Once Upon a Pillow Read online

  “Yes, but Interpol has more important matters to deal with these days than the theft of a few relics. Dennis called me because of our friendship.”

  She nodded as she absorbed that, then gestured around at the room with its ancient bed and its antique furnishing. “Why Masterson Manor? Why here?”

  “Because…” But he found he couldn’t quite say it yet. Instead he said the next best thing. “I’m a bastard boy whose only family is my mum. I wanted someplace with a past.” Still Laurel considered him, and he feared she was about to ask questions he didn’t want to answer. So he asked one of his own. “I’ve told you my secret. Are you afraid to marry to a man with a background like mine?”

  Swift as a snake striking, she smacked him on the shoulder as hard as she could.

  “Hey!” He grabbed the sore spot and rubbed it. “What’d you do that for?”

  “Is that what you think of me? That I’m so shallow? That all that matters to me is who your family is?” She tapped her chest. “I’m a farm girl from Idaho. I’m scarcely the person to be putting on airs.”

  “Perhaps you fear I’d abandon you.”

  She sighed in exasperation. “If I could have easily gotten rid of you, you’d not be here now.”

  “Our children could be as irresponsible as…my father,” he said.

  “Or worse, they could be as stupid as you.” Whoops. That was a mistake. “If we had children, which isn’t going to happen.”

  Too late. He rose over her and toppled her onto the bed. “If my lack of paternal relatives hasn’t put you off…won’t you give me a second chance?”

  “Just because you finally got around to telling me about yourself doesn’t mean you’ve fulfilled all my dreams, or even a little of them.”

  “I could.”

  She didn’t believe the nerve of the man, thinking she would melt just because he gave her a hint of who he was. Of course, she couldn’t believe that he was here, trying to please her, to convince her to give him another chance.

  She couldn’t believe…that she was tempted.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why are you doing this? Am I like some possession that got away?”

  She thought he might be offended, but he only snorted. “If I thought that, I would have come for you at once.”

  She knew that. She really did, but she still didn’t know why.

  He stared into her eyes, holding her gaze. “You’re right. When you left me, I thought…I thought I would be okay. You left me. Fine. I’d done my duty. I’d asked you to marry me. I thought…you were just a woman, and I could find another woman.”

  Pain grew and twisted in her. She understood what he was saying. She’d even thought that…that she’d been easily replaced.

  “The thing was”—he wasn’t looking at her now, instead he watched his hand as he stroked her hair back from her forehead—”I got a lot of work done, because I couldn’t find any women who interested me. I did date.” He glanced at her.

  She wanted to hit him again. “Yeah?”

  “They were always too tall or too short or too loud or too quiet or too sophisticated or too dumb. They didn’t talk like you or look like you or smell like you.” He closed his eyes. “I hated it. I fought it.” He pinned her with his green gaze. “It’s been a damned hard lesson for me to learn, but you are the only woman I want. I want you to be my wife.”

  And Max kissed Laurel.

  Chapter Twelve

  Not like this morning, when Max had been coaxing, teasing, alternately sweet and passionate. Now he took possession of Laurel’s lips like a man in desperate need, without respect for her wishes or desires.

  Trouble was…it felt good. It felt right.

  He thrust his tongue into her mouth, explored her teeth, bit gently at her lips. He slid his fingers through her hair, tilted her head, held her where he wanted her and kissed her yet more.

  She gasped, and gasped again, trying to think when all she could do was feel … so much.

  Her breasts tightened, and deep within her, she softened, melted, wanted. It had been so long, months and months. She had been so alone. The weight of his body on hers filled a need she had pretended did not exist.

  At last she gave in and welcomed him, kissed him back. The taste of him filled her mouth, making her hungry for more. He overwhelmed her with the way his hips moved on hers. She wrapped her legs around him, lifted herself to him, the seam of her sweats and the bulge in his pants rubbing her into a frenzy.

