Happy New Year--Baby!

by Marie Ferrarella

  Nicole wedged her hands between them and pushed Dennis away. It only registered belatedly that she didn’t have to push hard. He stepped back at the first sign of protest.

  Craig wouldn’t have done that. Craig hadn’t done that.

  She could hardly focus on Dennis’s face, or on the anger she knew she should be feeling. “That wasn’t included in the meal.”

  He felt as if he’d just taken a dive off a cliff and his bungee cord had snapped. For such a little thing, and pregnant at that, she packed a hell of a wallop. “If it was, you’d make a fortune with a franchise.”

  Though he hated to admit it, it took Dennis a moment to gather himself together. He looked down into her face and couldn’t read a damn thing. Had the electricity he felt just been one-sided? He didn’t think so.

  Damn it, what did he think he was doing? There wasn’t supposed to be electricity of any kind.

  But there had been and he was going to have to work with it. He couldn’t just pretend it hadn’t taken place. Dennis struggled to keep things from getting any more complicated.

  “I won’t say that I’m sorry, Nicole, because I’m not. That’s probably the nicest thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time.” He had an urge to run his thumb along her lower lip, but that would just be compounding his mistake. “But I don’t want it interfering with our friendship.” And certainly not with the real reason he was here.

  That, he thought, was going to be a hell of a good trick.

  He’d shaken her down to her very toes and he was still peddling that angle? “Friends don’t kiss.”

  His smile was slow, seductive, even while it was boyishly innocent. “Sure they do.”

  Nicole frowned, wishing she didn’t feel as if she’d just taken a long, terminal ride in a blender. “Not like that.”

  There she had him. “No, not unless they’re very lucky.” He took a deep breath. This was going to take a great deal of sorting out. “Sweet dreams, Nicole.” He paused, then added, “I know I’ll have them.” She began to close the door, probably eager to get him out of her apartment. He couldn’t blame her. “Do you still have my number?”

  Wariness filled her. “I’m not about to use it anymore now than I was last night.”

  She was going to take patience, that much he knew. He hoped he hadn’t blown things just then. “That’s because Standish didn’t come back last night. If he does—”

  She shrugged, cutting him off. “If he does, I’ll call.”

  I’d call 911 before I’d call you. At least I know what I’m getting with them.

  He knew she wouldn’t. Dennis crossed to the kitchen table and took out a napkin. “Here, let me—”

  She stopped him from writing his phone number down again by reciting it to him.

  He looked at her in surprise. “You didn’t throw it away.”

  “Yes, I did,” she contradicted. “But I have total recall.” She thought of something Craig had once said to her about her and her “damn memory.” She recalled every time he’d ever strayed. It was part of the reason she’d stopped traveling with him. She knew he wouldn’t stop, but at least she didn’t have to be around to see it. “Something that used to annoy my husband no end.”

  He had no doubt. Logan probably thought she was going to use all the dates and facts and hit him up for a divorce and huge alimony payments. “I think it’s kind of nice, actually. Saves paper and cuts down on clutter.”

  Nicole held the door wide open, issuing Dennis a blatant hint. She shook her head at his comment. “Are you always this annoyingly cheerful, or are you saving all this just for me?”

  He crossed the threshold and stood outside her apartment. “I’d like to say that you bring it out of me, but the truth is that I’ve never seen the point in looking at the downside.” It caught up with you fast enough as it was, he added silently.

  “I don’t know about that. At least that way you’re never disappointed.” She murmured the words more to herself than to him. Aware that she had said something aloud that she’d meant to keep to herself, Nicole firmly closed the door. “Good night, Lincoln.”

  “Good night, Nicole,” he called. “Don’t forget to lock your door.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. Did he think he was her keeper? That she couldn’t think for herself? “I’m locking it, I’m locking it.” Shaking her head, she flipped the lock above the knob.

  Her body still tingled.

  She had trouble falling asleep that night. Restlessness pervaded her. She told herself it was because the baby was moving around, making her uncomfortable. But it wasn’t just that. Her mind was restless for an entirely different reason.

  And the reason had a name and a face.

  Dennis’s.

  She couldn’t find a position that was comfortable. And every time Nicole closed her eyes, she saw his face and relived the scene at the door.

  Body tense, she stared up into the darkness. She was being adolescent. A pregnant woman shouldn’t feel this way. And she didn’t feel at all. Not anymore.

  Thoroughly drained, she finally drifted off to sleep a little after midnight.

  The doorbell rang, chiming like church bells on a Victorian Christmas morning. Rousing herself, Nicole hurried to the door. When she opened it, Dennis was standing there, a bouquet of white poinsettias in his hand, desire in his eyes.

  And she was as slender as a reed, as light as the very air.

  As hungry as an uncontained forest fire, consuming everything in its path.

  Anticipation filled her, tensing her body and spilling through it like port wine, slowly, thickly.

  Dennis whispered something in her ear, but she wasn’t certain what, only that his breath warmed her. Words didn’t matter. He was here, with her, and that was all that did matter.

