Road to Seduction (Kimani Romance) (19 page)

I
t was a long moment, one that was painful and poignant but mostly beautiful. Eric seemed not to blink the whole time and if he was still breathing she couldn’t tell. She had no idea what to say; she had both the urge to say nothing, ever, and to apologize until her voice was hoarse. In the end all she did was give him a tiny smile.

Eric’s lips curved at one edge, and then he dropped his head and stood there, just staring at his feet or the path—anything that wasn’t her. His shoulders heaved, once, and then his hand went to his face and swiped past first one eye and then the other. Her chest tightened and she waited, wondering which direction her life was about to take.

When he raised his head, finally, he still looked sad, but also determined. A few of his long-legged strides brought him up to the porch with her, and he leaned against the rail, crossed his ankles and took a deep breath.

“This is hard,” he said, low.

“I know.”

“You look good with a baby.”

“It feels pretty good.” She paused. “I haven’t held one in years. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to hold the twins. My own brother’s children.”

“We all understand,” Eric told her.

She nodded hastily, too choked up to say anything.

Eric looked away, his gaze tracking the drunken, swirling path of a monarch butterfly as it drifted past. In the smooth column of his throat she saw the rough bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed hard. There was another swallow, and another, before he managed to continue.

“Here’s the thing, Isabella,” he said, his voice faint and hoarse. “I really want children. I always thought I’d have them one day.”

She wouldn’t have thought her heartbeat could stutter any more sickeningly in her chest, but she was wrong. So that was it, then. It was all over.

“I understand,” she said, because she did. A man who wanted biological children was entitled to try to find a woman who could bear them. She wouldn’t make him feel guilty for this choice. “You don’t have to explain.”

“Yeah, I do.”

He shoved away from the porch rail, came to her rocker and knelt beside her, studying Andy. The baby was sleeping with his face turned toward Eric, and Eric stared, seeming to imprint him on his memory for all time. Then he raised a hand and ran it over Andy’s head, caressing the way Isabella had done a little while ago. Finally he kissed the baby’s cheek, a lingering kiss that was unbearably sweet and almost too much for Isabella to see.

And then Eric looked up, to Isabella, and there was a blazing intensity in his eyes that made her breath catch and her blood run hot and thick.

“I wanted us to make a baby,” he told her. “But I can be happy without one.”

Isabella blinked, rewound the words through her brain and digested them.

“Y-you can?” she stammered.

“Yeah. The thing I can’t be happy without,” he said, drifting closer, “is you.”

Hope tried to gain a toehold in her heart but she ruthlessly knocked it back. “Me?” she said weakly, demanding confirmation. “You can’t be happy without
me?
”

“Did you think I could?” he asked, holding her gaze as he picked up her hand, turned it over and pressed a kiss to her palm. “Did you think I would want to?”

She hadn’t known what to think. Didn’t know what to think now, although hope refused to die and seemed to be gaining more ground by the second.

“But,” she began.

She was determined to take the high road and let him off the hook because he was obviously too nice to break her heart when she was infertile.
Yeah
. That was probably what was going on here. He felt sorry for her and would probably rather play the hero than dump her.
That was it
.

“But I can’t let you sacrifice your chance to have biological children, and I don’t want you to regret—”

Those dark eyes flashed, quieting her mid-sentence. “You’re not
letting
me do anything. Let’s get that straight. You don’t make my choices for me. Okay?”

“Okay,” she murmured, taken aback by his vehemence.

“I didn’t
choose
to fall in love with you, but I’m glad I did. Okay?”

“Okay.” She stared at him, feeling breathless and incredibly blessed.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop loving you now. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And the only thing I’d ever
regret
is losing you. Got it?”

Stunned dumb, she gaped at him with the fleeting thought that it would be a shame to catch a fly in her mouth just at the moment Eric asked her to marry him.
That
would be a Kodak moment, all right, but Eric wasn’t slowing down to wait for any answer this time.

“So you’re not going to South Africa.” He paused for form’s sake, but the look on his face was so determined, so ferocious, so utterly possessive, that arguing with him was the last thing on her mind. “Okay?”

