Kisses From Heaven (11 page)

“I know. Buck…” The bedroom was chilly and pitch-black; she was still shivering when he laid her on the soft, furry spread, deserting her there. She heard the sound of buttons being undone, his zipper. “We have to talk…”

“We’ve been talking. And we’ll talk again. Later…” The stockings were very gently, very firmly peeled off. His palms slowly glided up her vulnerable flesh, from her toes all the way up to her rusty curls, which he smoothed back as he settled next to her, his voice as calm as melted butter. “Loren, I need to hold you. Don’t tell me no.”

His leg shifted, and his arm swept around and molded her close, his palms sweeping from her hips to her spine and up until his fingers splayed in her hair. Soft lips teased at her temples, her cheeks, her chin, and then suddenly possessed her mouth with a pressure that was intoxicatingly provocative.

It was an effort to keep her hands firmly at her sides. “Buck, I did
not
come for this. I don’t want you to think that. To see you, yes, but…”

He didn’t seem interested in why she came, only that she was here. His mouth teased, his tongue flicking the smooth outlines of her teeth, the roof of her mouth, her tongue. Trust me, his mouth said as his tongue played a parody of love, thrusting into warm darkness, then withdrawing. Lazily, his palm arched her hips to his, reminding her of the much more powerful thrust and parry of love. She
had
loved him…

He didn’t play fair. The same lazy hand took a leisurely sensual path around to the front of her thighs, skimming over the curling mound of hair, up over the abdomen and ribs she’d always hated; she was too thin. The palm closed on her breast as his mouth left hers. She was suddenly short of breath, her voice cracking.

“Buck, I can’t
think…
”

“They’re perfect, Loren,” he said gravely. “Small but exquisitely perfect. Like all of you.” His lips closed on her nipple, her breast swelled in his hand. His teeth grazed the taut peak, then apologized with a warm, soothing tongue, again and again. Her fingers made fists at her sides. She tried to shift, but then so did he, his mouth circling the other breast, his finger tracing the underside. He cradled her breasts, pushed them together, then licked the crevice he’d made. His touch was seduction, but so much more… There was tenderness, a worshiping of the feel of her skin, a knowledge of what moved her more than physical needs. He was loving her, trying to prove to her the value of what they could really have if only she would see it. And every inch he touched felt like gold, he had a Midas touch…

Her swelled breasts suddenly crushed to his chest. His mouth claimed hers yet again as he molded her to the length of him, his arousal pulsing between them. She couldn’t seem to fight him anymore, couldn’t even remember why she had been trying. There was a wild, sweet song that kept singing in her veins, her head, her heart…the song he was teaching her. She matched the pressure of his lips with her own, fiercely running her hands over him to make up for lost time. She felt as if she understood everything he had been trying to say, was hungry for him as she had never been hungry for anyone in her life, for his touch, for the look of him, for his mind and his laughter and his own special brand of loving.

His mouth clamped down on hers, meeting fire with fire. Gentle caresses turned fierce to match hers until she felt weak again; then his kisses softened, trailing down her throat to her navel, trailing down to the soft, intimate parting of her thighs.

“Buck…” she protested.

Toes curled, her throat arched back. A year later, he trailed back to her mouth and his fingertips traced the trembling shape of her lower lip. Her body was shuddering, long since acknowledging that she was still a novice at a game he had mastered ages ago, long since aware he had concepts of loving she’d never conceived of.

“You were married. Don’t you know more than that?” he whispered teasingly.

She shook her head, tears of emotion glistening in her eyes.

His fingertips soothed back the damp hair at her temples. “We haven’t even started, Loren. I could make love to you for the next ninety years, and there would still be more. This is only one arena; there are still so many more we haven’t touched. Listen to me…”

She leaned over him, cupping her palm over his mouth. “We’ll talk,” she agreed. “Later.”

It was three in the morning when she called home and was relieved beyond belief that Rayburn answered rather than Angela or Gramps. “I didn’t want anyone to worry,” Loren said hesitantly. “It’s not exactly my habit to…that is, I don’t think I’ll be home before morning—”

“I understand,” came Rayburn’s quiet voice. “You went out for an early morning drive, miss, just before your grandfather came down for coffee.”

