Bad luck, Slade thought. “Your bedroom faces the front, too, right?”
“The one I’ve been using does, yes.” Maybe she’d move into the back one, perhaps tonight.
I’m watching you.
“But I’m redoing the back one, the one that was my grandparents’ room.” She didn’t want him to know just how much that phone message had rattled her. “Want to see where the sunken tub will go?”
He raised a brow. “Sunken tub, eh? With Jacuzzi jets?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” She led him through the larger bedroom into the expanded bath, still unfinished. “I’m having a wide marble sill put in around the tub, and that’s the holdup here. The variegated green marble I picked out is on back order.”
“Looks like it’ll be big enough for two. Do you like to share?” His hands at her waist, he held her loosely.
“Mmm, depends on who I’m sharing with.”
“Let’s see. How about someone who thinks you have the most gorgeous hair he’s ever seen?” And he thrust his fingers through the blond thickness, his blunt fingers touching her scalp.
“I should have it cut, but I haven’t had time.”
“No, don’t cut it. I like it just this way.” He shifted his hands to her face, his thumbs outlining her brows as he studied her eyes. “How about if this same someone thinks your eyes are incredible, a warm brown when you’re pleased about something, kind of flinty when you’re angry with me. But the best is this rich chocolaty color they get just before I move inside you.”
A surge of heat rippled through Briana, weakening her from head to toe. Never had a man talked to her like this, making love to her with his voice. “Wow,” she whispered, her voice breathy, “when this ride stops, do I have to get off?”
“No, just hold on to me. And then there’s this mouth.” With one finger, he traced her lips from side to side, top to bottom, and saw them tremble. “I never knew a mouth could be so responsive, one that could make me want to beg.”
Her arms at his back tightened. “Oh, Slade, Slade.” Her heart swelled with love. She yearned to tell him, to reveal how she felt, but she held back. What if he wasn’t ready, if he didn’t want to know? Yet couldn’t he see, couldn’t he feel how he had her teetering on the edge? “When I’m with you like this, when you hold me, I feel shaky, as if I’m falling.”
“You can fall. I’ll catch you.” He leaned back from her, while from the waist down they were pressed tightly together. How had this woman gotten such a stranglehold on him? “Briana Morgan, what am I going to do about you? I’ve never known anyone who messed with my head the way you do. You make me
feel
so much and it scares the hell out of me.”
Her hands were on his chest, feeling his heart beating wildly beneath her fingers. “Don’t be afraid of your feelings. Tell me.” Dare she hope they were the same as hers?
“It’s easier for you. You were married, you’ve felt these things before and talked about them freely.”
“It wasn’t the same.” She wondered if she could make him see. “I never felt about Robert the way I feel about you. I never wanted him the way I can’t seem to stop wanting you. We met, we married, and we fell into a routine. I knew something was wrong, but I blamed his job, his absences, his indifference. It wasn’t until just recently that I’ve come to realize that what happened wasn’t Robert’s fault. He was who he was, only I didn’t see it until it was too late. It was my problem, my fault for marrying a man who couldn’t touch me deeply, who couldn’t reach the woman I am. Nothing he could have said or done could have made up for that lack. He simply never could make me feel enough. Because he wasn’t you.”
She humbled him, and scared him even more with her soft words. “I don’t think I can be all you want me to be.”
“Why don’t you let me decide that?”
“No, that’s too easy. I don’t trust easy.”
“Then trust me. I won’t hurt you. I won’t leave you.”
Unless you send me away. Unless you can’t love me back.
“You’ll leave. Everyone does. Didn’t you say all you wanted was something that will last? Well, nothing does, no matter how we want it to, no matter how much we care. Everything dies sooner or later.” His voice was filled with pain, with the terrible knowledge that what they had, good as it was, was only temporary.
“You’re wrong. Love doesn’t die, not for everyone. Remember Annabel and Josh Mayberry? Love can be strong enough to overcome anything, even death.”
“You’re talking legends and fairy tales. That’s not real.” His hands were rough as he pulled her close, so close even a shadow couldn’t have slipped between them.
