by Donna Fasano
Sean, on the other hand, knew without a doubt why he didn’t act. His reasons were sound. Strong. And right.
Finally, she swallowed, and pushed herself farther away from him. His arms slid from around her, his hands dropping to his sides.
“You’re a good man,” she whispered. “A very good man.”
Gratitude tinged her tone, and it actually made him feel a bit chagrined about the deep desire throbbing in him, about the passion that continued to push him toward the edge of sanity. He didn’t feel like a good man. The hunger pulsing through him had him feeling anything but.
“Thanks for letting me…”
Her shy hesitation was sweet.
“…lean on you.”
Sean’s exhalation was slow and even as he struggled to control all that he was feeling. There was just something about this woman that brought out the protector in him. The tough guy willing to take on the world.
“Anytime, Nicki,” he told her softly. “You know that.”
But she looked away as if she didn’t… or as if she didn’t want to. He stifled a groan. He hated to think that the awkwardness might creep up between them again.
As if sensing his thoughts, she said, “Enough of this miserable talk of the past. Tell me what you found out today. About the annulment.”
Sean sighed, grateful to have a subject of conversation that was manageable, businesslike. This, he could handle.
“Well,” he responded, “I found out that it’ll be pretty easy. And pretty swift. My lawyer will start filing the papers tomorrow. And as long as both of us can state that there was no… um… ah… you know—” He suddenly stumbled over the words. “As long as there’s no… physical relationship, no consummation, we’ll be just fine.”
Her flat-mouthed smile was her attempt to hide her embarrassment, but he couldn’t help but notice how cute she looked with her cheeks tinted pink.
“We knew that, though, didn’t we?” she asked, avoiding his eyes. “There hasn’t been any trouble there.”
He wondered how she could say that with what they had both experienced just thirty seconds before. He’d certainly had trouble keeping his hands to himself. Oh, well, he decided, attesting to false facts might make the truth easier to ignore.
They spent a few more moments talking about the legal ins and outs of the annulment, and when the subject waned, Nicki said, “I really should say goodnight. It’s getting late. You’d better get to bed too. The sun will be rising before you know it, and so will Sona.”
“You’re right,” he told her. “I’ll head upstairs in just a few minutes.”
She took their mugs with her, offering to put them in the sink on her way through the kitchen.
The TV continued to drone softly in the quiet once Sean was all alone.
He felt exhausted. As if he’d fought some huge battle… and had won. He knew the struggle had been against himself. Against his own physical wants and desires. Against his growing passion for Nicki.
He was confident that he could fight the physical attraction he felt for her again, should the need arise. And he was fairly certain it would. Heck, if willpower alone wasn’t enough, there was always a long, icy shower just waiting to be utilized.
However, he was a little more concerned with the other attraction for her that had begun to stir in him. She conjured emotions in him he really didn’t want to feel… couldn’t afford to feel and continue to remain detached and objective about their relationship.
Yes, a good, cold shower might take care of the physical attraction that plagued him. But what about the emotional attraction? What about the more tender yearnings in his gut, in his heart, that continued to linger long after the needs of his body had once again grown manageable?
***
An afternoon bubble bath. The very idea was decadent.
Nicki stretched out in the tub, water lapping at her toes, belly and breasts, frothy bubbles tickling every inch of exposed skin. She closed her eyes, indulging completely in the luxury of simply being lazy. She sighed contentedly, sinking deeper into the water, doubting that anyone but the most wealthy citizens of Kyrcznovia even owned a bath tub, let alone took long, lazy soaks. She knew she hadn’t enjoyed such an extravagance since… she had to stop and think… wow, she couldn’t even remember when.
With Sona napping and Sean busy on his computer, Nicki relaxed with a good book in a bubbly, wet paradise. She didn’t think life could get more blissful than this.
