Dream Lake (29 page)

With a shy grin, Zoë pulled her arms free of the robe, her breasts bouncing with the movement.

Alex said something incomprehensible, his color rising.

“Take me now,” she urged, sliding her arms around his neck. “I don’t want to wait.”

“Zoë …” He wasn’t breathing well. “With a body like yours, skipping foreplay is not an option. In fact … any time you spend out of bed is wasted.”

“Are you saying I’m only good for sex?”

“No, you’re good for a lot of other things,” he said, his gaze locked on her breasts. “I just can’t think of any of them right now.”

Her laugh was muffled as he kissed her. He slid lower, dragging his mouth along her throat, his breath hot against her skin. His hand cupped beneath her breast, lifting it as he took the straining tip into his mouth, his tongue tracing liquid circles. She closed her eyes against the soft balm of lamplight, her senses humming with pleasure as he tugged gently, repeatedly.

There was no world outside this bed, nothing but the two of them. He touched between her thighs where she was wet and sensitive, and her hips rode upward reflexively. His thumb separated the seam of vulnerable flesh, rubbing lightly, the grooved scar sliding deliciously through the wetness. She was so close, so desperate for the climax that hovered just out of reach, that her eyes stung with frustrated tears.

Inside the blur of light and shadow, he was whispering for her to trust him, let him take care of her. His hand cupped her, one of his fingers entering the softness. Reaching deep inside, he traced a subtle pattern, his knuckles wriggling gently.

Her trembling hand slid down to his wrist, where she could feel the intricate movements of bone and tendon. The bedroom was silent as they both concentrated on the secret movements within her. A new tension began at the quick of her body and spread in supple pulses. His face was dark and intent above hers, his fingers slow and clever.

“What are you doing?” she asked through dry lips.

His lashes lowered over a flick of blue fire, and he bent to murmur near her ear. “Writing my name.”

“What?” she asked, disoriented.

“My name,” he whispered. “Inside you.”

The maddening stroking of fingertip and knuckles never stopped. Sensation gathered and began to roll forward as the heel of his hand pressed her rhythmically. Her head fell back against his supportive arm, and she felt his mouth caress her throat.

“That’s … more than four letters,” she managed to say weakly.

“Alexander,” he explained. “And this …” A low, erotic tickle. “This is my middle name.”

“Wh-what is it?”

She felt him smile against her skin.

“Guess,” he murmured.

“I can’t. Oh, please—”

“I’ll tell you,” he murmured, “as long as you don’t come before I finish.”

Impossible to lock the pleasure out. Impossible to ignore the sensations rushing so hard and fast. She strained and stiffened, gripping his shoulders. The shudders began, pleasure spilling in waves, each crest rolling higher until she thought she might pass out. He gathered her against him, took her sobs into his mouth, brought her through the feeling and spun it out even longer.

The release was so absolute that Zoë couldn’t move for minutes afterward, her limbs twitching as if with an electric current. Alex began a leisurely project of kissing her from head to toe. On the way back up, he parted her legs with deliberate caresses, his mouth skimming up the tender inside of her thigh until she jolted.

“You don’t need to do that,” she said, twisting. “I’ve already … no, really. Alex—”

He looked up at her across the rapid rise and fall of her stomach. “Area of expertise,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but …” She stuttered as he gripped her legs behind the knees, pushing them up and apart. “You can ruin a soufflé by overworking the batter.”

His quiet laugh vibrated against the most sensitive part of her, causing her legs to quiver. “You haven’t been overworked,” he murmured. “Yet.” He nuzzled against her, his shaven cheek gently rasping the delicate skin. She struggled to breathe, her heart pounding in a violent rhythm.

“Turn off the light?” she pleaded, a fierce blush racing over every inch of her.

A slow shake of his head, his mouth nudging deeper. She fell back with a little yelp, startled by the slippery-hot stroke of his tongue.

“Shhh,” he whispered, right against her, and the rush of his breath inflamed her even more. Another stroke … a teasing flutter … a swirling taste inside. She gripped handfuls of the flowered duvet, her thoughts dissolving in the burning physical awareness of what he was doing to her. He played with her deliberately, paying attention to every moan and twitch and squirm.

