All for Hope (17 page)

“
Bren! We’re playing Scrabble. I think your uncle intentionally chooses weird words just to perturb poor Meg.”

Brennan nodded, shoving aside the heated thoughts he’d been having and forced a smile. The light in her eyes flickered, and he could tell she could sense his discomfort. Her brows drew together in question.

Bren shook his head just a bit and reached out to caress Michelle’s cheek. “I’m just tired. Finish your game. I think I need to get cleaned up.”

“
You haven’t eaten, son.” The elder man motioned him to sit in the empty seat. “There was a pot roast for dinner. If you don’t want a full meal, Lenore could make a sandwich of it.”

“
Nah, I had a bite a few moments ago.” He lied, shaking his head again. “I’m good.” He turned to leave, then stopped and scratched his head a moment before pivoting back to them. “I don’t actually know where our room is.”

Hope hefted Michelle against her chest and stood. “I’ll show you. She needs to go down anyway. It’s been an exciting afternoon.”

Meg giggled. “We have two boys and they took an instant liking to her. Nichole had the best time.”

He nodded, a plastic grin still on his face. Once upstairs, he allowed Hope to see to Michelle while he took a long, hot shower. Before stepping into the tub, he scarfed down two candy bars to stave off his hunger.

When he came out of the bathroom suite some time later, he saw a small nightlight on in the connecting nursery and presumed the baby was asleep. Hope was stretched out on her back on the bed.

The king-sized bed looked huge, covered with lots of pillows and a fluffy comforter. Hope’s body was embedded into the thick down, and he thought she looked like a nymph floating on air. She bent an arm and brought it up over her eyes and he marveled at how relaxed she suddenly looked.

He realized his mistake in taking a hot shower. His blood was pounding in his veins, rekindling the earlier desire he’d felt for her. She seemed oblivious to his presence, and he stepped close to the bed, padding softly on the carpeted floor. Her t-shirt had inched up so that a sliver of skin at her belly showed. His hand reached out, hovering just above her. He’d made her a promise; he needed to keep it.

She rolled her forearm from her face, and her eyes widened when she saw him above her. A bright smile immediately curled her lips, then the corners dropped a bit and her expression faltered.

“
I tried to explain to Meg that we’re just friends, but she insisted on giving us this room. Your family seems to have its own ideas—Bren?”

He drew in a shuddering breath, curling his fingers into a ball, still held over her body.

“
Are you okay?” she asked, coming up onto her elbows, the position forcing her chest out. His gaze fell upon her breasts and lingered a little longer than was appropriate. Her body responded to it, and her nipples rose in little pebbles through the cotton shirt.

Brennan unflexed the hand above her and brought it down flat against her stomach; at the same time he braced his other hand on the headboard behind her. The sound of Hope’s soft hiss of breath at once turned him hotter and also gave him pause. He looked deep into her brown eyes, searching for an answer to his unspoken question. She licked her lips and tilted her head up to him, offering her mouth in reply.

He didn’t waste a moment in taking possession of the lips he’d been thinking of for weeks. The taste of her, the feel of her hot tongue seeking out his sent him spiraling close to a point where he knew he’d never recover.

Her hands dove under his shirt, touching his chest, his stomach, his back. He groaned in response, then trailed his mouth down to kiss her face, to nibble her neck, to lick her collarbone.

It took all of his willpower for Brennan to rip his mouth from her luscious body. He sat down on the bed, one hand still holding tight to her waist while the other reached down to take her left one. He held her hand and rubbed his thumb over the cheap gold band on her finger.

“
I need to be a man for once in my life, Hope. I told you I would keep my distance. It will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but if you say the word, I will leave right now and go sleep somewhere else.”

She smiled at him.
God, I love that smile,
he thought even as her fingers slid between his and clasped onto his hand. A soft nip at his lower lip was all the prompting he needed and Brennan laughed and groaned at the same time.

He clasped her with both hands, lifting her torso to connect with his in a crushing embrace. As he claimed her mouth with his again, a voice in the back of his head warned him to slow down. He had wanted her for so long, looking at her from a distance, yet so close he could almost taste her on a daily basis. He didn’t want to expend all of that pent-up desire in no more than an instant.

Hope wasn’t wasting any time though. She tugged his shirt up past his chest, releasing a frustrated moan when he broke their kiss to get it over his head. When his lips regained contact with her mouth, they breathed together and she raked both hands up, then down his back toward his rear end.

“
Hope, I’ve needed this for so long.” He groaned against her neck, burying his face in her hair when she slipped her hands inside his pajama bottoms to cup his backside and pull him against her.

He moved away from her so that he could remove his pants. When he turned back to her, he became mesmerized by the sight of her slipping her own shorts past her hips and down her legs so that she could toss them to the floor. The movement was so quick he barely caught a glimpse of her most private parts, but he didn’t have to wait long to set his eyes on all of her.

