CHAPTER ELEVEN
BLAIR DIDN’T MOVE for a minute while he tried to deal with what she’d just told him. He thought of all the time he’d wasted running from her, and now there might not be any time left. What a fool he’d been!
He drew back. “What does Doctor Fred want you to do?”
“He wants to do a CT scan,” she said heavily. “I don’t see the use. I won’t go through what Mama did, Blair, I won’t put Daddy through it!”
“Listen to me,” he said curtly. “I can get specialists, the best in the world, on your case. We can find a way to stop it!”
“And if we did? Blair, once I have radiation treatments, I can never have a baby. Never.” Tears stung her eyes as she looked up at him. “What sort of life is that? I dreamed of having children, all my life...” Her voice broke. She pulled away from him and wrapped her arms around her waist. “They’ll cut and treat and cut and treat until I’m a shadow of the person I was, and I’ll still die.”
“You won’t,” he said through his teeth. “No matter what it takes!”
She turned, and the look in her eyes was ancient. “Blair, you can’t stop cancer. I know.”
His face was pale, his eyes frightening to look into.
“Now do you understand?” she asked. “I was trying to spare my father. I know it was stupid, what I did, letting Dan talk me into the hike, leaving my medicine behind.” She closed her eyes and shivered. “I didn’t realize until the attack started how horrible it would be, to die like that. I felt so stupid. All those people trying to save me, Dad worried out of his mind. I must have been crazy!”
“No. You were just afraid. I don’t blame you. But life is still life, Niki, for however long you might have it.”
“I...”
“You don’t have to decide today,” he said after a minute. “Jameson had the cook prepare something very special for supper. We’ll eat and watch TV, then you’ll get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we’ll talk about it again. Deal?”
“I won’t change my mind,” she told him.
He studied her wan face. “How big was the spot?”
“I didn’t ask.”
His eyes narrowed. “And Doctor Fred is certain that it was cancer?”
She hesitated. “Well, no. He did say that it could be a lot of other things. But with Mama’s history...”
“I understand.” He moved closer, drawing her into his arms. “If it’s very small,” he said very gently, “they might be able to remove it and give you time to have a baby before it became dangerous.”
She stared up at him. “You think so?”
“We can find out. A college friend of mine is an oncologist. I can have him down here in a day to confer.”
She brightened. “There are fertility clinics,” she began.
He put a big finger over her soft lips. “We’ll talk about that when the time comes,” he said huskily.
Her face was agonized. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Even if I had a child, I’d be gone. Daddy would have to raise it...”
His face was hard. “Decisions can wait until we know what we’re up against. Okay?”
She grimaced. “That’s the problem. I’m not sure I want to know what I’m up against.” She closed her eyes and shivered. “Once they actually say the words...”
He drew her close and buried his face in her soft throat.
He was thinking about her father, about the horrible loss he’d faced. But he’d had Niki, a living symbol of the love he’d lost, a reason to stay alive.
Niki wanted a child more than anything. So did he. But he wanted Niki more. He couldn’t bear to think of the long, lonely years ahead without her.
He forced the thought to the back of his mind. Whatever happened, whatever it cost, he wasn’t going to lose Niki. No matter what it took, he’d find a way!
He let her go slowly. His face was hard. His black eyes were glittery with strong feelings. “One day at a time, Niki. Okay?”
She searched his black eyes slowly. Her whole body seemed to vibrate with the strength he was radiating.
“Yes?” he asked softly.
She hesitated, but he was so determined that she felt hope begin to rise in her. She nodded.
“And you’ll stop worrying until we know something for sure,” he said firmly.
She reached up and drew her fingers slowly down his hard cheek. “You’re my best friend, Blair,” she said huskily. “Thank you. For everything...”
“I’ll call my friend Trevor tonight and speak with him. If he has some free time, I’ll get him down here tomorrow to consult. He and Doctor Fred can arrange the CT scan at the hospital here. I’ll go with you.”
She ground her teeth together. “So soon?” she asked in anguish.
