“Go ahead and say it.” Her tone was amused as she piled her armload of ingredients on the kitchen counter. “You know you’re dying to.”
“It’s nothing. Just, the books say that sometimes spicy food isn’t the best thing for—”
“And sometimes the books don’t know what they’re talking about,” Camille shot back, as she washed the peppers and then began slicing them in a series of quick, expert slices of the knife. “I had Thai food for lunch today and it was delicious.”
He blanched at the thought of all the hot peppers and exotic ingredients that went into Thai cuisine. “It wasn’t fish, was it? You know, there are a lot of fish with high mercury contents that pregnant women aren’t supposed to eat. In fact, I have a list in the drawer next to the stove—”
“I know. I found it days ago. Now relax, Matt. I promise not to have any fun while I’m pregnant. Okay?”
He felt her words like a blow. “That’s not what I meant. You’re doing a great job, taking really good care of yourself. You think I don’t know that?”
“Oh, lighten up, already. You take everything so seriously.” She tossed him an onion. “Here, cut this, and we’ll be eating in no time.”
True to her word, Camille had the peppers and onions sizzling with a bunch of spices within a few minutes and his kitchen was filled with the fragrant, mouthwatering scent of homemade Mexican food. Within minutes, they were seated at the table, wrapping up tortillas filled with black beans, chicken, vegetables and guacamole.
They talked through dinner, but kept things light as if by tacit agreement. He told her of Justin and Johnny’s bathtub submarine and she told him about her latest temp job at a pediatric dentist’s office—and the little boy they’d had who had bitten the doctor every time she tried to put a finger in his mouth.
“You should have seen the boy’s poor mother. She was so red I thought she was going to have a stroke.”
“I bet. What did the dentist do?”
“Bribed him with everything she could get her hands on and when that didn’t work, told the mother that he obviously had a strong set of chompers, which showed every appearance of being in working order. The X-rays looked fine, so she sent him on his way.”
“I don’t know how pediatric doctors do it,” he mused. “Kids are so unpredictable and difficult, so—”
“Wonderful and unique.” Camille’s eyes met his across the dinner table. “Actually, of all the temp jobs I’ve had, that was the one I like the most.”
“Really, even with kids like that?”
“Especially with kids like that. He wasn’t malicious, just mischievous. And nervous—a dangerous combination, but not necessarily a bad one.”
Her response surprised him even as it warmed him, had him thinking for the first time of what their own child would be like. Oh, he’d imagined the baby—sleepless nights, crying, cuddling—but nothing beyond that, nothing about when the baby turned into a toddler or a child, with his own personality. Now that he was thinking about it, the idea wasn’t an unpleasant one.
Would their child have Camille’s dark, wild curls or the thick auburn hair that had been the bane of his existence growing up? Camille’s wild disposition or his need for order? Whoever it turned out to be, the child would probably inherit their artistic gifts, whatever it chose to do with them. He warmed to the idea of a son or daughter who followed in his footsteps, who joined the architectural firm he and Reece had worked so hard to build through the years.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Camille’s voice drew him away from the might-bes and into the present.
“I don’t know. Just thinking—about kids and the future.”
Her eyes darkened to a wicked amethyst and her laugh was as smooth as the fifty-year-old Scotch Reece had gotten him for his birthday. “Trying to imagine our child biting some dentist?”
“Trying to imagine our child at all. And I was planning its future career path.”
She raised a brow. “An architect, hmm?”
“Or an artist, like its mother.”
“Somehow I doubt that’s what you were imagining—our baby globe-hopping as he perfects his art.”
“Maybe not our baby… But a twenty-year-old art student? Yeah. I can see him clearly. Living in a garret in Paris as he struggles for his art, with both of us sneaking him money to help him survive.”
“Or her, posing as an artist’s model for the petty cash, inspiring some other painter as she perfects her own craft.”
“Is that what you did? Do, I mean?” He tried to disguise the intensity of his interest in her answer. “Model for French painters?”
“And Italian glassblowers and Dutch watercolorists and Spanish sculptors.” She laughed, gestured at her stomach. “Or at least I did. Not much call for a model with a huge stomach these days.”
“Your stomach isn’t huge! You’re barely showing.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen me naked.”
Her words hung between them, the three-ton elephant in the room, as he tried his damnedest not to picture her naked. Of course, it was impossible.
She’d always been beautiful—long, lean lines with sharp angles and narrow hips. But now, four and a half months into her pregnancy, she was gorgeous. Her breasts were fuller, her hips rounder. And the curve of her stomach, where she sheltered his baby? He’d spent more than one sweaty, lust-filled night thinking about what it would be like to kiss his way down the firmness of her growing belly to what lay beneath.
“No.” He cleared his suddenly thick throat. “I haven’t. Not lately, anyway.”
Her breath hitched at his reply, her eyes darkening to the wild purple of the belladonna that used to grow in the woods behind his childhood home. Dark and dangerous and incredibly inviting, like the deadly nightshade of his youth, they promised things he knew weren’t good for him. And yet he didn’t care—in those moments all his careful planning went out the window and all he could think about was touching her.
