Kitabı oku: «The Complete Christmas Collection», sayfa 19

“I haven’t been with anyone in a long time, Rory.”

Her hands had reached his shoulders. Feeling her go still at the status of his sex life, or maybe the fact that he’d so frankly admitted it, he turned as he spoke, catching her wrist as her hand fell.

“Why the questions?”

Beneath his grip, her pulse jumped.

Rory wasn’t sure how to answer. She hadn’t expected him to tell her how long it had been since he’d slept with a woman. That hadn’t been what she was asking. Or maybe it had been and she just hadn’t let herself acknowledge her need to know. The queries had started out simply as a defense against the undeniable emotional pull she felt toward him. She hadn’t allowed herself to consider why his being in a relationship with someone should even matter to her. But it had. And he wasn’t. And all she could do now was scramble for an explanation that wouldn’t betray how very much he already mattered to her. And he did, in ways she was only beginning to comprehend.

“I guess I wanted to know if you were involved with anyone.” She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Just curious, you know?”

In the pale light, she looked impossibly young to him. Incredibly tempting. Mostly, she looked much as she had last night. Far more vulnerable than she wanted to be, and trying hard for a little bravado.

He saw weariness in her guileless features. He’d heard that same drained quality in her admission. It was almost as if as late as it was, as long as the day had been, she was simply too tired to keep the bravado in place.

“I’m not,” he assured her. “I haven’t been involved with anyone in years.” Involvement implied an attachment he’d avoided for the better part of a decade. A need to be there for someone. A need to let that someone count on him to be there for her. A need to know she’d be there for him. He’d had absolutely no interest in that sort of commitment. Until now.

“Just curious, huh?”

“A little.”

If she’d been trying for nonchalance, she failed miserably.

“You know, Rory,” he murmured, self-preservation fighting the need to tug her toward him. “Now would probably be a good time for me to let you get back to bed.”

“Probably,” she agreed softly. “But I think I’ll just go downstairs and read for a while. Seems like a good night to tackle the business plan.” She lifted her chin, gave him a tiny smile. “I tried, but I can’t sleep.”

The simple admission pulled at him, the helplessness in it, the weary frustration of trying to escape what kept a person from rest. What got him, though, was the loneliness she tried to hide with the quick duck of her head.

She’d made no attempt to reclaim her hand, and he couldn’t quite make himself let go. Unable to shake the thought of how alone she’d seemed cuddling her son on the boy’s bed that morning, realizing how she undoubtedly spent many of her nights, he put self-preservation on hold.

“So what kept you awake? Old worries?” he asked, because he knew how long she’d struggled with them. “Or new ones?”

“Both.”

“Today probably didn’t help.”

He probably hadn’t helped. He just wasn’t sure how else he could have accomplished what they’d both needed for her to know. Yet while he’d been busy making sure she was aware of everything that needed to be done around the place to keep it up and how to take care of the problems she could expect, the weight of even more responsibility had piled on her shoulders.

“Today was actually a good day.” He and Tyler weren’t the only ones who’d thought so. “The worry part is just always there. It’s okay during the day when I’m busy, but at night...”

“You can’t shut it off,” he concluded for her.

“I managed for a few minutes tonight. But then it all came right back.”

“What was it about tonight that helped?”

She lifted her glance.

“You,” Rory said quietly. Of everything he had done for her in the past two days, everything he’d done in the weeks before, what he had done since yesterday had mattered to her the most. “You being here.”

Especially tonight, she thought. Tonight, for a while, anyway, because of him she’d been able to shut everything out and concentrate on nothing but the soothing sounds of the rain still pattering on the roof. Because he was there, because he had her back, because he had everything under control, for the first time in well over a year she’d had a day when she hadn’t had to make every decision on her own. She hadn’t had to worry about how she would get a tree home for her son, or get one out of her driveway. Or remove the one that had blocked the street. Because of him, they had heat and lights. And for that day, anyway, she hadn’t had to handle everything thrown at her alone.

Erik brushed the back of her hand with his thumb, conscious of the small weight of it where he held it on his thigh. The thought that he had somehow given her some measure of relief had just made it that much harder to let her go. Not until she was ready, anyway.

