Truly Madly Yours (27 page)

He helped her into the Jeep, but didn’t wait for the engine to warm before he shoved the four-wheel drive into gear and headed away from the Lake Shore. The inside of the Jeep was pitched in darkness and smelled of leather seats and Nick. He stopped at the corner of Chipmunk and Main and reached for her, practically pulling her into his lap. The tips of his fingers touched her cheek as he looked down into her face. Then slowly his head lowered and he pressed his mouth to hers. He kissed her once, twice, and stayed the third time to leave a soft lingering kiss on her lips.

He pulled back and whispered, “Buckle your seatbelt.” The wide tires spun until the knobby tread found traction, and cool air blasted Delaney’s warm cheeks from the heater vent. She buried her chin in the collar of her coat and cast a sideways glance at him. The dash light cast his face and hands in a green glow. Melted snow glistened like tiny emeralds in his black hair and on the shoulders of his tuxedo jacket. A street lamp illuminated the inside of the Jeep for several seconds as he blew past her salon.

“You missed the turn to my apartment.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Aren’t you taking me home?”

“Yep. My home. Did you think we were finished?” He shifted into a lower gear and took a left along the east end of the lake. “We haven’t even begun.”

She turned in her seat and looked at him. “Begun doing what exactly?”

“What we did in that closet wasn’t near enough.”

The thought of his fully nude body pressed to hers wasn’t exactly abhorrent, in fact it turned her insides warm. As Nick had said earlier, the damage was done. Why not spend the night with a man who was very good at making her body come alive in ways she’d never known possible? She’d been on the wagon a long time and wasn’t likely to get a better offer in the foreseeable future. One night. One night she would probably regret, but she’d worry about that tomorrow. “Are you trying to tell me—in your own typically macho way—that you want to make love again?”

He glanced at her. “I’m not
trying
to tell you anything. I want you. You want me. Someone is going to end up wearing nothing but a satisfied smile on her lips.”

“I don’t know, Nick, I might talk afterward. Do you think you can handle it?”

“I can handle anything you can think up, and a few things you’ve probably never even thought of.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Sure, wild thing. I have four bedrooms. You can choose which one we use first.”

Nick didn’t scare her. She knew he wouldn’t force her to do anything against her will. Of course, around him, she seemed to pretty much abandon anything resembling a will of her own.

The Jeep slowed and turned into a wide driveway lined on both sides with Ponderosa and lodge pole pine. Out of the dense forest rose a huge house made of split log and lake rock. Its cathedral windows spilled panels of light on the freshly fallen snow. Nick reached for his visor and the middle of three garage doors opened. The four-wheel drive rolled between his Bayliner and Harley.

The inside of the house was just as impressive as the outside. Lots of exposed beams, muted colors, and natural fibers. Delaney stood in front of a wall of windows and looked outside onto the deck. It was still snowing, and the white flakes accumulated on the rail and landed in the Jacuzzi. Nick had taken her coat, and with the ceiling so high and the rooms so open, she was surprised she wasn’t cold.

“What do you think?”

She turned and watched him approach her from the kitchen. He’d taken off his jacket and his shoes. One more black stud had been removed from his pleated white shirt, and he’d rolled the sleeves up his forearms. The black suspenders lay flat against his wide chest. He handed her a Budweiser, then took a drink from his own. His eyes watched her over the bottle, and she got the feeling he cared about her answer more than he wanted her to know.

“It’s beautiful, but huge. Do you live here alone?”

He lowered the beer. “Of course. Who else?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a family of five.” She glanced up at the balcony which she presumed lead to those four bedrooms he’d mentioned. “Are you planning for a large family with lots of children someday?”

“I don’t plan to get married.”

His answer pleased her, but she didn’t understand why. It wasn’t like she cared if he wanted to spend his life with another woman, or kiss her, or make love to her, or overwhelm her with his touch.

“No kids, either .. . unless you’re pregnant.” He glanced at her stomach as if he could tell by looking. “When will you know for sure?”

“I already know I’m not.”

“I hope you’re right.” He moved to the window and looked out into the night. “I know single women are getting pregnant on purpose these days. Being illegitimate doesn’t have the stigma it used to have, but that doesn’t make it easy. I know what it’s like to grow up like that. I don’t want to do that to some poor kid.”

