The Daddy Decision (14 page)

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Authors: Donna Sterling

BOOK: The Daddy Decision
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Her lips parted, her breathing deepened, and she opened her eyes. They'd grown sultry and dark with temptation. “But what if we go too far?”
He wove his fingers through the thick, silky locks at her nape. His other hand moved irresistibly to the sharp curve of her waist. “Have I ever lied to you? About anything?”
“No.”
“Then trust me now.”
She stared at him with such blazing uncertainty that he couldn't take the pressure building up within him. Gently he let go of her, pivoted and strode toward the back of the house.
Would she follow him?
Would she?
He pushed through the door of the sunporch, crossed the softly lit garden through a glassed-in walkway and unlocked the door to the pool house. If she didn't join him, he'd probably spend the whole damn night swimming laps.
He switched on the lights and adjusted them to fit his mood. Then with brisk, efficient moves, he stripped off his clothes, dropped them onto a cushioned lounge chair and dived into the heated, oblong pool. When he broke the surface, he shook the water from his eyes and turned toward the door, his body tense with the hope that she'd be there.
She wasn't.
He channeled the fierce thrum of disappointment into long, hard strokes through the water, fixing his attention on the physical effort rather than the tumultuous need storming through him. He swam lap after lap.
If it hadn't been for the slight wave of light that glistened and moved across the water, he might not have lifted his head. He might not have realized that the door had opened.
She stood there, just inside the room—silent, hesitant and so damn beautiful he could barely breathe.
Their gazes locked. He tried to force welcoming words through his constricted throat, but they got lost along the way. His muscles tensed. His body hardened into a stiff, aching arousal.
And she hadn't even taken off her clothes yet.
7
L
AURA'S HEART JOCKEYED wildly about in her chest as she stood stone-still near the doorway, hugging the fluffy burgundy towels she'd brought from the nearest bathroom. Cort, too, had ceased all visible movement, having broken off his smooth, long arm strokes at the sight of her.
His eyes looked more black than midnight-blue; his wet skin darkly golden; his jet hair glossy, slicked back and dripping rivulets onto his wide, muscular shoulders.
How she wanted to taste his kiss again! To feel his hands and mouth on her. To fan his banked heat into a raging inferno. Was she wrong to act on that desire?
Intercourse won't enter into it
, he'd promised. She had no doubt he'd see to that. As much as he'd hurt her in the past, she knew she could trust his word.
We′ll just...play.
Heat flushed through her, along with trepidation. She hadn't “just played” in any sexual way for years. She felt woefully unprepared.
All the more reason to go for it
.
Laura chose to ignore the objections that surfaced in the rational part of her mind as she ventured farther into the spacious, Italian-tiled room. The turquoise water in the oblong pool glistened invitingly, illuminated from within and above by softly dimmed lights. Potted tropical trees and plants thrived on all sides, interspersed with cushioned lounge chairs and small glass tables. A verdant,
woodsy fragrance mingled with the steamy scent of chlorine, making her slightly high.
Or maybe it was the blood racing to her head that was causing the high. She'd almost forgotten this intoxicating rush, although she'd thrilled to it every time he'd lured her to his bed.
She had to face facts if she wanted to survive her time at Cort's house: she couldn't master this overwhelming desire simply by keeping her distance. The hours he'd stayed away had only induced greater longing, which interfered with her work. And the prospect of spending the evening beneath his roof yet apart from him seemed torturous.
Running from the desire clearly wasn't the answer. The only other option was to give in to it. To revisit the heat between Cort and her, which had taken on mythical proportions in her mind. Perhaps a dose of reality would put it into proper perspective. This time she would face the heat as an experienced woman instead of an impressionable, virginal, starry-eyed girl.
She dropped the towels onto a chaise lounge. His clothes, she noticed, had been tossed there, too.
All
the clothes he'd been wearing. Which meant he was naked.
And waiting for her.
Her pulse drummed a crazy staccato. Her temperature leaped. She had to undress. Nervously she reached to unbutton the sleeve of her blouse. His rapt gaze followed the movement of her hand, and the tension within her escalated. He hadn't said a word to her yet. He'd merely stared. Could she do this? Could she strip
completely bare
with Cort watching?
