Secrets in the Marriage Bed (3 page)

She
hated
coming second to the law firm that was his life, hated it with a vengeance that could have turned her bitter if she hadn’t decided to do something about it. Caleb’s easy acquiescence to her request gave her hope that the battle might not be as impossible as it had always seemed. Maybe he was listening to her at long last.

But, she thought suddenly, was she listening to him? There had been something in his eyes as he’d looked at her in the kitchen—as if he’d wanted to say something, do something, but was restraining himself. She got that impression a lot around Caleb. Restraint. Emotions held captive.

He hadn’t started out that way. In the beginning, she’d almost drowned in the power of Caleb, a little frightened at the strength of his focus on her but delighting in it all the same. Then something had changed between them…been damaged.

If she’d walked over to fix his collar when they’d first married, no matter how angry they were with each other, he would have pulled her into his lap and kissed her until she begged for mercy. She’d touched him deliberately this morning as a test to see how much remained of that early passion. The answer had devastated her.

What had happened to the fire that had once raged between them? Had she destroyed it? She didn’t know what to think, experience warring with childhood lessons about acceptable behavior and the need to control her emotions. All she knew was that she’d die if she was never again as important to Caleb as she’d been at the start.

But why then did she get the impression that Caleb was constantly fighting to rein in his nature? Why could she almost
feel
the dark intensity of the emotions he kept locked up? And why could she never ask him what it was that he wanted to say but didn’t?

He was right. He hadn’t been the only one who’d made mistakes in their marriage.

“Your secretary just called from her apartment. She said she forgot to tell you she’d managed to reschedule with Mr. Johnson. The meeting is now at eight tomorrow morning.”

That was the appointment Caleb had cancelled in order to be home for dinner. “Thanks for taking the message. My mobile’s dead—I forgot to charge it.” Tugging off his tie, he dropped it on the sofa before undoing the top two buttons of his shirt and walking over to join her. “Why the look?” The urge to run his hands over the delicate softness of her bare arms was a physical ache.

“It wasn’t Miranda,” she blurted out, troubled eyes looking to him for explanation.

If there was one thing he didn’t want to discuss, it was his former secretary. “No. She’s been gone awhile.” Giving in to temptation, he curved one hand over the creamy skin of her shoulder. She shivered but didn’t move away. Then again, she never did. At least not until the end.

Victoria wanted to ask why Miranda had left but the courage that had pushed her this far deserted her in the face of the sickening thought that bloomed in her mind without warning. What if Miranda was no longer Caleb’s secretary because she was something else? Such arrangements weren’t unheard of in the circles in which she’d grown up—her own mother was a perfect example. And Caleb had been living away from her for two months. Maybe he’d gotten tired of waiting.

“Vicki?”

The reply she wanted to make kept slipping out of the turmoil in her mind. She stared at the floor in a desperate attempt to find her sense of balance but suddenly her world was spinning. “I need to sit…” And then it was too much effort to speak.

She heard him swear. Before she could collapse, he scooped her up in those powerful arms and she felt herself being carried to the sofa. He sat down with her held close. “Vicki? Talk to me. Come on, sweetheart.”

She took several deep breaths, letting herself be comforted by the only man who’d ever given her this tenderness. “I’m okay. Just give me a moment.”

“Are you sick? Is something wrong with the baby?” he demanded.

“No, no. I’m fine. We’re both fine.” Realizing that strands of hair were escaping her carefully constructed coil, she lifted her hand to re-anchor the pins. Caleb’s eyes drifted up.

And she remembered.

Instead of fixing the elegant do, she pulled out the pins and let the soft mass fall around her shoulders. Caleb had always loved it when she wore her hair loose, though he’d never once said so out loud. Some things a wife simply knew.

“If you’re both okay, why did you faint?”

Because I just realized that you might have a mistress.
Held in fear’s tight grip, she didn’t speak the words. She may have become stronger in recent months, but she wasn’t strong enough to hear his response to that statement. Not yet. As long as she didn’t say it, Caleb couldn’t lie to her, couldn’t fracture the fragility of their new start.

“I think I overdid it making dinner,” she said, with a small shrug. “I should’ve sat down a bit more during the day.” A lie of omission hidden in truth.

“Are you sure that’s all?” His hand drifted to her nape, a soft massage that was all the more seductive because of his overwhelming physicality. As usual, his touch made her want to behave in ways that were utterly unladylike and vaguely terrifying.

Did he do this for Miranda?
Stop it!
she told herself the second the thought entered her mind. She wouldn’t let her own fears and suspicions sabotage the decision she’d made with her eyes wide open.

In their time apart, despite all her hurt and anger, she’d accepted that she loved Caleb in a way that was so deep, it was a once-in-a-lifetime gift. Though that realization had spurred her to fight for their marriage, it wouldn’t stop her from walking away if they failed. And if she kept letting the past interfere, they would surely fail. For the sake of their child, she had to look beyond Caleb’s relationship with Miranda.

“Vicki? Come back to me, honey. Is everything really okay?”

She started to nod but her mouth shaped the word “no.” And she knew that although there was one wound she might never be ready to talk about, it was time to lay open another. “I spent a lot of time thinking about us today.”