“Niki, the sooner, the better,” he said, his voice deep and troubled. “Knowing is always better than guessing. You can’t fight unless you know what you’re going to have to fight against.”
She drew in a breath. “All right, Blair.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Optimism doesn’t cost anything, you know.”
She laughed. “No. You’re right.” She moved closer to him. “I love your house, by the way.”
He smiled as he threw a big arm around her thin shoulders. “I’m glad you like it, honey.” He bent and brushed his mouth tenderly against hers. He lifted his head and searched her soft eyes. He felt as if he were flying. “Let’s see what the cook fixed us to eat.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
* * *
AFTER SUPPER, WHICH included all Niki’s favorite foods, Blair had two neat whiskeys while he and Niki watched a movie on TV. His mind wouldn’t stop worrying about the future.
Niki noticed that his glass was staying full. She gave him a concerned look.
“It relaxes me when I’ve got things on my mind,” he said. He drew in a breath. “I had half a bottle the day you and your father came up here.” He grimaced. “Your college graduation day, too. What a hell of a day for you.”
“It was a nice day. I graduated, then I kept my best friend from doing something desperate.” She smiled at him tenderly. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you. I remember when you were engaged to Elise, how happy you were.”
“She reminded me of my mother,” he said quietly. “She resembled her. But it was only skin-deep, as I found to my horror after it was too late and I’d married her.”
“Dad said she wanted more alimony,” she said without looking at him while the commercial blared out of the television.
“She likes living high.” He finished his second whiskey. “But I think there’s more to it. I really think she’s being blackmailed.”
“Would she tell you, if you asked her?”
“Depends,” he said, dropping down beside her on the sofa. “If it gave me a reason to stop paying her alimony, perhaps not.”
“Why does she need alimony?” she asked.
He stared at her with amusement. “Because she likes being able to buy a new fur each season and drive a Ferrari, Niki.”
She stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.
“You only wanted a rawhide bracelet with an antler medallion,” he recalled. His teeth ground together. “You could have had anything in the store, Niki! Elise always wanted diamonds and furs and cars.”
“I’ve never wanted any of that,” she replied.
“Rare little hothouse orchid,” he said under his breath. He drew her closer and looked down into her soft, gray eyes. “I wish I’d knocked Brady down a flight of stairs.”
She put her fingers across his broad, sexy mouth. “We’ve already agreed that it was my decision to go on the hike. Dan didn’t force me.”
He kissed her fingertips and then cradled them against his hard cheek. “I can’t remember the last time anything scared me that much, and I’d never heard Edna in tears before.”
“You said you went to the house...”
He shrugged. “I lied. I phoned. I felt guilty for what I’d said to you,” he confessed. “I wanted to make things right between us.” His face hardened. “Amazing, how things become crystal clear when you think you might not have time to do it.”
“I did a stupid thing...”
“You wore a bathing suit. It was very sexy. I loved the way you looked in it. I just couldn’t quite control what I felt when I saw you in it.”
She stared at him blankly.
“You aren’t worldly at all,” he mused as he drew her slowly across his lap, so that her head fell back against his broad shoulder. He searched her soft eyes for a long time. “I lost control with you, out in the ocean. You didn’t realize, did you?”
She shook her head, fascinated.
His big hand traced her cheek, the curve of her throat. His fingers worked their way down her body to the softness of her breast and pressed there tenderly. “That was what set me off, that I couldn’t stop. If we’d been alone, Niki, it might have been a lot more serious than what happened.”
She blushed furiously.
His black eyes narrowed. “People can do it standing up, honey, and we were far enough out in the water that nobody would have noticed.”
“Standing up?”
Her wide-eyed fascination amused him. “Yes, honey, standing up.”
Her eyes fell to his hard mouth. She reached up hesitantly and traced it with her fingertips. “I felt so ashamed afterward,” she said.
“I felt so guilty about what I’d done that I couldn’t face you over a dinner table,” he confessed. “So I asked Janet out, to make you think I didn’t care. It was a lie, like so many other lies I’ve told you.” He drew in a long breath. “You’re sixteen years my junior. It mattered.”
