Always in My Heart (17 page)

“Tell me you feel something,” she rasped as she tore her lips from his. “Tell me I’m not imagining there’s still a connection between us.”

“No. You’re not imagining it.”

And as Nigel pulled her into his arms, emotion overwhelmed her. Tears filled her eyes as she thought of the fact that this was exactly where she wanted to be. With this man for all time.

How stupid she had been to let her fear keep them apart.

Kissing her with fiery need, Nigel lifted her into his arms and brought her to the bed. As he lay her down, his lips moved from her mouth to the underside of her jaw. His full, sensuous lips pleased her skin. He used his teeth and his tongue, and Callie thought she would die from the pleasure.

She was wearing only a T-shirt, and Nigel slipped his hands beneath it and ran his warm palms along her thighs, up to her hips, and then her torso. And when he reached her breasts, she sighed again.

“Time and distance may have come between us,” Callie said in a throaty voice, “but this—the way we connect—is still the same.”

“We were always great together,” Nigel agreed.

Callie smiled as she moaned. She eased herself up, placing her hands on his chest. “Take off my clothes.”

Without waiting for more encouragement, Nigel reached for her hands and urged her to her feet. Standing in front of her, he took either side of her T-shirt in his palms and pulled it over her head.

“Yes,” Callie moaned when her breasts were exposed.

Nigel made a sound of pleasure. His hands went to her hips, and he worked her lacy panties down her thighs and tossed them onto the floor, as well.

Naked, his eyes swept over her, and Callie felt herself get even hotter than before. She wondered if this was how people felt before they spontaneously combusted. Because the molten heat flowing through her body now was scorching.

“You’re even more beautiful now than before,” Nigel told her.

His words were music to her ears.

Nigel reached for her breasts, played with her nipples until she was moaning. But that wasn’t enough for her. She needed him to make to love to her.

So despite her pleasure and the selfish desire to let Nigel stroke and caress her all night long, she pulled at his boxers. When they were around his thighs, she reached for his erection. She stroked him urgently, not caring about the art of the tease. Right now was about fire and passion and spending the night proving they still felt something for each other.

He stepped backward so that he could work his boxers the rest of the way down his legs. Then he kicked them off. Within moments, he was standing before her naked, and Callie felt the biggest rush. How was it that after all this time, after leaving him because she’d been too afraid to stay and fight for their relationship, that she still felt as wildly passionate about this man as she had years earlier?

He moved toward her, and she did the same, the two of them coming together in a fury of passion. His arms wrapped around her body, sliding up and down her back. She slipped her arms around his waist, reveling in the feel of his muscles. As her hands moved to his back and ventured down to his tight buttocks, Nigel’s hands roamed over her behind, as well. But his hands quickly went from her behind around to the front of her torso and up her rib cage, and then over the mounds of her breasts, eliciting the deepest moan of pleasure from her.

His touch electrified her, turned her on more than anything.

With a growl, Nigel tore his lips from hers and moved his mouth down to her breasts. While his fingers tweaked her nipples, his mouth kissed the mounds of flesh.

She wanted more. She wanted to feel his mouth on her peaks of pleasure, enjoy the sensations that she knew his tongue would elicit. He was teasing her, drawing out her pleasure.

“I—I can’t take it. Stop teasing me.”

“I know, baby. You never could take too much of my torturing you like this.”

“Never. Please…”

“As you wish.” Obeying her demand, Nigel brought his mouth down on one nipple and drew it into the moist recesses of his mouth completely. He suckled it hard, the sensation pure bliss.

Callie’s hands dug into his back so hard she was sure she’d broken the skin. But she didn’t care. She wanted to brand him with the experience they were sharing. Give him something to remember.

“I’ve missed this, Nigel. I didn’t know how much.”

* * *

Nigel brought his mouth to her other breast, and she made another moaning sound, almost like weeping. It was the kind of sound that said she had never experienced desire like this for anyone else.

Her sounds of pleasure urged Nigel on. He wanted to do more than please her. He wanted to make the moment last forever. He had always loved how Callie had responded to him. Those delectable little sounds she made that let him know how turned on she was.

He couldn’t deny that this explosive heat between them was real. And like a moth to a flame, he couldn’t stay away. He could spend hours in bed with her and never be bored. Spend hours in bed with her and still want more.

That reality scared him. Because he had given this woman his heart once, and she had destroyed it.