Those hazel eyes seemed to harden but he didn’t stop his massage. “What’s to think about? We’re married and you’re carrying our child.”

“No, Caleb. Don’t do this again. Listen to me.”

“Talk.”

“You were angry about the separate beds last night.” But not angry enough to go elsewhere, she told herself, trying to soothe the agony in her heart.

“I want my wife in my bed. What’s wrong with that?”

“But that bed wasn’t the happiest of places for us, was it? I wasn’t ever…woman enough for you. I could never satisfy you.” It was like ripping out pieces of her soul and handing them over to him, but this had to be done.

“Jesus, Vicki.”

“You know I’m right, Caleb.” No matter how humiliating it was for her to admit…to accept, her failure in bed had helped drive him into another woman’s arms. If Vicki wanted Caleb back, she had to face up to that.

Caleb didn’t know what to do. He was used to taking charge but, at that moment, he was lost. Stroking her cheek, he shook his head. “Don’t look so sad, sweetheart.” Many times in the last few years of their marriage, he’d glimpsed that haunting sadness in her expression.

He’d felt helpless that he couldn’t bring the light he’d caught tantalizing glimpses of before they’d married back into her eyes. He’d assumed that once she was out from under her grandmother’s shadow, the light would flare bright, but it had faded until he’d been terrified he’d done something to kill it. “It’s nothing that we can’t fix.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Yes, Vicki.
Yes.
But we can’t do it if you won’t let me into your bed.” When she didn’t respond, he tried another approach. “We’re going in with a new mind-set—it changes everything.”

“Yes, it has to, doesn’t it?” Nodding in agreement, she wrapped her arms around his neck and lay her head against his shoulder. “Oh, Caleb. I missed having you beside me.”

He’d loved her long enough to understand the message in the liquid softness of her body.
Please, don’t let me be deceiving myself.
This was as close as Vicki ever came to making the first move. Sure that he was reading her right, he stood and, with her in his arms, headed for the bedroom. When she held on tighter, the knot in his chest eased.

Maybe it would be different now that they’d finally brought the secret pain of their marriage out into the open. Maybe Vicki would respond to him in the way he’d always wanted her to respond. Maybe.

She didn’t say a word as he carried her into the master bedroom. When he set her on her feet, they just looked at each other for several long seconds, two starving people in front of a banquet. The same moment that he began to reach for her, Vicki’s lashes fluttered shut and her body swayed toward his.

Cupping her face, he kissed her. She always responded to this, kissing him back with explosive passion. He cherished the kisses she gave him during lovemaking because they were the only signs that she wanted him.

So he kissed her. For a long, long time. Kissed…and hoped. When she whimpered and made a small restless movement, he slid his hands to the back of her dress and pulled down the zipper. Trailing his fingers up her spine, he became fascinated by the delicacy of her skin but resisted the urge to linger. Part of him was afraid this moment would be lost if he didn’t hurry. Promising himself he could return to savor her, he raised his hands to the shoulders of the dress and slid them down her arms. She let go of him only for the instant it took to remove the dress from her upper body.

The sound of cloth on skin sizzled over him as the dress fell to puddle around her bare feet. The feel of her almost naked body was an erotic shock. Exquisitely shaped, her breasts were small, taut, letting her eschew a bra when she chose…like tonight. He loved when she did that. It drove him half crazy.

Still kissing her, he moved his hands down her sides, stopping to stroke his thumbs over her nipples. She gasped into the kiss but didn’t react in any other way. Her hands didn’t move from around his neck; her body didn’t press closer to his. Caleb didn’t give up. She’d raised the topic, welcomed his embrace. What clearer indication of desire did he need?

He shed his shirt without breaking the kiss, then hesitantly pressed their bodies together. Her breasts rubbed against his chest, a sweet kind of torture. There was no rejection in her body, but neither could he read
true
welcome, passionate need. Only her mouth gave him hope.

Breaking the kiss at last, he lifted her and put her on the bed. Wide, the design a simple wooden frame, they’d picked it out in the weeks before their marriage, never guessing that it would become the center of one of the major issues in their relationship.

His hands trembled as he tugged her panties down her thighs, two months of deprivation making him ravenous. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and all he wanted to do was lavish his attention on every part of her, to take his time and adore her inch by precious inch. But such slow, luxurious loving required more than cooperation. Nothing less than acceptance on the deepest, most intimate level would do. And even tonight, Vicki held him at a distance, her desire locked up tight.

For five years he’d made love to her as little as possible, needing her more than he needed to breathe but unwilling to hurt her with his demands. Her kisses were always pure fire, her body slick and ready whenever he entered her, but in between, she never responded, no matter how hard he tried.

It didn’t matter that he could always bring her to orgasm. What mattered was that she fought every pleasure he tried to give her. What mattered was that she was never so overcome by desire that she became ravenous for
him.
What mattered was that even in this most personal of situations, his wife refused to drop her shield of cool elegance.

Hoping against hope, he kicked off his shoes and lowered himself on top of her, bracing himself on his arms. As his lips claimed hers, he ran one hand down her body to cup her buttock, and touched her hand.

It was clenched into a fist.