His arms opened, and she stepped into them, tilting her face upward. He kissed her with a hunger that was every bit as intense as it had been before they had made love.
After what seemed like a long time, he broke off the kiss. Laying his cheek against the top of her head, he muttered something she didn't quite catch, though she thought she heard the words, “too much.”
Lucy wasn't sure what he was referring to, but as far as she was concerned there hadn't nearly been enough between them yet. She drew his mouth back down to hers.
By the time this kiss ended, they were moving toward the bedroom. She couldn't have said which one of them took the first step in that direction, but the decision to head that way was obviously mutual.
It occurred to her as they entered the oak-furnished, earth-toned bedroom that she still tended to think of it as the Carters' room. There was so little of Banner's personality displayed that it could have been anyone's bedroom.
Thoughts of decor fled her mind when Banner paused beside the bed and turned to look at her. He seemed to be trying to think of something to say. To save him the trouble, she wrapped her arms around him and lifted her face to his for another kiss. She had decided that he communicated quite well without words.
Lowering her to the bed, he proceeded to demonstrate just how right she was.
“Banner?”
He had been lying on his back in the deepening darkness for some time, not quite asleep, but not fully awake, either. Lucy lay beside him, her curly head snuggled into his shoulder, her warm body draped bonelessly against his. As much as he had enjoyed the sated, companionable silence, he had known it was only a matter of time before Lucy would be compelled to speak.
Though making conversation wasn't his strong suit, he didn't mind so much with Lucy. Never knowing what she was going to say next made things much more interesting, to say the least, than his usual stilted exchanges with others. And because he felt as if she would never judge him for being less than eloquent or lose patience with him for his lack of tact and polish, he was more comfortable talking to her than to most people.
In some ways she reminded him of Polston, who had become his friend precisely because Polston was one of the least judgmental and most laid-back people Banner had ever met. In other very significant ways, of course, Lucy was very different from Polston. More educated, more ambitious, more gregarious-and a hell of a lot more attractive, he thought with a faint smile.
“What?” he asked without looking down at her.
“How many questions do I have left?”
Her game again. “You've asked so many that I've lost count. Let's say you have five left.”
“Not many,” she said, and she sounded as if she spoke through a pout.
His lazy smile deepened. “Better make them count.”
“Okay, where do you see yourself in ten years, when you're forty?”
His smile disappeared. Trust Lucy to verbalize a question that had been nagging at the back of his mind for some time now. “I'll probably be right here, making furniture and watching my hair turn gray.”
“Alone?”
He shrugged the shoulder she wasn't lying on. “Hulk could still be around in ten years. He'd be pretty old, but probably no lazier or more useless than he is now.”
After a pause Lucy said, “Is that what you really want from your future?”
It was what he expected, not necessarily what he wanted. Based on the choices he had made before now, he imagined his life would change very little in the next decade-even if having met Lucy made everything look different for the moment. As impetuous and free-spirited as Lucy was, he doubted that she would stay around for the next ten days, much less a full ten years.
He had missed her after she'd left on Christmas Day. He could only imagine how empty he would feel the next time she went away.
Which meant, he decided as he rolled to face her, that he shouldn't waste any of the time he had with her. “I don't want to talk about the future right now,” he said.
“Oh?” Her hands slid up his forearms. “What do you want to talk about?”
He spoke against her lips. “I don't want to talk at all.”
Tangling her legs with his, she murmured, “That works for me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Banner had never been a late sleeper. He woke with the sunrise the next morning-the last day of the year. Propped on one elbow, he spent several long minutes enjoying the novelty of watching Lucy sleep.
She slept the way she did everything else, he mused. Enthusiastically.
Her red-gold hair lay in a heavy mass on the pillow, tangled by the burrowing movements she made in her sleep. Long eyelashes fluttered against her flushed cheeks as she dreamed.
He wondered if he played a role in those dreams.
With a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a growl, he rolled out of the bed, careful not to wake her. He needed a shower. And he had better make it a cold one.
Dressed in jeans and an untucked blue-plaid flannel shirt, he was in the kitchen twenty minutes later when someone pounded on the door. Glancing at the clock, he noted that it was barely 8:00 a.m. Way earlier than Polston usually dropped by, though he couldn't imagine who else it might be.
He opened his front door to find a younger version of himself standing on the front porch.
“Tim? What the hell?”
Tim Banner nodded past his half brother's shoulder. “You going to invite me in?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Banner stepped out of the way, allowing the younger man to enter. He checked to make sure no other family members were lurking outside before he closed the door, but apparently Tim had come alone.
Tim stopped in the middle of the living room, shoving his hands in his pockets. Already curled on his favorite rug, Banner's dog lifted his head, glanced at Tim, sniffed the air for a moment, then dropped his head down on his paws and went back to sleep.
Banner studied the younger brother he still thought of as a boy, though Tim had recently turned twenty-two. Tim's conservatively cut, usually neat hair was tousled, he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in a while. He wore faded jeans, a wrinkled cotton shirt unbuttoned over an equally wrinkled T-shirt, and grubby sneakers. No coat. His cheeks were red from the frigid morning air.
It didn't take a particularly perceptive observer to figure out that something was wrong. “What's up?”
“Maybe I just dropped in for a visit.”
And if Banner believed that, Tim would probably try to sell him some oceanfront property while he was here. But before he could express his skepticism, Tim jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. “Do I smell coffee?”
“Yeah.” Resigned to playing host until his brother decided to reveal the reason behind his unexpected appearance, Banner headed for the door opening. “C'mon. We'll both have some.”
Following Banner into the kitchen, Tim looked at the counter. “You were about to have breakfast?”
“Pancakes. Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Hungry?”
Tim sounded almost surprised when he replied, “Yeah. I am.”
Setting a mug of coffee on the table, Banner said, “Sit. I'll get the pancakes started.”
Tim sat in silence while Banner put slices of bacon in a skillet, then poured pancake batter onto the griddle. Maybe the boy would be more talkative on a full stomach, he figured. “Want some orange juice to go with that coffee?”
“I'll get it.”
“Glasses are in that cabinet, juice in the fridge. I'll have some, too.”
“Make that three,” Lucy said as she entered the kitchen.
