in her mother's bed. He shot out of the bed, jerked on his navy-blue slacks and slipped into his shirt. After gathering up his shoes, socks and underwear, he grabbed his holster off the mantel and rushed out into the hall and toward his room.

  Standing just inside his bedroom, he heard the front door unlock. Damn! He'd have to hurry. Rushing about frantically, he washed off quickly and dressed in fresh clothes. Just as he slipped into his brown loafers, he heard Anne Marie's footsteps on the stairs. Strapping on his holster, he walked out into the hallway at the exact moment Anne Marie lifted her hand to knock on her mother's closed bedroom door.

  "She's asleep," Morgan said.

  Anne Marie gasped and jumped simultaneously, then turned to face him. "Oh. Morgan, you scared me. I just wanted to talk to Mama and let her know that I survived the first day at school."

  "She'll be glad to hear all about it." Morgan grabbed Anne Marie by the elbow. "But later, OK? Bethany hasn't been sleeping well at night. She really needs this little nap."

  "Yeah, you're right. I can fill her in on the details of my day later. How was your day? Anything significant happen?"

  Tugging on her elbow, Morgan steered her away from Bethany's room. "Why don't we go downstairs, find us a snack and exchange notes? You tell me about your day and I'll hit the highlights of mine."

  "Sounds like a plan to me."

  Anne Marie followed him downstairs to the kitchen. While he filled glasses with ice and poured them each a cola, she retrieved a bag of corn chips from the pantry.

  She tossed him the chips. "Here. Open these. I'll get the ketchup."

  "Ketchup?"

  "Yeah, I know. Nana and Grandmother think it's disgusting, but I love to dip my chips in ketchup."

  She pulled a bottle out of the refrigerator, lifted a bowl from the dishwasher and squirted ketchup into it. Plunking the bowl down on the table, she returned the ketchup to the refrigerator.

  Morgan watched, fascinated, even a bit bewildered as Bethany's daughter munched on ketchup-coated chips. He'd eaten his chips with ketchup since he'd been a kid. His mother had never known. She had seldom shared meals, let alone snacks, with him when he'd been a child. Retrieving a chip from the bag, he reached over and dipped it in the ketchup. Anne Marie stared at him, a look of surprise on her face. He repeated the process with several chips.

  "Don't tell me that you like ketchup on your chips!"

  "Never eat them any other way."

  "Gee, I think it's really cool that you and I are so much alike."

  "And how are we alike except for our food preferences?" Morgan asked. "Ketchup on chips. And medium rare steaks."

  "Well, Nana always told me how much I was like you. She said I reminded her a lot of you. The food I liked. The music I liked. Even being good at sports. Nana said that I was more like you than I was Amery, even though he was my real father."

  Her real father. Why did the fact that Amery was her father still bother him so much? What difference did it make after all these years? He couldn't go back and change the past, no matter how much he wanted to.

  What should be concerning Morgan wasn't that Amery was Anne Marie's father, but that the girl was beginning to think of him as a substitute father. He had promised himself that when he left Birmingham this time, he wouldn't leave behind any broken hearts. Not Bethany's. And most certainly not Anne Marie's.

  "Hey, we are cousins, aren't we?" Morgan lifted his glass of iced cola in a salute. "We must have inherited a lot of the same Morgan genes."

  Anne Marie studied Morgan intently while she nibbled on corn chips and sipped on her cola. "You're very good-looking. I can see why Mama fell in love with you first. You know, before you left town and she and Amery got married. Just think, if you'd stayed here instead of going away and joining the Navy, you and Mama would have gotten married and I'd be your daughter."

  Morgan fiercely clutched the glass in his hand, then realized what he was doing just in time to keep from breaking the glass. No matter how much he wished Anne Marie was his, she wasn't. He couldn't let t
he girl concoct some kind of fantasy world where he would marry her mother and they'd become one big happy family. It wasn't going to happen. "Yeah, well, I didn't stay. I didn't marry your mother. And you're Amery's daughter, not mine."

  Sighing forlornly, Anne Marie said, "Yeah, I know."

  After downing several large gulps of cola, Morgan set his glass on the table, reached over and grasped Anne Marie's chin. "I thought you were going to tell me how you slew the dragons at school today."

