Reese threaded one hand into her hair and tugged her head up from his neck, nuzzling along her jaw to her mouth. As his lips slid onto hers, she opened her mouth eagerly, and with that welcome, his tenuous control fell away.
He ran his hands down her back and pulled her hard against him, feeling the full weight of her breasts press into his chest. She’d had beautiful breasts thirteen years ago and he was fairly sure they were even more lovely now. They’d certainly felt fine last night, though it had been too dark for the thorough inspection he longed to make. As she wrapped her arms around his neck and wriggled herself closer, he tugged up the short T-shirt she wore and laid his hand against the smooth, warm flesh of her midriff.
She didn’t protest or draw away and he realized that since last night she’d come to some kind of peace, some decision about letting him back into her life. Encouraged and incredibly aroused, he let the shirt ride up over his wrist and forearm and he slid his hand steadily higher until his fingers touched the lacy edge of her bra. The underside of her breast rested on his knuckles and he raised his hand and brushed back and forth over the tip of her breast beneath the fabric.
Celia moaned. She drew back and he knew a crushing disappointment, until she yanked the T-shirt over her head and threw it on the floor. Her eyes met his and her gaze was clear and steady as she stood before him in a black bra that did next to nothing to conceal breasts that were fuller and even more lovely than he remembered. When her hands drifted to the bottom of his own T-shirt, he was galvanized into action and he tore it over his head and let it drop even as his hands reached around her to unclasp her bra.
Her eyelids flickered as the fabric came away. He hooked his fingertips beneath the straps and pulled it down and off so that her breasts fell free and unfettered, swaying gently with each gulp of breath she took. Her nipples were a dusky copper, large and dark, and he groaned, bringing both hands up to fill his palms with the silky globes.
He’d been missing her for so many years and until this moment he hadn’t allowed himself to truly think about what it was he’d missed. She was looking down at his hands and she lifted her own, covering his palms and pressing them hard against her flesh. “Touch me,” she whispered.
He was touching her, but it wasn’t enough and he knew exactly what she meant. Releasing her breasts, he put his arms around her and drew her against him, skin to skin, and they both murmured at the intense pleasure in the contact. He bent his head and sought her mouth, and the passionate kiss they exchanged sent fiery streamers of desire streaking through his body, demanding more, more, more.
He lifted her into his arms without breaking the kiss and carried her to the wide sofa in front of the old stone fireplace. On the rug, he stood her on her feet again. He wanted her naked, wanted to touch every gently curving inch, wanted to explore her secrets, to wallow in the familiar and to discern the changes the years had wrought. He unsnapped her pants and tugged them down, slipping his thumbs into the black cotton bikini briefs she wore and taking them off in the same motion. They pooled around her ankles and he took a moment to slip her feet out of her shoes and socks, then sat back on his heels and looked up the length of her.
Her face grew pink. She made an involuntary gesture as if to cover herself and he chuckled, catching her wrists and holding them at her sides. “Don’t. I want to see you.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the soft curve of her belly, just above the dark tangle of curls. “How can you still be so beautiful?”
She laughed, although the sound was strained. “I have stretch marks.” But her hands gently sifted through his hair, scratching lightly over his scalp and sending shivers of arousal through him. “You’ve got on too many clothes.”
He rose. “That can be fixed.” He pulled her hands toward him and set them at the buckle of his belt. “Help me.”
She looked down, concentrating on the task, and he sucked in a harsh breath at the feel of her fingers against his stomach. Slowly she opened the belt and pulled it wide, then undid the front button of his khaki pants. He was so hard and ready that his clothing was uncomfortable, and when her small fingers gently slid down the tab of his zipper, he had to steel himself against the surge of pressure that threatened his control.
Quickly he reached down and captured her hands, forcing a smile when she looked up at him inquiringly. “Not a good idea right now,” he informed her. “I’ll take it from here.”
