“Don’t push your luck, honey, or you’ll be the one furnishing dessert,” he said, taking some measure of satisfaction in the blush on her face as he helped her into her coat. “So…where to first?”
“FAO Schwartz.”
“For Aaron?”
“Are you going to argue with me the whole evening? Because if you are, you can just take yourself back to my apartment. I’ll do my shopping and eat dinner by myself. It’s not like it will be the first time a man has let me down.”
Mac glared. She’d been perverse all day. He suspected it had something to do with the kiss. Well, he had news for her. He felt like picking a fight with someone, too. She might not know it, but she wasn’t the only one floundering for footing in the turn their relationship had taken.
They reached the elevator in silence. Mac pushed the button and then, as they waited, noticed that the top two buttons of her coat were undone.
“You missed a couple,” he said, and gently turned her to face him, then did up the buttons. “It’s cold out. You don’t want to get sick on top of everything else now, do you?”
Suddenly the antagonism between them was gone.
“No,” she said, quietly watching the concentration on his face as he fastened her coat and noticing that there were tiny gold flecks in the blue of his eyes.
“There, that’s better,” he said, and then the elevator opened and he ushered her on.
As they exited the office building onto the street, Mac felt Caitlin slip her hand beneath his elbow.
“Do we take a cab?” he asked.
“No. FAO Schwartz is only a few blocks away.”
They started walking, sometimes moving with, sometimes against, the crowds on the street. Mac soon noticed Caitlin’s unusual silence, but when he glanced down at her, he knew something was wrong. Her face was chalk-white, her eyes wide and fixed upon the face of everyone they met. It hit him then that this was Caitlin’s first venture out in public since the rat had been delivered.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded without answering.
A block passed, and then a second, before they hit a red light. They reached the curb and stood within the gathering crowd, waiting for the light to change. As they did, Mac could feel her trembling. Without comment, he lifted his arm and slipped it around her shoulder in a sheltering manner, pulling her close against his side.
It was his gentleness that was her undoing. Caitlin started to cry. Softly, without sound, she turned in his arms and buried her face against his chest, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.
The light changed, but they didn’t move. Foot traffic parted and spilled around them like breaking waves, but he was too engrossed to notice. His first instinct was to protect her. Carefully searching the passing crowds for a sign of danger, he saw nothing that caused him alarm. When the crowd of people thinned, he pulled her back from the curb against a building, his arms tightening around her as her tears continued to flow.
“Caitie? Sweetheart?”
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I tried, but I can’t make this work.”
“Make what work?”
She lifted her head, her face streaked with tears.
“Pretend it didn’t happen. I know what I told the detectives…that maybe it was an accident when I was pushed. But I don’t believe it. I felt the hand in the middle of my back. Someone wants me dead, and I don’t know why. I’m afraid. I’m so terribly, terribly afraid.”
Mac wanted to shout; he needed to rage against the injustice of what was happening to her. But all he could do was stay close.
“Come with me,” he said, grabbing her arm and bolting toward the curb just as a phalanx of taxis came speeding down the street. “I’m taking you home.”
The nearest cab wheeled toward the curb as Mac hailed it. Moments later, she was inside and he was beside her, pulling her close. Still shuddering, she laid her head against his chest and closed her eyes. All the way home she kept thanking God for the man beside her, because she couldn’t do this by herself.
A short while later they entered the penthouse. Mac punched in the security code, disarming the alarm before it was activated, then helped her out of her coat.
“Do you want to lie down? Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat.”
She turned, her eyes still glimmering with unshed tears, and put her arms around his neck. She saw the shock on his face and knew what she was about to do would make it worse.
“You asked me what I want. I want you to make love to me. I’m so tired of being afraid. I need to remember what it’s like to know joy.”
“Caitie…sweetheart…that won’t—”
“Mac, for God’s sake, I know you’ve made love with women for less reason. Am I so awful that you can’t even sum up enough—”
He groaned. Seconds later, he lifted her off her feet and into his arms.