“Do you want to go downstairs?” he asked.

She met his eyes, looked away with a small shake of her head. “Not really.”

“Do you want to go back to Tyler’s room?”

Another small shake. “Not yet.”

“Are you cold?”

“A little.”

He knew what she needed even before he asked. He asked anyway. “Could you use a pair of arms?”

That was all he was offering. Just to hold her. This wasn’t about wanting her between her sheets. Heaven knew it wasn’t about self-protection. It was about giving her a break.

She didn’t have to say a word for him to know that his arms were exactly what she needed. But her quiet “Please” was all it took for him to rise and turn out the bathroom light. The night-light now filtering through the doorway cast the room in shadows.

“Come here,” he said, and tugged her to her feet.

Leading her to the side of the bed, he pulled the comforter over the sheets and propped both pillows against the headboard. He didn’t want her in the bed, just on it.

The distinction seemed just as clear to her as she snagged the wadded throw blanket from the foot of the bed and sat against the far pillow, hugging her arms around her knees when the mattress sank beneath his weight. With his back against his pillow he drew the throw over them both and pulled her knees toward him, his arm low around her back, his hand at the curve of her waist.

“How’s this?” he asked, coaxing her head to his shoulder.

He felt her sigh, the long, quiet leak of air leaving her nearly limp against the side of his body.

For a moment, Rory couldn’t say a word. She could barely believe she was actually where she had so badly wanted to be. It didn’t matter that his jeans felt rough against her bare calf, or that the contrast of his heat and the cool air against the back of her neck made her shiver. She could hear the heavy beat of his heart beneath her ear, could feel it where her hand rested on his hard, bare chest. It didn’t even matter that for some strange reason her throat had suddenly gone raw, making her quiet “Good” sound a little tight.

His chin brushed the top of her head as he settled himself more comfortably.

“Good,” he echoed, slowly skimming his hand over her upper arm.

She swallowed, then made herself take a deep, even breath. “Erik?” she finally said.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

A tired smile entered his voice. “For holding you?” It was hardly a hardship, he thought. She felt wonderful curled up against him. Small, feminine, trusting. The only difficult part was trying not to think of how curvy she truly was with his hand at the dip of her waist, inches from the curve of her hip.

Wanting distraction, he smoothed his hand back up her arm. The herbal scent of her hair teased him, filling his lungs every time he breathed.

“For all of it. But yes.” Her tone grew muffled. “For this, too.”

He wasn’t sure what all she meant. It could have been anything. He just forgot to wonder what might have meant so much to her when he caught the hitch in her voice.

He started to tip up her chin.

She wouldn’t let him. Instead, he cupped his hand to the side of her face, brushed it with his thumb and caught the moisture gathered at the corner of her eye.

His heart gave a strange little squeeze. “Hey.” Don’t do that, he thought. He could handle anything but tears. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Honest,” she insisted, keeping her head right where it was. “Absolutely nothing is wrong.” She tried to draw a deep breath, made it halfway before it caught. Swallowing, she tried again. “For the first time in...forever,” she said, because that was how it felt, “right now there really isn’t a thing wrong.”

Which was what had brought the sting behind her eyelids, she realized. Not because of sadness, fear or grief. But because of an amazing, unfamiliar and totally unexpected sense of relief. She knew it wouldn’t last long. That it couldn’t. It was just for now. While he held her. So just for now, relief was what she felt.

“Then why tears?”

Because of what you let me feel, she thought. “Because I’m tired,” was easier to admit to him.

She felt his lips against the top of her head. “Then go to sleep.”

“I don’t want to.”

The slow shake of her head brushed her hair against his chest. Letting his fingers sift through that dark silk, he gave a small chuckle. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to miss you holding me.”

It had to be the hour, the lateness of it, the need for sleep himself. Or maybe it was his need to let her know he’d be there for her in the morning if she’d just let herself rest, but he didn’t question what he did as he slipped down, bringing her with him.

His lips grazed the spot on her cheek where they’d literally bumped heads that morning. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

Turning her face to him, she whispered, “Why not?”

He’d been about to tell her to go to sleep, that he wasn’t going anywhere. But with her sweet breath filling his lungs, the feel of her supple little body playing pure havoc with his intention, he leaned closer.

