Doorstep daddy (11 page)

_{Amanda's expression was sullen, but she hadn't interrupted. "I'll be at Joey's. Do you need the phone number?''}

_{"I don't believe his parents are home." She knew her sister and brother-in-law played golf on Sunday afternoons."}

_"So?"

_{"So my nephew is not allowed to have guests over then." Well, he wasn't if she had anything to say about it. This might be puppy love, but sweet innocence could quickly turn to intimate innocence. A little subtle supervision never hurt "Tell him he's caught and you are both to come here. Now, I have to go back inside before your brothers burn the house down." She softened her voice, "Amanda, honey, I just care about you, okay?"}

_{"Sure." Amanda whirled and headed for Joey's
I
house.}

_{Callie groaned. "Please spare me, Lord, from teenagers and toddlers - and kids in between. That ought to
I
cover it."}

_{Inside, Mark was still in the powder room, splashing water in the bowl. And not the sink. It could be worse,
I
she admitted.}

_{"Water, Callie!" the boy happily shouted. "You're genius material," Callie said, lifting him away. "You must have a thousand dollars' worth of toys in this house and you're playing with the potty. There's i a lesson here, but I don't want to learn it."}

_{By the end of the day, Jason's room passed muster. Mark played with normal toddler toys, and Amanda actually spent the time at her own house with Joey following her about. Callie was exhausted by the time everyone was finally in bed. Her laptop computer called to her,
j
demanding she catch up on the work she'd brought from | the office and from school, but she only stared at the flat gray device, unable to do more.}

_{She had forgotten how much mental and physical work children required. Any notion that she could balance all had been killed in the battle to keep up with Richard's three. She couldn't remember whether her brothers and sisters had been as willful as Amanda, as stubborn as Jason or as headstrong as Mark. She knew the kids had suffered a great tragedy, and she'd tried to allow for that. But nothing had changed her feelings on having a family anytime soon. Kids were just too much work. She could not afford to devote herself to such a situation, not for a long time to come.}

_{Richard had called her from Java yesterday to let her know he'd arrived halfway around the world. Amazing,
she thought. She'd clung to the sound of his voice. Just the way he said her name sent shivers of delight through her. And the way he kissed... In a few seconds more the other night, he would have been stripping her bare. And she would have loved it.}

_{Yet he came with children. This long weekend served to remind her of her own goals in life. It reminded her where
she
needed to be right now. She wasn't being selfish, just sensible. As she told Amanda, life was unfair. She couldn't allow it to be any more unfair to Richard, to the kids or to her than it already was.}

_{After she'd nursed a glass of wine through the eleven-o'clock news, she finally turned out the kitchen lights and went upstairs, the never opened laptop tucked under her arm.}

_{The house had five bedrooms. She'd used the guest bedroom for two nights, but as she glanced at Richard's closed door, the desire to sleep in his bed just once overwhelmed her. Granted, he owned the guest-room bed, so it was his, too, but the connection wasn't the same. She wanted to sleep where his body slept, where his unique male scent subtly pervaded the sheets. Where his warmth had heated the silk. She knew his bedclothes were silk. She had peeked.}

_{But she couldn't sleep in them.}

_{Why not? Her brain asked the question of its own accord. After all, she could do it with no one knowing. She went to bed after the kids and got up before them. Richard wasn't due back until tomorrow evening. She could wash the sheets and erase all evidence of her presence in his room. She was much more deft than Goldilocks had been with beds. He'd never know.}

_{Best of all, she would have a delicious memory. One she could revisit any time she wanted. She couldn't re-}

_{member when she had ever taken a memory for herself. | Never had she taken one so intimate.}

_{"No," she said firmly, knowing she really couldn't. She changed into her night wear, an oversize T-shirt
I
emblazoned with a sleeping bear, before going into the large bathroom. When she came out again, her feet wandered over to Richard's bedroom door. She slowly pushed it open. A wedge of light from the hall illuminated the king-size bed. Its dark coverlet was printed with a jungle-pattern of light greens and oranges, a gen-tie touch with very masculine overtones. Callie gazed at the empty bed for a long time. She
1
turned out the hall light and went into the room. As if
I
in a dream, she watched herself pull back the coverlet
f
and sheets. The silk was like shimmering liquid against her palm. She slipped into the bed, the mattress accepting her body as a lover might accept a true mate. She pulled the sheet and coverlet up over her shoulders and I turned her face into the pillow.}

_{Richard's scent drifted through her senses, elusive, almost nonexistent but with that wonderful sharp twist of ' cologne just challenging the edges of her mind. They | could put her blindfolded in a room with a thousand men and she would be able to pick Richard out. She hoped. Callie smiled wryly at the thought. Okay, so she was | getting way ahead of herself. But a girl could dream. She did dream. Of Richard.}

_{R
ichard unlocked
the front door, walked into the darkened house and hit the button on the keypad that turned off the alarm system.}

_{He dumped his overnight bag next to the foyer table and sighed heavily. Four in the morning was a helluva time to arrive home, but he was damn glad he had. He
knew Callie and the kids didn't expect him for another fourteen hours, but he'd gotten lucky and was able to get out of Java earlier than he'd expected after turning Prang over to Javanese authorities. He'd gotten himself bumped up on flights from Sidney and San Francisco, which helped, but his energy was completely wiped out.}

_{His body, as if picking up on the thought, suddenly felt as if it dropped six stories in six milliseconds, and a wave of wooziness overtook him. Jet lag. He'd probably have the condition for the next few days in payment for his quick trip. Maybe he wasn't as lucky as he'd thought.}