She crossed her arms, grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and yanked it over her head. A lovely pink crept up her neck to her cheeks, and he wondered if it was the fact that she was suddenly naked before him or the enthusiasm of the moment that had her blushing. She was ravishing, all soft and curvy. She didn’t have the ultra-toned body of most of the women he dated; those were women who spent hours in the gym and ate only spinach with vinaigrette.

Hope’s body had natural magnificence.
Real
beauty. And he was almost desperate to explore each and every twist and turn of that beauty.

“
My God, you’re gorgeous.” His voice sounded rough. He tore his gaze from her body to look into her eyes where he thought he saw worry. The look was fleeting, and when she licked her lips and smiled shyly he felt his erection twitch and strain with need.

“
Bren, kiss me,” she murmured reaching out to him with her mouth.

He did, stretching his body beside hers at the same moment that he tasted her, sucking her lip into his mouth like a sweet candy.

She hooked one of her legs around his, tightening her hold on him. Her hips moved, thrusting in search of his and he skimmed one hand down towards her buttocks.

Hope’s skin was silky smooth. His fingers floated along the surface, barely tickling across her rear, along the cleft and down between her legs so that he could reach the heat of her.

She sucked in a breath, tossing her head back with a moan, then a whimper when he grazed his teeth across the pulse in her neck.

The hand between her legs cupped her fully for a moment, then his fingers sought the wetness there and pressed inside her. She bucked against him, taking hold of his face and forcing his lips back to her own.

He was dizzy from her desire for him, and he thought that he might self-destruct if he didn’t make himself one with her. She seemed to understand perfectly, opening her legs and imploring him with a single word.

“
Please.”

He might have plunged into her in a quick forceful movement, but he wanted this moment to last. He wanted them both to remember it for what it was: a moment they had waited weeks, perhaps years to have. Inch by inch he connected his body to hers, until their hips were solidly bonded.

It was perfection. It was all-satisfying. It was the beginning of much more. Dipping his lips to feather kisses to hers, his breath mingling with her own, they both began moving.

“
Hope—” he murmured. “Hope—”

He exhaled her name with each drive of their hips until he couldn’t form any more words or even any coherent thoughts. There was only ecstasy and explosion, then she cried out, and they both found blessed release.

The next morning Hope woke up to an empty bed. Searching the room, she saw no sight of Brennan, but she soon heard his voice just next door in the nursery. Yawning, she stretched her body out and smiled to herself as she remembered the events of the night before.

When she entered the nursery, she found Brennan sitting cross-legged on the floor with Michelle on his lap. He had both her hands in his and he was clapping them together as he played “patty-cake” with her.

It was easy to forget that Brennan was not her husband, and that Michelle was not her own child. It was as if they were in a magical place where no one else could find them, and they could live happily ever after. She tried to ignore the voice in the back of her mind that reminded her that she shouldn’t let down her guard.

“
Good morning,” she called from the threshold, and he looked up with a wink to smile warmly at her.

“
Good morning. Sleep well?”

“
Better than I have in weeks.”

He was quiet a moment, then he set Michelle down in the playpen and nodded. “Me too.”

“
So, are you ready to tell me what happened yesterday?”

He shrugged as he passed her and began to unpack the baby's clothes, setting out a little jumper for her. “Not much to tell. Before I left to get our things the old man told me about my mom. She was in love with this Nate, and he told her if she married him, he’d disinherit her. She was “smitten,” as he says, and ran off with him. Oh, and he also tried to buy Nate off, but apparently my father taunted him and said one way or another he’d get her entire fortune. He’s determined we should stay here until the cottage is ready.”

“
And will we?”

“
I guess. What do you think?” Before she could answer, he switched gears again. “You know there’s something my mom always said to me that keeps coming back. ‘Your choices are etched in stone, Brennan. Once they’re made, they can’t be undone.’ I think maybe when she made the choice to go with my father, even though he never would marry her, she couldn’t ‘undo’ it. Maybe she was too proud to come back to her brother. I don’t know. Hope, do you trust him?”

She just put her head down and smiled at the baby. “I do.”

“
I don't know what I think. Jeremy is apparently not pleased at my arrival. He tried to convince the old man that I was a fraud. Probably just scared I'll try to get away with all his fortune. There’s apparently a trust that’s shared equally with all natural children of my uncle and his sister. Until now, his sister didn’t have any.”

“
I like Meg.”

“
Meg?” he asked, confused.

She smiled. “Your cousin's wife.”

“
My cousin,” he grumbled.

“
Yes, your cousin, Bren. And that 'old man' is your uncle. I thought you’d be happy about all of this, about finding your family.”

“
I did too, but now that I'm here and see this family and their intimacy and even Jeremy’s possessiveness about his father. I just feel cheated and I’m—”