Authors: Cathie Linz

Wildfire (21 page)

BOOK: Wildfire

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His chuckle gave her a warm sense of accomplishment and the courage to say, “You’re a lover who happens to be a cop, not the other way around.”

“After the trauma you’ve been through today, I think you might need
a friend more than a lover tonight.” His eyes regarded her with tender concern.

“Don’t you want to stay?” she whispered.

“Of course I want to stay,” Brady growled. “If I don’t kiss you soon, I think I’ll go crazy!” His voice regained its serious note as he continued. “But I don’t want to make love to you again until you’re sure. I can wait.”

“I am sure and I can’t wait.” Her words were a soft invocation to stay. “Life’s too short for waiting. Helen’s attack made me realize that.”

Still Brady held back, cautiously questioning, “Are you sure that what you’re experiencing isn’t a natural fear of mortality?”

“No, this isn’t fear. It’s rejoicing. I want to rejoice in you.”

The shining certainty of her voice left him in no doubt. “And I want to rejoice in you,” was his husky reply.

No more words were spoken until they were upstairs, secluded in the peaceful surroundings of Amanda’s bedroom. With the closing of the door came the lowering of their last defenses. They reached out for each other with fervent desperation. So strong was their need that it couldn’t be expressed with words; it could only be conveyed through a tight embrace.

In an attempt to ease the intense emotional build-up, Brady said, “What do you call this thing you’re wearing?”

“A hostess gown,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“It looks good on you. But I think it would look even better off of you.”

Amanda had no time to ponder on how much she’d missed hearing that teasing inflection in his voice, for Brady had undone her gown’s only means of support and it accommodatingly slid to the floor. Her newly bathed skin glowed in the muted light cast by her single bedside lamp. Brady touched her with his eyes, the visual radiance of his gaze igniting whirlwinds of fire that danced across her bare skin.

His arms gathered her in, the softness of her breasts evocatively brushing against the worn cotton of his shirt. His denim-clad thighs were firm, his elevated desire unmistakable. Amanda leaned into him, her body wantonly adjusting itself to his taut masculine contours. His riffling fingers left their warm imprint in her hair as he wove them through it, his thumb seductively soothing the pulse beating at her temples.

When his head lowered for a kiss, Amanda was more than ready to meet him halfway. The kiss was a union of lips—blending, shaping, touching, tasting, the hunger all-consuming. The coiled intimacy of their tongues was a promising foretaste of things to come.

She felt no embarrassment at the fact that she was nude while Brady was still fully dressed. Opening her eyes, she gazed at his face. It was etched with emotion, his eyes burning with a raging desire
.

Moments later an equally unencumbered Brady took her to bed. They slipped under the damask-covered comforter, the air suddenly chilly on their bare skin. They quickly built up a hollow of warmth. Unlike the last time they’d made love, there was no extended prelude. Their emotions ran too high and too deep for that. Instead there was a concentrated dedication that bordered on reverence.

Like the hands of a master sculptor bringing his creation to life, Brady’s adoring fingers stroked every inch of her, leaving Amanda with an undeniable need to have them rest on the one spot that was aching with desire. She soon thought that she could bear the tension no longer and her body twisted against his in search of some kind of satisfaction. Successive, erotically intimate caresses were accompanied by increasing rushes of excitement until the need for fulfillment overcame the sweet anticipation. Her body moved in unison with his until that building tension exploded into recurrent waves of pulsating rhythm. Reality was suspended by an immeasurable exultation as Amanda was propelled into a realm of unsurpassed pleasure.

It wasn’t the physical satisfaction alone that brought tears of joy to her eyes. It was the intimacy—the feeling of being close, of being needed, of being loved, of being alive, that she’d craved. Brady’s soft kiss to the tip of her nose gave the final passages of their merging an unutterable tenderness, the likes of which she’d never experienced before.

Several hours later Amanda awoke from an almost drugged sleep to the feel of feather-light kisses drifting across the gentle slope of her shoulder. She was curled up on her side, a radiant heat warming her back. That energy source was Brady. Lingering in the dream world between waking and sleeping, the events of last night were savored. Her shoulder rose, seemingly of its own accord, as if her flesh were already fully awake to the pleasure his caress was supplying and wanted more.

Brady was certainly willing to oblige. The same captivating kisses were bestowed along her neck, his fingers threading through the honeyed cloud of her hair to lift it out of his way. When the lobe of her ear was pillaged with nibbling bites, Amanda turned onto her back, offering him her parted lips. Brady groaned and gathered her close for another pilgrimage to satisfaction and bliss.

The next time Amanda opened her eyes it was to find Brady still sleeping. She carefully levered herself onto an elbow to study his peaceful features. She loved watching him, noting every quirk until she’d collected what amounted to a running catalog.

Amanda began mentally listing the things she loved about Brady. Odd things came to mind, like the way his hair tumbled over his collar, when he was wearing one. She loved his smile and the way the laugh lines at the corners of his mouth matched those at the corners of his eyes. She loved him on the rare occasions when he was embarrassed, tugging on his hair or scratching one ear. She loved the infinite range of his voice, the way he made the order “come here” sound like “comemirror.” She loved the expressiveness of his looks, the way his eyes widened with boyish humor or teasing kindness.