“This
is real, Brie. You and I together, for now. No promises, no vows, no declarations that we’ll have to take back or break. Today is real. No one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Her hands hooked around his shoulders, her heart pressed to his, Brie blinked back tears. “That’s such a hopeless way to look at things.”
“Not hopeless. Realistic. If you don’t expect anything, you won’t get hurt when you don’t get it.” His eyes bore into hers. “Here and now, you and me. That’s it, that’s all there is. Oh, God, Brie, I want you so much. So very much.” Bending to her, he took her mouth.
She kissed him back, putting her heart in it, while tears trailed down her cheeks. How had this happened, that she’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t believe in love? Not in its power or its beauty. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? Briana asked herself.
And that was her last coherent thought as he backed her through the doorway and pushed her against the bedroom wall, all the while crushing her mouth in a frantic kiss that threatened to blow off the top of her head. A strangled sound lodged in her throat as she struggled to stay upright under his greedy onslaught.
He branded her with bruising kisses as his hands burrowed under her shirt, closing over her straining breasts. If she could have moved, she’d have ripped their clothes aside, so powerful was the need to be flesh to flesh with him. She felt the ache deep inside begin to throb, felt the rush of heat engulf her.
He needed her, Slade finally admitted. God, how he needed to possess her, to make her his, if only for this night. Hungrily, he raced his lips over her delicate throat, the long column of her neck, and back to her waiting mouth. His teeth nibbled and nipped as he felt her legs buckle. His hands slid down and behind to cup her bottom, lifting her to him, to his heat.
But it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.
Through a shuddering breath, Briana gasped out a suggestion. “My bedroom. Across the hall.” In this room, there was only newly carpeted floor and a hard wall at her back.
“No. Here and now.” His hand slid beneath the elastic of her sweatpants and the panties she wore, shoving down the resisting materials. Testing, his fingers moved inside to find her warm and wet and waiting.
Aroused beyond belief to find her so ready, so willing, he unbuttoned his jeans one-handed and inched the zipper down. Aching to be inside her, he freed himself, then drove in with one hard, swift stroke and watched her eyes glaze over. “Look at me,” he demanded, not moving, waiting.
Breathlessly, she did, feeling suspended in time. “I… I’m looking at you.”
“I want to watch you.” To see her climb and then to lose control. He wanted to see her shatter, like she’d shattered him over and over throughout their last incredible night.
His hands returned to support her as her legs wrapped around him. Her skin was damp, her thick hair tumbled around her head like a yellow cloud against the pale green wall, her mouth swollen from his kisses. She was more beautiful than any woman he’d ever known. “Ready?” he asked, knowing she was, wanting to hear it.
“Yes. Oh, yes. Please.”
Then he was moving, plundering, stroking, easing back for a heartbeat, then hammering home. Driving her up, driving her crazy, driving her beyond sanity. She cried out at the strength of it, the enormity, the passion.
Eyes locked with hers, he knew the moment her climax began, saw the shocked pleasure on her face, felt the tremulous shudders take her. Finally her head fell forward onto his shoulder. The force of her aftershocks dragged him along for the ride, leaving him breathless with a thundering heart that threatened to explode.
When he was able to move again, he slid them both to the floor, rolling with her on the dark green carpeting. He felt like he’d run the marathon, like he’d tried a free fall from a plane, like he’d climbed the highest mountain where the air was rarefied.
Turning his head toward her, he enjoyed the rosy glow he’d put on her face. “How do you feel?”
Brie drew in a huge breath and let it out slowly. “Surely you aren’t going to ask how that was for me, are you?”
His smile came easily. “Probably not.”
“Oh, good.” She tried to make a fist and found she couldn’t. “Lord, what you do to me,” she commented, staring at her limp hand.
“I’d say that’s mutual. Where’d you learn to be so sexy?”
Lazily, she rolled toward him. “Are you sure you want to have this discussion, because it works both ways, you know?”
“Probably not,” he said again.
“Besides, I’m not sexy. I never have been or…”
His hand touched her chin, forced her to look at him. “Who told you that? You know what makes a woman sexy to a man? A woman who responds, immediately, totally, freely.” His hand snaked under her shirt, found her soft breast and circled. In seconds, her flesh swelled, the peak hardening. “Like that.”
