A Dad At Last (13 page)

Lacy shrugged self-consciously, turning her face away. “Nothing.”

A month ago, he would have left it alone, grateful that she didn't want to elaborate. But things had changed between them—and within him. “Something's on your mind. What is it?”

She knew he wouldn't like this. That he'd probably get annoyed with her. But he'd asked, pressed, really, so she had no choice but to tell him. “I feel sorry for her.”

Stunned, Connor pulled over to the side of the road and looked at her incredulously. “Are you out of your mind?”

There was a time the question would have intimidated her and made her back away. But that time had passed. She looked at him and shrugged again. “Maybe.” But her tone said she didn't think so.

What was going on in her head? “Lacy, that woman tried to kill you.
Would
have killed you if she hadn't been frightened away by the sound of people approaching. She lied to my mother, to the whole family. She tried to get away with a huge chunk of the family money, and worst of all, she kidnapped Chase. She probably would have killed him, given half a chance, if things didn't look as if they were going to work out her way.”

He waited for an answer. What the hell was Lacy
thinking, feeling sorry for a creature like that, a woman who had absolutely no conscience, no qualms about using people. She hadn't even given any indication she cared that her husband had been killed.

Lacy knew all about the attempt on her life, and the other charges, as well. Connor was only repeating details she remembered.

“I know, I know.” Frustrated, she blew out a breath. It would be easy to hate Janelle. Easy if she wasn't cursed with the ability to empathize with even the cruelest of people. But she did have that ability, and it nagged at her now. Yes, Janelle had done all those hateful things, but she was alone. With no one to take her side. No one to care what happened to her. “But she just must feel so alone right now, so desperate. Her husband's dead—”

Damn it, the woman had too big a heart. It blinded her to the fact that some people were just plain irredeemable. “Petey was nothing more than a convenience for her. A means to an end. I didn't see her shed a single tear.”

“Maybe nobody did.” She looked at him significantly. “But some people are too proud to cry or show that they're hurt.”

“You're giving the woman too much credit, Lacy. Some people are just bad to the bone. She's one of them.”

Lacy sighed as he started the car again. “I suppose you're right.”

“Of course I'm right.” He guided the vehicle onto the road. There weren't many cars out at this time of night. He glanced at her again. So this was what pure goodness was, bottled in a beautiful vessel. Guilt and longing tugged at him from opposite sides. “Your trouble, Lacy, is that your heart is just too big.”

It got in the way at times, maybe, but she didn't see it as a problem, exactly. She looked at his rigid profile and knew that he did.

“And that's a bad thing?”

“Yes,” he said firmly, “it is. For you.”

Although, as far as the rest of the world went, he had to admit it was rather comforting to know there was someone out there who could forgive so readily, could be so charitable.

Lacy pressed her lips together. “I already know that,” she said quietly.

She was talking about them, he thought. He knew he should leave well enough alone and continue with this charade they were playing, avoid talking about the other night until it became a distant memory.

But part of him didn't think it ever would become a distant memory. And she'd been through so much already. He couldn't stand to hear the hurt in her voice. No matter how much she tried to mask it, it was still there. And he knew he was the cause of it.

Damned if I do and damned if I don't,
Connor thought.

When he reached the outskirts of the city, he pressed down on the accelerator. It was now or never. “About the other night, Lacy…”

She turned her head slowly, her eyes catching his. “If you apologize to me, Connor, if you make any excuse at all, your family's going to have to be attending another trial, because I swear I won't be held responsible for what I do to you.”

She looked so serious for a second that he wasn't sure what to say. And then, very slowly, a smile began to tug on his lips as he backed away from the subject, relieved to be spared this way.

“All right, Lacy. Point taken.”

T
HE NEED
to apologize to her stayed with Connor all the way home despite what he'd said to Lacy in the car. It hovered about his mind as she put Chase down for the night.

It would be simpler to let it go, the way she'd suggested. But he wasn't interested in simpler. He was interested in right. He wanted to make her understand that it was only an act of weakness on his part that had made him take her to his bed. Connor wanted her to know that she had nothing to worry about. It wasn't going to happen again.

When she finally came out of Chase's room, he was waiting for her in the hall. When he said her name, she looked up, startled.

“You look as white as a sheet.” He turned her toward the light to make sure he wasn't imagining it. “What's the matter?”

Self-conscious, Lacy shrugged away his concern. The nausea was passing. It was probably something she'd eaten. “My stomach's feeling a little out of kilter, that's all.”

He didn't believe her. The apology was temporar
ily shelved. Connor had his own theory about why she looked as pale as she did.

“It wouldn't have anything to do with being in the courtroom today, would it?” There was a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

He'd seen the way Janelle had looked at her, had seen the malevolence in the other woman's eyes. If there hadn't been guards between them and other people to intervene, Janelle would have had no qualms about snuffing out Lacy's life.

Lacy knew what he was thinking as plainly as if it was written on a chalkboard. She unconsciously raised her chin.

“No,” she insisted, “it wouldn't. I'm not afraid of her anymore, Connor. I was once,” she admitted, “but not anymore.”

