Lucas finally set down the phone. “Sorry. The Modesto plant had another breakdown. Where are we?”
Curving her arms around her swelling belly to reach her laptop’s keyboard, Allie hit a key to clear the screensaver. “Let’s see, we were…” By mistake, she exited the scheduling program. She clicked the icon again, laughing. “I can’t quite get used to the extra baggage.”
He smiled, the rare sight melting her clear to her toes. “My mother once told me I kept her awake nights when she was pregnant with me.”
Allie’s breath caught in her throat. It was the first time he’d mentioned his mother without prompting, without the bleakness in his voice, in his eyes. Allie wanted to take the moment to ask him a million questions about her but she knew she didn’t dare. Not yet.
She paged through the scheduling display, looking for where they’d left off. “Actually, we were just about done. You have that meeting next week with the New Jersey contingent. Friday afternoon.”
“Good,” he said, rising to his feet. He rounded the desk, plucked the computer from her lap. Taking her hands, he tugged her to her feet, then pulled her close. He cupped her bottom, pressing her to him. “No matter how often we make love, I can’t seem to get enough.”
Sensation tingled down her spine, settled between her legs in a honeyed warmth. Her arms around him, she felt his heat through the crisp dress shirt. “Somehow your loving always makes me want more,” she murmured against his chest.
His breathing took on a ragged edge. “You are too damn tempting. If I wasn’t afraid we’d be putting on a show for the staff, I’d take you right here.”
Moving her lips against his shirt, she felt his nipple peak. “The door is shut.”
He groaned. “But the windows aren’t.”
She followed his pointed look out the wall of windows overlooking the TaylorMade campus. Staff crisscrossed the verdant green lawn below as they headed to or returned from the cafeteria for morning break.
“They’re five stories down, Lucas. They’d never see us on the floor.”
He stared down at her, his gaze burning her. Then he threw back his head and laughed, an incredible sound of joy and release. He pinned her with his gaze again, caught her chin in his hand. “You are incorrigible.”
He kissed her, sizzling her clear to her toes, then drew back again, looking down at her. “Your body’s changing.”
“Expanding is more like it.” She sighed, delight and chagrin mixing in equal measure over the alterations. “Everything seems to be swelling up.”
He brought his hand up to cup her now very full breast. “I can’t say I mind.” His thumb stroked the tip, driving a moan from her.
“That floor is looking mighty good, Mr. Taylor,” she whispered.
He chuckled, the sound low and sensual. “Let me lock the door.”
He’d shifted, taken a step toward the door when a knock sounded. “Yes?” he called out, his tone clipped and impatient.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Taylor.” Helen’s voice sifted through the barrier, hesitant. “I need to speak to Allie.”
Allie couldn’t help it, she burst into giggles. Lucas scowled at her, but she knew his heart wasn’t in the dark gesture. Opening the door, he kept it between him and Helen, no doubt to hide the way their sexual play had affected his body.
If Helen wondered at Allie’s laughter, she had the discretion to suppress her curiosity. As Allie passed Lucas, he cocked a brow at her. “Lunch at home?” he asked. She winked at him in response, then followed Helen from the office.
“Sorry to disrupt your meeting,” the older woman said with a straight face. “I can’t find those blank CD-ROM disks marketing needs for their presentation. Randy said you knew where they were.”
“I know where I left them,” Allie said, heading for the supply room.
When she stepped inside the small, cluttered room, Helen behind her, Allie scanned the jam-packed shelves. She backed up as far as she could, her backside coming up against a filing cabinet as she peered at the top shelf.
“When the order arrived, I shoved them up top. Can’t quite see if they’re still there.” Allie turned to Helen. “Can you hand me that stepladder behind the door?”
Helen wrangled the stepladder out, pushed it open on the floor in front of the shelves. “Maybe I ought to go up,” she suggested.
“Helen, I’m only four months pregnant. I can still climb a ladder.”
Using the shelves to steady her, she ascended the three broad steps of the ladder until her chin was level with the top shelf. “There they are. Back behind the manila folders.”
