Where the Heart Is by Elizabeth Lowell
She closed her eyes and tried to gather her scattering thoughts.
“No, I’m not a contractor.” I might just be a damned idiot, though. “I, uh, can’t even hang pictures straight.”
“How are you at scrubbing backs?”
“Cain . . .”
It was all she could say.
In the silence that followed, she clearly heard the whisper of his jeans sliding down the length of his legs and the soft thump as he kicked the heavy cloth aside.
“Not so good at backs, huh?” he said with mock sympathy. “No problem. I’m a great believer in on-the-job training.”
Her eyes snapped open. “What?”
His hands went to the elastic band of his briefs.
She retreated, slammed the door behind her, and yelled at him through it.
“Cain Remington, what the hell do you think you’re doing!”
“Taking a shower. By your cowardly actions, am I to assume that you’re not going to scrub my back as an apology for tearing up my house?”
“I, uh, that is . . . Damn! I thought you’d be gone at least two weeks, so I gave the contractor the go-ahead.”
“I figured that much out all by myself, two seconds after I tripped over the goddamn toilet they left by the front door.”
“You’re angry.”
“I haven’t had a shower for three days and I haven’t eaten for eighteen hours.”
“Is that a hint?”
The only sound that came through the door was that of water being turned on full force in the shower.
Shelley let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding and pushed away from the door.
Discretion is the better part of valor and all that, she told herself briskly. An apology and a platter of ham sandwiches might get me off the hook.
Besides, I can’t really blame him. If I came home dead tired and found a wreck instead of a haven, I’d be furious.
She went to the kitchen, made several thick sandwiches and a pitcher of fresh lemonade, and tiptoed back down the stairs. The sound of running water came through the door. Apparently he was enjoying the luxury of a long, steamy shower.
With one hand she opened the door, juggling the tray. Using her hip to open the door farther, she backed into the room.
It was quiet. Too quiet. The shower had been turned off.
“Lunch is on the dresser,” she called, warning Cain that he wasn’t alone any longer.
The bathroom door opened. Freshly shaved and bathed, he walked into the room wearing a towel around his hips and a mist of water shining in his hair.
Shelley started to retreat again.
He gave her a sidelong glance, rummaged in his suitcase, and faced her with clean jeans in hand.
“I assume if I start to dress, you’ll run out on our unfinished conversation again.”
“Count on it.”
“Mink,” he said, as though confirming the endearment he had chosen for her. “Soft and wild and very, very shy. Don’t go away, mink.”
She watched the bathroom door close behind him. A few moments later, he was back. The jeans he wore were faded and soft, fitting him like a pale blue shadow.
No man should look that good in jeans, she thought distantly. It just isn’t fair.
The waistband didn’t come to his navel. Dense, curling hair made a wedge across his chest and drew a dark line down the center of his body. The line widened just beneath his navel, foreshadowing the thicker hair below. Water drops sparkled everywhere, shifting and gleaming with each breath he took. Like a sculpture by a master, he called to her mind and her senses at the same time.
“Why did you tell the contractor he had two weeks?” Cain asked calmly. “I said I’d be gone a week.”
“Yes, but . . .”
Vaguely she waved her hand. Not once did she look away from the water drops sparkling on his chest.
“But?” he prodded.
“I assumed that meant at least two weeks and probably a month.”
He waited for her attention to shift back to his face. When it did, he spoke quietly. “Is that what he did?”
She blinked. “Who?”
“Your ex-husband. Did he say he’d be gone a day and stay away a week?”
“Something like that.”
Cain started walking toward her.
“I’m really sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to mess up your—”
“When are you going to realize,” he interrupted, reaching for her, “that I’m not like your ex-husband?”
She watched his face come down toward hers and realized all over again that he had the most beautiful mouth she had ever seen. Hard and yet sensual, cleanly curved and utterly male.
His mouth hovered just above hers. His eyes watched her. He made no attempt to hide the hunger that had only increased with each hour he spent away from her.
She watched his smoky gray eyes and remembered how wonderful his mouth had felt on her lips, the pulse in her neck, the hard tips of her breasts. She was aching to feel those caresses again.
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly.
“That I’ll die if you don’t kiss me.”
The husky confession drew a thick sound from him. His mouth closed over hers hungrily.
She opened herself to him, inviting him into her soft heat, shivering when his tongue rubbed hotly over hers. Her fingers flexed, sending her nails into his thick hair even as his palms worked down her back to the firm curves of her hips.
When his hands were full of her, his fingers clenched in sensual luxury. She made a startled sound that was also a muffled cry of pleasure.
Slowly he caressed every part of her mouth, lingering over the special softness behind her lips and the sliding delicacy of her tongue. Then he groaned and thrust deeply into her, filling her with a prowling, probing sensuality.
Hungrily she flowed over his hard male surfaces, trying to fit his body as perfectly as his mouth fit hers. His hands kneaded her hips as he held her hard and close. Then he moved slowly against her, proving beyond doubt that he was not in the least like her ex-husband.
