Shameless (8 page)

As always, this part of love was easy for them. When they touched each other, they burst into flame. Each remembered exactly what to do to give the other the most pleasure. He made love to her as slowly as he could, considering that he felt a raging need and was about to burst.

How else could he show her how much he adored her except with his hands and lips? She arched into him with a fierce passionate response that thrilled him. She clung,
kissing his throat, his neck and his chest as he slowly rocked back and forth on top of her.

“Only you. Only you, Phillip,” she murmured. “Only you.”

“Seven years I wanted this,” he said. “Why did you wait so long to come back to me?”

“Why didn't you come after me?”

No way could he tell her about one of the times he'd run away from military school to see his mother. When he'd seen the cars at the house, he'd known she was having one of her parties. She'd been so beautiful in her white sparkly dress that he'd run into her arms. She hadn't even hugged him. She'd stared at the dark stains on her white dress and said, “Your hands are dirty. Why can't you ever remember not to touch Mommy with dirty hands?” Then she'd simply picked up the phone and called the commander of his military school.

“You were the one who left,” Phillip said to Celeste.

“But you didn't come…”

“I didn't know you wanted me to.”

“Well, I did.”

Oh, God— She kept saying that. Was it true? Did she want him? Had she wanted him even then…and…all this time he'd felt rejected?

Thrilled at these musings, he thrust into her deeply. Being inside her tight warmth was everything he'd remembered and more. She completed him as nothing else could.

Oh… This was where he belonged, inside her. He forced himself to move slowly. He wanted this to last, but she was in a hurry.

Clasping his waist, she hugged him hard. “Please…Now! Now! I can't wait!”

When it was over, they talked for hours.

 

The next morning Celeste opened her eyes and saw the golden sunlight streaming through the gauzy white curtains she'd hung in Phillip's bedroom. She was alone.

Mourning doves were cooing. Leaves were rustling outside. There were no traffic sounds. She smiled dreamily, hugging herself. The country quiet was so different from the neon glitter of Vegas.

Slowly after she woke up, she got up and raised the window and stuck her head out to breathe in the fresh warm air. Mission Creek wasn't so bad, not even for a girl who wanted to be a star. Not if she had Phillip.

Phillip had been so tender and sweet, so incredibly gentle, and this morning she felt like a woman deeply in love. The angst she'd felt when she'd lived with him before, her heart burning with the desire to be a star, was momentarily gone. Those past seven years had been filled with loneliness and disappointment. For now, last night with Phillip was enough. She felt a peace she'd never known before, a rightness, and a sense of belonging.

Where was he? She wanted him again. She could see her guitar where she'd left it propped outside against the back wall of the porch. It was funny. This morning she could stare at the guitar and feel nothing for it. All she wanted was Phillip to come into the bedroom and smile at her, to take her in his arms again. What did that mean?

The phone rang, jarring her out of her tranquil mood. She didn't answer it because she thought Phillip should answer it since most of the calls were for him. Even when it kept ringing, she let it. She didn't feel like talking to anybody. Then she giggled. Except maybe Phillip. He'd licked her all over. There were so many delicious things she wanted to do with him.

Finally, when the phone wouldn't stop ringing, she picked it up and said hello into the receiver.

“Baby!” Puff. Wheeze.

Alarm bells in her head went off like sirens in a fire station. “Johnny!” Cupping the phone, she lowered her voice. “You and I are through.”

“But…baby—”

She turned her back to the door. “Through!
Finito! ¡Terminado!
Do you understand?”

“We have a contract.”

“Tear it up! We are through! Do you un-der-stand? Through!”

“O-oh, no,” he groaned. She heard a terrible pounding on his end.

“Johnny! That sounds like wood splintering—”

“They're at the door!” Gasp. Puff. Puff. “Call you later.”

“Who's— No—don't dare call me here—”

“Catch you later, baby.” He hung up.

“Johnny—” When he didn't answer she shook the phone.

Another voice said, “This is Nero. Remember me?”

She began to shake.

“You can't hide,” Nero said.

“You'd better not show up here! You'd better not!” She slammed the phone down.

Oh, dear. She had to tell Phillip about this. But how could she tell Phillip? She began to pace. Phillip didn't understand about Johnny. He was jealous and hurt because Johnny had picked her up and driven her to Vegas. Would he believe her if she told him the truth? He was a Marine. Honor mattered to him.

Oh, why hadn't she been smarter? Johnny had been a disaster from start to finish. She'd been an idiot not to
dump him long before now. But he'd fed her promises that had kept her dream alive.

