The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife

Nine

Garrett turned the corner toward Color and felt his stomach drop. Although it wasn’t that late in the evening, he assumed the gallery would be closed and he’d be able to catch Emma alone. Instead, every light in the place seemed to be blazing.

As he strode up the walk, it was pretty damn obvious there was some kind of major event going on. When he pushed open the front door, he suffered an immediate guy panic attack.

The gallery lobby was packed with women, most of them dressed up and exuberantly waving around wineglasses. The scents of heavy, expensive perfumes were enough to choke a guy. A few said hello, but most were too intent on their gabfest to pay any attention to an intruding male-which was fine by Garrett.

Initially he couldn’t figure out what the big to-do was about, but once he threaded past the clutch of hard-core drinkers at the wine table, he could see the gallery was hosting some kind of perfume display. At least, there were old perfume bottles all through the front parlor and lobby.

He debated escaping-Emma obviously needed him around right now like she needed a hole in the head. But this couldn’t last forever. It was nearly nine, and the gallery normally closed at eight. Besides which, Emma had to be dead on her feet after yesterday’s incredibly long hours, so he figured she could use some TLC when this shindig was finally over.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, eased as far away as possible and feigned interest in the perfume-bottle displays. After a few minutes, he didn’t have to fake it.

He just checked out a few. Arden Blue Grass, 1934. Myon Coeur de Femme, 1928. Gabilla La Violette, 1912. Lavin L’Ame, 1928.

The price tags made him wonder why he bothered with investment banking when a bunch of old bottles were worth so much. As far as art went, he liked finger painting more-but clearly that opinion was in the minority in this crowd. He ambled farther, just looking and poking around, until he finally spotted Emma.

Damn, but a single look and his throat went whiskey-dry.

How she could still be on her feet and looking this good confounded him, but she was a tender feast for his eyes. She wore a long skirt, some fabric with a sheen, claret in color with some gold-threaded design near the ankles. He didn’t normally notice stuff like that, but somehow with her, he found himself noticing everything, because every detail was so much a part of her. The white blouse was simple, billowy, open at the throat to show off a triple strand of pink pearls. She’d left her hair loose, just brushed it back with a pearled clip on one side. She’d smudged a little satiny stuff around her eyes, used a ripe plum color on her mouth. If she was going for a peasant effect, it sure failed. She not only looked beautiful and striking but also elegant to the bone.

In the few minutes he’d wandered around, he’d figured out some things. Not just that old perfume bottles sold well. But also that the crowd was buzzing less about the event than about Reed.

So the vultures had come to peck about the broken engagement-at least when Emma was out of sight. The next time she ambled through the lobby, she spotted him immediately.

The look in her eyes put a hush in his pulse. She surged toward him as if thrilled to see him…but then he saw her swallow and noticed her posture tense with anxiety.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. But before they could connect, she was distracted by Josh, who was apparently leaving for the night. And then a phone call snagged her attention. One way or another, it seemed as if everyone wanted a piece of her.

He’d been in such a hot rush to tell her about Caroline. Still was. Still wanted her perspective on the whole blackmailer mystery as soon as he could get it.

He’d been in an even hotter rush just to see her. To touch her. To find out if last night had been as powerful-and terrifying-for her as it had been for him.

But it took another twenty minutes before she’d managed to shoo the last Eastwick matron down the front steps. By then, he’d had more time to study her, more time to see the strain on her face and to catch the tremble in her fingers. Emma wasn’t just tired. She was hiding it well, but clearly she was stressed, only functioning because she was too stubborn to crash. It wasn’t hard to guess that the breakup with Reed had spread through the town faster than ants at a picnic. She probably hadn’t had an instant’s peace all day.

The gallery echoed with an odd sense of stillness. Garrett felt his smile hesitate, an uneasiness pluck his heartbeat. She just looked at him when she locked the door. He saw her hunger to see him…but he also saw even more anxiety in her face.

It was okay, he wanted to tell her. He’d help her weather the gossip about her ex. But right then she seemed strung too tight to talk. As far as he could tell, she didn’t need more stress or seriousness right now. She just plain needed a break. So he kept it light.

