Merry Christmas (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern) (10 page)

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Authors: Emma Darcy

BOOK: Merry Christmas (Mills & Boon Vintage 90s Modern)
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It was marvellous, being invited to share the responsibility of parenthood with Nick. Meredith revelled in it. The time passed so quickly she was shocked when he mentioned it was almost midnight and Kimberly would undoubtedly be up early, excited and full of energy.
They went inside together. Excitement and energy were not reserved for tomorrow, Meredith thought ruefully. Her whole body was tingling with the electricity of being super alive. Sleep looked like being an impossibility for quite a while.
She paused at the door of the bedroom allotted to her and smiled at the man she loved. “Thank you for being so generous. Good night, Nick.”
“Sweet dreams,” he answered, his eyes the colour of dark chocolate.
They will be tonight, she thought as she murmured, “You, too.”
Parting from him was a wrench, but they were under the same roof, in harmony with each other, and there was tomorrow, as well as sweet dreams.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
N
ICK lay on his bed in the darkness, wondering why he was questioning the sense that something incredibly special had entered his life. Meredith Palmer seemed to offer him everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. The problem was, he couldn’t be sure how much the dreams of her were influencing him. Was this compelling attraction wish-driven or substantially real? .
The feelings she evoked in him were so strong and happening so fast, he’d barely held back the temptation to push the connection as far as he could tonight He’d grabbed the excuse of Kimberly’s early rising tomorrow to keep his desires in check, but holding control of himself had been a close run thing at her bedroom door.
He wanted her. He wanted to hold her and taste her and absorb every part of her and it was killing him to clamp down on the urges raging through him. If there were only the two of them to consider, nothing would hold him back, but Kimberly was involved too closely with this relationship for him to make hasty moves.
The wisest course was to wait. Meredith was not about to go away. He had to be sure that whatever he did was right for all of them. It was definitely the sensible thing to do. Recklessly throwing caution to the winds was hardly commendable in this situation.
On the other hand, she emitted a power that made nonsense of caution. Each time he was with her he felt drawn into a vortex of passion that stimulated his body and intoxicated his mind. Pulling back to take stock of where they were was more and more a violation of the flow.
Sweet dreams.
The irony was he’d wanted the magic. Now he was feeling it, the experience was both an exquisite pleasure and a torment. For a moment tonight, when she’d mentioned Harvard, he thought they might have met there. However unlikely it was that he could have forgotten it, at least it would have been an answer to how she’d come to infiltrate his dreams.
And there was the other thing she’d said that had struck him as oddly out of place...
What do I know of the man you are now?
Perhaps it referred to what Denise had told her about him, yet it had felt too personal for merely second-hand knowledge. All his instincts were screaming there was something he should know about Meredith Palmer and if he just reached out far enough it would come to him. Yet it hadn’t, regardless of how much he twisted and turned in his search for it.
The click of a door opening interrupted his train of thought. Had he imagined it? No. There was the sound again. He listened for the creak of the floorboards along the hall. The old house didn’t lend itself to silent walking. The creak came. Someone was afoot. Kimberly or Meredith?
He listened for bathroom sounds. None eventuated. A visit to the kitchen seemed a reasonable alternative. He lay very still, straining to hear the slightest noise that would affirm his guess or identify some other normal activity. The house was quiet and continued to be quiet. No creak in the hall from footfalls returning. The silence stretched on and on, playing on his nerves. Curiosity turned to concern. Nick rose from his bed to investigate.
No lights were on under any of the doors in the bedroom wing. There didn’t appear to be any glow of light coming from the living areas, either. He was crossing the main hall that bisected the house when he noticed the front door slightly ajar, letting in a sliver of moonlight.
A sense of unease drew him on. Had an intruder been in and out of the house? It didn’t occur to him he was only wearing the boxer shorts he normally slept in, the concession to modesty he’d made when Kimberly had come to live with him. The need to know if it was Kimberly or Meredith or someone else on the move was imperative. Very quietly he opened the door far enough to slide around it.
No one was on the veranda. He stepped out, listening for any movement. Nothing impinged above the sound of the sea. He crossed to the railing, intent on scanning the beach. A figure standing on the waterline directly down from the house caught his eye.
And
stopped his heart as the sense of deja vu swamped his mind.
