The Fifth Favor (33 page)

“How am I supposed to respond to that?”

“I don’t know. Let’s try it again and see if anything comes to mind.” His thumb brushed her chin, then her bottom lip, a fleeting caress, drawing her attention back to him. “I love you, Billie.”

The reiteration slammed into her like a steel wrecking ball. She shot from his lap and turned away, trapped by disbelief and utter dismay. She’d waited so long to hear the words. She’d so desperately wanted his love—and now…now…the weight of his heart in her hands was too great to bear. Tears welled in her eyes, too long pent.

Behind her, the iron legs of Christopher’s chair scraped on the terrazzo floor. His touch came at the small of her back, his voice at her ear, low and direct. “Still can’t think of a response? Tell me, then. What does a woman want to hear from the man who loves her? Teach me, Billie. All I know are scripted lies.”

A sob, sudden and unbidden, rose in her throat. “Have you ever used those lies on me?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“And now you’re asking me what I want to hear from you? You expect me to believe what you say?” The anger she’d harbored toward herself exploded inside her 181

Shelby Reed

chest. Whirling to face him, she snapped, “Hell, I don’t know. Choose something from your broad repertoire. Impress me. And then I really do have to go.”

He never flinched under her vehemence. “Why are you doing this?”

The bewilderment in his expression couldn’t possibly be a lie. Nor the ardor. And oh, Billie hated him for it. Hated him for coming clean so very late in the game, almost as much as she abhorred herself.

Just tell him about the article and be done with it.
The Adrian she’d once known would have offered
her
such devastating truth without blinking. But Christopher was someone else. A sweet, beguiling stranger.

Weeks of frustration and heartache—and a silky, curling thrill too deadly to acknowledge—welled within her, pushing aside her misplaced ire, swelling the tears on her lashes until they spilled down her cheeks. “But if I stay, you know what’ll happen.”

He seemed to recognize the momentary falter in her belligerence and his hand immediately grasped hers. Never taking his gaze from her face, he led her from the kitchen, his movements calm and intentional. “Tell me what you think will happen, Billie.”

“We’ll end up in bed.”

“Seems we already crossed that bridge,” he said, and leaned to turn on a living room lamp.

They reached the sofa, where she refused to sit. The urge to weep made it hard to breathe. “But this time will be different. We’ll have sex.”

“Yes,” he said, wiping his thumbs over the tears escaping down her cheeks. “That’s what people do when they love each other.”

Billie shook her head, swallowed, tried to speak. A sob escaped her, then another, and another, ripped from her deepest conscience, until her shoulders shook and her head dropped beneath the weight of despair.

As she cried, Christopher drew her against him, cradled her head and pressed her cheek to his chest, where his heart beat steady. His fragile heart—as tenuous as her own. He would feel so betrayed when it was over. He would try not to hate her, and he would fail.

She cried until her insides felt hot and empty, until her feet hurt from standing in chic linen pumps, and beneath her cheek his T-shirt was soaked translucent from her tears.

“I n-need a t-tissue,” she managed finally, shuddering with intermittent vestiges of grief as she sank down on the sofa.

“Don’t go away.” He left her sitting there and disappeared down the hallway, then returned with a box of Kleenex. Kneeling before her, he removed her shoes with solicitous care and set them neatly aside, then waited while she blew her nose and wiped the smeared mascara from her face.

182

The Fifth Favor

When she was done, he eased up on the sofa beside her and curled a finger beneath her chin, tilting it to examine her swollen eyes. “I don’t know why you’re crying, only that it has to do with me. Usually I’m more than a little aware of the damage I’ve caused, but this time I don’t understand. Make me understand.”

She shook her head, squeezing her eyes closed to yet another opportunity for confession.

Christopher sighed, waited, and when she still didn’t speak, he pulled her closer and pressed his lips to her hair, the warm comfort of his body soaking into her. “If you really feel compelled to leave, I won’t try to stop you. But first…tell me you know I love you, that no woman has ever touched me like you have. Tell me I haven’t failed in this one thing, Billie. Even if it’s all you leave me with.”