“I haven’t been this scared in a long time,” he said wryly. “I thought they were going to riot over a few of those bottles. If you mentioned you had a big event going on tonight, it really slipped my mind.”

“I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t supposed to be a big event. There’s a hard-core perfume-bottle-collector crowd in Eastwick, so I just do this every few months. To be honest, I’d all but forgotten it was scheduled because normally it doesn’t take much to prepare for it.”

“Ah. They just wanted to drink your wine and get a look at you because of the broken engagement?”

“Don’t feel too sorry for me. One of those bottles sold for two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. It was a consignment deal, but still. I’ll get my cut.”

“Did I hear you right? One of those old, used bottles actually went for 275K?”

When she nodded, he mimicked a man suffering from shock and gasping for air. Though she obviously was not in a laughing mood, her lips tipped and a helpless chuckle emerged. Finally that terrible stiffness eased in her shoulders.

“Oh, Garrett, darn it, I’ve needed to talk to you all day, but it’s been one thing after another. When I finally got a free minute this afternoon, this gallery event exploded on me. But I have something I absolutely need to tell you-”

“And I want to hear it. But not here, Emma.” He tried to steer her toward the door, but she balked.

“What’s wrong with here?”

“Nothing, normally. But right now your whole gallery smells like a perfume factory. In fact, I think the perfume’s destroyed all the oxygen in the entire county.”

She chuckled again but still wouldn’t budge. “It’s not that I don’t want to disappear with you-but I can’t leave this mess.”

Of course she couldn’t, he thought. She could hardly open the gallery in the morning with wineglasses and bottles all over the place.

Garrett realized, not too comfortably, that he was completely unused to thinking of other people, their needs, their life details.

But he wanted to change that. While she gathered and locked up all the fragile bottles, he headed for the kitchen. Tackling the dirty glasses and party debris was easy enough. He’d never liked KP-who did?-but he found himself whistling as he threaded the glasses in the dishwasher.

Helping her felt natural. Even more shocking was discovering that being himself with her felt natural. Who’d have believed it? That Emma seemed to just like being with him. That finger painting with her as if he were a little kid had actually been fun. And sex, of course, had been beyond great…but coming alive with her also never had the performance issues that sex and life always did. Somehow, he realized, he just felt right with her.

She showed up in the kitchen and grabbed a dish towel.

“Maybe it’s as simple as trust,” he mused.

“Huh?”

“It’s a meaner world than it used to be. Not easy to trust. Not easy to find other people with integrity. And I admit, it’s probably always been harder for me to take a chance.”

“Okay,” she said patiently, “you’ve obviously been sampling the wine while you handled the glasses-”

He kissed her on the nose, teased the dish towel out of her hand and this time seriously whisked her toward the door. The cleanup was ninety-nine percent done. Enough. “You, cookie, have had more than your share of nonstop running today. Let’s get you away from the gallery and phones and see if we can find some food to shovel into you, okay?”

“Cookie?”

“I know, I know. I can’t imagine why I called you cookie, either. I must be out of my head. In fact, I know I am. I think over you.” He said it lightly, so as not to scare the complete hell out of her. And although she shot him a startled look, by then he was switching off the last of the lights, swinging the door closed and then hooking an arm over her shoulder-because the night air was colder than a well digger’s ankle.

“You look gorgeous,” he said.

“Okay. No more wine for you. Maybe ever.”

It felt good. More than good. Getting her smiling, laughing, easing up. And she was way too whipped to give him much trouble by then. He easily bossed her around at his place, got her installed on the couch with a pillow behind her back. Within minutes, he’d handed her a fancy sandwich heaped with cheese and fresh tomatoes and cold cuts, all spilling out the sides and making her chuckle again. The glass, the pillow, the plate the sandwich was on were all hers-things she’d brought over to make this rental place livable.

But she was the one who made it livable. Curled up on that old couch, she brought life and emotion to the place. Still, every few minutes she kept remembering the refrain to her earlier song, and then her good humor would die again.

