AS SOON as he heard the shower spurt and hiss behind the closed bathroom door, Mark grabbed the room key and left. His brain was jangling, overcrowded, unable to sort itself out. He needed fresh air and solitude.
The inn sat on an unlit country road. He began a slow circuit around the rambling building. The night was crisp and cool and the ground was solid beneath his feet, loamy from the spring thaw. Just putting one foot in front of the other felt good.
He was a bachelor so famous that women across the state discussed his marital status on Web sites. He liked being a bachelor. He liked the freedom, the unabashed selfishness of it, the irresponsibility. The fast car.
Yet when that kayak had smashed into his roadster, all he’d been able to think about was Claire. Was she hurt? he’d wondered desperately. Why wasn’t she opening her eyes? Had the glass shards from the windshield cut her? He hadn’t even bothered to check whether he himself had been injured. His mind hadn’t been cluttered then. It had contained only one thought, as clear as a laser piercing through all the crap that usually preoccupied him. Claire. If she’d been hurt…or killed…Just contemplating the possibility caused his gut to knot and his vision to blur.
What a day. What an insane, overwhelming day. Why had he introduced her to his parents? Because his mom had wanted to meet her. Because she’d dragged him to her mother’s. Because he owed his parents a visit, and it was a long drive, and the trip would be more pleasant with company. But if all he’d wanted was company, he could have invited Sherry to join him—well, maybe not Sherry, but he knew other women. Or he could have invited a male buddy. He had some close friends among the guys he played pick-up basketball with at the gym, and a couple of buddies from college and grad school who lived in the Boston area, and his neighbor Pete. His neighbor Lisa, too. She was sort-of-almost divorced, and she’d been sending him looks ever since the Boston’s Best article had appeared.
But it hadn’t occurred to him to make the trip to Williamstown with anyone but Claire. He’d wanted her with him. Only her.
It had been unsettling to have Claire with him in the company of his parents, who were arguably the most happily married people he knew…He came from a solid family, and he appreciated his good fortune in that. He understood what a loving marriage was all about, what a magnificent gift it was. He wanted a loving marriage himself—someday. Not now. Not yet. Not while he was one of the most desirable bachelors in Boston.
But…Claire. She meant more to him than anything he could think of, even his precious Mercedes.
After three orbits around the inn, he went back inside, climbed the stairs and sauntered down the hall to the room. He unlocked the door, pushed it open and confronted yet another cause of his current agitation—the bed.
He could ask for a separate room. If Ray refused to pay for it, big deal. This place wasn’t the Ritz; a second room couldn’t possibly cost much, and even if it did, Mark could easily afford the expense. But then Betty the blabbermouth would go online and all her Internet friends would discuss the fact that Mark Lavin, one of Boston’s Best’s top five, had declined to share a room with his intended. Mark didn’t want to give that chat-room hen party anything more to cluck about.
He supposed he could sleep on the floor. Or he and Claire could share the bed. He could sleep with his back to her. He’d already kissed her once, and he’d seen the glow in her eyes when that kiss had ended, a glow that had asked far more of him than he was ready to give.
So he wouldn’t kiss her again, because he wasn’t ready to give more. He could spend a night in bed with her and not kiss her, because the last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt. She’d avoided injury in one collision tonight. He’d make sure she avoided injury in a second collision in this bed.
The room was quiet, no shower sounds filtering through the closed bathroom door. He couldn’t wait to take a shower himself. He felt achy, not only from the accident but from hours of driving. He wanted to scrub off the fatigue that clung to him like a layer of grime, and then get some rest. He wanted to sleep without dreaming.
The bathroom door opened and Claire emerged, clothed except for her bare feet, a towel draped over her shoulders to keep her hair from soaking her blouse. She couldn’t spend the night in that fancy blouse.
He pulled off his sweater. “Why don’t you sleep in this?” he suggested.
She stared first at the sweater he extended to her and then at him. He had on a dark blue T-shirt and his jeans; it wasn’t as if he’d stripped himself stark naked. But her eyes widened and she pressed her lips tight as if to hold back whatever she might have wanted to say.
“It’ll be a lot more comfortable than sleeping in what you’ve got on now,” he pointed out. “And if it gets wet from your hair, who cares? It’s just an old sweater.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She still hadn’t taken the sweater, so he tossed it onto the bed and hoped the rest of the night wouldn’t be as awkward as that particular moment. “I’m going to wash up,” he said, moving past her and entering the steamy bathroom.