Inevitably, Sean entered her thoughts. And suddenly, her brain was filled with memories of how he had held her last night. Closing her fingers around the airy bubbles, she remembered the feel of his hard chest under her palms, the deliciously warm scent of him as he’d hugged her close. She easily pictured the desire that had danced in his mahogany eyes. Lowering her lids, she felt her body respond to the need he conjured in her. Her skin tingled all over, her belly heated deep down inside.
Slowly, she ran her fingertips over her flat tummy and then up toward her breasts, imagining it was Sean’s touch she was feeling. Her nipples budded. Her breath quickened. Oh, how she wanted him. And he wanted her. She had known it. Had seen it in his eyes, felt it in the tenseness of his body.
Her eyes flew open and she swallowed nervously as that odd dismay filled her like a hazy fog, making her feel heavy and afraid. Why did she always experience this awful—
The thump she heard had her eyes widening. What was that? A door slamming? A…
The sound of heavy footfalls on the steps had her sitting up in the tub with such force that water sloshed onto the floor.
“Sean?” she called. “What is it?”
Then Nicki heard Sona’s ear-piercing cry.
Having lived in this house for more than two weeks, Nicki knew Sona had many different cries. The little girl would give a whiny cry if she wanted attention, an angry cry if she was frustrated. She’d whimper when she was tired, or tearfully complain if she was hungry. But this was clearly an expression of pain.
Hopping out of the tub, Nicki was heedless of the water and soapy bubbles dripping onto the floor as she snatched up a towel. She wrapped it around herself haphazardly and jerked open the door.
She barreled into Sona’s room and saw Sean standing at the crib, his daughter in his arms.
“Oh, Sean!” Her voice was shaky with fear. “What happened?”
“She tried to climb out of her crib. I found her on the floor. Thank God she’s not seriously hurt.”
The guilt in his gaze was so thick, Nicki wanted to reach out to him. And that’s exactly what she did. Placing one hand on his arm, the other against Sona’s back, Nicki said, “There’s no way you could have known this was going to happen.”
“She could have broken her neck,” he said. “I’ve got to lower the crib mattress. There’s got to be a way to do it….”
“I’m sure there is,” she told him, the heavy self-blame in his tone ripping at her heart like sharp claws. “But right now, we ought to get some ice on that bump on her noggin.”
Nicki hoped the playful term would lighten the mood, but Sean refused to be consoled. In fact, she quickly discovered she’d only made him feel worse.
“Of course!” he said, hurrying toward the door. “How could I be so stupid? I should put a cold compress on her forehead.”
They rushed down the stairs to the kitchen. Nicki felt terrible that in mentioning the ice she’d only made him feel worse.
“The floor is carpeted,” she reminded him above Sona’s cries. “She couldn’t have fallen too hard.”
With his free hand, Sean pulled open the freezer door.
“Here,” Nicki said, “let me get that.”
She placed several ice cubes in a plastic bag and then surrounded it with a soft, clean dish towel. It took them several moments to get Sona to allow them to apply the ice to the angry red bump on her head.
Sean pulled out a chair and sat with Sona on his knee. Nicki kneeled down beside them, trying to divert the child’s attention fr
om what her daddy was doing. Sona had stopped sobbing, but she continued to whine and fidget.
“Well, at least she doesn’t seem to be in a lot of pain,” Nicki pointed out to Sean.
“Yeah, but there’s still fear in her eyes. That fall scared the wits out of her.”
Nicki could only nod. “Daddy will fix your crib, sweetie,” she crooned to Sona who had squirmed around to face her.
“I should have set the mattress to the lowest position when I put together the damned crib,” he said. “If I had, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Yes, but you’d have strained your back trying to get Sona in and out of bed,” Nicki gently pointed out.
“Better that than having her fall and break her arm or something.”
He felt terribly responsible for his daughter’s accident, and Nicki felt awful about that.
“Sean—” she placed her hand on his knee “—you’re not going to be able to keep Sona safe every moment of every day. You’ll keep her as safe as you can, but it’s inevitable… things like this are going to happen. Bruised knees, scraped palms, lumps and bumps.”
Sean just studied her, worry darkening his eyes.
