“About?”
“About not wanting you in my life. I don’t understand it and I won’t pretend to, but there’s something about you that keeps me awake at night, something that I can’t resist.” Lowering his head, he brushed her lips with his own.
She trembled and let out a soft little cry as he folded his arms around her and his lips became more demanding. Somewhere in the distance a train rattled as it rode the rails of the old trestle bridge near town, and an owl let out a muted string of hoots from the high branches of one of the pine trees. The lake gleamed pearlescent, rippling as it lapped the shore. Nadine closed her eyes, drinking in the scent of Hayden—leather and soap and musk. Her arms circled his neck, and she didn’t object when his weight dragged them down onto a gentle cushion of grass.
His tongue pressed against her teeth and she willingly parted her lips to him. She quivered when one of his hands reached below her sweater and long fingers splayed against the bare skin of her back.
Lifting his head for a second, he stared into her eyes and swallowed hard. “This is probably a mistake.”
“Not our first,” she said, managing a smile.
“Or our last?”
“I hope not.”
He kissed her again, more fiercely this time, and his body, hard and wanting, pressed urgently against hers. His hands found her breasts and she arched upward, forcing each rounded swell into the gently kneading fingers that caused her blood to heat and pound in her ears. Deep inside, she began to melt. Like slow-burning oil, a liquid inside her began to simmer with want.
His mouth fastened over hers and she clung to him, holding him closer as he quickly discarded her sweater and bra, and found the anxious hard points that were her nipples. A current of electricity jolted through her as his tongue touched the tip of one breast. She cried out and her back bowed. One of his hands captured her buttock and forced her closer to the rock hardness that was his manhood. He rubbed against her and groaned as he began to suckle. Nadine’s thoughts swirled crazily in a whirlpool of starlight and rainbows. She didn’t think, only felt, and when the zipper of her skirt opened with a quiet hiss, she was eager for the touch of his bare hands against her skin.
He was quick. He skimmed her of her clothes and guided her hands to help him remove his own shirt and jeans. Without releasing her, he kicked off his running shoes and writhed out of his jeans until at last, beneath the pale disc of the moon, they were naked, their bodies gleaming white, their muscles straining together.
From the bathroom window, still cracked open, the strains of a soft Christmas ballad filtered over the noises of the woods, and the cool air caused a chill that only stoked the fires of their passion hotter still.
Hayden kissed her eyes, her cheeks and lips before lowering himself along the slim arch of her neck and the circle of fragile bones at the base of her throat. She whispered his name and he moved downward, touching the point of each breast with his tongue and licking a hot path down her sternum and over the soft flesh to her navel, where he pressed a hot, insistent kiss.
Moaning, Nadine arched upward and he captured her hips with his hands, kissing her, nibbling at her, caressing her with his tongue as he explored each crease and curve of her body. She clutched fistfuls of his hair as he smoothed his tongue over her so intimately that she thought she might break. The heat within her became lava from a volcano buried deep in her soul. She cried out as the first quake rocked her.
“Hayden!” she screamed, though her voice was only a throaty whisper. “Hayden, please…”
He came to her then. As her body was still in the throes of pleasure, his lips claimed hers and he parted her legs with his knees. “Make love to me, Nadine,” he growled into her open, waiting mouth. “Make love to me and never stop.”
“Yes, oh, yes—”
He thrust into her then and she welcomed him, sheathing his manhood, becoming one with him, feeling the sweet white-hot heat within her build yet again. Her arms surrounded him and she met each of his thrusts with her own needful movements.
This was so right, so right, she thought as once again she gave herself up to the passion that only he could inspire. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as his rhythm increased and a cry passed her lips. Then his muscles coiled, and he shuddered and fell against her with his own answering call.
“I love you,” he said in a rush of breath. “Damn it all, Nadine, I think I love you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LOVE? HE LOVED her?
Four days later, while driving home from Coleville, Nadine was still trying to absorb this bit of information, but told herself not to believe words whispered in the throes of passion. He’d never said those three magical words again, and she wasn’t kidding herself into believing that he’d meant them.
True, she’d been battling her own conflicting emotions for Hayden, but she’d tried to keep herself from fantasizing that love was involved. Attraction, yes. Lust, definitely. But love? She wasn’t sure that romantic ideal existed. Her own parents hadn’t found happiness, nor had she. Many of her friends had married and divorced; only a handful had stayed together, and they were often unhappy. There were a few exceptions, of course. Turner and Heather seemed blissfully, ecstatically in love and Heather’s sister, Rachelle, was madly in love with her husband, Jackson.
But their marriages hadn’t stood the test of time—though certainly their love had.
Her fingers tightened over the wheel as she rounded a hairpin curve on the west end of the lake and thought about the long hours after making love to Hayden near the lake. They’d returned to the house, drank wine and had cuddled together on the couch until the fire had died.
He’d come back the next night, eaten dinner with them and helped finish decorating the tree. Hayden had even helped John with his science report on the depletion of the ozone layer. Once the boys had fallen asleep, she and Hayden had walked outside and again given into their passion.
She’d seen Hayden each night and looked forward to greeting him at the front door. Sometimes he smelled of sawdust and oil, and she’d known he’d been at one of the mills. Other times he carried the scent of leather or soap with him, as if he’d just come from the shower.
He’d brought wine for her, soda for the boys and had taken it upon himself to fix the chain on Bobby’s bicycle, getting himself greasy in the process and delighting her youngest son. Hayden Monroe certainly knew how to carve his way into her heart.
She couldn’t be falling in love with him, she told herself, and wouldn’t let it happen. Her runaway emotions were on the loose and it was time to rein them in.