MIDNIGHT CINDERELLA

by Eileen Wilks

  He smiled, and bent his head.

  She had beautiful breasts, ripe and round and full, and he told her so, murmuring his praise between lavings of his tongue across first one hard nipple, then the other. He told himself to slow down, but even as he thought that, his hand was sliding across the smooth skin of her belly. How could he take this woman slowly? Her voice was already breaking when she said his name, her body already hot and slick and wildly responsive.

  And his. Every movement she made said so. She was his. The sheen of sweat on her skin was nowhere near as damp as the welcome he found when his hand moved between her legs. She bucked when he touched her there. He stroked and fondled and petted her while he sucked at her breasts, and the pleasure sounds she made fed his hunger until he couldn't stand it. He had to be in her.

  He put two of his fingers up inside her. It wasn't enough. He raised his head and started to pull his fingers out, but her inner muscles clamped around them and her hips followed his hand. Her eyes were big, her breathing quick and shallow, and he knew she was right on the edge, knew he could tease her and play with her and make her climax while he watched.

  He wanted that, suddenly, more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life.

  More than anything?

  Again the thought slid through his mind, one thin thread of fear quickly lost in a wealth of hunger and sensation.

  He propped himself up higher on his elbow so he could see her face, and ran his thumb slowly up that wet cleft to the sensitive nubbin. She moaned. He pulled his fingers out and she protested; he slid them back in and she gasped. He teased her and toyed with her until she grabbed his hand with both of hers. "Now!"

  "Not yet." He took her hands, pulled them above her head and held them there, both of her hands pinned by one of his. And he kept teasing her, circling his thumb around and around, up and down, until she was all but sobbing. His own breath rasped in his throat as if he'd been running for miles when he finally let go of her hands so she could grab hold of him. He parted her with one of his hands so he could see what he did, so he could be sure he didn't hurt her. Then he pushed his fingers up inside her. "Now!" He pressed his thumb down firmly.

  She screamed. Her body bucked hard against his hand.

  She was still trembling in the aftershocks when he pulled her remaining boot off and jerked her jeans and panties down. He grabbed one foil-wrapped packet from the table, ripped it open and rolled the condom on in feverish haste. Then he moved between her legs, pushed them wide, put two hands beneath her bottom to lift and position her, and he thrust inside.

  She climaxed again immediately.

  A few hard, desperate thrusts later, the world came to an end in a flash of sensual oblivion so bright it left him blind in brain, body and spirit, left him sliding off into a cozy darkness even as he slid off her limp body, rolling to his side and gathering her automatically into his arms.

  Minutes or eons later, before the world had finished reforming itself around him, Hannah called him back by slipping out of his arms. He blinked, frowned and reached for her, but she sat beside him, smiling like Eve, naked like Eve, and every bit as full of mystery.

  She pushed him over onto his back. "My turn," she said softly.

  Then she showed him what she meant.

  * * *

  An hour later, Hannah lay with her head pillowed on Nate's upper arm. His left arm was draped over her waist. One of her legs lay atop one of his. His chest heaved with the same need for air hers did. His skin was damp like hers. When she inhaled, she breathed in musk and sweat and Nate.

  She wondered if she could stay just like this for the next thousand years or so. "Mmm," she said, and, mustering all her energy, managed to slide her leg a couple of inches along his, so she could enjoy the slight abrasion from his hair.

  His fingers twitched, toying with the ends of her hair. "Your hair looks like fire," he murmured. "But it's just the tip of the flame, isn't it?"

  She wanted to tell him that she'd never responded like that before. Only with him. She wanted to point out that she belonged right where she was, at his side—and that he belonged where he was, at her side.

  She wanted to say she loved him.

  But those words would send him deep inside himself again, all his defenses up. The words that should be the sweetest thing one lover can hear from another would make him think she was his enemy. Hannah had heard his disgust when she said she loved him earlier, but it had been dark. She hadn't had to see those feelings on his face.

