Love Game (13 page)

“Why do they have to be separate? Why couldn’t we work something out so we could see each other once, twice a month? We could talk, exchange e-mails in between. It’d give us a chance to see if our relationship’s as dead-end as you seem to think, or if what we’ve got is as special as I believe it to be. Time would tell, Chris. Give us some time.”

“I can’t do that.” She drank deeply, willed the wine to give her the borrowed courage she needed to stand firm. “I’m getting very tired of telling you this, so for once would you just listen. You don’t have a child to consider, I do. Last night, you brought up some good points about what children learn from their parents. But they learn moral standards from them, too. If you came here, we’d end up in bed. Audrey would discover us sooner or later.”

“Probably.” His pause was weighty and
Chris felt the gathering momentum of a bomb about to be dropped. “But by then, she’d surely realize that her mother was sleeping with a man for reasons other than lust. And as for that man, me, she’d know I care deeply for her mother. Who knows? In time, she might even decide, along with you, that I’m the perfect daddy for her.”

“No,” Chris said emphatically. “I want you to stay away from her, Greg. And after tonight—” Her hand shook as she tossed down the remains in her glass. Almost choking on the words, she made herself say, “After tonight, I want you to stay away from me.”

C
HRIS BRACED HERSELF
for the hurl of his
mug into the fireplace, the lover spurned to surge off the couch and oppose her with an eruption of fury.

But no, he simply put down his mug and tapped his fingers to his lips. Her own fingers wrapped so tightly around the glass it was a wonder the stem didn’t snap.

“Okay,” he said, shrugging slightly.

“Okay?” she repeated, certain she hadn’t heard right.

“Sure. If after tonight you want me out of your life, gone I’ll be. But you’re stuck with me for—” he checked his watch “—a few more hours before the charter plane I booked leaves for Dallas. No commercial flights out that late, so you’ll have to endure my company another hour there. You can take a cab if you don’t want me to drive you to your folks’.”

For a moment Chris was speechless. Nothing was as she had expected. Not the defensive words she’d heard come out of her mouth before she fully considered them. Not his easy capitulation. And not the horrible sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.

The least he could have done was argued with her, fought for the two nights they had remaining.

Two nights she had thrown away.

Chris was suddenly as furious with herself as with him. She wanted those nights back. Desperately. But her pride was at stake, and backing down would mean she’d have to swallow it.

Even now, her
pride demanded she strike back and incite the argument she wanted.

“So much for your future vision, Greg. You obviously hold as fast to potential relationships as you do to marriage.”

“Hey, you’re the one who insisted I drop it.”

Not so much as an “ouch” his way. Unlike her, who wanted to pinch herself black-and-blue for saying what she’d programmed herself to think before weighing the consequences. And now she didn’t even have a decent comeback.

“I shouldn’t have accepted these clothes.”

“Then give them back.” He leaned forward, opened his palms; his gaze flinty, dark, it matched his challenge. “Go ahead, Chris. Take them off. Then put on whatever it is you wear in the role you play around here.”

The role you play around here.
Was it a role she played here? Or was it a role she was playing now, dressed up and acting out in a way she’d never imagined herself capable of?

Returning his level stare, Chris realized she wanted to hit him. She wanted to tear off their clothes and wallow all over the floor, bodies angry and hot, fighting each other for supremacy.

Who was she?
What kind of woman was she to feel these primal urgings? And what kind of man was he to make her crave them? God, she didn’t know. Greg made her so confused.

“I think that’s the best idea you’ve had all night,” she said unevenly. Yes, go to her room, put on her own clothes, wrap herself in the familiar and get some breathing space. It was absolutely the best thing she could do.

Chris took a halting step away from the fireplace.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To my room.
Alone.” Alone, just as alone as she’d been there for years. For Greg to step a single foot inside her bedroom was unthinkable. “Feel free to read a magazine or something. I’ll be back when I’m back.”

