Somewhere far away, an alarm went off, calling for a retreat. Kirk ignored it, giving in to other feelings. “No papers to grade?”
Rachel thought of the mountain of tests she’d finally plowed through and returned. Her sigh of relief was automatic.
“Mercifully, no.” She looked at him brightly. “Not even a lesson plan to wrestle with.” She waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, she prodded him. “How about you?”
He opened the front door and went inside. He knew that no invitation was necessary. Rachel was right behind him. “No wrestling with lesson plans for me, either.”
He was deliberately being obtuse. She suddenly had a free weekend, and she wanted to spend it with him. “You know what I mean. Do you have anything planned?” Playing along, she enunciated each word carefully.
Kirk thought of teasing her a little longer, then decided against it. He dropped down on the sofa. It was a hard, uncomfortable piece of furniture that did nothing to accommodate the body. Somehow it seemed an appropriate sofa for his parents to have chosen.
“No, it seems that I don’t. My assistant and one of my two best friends just drove off and left me alone for the weekend.”
The smile began in her eyes and worked its way over her face. “Funny, I could almost say the same thing.”
She moved around the living room slowly, trying to discover something about it that made her feel at home. There was nothing. It was as if she could feel the vibrations of past discord here.
She blocked them out as she turned toward Kirk. “What do you say we join forces and try to figure out what to do with ourselves until they return?”
Kirk knew what he wanted to do. What he shouldn’t do. Like a stone rolling down a hill, he felt as if he had no control over his fate.
When she sat down beside him, he felt that control slipping further away. Bowman was right about her perfume. It was heady stuff. “I have a good idea.”
Rachel shifted closer, drawn there by a force that was far stronger than she. “You tell me your idea, I’ll tell you if it’s good.”
He’d never been noble before. It wasn’t easy now, not when he wanted her so much that everything within him ached. “That’s just the point. It isn’t. Not for y—”
She covered his lips with her fingers, stilling them. “Nope, I absolutely refuse to get into another discussion on that subject.” Deliberately attempting to keep things light, Rachel rose again. Needing an edge, she fell back on the familiar. “Tell you what.” She looked toward his kitchen. “Why don’t I make breakfast?”
He didn’t want her to think that she had to cook for him all the time. He’d only been back a little over a month, and half his meals had been at her table. Fair was fair. “I could try my hand at it, if you like.”
She raised a brow and looked at him doubtfully. “Define ‘try.’”
She made him laugh. She always could.
His coffee could double for asphalt filler, and his fried eggs could be mistaken for coasters. He cooked only as a last resort. “Admittedly, I don’t do it very often.”
She was very good at picking up what wasn’t being said. “Translation—you also don’t do it very well.” She turned on her heel and began heading for the kitchen. “You’ve convinced me. I’d rather slave a little over a stove than have my stomach pumped.”
He pretended to take exception to her assumption as he followed her. “It’s not that bad. I’m still alive.”
She opened his pantry and decided that it was too much to hope that he had bought a box of pancake mix. She glanced at him over her shoulder, a superior lift to her brow. “I noticed that you had dropped a few pounds or so when you first returned to town. Is that a testimonial to your abilities?”
It was a testimonial to the fact that some days the business of survival took priority over everything else and he forgot to eat. Other days there wasn’t anything to be had. It wasn’t as if there were a grocery store on every other corner on the beat he had maintained.
“I did a lot of running,” he reminded her. He banished the serious thought, preferring, instead, to indulge himself and simply tease her. “But if you’re volunteering...”
“Yeah, right, volunteering.” She closed the pantry door and sighed. She could always make eggs, she thought, provided he had any. “It’s like the army. You volunteer or suffer the consequences.”
Anticipating the worst, she opened the refrigerator, and was pleasantly surprised. Success. He had a carton of eggs. Probably the same ones he’d had four weeks ago, she guessed.
Rachel took the carton out and placed it on the counter. “I’m not much on consequences,” she concluded. She saw the serious look enter his eye. Wrong choice of words, she told herself. “Except in some cases.”
Being alone with her would only lead to one thing. He knew that. And he knew that to indulge himself like this wasn’t right. Conscience struggled with need.
“Rachel...”
She heard the beginnings of a dismissal in his voice. It was something she wasn’t accustomed to hearing from him. Something she feared.
“Why don’t you go back to calling me Funny Face for the time being?” She purposely kept her back to him as she hunted around in the cabinet for a pan. “I think you’re more at ease when you think of me that way.”
He’d meant to keep the length of the kitchen between them. Or at least the counter. How they both came to be on the same side, he had no idea. Just as he didn’t know how he managed to tangle his fingers in her hair, savoring the silky feel of it.
“I don’t think I’m at ease around you at all.”
“Oh?” It wasn’t easy keeping the anticipation from her voice. It was already reaching out and engulfing the rest of her. “Is that a good observation or a bad one?”
A smile formed without thought. “I’m trying to make up my mind about that.”
“It shouldn’t take that much of an effort.” She abandoned the pan she’d just uncovered. The counter was at her back, and Rachel used it to brace herself as she looked up into his eyes. And felt herself getting lost. “If I excite you, that’s good. If I make you uncomfortable, that’s bad.”
