"Easy, sweetheart," he begged as he slipped his fingers beneath the lace of her panties. When he found the tiny bud hidden between her legs, she cried out, her body already contracting around his fingers.
Her eyes sprang open and she looked into his eyes as pleasure coursed through her in fast, shimmering waves. With a groan, he withdrew his hand, only to use it to push aside the barrier of her panties.
His face was a mask of strain as he slowly pushed into her, his shaft as hot and slick as sun-kissed marble. Holding her now with both hands against her buttocks, he eased closer until he was fully seated inside her.
She felt his thigh muscles quivering as he dropped his head to her shoulder and held himself very still. When he had himself under control again, he began to move, drawing back with a slowness that was nearly unbearable.
Her body reacted like quicksilver, growing moist and tense again as the pleasure built. She squirmed against him, wringing a groan from his throat as he suddenly thrust hard again. She shivered, then dug her fingers into his neck.
Small delicious shivers ran through her, one after another. Unable to help herself she arched her back and pressed closer. A sob escaped her as the small shivers gathered into a rush of feeling. She was sliding toward a precipice, going faster and faster. And then she was falling.
She felt Morgan go rigid, then thrust once more. He cried out, his voice hoarse and exultant. She sagged against him, her cheek resting on his shoulder and her lips pressed against his neck. His skin was hot and wonderfully damp. She loved the feel of him when he was still slick and fevered from lovemaking.
His arms tightened and he held her close as her body still trembled. Closing her eyes, she rested against him, her body sated and heavy with a glorious lassitude. Gradually her breathing slowed, gentling as his gentled.
For a long time neither moved. His body remained in hers, no longer hard, but still filling her. She felt content. Willing to remain this way forever.
Then slowly, he began rubbing her back with long, even strokes. "Little tiger," he murmured, his voice very deep. "So wild."
She smiled. "I look like I've swallowed a watermelon, and yet I feel so wanton."
"You're wonderful." He moved, forcing her to lift her head and open her eyes. His face was suddenly taut again, his eyes intense. "I nearly lost it when I thought you'd been with another man."
Raine reached up to touch his face. "There's been no one else but you."
"Really?" He sounded both gruff and hopeful.
"Really."
The tight lines around his mouth relaxed and went from a fierce frown to a lazy grin. "Well, all right, then. That's settled."
"What's settled?"
His face stilled. "Us. You and me. We're a couple again, right?"
She longed to tell him yes. To commit herself to him again without reservation. But she was determined to go slowly this time.
The emotional distance she'd felt after Mike's death was lessening, but it was still there. A shield against the impulsive part of her nature that only seemed to surface when Morgan was around.
"I need a shower," she murmured, trying to ease herself free.
His mouth firmed, and his arms tightened.
"Oh, no, you don't. You stay right where you are until we get this thrashed out."
"Uh, it's, um, difficult to be logical when I can feel you, um, stirring inside me."
He frowned. "Try."
She sighed. So much for a graceful retreat. But then, Morgan was anything but reticent when it came to getting what he wanted. Hadn't he fought tremendous odds all of his life, winning more often than not?
"We made love, Morgan, but that's all that happened. Nothing's changed."
"Like hell. You wanted me. I could feel it."
"Yes, I wanted you. I've always wanted you. But that doesn't change the reality of our situation. We have different goals. Diametrically opposed goals."
He narrowed his gaze. "Opposed how, specifically?"
"I want stability and permanence and a normal life. You know, a nine-to-five, Sundays-at-the-park kind of future. You want—no, you crave—change and excitement." She drew a breath. "You're a thrill seeker, Morgan. One of those people who was born with a need to test himself against the highest mountain or the steepest cliff or … or the most dangerous story. You can't change, and I can't survive in a part-time marriage."
She pressed her hands against his heavily padded shoulders and pushed. This time he let her slip off his lap. "It's not your fault that you're the way you are, any more than it's my fault that I no longer want to arrange my life around yours."
