Mountain Song (16 page)

“What if...ohhhhh.” Warnings
sounded far off, but they were almost quelled as Andy traced his way back
across her collarbones and nipped at the sensitive skin of her throat. She
gulped air, tried again. “Is the door locked?”

“Don’t know.”

“But someone could—mmmm...”

“Yeah, I guess they
could.”

“You’re—oh—you’re
not worried?”

In answer Andy hooked
a finger into the lace of her panties and slid them down, then softly traced
his fingers through the soft hair toward the aching center of her need. Claudia
sagged against the wall, her body liquid as sensation quivered through her.

But Andy caught her. He
held her to him and stroked, his touch maddeningly light, until she arced
against him, strength returning in her urgent hunger for more.

He spoke again, hot
breath at her ear, just at the moment he delved inside her with a skillful
finger. “If you have any doubts...tell me now, Claudia, or we won’t be able to
stop.”

She couldn’t speak
even if she wanted to. With his touch inside her and outside and seemingly
caressing all her nerve endings at once, Claudia knew she was powerless to
stop, and she gave in to her need, moving to meet his caresses, sliding her
hands down his back until they found leverage to bring him even closer.

Andy knew then that
they had crossed the line. He would have made good on his offer, if she’d
spoken just seconds ago. He would have stopped, smashed down his roaring desire
somehow, put his head in an icy shower if that’s what it took.

But now she was
arching towards him, and the feel of her was driving him wild. Soft, wet
velvet, trembling against his hand. He wasn’t going to be able to take it much
longer.

Then suddenly she
moved away from him, a quick motion, and his fingers slid across her moist skin
until he cupped only thigh. He barely had time to react before he felt her
fingers at his belt, the zipper of his khakis.

“Help me here,” she
whispered thickly. “Please.”

A quick yank and pants
and boxers fell to the floor. Claudia seized him in her hands with a greed he
didn’t recognize. “Quickly,” she murmured.

Then he was lifting
her as though she weighed no more than a down pillow. Claudia felt her back set
solidly against the wall, her thighs hooked around Andy’s waist. She guided him
towards her with trembling fingers, and as he hesitated at the entrance to her,
she met him with the fierceness of her passion and forged their union.

He filled her slowly,
incredibly slowly, and then he stopped and pulled away from her. Her body
screamed with hunger and she twisted toward him, but it was no use. Andy would
not be hurried.

Then she understood
that it was his rhythm they would follow now. In his embrace she was helpless
to meet his thrusts with her own. She could only wait, and beg with her lips
and teeth against his neck, with her arms pulling him to her.

When she finally gave
up to his control at last he seemed to know it. His strokes became deeper, and
he lingered against her. Claudia felt herself drawing closer to the edge and
cried out in ecstatic frustration as he pulled away just before her release,
teasing her, playing her like an instrument.

When she thought she
could take no more, Andy suddenly thrust deeply inside her, so deeply he became
a part of her, and she cried out. And then her awareness fell away as he joined
her at last over the top, rocking and holding her as they both took the summit
and held on to each other for dear life.

When finally the rain
of sensation diminished to slow, sensuous eddies, Claudia realized she’d sunk
her teeth into Andy’s flesh. Embarrassed, she leaned her cheek against him as
he slowly lowered her until her feet touched the floor. But she wasn’t ready to
stand. Not yet. She leaned against him, and his arms circled her and held her
loosely, comfortably, against him.

“Never tried that
before,” he finally murmured into her hair.

“I...I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true. I was
never much of an adventurer until you came along.”

And then they were
silent, Claudia filled with memories of dozens of other times and ways they’d
loved.

Slowly consciousness
returned. First she was aware of the light still streaming into the room. Then
she felt cool air on her exposed thighs, and remembered that her panties must
be somewhere around her ankles.

“Excuse me,” she said,
ducking to retrieve them. She felt blood rushing to her face, twisted out of
his arms. “I just need a second.”

In the apartment’s
spotless bathroom she put herself back together as well as she could. When she
emerged Andy was dressed again, the only hint of their activities a trace of
perspiration at his hairline. He’d taken a seat leaning against the dining room
wall, looking out the window.

“Join me,” he said,
patting the carpet in front of him.

“Shouldn’t we—”

“Claudia, you’re
entirely too preoccupied with ‘should’. Cut it out.”

She was only too happy
to oblige. It felt good, leaning against him, his chin on top of her hair, arms
encircling her. It felt safe.

Safe...
right
. Things
felt right in a way they hadn’t in a long, long time. A smile curved Claudia’s
lips and she leaned into Andy. He stroked her hair, running his fingers through
the strands and along her head, and her body hummed with contentment.

“I’m glad we did that,”
he said softly into her hair. “I’m tired of wondering if this is a mistake or
not or what the heck it is.”

“Me too,” was all
Claudia managed, but the silence that followed felt all right.

Her purse was just off
to the side, lying on the floor where it had fallen victim to their passion. Claudia
glanced at it, then looked at it harder.

Inside, she knew, was
her wallet, with its accordion-folded sheaf of photos. Paul as a baby. Paul on
his first birthday. His second, third, and finally the one she’d had taken this
year, her favorite. He was wearing a pint-sized denim shirt with a tiny orange
dinosaur embroidered on the pocket, his very favorite shirt, and his grin was
crooked and easy and full of enthusiasm for life.

Claudia made a
decision, one that wasn’t based on reason or forethought or planning or logic. Like
their union moments ago, she let herself be guided by her emotions, something
she hadn’t done in years.

