Trouble in Paradise

Chapter 4

“A little water clears us of this deed,” Susan murmured to herself several hours later as she slid deeper into the warm bath intended to obliterate all trace and memory of her afternoon of bug killing. The blend of water and darkness invoked a lush, lazy sensuality in her. Submerged in clear, scented water to her throat, she leaned her head back against the porcelain tub and regarded the bathroom through half-closed eyes.

A bathroom was a rather eccentric place to put a twenty-gallon aquarium. Weeks ago, when the house was redolent of plaster dust and the pungent scent of fresh paint, it had seemed the safest choice. Now, Susan had discovered that the aches and worries produced by even the most grueling day dissolved after a few minutes of a hot bath in darkness, with only the dim fluorescent light of the aquarium and the soothing sound of the bubbler intruding on her consciousness. The pale blue iridescence illuminated the room with soothing, sensual tranquillity, and the silver fish weaving in and around their watery greenery had a subtle, hypnotic effect.

The bathroom had obviously been a small bedroom once. It had been converted in the way of Victorian houses at the turn of the century, like a lavish afterthought. The room was too big, but the skylight was wonderful; in daylight the sun’s rays streamed lavishly down on the tropical plants in the corner. Now she could see stars through the window to the night. The gleam of brass fixtures, the velvety blue throw rug she and Griff had found, the corner of lush greenery, the blue glow from the aquarium, and the hush of night around her… Half smiling, Susan closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Griff was standing over her. There was a jackhammer pulse in his throat as he watched her. She had no idea how long he’d been there. A pale towel was draped around his hips, and his silver-blond hair had a slick sheen; she knew he’d showered some minutes before. He said nothing for a moment. Only played a thousand and one intricate little games with those dark sensual eyes of his resting on hers in the semidarkness.

He could see her skin, all white satin beneath the water in the aquarium’s glow, breast and stomach and thigh. By contrast, he stood in the half-dark, just the gleam of that leonine head and the expressive eyes glinting. His broad shoulders were all in shadows…and distinctly bare.

“I was afraid you’d fallen asleep,” he said quietly.

She shook her head, instinctively leaning forward and drawing up her knees. He chuckled, almost an imperceptible sound, as if he had read the wild fantasy in her head-that he was a pirate, that she was defenseless. “What did you think I was going to do?” he whispered.

“Nothing.” She leaned her chin on her knee, her eyes never leaving his. “It’s not possible, Griff.”

“What isn’t?”

“Stop thinking it. We’d both drown.”

“What on earth makes you think you know what I’m thinking?”

“I know. Behave yourself.”

The towel dropped just that promptly. She should have known better than to issue a challenge. Or anything he could have taken as a challenge. He stepped into the huge, claw-foot tub with her, sat down and slid his legs under hers, pulling her close. Neither of them was comfortable. Griff’s brows furrowed together, and Susan smiled. He rearranged her legs until they were stretched out behind him and she was straddling his hips; then the furrow left his forehead, and she was no longer smiling. Her skin, like damp silk, took on an erotic flush at the intimate contact. Water now lapped at her nipples instead of her throat; her breasts were displayed like white satin orbs in the water, less than inches from the damply curling hair on his chest. Her bottom was possessively anchored between his thighs, and she couldn’t possibly ignore the portion of his lower body that was like steel beneath the water. Silk steel. He fooled no one by picking up the soap. They were both already clean ten times over.

“Griff, you’re crazy,” she whispered helplessly. “The tub isn’t big enough…”

He drew a circle around her breast with the edge of the soap. Then the other breast. He rinsed both off with his hands. “You are,” he said thickly, “a uniquely beautiful woman.”

“Griff…”

Not so very long ago, she’d been very shy where intimacy was concerned. But shyness was useless around Griff. He set the soap aside and leaned back for a moment, deliberately not touching her. Her flesh became almost painfully sensitive as she felt his eyes possessively sweep over breast and thigh and velvet triangle, then meet her eyes with a lion’s hunger. And a man’s need.

Shyness left her, and a surge of love took its place. The shadowy glow from the aquarium illuminated the brawn of his damp shoulders and hair-roughened chest, the power and almost savage intentness in his features. Ripples of erotic awareness hurried her heartbeat, yet that wasn’t all that made up that sweet rush of love.

She’d loved watching him with his son. He’d never asked Tiger how he’d been doing, but in the course of the afternoon he’d managed to ferret out the incident where Johnny Baker had kicked Tiger in the shin, what kind of lunches the school served, what Tiger did after school, that Mrs. Redding was probably the most beautiful teacher in the entire world. Sensitive to his father’s moods, Tiger had grown tense and unhappy when he perceived Griff’s displeasure over Sheila’s manipulations. Griff didn’t subdue his emotions for his son-neither his anger nor his love. He kept in touch, physical touch, with the boy-a hug here, an easy brush of hand to shoulder there… The shared laughter had rung out in the yard, as Griff had turned boy to match his son’s enthusiastic bug catching.