The Y of his suspenders lay against his back and up over his big shoulders. She remembered the times she’d seen his mother and Josu sitting in the gymnasium watching school plays and holiday programs. Henry and Gwen would have been there, too, somewhere. She’d never thought about what that must have been like for Nick. She set her bottle on a cherrywood coffee table and moved to him.

“You’re not like Henry. You wouldn’t deny your own child.” She wanted to slide her hands around his waist to his flat stomach and press her cheek against his spine, but she held back.

“Henry’s probably spinning in his grave.”

“He’s probably congratulating himself.”

“Why? He didn’t want us to—” Her eyes widened. “Oh, no, Nick. I forgot about the will. I guess you forgot, too.”

He turned to face her. “For a few crucial moments, it did slip my mind.”

She looked into his eyes. He didn’t appear all that upset. “I won’t tell anyone. I don’t want that property. I promise.”

“That’s up to you.” He brushed a stray piece of hair from her face and softly traced her ear with his fingertips. Then he took her hand and led her upstairs to his bedroom.

As they moved up the steps, she thought about Henry’s will and the repercussions of tonight. Nick didn’t strike her as the type of man who let anything slip his mind, especially not his multimillion dollar inheritance. He had to care for her as much as she feared she was beginning to care for him. He risked a lot to be with her, while she risked nothing but a little self-respect. And actually, when she thought of it, she didn’t feel dirty or used or regret anything. Not now—maybe she would in the morning.

Delaney stepped into a room with thick beige carpet and a set of closed French doors leading to an upper deck. There was a huge hardwood mission bed with pillows and comforters of striped sage green and beige. Keys were thrown on one dresser, and a newspaper lay unopened on the other. There wasn’t a flower printed on anything, no spots of lace or strings of fringe in sight. Not even on the bolsters. It was a man’s room. Elk antlers hung above the rock mantel. The bed was unmade, and a pair of Levi’s was thrown over a chair.

As he set their beer bottles on a nightstand, Delaney raised her hands to the black studs and worked them free until the shirt lay open to his waist. “It’s time I got to see you naked,” she said, then slid her palms up his warm skin. Her fingers combed through the fine hair growing in a dark line up his belly and across his chest. She pushed the white cotton and suspenders from his shoulders and down his arms.

He balled the shirt in one hand and tossed it to the floor. She ran her gaze over his taut skin, powerful chest, and flat brown nipples surrounded by dark hair. She swallowed and thought maybe she should check for drool. Only one word came to mind. “Wow,” she said and pressed her hand against his flat stomach. She ran her palm up his ribs and looked into his gray eyes. He watched her from beneath lowered lids as she stripped him to his BVDs. He was beautiful. His legs were long and thick with muscles. Her fingers traced the tattoo circling his biceps. She touched his chest and shoulders, and slid her hands over his back and rounded behind. When her examination moved south, he grabbed her wrist and took over. He slowly undressed her, then laid her on soft flannel sheets. His warm skin pressed the length of hers, and he took his time making love to her.

His touch was different from before. His hands lingered over her body, and he seduced her with stirring languid kisses. He teased her breasts with his hot mouth and slick tongue, and when he entered her, his thrusts were slow and controlled. He held her face between his palms and his gaze locked with hers, holding himself back as he drove her wild.

She felt herself propelled toward orgasm, and her eyes drifted shut.

“Open your eyes,” he said, his voice husky. “Look at me. I want you to see my face when I make you come.”

Her lids opened and she looked into his intense gaze. Something bothered her about his request, but she didn’t have time to think about it before he thrust harder, deeper, and she wrapped one leg around his behind and forgot about everything but the hot tingles building with steady pressure in her body.

It wasn’t until just before dawn the next morning as he kissed her good-bye at her door, that she thought about it again. As she watched him drive away, she remembered the look in his eyes as he’d held her face between his palms. It was if he were watching her from a distance, yet at the same time wanting her to know it was Nick Allegrezza who held her and kissed her and drove her wild.