  He tore his mouth away from hers. “Tell me …” His chest heaved, his breath labored. “Tell me that you want me.”

  She looked up at him. At his square jaw, shaved so smooth. His tawny hair, tousled around his face. His strong neck, corded with restraint. She did want him. Of course she wanted him. How could she not? She loved him. No matter how far she ran, no matter how long they were apart, still she loved him.

  She would always love him.

  Stroking the backs of her fingers across his cheeks, she said, “I do want you. I want you all the time.”

  A smile dawned across his face: a slow, mighty lifting of his lips, a twinkle of his eyes, a gleam of his teeth.

  She recognized triumph when she saw it. “I am too weak,” she mourned.

  “You?” He kissed her, the smile still on his face. “No, you’re too strong, too stubborn, but I’ll make you happy. I swear it.”

  “I know you will.” She meant now, in bed.

  He shook his head, as if she didn’t understand, but he wanted more than talk now. He kissed her again, then sat up to straddle her. He unzipped her sweatshirt.

  She laughed unsteadily and tried to take over.

  But he brushed her hands aside. “Let me.”

  She kept laughing.

  His fingers were trembling, and when she smoothed her hands across his chest, he muttered, “God, Laurel. I can’t wait.”

  When he spread her shirt open, he stopped and stared. “Since when did you give up wearing a bra?”

  “Since I don’t sleep in one. I’m not wearing…any underwear.” She gave the last word a breathy intonation.

  He turned a searing shade of red. “You are the most wonderful woman in the world.”

  “Cheap compliments.” She couldn’t laugh anymore. Not when he gazed on her as if she were a miracle—or a dream come true.

  He skinned her out of the pants in a single, swift movement.

  Except for her blue sweatshirt, hanging off her arms, she was naked, and judging from the expression on his face, desirable. And when he lowered his head to her stomach and kissed her, then turned to his cheek and rested there, she couldn’t resist the chance to stroke her fingers through his hair.

  Could he be telling the truth? Had he suffered loneliness and heartache without her?

  He rose up and the light behind him revealed a silhouette of sculpted masculinity. His hair glinted about his head, a halo with hints of gold. His shoulders and arms rippled with muscles. His body narrowed nicely to his hips, and something about that shape made other women—not just Laurel—stop and stare. But he said he was hers, and right now, this minute, he was.

  Settling himself over her hips, he removed his sweater.

  If his chest made the sweater a noble item of apparel, his chest stripped of clothing was worthy of worship. A thin line of blond hair slid down the middle toward his trousers. Nothing distracted from the smooth skin of his pectorals and the small male nipples that made her mouth water. His abs rippled like water over rocks, and when she slid her fingers down toward his waistband, his stomach contracted and he caught her wrist.

  “If you touch me,” he said, “I’ll finish right now.”

  “Really?” She was surprised to hear a sultry tone in her voice. When had she learned sultry? “So I should brace myself for disappointment?”

  “You should definitely brace yourself.”

  “I mean…it won’t be long?”

  In a voice warm with enjoyment, he said, “As long as it always was, s
weetheart.”

  “Smartass.” With her other hand, she caught at the button on his trousers and popped it free—and brushed her fingers against the bulge in his pants.

  He audibly sucked in air. He jumped to his feet and stood on the mattress. He unzipped, displaying a pair of black underwear she saw only as he slid them off. He fished a foil packet out of his pocket. He stepped out of his pants, kicked them off the bed and fell to his knees between her legs.

  He wasn’t kidding. He was horny to the point of —

  “My God.” Gripping the rails on the headboard, she felt in one hand the worn silkiness of the wood, in the other the rough abrasion from those long-ago manacles. Anticipation thrummed through her veins.

  He tore open the packet with his teeth, fitted himself with its contents. Lifting her hips, he positioned himself and pushed.

  She’d been without a man—without him—for three months, and while her tissues parted reluctantly, her body welcomed him with a rush of moisture. The pleasure of his entry drove her to scream, a scream so intense she bit the back of her hand to stop it.

