Charmed (21 page)

She had a feeling showers were going to join staircases in the more erotic depths of her imagination.
Gripping his hips for balance, she arched back as he circled wet, soapy hands over her breasts.

Steam. It was all around her, it was inside her. The thick, moist air made it all but impossible to breathe. A tropical storm, water pounding, heat rising. The creamy soap had flesh sliding gloriously against flesh when their bodies moved together. Her hands foamed with it as she ran them over his back, over his chest. Even as his mouth raced to possess, his muscles quivered at her touch, and her laugh was low and softly triumphant.

If she burned, so did he. That was power clashing against power. There was no longer any doubt that she could give back the wild, wanton, wicked pleasure he brought to her. A pleasure so much sweeter, so much richer, because it grew from love as well as passion.

She wanted to show him. She would show him.

Her hands slid down him, over strong shoulders, the hard chest. She murmured in approval as she traced fingertips over his rib cage and down to the flat plane of his stomach.

He shook his head to try to clear it. He had expected to seduce her here, yet he was being seduced. The delicate hands flowing over his slick skin were shooting arrows of painful need through his system.

“Wait.” His hands groped for hers, held them firm. He knew that if she touched him now he would never be able to hold back. “Let me …”

“No.” With the new knowledge brimming inside, her mouth seared over his and conquered. “Let me.”

Her fingers closed around him, sliding, stroking, squeezing lightly, while his breath sounded harshly in her ear. A fresh flash of triumph exploded inside her as she felt his quick, helpless shudder. Then greed, to have him, all of him, deep inside her.

“Ana.” He felt the last wisps of reality fading. “Ana, I can’t—”

“You want me.” Delirious with power, she threw her head back. Her eyes were hot with challenge. “Then take me. Now.”

She looked like a goddess newly risen from the sea. Wet cables of hair slicked like dark gold over her shoulder. Her skin glowed, shimmered with water. In her eyes were secrets, dark mysteries no man would ever unlock.

She was glorious. She was magnificent. And she was his.

“Hold on to me.” Bracing her against the wall, he lifted her hips with his hands. “Hold on to me.”

She locked her arms around him, keeping her eyes open. He took her where they stood, plunging into her as the water showered over them. Gasping out his name, she let her head fall back. Through the rising mists, she saw their reflections—a wonderful tangle of limbs that made it impossible to see where he left off and she began.

On a moan of inexpressible pleasure, she dropped her head to his shoulder. She was lost. Lost. Thank God for it. “I love you.” She had no idea if the words were in her head or had come through her lips. But she said them again and again until her body convulsed.

He emptied himself into her, then could only stand weakly against the wall as the strength ran out of him. His heart was still roaring in his ears as he closed his hands over her shoulders.

“Tell me now.”

Her lips were curved, but she swayed a little and stared up at him through clouded eyes. “Tell you what?”

His fingers tightened, making her eyes clear. “That you love me. Tell me now.”

“I … Don’t you think we should dry off? We’ve been in the water quite a while.”

With an impatient jerk, he switched off the tap. “I want to look at you when you say it, and have at least some of my wits about me. We’re going to stay right here until I hear you say it again.”

She hesitated. He could have no idea that he was forcing her to take the next step toward having him—or losing him. Destiny, she thought, and choices. It was time she made hers. “I love you. I wouldn’t be here with you, couldn’t be here, if I didn’t.”

His eyes were very dark, very intense. Slowly his grip lightened, his face relaxed. “I feel as though I’ve waited years to hear you say that.”

She brushed the wet hair away from his brow. “You only had to ask.”

He caught her hands in his. “You don’t.” Because she was beginning to shiver, he drew her out of the stall to wrap her in a towel. He caught it close around her, then wrapped his arms tight for more warmth. “Anastasia.”
Tenderness swelled inside him as he touched his lips to her hair, her cheek, her mouth. “You don’t have to ask. I love you. You brought something I thought I’d never have again, never want again, back into my life.”

On a broken sigh, she pressed her face to his chest. This was real, she thought. This was hers. She would find a way to keep it. “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. Don’t stop loving me, Boone. Don’t stop.”