“That’s just the problem. I have been summoning up passion for you for some time now. What I want and what we should do are two entirely different things. I don’t just want to make love to you. It would be my pleasure. But it will change everything between us.”
“It doesn’t have to,” she mumbled.
“But it will,” he said softly, then lowered his head and kissed her tearstained cheeks.
Caitie shuddered on a sob. “I just need to feel something besides despair.”
Mac looked at her then, at the windblown tangles in her hair and her slightly swollen lips. At the tiny adhesive strips over her eyebrow and the very faint bruising still evident on one cheek. Never had a woman been as desirable to him, and never had it seemed so wrong. But he didn’t have it in him to deny her—not now. Not after he’d seen her cry.
“Then come to bed with me, love. It would be my pleasure to give you joy.”
He carried her down the hall and into her bedroom, then set her on her feet. Without speaking, he undressed himself first, instinctively giving her time to change her mind. But by the time he was down to his slacks, she was already minus her shoes and sweater.
“Wait, baby…let me,” he said, and gently removed the rest of her clothes, then pulled back the covers and laid her on the bed.
Caitlin’s heart was pounding, her skin tingling and flushed. His body was lean and muscular, his erection impossible to ignore. She reached for him, encircling him as he came down to her. She heard him groan, then felt the warmth of his breath on her face. After that, everything became a blur: Mac’s hands, his mouth, the weight of his body pressing her deep into the mattress, then the joining, filling not only her body, but fulfilling his promise.
The joy…the joy.
Caitlin dozed in the shelter of Mac’s embrace, her dark hair in tangles on his shoulder, her ear against his chest while he lay wide-eyed and stunned, staring up at the ceiling. He’d never considered himself prophetic, but he was about to change his mind. This
had
more than changed everything. It had changed
him.
He’d never wanted just one woman before—at least, never for long. But the thought of ever making love to anyone else felt like a betrayal, and the idea of giving her up to another man was obscene.
She jerked in her sleep, and he tightened his hold. There was a slight frown between her eyebrows and a tremble in her lower lip. He knew she was dreaming, and God only knew what horror was playing out in her head.
“Shh,” he said softly. “I’m here.”
At the sound of his voice, the tension in her muscles began to lessen.
“You’re safe,” he said softly. “You’re safe.”
She sighed as she rolled, curving her backside against him as one arm dangled off the side of the bed.
He turned then, spooning himself against her body and pulling the covers up over them both. She was warm and pliant, and his heart ached for her vulnerability. He slid his arm across her body and held her close, letting his hand rest just beneath the weight of her breasts. He closed his eyes. He felt privileged that she’d asked him to make love to her and guilty that he’d given in to her plea. She’d trusted him enough to let him into her home. Then she’d let him into her bed. Now there was something else—something she didn’t know—and he wasn’t sure when, or even if, he would ever tell her. But while he was playing the gallant bodyguard, he’d let down his guard and let her into his heart.
Buddy had been watching the clock for almost an hour. The moment it ticked over to six o’clock, he got up from his desk and headed for the door. Every leash he had on his emotions was coming undone, and he needed to be away from his colleagues before it showed.
On his more rational days, he accepted that learned experiences naturally became a part of the human psyche. But now there were far more days when rationality was not a part of Buddy’s world. The more he fixated on Caitlin Bennett, the more scattered his mind became. At work, he was the man in charge. People came to him to fix their problems. And most of the time he did. No one knew how much he struggled to remain calm and organized. He was beyond suspicion in every way, yet when he left the job, he left sanity behind.
Out on the street, sounds were magnified, colors bled and ran one into the other like a kaleidoscope. He saw people’s mouths moving and knew they were talking, but the words echoed in his head, blurring consonants and vowels until he couldn’t distinguish one from the other.