Standing under the shower’s hot spray helped. If he thought about Claire putting on his sweater and crawling under the covers on the other side of the door, he’d have probably needed an ice-cold shower, so he distracted himself by thinking about the logistics of getting his car back to Boston tomorrow. He hoped that the tow truck transporting the car would have enough room in the cab for both him and Claire. Once the driver delivered them and the car to an auto body shop that specialized in Mercedes-Benzes, Mark could call a cab. And he’d save the receipt for the cab fare. Ray was going to reimburse Mark for every damned penny this disaster was costing him.
He shut off the water, stepped out of the tub, and ran a bath towel over his body. He scrubbed his scalp with the towel, dug a comb from the hip pocket of his jeans and neatened his hair as best he could. His pockets contained a lot of necessities, but a razor wasn’t among them. His cheeks, jaw and upper lip were dark with a stubble. Not much he could do about that.
The bedroom felt chilly after the humid warmth of the bathroom. Claire was already in bed, lying on her side near the edge, one arm resting atop the blanket. She’d cuffed the sleeve of his sweater to free her hand. He wondered how far down her legs the sweater fell, wondered whether she’d kept her underwear on underneath it—then shut down that thought before it could go anywhere.
The lamp on her side of the bed was turned off, but she’d thoughtfully left the other bedside lamp on for him. He lowered himself to the mattress, removed his jeans and left them on the floor beside the bed. Then he slid under the blanket and turned off the lamp, throwing the room into darkness. The sheets were cool and smooth and the room smelled of the shampoo they’d both used.
“Are you okay?” he asked. He’d already asked her if she was okay countless times, but he couldn’t keep from asking one more time.
“I’m fine, Mark.” Her voice sounded distant, probably because she was facing away from him.
He told himself to shut up and close his eyes, but his body disobeyed. His eyes remained open, adjusting to the gloom until he could see Claire’s outline, the rise of her shoulder, the spill of her hair across the pillow. His mouth opened, too. “I know this is…well…not what you were hoping for.”
“Mark—”
“I feel lousy, dragging you out to Williamstown for the day, and then this mess.”
“It’s all right, Mark. Things happen.”
“Yeah.”
She was so close, yet she could have been miles away. The blanket sagged between their bodies, forming a woolen barrier, and beyond the blanket was her back. Things happen, he thought—maybe because they were supposed to happen. Maybe because of fate. Maybe because if they didn’t happen, the people they might have happened to would miss a vital lesson.
“I love your hair,” he said, reaching across those miles, across the barrier of the blanket, but unable to breach the greater barrier of her unwillingness to face him. Lying with her back to him meant presenting him with her hair, thick with rippling curls, cool and heavy and damp. He twirled his fingers through it and thought that if Claire were really his fiancée, he could touch her hair like this all the time, gather it, let it flow like rippling silk across his palms.
She turned, and her hair slipped out of his grasp. “Mark.” Her voice was quiet and steady. Just like her.
He should apologize, but he wouldn’t. The only thing he felt sorry about was that he was no longer touching her. He was a selfish son of a bitch, touching her because he wanted to, because he had to, and if he had a shred of decency in him he’d get out of bed and sleep on the floor. He’d leave her alone. She was too good a woman, and he wasn’t a good enough man. Not yet.
“You’re wrong,” she murmured.
“About your hair?”
“About what I might or might not be hoping for.”
Too cryptic. He didn’t know what she was getting at. Once again, he wished he had mind-reading gifts. “What are you hoping for?” he asked.
She turned from him. “Things I can’t have.”
Her voice was almost too soft to hear—except that she’d said exactly what he was feeling. He was hoping for things he couldn’t have: her. Tonight.
What did she want that she couldn’t have? Something he could give her? Something he could do? After seeing her strapped into her car seat, helpless and unmoving, with broken glass strewn over her and that welt on her chin, he would have given anything, done anything for her, just to save her. Just to make her all right. Just to see her open her eyes and smile.
He still felt that way, that he would do anything she wanted. Give her anything she hoped for.
He slid his hand under her chin, careful to avoid the bruise, and steered her face back to him. Their gazes met, and in her eyes he saw what she hoped for, his own hopes reflected. I’ll do anything, he thought, then pulled her into his arms and covered her mouth with his.