Cain wanted her. The proof of his desire caressed her with every sliding movement of his hips.
By the time the kiss ended, Shelley could barely stand. A strange weakness consumed her, turning her bones to honey and her blood to liquid fire. She clung to him, feeling helpless, almost afraid, needing him in a way she didn’t understand.
“Cain? I feel . . . dizzy.”
He was surprised by the confusion and shadow of fear in her voice. In the next breath he realized that despite her headlong response to him, despite her obvious sensuality and hunger for him, despite having been married, Shelley Wilde didn’t know what real passion did to a woman’s body.
“It’s all right,” he whispered.
He shifted her in his arms, soothing her where he had once aroused. Then he laughed softly and rocked her close against his chest.
“It’s better than all right,” he said. “It’s incredible.”
Her eyes asked the question she was too shaken to put into words.
“This is the way it should be between a man and a woman,” he said simply. “Wildfire, clean and hot and pure. Touching you is like putting a torch to dry chaparral.”
“What about you? Is it . . . is it the same when I touch you?”
“Let’s find out.”
He lifted her fingers from his chest and slid them down his body until they hovered just above the blunt ridge of his hunger.
“Touch me, mink. Watch me burn.”
She settled on him so lightly that even her delicate fingertips barely registered the caress.
Cain’s aroused flesh was far more sensitive than mere fingertips. The hesitant caress she gave him was pure fire. Every muscle in his body tightened. When she ran delicate fingertips over the length of him again, he closed his eyes and shivered.
She looked at his face, wondering if he was enjoying the gentle intimacy as muc
Smiling, her own eyes half closed, she watched him burn.
“You’re not going to run away from me now, are you?” he asked.
“Run?” She laughed breathlessly. “I can barely stand.”
“That’s Mother Nature’s way of telling you it’s time to go to bed.”
“Are you weak, too?”
He kissed her lips gently despite the hunger racking him. Slowly he lifted her in his arms and walked toward the bed.
“The man gets a few extra minutes of grace,” he said, placing her on the bed and coming down beside her in a controlled rush. “But I’ll tell you, each time you kiss me I can feel it all the way to my knees.”
“We’re going to be too weak to do anything,” she said, half laughing, half serious.
His smile went from tender to very male.
“That’s not quite the way it works,” he said, unbuttoning her blouse.
“It isn’t? Are you—sure?” Her breath caught as his fingers traced a line of fire down to her waist.
“Very.”
The knotted tails of her blouse gave way to his determined fingers.
“You see,” he said, “once you get smart and lie down, you get strong again. Very, very strong.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m still at the weak stage.”
She couldn’t help shivering with a combination of nerves and desire as he took off her blouse and bra. When his hands came back to her body, her breath stopped in her throat.
Please, God, don’t let me flinch when he touches my breasts.
Shelley didn’t want painful memories from the past to spoil this moment. She didn’t want Cain to be angry or hurt and withdraw from her. She wanted to feel again the extraordinary fire that had swept over her at the beach when his mouth had caressed her so urgently. She wanted to forget everything a humiliating marriage had taught her. She wanted to burn in her lover’s arms, consuming him, consuming herself.
Yet when Cain’s hands came up to her breasts, she froze.
It was just an instant, but he felt it. His hands stilled and his mouth tightened.
“I’m sorry, don’t be angry,” she said in a rush. Tears filled her throat, strangling her. “It’s not you, it’s me. I told you. I’m no good at—”
His mouth stole her fearful words and replaced them with a deep, gentle kiss. Long fingers caressed her breasts, teasing the tips until they were ruby-hard.
Streamers of fire ran down to her thighs. She arched against him, burning for him. She twisted into his touch, increasing the sweet pressure of his fingers.
“Your ex-husband didn’t want you to burn,” Cain said roughly, “because he knew he couldn’t put out the fire. I don’t know if I can, either, but I’m sure as hell going to enjoy finding out.”
His hands went beneath her back, arching her toward his beautiful, hungry mouth.
“I like it when you burn,” he said.
His teeth raked lightly over her nipple. She gasped with pleasure. Then he drew her heavily into his mouth.
The world spun away. She forgot her past experience, the husband she could never fully amuse, the doubts she had about herself as a woman. She forgot everything but the rhythmic pull of Cain’s tongue and teeth and lips.
Waves of sensation swept over Shelley, shaking her with their force. Her head fell back and her eyes became unfocused. She gave herself to his lovemaking with an elemental abandon that was more arousing to him than any declaration of passion could have been.
She didn’t know how long she was held suspended between his powerful hands and his caressing mouth. She knew only that she had never felt more desirable, more desired.
Then she discovered even that wasn’t enough.
She had to have more of him, give more to him, make him burn as she was burning. She threaded her hands into his hair, letting it slide between her fingers. The feeling was deliciously sensual. His hair was damp from the shower and hot with the passion that radiated through both of them.
