He looked again. The leather sofa and armchair had clean, modern lines. The space was decorated in deep chocolate browns, smooth creams and cool, pale blues. It felt as much like home as anywhere he’d lived in the past decade. Which was to say, it was pleasant, but he was no more attached to it than to the hotel room he regularly stayed in at the Windsor Arms in Toronto.
“No, it’s more than just a room. This is where you live.” She swept the room with a gesture. “It suits you. It’s restrained. Comfortable, but not fussy. I knew the big house—” she nodded in that direction “—wasn’t you at all. It’s too…”
When her words trailed off, he offered, “Garish.”
Her lips twitched slightly. “I was going to say it’s too comfortable with its wealth. You never seem at ease there.”
He wasn’t. But it annoyed him that she saw through him so completely.
“You’re stalling,” he pointed out. “There was something you wanted to talk about.”
Instantly tension sprang into her body and he regretted changing the subject.
“I did.” She turned away from him and paced to the far side of the room.
He watched as she put her purse down on the sofa and then picked it up again. Then put it down again. When she turned to face him again, her palm was pressed to her belly as if to quell her nerves.
“The thing is—” she broke off, sucked in a deep breath and started again. “Here’s the thing. I’m not exactly who you think I am.”
“I know.”
Fourteen
“Y ou do?” Her gaze darted to his.
He crossed to her side and took her shaking hands in his.“You haven’t hid it very well.” Confusion lit her face. “Oh, you had me fooled at first. You seemed so practical. So down to earth. But that’s not who you are. Not deep down inside.”
Her frown deepened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He brought his hand up to cup her face. The skin of her cheek was impossibly soft. Her lips were parted and dampened from her nervous licking. Her gaze softened. For a moment, the role he was playing faded into the background. The practiced seduction slid aside and in its place was some emotion he could barely name, let alone understand.
“You pretend to be so tough, but that’s not who you are deep inside. You’re a romantic. I didn’t see that at first. But I do now.”
She ripped her hands away from his, turning her face aside. “This isn’t about me being a romantic.”
“Of course it is. Last night when I proposed I did it all wrong. I didn’t know you wanted a grand gesture.”
She rolled her eyes. “Trust me. Unrolling about a million dollars worth of diamonds was grand enough. If I could have said yes, I’m sure I would have.”
“Okay. The diamonds were grand, but they were impersonal. You wanted more.” The role she needed him to play was coming more easily now.
When he handed her the wrapped package he’d taken out of storage earlier that afternoon, it almost felt natural.
“What is this?” she stared blankly at the gift-wrapped present.
“You wanted me to give you something personal. Unwrap it.”
“Dex, I—”
But he cut off her protest. “This isn’t easy for me. Just unwrap it, okay?”
Frowning, Lucy slipped her fingers under the edge of the wrapping paper and pealed it back to reveal a tattered, used copy of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
This was no first edition family heirloom. No elegantly leather-bound copy. This was a cheap paperback. The cover creased, the pages yellowed and dog-eared and on the title page, stamped in faded blue print were the words, “Property of Spence Middle School.”
She looked up at him as confusion replaced her distress. “I don’t understand.”
“I was in the seventh grade the year my mom was diagnosed with cancer. It was the only year we were in school the whole year. My English teacher read this book aloud.”
His voice was oddly flat and emotionless as he spoke. But as he had said, this wasn’t easy on him. And she didn’t need tears or outbursts of emotion to guess what this book had meant to him.
She could picture it all too well. The skinny, defensive adolescent boy, sitting in his English classroom, feeling so angry at the world—at his mother for being sick, at his father for not doing more—and slowly finding himself won over by the story of Tom Sawyer. The pranks, pratfalls and adventures would win the heart of any boy.
And then there was the fact that Tom was an orphan, drifting through life without need of parents or adults. How that must have appealed to Dex at a time when he’d felt his own parents had abandoned him.
Looking at the tattered old cover of Tom Sawyer, her heart seemed to swell and unfurl. Whatever few remaining defenses she had against this man crumbled and fell, leaving her completely vulnerable to him.
As she looked from the book to Dex she felt tears well in her eyes. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll marry me.”
