“Have you ever made love to a queen?”
He shook his head and grinned. “You’re my first.”
She grabbed his wrist and led him to the sunroom where she’d been watching television. He undressed her with slow languid hands and made her feel beautiful and desired and loved right there on her mother’s lemon yellow sofa. She ran her fingertips down his warm back and bare behind and kissed his smooth shoulder. She wanted to feel as she did at that moment forever. Her skin tingled and her body flushed. Her heart swelled when he kissed her sensitive breasts, and when he buried his hot erection deep inside her body, she was more than ready. He placed his hands on the sides of her face and stared in her eyes as he slowly drove into her again and again.
She stared up into his face, into his gray eyes, alive with the passion he felt for her, his lips moist from their kiss, his breathing labored. “I love you, Nick,” she whispered. He stilled for a moment, then plunged deeper, harder, again and again, and she whispered her love with each stroke until she fell head first into the sweetest ecstasy of her life. She heard his deep primal groan and the mixture of prayer words and curses. Then his full weight collapsed on her.
A twinge of unease settled in her chest as she listened to his breathing slow. She’d told him she loved him. And while he’d made her feel loved, he hadn’t uttered the words. She needed to know how he felt about her now, yet at the same time, she feared the answer. “Nick?”
“Hmm?”
“We need to talk.”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “Give me a minute.” He withdrew from her and walked naked from the room to rid himself of the condom he hadn’t forgotten since that first frenzied time in the closet at the Lakeshore. Delaney searched for her panties and found them under a rattan cocktail table. She stepped into them, and with each passing moment her unease grew. What if he didn’t love her? How could she stand it, and what was she going to do if he didn’t? He returned just as she’d discovered her bra behind a couch cushion. He took the bra from her hand and tossed it aside. He wrapped her in his embrace and held her against his chest, holding her tighter than ever before. Within his warm arms, with the scent of his skin filling her head, she told herself that he loved her. Even though she wasn’t good at being patient, she could wait for him to say the words she needed to hear. Instead she heard the squeak of wood and hinges, like the front door swinging open, and she stilled. “Did you hear something?” she whispered.
He put a finger to his lips and listened. The door slammed shut, galvanizing her into action.
“Holy hell!” She jumped from Nick’s arms and reached for the closest article of clothing, his flannel shirt. Footsteps tapped up the hall as she shoved her arms in the holes. Nick’s jeans lay somewhere behind the couch, and he stepped behind Delaney just as Gwen walked into the room. An eerie feeling of dйjа vu climbed up Delaney’s spine. Her mother stood within a shaft of light, the sun shinning in her hair like she was a Christmas angel.
Gwen looked from Delaney to Nick then back again, shock rounding her blue eyes. “What is going on here?”
Delaney closed the front of the shirt with her hand. “Mom… I…” Her fingers worked the buttons as an unreal feeling fogged her head. “What are you doing home?”
“I live here!”
Nick placed a hand on her abdomen and pulled her back against him, hiding his goods from Delaney’s mother. “I know, but you’re supposed to be on the love boat.”
Gwen pointed a finger at Nick. “What is he doing in my house?”
Carefully she finished with the buttons. “Well, he was kind enough to spend Christmas with me.”
“He’s naked!”
“Well, yes.” She spread the hem of his shirt wider in an effort to cover him better. “He… ah…” She closed her mouth and shrugged. There was no help for it, she’d been caught. Only this time she wasn’t a naive eighteen-year- old girl. She was a few months shy of thirty and she loved Nick Allegrezza. She was a mature independent woman, but she would have preferred that her mother had not found them naked in her sunroom, “Nick and I are dating.”
“I’d say you’re more than dating. How could you do this, Delaney? How could you take up with a man like him? He’s a womanizer and he hates this family.” She turned her attention to Nick. “You put your hands on my daughter again, but this time you’ve fixed yourself good. You violated the terms of Henry’s will. I’ll see to it you lose everything.”
“I never gave a damn about the will.” His fingers brushed over the flannel covering Delaney’s stomach.
Delaney knew her mother well enough to know she’d make good on her threat. She also knew how to stop her. “If you tell anyone about this, then I’ll never speak to you again. Once I leave in June, you’ll never see me. If you thought you never saw me after I left ten years ago, you just wait. When I leave this time, I won’t even tell you where I am. When I leave, I’ll have three million dollars and I’ll never come back to visit you.”
Gwen’s lips pursed and she folded her arms over her breasts. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Nick’s hand fell away. “If you don’t want to see my bare ass, then you better leave the room while I get dressed.”
The tone of his voice was razor-sharp. She’d heard it once before. The last time the three of them had been in Henry’s office. The day the will had been read. Delaney couldn’t blame him for being edgy. The situation was unbearably awkward, and her mother brought out the worst in some people under the best of circumstances.
As soon as Gwen turned on her heel, Delaney spun around. “I’m sorry, Nick. I’m sorry she said those thing to you, and I promise I won’t let her do anything to jeopardize what Henry left you.”
“Forget about it.” He found his pants and shoved his legs inside. They dressed in silence, and when she walked him to the front door, he left quickly and neglected to kiss her good-bye. She told herself it didn’t matter and went in search of her mother. Gwen wasn’t going to like what she had to say, but Delaney had quit living her life for her mother a long time ago. She found her in the kitchen, waiting.
“Why are you home, Mom?”
“I’ve discovered that Max is not the man for me. He’s too critical,” she said through clenched jaws. “Never mind about that now. What was that
“I told you, he was spending Christmas with me.”
“I thought that was his Jeep parked in front of the garage, but I was sure I had to be mistaken. Not in a million years did I expect to find him… you… in my home. Nick Allegrezza of all men. He’s-”
“I’m in love with him,” Delaney interrupted.
Gwen grabbed the back of a kitchen chair. “That is not funny. You’re just saying it get back at me. You’re angry with me because I left you alone for Christmas.”
Sometimes her mother’s logic boggled the mind, but it was always predictable. “My feelings for Nick have nothing to do with you. I want to be with him, and I’m going to be with him.”
“I see.” Her mother’s face hardened. “Are you saying you don’t care how I feel about it?”
“Of course I care. I don’t want you to hate the man I love. I know you can’t be really happy for me right now, but maybe you could just accept that I am involved with Nick, and I’m happy with him.”
“That’s impossible. You can’t be happy with a man like Nick. Don’t do this to yourself or your family.”
Delaney shook her head and her crown slid to one side. She pulled it from her head and brushed her fingers across the cool rhinestones. It was no use. Her mother would never change. “Henry’s dead. I am your only family now.” She looked up at Gwen. “I want Nick. Don’t make me choose.”
Nick stood by the stone fireplace and stared at the blinking lights Sophie had helped him hang on his tree. He raised a bottle of beer to his lips and the lights blurred as he tipped his head back.
He’d known better. For the past few days he’d lived his fantasy. He’d held her while she’d slept in that tiny pink bed and let himself imagine a house, and a dog, and a couple of kids. He’d let himself imagine her in his life, for the rest of his life, and he’d wanted it more than breathing.