  She didn't want to see them now, either. She settled for stroking his flank. Eventually he would understand, she assured herself. He'd see that what she felt was nothing like the destructive emotion his ex-wife had burdened him with. This was one of those things she had to be patient about.

  She could do that. "Have I mentioned that I'm crazy about your body?"

  "I don't think so." He shifted onto his back, pulling her on top of him. He was smiling. "You gave a pretty convincing demonstration, though."

  He looked so happy. Love hit her in a rush, bringing tears to her eyes. She blinked rapidly.

  "Hey, what is it?" His hand was tender on her cheek.

  "Nothing." She smiled brightly because she couldn't say the words. She couldn't expect to hear them from him, either—not any time soon. Maybe not ever. But she knew he was capable of the feeling, and that was what counted, wasn't it? "I'm just feeling mushy," she said, running her hand up his chest. "And tired." She sighed. "I guess I'd better get back to my room."

  He frowned. "Stay here."

  "But Mark—"

  "I'll get the intercom." He took her shoulders in his hands and shifted her off him as easily as if she'd been a kitten curled up on his stomach—all five feet ten inches of her. Oh, my, she thought. She did like the way he did that.

  "You stay here," he repeated, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed.

  "Down, girl," she murmured, amused. "Sit. Stay."

  He grinned. "Be a good girl and I'll bring you back a treat."

  She eyed his body—his fabulously naked body—and smiled. "You do that. I'll be waiting patiently." Her smile widened. More or less patiently, anyway.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  «^»

  Hannah hummed as she prepared Mark's breakfast tray the next morning. She felt pretty darn good for a woman who'd gotten so little sleep the night before. But what was there not to feel good about? The day was sunny and cool, Trixie was going to be all right, and Nate had woken her with a hungry kiss and asked her to move her things into his bedroom.

  Well, actually he'd told her to do that, but when she'd pointed out the problem with his attitude, he'd grinned and corrected himself.

  It was a start, she told herself as she carried the tray down the hall. He hadn't wanted just a one-night stand with her. He wanted her beside him at night, all night. Surely that all meant something, with a man as intensely private as Nate.

  She nudged Mark's door with her hip. It swung open and she stepped into his room, smiling brightly. "Good morning."

  Mark glared at her. "You're sleeping with him."

  She stopped dead. How did he know? And why was he angry about it? "Why do you ask?" she said cautiously.

  "I'm not asking. I know." He reached out and tapped the intercom. "No reason for this to be turned on if you're in your own bed, is there? Though even if I hadn't noticed the intercom, the way you're glowing gives you away." He shook his head, looking disgusted. "I thought you had better sense."

  She squared her shoulders, stepped forward and set the tray on his bedside table. "I fixed muffins this morning."

  "I was going to talk to you today, but now it's too late."

  "There's marmalade for the muffins," she said, sliding the table in front of him.

  "Hannah, he's not going to marry you."

  She swallowed. "Try the bacon. It's some of that part-turkey stuff. Less fat."

  "Never mind the damn bacon! I know Nate. He didn't ma
ke you any promises, did he?"

  "That's really none of your business," she said, stiff with hurt. She'd thought they had gotten past Mark's initial distrust. Apparently not. Apparently he still thought she was after Nate's money.

  He studied her face. "Oh, hell." He leaned back against the raised head of the bed. "You're in love with him, aren't you?"

  "I don't think I care to talk about this with you." Her hand wasn't entirely steady when she poured his coffee from the carafe. "And I don't know why you're so bent out of shape about it," she added, setting the carafe down with a thump. "And I really think you might try to be a little happy that your brother has someone who cares about him, instead of looking all upset and—and dismal." Her hands were free now, so she fisted them on her hips. "And I am not after Nate's money."

  "Whoa!" Mark held up one hand. "I didn't think you were after his money. I quit worrying about that days ago."

  She kept her hands on her hips. "Then what's your problem?"

  "I care about you…"

  "About … oh." She smiled, back in charity with Mark and the world. "That's sweet."