  Using his finger to stroke her and hold himself, he worked himself inside…slowly.

  Did the man not understand her torment? Her rush? Her need? Did he not understand how the warm scent of him roused her reminded her of him at other times and in other beds?

  Using her fingernails, softly she scratched his shoulders, not marking his skin, but rather warning him, admonishing him.

  He paid no heed. Or rather, he did, but he only smiled and continued to torture her, sliding forward, pulling back. Touching her. Caressing her clitoris until she wanted to grab him and force him all the way in.

  Instead she spread her legs, arched her back, raised her hips.

  When he paused, eyes half-closed, and a single drop of sweat trickled down his chest, it was her turn to smile. Yes.

  “No. Don’t.” But his discipline collapsed under her urging. With both his hands clasping her hips, he surged forward, all the way in.

  He touched the deepest part of her, and for one agonized moment they looked into each others’ eyes.

  She didn’t know what he saw, but she saw her man. Her lover.

  Her fate.

  His eyes blazed with fierce satisfaction and blatant lust.

  To her, he looked like the pagan god of desire, worshipped among women for his virility and his sexual prowess.

  Yet he was hers. She knew it in her bones, in her heart. She knew it in her body, overwhelmed, possessed, filled.

  Then he pulled back and plunged forward, as desperate to take control as she was to give it to him. Together they took up the frenzied rhythm, surging toward satisfaction, toward orgasm, toward that moment of blessed union where they were one and would never be alone again.

  And then orgasm took them. Picked them up like victims of a storm and forced them toward each other. Toward desperation. Toward a pleasure that united…forever.

  As she rose toward him, carried by a wave of climax so great she could only scream his name, he hammered into her, his features contorted, his fingers digging into her skin. Pleasure dripped from his pores, and he shouted her name. “Laurel!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Max fell on Laurel, a magnificent, heavy weight.

  She stroked his damp shoulders before her arms lost their strength and slid away. She wanted to hold him, she really did, but she could scarcely wiggle her toes.

  In fact, she wasn’t sure she had toes.

  But she had other parts, for he filled her still.

  In a weak voice, he told her, “That was the most fabulous moment of my life.” He kissed her cheek, then slowly, he withdrew from her body.

  For a brief moment, she tried to hold him, but she couldn’t. He was growing soft. She had to let him go.

  Falling back on the pillows, he groaned. “That’s it. I’m done. That was the best sex in the history of the world, and I’ll never be able to get hard again.”

  Exhausted, still shivering with the remnants of her orgasm and damp with the results of his, she groaned at the thought of him getting another erection.

  The way he would loom over her. The size of him as he entered her. The way she would wrap her legs around him, hold him close, lift her hips to meet each thrust.

  Then she whimpered at the thought of him not getting another erection. Feebly, she said, “That would mean…that would mean we’ve deprived the world of its most magnificent natural occurrence. That would be like … plugging all the volcanoes or stopping the tsunamis.”

  “Destructive elements.”

  “But primal and beautiful in their untamed power.”

  “And I suppose there’s not a chance we would ever bury Pompeii or drown a village.”

  “No.” She managed to raise her hand and wipe her damp eyes. “Do you suppose National Geographic will want to do a special on us?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m finished. Through.” He sounded absolutely and totally convinced. “I can never get it up again.”

  Someone had to help the poor man, and that someone was her. She would have to force herself to abandon her afterglow and demonstrate to the Max that he could, indeed, once more achieve erection.

  It took a few moments and several deep breaths before she rolled toward him, threw her leg over his hips—he might, after all, try to escape—and leaned on his chest, her left breast conveniently close to his left hand.

  He didn’t move. He acted as if he wasn’t even aware that he was naked, that she was naked, and that she had crawled half over him.

  Right.

  She loved the feel of her skin against his. Warmth curled up from everywhere they touched, the warmth of intimacy.