She nodded frantically.

“We’re going to get married. I’m sorry about you having to, you know—” he waved his hand, obviously trying to find the right words—“marry into my family, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Okay?”

Happiness finally overwhelmed her to the point that she couldn’t rein it in and didn’t even want to. A burst of laughter erupted from her mouth, but she clapped her hand over her lips, afraid she’d wake Andy.

“Okay,” she said, the word muffled by her palm.

“And we’re going to adopt a few kids,” he finished. “I’m assuming you’ve got no problems with that.”

She dropped her hand and shook her head. “No. No problems.”

They lapsed into a brief, awkward silence, during which Isabella tried to figure out what’d just happened. Frowning, she thought hard and finally decided she’d better just ask.

“Eric,” she asked, “are we engaged now?”

Eric blinked. “Yeah.” He paused, blinked again and nodded. “I think we are.”

“Hallelujah.”

There was one more stunned second of silence and then they both broke into joyous laughter. Eric grabbed her face and kissed her hard, almost tipping the rocking chair over backward in his enthusiasm. It didn’t take long for the kiss to turn hot and deep but Andy slept on, oblivious to the passion surrounding him and Isabella’s breathy whimpers.

“You two need to get a room,” said a voice from somewhere nearby.

Startled and flushed, they broke apart to see Andrew emerge from the trees looking amused, his wide grin more wicked than usual.

Eric was already on his feet, gingerly picking Andy up from Isabella’s lap and passing him over to Andrew, but only after pressing another kiss to his little drooping head.

“Take your boy, man,” Eric said. His smile was so wide, so ecstatic, so amazingly bright, sexy and intent, that Isabella almost had to squint. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her to her feet and tugged her through the door to the cottage. “I need to spend a little quality time with my fiancée.”

Isabella heard Andrew chuckle, but then Eric kicked the door shut and her mind emptied out of all things but one: she needed Eric inside her and she needed him
now
.

“Hurry,”
she told him.

Panting from the flaming heat of his intense gaze, she backed into the room and stopped when something hard—she had no idea
what
—hit her across the small of the back. With fumbling fingers she tried to untie the shoulder straps of her dress, but that was too difficult and she couldn’t wait. Reaching up under her skirt instead, she wiggled out of her panties, dropped them to the floor, and opened her arms to Eric.

Luckily he was on the same page and had been working on his belt. But now, seeing her reach for him, he came straight to her.

With brutal strength he clamped his palms on either side of her face, tipped her head back and fused his mouth to hers in the kind of long, deep kiss that poured his body into hers, his soul into hers. Wild and frantic, she opened for him, sucking and biting and tasting this man who was
hers,
who would be her husband and partner for the rest of her life.

His big hands left her cheeks and slid down her back to her butt. Those long fingers dug in, kneading, pulling her tight against him until their bodies ground together with enough friction on her sweet spot to bring her right to the edge of what was going to be a convulsive orgasm.

Eric’s sixth sense seemed to tell him she was close because he backed off and took those wonderful hands away. “Are you about to come?” he said into her mouth, licking and nipping as he did.

She nodded frantically.

“No, you’re not. You’re going to
wait
.”

When she groaned, he flashed a crooked grin.

Putting his hands on her shoulders, he turned her roughly around and pushed her so that she bent over something. With quicker reflexes than she’d thought she could muster at the moment, she threw her hands wide and braced herself on a hard, cool surface.

The counter
. It was the kitchen counter.

Oh, man,
she thought, shaking now with anticipation. This was going to be wild and hot and
good
.

At the welcome sound of his zipper, she moaned with encouragement and rubbed her butt against his bulging groin lest he have any confusion about what he was supposed to do next. He didn’t. He thrust one hard leg between hers to widen her stance—she felt the soft scratch of the fine wool between her thighs—and raised her skirt.

Yes,
she thought, weak with relief as he took the bulbous head of his penis and rubbed it against her, spreading her juices and making her wetter and slicker. Yes…yes…
now
.