She smiled wryly. “I don’t think that’ll wash, Rayburn, but I’d sure appreciate it if you’d give it a try.”

She was up at dawn, a most unreasonable hour when she hadn’t had more than an hour or two of sleep. Perching on one elbow, with a tender smile, she studied the insatiable man curled next to her. His legs were sprawled, and his hair all tousled, and thick, short black eyelashes brushed his cheeks. She’d better cherish such vulnerability, she decided, because he didn’t show much of it when he was awake. In fact, there was no forgiving him at all for the way he’d behaved…the earlier part of last evening. Unfortunately, it was the small hours of the morning that lingered in her mind, memories of a loving touch that wouldn’t stop even when they were both exhausted. Over and over, he’d drilled into her head and her heart and her body and her soul that they were a matched pair, that matched pairs were very rare, that only a fool would toss out the chance for that kind of love…

Now, with his arms curled around her and two comforters still tucked to their chins, she felt wrapped in a cocoon of love; as if she’d been a crazy fool ever to run from him. Yet her eyes flicked lazily over the bedroom she’d hardly noticed the night before…the costly satin sheets, the gilt-and-black original Japanese prints, a huge Oriental-style wardrobe, and just beyond a balcony view of lawn and woods and lilacs…

Buck made a sleepily protesting sound when she slipped out from under his arm, but he didn’t awake. The room was freezing. She was definitely risking pneumonia simply by going to the bathroom so she detoured first to his closet, emerging a moment later with a thick terry-cloth bathrobe belted around her.

She didn’t really fully waken until she’d splashed cold water on her face, borrowed his toothbrush and then his hairbrush. Only then did she really look at the bathroom, with its sunken navy porcelain tub large enough for two, brass fittings and huge velour towels. The wall beyond the tub was a mirror, all of it. She looked at herself: the glow of color in her cheeks, the brightness in her eyes, the wild way her hair was sensually waving this morning, the silly non-fit of the bathrobe. Her toes were completely buried in thick, dark carpeting, and her lips were scarlet, like a permanent love bruise. She had been loved, long and well, and it showed. And she was in the middle of a room that was stamped with the mark of a very wealthy man, representing the kind of lifestyle she’d sworn she would never again be a part of…

She tiptoed from room to room, not wanting to wake Buck, trying to refit her previous image of him with the new one. She knew the Buck of jeans and walking boot, the man who knew how to fix a hot-water heater. The man who lived here had a closet full of tailored suits, and—she flicked a finger on a table—a maid who kept even the corners dust-free, a liquor cabinet and dining room prepared for entertaining, and a study that was dauntingly filled from floor to ceiling with technical books. If the place was essentially masculine, it also reflected comfort and ease of living, and there was a sensual feel to the decor and in the kinds of paintings he had chosen. It was the home of a very successful person who knew exactly what he wanted and had gone out and gotten it.
Like you, Loren?
she thought fleetingly.

She wandered to the kitchen and opened enough cupboards and drawers to have a feel for breakfast potential and more immediately for coffee. As she added grounds to the coffeemaker, she studied the little room and almost unwillingly started smiling again.
Bachelor
echoed here. He had been more than willing to sacrifice cupboard space in favor of a dishwasher, microwave, coffeemaker and a myriad of other small appliances—the duties of his maid, she guessed, didn’t extend to cooking. The refrigerator confirmed that: a quart of milk was on one shelf, two dozen eggs on another, fresh fruit on the third—and the bottom shelf consisted of a lot of yawning space. The freezer was bulging with steaks and exotic frozen dinners.

She found his newspaper, settled with a cup of coffee at the kitchen table, and raised her feet to the opposite chair, crossing her ankles. She was halfway through the feature section when a second sense made her look up. Buck was standing in the doorway, wearing a pair of jeans slung low over lean hips and nothing else. His rusty hair had been hastily brushed; there were circles under his eyes from his night of no sleep, and his smile held more than a hint of possessiveness that sent a feeling like warm honey directly to the pit of her stomach.