And yet, his passion for her had not waned. It made no sense.

All Nigel knew, as he slipped his hands between her thighs and was rewarded with a shuddering moan, was that some things couldn’t be explained. Perhaps no time, no distance, no betrayal was too great to make the body forget just how good it felt in a certain person’s arms.

She was gripping his shoulders now, whimpering as she used his strength to hold her up. His mouth was pleasuring her breasts and his hands were pleasuring her center, and he knew all too well she would explode any moment. She loved this. This torture, as she used to call it. And as much as he wanted to take her right now, make her his in the way that men had done since Adam and Eve, he held back. He allowed himself to simply pleasure her, feel his own sense of satisfaction as he could hear her climax building.

“Please…”

The words were a soft cry, and quickly turned into a long and rapturous moan. He held her as she succumbed to her orgasm, her body too weak to fight it off any longer. Only once he was absolutely certain that she had experienced every ounce of pleasure that she could, did he sweep her into his arms and take her to the bed. She was breathing raggedly, unable to speak, but her sounds told him everything he needed to understand. That for her as for him, no one else had ever been able to make this experience so meaningful.

Nigel lowered himself onto the bed on top of her, settled between her thighs, and then thrust into her like a man who had waited his entire life for this.

“Oh, baby!” Callie cried.

The words were magic to his ears. He began to love her with the hard and steady strokes she had always enjoyed. Soon, they were moving together, finding their rhythm. And it felt incredible, being with her like this in a way that Nigel never would have believed possible again. Not after how she had walked out on him.

He opened his eyes and stared down at her, saw that she was looking at him. His breath caught in his chest. She was a vision of loveliness. Absolutely stunning. Her eyes were smoky, filled with desire for him…had a woman ever been more beautiful?

She reached up a hand and stroked his face, a gentle caress. The touch stirred something in his soul. Something that he’d been trying to ignore ever since she had shown up at his door.

He tried to block that thought as he continued to make love to her, and concentrated instead on the feelings flowing through his body. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow nor the past. All he wanted to think about right now was
this
. And
this
was incredible.

Callie tightened her legs around his waist, and as he caught her gaze, she smiled at him. Oh yes, she remembered their lovemaking all too well. Remembered the very things that turned him on. As she kept her feet locked behind his buttocks, the pace increased, growing faster. Her moans grew deeper, and so did his. His breathing became more ragged. And as he sensed another orgasm building within her, just as he had so many other times in the past, he rode the wave with her, the both of them falling into a fiery pit of desire together.

Chapter 17

I
t was dark when Callie awoke, and she was hardly well rested, but still she felt like a new woman.

She knew instantly where she was. In Nigel’s arms. A place she’d never expected to be again.

She knew she wasn’t dreaming. Her body ached in too many places for the memory of what had happened between them to be a dream. And she had the answer to the question she had gone in search of last night, she was sure. The passion between them hadn’t died. And if the passion hadn’t died, didn’t that mean there were still feelings between them? Surely passion couldn’t be that strong without love.

Because that’s what this was about for her. As wonderful as their lovemaking had been, Callie knew that she only felt the explosive desire with him because he still had her heart. He still had her heart, even after all this time.

Perhaps it was crazy, and she was terrified of the truth. But as Nigel’s arms snaked around her waist and pulled her closer, she couldn’t help thinking that even in sleep, he was giving her the answer she desired.

She still had his heart, as well.

* * *

A short while later, Callie could no longer sleep. The clock said it was almost six in the morning, and she didn’t want Kwame to wake up and find her and Nigel in bed together.

She quietly called out to Nigel, but he didn’t wake, so Callie carefully got out of his bed and returned to her own bedroom. Only once in her own bed could she sleep again.

When she awoke later, bright sunlight was filtering into her room. And she was still smiling. What a night she’d had with Nigel! Last night had marked a turning point with them.

Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was after nine. Surely Kwame was up by now.

So Callie got up, slipped into a robe, and then exited her room. She made her way down the hallway, her mind registering the sound of voices as she got closer to the opening that led to the living room. It took her a nanosecond to realize that Nigel and Kwame were talking. She slowed, suddenly aware that if they were having a father-son talk, she didn’t want to interrupt.

“…marry my mom?” Callie heard her son ask.

Callie quietly slipped a little farther backward when she heard the question Kwame had asked. She held her breath as she waited for Nigel to answer.