Her fingernails scored lightly over the bunched muscles of his shoulders. Then her palms rubbed across his burning skin, savoring every bit of him she could reach.
It still wasn’t enough. She was consumed by the need to feel his tongue against hers, to taste his heat, absorb it, become part of it. Yet she couldn’t tell him what she wanted. She could barely even say his name for the sensual vise gripping her.
As though he knew her need, he lifted his head from her breast and took her mouth without restraint, crushing her back into the bed with the force of his kiss.
She didn’t complain about his weight. She gloried in it and in him. Wrapping her arms around him, she pulled him even closer, needing the masculine heaviness of his body as he settled between her legs. He pushed sinuously against her, seeking the waiting softness, silently asking if she wanted him. Instinctively her hips moved against him, telling him that she burned.
“Shelley?”
“Yes. Hurry.”
Swiftly he peeled off their remaining clothes, reached into his discarded jeans, and pulled out a small foil packet.
“Next time you can help me with this,” he said, ripping apart the foil. “But this time I don’t feel like playing. This time I just want to be inside you.”
An instant later, his hands were stroking her urgently from her ankles to her forehead and back. He wanted to slow down, to savor her heat and hunger, but control was sliding away from him with each broken breath he took. The raw hunger burning him was like nothing he had ever experienced.
When his fingers found the hot, soft center of her, he groaned at the proof of her arousal. He bent and took her mouth fiercely, ravishing her with thrusts of his tongue as he wanted to ravish her with thrusts of his body.
She came apart beneath the sensual assault, crying out her pleasure, twisting up to him, telling of the fiery need racing through her, shaking her until she could only call his name again and again. Blindly her hands slid down his body until she touched him and knew the full measure of his need.
He made a hoarse sound. In an agony of pleasure, he moved between her soft palms. Then he captured her hands and pulled them back up his body. He bit her palms with hungry sensuality, wanting to devour and cherish her at the same time.
“God, how I want you,” he said through clenched teeth.
She couldn’t even answer. All she could do was lift up to him in a silent plea.
Long fingers slid down her flushed body and sank into her satin depths, caressing her until fire melted her. Breath hissed through Cain’s teeth. He closed his eyes and deepened the caress, savoring the liquid silk of her response. With a shudder he withdrew slowly and lay on his back, not touching her at all.
She turned restlessly toward him, wanting him.
And then she saw his face. His expression was harsh and tightly drawn, as though he was in pain.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“I want you—too much.”
“I don’t understand.”
She touched his jawline and felt the shudder that took him with even such a simple caress. At that moment she had no doubt that he wanted her as no man ever had. To be wanted like that made her feel as though she was breathing fire. Heat twisted through the core of her, bringing a wild kind of strength. She had never dreamed such wanting was possible.
But he was retreating from her with every rough breath he took.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said. “I want you.”
“I know.”
Hungrily, gently, his fingers moved up her inner thighs until he knew once again the satin heat of her.
“I can feel how ready you are for me,” he said roughly. “So soft, so hot.”
Her hand touched him. “And you’re ready for me, aren’t you?”
&
“Then why . . . ?”
“It’s been so long since you’ve been with a man, you’re as tight as a virgin.”
Even as he spoke, he caressed her slowly, deeply. Her breath broke and she melted over him again.
“Cain,” she said urgently. “Please.”
He fought against the savage need to bury himself in her willing body. “I’m too damn hungry, mink.”
“What?”
With a despairing curse, he wrapped her hand around his tightly sheathed flesh.
“You’re small,” he said curtly. “I’m not. I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”
Visibly fighting for control, he withdrew his touch from her body again.
Shelley felt empty, aching. Slowly she kissed his cheek, his neck, the tangled mat of hair on his chest, the dark line leading to his navel.
“You won’t hurt me,” she said against his skin.
He couldn’t speak for the sudden hammering of his blood. The butterfly softness of her lips brushed over him in a caress that tightened every muscle in his body.
Then, hungrily, she tasted the strip of hard flesh that was still naked beneath the condom.
“Shelley—”
“I’m empty, Cain.”
He turned swiftly and pinned her to the bed, filling her with a single powerful movement of his body. She cried out at the sudden penetration, but it was a cry of pleasure, not pain. The shivering, melting heat of her body told him just how great that pleasure was.
It was no less for him. He moved inside her again, filling her all over again, dragging sweet cries and liquid fire from her, setting her completely afire, burning her, burning with her. Snug within her body, he rocked against her, feeling a pleasure so great that he could only groan.
At each movement of his hips she cried out and her nails licked like flames over him. Abruptly her body tensed. Her eyes opened with surprise as pleasure exploded into a consuming ecstasy.
Cain saw the instant of her surprise. Then he felt the liquid heat and satin pulses rippling deep within her. He set his teeth and willed himself not to move. He wanted it to last forever, to stay joined with her endlessly, savoring the hot, wild instant when she first knew ecstasy.