  Brightening instantly at his teasing comment, she grinned. He gave her chin a playful squeeze, then released her.

  "I really didn't slay any dragons, but I did keep my cool all day. Mama would have been so proud of me. No matter what anybody said, I didn't cry and I didn't get angry and holler at them. I just ignored them. I did like Mama always said I should do." When he stared at her quizzically, she laughed. "You know, Mama always says to consider the source."

  "Consider the source, huh?"

  "I just turned my nose up in the air and acted as if I was better than them," Anne Marie said. "And after today, I sure do know who my real friends are. Would you believe there were quite a few girls who stuck up for me?"

  The kitchen door swung open and Bethany breezed into the room. Morgan noticed that she was freshly showered. Damp, dark tendrils that had escaped from her loose ponytail curled about her face.

  "Mama! Did you have a good nap?" Anne Marie jumped up from the table and ran to meet her mother. Giving Bethany a big hug, she grabbed her mother's hands and dragged her over to a chair. "Sit down. I have to tell you everything. I was strong and fearless and I didn't shed one tear and I didn't yell at anybody."

  Sitting down at the table, Bethany glanced at Morgan, and for one brief moment her heart stopped. She suddenly felt too warm, her skin too tight for her body, as she recalled the exquisite pleasure they'd shared only a short time ago. She prayed that what she felt didn't show too plainly on her face, that her daughter wouldn't suspect what had happened.

  Morgan forced himself not to stare at Bethany, not to allow his gaze to linger too long on her face and body. Just looking at her was enough to arouse him. He knew that if Anne Marie hadn't come home, Bethany could have awakened in his arms and they would be upstairs in her bed right now, making love again.

  "Mama, Melanie Harden is now my new best friend." Propping her elbows on the table, Anne Marie stared straight at Bethany. "She sat with me at lunch and whenever we overheard anybody saying something hateful, she gave them the evil eye. And once she even told Tiffany Lang not to ever expect to be invited to any of her parties. Not ever again. And you know Melanie's parties are the best. I mean everybody wants to be invited."

  Morgan watched the interchange between mother and daughter, strongly aware of the bond of love and trust and commitment that existed. He was an outsider, a privileged outsider, looking in on a private moment, allowed to be a temporary part of this family circle.

  Anne Marie had all but invited him to become her father. She was hungry for a paternal force in her life, a man for her mother and a dad for her. But this type of life-style was alien to him. He was a loner, a man without any real ties. He had chosen the life he wanted to live sixteen years ago end he hadn't changed his mind. He still wanted no part of the world he'd left behind, the world of social position and wealth. The phony artificial life his parents had lived held no appeal for him. And even though Bethany had not turned out to be a carbon copy of Claudia Kane, she still lived in the same world, still moved in the same circles and she had raised her daughter to be a member of that elite society.

  He had to make sure that both mother and daughter understood that when this job was over, he'd be gone. He wouldn't let anything or anyone lure him back into the life he'd hated. No matter how much the thought of being Bethany's lover appealed to him, and no matter how much he wished that Amery's daughter was his, he would never stay in Birmingham.

  Once they proved Bethany's innocence and she was a free woman, he would leave. And even if he asked her to go with him this time, he didn't think she'd give up the life she'd built here. Sixteen years ago, the girl who had loved him so completely would have followed him to the moon. But Bethany was a different person now, a woman with a business, a teenage daughter and obligations she couldn't walk away from so easily.

  No matter how much they still wanted each other, still cared for each other, Morgan didn't see any forever-after in their future.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  "There's no way to get her out of here without taking her straight through the reporters," Maxine Carson told Morgan. "They're everywhere. At the back entrance that leads to the park and at the entrance facing Twenty-First Street

  , too. And they're filling up the building."

  "Dammit! I knew I shouldn't have let you come to the courthouse today." Bending down on his haunches in front of Bethany's chair, Morgan reached out, took her quivering hands in his strong, steady grasp and gazed into her eyes. He saw his own concern reflected there in the depths of her gold-flecked eyes. And he saw more. He saw her fear.

  Bringing her hands to his lips, he kissed them, longing for a way to ease her pain and erase her fear. "Don't worry, honey, I'll get you out of here and safely to the car."