His expression was remote, his eyes cool and assessing as he studied her face. Finally, he nodded. "That's spelling it out clear enough." His grin flashed briefly. "And mostly in words of one syllable that even a thickheaded guy like me can understand."
"No … hard feelings?" she asked quietly, holding her breath.
"Nope."
She waited, but he remained silent. If he was upset, nothing showed on his face but the remnants of the fatigue he'd brought with him from the Middle East.
"Well, fine. Good."
She glanced down at her shirt and thought about bending to pick it up. And then she remembered her body didn't bend in the middle these days. Turning her back, she padded to the bird's-eye maple highboy that had been her mother's. Opening one drawer, then another, she gathered a change of clothes.
She turned back to find he'd shucked his jeans and was in the act of kicking them aside. Glancing up, he grinned. "Race you to the shower."
"Pardon?"
"I've got this hankering to see what else you can do with that pink puffy thing besides using it to slam me out of the stall."
He sauntered toward her, unapologetically naked, two hundred plus pounds of hard-edged male. Though no longer aroused, he was still powerfully sexy. A man of physical power and strong character, with a magnificently formed body.
Raine resisted an urge to back up. "If you stay here for the next four months, we'll have to set some ground rules."
"Ground rules?" He looked uncomfortable.
"It's the only way."
"It is?"
He was close enough now that she could feel the heat of his body. She told herself to ignore the fact that they were standing belly to belly, having a serious discussion while neither of them had on a stitch of clothing. Under other circumstances, she would have been convulsed by laughter.
"Yes, of course. It doesn't make sense for us to just pretend this is a normal situation."
His mouth quirked, as though he, too, realized the absurdity of this confrontation. "It doesn't?"
She shook her head. "I admit the idea of an affair is very appealing to me, especially now when I'm, well, not exactly at my best."
"Couldn't prove it by me."
"Yes, well, that's certainly a point in your favor."
Something changed in his eyes. It was a small shift, a subtle narrowing. A suggestion of ice over turbulent water. She fought off a shiver.
"I didn't realize you were keeping a tally," he said without inflection.
Because he was far too close to the truth, she frowned. "I'm not. I was being ironic."
"Ah, irony. Not my best subject."
"Then we're agreed? We sleep together while you're here, for as long as my doctor says it's okay. And then, when the babies are safely born and you've fulfilled your, um, mission, we'll part without regrets."
"Whatever you want, honey. It's your call all the way."
The lazy drawl was back in his voice, a soft slurring of consonants and liquid vowels. It was the voice he used when he was relaxed. Or on the air. She told herself she'd only imagined the flicker of hurt that had crossed his face.
"You pay your bills. I pay mine."
"Fine."
"We'll split the cost of the food."
"Okay."
"And you'll sign a statement relinquishing all rights of custody?"
Somethin
g dangerous flashed between the thick lashes. But his voice, when he answered was mild. "If that makes you feel more comfortable, sure."
Just that easy, he renounced the children she was carrying. She should be pleased. Relieved. In fact, she was. Of course, she was, she told herself as she put out her hand.
"Shake on it?" she asked with a small grin.
"Oh, I think we can do better than that."
He gripped her shoulders and pulled her toward him. His kiss was possessive and profoundly intimate, his hand stroking her fanny as his tongue darted and stroked. Just when she felt herself starting to melt, he lifted his head. A hard flush rose over his cheekbones as he slipped a hand behind her neck to press her face against his neck. With a sigh, he bent his head over hers, and held her, his arm a steel band against her back. He held her close, rocking them back and forth gently for several silent moments before he lifted his head and stepped back.
"Now, about that shower…" he drawled, his grin devilish.
"Pax, they mean business this time."
Morgan sat back in Raine's delicate desk chair and rubbed at the dull ache in one temple. "This time?" he jeered into the receiver. "You mean they were only kidding two years ago when they threatened me with a breach-of-contract lawsuit if I extended my emergency leave?"
