The Millionaire Claims His Wife(28)

Or for the pain of losing him.

The truth was that she'd never stopped wanting him. Her throat  tightened. Never. Not then. Not all the years since. If he'd taken her  in his arms again tonight, if he'd kissed her, stroked his hand over her  skin...

The door banged open. Annie grabbed for the blanket and sat up,  clutching it to her chin. Chase stood framed in the doorway. Light  streamed down the hall, illuminating his face and body with shimmering  rays of gold.

"Annie."

His voice was soft and husky. The sound of it sent her heartbeat racing.  Say something, she told herself, but her throat felt paralyzed.

"Annie." He stepped into the room, his eyes locked on hers. "I lied," he  said. "It isn't the chair that kept me from sleeping. It's you."

It was a moment for a flippant remark. A little humor, a little sarcasm;  something along the lines of, "Really? Well, it's good to know I'm  giving you a bad time."

But she didn't want to toss him a fast one-liner.

She wanted what he wanted. Why keep up the pretense any longer?

They were two adults, alone on an island that might just as easily have  been spinning in the dark reaches of space instead of being just off the  Washington coast. Going into Chase's arms, loving him just for tonight,  would hurt no one.

He has a fiancée, a voice inside her whispered. He belongs to another woman now.

"Annie? I want to make love to you. I need to make love to you. Tell me  to go away, babe, and I will, if that's what you really want, but I  don't think it is. I think you want to come into my arms and taste my  kisses. I think you want us to hold each other, the way we used to."

The blanket fell from Annie's hands. She gave a little sob and her arms opened wide.

Chase whispered her name, pulled off his clothes and went to her.

He kissed her mouth, and her throat. He kissed the soft skin behind her  ear and buried his face in that sweet curve of neck and shoulder that  felt like warm silk.

She'd been wearing something under the blanket, after all. A bra and  panties, just plain white cotton, but he thought he'd never seen  anything as sexy in his life. His hands had never trembled more than  they did as he unfastened the bra and slid the panties down Annie's long  legs.                       
       
           



       

"My beautiful Annie," he murmured, when she lay naked in his arms.

"I'm not," she said, with a little catch in her throat. "I'm older. Everything's starting to sag."

Her breath caught as Chase bent and kissed the slope of her breast.

"You're perfect," he whispered, his breath warm against her flesh. "More beautiful than before."

His hands cupped her breasts; he bent his head and licked her nipples.  It was the truth. She'd gone from being a lovely girl to being a  beautiful woman. Her body was classic in its femininity, lushly curved  and warm with desire beneath his hands and his mouth. Annie smelled like  rosebuds and warm honey, and she tasted like the nectar of the gods.

She was a feast for a man who'd been starving for five long, lonely years.

"Chase," she whispered, when he kissed his way down her belly. Her voice broke as he parted her thighs. "Chase," she said again.

He looked up at her, his eyes dark and fierce. "I never forgot," he  said. "The smell of you. The heat." His hands clasped her thighs. Slowly  he lowered his head. "The taste."

Annie cried out as his mouth found her. It had been so long. Five years  of lonely nights and empty days, of wanting Chase and never admitting  it, of dreaming of him, of this, and then denying the dreams in the  morning.

I love you, she thought fiercely, Chase, my husband, my beloved, I adore you. How could I have ever forgotten that?

He kissed her again and she shattered against the kiss, tumbling through  the darkness of the night, and just before she fell to earth he rose up  over her and thrust into her body with one deep, hard stroke.

"Chase," she cried, and this time, when she came, he was with her,  holding her tightly in his arms as they made the breathless free fall  through space together.

The last thing she saw, just before she fell asleep in his arms, was the  crescent moon, framed overhead in the skylight, as the clouds parted  and the gentle rain ceased.

* * *

She awakened during the night, to the soft brush of Chase's mouth against her nape.

It was as if the years had fallen away. How many times bad she come awake to his kisses, and to his touch?