“Because you’ll make me forget why I shouldn’t do this,” he murmured, and brushed his mouth over hers.

Once.

Again.

“Or this.” He carried that gentle caress between her eyebrows, to the space where the twin lines formed when she was worried.

He cupped his hand at the side of her face.

“Or this.”

The admission vibrated against her mouth a faint second before he increased the pressure ever so slightly. His lips were firm, cool and far softer than anything that looked so hard had a right to be, but it was the feel of him tipping her head to gain the access he wanted that had her reaching for him herself.

Relief gave way to something infinitely less soothing. It barely occurred to her that this was exactly what she hadn’t wanted when she found herself opening to him, flowing toward him, kissing him back. She’d known what she would feel if she ever got this close to him again. And she’d been right. She felt everything she had when he’d kissed her before: that deep, awful longing, the yearning to simply sink into his compelling strength, his incredible gentleness, and have him take away the ache in her chest. To relieve the void, the emptiness. Only now with her fingers curling around his biceps and his hand slipping to the small of her back, pulling her closer, the hollowness inside her seemed to be receding, and the emptiness felt more like...need.

When he lifted his head long moments later, his features had gone as dark as his voice. “I think you’d better remind me.”

Her own voice came as a thready whisper. “About what?”

He touched the first of the short line of buttons on her nightshirt. His fingers trailed down, found her soft breasts unrestrained beneath thermal cotton.

His lips hovered over hers. “Why we should stop.”

Surrounded by his heat, that warmth gathering low in her belly, her voice went thin. “I don’t remember.”

She didn’t know what he saw in her shadowed face when he lifted his head. Whatever it was caused his body to go beautifully taut before his hand slipped over her hip.

“Me, either. But if you do,” he warned, the low tones of his voice sounding half serious, half teasing, “stop me.”

She was about to tell him that wasn’t going to happen, but he lowered his mouth to hers just then and she almost forgot to breathe.

There was no demand in his kiss. Just an invitation to a heady exploration that was deep, deliberate and debilitatingly thorough.

Winding her arms around his neck, she kissed him back just a little more urgently. With him, because of him, she finally felt something other than alone and uncertain, or the need to be strong.

She’d been so frightened by her doubts, so afraid that what she’d thought had been real in her marriage hadn’t been at all. If she’d been so wrong about all of it, that meant she couldn’t trust her judgment about anything, or anyone, else. But he’d helped her see that she hadn’t been wrong about what had mattered most. And more important than anything else he’d taught her, he was teaching her to trust in herself.

She could love him for that alone.

The thought had her clinging a little more tightly, kissing him a little more fiercely. It hurt to know how much of herself she’d let others take away from her. But he was taking that pain away, too, allowing parts of her to come back, allowing feelings she hadn’t realized she still possessed to finally surface. For the life of her she had no idea why those thoughts made the back of her eyelids start to burn again. She just knew that at that moment, nothing mattered to her so much as the sense of reprieve she was only now beginning to feel. And the fact that it was he who had finally allowed it.

Erik caught her small moan as she pressed closer. Or maybe the needy little sound had been his own. There wasn’t a cell in his body that wasn’t aware of how beautifully female she was, and of how badly he wanted her beneath him. To him, she was perfect. Small, supple and infinitely softer than his harder, rougher angles and planes.

He would have just held her if that had been what she’d wanted. It would have about killed him, but he’d have done it. Yet, incredibly, she seemed to hunger for the feel of him as much as he ached for her.

Stretched out beside her, he drew his hand over the nightshirt covering her belly, letting it drift upward, pulling soft cotton away with it. He kissed her slowly, tracing her soft curves, allowing himself the sweet torture of finally knowing the silken feel of her body, the honeyed taste of her skin. He didn’t know what to make of the tears he tasted again at the corners of her eyes when he kissed her there, or the almost desperate way she whispered, “No,” when he started to pull back to make sure she was all right. Slipping her fingers through his hair, she drew him back to her, meeting him in a kiss that nearly rocked him to his core.

Gritting his teeth against the need she created, he skimmed the bit of silk she wore down her long legs. It landed somewhere beside the bed, along with his jeans.

