He’d found her most vulnerable spot, and, just like that, the fun went out of the game. His meaningless threats of violence hadn’t bothered her, but the fact that he believed she was too geeky for another man to find attractive stung to the quick. “No, I don’t know that.” She headed toward her bedroom.
“Where are you going?” he called after her. “I thought you were going to patch me up?”
“The antibiotic is on the vanity. Do it yourself.”
He followed her into her bedroom, coming to a stop just inside the door. “Does Kevin— Does he mean something to you?” He flung down the hand towel. “How the hell could he mean anything to you? You don’t even know him!”
“Our discussion is over.”
“I thought you believed in open communication?”
She said nothing, but gazed out the window, wishing he’d go away.
He came up behind her, and she heard a curious gruffness in his voice. “I hurt your feelings, didn’t I?”
She slowly nodded.
“I didn’t mean to. I just— I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. You don’t have a lot of experience with jocks. They can be—I don’t know—hard on women, I guess.”
“I know.” She turned back to him in time to watch a crooked rivulet of water slide toward a flat brown nipple. “I think I’ve had enough high drama for today. You’d better go.”
He came closer instead, and when he spoke, his voice held a surprising note of tenderness. “We didn’t even get to the bare-butt spanking.”
“Maybe some other time.”
“How ’bout we just do the bare-butt part?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to bare anything to each other for a while.”
“Now why do you say that?”
“Because it makes everything too complicated.”
“Last night wasn’t complicated. At least not ’til you got all snooty.”
“Me!” Her head shot up. “I’ve never been snooty in my life!”
“Oh, yeah?” Her renewed feistiness must have been what he was waiting for because the glimmer of battle once again flared in his eyes. “Well, I happen to have been at that drive-in with you, and, believe me, you were snooty.”
“When?”
“You know very well.”
“I don’t.”
“That quite pleasant crap.”
“I don’t know what— Oh, that.” She regarded him more closely. “Did what I said bother you?”
“Hell, no, it didn’t bother me. You think I don’t know how good I am? And if you don’t realize it, well, I guess that’s your problem and not mine.”
He looked sulky, and she realized she had hurt his feelings last night. The knowledge touched her. Despite his seemingly boundless self-confidence, he had insecurities like everyone else. “It was more than pleasant,” she admitted.
“Damn right.”
“I’d say it was— It was—” She regarded him out of the corner of her eye. “What word am I looking for?”
“Why don’t you start out with pretty damn terrific?”
Her spirits made a quantum leap upward. “Terrific? Yes, that’s a good start. It was definitely terrific. It was also…” She waited.
“Exciting, and sexy as hell.”
“That, too, but…”
“Frustrating.”
“Frustrating?”
“Yeah.” A combative thrust to that square jaw. “I want to see you naked.”
“You do? Why?”
“Because I do.”
“Is this a guy thing?”
His truculence faded, and one corner of his mouth—the uninjured corner—curled. “You could say that.”
“Believe me when I tell you that you’re not missing much.”
“I’m probably a better judge of that than you are.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true. You know those endlessly long legs you see on models? Those legs that go all the way up to their armpits?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t have them.”
“Is that a fact.”
“My legs aren’t short, but they’re not exceptionally long, either. Just average. And as for breasts— Do you consider yourself a breast man?”
“They’ve been known to catch my attention.”
“Mine won’t. Now my hips are a different matter. They’re huge.”
“Your hips are not huge.”
“I look like a pear.”
“You do not look like a pear.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, but since you haven’t seen me naked, you’re not exactly a competent judge.”
“We can take care of that right now.”
He was at his most enticing: gray eyes glinting, that unexpected dimple on display just beneath his cheekbone, funny, warm, sexy. And she was at her most vulnerable. In a flash of insight that nearly knocked her from her feet, she realized that she was in love with him. Deeply and forever in love. She loved his masculinity, his intelligence, his complexity. She loved his sense of humor and his loyalty to his family, as well as that old-fashioned moral code that dictated he watch out for a child. Even one he didn’t want.
There was no time to think about it, no place to run so she could ponder the enormity of what had happened. She watched him lift his arm and trace the curve of her jaw with his thumb. “I like you, Rosebud. I like you a lot.”
“You do?”
He nodded.
She noted that he’d said he liked her, not loved her, and swallowed the lump in her throat. “You’re just saying that to get me naked.”
The creases of amusement deepened at the corners of his eyes. “It’s tempting, but this is too important to lie about.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“I did. But it’s hard to hold on to a good—and entirely justifiable—hatred with you.”
Hope sprang inside her. “You forgive me?”
He hesitated. “Not exactly. It’s a pretty big thing to forgive.”
Once again, she felt a great wave of guilt sweeping through her. “You know I’m sorry, don’t you?”
“Are you?”
“I—I can’t be sorry about the baby, but I am sorry about the way I used you. I didn’t think of you as a real person, just a dehumanized object that could give me what I wanted. If anyone treated me that way, I’d never forgive them, and if it’s any consolation, you should know that I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Maybe you could do what I’ve been doing and work on separating the sin from the sinner.”