Eventually he lifted his head and whispered, “More.” But the word was tipped upward in a question, and he waited for her reply.

“Yes.” Anything he wanted. Anything at all.

Alex left the bed, and she heard the sounds of his jeans dropping to the floor, and the efficient rip of one of the foil packets on the nightstand. He returned to her, lowering his body over hers, the hair on his chest teasing her breasts. Her breath hastened as she felt the intimate pressure of him.

He settled deeper, every movement careful and easy. She moaned as she felt her body yielding to the steady pressure.

“Am I hurting you?” she heard him whisper.

She shook her head blindly. The sensation was overpowering, but he was so gentle, filling her slowly, letting her take him by degrees. And all the while he brushed kisses against her mouth and throat, whispering that she was sweet, soft, beautiful, that nothing had ever felt this good, nothing ever would again.

It was like a dream, this slow, inexorable possession, both of them intent on coaxing her body to take as much of him as she could. And then he was sealed against her, and her back was flat against the bed, her body weighted and impaled. She turned her face into the brutal swell of his bicep, his skin salt-flavored and delicious against her parted lips. He began to rock against her, a lascivious friction that prodded and rubbed and caressed. The pleasure was shattering. She stiffened, her legs spreading as she was thrown into a blinding climax. His thrusts lengthened, centering straight and deep, and then Alex shuddered, and held her as if the world were about to end.

“Tell me,” she said a long time later, in the dark. Her voice was lower than usual, liquid, as if it had been heated to a melting point.

Alex’s hand wandered idly over her sated body. “Tell you what?”

“Your middle name.”

He shook his head.

She tugged gently at his chest hair. “Give me a hint.”

He took her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing her fingers. “It’s a U. S. president.”

She traced the fine, firm edge of his upper lip. “Past or present?”

“Past.”

“Lincoln.” As he shook his head, she continued to guess. “Jefferson. Washington. Oh, give me another hint.”

His mouth curved against her palm. “Born in Ohio.”

“Millard Fillmore.”

That drew a low laugh from him. “Millard Fillmore wasn’t born in Ohio.”

“Another hint.”

“A Civil War general.”

“Ulysses S. Grant? Your middle name is Ulysses?” She snuggled next to him, smiling against his shoulder. “I like that.”

“I don’t. A thousand playground fights started with someone calling me by my middle name.”

“Why did your parents name you that?”

“My mother was originally from Point Pleasant, Ohio, where he was born. She claimed we were distant relatives. Since Grant was a notorious alcoholic, I could almost believe it.”

Zoë kissed his shoulder.

“What’s your middle name?” Alex asked.

“I don’t have one. And I always wanted one—I didn’t like having only two initials for a monogram. When I married Chris, I finally got three. But I went back to being Zoë Hoffman after the divorce.”

“You could have kept your married name.”

“Yes, but it never seemed to fit me.” She smiled and yawned. “I think deep down, you always know.”

“Always know what?”

Her eyes closed, an overwhelming weariness settling over her. “Who you are,” she said drowsily. “Who you’re supposed to become.”

The ghost lay beside Emma’s sleeping form, her hair and face silver-limned as a stray moonbeam slipped through the partially shuttered window. He listened to the soft flow of her breathing, the occasional disruptions as she drifted through dreams. Lying beside her, so close that they would have touched if he’d had a physical form, he could remember the feeling of being young with her, the thrill of being alive and in love, the promise that everything was still before them. With no idea of the evanescence of life.

A memory came to him, of Emma fragile and distraught, her eyes swollen from crying.

“Are you sure?” he asked, the words coming with difficulty.

“I went to the doctor.” Her hand pressed against her stomach, not in the protective way of an expectant mother, but clenched in a fist.

He felt ill, furious, blank. Scared out of his mind. “What do you want?” he asked. “What should I do?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.” Emma began to cry, with the rusted aching sounds of someone who had already been crying a long time. “I don’t know,” she repeated hopelessly.

He put his arms around her, and held her firmly, and kissed her burning wet cheeks. “I’ll do the right thing. We’ll get married.”

“No, you’ll hate me.”