“Do you want—” Her voice broke. “Do you want to touch my stomach? Feel the baby—”
“Yes!” At another time he might be embarrassed by the eagerness of his answer, but right now all he could think about was getting his hands on Camille’s silky skin, about being close to her again after the weeks and months of being without her. He nearly knocked his chair over in his haste to get to her, his normal finesse abandoning him as all the blood in his brain rushed due south.
She laughed, a sexy, husky sound that made his nerves sizzle and his hands shake. Dropping to his knees in front of Camille, he kept his eyes on her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes growing darker with each second that passed, and the tip of her tongue kept darting out to lick her lips in a rhythm that was driving him insane.
Slowly, so slowly that he could hear each rasp of the cotton against her skin, Camille lifted her tank top until it was right under her bra line. He wanted to groan, to beg her to take it off completely so he could see the ripe, round breasts that had been keeping him up at night, but even lust-crazed, he was smart enough to take what she was offering and demand nothing else.
Her stomach was the same golden cream he remembered, and memories of the last time he’d seen her stomach hung in the air between them. It was the night before she’d left him and he’d spent long minutes kissing her midriff, nuzzling and tickling and tasting as he worshipped her with his hands and lips and tongue.
Now, at this instant, he wanted nothing more than to repeat the experience. “Can I—”
“Yes!” It was her turn to step on his words, to grab his hands with her own trembling fingers and bring his palms to rest on her stomach. At the first contact of his callused fingers to her smooth belly she gasped, then sighed, her entire body arching up for closer contact, firmer pressure.
He followed her lead, pressed his thumbs into the downward curve of her abdomen while his fingers stroked on either side of her navel. She groaned, shuddered, pressed herself even harder against his hands, and he
nearly lost it. Nearly pulled her into his lap and took her in whatever way she would let him, whatever way he could.
But there was something soothing in stroking her belly—in feeling the firm resilience of his child beneath his palm, sheltered deep within her body—that gave him more than a quick sexual encounter would.
So he took his time, caressing every inch of her bared tummy.
Fondling each new curve and slope.
Petting over and around the sexy indentation of her belly button.
By the time he was done, she was shuddering and he was so aroused he could barely see. The air was bellowing in and out of his lungs, as if he had just finished running a marathon in record time, and he wanted nothing more than to kiss her.
But he didn’t know the rules, didn’t know how far she wanted to—
Camille leaned forward, giving him a fabulous view of her spectacular breasts, but then even that was forgotten as she claimed his lips with her own.
AT THE FIRST TOUCH OF Matt’s lips on her own, Camille’s world imploded. Reaching up, she tangled her fingers in the ends of his deliberately styled hair and tugged until he was up on his knees, his face nearly level with her own. Only then did she give herself over to the kiss and the feelings that were slamming through her body like tidal waves.
She might have initiated the kiss, initiated the contact, but Matt took over in the space of one heartbeat to the next. He was gentle, so gentle, as his lips moved against her own, teasing her, playing with her mouth much the same way his fingers had done to her stomach moments before.His tongue licked over her lips, toying with the center indentation of her upper lip before moving on to the lush fullness of her lower one. He swept over the corners of her mouth, teasing her—tormenting her—before sweeping inside to taste her.
She wrapped her arms around him, pulled him closer as his tongue toyed with her own. He tasted like lemon custard and bittersweet chocolate, smelled of the earthy, saltiness of the ocean. She wanted to get closer still, wanted to wrap herself up in him until there was nothing between them but the silkiness of skin and the quick beat of their hearts.
Her fingers tightened in his hair and Matt groaned, deepening the kiss until his tongue was everywhere—sweeping over the top of her mouth, playing with the little bit of skin that connected her upper lip to her gum, tangling with her own tongue in a rhythm that set her on fire.
His arms closed around her, his fingers stroking her spine to cup the nape of her neck. She shivered at the touch, feeling vulnerable and powerful and sexier than she had since she’d left him all those months before. In the back of her mind, an alarm sounded—along with all the reasons this was a bad idea.
But her body was on fire, her sex aching with the need to feel Matt inside of her, and it was easier—infinitely easier—to just go with the desire. With the need. With the aching, yawning emptiness inside of her that called out for so much more.
Matt’s hands slipped around to cup her face and his lips raced over her cheeks, down her jaw and the long line of her neck to the hollow of her throat. As he nuzzled her there, his tongue stroking her pulse points and the bones below them, she felt herself melt and knew that there was nothing she would refuse him now. Nothing she would deny him.
She tangled her fingers in the fabric of his T-shirt, shoved it out of the way so she could feel the burning heat of his back against her hands. Matt groaned again, nipped at her throat and she dug her nails into the muscular pads of his shoulders.
“Shit, Camille.” He wrenched his mouth away from hers, took a series of huge, gulping breaths. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“Yes.” She turned her head, found his mouth with her own, and moaned with the power and the pleasure that swept through her. “The same way you’re killing me. I need you, Matt. I need you.”
His hands fisted in her hair, yanked her head back, and then he was devouring her. His mouth was everywhere, everywhere, and she felt herself go up in flames. She whimpered, spread her legs until he was inside her thighs, his hardness pressed to the very heart of her. Then she started to rock.
