His Woman, His Child (9 page)

"I want this," she said. "It's what I've always wanted. You, Hank. You."

Her words seemed to free something inside him. Not that it was a visible thing, Susan thought. It was more of a feeling she sensed.

Lowering his head, he covered her lips and kissed her passionately. Her stomach fluttered, her toes curled and her femininity clenched and unclenched in preparation. He ended the kiss, then lifted himself up and off the bed. With quick precision, he divested himself of his shirt and flung it to the floor.

She sucked in a deep breath, her nerves singing, her body yearning, as she looked at his naked chest. Broad, muscled and hairy. And marred by a small, healing scar across the left side of his rib cage. His shoulders looked massive, his arms huge. He was, without a doubt, the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. Her man. The man of her dreams.

How many women never got a chance like this? How many spent their whole lives without ever knowing the joy of being with the one man on earth meant for them?

He knelt over her, reached down and lifted her into a sitting position. She allowed him to have his way with her. He pulled her beige cashmere sweater up her body and over her head, then tossed it on top of his shirt.

Her breathing quickened, lifting and lowering her breasts. Hank unlatched the front hook of her satin bra and spread it apart, exposing her to his heated gaze. Her nipples tightened under his scrutiny.

"Sweet heaven," he moaned.

His mouth covered one breast. His tongue laved the nipple. She felt herself unraveling when his thumb stroked her other nipple. Warmth spread through her, rapidly raising her temperature, and moisture pooled at the apex between her thighs.

Hank kissed her belly, then lifted her hips enough to reach under her and tug the elastic waistband of her slacks down and over her legs and off over her ankles, taking her beige leather flats off in the process. Returning to her as soon as he removed her cream-colored knee-highs, he delved his hand inside her silk panties. His fingers sought and found her core. He stroked her intimately, eliciting a cry of astonished pleasure from her before he inserted two fingers inside her, as if testing her readiness.

"You're so hot and wet, honey." He lowered her panties, discarded them and then buried his face in the tawny brown thatch between her legs.

He eased her onto her back, spread her legs and painted a damp trail up one inner thigh and down the other. Susan shivered uncontrollably. She had never known anything so incredibly sensual, so wantonly delicious. He touched and tormented her breasts and her feminine core. His fingers pinched and probed and teased with indescribable pleasure. His lips and tongue kissed and licked and sucked until she was mindless with sensation—hot, wild, sexual feelings unlike anything she'd felt before this night. Before this man.

She clutched at the bedspread beneath her, wadding the material in her hands as her hips lifted and she gave herself over to complete and utter abandonment. Her body jerked with release. Hank intensified his actions, pushing her farther and farther, deeper and deeper into pure, sweet ecstasy. When she lay spent, her breathing ragged, her body flushed, he lifted himself up and over her.

She looked into his dark eyes—searing black eyes that told her of his intentions. He kicked off his shoes and slipped out of his socks. In one swift move, he unsnapped and unzipped his jeans, then removed them and his briefs. And suddenly, he was over her, on her, entering her.

He lifted her hips as he plunged into her, bringing their bodies together completely. When he was buried deep inside her, he paused and waited for her to adjust to his size.

She felt full, expanded to the limits and nothing had ever been so right, so powerfully, undeniably right. She touched him. Caressed his chest. His tight, little male nipples. She curled her fingers in his chest hair. And then she ran her hands over his broad shoulders, loving the feel of his strength beneath her fingertips.

He withdrew from her. Moaning, she clung to him. He lunged again, deeply, completely, and she cried out from the sheer joy of having him inside her. The primitive rhythm began, slowly, gently, and then soon the pace accelerated until the beat of their mating grew faster and faster, harder and harder, wilder and wilder. They thrashed about on the bed, their bodies joined. He flipped her on top and she rode him frantically. Then he took the dominant position and brought them both to earth-shattering climaxes. Sweat glistened on their naked bodies as they melted into each other and fell, exhausted and sated, onto the bed.

When he ran the tips of his fingers over her stomach, she gasped and shivered. Aftershocks of fulfillment rippled through her. He lifted her in his arms, pulled down the covers, eased her back onto the bed and pulled her into his arms. She snuggled against him, praying this night would never end. He lifted the covers over them and draped his arm across her warm, damp body.