"I never stopped thinking about you," he whispered.

I never stopped loving you, was what he wanted to say, but he wanted to  look into her eyes when he did, to read her answer there.

So he spoke to her with his body instead, burying himself in her heat,  one hand on her breast and the other low across her belly, moving within  her, matching his rhythm to hers, until he groaned and she cried out.  Then he turned her into his embrace, kissed her and slipped inside her  again, still hard, still wanting her, and this time when she came, she  wept.

"Did I hurt you?" he said softly, and for an instant she almost told him  that the pain would come in the morning, when the sun rose and the  night ended, and all of this would be nothing more substantial than a  dream.

But that would be wrong. This was a dream, and she knew it. So she  smiled against his mouth and said no, he hadn't hurt her, and then she  sighed and put her head on his shoulder.

"Annie?"

"Mmm?"

"I've been thinking." He kissed her, and she could feel the smile on his lips. "We ought to try out that tub."

"Mmm," she said again. She yawned lazily. "First thing in the morning..."

And she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Sunlight woke them-sunlight, and the hornet buzz of the motorboat.

Annie jumped up in bed, heart pounding.

"What...?"

Chase was already pulling on his chinos and zipping up his fly.

"It's okay, babe," he said. "I'll take care of things." She nodded, put  her hands to her face and pushed back her hair. Chase started for the  door, hesitated, and came back.

"Annie," he said, and when she looked up, he bent to her and kissed her. "It was a wonderful night," he said softly.

She nodded. "Yes. It was."

For a minute, she thought he was going to say something more but then he  turned away and snagged his shirt from the chair just as a knock  sounded at the front door.

"Okay, okay," he yelled, "hold your horses. I'm coming." He swung back  one last time, just before he opened the door. "Wonderful," he said.  "And I'm never going to forget it."

Annie smiled, even though she could feel tears stinging her eyes.

Chase's message had been gallant, to the point and painfully clear.

It had been a wonderful night. But it was morning now, and what they'd shared was over.





CHAPTER TEN

ANNIE STARTED DOWN the steps of her sister's apartment building just as the skies opened up.                       
       
           



       

It had been raining, on and off, for most of the sultry August afternoon  but half an hour ago the sky had cleared and so the cloudburst took her  by surprise. She gave a startled yelp and darted back into the  vestibule of the converted brownstone.

Wonderful, she thought, as fat raindrops pounded the hot pavement. Just  what she needed. A steamy day, and now a hard rain. By the time she got  to the subway entrance, she'd be not only drenched but boiled.

Annie looked over her shoulder. Should she ring the intercom bell? She  could ask Laurel to buzz her in, go back upstairs and keep her sister  company a while longer.

No, she thought, and sighed. That wouldn't be such a good idea. Laurel  might have fallen asleep by now. She'd promised she was going to lie  down and take a nap, right after Annie left. Heaven knew she looked as  if she needed the rest.

Laurel was going through a bad time.

Hell. A bad time was putting it mildly.

Annie hadn't wanted to leave her, not even when it began to get late and  it looked as if she might miss the last train for Stratham.

"You're sure you're okay?" she'd said to Laurel.

"I'm fine," Laurel had replied.

The sisters both knew it was a lie.

Laurel was not fine. She was pregnant and alone and desperately in love  with a husband who'd maybe two-timed her or maybe hadn't, depending on  whose story you believed. Either way, it broke Annie's heart to see her  little sister looking so beautiful and feeling so sad.

"Men," Annie muttered with disgust.

Not a one of them was worth a penny. Well, her son-in-law was an  exception. Annie's features softened. Nick was a sweetheart. But the  rest of the male species was impossible.

She blew her curls away from her forehead. The vestibule was turning  into a sauna. She'd have to make a run for it soon, even though she  could still hear the rain beating down as if the heavenly floodgates had  opened and Noah was giving the last call for the Ark.