He made love to her in his bed and later in the Jacuzzi, but neither time had been like that hurried, hungry mating in the linen closet when he’d touched her with an urgency and need he hadn’t been able to control. She’d never felt so wanted as she had smashed against his chest in the Lake Shore Hotel. “
I have to have you
—
now
,” he’d said, as desperate for her as she’d been for him. His touch had been needy and greedy, and she craved it more than the slow lingering caresses.

Delaney shut her apartment door behind her and unbuttoned her coat. They hadn’t talked of seeing each other again. He hadn’t said he’d call her, and even though she knew it was probably for the best, disappointment tugged at her heart. Nick was the kind of guy a girl couldn’t depend on for anything but great sex, and it was best not to even think about things like next time. Best but impossible.

Now he knew. Now he knew what it was like to hold her and touch her as he’d always wanted. Now he knew what it was like to live out his oldest fantasy, to have Delaney in his bed, looking into his eyes with him buried deep inside her. Her wanting him. Him pleasing her.

Nick had been with his share of women. Maybe more than some men, but less than he’d been given credit for. He’d been with women who liked their sex slow or fast, raunchy or strictly missionary. Women who thought he should do most of the work, and those who’d gone overboard to please him. Some of the women he’d shared friendships with, others he’d never seen again. Most had known what to do with their mouths and hands, a few were just drunken episodes he’d mostly forgotten, but none of them had made him lose control. Not until Delaney.

Once he’d pulled her into that closet, there’d been no turning back. Once she’d kissed him like she wanted to eat him alive, hooking her leg over his hip and grinding against his hard-on, nothing had mattered but losing himself in her hot slick body—not Henry’s will, and certainly not the chance of discovery by a hotel employee. Nothing had mattered but possessing her. Then he did and the feeling nearly sent him to his knees. It shook him to the core, changing everything he thought he knew about sex. Sex was sometimes slow and easy, other times fast and sweaty, but never like with Delaney. Never had it slammed into him like a hot fist.

Now he knew, and he wished he didn’t. It ate a hole in his gut and made him hate her as much as he wanted to hold her close and never let her leave him. But she would leave. She would leave Truly, blowing out of town in her little yellow car.

Now he knew, and it was hell.

Lanna tilted her head to one side and studied her reflection. “What about bangs?”

“Your forehead is wide so you really don’t need bangs.”

Lanna took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Go for it.”

Delaney reached for her comb. “You don’t have to act like I’m going to be drilling on your teeth.”

“I haven’t had short hair since fourth grade.” Lanna slid her hand from beneath the silver cape and scratched her chin. “I don’t think Lonna’s ever had hers short.”

Delaney sectioned Lanna’s hair, then clipped it. “Really?” She picked up her scissors. “Is your sister still seeing Nick Allegrezza?” she asked as if she had no more than a passing interest.

“Yeah. She sees him off and on.”

“Oh.” Delaney hadn’t seen him in over two weeks, not since the night of Lisa’s wedding. Well, she’d
seen
him. She’d seen him across a crowded room at a Downtown Business Association meeting, and she’d seen him as she’d slid through a stop sign at the intersection of Main and First, nearly broadsiding his Jeep with Henry’s big Cadillac. She’d managed to hook a right, he a left. That same evening he left a message on her answering machine: “Get some damn snowtires,” he said, then hung up. She hadn’t seen him again until yesterday when he and Sophie had walked out the back door of his office as she’d been throwing trash in the Dumpster. He’d stopped by the driver’s side of his Jeep and looked at her, his eyes hot, touching her everywhere. And she’d stood there, the waste basket in her arms forgotten, stunned by the emotion twisting her stomach. “Uncle Nick,” Sophie had called to him, but he hadn’t answered. He hadn’t said anything. “Let’s go, Uncle Nick.” He glanced over his shoulder at his niece, then back to Delaney.

“I see you still don’t have snowtires.”

“Ah . . . no.” She stared into his eyes and felt her head get light and her stomach fuzzy.

“Come on, Uncle Nick.”

“Okay Sophie,” he’d said, his gaze moving over her one last time before he’d turned away.

“I don’t think Lonna has seen Nick for a few weeks,” Lanna said, breaking into Delaney’s thoughts. “At least I don’t think he’s called and wanted her to meet him somewhere. She would have told me if he had.”

Delaney cut a line along the nape of Lanna’s neck. “Do you two have that twin connection going on and tell each other everything?”