“I don’t think so.” He pointed a finger to where she stood. “Here. You take them off here. In front of me.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Why not? It’s not like I’m going to see something I haven’t seen plenty of before.”

That wasn’t true, she wanted to rail at him. To bare herself here, she would be stripped of more than clothes. Here, she was so much more vulnerable than in a hotel room.

The scent of drying pine needles and woodsmoke mingled with the memory of hushed, intimate laughter. The memory slipped away before she could cling to its bittersweet hold. Greg’s waiting silence was broken only by the sound of wood crackling in the hearth, the tap of her nails drumming the wineglass.

“I don’t want to undress here because…” Chris took a steadying breath. “Because I don’t want you to watch. And—and this is where I got pregnant with Audrey. Here, in this room, beside another Christmas tree.”

“All the more reason, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Quite simply, you accepted what I gave you and now you regret it—apparently much the way you feel about ever getting involved with me. If you’re shunning my gift, and us, I deserve to watch you do it. As for you, what better statement of independence could you make? Free from the past you kept yourself tied to, free from any ties to me.”

Eyes narrowed, lips thinly smiling, he touched himself. A lingering stroke over his groin that made her belly draw tight and her fingers pulse with the urge to grip him.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a mocking chuckle,
“I won’t be taking this out or putting it in. So, go ahead, off with my clothes, on with yours.”

When she hesitated, he snarled, “Take them off! Goddamn it, do it now or leave them on and keep them. Where’re your guts, Chris? Where’re your guts to do one or the other?”

Goaded by his insinuation that she had none, Chris hurled the wineglass into the fireplace. The sound of its brittle shatter coincided with her cry of “You wanna see guts? Then look all you like and see them.”

Grappling with the sash at her waist, her hands were shaking so hard that she wished fiercely for a pair of scissors to cut the beautiful binding in two. When it was finally undone, she flung the length of velvet at him. His gaze simmered with the same white-hot light she’d seen as he’d pretended to be a vengeful warrior tying her to four saplings.

But that was pretend and what she saw in him now, what she felt in herself, was real. They were engaged in a battle of wills and she realized that Greg had employed yet another subtle maneuver to bend her will to his.

He wanted her naked. He wanted her to beg him to make love to her and then beg some more—for the two nights back. And he wanted her to leave in the clothes she had come in.

Oh, yes, she knew
exactly
what he wanted. Chris was disturbed to realize that for now, at this moment, they wanted the same thing. Minus the begging.

Chin lifting, back straight, she held herself with pride. Her gaze challenging, she watched the shift of his eyes to her hands as they slid over the swell of her breasts.

Taunting him, she stroked down the length of her body until ever so
slowly she raised the hem to just above her knees. Holding it there, she stepped out of the slippers, lightly rubbing her legs against each other. Then she parted them.

She smiled upon hearing his muted groan and inched up the velvet with a procrastination certain to bring him to the knees she wanted him on. Chris counted three groans before she drew the dress over her head. And tossed it to his feet.

His eyes did not follow the movement. They were glazed, fixed on her open thighs.

She widened her stance and felt the fire’s heat lick at the moisture of her own arousal. Never had she felt so glorious in the fullness of her own sensual prowess and feminine strength. And what triumph she felt in holding them over the man who had led her, challenged her, to discover this heady power within.

“Like what you see?” she asked in a throaty murmur.

“I…” Like it? He coveted it. Greg told himself not to watch anymore. Not the way she baited him with the caress of her palms to her breasts, the intentionally seductive removal of the chemise. And he had to be a glutton for punishment to stare ravenously at her fingertip touching once, just once, the peak of her cleft.

“What are you doing?” he demanded in a voice so guttural he didn’t recognize it as his own.

“Only what you want to be doing to me.” Her laughter low and sultry, she fanned open her lips. “I’ll let you, Greg.
If
you promise not to do anything else…unless you ask first and I agree. Certainly not your style, I realize. But that’s the rule and this game’s up if you break it.”