SHE’D BEEN HOPING for this. Actually, she’d been hoping for much more, but she was a realist. She knew that this was the closest she would ever get to Mark, while they were trapped in some limbo unconnected to the world of their everyday lives. In the morning they would accompany his damaged car back to Boston and he would resume his bachelor ways, and the balloon that lingered near the ceiling of her office would ultimately swoon to the floor.
She hoped—stupidly, futilely—that Mark could renounce his top-bachelor title for her. But no matter how sweetly he’d behaved toward her today, no matter how solicitous, no matter how loving a son he was, how playful a dog-lover, how charming a companion, she knew her hope would never be fulfilled. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have one night, just one night when they could belong to each other.
From the moment she’d pulled his warm, soft sweater over her head, she’d been at war with herself—wanting him and knowing he could break her heart simply by doing what she hoped he would do. If he hadn’t made a move, she would have let that hope die.
But he’d kissed her. And she was kissing him back, promising herself that whatever happened tonight would be worth the heartbreak tomorrow.
His mouth moved on hers, hot and hungry. The kiss he’d given her outside her building a week ago might have been a mere handshake compared to this. It was possessive, demanding, consuming. His tongue took everything she had to give, and then took more, filling her, claiming her. His unshaven chin was scratchy, making her lips tingle. His hands cupped the sides of her face, his fingers weaving into her hair. She’d wished she had a hairdryer with her, because her hair never looked good if she didn’t brush and blow-dry it after a shampoo. But Mark loved her hair. He’d said he did.
And she loved his kiss. She loved the heat of his body spreading under the covers, the lean length of him, the firm contours of his shoulders beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt. She loved the fresh-showered scent of him. She loved the disheveled waves of his hair and the thick shadows of his eyelashes, visible as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark. She loved the strength in his hands, in his tongue, the pressure of his chest bearing down on her, easing her onto her back.
He rose to his knees and the blanket skidded down the slope of his shoulders. For a long moment he gazed at her, as if he could read all the yearning in her face, in her heart. Then he reached for the ribbed edge of his sweater and dragged it up over her hips, over her waist. She’d left on her panties but removed her bra, and when he pulled the sweater high enough to expose her breasts, she heard him sigh.
That faint sound brought her mind into focus. “Mark?”
He bowed to kiss first one and then the other breast, and they both sighed this time. Her nipples grew tight, burning from the contact of his lips.
“Mark,” she said again, forcing out the words, “I don’t…” She lost her voice as he yanked the sweater’s sleeves down and off her arms, as he hauled the sweater over her head and tossed it over the side of the bed.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, then bent to nuzzle her throat.
“I don’t have anything.” She had to force out the words.
He lifted his head and smiled. “You have everything I could ever possibly want.”
She might take that either as an unbelievably romantic compliment or as a commentary on his rather limited wants. She chose the latter interpretation because it made her laugh, and laughing relaxed her. “I’m talking about protection, Mark.”
“Oh.” He touched his lips to the hollow between her collarbones, then the hollow between her breasts. “I have a condom.”
“You do?”
“‘Don’t leave home without it,’” he said, quoting the old commercial. “I always carry one, just in case.”
“Just in case.” She pretended to disapprove. “Is that some bachelor thing?”
“I always carry my cell phone. I always carry an ATM card. You never know.” He sat back on his haunches and stripped off his T-shirt, exposing the most beautiful male chest she had ever seen, streamlined with muscle and textured with a sparse patch of hair across his pectorals.
“So I qualify as ‘just in case,”’ she murmured.
“You qualify as ‘you never know.”’ He shimmied out of his boxers, then tugged her panties down her legs and off. He seemed oddly stunned at the sight of her. Yet she was sure that, given his “don’t leave home without it” philosophy, he’d seen plenty of naked women before. She’d seen a couple of men herself. But no man had ever looked at her the way Mark was looking at her, his dark eyes luminous, his expression awed. “I only have one,” he whispered, a rueful smile twisting his mouth. “We’re going to have to make it count.”
If the keen, worshipful anticipation in his gaze was anything to go by, one bout of lovemaking with Mark might be intense enough to kill her. She’d die happy, though.
She lifted her hand and flattened her palm against his chest. His skin was warm, and it flexed at her touch. He stretched out next to her so she could reach more of him, and she touched everything she could—his hard shoulders, the ridge of his rib cage, the soft hairs along his forearm, the taut expanse of his abdomen. His buttocks, as unyielding as his shoulders. His thighs, covered in coarser hair. His erection, full and pulsing against the curve of her hand.