Susan knew the love Griff felt for Tiger equaled his feelings for Barbara and Tom. This afternoon had just been special, a chance to really see Griff love his role as father, to see how very much he really enjoyed his son.

But there had been more, something subtly different about Griff all afternoon, something beneath the laughter with his son. A fleeting flash of sadness and guilt in his eyes, as well as the openly expressed anger. For a man who usually showed his emotions, he kept the sadness and guilt well hidden…but then Susan had been an expert at hiding emotions all her life. His pain was simply something that she couldn’t stand, all the more because he didn’t even know those big dark eyes of his were haunted with it.

But less so. Less haunted now, as he touched her. She leaned over to press a kiss on his chin. “Griff.”

“Mmm?”

“What are you doing?” Her eyes danced up to his, amused that he was doing such a good job of soaping her fingers for the fourth time.

“The cooties. That’s what we used to call them in fifth grade. When you had to touch a bug-” He watched her face color, and chuckled. Laziness had overtaken that first intense surge of passion; he was glad. Susan was too much fun to play with to hurry anything. He could easily spend a year discovering the feel of her flesh under water, reveling in feminine slopes and hollows, in the way her soft lips parted just so…when he touched, just so. Those fish of hers, that halo of blue light illuminating her expressive features…

Griff had treated her to the McDonald’s take-home dinner they had planned for themselves and Tiger so he could chat instead of cooking. As it was, Susan had spent the saved time hovering over Minnesota Insects, to Griff’s thorough amusement. He knew damn well she would be bringing home The Care and Feeding of Hamsters from her store on Monday.

That, too, was Susan-not just the water nymph who was taking her turn at teasing now, brushing her heavy, warm breasts fleetingly against his chest as she scrubbed his very clean shoulder. He took the washcloth from her hand, dropped it and gently draped his arms around her neck. “Susan. No one is expecting you to be den mother of the month, love.”

“I didn’t-”

“You were perfectly super with him. He’s adored you from the first minute he laid eyes on you.” Griff’s lips twisted. “Naturally. He’s my son, he has good taste. But don’t think I didn’t have the urge to land a solid hand on his backside during the rumpus over the red alligator shirts.”

“Yes. I’ve noticed your tendencies toward violence, Griff,” she said wryly. “You have a mean streak a mile long. Tiger’s just terrified of you.”

He took a nonviolent nip out of her shoulder as punishment for her teasing. Or maybe as punishment for other things. She was driving him out of his mind with her subtle little shifts and movements. Her slim thighs cradled his hips; his flesh was already hot from the silken water, yet the heat in his loins was a different quality entirely.

“I know so little about children, Griff.”

“You know everything about loving people. A four-foot-tall boy is no more sacred than a six-foot-tall man, Susie.” He tilted her chin up. “Listen to me. I love you…for understanding. For being willing to have the kids with us. I want you to love them. But they’re not perfect, no more so than any other children. And I don’t want you to be afraid to tell me your feelings, or to be angry with them-”

“Griff-”

“And there are many, many times when I have no desire whatsoever to think about my kids. As in, skip the children for now. Let’s talk about the house. About a canoe trip up north. About businesses-yours and mine. About logging. About how much I love you. About how damn much I want you at this minute.”

She looked at him for one long, endless moment, then twisted her hips, just slightly. And surged forward, wrapping her legs even more tightly around him as she heard his startled release of breath, as she felt her whole body violently tremble at the sensation of the man inside her. Her eyes closed helplessly. The water made it…different. The soft, smooth water lapping around them stirred the most sensual messages, while the almost painful thrust of his arousal stirred others. She suddenly felt as limp as a kitten, and her eyes fluttered open again. Her lips parted slightly, needing that quick intake of air, needing to let it out again. “Is this what you wanted to talk about?” she murmured. “Or maybe you wanted to start with the house, Griff…?”

“The lady,” he growled, “is certainly a great deal more aggressive than when I first knew her.” His lips hovered one teasing moment over her own. “Do you know how good you feel?” he murmured. “All tight and warm. Your skin has an extraordinary luster, and I can feel you trembling, Susan…”

Slippery hands stole slowly around her back under the water, pulling her that much closer, arching her spine as his mouth settled on hers. Her soft lips parted, inviting the sweet invasion of his tongue. The taste was pure Griff, the suction he created an echo of the hunger she could feel vibrating through his entire body. There was no haunted look in his eyes now, no memories of pain intruding on the emotions she saw in his face.