“You excite me...” It was a poor word to use to describe the upheavals that she was creating within him.
Rachel licked her bottom lip, her eyes never leaving his. “So far, so good.”
He knew that touching her was his downfall, yet there he was, touching. It was as if he had no say in it, as if all the control he’d exercised all these years had snapped like so many brittle twigs. “And you make me feel uncomfortable with myself.”
She wanted just to enjoy what he was doing to her, yet she knew she had to understand what was going on in his head, as well as his heart. And she hadn’t a clue. Not anymore. “Now you’ve lost me.”
Ever so slowly, he brushed the hair from her face, his palm caressing her cheek. “I shouldn’t be having these feelings about you.”
Yes, yes, you should. Her mouth was dry as she asked, “Why?”
It was so hard to explain, to put into words. They were just feelings, moving through him like dark rain clouds. “Because I grew up with you.”
It became a little clearer to her. Or at least she thought it did. Rachel twined her arms around his neck. “I’m not your sister.”
“I treated you that way.” And it felt as if he were trading in one set of feelings for another. He wasn’t certain he wanted to do that. To lose his friend and gain a lover.
And yet he couldn’t stand being without her.
“But I’m not your sister,” Rachel repeated, her voice a shade firmer. Didn’t he see? They were just adding another dimension, another layer, to what already was. “I’m your friend, Callaghan. We began as friends.” And now they could be so much more, if only he’d let them be. “I can’t think of a better basis for a love affair, can you?”
He released her and, with a sigh, moved away. He couldn’t think properly when she was so close. Couldn’t be
held responsible for his own actions. “That’s all it can be, Rachel. An affair. It can’t be permanent.”
If she was to believe him, it would hurt too much. But she knew that he believed what he was saying. Or wanted to. Did permanence frighten him so much? Or was it the fear of risking his heart that made him refuse what she offered?
“I said no strings,” she said slowly. “But, speaking purely hypothetically, why not? Why not something permanent?”
She knew that he hungered for the comforting warmth of home and hearth. There could be no other reason why he had blended in so well with her family all those years he was growing up. No other reason, she thought now, why he had returned. He’d come back to her and to Cameron, the only real family he’d ever known. She wanted to give him a different family now. She wanted to give him a wife and a son, in one neat package.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. She could sense what was on his mind. “You’re not going to give me that garbage about you not wanting to mess up my life, are you?”
How could he make her see that he was pushing her away for her own good? “It’s not garbage.”
“No,” she agreed, “it’s not.” Her mouth hardened. “I’d use a stronger word, but I wouldn’t want to shock you.”
And then she softened. Kirk had been battered about emotionally all through his life. It was obvious that he’d come to expect nothing good to enter his life. Well, he had a surprise coming. She wasn’t about to give up, easily or otherwise.
“When will you get it through your head that you are very, very good for me?”
He thought of the other night, and a bittersweet yearning slashed through him like the jagged edge of a thunderbolt. “Anyone can make love to you.”
“I wasn’t referring to that, and even then, you’re wrong.” It wasn’t his way to ask, but she wanted him to know. “It’s been a very small club. You’re the second.” Regret mingled with love. If she was giving away secrets, so be it. It was past the time for secrets. “And you should have been the first. I always wanted you to be the first. And the only.”
The look in her eyes made him understand more than she could ever have hoped to. It had been so long since he had even thought of being loved. Or of loving. He’d convinced himself that he could do just fine without it. And now, here she was, turning everything on its head. “Oh, God, Rachel, you make this so damn hard for me.”
She laced her hand through his. “I’m hoping to make it impossible for you.” Her eyes shone with amusement. “But that’s just my perverse nature.” She glanced at the carton on the counter. “What do you say we have breakfast later?”
The only thing he was hungry for was her. “I say it’s the best suggestion you’ve made so far.”
Rachel returned the carton back on the first shelf in the refrigerator. It had the entire space to itself. The man had no concept of shopping.
She turned, a mischievous smile outlining her lips. “Wait. The morning is still young. I can come up with more good ideas.”
As if to show him what she meant, Rachel nipped the bottom of his ear. The responding quickening of breath had her heart and pulse accelerating.
The familiar became the unique as they took one another down the same path, though by a different route.
Rachel hardly remembered leaving the kitchen. It was almost as if they suddenly appeared in the living room, their hands hot upon each other, their mouths greedy for all the wonderful tangy flavors that waited for them. That were theirs for the asking.
It would always be this way, she thought as she felt his hands searing through her clothing, branding her. The curtain of fire that he created with each pass of his hand, each touch of his mouth, threatened to consume her. With Kirk it would always be familiar, yet always be different. And it would always be wondrous.
She was planning on forever with a man who wanted to flee. Rachel would have thought it ironic, if she’d been able to think at all.
All she knew was what lay immediately ahead.
And knowing what was waiting for her, the splendid surge, the awesome power and the overwhelming thrill, Rachel desperately wanted to race toward it. Toward the end that would take her breath away to wipe away her mind.
