Maggy's Child (38 page)

“Y
ou take my breath away,” he said. Maggy felt her insides twist as his gaze feasted on the creamy, strawberry-tipped bounty of her breasts. Nick’s eyes darkened, the lids drooping slumberously, as he stared. Dark color washed up to stain his cheekbones. His lips parted as his breath rasped between them. His body was motionless, his muscles taut as a bowstring.

Maggy, watching these signs of his arousal with a growing excitement of her own, felt violent tremors snake out over her skin.

He leaned closer. Maggy’s breath stopped as he placed his open mouth against her left breast. The heat and wetness of it was shocking, thrilling. It made her melt inside. She looked down at that wavy black head, at the short, thick fans of his lashes as they rested against the bronze of his cheeks, at the black stubble that was already starting to darken his jaw though it couldn’t be long past noon and he had shaved that morning, at the hard masculine mouth attached to the creamy whiteness of her breast. And she moaned aloud.

Without ever removing his mouth from her breast, he glanced up at her face, and his hands closed over her upper arms to slowly ease her down so that she was lying on her back in the prickly hay.

Maggy’s eyes closed helplessly; as she felt him sliding her pants and panties down her legs, she writhed in abject
surrender. She wanted him with a fierceness that shocked her.

Once he had her naked, his mouth returned to torment her defenseless nipples; she gasped as his hand stroked down her flesh to delve into her trembling navel with one hard finger, then continued on across the silky flesh of her stomach to cover the triangle of curls between her thighs. Writhing as he touched her, she pushed upward against his warm palm, desperate to end his torture.

“Sweet God in heaven.” It was a ragged mutter, accompanied by the complete withdrawal of his hands and mouth. Maggy whimpered a protest, and her lids fluttered up. She discovered that he was standing now, towering above her, his eyes a glittering green as they roamed over her.

As if she were looking down at herself through his eyes, Maggy knew what he must see: a slim, pale-skinned girl, bruised but lovely, utterly naked, the soft white mounds of her breasts topped with rosy peaks already hardened to succulence by his mouth, the gentle curve of her abdomen punctuated by a triangle of auburn curls that wept for him, slim thighs parting in restless longing, pink-tipped nails digging into the bed of prickly hay on which she lay, waiting with shameless eagerness for him to return to her. Her long auburn hair formed a tangled fan around her head. The rich darkness of it contrasted starkly with the warm gold of the hay. Her eyes were a deep, smoldering brown, half closed and slanted like an odalisque’s as they watched him; a tawny-pink blush had crept high into her cheekbones, the only sign of modesty remaining to her; her mouth was soft and swollen from his kisses, as temptingly red as the lushest rose.

He started stripping, unbuttoning his shirt with fingers that were less than steady. Maggy watched as he shrugged out of it, letting it fall uncaringly to the floor. Her eyes slid avidly along his broad, bronzed shoulders to where they joined his strong neck, then moved down over his
muscled, hair-matted chest. His hands were at his belt, unfastening it, letting it dangle open while he first unbuttoned, then unzipped his jeans. Then he paused for a moment, hands resting negligently on his hips, a slow smile teasing his lips as he took in the fascinated expression on her face.

“Want me to stop?” he asked huskily. Maggy shook her head shamelessly, and something dark and dangerous flared to life in his eyes.

He had to sit down to pull off his boots; he slid out of his jeans and briefs with a single swift movement. Then he was naked, crawling toward her, straddling her waiting body while remaining on his hands and knees.

“Now you’re mine,” he told her, and the combination of the exultant look in his eyes and the hugeness of his erection made her throat go dry.

His hands gripped her thighs, parting them, and his knees slid between hers. She felt the rasp of his hard, hairy thighs against the softness of her own, felt his turgid flesh burning against the throbbing entrance to her body, and gasped. She reached for him, meaning to guide him into the place where she most needed him to be, but he was already upon her, his big body crushing her into the hard wood beneath the hay as his hands found her breasts and his mouth captured one quivering nipple.

“Now, Nick, please, now,” she moaned, her arms clutching his shoulders and her legs twining around his hips in a shameless effort to force the possession she craved.

As if her plea tore the lid off the iron control he’d been exercising over himself, he thrust into her urgently, his hardness impaling her soft flesh. She gasped and moaned, crying out his name. Her fingers burrowed desperately into the thick curls that clustered at his nape.

His arms clamped her to him with a fierce strength that would have frightened her if she had been able to focus on anything but her body’s desperate need. His groans
mingled with her soft cries as he took her with him to the edge of ecstasy and beyond. Maggy’s nails dug into the hard flesh of his back; her body moved with his in a driving dance of passion.

“Yes, oh, yes!” she sobbed when at last he was coming into her with the force and speed of a jackhammer. He groaned an answer, his hands closing over her hipbones as he gave one last, mighty thrust. He buried his face in the sweet-smelling softness of her hair, his body shuddering and throbbing as it spewed its seed deep inside her. Maggy surged against him, holding him tightly, moaning.

Then, with a wonderful melting sensation more pleasurable than anything she had ever known, she found her own release.

Later, a long time later, her equanimity for the most part restored, Maggy tugged the black sweatshirt over her head and, fully dressed again, turned severe eyes on Nick. He was stretched out on his back, naked as the day he was born, on a pile of hay that he described as soft and she insisted was prickly. They had each had a chance to experience what it felt like against their naked backsides, though as Maggy pointed out,
he
had not had a two-hundred-pound man atop him when he did so.