“Good morning,” he said groggily.

“Good morning,” she echoed back.

“Someone seems to have taken my robe.”

She cocked her head back as he came forward to drop a kiss on her mouth. “You can’t be serious. You mean a thief actually came in and ignored all the luxurious goodies in favor of an old, beat-up terry-cloth—”

“Do
not
be comical first thing in the morning,” he admonished, and kissed her again, his lips lingering on hers this time. He smelled of sleep and mint toothpaste and soap, the most erotic combination ever, she thought. Her hands instinctively splayed on the warm bare flesh of his shoulders, as his slipped inside the robe to stroke the sides of her neck. He half smiled, drawing back from her, but there was a hint of watchfulness in his eyes. “Loren…”

Her smile faded slightly as she stood up. “I’ll get you coffee and then breakfast.”

“I can do that.”

She shook her head and then opened the refrigerator to bring out a carton of eggs. She could feel his eyes on her back, searching, silent. In a moment, she had a bowl out and was whipping a dollop of cream cheese into the cracked eggs, then she poured the mixture into a heated frying pan and scrambled furiously.

“You were up awfully early for a lady who didn’t get any sleep.”

“I was spying on you,” she said cheerfully, continuing to scramble the eggs as if her life depended on it. A cup of coffee was set in front of him, and a brisk kiss was placed on his forehead. “Something that wouldn’t have been any fun at all if you were up and around and knew about it.”

“And what did you discover?” he said wryly, but again he had a watchful look.

“Only the important things. That your maid’s very good, but you don’t allow her in your study. That you’ll stoop to TV dinners, but only the fancier kind. That you don’t miss a month of
Penthouse,
but
Field and Stream
has top priority in the magazine pile. That you’re a formidable chemist, and that you’ve tried desperately to accumulate enough shirts so that you don’t have to wash for a month.” She scooped the finished eggs onto two china plates from the cupboard and then settled next to him at the table, bringing forks and knives with her.

“No one has the right to wake up with such perception,” he grumbled, and scooped up a forkful of fluffy eggs. “Anything else of major importance?”

She finished her own eggs in record time before answering, but then she dished out approximately five eggs for him to one for herself. She picked up her coffee cup in both hands, looking squarely at him over the rim. “You’re not kind, Buck,” she said quietly. “You…
weren’t
kind, earlier last night.”

He waited.

“I love you,” she admitted softly.

He sighed, finished his eggs and reached for his coffee. “You wouldn’t be here this morning if I hadn’t played rough,” he pointed out flatly.

“Not again, though. I won’t be…taken over.” Her voice was clear and definite.

“Are those the only ground rules we need to work out?” he questioned bluntly.

She nodded.

He leaned over, tenderly touching her cheek with his palm. “You may be pint-size, Loren, but you have as much steel in your makeup as I do. I don’t want to take you over; I never did. I want you to stand next me. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

She relaxed for the first time since she had awakened that morning, but at the back of her mind was the fleeting thought that Buck was honest but did not necessarily know himself very well. He was used to taking over, and he had uncovered a weakness in her that no one else had. He would use it if she wasn’t very careful. And she would lose him if he did.

The conference table took up most of the space in the small room off Frank’s office. A few minutes earlier, it had been completely filled with the supervisory production staff. Loren had been asked to stay a few more minutes beyond the weekly production meeting, as had Tony, the finishing foreman, a very short, round-faced man with receding brown hair. Empty coffee cups still littered the tables. Loren’s eyes were riveted on her boss’s face, but Frank was concentrated on Tony.

“We’re going to have to lay off the entire department. I think you already guessed that from the sales report,” he said gruffly to the brown-haired foreman.

Tony’s face turned ashen. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“There’s no choice. Not for now. We can extend the finishing work to the press operators and keep those jobs. Work may yet pick up by early summer, just as it always does when the automotive companies start their push for fall. But until then…” Frank averted his gaze from Tony’s steady blue eyes. “There’s no problem with your job, Tony. There’ll still be finishing work that requires supervision; you’ve got your tool-and-die background, and quality control is more important than it’s ever been. It may not be the work you’re used to for a while, but your salary will stay the same.”