Not foolish enough to try and lift the heavy box of folders, she shifted enough items on the shelf until she could shove the folders aside. Then she leaned forward, fingertips reaching for the package of CD-ROM disks.
“What the hell are you doing!” Lucas’s voice roared from the doorway.
Startled, Allie jumped, gripping the shelf edge to regain her equilibrium. But the inexorable changes in her body had altered her center of balance. For a moment, she felt disoriented, banging her ankle on the stepladder’s railing as she tried to compensate. Suddenly, she felt herself falling and panic flooded her.
Lucas caught her before she reached the floor, but couldn’t save her from whacking her head on the edge of the filing cabinet. Dazed, she brought a shaky hand up to feel her head as Lucas gripped her tightly. “Are you all right? Damn it, Allie, are you okay?”
She stroked the tender back of her head, grateful there was no blood. “I’m fine, Lucas.” The words seemed to come out at a whisper; she cleared her throat and said more loudly. “Put me down. I’m fine.”
But he didn’t, carrying her from the supply room and up the corridor to his office. “Call an ambulance,” he barked at Helen. “Someone get me a blanket.”
In his office, he set her gently in his chair and quickly probed her head. “Ow!” Allie cried, pushing his hands away. She felt centered again, back to normal. “Lucas, it’s just a little bump. I don’t need an ambulance, for heaven’s sake.”
The tremors in his hands resting on her shoulders, the terror in his face shocked her. “What about the baby?” he rasped out.
Her first thought was to make light of the incident, to laugh it off. But she had only to see the real fear in his eyes to know he was deadly serious.
She covered his hands with her own. “The baby’s fine, Lucas. We’re both fine. A little bump on the head won’t hurt her.” She took his hand, brought it to her lips. “Or him.”
He seemed only marginally comforted. “Are you sure?”
Rubbing her cheek against the back of his hand, she tried to assure him with the contact. “As sure as I can be.” She tipped her head back, looked up at him. “Babies are tough. And you caught me in time.”
“But I couldn’t keep you from hitting your head.”
“You can’t protect me from every danger.”
Despite the truth in them, her words did nothing to soothe him. His jaw working, he fixed his sharp gaze on her. “I want you to see your doctor.”
She could do that much for him. Looking past him, Allie saw Helen waiting in the doorway. “No ambulance, Helen. But could you call Dr. Singh for me, set up an appointment for this afternoon? The number’s in my Rolodex.”
When Helen had gone, Lucas sank to one knee and drew her into his arms. She held him, feeling his trembling slowly ease as she stroked his back. “I love you, Lucas,” she whispered in his ear, wanting to soothe with love in a way her touch couldn’t always accomplish.
He sighed, relief in the sound. After a moment, he withdrew, rising to his feet. When Helen returned to tell Allie Dr. Singh had squeezed her in at one-thirty, Lucas seemed to have stepped back behind his barriers. Giving Helen a brusque nod, he informed Allie he’d be back at one-fifteen to drive her to the appointment, then strode from the room, muttering something about R and D.
No more tenderness, no more mention of a lunchtime rendezvous. Alli
e stared after him, astounded at his quicksilver change.
Helen put a sympathetic hand on Allie’s shoulder. “Not an easy man to love, I guess.”
Allie just shook her head, winced at the pounding that had commenced there. Squeezing her eyes shut, she asked Helen, “Would you mind getting my purse? I need something for my head.”
Helen brought her purse and a small paper cup of water. As Allie shook the painkillers into her palm, she caught sight of Lucas moving along the pathway below, heading for the building housing Research and Development. Just as he reached the front door, his steps slowed and he propped his shoulder against the thick glass as if he desperately needed the support.
As she watched, he dropped his head, stood motionless that way for several long moments. When staff members exited beside him, he seemed oblivious to their curious looks, seemed caught in his own hell.
Allie’s heart ached seeing him that way. She wished she could send her love across that space to him, to reassure him.