“Why?”
“Because one day you’d want someone younger, honey,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“You really think so?”
“You haven’t lived, Niki,” he said. “You’ve only dated two men. One was a drunken idiot and the other was certifiable. There are nice young men in the world.”
She toyed with his bottom lip. “And you think a younger man would be what I wanted?”
He brushed his mouth softly over hers. “It might be, one day.”
Her hands slid up into his thick, wavy black hair. There were just a very few threads of silver just at his temples. “If you were twenty years younger or twenty years older, it really wouldn’t make a lot of difference. It’s the man you are that I care about.”
“I’m the only man you’ve ever been intimate with,” he pointed out.
She pressed her cheek against his broad chest and listened to his heartbeat. “Not that intimate.”
“The night is young,” he mused, and laughed.
Her fingers worked at his buttons.
“Not wise,” he said, catching her hands.
“Really?” She felt dangerous, reckless. She might have very little time left in the world, and this was one thing she’d always wanted. She wanted Blair. “Couldn’t we mess around, just a little?”
“Mess around?” he teased. “And what do you suppose messing around consists of?” he added.
“What we did in Mexico,” she said.
“I was sober then.”
She cocked her head and looked up at him, smiling. “What’s the difference?”
“Inebriated men have even less control than I had that day,” he said.
“So...you might not be able to stop?”
“I might not.”
Her fingers teased around a button. “Suppose I didn’t mind?”
His heart was hammering. “First, you have a CT scan and we talk to an oncologist.”
“If we do that, you might decide to be noble and refuse to sleep with me.”
“I want you to live, honey.”
She looked up at him. “And I want a baby, Blair.” She lifted her mouth and slid it softly, teasingly against his hard mouth. “I want one so much.”
The hand smoothing over her breast became caressing. His mouth opened over hers, pressing her lips apart. He could barely breathe, his heart was beating so heavily. He’d wanted her so much, for so long, that he couldn’t stop. If she thought she was pregnant, it might give her hope. At least, that was what his not-quite-sober brain was telling him. He wanted her to the point of madness. He thought it unlikely that she’d get pregnant after just one night. Men his age weren’t as fertile as younger men. There was also the fact that Elise had never become pregnant. He might be sterile. But Niki didn’t know that, and it was one way to get her to listen to reason. If she thought she’d conceived, she might fight, and fight hard, to live.
“Please?” she whispered into his mouth.
He couldn’t resist her. There were a dozen reasons why he should, but the liquor was working on him as much as the feel of her soft, warm, young body in his arms.
She lifted against him. “Please?” she whispered again.
He shivered. “All right,” he ground out against her mouth. “But you let me lead, this once,” he said as he stood, holding her in his arms. His eyes were glittering with feeling. “I don’t want your first experience to be something you’d rather forget. Do you understand?”
“I do,” she said softly. She stared up at him with soft, loving eyes, watching him watch her as he paused to click off the television and started down the hall with her in his arms.
“Jameson...” she said suddenly.
“Sleeps on the other side of the house,” he said against her soft mouth. “And he sleeps like a log.” He bit at her lips. “You can scream if you want to,” he teased huskily as he carried her down the long hall to his room and opened the door, balancing her on one broad thigh.
“Scream?” she asked curiously. “But you said it wouldn’t hurt...”
“God, Niki,” he ground out. “You don’t have a clue!”
While she was trying to understand what he meant, he shouldered the door closed and put her down long enough to lock it behind them, just before his open mouth went down on her breast.
She shivered. It had been a long time, a very long time, since he’d touched her like this. She lifted up to his warm, hard mouth, loving the feel of it on her even through a layer of cloth.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed, pausing just long enough to pull back the sheet and comforter before he put her down in the middle of it.
It was still light outside, and she was shy. He didn’t seem to notice. He stepped out of his shoes and stripped down to black silk boxers before he tossed Niki’s shoes over the side of the bed and started removing her slacks and blouse.