Billie couldn’t contain the cry surging in her throat any more than she could stop the inexorable passage of time, counted off by the soft tick-tock of the grandfather clock nearby. Her arms slid up between them and around his neck, clinging, her eyelids lifting to find his gaze filled with uncertainty and need. Oh, the agony of this. How could such wild confusion and delight exist in the same moment?

“I believe you,” she whispered, turning her cheek into the gentle caress of his palm.

“I believe you love me.”

“Billie…” Before she could move, think, draw a breath, his mouth covered hers, and she was instantly, utterly lost.

183

Shelby Reed

Desire exploded in every cell of Billie’s body and blasted away her common sense as she melted against him, trembling lips parting under his, at once ravenous and suppliant. Flavored with the remnants of coffee and the salt of her tears, the kiss was ambrosia and aphrodisiac both, a tantalizing hint of pleasures waiting to be explored.

“Chris,” she whispered. “I want you so much.”

“Then take what you want.” His smile blossomed against her lips, a fleeting manifestation of joy, and then he slid one arm beneath her knees and hauled her onto his lap, impossibly close, not close enough.

The faint fragrance of laundry detergent and sultry hot skin suffused her senses.

Agitated by the barriers of their clothing, she twined herself around him the way wisteria wreathes the oak, and rubbed her temple against the feathery softness of his hair. Her fingers guided his roaming hands to her breasts, left him there to take his fill, and moved to stroke the smooth nape of his neck, dipping inside his T-shirt collar in search of muscle and sleek heat.

With a groan, Christopher hugged her and buried his face against her breasts, his warm, moist breath bathing her through the linen of her dress. “You feel so good, Billie.

I need you so much.”

She nipped at the tender skin on the side of his throat, took from him a trace of salt and faded aftershave before she nosed up to touch her tongue to his earring. Her lips closed around his earlobe and she drew it into her mouth, tiny gold hoop and all, and sucked until he shivered and his fingers dug helplessly into her back.

“
Christ
…” The single word hissed into the silence, prayer and oath and completely void of pretense. It fanned Billie’s excitement and drove her to mesh herself with this beautiful man who’d been part tormenter, part lover and now, at last, the fulfillment of her heart’s desire.

“Kiss me,” he gritted, palms moving up to clasp the sides of her head. And because he sounded as desperate as she felt, she acquiesced without hesitation, and moaned into his mouth when it opened hotly beneath hers.

Oh, the sweet torture of the age-old ritual unfolding between them—the blind, searching crush of lips, the seesaw of strident breaths, the lift and thrust and retreat of male into female—all leading to one elemental act that Billie could no longer live without.

Darkness and dread slid away. Nothing mattered anymore except the restless shift of Christopher’s muscles beneath her hands and the growing fervor of the kiss they shared, until it seemed they sustained each other on breath and carnal hunger alone.

184

The Fifth Favor

“I’ve wanted this a long, long time,” he whispered. “Since the beginning. I’ve wasted so much time…”

“Shh.” She laid a soothing palm to his chest. “Your heart is beating like a runaway train.” Her fingertips trickled along the smooth brown hollow of his throat. “And here…I feel it here, as though it could jump out of your skin.”

“And here.” He pushed her hand down between their bodies and led her fingers to cup his erection through his jeans. Even with the thick denim as a barrier, Billie felt the throb of blood racing and swelling his penis, and her eyelids slid closed with the sheer sensuality of the moment.

Their only exchange after that was the sound of their breathing—hers a sporadic release, his escaping in sharp pants. Christopher lifted Billie free of his body as though she weighed nothing and turned her to straddle his lap, tugging the hem of her dress up over her hips when it impeded her movements.

Her knees settled to bracket his thighs, hands twisting in his T-shirt, clinging in preparation for the sinuous ride. Instantly his hips pushed up and she sank down, again, again, control lost, swaying and grinding against his straining erection, as though no clothes existed between them, as though he could thrust through his jeans and the lace of her panties and burrow his way to her very heart.

