All Grown Up (11 page)

“I don’t hate you,” she said lightly. “But if I catch pneumonia, I hope your workmen’s comp is all paid up.”

Ten

S
am suffered the tsunami of disappointment stoically. What had he expected? A miracle in less than forty-eight hours? Annalise would never forgive him, not really. And he might as well give up on winning her approval. It was a lost cause.

Swallowing his bitter defeat, a battle she didn’t even realize she had won, he waved a hand. “Let’s go inside.”

On the back porch, they stripped off their outerwear. “Leave it,” Sam said. “I’ll put it all in the dryer later.” He watched her wring water from her hair, and that single, feminine motion made him hard.
What the hell,
he thought. If sex was all that worked between them, he might as well enjoy it. “We shouldn’t traipse through the house all wet,” he said calmly.

Annalise sat on a stool and tugged off her boots. “What would you suggest?” Her pants were soaked through, and her sweater was not much better.

“Strip naked,” he said. “We’ll make a dash for the shower.”

Her eyes widened and two spots of color bloomed on her cheeks. “Naked?”

“It’s the smart thing to do.” Not waiting for her to follow his lead, he dragged his shirt over his head, shoved his sodden pants to his feet and stepped out of them. His socks were already balled up inside his boots. In spite of the frigid temperature, his sex reared eagerly, perhaps not at full mast, but headed that way.

When Annalise seemed literally frozen, he lent a hand, undressing her matter-of-factly, not lingering to caress her, or signal seduction in any way.

Now they both stood bare-skinned, their limbs covered in gooseflesh. “After you,” he said quietly, unable to tear his gaze away from her nudity. He put a hand at the small of her back and urged her forward. “My shower’s bigger. We’ll go upstairs.”

By the time they made it to his room, he couldn’t feel his feet. And Annalise’s lips were blue. Leaving her to stand on the bath mat for a moment, he leaned into the shower enclosure, adjusted the water to a warm, steady spray and linked his fingers with hers. “C’mon, honey. Let’s get you warmed up.”

She was so docile, he worried for a moment that she might actually be in danger of shock from the cold. But as soon as he got her under the steamy water, color returned to her skin, and she moaned in sheer pleasure. The sound she made went straight to the heart of his need, dragging him into insanity without a qualm.

When he stepped behind her, soaped up his hands and reached around to wash her breasts, she didn’t make even a token protest. She stood mute, a lifelike statue, allowing him to shampoo her long, raven hair, to tip back her head beneath the water and rinse the bubbles away.

In that position, he couldn’t help himself. He had to taste those puckered rosy nipples, his tongue circling them, suckling them one at a time. When her knees gave out, he supported her with one arm behind her back.

He reached for the soap and eased his way down between her legs. Lazily, he slid the wet bar over her sex, back and forth. Annalise came to life, panting, lifting a leg to steady herself against the shower wall.

Laughing softly, Sam dropped the soap and used his fingers to finish the job. She responded to him beautifully, lifting her hips into his touch, arching her neck as she reached for what he wanted to postpone. He wished that she felt comfortable enough with him to initiate sex, but that was asking a lot given their history.

He scraped her hair from her face, drawing it in his fist to the back of her neck. Even wet and bedraggled, she was stunning. He momentarily leaned his forehead against hers, still holding her by the hair. “I know from experience,” he said, “that the water is going to run cold in about two minutes. How do you feel about moving this to the bedroom?”

His prosaic question seemed to snap her out of some trancelike state. Her jaw dropped, and she winced, as if only now realizing that she was cavorting with a naked man in the shower. “We’ve wasted a lot of time playing around. I need to be working.”

He gaped at her, his temper rising. She was pretending that she could walk away. That their sexual intimacy meant nothing to her. In his gut, he didn’t think she really believed that, but her attempt to shove him to a safe emotional distance infuriated him.

He jerked on the ponytail he had crafted, not hard enough to hurt her…but with enough force to gain her attention. “Is this where I’m supposed to seduce you against your objections? What kind of game are you playing with me?”

“I’m not,” she cried, tears welling in her eyes.

