Iris Johansen - Always

She looked down at the cup in her hands. "I won't let you dismiss the subject so lightly. You behaved outrageously and-"

He suddenly sat upright, kneeling by her chair. "Look, you don't understand." He took the cup from her hands and put it on the floor beside the chair. Then he gathered her hands in his big, warm clasp. "It's not important anymore. Even if I didn't have a reason for using you to lure Baldwin here, we'd have to deal with him anyway. First, because he's making you so damn miserable, and second, because he's a part of your life I have to face and eliminate."

Her eyes widened in shock. "Eliminate? You mean…"

He shook his head. "I wish I could, but I know it's not that simple now. There'd always be a cloud hanging over our life if I conveniently 'removed' your first husband."

"First," she repeated dazedly.

He smiled. "First. I'm going to be your next and your last husband. We're going to be married, you know."

"No, I didn't know. This is utterly insane."

"I agree completely."

"We don't even know each other."

"That's definitely a stumbling block, but one that can be easily remedied in this situation."

"You have to be joking." Her eyes were wide in her pale face.

He shook his head. "If I am, the joke's on me. I'm not a boy any longer. I suppose it must seem a little ludicrous to you that a man of my age could fall in love as violently as any teenager, but that's what I've done." He lifted her left palm to his lips and pressed a warm kiss on the soft skin. Holding her gaze with his own, he said softly, "I've fallen in lovewith you, Lisa Landon. Wildly, passionately, romantically, and with all the accompanying uncomfortable symptoms. I'm jealous as hell, possessive, and miserably uncertain." He shook his head. "You can laugh if you like. I know I must be funny as the devil."

"I don't feel like laughing." Her palm was tingling, burning beneath his lips, and she felt panic racing within her. "You actually mean it, don't you?"

"I told you I didn't lie. Of course I mean it."

She moistened her lips. "I'm not ever going to be married again. Not ever."

"I won't push you. I'll give you the time you need to adjust to the idea," he said quietly. "I just thought I'd better get everything out in the open. This situation is complicated enough without your misunderstanding my intentions." He smiled with surprising sweetness. "My intention is to marry you and love you for the rest of our lives. Is that clear enough?"

Lisa shook her head. "I won't marry you, Clancy. Not if you wait a hundred years." She met his eyes directly. "And I don't love you."

"I didn't expect you to love me. It would have been too much to hope that we'd both succumb to the same insanity." His warm, wet tongue suddenly stroked her palm. "But you do want me. I'm experienced enough to recognize those particular signs. I'll start with that and work my way up."

"No! I won't let you-" She broke off. His teeth were gently nibbling at the smooth tips of her fingers. She felt her heart jerk and then start to pound wildly. "Clancy, stop. I'm not like this. Idon't fall into bed with every man who crooks his finger."

"I know that. It was all in your dossier. You haven't been with a man since you divorced Baldwin. After I realized the exact nature of my affliction, I found that very comforting reading."

"That damn dossier." His tongue was licking the hollows at the base of her fingers, and she had to concentrate to bring her thoughts back to the subject. "It's practically indecent to pry into a woman's personal life like that."

"I'll ask Alex to send you mine. It must still be around somewhere. Then we'll be even."

She could see the drumming of the pulse in his temple and felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch that vital life force.

"Okay?"

"What?" He was so warm and alive that she could feel the heat and vitality radiating from his big body, surrounding her, nearly overpowering her.

He grinned. "Why do I feel you aren't paying proper attention to my soulful declaration? Which isn't at all kind, considering that I've never told a woman I was mad about her before."

"You're mad, period. Love at first sight is something out of a storybook. Sexual attraction at first sight I can accept. But love…" She shook her head. "It's too farfetched. In a few days you'll be glad I didn't take you seriously."

"Not that farfetched. I've seen it happen before, but I've always been on the outside looking in. I'm familiar enough with the phenomenon to recognize it when it appears on my horizon." He gently touched her lips with his fingertips. "I neverthought it would happen to me. I thought I would just go on forever, doing my job and hovering on the edge of relationships, but never really being involved. Do you know what a miracle this is for me?"

She felt her throat tighten painfully. "I'm the wrong woman," she said huskily. "I won't let myself get involved with any man. Find someone else, Clancy."

"I can't. You may be the wrong woman, but you're the only woman."

"I'll hurt you." There was a note of desperation in her voice. "Give it up. I don't want to cause anyone pain, Clancy. There's too much of that in the world already."

"I'll take my chances." His index finger traced the curve of her lower lip. "You have a beautiful mouth. I love to see you smile. It lights up the whole world. You don't do it often enough, though."

"Clancy, for God's sake, listen to me."

"I'm listening." His eyes met hers. "Thank you for the warning, acushla, but it's too late. I don't have a choice any longer. I have to try." He smiled faintly. "I must warn you that I can be a fairly tough customer when I go after something, and there will be no holds barred this time. It's a battle I've got to win."

"You can't win, dammit? It's a no-win situation." Her lower lip was throbbing and felt swollen and satin soft beneath the light caress of his finger. That throbbing seemed to be sending out shock waves to every nerve ending in her body. "Let me go."

He shook his head. "I couldn't, even if I wanted to now. We have to finish what we've started."

"We haven't started anything. Now is the time to-" His hands were suddenly at her waist and he pulled her to the floor beside him. "Clancy!"

His blue eyes were dancing. "I have to show you that it's already begun, don't I?" His big hands gently framed her face. "Don't worry. I'm not going to attack. I just want to make a point." His head lowered slowly until his warm breath feathered her lips. He was barely touching her and she could feel the tremors begin to sear through her. He chuckled. "That's not the only thing I want to make, of course, but it will do for a start." His lips touched hers with the greatest delicacy, tasting, brushing, moving, giving her only enough to tantalize without satisfying. His broad chest brushed against her breasts as he shifted position to angle her lips to meet his. She inhaled sharply and felt him hesitate for the fraction of an instant before his lips closed on hers once more. He lifted his head. "Your breasts are exquisitely sensitive, aren't they?" he murmured. "I thought they were." He rubbed his upper body against her with a slow, sinuous movement. She couldn't breathe, and the tremors had centered to become a pulsating ache between her thighs. Her breasts were firming, swelling, and she could feel the hard crest of her nipples thrust against the knit of her sweater. Her eyes closed as she reached for his shoulders to keep herself from swaying. "Earlier, on the beach, I wanted to do this," he said thickly. "And so much more. I wanted to take that satin top off you and just look at you. I wanted to take your nipples in my fingersand make them come alive for me." His hands dropped away from her face to the hollow of her back, arching her up against him. The sound she made deep in her throat was a half moan. "I wanted to use my tongue, my lips, and my teeth." Lisa could hear the heavy pounding of his heart against her breasts, and it triggered a melting somewhere deep within her. She swayed and knew if his hands hadn't been supporting her, her knees would have given way. "I wanted to touch you with every part of me. I still do."