  Turning, her pulse racing, Nicole placed the flowers in a crystal vase that seemed to materialize before her out of nowhere. She recognized it suddenly, distantly. It had been her mother’s vase. Her mother’s favorite. The last time she had seen it, there had been a single scrawny dandelion in it. She had picked it for her mother and her mother had made a huge fuss over it. It had pleased her, making her feel special and so very grown-up.

  How the vase had suddenly appeared in her apartment, she didn’t know, but it was there, filled with water and waiting for her flowers.

  As she slipped the poinsettias into the vase, Nicole felt Dennis’s hands softly glide along her bare arms. Her body seemed to vibrate at his very touch.

  His hands were gentle, worshipful. They made her ache to be touched intimately, to be wanted. Cherished. She wanted Dennis to make her feel the way she never had felt before. In her heart, she knew he could, that out of a world full of men, he was the one she’d always been looking for.

  Nicole didn’t just want to have sex with Dennis, she wanted to make love with him.

  Sex with Craig had been hot, passionate, wild. It had taken her breath away. But at bottom, it had always been just sex. Nothing more. It was like opening up a beautifully wrapped Christmas present to find nothing inside.

  More than anything else, Nicole wanted to feel as if she were loved before she was ignited.

  As if he had read her mind, Dennis’s very manner made her feel loved. Made her feel safe. She’d never felt safe before.

  With every kiss that whispered along her face, every kiss that fluttered along her throat, every caress that swept along her body, Nicole felt loved. More, she felt protected. The world outside the circle of his arms couldn’t hurt her as long as he was here.

  The feeling was almost a tangible thing that she could wrap around herself.

  Nicole moaned as Dennis’s skillful hands slipped along her body, playing her as if she were a Stradivarius and he the only one with a bow.

  She wanted more, needed more, and she wanted it quickly.

  But Dennis went slowly, so very slowly. Her body throbbed and ached, but his pace remained relentlessly rhythmic.

  Even so, or ma
ybe because it was so, the fire flared in her loins, her breasts, her belly, now so flat. It poured like molten lava through her veins. Her clothes felt as if they weighed a ton.

  She began to struggle out of them herself, but he stopped her hands.

  “Slowly,” he whispered. The word skimmed along her skin. “We have forever.”

  And she believed him. Handed lines all her life, she believed him. Because she knew in her heart that he wouldn’t lie to her.

  Nicole clenched her hands in his hair, holding tightly as his mouth took hers. Over and over again he kissed her. Sounds rushed in her ears. Jets taking off. The tide pounding along the beach. Freedom soaring through the imprisoned.

  Passion leaped up higher as she felt his strong, capable hands cupping her breasts, molding them. She arched against his palms. Against him, her body imploring him for more.

  Nicole could feel his desire hardening him. And still he went slowly.

  It was all the more powerful for its steadily increasing pace.

  When Dennis began to unbutton her blouse, a cranberry silk blouse she knew she hadn’t worn in years, Nicole could feel her heart pounding in her chest, vibrating in her body, throbbing in her head.

  The cadence seemed to whisper his name over and over again. It was almost more than she could stand.

  Smiling into her eyes, Dennis toyed with the flowered clasp at the front of her bra. He was teasing her and it excited her beyond belief.

  Then, with a light flick of his thumb and forefinger, Dennis opened the clasp. The cups slid from her damp skin. His hands replaced the material that had slipped away, rubbing slowly, gliding along the surface, hardening the nipples beneath his palms until they ached.

  Her own hands trembling, just as her body had trembled at her door when he had first kissed her, Nicole began to unbutton his shirt. But midway through, his shirt turned into a blue pullover, the same one he had worn when he had come over that morning.

  Impatient to be rid of it, she tugged the pullover up over his head and then down his arms. Heart racing, she tossed the shirt aside. It fell on her blouse, tangling with it just as she wanted to tangle with him.

  And then, in a blink of an eye, she was standing nude before him, with no memory of when or how the rest of her clothes had been removed.

  It was almost as if she had wished them gone and they were.

  Nudity had always embarrassed her. Divested of her clothing, Nicole had always felt like something a little less than human, to be enjoyed by Craig and then forgotten. Like a drink or a cigarette, except less so.

  The first tinge of embarrassment that fluttered through her instantly faded into mist as she looked up into Dennis’s eyes and saw herself mirrored there.

  Saw herself adored there.

  Dennis held her hands apart and though he didn’t say a word, she knew he had asked to just look at her for a moment.

  She felt like a queen. She felt beautiful.

  And then he brought her to him, his body molding to hers. The jeans he was wearing melted away as if they had never been there to begin with. Nicole felt the hot press of his body against hers. Sealing itself to her. Fitting into the curves as if she were half of a puzzle and he the missing half.

  The desire that urgently shot through her was uncontrollable.

  They were suddenly transported out of the living room. Walls melted away and they were in her bedroom, on her bed. She knew it was hers even though she couldn’t recognize the covers. They were blue satin, like the sheets beneath them, and felt cool against her skin.

  As cool as he felt hot.

  He was making love to her the way she had always wanted to be made love to. Gently, lovingly, passionately, with a reverence that was beyond description.