“Garrett…I really do need to tell you something.”

“I know you do. You keep saying. And I want to hear. But first explain to me how or why anyone would pay so much for a bunch of used perfume bottles.” Before he settled down with her, he turned off the phone, the fax, all the electronics that he usually kept on 24-7.

“I’m not sure I can explain. Perfume bottle collecting is kind of a unique addiction, but if you’re not into it-”

“Trust me. I’m not. And likely won’t be.”

She chuckled again. “Poor baby. Those women really scared you, didn’t they? You never saw women in a shopping frenzy before?”

At the end of the couch, he pulled off one of her sandals. Then the other. “Not that close before.” He shuddered. “I wouldn’t want to get between one of those women and the bottles they wanted.”

“It’s a lost world now, but there was a time when perfumes had artists hand make bottles for their product. Once perfumers started using plastic-tipped stoppers, the bottles were never the same. But before that, the really great perfumes all had bottles that were hand designed, truly works of art-” She seemed to hear herself talking-or maybe she suddenly realized he was running his hands up and down the soles of her bare feet. Her throat suddenly flushed with awareness, arousal. Her eyes ducked from his, and she swiftly swung her legs over the side of the couch and stood up.

“I know what you’re thinking-” she began.

“What gave it away? I was trying my damnedest to make you believe I was fascinated about the bottles.”

But this time she didn’t smile. “Garrett…I really need to get something off my chest.”

The hell she did. She’d had enough stress and crap over the last twenty-four hours to last a lifetime. And all he had to do was gently tug her hands and she promptly folded into his arms. She wasn’t that small, but barefoot now, she had to tilt her head back to get kissed. At least to get kissed the right way-where he took her mouth and kept it. Possessed it. Seduced it. Until his head was reeling and she was breathless.

When he let her up for air, her luminous eyes met his and she started to speak…or tried to.

So he had to kiss her again, much more seriously.

He’d been without her all day. Too long. A thirty-five-year-old man should have had years of experience with women to learn self-control, but he didn’t. He had more self-control than any twenty men he’d ever met. But not the experience with women.

At least not with women he trusted down deep. Maybe he should have realized how much she mattered when they were teenagers…but for damn sure, he knew how much she meant to him now. His head spun as he kissed and kissed and kissed her yet again. He took a cherishing nip from her neck. Then her earlobe. Then indulged in a long, slow, tongue-stealing kiss, after which he tasted the exquisitely soft length of her throat.

Hell, if she hadn’t made a fierce groaning sound of surrender, he probably could have experimented with a thousand more kisses just on her face and neck alone.

Exploring Emma was the most fascinating job he’d ever come across…although Garrett discovered that undoing Emma was an even more consuming occupation.

The pearl clip in her hair had to be jettisoned first, because he needed to be able to freely run his hands through her thick, lustrous hair. The better to hold her. The better to kiss her thoroughly. The better to explore the sensation of her hair sliding through his fingers.

As soft as the texture of her silky blouse was, her skin beneath it was a thousand times softer. He suffered the shock of discovering the wicked woman was wearing no bra beneath it. Imagine. His elegant never-break-a-rule Emma failing to wear a bra, and for that he did his best to reward her.

She seemed to appreciate his tribute, because the tips hardened and the soft white flesh swelled and tightened under the cup of his lips, under the wash of his tongue, under the caress of his palm. She sucked in breath after breath. Her hands by then were busy, too, pulling at any clothes she could reach, at his shirt, the buttons.

Heaven knew, he wanted his clothes off, too, preferably faster than yesterday, but he was determined to hold on to some control. He hadn’t even gotten her into the bedroom yet. The soft mattress, the darkness, was only a room away.

She’d had a traumatic day, and her ex still had to be on her mind. Before making love, he didn’t want anything on her mind-but him. And them. And what they brought each other.

Not that a guy couldn’t tease his lady before going for the end run. He slipped the blouse off her, whooshed it onto a chair, carefully unclipped each earring, kissing each ear at the same time, then stripped off her rings and wrist bangles. Those took more kisses, more time. She seemed impatient as if she wanted him to rush.