Breathy sounds of pleasure and desperation tore from their throats. The pressure was unbearable, yet not enough. He could delve so deep inside her there’d be no beginning or end to their bodies, and it wouldn’t be enough.

“Billie.” He grasped her waist to still her against him. “Wait.”

She understood; the violent shudder of his body told her that the rhythmic rub of sex against sex could only offer a premature finish to the naked union they both craved.

Parting, they took in each other’s hot, sleepy eyes and flushed cheeks and swollen mouths, and exchanged smiles born of the joy and uncertainty of first-time lovers.

Then Christopher’s lips returned to hers, slowing, his grasp loosening from its concrete hold on her ribs to glide and stroke, breasts, arms, shoulders, molding her into a malleable, languid form under his hands. An artist working his creation.

Billie tried not to protest his slowed pace. He was the finest lover, but it wasn’t his practiced skill that propelled her to the height of arousal. Rather it was the loss of his control, and the revelation of his fragile human heart in the face of a woman’s love.

Man or mirage, he understood her so well, her needs, her urges and deepest secret desires. It had always been this way, as though his black, black gaze could pierce straight to the core of her feminine soul and read what simmered there. Wild desire…and the desperate need to be loved for every part that constituted Billie Cort.

The girl, the woman, the myriad misplaced puzzle pieces that his love could set right.

“You’re everything to me,” he murmured, nuzzling his nose against the sensitive skin behind her ear. “Making love to you won’t be enough, Billie. I want more. I want everything.”

185

Shelby Reed

“We have forever,” she replied, and buried her face against his shoulder when the dark truth tapped a chilled, bony finger at the base of her conscience.

But they did have this moment, damn it. And if it was all Billie could cling to, she planned to show him what making love was truly all about so that neither of them would ever forget.

Shifting away from the cushions, Christopher slid down on the sofa’s expanse and took her with him, letting her weight guide him until they lay prone, Billie on top, breasts crushed against the hard wall of his chest.

His fingers inched her dress up higher until it wadded around her waist, leaving only her panties to shield her. Instinctively her hips moved against him again, seeking his hardness, offering a sultry invitation. Christopher let his knees fall open so that she slid between them to find brief succor once more against the hard ridge of flesh rising beneath his jeans.

And it was right to do this, to fall into him, to be absorbed in his beauty and need and passion, away from the pain of reality.

“I want you inside me,” Billie whispered against his ear. “Don’t make me wait.”

Her tongue swirled there, in the wake of her heated words, until he shuddered and his breath came quick and shallow.

Impatient now, his palms slid inside the elastic of her panties to cup her bottom, fingers bracketing strained, tensile muscle, then easing down to tease the feminine chasm that waited, wet and wanting, for his entry.

Billie’s back arched in response to the fluttering caress.

“Ah, Billie,” he said, his eyes heavy-lidded as he stared up at her. “I feel like I’m touching you for the first time. Like the past never happened, like I never knew all the soft and hard and wanting places on a woman’s body until now. I never knew what it was to want like this. I could go crazy from it.”

She swallowed thickly, her excitement climbing with each circular dip of his fingertips as they teased but never quite penetrated. “I love you, Christopher.”

“Then make love with me.” He shifted his head on the cushion, hands returning to her hips to draw her more snugly into his body. “Show me how, Billie.”

Gladness seized the reply in her throat. She pressed her lips to his with unrestrained passion, sinking her fingers into his hair to hold him, and sealed her fate.

When they parted to draw breath, she got to her feet and extended her hand. He took it and let her lead him past the blinding sun spotlighting the balcony, past Rudy, who raised his head just long enough to watch them move by, and into the cool, dim bedroom, where mint green walls swallowed them in silence.

They paused in the middle of the room, and when Christopher grasped her shoulders and turned her toward the closet, Billie found herself gazing in the mirrored bi-fold doors at a snapshot of two lovers treading in the eye of a swirling storm.

186

The Fifth Favor

Christopher’s reflection stared back at her, dark, solemn, waiting. And she: wide-eyed. Pale. Wanting. The picture seared itself into her memory forever.

“I want to see you.” Her voice trembled. “With nothing between us. Take off your clothes.”