Where Dreams Begin (13 page)

They were standing in the living room, a remarkably cheerful room decorated in shades of yellow and blue. She drew on its sunny mood now. Not wanting to look as though she’d gone to great lengths to look nice, she’d dressed casually in a flared deep green skirt and matching knit top.

“I don’t need anything now, thank you,” Luke responded. “You look awfully pretty in green. You could promote tourism for Ireland.”

Surprised by that unexpected compliment, she blushed. “My family traces its roots to Scotland, but thank you. Won’t you sit down?”

He waited for her to settle herself at the end of the sofa, then chose the wing chair at her right. He sat forward and clasped his hands between his knees. “I meant to call you last night to make certain you’d gotten home safely, but unfortunately, I got distracted.”

She couldn’t help but wonder just who had provided that distraction. “It happens, but thanks for the thought.”

“I thought you might come in today, but when I checked the master schedule, I couldn’t find your name anywhere. I’m sure I emphasized how important it is to make a schedule and keep it when you attended the training session.”

She’d been so nervous, but now she just wanted to laugh and had to bite her lip to stifle the impulse. “Is that what this is about? You’re annoyed because I failed to sign up on the master schedule?”

Giving up all pretense of calm, Luke rose and began to pace in front of the coffee table. “No, I’m annoyed because I keep waiting for you to come through the door, and I can’t handle the disappointment when you don’t. If I’m completely wrong about this, I’ll save us both any further embarrassment and get out of here, but if there’s a chance that you’d like to see me outside of Lost Angel, I’m all for it.”

The sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled on his tanned forearms. His Levi’s were neatly pressed, his loafers polished, and with his hair still too long, he called to mind a very charming college professor. Fortunately, she knew there was far more to the man.

She rose gracefully and came toward him. She hadn’t been this frightened with Ford Dolan, but she liked Luke too much to hide what she felt. “Yes, I’d love to see you, anytime, anyplace.”

She held her breath as he moved close, but he kissed her cheek and then her earlobe before trailing a tender caress along the curve of her jaw. She’d expected him to kiss her with a thorough passion, but instead, he moved with a disarming stealth.

“You have to remember to breathe,” he whispered against her hair, “or you’ll miss all the fun.”

She drew in a quick breath. “You wouldn’t take advantage of an unconscious woman.”

He smiled. “Certainly not, but with you, I’d sure be tempted.”

She raised her arms to encircle his neck. He smelled delicious, and he felt so good to touch. As his heat melted away her fears, she slid her fingers through his hair. When he leaned in, she pressed his mouth close for a near endless kiss to prove quite emphatically just what a temptation she really could be.

Chapter Seven

Catherine found him so incredibly appealing, and it was no mere trick of great chemistry. He had a manic charm, and yet there was a darkness to him even beneath the luscious kisses. He was undoubtedly more than most women could handle, and yet she relished the challenge.

When she could bear to pull away for a breath, he had her wrapped so tightly in his arms that even if she’d fainted, she wouldn’t have fallen. The man certainly knew how to kiss, and from the sly smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, it appeared he also wanted more. Desire coiled low in her belly, and she felt more alive than she had in months.

“We probably shouldn’t rush things,” she whispered against his lips.

A deep chuckle warmed Luke’s reply. “I’m not sure I can.”

She could feel the erection straining the front of his Levi’s, leaving no doubt as to his capabilities. She ground her hips against his.

“God, woman, what are you trying to do to me?”

She brushed his mouth with a light kiss. “You came here tonight knowing I’m the impulsive sort. Did you really expect to be turned away?”

He rested his forehead against hers and sighed softly. “I didn’t expect anything at all.”

His unexpectedly poignant reply tugged at her heart, and she leaned back and framed his face between her hands. His black eye was fading to an unattractive green, but his gaze held a fascinating array of emotion. There was a sparkle of desire as well as a lingering hint of the despair he’d shared on his earlier visit. She knew which she wished to encourage.

“You still have a pocketful of condoms?” she asked.

“I might,” he admitted with a grin that revealed he’d indeed come prepared.

