wasn’t sure why. He hadn’t pushed her tonight. He’d given her space, made certain the conversation stayed on safe topics. As a matter of fact, he’d been enjoying himself so much he’d nearly forgotten about sex. Nearly, but never entirely. He wanted her too much to put it out of his mind. She’d enjoyed their lovemaking last night-he knew she had-so why was she denying both of them one of life’s most basic pleasures?
He carried the dishes from their dinner to the sink and rinsed them off. His disappointment turned into irritation. Why did he let her bother him so much?
Disgusted with himself, he stalked upstairs, but entering his bordello bedroom only made his mood grow bleaker. A crack of thunder rattled the windows, and he realized the storm had intensified. Good. It matched his mood. He sat down on the side of the bed and yanked off one shoe.
“Cal?”
He looked up to see the bathroom door swing open, but just then a blinding flash of lightning shook the walls, and the house was plunged into darkness.
Several seconds ticked by, and then he heard a soft giggle.
He flung down his other shoe. “We just lost our electricity. You want to tell me what’s so funny about that?”
“It’s not exactly funny. It’s more of a good news/bad news situation.”
“In that case, hit me with the good news first.”
“They’re both sort of rolled up into one.”
“Stop stalling.”
“All right. Now don’t get mad, but…” Smothered laughter drifted toward him. “Cal… I’m naked.”
Chapter Sixteen
C al poked his head into her bedroom through the connecting bathroom door. A glint shone in his eyes. “I’m taking a shower. You want to get in with me?”
She slid her gaze over his deliciously naked body, so beautifully delineated in the morning light, and had to resist the urge to lick her lips. “Maybe another time.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I think I do.”
The inadvertently wistful note in her voice seemed to amuse him. “Poor little Rosebud. You’ve really boxed yourself into a corner, haven’t you?” With a cocky smile, he disappeared into the bathroom.
She stuck out her tongue at the empty doorway, propped her cheek on her bent elbow, and thought about that April night one month ago when she’d made her impulsive decision to take off her clothes and go to him. The unexpected electrical failure just as she’d walked into his bedroom had marked the beginning of a night of pleasure and passion that she would never forget. She smiled to herself. In the month that had passed since then, Cal had gotten very good at making love by touch.
She’d gotten rather good at it herself, she thought with a certain amount of pride. Maybe his lusty nature and lack of inhibition had freed her from her own inhibitions. She would do anything… everything…except let him see her naked.
It had become a game. She would only make love with him at night with the lights out, and she always awakened sometime before dawn so she could return to her own room or slip into his if they’d fallen asleep in her bed. He could have changed the rules. He could have overpowered her, or left her so breathless at high noon with his kisses that she relented, but he never did. He was a competitor, and he didn’t want to win by guile, only by her total surrender.
Her insistence on making love in the dark had begun as a gentle form of sexual teasing, but as one week faded into another and she realized how deeply she had fallen in love with him, something changed. She began to worry about how he would react when he finally saw her. She was now four months pregnant, and although she bloomed with health, her waist had thickened to the point where she couldn’t come close to fastening her slacks and her days wearing tucked-in blouses were a thing of the past. With her expanding belly and unimpressive breasts, she could never compete with all those beauties in his past.
But it was more than the shortcomings of her body that made her hesitant. What if mystery was the lure that drew him to her bed each night? Mystery and the enticement of the unknown? Once his curiosity was satisfied, would he lose interest?
She wanted to believe it wouldn’t matter, but she knew how much Cal loved a challenge. Would he enjoy her company as much if she bent to his will? She seemed to be the only woman in his life, with the exception of his mother and grandmother, who stood up to him.
He was an intelligent, decent man with a generous heart. But he was also domineering and competitive. Was it only the novelty of her rebellion that made him seek her company, both in and out of bed?
She faced the fact that her time for playing games had run out. She needed to stop being a coward, take off her clothes so he could see her, and face the truth. If he didn’t want her for who she was, but only for the challenge of conquering her, then what they had together was worthless. She had to do it soon, she decided. It was crazy to keep this going on any longer.
She got out of bed and made her way to her bathroom. After she’d taken her morning vitamins and brushed her teeth, she returned to her room, and, with one hand on her growing belly, wandered over to the window so she could gaze out at the May morning. The mountainside was alive with blooms: dogwood, rhododendron, flame azaleas, along with budding mountain laurel. Her first Appalachian spring was more beautiful than she could ever have imagined. Violets, trillium, and lady slippers had unfolded in the woods where she walked, and wisteria bloomed at the side of the house along with a white shower of blackberry blossoms. She had never experienced such a breathtaking, joyous May.
But, then, she’d never been in love, either.
She understood how vulnerable she’d made herself, but as the guarded look Cal had carried in his eyes for so long was replaced by laughter and tenderness, she began to believe that he might be falling in love with her. Two months ago the idea would have been absurd, but now it didn’t seem so impossible.
For people who should have nothing in common, they never ran out of subjects to talk about or things to do. While she spent her mornings at the computer, Cal worked out and took care of his local commitments, but they spent most afternoons and many evenings together.
Cal had finished painting Annie’s house while she’d put in the garden. They’d visited Asheville several times together, where they’d dined at some of the city’s best restaurants and walked the grounds of the Biltmore Estate with busloads of tourists. They’d hiked some of the easier trails in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and he’d taken her to see Connemara, Carl Sandberg’s home, where she’d been enchanted by the beautiful setting and he’d taken pictures of her playing with the goats that were kept there.
By unspoken agreement, they didn’t go into Salvation together. When Jane had shopping to do, she went alone. Sometimes she ran into Kevin, and the two of them lunched together at the Petticoat Junction Cafe, where she ignored the hostile stares of the locals. Luckily, she could still conceal her pregnancy with loose-fitting dresses.
She and Cal continued to fight when he got high-handed, but it was generally a good kind of fighting, and he never displayed any of the cold hatred that had been so much a part of him in those early weeks. Instead, he roared away to his heart’s content, and she refused to ruin his pleasure by not fighting back. The truth was, she enjoyed their battles as much as he.
She heard the shower cut off. Since there was no sense exposing herself to additional temptation, she gave him a few minutes to dry off and wrap a towel around himself before she rapped softly on the partially open bathroom door, then let herself in.
He stood at the sink with the black bath towel looped so low on his hips she was surprised it didn’t drop off. As he spread shaving cream across his jaw, he took in her cherry red Snoopy nightshirt.
“When are you gonna show a little mercy, Professor, and stop enticin’ me with those sexy negligees?”