He looked up then, his gaze seeking her out although he couldn’t see her through the reflective glass of his office window. As if somehow knowing she watched and gathering strength from that knowledge, he pushed off from the glass, shoulders straight again. Then he slipped inside the building, gone from her sight.
Chapter Sixteen
Allie should have known Dr. Singh’s assurances wouldn’t satisfy Lucas. Although Allie showed no signs of concussion, and the doctor insisted both baby and mother were fine, Lucas’s stony silence told Allie he wasn’t buying any of it. Then as he drove her home—not back to the office as she’d requested, but home—she could see from the tension in his jaw a battle was brewing.
When they stepped inside the house, he helped her off with her jacket with angry, jerky movements, not even acknowledging Mrs. Vasquez in the kitchen. Allie met the housekeeper’s gaze with an apologetic smile.
Dropping the jacket on a kitchen chair, he rounded on Allie. “You have to quit your job,” Lucas stated flatly. “Now.”
At Lucas’s lordly demand, Mrs. Vasquez’s eyes widened, then she dipped her head back to her dinner preparations. Irritation growing inside her, Allie counted to ten. Then in as rational a tone as she could muster, she said, “Lucas, I think you’re overreacting—”
“The hell I am!”
Startled, Mrs. Vasquez dropped the kitchen knife she was using; it skittered across the floor. “Excuse me,” she said, her face flaming. “Maybe I should—”
“Stay,” Allie said, putting up a hand to stop the housekeeper. “Mr. Taylor and I will go upstairs.”
Turning on her heel, she stomped over to the stairs, not bothering to look back to see if he followed. She heard his heavy tread behind her, waited for him to catch up when she reached the second-floor landing. He pushed open his bedroom door, let her go in first.
Once he’d shut the door again, she faced him, arms crossed over her middle. “I’m not quitting my job.”
“Then I’m firing you.”
She gaped at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” he said coldly. “If you won’t quit, I’ll fire you. One way or another, you’re leaving your job.”
It took Allie a moment to gather her wits in the face of his unreasonable stance. She took a step toward him. “You have no grounds to fire me.”
“It’s a hazardous work environment.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Lucas, you know as well as I do, there’s nothing hazardous at TaylorMade. Not to mention the discrimination laws you’d violate terminating me.”
“I don’t care.” His jaw worked. “We can’t take the chance.”
Suddenly Allie realized it wasn’t Lucas’s arrogance that drove him to make such an outrageous demand. His very real fear for the baby had prompted him to lash out, to act in the only way he knew, as inappropriate as it was.
Allie couldn’t allow him to control her that way, but she’d have to tread cautiously. “I can’t live the next six months in a protective bubble.”
“It would be better for the baby if you were home.”
“I’m as likely to have an accident here as at the office.” She saw his eyes widen and spoke quickly to head off an even more restrictive edict. “But I won’t. I’ll be fine, here or at TaylorMade.”
His hands opened and closed, his frustration evident in the repetitive, unconscious motion. “I’m only trying to keep you safe.”
She closed the distance between them, ran her hands along his arms. “I know. And I know you’re doing your best. But sometimes life jumps up with surprises.”
His expression turned bleak, reminding her that he knew plenty about surprises—that long-ago fire, the death of his mother.
Allie wrapped her arms around him, pressed her cheek to his chest. His heart thudded in comforting rhythm. “I promise you,” she said, “I’ll stay off ladders. I won’t lift anything heavier than my laptop. I’ll be as careful as I can possibly be.”
He let out a long gust of air. “I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you or the baby.” The words seemed dragged out of him, as if by speaking them, he introduced the possibility of calamity.
“I feel the same way…about you, about the baby.” She leaned back slightly to look at him. “But if I’m at work, you can watch me like a hawk. Keep me out of trouble.”
The sense of that sank in and to Allie’s relief and delight, Lucas smiled. “I may have to drag you everywhere with me. Every meeting, every plant visit.”