Twenty minutes later, Loren walked out with Tony, past the carpeted offices to the production floor. “Come on. I’ll buy you coffee,” she said.

He shook his head, his eyes distracted. “It would just churn in my stomach—particularly machine coffee.”

But he let her buy him the coffee, and not long afterward they were both in the square cubicle that was his office, overlooking the sixteen workers that made up his department. “Mark’s just bought a car,” he said absently. “Johnny’s wife is going to have a baby.”

She listened.

“John White—he’s been footing his mother’s medical bills. She’s in the hospital.”

She listened.

“Brad Howell—I should have kicked him out of here four months ago. He’s nothing but trouble, a complainer. But I swear that guy hasn’t produced a single scrap part since he’s been here. I’ve never had such a perfectionist.” He poured it on. Layoffs were part of the economic climate; unemployment was on the front page of every newspaper. Statistics had nothing to do with working with a man every day, knowing his private life, arguing with and working with and caring about him. Loren knew them all, just as Tony did. And Tony, one of the least emotional men she had ever known—he never raised his voice, never showed temper—had tears in his eyes. “It’s not that I don’t understand there’s no choice. And Frank, bastard that he is…he’s kept the crew on three weeks longer than I thought he was going to.” He shook his head, eyes raised to Loren. “How the hell is Johnny going to manage with that new baby?”

It was a full hour later before Loren made it back to her own office, and then she was in no mood for Janey’s bright smile and determined flag down. “I’ve been paging and paging you—”

“I heard,” she sighed, and half smiled at her efficient secretary. “Unless there was a fire, there were simply more important priorities.” Like easing Tony’s grief. Grief, she thought absently, was exactly the word…and news of a layoff would spread like wildfire in the plant, produce an uneasiness and worry that came under her jurisdiction. She would have to find time this afternoon to be visible in the plant, to provide a measure of reassurance and the right words…and she wasn’t sure she had them.

“The comptroller called. Something about Workers’ Comp. Peters from Wilding on some engineer who used to work here. That OSHA dude’s coming for an inspection on Monday…” Janey grinned broadly, handing Loren the series of notes. “You’ll have to wear flat shoes that day. Unless you’ve got a pair of high heels that come with steel toes. And last though not least…” Again a pert grin. “The boss just called. He wants to see you.”

Loren frowned, raking her hands through her hair. “I just saw him less than an hour and a half ago.”

Janey shrugged. “Oh, the whims of the powers-that-be…”

Loren smiled at Janey’s irreverence. Her secretary was the height of propriety in front of those powers-that-be, but alone the two women had an unspoken alliance.

“So hold down the fort a little longer?” Loren requested.

“Catnip for a kitten.”

Loren closeted herself in her office. On the back of the door was a small mirror—yet it was large enough to reflect rusty hair gone askew, a lack of lipstick and a cream complexion that tended to pale when she was troubled. Snatching up her purse, she repaired impatiently, brush, lipstick, blusher…she hesitated at the perfume spray, seeing in the mirror’s reflection a single daffodil on her desk.

It had been delivered anonymously that morning. So had the ones that had arrived every other day since the weekend. Buck was so damned smart, she thought fleetingly. A dozen roses would have raised her defenses, too expensive a thank-you for services rendered. But a single daffodil…how was she supposed to fight such an offering?

She leaned over, smelling the fresh spring perfume of the perfect flower, feeling unaccountably renewed. She wasn’t any less depressed or unhappy about the pending layoff; no amount of flowers could alter that. In a ridiculously feminine way, she just felt better able to cope.

A few minutes later, she stood in the doorway of the office of Frank’s secretary. Rosemary was an attractive woman in her fifties and all but an institution in the plant; she reliably radiated Frank’s moods like a barometer. “He’s absolutely messed up the
entire
afternoon. I don’t know who’s with him, but he
wasn’t
scheduled, and I know Frank wants these letters to go out…” Rosemary’s hands lifted from her keyboard. “Trade jobs?”