Jesus, he thought, the woman had discovered she held a whip. And what a fast learner she must be, bringing him to heel with the crook of her finger and without a glimmer of mercy.

Standing, Greg grimaced. He had a raging hard-on and it hurt like hell to walk the few feet it took to reach her. Strange that he towered over Chris, but she seemed as tall or taller than himself. Something had definitely happened to tip the balance of power between them. Maybe he could figure it out later. For now he could barely think.

“I didn’t say
you could touch me there,” she whispered.

“I’m not touching you.” And he wasn’t. His palms traced her arms in a phantom caress, stroked without contacting the warmth of her skin, which gave way to the rise of gooseflesh. A current of energy so strong it was electric leapt between them as over and around he passed his palms, bathing her back and breasts with the charge of kinetic sensation.

At her belly, he stopped, hovered. Unbidden, a vision filled his mind and pulled at his heart. Chris, her belly rounded and full, their baby growing inside her—testimony to the purity of passion, the destiny of two souls bonded, the miracle of life. And a new life for him, enabling him to prove himself worthy as a father, a man who was committed and would never stray from his mate, his lover.

Greg swallowed hard. The vision was pure torment, just as Chris was standing there, enticing him with all the possibilities and refusing him access, eluding his every attempt to have and to hold.

Forcing himself not to grip her to him, he cupped her pubis and finger-stroked her with the delicate maneuver he knew she responded to best.

Several minutes passed and Chris was breathing erratically when she faintly protested, “I said you could only touch me there once.”

“It’s still once.” Deepening his intimate massage, he pointed out, “You didn’t mention any time limitations.”

“All the same, I think you’re cheating.”

What did he have to lose? Taking the risk, Greg said with conviction, “I would never cheat on you, Chris. If that’s part of what’s holding you back, let it go. I’m not the man I used to be. And you’re not the woman you were a week ago. We’re good for each other, so damn good.”

A sad sigh mingled
with her moan. “We’re good together in bed, Greg, but we can’t live there.”

She moved against his hand while unzipping his pants. When she dipped inside to release him, he caught her wrist.

“I said I wouldn’t be taking that out.”

“You’re not. I am.”

On a breathless little catch, she added, “I want you to come.” But rather than feel subjugated by her whim, he found a transcendent freedom in the searing jolt of release.

Through slitted eyes, he had watched her wield the control he had given her over his body, elation rife in her smoky gaze as she exulted in that power.

Power was addictive, as he well knew. Chris had liked it, and, strangely, he was excited by her discovery.

She released him and Greg dropped to his knees. He pressed a lingering kiss to each interior thigh, then lifted his head and whispered, “Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

“I…I want those two nights back.”

“Done.”

“And I want to keep the clothes you gave me.”

“We’ll forget you ever wanted to give them back.” The fire cast a warm glow over the garter belt and her skin. “Anything else?” he prompted.

Her gaze veered to the Christmas tree. Voice soft and tremulous, she said, “Make love to me with your mouth.”

“Here?” Knowing that she had conceived Audrey in this very place, he was somewhat amazed by her slow nod. As he took her his amazement gave way to a secret triumph.

Chris believed she was conquering the significance of this room, and
he supposed she was. But what she had failed to consider was that her objective was made possible by creating a memory as indelible as the first.

Their memory.
One he filled with such heart and heat, he knew she could never erase what they’d shared beside this tree. And unlike a discarded evergreen, memories were for keeps.

D
RIVING AWAY FROM THE
hospital,
Greg was still smiling. He’d been visiting his sister daily. Her delivery had been a difficult one but she was bouncing back from the emergency C-section.

Glad as he was of that, he knew the smile he couldn’t wipe off his face was owed to the cute little sucker that wet on him every damn time he volunteered for diaper duty.

Despite his initial hesitation to do much baby holding, he’d found himself becoming increasingly eager to cradle the infant in his arms and coax a tiny hand to wrap around his finger. His sister had teasingly said that his off-key singing was sure to give the baby gas, and after several loud toots that left them both laughing, he’d reluctantly handed over his nephew for a feeding.

