“Me too.” His voice came from far away. He looked at her, dazed, his face taut, a muscle bunching in his jaw. Then his eyes widened slightly, a blue glitter that held something approaching panic.
“Lissa … Oh, God … protection,” he said, snatching her hand away from him and wrapping her in a tight embrace again, his big body trembling against hers, but not, this time, with cold. With heat, with desire, with restraint.
“Protection?” she echoed.
“Condoms, Lissa. Please, please don’t tell me you don’t have anything.”
Chapter Eight
“I—” LISSA, SQUEEZED HER eyes shut. “I … don’t. I don’t care that I don’t. I … oh, yes! Yes I do! I mean, I have some.”
She crawled off the bed, tottered naked on rubbery legs to the living quarters of the boat, reached up to a high locker and found the box Ginny had given her as a joke birthday gift.
Steve snatched it, fumbled it open, spilling a variety of brightly colored foil packets across the sheet.
He stared at her for a moment, then picked up two of the packets. “Lip-Lickin’ Lemon?” he asked, “or Torrid Tomato?”
Lissa stared too. In addition to Lip-Lickin’ Lemon and Torrid Tomato, there was Purple Passionfruit, Lime Lover and Golden Glow-Worm.
How many more there might have been in there, she couldn’t count because suddenly she was gasping with laughter, smothering it in the hollow of Steve’s shaking shoulders. “I’ll kill her,” she said. “I’ll kill her for this!”
His arms wrapped tightly around her. “I won’t,” he said. “Whoever she is, she has my undying gratitude.”
“For what? Golden Glow-Worm? Wouldn’t any self-respecting man resent being likened to a worm?”
“Worms, I’ll have you know, come in different shapes and sizes,” he said, then stopped her laughter with his mouth. He rolled her over and kissed her deeply again and again, and passion once more flared up between them, returning in full force.
Lissa ached for him, wanting him totally. Her craving became an uncontrollable hunger.
“Please … please,” she whispered again as she lifted her knees instinctively, let her legs fall apart in response to the knowing invasion of his fingers. “Now, Steve. Now!”
“Yes,” he said, thrusting himself to his knees, rolling on the Torrid Tomato condom as she watched. “Yes,” he said again as he pulled her up to him, thrusting his hips forward as their bodies finally, gratefully mated and became one.
Heaven, Steve thought. This was heaven. And not just because of a six-month dry spell during his Antarctic tour. This was heaven because it was Lissa moving under him, Lissa’s scent surrounding him, Lissa’s legs and arms wrapped tight around him. Lissa …
He’d never let her go. He held her tightly, trying to control the pounding need in his blood, wanting her satisfaction more than his own. Her hips made small, urgent circles, circles his hands could not contain however firmly he held her. He found her mouth, kissed her, heard the wonderful sound of her murmured pleasure, then felt her begin to come apart in his arms. Her head tossed back, rolling from side to side. Her hips lifted as her body became a stretched bow. He loved her that way, wanted the moment to go on forever, with her on the brink of climax, seeking a release only he could provide.
“Look at me,” he said, and she opened her eyes, eyes filled with mystery, with the agony of almost achieving her goal, with the pleasure of waiting for it.
It was a pleasure he could deny neither of them any longer.
He lifted her hips again, plunged deeply, retreated, thrust again and again as Lissa cried out, her muscles rippling around him as she came. Her climax triggered his, drew everything from him, every sensation, every emotion, leaving him totally drained as he collapsed on her, and completely fulfilled as well.
With his last coherent thought, he took care to pull himself carefully from her, filled with a tender need to protect her to the end. Only vaguely was he aware of her drawing the warm down comforter over his back. Yet he was deeply, viscerally aware of the rightness of her snuggling closer into his arms as he slid down into sleep.
When Lissa woke, it was dusk. Steve leaned over her, teasing her nose with something that smelled vaguely like oranges. She nearly went cross-eyed trying to see what it was, but it was just a blur before her eyes. “What’s that?” she asked.
“Tangerine Tickler. Wanna try it?”
She pushed it away and sat up, blinking at the partially unrolled condom dangling from between his finger and thumb. Good grief! It had little … feelers on the end. And it really did smell like oranges. “They’re scented as well as colored?”
His grin held pure mischief. “I think the word is flavored, sweetheart.” He chuckled as Lissa felt her cheeks heat, and laid her back down, her head on his shoulder.
He ran the Tangerine Tickler over her face. “I love the way you blush.”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t blush, or don’t love it?”
“Don’t love it.”
His expression softened from teasing laughter to tenderness that made her throat ache. “I love you, Lissa.”
Her breath stopped. So did her heart. She managed to swallow. “Steve …” Her voice came out all tremulous and weak.
“It’s okay.” He kissed her softly. Then he kissed her not so softly as she responded. When he lifted his head, the Tangerine Tickler was nowhere to be seen. “I know you’re not ready for that,” he said. “You don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know how I feel.”
“But … It’s too soon,” she protested, on the verge of tears. “Falling in love this fast is insane.”
He kissed her damp lashes. “Who gets to make up the falling-in-love schedule?”