When he awoke, it was nearly midnight. Moonlight shimmered through the lace curtains at the long, narrow windows of the bedroom. He lifted himself up on one elbow and watched Susan as she slept. The soft moonlight illuminated the outline of her body, the rounded planes of her face. He smelled the womanliness of her sweet body, tinged with the heavier scent of his masculinity and overlaid with the earthy aroma of sex.

She moaned, then squirmed. The covers slipped off her breasts and down to her hips. He balled his hands into fists to control the desire to reach out and touch her, to caress those round full breasts, to stroke those tempting pink nipples. Her belly looked almost flat, except for the smallest little bulge. His hand hovered above that minute bulge and then, as if drawn by the child growing inside her, he laid his hand possessively—protectively—over her belly.

She mumbled in her sleep. His breath caught in his throat. How would he feel, he wondered, if she whispered Lowell's name?

But it wasn't Lowell's name on her lips that shocked him back to his senses. No, not Lowell's name, but his own.

"Hank." His name was a whispered murmur, spoken in the twilight between sleep and consciousness. "Oh, Hank. I love you."

Every nerve in his body screamed. His muscles tensed. This was what he'd feared the most, what he had wanted to avoid.

You should have known better. You should have known a woman like Susan wouldn't give herself to a man unless she loved him. You've done it now. You've made love to your best friend's widow and she thinks she's in love with you!

Hank eased out of bed and rummaged around on the floor, searching for his clothes. He didn't want to leave this way. Like a thief in the night. He wanted to stay, wake her and make love to her again and again and again. Once hadn't been enough. Not nearly enough. A dozen times, even ten dozen times wouldn't be enough to satisfy his hunger for Susan.

But she wasn't looking for a love affair. She wanted and needed a husband and a father for her unborn baby.

Your baby,
some inner voice tormented him.

He slipped into his briefs and jeans, put on his shirt and picked up his shoes and socks. When he reached the door, he paused and glanced back at the woman lying in the bed. She had turned and snuggled up against his pillow. His sex hardened and he cursed his traitorous body for wanting a woman he had no right to claim.

She's carrying your child, he reminded himself once again. Doesn't that give you some sort of right to her? No! No, it didn't. If he was willing to marry her and claim the child as his, then, yes, that would give him definite rights. But he had no intention of doing either. He'd just screw up all three of their lives if he even considered the possibility.

The Bishop men had a lousy track record at fatherhood. Their grandfather had proven to be ill-equipped to raise them. Their own father had been irresponsible and a total failure at parenthood. And look at Caleb. Even though he was working hard at trying to make things up to Sheila and Danny now, he had gotten Sheila pregnant twelve years ago, left her and never once looked back. And Jake was probably the most irresponsible Bishop of them all. He had run away, not only from Crooked Oak, but from their family and any ties that bound them all together.

What right did he have to think he might do better at this family thing than his forebearers and his brothers? Tallie seemed to be the only Bishop that had gotten it right the first time. He had convinced himself long ago that marriage and fatherhood were not for him. He had no intention of bringing children into this world and screwing up their lives.

You're a little late for that now, aren't you?
his conscience taunted him.
Susan is going to have your baby and that kid's going to grow up without a father. Lowell would have made a perfect dad for Susan's child. But not you. You'll probably even make a terrible godfather.

If he thought he could give Susan what she and the baby deserved, he might stick around to try to make things work with her. But he didn't dare chance it.

He took one last look at Susan, turned and walked out into the hall. He eased quietly down the stairs, through the kitchen and out into the cold December night. Just before he started up the outside staircase leading to his apartment, he paused and looked back at Susan's house, up to the second floor windows of the bedroom where she slept.

"I'm sorry, honey," he whispered, his voice lost on the winter wind. An unbearable ache began deep inside him and he wondered if anything would ever ease the pain.

Susan lifted back the heavy lace curtain and watched as Hank trudged up the staircase to his apartment. His shirt was unbuttoned and he carried his belt and socks in his hands. He was running scared. Running from her and what had happened between them. She knew just how he felt. She'd been running scared all her life—running from the overwhelming passion and love she'd always felt for him.

Aunt Alice had been right about this kind of love—the wild, uninhibited, uncontrollable kind of desire that drove people mad. It was like a fever in the blood, consuming and conquering in its intensity. An addiction so powerful that it took precedence over everything and everyone in your life.

