Лорет Энн Уайт – Heart of a Hero: The Soldier's Seduction / The Heart of a Mercenary / Straight Through the Heart (страница 17)
An involuntary quiver deep in her belly made her shiver suddenly as her thoughts immediately turned to how those children would be created. Every nerve cell in her body homed in on Wade’s large, warm body sitting so close to hers. Hastily, she shoved the photo album into Wade’s hands and leaped to her feet. “I’d like to freshen up.”
Wade could still hear the grief in Phoebe’s voice as he lay in the single bed in his childhood room that night. That phrase had been haunting him.
God, but he felt like the lowest of the low. She hadn’t said it, and he was pretty sure she hadn’t even thought about how it had sounded. But he knew that her life would never have turned out the way it had if it wasn’t for him.
Well, yeah, that was what he’d meant. If he’d kept his hands off her, if he’d given her the comfort that she’d really needed instead of the sex she’d thought would make her forget the pain, if he’d been less of a self-absorbed jerk afterward…. If, if, if.
No point in going any farther down that road. It was what it was. He and Phoebe had a daughter together. And they owed it to Bridget to work out their issues and give her the happy, stable home she deserved.
Which was why he had to figure out a way to get Phoebe to marry him. She had seemed so resistant to the idea. Why?
He was sure it wasn’t physical. God knew, they had enough chemistry between them to start a brush fire.
Unable to sleep, he rose and padded down the stairs in his bare feet. The little photo album Phoebe had given his father lay on the coffee table in the living room. The streetlight outside cast a few bars of light across the room and he idly picked up the scrapbook and flipped through it. Phoebe had spent more time earlier taking them through Bridget’s young life. Rolling over, sitting up, first teeth. Stuff he would have laughed at if the married guys in his unit had talked about it.
“Wade?”
Startled, he nearly dropped the album and he juggled it for a moment until he had it in his hands again. Phoebe stood on the lowest step.
“What are you doing?”
Her hair was down. Even in the darkened room, he could tell it was long. Longer than it had been a year and a half ago. He hadn’t realized it because, until now, she’d worn it scrambled up in a messy knot atop her head. It should have looked ridiculous but it was oddly charming. And even more so since he was pretty sure she hadn’t tried for that effect. For Phoebe, it was expedient to shove her hair up out of the way.
If it had been Melanie, she’d probably have worked on it for an hour in front of a mirror to achieve a like effect.
“Are you all right?” She was standing there with a concerned look on her face, clad in what resembled a men’s-style button-down shirt, although from the way it caught her at mid-thigh and fit her curves, he was pretty sure it hadn’t been designed for a man.
“I’m not sure,” he said slowly.
Before he knew what she intended, she was down the steps and across the room, placing one small, cool hand on his brow. “Do you feel sick?”
He looked at her, standing so close to him in the shadows of the small living room, her eyes wide and worried. “No,” he said. “I’m not sick.”
Immediately she began to withdraw her hand but he caught it before she could move away. “Don’t go.”
She stilled, but didn’t speak. Her gaze flew to his face again as he tugged on her hand, drawing her closer. He threaded one hand through her hair, cupping her cheek, and rubbed his thumb lightly over her lips. She swallowed. “Wade, I…” She stopped and shook her head. “I’m glad we came to visit your father.”
He smiled, letting his hand drift from her face to play with the cool, silky strands of hair. “Me, too. Bridget’s already got him wrapped around one of those little fingers. Thanks for letting him give her a bottle tonight.”
“He never stopped talking to her the entire time. Did you notice that?”
He nodded. “He sounded pretty ridiculous.”
“Like someone else I know.”
“Hey! I do not sound ridiculous.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “Just infatuated. Totally, ridiculously infatuated.”
“It would be impossible not to be,” he agreed. “She’s perfect.”
“Well, almost, maybe,” she conceded.
“She’s a lot like her mother,” he said. “Wrapping men around her little finger.”