Her genuine distress nicked him. Tears from a woman who never showed weakness indicated a level of involvement that dared give him a flicker of hope. “You could have fooled me,” he muttered, but the words held little heat.

She licked her lips, despite the fact that water still pelted down upon them. “I’m sorry if you think that. It’s not true. I would never do such a thing, I swear. I know that whatever we’re doing here isn’t permanent, but you’re important to me, Sam.”

“Forget it.” Now he felt guilty for his outburst. He shut off the water and grabbed two towels, handing her one without comment, using the other for himself. He turned his back, unable to watch the erotic image of his nemesis drying one slender limb at a time. He strode into the bedroom and stepped into a pair of knit boxers. “Do you want me to go downstairs and get you some clothes?” He raised his voice because she was still in the bathroom.

“There’s a pair of pajamas and matching slippers in the top drawer of the dresser.” The words were subdued. He heard cabinets opening, and then the sound of the hair dryer.

He shivered hard. It was a good thing Gram and Pops were getting the heat and air revamped. This old house was chilly in winter, even when the power
wasn’t
out. The trip downstairs and back was accomplished in record time, mainly because he resisted the urge to rummage through the piles of sherbet-colored lingerie. The delicate garments held a faint fragrance that was uniquely Annalise. When he imagined her wearing them, confusion and hunger made him restless.

He took the stairs two at a time, stopping short when he entered the bedroom. She was standing in the doorway to the bathroom wearing one of his shirts she’d found hanging on a chair. Her legs were bare, her eyes huge with vulnerability, her hair mostly dry.

“Do you want to change into these?” he asked.

He saw her chest rise and fall. Her lower lip trembled. “No more pretending from me, Sam. I might as well be honest. What I
want
is to get in bed with you.”

It was the most she had ever offered him. The tremulous words socked him in the gut, disarming him even as they aroused. He swallowed his pique and decided to be offended later. “Well, okay then.” He dropped her clothing on a chair and approached her. “We’re going to talk today…sometime. About why you and I have this weird, screwed-up relationship. But right now…” He scooped her up into his arms and carried her toward the bed.

“Right now, what?”

“Never mind,” he sighed, not sure what he’d been about to say. She felt perfect in his arms. As if for the first time, he had found what he was looking for. But it didn’t make any sense at all. Annalise was not the kind of woman he wanted for the long haul. She was sharp-tongued and opinionated and bossy. And though her body was sinfully soft, her personality was anything but.

She thrived on confrontation, and she’d rather best him at anything than give an inch. He was convinced that another Annalise lurked inside. A woman who didn’t have a chip on her shoulder. A woman who could warm a man with her caring and her courage. But for whatever reason, she had decided to keep the walls in place.

She had granted Sam access to her body this weekend, but the essence of who she was remained under lock and key. It saddened him, but he was not really in a position to challenge her on it. Not unless he was prepared to go forward with the relationship.

Tossing back the covers, he deposited her on the bed, coming down beside her and covering them both with the blankets. He had forgotten to turn off the overhead light, and the curtains were wide open. On one elbow, leaning over her, he studied her face.

In the clear light of day, her skin was luminous. The blue of her eyes was darker today, perhaps reflecting the navy comforter. She looked at him as she always did, wary, on her guard. As if expecting at any moment to have him lash out at her.

Couldn’t she feel how much he needed her…needed this? He’d taken her like a wild man, over and over again this weekend. And as soon as they finished one round, he wanted her again.

Lightly, he mapped her body with his fingertips. She was slender, but not skinny. No ribs protruding, no hollowed-out collarbone. Everything about her was the epitome of life and health. When he cupped her breast, she turned her head away.

He took her chin and made her look at him. “What are you afraid I’ll see in your eyes?” he asked quietly.

“Nothing,” she said. Long lashes at half-mast cloaked her secrets.

“Tell me, Annalise,” he said gently. “We’re the ones writing the rules here. I won’t make fun of anything you say, I swear.”

She moved restlessly, dislodging his hand and sitting up with the sheet pulled to her armpits. Grief darkened her eyes even further as she finally stared straight at him. “You know too much about me,” she said, her voice ragged. “And it scares me that when we’re together…sexually…I feel exposed.”

“Surely you’ve been intimate with a number of men.”

