Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (47 page)

“See,” Vivian said over her clap, “I knew you were a regular Gene Kelly.”

What the hell. He was already dancing. He could say stupidly romantic things to his wife. “I'd prefer to be Fred Astaire and call you Ginger.”

A bead of sweat on his neck dripped from his collar to his hairline when he leaned forward to rotate his arm. When he reversed course to stand up and hop to his left, the sweat dribbled back down between his shoulder blades. He should have taken his suit jacket off—or at least loosened his tie—before attempting this hoedown.

“I can do anything you can do—backward and in high heels,” she said with a laugh.

His cockiness caught up with him. Mrs. Biadała didn't look nearly so amused this time as he tripped over his own feet and stumbled into her. “Better me than your wife,” she said. He supposed she was right, given Vivian's pregnancy, but Vivian would've laughed, and he might even have laughed with her.

He got back on track when they had to step back and his clap was perfectly timed with the rest of the dancers. By the time the music stopped, Karl had figured the dance out and was no longer making a fool of himself. A wasted lesson, because he never planned on dancing the Electric Slide ever again.

“That was the worst four minutes of my life,” he said as he tucked Vivian under his arm and steered her toward the door before she heard another song she wanted to dance to. He snatched her purse from her chair when they walked past their table, not willing to slow down. Whatever song the deejay had put on next was obviously another line dance, as the instigators of such tomfoolery and their victims were lined up in rows again.

Vivian turned her face up to him, impish, sweaty and beautiful. “I hate to break it to you, but you only danced for three minutes. Was it really so bad?”

Her warm, soft body fit perfectly against his and he leaned down to innocently kiss the top of her head while thinking of how slowly he would peel off her clothes once they got back to his apartment. And how she'd smile at him, but it would be a slow, private smile with melting heat in her eyes. “No. I'd do it again.” He stooped a bit so he could kiss the top of her ear and whisper, “But if you tell anyone that—especially my sisters—I'll deny it until I have no breath left in my body.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

T
HEY
HAD
DRIVEN
to the wedding separately, so Karl had to wait—aroused and cold as the sweat from dancing evaporated off his body—in the parking garage for Vivian to drive into her spot. He didn't want to risk her changing her mind between the wedding and the apartment; if he could have towed her car behind his, he would have.

God, she looked hot getting out of her car, her face glowing with perspiration and an annoyed scowl on her face as she pulled strands of her hair out of her pink lipstick. “I swear, every light was red by the time I got to it. Do you have some secret machine in your car to change lights to green when you pass by, like they say cops do?”

Then she smiled at him and held out her hand, and he didn't care how long he'd been waiting in the parking garage, so long as she was near him. “Does it increase my chances of getting lucky tonight if I say yes?”

If a yes means you'll move back in with me, I'll invent such a device and have it installed on any car you might possibly drive.

“You're already getting lucky tonight.” She pressed a soft kiss onto his lips, her perfume overwhelming the stale air and exhaust, and her presence drowning out the cares of the world. Then she walked away from him toward the elevator, their fingers still entwined, tugging him behind her.

Determined to make good use of a slow elevator ride up to his apartment, Karl swept Vivian's hair off her neck and kissed the knobs of her spine until the lace of her dress impeded his progress. Undeterred, he kissed his way around her neckline to lick salt off her neck. She tasted better than any meal, and the soft murmurs she made sounded better than any opera.

Her dexterous fingers danced down his chest, unbuttoning his coat and slipping under his suit jacket to his belt buckle. She slipped her hand under his waistband and it was all of his janitor's-closet fantasies come true, complete with the physics problem of Vivian not being nearly tall enough. Even with her in heels, he couldn't quite position himself so that he could keep kissing her and she could keep her magical fingers tickling his balls. Karl settled for nibbling on the top of her ear while she panted into his neck.

His mind registered the slowing of the elevator, but he didn't do anything other than mumble a protest when Vivian pulled her hand out of his pants and smoothed the front of his suit. He wasn't aware of anything other than the brush of her hair against his nose until the elevator beeped and opened onto the lobby of his building. Vivian gave a sly smile before turning them both so that she stood in front of him, facing the group of women getting on the elevator.

Karl stood with his pants undone, his erection pressing against Vivian, unwilling to take his hands off her belly long enough to zip up his pants. Instead, he twirled the tie of her dress around his fingers and willed the giggling women to get off the elevator before his floor. One of the women looked at him, raised her brow and pressed the number for the floor directly under his.