On the other end of the phone line, his agent let out a long, heavy sigh. Paul Slotsky was an ex-NFL lineman with a calculator for a brain and the determination of a bull in full charge. The deals he'd cut for Morgan during the past twenty years had made them both rich.
"Give me a break, Pax, okay? Can the sarcasm and just listen while I try to save both your career and your butt."
"First irony and now sarcasm. Hell, I am comin' up in the world." When he'd left the hills with thirteen dollars in his jeans and a savage need to survive burning in his gut, he'd never heard either word.
"Jeez, you are in a rotten mood this morning." There was a pause. When Slotsky spoke again, his voice was subtly altered. "Look, I know this divorce thing hit you hard, especially coming so soon after Mike's death, but—"
"No divorce," Morgan grated through a tight jaw. "And that's personal. We're talking about Bronstein and his gestapo tactics."
"It's in the contract, Pax. They have a right to your time."
"Under certain specific conditions. Placating a neurotic source with an itch doesn't even come close to making the list."
"Bronstein claims she's got solid information."
"Then let Bronstein wine and dine Josefa. I'm on leave."
He closed his eyes and listened to the muffled sound of an exercise video Raine had playing in the living room. It was a yoga tape, mostly stretching, she'd assured him, her brow puckered into that earnest look of concentration he'd always loved. She claimed the babies liked the slow and easy movements better than the traditional prenatal exercises she'd practiced earlier in her pregnancy.
"Pax, be reasonable. How long can it take to check out her story? A week? Two at the most. If it's true, you'll come home a hero, with a sure Pulitzer nomination in your pocket and a pot of network goodwill to carry into our next contract negotiations."
"Screw goodwill. I gave Raine my word."
This time the pause was longer. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like what Slotsky was working up his nerve to say.
"Three years ago, when you scrawled your name to the bottom of that contract, you agreed to the terms. Which means you also gave the network your word."
Morgan muttered a foul oath that had Slotsky chuckling. "So you'll call Bronstein and tell him your flight number to Beirut?"
"Get stuffed, Slotsky."
"Okay, I'll call him."
"The hell you will. I haven't even been home a week, and already he's hassling me."
"Technically, you've been on leave for two weeks. The network doesn't care about travel problems."
Morgan waited out a wave of hot fury before speaking again. "Look, Paul. If I really thought there was even a tiny possibility Josefa had solid stuff this time, I'd already be on a plane. But she's been floating talk about this off-the-wall plot for years. I spent a lot of valuable time checking it out, only to come up with zilch."
Morgan could almost see his burly agent's scowl. "Okay, you win. I'll invite Bronstein to an obscenely expensive lunch—on you, by the way—and ply him with martinis and bull. It's worked before. Who knows? We might get lucky."
Morgan told himself to relax. "Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it."
"Don't thank me yet, Pax. We might both end up on the wrong end of this one, and I, for one, am not ready to give up the life-style to which you have accustomed me."
Morgan snorted. "What's the worst they can do? Fire me?"
"Exactly, and throw in a lot of ugly talk about your lack of loyalty, et cetera. It could—no, it's sure to—get ugly."
"So?"
"So your entire history will be spread all over the tube for weeks. All the old rumors about your mother's disappearance and your father's, shall we say, less-than-exemplary life-style."
"I can handle it."
"Sure you can. But what about Raine?"
Morgan scowled. He'd never lied to her about his past. Not once. But he'd been deliberately vague about the details. Some things were better left buried.
"Raine's no snob. She'll understand."
"I'm not talking about understanding. I'm talking about a mother who lost a child in the not-too-distant past. How do you think she'll feel when she sees Mike's funeral replayed over and over again?"
Morgan winced. The pain in his head sharpened. His hand tightened around the receiver as his gaze went to the photograph of Mike on the bookshelf across the room. It hurt to see the bright look of eagerness in his son's eyes. The total trust in the goodness of life. Morgan knew better.
"Handle it, Paul. I don't care how many concessions you have to make."