She gazed into his eyes, trying to see through them to his heart. “Do you really not hate me anymore?”
“I already told you that I like you.”
“I don’t see how you could.”
“I guess it just happened.”
“When?”
“When did I decide I liked you? That day at Annie’s when you found out I was smart.”
“And you found out I was old.”
“Don’t remind me. I still haven’t recovered from that. Maybe we could say the DMV made a mistake on your license.”
She ignored the hopeful glimmer in his eyes. “How could you have decided you liked me that day? We had a terrible fight.”
“Beats me. It just happened.”
She considered what he was revealing. Nothing could be farther from a declaration of love, but his words did show a certain warmth of feeling. “I’ll need to think about it.”
“About what?”
“Whether or not I’m going to get naked.”
“All right.”
That was another thing she liked about him. For all his bullying and bluster, he knew how to distinguish what was important from the trivial, and he seemed to understand he couldn’t hurry her on this.
“There’s one more thing we have to settle.”
She regarded him warily, then sighed. “I like my car. It has personality.”
“So do a lot of psychopaths, but that doesn’t mean
you want one in your house. Now here’s the way it’s going to be—”
“Cal, please don’t waste your breath giving me one of your high-handed lectures because I’ll only end up locking you out of the house again. I asked you to help me find a car, you refused, so I did it myself. The car stays. And it won’t even hurt your reputation. Think about it. When people see me driving around in it, they’ll take it as one more sign of how unworthy I am to be your wife.”
“You’ve got a point there. Everybody who knows me knows I wouldn’t be keeping any woman around for very long who drove a heap like that.”
“I won’t even comment on what that says about your sense of values.” He had a wonderful sense of values. It was his taste in women that needed an overhaul.
He grinned, but she refused to let it affect her. She wouldn’t be so easily won over. “I want your word of honor that you won’t touch my car. No driving it away or sending a tow truck when I’m not looking. The car is mine, and it stays. And just so we understand each other, I’m telling you right now that if you lay a finger on my Escort, you’ll never enjoy another box of Lucky Charms in this house.”
“More marshmallow sabotage?”
“I never repeat myself. Think rat poison.”
“You are the most bloodthirsty woman I’ve ever met.”
“It’s a slow and painful death. I don’t recommend it.”
He laughed and headed back into the bathroom, where he shut the door only to pop his head back out. “All this arguing has stirred up my appetite. How ’bout we scrounge up something to eat as soon as I get dressed?”
“All right.”
As the rain continued to fall outside, they dined on soup, salad, and sandwiches, with a side order of taco chips. While they ate, she managed to wheedle a few more details out of him about his work with teenagers and discovered he’d been devoting his time to disadvantaged kids for years. He’d help fund rec centers, made speeches to recruit volunteers for after-school tutoring programs, set up intramural leagues, and lobbied the Illinois state legislature to improve their drug- and sex-education programs.
He shrugged off her comment that not all celebrities would be willing to give up so much time with no obvious reward to themselves. It was just something to do, he growled.
The hallway clock struck midnight and, gradually, their conversation dwindled. An awkwardness settled between them that hadn’t been there before. She toyed with an uneaten bread crust. He shifted his weight in the kitchen chair. She’d been so comfortable all evening, but now she felt awkward and self-conscious.
“It’s late,” she finally said. “I think I’ll head up to bed.” She picked up her plate as she stood.
He rose, too, and removed it from her hand. “You cooked. I’ll clean up.”
But he didn’t head toward the sink. Instead, he stayed where he was and gazed at her with hungry eyes. She could hear his unspoken question. Tonight, Rosebud? Are you ready to cut through all this pretense and do what we both want?
If he had reached out for her, she would have been lost, but he didn’t do that, and she understood that this time she would have to make the first move. His eyebrows rose in a silent dare.
Wings of a panic beat at her breastbone. The new knowledge that she had fallen in love with him made all the difference. She wanted sex between them to matter.
The powerful brain that had guided her throughout her life refused to function, and confusion gripped her. She felt paralyzed, and the most she could manage was a polite, social smile. “I’ve enjoyed tonight, Cal. I’ll fix the gate first thing tomorrow.”
He said nothing; he merely watched her.
She tried to think of some casual comment to defuse the tension, but nothing came to mind. He stood there watching her. She knew he was aware of her uneasiness, but he didn’t seem to share it. Why should he when he didn’t share her feelings? Unlike her, he hadn’t fallen in love.
She turned away, enveloped by a sense of loss. As she left the kitchen, her brain told her she was doing the right thing, but her heart told her she was a coward.
Cal watched her disappear through the doorway, and disappointment filled him. She was running away, and he wasn’t sure why. He hadn’t pushed her tonight. He’d given her space, made certain the conversation stayed on safe topics. As a matter of fact, he’d been enjoying himself so much he’d nearly forgotten about sex. Nearly, but never entirely. He wanted her too much to put it out of his mind. She’d enjoyed their lovemaking last night—he knew she had—so why was she denying both of them one of life’s most basic pleasures?