Then, under a separate heading, was the way he made love: the emotional variety of his kisses, the integral sensitivity of his touch, the fiery finesse of their physical merging. But Brady wasn’t just sexy, he was also “snuggable,” a man who could inspire both excitement and contentment. A man she would love to spend the rest of her life with.

Amanda kept her plans to herself until after breakfast. Brady had phoned the hospital again to check on Helen’s condition, which was improving, and had now joined Amanda at the food-laden kitchen table. He devoured the meal with unconcealed relish, helping himself to seconds.

“Would you pass the toast?” he requested, sliding another rasher of bacon and scrambled eggs onto his plate.

Amanda handed it to him, watching him butter a slice. “Would you marry me?”

Brady slowly lifted his head. “What did you say?” he asked in a hushed voice.

Observing his shaken expression, she repeated, “Would you marry me?”

Brady looked absolutely overcome, which didn’t improve her nerves any. “What changed your mind about marriage?” he finally asked.

“You did. Your love did. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and it seems ridiculous to be afraid of a piece of paper.”

“Is that all marriage is to you, a piece of paper?”

“Brady, if I didn’t take marriage seriously, I wouldn’t have been afraid of it all these years.”

He granted her that point. “You’re not afraid anymore?”

“I’m afraid you’re never going to answer my question,” she burst out in anxious exasperation.

She was too nervous to note the telltale gleam in his eyes. “I don’t know,” he debated. “Do you think we have enough in common? You’re well-educated, with a string of degrees, while I’m—”

“One of the most intelligent men I know,” she interrupted him. “And we do have a lot in common…unless you lied when you said you loved me?”

His grin gave him away. “You know better than that.”

“You argued with me deliberately, didn’t you.” It was an accusation, not a question.

“I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into.”

“Oh, I know, all right,” she assured him, her slanting look promising retribution. “I may not have before, but I do now.”

“In that case the answer is yes!” Brady stood to tug her out of her chair. In a melodramatic gesture reminiscent of
Gone
With
the Wind,
he swept her off her feet and into his arms. Amanda was carried out of the kitchen and through the hall, but halfway up the stairway Brady paused, pivoting to plunk down on the sixth step.

“What’s wrong?” she asked from her vantage point atop his knees.

“Rest stop,” he gasped in an exaggerated manner.

“Rhett Butler didn’t have to rest, and he carried Scarlet up a flight of stairs twice this high.”

“Ah, but he hadn’t just eaten a huge breakfast and then been proposed to.”

“That’s why I ordered a younger model,” Amanda impishly replied. Perched as she was on Brady’s lap, she was several inches taller than he and it gave her a rush of power. But her regal sovereignty dissolved when he deliberately blew in her ear, setting her off in a fit of giggles.

“I don’t think the stairs are a suitable site for a seduction scene,” she chortled.

He laughed at her abundance of s’s. “Is that supposed to be a tongue twister?”

“Last one in bed has to do the breakfast dishes,” Amanda shrieked, leaping off his lap and up the stairs before Brady could make a move to stop her.

Not that he wanted to. He had the same destination in mind himself.

“I think it’s a tie,” she gasped as they simultaneously collapsed on the bed. “What do you think?”

Brady’s attention was distracted by her heaving breasts, their rapid rise and fall inciting his passion. “I think we should get in some more practice before our honeymoon,” was his husky suggestion. “To make sure we get it right.”

“And left.”

“Oh, I’ll cover all the angles,” he assured her, removing her robe.

“I never doubted it for a minute.” The dusky tips of her breasts impudently teased his bare chest. Her hands, intimately resting on his hips, registered his involuntary shudder at the heated magic of her touch. Amanda smiled mischievously. “Where would you like to go for our honeymoon?”

“To bed!” Brady growled.

Amanda teasingly held him at bay. “Where?”

“How about the Alps?” he delighted her by suggesting. “I could show you Garmisch.”

Undoing the snap on his jeans, she purred, “You could show me a lot of things, Detective Gallagher.”

He spent the rest of the day doing just that!

THE END

About Cathie Linz

Cathie Linz is an award-winning,
USA Today
bestselling author of contemporary romances. Since leaving her career in a university law library, she has had over fifty romances published worldwide in nearly twenty languages.
The Chicago Sun-Times
describes her work as “charming,” while
Library Journal
describes her books as “Hilarious and heartwarming.” Cathie writes fast-paced, character-driven romances with lots of humor and dialogue.

Visit Cathie

on
the web at
http://www.CathieLinz.com

on
Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/CathieLinz

on
Twitter
http://twitter.com/@cathielinz

More Books by Cathie Linz

Published by Berkley:

Tempted Again

Luck be a Lady

Mad, Bad and Blonde

Smart Girls Think Twice

Big Girls Don’t Cry

Bad Girls Don’t