A Bride Before Dawn. Sandra Steffen
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make room for her feet between his. For once, it wasn’t the vibration of flight he sensed, but her trembling. At first she held herself stiffly, but slowly the tension drained out of her. He didn’t know what she’d been through since he’d last seen her, and he didn’t want to guess what was at the root of her tears. In that place where instincts lived and survival reigned, he knew only that she needed something as simple and basic as a human touch.
It had been a year since he’d inhaled the scent of her shampoo, since he’d felt her warm breath against his neck or held her soft curves against the hard length of his body. He heard the rush of blood in his ears and he knew the cause.
He needed to stop this. He’d come here for a reason, a damn good one.
She sighed and lifted her head from his shoulder. Splaying her fingers wide against his chest as if to push away, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. For a moment, neither of them moved, not even to breathe.
Her eyes were luminous and her lashes were damp. Noah’s heart skipped a beat then raced in double-time. Without conscious thought, he swooped down and covered her mouth with his.
He didn’t know what the hell he was doing. Okay, he knew. He’d been imagining this ever since Digger told him Lacey was back in town.
He kissed her. It was demanding and rousing, and once it started, it was too late to ask what she was doing back in Orchard Hill, too late to ask her anything, or to do anything but pull her even closer and tip her head up and plunge into the heat and hunger springing to life between them.
She opened her mouth beneath his, and clutched fistfuls of his shirt to keep from falling. He wasn’t going to let her fall. Keeping one arm around her back, he moved his other hand to her waist, along her ribs, to the delicate edges of her shoulder blades. He massaged the knot at the back of her neck until she moaned. It was a low, primal sound that brought an answering one from deep inside him.
The kiss stopped and started a dozen times. Raw and savage, it tore through him until his heart was thundering and holding her wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
His ears rang and his lungs burned and need coursed through his veins. He was guilty of slipping his hands beneath her shirt, guilty of succumbing to her beauty and his need. His right hand took a slow journey the way it had come, along her ribs, to the small of her back and lower. She locked herself in his embrace and buried her fingers in his hair, as guilty of wanting this as he was.
He covered her breast with his other hand, the thin fabric of her bra the only barrier between her skin and his. He massaged and kneaded until she moaned again, her head tipping back. His eyes half-open, he made a sound, too, his gaze going to the boxes lining the room.
“You’re packing,” he said, easing the strap of her tank top off her right shoulder. “Where are you going?”
“It’s no concern of yours.”
“You leave a kid on my doorstep, it’s sure as hell my concern,” he said against her skin.
The censure in Noah’s voice brought Lacey to her senses. Stiffening, she opened her eyes. She drew her right shoulder away from his lips and yanked herself out of his arms. Unable to get very far away without running into boxes, she had to make do with six feet of space between them.
She pulled her shirt down and pushed her strap up. Her breathing was ragged and her thoughts jumbled. Trying to get both under control wasn’t easy. What an understatement. The passion that had erupted had temporarily thrown her into her old habits, for she’d never been able to resist him.
Catching sight of her reflection in the mirror again, she pushed her hair behind her ears and took several calming breaths. From six feet away she could see Noah’s vehemence returning.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” he asked.
Something crashed in Lacey’s mind like a whiskey bottle hurled against the alley wall below. That was why Noah was here? Because for some unfathomable reason he believed she’d gotten pregnant? If she could have laughed, it would have been bitter.
“Are you going to answer my question or aren’t you?” he demanded.
Again, she heard the censure in his voice. When other young girls were learning to say please and thank you and how to walk in heels and fit in with their peers, Lacey had been learning how to fend for herself. Eventually, she’d acquired those other skills from teachers and friends, books and television, but self-preservation was as deeply ingrained as her pride.
She may have been raised over a shabby bar, but she didn’t have to accept his or anyone else’s unwarranted reproach. “I want you to leave,” she said. “Now.”
His eyes narrowed. “What game are you playing, Lacey?”
She squared off opposite him. “I’m not playing with you anymore. I thought I made that clear a year ago.”
Her statement would have carried more impact if her lips weren’t still wet and swollen from his kiss, but she could tell by the way he drew his next breath that she’d scraped a nerve.
“Tell me this,” he said, his hands going to his hips, too. “Did you leave Joey on our front porch tonight?”
She lifted her chin a notch, surprise momentarily rendering her speechless. Finally, she managed to say, “What do you think?”
“I think that if you did, it’s a hell of a way to tell a man he’s responsible for a kid.”
It was her turn to feel stung. Obviously, he didn’t know her at all. That was the problem, wasn’t it? He told her what he wanted and needed and she pretended to want and need the same thing. Until two-and-a-half years ago, that is. That was when the truth had come out. It was the same night they’d broken up. It hadn’t been pretty, but it had been necessary in order for her to move forward in her life, and all the other mumbo jumbo she read in self-help books.
She straightened her back and stiffened her upper lip. It rankled slightly that she had to remind herself that she’d done nothing wrong and, consequently, owed him nothing.
“If he’s mine,” he said, on a roll, “the least you could have done was sign the damn note so we wouldn’t have to wonder which of us is his father.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that. Noah made her head spin. He always had.
She’d fallen in love with him when she was eighteen years old. By the time she’d realized that he’d needed his lofty dreams of freedom more than he’d needed her, it had been too late to guard her heart from getting broken every time he flew off into the wild blue yonder. Eventually, she’d found the courage to chase her own dream.
Now here she was, back where she’d started. No matter what Noah thought, she wasn’t the same girl she’d been ten years ago, or five, or even one. Now she had to think about what she needed.
She walked to the door and held it open. “I asked you to leave.”
“Are you going to answer my question?” he asked roughly, squaring off opposite her in the doorway.
Gathering her dignity about her, she said, “A baby. That would be the ultimate tether, wouldn’t it? What would you do if I said yes? Would you marry me, Noah?”
A slap wouldn’t have stunned him more.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, unable to close the door while his foot was in it.
Tires screeched and a horn honked out on the street. The fracas seemed to bring him to some sort of decision. Staring into her eyes as if he could see all the way to her soul, he said, “Dinner is at one at the homestead tomorrow. Be there.”
The deep cadence of his voice hung in the air for a long time after he left. Lacey closed the door, but she moved around the cluttered apartment as if in a trance.
Noah Sullivan had a lot of nerve. It was just like him to threaten to break her door down