It was a scene from one of his dreams...the woman standing as still as a statue at the frothing edge of dying waves, her back turned to him, the dark, moody mystery of the sea in front of her, a black velvet sky studded with stars sweeping around and above her. Only the flying strands of hair, flicked out by the breeze from the long fall over her shoulders, added life to her stillness.
As though the breeze carried the essence of her to him, Nick could feel her waiting, yearning for someone to come to her, to join with her and end her long loneliness. The poignant passion of her need swirled into the empty places in his soul and tugged, inexorably pulling him toward her.
Nick was barely conscious of leaving the veranda, his legs automatically pumping down the steps, feet churning through the dry sand of the dunes. His heart was pounding, his mind filled with the compulsion to answer the siren song that he felt was calling to him...only to him...from her.
It was the dream, yet not the dream. This time he could smell the sea, feel the breeze slapping against him and the sand squeezing between his toes...real sensations, exciting him with the promise of a tangible ending. Still there was the eeriness of the action being the same.
As he closed the distance between them she either heard him or sensed him coming and she started to turn, slowly, as though not quite believing he would be there, drawn almost against her will to look...hair whipping across her face, a soft garment wrapping itself around her thighs, her breasts briefly silhouetted, tilted in tantalising womanliness, lending an infinite seductiveness to the sylphlike figure.
Of their own accord, his legs slowed their approach, waiting for her to come full face, waiting for the dream to follow its normal course, anticipating the flash of recognition, the widening of her eyes, the look of wonderment, the joyful welcome that would light her features, shining for him, beckoning him on.
It all happened, as he’d seen it happen countless times, like a video playing over and over in his mind in the dead of night, emerging from some secret place he could neither find nor control.
First the jolt of actually finding he was not a phantom of her mind, then the quiver of delight running through her body, the strong surge of happiness setting her face aglow, her mouth falling slightly open, giving a fuller sensuality to her lips, her eyes huge pools of green, dazzling. drowning pools that sucked at his heart.
Now would come the barrier, he thought, the invisible wall he always strained against but couldn’t break. Never had he been allowed to reach her.
A clammy sweat broke out on his brow. His hands clenched. The muscles in his legs tautened with all the power he could drive in to them. His heart drummed wild determination. If this was real, nothing could stop him tonight.
He surged forward.
She didn’t fade away.
She stood her ground.
He reached out, his hands curling around her upper arms, warm flesh, solid flesh, giving flesh. His chest heaved, fighting the constriction of what felt like steel bands around it. His lungs filled with air. He was alive. And she was alive.
“Who are you?” he cried, his voice hoarse and alien to his own ears, as though possessed by his own dream figure and struggling to emerge into the reality of this night.
She didn’t seem to understand. Or the question was irrelevant to her. Her eyes roved his face as though matching it to every detail of a beloved memory, savouring it anew.
He’d reached her, yet in some indefinable way he hadn’t reached her. “Who are you?” he cried again in a torment of frustration.
Her eyes fastened on his, wanting him to know, aching for him to know. “I’m Merry,” she whispered, “Merry...”
CHAPTER TWELVE
S
HE saw the confusion in his eyes and her heart bled for the memory that had been lost. He’d approached her with such an air of purpose and passion, she’d thought it had all come back to him. But it wasn’t important. Only the feeling was, and it pulsed from him with a strength that demolished the barrier of time.
Past, present, future...none of it had any meaning. It was all blotted out by the unleashed need surging between them. For Meredith, the magic of coming together again was an irresistible lure. She lifted a hand to his face, instinctively using touch to wipe away the distraction of a name he didn’t relate to.
“I couldn’t sleep...thinking of you,” she murmured, her eyes mirroring the love that was his to take.
“Me? Was it me you were thinking of? Or...” He struggled with the doubt she’d inadvertently put in his mind.
“You, Nick. Only you,” she assured him, sliding her other hand up over his bare chest, craving the physical contact she had missed for so long.
The flare of desire in his eyes poured a flood of warmth through her veins. He cupped her face, fingers spreading into her hair above and below her ears. His head bent. Her mouth opened to meet his, wanting to feast on his kiss, so hungry for it she went up on tiptoe to accelerate the yearned-for intimacy.
He tasted her eagerness, revelled in it, plundered her mouth with devouring intensity, pent-up need exploding in a passion for every exciting sensation that could be derived from the fierce foray into finding each other, finding and knowing and exulting in the pulsing reality of dreams being fulfilled.