She drew up her legs an inch. There was no more room than that. His thighs, trying to tighten around her, had no more room either. “Dammit,” he muttered.

“Yes, Griff.” She was soaring. His lips had turned feverish, intensely feverish, on her throat. He came back up for air, and that strange blue light illuminated the almost savage beauty of his features. His look of passion was so ardent that she could feel goose bumps rising on her flesh. When was she going to stop feeling like a virgin to his pirate?

A tiny flicker of danger hissed through her bloodstream whenever his mouth settled on hers and didn’t let go. Danger… She never feared that he would hurt her, but she sensed that the power he held over her was as primitive as the oldest male-female battles. Griff was the stronger, his flesh smooth as metal, his rough, drugging kisses demanding her own response…

“Please…” she murmured.

His hands slid between them, grazing her stomach, sliding up to lift both breasts from the water. The valley between them glistened with droplets; water streamed over the satin orbs, so heavy in his hands. He bent to taste, but his lips would reach only so far without his breaking the melding of their lower bodies. Not for heaven or hell would he break that union. Frustration sent a single low growl from the back of his throat. He wrapped his arms around her, loving the feel of silken slipperiness where his chest rubbed against her more tender skin, and he rocked her, his face buried in the hollow of her neck, his lips dipping into every inch of her sensitive skin.

“Susan,” he whispered roughly.

“Hmm.” She arched back, welcoming his kiss as she would welcome the warmth of sunlight. His teeth teased at her lower lip, and his tongue slipped inside her mouth again. Then out.

“Why the hell didn’t you warn me ahead of time that the tub was too small?” he growled unfairly.

She smiled, but barely had time to comment before he reluctantly withdrew from her. In seconds, she was encouraged to stand on legs that had the tensile strength of marshmallows. Griff flicked open the drain, then surged up out of the water like some streaming bronzed giant. He hastily brushed a towel over himself, and another swallowed her up; then he lifted her, higher, higher…

She felt like booty to his pirate as he swung her out of that luminous light and carried her through the chilled black hall. He paused only once, as if suddenly realizing that her face was totally covered by the towel. His chin nudged it aside. Gray eyes flecked with silver were waiting for him, still drugged by their sensual play, but dancing just a little. He brushed a quick kiss on the tip of her nose. “We’re getting a new bathtub,” he murmured. “A larger one.”

“Are we?”

He took three and a half seconds to dry them both off, then cool skin met cool skin: a new game. The mattress yielded to their combined weights, and all Susan could think was, Hurry, hurry. Nothing had ever felt as good as his full length against hers; the first rush of freedom to stretch and slide around him exploded a frantic desire within her. It wasn’t really her, of course. Susan was reserved, wary of intimacy… It was all Griff’s fault. From the very beginning, he’d cut through her shyness with a silken machete…

Moonlight suddenly played light and shadow on his face as Griff loomed over her. His own dark eyes on fire, he saw the soft, vulnerable gray eyes beneath his. Her skin was moist and seemed to glow in the dark. Firm, supple breasts ached against his chest, already well loved, cheek roughened and comforted with his tongue and lips. Her whole body talked to him: he knew her ribs, the slim span of her waist, the incredible erotic tension that could grip her thighs when a passion was released in her that she still didn’t understand…

They had years to go. Each time they loved, he had a searing need to show her that. She was so full of love; she gave and gave, yet always expected so little in return.

Her heart was pounding against his, her hands roving his back in increasingly restless movements. “Griff,” she murmured desperately.

He wasted no more time, taking her with exactly the sweet, fierce momentum she was asking for. Abandonment was her goal; she wanted only to present him with her richness, with a love he wanted to return to her tenfold. Her spine arched beneath him, and he cradled the shuddering explosion that took her body, a release all silver and satin, the essence of his life inside her.

Griff rested on his side. Beneath the comforter, he still held Susan captive, her warmth something he refused to let go of yet, even for sleep. Her tousled hair looked like dark satin on the pillow, and his calloused palm smoothed the sleek strands back, loving the serene, smooth beauty of her face after loving.

Her hands were nestled between them, one palm resting over his heartbeat, waiting for it to slow to normal. “Can you tell me about it now?” she asked softly.

He kissed her forehead. “Tell you about what, lovely one?”

She propped herself up, leaning on one elbow, and slowly stroked the hair back from his forehead before she tried to speak. “You were different this afternoon, Griff. Unhappy. Closed in a way you’ve never seemed before. I’m supposed to be the inhibited one in this relationship, remember?”

His dark eyes glinted up at her. “Not so that you’d notice,” he said gravely.

