The Dream Unfolds Read online

  “I’m too tall for a car.”

  She sighed. “No, you’re not. You could do it. It’d just take a little ingenuity.”

  He began moving her hand around. “Like with positions?”

  She nodded, still against his arm. She was picturing the wildest things. “You’d have to be kind of half on, half off the seat.”

  “I’d be on top?”

  That was the only position Chris had ever known, but she’d read of others. “Or under,” she murmured.

  “Would we be undressed?”

  “Just … vaguely.”

  “Could I touch your breasts?”

  She sucked in a breath. “If you wanted to.”

  “Bare? Could I open your bra?”

  “It might be cold.”

  His low voice, angled into her hair, was like liquid fire, which was precisely what was searing his gut. “I’d want to do it anyway. I want to see what you look like all over, then I’d warm you up.”

  She pressed her face into his arm. “Gideon—”

  He slid her hand upward, urging it back and forth at the very top of his thigh. “Heating up?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “It doesn’t take much with us.”

  “I know. I don’t understand it. All these years, and I haven’t been attracted to any other man.” But she could feel the heat in him searing her palm and curling right through her. Later, thinking back on it, she wouldn’t know which of them moved first, but suddenly she was covering his sex, shaping her fingers to his arousal, cupping the heaviness beneath.

  “Chris.” He made a deep, choking sound. She started to take her hand away, but he held it fast. “It’s okay, okay.” He made another sound when he swallowed. “How much longer till we’re home?”

  Chris looked out the window. It was a minute before she could focus, a minute more before she could identify the street they were on. “Two more blocks.” She glanced up at his face, where the tension was marked. A surge of feeling welled up from inside, propelling her mouth to his jaw. She kissed it once, moved an inch, kissed it again. Her voice was like down against his rough skin. “Can you make it?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he gritted, and released her hand. “Loosen my tie, Chris? I’m being strangled.”

  She loosened it and unbuttoned the top button. “Better?”

  “Yes … listen, Chris, if you think there’s even the slightest chance that you may get cold feet on me and want to call this off, better tell me now so I can run around the block a couple of times before we go inside.” He didn’t think they were going to get in much talking or visiting or eating. They’d already passed that point.

  “I won’t get cold feet,” she said, and knew she wouldn’t, couldn’t. She was too hot.

  “What about the food?”

  “It’ll hold.” She took a shallow breath. “Gideon, what I said the other night about birth control? I still don’t have anything. I was thinking I should see my doctor, then I didn’t know whether we’d really, uh, get together, and I felt funny. Do you have something?”

  Turning into her street, he nodded. In a gritty whisper, he said, “Will you help me put it on?”

  Her insides grew swollen at the thought. “I don’t know how.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  “So we’ll be sharing the responsibility?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of it that way.”

  “What were you thinking of?”

  “The turn-on. Having you touch me—having you look at me—” He was torturing himself, unable to stop.

  “Gideon, what I was trying to tell you before—”

  “Jeez, I’ve never talked about making love this way. Does it sound calculated?” He turned onto the driveway.

  “It sounds hot.”

  “I feel hot.” He pulled as close to the garage as he could.

  “Gideon, there’s something I want to tell you.” She rushed the words out, fearful of being cut off again. “I may have had a baby, but I’m pretty new at this. I haven’t even—”

  “Shh,” he whispered, pressing his fingers to her mouth. Opening the door, he slid out, drawing her along in nearly the same motion. A supportive arm circled her shoulders and hugged her to him as he guided her quickly toward the door. Once inside, with the cold air and all of humanity locked out, he pressed her to the wall, ran his mouth from her forehead, down her nose to her lips. She smelled sweet, almost innocent, and was soft to match. That softness burned into him, from the spot, waist high, where their bodies met to the one at the knee where they parted. She was giving, yielding. Her chin tipped up under the light urging of his thumbs. Her mouth opened to his, welcoming him inside. Every move she made was untutored, purely instinctive, intensely feminine. Each one called to the man in him that craved her possession.