Yet she wanted to savor it, to cling to this incredible sensation of something building to an eventual explosion, like steam building in an old-fashioned engine.
The anticipation was driving her crazy.
Rachel trembled, trying to stand perfectly still, as Kirk slipped her blouse from her shoulders.
God, but she was beautiful, Kirk thought, slipping her blouse from her shoulders. Her skin as soft as a rose petal. He wanted to rake his hands over her, to steep himself in the wonder of it, of her. With supreme control, he forced himself to go slowly. He owed it to her, if not to himself.
The bra was fastened between her breasts. One fingertip under the tab, he moved it forward, and it gave way. Slowly, painfully slowly, his eyes on hers, awed by the smoky desire he saw there, he coaxed the material from the swell of her breasts. Freed, they spilled into his cupped hands. He felt her tremble, felt her desire.
Kirk was filled with wonder at his own reaction. For him, sex had always been fast and hard, like firecrackers going off on the Fourth of July. There had never been any tenderness to denote its existence. No lasting aura when it was done. There had never been any desire to hold, to cherish, to love.
There was now.
He didn’t know what to do about it, and it frightened the hell out of him. He tried to downplay it, and his feelings. His thumbs hooked on to the waistband of her shorts and slowly moved them down her hips. “I never knew undressing someone could be such an erotic experience.”
Unable to hold back, she all but tore his shirt from him. She pressed a warm kiss to his shoulder and felt the muscle there tense beneath her lips. She was getting to him, she thought in triumph.
But no more than he was getting to her.
“Maybe you’ve been undressing the wrong women.” The low whisper danced along his tanned skin.
He dragged her mouth to his, tangling his hands in her hair. One kiss flowed into another as his mouth slanted over and over again on hers. Her lungs were frantic for air. Her body was frantic for him.
Needing a moment, he moved his head back to look at her. “There’s never been a right woman, until you.”
Rachel wanted to cry, to press his words to her breast and cling to them, taking them as an assurance that he would stay. But she knew, even in the wild haze that he created, that if she did, there might only be disappointment waiting for her down the line.
This was not about disappointments, this was about enjoying him. Later would come all too soon, and it would have to take care of itself.
For now, she had this moment, and Kirk.
Naked, Rachel shivered. Behind Kirk she could see the faded white curtains moving in the breeze, like dancers moving to an unheard melody. She could feel goose bumps rising.
“Your house is drafty.”
It always had been. Especially in the winter, even with all the windows closed, he would feel slivers of wind pass through.
He framed her face and smiled into it. “This isn’t the time to adjourn to yours.”
“No.” She cleaved her body even closer to his. “That’s a hint for you to keep me warm.”
She made him want to smile, to laugh, even though he knew it was wrong. Even though he knew they’d both regret it—he because it was over, she because it had happened at all. “You mean I’m not?”
She wanted to say something flippant, something humorous, but urgency filled her voice. And her body. “Faster, Kirk, faster. I need you now.”
He could hold back only so long.
“Funny you should mention that.” His mouth covered hers, and the playfulness faded, to be replaced by a burning desire that had him scrambling inside to keep up.
She was like liquid fire in his hands, like captured starlight. Like magic. Everything that had
always eluded him.
He caressed and possessed, touched and molded. Rachel twisted and turned, reaching up and endeavoring to press every moment into the pages of her mind.
For later.
Kirk slid his hand over her lower abdomen again and again, lower and lower, gently massaging her until she parted her legs for him. His fingers extended into the velvet softness that welcomed him. Surprised, Rachel gasped and bit her lower lip. He found it hopelessly erotic. He caressed her, driving her swiftly up to a fever pitch, even though his movements were slow, measured.
Rachel’s eyes, half closed, flew open as she grasped fistfuls of carpet. With a muffled cry, she crested and then floated to earth, only to have him begin again.
She wanted to scream, “More.” She wanted to beg him to stop as the agonizing ecstasy racked her body over and over again.
Her breathing ragged, she combined all her feelings into one word.
“Kirk.”
He heard her entreaty, and it humbled him. Her body was slick with sweat as he slid his own over it. Her perspiration dampened his skin and aroused him to a plateau from which there could be only one descent.
When he entered her, an impossible sensation filled him. It was like coming home.
Eager for her, Kirk slid his hands under her hips. He drew her even closer to him than she was. As they began to rock, the tempo quickening, they raced to a place they had discovered together.
Paradise.
Kirk felt his heart pounding against hers, sealing them together, as if they were two halves of a whole.
An eternity later, as the haze parted to admit some sort of thought, Kirk began to shift away from her. He felt annoyed that his desire had exploded so quickly. He hadn’t even taken her to bed. They’d made love on the living room floor, like two adolescents.
Maybe, he thought, in a way they were. She certainly made him feel like a kid, not like the burned-out shell of a man he’d been when he returned.
“No, not yet,” she protested as he began to move aside. She locked her arms around his neck. “I want to feel you against me just a little while longer.”
He shook his head, sliding his body until he was to her left. “I’m too heavy for you.”
Callaghan's Way Page 22