Would Johnny tell the loan sharks where she was? Could they trace her by hitting Redial or something? Her heart plummeted. Yes, Johnny would tell. Yes, they could hit Redial. Nero had sounded pretty determined. If Johnny didn't come up with the money, there was no telling what he and The Pope would do.

She had to tell Phillip. He wanted to know why she'd left Vegas. She had to tell him. But he was so stolid and strong. He believed in lists and rules, in living by the book. He wouldn't approve of Johnny and his awful loan sharks. He wouldn't approve of Harry's, either, or of her working there.

In a scared little voice she began to sing, “Johnny, be good.” And soon as she did, she felt stronger, strong enough to put Johnny's call and Nero's threat out of her mind.

Phillip's truck roared up in the drive. She had to put on something beautiful. Phillip was home. Phillip—

No sooner had she slipped into a pink cotton dress than the front door banged.

“I'm home,” Phillip yelled.

“In here,” she cried, tearing the dress off.

He stomped down the hall and opened the door. The pink dress lay over a chair.

“Oh, my. Still in bed?”

She fluffed her hair. “Worn out. You're too good a lover.”

“Now that's a complaint a man doesn't mind hearing.”

When he sat beside her, she kissed him.

“Hot kiss! Lots of tongue! What's that all about?”

She grinned. “Just checking to see if you're in the mood.”

He stripped off his shirt. His boots hit the floor with two loud clunks.

“Looks like you're in the mood—”

“Always with you,” he said.

C
eleste stretched lazily, curling her body against Phillip's. Oh, dear…. She felt limp and happy, completely without a care or a fear. Phillip was as hot as a furnace. Enveloped in his masculine warmth, she felt as if she was sinking into a delicious sensual spell.

“Mmm… I want to stay like this forever.”

“Can I shut the windows yet?” Phillip asked, kicking at the sheet with his foot. “It's hotter than the shades of Hades.”

“Poor baby,” Celeste cooed without the least bit of sympathy as she twisted around playfully and dropped her gaze to the mat of black hair on his wide chest. He had the air conditioner on and she had the window open.

“Or at least turn on a fan?” he grumbled.

It was way after midnight. Awash in moonbeams, the lovers lay awake in a tangle of sheets. Wrapped in each
other's arms they were satiated from lovemaking. Or at least Celeste was.

“But the fan makes so much noise we won't be able to hear the cicadas.”

“The air in here is as thick and warm as hot jelly.”

Phillip was exaggerating. He had the air-conditioning going full blast.

“Jelly. Yummy.”

He mopped a hand across his perspiring brow.

“The window being cracked is not why you're so hot, lover buver, and you know it,” she teased. “We're like a pair of spent noodles.”

“Straight out of the boiling pot.”

“I have no complaints.” She stroked her hand through the thick matted hair of his chest, down his waist.

He laughed when she circled him down there, and the deep rumble rippled through her and made her nestle against his hot, muscular body.

“Woman, look what you did to my clam digger. It's pretty pitiful.”

“What?”

He lay back on the pillow and crossed his arms under his dark head. “It's the punch line in a corny joke about a boy and girl who get shipwrecked on a deserted island. It makes the rounds every time my Marine buddies get together for beers at the Lone Star Country Club or The Saddlebag. On the third or fourth beer Mercado always has to tell it. You wouldn't appreciate it.”

“Try me.”

“I feel like we've been in bed a week,” he said, changing the subject.

“Almost.”

He frowned. “The chores are damn sure piling up.
We're running low on feed and I need to break in that new saddle and those chaps.”

“Hey…hey. You talk too much.”

“Hell, I was going to hitch a plow to my bulldozer and clear the mesquite out of the north pasture.”

“That'll wait.”

He groaned. “Maybe if it had rained, I'd agree. I've got a bunch of barely weaned calves that need to eat.”

“Six days,” she corrected softly, her mind still on their sexual marathon. “Not a whole week.”

“And six nights. Give a guy credit for the nights.”

“You're really something,” she murmured. “And number six isn't over yet.”

“Yeah, it is. I'm thinking about all those hungry calves and the unrecoverable feed costs plus the extra pasture leases—”

“Quit thinking about them, then.” She smiled, her heart full of love. “We did this stay-in-bed-a-week, devour-each-other's-bodies routine when we fell in love the first time,” she mused dreamily. “Is it love at second sight this time all over again?”

He rolled over. “If it isn't, it's a damn good substitute.”