She reached back to take his hand from around her waist and laced her fingers in his. “Let’s go up to my room.” With an easy tug, she led the way up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom. Rather than flip on the wall switch, she turned on the small pink-hued lamp on her dresser.

She dropped his hand to slide her fingertips up his chest and began to unbutton his shirt. “I like the way you dress, and yet I can’t help but feel clothes mean nothing to you.”

“Less than nothing,” Luke murmured against her hair. He yanked off his shirt and flung it toward the wing chair placed near the window. “Now kiss me again so I won’t forget why we came up here.”

She was only too happy to oblige. She ran her hands over his muscular back, then up between them to comb the springy curls swirled across his chest. The wiry hair was dark like his lashes and brows and wound easily around her fingers.

She might have teased him about her impulsive nature, but despite his delicious taste, she was drawn to him by something far more powerful than mere whim. He simply felt right, and that he was in no hurry to bring their extraordinary attraction to its natural conclusion made his slow, deep kisses all the more tantalizing. She could have kissed him all night and well into the next day.

He unhooked her bra, and she quickly pulled it along with her top off over her head. He rolled her nipples between his index fingers and thumbs, but the tips were already puckered into rosy buds. He bent to lick one and then the other while she ruffled his hair.

“The silvery cast to your hair is very handsome,” she almost purred.

He gave her a last playful nip before he straightened up. “I’m pushing forty, but you don’t think it makes me look old?”

“Not at all, and it’s striking, like the rest of you.”

He laughed. “How long have you thought that?”

She bounced her knuckles down the hard planes of his belly. “Since the first time I saw you, but now I’ve discovered you also have great abs.”

He caught her hands. “So it’s just a physical thing?”

The question caught Catherine off guard, and for one painful instant, the memory of Sam’s loving threatened to overwhelm her in a tumbling wave of sorrow. She pressed against Luke to keep her husband’s ghost at bay.

“Chemistry is a wonderful thing,” she began hesitantly, “but I hope there’s more between us.”

He slid his hands through her hair to tilt her mouth up to his. “I can’t find the words to describe this magic,” he whispered, and his deep kiss made further speech irrelevant.

She drank in his affection and returned it eagerly. She loved his strength and the sinewy feel of his well-toned body. She was naturally slender, but he’d run the last ounce of fat from his muscular frame. She slid her fingers into his pocket to withdraw several condoms and set them on the nightstand beside a box of tissues. She unbuckled his belt, then unbuttoned his Levi’s to free his sex. He was hot and heavy in her hands, and she dropped to her knees to taste him.

Luke could stand only a few seconds of her provocative kiss before he had to pull her up into his arms. “Any more of that, and you’ll push me over the edge.”

“You won’t fall far,” she promised.

“I still want to take you with me.” Luke had already kicked off his loafers, and he sat on the side of the high brass bed to remove his pants. He was wearing black knit boxers, and he peeled them off and tossed them on the growing heap of clothes strewn across the convenient chair.

She was so intent upon watching him, she failed to discard the rest of her clothing until he looked up to send her a questioning glance.

She didn’t feel the least bit awkward with him, merely fascinated to have him there and find him such a warm and tender lover. She stepped out of her skirt and slip, and he reached out to grab the waistband of her panties. With an easy tug, he coaxed the satiny pair down her thighs. She quickly stepped out of them.

“Had I known you’d be in such an affectionate mood,” she confided in a sultry whisper, “I wouldn’t have bothered with underwear.”

“Mrs. Brooks,” Luke scolded, but whatever else he’d meant to say was lost in a roll of deep laughter.

She pushed him back on the bed and crawled up over him to brush the tips of her breasts across his chest. “Don’t we know each other well enough for you to call me Catherine?”

Rather than reply, he slid his hands around her waist and rolled over with her clutched tightly in his arms. He kissed her until she was again breathless, then licked a meandering trail over the soft fullness of her breasts and down across the inviting hollow at her hipbones. He combed her soft bush, then shoved her legs apart with his shoulder. He slid his tongue along her moist cleft, then with a graceful precision found her clitoris.

