Ann Major - A Scandal So Sweet

She drew in a long, relieved breath because she felt the same way.

“I’m new to this, too,” she whispered. “I haven’t dated anyone outside the business before. Maybe we should only worry about how we are together…so that those on the outside don’t matter quite so much. What we have shouldn’t be about them or what they think. It should be about us. I want this piece of my life to belong to me and to you and to nobody else.”

He was silent for a long time. “We do live in the real world, you know, an intrusive world.”

A world that would devour them all over again if it learned all their secrets.

“I know. But I want to try to keep our relationship a personal matter. There are things I need to share with you… Personal things I’ve been afraid to share…”

“You sound very mysterious all of a sudden.”

“I can’t talk about it over the phone. So, about tomorrow… Do we still have a date?”

When he hesitated for a heartbeat, he put her in an agony of suspense.

“I can’t wait,” he admitted in that low, husky tone she loved.

Friday afternoon came at last, and she rushed to LaGuardia in a chauffeured car with a single bag. Hours later, when his jet set her down on a deserted airstrip several miles from the one Bob usually used outside Bonne Terre, she saw him-and no press-waiting beside his Mercedes at the edge of the dark woods. A wild joy pierced her.

Stepping off the plane, she told herself to play it cool. But at the bottom of the stairway, she cried his name and flew into his arms.

“I missed you so much,” she admitted ruefully as she flung her arms around his neck.

He pulled her to him, folded her close.

“You smell so good,” she whispered.

He slanted a look down at her and smiled. “So do you.”

Feeling the fierce need to taste him, she pulled his mouth down to hers. Then he kissed her with a wonderful wild hunger that turned her blood to fire, the ferocity in him matching her own. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that he’d barely contacted her last week or that he’d had so many doubts about their very public relationship. Even the unbearable weight of her secret felt a tiny bit lighter on her heart. There was truth in his kiss, in his touch, a truth he couldn’t hide.

“I brought you something.”

Soft white flashed in the darkness as he handed her a bouquet of daisies.

“They’re gorgeous.” She jammed her nose into the middle of their petals and inhaled their sweetness. “Simply gorgeous. I love them.”

“It’s a cliché gift.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’ve got gold dust all over your nose now.”

“Pollen, they call it,” she whispered as she dabbed at her nose and giggled. “All gone?”

“Not quite.” He dusted the tip of her nose for her.

Then he wrapped his arms around her and held her close in the shadows of the trees. After another kiss, this one brief and undemanding and tender, he said, “Let’s go home, sweetheart.”

The press corps waiting for them at his pillared mansion were held at bay by a team of security guards, so Zach drove around back where they could run inside without having to face questions.

Locking the door of the little sitting room where they’d entered, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. So urgent were his kisses as they skimmed her lips, her throat, her breasts. She began to tremble violently. Then he lifted her skirt and found that soft place in between her thighs.

“You’re not wearing panties, I see.”

His tongue made contact and she gasped.

“No…”

She was wet and breathless and dying for more as he peeled off the rest of her clothes.

“Am I bad?” she whispered as he undid his belt and began tearing off his jeans and shirt.

“I like bad.”

When they were naked, he shoved her against the wall and held her close. “Wrap your legs around me, sweetheart.”

When she complied, he put on a condom and ground himself into her, scraping her back and shoulders against the wall in his eagerness. She didn’t mind. She cared only for him as he rode her fast and hard. Arching her pelvis to meet his thrusts, she cried out. Again, he took her to that strange, wild world that was theirs alone. Clinging to him fiercely, her heart pounded in mad unison with his.

Afterward, their bodies drenched in perspiration, they sank to the floor with their arms still wound around each other.

“I don’t know if I can ever stand up again,” Summer whispered breathlessly.

“Not to worry, sweetheart. You don’t have to.”

He lifted her and carried her through the house to the bed in the room she’d used that first weekend. Then he lay down beside her and stared at her hot, damp body gleaming in the moonlight.

When she was with him like this, she felt almost sick with pleasure and terror of losing him. She thought about her secret and how he might react when she confided in him. How, when could she tell him?

The long, lonely years without him had taught her what loss felt like, and she dreaded anything coming between them again. But something would. All it might take was her confession about the baby.

She’d been young when she’d loved him before. People like Thurman, who’d been wrong in all the advice they’d given her, had told her she’d been lucky to have lost their baby girl, lucky a lowlife like Zach was out of her life, lucky that she could start over. They’d said she would meet someone else, someone respectable, have another baby, that all would be just fine.

She’d learned better. Thurman had been wrong about almost everything, but he’d been especially wrong about how she felt about losing Zach’s baby and about losing Zach himself. Yes, she had her career, and she’d enjoyed national, even international, acclaim. But never once in all those years had she felt this alive.

Zach was special. When she’d been a foolish, naive girl, he’d lived in a shack. He’d been considered beneath her by the kids at school, and she’d still thought he was the one. Until Thurman and his cohorts had twisted and turned their love into something ugly and sordid and had driven them apart.

Now Zach rolled over, took her hand and interlocked his fingers with hers. When he looked at her, her blood beat with a mixture of desire and fear. When she kissed him, she realized she was going to take the easy way out…at least for now. They could talk in the morning. The happiness she felt was simply too precious to risk.

That night they made love several more times, but early Saturday morning, when they might have talked, Zach had to go to the site because his contractor had encountered a new challenge. Then he wanted to see Nick. He said they’d had a minor quarrel earlier in the week and he wanted to make things right on his way home.

“I hope you didn’t quarrel about me.”

His eyes narrowed, and she knew that they had.

“I see. Okay, then,” she agreed, feeling a little relief at the reprieve, deciding it was probably best for him to handle Nick as he saw fit. “You’d better stop by. Last week I was terrible in rehearsals, so I really need to go over the script.”

But no sooner was he gone than her whirling emotions centered on her secret and him and she was unable to concentrate. Her need to confess made her as uncertain as a young girl in the throes of first love, and she could do nothing except worry about what Nick might say against her.

Hours passed. Unable to focus, she stared at the daisies and her script.

Her phone rang. When she saw it was Gram, she answered it, glad of the distraction.

“I’ve got some news. I was calling to invite you and Zach over to dinner. I could tell you then.”

“I’ll ask Zach… See what he says.” If they went out to dinner, it would be more difficult to find the perfect moment to confess.