But he didn’t enter her. Distraction seemed to hit him in the form of her butt, the globes of which he was now caressing, over and over. He crooned with enthusiastic appreciation.

Desperate and irritated, Isabella looked over her shoulder and tried to focus her dim gaze. “Hello-ooo?” she said with the little bit of sarcasm she could muster. “Do you think you could do that later—”

With of laugh of pure male satisfaction, he surged his hips, sinking inside her, all the way to the hilt. Isabella cried out, ecstatic with pleasure. One of his frantic hands grasped her throat and turned her face around until he could kiss her as deeply as he was thrusting. The other hand pulled down the bodice of her dress and her strapless bra and rubbed over her swinging breasts, back and forth, back and forth.

Their rhythm was quick, hard and absolutely perfect because each time he plunged inside her he hit the exact right spot, the
one that made her hotter and louder. Isabella’s knees weakened and the room grew dark.

He freed her mouth only long enough to say one thing: “
Now
you can come for me, Sunshine.”

Isabella didn’t need telling. The spasms had already begun radiating out from her sex and contracting through her belly, generating a pleasure so bright, so fierce, that she would have yelled from it if he hadn’t caught the sounds in his mouth.

Determined to give him as much pleasure as he gave her, she tightened her inner muscles around him and closed her thighs as much as she could. That did it. Shouting her name, he pumped into her, shuddering and convulsive.

Spent at last, he stilled and sprawled across her back. She rested her cheek on the cool counter and tried to catch her breath.

“And to think,” she said tiredly, “that we could’ve been doing this for
years
. If only you’d noticed me before this.”

“To think you made me promise we’d only make love for one night.”

“I never proposed an idea that stupid, did I?”

She felt the curve of his cheek against her as he smiled. “You did, but don’t worry.” His hot tongue ran up her spine and stopped right between her shoulder blades, where he planted a long, wet, kiss that had her groaning again. “We’re going to make up for all that lost time.”

Johannesburg, South Africa

I
sabella saw the girl first, on the sixth day of their honeymoon.

They were touring the Leadership Academy while they were there—Isabella was hoping to convince Eric to make a significant donation so the girls could have new computers when classes started in the fall—and were walking across the courtyard with the matron when Isabella looked around and saw the girl crouched under a baobab tree twenty feet away, teasing a sleeping dog.

At first glance, she wasn’t much to look at—just a tiny little girl of about five, mostly short braids and skin and bones in an ugly sack of a yellow dress. But there was…something about her, and Isabella couldn’t look away.

“And here is the library.” The matron, a stern woman named Mrs. Hobbs, gestured to an enormous building, all windows and light.

Eric murmured appreciatively.

Isabella watched the girl.

On all fours with a thin stick in her hands, the child crept forward, silent but vibrating with a mischievous excitement that Isabella could feel despite the distance. The dog, which looked like he had some yellow Lab somewhere in his family tree, along with a whole lot of mutt, remained on his back, belly exposed and ears pricked as the girl came closer.

Clamping one hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles, the girl used the stick to worry the dog’s ear, which twitched. The dog groaned, wriggled and batted at the stick with a paw.

The girl laughed harder and tickled again, and the dog apparently decided he’d had enough. Flipping over, his tail wagging hard enough to shake his whole skinny body, he licked the girl’s face.

Isabella, feeling unaccountably touched, had the distinct impression that girl and dog had played this game before with each other, many times. Drawn to the girl by forces she couldn’t understand, she walked off, leaving the matron mid-sentence and Eric glancing after her.

“Izzy?” he said.

Isabella barely heard him. “Hello,” she called to the girl, approaching slowly so as not to startle her. “What’s your name?”

The girl gave her a stormy look, her brows drawn together over flashing, wary eyes. “I didn’t bother him,” she said in a wonderfully exotic and cultured voice that didn’t quite sound British and didn’t quite sound Dutch. “I was just playing.”

“I know.” Ignoring the dust and the dirt, Isabella sat cross-legged under the tree and arranged her purple-flowered skirts around her legs. The dog, seeing a potential new friend, sniffed her hand and, upon deciding Isabella was okay, licked her cheek. “The dog likes you.”