“We don’t tell each other
everything
. We do talk about the men we sleep with though. But she’s more promiscuous and has more interesting stories. She and Gail used to sit around and swap stories about Nick. Of course that was back when Gail still thought she had a chance of becoming Mrs. Allegrezza.”

Delaney reached for a duck clip and slowly combed out a section of hair. “She doesn’t think that anymore?”

“Not so much now, and she was so sure he’d move her in, but he never even invited her to spend the night.”

He hadn’t invited Delaney, either. At the time, she’d had no intention of actually spending the night with Nick. She knew how bad she looked every morning, and she’d had no intention of waking up with someone she suspected got out of bed looking like a cover model. But she didn’t want to be just another of
his women
, either. She’d let herself think that maybe she was special since he risked losing his Angel Beach and Silver Creek property to be with her. She remembered something else Lanna had told her once, too. Nick didn’t take women home with him, but he’d taken her. She’d hoped maybe she’d been different from the others, but he hadn’t even given her a call, so she guessed she wasn’t.

“Are you going to be in the Christmas fashion show?” Delaney asked her client. She just didn’t want to talk about Nick anymore.

“No, but I’m going to help the microbrewery build their ice sculpture for the Winter Festival.”

The subject of Nick was dropped, and they talked about where each of them had spent Thanksgiving. Delaney had gone to her mother’s, of course. Max had been there, and it was the first completely relaxed holiday she could remember. Well, almost completely relaxed. Her mother did try to drill her about the Christmas fashion show. She’d wanted to know what Delaney planned, starting with hair clips and ending with the style of shoes. Gwen recommended pumps. Delaney horrified her mother by mentioning hip boots even though she didn’t own a pair. Gwen suggested a “nice Anne Klein suit.” Delaney thought she might wear a “nice plastic cat suit,” which she did own but had outgrown since she’d been stuck in Truly. Max had stepped in and proposed he carve the turkey.

When Delaney was finished, Lanna liked her new cut so much she tipped her ten bucks. In Truly, that was a rare compliment. Once the salon was empty again, she swept up hair and checked her appointment book. She had a little less than an hour before her three-thirty cut and blow-dry. The appointment was with her second male client since she’d opened the salon, and she was a little apprehensive. Some men tended to think since she’d spent half an hour running her fingers through their hair, she’d naturally want to go for a drink at Motel 6 afterward. She never knew which client would interpret her job as a sexual advance. Marital status was never a factor. It was weird, but wasn’t uncommon.

While she waited, she counted products in the storeroom, telling herself she wasn’t listening for the sound of a certain black Jeep, but she was.

She counted shampoo towels and wrote out an order for several dozen more. She needed more finger waving solution, thanks to Wannetta, and just as she finished checking her inventory, the muted crunch of gravel reached her from the back lot. She stilled and listened until she heard it again. Before she could think about it, she grabbed a small trash can and slowly opened the back door.

Sophie stood by the front of the silver Cadillac, raising the windshield wiper with one hand. In the other she held a white envelope. She slid the envelope under the wiper blade, and Delaney didn’t have to see the typewritten note to know what it said.

“It’s you.”

Sophie spun around, her eyes huge, and lifted a hand to the chest of her blue parka. Her mouth fell open, then snapped shut. She looked as stunned as Delaney felt. Delaney didn’t know whether to thank her for not being a psycho stalker or scream at her for being a brat.

“I was just. . .just...” she stammered as she grabbed the envelope and shoved it in her pocket.

“I know what you were just doing. You were leaving me another warning.”

Sophie crossed her arms over her chest. She tried to look tough, but her face was only a few shades darker than the snow at her feet.

“Maybe I should go call your father.”

“He’s on his honeymoon,” she said instead of denying anything.

“Not forever. I’ll wait until he gets back.”

“Go ahead. He won’t believe you. He’s only nice to you because of Lisa.”

“Your Uncle Nick will believe me. He knows about the other two notes.”

Her arms fell to her sides. “You told him?” she cried as if Delaney was the person who’d done something wrong.

“Yep, and he’ll believe me.” She conveyed a certainty she didn’t at all feel. “He’s not going to like it when I tell him you’re the one leaving the threatening notes.”

Sophie shook her head. “You can’t tell him.”