He carried the dishes from their dinner to the sink and rinsed them off. His disappointment turned into irritation. Why did he let her bother him so much?
Disgusted with himself, he stalked upstairs, but entering his bordello bedroom only made his mood grow bleaker. A crack of thunder rattled the windows, and he realized the storm had intensified. Good. It matched his mood. He sat down on the side of the bed and yanked off one shoe.
“Cal?”
He looked up to see the bathroom door swing open, but just then a blinding flash of lightning shook the walls, and the house was plunged into darkness.
Several seconds ticked by, and then he heard a soft giggle.
He flung down his other shoe. “We just lost our electricity. You want to tell me what’s so funny about that?”
“It’s not exactly funny. It’s more of a good news/bad news situation.”
“In that case, hit me with the good news first.”
“They’re both sort of rolled up into one.”
“Stop stalling.”
“All right. Now don’t get mad, but…” Smothered laughter drifted toward him. “Cal… I’m naked.”
Chapter Sixteen
One month later
C al poked his head into her bedroom through the connecting bathroom door. A glint shone in his eyes. “I’m taking a shower. You want to get in with me?”
She slid her gaze over his deliciously naked body, so beautifully delineated in the morning light, and had to resist the urge to lick her lips. “Maybe another time.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I think I do.”
The inadvertently wistful note in her voice seemed to amuse him. “Poor little Rosebud. You’ve really boxed yourself into a corner, haven’t you?” With a cocky smile, he disappeared into the bathroom.
She stuck out her tongue at the empty doorway, propped her cheek on her bent elbow, and thought about that April night one month ago when she’d made her impulsive decision to take off her clothes and go to him. The unexpected electrical failure just as she’d walked into his bedroom had marked the beginning of a night of pleasure and passion that she would never forget. She smiled to herself. In the month that had passed since then, Cal had gotten very good at making love by touch.
She’d gotten rather good at it herself, she thought with a certain amount of pride. Maybe his lusty nature and lack of inhibition had freed her from her own inhibitions. She would do anything… everything… except let him see her naked.
It had become a game. She would only make love with him at night with the lights out, and she always awakened sometime before dawn so she could return to her own room or slip into his if they’d fallen asleep in her bed. He could have changed the rules. He could have overpowered her, or left her so breathless at high noon with his kisses that she relented, but he never did. He was a competitor, and he didn’t want to win by guile, only by her total surrender.
Her insistence on making love in the dark had begun as a gentle form of sexual teasing, but as one week faded into another and she realized how deeply she had fallen in love with him, something changed. She began to worry about how he would react when he finally saw her. She was now four months pregnant, and although she bloomed with health, her waist had thickened to the point where she couldn’t come close to fastening her slacks and her days wearing tucked-in blouses were a thing of the past. With
her expanding belly and unimpressive breasts, she could never compete with all those beauties in his past.
But it was more than the shortcomings of her body that made her hesitant. What if mystery was the lure that drew him to her bed each night? Mystery and the enticement of the unknown? Once his curiosity was satisfied, would he lose interest?
She wanted to believe it wouldn’t matter, but she knew how much Cal loved a challenge. Would he enjoy her company as much if she bent to his will? She seemed to be the only woman in his life, with the exception of his mother and grandmother, who stood up to him.
He was an intelligent, decent man with a generous heart. But he was also domineering and competitive. Was it only the novelty of her rebellion that made him seek her company, both in and out of bed?
She faced the fact that her time for playing games had run out. She needed to stop being a coward, take off her clothes so he could see her, and face the truth. If he didn’t want her for who she was, but only for the challenge of conquering her, then what they had together was worthless. She had to do it soon, she decided. It was crazy to keep this going on any longer.
She got out of bed and made her way to her bathroom. After she’d taken her morning vitamins and brushed her teeth, she returned to her room, and, with one hand on her growing belly, wandered over to the window so she could gaze out at the May morning. The mountainside was alive with blooms: dogwood, rhododendron, flame azaleas, along with budding mountain laurel. Her first Appalachian spring was more beautiful than she could ever have imagined. Violets, trillium, and lady slippers had unfolded in the woods where she walked, and wisteria bloomed at the side of the house along with a white shower of blackberry blossoms. She had never experienced such a breathtaking, joyous May.
But, then, she’d never been in love, either.
She understood how vulnerable she’d made herself, but as the guarded look Cal had carried in his eyes for so long was replaced by laughter and tenderness, she began to believe that he might be falling in love with her. Two months ago the idea would have been absurd, but now it didn’t seem so impossible.
For people who should have nothing in common, they never ran out of subjects to talk about or things to do. While she spent her mornings at the computer, Cal worked out and took care of his local commitments, but they spent most afternoons and many evenings together.