She smiled, and he dispensed with the pants and briefs in one smooth motion before straightening and holding out his hand to her. Celia’s eyes were wide and shadowed as she looked first at his body, then at the hand he extended. But finally she smiled at him as she linked her fingers through his, and he felt a tension evaporate that he hadn’t even fully recognized. As a wave of relief rolled through him, he pulled her against him.
Her body was long and sleek and beautifully muscled from the active work that was a part of her normal routine. She felt so familiar that his throat tightened with an unexpected surge of emotion and he closed his eyes before she could see his reaction. How had he managed to live without her all these years? Not just her body, although as her soft belly cradled his hard, aching flesh between them, he thanked God for it, but the way she smiled at him from beneath her eyelashes, her sly sense of humor, the way she threw herself wholeheartedly into anything she did.
Her hands ran over the solid muscles of his arms and back and she couldn’t help but compare his body with the one she’d known so long ago. There was nothing left of the boy in him now. Even his shoulders seemed broader. This was a man beneath her searching fingers—a heavily muscled, hairy-chested, undeniably aroused man.
He gathered her against him, palming her head in one large hand and holding her against his shoulder while he kissed her deeply, repeatedly, teasing her with his tongue while his free hand slid from her shoulder to her breast, catching the taut nipple between two fingers. Gently he pinched and rolled until she could barely stand, her whole body trembling with the need that shot down to pool between her legs, and she clutched at his arms. “Please,” she said. “Now.”
“What’s your rush?” He laughed, a low, growling sound, as he trailed his lips along the line of her throat and down the slope of her breast, and she cried out as his mouth took her in, suckling strongly. Her back arched and his hand stroked a path down her torso, spreading wide over her ribs, dipping lightly into the well of her navel, then brushing with the lightest of feather touches over the curls between her legs. She pushed her hips forward, wordlessly begging him, and suddenly she felt the sharp shock of one long finger sliding down, testing, tracing, gradually opening her as he’d done the night before, and she moaned, pressing her face against his shoulder. Her body trembled in the grip of sensual pleasure; her breath came in short pants.
Then she felt his finger again, slick and moist, seeking and pressing against the very heart of her, and her whole body jerked. She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked down, exulting in the contrast of his darkly tanned skin lying against her lighter flesh in that private part, loving the way he cupped her so carefully, aroused by the sight of his hand covering the dark curls there. She moved her hips against his finger and he immediately took up a rhythm, rubbing and circling the locus of her desire as she writhed against him.
Pleasure built swiftly, inexorably carrying her higher and higher. The world shrank as her whole being focused on the big hand controlling her, inciting her response. She sank her teeth into his shoulder, muffling the sounds she made as her hips shifted into a faster, primitive beat that could have only one conclusion.
Suddenly he thrust his hand forward, grinding his palm hard against her as one finger sank deeply into her and she screamed, throwing her head back as her whole body convulsed, reacting to the intense pleasure of the invasion.
“That’s it,” he muttered against her throat. “That’s what I want.” He touched her deeply, intimately, until she was a boneless heap of throbbing female moaning softly in his arms.
Finally she opened her eyes. Reese was staring down at her, his eyes brilliant slits of desire. He still cradled her body, his hand still nestled between her thighs. A fine tremor of tension shivered through his body and she drowsily lifted her arms, encircling his neck, lying her head against his shoulder. He bent and lifted her, laying her full length on the rug and coming down beside her.
Somehow the horizontal position seemed even more intimate than what had come before, although she knew that was just plain silly. He lay propped beside her, one leg bent and lying half over hers, and she could feel the very real need that surged through him pulsing at her thigh.
Celia swallowed. Milo had been thin and wiry, slim and slight…all over. The hard shaft pressing against her hip couldn’t be called slight in any sense of the word. She’d forgotten, or more likely, if she was truthful, hadn’t allowed herself to remember Reese’s solid build and how small and feminine she’d always felt in his arms. He shifted, bringing his full weight over her, supporting himself on his forearms, and she felt the first stirrings of panic. She was remembering, too, how uncomfortable their early lovemaking had been until they’d both learned to give her time to adjust to him.
