Private Pleasures

'Oh, I'm sure I can think of something,' he murmured, wiggling his brows suggestively.

Hands on her hips, Mariah scanned the board games stacked on the top shelf in the entryway closet of Mark's mountain house, searching for a way to pass a few hours until bedtime. As busy and enjoyable her afternoon with Grey had been, she wasn't the least bit tired. If anything, after their talk she felt invigorated and hopeful, and nowhere near ready to end an almost-perfect day.

Hearing Grey pad barefoot into the living room from the kitchen, she glanced over her shoulder and watched him set two glasses on the coffee table and pour wine into each. Behind him, a small fire crackled in the hearth, taking the slight mountain chill from the room.

He lifted his head and met her gaze, his mouth quirking in a smile that started a pleasant tickle in the pit of her belly. 'What are you doing?'

'I found some games earlier and thought it would be fun for us to play one.'

He adjusted the only lamp in the room to low, giving the room an intimate setting. 'I vote for strip poker.'

She shot him a pointed look. 'You know how lousy I am at card games.'

'That's what I was counting on,' he drawled, a sexy gleam in his eyes.

Shaking her head, but unable to summon any real irritation at his obvious scheme, she glanced back at the flat boxes on the shelf, and spotted one of her favorites. 'How about a game of Scrabble?'

He settled himself on the couch. 'I've never played before.'

'You're kidding?' His serious expression told her he was not. She reached for the game, deciding it was time he learned one of her family's favorite pastimes. 'Scrabble is one of those ail-American games that never go out of style. It's right up there with Monopoly.'

'I've never played Monopoly, either.'

She gaped at him, shocked and amazed that someone had survived childhood without the pleasure, fun and frustration of landing on the square that said, 'Do Not Pass GO, Go Directly To Jail. Do Not Collect $200.' She approached the couch, board game in hand. 'How about backgammon?'

'Nope.'

'Yahtzee?'

He gave his head a negative shake.

Setting the Scrabble game on the coffee table, she sat on the cushion next to his. 'What games did you play?'

He handed her a glass of wine and took a long swallow of his own. Finally he said, 'I was a whiz at solitaire.'

She was certain he was teasing, until she saw a flicker of something truthful and raw in his gaze. Solitaire. As in one. As in alone.

She tried to dismiss the swell of compassion filling her chest, knowing he wouldn't want any part of it. 'Your parents never played games with you?'

'My mother was too busy trying to please my father to play games with a child,' he said blandly, watching the pale gold liquid swirl in his glass. 'And my father wasn't exactly the bonding type.'

She took a drink of wine, thinking of her own happy childhood, filled with wonderful memories and an abundance of love and laughter. Her parents had always been there for her and Jade, to support them, guide them and give them the best possible childhood they could. The memories of her youth were fond ones, the kind of memories she hoped to pass on to her own children one day.

'Didn't you do anything as a family?' she asked. 'Camping? Barbecues? Going to the beach?'

'Nope. I was lucky if my father showed up for dinner at night and cuffed the back of my head in greeting.' His lips slashed into a sardonic smile. 'My parents didn't exactly marry under traditional circumstances.'

She tucked her legs beneath her, settling closer to him. 'What do you mean?'

Grey squeezed his eyes shut and rested his head back on the couch. Damn. She was going to make him exhume old memories. But isn't that what he'd promised her he'd try to do? Give her a piece of his past and share the reasons why marriage and children held little appeal for him?

Blinking his lashes open, he released a tight breath and let the truth spill out. 'The reason my parents married is because my mother got pregnant with me. My father owned up to his responsibility, but I learned early on that I was more of an inconvenience to Aaron Nichols than anything else. A reminder of the mistake he'd made and the price he'd had to pay for it.'

Mariah looked horrified at the prospect. 'Surely your father loved you.'

Harsh laughter escaped him. 'If he did, I never heard it, nor did he show it.' His mother hadn't been one for open displays of affection, either, at least not with him. Oh, he was sure in her own way his mother cared for him, but never had she told him, 'I love you,' and he had never spoken those words. To anyone. How could he when they'd mock everything he'd experienced as a child?

'My father was great at dishing out insults and making me feel worthless,' he went on, recounting the events of his childhood. 'Like the time I was playing ball with a friend in our front yard and I missed a catch, tripped over my own foot and fell. My father was standing out on the porch watching, waiting for something, anything to give him an excuse to ridicule me. He immediately pounced on my clumsiness and proceeded to bellow out what a clumsy idiot I was for falling on my face and missing such an easy catch. And from there his ranting escalated, as it always did.'

Shock transformed Mariah's features and seemed to render her speechless. Well, he wasn't through shocking her yet. Standing, he walked to the fireplace, grabbed the poker and jabbed at the dying embers in the hearth.

'My friend was smart enough to leave, but I had nowhere to go. While the neighborhood watched, my father yelled about how I'd never amount to anything and how miserable I made his life. And while my father humiliated me, my mother cowered on the front porch and watched the whole thing.' His stomach churned at the recollection.of his father's verbal abuse, and his mother's weakness and inability to help her child or herself. 'Then he grabbed me by the shirt collar and dragged me into the house to dole out more insults.'

'Your mother didn't say anything?' she asked incredulously.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, a sardonic grin on his lips. 'She never did.'

She gasped, her eyes rounding in astonishment. 'Why in the world not?'

'My mother was too damned afraid of losing my father, of making him mad. She never said a word, and she never interfered with my father's tirades, even when they were directed at her.' And in the end it hadn't matter that she'd been submissive; Vivian Nichols never gained the love she'd craved from her husband, the kind of attention Grey had so desperately wanted from his mother when he'd been a child.

He tossed another log on the fire and watched the sparks filter up the chimney. 'When I was a little boy, all I wanted was to please my father, but I learned early on there was no pleasing Aaron Nichols. He was hell-bent on despising me, and taking his anger and hostility out on me and occasionally on my mother.'

'You were an innocent child, Grey!'

He gave a shrug suffer than the casual, who-gives-a-damn gesture he'd been striving for. 'Aaron Nichols was a cold, heartless bastard, and to this day I don't understand what my mother saw in him or how she could supposedly love someone so cruel. I swear, it was a blessing in disguise when he died in a car accident.'

Except his mother hadn't learned a thing. After a brief grieving period she'd gone on with her quest to find love and acceptance, looking for it in all the wrong places and latching on to any man who seemed the least bit interested in her. Many had used her, a few had married her, but none had loved her the way she was searching for. Unconditionally. Faithfully. Forever.

Grey didn't think there was any such thing.

'Do you still talk to your mother?' Mariah asked quietly.

He went back to poking the logs, just to rid himself of some of his restless energy. 'Three times a year,' he said emotionlessly, because that's how he felt inside. Empty and hollow. 'Her birthday, mine and Christmas. We never seem to have much to say to one another. She's got her life and I have mine.'

He heard her sigh regretfully from behind him. 'Grey-'

He turned around, his grip tightening on the metal rod in his hand. 'My childhood wasn't exactly ideal, was it?' he interrupted, not wanting any of the sympathy she'd been about to offer. He'd come to terms with the reality of his harsh and undesirable childhood long ago. His mother's weaknesses had taught him to be a stronger person, and his father's disregard and vicious insults had made him more determined to be successful in life, even if his