“Remember I told you before that my relationship with your mother is complicated?”

“Yeah.”

“I want to be there for you,” Nigel said. “I want us to be a strong family unit. I am determined to be the dad you need in your life. So yes, I want to marry your mom.”

Callie’s heart deflated a little. After last night, she had expected Nigel to proudly claim that he wanted to marry her because he loved her.

“Do you love her?” Kwame asked.

Now Callie’s heart began to pound. He was going to say yes. Certainly he would…

There was a long pause. “I will tell you that your mother and I both love you very much, and right now, you’re the most important person in this situation. No matter what happens between your mother and me, I don’t want you to worry because I’ll always be there for you. Understand?”

Callie’s heart sank.
Do you love my mom?
It needed a simple yes or no answer. And Nigel had not been able to say yes.

Callie scurried back down the hallway to the bedroom, where she returned to her bed with a wretched feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d spent the night making love with Nigel and had been convinced that he had felt about her the same way that she felt about him.

Because she loved him. She had no doubts about that. And more than anything, she wanted him in her life again.

The way he’d made love to her, she thought for sure that he was ready to forgive her and move on with her as a couple. But apparently, last night had been about a physical release for Nigel, nothing more.

Because if he loved her, surely he would put Kwame’s mind at ease by telling him so.

And he hadn’t. She couldn’t sugarcoat that, no matter how much she wanted to.

Callie rolled onto her side, hugging her torso as she did. If at this point Nigel didn’t know that he loved her, then he never would.

Tears filled Callie’s eyes as the brutal reality hit her. She was distressed. Though she had never expected Nigel to forgive her when she had first told him her secret, he had finally made her believe that he would. And now, after daring to hope, she wasn’t prepared for the reality of what it felt like to know that Nigel wouldn’t forgive her.

God help her, knowing that he wanted to marry her only so that he could be a father to Kwame…

Callie stifled a cry. She couldn’t marry him. She was the type of woman who wanted all or nothing.

She would never keep Nigel from his son. There was no need to get married simply for him to be in Kwame’s life on a permanent basis. She loved her son, and she would do what was best for him. But if she was going to marry someone, it had to be because she loved that person and that person loved her back. A marriage of convenience—which was clearly what Nigel had proposed—simply would not do. And it
wouldn’t
be a good thing for Kwame, who would feel confused as he witnessed their dispassionate relationship.

No, Callie couldn’t play house with him. Not now that she had fallen in love with him again. Because it would hurt horribly to marry a man she still loved, knowing that he didn’t love her back.

Besides, if he married her but didn’t love her, how soon before he resented her? And before she resented him, as well? Because she would not feel good sharing his bed at times, knowing that ultimately he didn’t love her the way she needed him to love her. It would be too painful.

Callie’s chest hurt when she breathed. It was clear that he was still physically attracted to her, but he couldn’t get over the hurdle of her betrayal. And at the end of the day, that was her fault. She was the one who had left Nigel. She couldn’t expect him to love her as though she had never walked away from him.

She couldn’t expect it, but she had hoped for that. Especially with a child in the mix.

“Idiot,” Callie said to herself. How foolish she was to believe that a couple hot nights of passion—tender passion that reminded her of all the good things they had shared as younger lovers—meant anything. The woman who prided herself on not being a hopeless romantic had gotten caught up in romantic ideals.

And wasn’t that exactly why she had walked away from him before? Because she knew that to hope for the best was setting yourself up for disaster? She had totally feared that if she had stayed with him, he would leave her one day.

And yet here she was, having set herself up for disaster by believing that she and Nigel could have a second chance at love.

Tears fell from her eyes now, even though she didn’t want them to. But she couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t affected by this. Because she was.

If only Nigel could have told Kwame that he loved her but that they were still working their relationship out. That was what mattered. Because if you loved someone, you could get through anything.

As the thought popped into her mind, Callie thought of the irony. Ten years ago, she hadn’t believed that if you loved someone you could get through anything.

Or maybe she simply hadn’t been able to trust in love.

Callie had already made the calls to set up an interview with the Cleveland board of education. She was willing to relocate here because it was something she could do more easily than Nigel likely could. Even though she would miss everyone in Florida at her high school there, she knew she owed it to her son.

But now, she was rethinking that. Maybe she could go back to Florida after all. Just make sure that she allowed Nigel to spend as much time with Kwame as possible.