Though he’d seen her nurse his twin nieces years before, and felt awkward enough to excuse himself from the room, his current reaction was different. It was a beautiful sight, the most nurturing and pure vision a human could ever behold. It had moved him deeply. Hell, he’d even had a lump in his throat.

Maybe that’s why he’d decided it was time to leave and had offered to take his nieces for the day so his brother-in-law could spend some alone time with his wife and newborn son.

But he’d no sooner gotten Laura and Stephanie buckled into the
back seat and driven down the street than they started to squabble over the doll both insisted they had brought along.

“Hey, double trouble, either hand that thing here or quit your fighting and share.” Arm over the seat, he snapped his fingers, then opened an “I mean business” palm.

All immediately quiet, he glanced back and saw the doll nestled between the five-year-old twins.

The hell he couldn’t be a good father, Greg thought. King Solomon couldn’t have handled them better himself. Deciding to try out his paternal skills, he said, “Good behavior deserves a reward. How would you girls like it if I took you to the zoo?”

That won him a duet of “Goody, goody” and a rise in his confidence. It rose amply for him to entertain a sudden idea.

Acting on it before he lost his nerve, Greg took a roundabout route that had Laura saying in dismay, “I thought we were goin’ to the zoo.”

“Me, too,” Stephanie joined in. “This is the way to Grandma and Grandpa’s.”

“Not quite,” he hastened to assure them. “I thought we’d swing by another grandparents’ house. I know a little girl who’s visiting there, just about your age. Let’s go see if she’s home and wants to come along.” Their enthusiastic response helped steady the limb he was going out on.

Chris had been adamant that he steer clear of Audrey but she couldn’t make too much of a fuss in front of three little girls over a simple invitation to join them at the zoo. Still, as he took the twins like so much arsenal to the front door, Greg knew he might very well be courting her protective wrath.

“Hi!” Audrey greeted them with a grin. The coat she had
on implied she’d either just returned or was about to leave. Hoping greatly for the former, Greg stooped down and picked up a mitten she had dropped.

“I brought some new friends for you to meet, Audrey.” In the midst of introductions, Rick appeared behind her and Greg stood, bracing himself for a repeat of sparring directed at his character and intentions.

“I hope you don’t mind, Rick, but I was just passing by and thought Audrey might like to spend some time with my nieces since she doesn’t have any playmates around.”

“Hey, that’s great.” Rick offered his hand and his friendly man-to-man grip was as surprising as his chuckle when the small glove wedged between their palms. “Glad you caught us. It’s just Audrey and me hanging out today and we were headed for the zoo.”

“What a coincidence! So were we.” Coincidence? More like heaven cutting him a break. “Care to make it a five-some?”

“Sounds good to me. What do you think, half-pint?”

Both men’s gazes followed the three girls racing each other to the car.

“I think that’s a yes,” Greg said, not bothering to hide his grin. It faded as he asked, “Where’s Chris?”

“She just left with Mom and Tammy. Audrey didn’t want to go along and just between us, I think she’s about to OD on her mother’s TLC. Anyway, they talked Chris into clearing out some clearance racks. My guess is at Sears…not Neiman’s.”

Caught off guard by the silent question in Rick’s raised brow, Greg awkwardly cleared his throat. “Only the best for the best,” he slowly replied.

“That’s good enough for me.” Rick gave an approving nod.

It wasn’t like him to ask another man for advice or reveal his deeper feelings, but this was Chris’s brother and a potential ally. Hard as it was, he told it like it was.

“I, uh, wish Chris
felt the same way. I care about your sister, and not just a little. Unfortunately, she doesn’t think I’m cut out to be more than a…a—”

“Fling?” Rick bluntly supplied.

“That’s not what it is to me.”

“If I didn’t think so, I would have stepped in before now. Not that I wasn’t tempted after Chris kept tiptoeing in at two in the morning and Tammy let me in on her whereabouts once I sweet-talked it out of her.”