  He winced. "I am not sweet."

  She patted his hand. "I won't tell anyone. Mark…" She wasn't at all sure this was the right time or the right way to bring this up. But when would it be right to ask such a thing? "If you want to help me, you can."

  He looked wary and reached for his coffee. "What did you have in mind?"

  "I need to know what was really going on last night when Nate sort of—flaunted me at you. And you got so angry."

  For a moment, when his face closed down and his voice turned cold, he reminded her strongly of his brother. "I don't think that's any of your business."

  "I think it is, though. Because—because you're right. Nate hasn't made me any promises. He isn't thinking of marriage, and I…" Her chest ached. She had to pause for a moment, but she was determined not to give in to a hurt that hadn't happened yet. "I need those promises."

  His voice turned gentle. "I know, but I don't see how I can help you with that, Hannah."

  "I have to know what I'm up against, where his scars come from. I have to know … about Jenny. And I think you can tell me."

  He looked away. "She was unfaithful to him."

  "Yes, he told me that much. It was her lover who died that night."

  For a long minute he stared out the window without speaking. The early morning sunshine turned his skin to copper and washed his striking features with a gentle light that left him looking hard and strained and, somehow, painfully young. Finally he said roughly, "Ramos wasn't her only lover."

  She waited. When he didn't continue, she asked softly, "How old were you when you were her lover?"

  His head jerked. "How did you—did Nate—?"

  "No, he hasn't said anything about it." She moved closer to the bed. "But you have, though you didn't mean to. It wasn't Nate who called you a bastard last night. It was you. And you weren't talking about your birth, were you? I knew you had to be carrying a big load of guilt about something. How old were you?"

  "Sixteen," he said, and his voice was tired now, sad and tired. "Old enough to know better, but too damn young to—though I did manage, just barely, not to do everything Jenny wanted me to do." The smile that touched his mouth was thin and bitter. "The difference between what actually happened between Jenny and me and what Nate thinks happened is pretty technical, but I did manage not to screw my brother's wife. Barely."

  Her heart seemed to be stuck in her throat. She swallowed. "Then you weren't lovers?"

  He shrugged one shoulder impatiently. "Like I said, the distinction is purely technical."

  "But Nate thinks you were."

  "Oh, he has reason. Don't doubt that. He walked in on the two of us one day while we were tonsil-to-tonsil. And she told him her version—very tearful, very sincere, I've no doubt, though I wasn't there to see it." His mouth twisted. "Jenny was fond of confessing."

  Instinctively she reached out, laying her hand over his. "Nate believed her instead of you?"

  He pulled his hand away. "Why wouldn't he? She planned it that way. She wanted to be caught." He stopped. He was white around the mouth from some strong emotion, but his voice was flat when he continued. "I was packing when he came to see me that night. Jenny had already done her tearful confession number, telling him how lonely she'd been with him working so hard, and how I'd just kept after her and kept after her. She begged him to forgive me, damn her. That was a good touch. Made it hard for me to convince him that she'd been the one after me instead of the other way around."

  She ached for the boy he'd been, but she knew better than to let him see that. "Were you in love with her?"

  His glance held scorn—but not, she thought, for her. "Oh, I was halfway infatuated back when they got married. Hell, half the males in the county were stuck on Jenny. But she pretty much left me alone that first year. By the time she decided to get Nate's attention by seducing me, I knew too much about her. I didn't even like her much."

  And he'd liked himself far less, for responding to her seduction. "What did Nate do?"

  "Nothing. That's the worst of it. I've always wished he'd gone ahead and hit me, yelled at me—instead, he just shut down. It was like we weren't in the same room anymore. He saw that I was packing, and asked me what I had in mind. I told him I thought I'd see if a cousin of ours who lives in El Paso would like some company. He just nodded and said that was a good idea, and he'd arrange it. And he left."

  Hannah hardly knew what to say in the face of such guilt and love. "Are you sure he blamed you?" she asked tentatively.