She hung on to his head, fingers clawing through his hair, gripping to keep him with her, driven to a frenzy of possessiveness now that she had him again. He wrapped his arms around her, scooping her into full body contact, electrifying every nerve with an acute awareness of their sexuality... man and woman...wanting what each could give, straining to feel the promise of it.
His hands slid down the arched curve of her back, clutched and kneaded the rounded flesh below it, moulding the softness, fitting her more closely, achingly close to the swollen hardness thrusting from his loins. Her thighs quivered against the taut power of his as desire swirled through her, sensitising her breasts, curling her stomach, stirring the throbbing need to feel him inside her, to hold him there so he would never think of leaving her again, never want to.
His mouth lifted from hers long enough to murmur, “I want you.”
“Yes,” she answered, her sense of urgency as great as his.
“Now.”
“Yes.”
“Not here. The grit of sand...”
“Wherever you want.”
“The sleep-out on the veranda. We’ll be comfortable there.”
“Yes.”
He broke away, caught her hand, and they ran together in an exhilarating burst of energy, knowing what was to come, the ecstatic freedom of no restraint in their loving, time to explore their pleasure in each other and savour every moment of it. They could have plucked stars from the sky, their spirits were soaring so high, and behind them the sea boomed and crashed in counterpoint to the drum of their hearts.
Nick paused her at the foot of the steps to wash off the sand under a tap positioned there for that purpose, his hands stroking her calves and ankles, caressing her feet and toes. She bent to do the same for him but he grew agitated with her ministrations, quickly turning the tap off and lifting her up, his eyes dark and turbulent as they tensely searched hers.
“You make me feel...”
“What?” she encouraged.
He shook his head. “I want this to be...let me make love to you, Meredith.”
A need for control, she thought, but when he swept her off her feet and cradled her against his chest, she wondered if it was some deeply felt male need to claim her as his woman, to impress himself upon her and wipe out any thought of what she’d felt or done with anyone else.
She curled her arms around his neck and nestled her head close to his throat, soaking in the sense of belonging, of having at last come home after years in the wilderness. “I thought you’d never come, but you did,” she sighed on a warm gush of happiness. Then, wanting him to know how special he was, “You’re the man I’ve been longing for, Nick.”
“Yes.” The word burst from him like a shot of steam, pushed from a maelstrom of emotion. His arms tightened around her. “No more waiting, Meredith. That’s over.”
His voice rang with triumph, as though he’d finally won a hard battle, and like a victor carrying off his reward, he charged up the steps and strode exuberantly around the veranda to the section that had been enclosed for extra sleeping quarters.
The room was stuffy. Nick laid her on the bed, which was covered with a cotton quilt, then hastily swept around the louvred windows, opening them to the fresh night air. Meredith smiled at his caring for her comfort but her smile was swallowed by a tidal wave of tingling excitement when he dropped his shorts and straightened up, breathtakingly male in his nakedness.
She quickly pushed herself into a sitting position, her hands scrabbling at the short silk shift she’d worn to bed earlier in the night. Wanting to be free of all barriers between them, she dragged it off and hurled it aside, just before he reached her.
He swooped to lift her up, standing her on the edge of the double bed, hooking his hands into the briefs she’d put on before going down to the beach. He paused, breathing hard, his gaze fastened on her breasts, so enticingly close to his face.
Her nipples instantly puckered in response. They were level with his mouth and the temptation to lean forward, to feel his lips encircling them... She moaned with pleasure as he took them, one and then the other, licking, sucking, tugging, drawing on her desire and embellishing it a hundredfold with his.
Excitement pumped from her breasts and streamed wildly to the apex between her thighs. She clutched his shoulders for support as he drew her briefs down, frantic to work her legs out of them so he wouldn’t have to bend, wouldn’t have to stop the glorious momentum of intensely satisfying sensation.
Her breasts had been made for this and she’d missed having it with the baby she’d borne him, the natural bonding she’d been denied. But Nick wasn’t denying her. He was loving her as she’d yearned to be loved, no holds barred, completely and passionately. She cradled his head, cherishing him, caressing the nape of his neck, pressing kisses over his hair.
His hand softly cupped the silky mound below her stomach and she rejoiced that her legs were now free to move apart for him, to invite and welcome his touch, needing it, wanting it, seething with anticipation for it. He stroked her with exquisite gentleness, slowly, seductively, arousing a sensitivity that quivered and craved for more. The slick sweet caresses became unbearable and she clawed his back in a fever of urgent need.
