by Peggy Jaeger
“No, no,” she protested. “Really, I’m fine.”
“Nonsense,” Mike said, giving her a quick kiss. “You look exhausted.”
“Mike’s right, sweetie. Go on home, get to bed.”
“But your award,” she said. “I want to see you get it.”
Mike shook his head. “Just a plaque. Your mother’ll bring it around tomorrow. Now go. Cole?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, rising and holding the back of Tiffany’s chair. “Come on, Brat. Do as you’re told.”
“But—”
“Go on, dear. I’ll call you in the morning.” Carly’s cheek felt soft and warm against her daughter’s.
Outside, the evening air had turned frosty. Tiffany couldn’t decide if she was shivering from the cold or from the anticipation vaulting in her system.
In the limo they sat on opposite sides, just staring at one another, speechless. Tiffany’s head was pounding from the deafening silence. She could only wonder if Cole’s thoughts about the rest of the evening were as charged as hers.
After saying goodnight to the doorman, they got into the elevator. Cole kept his distance from her and maintained his silence on the ride up. Once they got through the front door though, everything changed.
Tiffany shrugged out of her fur, tossed it over the couch, and turned to face Cole. He was leaning against the inside doorjamb, keys still in his hand, a look she’d never seen on his face before. Blue eyes intense and dangerous, they stared at her hypnotically. Tiffany assumed this is what an animal caught in the headlights of an approaching car experienced. A trapped, vaguely paralyzing sensation.
She began walking backwards toward her room, her steps robotic, her gaze bonded to his.
Cole flew from the door and grabbed her hands, stopping her mid-stride. In one motion he scooped her up in his arms as he had that afternoon. “No, Tiff.” He kissed the small hollow behind her ear. “This time I want you in my bed.”
Tiffany wound her arms around his neck and held on tight. In two strides Cole reached his room. Bright yellow moonbeams spilled through the open curtains, fanning Cole’s massive bed. The sheets were, characteristically, rumpled, the bed unmade.
With endearing gentleness, he stood Tiffany upright, facing him, his hands encircling her waist. When his fingers ran up and down the length of her arms, delicately tracing the skin, Tiffany shivered with longing.
“You’re so beautiful, Tiffany. In every way.” His lips came down to hers in a brief caress, knocking the wind from her. She needed more of him. She couldn’t breath from the need that coursed through her.
Their lips met again when Cole drew her into his arms and draped his hands down her back. He cupped one firm buttock, squeezed and shaped it in his hand, while a sigh escaped from deep within her. His tongue darted into her open mouth, intimately caressing the nether regions within.
He pulled the combs from her hair and let his fingers tangle in the soft tendrils, framing her face with his hands.
“I love your hair,” he said. “I always have, ever since you were a kid.”
He brought his mouth back to hers, ravished it further.
His fingers found the toggle on her dress zipper, and in a heartbeat it fell to the floor and puddled at their feet. When his hands dipped low to caress her waist, they stilled. “Tiffany Judith Lennox. What the hell are you wearing?” His face broke into a sinful, wicked grin.
Heat flushed up her entire body, and she lowered her eyes. “The designer said I should wear these with the dress. They keep the lines of it sleek and smooth, and they don’t show underneath like pantyhose do.”
Cole’s fingers wrapped around the delicate black lace thong and skimmed the garters fastened to the sides of a belt secured around her hips. A black satin strapless bra pushed her small breasts high together, forming a deep cleft.
Cole bent down and licked the depression between those breasts, raking his tongue from the notch at her throat down below the center dip in the bra. Tiffany’s knees shook when his hot, slick and expert tongue moved up and down her décolletage.
“This is more cleavage than a man can stand,” he told her, chuckling. “What kind of bra can make you look so voluptuous?”
Tiffany sighed. “I’m not in the habit of discussing my underwear, Cole.”
He swirled his tongue into the depression again and she melted beneath his grip.
