Anything For You (25 page)

She could feel how aroused he was, the length of his erection pushing against the curve of her bottom.

“Say yes, Laney,” he said, his fingers plucking relentlessly at her breasts.

She couldn’t think. She didn’t want to think. She wasn’t strong enough to hold out on principle. She loved him. She wanted him. If that meant she was accepting second best, then so be it.

“Yes,” she said, turning in his arms. Reaching up to cup his face with her hands, she looked deeply into his eyes. “Yes. I’ll marry you, Sam.”

He swooped down, his mouth taking hers in a fiery, almost savage kiss. Then he bent and scooped her up in his arms.

“Which one’s the bedroom?” he asked, already striding out into the hallway.

Delaney pointed at a doorway, too busy pressing hungry kisses to his throat to speak. Sam dropped her on the bed, quickly climbing on top to press his body against the length of hers.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he murmured as he nuzzled his way into the neckline of her T-shirt.

“Me, too,” she admitted.

Tears pricked at the back of her eyelids as Sam began to peel her top off. It was almost perfect, being with him like this. Almost.

But Sam’s hands were already sliding beneath the waistband of her cutoffs, his clever fingers delving into the wet heat between her thighs. She had this much. She would have to learn to be content. School herself not to give away her feelings.

It was better than nothing, and a whole lot more of him than she’d ever thought she’d have.

Pushing away everything but her desire, she gave herself up to the fire growing inside her. It would be good…even if it wasn’t everything.

THE BEDROOM WAS FILLED with the bright, clear light of morning when she awoke. It took a moment for memory to return, and she stiffened. Sam had come calling. He’d asked her to marry him, and she’d said yes. They’d rushed straight to the bedroom and raced each other to climax. Afterward, Sam had curled his body around hers and she’d told herself that a few stupid words were not worth giving up something so compelling and precious.

She frowned as she tried to work out whether she still held to that belief in the cold light of day. Without Sam’s body pressed against hers, his breath in her ear, it was easier to think.

It wasn’t her dream. Some people might think it fell far short of her dream. But she wasn’t going to push Sam away; she loved him too much. And if that made her weak…then so be it.

For the first time, she allowed her imagination to quest forward into the future. Sam as her husband. Sam as father to her children. Sam coming home to her bed every night. A smile began to stretch her mouth. There was a lot to celebrate in all those thoughts. A hell of a lot.

Anticipating one particular attraction of the arrangement, she rolled over, determined to wake Sam in the best possible way. She stilled as she saw the other side of the bed was empty. Putting out a hand, she felt the sheets. They were cold.

Not even daring to think, she slid out of bed and grabbed her robe.

“Sam?” she called as she padded out into the hall.

Nothing. Her voice echoed hollowly off the newly stripped floorboards. A dread certainty growing inside her, Delaney checked the kitchen and the bathroom and even the backyard. Nothing. Sam was gone.

It didn’t escape her attention that she’d played this game before—after she and Sam had slept with each other the first time.

She froze in the middle of the kitchen, all her fears rising up to flood her. She could see it like a movie in her mind—Sam had woken up, remembered his impulsive proposal of the night before, and quietly freaked out. Utilizing his years of experience as a sexual hit-and-runner, he’d slithered out of bed and let himself out of her house. No doubt he was now at the local skate park, or on his way to a surf beach somewhere to try and sort himself out.

Suddenly she was having trouble breathing. Curling her hands into fists, she pressed them against her too-hot eyes. She wasn’t going to cry. Not over Sam. Not again. And, anyway, she was angry, not sad. He’d suckered her in with his vision of the future, and she’d allowed herself to believe in him.

But she’d known all along that she was buying a pipe dream. Sam didn’t do commitment. He didn’t want a family and a house in the suburbs. He wanted her—on his terms. She’d scared him with her abrupt withdrawal, and he’d talked himself into giving her what she wanted in order to regain the old footing of their relationship.

It was never going to work. And she was a deluded fool for even trying for a second. He was going to rip her heart out and smash it to a pulp day after day after day with his indifference and lack of understanding. Every time he had to go “clear his head” she’d be left wondering if he’d at last woken up and realized that he’d compromised too much and made a terrible mistake.

Pressing her hands against her stomach, Delaney opened her mouth on a silent cry of pain. She loved him so much. She couldn’t take so little from him.

“Hey. You’re up.”

She swung around to see Sam in the doorway, a bag of groceries dangling from one finger. “I snuck out to get us some brekkie stuff. Bacon, eggs, avocadoes. I can whip up some hash browns if you want.”

“I want you to go,” she said, her voice low and throbbing.

Sam shook his head as though he’d misheard her. “Sorry?”

“I want you to get out. Forget everything that happened last night. Forget all of it. I don’t want you coming around here anymore,” she said.

Sam blanched, his face a picture of confusion. “Laney. What’s going on?” he said, starting forward. “Has something happened?”

Delaney took a step backward, holding up her hand palm out. “Don’t touch me.”

She knew she couldn’t do this if he laid a hand on her. That was how weak and foolish she was.

“I need you to just go, Sam,” she said, striving for a more normal tone of voice.

“No way,” Sam said. “You agreed to marry me last night, Delaney. We made a deal, and I am holding you to it.”

“We can’t get married. It wouldn’t work,” she said firmly.

“Why not? We’ve been friends for sixteen years. You think we can’t make a marriage work?”