  His mouth was everywhere at once, raining kisses on every inch of her skin. She withered and twisted beneath his hot, plundering mouth wanting to prolong this ecstasy, stunned that it had gone on for so long.

  When she felt his mouth and tongue dip down between her thighs, she caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep from crying out. She felt hot, moist and still so achy that she could cry.

  She peaked.

  Once, twice, and still there was more.

  Climax after climax flowed into one another, pealing through her body like rolls of thunder.

  And then he was over her, his hard, muscular body as agile as a gymnast. His eyes made love to her before he ever lowered himself to her, before his body took what was already his.

  Nicole felt that he had been holding himself back. Holding himself back for her. Nothing was said, but in her soul, she knew.

  She felt tears forming at the corner of her eyes.

  When they slid down her cheeks, Dennis kissed them both away before finding her mouth once more. He framed her face with his arms, burying his hands in her hair.

  This time the kiss was all raw passion. Elated, she rushed to meet it. To be one with it. To be one with him. As it was meant to be.

  Their bodies, primed, ready, glistening, tangled as they rolled along the bed, scrambling the covers. Scrambling their desires.

  And then he entered her.

  His eyes were intent on hers as he sheathed himself in her, telling her things she’d never seen in anyone’s eyes before.

  She’d never felt this beautiful. This desired.

  His eyes never left hers. Very slowly, the rhythm began, increasing in tempo only as she willed it. It was impossibly wondrous.

  His fingers spread and threaded through hers. Joined in every possible way, he took her to the highest peak and kept her there.

  Nicole cried when it was over. Cried because it was so beautiful, cried because it had been just the way she’d always wanted it to be. Cried because it was over.

  He whispered to her that it would happen again, whenever she was ready.

  He kept his word.

  They made love again and again, each time more exhilarating than the last. She was in the center of a kaleidoscope as emotions, as sensations burst upon her, claiming her. Making her numb.

  Making her soar.

  Nicole woke with a start, her heart almost hammering out of her chest. There was a pool of sweat on the pillow beneath her head even though the apartment was cold now. She’d turned down the heat before going to bed. There was no reason to feel this hot.

  No reason except for the dream.

  It hadn’t been a dream, it had been an entire experience, wrapped up in sleep. Even now it seemed real to her.

  Too hot to endure them, Nicole threw off the covers. She waited for the chilly night air to play over her body, cooling it.

  In the darkness, Nicole brought her fingertips to her lips and lightly touched them. As soon as she did, she relived the kiss at her door. By Craig’s standards, it had been almost chaste. The first time he had kissed her, he had all but sucked out her soul.

  But there was a latent promise in Dennis’s kiss that was hopelessly sexy.

  Her breathing was still ragged. Nicole lay there for a moment, trying to cool off. Trying to cool down.

  Her thoughts were scattered, eluding her like tiny grass-hoppers springing to freedom out of an overturned jar.

  She waited for her pulse to steady and her breathing to become regular again. It was as if she’d been visited in the night, she thought, actually plucked out of her bed to a netherworld where she experienced a night of gentle, erotic love-making.

  Gentle-erotic. That was a complete contradiction in terms, she thought, raising herself up on her elbow to get a better look at the clock.

  The ice blue digital numbers glowed back at her. It was only five. No light filtered through her thin curtains. The world around her was still sitting inside an inkwell. There were no stars. Even the moon had hidden its face.

  Probably in embarrassment, she thought, a whimsical smile lifting her lips.

  Nicole pulled her elbows to her sides and fell back against the bed. She felt completely drained and exhausted but she knew that there was
no getting back to sleep for her. The dream had left her wound up as well as tired.

  With effort, Nicole lay there, her hand over her stomach, vainly attempting to calm her frayed nerves.

  It was a dream, she told herself, just a dream. There was nothing to it except wishful thinking.

  Dennis’s image flashed through her mind and she pushed it back. This hadn’t been about him, she thought, not really. It could have been about anyone.

  But it had been about him, a small voice whispered in her mind.

  She clenched her hands, refusing to give in. She had experienced a mild attraction to him, sure. He was good looking, but that wasn’t the point. What her dream had symbolized was that she had always wanted someone to love her for herself, not for who she was or how she could prove useful.

  Her father hadn’t loved her. All James Bailey required from his daughter, from all his children, was perfection—and that they not embarrass him.

  So, of course, she did. At every opportunity. It was to teach him a lesson for treating her like a lifeless figurine. It didn’t matter. He had never learned the lesson.

  There had been a number of men she had turned to in her youth, men Nicole had secretly hoped would make up for the incredible lack she felt. All they had wanted was a good time.

  And then Craig had come along, providing his own good time. But all Craig had really wanted was her money, not her. She’d found that out several months into the marriage.

  But she had made her bed and to leave it would have been tantamount to telling her father that he had been right. That Craig was a loser. So she had struggled to turn Craig into a winner. She had funded his dream and he became a winner.

  Craig had liked the feeling so much, he did everything he could to perpetuate it. To remain a winner. At least, on the track.

  And off the track he had reaped whatever benefits that kind of life offered him. He’d thought there were no price tags to pay, but there were. Big price tags. And she had paid them all.