“Tell me why you’ve been sneaking around trying to scare me, and I might not call Nick.”

Sophie stared at her for few long moments then took several steps backward. “Go ahead and call him then. I’ll just deny it.”

Delaney watched the girl disappear from the parking lot, then she turned and entered her salon. She couldn’t let Sophie get away with what she’d done, but the problem was, she didn’t know what to do about it. She had no experience with children, and she didn’t want to drop something like this on Lisa when she arrived back from her honeymoon. Also, she suspected Lisa might have her own problems with Sophie, and she didn’t want to add to them. That left Nick. She wondered if
he’d
believe her.

She was still wondering the next afternoon when Sophie walked into the salon at three-thirty. Delaney looked up from Mrs. Stokesberry’s wig and spotted the girl hovering near the front door. She’d clipped the sides of her thick hair into flower barrettes, and her dark eyes were huge in her small face. She looked like a scared little girl in a big puffy coat. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” she called to her, then turned her attention to her client. She fit the white wig on the older woman, then handed her a black helmet of hair stuck on a Styrofoam head. She gave Mrs. Stokesberry her senior citizen discount, then helped her out the door.

Delaney turned her attention to Sophie and waited for the girl to speak. After a moment of hesitation Sophie said, “You didn’t call Uncle Nick last night.”

“Maybe I did and you just don’t know yet.”

“You didn’t because I’m staying with him until Dad and Lisa get back.”

“You’re right. I didn’t call him.”

“Have you talked to him today?”

“No.”

“When are you going to?”

“I don’t know yet.”

A deep furrow settled between her brows. “Are you trying to torture me?”

Delaney hadn’t thought about the agony the thirteen-year-old must be going through waiting for the bomb to drop. “Yes.” She smiled. “You’re never going to know when or where I’m going to say something.”

“Okay, you win. I wanted to scare you so you’d leave town.” Sophie folded her arms over her chest and looked at a point somewhere behind Delaney’s head. “Sorry.”

She didn’t sound sorry. “Why’d you do it?”

“Because then my uncle would get everything that you always took from him. His father gave you everything and he had to wear holey jeans and T-shirts.”

Delaney didn’t remember Nick wearing anything holey. “I was Henry’s stepdaughter, do you think I should have gone naked because my mother married Nick’s father? Do you really think what Nick wore was my fault?”

“Well, if your mother hadn’t married Henry then—”

“Then he would have become a great dad?” Delaney interrupted. “He would have loved Nick and bought him anything he wanted? Married your grandmother?” She could see by the look on Sophie’s face that was exactly what she thought. “It wouldn’t have happened. Nick was ten when I moved to Truly, and in those ten years his father never acknowledged him. Never said one nice word.”

“He might have.”

“Yes, and monkeys might have flown out his butt, but the chances weren’t good.” She shook her head. “Take off your coat and come on back,” she ordered. She didn’t think she could look at Sophie’s split ends for another minute.

“Why?”

“I’m going to wash your hair.”

“I washed it this morning before school.”

“I’m also going to trim those dead ends for you.” Delaney stopped by the sink and stared toward the front of the salon. Sophie hadn’t budged. “I’m still not sure I shouldn’t call Nick and tell him about the notes you’ve been leaving.”

With her scowl back in place, the girl shrugged out of her coat and walked to the back. “I don’t want my hair cut. I like it long.”

“It’ll still be long. It just won’t look like a frayed rope.” Delaney used a mild shampoo and conditioner, then moved the girl to the salon chair. She combed and clipped, and if all that glorious dark hair had been attached to another head besides the girl frowning at her through the mirror, she might have been in stylist heaven. “You might not believe this, but your Uncle Nick doesn’t want what Henry left me in his will. And I certainly don’t want what he got.”

“Then why are you always hanging around him, dancing and kissing and making him take you home when you get sick? I know all about the will, and I saw you staring at him. Grandma has seen it, too. You want him to be your boyfriend.”

Had she really looked at him in that way? “Nick and I are friends,” she said, as she sniped two inches of dried split hair. But were they? She didn’t know how she really felt about him and was afraid of what he might feel for her. Afraid he might feel nothing one way or the other. “Don’t you have boys who are just friends?”

“A few, but that’s different.”