  “The nice thing,” he breathed against her forehead as he pushed away the shoulders of her coat, “would have been to wait on this until later, but I can’t, Chris.” The coat slipped to the floor. “If that makes me a not-nice man, I guess that’s what I am, but I need you too much now.” His fingers met at her throat, touched the collar of her dress and the top buttons, then separated and slid over silk to her breasts. It was the first time he’d touched her there. She was full and firm. Even through her dress and a bra, he could feel the tightness of her nipples.

  The sensation of being touched and held was so charged, Chris thought she’d die—just explode. With a small sound, she covered his hands.

  He was instantly concerned. As aroused as he was, he had promised to make it good for her, and if it killed him, he intended to do just that. “Hurt?”

  “Not enough.” She felt impatient and greedy. Transferring her hands from her chest to his, she ran her open palms over him while he worked at the buttons of her dress. When it was open to the waist, she felt him part the fabric, then release the center clasp of her bra. She was holding him at the hips by that time, needing an anchor, feeling momentarily shy when he peeled back the lace and cool air hit her breasts.

  Gideon sensed her shyness, and it fueled his fire. In the past, he’d had the most experienced of women, but none sparked him as Chris did. Angling his upper body away, he took pleasure in what he’d unclothed. Her breasts were pale, strawberry at their crests, quivering with each shallow breath she took.

  He was smitten. Never in his life had he seen anything as beautiful as Chris against that door with her fingers clutching his hips, her eyes lowered to his belt, her dress open and her breasts bare and waiting. Unable to resist, he ducked his head and put his mouth to one. He drew it in. His tongue raked its turgid tip.

  She cried out, a frantic whisper of his name.

  “I want you so badly,” he moaned. Dragging himself from her breast, he straightened and tore off his blazer. Holding her gaze, which had risen with him, he tugged off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt and unfastened his pants. Then he slid his fingers into her hair, held her head still and took her mouth in a strong, sucking kiss.

  Chris wanted more than that. “Upstairs,” she gasped when he finally allowed her a breath. “I want you in my bed.” She took his hand, but no leading was necessary. He was right beside her, half-running up the stairs, stopping midway for another deep kiss before continuing to the top.

  Her room was shadowed, lit only from the hall, though neither of them seemed aware. They were kissing again within seconds, but this time their hands were at work, fumbling with buttons, zippers and sleeves. Their fingers tangled. They alternately laughed, moaned and gasped. She was sitting on the edge of the bed pulling the stockings from her feet when he came down beside her.

  “Help me,” he said, fiddling with a small foil pack.

  For a minute, she couldn’t breathe. He was stark naked and fully aroused. She’d known he would be, of course, still her startled eyes were drawn to the thickly thatched spot from which his arousal jutted so tall and straight.

  At her utter stillness, Gideon raised his head. He didn’t have to follow her gaze to k
now what she was looking at. The thought that she might be afraid gave him the control he wouldn’t otherwise have had. “It won’t hurt,” he whispered, drawing her close. “You know that. You’ve done this before.”

  “But I’ve never seen it before,” she whispered back. “That was what I’ve been trying to tell you. I have lots of brothers, but by the time they reached puberty, I was out of the house. And with Brant it was always so dark.” Tremulously she touched his stomach. “I’m not afraid. You’re very beautiful.” From his navel, she brushed the back of her fingers down the thin, dark line to where the hair grew more dense, then on to his velvety strength. Satin on steel, it seemed to her. She explored it lightly, felt it flex and grow.

  Gideon croaked out her name.

  She looked up. “Too much?”

  “Too little.” He reached again for the foil pack, but no sooner had he removed the condom than she took it from him.

  “Tell me how,” she whispered.