She made him think of a bantamweight contender entering the ring with nothing to lose and everything to gain. The thought made him smile. “Tough guy, eh?”

She didn't know if he was teasing her or mocking her. In either case, the answer was the same. “No, just a tougher woman.” Lacy rocked a little on the balls of her feet. “A better, new, improved me.”

He couldn't resist toying with the strand of hair that curled into her face, caressing her cheek. “There was nothing wrong with the old you.”

Pleasure spread through her like the rays of the early morning sun along the darkened desert. “I
think that's the first time you've ever given me a compliment that didn't involve my cooking.”

“It shouldn't have been.” Damn it, he upbraided himself, he was getting sidetracked again. He shouldn't be giving her compliments now—but he wanted to. Frustrated with his inability to stay on track, Connor sighed. “Which is part of the problem.”

She tried to guess what was on his mind, and this time she failed. “I wasn't aware that there was a problem or that it came in parts.”

He had no more finesse now than he'd had earlier. He had no choice but to plunge ahead. “Lacy, about the other night…”

She wasn't going to listen, wasn't going to have him tell her that he regretted it, that it would never happen again. That they were employer and employee, tied together by something a little more than a weekly paycheck. She knew all that, but hearing it only made it worse. Made it painful.

With effort, she masked her vulnerability with humor. It was her only weapon.

“Ah, I see that my threat in the car seems to have fallen on deaf ears.” She drew herself up, a twig to his oak. “Just because I'm smaller than you doesn't mean I don't know how to physically damage you, Connor.”

The very thought of her being able to inflict any sort of bodily harm to him, let alone the kind that
had consequence, made him laugh. Hard. Regaining control of himself, Connor leaned on her shoulder for support. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you, but you don't exactly have me quaking in my boots.”

“Well, you should be,” she countered, although the corners of her mouth had turned up in response to his laughter. “I've learned a few things about taking care of myself since I last lived in your house.”

Shelby had seen to that. The owner of the diner where she'd worked until moving into Connor's house had taken her under her wing and had become her best friend. Everyone knew her story, that she'd been assaulted and left for dead in the alley. It had been Shelby who had insisted that she take martial arts lessons so she could take care of herself.

There was no doubt in Connor's mind that Lacy had learned a few things since she'd lived at his other ranch. Learned more than a few things. The other night had proved it.

He felt his body heating at the memory.

Because he needed to touch her, he shoved his hands into his back pockets. Touching her would lead to other things, and he didn't want that.

Or so he had to believe.

“I'm sure you have,” he said. “Lacy, what I'm trying to say—badly—is that I just want you to know that I won't be taking advantage of you again.”

About to open the door to her room, she stopped
and turned to stare at him. Is that what he thought? Hadn't he been there the other night?

“You didn't take anything, Connor. There was no theft of any sort involved in the other night or the night that you first made love to me.” Then it had been to, not with, because he'd been her first and she'd had no experience to show her the way. But it had been different the other night. They'd been equals. Which was why his apology rankled. “Taking would indicate that something was stolen from me. Nothing was. I was given something. I had nothing taken from me.” She could see by the look in his eyes that he was unconvinced. That he was determined to wear that damned hair shirt and atone for his sin when there'd been no sin at all. “Can't you get that through that thick skull of yours?” As her anger rose, so did her voice. “You didn't take advantage of me. You didn't take anything. I gave it to you, without any strings of any sort.”

Anger suited her. She was nothing short of magnificent. And he wanted her all over again.

As if to hold her at arm's length, he caught her by the shoulders. “Damn it, Lacy, how is it that I can have the noblest of intentions and you can blow them completely all to hell just by looking at me with those big blue eyes of yours?”

She grinned, lacing her arms around his neck, no longer tired. No longer sleepy. His hands dropped from her shoulders. “Just lucky, I guess.”

She was doing it to him again, warming him with her gaze, making him want her even when he knew it was wrong. As wrong now as it had been the other night.

As wrong as it had been almost two years ago. Why couldn't he have more willpower than a debaucher locked in a wine cellar when it came to her?

Even as he asked the question, Connor felt himself weakening. “You know where this is going to lead, don't you?”

Her eyes danced as they washed over the rugged planes of his face. “No, but I have my hopes.”

For her sake, he struggled. It was definitely not for his own, because for his sake, he would have taken her right there, in the hallway, nine feet away from their son's room.

He began to remove her arms from his neck but only made a halfhearted attempt. “Lacy, you're wasting yourself on me, you know that. You deserve to be with someone your own age.”

She slowly shook her head. “I don't know anything of the kind. I don't want someone my own age.”

He'd never been as idealistic as she was. Not even when he had been half her age. It made him feel humble just to have kissed her. “How do you know? You've never been with a younger man.”

She raised her eyes to his, her mouth temptingly
close. “You don't have to go to hell to know what heaven is.”

He felt the last of his resistance snapping. “Oh, damn it, Lacy, I'm trying to be noble here.”