She thought of Vegas, of Johnny and the loan sharks after them both. Terror had driven her back to Phillip. But something else might keep her here. Despite the dead cow and Johnny's call, she felt so safe, so beloved, lying here beside him. It was as if a missing piece of her life had fallen into place.

“But tomorrow, we're getting up…early,” Phillip said. “We're going to behave ourselves, act like mature adults and go back to work…feed those calves….”

“Oh, dear. End of honeymoon.”

“You're going to clean house and I'm going to pay those bills on the spindle.”

“At 0600—sharp?” She saluted. Or rather, she tried. It was an impossible maneuver since she was lying in bed so close to him.

He laughed and pulled her tighter against his chest. “You can sleep as late as you like. Hey, did I tell you that there's a dance tomorrow night at the Lone Star Country Club?”

She remembered what that waitress, Mabel, had said about his girlfriends at the club. “I—I don't fit in there. I—I don't have anything to wear. Anything elegant I mean.”

“We'll have to get you something, then.”

She'd been dreading something like this. What if she got out and somebody recognized her as Stella Lamour? She remembered Nero's voice on the phone and shuddered. What if word somehow got back to Nero and The Pope? What if they had spies in the neighborhood and figured out where she was and came after her?

“I really wouldn't fit in,” she said.

“Of course you fit in, and I'd really like to take you,” Phillip persisted.

“I'd rather go for a seventh night in bed.”

“We can do that after we get back from the dance. Celeste, I really do want to celebrate our getting back together formally…with my friends.”

“Isn't that what we've been doing?” she whispered. “Celebrating?”

“I don't feel too formal when we're both naked.”

She laughed.

“You still have doubts, don't you?” he whispered.

“I—I know we're great in bed. That part's like a fairy tale. But what about all the rest of it?” She sighed. “Do
you really think such a fairy-tale relationship can last out there in the real world?”

“I want it to. Maybe all we both have to do is decide that's what we want and work at it.”

“But— A girl like me…and a guy like you…” Pain swelled in her chest. “You come from a wealthy family. I have no family.”

“You have me.”

“But—”

“One day at a time. You tell me what's in your heart, what you really want, and I'll try to be there for you.”

Would he? What about her dreams of being a star? Why did taking their relationship to another level scare her so much? What was she so afraid of?

“I've lost everybody I ever loved,” she blurted.

He traced his lips across her brow. “Me, too. Only I never loved anybody the way I love you.”

“I don't want to hurt you.”

“Celeste, a drill sergeant in the Marines once told me I could be anything I wanted to be. The strange thing was, I believed him, and it's made all the difference in my life.” He toyed with a tendril of her hair. “So—I'll give you the same advice, believe in yourself. I damn sure do.”

“You're supposed to settle down with a churchgoing girl.”

“I thought that was a dumb idea even before you came home.”

“Home,” she whispered.

She lifted her head off the pillow and gazed down at him, unconsciously memorizing the way he looked, all sweaty and hot and virile and sexy after their lovemaking.

Home? Was she the one for him? Was he the only
man for her? If so, why was she so afraid? There was so much she hadn't come to terms with—her little-girl dreams, her big-girl dreams, the bad men chasing her and the horrible fact that by staying with Phillip and not telling him about Nero and The Pope she might be deliberately putting him in danger.

She closed her eyes and swallowed the hard lump in her throat. Going out together socially to the Lone Star Country Club would make it seem as though they were a real couple, an ordinary couple. Were they? Was it really that simple? Was she ready for that?

“All the guys will be there,” he said, his deep voice hopeful.

“You mean, your Marine buddies?”

“Ricky Mercado and his brother-in-law, Luke…and several of the men who served under my command in the 14th unit.”

“I remember Ricky. Talk, dark and handsome—right?”

“Tall, dark…”

“Cute.”

“Believe me, he's as anxious as you to renew the acquaintance as you are. Did you two—”

“I was just teasing you. I don't know, Phillip. It seems awful soon to face your friends. We'll have to explain what I'm doing here.”

“Well, think about it. I'm proud of you. I want to show you off to the guys and make them jealous as hell.” He slid his hand under her nape and stroked the back of her neck with his thumb. “I'm serious, very serious about our relationship.”

Her heart swelled. “Oh, Phillip.” She felt warmth seep through her being at his stirring words. “But what
if somebody recognizes me as Stella…” She shuddered. “That could ruin—”

“They won't,” he said gruffly. “And if they do, I'm proud of your CD, proud of the way you worked so hard to make your dream come true.”

Her heart missed a beat.
You don't know about Nero and The Pope!

“You are?” she whispered.