  He told her. With surprising ease, given her trembling and his hardness, she had the condom on. Then, feeling proud and excited and filled with something else that was nearly overwhelming, she slipped her arms around his neck and put her mouth to his. “Love me?”

  “I do,” he muttered, near the end of his tether. With an arm around her slender waist, he fell over onto the bed, sweeping her beneath him as he drew them both up toward the pillows.

  That was when Chris felt the full force of his nakedness. He was man through and through, from the luxury of his weight to the friction of his limbs. His hands seemed everywhere, touching her in large sweeps from her breasts to her hips, then the hot spot between her legs. Suddenly without patience, she opened for him.

  “Hurry!”

  Taut and trembling, Gideon lifted himself, positioned himself and slowly, slowly sank into the tightest sheath that had ever encased him. “There. Ah. Chris, you’re so small.”

  She felt it. Small, feminine and cherished. And she loved it.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

  “Oh, no. You feel so new. So special. So big.”

  Gideon nearly came. He went very still for a minute, shut his eyes tight, gritted his teeth until he’d regained control. “What you do to me.”

  Chris was thinking the same thing about him, because the small pinching she’d first felt at his entry was gone, leaving only a yearning to be stroked. Grasping his hair, she looked up at him and said, “Make love to me now, Gideon. Do it.”

  He didn’t need any more urging than that. Withdrawing nearly all the way, he surged back with a cry of triumph, then repeated the pattern in a rhythm that seemed to anticipate, then mirror her need. Chris surrendered to that need, letting it take her higher and higher until, closing her eyes and arching her back, she tumbled head-on into a mindless riot of sensation.

  Somewhere at the tail end of the riot, a low light came on, but awareness was slow to return. When her breathing had finally slowed and she opened her eyes, she found Gideon propped above her, looking down with a smile. He’d managed to light the lamp beside the bed without leaving her; he was as rigid as ever inside her. But that didn’t seem to be bothering him. Though the muscles of his upper arms were taut beneath her hands and his breathing was heavy, something pleased him immensely.

  “What?” she whispered with a shy smile.

  “You wouldn’t ask that if you could see what I do,” he replied. His voice was low and husky, as tight as his body, but he wasn’t rushing toward his own release. There was too much pleasure to be gained just in looking at Chris, with her blond hair mussed, her cheeks pink, her skin aglow with a light sheen of sweat, her lips rosy and full. There was too much pleasure to be gained just in holding himself inside her, knowing that for a short time she was all his. He felt more loved than he ever had in his life. “Was it good?”

  She nodded. “You touch me, and … poof!”

  His grin broadened. “That’s good. I want it like that.”

  “But you haven’t come.”

  “I will.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I do love you, y’know.”

  She felt a burst of heat in the area of her heart. “How can you tell?”

  “Because of what I feel, like I could stay this way forever and be perfectly happy. Before, when we were downstairs and then in the car, I thought I’d die if I didn’t get into you fast, and maybe I would have. But now that I’m here, there’s no rush. What you looked like when you came—what that look did to me—was more satisfying than any climax I’ve ever had.”

  Chris felt tears pool in the outside corners of her eyes. “That’s beautiful,” she whispered. She touched his chest, running a finger by his small, dark nipple. “You’re beautiful.” Giving more freedom to her hands, she let them familiarize themselves with the wedge of fine hair beneath his collarbone, the muscular ridges of his shoulders, the tapering strength of his back. She was entranced by his perfection, his mix of hard and soft, ragged and smooth, flat and curved. “You are beautiful,” she whispered again. Curving her hands to his backside, she arched her back and rose off the bed to put her mouth to his throat.

  Gideon lost it then. In her slow, gentle way, she was driving him to distraction. Unable to wait any longer, he began to make love to her again. He tempered himself only at the end, when he felt her coming so close, and when her senses erupted for a second time, he gave in to his own powerful release.