  "Oh, he knew she was at fault, too. I don't doubt that. But he let me leave. He wanted me to leave." Mark's eyes were bleak. "Of course, I should have left long before I did."

  "You were only sixteen!"

  He shrugged one shoulder. "Leaving would have been better than letting her get to me. But once I was gone, once I was away from her, I realized she'd won. That she'd gotten what she really wanted."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Jenny pretended she wanted me, but what she really wanted was to get rid of me. That was her goal all along. Oh, she'd tell me how much she needed me, how much—" He made an impatient gesture. "Never mind. She was good at making people believe her. But the fact is, she wanted me gone because she didn't want to share Nate with anyone or anything."

  "But that's sick."

  He just looked at her.

  She didn't understand. What Jenny had called love was a selfishness so complete Hannah couldn't grasp it. The woman hadn't wanted to share her husband with his own brother. What did that have to do with love? She shook her head. "Yet people believed her," she said, baffled. "When she told them Nate intended to kill that man, people believed her instead of Nate."

  "Everyone always liked Jenny, and she'd been telling folks for months how jealous Nate was, and how frightened she was of him. And she put on a great performance on the witness stand." He sighed. "Jenny was one hell of a good liar."

  A lot of what Mark had told Hannah she didn't understand, but one thing was clear. "You and your brother have to talk about all this."

  "Oh, no." He shook his head. "We do okay the way things are. Talking about the past would just get everything stirred up again." He ran a hand over his bristly chin, and frowned. "Don't go getting it into your head to meddle."

  "Of course not." She wasn't going to meddle. She was going to help. There was a big difference.

  "I don't know why the hell I told you all that."

  Hannah had a pretty good idea. He'd needed to tell someone, and she'd been there, not only willing to listen, but insisting on it. "You wanted to help me."

  "I wish I'd kept my damn mouth shut. I don't know how any of this will help you."

  "Nate isn't an idiot," she said, and reached out absently for Mark's coffee. "He must know Jenny was … disturbed. I'm sure he doesn't think everyone is like her." She sipped at his cooling coffee. "You should eat you
r muffins."

  "Never mind the muffins."

  "I could pop them in the microwave and warm them up."

  "I'll eat the blasted muffins later. But about Nate and you—"

  "Know what I think? I think Nate doesn't know which parts of the craziness were Jenny, and which were him. That's how it is in a marriage, even a bad one. You wind up with pieces of each other tangled up together, and you can't always tell which pieces are them and which are you. Even after the marriage is over, it can take a long time to sort things out." She thought about how many years it had taken her to unknot all the pieces of Barry and his family that had gotten tangled up in her opinion of herself. And they'd been married less than a year. "How long were Nate and Jenny together?" She pushed the plate of muffins at him.

  "They were married four years." He picked up one of the muffins. "But they were sweethearts in high school, too."

  High school sweethearts. She made a face and sipped at the coffee. Nate and Jenny had quite a history, all right, but it was time for Nate to start coming back from whatever lonely place he'd locked himself away in. She knew now why he'd gotten so good at keeping all his feelings inside. He'd had to, in order to survive. Jenny's lies would have gotten tangled around any part of him that he left vulnerable.

  "You want to share that coffee?" Mark asked dryly.

  "Sure," she said absently, and took another sip. Responsible people tended to blame themselves when things fell apart, and Nate was nothing if not responsible. It must have been horrible for him, learning that the woman he'd loved and married was such a troubled soul, and being unable to help her or himself. Then, when the marriage came apart in such a grisly and public way, the power of the law stepped in. And the law, along with public opinion, had sided with Jenny, and punished Nate. He'd been told in court that he was guilty of murder.

  Nate had said that Tony Ramos's death was an accident. Hannah believed that. But did he? Had he felt guilty about so much else that part of him accepted the verdict of the jury?

  She set the empty coffee mug down with a click. "What we have to do," she said firmly, "is to exonerate Nate."