Straightening her spine, she forced her fingers back into action, fumbling with the buttons on her sleeves until one cuff fell open, then the other. That hadn't been so hard, had it?
She slid her blouse out from the waistband of her jeans and lifted her hands to the top button near her collar. And paused.
She'd been eighteen the last time he'd seen her undressed. She was now thirty-three. Friends had told her that she'd lost too much weight She certainly wasn't as voluptuous. And though she worked out fairly frequently, she couldn't be as toned as he might remember. Her stomach clenched with anxiety. Would he be disappointed?
“Take your clothes off, Laura.” His low, gruff voice eachoed from across the water.
Her entire body warmed; her face flushed. She'd never suffered this kind of self-consciousness before. With other men, she hadn't felt the need to look like her teenage self. With Cort, she fervently wished she did. He'd worshiped her young body with such devout passion. She couldn't bear to see his interest, his desire, cool into indifference.
But he had to have noticed already that her body had changed. He'd felt her through the fabric of her dress. He'd seen her legs and hips sheathed in the sheerest of panty hose. He hadn't seemed disappointed then.
With her fingers poised at the top button, she caught her lip between her teeth, hesitated, then murmured, “You understand that I′ve...I′ve changed.” She swallowed against a sudden dryness. “I′m not eighteen anymore.”
His eyebrows gathered, his eyes narrowed. He replied in the softest of voices, “And I don't
want
an eighteen-year-old anymore.”
Her face warmed with embarrassment at the topic they were discussing, and she glanced away. “I mean, it's been fifteen years since I've undressed in front of you, and um, I've lost weight And I have a mark. Right here,” she specified nervously, running her fingertip across her bluejeaned
hip. “From a burn. Hot coffee, eight years ago. It wasn't all that bad, but you can still see where—”
“Quit stalling, Laura.” The gentleness of his voice didn't mask his rising impatience. “Nothing you can say is going to stop me from wanting you here, in the pool. With me.
Naked.″
A wrenching need to comply with that directive flared within her. Holding her breath, she looked down at the small opal buttons of her blouse and worked them through the holes with clumsy fingers. Her pulse rushed in her ears, her head spun, but she unfastened every last button. She parted the edges of her blouse, and the warm, moist air billowed against her chest.
She tried not to focus on the fact that the front of her bra was fully exposed to his view, and that her cup size was now an unremarkable “B” instead of a lavishly full “C.” Afraid to see his reaction, she kept her eyes on her task while she pulled the white cotton blouse halfway off.
He'd moved closer, she sensed. She braved a glance and saw that he stood waist-high in the pool near her, the ebony curls of his powerful chest glistening with water droplets, his jaw squared and hard. His gaze lingered on the swell of her breasts above the bra. “Keep going,” he rasped.
Wicked heat sluiced through her veins. She recognized the dazed intensity of those midnight-dark eyes, the gruff determination of that tone. She allowed the blouse to slip down her arms and drift to the floor.
Cort felt his mouth go dry. He drank in the sight of her gently rounded cleavage; her nipples straining against the satiny white bra; the long, sleek curve of her torso tapering to an incredibly narrow waist. She tipped her head down, and her luxuriant blond hair spilled forward, hiding her breasts from him again.
She unsnapped her jeans. And lowered the zipper. A glimpse of lace-trimmed white satin mercilessly teased him. With a provocative wriggle, she pushed the tight jeans down her hips; down her long, bare, curvaceous legs. The faded denim pooled at her feet, and she stepped out of it.
She stood in only a glossy white bra and minuscule panties cut high at the hips, her lustrous hair frothing about her slender shoulders.
His blood pounded hot and fierce. She'd been ravishing as a girl—the epitome of beauty to the boy he'd been. But now she was a woman—slender, vibrant, golden and smooth. intrinsically feminine. The epitome of beauty to the man he'd become.
Bewilderment mingled with his desire. Why had she been so unsure of herself? He frowned and studied her face, “You have to know how damn beautiful your body is...don't you, Laura?”
She stared mutely at him, as if searching his eyes for a reason to doubt.
She really hadn't known.
But how could a woman like her live for thirty-three years and not know that any man would find her body irresistibly gorgeous? What kind of fools had she been with? Or...had she not let anyone close enough to show how he felt about her naked body?