“I remember,” she continued, “in one of the foster homes where I grew up, there had been a safety gate placed at the head of a flight of stairs. A little boy—he was about Sona’s age, maybe a little older—managed to climb over the gate. He fell down the stairs.” She looked off, remembering the awful scene. ‘‘He broke his nose. And he got an awful black eye. Blood from his nose was everywhere.”
She sighed, shoved the memory aside, and looked up at Sean whose gaze had shifted and was directed at the floor.
‘‘The house was full of people,” she told him, ‘‘yet nobody saw that child climbing over the gate. Kids just have a way of getting into predicaments they shouldn’t. They just have a way of finding trouble.”
Still he remained silent. So did Sona.
Sean’s utter stillness, his inability to respond, told Nicki just how upset he was with himself, how culpable he felt that his daughter had been hurt.
She rubbed small circles on his knee, patted it twice, then rubbed again as she softly said, “You can’t beat yourself up about this. We’ll fix the crib so she can’t climb out. Everything’s going to be okay.” He still refused to look at her. “It really is,” she assured him. “Honest.”
At that moment, Sona reached out and scooped a small mound of bubbles that had been clinging to Nicki’s bare shoulder. The little girl giggled when the delicate bubbles popped and disappeared from her fingertips.
Nicki’s eyes went wide, remembering suddenly that she’d been bathing when she heard the commotion in Sona’s room. She looked down the length of her towel-clad body. The soft terry fabric parted high on her thigh, exposing a wedge of her white flesh. When she looked up into Sean’s face, she realized in that instant that he wasn’t focused on the floor as he silently condemned himself—he’d been giving her bare legs an intense and ogling stare.
Nicki was mortified. She gasped and jerked herself upright, tugging and pulling in some vain attempt to get the towel to cover more of herself than was reasonably possible.
Sean was obviously just as embarrassed as she, his eyes going as wide as saucers as his gaze latched onto her face. However, the expression quickly melted away, and she could see him fighting hard to suppress the sudden, and evidently unexpected, merriment that began to dance in his luscious nut-brown eyes.
She should feel humiliated by his leering. She should feel angry. She should feel appalled. Shocked. Infuriated. She should be feeling anything except… except… flattered.
Nicki would not smile at the way his mouth was slowly drawing back on one side, teasing and sexy. She would not!
But no sooner had the thought entered her head when her own lips were being tugged at by the makings of a beguiling grin. But she shouldn’t. She just shouldn’t.
Suddenly overcome with the irrepressible seduction scene that had materialized seemingly out of the very air itself, Nicki opened her mouth to take in a quick breath.
Sean was flirting with her, she could see it in his hungry eyes, in the sensual set of his mouth. He wanted her. A thrill shot through her, and then that vague, bone-chilling fear followed closely on its heels.
“I—I was in the tub.” The obvious truth came out sounding like a lame excuse. She knew it, heard it, as soon as the words left her mouth. “Wh-when I heard Sona fall, I—I was scared half to death. I d-didn’t know what had happened.” Why couldn’t she speak five full words without stuttering? She didn’t have a speech impediment, damn it. Clearing her throat she stammered, “I—I didn’t stop to…” Sheer frustration made the thought fade into oblivion and she balled her hands into fists.
His brazen smile only widened further. “I can see that.”
The rich, lazy sound of his timbre caused a shiver to course across every inch of her skin. She broke out in gooseflesh and she felt her nipples contract into nubs. His eyes traveling over her body were almost as tangible as a physical touch, and after the very erotic thoughts she’d had of him only moments before in the tub…
Her throat convulsed and she automatically crossed her arms over her chest. There was really no gracious way to do this and not allow him to become privy to the exact reaction she was trying to hide.
‘‘I—I really should go upstairs,” she said. ‘‘I should—”
“Yes.” He nodded, his now full, lopsided grin helplessly expanding with each millisecond that passed. “You really should.”
She turned and darted from the kitchen, his delighted laughter ringing in her ears.