He eased two fingers inside her and stroked in time with his slow, sweet lapping until her inner muscles began to spasm. Deliberately leaving her on the brink of release, he raised himself up to slip on a condom and positioned himself between her thighs.

“Now I know you well enough, Catherine.”

His first thrust was shallow, but she rolled her hips to take him deeper, and his next thrust stretched her with an intoxicating warmth that he stoked with each successive lunge. Once buried deep within her, he stretched out, and with his weight balanced on his elbows, he remained perfectly still.

She wrapped her legs around his thighs to bridge the last separation between them. Close in height, she savored the feel of his hair-roughened skin along the whole length of her body. He dipped his head, and her own exotic taste flavored that kiss and the next, and then she was so lost in him she could only moan as he began to move with a slow, slyly teasing rhythm.

She clung to him to encourage more, and as his breathing grew ragged, he quickened his pace to fill her with a fiery heat that sent her spiraling through a climax so intense it bordered pain. Their passions perfectly matched, she uttered a joyous cry as echoing waves of pleasure coiled through her and tore through him.

Awash in bliss, she floated down from their tangle of shared ecstasy and fell asleep with her head cradled on his shoulder. When she awakened hours later, he was wrapped around her still and gently combing her hair through his fingers.

Unable to devise a compliment that would do him justice, she was satisfied to simply snuggle deeper into his embrace. “Do you suppose we could go out on a date sometime?”

Luke yawned sleepily. “I remember dates. I’d have to wash my car, iron a shirt, buy you flowers. Do you like holding hands in the movies?”

“Hmm, I sure do.”

“How about romantic dinners in candle-lit restaurants where we’d eat each other’s entrees without noticing the waiter has mixed up our orders?”

“I’ve done that,” Catherine recalled dreamily.

“Moonlit drives along the beach?”

“That would be nice too.”

Luke hugged her tight. “For now, I just want to lie here and pretend nothing else matters.”

She understood him completely. “It doesn’t,” she assured him, and when he turned toward her, she expected the loving to be even better the second time, and incredibly, she wasn’t disappointed.

The first faint rays of dawn had just begun to lighten the room when Smoky’s insistent meow woke Catherine from an exhausted slumber. The irate tomcat was outside on the roof, peering through the window to noisily protest the fact he’d been forgotten. Chagrined to have completely overlooked her beloved pet, she slipped from Luke’s embrace to feed him.

She pulled on a silk robe, then paused at the doorway to appreciate just how comfortable Luke looked in her rumpled bed. The tension that so often marred his expression had been soothed away, and he appeared years younger.

Believing sex was most definitely a delicious fountain of youth, she went downstairs to feed Smoky, brought in the
Los Angeles Times
, and made coffee before she ventured back upstairs. When she found Luke had already gotten dressed and made her bed, she forced a smile and handed him a mug of coffee.

“I didn’t know if you took cream or sugar.”

“No, thanks, black is fine.” Luke nodded toward the framed photograph atop her dresser. “Is that your husband?”

Sam had been tall and blond with a grin that never failed to melt her heart. It had been months before she’d been able to glance at the precious photograph without sobbing. Now, she strove to remember the love rather than the eventual pain.

“Yes, that was taken in Las Vegas on our wedding day. My parents were nearly forty when I was born. My father was a history professor at USC and my inspiration to become a teacher. He was a wonderful man, but he had a weak heart. By the time Sam and I became engaged, he was quite ill, and we didn’t want a big showy wedding when neither of my parents would have been able to truly enjoy it. So, with their blessing, Sam and I eloped.

“I wanted an Elvis impersonator, but Sam insisted upon a much more tasteful ceremony.” She adjusted the placement of the photograph and wished with all her heart she’d known how brief their time together would be. “We had a wonderful marriage.”

“You were lucky, then.” Luke sipped his coffee, but his eyes were on Catherine rather than the charming photograph. He had shaved before coming to her house last night, and his beard barely shadowed his cheeks.

He seemed ready to go, but Catherine would have preferred to keep him in bed all day. “Would you like some breakfast?” she asked.