She snorted beneath her breath. “You know darn well I never wrapped a man around any part of me.”
Silence fell between them as her retort registered.
Immediately, his thoughts turned to the cabin in the woods where he’d made love to her. She’d been wrapped around him then, her long, slim legs gripping his hips as he’d plunged into her with so little restraint he winced at the memory even as his body responded to it. “I’d have to disagree with that,” he said, aware that his voice had roughened.
Phoebe moaned softly, dropping her head so that her hair fell forward to hide her expression. “Bad choice of words.”
He put a finger beneath her chin. She might not be willing to talk about Melanie, but he’d be damned if he was going to let her ignore what was between them, too. “Not so bad. It reminds me of making love with you.” He caressed her bottom lip with his thumb again. “Do you remember what it was like between us?”
She drew her breath in sharply and her body tensed. For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to answer him at all. But finally, she whispered, “I remember.”
He was more pleased than the two small words warranted that she’d admitted it. Sliding his arms around her, he drew her close. “Let’s make a new memory.”
She didn’t resist as he found her mouth with his. His pulse doubled its rate when he felt her small hands creep around his back. Her mouth was soft and yielding beneath his, her body equally so. Touching the closed line of her lips with his tongue, he gently traced the tender seam until she opened for him, then deepened the kiss as he gathered her closer.
He took her arms and pulled them up around his neck as he feasted on her mouth. She was so much shorter than he was that she had to stand practically on her toes, throwing her off balance and bringing her body to rest against his. Her soft belly pressed against him and his hardening shaft nestled into the cleft at her thighs, sending a surge of pleasure dancing up his spine.
Tearing his mouth from hers, he kissed a trail along the silken column of her neck, then nuzzled the collar of the nightshirt out of the way. She had only buttoned it as high as the one between her breasts, and he exposed a generous expanse of her pale flesh until the shirt drooped off one shoulder.
“Beautiful,” he breathed against her skin. He brought up a hand and cupped one breast in his palm, lightly brushing his thumb across the nipple through the thin fabric of the shirt.
She made a small sound and her head fell back.
“The baby was fussing so I—” Reston stopped halfway down the stairs with Bridget in his arms. Even in the dim light, Wade could see his father’s eyebrows rising.
Phoebe jerked upright with a startled sound, but when she tried to pull away, Wade refused to let her go. She buried her face in the front of his shirt as Wade met his father’s speculative gaze over her head.
“You do know this is how you got the first one, right?”
Wade couldn’t prevent the snort of laughter that escaped. “No, Dad,” he said. “This is absolutely, positively
It was Reston’s turn to grin while Phoebe made a quiet moan of mortification. “So,” he said. “You gettin’ married?”
“Yes,” said Wade.
“No,” said Phoebe.
If his father’s eyebrows had moved any higher they’d have merged with his hairline. “I see.” He turned and started back up the stairs with the baby, who appeared to have gone back to sleep. But just before he disappeared, he stopped and looked back, and his shadowed eyes held a sober expression that contrasted sharply with the grin of a moment ago. “That would please your mother,” he said quietly to Wade. Then he looked at Phoebe, who still hadn’t moved. He shook his head and his shoulders slumped. “Sometimes I still can’t believe she’s not here. She’d be tickled down to her toes with that baby girl.”
“Old manipulator,” Wade said quietly when he was sure his father was out of earshot.
Phoebe lifted her head from Wade’s chest, although she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. His father’s final words echoed in her ears, awakening all the guilt and remorse she felt for keeping the news of Wade’s child to herself.
Looking down the path her life was about to follow, it didn’t take a fortune-teller to predict heartbreak. Then again, if she didn’t marry him, that was a given.
She knew she was going to say yes, even before she opened her mouth. She’d rather live with Wade, knowing he didn’t love her the way she craved, than live without him. She’d thought he was dead and gone forever and it had felt as if half of her had died, too. She was going to take him any way she could get him, regardless of the pain she knew lay in wait.