Just a Memory (23 page)

"I…I need to check on the soup," she mumbled with a forced smile as she tried to turn away from his embrace.

"No, you don't." He raised a palm to hold her face tipped up to his and searched her shuttered eyes. "You need to tell me what just changed your mind about what we were doing, what we were both feeling just now." He watched her face and wouldn't let her pull away. There was no escape.

Carolyn searched for somewhere to begin to explain. She hoped his years of training and discipline would give him the patience he would have to have with her now. A circus of feelings coursed through her as she withdrew a step. "Mac, if you want to know–"

"If?
If?
" he asked, his voice raising. "Damn it, Carolyn, you must know by now that I do. Heaven help me, but I want to know everything there is to know about you." He held her firmly by the shoulders and waited for her answer.

She silently studied his eyes. "Let's go in the living room and sit down. I think it's time we talked about what's happening between us."

He let her move away from him. Without looking back at him, she walked toward the living room and sat on the end of the couch with one leg crossed under her. She looked up to see the frustration and almost anger on his face as he came toward her and sat beside her. He put his arm along the back behind her, but didn't touch her. She tilted her head down to look at her hands tightly gripped together.

"What is it, Carolyn? And if you're about to tell me you didn't like what you were just experiencing in my arms, I won't believe you. You're a warm and passionate woman and I think you want me as much as I want you. And we're two mature available adults above the age of consent who care for each other. So what's wrong?"

With one curled finger under her chin, he tipped her head up until she had to look at him.

"You
do
know how much I want you, don't you, Caro?"

The use of the diminutive of her name made her smile. "No one's ever called me that before. I thought it was just used in books. I like it."

"Good. You're smiling again. But I know something's bothering you. What is it, sweetheart? I want to know." He held her trembling hands in his big ones. When he got no immediate verbal response, he added softly, "I
need
to know."

She looked down at their hands. Though her fingers were long, her hands looked small in his big powerful ones. His were able to work magic when they touched her. But could she ever do the same for him? She wanted so much for him to feel the magic too.

"Mac, things are getting… Well, we're together a lot and… I mean, when I'm alone with you, I can't… You just touch me and I… Sometimes you only have to look at me and I…"

However she started, she couldn't seem to finish. With a deep breath to fortify herself, she started again, only this time she looked into his eyes, searching for the answer.

"Mac, the fact is…you scare me to death."

"I
scare
you?" he asked, his eyes wide with surprise. Then they narrowed and his voice lowered and gained an edge. "Sure. I get it." He pulled his hands back from hers. Leaning back against the couch, he ran a hand through his hair and slapped it down on his thigh. "You hate the fact that I'm a cop. It's the gun thing and seeing the scars and knowing about my being shot. And you're worried about Terri. I guess it all finally sank in, huh, Carolyn? I knew it would someday, but I hoped–"

She stopped him the best way she knew how: by kissing him firmly on the mouth. She'd heard the frustration and disillusionment in his voice. He hadn't called her Caro this time, and he was jumping to wrong conclusions by not giving her a chance to finish what she had to say.

She kept her face close to his, her hand on his cheek. "Will you be quiet, Chief, and let me finish? You're supposed to wait for all the evidence to be presented before leaping to conclusions."

He looked into her eyes for a moment as if debating whether or not to do as she asked. Without looking away, he nodded. "Okay, counselor. Let me have it all."

"Mac, you scare me not because of what you are or have been. I wouldn't change that because I…I care for you…very much…just the way you are."

Carolyn took his hand and held it between hers. "But that's what scares me. I know it sounds like double talk, but what scares me is not you, it's how much I
want
you."

Chapter Nine

A broad smile appeared instantly on his face. "Then we haven't got a problem." His arm went back to rest on the back of the couch behind her.

"Mac," she said in a warning tone. She wasn't done yet and wanted him to listen.

"I'm leaping again, huh? Okay, go on, counselor. Let me hear the rest."

She watched as he tried to erase the smile that kept curling the edge of his delicious lips. She struggled to concentrate on what she had to say and not on his lips.

"Last weekend, when we stopped at the local
Lovers Lane
, you said you hadn't been to one for twenty years."

He nodded and waited for her to go on.

She paused when she found the admission harder than she imagined. She shifted her position a little. What would he think? She inhaled deeply and charged ahead.

"Well, I…I've never been to one before. Never. When I went down the wedding aisle dressed in white, I was as naïve a virgin as you could find anywhere. My mother's idea of sex education was to hand me a library book on anatomy with the comment that I should know that stuff sooner or later. I learned the rest in school from teachers who would rather have been doing anything than teaching sex ed and from my friends who weren't clear on the difference between fact and fiction."

Carolyn felt her leg under her beginning to go to sleep, so she shifted again. Mac seized the opportunity to put his arm around her and hold her against him. She held his free hand in her lap and idly stroked the back with her fingers, watching the little black hairs bounce back up.

