Secrets of a Perfect Night (36 page)

He shrugged. “That it’s nice to pay your bills, and it’s nice to buy a new coat when you need it, but it can’t make you thin, and it can’t make you happy.”

Said just like a man who didn’t have to worry about paying the bills. “I don’t agree. If I was rich, I could hire a chef to cook low fat food all of my life, and I’d buy an ermine coat.”

“Like Cinderella,” he said through his smile.

He remembered. “Yeah, like Cinderella. That would make me damn happy.”

“For how long?”

“Forever.”

“You’re wrong. You can only be Cinderella for so long, then you get bored.” He took another drink and looked out the window. “Take it from me, I know.”

“Money gives you more options,” she said as she looked out the window at the brilliant display.

“True, but it can’t stop time. You’re only given so many days, and when it’s your time to check out, money can’t stop death and disease. It can buy you the best medical care, but that isn’t a guarantee of anything.”

Her head whipped around and her heart plummeted. “You’re not sick, are you?”

“Me?” He shook his head. “No.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“No one.”

She didn’t believe him for a second, but it wasn’t real difficult for her to guess who he was thinking about. “You were always a very bad liar. You mentioned your grandfather had health problems. What’s wrong?”

“He’s old.” From beyond the window, an explosion of white lit his profile. “My grandfather’s heart has been bad for the last few years. Sometimes when I visit him, his lips turn blue and it scares me shitless. He just pops a little pill and it kick-starts his heart. I’ve taken him to the best specialist in the country, but he’s old and there is nothing anyone can do.”

Brina reached for his hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry, Thomas.”

“Me too.” He raised his glass to his lips and looked over at her. “I’ve never told anyone about the scaring-me-shitless part. I don’t know why I told you.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.”

His thumb brushed the back of her hand. Another boom and flash, and she watched his gaze drift down her throat to the front of her stretch satin shirt. The explosion from outside faded, and when they were once again pitched in darkness, he asked, “How glad?”

She laughed even as the hair on the back of her neck rose. “Not tear-off-my-clothes glad.”

He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “What would it take to make you tear off
your clothes?” The tip of his tongue touched the V of her fingers, sending tingles up her wrist to her elbow.

“I don’t think getting naked with you would be a good idea.”

“Why not? You didn’t seem to mind this afternoon.” He turned her hand over and kissed her palm, pausing to suck the very center.

“This afternoon was a mistake. You said it yourself. We just got carried away.” He blew a breath of warm air into her moist palm and she barely controlled the shiver that raced up her arm. “We should probably just forget that ever happened.”

“Are you going to be able to forget it?”

“I’m going to try. Are you?”

“No,” he said simply, and nibbled his way to her wrist. “Your pulse is racing.”

Her hand curled and she held the moisture of his kiss inside. “Thomas?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m serious. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“You just tell me when you want me to stop,” he said, then softly sucked the thin flesh just above her hand. This time she couldn’t control the tiny slivers of pleasure tickling her nerve endings, mingling with the blood coursing through her veins. His moist mouth on her sensitive skin sent currents of hot tingles across her breasts and between her thighs. Her nipples drew tight beneath the sheer nylon of her bra, and she thought she should probably tell him to stop now, before he buried his face in her cleavage again. But then the night exploded in a finale of booms and crackles;
bursts of color lit the room and Thomas’s face. Through the flashes of gold and white, she looked into his eyes. He stared back at her over her wrist, his gaze burning hotter than the flames shooting into the black night. He wanted her. He wanted her as badly as she wanted him. And as she looked into his fiery eyes, she suddenly couldn’t remember exactly why making love with Thomas was such a bad idea.

She raised her glass to her lips and drained it. “Why did you dump me today and then go skiing with Holly?”

“I went skiing,” he whispered against her skin. “Holly was there. And I didn’t dump you. I dropped you off so I could think.”

“About?”

Finally he raised his mouth from her. “You,” he said, then raised his glass to his lips and drained it.

She didn’t know if she believed him completely, but she desperately wanted to. “And what was your conclusion?”