“We
still
didn’t use birth control,” she wailed.

Nick chewed reflectively on the straw that protruded from his mouth. “I bought some rubbers this morning, but they’re in the house. How was I supposed to guess you’d attack me in the barn?”

His eyes slid to her face to see how she would take that, and as she scowled at him he grinned devilishly at her. Recognizing when she was being teased, Maggy refused to give him the satisfaction of snapping at his bait.

“Get dressed,” she said. “I’m hungry.”

“I’m too tired to move,” he answered placidly. “You plumb tuckered me out.”

Maggy made a face at him and snatched the straw from his mouth.

“Get dressed,” she said again, poking him in the ribs with the pointy-ended straw. When he grabbed at her hand she jumped up, laughing, and retreated toward the ladder.

“Hang on, I’m coming.” He got to his feet with a groan and reached for his clothes.

Obediently halting, Maggy watched with unabashed appreciation as he pulled them on piece by piece. He was even sexier naked than he was dressed, she thought, observing the flexing of those broad shoulders and the rippling of the muscles in his sculptured chest and corded arms as he stepped into his briefs. The classic vee of his torso was pure pinup boy. So was the thick, wedge-shaped mat of black hair that covered his chest. Buffy had described him as looking like a divinely sexy thug, Maggy remembered with an inward grin. Eyeing the tough pugilist’s face atop the gorgeous linebacker’s body, Maggy decided that the description was nothing if not apt.

She watched with appreciation as he zipped up his jeans. His narrow-hipped, long-legged frame was
made
for jeans. And his flannel shirt didn’t look half bad on him, either, Maggy decided with a curling grin as he shrugged into it, buttoned it up, and stuffed the tail into his waistband.

In a word, naked or dressed, he was a hunk.

She told him so with a provocative grin just as he was stomping into his boots. Clearly not appreciating the compliment, he grimaced, snatched up a handful of hay, and started purposefully toward her. Maggy shrieked, whirled, and darted for the ladder.

Only to stop short at what awaited them below.

T
he cows were massed in the barn, milling about with much swishing of tails and stomping of feet. A particularly large one was right at the base of the ladder. As Maggy looked down at the animal, it raised its massive head, met her eyes, and mooed. A clump of hay, dislodged by Maggy’s foot, plummeted downward. The cow opened her enormous mouth at the strategic last second and scooped the hay out of the air in mid-fall. Golden strands thrust out from both sides of the velvety black snout as the beast began, very loudly, to munch.

Maggy recoiled.

“What the devil …?” Seeing her reaction, Nick stepped past her, glanced down, and stepped back. From his expression, it was clear that her action needed no further explanation.

“Now what?” Maggy asked.

“Got me.” Nick shrugged. He caught her hand, gave a tug, and pulled her into his arms. “I guess we spend the rest of the day up here making whoopee.”

The look Maggy shot him would have put a less self-satisfied individual firmly in his place. Nick merely grinned at her, and when she shoved at his shoulders, let her go.

“I’m hungry,” she complained. “Go shoo them away or something.”

“They’re bigger than me. And I think one of them is a bull.”

“Nick …” Maggy eyed him warningly. She knew when she was being teased.

“I’ll get you out of here on one condition: first you have to promise to marry me.”

Maggy’s breathing stopped. Nick stood not two feet away, one shoulder propped against a roughhewn beam, his arms folded over his chest, his booted feet crossed at the ankle. A slight smile curled around his mouth, and his eyes gleamed at her as he awaited her answer.

“Are you proposing?” she asked, striving for composure though she suddenly felt shattered.

“Sounds like it.”

“Do you know, in all the years we’ve been together, this is the first time you’ve ever actually asked me to marry you?”

“
Before
, I thought it was understood between us. Apparently I was wrong. I’m not taking any chances this time. So what do you say?” A faint tension overlay the studied calm of his posture. Maggy sensed it, because she knew him so well and because she was feeling a great deal of tension of her own. She wrapped her arms around herself, and gave an unhappy little laugh.

“Nick. Oh, Nick, my heart says yes.”

“Your
heart
says yes?” he repeated slowly, raising an eyebrow at her. “Where does that leave the rest of you?”

“The rest of me says whether I like it or not I’m already married.”

“I’m not asking you to become a bigamist, Magdalena. I’m asking you to divorce Lyle Forrest and marry me.”

There they were, back to the central question she had evaded, both in her own mind and with him, since he had carried her out of Windermere. She was so happy with Nick. They were right for each other. And she loved him, more than anything or anyone else on earth—except David.

At the thought of her son, her heart gave her an especially bitter pang.

She was going to have to tell Nick about David. The prospect was starting to terrify her. Not physically, as Lyle terrified her, but in the deepest reaches of her heart. The question that plagued her was, would Nick still love her when he knew the whole, awful truth about what she had done? She didn’t think she could bear it if she lost Nick’s love.

Any more than she could bear it if she lost David.

But she didn’t have to tell Nick the truth yet. Not yet. This brief time away from harsh reality had been granted her, perhaps even by a penitent Saint Jude, who must be aware, by now, of how he had screwed up all those years ago. It was hers to use as she would. She still had two weeks, maybe even a little longer, of blissful happiness left. She would be a fool to spoil it sooner than was absolutely necessary.