a word the entire drive home, not that he wasn’t exhausted. After working a twelve-hour day, he’d needed that ridiculous outing like a hole in the head. It was after midnight, and no wonder he was a bit…taciturn.
It undoubtedly had nothing at all to do with that slight oversensitivity he’d always had on the subject of one Andrew Alexander.
“Brittany, wouldn’t you like to have a cup of tea with me before we go to sleep?” Elizabeth paused hopefully in the doorway to the kitchen.
“Honestly, not tonight.” Bett gave her mother a hug and a smile. “I’m really bushed, and the alarm will be ringing at five-thirty.”
“Maybe I should go to bed then, too,” Elizabeth said absently.
“Good idea.”
“Is it supposed to be nice tomorrow? I didn’t hear a weather report after dinner.”
Bett put one foot on the stairs. “Good night, Mom.” One could get drawn into these rambling conversations for an endless period of time. Elizabeth could discuss for up to an hour whether or not she wanted to go to bed. Bett understood; night was the loneliest time, the time when Elizabeth missed her husband most, the time when she needed someone close to her. Tonight, though, she was stuck with a daughter who felt somewhere between old- rag tired and porcupine edgy.
“Maybe I should work on one of the afghans for a while. If I don’t get started, they’ll never get done.” Elizabeth peered up at her daughter at the top of the stairs.
Bett turned the corner out of sight, that slight prick of guilt gnawing inside the way it always gnawed when she failed her mother, even in the littlest things. Behind the closed door of the bathroom, she washed her face, rugged off the smocked dress and tossed it in the wicker laundry bin. To accuse her mother of selfishness was absurd, when the lady would positively break her back to “do for” and please her loved ones. But it
The door to the master bedroom was closed. Silently, Bett turned the knob and tiptoed into the dark room wearing only her bra and half-slip. Zach had crashed; she could see his long frame sprawled on the bed in the shadows. Slipping off the rest of her clothes, she slid slowly down between the cool sheets. The mattress and pillow cushioned her weary body. For a moment, she lay on her back, and then instinctively turned, sliding an arm around Zach’s waist to cuddle next to him.
It was difficult to cuddle next to steel.
Zach, though totally still and silent, was not asleep. Every muscle from his neck to his spine could have won an award for stiffness. Since he hadn’t said anything, Bett knew he didn’t want to talk. She hesitated unhappily. There were times to give a mate space, and times when that space only made things worse. After putting in the grueling workdays he’d been putting in, and after a fiasco like the evening just past, Zach was certainly entitled to a little “let me alone” time. Only she had the feeling he was annoyed by something completely different.
She leaned back a little, staying on her side. Slowly, with an almost imperceptible touch, her palms smoothed up Zach’s back and her fingers curled on both sides of his neck. His muscles actually tightened at her touch. She paid no attention. Letting the heels of her hands rest on his bare shoulders, she pressed her fingers lightly around his collarbones, her thumbs rubbing gently into the nape of his neck and his scalp.
Gradually, her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, to the black and white and gray of moonlight. Her hands looked very white next to Zach’s dark skin, a sensuous contrast. Her gentle touch turned bolder, as she massaged muscles that didn’t want to unknot, concentrating on his most vulnerable spots, absorbed in the challenge. Her fingertips slowly took on the warmth of his skin and fed it back to him. As the knots smoothed out, her own tension eased and turned into lazy pleasure at the touch of him. She tested the effectiveness of her treatment with her forefinger. She pushed just slightly at his back; he immediately collapsed on his stomach. Zach was a disgraceful sucker for a back rub.
Silently, she tugged the sheet off altogether and straddled his back, feeling a thousand totally sexual nerve endings tingle with interest at the feel of her bare thighs against his bare hips. It was so very dark. Barely a hint of moonlight strayed in through the windows; not a sound intruded in the still room. Her hands rubbed and kneaded and smoothed. Arching forward, she massaged his shoulders, the tips of her breasts gently teasing the smooth skin of his back. Then she worked down, vertebra by vertebra, her legs tightening around his hips in natural balance as she moved. Her hands seemed to become part of his skin, and when she heard his groan of pleasure she smiled, but didn’t stop.