She had been Lowell's wife for two years. She had loved him, made love with him and shared his bed and his life. She had been content and satisfied with their marriage and the future they had planned together. But Lowell was gone. Her safe haven, her security, her beloved mate.

When Hank closed his apartment door behind him, Susan released the curtain and let it fall across the window, blocking out the sight of the garage. She sat down in the wing chair by the fireplace and curled her feet beneath her. Lucy jumped up on the back of the chair and Ethel perched on the arm. Fred and Ricky, resting side by side on the hearth rug, lifted their heads and looked up at her.

She sighed as she wrapped her arms around her waist. "What am I going to do?" Both cats stepped into her lap. The dogs ambled over to her feet. She sighed again as she stroked Lucy and Ethel and took turns rubbing Fred's and Ricky's tummies with her foot.

"I'm in love with him. I'm going to have his baby. And we just made love. But he's scared of making a commitment to me." She buried her face in her hands. "Oh, God, please help me. I love him more than anything on earth, but he doesn't love me. Aunt Alice was right. Love like this causes only pain in the long run."

Susan wept herself to sleep, curled in the big wing-back chair in her aunt's bedroom, her animals surrounding her protectively.

Eight

"I don't see why you couldn't come out to the farm for breakfast," Caleb grumbled as he laid his sheepskin-lined coat on the back of the booth at Dawn's Diner, a greasy spoon in downtown Crooked Oak.

"I didn't want to talk to you with Sheila around," Hank said, then glanced up at the skinny, blond waitress who appeared at his side. "Just coffee right now."

"Just two coffees?" she asked. "The booths are usually for folks eating breakfast. If y'all just want coffee, there's a couple of stools—"

"Give us both the Early Bird Special," Hank told her.

"Sure thing." She smacked her gum as she headed behind the counter and called out their breakfast order to the cook.

"So what's wrong?" Caleb asked. "You look like hell. Didn't you get any sleep last night? Is the gunshot wound giving you trouble?"

"The wound's healing up just fine. My problem is more serious." Hank glanced out the glass front wall of the diner, onto the street and sidewalk, both practically deserted at six o'clock in the morning.

"More serious than a gunshot wound? Must be woman trouble. So what's going on with you and Susan?"

Hank snapped his head around, lowered his voice and said, "Will you keep your voice down. I don't want half the town to overhear our conversation."

Caleb grunted. "Take a look at this place. We're the only customers, except for the two guys drinking coffee at the counter."

"I'm going to move into the apartment over on Grove Avenue, just as soon as I can, but I need a place to stay until then. I hate to ask you, but—"

"You know you're welcome to stay with us." Caleb smiled at the waitress when she set two white mugs down on the table. "But why the rush to move? It's only a couple of weeks until the first."

Hank looked down at the table, eyed the coffee and lifted the mug. He blew on the steaming liquid, then took a sip. "I need to put some distance between Susan and me. And I need to do it today."

Caleb let out a long, low whistle. Hank gritted his teeth. The brothers looked directly at each other.

"I see," Caleb said. "Okay. Pack a bag and come on out to the farm whenever you're ready."

"Thanks."

"Are you going to talk to Susan, tell her where you're going?"

"Yeah, sure. I owe her that much."

"Just how serious is it between you two?" Caleb asked.

"Way too serious."

"Are you sure this is what you want to do? Maybe y'all could work it out, come to an agreement of some kind."

"No!"

"Mmm-hmm."

"I suppose Sheila will ask questions," Hank said.

"I'll ask her not to. But I'm sure she'll get Susan's version of what happened. You know, women like to talk about stuff."

Hell! That's all he needed—his sister-in-law being given an account of his love life by one of his lovers. But Susan wasn't just one of his lovers. And that was the problem. Susan was different. She was special.

The waitress set the plates filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and grits on the table. Hank pulled a twenty out of his wallet, tossed it on top of his napkin and stood.

"I'll be on out to the farm in a few hours. Thanks."

He put on his coat as he walked out the door. He jumped into the Jeep, started the motor and then slammed his hands down on the steering wheel.

Fool! Damn fool! Why couldn't he have kept his hands off her? Why did he have to make love to her? If he needed a woman so damn bad, why hadn't he found somebody else … somebody who wouldn't get hurt … somebody who wouldn't have told him that she loved him?