Still glowing with the
warmth of Andy’s body around her, Claudia extracted herself just long enough to
hook the purse’s strap around her foot and draw it close to her.

“I have something to
show you,” she said, and suddenly the enormity of what she was about to do
seized her, paralyzed her.

“Mmm?” Andy queried
idly, his breath warm against her neck, his strong fingers resuming their lazy
circles against her scalp.

“I—I don’t know.”
Claudia frowned, fear slowly beginning to nibble away at her contentment.

“Go ahead,” Andy said.
“Surprise me.”

Claudia took a deep
breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and said a quick prayer. Then she drew out the
wallet, the photos tumbling out into her palm. The one she loved the best was
on top, Paul smiling up at her, almost as though he was encouraging her.

Andy took the sheaf
from her, gave it a shake as the sun glanced off its shiny surface. Then she
felt him go still. Very still.

“That’s Paul,” she
said quickly. “Who I told you about.”

There was a pause, and
when Andy’s voice came, it was careful, distant. “A child?”

“He’s....well,
actually, he’s our son.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Everything faded away.
Everything but the picture he held in the palm of his hand, the little blond
boy with the dinosaur shirt and the megawatt grin.

Our son
.

Claudia had been
nervous, her hands shaking when she took the photo out of her wallet, hesitant
when she handed it to him. But her voice was strong and clear when she spoke
those two words.

He repeated them over
and over in his mind, tried to process the syllables into a concept he could
grasp, but all he could focus on was the picture. On a dotting of freckles
across the boy’s nose; a finely molded, slightly flat nose, not unlike his own,
in fact.

The boy—
Paul
—was smiling in the picture. As
if someone had just told him a dumb joke, the kind kids love, knock-knock-who’s-there
or why did the chicken cross the road. One of those.

And that dinosaur on
his pocket. Nice touch. Maybe the kid was really into dinosaurs, as Andy had
once been really into model airplanes. Maybe there were dinosaur curtains in
his room, dinosaurs on his pillowcases and cereal bowls. A dinosaur toothbrush.

Our son
.

This time the words
sliced through his muddy contemplation of the photo and rocketed through his
brain.
He had fathered a child
.

He’d never meant to,
never wanted to. He’d been
careful
,
damn it. He’d followed the rules, used precautions. Made his feelings clear.

But through some
terrible mistake, some drastic injustice, a child had been conceived anyway. A
baby had been born, and for the last four and a half years had gone about the
business of growing up while Andy, hundreds of miles away, never knew a thing
about his existence. Bumbled through life while fate had a good laugh on his
account.

Focus, focus. Andy
took the deep breath, knitted his brows, gritted his teeth as he had a thousand
times before when tackling a difficult concept. And focused.

Okay. Putting it in
the abstract, making it less personal, helped. He grasped the idea. An
unplanned pregnancy. But the round face grinning at him—he couldn’t make
that piece fit the puzzle. Andy knew nothing of this boy, had never in all the
moments of Paul’s life given a thought to him. Didn’t know his birthday, his
shirt size, his favorite color, what he liked to eat for dinner.

“How can he be mine?” The
voice was his, but the tone, bewildered and slow, sounded like someone else
speaking.

Claudia stiffened,
slowly sat up, pushing away from him. She slid a few feet away on the soft
carpet and pulled her knees under her chin, her elbows close to her body.

“Maybe I’ll pretend
you didn’t ask that question.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I wasn’t with anyone
else. Not for a long time after you. A
long
time.” Moments before, she’d leaned into him, her body’s curves fitting against
him, sharing his warmth. Now he could read the tension in her body. Fierce
glints sparked her narrowed eyes and her jaw was set.

“That’s not what I
meant. I would just like to know how the hell you happened to have a baby that
I have heard absolutely nothing about until today. Don’t you think you should
have told me about this a while ago? I don’t know, say...five years ago?” Andy
heard the ugly sarcasm in his voice, didn’t care. Unthinking, he tossed the
sheaf of photos back to her, letting it fly as though it were burning his fingers.

She caught it, and
then she pressed it to her chest hard, and glared at him.

He wasn’t about to be
intimidated. “How could you let this happen?”

“Me? What about
you
? It takes two people to conceive a
child.”

“You knew how I felt about taking chances. I was very clear—”

“You were plenty
clear, Andy. That wasn’t the problem. Believe me, I knew exactly where you
stood on family. On commitment. But sometimes things happen that no one
expects. Precautions fail. Fate intervenes.” She shook her head. “Even for you.”

Stung by the
bitterness in her voice, Andy tried to backtrack. He hadn’t meant to accuse. But
what the hell was she thinking, waiting all this time...

“I know a little about
fate,” he countered. “I’ve been to the school of hard knocks, remember? What
made you think I couldn’t handle the news?”

Claudia jammed the
photo back into her wallet. “Yeah, you had it rough, Andy. Life was hard on the
other side of the tracks. And you never let me forget it.” She narrowed her
eyes, slipped the wallet back into her purse. “You know what your problem is?”

He waited, watching
her zip up her purse with a vengeance.

“Somewhere along the
line you decided you had to control everything. Maybe it was the only way you
could get through those hard times, I don’t know. But you started to really
believe you could control every aspect of your life. Didn’t you realize life
was going to put one over on you some day?”

“That’s why I
planned
, Claudia. That’s why I worked so
damn hard.”

“I know,” she
acknowledged. “You’re Mr. Perfect. Mr. I’ve got an agenda and the rest of the
world can just go to hell.”