jeans, and his unusual clumsiness made her lips curve in a slumberous smile. He’d come prepared, she noticed, as he dragged a thoughtful, but unnecessary, condom from his pocket.
Finally naked, he pushed her to her back and trailed his mouth from nipple to belly and then below. Who could have predicted such earthy generosity from so fastidious a man? She dug her hands into his thick hair, rough silk under her fingers. He toyed with her, bringing her to the brink again, but never quite letting her tumble over. She rolled to her side to return the favor.
Drunk on sensation they explored-touching and tasting, trading sweet smut and breathy groans, making themselves crazier and crazier. She tried to close her legs so she could torture him more, but he would have none of it.
“Don’t even think about it.”
He caught an ankle, the one still wearing the sock, and pressed it high on the bed. Then he clasped her opposite knee, pushed it wide, and thrust himself deep inside her, not being brutal about it-he was too big for that- but not being all that careful either. Just as if he could read her mind.
She wrapped her legs around him, and their bodies locked in the rhythm of longtime lovers. The muscles in his back quivered beneath her hands. He angled his hips, cupped her bottom, found a new spot to please her.
She arched, cried out. Their gazes locked. For one startling moment, a shock of recognition passed between them, something soul deep and very important. But before it could find a name, the cataclysm swept them away.
GEORGETTE HEYER,
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sugar Beth rolled to her side. “I’m done with you. You can go.”
His breathing hadn’t yet returned to normal, so she was probably rushing him, but she was a lot more shaken by what had just happened than she intended to let him see. Meaningless sex was allowed to feel good, but it wasn’t allowed to feel important, and that’s what might have happened if she hadn’t kept up her guard.
She felt Colin watching her as she walked naked across the room. She remembered his threat to fire her and told herself not to entertain even the possibility that he’d stick to his guns.
“That was only a warm-up, my dear,” he said, in his royal family drawl. “I’m definitely not done with you.”
“No man ever is. But I have things to do, and, alas, none of them involves you.”
“Is that so?”
Just looking at him propped against her pillow, chest damp with sweat, that dramatic dark hair even more rumpled than usual, made her want to climb right back in and let him work his magic all over again. But she needed to get her barricades back in place, so she picked up his jeans and tossed them on the bed. “You were fabulous. Inspired, even. Go home and recuperate. I’ll see you in the morning.”
His languor faded, and he raised one knee beneath the sheet that had fallen low on his hips. “I believe we already discussed this.”
“Don’t make me bargain for my job with more sex. You’ll only feel tawdry.”
“God, you’re full of it.”
He was right about that, but before he could drive his point home, she tried to make a dash for the bathroom only to have him catch her long before she got to the door and drag her back to bed. “Not so fast. There’s an interesting perversion I stumbled across in my research recently.”
“What kind of perversion?”
He slipped his hand between her legs, and the way his fingers moved made her forget that she didn’t have her defenses back in place. “I’m sure it would be too much for you.”
She nipped at his shoulder. “Maybe if you’re extra gentle?”
“Or maybe not.”
And that was the last either of them said for a very long time.
Much later, when she emerged from her second bath of the morning, her bed held only a disgruntled basset hound. The time she’d spent in the tub had sobered her, and she sank down on the edge of the mattress. Gordon inched over and propped his head on her thigh. One long, floppy ear fell across her knee.
She dropped her head and fought back the tears. All morning she’d tried not to think about Emmett, but the ghosts could only be kept at bay for so long. She’d just severed another tie with him. Which was the thing about watching a loved one die a slow death. There was no clean break, no single moment of overwhelming grief, just an endless strand of losses. She rubbed Gordon’s head. Clasped her knees.
Being with Colin had felt too good. But she couldn’t blame herself for what she’d done, not after going for so long without a man’s touch. At the same time, she had to make certain her old needy habits didn’t come creeping back. She’d never let herself depend on another man for her happiness, and definitely not anyone as emotionally aloof as Colin Byrne.
The clock chimed downstairs, and she remembered this was Sunday. Colin was going to the concert, and she’d told Gigi she could visit this afternoon. She was in no shape for an angst-ridden teenager, but she could hardly ring Gigi up and tell her not to come, so she blew her nose, pulled on her jeans, fixed her makeup, then headed downstairs to clean up the breakfast mess.
Colin’s kiss-off check lay on the counter. She picked it up. Two thousand dollars. His guilt ran deep, and she tore it up. She thought of Delilah. Once again, she considered the possibility of having her stepdaughter live with her, and once again she rejected it. Delilah enjoyed their shopping expeditions and restaurant lunches together, but after a few hours away from Brookdale she got agitated and begged to go home.
She was staring at the wall when Gigi arrived, wearing another of the ratty, oversize outfits that must be giving her parents fits. She bent down to give Gordon the attention he demanded. When she rose, she looked awkward and nervous. “I was supposed to go to the concert with them this afternoon, but I talked back to my dad.”
“How convenient.”
“Do you… uh… want to make some cookies or something?” She flushed, deciding too late that her big-city aunt was too worldly for cookie baking. Sugar Beth repressed a sigh. She couldn’t deal with her own insecurities, let alone this child’s.
“No flour,” she said.
“That’s okay. Making cookies is lame.”
“Think so?” Sugar Beth could have told her she loved baking cookies nearly as much as she loved eating them, but she didn’t want to encourage any more bonding.
“Maybe you could show me how you do your eye makeup? It’s pretty cool.”
Sugar Beth took in her baggy cords and faded T-shirt. “Aren’t you afraid it’ll clash with that trendy outfit?”
“I don’t always dress like this.”
“No?”
Gigi examined her thumbnail. “It’s better this way.”
“Better for who?”
A shrug.
Sugar Beth didn’t have the energy to probe deeper. Eye makeup was safe. And it would be better for Gigi to learn makeup tricks from Sugar Beth than from her stick of a mother, or, God forbid, Merylinn, although Merylinn did have a nice touch with lip liner. She started to lead Gigi upstairs, then remembered the sex-rumpled sheets. “I’ll bring the stuff down here. The light’s better.”
“Okay. And then I sort of have a list.”
“Of what?” Sugar Beth asked warily.
“Some questions I want to ask you.”
Her head began to throb. She abandoned the eye makeup plan and made a beeline for the kitchen. “I need coffee.”
“I drink coffee.”
“Sure you do.”