She was thinking about that when a knock at the door startled her. Quickly wiping her tears, she sat up, and called, “Yes?”

“Can I come in?”

Her heart pounded at the sound of Nigel’s voice. She needed to get over him the way he had gotten over her. No matter how many years she put between them, clearly her heart still held a torch for him.

“Yes,” she answered, wiping even more tears. “Come in.”

She was taken aback when she saw Nigel and Kwame, Kwame holding a tray on which there were pancakes, and Nigel carrying a tall glass of orange juice and a mug of what she assumed was coffee. “Kwame wanted to bring you breakfast in bed,” Nigel said.

“Oh.”

“You weren’t getting up,” Nigel went on. “So he thought this would be a nice treat for you.”

Callie’s heart hurt. She had to hold in her tears. She couldn’t handle this. She couldn’t handle this kind of idealistic family scenario. She couldn’t handle him playing father and husband. It made it all the more clear just how much she was missing out on.

But she forced a smile. “That was very sweet of you,” she said, trying to talk past the lump of emotion that had lodged in her throat. “Very sweet indeed.”

“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Kwame said.

Callie’s eyes flew to her son’s.
Was
she crying?

The next thing she knew, Nigel was wiping at the tears that had fallen, and his gentle fingers against her skin once again reminded her of everything she loved about him. Reminded her of how incredible last night had been in his arms.

“I’m just…I’m touched that you would do this for me.”

“You don’t need to cry,” Kwame told her. “We’re a family now. Dad and I are gonna do this for you lots of times from now on. Right, Dad?”

“You bet,” Nigel agreed.

That’s exactly the problem,
Callie thought. It was one thing to accept treatment like this from someone who loved you. But from someone who wouldn’t give you their complete heart…it was painful.

But Callie said none of that. Her son was beaming at her, and Nigel was looking at her with fondness. If she hadn’t overheard what he’d said to her son a short time ago, she would have mistaken the look for love.

“Thank you,” Callie said. “Thank you both.”

* * *

Callie ate her breakfast alone in her room, and half an hour later, Nigel returned to collect the tray of dishes.

“You don’t have to do that,” Callie said.

“Kwame wanted to do the whole shebang. Said it shouldn’t just be Mother’s Day that you get special treatment. Of course, he’s outside with Nathan, so…”

“So you get the job of cleaning the dishes.”

“Pretty much.”

Not meeting his eyes, Callie nodded. “Hmm.”

“Are you okay?” Nigel asked.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“No, I don’t think so. You seem…different this morning. Something’s bothering you.”

“Why would I be different this morning?” Callie replied, crossing her arms over her chest as she moved to stand by the window.

“I don’t know. But compared to last night—”

“Last night, you made love to me as though you still cared about me,” Callie interjected, whirling around. “Today, I have no clue what to think. Last night I thought maybe we had a chance. That maybe you had forgiven me. That there was truly some hope for a future between us.”

Nigel’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“I heard you,” Callie explained. “This morning. I heard you talking with my son. He asked you if you loved me, and you couldn’t say that you did. You told him you wanted to marry me to make sure he had a home, a stable family, but that was it.”

“Did you hear yourself?” Nigel asked, giving her pointed look.

“Of course I did.”

“
My
son. You said
my
son.” He paused, let the comment wash over her. “You say I’m not totally committed to us, and how can I be? When you can’t even see Kwame as
our
son.”

“That—that doesn’t mean anything,” Callie said, but her voice caught temporarily. “For nine years, it’s been just me and Kwame. Old hab—”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Nigel said sourly.

“So you’ll never forgive?” Disappointment filled Callie’s heart as she looked at him. Why had he bothered to get her hopes up at all? And why had he made love to her as though he still felt something for her when clearly all he felt was bitterness?

“I’m trying to do the right thing,” Nigel told her. “I want to be a father to my son.”

Pain roiled through Callie’s stomach, as piercing as if she was trying to digest a bowling ball. Any other time, a woman hearing the absentee father of her child say that he wanted to be in his child’s life would most likely be cause for celebration. But now, hearing Nigel make clear his motive for marrying her, Callie only felt brokenhearted.

“You can be,” she said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “I already told you I’m committed to seeing that happen.”

“Good. Then say you’ll marry me.”

Callie closed her eyes, finding it hard to breathe. Again, she thought of how this situation was the complete opposite of what it should be. The man she loved asking her to marry him, and she was feeling distress over that fact.