He’d left his billfold on her nightstand. Some miracle of common sense made him drag himself from her long enough to fumble for the small packet inside. He’d barely rolled their protection over himself when she curled into him, seeking him as he sought her.

The intimacy of gentle exploration had created its own tormenting heat. What they created as they moved together now, his name a whisper on her lips, had him thinking he’d never be able to get enough of her before that heat turned white-hot and he was barely thinking at all.

Chapter Ten

Rory burrowed deeper under her comforter. A delicious lethargy pulled at her, coaxing her back toward sleep. But she heard voices. Male ones. One sweet, the other deep.

Sleep was suddenly the last thing on her mind.

Tyler was awake. Erik was with him. Through the two-inch-wide gap he’d left between the door and the jamb, she could see the light from Tyler’s bathroom faintly illuminating the hall. The gap in the curtains next to the bed revealed a thin sliver of gray.

It was daylight. That meant it was somewhere after seven-thirty. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept that late.

She threw off the covers. Nearly tripping over her nightshirt, she snatched it up and moved to the door. They were just disappearing down the stairs, Tyler in his pj’s, Erik in his undershirt and jeans. From the conversation, it sounded as though they were discussing breakfast. Specifically, which one of them got to slice the bananas.

Minutes later, thoughts of how she’d practically fallen apart in Erik’s arms adding to the anxiety of wanting to hurry, she’d pulled herself together enough—in the physical sense, anyway—to head into the hall herself.

Slipping a blue corduroy shirt over a cotton turtleneck and yoga pants, she could hear her little guy as she reached the first step.

“Can I help you work today?” he asked. “An’ can you help put my train around the tree?”

The low tones of Erik’s voice drifted up the stairway. “I think all I’m going to do out there this morning is check the gutters. It’s too dangerous for you to help.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a long way up there.”

“How come you need to check ’em?”

“Because I need to see if the weight of the ice pulled them from their brackets.”

“Why?”

She heard a deep, indulgent chuckle. “Because if they’re not lined up right, the rain will pour straight off the roof instead of draining to the downspouts and get you and your mom all wet.”

Her foot hit the bottom step just as she heard a pondered little “Oh.”

Tyler hesitated. “Can we do the train after, then?”

Across the entry, she could see Tyler sitting in front of the lit tree, the blanket she’d covered Erik with last night wrapped around his shoulders. Expectation beamed from his little profile.

Erik sat on the edge of the hearth, his gray undershirt stretched across his broad shoulders as he closed the glass doors on the growing fire.

“I’ll have to see how it goes, but I don’t know that I’ll have time for that, Ty.” He picked a stray bit of bark from the stone beside him, tossed it onto the logs in the curved wood basket. “Now that the rain’s melted the ice, I need to finish here, then get to my own place.”

“You’re going home?”

There was no mistaking her son’s disappointment at that bit of news. She heard it in his small voice, could practically feel it in him as she watched Erik look up at her an instant before Tyler turned and looked up himself.

Shoving her fingers through her hair, partially undoing what she’d managed to arrange with a few random strokes of a brush, she found it infinitely easier to meet Tyler’s sad little face.

“Good morning, sweetie,” she murmured, bending to give him a hug. “How did you sleep?”

“Good,” came his usual, though decidedly disheartened, reply.

She nudged back his hair, wanting to ease away his sudden seriousness. What Erik had done hadn’t been deliberate. There had been nothing but kindness in his voice as he’d explained why he wouldn’t be staying. But the painful proof of how her little boy could come to rely on him, could even come to love him, only added to the confusion of wants and uncertainties tearing at her as she kissed the soft, tousled hair at the crown of his head.

“I’ll help you with your train later, okay?”

“’Kay,” he reluctantly replied.

“So, what’s up down here?” she asked him and, as casually as she could, straightened to meet the caution in Erik’s smile.

He rose himself, all six feet plus of him, and came to a stop in front of her.

His gray gaze skimmed her face. Slowly assessing. Unapologetically intimate. “The plan so far was to turn on the tree, then build a fire.” His eyes held hers. “Then what, Ty?” he asked, since the child hadn’t answered his mom.

