Wildfire (18 page)

“It must be nice.”

“What must be nice?”

“Having a family that’s there when you need them, and not when you don’t.”

“Speaking of being there, I think that’s the turnoff for the Stonehearth Inn coming up.” Brady proficiently eased the Mustang onto the cleared expanse of the narrow drive. “Here we are. What do you think of it?”

Amanda squinted through the snow-speckled windshield. “It looks lovely.”

As its name implied, the building was made of natural stone. Falling flakes of snow were silhouetted against the lighted windows. Brady hauled both their pieces of luggage out of the car’s trunk and motioned Amanda ahead of him. A large Christmas tree and a roaring fire gave the small lobby an immediate sense of cheer. Their landlord was polite and discreet, making Amanda wonder if Brady had been here before.

Their weekend package came with a candlelit dinner served in their room—roast duckling with sage stuffing, wild rice, and tiny peas. Afterward they sat in front of their promised fireplace to savor the last toasts of champagne. They’d both taken off their boots and left them on the mat by the door. Artificial illumination would have dispelled the room’s romantic ambience, so the light switches were all left in the off position.

The amber firelight played over the nylon-covered length of Amanda’s legs, drawing Brady’s attention to their slim perfection. Removing the half-empty champagne glass from her hand, he drew her back to recline against him, her back resting on his chest. His arms crossed over in front of her, the firm muscles of his forearms brushing the soft curves of her breasts. Amanda relaxed against him, at home in the warmth of his embrace. Their voices were low and soft as they reminisced about the past.

Brady began with, “What did you think when you first met me?”

“That you were toying with me,” Amanda eventually admitted.

Brady had to smile at her quaint terminology. “No way. I will confess to wanting to play with you though. With your hair, with your lips, with your body.”

“Is that all you wanted?” she questioned provocatively.

“No,” he leaned away to recollect with a grin. “I also wanted to tease you off your pedestal.”

“Was I on a pedestal?” She sneaked a finger in between the buttons of his blue shirt, lightly running her nail across his unprotected skin.

“You were when I first met you, but you’re not now. Now you’re driving me to distraction.” He caught her taunting finger and lazily nipped at it with his even, white teeth.

“
The Distracted Detective,
”
she mused, moving her hand out of harm’s way to play with his dark curls. “That sounds like a title of one of my mysteries.”

“I think it’s about time I unraveled a little of your mystery,” he decided, slipping off the woolen vest she was wearing.

“You know, when
I was at the police academy I was always getting in trouble for not doing things by the book,” he conversationally imparted, tossing her vest over the back of the couch.

“Does that mean you believe in creative investigating?” she quipped
with
an
anticipatory smile.

“Definitely. Shall I give you a free demonstration?” he generously offered.

“Please do.”

He slid her onto his lap, bending his legs and tumbling her onto his chest, whereupon he began softly blowing in her ear. Amanda automatically giggled, expecting the gentle tickling to evoke laughter. But it didn’t, it evoked another emotion entirely, one that raised goosebumps up and down the length of her arm. Meanwhile his hands were busy, faithfully practicing the art of creative investigating. She’d never encountered a man with such a developed sense of touch, and he used it as a means of sharing rather than as a brand of possession.

Amanda’s finger investigated the slant of his eyebrows with a newly discovered sense of possession. “You have such wide brows,” she marveled.

“To match my wide hands,” which he used to give her such pleasure that it shuddered down her spine.

“And beautiful lips.” Amanda’s index finger lovingly outlined the catalogued item.

Brady looked at her as if he wanted to inhale her and keep her within him forever. The passionate intensity of his gaze seared her, setting alight an answering flame deep within her. This was it. They retired to the bed, prepared to embark on a sensual exploration that would lead them into the incandescent pleasures of love.

Brady’s shirt was the first deposit on what was to become a steadily increasing pile of clothing. Amanda’s fingers skied down the angled slope of his shoulders, refamiliarizing herself with the welcoming terrain of his powerful body. He was a study of warm flesh and rippling muscles; there wasn’t an ounce of surplus fat anywhere. Amanda explored the central valley down his chest, tracing its origins to the flat planes of his stomach. Her fingers boldly lowered to trace the carved surface of his belt buckle.