“Reese, wait.”
“I’ve waited long enough.” His gaze was fierce and intense, burning with desire as he tore open a condom and quickly rolled it into place, but even then he recognized her unease and sought to allay it. His features softened slightly and he gave her a crooked smile as he pulled her into his arms again. “You’re ready, baby. Trust me.”
And she did. He moved forward, guiding himself to her, and she sucked in a sharp breath as she felt the blunt, probing force steadily invading her most private place.
“Slowly,” she breathed into his ear. “It’s been a long time.”
He tensed against her, buttocks tight beneath her stroking palms. “And you’re just a little thing.”
She relaxed, realizing that he understood and remembered the source of her hesitation. “I’m not sure that I’m the one who’s unusually sized.”
He gave a snort of laughter and she felt him push another small increment deeper. It didn’t hurt, and she opened her legs wider, inviting him in as he said, “As I recall, once we got the hang of it, you didn’t seem to mind.”
“I didn’t.” She was intoxicated with the sexual innuendo, overwhelmed now with memories, and she playfully reached down between them, curling her hand around him. “I won’t.” She stroked him lightly and he shuddered.
“Whoa.” His voice sounded choked. “I’m trying to make this last, woman.”
“Why?” She didn’t stop. “We can start all over again as soon as we like.”
“There’s a thought.” With that, he reached down and took her hand away. Holding her gaze, he pushed himself steadily forward, forward, forward, until Celia was gasping and he was lodged deeply within her. He stopped and looked down at her, and her heart turned over at the tenderness in his gaze. “I was afraid I might never get to do this again,” he said in a low tone.
Then he twined his fingers with hers, supporting himself on his elbows and holding her hands to the rug.
And he began to move.
How could I have forgotten this?
Celia fought tears, overcome by the wonder of the feelings that flared, new and familiar at the same time, as he established a strong, steady rhythm, advancing and retreating, building another small fire inside her that quickly threatened to explode as his rhythm disintegrated into a frantic maelstrom of movement. He pounded into her, their slick, wet bodies making a satisfying slap with each surge, his breathing hoarse gasps in her ear, his heart thundering against hers.
She could feel herself gathering into a taut knot of need, writhing beneath him as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He touched every part of her with each stroke and as the pace increased, she began to moan again, then to cry out until finally she reached her peak a second time and her body bucked wildly in his arms. Her release triggered his, and with a rough groan of pleasure, Reese finally shuddered and arched against her, his strength shoving her hard against the rug until he slowly relaxed, slumping over her heavily.
After a long moment, he heaved himself onto his elbows again, then dropped his head and sought her lips for a gentle kiss. “No wonder I couldn’t forget you,” he said. “This was meant to be.”
Then he rolled to one side and gathered her into his arms, her back to his front, spoon fashion.
She was lying there, trying to decide how to respond to his statement, when she realized that he was fast asleep.
She lay there for a while, listening to the wind howl around the cottage, feeling safe and secure and happier than she’d been in a long, long time.
This was meant to be.
Was he right? Could it be that easy?
He whistled all the way back down to the marina the next morning. Even the sight of the mess the hurricane had left couldn’t dampen his mood. At the last minute the full brunt of the storm had moved off to the east, out to sea, and though the Cape had taken a beating, there didn’t appear to be widespread destruction, just a whole lot of annoying junk to clean up.
He’d promised to help Celia with marina repairs—
Celia. He could almost feel his chest swell like a cartoon character guzzling spinach. She made him feel as if he were ten times the man he’d been before he’d found her again.
And he’d better quit mooning around and get busy or he’d never get anything done.
