LovePlay (18 page)
Authors: Diana Palmer
He lifted his head, trembling, and looked down into her dark, soft eyes, and then at her body, which was still half clothed. “Well, my God, talk about minute men…” He laughed at his own urgency.
“Desperation,” she grinned wickedly. “Now carry me to bed and let’s do it properly. If you’re still able?” she teased.
“I’ll show you who’s able,” he replied with pure male malice, and carried her into the bedroom.”
He tossed her on the bed and proved his stamina in ways that left her gasping and trembling all over before he finally gave her the fulfillment she eventually begged him for.
“You were making some insulting remark about my stamina, I believe?” he murmured an hour later, leaning over her propped on an elbow, covered with sweat.
She could just barely breathe. “I’m dead,” she told him. “I know I am. No one could have lived through that.”
He chuckled, brushing her mouth with his. “This is what comes of spending two weeks away from you. I was half dead with hunger.”
“Good,” she laughed. “Now I know you weren’t indulging yourself with those little starlets.”
“As if one of them could ever satisfy me.” He chuckled at the old joke between them. “Feeling all right?”
“If you only knew,” she sighed. She lay back, full of dreams. She had something to tell him that was so sweet, she just closed her eyes and savored it for several long moments.
“You’re very quiet,” he murmured, tracing her mouth with his finger.
She opened her eyes and looked up into his, with all her heart showing. “Darling,” she began slowly, touching the damp mat of hair over his hard chest, “do you remember asking me once if we could make a boy?”
He sighed gently. “Yes. But, sweet, we can always adopt one,” he told her, and there was no bitterness in his tone now, no anger. He smiled. “One miracle in a lifetime is enough, and you know how I adore our Kate. I wouldn’t trade her for a boy.”
“That isn’t quite what I meant.” She tugged at a curling wisp of dark blond hair. “I went to see my doctor today.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. His taut body lay frozen beside her as he waited. “And?”
Her eyes warmed, bursting with color and light and feeling. “Oh, Cul, can’t you guess?” she whispered. “Can’t you? I’m pregnant!”
He opened his mouth to speak, and had to swallow first. He jerked her close in his arms to hold her bruisingly against his warm bareness, his head bent over hers, his entire body trembling with mingled delight and love. Because now there were no doubts left, not one. Their marriage had been heaven on earth, so close to one another that a night’s separation was torment.
Tears were burning her own eyes and she nuzzled her damp face into his warm throat. “It must be the water,” she laughed brokenly, clinging. “Either that, or we have an angel sitting on our shoulders. Cul, we really must send your doctor a birth announcement this time!”
“Yes, I should think so,” he whispered huskily. “Darling, I love you! Adore you!”
“I love you, too,” she breathed at his ear. “And if you ever needed proof, you have it now.”
His mouth searched for hers and kissed it warmly, tasting tears. “Didn’t you think Kate’s green eyes were proof enough?” he murmured delightedly. He lifted his head, and his eyes cherished her. “I love you. That, for me, means trust. The day I realized what you meant to me was the end of all my doubts.”
She touched his hard face with loving hands, smiling up at him. “Sometimes I thought you would never admit it,” she confessed. “There always seemed to be something missing, those first days we were lovers.”
“But I loved you even then,” he said. “I’d gotten so accustomed to being alone that I wasn’t sure I could let another person into my life. Especially a woman. But you’ll never know how it was in California.”
She pinched him. “Yes, with that Cherrie person…”
He nibbled her lower lip. “I never told you, did I, that Cherrie and her husband owned the beach house where I was staying? Bob and I went to school together.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
He pushed her back down again, grinning. “Men have to have a few secrets.” He smoothed her tumbled red-gold hair away from her face. “Did you know you have freckles right there?” He kissed the bridge of her nose.
“Stop that. How can I argue with you when you’re kissing me?” she muttered.
“I don’t want to argue.”
“But you let me think you were having a red-hot affair!” she persisted.
He lifted her palm to his warm mouth. “I was trying to run you off. You had such a hold on me, Bett. Those long, exquisite nights in my bed had left me grieving for you. I loved you, so desperately. I didn’t rush back for opening night to see how my play was going to fare, I rushed back to see you.”
“With that gorgeous Tammy on your arm,” she recalled.
“Window dressing. My shield, to keep you from seeing how hooked I really was. In fact, I was hooked in Atlanta. I just convinced myself that it was only physical.”
“You had me convinced, too, after opening night,” she said dryly.
He shook his head slowly, watching her. “I thought I was going to die when you told me you were pregnant. I was sure it wasn’t mine. But I was equally sure you hadn’t cheated on me. It made for some interesting mental exercises in logic. Finally, I decided that if I loved you, truly loved you, trust was the proof of it. And just when I was ready to tell you that, you stopped caring. At least, you stopped listening. I went off to write my screenplay, to show you I meant it, certain that you hated me by then. And all of a sudden, there you were on my doorstep, saving me from certain dissolution.” He smiled. “Then I knew there was a little hope left, so I started chasing you. And got explosive results.”
She remembered that feverish lovemaking, the sweetness of finally knowing she was loved. Reading the screenplay, realizing what she meant to him…her eyes went soft with memory.
“The only regret I have,” he continued, “is that I didn’t marry you in the very beginning. Your parents are still a little unhappy about the sequence of things, and I can’t say I blame them. Kate won’t be allowed to sleep with men until she’s married,” he added doggedly. “And society be damned.”
“Why, just listen to you!” she chided. “Just listen! How pious you’ve become!”
“It’s your fault. Who’s been dragging me to church every Sunday. Which reminds me,” he glared at her, “does Bartholomew have to come with us?”
“He’s getting older,” she reminded him. “It’s hard for him to find the cab fare. Besides, you know he adores his goddaughter.” She traced a pattern on his chest, watching his breathing change. “Besides,” she murmured demurely, “now there’ll be another christening. Somebody has to stand up with us.”
He stayed her wandering hand. “I suppose so.” He looked down at her relaxed body wonderingly. “It must be the water,” he decided. And then he ruined it all by grinning so smugly that she burst out laughing.
“Twice,” he chuckled, his eyes full of masculine appreciation. “Damn, I’m good!”
“Are you really?” she whispered, lifting up to put her mouth softly to his. “Prove it.”
His breath was coming roughly now as his hands smoothed over her taut breasts, over the hips that cradled his child. “My pleasure,” he breathed. His mouth parted, biting warmly at her lips, arousing her madly. “What a pity,” he whispered, “that you got rid of all your maternity things.”
“But I didn’t,” she grinned, and laughed at his stunned expression.
“You kept them?”
“Well, you might not have expected this, but I did,” she told him. “I believe lightning can strike twice.”
His face radiated love and laughter. “Do you? Then I guess I can believe in angels. I certainly married one,” he whispered against her warm, soft mouth. “You, and two babies. That’s heaven on earth to me, all right.”
She laughed under her breath and curled up against him as his mouth made slow, sensuous love to hers. Before the feeling burst through her thoughts, she was picking out names. Boys’ names…
eISBN-13: 978-1-4603-4538-2
LovePlay
Copyright © 1985 by Diana Palmer
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