Slotsky cleared his throat. "This might cost you your reputation, Pax. Hell, it might even cost you your career."
Morgan felt the blade of icy fear slice into his gut. He was his career. An image on the screen that he'd invented. Without it, he was just another pretty face without substance. An ignorant pretender one mistake away from the gutter.
From the other room he heard a crescendo of music, followed by silence. The video was over. While it was rewinding, Raine would take a shower and get ready to go downtown to that little hole-in-the-wall bookstore she loved so much.
He felt himself smiling as he remembered the feel of her soapy skin beneath his hands as he scrubbed her back. He felt his body stir, and the pain in his head ease.
"Handle it, Slotsky," he said into the receiver before hanging up. He felt the need to take a shower.
Chapter 12
« ^ »
Morgan was feeling almost normal by Saturday night. Since Raine was planning an evening out with Stacy and Prudy, he was looking forward to an evening of poker.
The sun had still been a brilliant ball hanging over the river when he'd escorted Raine to the Randolphs' back door. Stacy and Prudy had greeted him with warm hugs and inquiries into the state of his health. He'd barely gotten out an answer before Prudy was introducing him to the two men in the group he hadn't already met.
Detective Sergeant Don Petrov and Dr. Luke Jarrod.
It seemed that Petrov was Case's longtime partner, a craggy middle-aged bear of a man with a lived-in face, unusual green eyes and a look of quiet integrity about him. Morgan liked him immediately.
He was more inclined to reserve his opinion about Dr. Jarrod. Morgan had never met a medic quite like him. Given the man's rangy toughness and weathered face, Morgan would have pegged him for a far different career. A rancher, maybe. Or another cop. Even as he shook the man's hand, he'd sensed that Jarrod was dealing with his own reservations about one Morgan Paxton. Something about the look in the man's intelligent gray eyes had Morgan wondering what Raine had said about her absentee husband.
"Now you boys play nice-nice," Prud
y had said as she dropped a kiss on her husband's thick black hair. "No biting in the clinches."
Case Randolph had colored fiercely, but his eyes had been soft as he gruffly ordered his energetic little wife to be careful.
After warning Morgan not to let down his guard around the Mill Works Ridge cardsharps, the three women with the impatient little girls departed.
Morgan stifled a pang of jealousy that Raine merely lifted a hand in farewell instead of kissing him goodbye in front of the others. Since they'd made love, she'd been as jumpy as a snake-bit hound dog. He'd been walking on damn eggshells for two days, trying not to spook her, but his patience was beginning to thin.
"Don't worry, Paxton," Case said with a raised brow. "We'll take it easy on you first time out. Right, guys?"
"Damn straight," MacAuley muttered, his grin reminding Morgan of a sheep-stealing wolf he'd shot once.
Jarrod merely nodded as he reached for a handful of peanuts.
"Yeah," Petrov grated, sounding very much as though he'd been swallowing briers. "We only pick you clean after we get to know you better."
The big man grinned as he shuffled the cards. From the look of the expert moves he was putting on the pasteboards, Morgan had a feeling he was in for a an old-fashioned ass kicking.
An hour into the game Morgan was trying to recall the exact amount of the credit on his Visa card. He was a decent enough player, but his skills were rusty. It didn't help that he kept wishing he was home in bed with Raine, making slow, delicious love to her rotund body.
"Did you ever wonder what they do on their so-called 'ladies night out'?" Case Randolph asked around the cigar clenched between his teeth.
"Some, but I figured it was best not to know," MacAuley replied as he took his turn dealing. He had an impressive stack of chips in front of him and a satisfied gleam in his eyes. "I figure a man has to retain some illusions about his woman."
"Illusions, hell," Case's burly partner scoffed, his big hands already arranging his cards. "You married guys are purely pathetic, letting those little ladies of yours lead you around by big old rings in your noses." He glanced across the table at their host. "Especially you, Randolph. It's downright embarrassing to be in your presence when some misguided fool asks about your family."
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