“Breakfast,” came the slightly more enthused reply. “And cartoons?” he added hopefully from below them.

“And coffee?” Erik asked with that disarming arch of his eyebrow.

“Definitely coffee,” she agreed.

Grabbing the remote, she punched in the channel she usually only let Tyler watch as a treat. With him on his way to the sofa with his blanket, she headed for the kitchen, Erik’s footfalls behind her matching every heavy thud of her heart.

She pulled the carafe from the coffeemaker, turned to see him watching her from beside the sink.

Holding the carafe under the faucet, she turned the water on.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked, her hushed voice muffled further by the sound of running water.

“Because I was already awake. When I heard him in the bathroom, I figured he’d come looking for you, so I intercepted him before he could. I thought you might not want him to find us in bed together.

“Besides,” he added quietly, “you were out. You barely moved when I pulled my arm from under you.”

The reminder of how she’d fallen asleep tucked against his side, their bare limbs tangled, had heat rising in her cheeks.

“I can’t believe I didn’t hear him.” It was so unlike her not to hear her son. “I never sleep that hard.” Except with this man beside her, she obviously had.

“Thank you for the rescue,” she all but whispered.

He turned off the water for her. With Tyler hidden by the sofa, he lifted his hand, curved his fingers at the side of her neck.

“I’m going to leave in a while,” he told her, brushing his thumb over the lobe of her ear. “Pax said everything was okay at the boatworks yesterday, but I have some things I need to do. There’s something here I want to check first, though. Is there anything you can think of that you need me to do before I go?”

In the past eight hours, his touch had become as exciting to her as it was calming, as disturbing as it was comforting. He had reawakened her heart and her senses and she’d never felt as confused as she did now, standing there desperately wanting him to pull her to him and hoping he wouldn’t.

He’d said he needed to leave, that he had things he needed to do. He’d already talked with Pax, asked about the condition of their properties, their business. She’d heard him tell Tyler that he needed to check on his own place. She knew his entire life was on the other side of the sound. In her need for the temporary escape he’d offered, she’d forgotten that for a few critical hours last night.

“You don’t need to check my gutters, Erik.”

“Yeah, I do,” he said, thinking of her lovely, long limbs and how perfect they’d felt wrapped around him. He’d really prefer that none of them got broken. “It’ll save you having to do it yourself.”

“I’d have to do it if you weren’t here.”

The hint of defensiveness in her tone sounded all too familiar.

“But I’m here now,” he pointed out, looking a little more closely to see the unease he’d missed in her moments ago.

“You can just tell me what I’m supposed to look for. I’ll need to know, anyway.”

Caution curled through him. “It’s raining out there.”

“So I’ll wait until it stops.”

“That could be June.”

He had a point. She just wasn’t prepared to concede it. “Is there a particular bracket you noticed?”

There was. The one at the front of the garage that would keep water from pouring over her and Tyler when they came and went from the car. He’d noticed it yesterday and had meant to walk around the garage and the main building to see if any other gaps were visible. But this wasn’t about a bracket. It wasn’t about a gutter. From the uncertainty underlying her quiet defensiveness, he’d bet his business this wasn’t about anything but what had happened between them last night.

Not totally sure what he felt about it himself, not sure what to do about any of it with Tyler wandering over in search of cereal, Erik decided it best to just go do what he’d planned to do anyway.

“I’m going to get the ladder from the basement. I’ll be back when the coffee’s ready.”

It took eight minutes to brew a full pot of coffee. It was another ten before she heard the rattle of the ladder being propped against the wall in the mudroom and the faint squeak of the door to the kitchen when it opened.

Tyler had just handed her his empty bowl and was on his way past the island to go get dressed when she heard him tell Erik he’d be right back.

“Take your time, sport.” Ruffling the boy’s hair as he passed, Erik looked to where she again stood at the sink.

Still holding the bowl, she watched his easy smile fade to something less definable as he pushed back the navy Merrick & Sullivan ball cap he’d taken from his truck. It looked as if he’d shaken the rain from his cap and swiped what he could from his leather jacket. Beneath it, the charcoal pullover he’d pulled on before he’d gone out was dry, but the darker spots on the thighs of his jeans and the hems looked damp.