No one was more surprised than Brie. She wasn’t without experience, yet he was able to get more from her than anyone ever had. “That sort of thing doesn’t happen with every man’s touch.”
“Nor with every woman.” Slade was more than a little surprised at how quickly his body had recovered, at how much he wanted her again. “Ready when you are, ma’am.”
Stunned, she was sure she couldn’t possibly. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“A little death, some call it.” He dragged her hard up against his body. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”
Her mouth was close to his ear. “Who said I wanted gentle?”
The laugh she heard was rich and very masculine.
The flames were slithering up along the wooden sides of the old house, whipping out the first-floor windows, lighting up the night sky. He was afraid to step onto the creaky porch for fear it would collapse under him, but there was no other way in. Ducking low, he barreled his way into the fires of hell, the poisoned air black as ink, the heat so intense it seemed to sear his throat through his face mask.
He called her name but got no answer. He couldn’t see, but knew where the hall was and went that way, staying low. He felt more than saw her on the floor alongside her big double bed, the one they’d once shared. He picked her up and found her dazed, but then she started screaming, somehow recognizing him through all his gear. “My baby. Find my baby, Slade, please!”
He handed her over and went back into the inferno, looking in the child’s closet like she’d said. He heard a sound, a frightened cry, but only a mangy cat leaped out and streaked sharp claws down his sleeve before he could stuff her inside his jacket. Down on all fours, he crawled along the hallway, searching, calling out to the child.
Suddenly, all hell broke loose, walls tumbling down, flames devouring everything, the air thick with black smoke. The others dragged him out still protesting, still calling her name. “Megan, Megan, where are you?”
Then he was outside with Rachel as the medics worked on her, seeing the tracks of her tears on her soot-stained face, looking into empty eyes. “Where’s my baby? You let my baby die. Your fault. It’s all your fault!” Her screams vied for attention with the crackling flames still whirling upward in a macabre dance.
He sank to the ground as they put her in the ambulance. “My fault,” he sobbed. “All my fault.”
“Oh, God, it’s all my fault” Slade’s head thrashed on the pillow, his skin drenched with sweat, his heart pounding. “Megan’s dead, Rachel, and it’s all my fault. No, no. God, no!”
Briana snapped on the bedside lamp and touched his shoulder. “Slade, you’re dreaming.” She’d been awakened by his restless flailing about, then heard his mutterings and finally his loud ravings. “Slade, do you hear me? Wake up.”
“You’re right, my fault. Forgive me, please.” He shot upright, his eyes wild, looking about, unfocused.
“You’re having a nightmare,” Brie told him gently. “It’s all right. You’re okay.”
It finally registered, where he was, who she was. Swallowing around a dry throat, he swiped at his damp face and swung his feet over the side of the bed. He gripped the edge of the mattress, bent his head, and sat there, letting the residue of the nightmare recede. It was always the same one, the one he deserved to suffer with, the one that would never go away.
Briana slid closer, touching his bare shoulder. He’d been hesitant about sleeping over at her house, but it had been raining so hard he’d decided to stay. Had this been the reason why, the nightmares he’d told her he had? She rubbed his arm, wishing she could help, that she knew the right words. “Are you all right now?”
“Should I be? I don’t deserve to be all right.” Grabbing his briefs, he pulled them on and left the room.
Standing at the bare front window in the darkened living room, Slade stood staring out. The storm had moved out to sea, probably headed for the mainland.
The fist clenched in his gut had begun to ease, the sweat of the nightmare drying on his skin. It was always the same, always like this. He relived his nightmare in brilliant, fiery colors, his failures repeated reel after reel. The helplessness of knowing Megan had been in there somewhere and he hadn’t saved her, the hopelessness of facing the mother who knew he was to blame.
Slade braced his arms on the wood frame of the window, seeing not Nantucket Harbor drenched in an autumn storm but a ramshackle house in California disintegrating before his eyes into hot, smoky rubble. When would he ever be able to sleep a night through without those mind pictures startling him awake? What could he do, what could he say to assuage the guilt that dogged his steps from coast to coast? Who would put up with him while he struggled with his demons? No one should have to.