That one intimate touch caused him to groan and push her hand away. He pinned her on her back, pressed her arms to the mattress so she couldn’t touch him any more, and then kissed his way down her body, taking his time with her breasts, lingering at her navel, causing her stomach to clench and her hips to arch. He kissed lower, nudged her legs apart and took her with his mouth, licking and nipping until her entire body convulsed with pleasure.
“Mark…” His name tumbled from her lips, half a sob, half a plea. No one had ever made her feel so resplendently alive—and so utterly weak. “Mark—”
“Shh.” He slid back up her body, slightly out of breath.
“That was—” What? She didn’t think the English language had a word adequate to describe what she’d just experienced.
“Shh,” he said again, then silenced her by brushing his lips against hers, tracing his tongue over her lower lip and pressing his arousal against her belly.
She wanted him to feel what she’d felt. She wanted him to be as deliriously grateful to her as she was to him. Mustering what little energy she had, she propped herself up on her elbows, then pushed herself to sit. Mark sat back on his haunches once more, and Claire wrapped her arms around him. He was solid yet graceful, his physique sinewy rather than bulky. She ran her hands down his back, savoring the smooth, hot surface of his skin, the subtle motions of his muscles. When she kissed his chest he moaned.
Operating on instinct—she’d never done this before—she kissed a path downward, pausing to dip her tongue into his navel and sensing a tremor in his breath, grazing even lower, touching her mouth to the tip of his penis.
He moaned again, dug his hands into her hair and eased back her head. She peered up at him, worried that he wasn’t feeling anything as wonderful as what she’d felt when he’d made love to her with his mouth. “Am I doing it wrong?” she asked.
“No. Oh, no.” A dazed laugh escaped him as he pulled her back up so he could stare into her eyes. “I want to be inside you when I come,” he said.
His words turned her on as much as his kisses had, his touch, his gaze. He released her and reached over the side of the bed, where he’d abandoned his jeans. The heavy denim rustled as he rummaged through his pockets. When he returned to her, he was holding his one precious condom. In a matter of seconds, he had it unwrapped and unrolled. He drew her into his arms, guided her legs around his waist and pulled her down onto him.
She panicked. They were sitting up, and she didn’t know what to do.
“Hold on,” he murmured, his hands clamped to her hips. She clung to him and he rocked her, rocked them both, arching upward into her. As impossible as it seemed, this felt even more exquisite than what he’d done to her just minutes ago. Her body shivered, tensed, gathered him in. He slid his hands forward, his thumbs pressing lightly against where their bodies were joined, and she shattered inside, fierce pulses consuming her. He froze, barely breathing, embracing her as her throbbing body embraced him.
She buried her head in the curve of his neck and gulped in shaky breaths. As the storm ebbed, her hands relaxed against his shoulders. It was only then that he moved, guiding her onto her back and surging into her. This was for him. His thrusts were faster, harder; he no longer held anything back. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, wishing she could give him as much as he’d given her, wishing he could feel everything she’d felt, every magnificent, heart-stopping sensation.
He strained, his body tense and damp with sweat. She stroked his back, cupped his head and rose off the pillow to kiss him. Somehow that kiss unleashed something in them both. She heard his helpless groan an instant before yet another climax overtook her. He shuddered in her arms, his hips fused to hers, their souls merging for one blissful instant.
Slowly, slowly her soul pulled away from his and retreated to a safe place inside herself. She remembered who she was, where she was, whom she was with and why. She remembered that today’s mission had been to convince Mark’s parents that she and Mark had no intention of forging a lifelong commitment to each other. In fact, to convince them of quite the opposite, that they were two strangers whose paths had crossed thanks to nothing more than a stupid practical joke.
Mark shifted onto his side next to her, one arm wedged under her and the other looped over her, his chin resting gently on the crown of her head. “Are you okay?” he whispered, the same question he’d asked her when he’d first climbed into bed with her, the question he’d been asking her ever since his car had been clobbered by a runaway kayak.
In terms of broken glass and air-bag burns, she was okay. In terms of being stranded overnight in some no-name village halfway between Williamstown and Boston, she was okay.
In terms of how she was going to recover from what she’d just shared with Mark, how she was going to get through the rest of her life without him—that she wasn’t so sure of.
But that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. So she said, “Yes, I’m okay.”