Only when she was certain every tendon had gone limp, every muscle had relaxed, did her fingertips change their rhythm to a slow caress of circles and butterfly patterns.
“About a hundred years ago,” she whispered lazily, “I understand that a woman used chicken blood to convince a lover that he was the first.” She traced the line of his spine with a long, gentle finger. “I don’t think they sell it at the drugstores nowadays.”
Even in the darkness, she could see his thick black lashes flutter upward. So he thought she didn’t know what was bothering him? She leaned forward, letting her nipples rub back and forth between his shoulder blades.
“So maybe I never should have told you about Andrew? Or maybe you shouldn’t have asked. How was I to know it was going to bother you so much?” Her lips pressed tightly on the nape of his neck, then trailed along the curl of his shoulder in a series of very light kisses. “Or I could have told you he was a bastard. That the sex was dreadful.” Bett took a breath, and then let her tongue erase all those little kisses on the way back to his neck. “Loving with you is perfect, you know. There isn’t any comparison, and never has been. But I refuse to lie to you, Zach, out of…pride. Yes, I had another relationship, and it was a very good one. I grew up because of it; I was ready to learn what love was and what I wanted from a relationship because of it. Without Andrew, Zach, the two of us might never have been. So if you expect me to be ashamed of what happened before I even met you-”
One instant Bett was perched on his back and the next she was sprawled beneath him. Amazingly, Zach no longer had the lazily relaxed qualities of a man ready for sleep. Something very definitely alive and unyieldingly firm was pressing against her abdomen. Zach’s skin was warm and vibrant, and his mouth anchored on hers, interrupting her speculative monologue. Her arms slid lightly around his neck as she savored all the allure in that kiss, all the tender, sweet, intimate taste of her lover. Only after an age did his mouth lift from hers. “There are times you make me feel like a fool, Bett. So the old mountebank got to me,” he grumbled softly. “Haven’t you ever felt jealousy?”
Her fingers traced the line of his jaw. “Definitely. When I see a woman look at you in a certain way, I feel this ugly, smothering urge to lock you up out of harm’s way. And when I think of women you slept with before we met, I could paint my fingernails emerald. But, Zach, it’s not the same.”
He raised some of his weight from her by balancing on his elbows, his lips still dipping down to her nose, her cheek, into her hair. “
“Because I don’t want you to.”
His smile pressed on her smile in a lazy kiss. “Two bits, that isn’t rational.”
“So?”
Zach’s laughter rumbled from deep in his chest. He drew her closer to him, holding her tight, engulfing her with his warmth. His leg slid between hers as they rolled to their sides. The motion was intimate, their change of mood mutual. Bett’s breasts swelled against him, aching as his palm possessively captured one sensitive orb.
She nearly jumped to the ceiling when she heard the gentle tap on the door. The door opened just a crack, about the time the top sheet was hurriedly being rustled into place.
“Brittany?” Elizabeth whispered. “Don’t wake Zach, darling. I figured you wouldn’t be asleep just yet…”
She couldn’t find her crochet hook. Surely Bett had seen it? And in the meantime, Bett used to stock cinnamon tea; Elizabeth had looked all over the kitchen…
Bett rose, grabbed her robe and belted it around her on the way downstairs. A half hour later, she returned to bed. Zach was still awake, but the mood was clearly broken. Exhaustion claimed both of them as she curled at his side.
“Bett?” Zach murmured just before sleep overcame them.
“Hmm?”
“Your mother is a very nice lady.”
“Hmm,” Bett responded again.
“That’s the third time this week that she’s prevented her daughter from being ravished. Now, is it me, or does