“I couldn’t.” He drew her away. “Don’t cry.”

“I don’t.” The tears shimmered, but didn’t spill over. “I don’t cry.”

Anastasia sheds no tears, but she’ll shed them for you.

Sebastian’s words rang uncomfortably in Boone’s head. Resolutely he blocked them out. It was ridiculous. He’d do nothing to hurt her. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. A steamy bathroom was no place for the proposal he wanted to make. And there were things he needed to tell her first.

“Let’s get you another shirt. We need to talk.”

She was much too happy to pay any heed to the curl of uneasiness. She laughed when he took her back to the bedroom and tugged another of his shirts over her head. Dreamily she poured two more glasses of wine while he pulled on a pair of jeans.

“Will you come with me?” He held out a hand, and she took it willingly.

“Where are we going?”

“I want to show you something.” He took her down the shadowy hall into his office. Delighted, Ana turned in a circle.

“This is where you work.”

There were wide, uncurtained windows framed with curving cherrywood. A couple of worn, faded scatter rugs had been tossed on the hardwood floor. Starshine sprinkled through the twin skylights. An industrious-looking computer, reams of paper and shelves of books announced that this was a workplace. But he’d added charm with framed illustrations, a collection of dragons and knights that intrigued her. The winged fairy he’d bought from Morgana had a prominent place on a high, carved stool.

“You need some plants,” she said, having decided instantly, thinking of the narcissus and daffodils she was
forcing in her greenhouse. “I imagine you spend hours in this room every day.” She glanced down at the empty ashtray beside his machine.

Following her gaze, he frowned. Odd, he thought, he hadn’t had a cigarette in days—had forgotten about them completely. He’d have to congratulate himself later.

“Sometimes I watch out the window when you’re in your garden. It makes it difficult to concentrate.”

She laughed and sat on the corner of his desk. “We’ll get you some shades.”

“Not a chance.” He smiled, but his hands went nervously to his pockets. “Ana, I need to tell you about Alice.”

“Boone.” Compassion had her rising again to reach out. “I understand. I know it’s painful. There’s no need to explain anything to me.”

“There is for me.” With her hand in his, he turned to gesture at a sketch on the wall. A lovely young girl was kneeling by a stream, dipping a golden pail into the silver water. “She drew that, before Jessie was born. Gave it to me for our first anniversary.”

“It’s beautiful. She was very talented.”

“Yeah. Very talented, very special.” He sipped his wine in an unconscious toast to a lost love. “I knew her most of my life. Pretty Alice Reeder.”

He needed to talk, Ana thought. She would listen. “You were high school sweethearts?”

“No.” He laughed at that. “Not even close. Alice was a cheerleader, student body president, all-around nice girl who always made the honor roll. We ran in different crowds, and she was a couple of years behind me. I was going through my obligatory rebellious period and kind of hulked around school, looking tough.”

She smiled, touched his cheek where the stubble was rough. “I’d like to have seen that.”

“I snuck cigarettes in the bathroom, and Alice painted scenery for school plays. We knew each other, but that was about it. I went off to college, ended up in New York. It seemed necessary, since I was going to write, that I get myself a loft and starve a little.”

She slipped an arm around him, instinctively offering comfort, waiting while he gathered his thoughts.

“One morning I was in the bakery around the corner from where I was living, and I looked up from the crullers and there she was, buying coffee and a croissant. We started talking. You know … what are you doing here, the old neighborhood, what had happened to whom. That kind of thing. It was comforting, and exciting. Here we were, two small-town kids taking on big bad New York.”

And fate had tossed them together, Ana thought, in a city of millions.

“She was in art school,” Boone continued, “sharing an apartment only a couple of blocks away with some other girls. I walked her to the subway. We just sort of drifted together, sitting in the park, comparing sketches, talking for hours. Alice was so full of life, energy, ideas. We didn’t fall in love so much as we slid into it.” His eyes softened as he studied the sketch. “Very slowly, very sweetly. We got married just before I sold my first book. She was still in college.”