"My wedding was a lot of years ago and I know it's hard to believe, but my husband didn't know much more than I did. We were definitely not a part of the free-love generation of our younger days. Anyway, the point is… Well…" She paused and looked up at him. "This is terribly hard to tell you."

Mac smiled. "Just say it and get it over. It's easier that way. I promise I won't bite or laugh or cry or whatever it is you're afraid I might do when I hear it."

She smiled, which she was certain was his intended reaction. "Okay, so, I have a hard time talking about sex." Her smile disappeared. "But you should understand that sex wasn't something I ever looked forward to. Richard worked odd hours, all hours, really. Our sleep schedules didn't even coincide much of the time because he had to be in the lab at certain intervals for his experiments. Then after discovering I was pregnant with Terri, well…"

She stopped and inhaled deeply. "When I got pregnant, the basic reason we had for having sex was fulfilled, so we sort of… We just didn't do it much anymore. He spent more and more time at the lab and I worked long hours getting The Costume Nook established. Not long after Terri was born, Richard got sick. Not many months later he was gone."

Carolyn pressed her lips together between her teeth. "Since he died…" She stopped and raised her face to the ceiling. She took another deep breath and started again. "Mac, you're the first man to even ask me out on a real date more than once or twice. There aren't a lot of eligible men floating around this town. And frankly, any man from here or elsewhere whom I've dated…I wasn't interested in repeating the experience."

She gathered her courage and looked up into his eyes. "What truly scares me is that being with you is so different. You kiss me or just touch me and my arms ache from wanting to hold you. You've set a match to the dry pine needles of my heart. When I'm this close to you I feel like I'm on fire. And…Mac…I'm very afraid of fire. A burn is very painful."

"Oh, Caro, there's so much more to making love than what you've known it to be. So much more. Please, please don't be afraid. I would never hurt you, and I promise I won't rush you." He gathered her into his arms and held her close. "When you're ready, we'll make love together, and it'll be beautiful. I promise you that, too."

"But what if–"

"There won't be any buts or what ifs–not if you go with your feelings. It will be better than you've ever dreamed." He leaned down and kissed her temple. "And it will be soon."

"I…I want to make love with you, Mac." Tears pricked in her eyes as she looked into his face. "And I want you now," she whispered. "Will you make love with me? You said you couldn't say no to me."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."
I want this evening together to remember the rest of my life
.

He looked at her for a long moment and then swept her into his arms and onto his lap. Their kiss this time was almost frantic. Her lips still touching his, she boldly undid the buttons and yanked his shirt from his jeans. She tried to pull it off, but Mac had to help because he couldn't raise his injured shoulder far enough. Just when she thought she was successful, the shirt cuffs, which were too tight to fit over his hands, held on to his wrists like soft handcuffs.

"Now I've got you where I want you," she teased with a dramatically villainous laugh.

"Handcuffed, huh? Never fear, my lovely. I always have a spare key to my cuffs hidden on me." With a quick flip, the shirt was over her head and behind her back. Now she was his prisoner. Unbuttoning his own cuffs was easy while he kissed her.

"This tickles," she said with a little giggle, running her flattened fingers across his bare chest. "The hairs on your chest…I never thought they would tickle."

Mac groaned with delight. "Oh, Caro, there is so much I want to pleasure you with." The little sounds she made in her throat when he kissed her only seemed to encourage him.

When Carolyn next looked into his eyes, she knew her decision had been the right one. With a smile she couldn't erase, she rose on unsteady legs and held out her hand to Mac. He rose and put his hand in hers.

"You're sure, Caro? It's...ah, it's been a while for me, too. Frankly, a good long while. I don't know how strong my control will be once we walk down that hall."

"I don't want control, Mac, and I can't wait any more."

Without another word, she led the way to her bedroom.

Outside the snow fell soundlessly, covering the barrenness of November. Inside, under the thick quilt, Mac held Carolyn as she slept with her head on his chest, their arms around each other, her leg bent over his thigh. They'd made love, eaten some soup and French bread, and then made love again.

Mac stared at the wallpaper, but what he saw was Caro's face at the moment she experienced her first orgasm. He would never forget the look of joy, of wonder. When it happened the second time, she'd cried. He felt her joy and knew how very much he cared for her.

So many of his days and nights since he became a cop had been filled with the unloving side of life. He never dreamed there was a place in his life for love. He sighed and let the wonderful new sensation wash over him. As good as those thoughts made him feel, thinking about his job situation and the unsolved problems in his past made him come crashing back to earth.

Suddenly he wondered why the hell he had let their relationship get this far. He couldn't be falling in love with her. Love only led to heartache. A man in his position would only bring hurt to the one he loved.

Mac looked down at Caro's face. In the light from the candle she'd lit on the bedside table, he could see she was smiling in her sleep. Mac smiled, too, as he remembered her lighting the candle. She said that at her age she would look better by candlelight. He did his best to persuade her she looked lovely in any light.