  * * *

  Later, much later that night, after the New Year had been welcomed in with toasts and kisses, after Jill and her friends had been fetched and settled, after Gideon had left for the ride back to Worcester and Chris was in bed, she thought about all that had happened.

  Gideon had been incredible. He’d made love to her yet another time in her bed, then once in the shower before they dressed. It wasn’t the fact of his physical prowess that impressed her as much as the soft things he’d said, the adoring look in his eye and the cherished way he’d made her feel.

  Brant had never done that.

  More than once, as she lay in bed that night, then on subsequent nights after talking with Gideon on the phone, she wondered if she loved him. The thought was a sobering one. She didn’t have faith in herself when it came to love. She’d misjudged once before, and had spent fifteen years trying to make up for it to Jill. If she loved Gideon now, if she became more deeply involved with him than she already was, Jill was bound to be affected. Worse, if the involvement deepened and Jill came to love him, too, and then something happened, Chris would never forgive herself.

  The dilemma was whether to take the chance or leave things the way they were. The answer eluded her.

  8

  Of all the months of the year, Chris liked January the least. It was the coldest and most bleak, physically and emotionally, a necessary evil to be suffered through to reach February, which had a vacation, at least. And then March came with its lengthening days, and April with its promise of rebirth, and by then she had it made.

  This year, January was fun. For one thing, she got down to serious work on Crosslyn Rise, poring over Carter’s plans, visiting the site at least once a week to check on the progress, wading through swatches of wallpaper and carpeting, studying furniture and cabinetry designs, pondering electrical and bathroom fixtures, and kitchen appliances.

  Though she would be working with buyers as they came along later that summer, the plan was to completely outfit a model apartment in one of the units for potential clients to see. Moreover, she would be decorating the entire mansion, once it was subdivided into a restaurant, a health club and a meeting place. For that, she would be calling in experts to help, but she was the coordinator.

  There was lots to think about, but she loved it. She also loved spending time with Gideon, which was probably why she went to the Rise so often, given the season and the relatively slow rate of the work. They argued often, but within reason. Though she’d yielded on the issue of winding stairways, she wanted marble tiles in the bathrooms, Corian in the kit
chens, and full walls of brick where the fireplaces would go. Invariably Gideon rebelled at the cost, just as inevitably he went out of his way to try to accommodate her. Sometimes he made it, sometimes he didn’t. But he tried. She couldn’t ask for more.

  January was also bright because she saw him after work. She kept it to once a week, on the weekend when Jill might have other plans, but the anticipation of that one night, along with his regular phone calls, kept her feeling alive in ways she hadn’t known she’d been missing.

  Come February, he asked to stay the weekend at her place, but she was uncomfortable with that. “Jill will be in and out. I just can’t.”

  They were lying face-to-face on a bed in a small motel off the highway not far from Crosslyn Rise. It was three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. Working together at the Rise shortly before, they’d suffered a sharp desire attack. The motel had been Gideon’s suggestion. Chris hadn’t protested.

  Now, in the afterglow of what had been more hot and exciting than ever, Gideon only knew that he needed more of her. “Jill knows what’s going on.”

  “She doesn’t know that we sleep together.” They’d been careful about that, choosing their time together with care.

  “She knows,” he insisted. “She’s a perceptive kid. She sees the way we look at each other, the way we touch. She was the one who noticed the hand-holding that first day. You think she doesn’t suspect that there’s more than hands involved now?”

  “I don’t know what she suspects,” Chris replied, feeling unsettled because it was true. And it was her own fault. She didn’t have the courage to ask. “But I think it would be awkward for her if you slept over. It’s too soon.”

  Nothing could be too soon for Gideon, whose love for Chris kept growing. Although he sensed she wasn’t really ready, he wanted to ask her to marry him, which was a really big step. He’d been footloose and fancy-free for a good long time. But he was willing to give it all up for Chris. He had given it all up. Since meeting her, he hadn’t dated another woman. Footloose and fancy-free had lost its lure.