Delaney couldn’t stand it any longer. She’d stuffed her feelings down inside herself for more than a decade. She’d cried and longed and sighed over Sam too many times to count. She’d walked away from her job and her apartment and the best man she’d ever known. She really, truly had nothing left to lose.

“Don’t you get it, Sam? I have been in love with you since I was fourteen years old. I have watched you sleep with a cavalcade of bimbos, I have cried myself to sleep over wanting you, and I’ve given my body to you knowing that you don’t feel the same way. I can’t do it anymore. I certainly can’t marry you because you miss me and you hate change and you want your old pal back. I want more. I want all of you, and I know I can never have it and I’d rather have bloody nothing than accept some…feeble half measure that would only make us both incredibly miserable,” Delaney said, all her thoughts and feelings tumbling out of her. Tears were streaming down her face and she swiped at them ineffectually with the back of her hand.

Sam looked stricken. The grocery bag dropped from his fingers and hit the floor with a crack of breaking eggs as he stared at her.

“Say it again,” he demanded, moving toward her with intent.

She wiped at her face some more and threw her hands up helplessly.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. Always have, probably always will. Happy?” she said.

He stopped when he was standing mere inches away. Reaching out, he captured her face in his hands and smoothed his thumbs across her cheekbones to clear her tears.

“You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that,” he said.

And then he kissed her. A long, slow, infinitely tender kiss that filled Delaney with wonder and a breathless, terrifying hope. She pulled back to stare intently into his face.

“Sam?”

“I am an idiot. Laney…how can one man be so dumb? I love you. I love you so much that not having you in my life makes my chest ache.”

He stared at her, his eyes a fierce, clear blue.

“All these years I’ve wasted, keeping you by my side but at arm’s length. Can you forgive me? I promise to try and make it up to you each and every day. I’ll be your slave. I’ll be your whatever. Because I love you. I always have, and I always will. You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing at night. I dream about touching you, making love to you. I can’t live without you.”

She was trembling, and she reached out a hand to cup his dear face in her hand. She couldn’t believe this was happening, but inside her, the pain that had wrapped itself around her heart was dissolving.

“Sam. So long. I can’t believe we’ve waited so long.”

“Maybe we’re just slow learners,” Sam said. “I can’t believe how close I came to losing you.”

Her heart lurched in her chest as she saw tears shimmering on the ends of his lashes. She caught one on the tip of her finger.

“No more tears,” she said.

“No. Not even at our wedding.”

She smiled and leaned toward him, glorying in the love shining openly from his eyes and the fact that at last she could say all that she wanted to.

“I adore you,” she whispered as she pressed her lips against his. “I absolutely adore you.”

“The feeling is incredibly mutual,” Sam said.

His hands slid around her, pulling her close. She could feel his heart pumping under her hand, a ragged rhythm that exactly matched her own.

And it did, she realized—at last, Sam’s heart matched her own.

“Take me to bed,” she said as she swayed toward him. “Take me to bed and let’s start making up for lost time.”

Sam grinned down at her.

“Mrs. Kirk, you are full of excellent ideas this morning,” he said as he stooped to pick her up in his arms.

“Mrs. Kirk? No one said anything about giving up my name,” she said teasingly as he strode through the house.

Sam tossed her onto the bed and covered her body with his. “You’re mine, and everyone’s going to know it. You got a problem with that?”

She stared up at the passion and determination and love in his face.

It seemed that sometimes you could have it all.

“No,” she said. “No problem at all.”

ISBN: 1-55254-587-3

ANYTHING FOR YOU

Copyright © 2006 by Small Cow Productions PTY Ltd.

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

www.eHarlequin.com

If you enjoyed the eBook you just read, then you’ll love what we have for you next month!

ON SALE IN OCTOBER 2006

THE MIGHTY QUINNS: MARCUS by Kate Hoffman, Blaze

ASKING FOR TROUBLE by Leslie Kelly, Blaze

THE PLEASURE CHEST by Julie McBride, Blaze

JUST DARE ME… by Stephanie Bond, Blaze

THE MAVERICK by Rhonda Nelson, Blaze

A WHISPER OF WANTING by Jamie Sobrato, Blaze

MASTER OF PLEASURE by Penny Jordan, Presents

THE PLAYBOY BOSS’S CHOSEN BRIDE by Emma Darcy, Presents

PURCHASED FOR REVENGE by Julia James, Presents

HOLLYWOOD HUSBAND, CONTRACT WIFE by Jane Porter, Presents

THE RICH MAN’S ROYAL MISTRESS by Robyn Donald, Presents

AT THE SHEIKH’S COMMAND by Kate Walker, Presents

THE MILLIONAIRE’S LOVE-CHILD by Elizabeth Power, Presents

THE FRENCH COUNT’S PREGNANT BRIDE by Catherine Spencer, Presents

BLACKHAWK’S BETRAYAL by Barbara McCauley, Desire

THE PART-TIME WIFE by Maureen Child, Desire

THE MORNING AFTER PROPOSAL by Sheri WhiteFeather, Desire

REVENGE OF THE SECOND SON by Sara Orwig, Desire

THE BOSS’S CHRISTMAS SEDUCTION by Yvonne Lindsay, Desire

24 HOURS BUNDLE by Jo Leigh, Kimberly Raye and Cara Summers, Blaze

THE WRONG BED BUNDLE by Jennifer LaBrecque, Joanne Rock and Mara Fox, Blaze