She was flushed by the time he got to her underthings.
He chuckled wickedly as she caught his hand when he found the catch of her bra behind her.
“I hate to break it to you, honey, but we can’t make love fully clothed,” he whispered as his mouth hovered over hers.
“Blair!”
He laughed. His lips teased hers, working over them softly, tenderly, while he slowly peeled the bra away and tossed it aside. His eyes slid over her pretty, firm little breasts, their dusky crowns already hard with desire.
He traced them with his fingertips, his breath coming rapidly. He brushed his lips over the hard peaks, tasting them with his tongue. She arched and shivered.
“It was like this when we got back from Mexico, in the car,” he whispered. He lifted his head and looked down into soft, curious gray eyes. “I’ve never wanted a woman so badly in my life. I was cruel. I didn’t want to be.”
“You think I’m too young,” she whispered back.
“No, I know you’re too young,” he corrected. His big hand slid over her breast again. His face was hard. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not going to lose you, Niki.”
Her fingers touched his hard mouth, traced it lovingly. Her face was sad. “I thought I could never have you,” she said huskily. “I went out with Dan Brady because it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered. You were gone, and I had nothing left...”
His mouth covered hers. He groaned as he kissed her hungrily. He levered his broad chest over hers. She felt the warmth of his body sliding against hers. The sensations she felt made her shiver with feeling.
“Do you like it? It gets better,” he whispered roughly.
“Can...it?” she gasped, her mouth following his.
“Wait and see.”
She slid her arms up around his neck. “Is it going to hurt?” she asked worriedly.
He laughed softly. “I’m going to remind you that you asked me that, in a couple of hours. But for now...”
He touched her in a way he never had. The shock lifted her off the bed, and she tried to grab his forearm to stop him. But very soon, the skilled motion of his big hand left her no breath for complaints. She cried out softly as stars exploded in her mind.
“And just think, baby, we’ve barely started,” he whispered as his mouth swallowed a warm breast.
* * *
SHE WENT WITH him every step of the way. He felt her body ripple as he touched and tasted it, his mouth on her breasts, her flat stomach, the soft inner flesh of her thighs. She lifted up to him, her nails digging in as the pleasure went from plateau to plateau. She hadn’t even read about some of the ways he touched her, in her most passionate romance novels.
“They never told us...in health class...that it felt like this!” she gasped.
He laughed softly. “They wouldn’t dare.”
She shivered again as his big hands slid under her bare hips, lifting her to his mouth.
She felt his body against hers without any fabric in the way. She didn’t remember when he’d removed the rest of his clothing. She didn’t care that light was still coming in the windows as the sun went down. She looked up into his glittery black eyes with wonder, as desire rode her hard.
“Gently,” he whispered as his hips moved slowly in between her soft legs. “Gently, baby. It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re ready for me.”
She didn’t understand what he meant until she felt the slow, soft possession of her body while he looked right down into her wide, shocked eyes. She gasped. Even in her most erotic dreams of him, it hadn’t felt like this.
He moved from side to side, intensifying the exquisite stabs of pleasure. She felt him tense, just a little, and he pushed down.
There was a flash of pain. She bit her lip and turned her head to the side.
“No,” he whispered, his body shuddering. “Don’t look away. Let me see. I’ve never been anyone’s first. Not in my life. I want to remember this as long as I live.”
She turned her shocked face back to his and let him see her eyes. Her short nails dug into his back as he moved again.
“Only a little more,” he whispered, his hips moving very gently. “Yes.” His face clenched. “Yes!”
She felt him possess her completely. Felt the shock of it all the way down her body to her toes. She lay watching him, feeling the crush of his big body lift and fall as he moved deeper inside her.
“How does it feel to have me inside you?” he whispered.
She shivered. “Blair!” she cried, lifting her hips suddenly toward his to coax him even deeper. She shivered again. “Oh, gosh!”
“Yes,” he ground out. “Do that again. Yes. Yes!”