“Never. It’s not your fault.”

Silence.

“I want to marry you,” he said.

“You’re lying,” she choked, but her sobs quieted.

Yes, he was lying. The idea of marriage, a baby, made him die inside. Marriage would be a prison. But he loved Emma too much to hurt her with the truth. And he’d known the risks of having an affair with her. A nice girl, from a fine family, facing ruin because she loved him. If it killed him, he wouldn’t let her down. “I want to,” he repeated.

“I—I’ll talk to my parents.”

“No, I’ll talk to them. I’ll take care of everything. You just calm down. It’s not good for you to get upset.”

But Emma was shaking with relief, holding him tightly, struggling to get even closer. “Tom. I love you. I’ll be a good wife. You won’t be sorry, I swear it.”

The memory faded, and the ghost was left with feelings of shame and dread. For God’s sake, what had been wrong with him? Why had he been so afraid of the thing he had wanted most? He’d been an idiot. If only he’d had it to do over again, everything would be different. What had happened to the baby? And why had Emma lied when she’d told Alex that she and Tom had never talked about getting married? Why hadn’t the wedding ceremony taken place?

He looked at Emma’s still face. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I never meant to hurt you. You’re all I ever wanted. All I ever loved. Help me find a way back to you.”

Twenty-one

Since a relationship with a Nolan had a limited shelf life, Alex was not surprised when Sam and Lucy broke up in mid-August. He was sympathetic, however. For the past couple of months, Sam had been happier than Alex had ever seen him. Clearly Lucy had meant a lot to him. But Lucy had been offered some kind of art grant that would require her to move to New York for a year. She was going to take it. And Sam, being Sam, wasn’t about to interfere with that or ask her to stay for the sake of a relationship that was headed nowhere.

Since Alex had been doing some work on an upstairs staircase at Rainshadow Road, he happened to be there on the day that Lucy came to break up with Sam. While Alex pounded shims into the treads and risers of the stairs, the ghost went to check out what was happening.

“Lucy just broke up with Sam,” the ghost reported about ten minutes later.

Alex paused in his hammering. “Just now?”

“Yeah. Clean and simple. She told him she had to move to New York, and he didn’t try and stop her. I think it’s hit him hard. Why don’t you go downstairs and talk to him?”

Alex gave a snort. “About what?”

“Ask him if he’s okay. Tell him there are other fish in the sea.”

“He doesn’t need me to tell him that.”

“He’s your brother. Show a little concern, why don’t you? And while you’re at it, you might want to mention that you have to move in with him.”

Alex scowled. Darcy had recently e-mailed him that she was filing for a temporary order from family court to kick him out of their house. Her house.

Moving in with Sam would be cheaper than renting an apartment, and in lieu of paying rent, Alex could continue the restoration work at Rainshadow Road. God knew why Alex felt so compelled to work on the place. It wasn’t even his. But he couldn’t deny his attachment to it.

It had been three weeks since he had started having sex with Zoë—the best three weeks of his life, and also the worst. He rationed out his time with her, when he wanted to see her every minute of the day. He invented excuses to call her, just to listen to her talk about a new recipe or explain the differences between Tahitian, Mexican, or Madagascar vanilla. He found himself smiling at odd times during the day, thinking of something she had said or done, and that was so unlike him that he knew he was in serious trouble.

He wished he could blame Zoë for being demanding, but she knew when to push and when to back off. She managed Alex more adeptly than anyone else ever had, and even though he knew he was being managed, he couldn’t bring himself to object. Like the night he’d told her he couldn’t stay, she’d made a pot roast that had filled the entire cottage with a dark succulent fragrance, and so of course he had relented long enough to have dinner, and after that he’d found himself in bed with her. Because pot roast, as she must have known, was an aphrodisiac to any man from the Pacific Northwest.

He tried to limit the number of nights he spent with her, but it wasn’t easy. He wanted her all the time, in every way. The sex was amazing, but even more astonishing was how much he wanted Zoë for other reasons. The things that had once annoyed him—the perkiness, the stubborn optimism—had somehow become his favorite things about her. She constantly sent out cheerful thoughts like party balloons that he couldn’t bring himself to pop.