“Nick...”
The groaned plea was enough. An arm crushed her close as he knelt on the bed and lowered her into position for him. Then he reared back, looming over her, his magnificent body taut, every muscle strained with the power of his manhood.
His eyes blazed with a wild exultation as he thrust himself inside her, tunneling fast and deep, and she arched to entice the whole glorious fullness of him, loving its passage, loving the thrilling sensation of its intimate journey to the centre of her inner world.
Only he had ever joined her there and when he reached the innermost rim of it, she wound her legs around him to hold him there, squeezing tight in an ecstasy of possession.
A guttural cry of fierce satisfaction broke from his throat. His arms burrowed under her shoulders, raising her. His mouth came down on hers with ravaging force, invading, possessing, passionately pursuing the deepest sense of union with her. It was wild, beautiful, intense, the penultimate sense of mating.
When her muscles relaxed he pulled his mouth from hers and concentrated all his energy on repeating his first climactic entry, sliding back to plunge again and again, building a rhythm that threshed her into another peak of sweet bliss, and still he went on, riding from crest to crest, pushing the pleasure up a scale of intensity until no more was possible and he spilled the driving force of his need for her, filling her with the exquisite warmth of final fusion.
She took his spent body in her arms, stroking the shuddering muscles into gentle relaxation. Flesh of my flesh, she thought, remembering the baby they’d made and wondering if it would happen again. Would he like it to? Was she assuming too much from one night of loving?
No, it was more than that. Much more. She was certain now he felt all that she did. It hadn’t gone away. It had been waiting for her.
 
Merry... The name kept echoing through Nick’s mind as though it belonged to this moment, belonged to the incredible magic of their coming together.
“Meredith...” he said out loud, trying to drive away the echo, override it.
“Yes?”
The husky answer forced him to think of an appropriate reply. Surely to God she’d given him more of herself than she’d given to any other man. It was wrong to confuse this with the spectre of her lost love.
“I could not have dreamed what we’ve just shared,” he murmured, raising himself from her embrace to brush his lips over hers in tender tribute to her generous loving. “It goes beyond dreams.”
He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, tucking one arm around her so she lay on his chest, her legs still entangled with his in close intimacy. She felt so right, perfect, as though she’d been made especially for him. How could she have loved another? There’d never been any other woman like her for him.
“It’s a miracle,” she whispered, her warm breath fanning his skin, making it tingle. “A Christmas miracle.” He could hear the happy smile in her voice.
Christmas...
Merry Christmas...
The special name stirred an unease, a sense of wrongness he tried to resist, but it persisted. He remembered watching the grieving look on her face, hearing the sad heartache in her voice as she’d recounted how Kimberly’s real father had come to call her
Merry.
How was it then that she’d said to him tonight,
You’re the man I’ve been longing for?
They’d only met a little over a week ago.
Yet her other words to him also suggested waiting for a much longer span of time...
I thought you’d never come.
Haunting words...focused on him, yet not making any real sense in the context of their short acquaintance.
Her being in his dreams all these years made no sense, either.
He stroked the long silky hair he’d seen so often in those dreams and never been allowed to touch. He played it through his fingers, real hair, as real as she was. She snuggled into a more comfortable position and sighed her contentment. After passion, the peace, he thought. Sweet dreams...
He ran his fingertips over her back, loving the satin texture of her skin, the soft curves of her body. She was beautiful, inside and out, just as he’d always felt she would be, his fantasy woman come to life. And still he didn’t know how the fantasy had begun.
He cast through his memory, trying to recall how far back it had gone. Not school days. Not during his years at Killara Business College. Then there was that blank spot before he went to Harvard, due to that damned surfboard cracking his skull.
It had taken him a while to get his brain back in order to continue his studies for the career he’d been aiming for, trying to recollect things he knew he should know. And yes, he remembered now. The dream had been part of that. He’d put it down to some subconscious manifestation of his frustration. Over the years he’d interpreted it differently, linking it to other things, but it had started then.
After the blank spot.
A nasty little frisson ran down Nick’s spine. His mind instinctively shied away from the thought that hit it. But it stuck.
The blank spot incorporated the Christmas period.
Thirteen years ago.

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