“That I want you, Brina. As badly as I’ve wanted you for most of my life. Maybe more so now. You’re gorgeous and as funny as you always were.” He took the glass from her free hand and dropped it, along with his, to the thick carpet where they landed without a sound. “I know why I want you, but I’m just not real certain why you want me.”

He couldn’t be serious. Not really. “When I first walked into the reunion last night, I thought some lucky girl had hired herself an underwear model to escort her.” She looked but could only see the black
outline of his face and a splash of dim light provided by a new moon. She wasn’t certain, but she thought his brows lowered. “Then Karen told me you were the underwear model, and I was glad. Not just because you look like a guy who should always run around in his BVDs for the enjoyment of women, but because things between us got really bad at the end of high school, and I was always sorry about what happened.”

“What did happen?” he asked, and dropped her hand.

“You know.”

“I think I do, but why don’t you tell me.”

Brina folded her arms beneath her breasts and took a deep breath. “You remember how it was, how I desperately wanted to eat lunch at the big table, to be included with the kids who everyone looked up to. I thought that if Mark liked me, I must be something special.” She looked down toward her feet. “No longer munchkin McConnell, the skinny girl whose mother made her clothes.”

Thomas placed his fingers beneath her chin and brought her gaze to his. “I liked munchkin McConnell.”

“I know, but I didn’t.”

“What about now? Are you still desperate to sit at the big table?”

“No. I like me.”

He brushed his thumb across her lips. “I like you too.”

Her lips parted and she licked the pad of his thumb.

“I like your shirt,” he said, a catch of desire in his
deep voice. “The minute you walked into the banquet room, I noticed that shirt.” He slid his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her closer.

“It’s a nice bright green,” she said as she ran her palms up his chest, over the knobby fabric of his sweater.

He chuckled. “That isn’t what I noticed.”

“What then?”

“The way the words
Calvin Klein
stretch across your breasts.” He lowered his face and pressed his forehead to hers. “And I wondered how long it was going to take me to get you out of it.”

“I thought you invited me up here so my feet wouldn’t freeze, and because you owe me half a bottle of champagne.”

“That’s all true. I just didn’t mention that I wanted to eat your shirt off.” He pulled her braid over her shoulder and took out the ponytail holder. “I didn’t mention that those sparkles in your hair are driving me crazy, and that I want to make love to you with it spread out across my pillow,” he said as he unbraided her hair. “That I want to see your face in the morning when I open my eyes.” Then he tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back, just as he had that afternoon. And just as earlier, he kissed her parted lips like a man who knew what he wanted and was going after it. His tongue slid inside and withdrew, and he made love to her mouth with hot insistent strokes. He created a wonderfully tight suction and moved his head as he feasted on her lips, his hands opening and closing in her hair.

Brina melted into his chest, the heat of him warming
her through his sweater and her shirt, warming her heart deep inside where she’d never been warmed before. He wanted to make love. She wanted that also. She loved Thomas. She’s always loved Thomas, only now she’d fallen in love with him too. Her heart and body yearned and ached, and she wanted him the way a woman wanted to be with the man she loved.

She reached for the end of his sweater and pushed it up his stomach. Her fingers curled into the T-shirt beneath and pushed that up also. And then her hands were on him. On his hot hard flesh and short silky hair. Beneath her touch, his muscles flexed and bunched and she pulled her mouth from his.

“Turn on the light,” she said. “You got to see me. Now it’s my turn. I want to see you.”

Six

T
HOMAS BENT AT
the knees and swung her into his arms. “I know just the place.” He carried her as far as the sofa. “Grab my coat,” he instructed. When she did, he carried her through the dark suite, through a short hall, and into a pitch black room. He let go of her legs and hit the switch on the wall. Blinding light jabbed Brina’s eyes and she buried her face in his neck. “Sorry about that,” Thomas said as he dimmed the light.

When her eyes adjusted, she glanced around at the huge room. In the center sat a four-poster king-sized bed covered with an olive and beige damask spread. “That bed is huge.”

He took the coat from her, and one corner of his mouth lifted into a sensual smile. “Yeah, we’ll have to work our way from one end to the other.” He dug around in the coat’s pocket and pulled out a box of condoms.

“Do you always carry those around in your coat?”