“Chris actually told her where we were?”

“Mother hens never go anywhere without leaving all the particulars in case of an emergency.”

Greg felt a mixture of discomfort and satisfaction that their private sanctuary was sibling knowledge. “I don’t like sneaking around as if there’s something to hide. There’s nothing shameful about my feelings for Chris and if I had it my way our relationship would go way past a hotel door.”

“She should know better than to be there but I’ve gotta give you points for taking her to one with some class.”

“She’s a class act,” he said, quick to defend Chris. Seemed to him that Rick disapproved more of his sister’s behavior than he did the man who was responsible for it. Greg didn’t like that. “She’s also a grown woman who can make her own decisions without needing her brother’s approval.”

They exchanged a level stare until Rick chuckled softly. “You’re looking better and better to me, Major. In fact, you’re starting to look so good, I’ll give you a little tip. Audrey’s the one you really need in your corner. She’s got a lot more clout with her mom than me.”

“So I figured. Dropping over to see Audrey wasn’t exactly accidental. I want you to know that I appreciate you letting me have some time with her.” He glanced at the car and waved back at the three little hands motioning them to hurry up. “But in case you’re not aware, I’ve been put on notice that Audrey is off-limits for me. Chris doesn’t want her to form any attachments that aren’t guaranteed to stick. She’s not going to like it when she finds out I spent the afternoon with her daughter.”

“Unless you tell
her, I see no reason why she has to find out. A word to Audrey from me and she’ll keep quiet—she likes secrets almost as much as bubblegum jelly beans.” After a pause he added, “By the way, you get points for those, too.”

As they walked toward the car, Rick went on to say, “My sister’s a good woman, Greg, but as a mother she’s overly protective. I think losing her husband is what’s made her a little obsessive about keeping Audrey safe. It’s a blind spot of hers, so try not to take this back-off thing with Audrey too personally.”

“But I do. I take it very personally, Rick.”

“If I were in your shoes, I’m sure I would, too.” The slap to Greg’s back was one of commiseration. “Tell you what, while we’re at the zoo I’ll keep an eye on your nieces and give you a chance for some one-on-one with Audrey.”

“I owe you for that.”

Two hours later, Greg decided he owed Rick big time. As he took a lick of the ice-cream cone Audrey had insisted on sharing, he tried to remember when he’d ever felt so completely accepted and just simply
right
with a child.

He couldn’t draw any comparisons because there were none. And Lord knew, nothing could compete with those adoring brown eyes staring up at him, the wistful little voice saying, “Gee, you’re big, just as big as Superman. I bet if you wanted, you could touch the clouds.”

His heart squeezed
even as his chest puffed out. She made him feel like Superman; and what a rare feeling that was, almost believing he could leap buildings and take to the sky, exalted there by the wonder in a little girl’s eyes.

Greg stretched high, then shook his head. “Seems I can’t quite reach it. But maybe you could.” Leaning down, he opened his hands. “How about it, sweetheart? Want to try?”

Audrey was in his arms faster than Superman could change in a phone booth. Over his head she went with a giggle of delight as he said, “Up you go on the top row!”

She rode on his shoulders until it was time to leave and it was with regret he gave up her slight weight to buckle her into the seat while Rick did the same with the twins.

“That was a great ride, even better than a Ferris wheel. Thanks lots.” For such a little thing, Greg decided Audrey packed a punch with her hug. Fact was, he felt like a fist had landed in his chest when she whispered in his ear, “I sure do like you. Please make Mama let us be together again. I can’t ask since Uncle Rick told me this was a secret visit and Mama’s not s’posed to know.”

“I sure do like you, too, Audrey,” he whispered back. “And I want more time together just as much as you. But I can’t make any promises. The problem is, your mother…Well, she loves you an awful lot. And she seems to think it would be better for you to get close with someone besides me.”