The light in his eyes sent joy arrowing through her. “I’d like nothing better.”
He dipped his head, covering her mouth with his, diving in with his tongue. Her body warmed immediately, sensation exploding from her center.
“Why can’t I get enough of you?” he murmured, the words feathering on her cheek.
Because you love me, she wanted to say. I can see it in your eyes, why won’t you say it aloud? For all the times she’d told herself his returning her love didn’t matter, she couldn’t get past the ache inside that his silence caused her.
She pushed aside the doubts, the pain, letting him unzip her skirt, push off her sweater. He left her long enough to lock the door, then finished undressing her before stripping off his own clothes. Urging her to the bed, he jerked back the covers, then pulled her down with him.
Lying on his back, he positioned her over his hips. She straddled him, the hard length of his arousal pressing into her.
When she tried to lie down, he circled her waist with his hands, held her in place. “I want to watch you,” he rasped out. Lifting her, he groaned as he slid inside her, his eyes shutting a moment before he fixed his gaze on her again.
Stroking up with his hands, he spread his palms over her breasts, teasing the tips until they hardened. “I like how they’re fuller, bigger.” He leaned up high enough to take an exquisitely sensitive nipple in his mouth, tormenting it with the tip of his tongue.
Allie threw back her head and moved her hips in a familiar rhythm. He lay back again, watching her every move, one hand dropping to her tender nub while the other continued to stroke her breast.
His eyes burned like molten silver. “Come apart for me, Allie.” His inexorable demand shot straight through her. “Let me see you climax.”
She couldn’t deny him. The pressure of his thumb between her legs, the length of him pushing inside her sent pleasure coursing through her. She felt impossibly hot, excruciatingly sensitized, her love for him bursting out and taking the ecstasy to an unbearable level.
She spiraled out of control, the world disappearing from her for a heartbeat, only Lucas’s body and his triumphant voice real to her in that moment. Just as she descended, he shocked her into another peak, his clever fingers driving her on. When he finally came himself, his climax pushed her over the edge a third time, reverberating through her.
She sank beside him, too enervated to hold herself up any longer. He pulled her into his protective embrace, cradling her
head against his shoulder. His fingers wove into her hair, the gentle caresses easing her back to reality.
“Tell me,” he whispered, his fingers combing through her hair.
She couldn’t possibly deny him. “I love you, Lucas.”
Why had he asked her? When he couldn’t respond in kind, when no matter how he tried, those same feelings eluded him. Lucas knew he cared deeply for Allie; she meant the world to him. Losing her would devastate him. But when he probed inside himself, searching for the same devotion she gave him so freely, he came up empty. It simply didn’t seem within his capacity to love her.
A coldness stole inside him, chilling him clear to the bone. His inability to love Carol hadn’t bothered him overmuch in the four years he’d been married to her. He’d never lied to her, never made her think he felt something he didn’t. When she finally confronted him and told him she could no longer live with him as his wife without having her love reciprocated, he’d given Carol her freedom with few regrets and not a small amount of relief.
But, good God, what if Allie reached the same conclusion? What if the day came when her heart could no longer bear the loneliness of unreturned love? He couldn’t possibly let her go, couldn’t comprehend his life without her.
Would their baby be enough to tie her to him? As incredible a mother as Allie would be, their child would surely adore her. Would that bond be enough for Allie to overcome the grief of a husband who couldn’t love her back?
“Lucas,” she murmured, her gaze troubled.
A fist constricted inside him as his fears ran amok. For an instant, the terror of losing her, although entirely in his own mind, closed in on him, blacked out his world.
With an effort, he refocused his awareness on Allie. “Yes?”
She frowned a little at his brusque tone. “Is something the matter? Because you’re gripping me so tight I can barely breathe.”
He immediately relaxed, saw with chagrin the marks his fingers had left on her arm. “Sorry.”
She gazed up at him awhile longer, then snuggled against him, her face buried in his shoulder. “Too late to go back to work, I suppose.” He could hear the teasing smile in her voice.
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