Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses) (25 page)

Of tenderness.

If Mac hadn’t known it before, he knew it in that moment: he was in trouble. He was in deep, deep trouble.

* * *

“Stop fretting.” Sid pushed Mac’s hair off his forehead in a caress he seemed to enjoy, but then, she hadn’t found one he didn’t enjoy. He liked her hands on him, plain and simple. He practically purred when she touched him, anywhere, anyhow. Her body against his, her mouth on his, her hands on him in any location, they all provoked him to move in the subtle ways that invited her to keep touching him, to stay near.

Exactly where Sid wanted to be.

She climbed off him and lay on her back, taking Mac’s hand in hers.

“I tell myself I’ve forgotten what a pleasure it is to share intimacies with a man, but, MacKenzie, it was never like this. You’re with me in ways most guys don’t know how to be, or don’t care enough to be. With you, I have nowhere to hide.”

He rolled up on his side, perusing her with a frown. “If you need to hide, then what are you doing naked in bed with another person?”

The question was sincere, perplexed almost.

“You really don’t understand casual sex, do you?”

He stared at her for a long moment, his expression unfathomable but solemn. Then he climbed over her, which was exactly where she wanted
him
…almost.

Sid patted his butt. “I want to be naked, mister.”

He was off her in an instant, kneeling beside her while she scooted out of her pants.

“I could devour you.” He traced a finger down her middle when she lay before him naked, his touch gentle and at stark variance with the harsh rasp of his voice. He cupped her sex, a caress as arousing as it was comforting.

“Do you know, MacKenzie, being with you like this has shown me something a little hard to deal with.” Sid lay on her back, his hand resting on her mons, while she wanted him over her, inside her, all around her.

He brushed his fingers through her curls, a slow, mesmerizing touch. “What has it shown you?”

“I’ve had heartache in my life because I can’t have children, but it was never specific. The pain was simple—no children for me, so sorry. But I suffer an extra sense of loss to know I will never have children
with
you
. I shouldn’t say that—we’re not technically even lovers yet, are we?—and yet with you, I think it might be all right to say such things.”

Sid hoped so, hoped she hadn’t just descended into a female exercise in Blowing It with a man who wasn’t interested in commitment, even if he did talk about exclusives.

Mac pushed her knees apart, so she was exposed to him, then kept his hand on her knee.

“You say I don’t understand casual sex, and you’re right. There’s a reason for that.”

Sid didn’t move. Didn’t deny him the most intimate sight of her, because she had a looming sense she was about to be given an intimate glimpse of
him
as well.

“A reason, MacKenzie?”

He kissed her knee, his expression sad and self-mocking. “You are not the only person in this bed who cannot be a parent, Sidonie Lindstrom.”

Cannot be a parent? What did that mean to a man who had never married? Her puzzlement must have shown on her face.

“You are barren, a difficult, indelicate word, but I am sterile, which is somehow an even more unfortunate appellation, imbued with not even backhanded compassion.”

He closed his eyes, a token of surrender against the sadness vibrating through him. Sid had felt its echo time and again, watching other people’s children playing in the park. Seeing other people’s children tagging along in the grocery store. Hearing other people’s children laugh at the zoo. Watching other people’s children grow into adults capable of renewing life in their turn, while Sid merely grew older and more resigned.

More sad and brittle and dried-up and
barren
.

“Love me.” Sid drew Mac down into the cradle of her body. When he pulled away and his gaze strayed to the pile of clothes on her chair, she read his mind.

“What would be the point of that kind of protection, MacKenzie? We’ve both been abstinent for years. I get tested regularly. I’m assuming you’ve been tested as well, and we don’t have to worry.”
Worry
, as if either one of them would worry did they conceive a child. “We don’t have to worry about consequences. Please, just love me. Let me love you.”

He smiled that sweet, piratical smile. “I did not want to presume.”

“Love me,” she said again, trying to make it more of a plea, less of a command. “Please, love me now.”

After all of his careful, assiduous foreplay, the lovemaking was gratifyingly straightforward. He eased himself inside Sid, slowly, gradually, and Sid felt the sun rise in her body. The more of him she took, the greater her pleasure and sense of rightness.