That question provoked too many strong, conflicting emotions and reminded him of things Tamika and Steffie had said. Something about Laura avoiding serious heat Ending relationships when they got too hot.
Too hot
.
The changing quality of her stare derailed him from that train of thought. Her hesitancy had waned, he noticed, and a warm, beguiling tenderness slowly dawned in its place.
“Do you know how damn beautiful
you
are, Cort Dimitri? ”
Something fine and bright ignited a desire subtly different from the one that burned in his loins. He wanted to be the one, the
only
one, to show her just how much her beauty affected the male of the species, and how that beauty went far beyond the reach of time or scars. “Take off the rest of your clothes.” His voice had diminished into a low rasp.
She hesitated for only a moment, then slid the bra straps down her arms. And unhooked the front clasp. Tossed the bra aside.
Hunger sliced through him, and for a wild, blazing moment, he wondered if he could do mis—see her, touch her, hold her, and keep himself under control.
He would have to.
She slipped her fingers into the side lace of her panties. And paused again. “You did say we're just going to...to play, didn't you?”
His gaze traveled up her body in slow, tortured increments, past the elegant curve of her lean hips and the jaunty tilt of her high, firm breasts. When he reached her eyes, he saw that her shyness had given way to rational worry. But behind the worry burned a strikingly familiar longing, the kind that had always ignited whenever they'd begun doffing clothes.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Just play.”
She nervously fingered the lace edges of her panties. “Then I...I don't really have to take these off.”
The impulse struck him to climb out of the water and peel the provocative little panties down her endless legs, then run his hands over every lush, silken curve, into every valley, every cleft. “Yes, you have to take them off.”
He fought to tamp down the urgency in his tone. “They'll get in my way.”
Her lips parted. Her breasts rose and fell in a deeper, harder rhythm. She slid the panties down to her slim ankles and kicked the wispy satin aside.
He couldn't have been more aroused if she'd physically caressed him.
In a feverish haze, he watched her walk with her usual sensuous grace to the wide, rounded steps at the end of the pooL She was entirely naked, her skin smooth and inviting, the curls between her sleek thighs a richer, darker shade of honey than he remembered.
She was so heartbreakingly beautiful, it hurt to look at her. But he would die before he'd as much as glance away.
She descended the steps into the pool, her hand on the chrome rail, her gaze on him. The water swirled around her ankles. Then lapped at her calves. Her knees. Her waist.
Cort struggled to keep from lunging for her.
“It's heated,” she murmured, a mere half-dozen arm strokes away from him. “I wasn't expecting that.”
It took a moment for him to realize she meant the pool. If it weren't heated, he mused, his body temperature alone would have done the trick. The water seemed to simmer and steam around him.
She submerged herself to her breasts and glided closer. Her dusky, tea-rose nipples, a shade darker than her lips, crested through the water. The ends of her hair dipped, swirled and wafted around her.
He sank to his shoulders and drifted toward her.
She drew back, hesitant again. “Cort, I know you said we're just going to play, but...” she searched for words “...I'm not sure what you expect.” Self-doubt shadowed
her wide brown eyes and weakened her voice. “I...I haven't done anything like this for a very, very long time.”
Though he knew he should be as concerned as her friends had been that she'd avoided intimacy, Cort felt nothing close to concern. An obstinate gladness gripped him by the throat, nearly robbing him of breath. “Do you think that fact could possibly do anything but thrill me?”
Their gazes shifted and danced with a new intensity. And he admitted to himself that what he had in mind wasn't “playing” at all. He wanted her. Desperately. And he was dead serious about it.
He lurched backward into the water, away from her, and propelled himself to the far end of the pool. Reaching beneath the diving board, he grasped the remote-control switch. With a few flicks of his thumb, the lights beneath the water and directly overhead turned off, leaving only a few silvery rays of illumination to glimmer across the surface of the pool.
“Cort?” Laura called, undoubtedly surprised by the sudden darkness.
He didn't answer. Silently he slid into the water—the dark, concealing water—and wended his way along the bottom toward her.
Let the games begin.
 
SHE HADN'T EXPECTED the lights to go out. The few left burning cast a dreamlike haze, like dappled moonlight glimmering off the water in some tropical lagoon. The water itself, warm as a Caribbean night against her naked skin, had gone dark and opaque.
And with a swish and ripple, Cort had vanished underwater.

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