“I assure you that is not what they’re going to think.”
Her eyes widened. “Hank, exactly what did you tell them?”
“The truth, that I wanted to be alone with you.”
“And they went along with it?”
He gave a secretive little smile. “Let’s just say they owed me one.”
Ann folded her hands tightly in her lap and stared straight ahead. “Hank, I am not ready for this.”
“Annie, believe me, we are both more than ready for this. Before the afternoon is out I’m going to prove it.”
“But that’s just it, it’s afternoon.”
“Late afternoon.” He peered at her. “You have something against making love in the afternoon?” he teased.
Well, there it is, she thought wildly. The words were out in the open, lying there between them like a gauntlet that had been thrown down. “It all seems so calculated somehow,” she retorted.
“Annie, we are living with six children. I can almost guarantee you that making love would have to be calculated under circumstances like that.”
She regarded him closely. “Doesn’t that bother you? Isn’t spontaneity better?”
His voice dropped to a seductive murmur. “Annie, I want you in my arms. That’s the only thing that matters.”
She swallowed hard as he continued. “I want to kiss every single inch of you. I want to get to know your body as well as I know my own. I want to bring you alive under my fingers. If I have to do a little calculating to accomplish that, I can handle it.” He turned his head toward her. “Can you?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly, though her heart was beating so hard and fast she could barely hear herself think.
He reached over and took her clenched hands in his. “Annie, once we get there, once we’re inside and all alone, if this isn’t right for you, we’ll forget it. I promise. Okay?”
She heard the raw hunger in his voice, saw the depth of desire in his eyes and still she recognized the sincerity of the promise. Hank would be guided by her needs. What she wanted would always be uppermost in his mind.
Suddenly the last of her doubts fled, replaced by a wild, pounding urgency she’d never thought to experience. Responding to that frantic need, she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed the scarred knuckles, the callused palm. She felt the shudder that gripped him at her touch and asked softly, “Think you can drive any faster without getting caught?”
Chapter 11
One of the few advantages of winter, Ann decided, was that darkness came early. She was grateful for the rapidly dimming light because the minute they walked through the front door of Hank’s house, her timidity returned. The twilight shadows helped her to hide her fears from Hank, though they did nothing to keep them from her heart.
Even though a part of her yearned desperately to be in Hank’s arms, wanted to know the sheer physical pleasure of abandoning herself to his possession, another part was still holding back. She was still deeply troubled by the cold planning of it, worried even more about the long-term consequences for her emotions. The risks seemed enormous, far too great for a woman who’d only gambled on love once and lost everything.
They’d barely made it into the living room when Hank said, “I’m a mess from the football game. I think I’ll take a shower.”
He said it matter-of-factly, as if there were nothing more important on his mind than washing away a little dirt and grass. The comment was so far from the romantic murmurings she’d been anticipating, Ann felt like laughing hysterically with relief. Then she felt like screaming. If they were going to make love, why couldn’t they just do it and get it over with? Why this slow torture, when they’d already waited far too long? She hadn’t felt this nervous the first time…the only other time.
“Hank,” she began, intending to protest, only to have him take her hand and squeeze it gently.
“Come with me,” he suggested softly, his gaze locked with hers.
Heat pulsed through her, quick and hard and thrilling. Excitement and that maddening, intense desire warred with caution. “I don’t know…”
“You can scrub my back.”
It was a light, almost innocent taunt, but the prospect of touching him, of running her fingers over his shoulders set her blood on fire. The temptation was irresistible. Further denial would have been as pointless as trying to hold back the tides.
Willing herself not to think beyond the moment, she went with him through the house to the master bedroom suite. The previous night she had avoided this end of the house, not daring to envelop herself in the intimacy of Hank’s room. She’d been afraid to enter a room that was so very much his domain. Now she gazed around with rapt curiosity.
The carpeting was a thick, dark navy. The bed was king-size, the only size large enough to accommodate a man of Hank’s stature. Staring at it made her pulse race. The comforter was a rich, masculine pattern, the lines of all the furniture clean and modern. Vertical blinds let in the last of the muted afternoon light and shadowed images of the garden beyond the sliding glass doors. It was expensive, understated and very male.
She scanned the dresser and nightstand for any additional clues to Hank’s personality, but found not one bit of evidence that would tell her his taste in books, his preference in after-shave or his family history. The room looked as though the decor had been completed by a disinterested professional the month before and as if it had been cleaned religiously each week since then. She might have attributed the tidiness to his absence had he not been in the room last night. There wasn’t even a tossed-aside T-shirt or an empty beer bottle to indicate that he’d spent that time here, either. The bed had been remade with army boot-camp precision. She doubted there was even a dent in the pillow to indicate where his head had