In a panic, his stride lengthened until he was running for the subway. Once on board, he slid into a seat and closed his eyes, letting his head loll back against the window. Someone slid into the seat beside him, roughly jostling his arm as the car lurched into motion. He couldn’t bring himself to look for fear he would come undone. When he heard his stop being called, he came upright as if he’d been catapulted from the seat, pushing and shoving his way out of the car. He moved with the crowd as it flowed upward toward the streets. Moments later he emerged from the belly of the city, taking short, jerky breaths, like a newborn baby testing the world into which he’d been thrust.
“Hey, mister, step aside please,” someone said.
“Sorry,” Buddy mumbled. He shoved his hands into his pockets, lowered his head against the wind and started walking.
By the time he reached his apartment, he was on the verge of screaming. Thrusting his key into the lock with shaking hands, he was inside within seconds. Slamming and locking the door behind him, he moved through the rooms; ignoring dust and dirty dishes, he aimed for the bedroom. As he entered, he hit the light switch with the flat of his hand, illuminating the true insanity. Caitlin was everywhere in here. On walls, on the ceiling, bits and pieces of her had even been strewn on the floor. Only his bed remained unsullied by her presence. He shed his coat and gloves, letting them drop to the floor where he stood. Next came his shoes, then his clothes, and finally he stood naked. Without a care for the pile of garments he’d just shed, he crawled into bed and pulled the covers up over his head. Sleep. He just needed to sleep. After that, everything would be okay.
“Buddy…Buddy…I can’t see you.”
“I’m here, Mother…right beside your bed.”
“Make it stop, Buddy. You have to make it stop.”
Buddy covered his ears, unable to hear her ask it again. Every day for the last month she had begged him to take away her pain. The cancer she’d been battling had finally gotten the upper hand. The tumors were huge knots beneath her flesh, their poison infiltrating vital organs—sucking the strength from her body with every breath she took. Short of putting a gun to her head, there was nothing left to do but wait for her to die. And oh God…as much as he loved her, he prayed for it to happen.
The guilt of thinking that was killing him, too, only by degrees. She was the only person who’d ever loved him—had sacrificed many times during her life so that he might have the superficial luxuries that his schoolmates had—and now he didn’t have the guts to grant her dying wish? How could this be? How could he be so weak?
She coughed and then moaned.
He stared at her face, holding his breath and praying she didn’t take another. But, like everything else in his life, his prayer wasn’t answered.
She gasped, her fingers curling into clawlike fists upon the sheets.
He laid his head down on the side of the bed and closed his eyes.
“Please,” he begged. “Please, God, no more. She can’t take any more…and neither can I.”
“Sir…is there anything I can get you?”
He looked up to see a nurse standing by his mother’s bed. He hadn’t heard her come in.
“No…no…there’s nothing I need.”
The nurse smiled gently and then patted his mother’s arm.
“This isn’t one of her better days, is it?”
Better days? He looked at her, wondering why people didn’t just come out and say it. For God’s sake, she was dying. Why couldn’t they just say, “Your mother is dying”?
“She’s in pain,” he said.
“Doctor is giving her the maximum dosage.”
“I know.”
The nurse sighed and then lowered her voice.
“She doesn’t have long, you know.”
Another minute is too long, he thought, but he didn’t say it aloud.
“Ring if you need me,” she said, and left the room.
His mother moaned. He stood abruptly and strode to the window, unable to look upon the colorless, wasting flesh.
“Buddy is Momma’s good boy.”
Her words hit him like a knife in the back. He looked past the windows into the night beyond the hospital walls. It was starting to snow. He hated the cold. When spring came he would—
His thoughts stopped. When spring came, she would be locked in some casket and six feet under. His mother’s springs had come and gone. This was the winter of her life—her last winter—and it would be over none too soon for him.
“I hurt, Buddy. Kiss away the hurts.”
He turned then, his face wreathed in torment, and walked to the side of her bed. The scent of death was all around her. He leaned down, ashamed to be holding his breath as he placed a quick, gentle kiss on her cheek.