_{Smiling, he went into the kitchen to drink some water, knowing he was probably dehydrated, and that added to the jet-lag symptoms. His stomach growled. He was short on food, too. Maybe Callie and the kids had baked cookies again. He was so hungry at this point he'd even eat one Mark really
had
sneezed on. Well, he might.}

_{The kitchen provided cold water from the refrigerator-door fountain, but yielded only store-bought cookies. They weren't as good as the home-baked ones of the other day. It felt like years rather than days since Callie and the kids had baked them.}

_{Callie and the kids.}

_{Richard drew in a deep breath. He loved the notion of Callie in a unit with his niece and nephews. In a unit with him satisfied his soul. He wished he could get used to it - but Callie had dreams and they didn't include him.}

_{He climbed the stairs in the dark. Glancing at the guest-bedroom door, he wanted nothing more than to go in and wake Callie in the most intimate of ways. He wondered if he
should
wake her, just to let her know he was home early. Obviously his coming in hadn't stirred
anybody. But he didn't trust himself to be alone with her and a bed.}

_{He opened his bedroom door. The wedge of light from the hall illuminated his bed. A figure lay curled up under the covers. A spill of angel-blond hair spread across the pillow. Richard sucked in his breath. Callie was in his bed.}

_{He felt as if he was watching her and himself in a surreal scene. She stirred and stretched, her slender form outlined under the coverlet. He shut the door and walked toward her, his body under another control.}

_{"Callie," he whispered, knowing he had to be dreaming. Or she was a jet-lag hallucination.}

_{She murmured in her sleep as his hands found her shoulders. She pulled him to her and kissed him, her mouth opening and her tongue mating with his. He
was
dreaming, he thought. She was not vulnerable like this, trusting and wanting and expressing it without hesitation. He kissed her for long moments. Her hands caressed his back, her fingers tugging at his hair as need apparently rose within her. Finally he eased his hps from hers, knowing he should follow reason.}

_{"Callie, wake up," he said in a low voice.}

_{"Mmm. I'm awake." Her voice sounded far too sleepy for that to be true.}

_{He chuckled. "You can't be."}

_{"I am. You can't be here."}

_{"I got home early." His cheek was against hers, and he could feel her smile.}

_{"It doesn't matter. I took your bed. I'm sorry." "I'm not. Stay here."}

_{She kissed his cheek, his temple, the corner of his mouth, her own unerring in finding the places that sent streams of heat flowing through his body. He wanted her
badly, and to have her like this, willing and sensual, was too much for him. He kissed her frantically, trying to convey all the pent-up longing he had for her.}

_{Callie pressed against him, her breasts buried in the wall of his chest. He could feel her nipples already hardened into nubs. They burned his skin. Her flesh was warm and her hair silken. He tangled his fingers in the strands, the tresses wrapping around his palms as if they had a life of their own. This, he thought, was how the Gorgon ensnared men. Not with snakes, but with such wondrous hair that men wanted to spend their whole lives touching it. A thought flitted through his Callie-drugged mind that they should be cautious with the children in the house. But the kids were asleep, and that was all he needed to know.}

_{Not content with her mouth, he kissed her throat, her chest, then pushed the covers down and kissed her breasts through her practical T-shirt. Not the baby dolls of his imaginings, but he didn't care. Only Callie could turn a simple garment into something exquisite. The thin material moved and shifted, giving his Hps only glimpses of the satiny skin underneath. Callie's hands urged him on, and he plucked at her nipples, their hardness unhampered by the cotton barrier. She writhed under his ministrations. Richard's mind spun with the heady combination, his jet lag and good sense long forgotten. She offered him this night, and he would be a fool not to take it. Maybe...maybe if she were open to him one time, she would be open in other ways. The risks were worth it.}

_{Her fingers pushed at his shirt buttons, as if she knew his thoughts and agreed. He helped her remove his shirt, then stretched out on the bed as she stroked his naked chest. He shuddered, shivers of delight coursing through
his veins at her touch. Her hands were all over him, wanton in searching out points on his body for her caress. Her fingers lingered on his stomach, her nails lightly raking him.}

_{Her T-shirt was on the floor before he realized he had even taken it off her. Her body was cool like marble and yet hot like lava. He wanted nothing more than to lose himself against her, inside her, to find her woman's flesh gloving his own. The rest of his clothes joined hers in a frenzy of hands, their mouths melding together in a wild kiss.}

_{She wrapped one leg around his hip, urging him more intimately to her. Somehow a caution filtered through the sensuous haze. He could not protect Callie from his needs, not when they were the same as hers tonight, but he could protect her from what could threaten to sideline her dreams again. He reached into the nightstand drawer. The rustle of the wrapper brought Callie's head up in awareness of what he was doing.}

_{"Thank you," she whispered.}

_{His breath came out in a rush, and he smiled.}

_{She kissed him tenderly, accepting his caution. He cared for her more than he cared for his own pleasure. Now she would know it. Her woman's flesh was moist and yielding, enclosing him fully in its heat. Richard closed his eyes, wrestling all the urges of satisfaction that his body demanded at once. Callie's other leg slipped under his hip as she lay beside him, pulling him impossibly tighter into her body. Sweat beaded Richard's forehead, and he thought he would shame himself. He held himself still, absorbing the feel of her as one with him. Never had anything meant more than to have Callie so intimately entwined with him. He allowed himself no expectations beyond tonight.}