“So we won’t discuss it.” He unlatched the back of it without any effort at all.
Her breasts danced free into his waiting hands and he cupped each. Tenderly, he nipped at one swollen bud then gave the other equal time.
“Oh dear God.” Tiffany gasped and fisted his hair in her hands.
“I want to see you in my bed,” he whispered into her ear, drawing the lobe into his mouth. “I’ve been fantasizing about it for hours.”
She was in his arms and on the rumpled sheets before she could take a single breath.
“Why am I the only one undressed?” she asked.
He stole out of the tuxedo, lay down next to her, and pulled her into his arms, planting and trailing kisses everywhere he could.
Tiffany gave in to her own fantasies. Fingers spread across his firm, wide back, she gently kneaded the tight muscles, gaining strength from them. She clutched one taut butt cheek, heard his soft moan as his lips were muffled at her breast, and echoed the move with her other hand.
She boldly moved her hand around his hip to grasp what rested so brazenly against her thigh. He was so swollen and hard, for a second she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold all of him in her hand.
Cole flung his head back as she massaged him up and down, her hand tightening and easing with each motion.
His eyes closed and his breath turned shallow when she increased speed.
“Tiff, stop,” he said, choking on the word. His hand came down to hers, held it and suspended the motion.
“Why?” she asked, gazing into his open eyes, so blue now with desire they were almost the color of pure crystal. “I thought you were enjoying it.”
His smile was lopsided as he drew her hand to his lips for a quick kiss. “Enjoy isn’t the word. I don’t think there is a word for how good that felt.”
“Then why stop?”
“I don’t want to come too soon. I want this to last as long as it can. If you’d kept going I’d have exploded in a few more seconds.”
Tiffany couldn’t help the flushed heat that spread up her cheeks and danced down her neck and breasts. She was still too new to this intimacy between them to feel totally at ease discussing it so openly.
“Do you know what it does to me to see you blush like that? To know I’m the cause?”
She couldn’t answer him.
“Let me do something for you.” He moved down on the bed. “I want you to know how you just made me feel.”
He shifted position, and knelt between her legs. “First, we have to get you out of this sexy get-up.”
He lifted one leg, rested it on his shoulder, and trailed wet kisses down along her calf. He undid the garters, and slowly rolled one stocking down, his mouth traipsing after it. A sharp sting of need tingled down Tiffany’s spine when his tongue found a cranny behind her knee and tasted it. The other stocking and leg got the same rapt attention.
“And now these,” he said. The garter came off in one swift motion, but he dallied longer with the thong. It was the barest of briefs, cut high on the thigh and dipping low on her waist. Placing one hand under her butt, Cole lifted her and slowly slid it down with his teeth.
The feel of his breath, hot and moist against her skin, was Tiffany’s undoing. Cole placed a tiny wet kiss across her navel and then slid the delicate lace all the way off.
“Just lie back and enjoy this, sweetheart,” he told her when she was fully naked. “I know I will.”
Every nerve in Tiffany’s body fired when Cole threw her legs over his shoulders and his face disappeared between her thighs.
Her hips shot off the bed when his tongu
e gently moved across the most sensitive part of her. The heat pouring from her body, inflamed by his touch, was an inferno that grew and grew with each new sensation shooting through her.
Someone screamed Cole’s name, and a small thread of clarity told her it was her own voice echoing in the room. In one brief instant, she lost all control, all perception of the small world around her, and fell, spiraling downward, deep into a chasm of pure joy. Wave after wave surfed through her body, moving her to an insanely high peak and then crashing her down to leave her exhausted, and exhilarated.
When her body finally calmed, she lay flat against the bed. Never had she felt so humbled, so truly and totally consumed by emotions.
Tears fell across her cheek while Cole gathered her into his warm embrace, placing soft, sweet kisses on her eyes, lapping at the tears. She couldn’t speak, wouldn’t have known what to say if she did.