The first thing he did after getting to his boat and finding everything still undamaged was to call Velva and Amalie to let them know that he was all right. The sound of his daughter’s cheery little voice lifted his spirits even higher. He missed her like crazy but he wasn’t really worried anymore. The kid sounded happy and busy and much too well-adjusted to make herself sick missing him. He couldn’t wait to introduce her to Celia.
After the phone call ended, he showered and changed, then went topside for a closer look around the harbor. He was just about to head for the harbormaster’s shack to see if Celia had arrived yet when a shocked cry and a rising murmur of distressed voices had him turning in the opposite direction.
Debris littered the coastline. Down the shore a short way, a knot of people in small boats gathered around a stand of grass. He hopped a ride with a guy in a canoe and they headed over to see what was wrong.
As they neared the site, the other man yelled, “What’s the matter?”
“There’s a body here,” said a woman who sounded as though she was one step away from losing it altogether. “I came along here to retrieve some stuff that got away and there she was.”
“Guess she got caught in the storm and washed into the water,” said another man, shaking his head. “Young, too. Anybody know her?”
Reese gazed down on the battered body wedged into the marsh grass. The woman’s long blond hair floated eerily around her head. Her limbs were tangled in a fishing skein that had gotten caught on a dead tree stump and held the body in place when the storm surge receded. The body was facedown, features hidden, clad in a torn bathing suit top and ragged cutoff jeans.
As he studied her, he realized the man who’d just spoken had missed one critical detail. The woman might have gotten caught in the storm all right, but that wasn’t what had caused her death. A neat bullet hole in the barely visible right temple probably had been responsible for it.
Just then, a strong wave lapped against the grass and the body did a graceful roll. The hair streamed back in the undertow, exposing a ghostly pale face. Reese swore.
The body in the fishing net was Claudette Mason.
Celia felt numb with disbelief. Claudette was dead. And she hadn’t died in a storm-related accident. She’d been murdered in cold blood. Whoever had done it clearly hadn’t expected her body to be found. The fishing skein had been wrapped around her too neatly to have been accidental, and it was torn in places that suggested that it had been weighted. Investigators theorized that the force of the hurricane had torn the body from the weights and left it tangled in the marsh.
Celia sat quietly in a corner of her office as two FBI agents questioned members of her staff. Angie was answering a query at the moment, telling the two men that she had seen Claudette walking around Neil Brevery’s yacht the morning before the storm, but that they hadn’t spoken.
“I can’t believe it,” Angie said, a lone tear streaking down her cheek. “Murders just don’t happen here.” Then, as if realizing what she’d said, her eyes darted to Celia in silent apology.
“We believe Miss Mason may have been involved in a drug transaction,” said the taller, older agent. “As you know, Harwichport was the focal point for drug activity several years ago and the DEA has acquired recent evidence that suggests it hasn’t ceased.”
“What evidence?” Did they know things they hadn’t told her? Celia understood, on an intellectual basis, that the FBI couldn’t go around blabbing their information to civilians, but her interest was far from casual and they knew how she felt. She hadn’t had any idea they were still actively investigating in the area.
“Sorry, Mrs. Papaleo, we can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.” The younger agent sounded sincere. He and his partner had spoken with her a number of times after Milo’s boat exploded, so she was familiar with them. “We’ll let you know personally if there’s any new information released.”
That evening Reese walked her home and they made dinner together while they discussed the bizarre turn the day had taken. Celia seemed jittery and upset and he imagined that Claudette Mason’s shocking death had stirred up a great many memories she’d prefer to have left at rest. He could only be thankful she hadn’t been with him when the body was discovered.
They sat down afterward to watch the news and he wondered if she would let him stay tonight. He put his arm around her and she turned to him, smiling and snuggling into his side in a motion so natural it felt as if she’d done it for years.
Stretching up, she put her mouth against his jaw, and he could feel her hot breath feather over his neck as she said, “Would you like to stay tonight?”
He grinned, tilting his head and catching her mouth beneath his. “Would you believe I was just plotting a way to do exactly that?”