She moved with him, incited him, lifted up and demanded, as the heat of possession washed over her like molten joy. She caught her breath. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t exist without the rhythm he was teaching her. She shuddered with each hard thrust, so enthralled with the sensation that she only lived through him.
He’d never dreamed he could feel something so intense. Never in his life had a sexual experience produced the exquisite pleasure he was feeling. He moved with her until he saw the same explosive passion in her face that he was experiencing.
“Hard and fast now,” he bit off as the sensations became a tension that tore him apart. “Hard, Niki, hard, hard, hard...!”
She opened her legs as widely as she could, her nails biting into his back, as the tension grew and grew and finally snapped in such a maelstrom of pleasure that she screamed out in a voice she’d never heard her throat make. She bit his shoulder, hard, as she felt the first climax of her life.
Blair went with her every step of the way. His big body shuddered over and over again as she satisfied him. He groaned harshly, his hips arched down into hers, his chest lifted, his head thrown back as he shot up into the sky like a rocket.
Niki watched him, fascinated. She was barely able to catch her breath, her body relaxed now in the aftermath of fulfillment as he finally collapsed on her damp body. He was breathing like a distance runner, his big body trembling with the force of their pleasure.
“Wow,” she whispered.
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. He could feel her delight in what they’d shared. He tried to feel guilty, but all he could manage was pride. She’d been a virgin, and he’d given her complete fulfillment her first time.
Finally, he lifted his head and looked down at her flushed, rapt face.
“Wow?” he mused.
She stretched under him, the pleasure echoing in the soft movement of her hips. “Wow,” she whispered. She smiled up at him with her whole heart.
He rested on his elbows and brushed his mouth over her eyes, closing them. “For a first time, it was pretty cataclysmic.”
“Yes, it was.”
He rolled over onto his back and pulled her beside him as he lay trying to catch his breath. She sat up, a little shy as she looked at him, filled her eyes with the incredible masculinity of his big body, his broad chest covered with thick, curling hair, his broad thighs feathered with it. He was glorious to look at.
“Anatomy 101?” he mused.
She grinned.
He laughed and drew her back down into his arms.
She nestled close. He hadn’t used any birth control. She hoped with all her heart that there would be a baby, no matter what the future held. She drew in a long breath. Of course, she’d done something she’d sworn she never would—sleep with a man she hadn’t married. But she loved Blair with all her heart. There could never be another man for her, not like this. So perhaps God would make allowances. Under the circumstances, it might never happen again. She might not live long enough.
“You’re brooding again,” he murmured.
“Sorry.”
He got up, went to the small refrigerator in the room, pulled out a beer and opened it on his way back to the bed. He sipped it and handed it to her.
“I know you hate beer. But it’s cold.”
“Yuck,” she muttered. But she drank several swallows.
He had a few sips himself. He put the can on the bedside table and turned back to her, his eyes dark and quiet.
“There is no tomorrow,” he said as he drew her back into his arms. “Only us. Only tonight.”
She reached up to him. “Yes,” she said softly. “Only tonight.”
He kissed her and rolled her gently onto her back.
* * *
VERY EARLY THE next morning, he drew her into the shower with him and bathed her as if he’d been doing it all his life. She found the new intimacy fascinating. She hadn’t realized what it would be like to be intimate with a man. She looked at him in a new way, felt differently with him than she had before. She looked at him with love in her eyes.
They hadn’t spoken of love. She knew he wanted her. But he didn’t say what he felt. And she didn’t insist. There was no more time for that. Today would bring answers that they might not want.
Wrapped in towels, he blow-dried her long blond hair and let her do the same for his thick, wavy black hair. All the while, he watched her, as if he could never get enough of just looking at her.
“Do I have warts?” she teased when she was putting away the dryer.
He smoothed back her long hair. “You’re beautiful,” he corrected. “I never tire of watching you.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
He drew in a long breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“About last night,” he said curtly. “I had too much to drink and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t mean for things to happen like that.”
“Oh.”
He tilted her face up to his. “Don’t pretend that it isn’t worrying you, too.”