“We’re doing OK?” Mac braced himself above her, a slight tremor in his arms.

“We’re wonderful, MacKenzie, soon to be even more so.” Sid kissed him, borrowing his tactic, while she caressed his back in long, slow strokes. She was close to coming without either of them moving, though she assured herself that novelty was a result of years of abstinence.

And
of
being
with
him
, her conscience added. Mac’s honesty was more of an aphrodisiac than all his studied moves or even his considerable endowments.

Sid undulated beneath him, loving the sensations welling up from her center. “I’m close, MacKenzie. Where are you?”

“Right…here.” He moved with her, their rhythm languid. Sid had never given in to the temptation to have unprotected sex before. She’d never trusted her partners enough to even consider it. She trusted MacKenzie, and if ever two people deserved the pleasure of unfettered intimacy, it was she and MacKenzie Knightley.

“I’m going to come,” she whispered in his ear. “I am…” Her body drew up, ecstatically, while Mac kept moving slowly. The combination of his rhythm and her hunger made for a protracted, intense experience of both pleasure and intimacy.

“I wanted to keep my eyes open,” Sid said, sighing her contentment. “I wanted to see you while I came. At least I could feel you.”

“So come again,” Mac said. “This time, you can see and feel me both.” He hitched his hips, shifting the angle slightly, and Sid gave up any semblance of control. She might be sore—she might be
lame
—but she let him rock her from one peak to the next until she didn’t know where one orgasm ended and the slow, lovely build toward the next one began.

“MacKenzie?”

“Love?”

“This time, you too.”

He said nothing, not until he slipped a hand down under her backside, anchoring himself against her.

“Kiss me, Sidonie.”

Oh, God, the things the man’s tongue could say without uttering a word. Everything amplified: the cadence of his hips and the thrust of his tongue, all slower, more powerful than ever, until Sid was exploding once more into pleasure upon pleasure. She keened against his shoulder, unable to keep silent as he drove into her.

She was coasting down, her mouth still pressed to his shoulder, when Mac tucked even closer.

“Hold me, Sidonie. Hold me tight.”

She had to remember to breathe as he moved inside her. This was lovemaking, not simply sex. Not lust, but ardor, passion, and holy bejeezus,
intimacy
. Mac’s breathing became harsher, and his grip on her grew more secure.

Sid felt a spreading warmth inside as Mac began to shudder in her arms.

“Jesus…God…Sidonie…” His voice was low, a rasping whisper in her ear as he pushed into her hard and spent himself against her womb.

She held him tight, tears pricking her eyes, and closed herself around him, inside and out.

This was how it was supposed to be. This intensity and sharing, this closeness. Sid knew a glancing sorrow for the younger woman she’d been, a woman willing to settle for so very much less on too many occasions.

As Sid stroked her hand down Mac’s back and pressed his head to her shoulder, she knew profound sorrow for MacKenzie as well.

* * *

Sid was at least giving him time to literally catch his breath before she started asking questions. Mac was grateful for that, but he also wasn’t dreading the questions as much as he’d feared he might.

She kissed his cheek.

“Is that a nice way of saying I’m too heavy?” He took more weight on his forearms but didn’t want to leave her. To be joined this way, no latex, no gooey contraceptives or Popsicle fruit scents—it was fortunate he’d had no previous experiences with unprotected sex, because he liked it.

With Sidonie, he liked it a lot.

Who would have thought infertility had any fringe benefits?

“You’re not too heavy.” She kissed his throat, her tongue swiping up his neck toward his ear. “I simply feel like kissing.”

“Like devouring me?” What a lovely idea.

“Maybe over the course of several servings, but, yes, like devouring you. I’ll walk funny for the next week, MacKenzie, but people will be too distracted by my idiot grin to notice.”

“So you’re OK?” And, yes, he worried. He’d gotten carried away, wonderfully so.

“I am blissful, physically, but scoot off me and get on your back.”

How he loved the way she patted his butt, as if it were her very favorite butt in the whole entire world. He heaved off her and did as she told him, loving the unself-conscious way Sid crossed to the bathroom.