Matt cursed again, tried to get control of his rampaging libido. But it was hard with Camille shaking and arching and whimpering against him, begging him for what he so desperately wanted to give her. He reached between them, rubbed over the damp cotton of her shorts. She moaned, her head falling back against the chair as her hips bucked against his hand, and he nearly came in his jeans.
She was so hot, so responsive, that he could barely hold himself back. But it wouldn’t be right, he told himself. He was leaving for Tokyo tomorrow—for three weeks at least—and she deserved more than the quick wham, bam, thank you, ma’am that he was currently capable of providing. She deserved long, sweat-soaked nights and a lover who would be around to hold her in the morning.
He couldn’t give her that, not now.
But at the same time, it would kill him to leave her like this—her body screaming for release as she wrapped herself around him.
Pulling back just a little, he slipped one finger inside the crotch of her shorts, her panties. Added a second, then a third, as her body vibrated like an arrow on a bow. “Matt, please!”
“I know, sweetheart, I know. I’ve got you.” Then he slid a finger deep inside of her, cursed again at the tight heat of her as she closed around him. He found her most sensitive spot, started to stroke. Once, twice.
“Matt, oh, please!” She grabbed his hair in her hands, pulled his mouth down to hers and bit him, hard. He tightened to the point of pain and beyond as he took her mouth with his own.
She clenched his finger, nearly had him seeing stars as he slid another one inside of her. He thrust his tongue deep into her mouth, stroked, then retreated, did the same thing again and again, mimicking the motion and rhythm of his fingers in her sex.
Her body was arching, thrashing, embracing around him as she rode his hand, and he wanted nothing more than to be inside her. Nothing more than to let her ride him the way she was riding his hand.
Knowing his control was at an all-time low, but determined to hang on to it, he swept his thumb around her clitoris in a rhythm he knew she liked. Around and around as his fingers and tongue thrust deep inside of her and his erection strained to be set free.
Suddenly Camille cried out, her legs tightening around his own as her body contracted rhythmically at his fingers. He thrust deeper, stroked just a little harder and nearly came himself as her orgasm overtook her.
She ripped her mouth from his, let her head fall back as wave after wave rippled through her. Her cheeks and the tops of her breasts were flushed a rosy, inviting pink and he wanted nothing more than to lean forward and take a bite of her. But she was still coming, her body holding on to his as if he was her only anchor, and he was loath to do anything to disturb her.
When it was over, when she’d finally floated back to earth, Camille leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Matt. “You didn’t finish,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t you want to make love?”
He laughed, a painful, grating sound, and pushed away from her. “I wouldn’t feel right about it.”
She gasped, felt as though he’d punched her with his careless words. With fumbling fingers, she yanked her tank top and shorts back into place, then stood up, wondering how soon she could make her escape.
Could she have been a bigger idiot?
“I’m leaving for Tokyo tomorrow, Camille.”
Of all the things she’d been expecting him to say, that had been the furthest from her mind. Freezing in her headlong flight across the kitchen, she turned and whispered, “Tokyo?”
“Some problems have cropped up with a building that’s going up there. Reece and I designed it and one of the firm’s architects is already on-site. But they want a partner, so I’m on the first flight out in the morning.”
“How long are you going to be gone?”
“Three weeks at least—maybe more, if I can’t figure out a solution relatively quickly.”
“Wow,” she murmured inanely, wishing she could think of something more intelligent to say. But her knees were still shaking from the orgasm he’d given her and all she could really think about was the fact that she was going to miss Matt while he was gone.
Which was ridiculous, because she never missed anyone. Never let herself care about anyone enough to miss him or her.
But there was a definite hollow place inside her, one that told her Matt had somehow managed to worm his way past her defenses. That he had somehow managed to touch her heart when she’d been so careful, before him, to keep it guarded.
She wanted to believe it was the baby—the fact that he was her child’s father—that was messing her up, but she was afraid it was more than that, and less. Afraid that it was just Matt, with his caring and concern and interminable schedules that had worked his way past all her usual roadblocks.
“I’m sorry.” He crossed to her. “I know this is crappy timing and if I could get out of it, I would.”
“No.” She forced her brain back into gear, made herself smile through the bewildering mix of feelings churning inside of her. “Hey, I’m the last one to lay a guilt trip on you. Definitely, enjoy Tokyo—and send me a postcard. It’s one of the few places I’ve been that I really want to go back to again.”
He searched her eyes, his own brown ones warm with concern and the remnants of desire. “You see why I had to stop, right? I can’t just make love to you tonight and then run out on you before dawn.”
His words were so eerily reminiscent of what she’d done to him five months earlier—had fantastic sex and then bailed—that she couldn’t look him in the eye.
Of course Matt couldn’t make love to her and run—not with so much unsettled between them. It wasn’t in his emotional makeup to hurt someone like that. It didn’t make her special, but it did make her very, very lucky.
“It’s no big deal,” she said, working to keep her voice light. “I understand business. But if you want to come back to my bedroom with me now, the offer still stands.”