She swallowed. “This is a time out of time,” she tried to explain. “I don’t know what’s coming. I...thank you, for getting me through the night.”
Was that all it had meant to her? She’d enjoyed him. She cared for him. But he’d hoped there was more. He berated himself mentally. He’d had the one sweet taste of her he’d wanted for years, and now it was time to put his selfish needs aside and tend to hers.
“I phoned Trevor before you woke up,” he said. “He and Morris are arranging the CT scan for this afternoon.”
“I see.”
He brushed his mouth over her forehead. “We have to face it, Niki. Then we’ll do whatever we have to do. All right?”
She bit her lip. “All right.”
“Let’s get dressed.”
She looked haunted.
“What is it?”
“The bed,” she said, flushing as she remembered the tiny smear of blood on the sheets. “Jameson...”
He brushed his thumb over her soft mouth and felt guilty. “Jameson and the maids are paid to be discreet. Nobody is going to talk about it.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
He drew her close and rocked her in his arms. “We’ll find out what we’re up against with your health, then we’ll make plans. All right?”
“All right.” She swallowed. “Blair, what if there’s a baby?” she added hesitantly. “Would you hate me...?”
“Hate you? My God!” His broad chest rose and fell heavily. His arms tightened, his eyes closed as his face buried itself in her soft throat. “It would be like Christmas,” he whispered.
Her heart jumped. He didn’t sound as if he was reluctant to have it happen. “Really?”
His mouth smoothed over the soft skin tenderly. “I’d want it with all my heart, Niki. It’s just...”
She swallowed. “Just what?”
He lifted his head and sighed as he met her eyes. “Honey, men lose some fertility as they age.” He grimaced. “And I’ve never tried to make a woman pregnant.” Actually, he’d tried to make Elise pregnant, and he hadn’t been able to. He couldn’t tell her that yet.
She bit her lip.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said huskily, enveloping her hungrily against him. “We can try. God knows I want it as much as you do!”
The tight knot in her stomach relaxed. Of course a man like Blair would want a child, would hunger for one. She remembered him at the Christmas party the previous year, with the little girl whose father had wanted a boy.
“I don’t care if it takes a long time.” She drew her fingertips over his hard, broad mouth. She winced. “It’s just... I don’t know how long I...well...”
The anguish in his face made her feel guilty.
She pressed close into his arms and hugged him, held him. “It’s all right. If I, well, if the spot is anything...it would be stupid to get pregnant. I’d be putting the child at risk, too.” She lifted her head and met his worried gaze. “I was just afraid and grasping at straws. I don’t want to force you into something you’re not ready for.” She felt guilty for what she’d said. He hadn’t mentioned marriage, and here she was going on and on about a baby. It wasn’t right to put him in that position. She loved him, but it was likely a physical need rather than an emotional one that had led him to carry her into his bedroom. She had to face that. He knew she was desperate for something to hold on to, and he was humoring her. It might be nothing more than that.
He smoothed her long blond hair and felt powerless. He was more than ready for fatherhood; that wasn’t the problem. He started to speak just as his cell phone rang. He let her go and went to the bedroom to answer it.
“Yes?” He paused, listened, glanced at Niki. “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll bring her. Thanks.”
He hung up. “That was Trevor. He’ll meet us at the hospital at one this afternoon.”
She swallowed, her embarrassment replaced by her terror of the CT test and what it might mean.
“All right,” she said.
He took her hand and led her back to her own room. “Get dressed and we’ll have breakfast,” he said. “We’ll face it together, Niki. Okay?”
She nodded. “Okay, Blair.”
He walked away and left her at the door, his heart breaking in his chest. He should never have let things go this far. She’d been a virgin. That gift should have belonged to her husband, to a younger man who could give her a rich and full life. She was terrified, and he was trying to give her reasons to stay alive. He should have talked to her. Just talked to her.
Instead, in the fear of losing her, he’d taken her to bed. He was ashamed of himself.
But he prayed that her young life wouldn’t end so soon. Even if he had to give her up forever, he just wanted Niki to live.