  She studied his face: muscles relaxed, eyes closed, lips slightly apart and demanding to be kissed.

  So she complied. She kissed him softly, stroking her lips across his, enjoying the sensation of being in control. His chest rose and fell in long, smooth breaths that deepened as she touched him, and she rode him like a wave. When she circled his mouth with her tongue, his breath halted for one startled moment. She wanted to chuckle with delight, but she wanted to kiss him more. She sealed their lips together, kissed him deeply, filling his mouth, ravishing him with her tongue. His arm, the one beneath her, rose, trembled, then slid around her waist. His hand weighed heavily on the small of her back, and he kneaded her muscles. The combined pleasures—from their kiss, from his touch—made her want to stretch and claw like a cat.

  When he tried to take over, when he thrust his tongue toward hers, she pulled back. “You’re incapable,” she whispered. “Remember?”

  His head dropped back on the pillow, and his eyes were slits as he watched her kiss his shoulder, then bite it, just a little. Just enough to leave a dent in his skin, then smooth it away with her tongue.

  He tensed, but she murmured, “Relax. I won’t hurt you.”

  “It’s not the pain I fear. It’s the torment.”

  “I can’t torment you. You’re feeble.” She kissed her way down his chest, pausing at each of his small male nipples to lick them with her tongue.

  His knee rose and his hip rolled toward her.

  A glance proved that his previous information was incorrect.

  He was already stirring.

  He cupped her breast in his free hand, and stroked her nipple with his thumb. The pleasure was so intense, she paused and closed her eyes. When he took his hand away, she winced with disappointment. Then his finger was back, wet from his mouth, and he circled her nipple, over and over, while it puckered with chill and delight.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she pulled away. With eyes still closed, she lowered her head and kissed his stomach. Beneath her lips, the muscles rippled and rolled. She stroked his sides, finding pleasure in the skin, muscle and bone over his ribs, in the graceful dip of his waist and the hard thrust of his hips.

  He was a creation of God, a glory of human pulchritude. If he had been Adam to her Eve, she would have nee
ded no temptation to seduce him; she would have done it freely and gladly, whatever the consequences.

  She opened her eyes, used her fingertip to trace her way down the path of downy golden hair to his groin. “Why, look.” She managed to inject wonder into her voice. “What’s this?”

  His penis had grown and lengthened with every kiss, with every touch. Carefully, she traced its length. The blue veins. The polished skin. A little drop of semen formed, and with her fingertip she picked it up, looked into his eyes, and deliberately licked it off.

  His penis rose off his body as if seeking her mouth.

  Nothing could have kept the smile from her lips. She stroked her hands up his legs. Here the hair was thick, rough, and beneath it were the muscles that gave him the strength to thrust and thrust like some young stallion on his first mare. She kissed the base of his penis, a chaste kiss with lips closed.

  His toes curled.

  She kissed again, adding a quick flick of the tongue.

  He groaned.

  Damn, he was easy to please. In slow increments, she worked her way up toward the head, alternately kissing and licking until his back was arched and he clutched the sheets in his fists.

  Such power was intoxicating.

  She swirled her tongue around the head. She slipped her mouth around him, and slowly worked her way down.

  “Dear Laurel, you…anything, please.”

  She loved the taste of his skin, the way he flinched as if he were in pain, the groans and half-spoken phrases. Heady with intoxication, she lightly scraped her teeth along his length, then soothed and sucked. She swirled her tongue. She rubbed her hand up and down where her mouth couldn’t reach.

  And when he was writhing beneath her, begging her to stop, to give him surcease, to somehow bring him to ecstasy, she slid her mouth away and looked down at his damp, rosy penis. Curling her hand around his erection, she looked up at him. “Resurrection,” she said.

  He pulled her up and over him. He fit them together. “That is why, in ancient times, men were worshipped as gods.” As he slid inside her, he said hoarsely, “And rightly so.”