He had to stop again as the memories swam back in force. Instinctively his hand closed over Ana’s. She opened herself, giving what strength and support she could.

“Anyway, everything seemed so perfect. We were young, happy, in love. She’d already been commissioned to do a painting. We found out she was pregnant. So we decided to move back home, raise the child in a nice suburban atmosphere close to family. Then Jessie came, and it seemed as though nothing could ever go wrong. Except that Alice never seemed to really get her energy back after the birth. Everyone said it was natural, she was bound to be tired with a new baby and her work. She lost weight. I used to joke that she was going to fade away.” He closed his eyes for a minute. “That’s just what she did. She faded away. When it had gone on long enough for us to worry, she had tests, but there was a mess-up in the lab and they didn’t detect it soon enough. By the time we found out she had cancer, it was too late to stop it.”

“Oh, Boone. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“She suffered. That was the worst. She suffered and there was nothing I could do. I watched her die, degree by degree. And I thought I would die, too. But there was Jessie. Alice was only twenty-five when I buried her. Jessie had just turned two.” He took a long breath before he turned to Ana. “I loved Alice. I always will.”

“I know. When someone touches your life that way, you never lose it.”

“When I lost her, I stopped believing in happy-ever-after, except in books. I didn’t want to fall in love again, risk that kind of pain—for myself or for Jessie. But I have fallen in love again. What I feel for you is so strong, it makes me believe again. It’s not the same as I felt before. It’s not less. It’s just … us.”

She touched his cheek. She thought she understood. “Boone, did you think I would ask you to forget her? That I could resent or be jealous of what you had with her? It only makes me love you more. She made you happy. She gave you Jessie. I only wish I had known her.”

Impossibly moved, he lowered his brow to hers. “Marry me, Ana.”

She froze. The hands that had reached up to bring him close stopped in midair. Her breath seemed to stall in her lungs. Even as her heart leapt with hope, her mind warned her to wait.

Very slowly, she eased out of his arms. “Boone, I think—”

“Don’t tell me I’m rushing things.” He was amazingly calm now that he’d taken the step—the step he realized he’d already taken in his head weeks before. “I don’t care if I’m moving too fast. I need you in my life, Ana.”

“I’m already in your life.” She smiled, trying to keep it light. “I told you that.”

“It was hard enough when I only wanted you, harder still when I started to care. But it’s impossible now that I’m in love with you. I don’t want to live next door to you.” He took a firm grip on her shoulders to keep her still. “I don’t want to have to send my child away so I can spend the night with you. You said you loved me.”

“I do.” She gave in to desperate need and pressed herself against him. “You know I do, more than I thought I could. More than I wanted to. But marriage is—”

“Right.” He stroked a hand down her damp hair. “Right for us. Ana, I told you once I don’t take intimacy lightly, and I wasn’t just talking about sex.” He drew her back, wanting to see her face, wanting her to see his. “I’m talking about what’s inside me every time I look at you. Before I met you, I was content to keep my life the way it was. But that’s no good anymore. I’m not going to keep running through the hedges to be with you. I want you with me, with us.”

“Boone, if it could be so simple.” She turned away, struggling to find the right answer.

“It can be.” He fought against a quick flutter of panic. “When I walked in this morning and saw you in bed, with your arms around Jessie—I can’t tell you what went through me at that moment. I realized that was what I
wanted. For you to be there. Just to be there. To know I could share her with you, because you’d love her. That there could be other children. A future.”

She shut her eyes, because the image was so sweet, so perfect. And she was denying them both a chance to make the image reality, because she was afraid. “If I said yes now, before you understand me, before you know me, it wouldn’t be fair.”

“I do know you.” He swept her around again. “I know you have passion, and compassion, that you’re loyal and generous and openhearted. That you have strong feelings for family, that you like romantic music and apple wine. I know the way your laugh sounds, the way you smell. And I know that I could make you happy, if you’d let me.”

“You do make me happy. It’s because I don’t want to do any less for you that I don’t know what to do.” She broke away to walk off the tension. “I didn’t know this was going to happen so quickly, before I was sure. I swear, if I’d known you were thinking of marriage …”