Displaying
his
very favorite butt in the whole entire world.

She came back to the bed, carrying a washcloth, but more than that, Mac noticed the rosy flush on her chest.

She propped a hip on the edge of the bed and lifted his softening cock away from his body.

“The mighty sword does wilt.” The washcloth was warm, and her touch gentle. “One wondered if it could.”

“It can unwilt,” Mac said, closing his eyes lest he be caught ogling the sway of her breasts as she handled him. This meant he became more aware of the sensation of her moving the warm washcloth over him. He opened his eyes and stared resolutely at the ceiling.

“Promises, promises.” Sid tossed the washcloth onto her dresser, some kind of heavy dark antique with a slab of marble across the top.

Mac patted the mattress. “Get in here. You’ve earned your rest.”

“Now you say I can laze about. Generous of you, MacKenzie.” Her smile was wicked as she climbed in beside him, but she hiked herself up on the pillows, wrapped her arms around him, and wrestled him to lie along her side with his cheek resting on her breast.

Sidonie Lindstrom was protective of those she cared about, and in her choice of embrace, Mac concluded he fell into that privileged category. He nuzzled her breast and settled in to be, for the first time in his long and sometimes lonely life…cuddled.

“Those two engagements, MacKenzie. Why did they fail?”

Cuddled and interrogated, an interesting combination, but it felt to Mac as if by holding him so close, Sid was trying to protect him from the pain of answering truthfully.

“They failed, as you put it, because I could not give my prospective wives children.”

“Idiots, the both of them. How did they know?”

Such contempt in her voice. He wanted to make her say it again. Idiots, idiots,
idiots
.

“The first one was a pre-law major, and she wanted a pre-nup agreement spelling out that we would have not more than two children, unless they were the same gender, in which case we could try for a third, but not more than three. Then it occurred to her she’d best ensure we could have any, and I flunked the test.”

“You flunked?”

“Medically sterile, as measured in both motility and count.”

“You had no explanation for this state of affairs?”

“Yes, there was an explanation. The doctor who did the test for me said I’d smoked too much pot, and if I knocked it off, there was some possibility I’d regain my ability to reproduce.”

“You did not hit him, did you? Did not report him to the AMA, did not sue the idiot.”

“No, I did not.” He nuzzled her again for her perceptivity. As if he’d had time, funds, or the inclination to use recreational drugs when he was working two part-time jobs, carrying a full class load, and keeping an eye on the rest of his family.

“And idiot number two? You disclosed your situation to her, didn’t you, and she flounced off to go have a litter of Barbie and Ken dolls with some other idiot?”

“I did tell her, but infertility was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’d started dating her in part because she’d said she didn’t want kids, but when it came down to it, she decided she wanted the freedom to change her mind, so, yes, off she went.”

“And here you are, mine for the devouring. Their loss.”

Mac waited for the rest of Sid’s questions, resisting the urge to taste her nipple, until he realized Sid’s breathing had become suspiciously regular.

He’d worn her out, poor thing. Carefully, he extricated himself from her embrace, and arranged himself to curve around behind her. His John Henry fit very comfortably in the curve of her backside; her breast nicely filled his hand.

The rain pattered down on the tin roof, the clock said it wasn’t even noon, and by God, at long, long last all was right with MacKenzie Knightley’s world.

* * *

Sid slept for nearly an hour in her lover’s arms, a sweet, trusting sleep that left her at peace and pleased with life.

Her
lover.
She’d never had a lover before. She’d had hookups, a fiancé, a husband, but never a man who cared enough to inflict such overwhelming pleasure on her. MacKenzie’s lovemaking had no selfishness to it, none. Even when he allowed himself pleasure, Sid had the sense his loss of control, his trust in her, was yet another gift laid at her feet.

Mac hadn’t rushed off when they’d eventually left the bed. He’d helped her dress, and let her provide him the same assistance. How intimate that was, standing still for him to pull a sweater over her head, sitting so he could put socks on her feet.

He’d taken the time to show her how his belt buckle worked, another small intimacy, one Sid particularly treasured.