She made him rush, all right. The blood seemed to be shooting in his veins, starting with his head, aiming straight below his belt. Something was weird about her skirt. No snap. No button. Finally he got it, that the skirt had some type of fancy clasp-tricky and confusing for big hands to figure out, so it was a damn good thing he was inspired.

The long claret skirt fell in a swish to her bare feet.

Then the only thing she wore were white underpants-at least he thought the teensy scrap of lace was underpants. And, of course, the triple strand of pink pearls trying to hide between her breasts.

The lace went first. But that was as good as he was capable of being. His patience and control had been too tested.

The pearls were coming to bed with them.

Her arms wound tight around his neck when he lifted her. Her mouth had latched onto his and refused to let go. He couldn’t exactly see. Not that he didn’t know where the bed was. Not that he had any intention of dropping her.

Not that he gave a damn whether he could see or not.

He could feel. Her. Feel the weight of her, the textures of her. The beauty of her. Smell her hair, her skin; taste her breath, her mouth, her throat.

He lowered her on the bed, then annoyingly realized he was still wearing pants-and part of his shirt. He shucked both, then came back to her. Finally there was nothing between them but pearls. Bare skin rubbed against bare skin, his erection inspired to make her feel appreciated. She kept making these sounds, these soft, soft sounds of yielding, of yearning, of surrender.

Maybe she wanted to drive him mad. Maybe she could. Maybe she already had.

She gave so willingly. That was what got to him the most. She opened her arms, her legs, her trust for him. As self-contained as he’d always been, Emma had held herself tighter yet-and needed to. He’d learned toughness. She hadn’t. He could do cold. Not her.

At least not now, with him. She wrapped her legs snug and high around him, pulling him into her, her palms and fingers gliding all over him, arms, shoulders, back, wooing him deeper into her…and then deeper yet. That sensation of sliding into her was like none other in the universe.

He wanted to stay there, savoring the sensation, for another hundred years. At least for another second. But the need to claim her, to possess her, was a thousand times more powerful. Garrett could have sworn he didn’t have a single caveman urge…but it seemed he did. The need to make her his woman, to own her at that instant, was more compelling than any need for air or water. Nothing else would do but having her. Then. Right then. Fast and hard.

“Love,” she whispered helplessly.

“I do. Love you,” he whispered back.

“Love you. Love you,” she whispered, and damnation, but that destroyed his last drop of control. They both rode that wave, high, fast, sweat-and-heat fast, silver-fast, climbing until both of them hit the mountain peak at the same time. Then spilled over.

He came and came and came, as if he hadn’t had an orgasm in years, as if he had some fierce primal need to fill her up with his seed, his life. She called out and then called out again, until they both finally sank against the pillows, whipped and breathing rough and hard.

She laughed suddenly, softly, as if she couldn’t believe the wild, wicked ride they’d just been through together. So did he, kissing her damp forehead, loving the feeling of her in his arms.

For a few minutes he was too beat to move…not that he wanted to. But eventually he realized that her skin was cooling and he shifted up on an elbow just to untangle the blanket and spread it over them. She didn’t budge beyond snuggling her cheek more intently into his shoulder.

He had to smile again.

She’d already fallen asleep. He strongly suspected that she’d sleep long and hard if he could ensure she wasn’t interrupted.

As crazy as it sounded, he felt as if his life started at this precise moment. Making love the night before had been extraordinary and wonderful…but just now she’d become his woman. Really his. In spite of impossible odds, he’d found the one woman, the only one, who’d ever made him believe in love.

God knows there were troubles ahead. His sister. The craziness of his work, trying to live in two places right now, not being settled. And then there were his faults-the workaholic thing. The self-centered, too-focused thing. The terror that he wouldn’t know how to love her the right way, that he’d learned only wrong things from his parents, his life.

But damn, there was time to sweat all of that, and tonight wasn’t it.

Right now he had her in his arms. All he wanted. All that could possibly matter.