“But I don’t want somebody else. I want you. I think you’d be a super-great da—”

“Shh.” Greg laid a silencing finger against her lips.
Pulling slightly away, he willed himself not to turn from the confusion and hurt in her soulful brown gaze. Only a child would be so open, so disarmingly honest. And only a heartless adult would abet a child’s hope for a dream that reality could shatter. He couldn’t do that to her; no more than he could let Audrey think he was rejecting her, as obviously she did.

“Listen, sweetheart,” he said gently. “These things take time to happen, just like your teeth growing back in, and that means we have to be patient. Just remember that no matter what, I think you’re very, very special, and anyone who could have you for their little girl is the luckiest person alive.” Greg pushed back the pale, fine hair from her forehead and softly kissed her there. “Okay?” he asked.

“Okay.” The spark of determination he saw told him that Audrey wasn’t going to give up easily.
Good.

“Then give me a high five.” They slapped palms and in that brief joining he felt an uncanny sense of alliance, a connection that bound them in a shared cause.

As he drove, Greg noticed that the twins’ animated chatter emphasized Audrey’s silence. He glanced in the rear-view mirror and their gazes met. She grinned and he wondered how long she had been watching him; if his unguarded expressions had revealed the turmoil of his thoughts.

Reaching over the seat, he patted her knee. Audrey caught his hand and squeezed it.

If Chris didn’t break his heart, Audrey would.

Their destination reached, he helped her out of the car, intent on making a fast getaway before she got to him more than she already had.

“Thanks for a great day, Audrey,” he said, playfully tousling her hair.

“It was the best,” she pronounced. “And so are you.”

God, how he wanted that to be true. But the fact simply was, he wasn’t the best. He was only a man wanting to be the best he could be, a man who had fallen in love with a woman who doubted him even more than he doubted himself. A man who could easily love the child whose unconditional belief in him almost made him believe it wasn’t misplaced.

Almost. Greg shook his
head. “I’m sorry, Audrey, but I’m afraid there are better people out there than me.”

“That’s not true!” she protested.

“How do you know?”

Her little arms went around his legs and she looked up at him as if he were some great god in the sky.

“’Cause when I was on your shoulders, I touched the clouds.”

Greg couldn’t get any words out and so he lifted her up and let Audrey imagine she touched the clouds once more while he pretended he was Superman a little longer, just for the space of time it took him to deposit her at the front door.

A quick hug and he was out of there. Halfway to the car, a clamp on his shoulder stalled him.

“Hang in there, man.”

“Yeah,” Greg gruffly replied. “Thanks for everything, Rick. It was, uh…it was a really special day.”

“And not just for you. Here, I’ve got you something to remember it by.”

Greg took the small mitten that Rick held out, clasped it in the haven of his palm.

“Thanks, I’ll consider it my good-luck charm.”

Quickly, he drove away from the house he would return to in a few short hours and pretend along with Audrey that something wonderful hadn’t transpired between them.

It had been so hard to leave her, yet he’d left with so much
more than he had come with. Greg knew he had given something to Audrey, as well. Himself. The best of him, buried so deep he hadn’t known it was there until she had dug it up with the ease of a child building a castle from sand.

The image of a wave hitting carefully piled white grains came at him and he could see the castle’s threatened devastation.

Chris was that wave. Or rather, it was her consuming need to protect, her fear of allowing herself to love again.

Greg’s jaw tightened. He couldn’t make her love him. But intimacy was a doorway that could lead to emotional journeys and weaken defenses.

Tonight, he determined. Tonight he would push that door wide open. If Chris knew what was behind it, she’d surely slam it shut and run for safety with the speed of light.

And so, he’d entice her inside as he had before and once she was in too deep to escape, he would take them to a place where defenses had the substance of tin soldiers on straw ponies.

They wouldn’t stand a prayer of surviving. Not when he could cut a path to her heart with the ultimate weapon: intimacy. A very unique expression of it. One that would strip away all barriers and lay their souls bare in a sexual arena where few lovers would ever dare venture.