Hours seemed to pass between the beeps of the elevator at each and every floor. Each echoed through his head, made worse by the smell of jasmine he now associated with Vivian in his bed and the pressure of her body against his.

Beep.
And those women kept giggling.

Beep.
The fingers that had only recently been down his pants tangled with his, the silk ribbon of her dress rough as it trickled first through her fingers and then through his.

Beep.
Vivian shifted their interlocking hands like she was innocently scratching her neck, only her movement meant the back of his hand skimmed up against her breasts and, as the vixen delicately scratched her neck, his hand cupped her breast before falling back to her stomach. He leaned his head against the cool mirrored back of the elevator, fighting a groan, his only consolation that her games aroused her, too, if the slight tuck of her ass against him was any indication.

After an interminable ride the elevator finally began to slow and they all halted—Karl, Vivian and those interfering women—until the elevator doors opened. Instead of gushing out of the elevators the same way they had poured in, the women sauntered through the doors, one by one. The last one to leave, the same woman who had pressed the button for this floor, had to bang the elevator doors to keep them from shutting on her. Instead of taking the shutting doors as a sign that she should
hurry,
she turned back and looked Karl and Vivian up and down. Then she winked. “I actually live two floors up, but it seemed cruel to make you walk past us in that state.”

The doors shut on the sound of uproarious female laughter, and he was so desperate to be in his apartment that he didn't care.

Vivian's ass shook when she giggled, and Karl tightened his hold on her. “Don't,” he ground out, “move.”

The ride between the two floors left him with just enough time to bunch up the stiff skirts of her dress and slip his hand across the softness of her skin and the silkiness of her underwear. By the time the elevator beeped for the last time, they were both panting heavily enough to fog the glass walls they were leaning against. As soon as the doors opened, he gave Vivian a gentle push and hurried after her. The cool, dry air breezing through his open fly only heightened his desire to bury himself in Vivian's damp heat.

When they got to his apartment door, Vivian leaned against the wood and slipped her hand back under his waistband as he tried to unlock the door. He concentrated on the lock so he didn't come in his pants. The third time he readjusted his aim and the metal of the key clicked against the metal of the doorknob. She tightened her grip on his cock and said, “I hope you've got better aim inside, cowboy.”

Karl couldn't decide if he should bang his head against the door in frustration or groan with pleasure, so he settled for laughing. “Three months ago I was just sober enough to remember you saying almost the exact same thing.”

“At the time, I assumed tequila caused your lack of aim, but now I know you were just horny.”

The key finally slipped into the hole and the lock clicked open. Before he turned the knob to open the door, he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “We both know my aim improves the fewer clothes you're wearing.”

“Apparently your aim was spot-on,” she said with a raised brow and a gesture to her stomach. But before the mood could become too overwhelmed with the magnitude of how Vivian's pregnancy had changed both their lives, Karl turned the knob and they tumbled through the doorway.

Once inside the sanctuary of his apartment, Vivian didn't hesitate. Her coat came off first, spilling onto the floor. Then she turned to face him and slowly, tortuously untied that ribbon around her waist. The ribbon rasped as the silk slipped against itself and the knot was undone. Blood pounded in his ears as he focused on that one ribbon, knowing her dress wouldn't magically fall off her when it was untied, but he could still hope.

She smiled slyly at him, reached behind her back and the sound of a zipper being loosed resonated through the apartment. Her dress inched down her body, revealing her delicate collarbones with the thin strap of black against her skin, then the lacy cups of the bra covering her enlarged breasts, and finally, with a rustle, the dress was off completely.

Vivian stood in front of him in her matching underwear and heels, the dress pooled at her feet. “Let's see if you can hit the bull's-eye,” she said, before turning and walking away from him.

Karl tripped over her clothes as he tried to follow her, taking off his shoes, coat and tie at the same time, not worried about the pile of clothes on the floor and only caring enough about his dignity not to fall on his ass as he stumbled. Her skin was warm when he caught up to her at the edge of his bed and wrapped his hands around her waist. She twisted in his arms, fumbling to unbutton his shirt as they fell together onto the bed, limbs intertwined.

Vivian opened her mouth, but before she could say anything Karl pressed his lips against hers and opened her mouth a little wider, her tongue meeting his as he cocked his head for better access. Her lips were soft. Her mouth was warm. Her teeth were sharp enough to keep him aware of every last cell in his body as he ran his tongue along the inside of her mouth.

God, she felt good under him. All the windows in his apartment could bust open, letting the cool April night air in, and he'd still be on fire with her hands pulling at his shirt and her nails skimming along the sides of his body.