  Smiling weakly, she looked at him, but he had the oddest feeling that she was looking right through him, past him and into her future. A future she couldn't bear to imagine.

  "I know you'll get me out of here." Freeing her hands from his grasp, she reached up and caressed his cheek. "I'm sorry getting me out of here is going to be so difficult. I probably shouldn't have come to the courthouse, but I had to. Even though I couldn't be in the courtroom, I needed to be here when the grand jury made their ruling."

  Maxine paced the floor, her sharp three-inch heels clinking at an allegro beat. "Well, I can't say I didn't expect it. We knew all the evidence was against us. The prosecutor had everything on his side."

  "Yes, I suppose it shouldn't have come as a great surprise that the grand jury indicted me." Bethany's voice possessed a trancelike calm. "I had hoped, not only for my sake, but for Anne Marie's and Mother's and … I can't bear the thought of what my daughter is going to have to go through. This situation is already intolerable for her."

  "Have you considered sending her out of town somewhere until after the trial?" Maxine asked. "Maybe a boarding school in Europe?"

  "No!" Bethany and Morgan said simultaneously, then looked at each other and smiled sadly. The understanding that passed between them formed a bond, and in that one moment, Bethany knew that if the time came, her daughter would be safe in Morgan's care.

  Stopping abruptly, Maxine glared at Bethany and Morgan. "Well, it was only a suggestion. By your reactions, you'd think I'd said send her to Siberia."

  "Anne Marie needs to be here, in Birmingham, with family," Bethany said. "I don't want to miss one day with her. If—if I'm convicted—"

  "You're not going to be convicted!" Maxine shouted. "You didn't kill Jimmy Farraday, and I'm going to find a way to prove it."

  Rising to his feet, Morgan brought Bethany up out of the chair, then slipped his arm around her waist. "The best way to prove it is for us to find the real killer."

  "Well, if Eileen or Seth killed Jimmy, now would be the perfect time for a confession," Maxine said. "Before your arraignment."

  "When will the arraignment be?" Bethany asked.

  "It's usually a week or two after the grand jury hands down the indictment." Opening the door leading into the hallway, Maxine searched the milling crowd. "At least no one has discovered where we are. Not for the time being. Remind me to send Bob a bottle of Jack Daniels as a thank-you for letting us hide out here in his office."

  "I'll have to be present at the arraignment, won't I?" Bethany rested her head on Morgan's chest.

  "We'll have to appear before the court that will try your case. The judge will apprise you of the formal charges against you, set a trial date and
consider our request not to revoke your bail." Maxine closed the door, shutting out the loud hustle and bustle of reporters, spectators and frenzied Jimmy Farraday fans that crowded the halls and lined the front steps and the sidewalks at every exit.

  Bethany slumped against Morgan, thankful for his powerful presence, as all the possible realities of the situation hit her. "Do you think that could happen? Is there a chance I might have to stay in jail until after the trial?"

  "There's always a chance, considering the seriousness of the charges, that the judge might—"

  "It won't go that far," Morgan said. "I don't care what I have to do, I'll find Farraday's murderer before the trial."

  The outer door flew open and slammed shut with a resounding bang. Holt Purdue, a junior partner in Kane, Walker and Carson, panted like a woman in labor. His beet red face clashed with his salmon pink tie and his pale blue eyes. Dots of sweat covered his forehead and upper lip.

  "God, it's a madhouse out there. I've never seen so many reporters!" Holt pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped the moisture from his face. "The natives are restless. Tony Hayes has a news crew here from WHNB, and he's been stirring up the crowd while they wait for Bethany to come out. The police have had to block off traffic along Twenty-First Street

  ."

  "We'll have to try to take her out the other way, through Lynn Park," Maxine said. "If necessary, call a taxi to take her home, and we'll get someone to pick up her car later."

  "Before y'all make any plans, there's something you should know," Holt said.

  "What should we know?" Morgan asked.

  "Mrs. Farraday is giving an interview to Tony Hayes out on the front steps." Holt looked directly at Bethany. "Anne Marie and James are with her."

  "Oh, God, no!" Bethany gripped the sleeve of Morgan's jacket. "What was Mother thinking coming here and bringing those children?"