The girl pursed her lips.

“My name’s Isabella.” Isabella held out her hand and the girl shook it with a grip that was strong but reluctant. “What’s your name?”

“Thandiwe,” said the girl.

“Thandy?”

“Than-di-we,” said the girl again with the kind of deep exasperation with an adult’s failings that only a child can manage. “Don’t you speak English?”

“Not very well,” Isabella said.

Eric and the matron wandered closer and Isabella had the irrational urge to shoo them away and tell them to leave her alone with Thandiwe. There were things she needed to say to the girl and things she needed to know, and nothing and no one could interfere. A need was growing inside Isabella, centering in her chest and causing an ache that was too strong to ignore. This child compelled her, made her need to reach out and find common ground that they could walk together.

Rummaging in her purse, Isabella pulled out her wallet and flipped it open to a picture of Zeus. The long-suffering dog was dressed in the black Darth Vader costume and helmet Eric had bought him last Halloween. Isabella had snapped the picture in the thirty seconds before Zeus had shaken off the cape and hidden under the coffee table, refusing to come out.

“Here’s my dog.” Isabella gave her the wallet. “His name is Zeus.”

Thandiwe peered at the picture and grinned. “Darth Vader!”

That delighted little smile, all white teeth, dimples and sparkling brown eyes, stopped Isabella’s heart. “You—you know Darth Vader?”

Exasperated again, Thandiwe rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “
Everyone
knows Darth Vader.”

That was when Isabella
knew
and, judging from Eric’s surprised gasp from somewhere above her, he knew it, too. Raising her chin and blinking back her sudden tears, she looked up at him and he met her gaze with his mouth slightly open in astonishment and his heart in his eyes.

Afraid to reveal too much emotion to this poor little girl and, more than that, afraid to hope, Isabella swiped her eyes and struggled with her composure.

“Where’s your mommy, Thandy?” she asked.

“Than-di-we,”
said the girl matter-of-factly, now studying the rest of Isabella’s Zeus pictures with rapt interest. “Dead. She had the AIDS.”

This information was too much. Pressing a hand to her heart, which now threatened to burst, Isabella bent at the waist, sobbing and laughing but trying to do it discreetly lest Thandiwe think she was insane.

Eric reached down, grabbed Isabella by the shoulders, and pulled her into his arms, absorbing her shudders and kissing her cheek, over and over again.

The matron gaped at them.

Thandiwe paused in her picture review long enough to glance up at them with concern. “Barking mad,” she muttered.

Isabella and Eric stared at each other in perfect understanding, words unnecessary.

This was not what they had planned. In fact, they hadn’t planned anything at all beyond this honeymoon and enjoying each other’s company for a year or two. Isabella would travel with him, they’d decided, and they’d spend a lot of time in Hong Kong for business.

And then they’d think about children. Maybe surrogacy, maybe adoption. They’d talked about adopting an American child because charity begins at home, and they’d talked about a baby, an infant.

Now, seeing this sarcastic little girl who loved dogs and Darth Vader, all of that went out the window.

Holding on to Isabella for dear life, Eric backed her up a step and gestured to Mrs. Hobbs, who followed, looking wary. “Is she available for adoption?” he whispered.

Mrs. Hobbs’s jaw dropped in open horror. “Yes, but you don’t want
this
child. She’s nothing but mischief and trouble.”

Isabella and Eric exchanged another glance and laughed. They’d expected nothing less from any child of theirs.

“She’s perfect,” they said together and laughed again.

Turning, as one, they watched Thandiwe show the pictures
of Zeus to the yellow dog, who yawned with obvious boredom. And Isabella knew that, no matter what bureaucratic hoops the State Department and the South African government made them jump through, she and Eric had just met their first child, their daughter.

“Thandiwe,” she told Eric. “Our daughter’s name is Thandiwe.”

“Thandiwe,” he echoed, and pulled her into his arms as they watched the girl, their eyes filled with tears of joy.