“Wait,” Brady murmured, catching her hand and returning it to his bare chest. “It’s my turn.” The ingenious fastenings of her blouse were opened quickly and the garment fell open. He caught his breath as the sizzling filminess of her lingerie was revealed to him for the first time.

The dusky rosiness of her nipples glowed through the sheer shine of the material cupping them, beckoning his lavish attention. She shivered and burned as his fingertips skimmed their surface. His head bent to administer the next divine caress, his curls dark against her paleness. The long hypnotic strokes of his tongue permeated the diaphanous covering until she was aflame with desire.

Realizing that her blouse had now joined his shirt on the floor, Amanda resumed her tinkering with his belt buckle. There seemed something almost hedonistically wicked about the measured slowness of their pace. Brady was just beginning on the intricacies of her skirt when she finally undid his belt buckle and unsnapped the riveted fastener.

“I told you that you’d be good at this.” Brady’s husky words of encouragement were murmured somewhere near her temple.

Amanda shook her head in wonder. “I never knew…”

“You’ll find out tonight,” he promised, tossing her wraparound skirt to the floor.

Brady was delighted to discover that the taupe nylon encasing her legs was held up a sexy garter belt instead of proletarian panty hose. Propping himself up on one elbow, he drank in the picture of seductiveness she made. The silky material of her camisole matched that of her French panties. Her honey-gold hair tumbled over her shoulders, its glorious disarray caused by the combing caresses of his hands. Her eyes were sable-dark with impassioned desire, her look one of sensual arousal. Brady had never seen anything as beautiful, and he said so as his hand reached out to trace spiraling patterns on the sensitive crook of her knee.

“You’ve given new meaning to the phrase ‘sheer delight.’” The husky stroke of his voice was a caress in itself.

“I wore these for you.”

“They’re great. You’re great.” His “great” was a heady distillation of all the compliments she’d ever been given, a thousand times more potent than the strongest wine.

Brady released her stockings from their holders, the warmth of his fingers evocatively brushing against the delicate skin of her inner thighs. As soon as her stockings were dispensed with, Amanda tugged Brady back down beside her so that she could ease open the zipper of his jeans, working the denim covering off his hips, down his legs, and out of the way.

Sexy though her lingerie may have been, it was still a barrier not to be borne. The camisole top was stroked away first, having fulfilled its mission of amplifying the delicacy of his touch. Now, without that barrier, the stimulation was purely concentrated. His hands began the manipulations, followed by the magic of his mouth and flicking tongue until the ripe fullness blossomed with complete arousal. Rose peaks strained against his hand, their taut hardness fascinating him.

Her wide-legged French panties were saved until last. They were more an enticement than a deterrent, their unconstricted design allowing for innumerable forays under their protection.

Amanda’s voice was heavy with desire as she whispered, “That feels so…”

“How do I make you feel?” Brady murmured.

“Like all the bones in my body have melted and turned into warm gelatin with an ache…”

“Where? Here?”

“Mmm,” she purred, rhythmically rubbing against the hand that stroked the treasure trove of her femininity.

Hurtling through space had never appealed to Amanda, yet she welcomed the sensation with Brady. He set her humming until every pulsating outpost of her body was clamoring for release. Now nothing separated them, bare skin clung to bare skin. Her body yearned to accommodate his, yet still he held back, helping her realize her true potential.

Like a liberated tigress, Amanda raked her nails across the rippling expanse of his back, demanding satisfaction. Brady anchored her writhing body with his while she absorbed him into her very being. Flares of passion overcame her consciousness, blacking out everything but the life-giving current that flowed between them.

Afterward, her head lay pillowed on his shoulder, her limbs entangled with his as she physically expressed her desire to remain close to the warm male body that had supplied so much pleasure. It was some time before they’d recovered sufficient breath to speak in more than incoherent rushes.

“You’re great,” Amanda murmured against the salty bareness of his skin.

“So are you,” he whispered, threading a tender hand through her hair.