“Don't,” she whispered, her breath tantalizing his mouth. Her eyes teased him. Tempted him. “Tell me what you want, Connor. What you really want. Right now. Right this minute.”
Please let it be me.

He could lie to her. But she'd know it. He felt as transparent to her as a pitcher of water. So he told her the truth. And sealed both their fates.

Very gently, he framed her face with his hands as if it was some exquisite photograph. Because it was. “I want you in my bed, Lacy. I want you lying beneath me, naked as the day you were born, sweaty with my sweat, crying out my name as I take you—”

Her mouth curved, feeding the smile into her eyes. “There's that word again.”

“All right,” he said gamely, “what do you want me to call it?”

There was no hesitation. She knew how she saw it. “Joining. As you join me. As I join you. Together. Sharing each other.” The words were whispered seductively around his senses “Having each other.”

He was beginning to believe a saint would have given in. “You make it so hard to be good.”

“Then be bad,” she said, coaxing. “Haven't you heard? Women like bad men.”

“Women only
say
they like bad men.” He laced
his hands around her waist. Holding her even as he should have been pushing her away. “What they want, ultimately, is bad men who are good.”

She cocked her head as she looked at him. “Well, then?”

He had no choice.

She drove him to it.

And to his knees, both figuratively and, later, literally.

Unable to turn his back on what she offered so guilelessly, Connor wrapped his hand around hers and, without a word, led her to his room. Once inside, he pushed the door closed behind them.

But when he began to undress her in the dark, she placed her hands on his to still them.

Something inside tightened as disappointment skewered through him. She was calling a halt to it. His words had finally sunk in. “Come to your senses?”

“I never left them.”

He could see her smile even in the moonlight. Turning from him, she switched on the lights. A dim, seductive atmosphere permeated the room with its massive, dark wooden furniture. Thrown, Connor looked at her quizzically.

Her reason was simple. “I want to see your eyes when you undress me. I want to see the way you look at me when we make love. When we join,” she added, a faint smile on her lips. “I want to seal away
every moment so that when I'm old and gray and living in my own little world, I can remember every detail of tonight.”

Connor tried to laugh away the seriousness of the moment, though in truth it humbled him beyond words. “No pressure here.”

“No pressure,” she echoed in a whisper, lightly caressing his cheek as she looked into his eyes. “There's only me.”

“There is no only about you, Lacy.” She was everything. The flame in his chest, the reason he woke up in the morning.

As his breath lodged in his chest, he slowly lifted the edge of the pale green sweater she wore and drew it up, over her head and her arms. Savoring every moment, every fraction of an inch of skin that was exposed.

Without a glance in its direction, he discarded the garment. Connor was completely captivated by the swell of her breasts directly above the white lacy demi-bra she wore.

Lacy's blood churned as he pressed his lips first to one breast, then the other, before releasing the clasp at her back. The cups slowly slid away from her.

She could feel her excitement heightening as she saw desire flare in his eyes, eyes that seemed to caress her.

Eager not to be passive, she tugged at his shirt,
releasing buttons from their holes and sending material away from his shoulders.

She wanted to feel his warm skin against hers, wanted to revel in the contact.

Held within the hypnotic gaze of his eyes, hers began to drift shut as she felt his hands skim along her curves, drawing her skirt away.

For a second, she held her breath, and her fingers froze as she drank in the delicious sensations swirling madly through her, playing a wicked game of tag. And then she remembered what she was about and unnotched his belt, pulling the leather from the metal loop. Coaxing the zipper down to its source.

She felt his desire harden as she tugged away first the denim, then the cotton.

The next moment, nude, Lacy felt herself being propelled backward. She fell onto the bed, landing beneath him.

After that, it was difficult to recall the order of things. One sensation mushroomed into another, battering her body, echoing the movement of his hands, his lips, his body as he caressed, explored, anointed and generally turned her into a pulsating mass of needs that centered around him.

His hands and lips were everywhere, finding all of her erotic points, creating new ones. She discovered that the backs of her knees were incredibly susceptible to his sensual assault. As were the insides of her elbows. And as for her abdomen…

He left her almost mindless. Mindless and yet insatiably greedy for every shred of pleasure he could give her. Desperate to do the same to him. To make him want her the way she wanted him. To make him quiver at the hint of her lips on his flesh.

When he brought his mouth to the very core of her being, initiating her in all the pleasures that could be, she felt the urge to both scramble toward the wave that drenched her and pull away from it, wanting to draw the sensation out as long as possible, yet greedy for its culmination.

Spent, she struggled to rally. It couldn't be one-sided. It couldn't. He needed to be made to feel the way she did.

Lacy moved against him, coaxing his body close to hers. She heard him moan as she slid her hand between their bodies and touched him. A sense of empowerment washed over her.

Tangled together, they did their best to please each other. To share the sensations they felt, offering them like gifts to each other. Like silent pledges they had no right to make, but made just the same, because it was impossible not to.

Impossible not to offer their hearts, however mutely, to each other.

He came to her slowly, sheathed, protected, ever mindful of her. Drawing out each second, turning it into a lifetime.