Chapter Eight
Sean was thoroughly enjoying the change in his relationship with Nicki. And he knew the bubbles-and-terry-cloth incident—which was how he’d dubbed the situation when Nicki had come running out of her bath a couple of days ago clad only in a few well-placed bubbles and a too short terry towel—had been the turning point.
They were playful with one another. Friendly and flirtatious. It was refreshing and fun, and Sean refused to even consider, let alone contemplate, all the implications of the change. He only focused, for the time being, on relishing it.
He checked the saddle on Blaze, and then did the same on Pepper. Nicki was dressing Sona, and then the three of them planned to ride into the park and share a picnic breakfast. These kinds of spur-of-the-moment happenings were the very reason he felt so blessed that he owned his own business and worked out of his home. When most men and women were fighting traffic on the Blue Route, he was sipping his coffee, enjoying the morning, or exercising one or the other of his horses in the parkland surrounding his home. Yes, he was truly blessed.
Sean realized that Nicki, too, was a blessing in his life. If she hadn’t happened into that hotel restaurant in Kyrcznovia looking for a job, he wouldn’t have custody of Sona right now. He owed Nicki a lot for all this happiness he was experiencing. And after hearing about her background, about her childhood, Sean only felt more protective of her—more attracted to her—than ever. The urge to offer her a little joy while she was in America seemed to drown out all the doubts and qualms and hesitations he’d felt up to this point.
Sure, the fact that neither of them were looking for long-term involvement, or romantic entanglements, was still in his mind. But that didn’t mean that he and Nicki couldn’t have some good times together with Sona. That they couldn’t make some pleasant memories together. Some happy reflections she could cherish after she was gone. Just as he would.
After she was gone…
The words echoed in his head. His arms relaxed at his sides and his gaze lowered to study the straw under his feet. The concept of his house vacant of Nicki made him feel—
“We’re ready!”
Nicki’s bright-and-cheery voice jarred him out of his somber contemplation. Sona squealed a delighted greeting to Sean and then automatically reached out, straining to touch Blaze’s nose.
&nbs
p; “You do love these horses, don’t you, pumpkin?” Sean gently pushed Sona’s dark hair back from her face.
“Are you sure the harness is going to work?” Nicki asked him.
He nodded, knowing she was speaking of the backpack-type child seat he’d bought so he could take Sona out on the horse. “Everything will be fine,” he assured her. “We’ll take it nice and slow. Get her used to riding Blaze. And get me used to carrying her on horseback.”
Nicki’s concern charmed him. Heck, he’d found there was little about her that he didn’t find captivating.
When she didn’t respond right away, he grinned at her and teased, “Are you doubting me?”
“Oh, no,” she said. Then she chuckled. “If anyone can handle riding a horse while carrying a baby on his back, it’s you.” Then Nicki looked at his daughter, “Isn’t that right, Sona? We have plenty of faith in your daddy. There’s not much he can’t handle.”
Her praise made his chest swell. However, he couldn’t help but wonder if her too bright tone meant that a shadow of worry might continue to cloud the confidence she espoused.
Crooking his index finger under Nicki’s chin, he tipped up her face until she was forced to look him in the eye. “Everything will be fine,” he promised softly.
The cool morning air crackled and snapped with electricity. Finally, she smiled demurely and said, “I have faith in you.”
That soft-and-sunny smile did potent things to his libido. Sean thought his heart was going to thump right out of his chest cavity. Lord, but she was lovely.
He shrugged the straps of the harness over his shoulders and then Nicki secured Sona into the canvas contraption. All the while, the child clapped and giggled, knowing something exciting was about to take place.
Blaze and Pepper were led out into the sunshine of the paddock, and Nicki asked Sean, “Everything’s packed?”
“Yes.”
With Sona strapped to his back, he wasn’t much help to Nicki as she mounted Pepper, but he placed a steadying hand on her thigh once she got her leg over the saddle. Firm, warm flesh beneath his fingers. Liquid fire shot straight up his arm.