Cole placed one finger under her chin and dipped it upward so her eyes bonded with his. “That’s the way it’s always going to be for you, I promise.”
His lips came down to hers.
When he entered her this time, Tiffany knew his words had come true: there was no going back for either of them.
Chapter Fifteen
Cole reached out for his cell phone on the first ring.
“Greer.” He listened for a few moments. “I’ll be there.”
He hit the end button and gently put the phone back on the bedside table, fearful of waking the sleeping beauty so comfortably nestled in the hollow of his other arm.
His finger pushed the hair back from her face and he just watched her sleep. The phone call had summoned him back to the United Nations. The breaking news story of the peace negotiations between the warring factions in Sudan should have propelled him from the bed and out to cover the story in a flash. A few days ago it would have done so without any further thought.
But the warmth cuddled beside him, so beautiful and peaceful in repose, glued him to the bed. Through the night their lovemaking had grown and changed into something he hadn’t been prepared for. Cole likened it to kindred spirits, meeting for the first time. Tiffany’s shyness had flown under his expert hand. Introducing her to the delights of lovemaking had been a rewarding experience; in fact, at times he’d been willing to admit he was the student. She was the most open, accepting woman he’d ever known. Her initial shyness had hidden a truly sensual and sensuous heart and body that met him measure for measure, move for move. They were perfect together. Cole thought it sounded trite, but very true: they’d been made for one another.
Made for one another.
Like two people in love.
He loved her.
He swiped his free hand through his hair, and tried to figure out just when this had happened. It wasn’t the sex. Of that he was sure. No. He’d loved her long before they’d made love. His reaction to the revealing costume she’d worn was a completely jealous and proprietary emotion. He’d been furious to think of any other man seeing the woman he loved garbed in so sexy and alluring an outfit.
The woman he loved.
Jesus.
Love meant so many things. Commitment, responsibility, and obligation. Love meant being together, and not letting the outside world intrude. When it counted, it meant marriage and children, and four a.m. feedings. He hadn’t planned his life that way.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Or was it? Was it, as Tiffany had so boldly told him, their destiny to be together like this?
Love. I love her. I’m in love with her.
Cole managed to find a smile. Sure, there were a million reasons a love between them might never work, but a million more told him it would.
It was to the latter thought he gave himself up while he looked at her sleeping form.
When she stirred, her eyes fluttered open.
“Morning?” she asked, eyes closing and then reopening to adjust.
Cole kissed the tip of her nose. “It’s five-thirty.”
“It’s dark.”
He chuckled. “I drew the curtains in the middle of the night.”
Tiffany stretched and rolled onto her back. “I heard bells ringing,” she said through a yawn.
Cole’s head ducked down to capture one ripe nipple in his mouth when the covers pulled away from her body.
“I’d like to say those bells were the effect of my lovemaking,” he said, with a laugh when she gasped and arched her back, “but I can’t. The news bureau just called. I need to be at the UN as soon as possible.”
Disappointment clouded her sleepy face. “Do you have time for breakfast?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Something hot and quick that’ll get you through the day.” She slanted him a sly look through half closed eyes.
Cole laughed and pinned her beneath him in one move. “I think I’ve created a monster.”
Forty minutes later he left the apartment, stomach still empty, but no longer hungry.
****
Tiffany lounged in Cole’s bed after he’d gone, delighting in the feel of his sheets against her body, drinking in his natural scent as it clung to the fibers. She could still feel his warmth where they’d lain together all night. She couldn’t remember ever waking up so happy in her entire life. Not after her first gold medal, not even after the second. This was what she’d always wanted, what she’d always dreamed would happen.
She was certain Cole loved her. He had since they were kids. But she knew now, with a woman’s mind and heart, his love had grown, intensified, and transformed in the past twenty-four hours. His feelings for her had nothing to do with seeing her as a child and everything to do with knowing her as a woman. Of this, she was sure. And it thrilled her.