“I—”
“You wanted a romantic gesture.” His mouth curved into a wry smile. “Personally, I thought the diamonds were much more romantic, but…”
He let his words trail off. He was waiting for her “yes.”
She could feel it hanging there in the air between them. The expectation of acceptance.
He’d gone to all this trouble, searched his life—his whole history—for something personal enough to give her. Something “romantic” enough for her.
And she still couldn’t say yes. He didn’t know who she was. He would hate her when he did know.
Yet she found she couldn’t say no, either. The word seemed to have vanished from her vocabulary. Since she couldn’t say yes and she didn’t have the heart to tell him no, she did neither. Instead, she kissed him.
Sure, there were a thousand reasons why kissing him was just as stupid as saying yes. It was a momentary reprieve and nothing more. Yet she could think of nothing she wanted more at that moment than to press her body to his and pour into her kiss all the things she couldn’t say. All the doubts and regrets. All the longing.
And she’d never get another chance. She’d have to come clean very soon, and the moment she did, he’d despise her. In all likelihood, this would be the last time he ever kissed her.
She had every intention of making the most of it.
His body was hard and solid beneath her hands. His muscles firm without being sculpted. His mouth was warm and bold against hers.
He accepted her kiss completely, without question. Maybe he thought it alone was the answer he sought. Whatever pang of conscious she felt at that, she quickly buried it. Maybe her acquiescence wasn’t the answer he thought it was, but it was the answer of her heart.
When his hands sought the edge of her T-shirt and eased under the fabric to her bare skin, she didn’t stop him. Instead, she relished the sensation of his roughened fingertips against the flesh of her stomach. His touch sent tendrils of desire pulsing through her.
Blood seemed to pound through her body, tightening her ni**les, making the flesh between her legs throb. Her desire built all the more quickly because she knew what was coming. She knew what a powerful lover he was. How his touch would master her body. Make her tremble. How he would feel plunging into her, strong and hard.
She gasped aloud when his hand—finally—reached her breast. His touch was a little rough. Not painful, but firm. In control. Exactly what she wanted.
She didn’t think twice before allowing him to nudge her legs apart with his knee. She welcomed the pressure against the apex of her legs and found herself bucking against him, aching for him to touch her there. To strip her jeans from her body, pull her panties down her legs and find the moistened folds of her flesh. To probe her body with his fingers, his mouth, and of course that glorious erection of his pressing against her hip.
She pulled her mouth from his, panting. “I want…”
But she trailed off, unsure how to put into words all she desired.
He looked down at her, his gaze clouded by desire, but a hint of amusement lingering on his lips as he toyed with her hardened nipple. “You want?”
“More,” she gasped out. “I want you. All of you.”
She’d never said truer words. It wasn’t just his body she wanted thrusting against and into hers. She wanted his heart. She wanted him to give himself completely to her. Without reservations or doubts. She wanted to feel as if they were completely joined. Because when morning came and she had to tell him the truth, they would never be together again.
But she wouldn’t let herself think of that for now. Now was just about them. About pleasure. About pouring her heart into every touch in hopes that someday he’d understand that she loved him despite the lies she’d told.
When he began backing her toward the bedroom, she let him. But she never released her hold on him. She clung to him as they moved through the living room, like a couple slow dancing to the rhythm of some sultry ballad. A kiss for every step. A tie loosened. A shirt pulled off. A snap undone. One shoe, then another kicked off.
By the time she felt his mattress bump against the back of her legs, she was down to just her jeans, unsnapped, unzipped, shoes off. His tie was gone, his white dress shirt unbuttoned. Still, she felt delightfully exposed by comparison. Wickedly na**d.
He looked unbearably sexy, half-dressed as he was, the smooth muscles of his chest visible between the two halves of his shirt. The sprinkling of chest hair, the occasional glimpse of his ni**les was enough to tempt her beyond endurance.
Pressing her hands against his shoulders, she spun him around so his back was to the bed. Then she shoved the shirt off his shoulders. It caught on his wrists, trapping his hands just long enough for her to give him one more light shove. He allowed himself to be toppled over, arms trapped at his sides, legs hanging over the sides of the bed.
She smiled in delight at the image he presented. He was completely at her mercy. And she intended to have none.