“I don’t know. I only know there’s no such thing as fairy tales, and no such thing as happy endings.”
“Just because you’ve never had one yet, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
She knew her lips were trembling, and she tried to steady them. “I don’t want to talk about it. I—” She broke off, burying her face against his shoulder again.
He combed his fingers through her hair. “What do you want, Lissa?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“Then how about the Tangerine Tickler? Or maybe the Lip-Lickin’ Lemon, or how about the Licorice Lollapalooza?”
Laughter she couldn’t contain gurgled out. “There isn’t one called that!”
“There is so. While you slept, I checked ’em all out, trying to decide which one we’d use next.”
He picked it up from the locker beside her bed and showed her. “Who is the ‘her’ you’re going to kill?”
“A friend.” No way was she going to tell him which friend. He might decide he’d prefer a petite redhead with a wicked sense of humor. “She gave them to me for my birthday two years ago. She was trying to point out how mundane my life is.”
“Was,” he corrected.
Lissa knew she was blushing again. “I need a shower,” she said. “I need something to eat.”
He reached under the pillow and pulled out that damned Tangerine Tickler again, looking at her from under his thick lashes. “How about an orange?” he offered, then covered her mouth with his kiss.
Lissa was only five minutes late getting to work. She’d left Steve sleeping in her bed and all she could think of was that eight hours from then, when she got off at seven in the morning, he might still be there.
She wanted him still to be there. She thought about his being there every morning when she arrived home from work, thought about sliding in with him, holding him, touching him, loving him.
In her imagination, he was there beside her on the sofa, yet instead of feeling joy, she felt sad and anxious as she sat watching an old movie on the television.
Only when the credits began to roll did she realize she had been so wrapped up in her thoughts about Steve, she hadn’t even seen or heard a single thing in the movie.
One memory kept haunting her and filled her with pain. Steve was deep within her, moving powerfully, tirelessly, carrying her to greater and greater heights. And suddenly, there it was, a pure and simple truth she hadn’t been able to escape then, and couldn’t now: She wanted more from him, all of him, all he could give her. A baby to hold, a child to love. A home, a family.… Those things were the logical outcome of their physical and emotional union.
Yet the utter impossibility of fulfilling those needs and dreams brought tears to her eyes.
Suddenly, Steve was there, in body, not just in her imagination.
“Lissa? What’s wrong?” He lifted her face and wiped her cheeks with the heels of his hands. His eyes radiated concern. When she buried her face against his chest, he tried to lift her chin.
“I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want you to look at me. I’m a mess.”
“Well, at least you’re not wearing a paper bag,” he said, making her laugh despite her tears.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.”
“Tsk! Just like a woman. Crying over nothing. Come on, I know better. If you’re crying, you have a reason.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“You’re Lissa, the woman I love.”
“Today,” she said.
He tilted her face up and gave her a long, assessing look. “And tomorrow. For as many tomorrows as I can foresee.”
“But that’s the trouble. We can’t, either of us, foresee the future.”
He was silent for several moments. Then, “Ah, you’re looking for guarantees.”
She said nothing.
He locked his gaze with hers, as if he could see right into her soul. “I can’t give you guarantees, Lissa.”
“I know. So I’m not asking you to. And I can’t give them, either.”
“But you’d like me to. Is that the reason for your tears?”
She eased herself out of his arms. “Not really. I was just feeling weak and emotional for a minute. Wanting … something I’m better off not wanting.”
“Such as?”
“Nothing I can put into words.”
How could she explain the devastation she’d felt as a ten-year-old when her mother had dragged her away from her father, taken her out of the loving home she’d grown up in, taken her from all that was familiar? How could she tell him her mother had fallen for something as trite as a traveling salesman, one with great charm, good looks, and about as much staying power as a candle flame in a windstorm?
How could she make him see that she was like her mother, always attracted to the wrong kind of man? And she was like her in another way, too. It wasn’t only that her mother had fallen out of love with Frank Wilkins—she’d fallen in and out of love with three more husbands since then. And Lissa’s own unhappy romantic history mirrored her mother’s. She’d had six intense relationships by the time she was thirty. Yet, as sure as she’d been that each one would last forever, she’d eventually gotten over her heartbreak and moved blithely on to the next one, having learned absolutely nothing, it seemed. Nothing except that she didn’t want to bring children into the world so she could, by acting like her mother, tear apart the fabric of their lives. Now, by falling for Steve, she was simply repeating a bad pattern.
“Try to put it into words,” he urged.
She stood, moved restlessly away from him. “I don’t want to talk about it, Steve.”
He leaned back on the sofa, crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and eyed her. “Okay, then. Let’s talk about something else.”
Something in his expression sent a chill down her spine. “For instance?”
“For instance, exactly why you planted that ghost CD over my bed.”
Lissa stood stock-still, groaned, and covered her eyes with one hand. “Oh, damn!”
“Yup,” he said. “You’ve been busted.” He didn’t sound mad, only curious and amused. “I’m a pretty good ghost-buster.”
Feeling sick, she wished she could feign ignorance, but she couldn’t. She moved away, needing to put some space between them. He followed, giving her none.