Soon realizing she couldn’t lie around all day, she rose, showered, and dressed. She was determined to get back on the ice today, despite the apprehension milling around within her. She wanted to speak to Sean, face to face, and find out what had happened after Cole swept her away the day before. If someone in the company was determined to harm her, Tiffany wanted to stare the person down, show him she wasn’t scared and would perform no matter what.
After imbibing her fruit drink for breakfast, Tiffany pulled the Queen of the Night costume from the floor of her bedroom, smiled at the memory of how it came to be there, grabbed her coat, and left the apartment.
The day was chilly, the late autumn wind whipping around the tall buildings, creating biting wind shears. She adjusted the collar of her coat and sighed, appreciating how much she loved the city, but longed, right now, for the peaceful, quiet, and loving atmosphere of Carvan. Preferably with Cole at her side.
She felt safe in Carvan. Totally and completely safe.
It took her twenty minutes to walk crosstown to the Garden. The giant clock attached to the face of the building above Penn Station told her it was almost eight a.m.
Plenty of time to speak with Sean before rehearsals began.
Tiffany smiled at the guard stationed at the entrance, and then rode the escalator down to the ice level. The arena itself was eerily silent, the lights dimmed, none of the daily hustle and bustle of noise awakening within it yet. For a brief second, Tiffany’s blood chilled, and she was overcome with a strange uneasiness she couldn’t put a name to. It was almost too quiet. The ice shimmering under the dim lights, the cool crisp bite in the air, the stillness, all added to her trepidation.
With caution, Tiffany walked along the outer perimeter of the rink, her footsteps echoing along the clapboards. She wanted to get to her dressing room and put the costume away, find Sean, and have it out with him.
When she was on the east side of the ice, a few yards from the corridor entrance leading to the dressing rooms, the overhead lights went out, propelling her into abrupt darkness.
Tiffany screamed. She couldn’t see, could barely make out the space between the ice and the floorboards. The only illumination was from the flickering exit signs above the corridor doorways. A sharp
noise behind her drove her forward toward the closest sign. She lost her balance once and slipped, the costume dragging against her legs, and reached out in a vain attempt to feel for the door. She heard two distinct sets of footfalls, hers and one behind her. Picking up her pace, she slammed hard into the door, gasped, and then quickly recovered. She tore it open, the hallway lights momentarily blinding her.
The door slammed behind her as she ran straight for her dressing room. A side door opened just when she was about to pass it, and strong arms jutted out and grabbed her.
Tiffany screamed again and beat out with her hands, trying to break free.
“Lass! Lass! Calm down, it’s me. It’s Sean. Tiffany, it’s me.”
She relaxed when the realization hit her.
Sean pulled her into his arms. “What happened?”
“Someone was in the arena,” she sobbed. “The lights went out, and I got scared. Someone was following me, Sean. I thought, oh God, I don’t know what I thought.”
“You’re shakin’ like a leaf, lass. Come on. Let’s get you to your dressing room.”
She fell onto the loveseat the second they came through the door.
“Do you want a drink? Some water?”
“No. I just need...to catch my breath. Sean, I was so scared. So unbelievably scared.”
“Aye, I can see that with m’own eyes. Stay here. I’ll go have a look-see.”
“No.” She reached out and gripped his hands. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“Relax, lass. Lock the door. Don’t open it until you know it’s me, back again. Okay?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. “Don’t be long. Please.”
“I won’t,” he told her, squeezing her hand. “Just stay put.”
The wait was torture. She shot the lock, but even the bolted door couldn’t calm her mounting anxiety. Someone had tried to scare her in the arena, she knew it, felt it. It wasn’t her imagination.
“Tiffany, let me in,” Sean called, five minutes later.
“Well?” she said, when he came through the door.
“As far as I can see, everything’s fine. The lights are on and the ice is empty. Some of the group are just starting to get here. Are you sure about what happened, lass? Positive?”