“Not as many as you think. And besides…”

This time he waited in silence, not prompting her. The honest, unvarnished truth was something he had wanted badly. Now that she was giving it, he had to struggle to sort out his feelings.

Annalise lifted her chin. “I am not an easy woman, Sam. I know that. I have baggage. Both in general, and where you are concerned.”

He shrugged. “All of us have baggage.”

She frowned. “I don’t want to get close to you.”

He absorbed the shot, felt it pierce his heart. “I see.”

“I don’t think you do. Maybe it’s just the difference between men and women, or maybe it’s my own neuroses. But when we’re naked…intimate…it feels as if you take more than I want to give.”

“I’m not your enemy,” he said, his fists clenched beneath the blanket where she couldn’t see. He’d forced himself to remain in a seemingly relaxed position, reclining on his side. But the pretense was wearing thin.

“You’re not my anything. That’s the problem. We’ve succumbed to the urge to scratch an itch, probably because we’re snowed in and we’re both reasonably attractive people, but that’s as far as it goes.”

He felt the ground shift beneath his feet. “What if it could be more?”

Something flickered in her eyes, a lightning flash of deep emotion that was gone before he could analyze it. He hadn’t meant to say the words. They had surprised him as much as her.

“What do you mean?” She was prevaricating…buying time.

“What if we started over? No expectations. A future wide open. Maybe we’ve both been wrong about what we want. Are you willing to take a chance that we’ve been too blind to see the truth?”

For a few shimmering seconds, a door into her soul opened. He recognized it without question. He’d stake his life on it. In her eyes he saw the hope and the fear. The dawning realization that things could be different. He was pretty sure he even saw a laughing baby with her eyes and his chin.

He didn’t want to push. Not with the chance that she might actually come to him on her own. But he was so damn close to something momentous, it made him ache. “Talk to me, honey,” he urged. “Please.”

He shouldn’t have asked. She wasn’t ready. And when she did what he begged of her, the truth hurt more than he could have thought possible.

“You’re not making sense, Sam,” she said flatly. “I’ve never known a man more sure of himself, and I told you from the beginning that the weekend was all I was offering.”

“God, you’re impossible,” he shouted. It took a lot, as a rule, for him to lose his temper, but with Annalise, the fuse stayed lit half the time. “How can you be such a coward?”

She went white, and at that exact instant, the front doorbell rang, echoing far away in the house.

Her eyes widened as Sam cursed. “I’ll get rid of whoever it is.”

He went to the window and peeked out, groaning in disbelief when he read the side of the truck parked in the driveway.

Annalise had scrambled onto her knees. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Sam reached in his suitcase and grabbed a clean pair of pants and a long-sleeve knit shirt. “Unless I’m mistaken, it’s the guy who’s going to overhaul the heat and air system.”

“But they’re not supposed to arrive until tomorrow. How did they get here?”

“A lot of the snow has melted, and they have a heavy gauge vehicle with good tires. What can I say, Annalise? I guess you can consider this your version of saved by the bell. Unless there’s something you want to say to me. Right now. Do you, darlin’? Am I really so scary?”

Again that glimpse, that sliver of heaven shining in the darkness. Her lips parted as she started to speak…he felt something tighten in his chest.

But the noise below shattered any last hope of taking a step forward.

Annalise shook her head slowly. “I think we’ve said it all, Sam. I’m sorry.”

He left the room so quickly, she was stunned. Since pajamas were her only option on this floor, she scuttled downstairs wrapped in a sheet and disappeared into her room. By the time she came out fifteen minutes later, fully dressed, Sam was entertaining in the living room. “What have I missed?” she asked, summoning a smile as she assessed the situation.

Sam gave her a chilly smile that perhaps only she realized had an edge to it. “This is Darren Harrell and his wife, Rachel. The little boy is their son, Butch.”

Rachel cuddled an infant, her expression anxious. “I’m sorry if we’ve intruded. Darren called Mrs. Ely and she said it was okay for us to come a day early and to bring the baby. We live in a really rural area, and the heavy wet snow took down all kinds of power lines. If it was just us, we could get by, but I couldn’t let the baby stay there. And we only have one vehicle right now.”