“Nope. I told you I liked that shirt. When you went to sit with your friends,” he said as he tossed the box
onto a pillow at the head of the bed, “I went to the drugstore.”

“Were you so sure of yourself?”

“Where you’re concerned?” Thomas walked her backward until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed. “Never, but I was a Boy Scout and I believe in being prepared.” She sat and Thomas knelt to remove her boots and socks. He tossed them over his shoulder, and his followed shortly.

“Take your clothes off, Brina,” he said as he pushed her down. He moved them to the center of the bed, then he rolled her on top of him and looked up into her face. “I’ve wanted to say that for a long time.”

Brina sat back across Thomas’s pelvis and crossed her arms over her stomach. She grabbed the end of her shirt and slowly pulled it over her head. She threw it on the floor and tossed her hair over her shoulders. She looked down at him, into his face, his blue eyes burning and heavy. Beneath her, through his jeans and hers, his thick erection pressed into her crotch, long and hard and leaving her wanting even more. Wanting what he could give her, the touch of hot flesh on flesh. She ground against him as he reached for the front closure of her bra. With a twist of his wrist, the clasp opened and he filled his warm palms with her breasts. She shoved her hands beneath his T-shirt and sweater and ran her palms across his belly, just above the waistband of his jeans. He sucked in his breath.

“You’ve grown a lot more hair than you had in high school.” She ran her hands up the flat muscles of his abdomen to his wide chest. There was no mistaking
this man for the skinny kid. “You grew a little taller and bigger.”

He grasped her waist and rolled her onto her back. Now it was his turn to straddle her. “I grew bigger everywhere.” He pulled his sweater and T-shirt over his head, balled them up, and tossed them on the floor. “Wanna see, Brina?”

She nodded and touched him wherever her hands landed. His thighs, waist, and hard corrugated belly. Short black curls grew across his chest, and in a thin line down his sternum to his navel. Within the dimmed light of the bedroom, his eyes seemed brighter. They burned and her heart fluttered, her pulse erratic. “Are we going to play show and tell?”

He shook his head and lowered his face to her right breast. “We’re going to play ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’” He stroked her nipple with his tongue until it turned hard, then he gazed up into her face and sucked her wet nipple into his mouth.

She ran her fingers through the hair on the side of his head, the pleasure so delicious, the heat of his mouth so exquisite her back arched off the mattress. She ran her hands down his sides to his waist, then up and down his thighs as far as she could reach. Her fingers spread wide, and her thumbs pressed into his erection. He kissed between her breasts, his short breaths heating her already hot skin. Then he stood on his knees. Cool air brushed across her wet nipples as she looked up into his face, and she reached for the first metal button closing the waistband of his Levi’s. She rose onto one elbow, then pushed herself until she
sat between his thighs. As she popped all five buttons, she leaned forward and kissed his navel.

Thomas took a deep breath and held it. She kissed his belly, the fine hair of his treasure trove, and the elastic band of his briefs. “I read somewhere,” she whispered as she slid her hands around his sides and slipped them beneath his jeans and underwear, “that a woman should never give a man oral pleasure on their first date.” She grasped his tight bare behind and squeezed.

“This isn’t our first date,” he said, his voice raw.

She hooked her thumbs beneath his jeans and briefs and slowly slid them down his thighs. Brina stared at him, fascinated by the pubic hair that grew denser on his groin. His penis jutted toward her, thick with his flagrant arousal. She wrapped her hand around his hard shaft, stroking his engorged flesh and feeling the incredible heat of him. “The article said it will scare a man away and he’ll never call again.” She raised her gaze to his face, and asked, “Are you scared?”

He shook his head. “Only that you’ll leave.”

“Good answer,” she said, and brought him to her mouth. She licked the clear seminal bead resting in the cleft of his plump head. A ragged moan was torn from his throat as she opened her mouth and sucked him inside. Her tongue licked and tortured him until he pushed her away. His breath rough and heavy, his eyes dark blue slits of desire, he tore at his jeans and tugged at hers until they were both naked, the hard points of her breasts pressing into his chest. Their legs entwined, his mouth feeding off hers, their hot bodies locked in passion. His hand moved down her side and
slid between her legs, his fingers touching and stroking her slick flesh. Brina moaned deep in her throat.