Both voices reflected their wonder. In the twilight of early morning they made love again, and again it was slow and exquisitely sensuous.

It was midmorning before the two closely entwined figures in the double bed showed signs of awakening. Amanda was the first one up, tugging on a powder blue robe she had to recover from her still unpacked suitcase.

“It’s a crime to cover that body with a robe,” Brady’s sleepy voice informed her from the bed.

“It’s a crime to leave it uncovered,” she archly countered, firmly tying the belt. “Ever heard of indecent exposure?”

“There isn’t one inch of that body that’s indecent. I know, I’ve surveyed it all!”

Amanda giggled at his roguishly leering expression.

“Come back to bed, woman,” Brady growled. “I want to talk to you.”

“A likely story,” she tossed over her shoulder, deliberately heading in the opposite direction.

Brady grabbed her and in an instant had her pinned to the tousled bedclothes. “Gottcha!”

“Your behavior is most ungentlemanly, Detective Gallagher,” she reprimanded.

“And your behavior last night was most unladylike.” He watched her blush with fascination. “Most unladylike,” he repeated, “but most enjoyable.” He lifted one of the hands he’d held captive and studied the polished ovals of her fingernails. “How’d you get, such long nails?”

“I eat tacks for breakfast,” she pertly quipped.

Brady grinned. “That must be why you’re so tough.”

No,
she could have replied,
that took years of practice.
She could have made such a reply, but didn’t because her background wasn’t a subject she cared to discuss.

“I’d like to talk about my intentions,” Brady solemnly stated.

“Which I’m sure are wickedly dishonorable,” she teased, her fingers tiptoeing across his bare chest.

“You’re not making this easy for me,” he muttered thickly. “I’m talking about marriage. Between you and me. Hell, I’m not doing this very well.” His features wore an expression of masculine discomfiture. “I’m trying to ask you to marry me, Mandy. Will you?”

Amanda’s eyes widened in dismay.

“I know you haven’t actually come out and said that you love me,” Brady continued, “but I know you wouldn’t have agreed to come away with me this weekend if you didn’t. I guess the words must be hard for you to say. I can understand that. They’re not that easy for me either. But I do love you, Mandy, and I want to marry you.”

He gazed down at her expectantly. Gradually the inappropriateness of her expression sank in. “What’s wrong? You look like I just kicked you instead of proposing.”

His description was accurate; that’s exactly how she felt, as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. All this time she’d been sure that Brady understood her, that she was safe with him. Now it turned out that he didn’t understand at all, or he would never have even mentioned marriage.

“I’m not ready for marriage,” was her cool refusal.

“Not ready?” Brady repeated in exasperation. “Mandy, you’re thirty years old.” He knew the words were a mistake the moment he spoke them. He was right. He could feel her leaving him, withdrawing into herself and erecting her defensive shields. “Mandy, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

But she ruthlessly cut off his denial. “Of course you did. As a thirty-year-old spinster librarian I should be ecstatic over a proposal of marriage. But I’m not ecstatic.”

“I can see that.” His voice was very quiet. “Don’t you love me?”

“It isn’t a matter of loving you,” she wearily declared.

“Then what is it a matter of?” he questioned in impatient confusion.

“It’s a matter of marriage.”

He drew in a deep breath, the nerve jumping along his jaw a visible sign of turbulent emotions held in check. “Marriage with me?”

“You have nothing to do with it.”

Brady flinched as though struck. “I see,” he grated. Amanda was instantly freed. Rolling off the bed, he grabbed for his jeans, closing the zipper and fastening the snap with angry, jerky movements. This time when his voice burned her, it was with anger. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve been a little slow. I haven’t had the years of schooling that you’ve had and am not accustomed to these psychological games.”

Amanda looked at him in bewilderment, wishing she’d been better prepared for this eventuality. “I’m not playing games, Brady.”

“Aren’t you?” Clearly he didn’t believe a word. “I’d call this whole thing a game, a charade. You came away with me this weekend for a quick thrill, a little pre-holiday excitement. After all, you’re a liberated woman. It’s perfectly all right to sleep with someone like me, so long as you don’t marry them.”