He groped for her panties, shoving down and pulling them off over her hips, desperate to end the torture that had started on the elevator ride. When she kicked out with one leg and her panties came free, he was too intent on his newfound access to care that she'd nearly kneed him in the crotch.

“I'm sorry,” she mumbled before taking his nipple between her teeth and biting down gently.

He tiptoed his fingers through her curly hair until he got to her moist folds, then slid a finger inside her. “Let's both be glad
my
aim improves when your clothes come off.”

He lifted up on his elbow, watching his now-damp finger trail over her belly. Vivian lifted a leg over his hip, pulling him toward her in invitation and, unable to wait any longer, his pants and shirt still hanging off his limbs, Karl grabbed hold of his cock and pushed into her. She pulsed around him, and he tried to think of cardboard boxes, damp wool and his constitutional law professor from law school—anything to take his mind off the mind-blowing feeling of the woman wrapping her legs around him before he ejaculated with the finesse of a sixteen-year-old in the shower.

Luckily, he wasn't the only one struggling to last longer than two minutes; the elevator ride had nearly done them both in. Karl had only pulled out of her once when her breath started to catch and her nails dug into his shoulders. She bucked against him, tightening her thighs around his legs. She stilled, her eyes pressed tightly shut. For a moment he was worried she had stopped breathing, but she called out his name as her body shuddered.

When she opened her eyes, gave him a wicked smile and said, “Bull's-eye,” Karl's balls tightened painfully and he released into her with a groan.

* * *

K
ARL
BECAME
CONSCIOUS
when the bed shifted. He opened his eyes to find Vivian sliding out of the bed, the moonlight gleaming off her bare shoulder. As she leaned over to pick something—her underwear—off the floor, he could make out the cascading ridge of her spine. He loved seeing her naked, adored her breasts, but this was his favorite view of her. It was like sneaking into one of Renoir's paintings of bathers, intimate, vulnerable and inviting, the muscles of a woman's back soft and smooth. Then her underwear skimmed over her butt, and she reached down for something else.

“Where are you going?” She wasn't headed to the bathroom.

“I have to be at Healthy Food early tomorrow. It will be easier if I drive home tonight.”

Her words grated against his skin. “Your home should be here.”

Slight and short, with only her pregnancy breasts and her barely there belly to give any heft to her figure, she still managed to look formidable in just her underwear, her arms behind her back as she hooked her bra together. “Remember how after the last time I was naked in your bed, you said, ‘this can't change anything'?”

Fuck.
“Yes.” And, at the time, nothing had changed. Now, three weeks later, having seen Vivian every night at Healthy Food, at family dinner and after having plenty of conversation but no sex, everything had changed. This wasn't about a one-night stand gone wrong. This was about his life. Their lives. Their life together.

She raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn't say anything else. He was going to make her say the words.

Her black-silk-covered breasts rose and fell with her sigh. “This doesn't change anything.”

“So we're married and you're pregnant with my child, but you're still going to be living with my mom and we'll just be what—fuck buddies?”

He could tell he'd hurt her when she blinked rapidly several times, but she was hurting him by leaving.

“Would you prefer I found another fuck buddy?” And she walked away, the coward.

Karl scrambled out of bed, tripping over his pants as he shoved his boxers on and followed his wife. For the second time that night she was walking away and he was going to fall on his ass. Except time was working in reverse. When he stumbled into the living room, Vivian was at the entry, zipping up her dress. Her coat would follow and...

“You can't just leave.”

“A month and a half ago you couldn't get me out of this apartment fast enough.” She was tying that goddamned ribbon that had started this nonsense in the elevator. Irrational though it may be, he couldn't escape the feeling that once that ribbon was tied, she was lost to him.

“But a lot has changed since then.” He winced at the whine in his voice. Years of practice at being unemotional and suddenly all his pent-up feelings were coming out over this one woman and the stupid, sexy knobs of her spine that smelled like jasmine. “We have different responsibilities to each other.”

“Like what?”

“Like...like...like...” He couldn't bring himself to say the words she wanted to hear. The words that would convince her to climb back into his bed and stay there until morning.

The still-untied ribbon swayed with her movements as she put her hands on her hips. “Do you still judge me for nearly cheating Middle Kingdom and getting fired?”

“I understand better what drove you to it.” The lessons he'd learned at his father's knees lingered at the back of his mind. How did those ghosts get enough strength to prevent him from telling the woman he loved what she wanted to hear?