Her lips curved as she shifted in his arms, her hands sliding up over his shoulders. “I’d believe it.”
Much later, they lay together in her bed. Moonlight silvered a patch across the quilt over them.
In the darkness he felt melancholy steal over him. They could have been married for years by now, with children of their own. If he hadn’t left. If she had gotten in touch. “We’ve lost so much time,” he said quietly.
She hesitated, her palm creeping up to lie over his heart. “Yes.”
“When did you first hear the rumors?”
As he’d expected, she knew what he meant. “About a week after you left. People started saying…that you’d gotten a girl pregnant.” Her voice shook.
“Yeah.” He still couldn’t prevent the hurt that had sliced at him that day from echoing in his voice. “The worst thing was, my father didn’t even consider that maybe I hadn’t done it. He assumed I was the father of that baby. Do you know he actually thought he could force me to marry her?” He shook his head. “We had the mother and father of all fights. I swore I was never setting foot in that house again until he apologized. But now…now I realize I was as unfair as he was. I didn’t just shun Dad. I left my entire family.”
He sighed. “Being back here with you, realizing this is the life I should have had, makes me miss them so damn much. It doesn’t seem nearly as important to me anymore to hang on to all that anger. What do you think? Should I extend the olive branch and forget about the apology?”
Celia’s body stiffened again, surprising him. He hadn’t thought the question was that big a deal. He tried to hold her but she struggled until he let her go.
Pushing herself out of his arms, she sat up and turned slightly to face him. “Reese, I owe you an apology.” She took a deep breath. “When I heard about the other woman’s pregnancy, I was shattered. And when you left without even getting in touch, I was so hurt. I…”
Her voice began to recede as incredulity crept in. She hadn’t believed in him. All these years, that had been the one equation he’d never figured. Never considered.
“You believed it. You believed it, didn’t you?” The ugly truth was beginning to register and his voice was harsh. He surged out of bed, yanked on his shorts and plunged one hand recklessly through his hair, leaving short spikes sticking out at wild, stiff angles. “All these years you thought I was the kind of guy who would tell you he loved you at the same time he was screwing around with somebody else.”
“Well, what was I supposed to think?” she shouted.
She clapped a hand to her mouth, clearly appalled at her loss of control. Then her defiant gaze dropped and she pulled the sheet up, concealing her body from him as if she were no longer comfortable with the intimacy they’d shared.
“Reese, I was a very naive seventeen-year-old. You tell me you’re going back to Boston to start school but that you’ll be coming back the following weekend. The next thing I know, everyone’s buzzing about you getting some girl pregnant and having a big fight with your father—and I never hear another word!”
“The letters weren’t good enough, I guess,” he said sarcastically. “You didn’t waste any time writing me off.”
“Letters?” Her head came up and her face was a study in troubled disbelief. She shook her head. “I never received any letters from you.”
He went still. Hurt continued to slice through him, and he fought the urge to hurl words at her in return. But there had been a note of truth in her tone that he couldn’t ignore. “Celia, I sent you three letters. If you never received them, then…someone kept them from you.”
She stared at him, silent and clearly shocked, and he could see in her eyes the dawning of a terrible truth. “Oh my God,” she whispered. She shook her head blindly. “My father wouldn’t have— Daddy would never— Oh, God!” She buried her face in her hands. “He worried about me that summer,” she said in a muffled tone. “He was a good man, despite the drinking. But if he thought…he might have…” She raised her face and Reese saw in her expression a sad resignation. “My father kept them from me. What did the letters say?”
He shrugged, still cut to the quick at the way she’d condemned him without a second thought, just like his own family. What was the use in getting into this now? “Nothing important.”
Celia went still, studying his face. “Please, Reese,” she said quietly. “What was in those letters?”