“You have two broken brackets,” he told her, conscious of Tyler still moving up the stairs. “I’ll pick up new ones and be back with them in the morning. I leave for my folks’ house in San Diego tomorrow afternoon, so that’s the only chance I’ll have.”

She set the bowl in the sink, picked up the mug she’d taken out for him and poured him his coffee.

Tomorrow was Christmas Eve.

She held the heavy mug out to him.

“You know, Erik,” she said as he took it, “you really don’t need to come all the way over here to fix those brackets.”

The mug settled on the counter beside her.

“I know I don’t. And I don’t need you telling me that,” he insisted, and skimmed her cheek with his knuckles.

The small contact compounded the anxiety knotting behind her breastbone.

Taking a small step back, needing to break his touch as much as the hold he’d gained on her heart, her voice dropped to an agonized whisper. “I can’t do this.”

Even as his hand fell, his shoulders rose with a slow, deep breath. His hard, handsome features were suddenly impossible to read.

“By ‘this’ you mean the sex.”

“No. Yes.” Shaking her head, she shoved her fingers through her hair. “I mean, it’s not just that. Making love with you was amazing,” she admitted, because it had been. “It’s that I can’t let myself feel what I’m starting to feel for you.” What she already did feel, she thought, and which totally terrified her. “I can’t let myself count on you to do things for me. Or for you to be around to talk to. Or for you to be here. If I do, it would be too easy to rely on you even more.”

Apparently nothing she’d said explained why she was withdrawing from him. If anything, Erik just looked a little mystified. She figured that was because of what she’d admitted about the sex part. But then, she always had had a problem filtering what she said to him.

His eyes narrowed on hers. “Why not?”

Crossing her arms over the knot in her stomach, her voice dropped another notch. “Because I’m not going to set myself up to lose something I don’t even have. It doesn’t make sense to do that,” she admitted, not sure she was making sense to him. “I can’t do that to myself. And I definitely can’t do it to my son. It will only hurt Tyler if I let him grow any more attached to you than he already is, Erik. I know people will come and go from his life. People already have, but I’ve never seen him take to anyone the way he has to you.” She’d done a lousy job of protecting herself. That failing would not keep her from protecting her son. “Since the arrangement between us is temporary anyway, it just seems best to back away and keep business...business.”

Her heart hurt. Rubbing the awful ache with her fingertips, she watched his jaw tighten as he stepped back.

Erik wasn’t at all sure what he felt at that moment. He wasn’t even sure what he felt for this woman, beyond an undeniable physical need and a sense of protectiveness he wasn’t familiar with at all. All he knew for certain was that they had stepped over a line she clearly had not been prepared to cross.

Recriminations piled up like cars in a train wreck. He’d known all along that it would be a mistake to get involved with her. He’d known from the moment he’d met her that she was dealing with far more than he’d gone through when his marriage had ended. What he didn’t understand was how he could have forgotten that his sole goal in agreeing to help her was to have no reason to return to this place once his obligation to Cornelia had been satisfied.

The fact that he hadn’t considered any of that last night had his own defenses slamming into place. Having done enough damage already, he wasn’t about to complicate their relationship any further. Or let her push him any farther away.

“Just answer one question for me.”

“If I can.”

“Last night. The tears. Were they because you were thinking of Curt?”

He figured he had to be some sort of masochist for wanting to know if that was what really had been going on with her while they’d been making love. No man wanted to think a woman had another man on her mind while he had her in his arms. Still, for some reason he couldn’t begin to explain, he needed to know.

For a moment, Rory said nothing. Partly because the question caught her so off guard. Partly because it was only now that she realized her only thought last night about the man she’d married was how Erik had lessened the void he’d left.

She couldn’t begin to explain everything she’d felt last night. Or what she felt now because of his question.

It seemed easiest to just go to the heart of what he really wanted to know.

“The only person in that bed with me was you, Erik.”

He heard something a little raw in her quiet reply, something that made her look as if he’d just totally exposed how absorbed she’d been in only him—which was no doubt why she stood there with her arms crossed so protectively and her eyes begging him to go.