Kathleen Creighton - Lady Killer

Her son’s words fell on her ears and rolled away like raindrops on feathers. Encased in her shaft of enlightenment and towed by the tractor beam of Tony’s gaze, Brooke floated into the kitchen. She murmured absent replies to Daniel’s questions and didn’t think to scold Hilda, who knew very well she wasn’t supposed to eat people food or beg for treats from the table or stove, and had, in fact, already slunk off to her corner, looking guilty as sin. Tony smiled at her, and she smiled back.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, hefting a pancake turner in one hand, a griddle in the other. “We thought we’d let you sleep in this morning.”

“No-of course, I don’t mind.” She said it with a gasp as she grabbed hold of the back of a chair and held on to it, fully aware it was all that was keeping her from drifting on into his arms for a good-morning kiss. Which would be the natural way for a woman to greet her man the morning after they’d made love. Which they hadn’t, of course. But they would…soon. That knowledge-that certainty-made her voice husky when she added, “That’s…nice of you. You didn’t have to do that. But thanks.”

“No problem. Happy to do it. I told you-the sisters. I don’t want you to have to wait on me.”

And she got lost in his eyes and his sweet, sweet smile…

Blessedly oblivious to adult undercurrents, Daniel chattered on as he stuffed his lunch bag into his backpack, slung it over his shoulders and shrugged it into place. He brushed her cheek with a kiss, bumped knuckles with Tony, and went charging out the door, with Hilda on his heels. And silence crept into the kitchen, heavy with awareness and charged with tension, like a spring storm cell.

Tension sang in the clanging Tony made as he put down the pancake turner and griddle, rumbled in the grating sound of the chair as Brooke pushed it aside. Then she was across the kitchen, and his arms reached for her, and when her body collided with his, Brooke felt as if all the forces of a storm were breaking loose inside her. The fury and power, the excitement and wonder of it filled her mind and took over her body, leaving no room for fear or questions or doubt. No room for thought. She only knew when his mouth found hers…at last.

She tasted of toothpaste, he discovered, and for some reason, he found that endearing. A moment or two later-or it could have been longer; he’d rapidly lost the ability to track time-he discovered she wasn’t wearing a bra under her T-shirt. That he found not so much endearing as-not surprisingly-sexy as hell. Accepting the inferred invitation, he slipped his hands under her shirt and brought them up along her rib cage to cradle the sides of her breasts in his palms. And her gasp tore her mouth from his, and she buried her face in the curve of his neck and shoulder.

“Hey…” He whispered it with his lips close to her neck, just below her ear. “I thought you said you only turn into a brazen hussy during the full moon.”

“Moon’s still full out there somewhere,” she mumbled from the depths of her hiding place.

He wanted to laugh, but her hands were busy behind him, untying the apron’s strings…tugging his undershirt free of his waistband, and then the feel of her hands on his skin drove every hint of mirth from his mind.

Then he did laugh, not because anything was funny, but because the emotions raging inside him needed some kind of safety valve, and for a grown man, laughter seemed infinitely preferable to tears. It was soft laughter, low and breathy, but it shook him to his core.

“Brooke, honey,” he said feebly, “I think it’s time I carried you off to bed now.”

“If you insist,” she murmured, smiling at him, and her eyes, peeking from under her lashes, had a pixieish glint.

He did. He swept her up in his arms and was amazed at how light she seemed. Or rather, how strong and powerful he felt.

He was amazed that this woman could make him feel things he’d never felt before, when he’d known…well, quite a few women in his life. Every one had been special to him in her way, but this woman… Brooke …She was his birthday and Christmas, the most wonderful Christmas of his life, with an endless supply of packages, each one to be slowly unwrapped and savored, each one revealing something new and exciting and wonderful. Somehow he knew that with this woman, he’d still be finding new packages to open when they were both ninety.

The realization stunned him and tempered his passion with a tenderness and care he was sure he’d never felt before.

And didn’t want to look at too closely-not then.

He carried her to his room-the spare room-not hers, and wasn’t sure why. Some primitive instinct, maybe, that made him want to bring her into his place-a kind of claiming . And that, too, was something he’d never felt before. And didn’t want to look at closely.

He looked instead into her eyes and lost himself there.

“I hope you don’t think-” she began, and he dipped his head and silenced her with a kiss.

“I don’t,” he whispered. This isn’t a time for thinking, love. If I let myself think -

He couldn’t let himself think.

He wanted her. Wanted her as he’d never wanted a woman before. Wanted her with the finest nerve endings in his skin and the deepest marrow in his bones. But it was a strange kind of wanting, because he wanted not to take something from her, but to give it. He wanted to give her pleasure and joy. He wanted to give her happiness. And hope. He wanted to give her all the good things in the universe, tied up with flowers and ribbons, and watch her face while she opened them. He wondered whether he would be able to give her all those things…and then knew, beyond any doubt, that he was the only one who could.

All that was in his eyes when he looked at her, in his mouth when he kissed her, in his hands when he touched her. It was in the unhurried way he removed her clothes and smiled at her shyness and at her whispered, “Guess I’m not such a brazen hussy after all…”

It was in the way he gave himself over to her so she could undress him at her own pace, even though her explorations-sometimes shy, sometimes brazen-made his muscles knot and his jaw creak with their demands on his self-control.

Her skin tasted to him like ice cream melting in the sun, and smelled of old roses. When she tasted his, it felt like the most exquisite torture and the greatest pleasure he’d ever known.

He groaned-could not help it-and she whispered, “Are you going to have your way with me now?”

“I think-” and he could barely form the words “-you’ve got it backwards. You…are having your way with me .”

She tilted her head, and her expression was poignant, eager and sweet. “May I?”

“Yes, love…oh, yes. Whatever you wish.”

And so she straddled him and gave to him the gifts he’d wanted for her: pleasure and joy and happiness and hope. And he watched her face while she gave to him, and knew he’d never be the same again.

Sometime later, when the earth had righted itself and resumed its normal spin, and she’d become reoriented to her place in it; when they lay together in the tumble they’d made of the double bed, talking in sleepy murmurs of the wonders and coincidences of fate, Brooke remembered.

“You were going to tell me something,” she whispered. “Last night…before I…ruined the moment.” And her ear, pressed against his chest, felt his heartbeat quicken.

“Hmm…can’t remember now. Must not’ve been that important.” His voice was a lazy growl, and his hand never faltered in its silken slide up and down her naked back.

But just the same, she knew he lied.