“An explanation.” He turned away abruptly, walking to the window and placing his hands on the windowsill, leaning forward until his head nearly touched the glass. “My first impulse was to run to you. But even before I picked up the phone, I realized my father would like nothing better. If he’d been able to catch me in a compromising position with an underage girl, he could have used the threat of statutory rape charges to force me to do what he wanted.”
Celia’s eyes went wide. “Surely your father wouldn’t have done that.”
His mouth twisted. “Looking back, probably not. But I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. So I took off, left the States. That’s when I wrote the first letter, telling you I’d be back the day of your eighteenth birthday.”
She made a stifled sound, bringing her fisted hand to her lips.
“In the second letter, I told you about starting my trip around the world. I hadn’t heard from you yet, so I wrote again and asked you if you’d marry me. But I never got an answer.”
Celia fought to hold back the tears. Dear God. She’d thought she was nothing more than summer entertainment to him. How could she have been so wrong? “Oh, Reese, if only I’d known. I’m so sorry.”
“Forget about it.” He still faced the window but she didn’t need to see his face to know she’d unknowingly hurt him. “It was for the best. I got to see the world. I made buckets of money and I did whatever I damn well pleased for more than a dozen years. If I’d tied myself to you, I might still be stuck here.”
She flinched as the cold words slapped her. But behind them, she heard the pain. He’d been rejected by his family, and then he’d thought she’d done the same thing. When he’d realized how easily she’d accepted his guilt, it must have compounded the betrayal he must have felt. She’d give anything if she could turn the clock back and fix it.
Getting out of bed, she went to him, slipping her arms around his waist and pressing herself against him, heedless of her nudity. “I’m sorry,” she said, pressing a kiss to the center of his strong back and speaking against the warm flesh. “I should have believed in you. I have no excuse for it, and I’ll regret it until the day I die.”
He stiffened noticeably beneath her touch and she clutched at him more tightly, prepared for rejection. But she wasn’t prepared when he said, “Look! Look out there and tell me what you see.”
He grasped her wrist and pulled her around in front of him, placing his hands on her shoulders as she looked out the window across the darkened water, visible from her second story. Her eyes were already acclimated to the dark and it was only a moment before she saw what he had. “It’s some kind of small yacht, running without lights, I think.” She whirled and ran from the room, rummaging in the closet for her binoculars, which she quickly opened and handed to Reese.
“It is,” he said. “Definitely. And it looks very much like it just came out of your harbor.”
She sucked in a breath of outrage. “I’m calling the FBI first thing in the morning.”
Reese put a cautionary hand on her arm. “Celia, we need to make sure no one finds out we saw this. Claudette’s murder most likely proves they’re still here. These people apparently don’t consider either of us a danger or we’d be dead by now, too.” His thumbs caressed her forearms lightly. “I know it goes against the grain, but you need to be careful about stirring this particular hornet’s nest. They’ve already proven they can be lethal.”
“We can’t let them keep using my harbor,” she said hotly.
“Celia,” he said patiently, “I’m not telling you to ignore it. I’m just saying we need to be careful.” He set down the binoculars and put his hands at her waist, drawing her to him. “I won’t take chances with your life.”
“What happened to ‘it was for the best’?” She kept her tone light, trying to let him know she understood the hurt that drove him to lash out.
Reese grimaced. “I was mad, okay? Even after all these years, it still hurt to think that you didn’t trust me. But knowing you never got my letters…I guess if I’d been in your shoes I might have thought the same thing.” His fingers tightened on her waist. “I don’t know if we can sort out everything that’s behind us, and I don’t know if I care.” He snuggled her closer. “What I do care about is us, right now. And I’m not going to throw that away. We’ve already missed too many days we should have shared.”
When he bent his head again, she met his mouth with urgent desire, needing to show him that she cared, too. Unlike Reese, who seemed to have it all figured out, she wasn’t sure where this was going or how it would end. But Reese had made her feel for the first time since Leo and Milo had died, and she wasn’t giving that up without a fight.