“Damn proud.”

You wouldn't be if you knew that the only reason I came here was to use you as a human shield to protect me from two killers.

She remembered the dead cow and the note. Just thinking about why she'd come here made her feel so selfish and so cowardly. He was being so sweet to her.

She bit down on her lower lip. She was using him. She owed him the truth. But the truth might spoil their fragile happiness, and she'd had so little happiness.

“Okay, I'll go, Phillip.”

Relief seemed to flow through him as he relaxed and kissed her brow. “Can I turn on the fan now?”

She nodded. He got up and shut the windows and turned on the fan. Then he came back to bed and pulled her close. He was instantly asleep, but she lay in the dark, utterly bewildered, wondering what she should do.

This past week had been pure magic. His every rough and tender kiss had stolen her breath away, stolen her heart, too.

She loved him.

She hadn't wanted to fall in love again, and she didn't want to damage their new relationship by telling him that she was involved in any way with a pair of hoodlums like The Pope and Nero. And if they tracked her here, how would she ever convince him that Johnny had
lied about her to the loan sharks, that she'd done nothing wrong?

Nothing except run to Phillip and endanger him and maybe his livestock because she'd been scared out of her wits

Phillip had said he was proud of her. Oh, how wonderful his saying that had made her feel. She wasn't ready to jeopardize Phillip's good opinion of her. Not yet. Their relationship was too new and fragile and precious.

 

“Do you want to dance?” Phillip whispered in Celeste's ear.

“Oh, yes!” She set her purse on the table. Anything to escape the escalating tension at their table. Her own nerves had started skittering at her first sight of the four-story clubhouse and its rolling lawns.

“Excuse us, gentlemen,” Phillip said as he helped Celeste out of her chair.

She smiled at his friends brightly, maybe too brightly—her star-wattage smile. When every man in the room turned to admire her, Phillip swore under his breath.

“Do you have to be so damned sexy?”

She threw her head back and laughed.

“Minx,” he said in an awed whisper.

She'd dressed up in a slinky red dress that hugged every curve. She'd put on lots of makeup and fixed her hair because she was so afraid of all the beautiful women Phillip had dated at the club.

She gripped his arm as he led her across the elegant room to the dance floor.

“Relax. You're the most beautiful woman here and the only one for me.”

“Really?”

“Really, damn it.”

“Is my dress too loud?”

“You look sensational.”

She hated being so insecure. She wanted and needed him to say things like that over and over.

Lavish bouquets of long-stemmed roses of all colors decorated the tables of the Lone Star Country Club dining room. Celeste and Phillip had a candlelit table in a corner with Phillip's handsome friends from the 14th unit—Flynt Carson, the local millionaire rancher, Spence Harrison, the former D.A., Tyler Murdoch, a bomb expert, and Luke Callaghan, Ricky's brother-in-law.

Luke was wearing dark glasses because he'd been blinded by scrap metal in a mission and was only just now recovering his vision. Like Phillip, Luke trusted Ricky completely, despite the rest of the gang's doubts.

Unlike her, Phillip seemed so relaxed and at ease in his country club with his successful friends. Celeste knew he wasn't an extremely wealthy man, but he had his Marine retirement and he'd inherited. Compared to her, he was very comfortable financially.

Some of the guys were married and settled now, but this weekend their wives were away in San Antonio shopping. Ricky Mercado, the black sheep of the bunch because his family had Mafia connections, had come in late and was now slouching at the far end of the table. He'd had too many beers and his attitude was that of a sulky jungle cat. Phillip believed Ricky had gone straight, but Mercado was ready to pounce at any remark or glance the other guys made that he didn't like. Not that his attitude slowed his former guys down much.

Even though Phillip and Celeste were sitting between Mercado and the rest of the men, thereby bodily sepa
rating them, and Luke, Ricky's brother-in-law, had been hard at work to defuse the situation, the other guys knew what to say and do to irritate Mercado. Thus, Ricky's mood had worsened with each beer.

Not that Phillip seemed upset by Mercado's glowering face. Celeste, however, had wanted everybody to be happy. She'd begun feeling nervous when Mercado had started telling a story about Phillip putting his life in danger by charging three snipers. She hadn't wanted to hear about Phillip's near-death experiences so she was glad Phillip had put his hand on her waist, glad he'd led her to the dance floor.

“Quit twisting that ring ‘round and round' your finger. Didn't I tell you, you're stunning?” Phillip whispered when they reached the dance floor. “Didn't all the guys say you were beautiful? Too damn many times? Even Mercado?”