All right. It was an issue between them and she knew it had to be addressed. So she tried, with a smile she knew could only be seen as phony.
“How did you know?”
His expression changed. “I didn’t. I guessed. You had the opportunity. You have the legs—and the tattoo.”
She backed away another step. “How did you know it was a CD?”
“I climbed into the attic through the hole you made and discovered it the first night you were away, which was, naturally, the first night I had an opportunity to hear them. You forgot to lock the bathroom door in my first room.”
“Oh.” Lissa’s mouth went dry. “So why the Cinderella Search, if you know?”
His laughter was a short, unamused bark. “I was going to try to flush you out with that.”
“It wouldn’t have worked. I wouldn’t have tried on the sandal.”
“Exactly. And in refusing to play along, you’d have been admitting you didn’t dare.”
“Okay, now you know, so you don’t have to do it.”
“But I’m going to anyway.”
“Why? Why?”
“To earn cash for your fund.”
Lissa closed her eyes for a second, then took three tottering steps before collapsing onto a chair. “Oh, God, Steve … I wish you’d forget the whole idea. Just leave.”
He seemed unmoved by her distress. “No. I’m staying. I was set up and I want to know why. What did Rosa mean, when she said your dad had told you to ‘make nice, not to make love’? What does that have to do with phony ghosts, with drawers opening and closing, hangers sliding from one end of the closet to the other?”
He crossed to her chair, leaned down, planting one hand on each arm of it, trapping her. “That’s all I want from you now, Lissa. The reasons behind all this. I think you owe me that much.”
“That’s not all you wanted from me today in my bed,” she snapped.
“No, it wasn’t. And it won’t be all I want from you in the future. But it is what I want now. Can’t you trust me enough to tell me what’s going on?”
She was torn with indecision. She loved him. What was love without trust? But her father, her friends, they were important, too, and they trusted her. For a long moment, she searched Steve’s eyes, then drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I know why you’re here, Steve,” she said. “I—we’ve—known all along.”
“‘We?’” he asked. “Who is this ‘we’ you’re talking about.”
“Most of the community. John Drysdale, a local real estate agent, told us someone was checking the place out this summer, with the intention of making a bid on it. Someone already in the resort management business. Why would you have come here, other than on your father’s behalf?”
He frowned. “For a quiet vacation?”
“Please, don’t try to deny it,” she said. “You were the only stranger who booked this year. All the others are repeats from past years.
“When you made your booking, we realized you were the most likely potential buyer and checked you out. It’s amazing how much personal information is available on the Internet. Your name isn’t all that uncommon, but how many Steven Jacksons are there whose fathers are major players in the resort business? He doesn’t exactly keep a low-profile, and his business methods are no secret. He sends in someone to look over a property he wants, discovers all its worst points, then makes a low-ball offer based on that knowledge. Okay, fair enough, I suppose that’s a valid business practice. Nobody wants to buy a pig in a poke, and most vendors try to show a place in its best light. But we’re not the vendors, and we don’t want him to buy it at all.”
“How would trying to scare me off with something as hokey as ghost stories prevent that?”
“It wasn’t just ghost stories. There were the sounds, the drawer
s, the clothes. It would have scared me!”
“Didn’t scare me, though,” he said, then gave a half-grin. “Okay, it did unnerve me a bit, but as soon as I found the timers and that disk I left the first and removed the second so I could sleep without all that howling and moaning waking me up. The drawers I could live with.” He grinned wolfishly. “I learned while living on shipboard that the best revenge for a practical joke is to pretend you don’t notice it.”
“It wasn’t a practical joke.” She explained about their wanting him to give his father a bad report. “That’s why we put you in the most uncomfortable bed in the house, one no one else is ever given unless we’re massively over-crowded, which hasn’t happened in about twenty years. We mean to buy this inn, Steve, but we won’t be able to do it until after the festival.”
Steve stood erect and backed up until he felt a chair against his knees and sank onto it as her words sank into him. “You’ve been toying with me, manipulating me, using me.”
“No!” Her protest was vehement—and almost convincing. “Or, not through malice,” she went on, actually admitting it. “Through desperation. But be honest, in coming here on an exploratory visit, pretending to be a legitimate guest, weren’t you manipulating us? Even if we hadn’t been on to you, you’d have found all sorts of faults and failures—things that are inevitable in an old building. What kind of report were you going to give him? One that would bring in a low bid, right?”
“Lissa—”
“So we gave you an excuse to make it a really low one. Or maybe none at all. Would your father want to buy a place full of ghosts and termites? Though the termites were just an inspiration on my part—I wasn’t supposed to fall through the ceiling. But after I fell, I thought up the termites and figured you’d leave. But you didn’t.”
He looked at her steadily for a moment or two. He’d known she had secrets, known something was going on, but never in his wildest dreams would he have come up with a scenario like this. “I see. That must have been disappointing for you.”
“Steve …” Lissa hated to beg, but for this, she’d do it. “We don’t want your father or anyone else to buy the inn because we’re almost in a position to do it ourselves. This year, with what we make from the festival, we should have just enough, but only if you don’t come in with a bid before our option runs out.”
Cinderella Search Page 12