But she saw the quick, bleak sadness that touched his eyes again, and she didn’t smile in return. “What’s wrong, Griff?” she insisted quietly. “You’re so good with Tiger. He adores you. He’s a well-adjusted little bundle of energy…”

She waited, patiently. Griff was silent for a long time, but she could see the sudden tension in his profile by moonlight, in the eyes that darted away from her, in the tightness that was so rarely a part of him. Her perception came from feminine instincts that pursued him into those dark corners where he crouched away from her. Gently, her fingers stroked the furrow between his eyebrows.

“None of them took the divorce well,” he said finally. “Tiger’s the most resilient, but it hit him at a vulnerable time, too.”

She stroked, over and over, her touch lighter than a feather.

“I have always been against divorce where children are concerned,” he said flatly. “Maybe you make mistakes, even as an adult, but don’t, for God’s sake, take them out on innocents. The marriage had been wrong for years, but the kids didn’t know it. There were no arguments in front of them.”

“And you still feel guilty as hell,” she whispered.

“I am guilty as hell,” Griff corrected. He shifted a pillow behind himself and moved up; she knew he moved to avoid her touch. There were certain kinds of pain he was used to bearing alone. And in response to that, she shifted with him, pushing her pillow up, keeping her hand on his arm.

“Try telling me about her,” she suggested.

“Sheila?”

No, the lady in the moon. Susan was already too sensitive about his ex-wife, yet she knew Griff needed to say certain things out loud. He had coaxed her out of her own defensive shells, and she would coax him from his. “Just tell me,” she insisted.

“What do you want to know?”

“Talk, Griff.”

The muscle in his jaw flexed when he turned his head on the pillow. Dark eyes glittered on her softer gray ones. At this moment, Griff was not so very pleased with his too-perceptive wife. “She’s a good-looking woman,” he said flatly.

“That hurts. Naturally. Go right ahead, but when you’re all through-”

Aaah. He gathered her close, shutting her up, burying her face in his shoulder, arching a leg around her to drag her nearer yet. He kissed her hard on her temples, and Susan relaxed, silent, waiting.

“We married too damn young,” he admitted finally. “Sheila had been raised to ‘catch a man.’ That was the game. So she loved campfires and kids and quiet evenings, because those were the things I loved. Until she got the ring on her finger. Then she was so damned unhappy…” He took a breath. “Restless all the time. Moody with the kids, taking on causes with incredible enthusiasm, flitting from one thing to another… I don’t know what she wanted from me. I never knew. Oh…money, of course. The Anderson name…”

Susan wound her arms around his waist and snuggled closer, wanting desperately to cushion him from some of those memories. How many years had Griff been without love? But she knew, every time he touched her.

“For the kids, I kept trying. There was no love between Sheila and me, but I had the kids’ love, and the five of us were surviving. Until Sheila stepped out with someone else. Then something just clicked inside me, an awareness of how little I really did care. From that point on, I just couldn’t pretend with her anymore.”

He took a breath. “We called it ‘irretrievable breakdown of a marriage.’ I never mentioned adultery in court. Neither of us wanted to sling the kids through that kind of mud. But Sheila, for some reason, balked at the end and wanted the marriage to stand. The big fight came when we were talking custody in front of the judge. I wanted the kids, and I knew that she really didn’t. She was just worried that people might say she was a bad woman and a terrible mother if she didn’t fight for the kids. Maybe I could have won custody if I’d mentioned her affair to the judge. At the time, all I could think of was that we were hurting the children enough without bringing that up. I knew I’d claim my share of time with them, and since I had to work all week anyway and they were in school-”

“Which is all true, Griff,” Susan interjected.

His jaws clamped together and then relaxed slightly. “She doesn’t love them. She never did. She loves the child-support money, but she’s still off and running twelve hours of the day, never there. I’ve been back to my lawyer countless times, but there’s nothing I can take to court. I can’t prove she’s done anything that shows her to be an unfit parent. Hers isn’t the kind of neglect that shows… There was a time when I even felt sorry for her. She’s incapable of loving anyone. Even herself. But the point is what she’s doing to them-the kids. Tiger and Barbara and Tom. And I’m the one who initiated the divorce proceedings, who tore their lives apart.”

“Listen to me.” Susan extricated herself from his hold, and leaned up on one elbow to glare at him. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” she said furiously. “You love those kids like hell. You give them so much of yourself. Surely you don’t think you’re the only divorced father in this country? You know so many kids who’ve had a perfect, ideal upbringing? Your kids have had it a little tough, Griff, but they’ve never suffered from lack of care, lack of love, lack of anything they needed from you. It’s the tough times that build character…or can build it. And don’t you ever tell me you didn’t have the right to fight for your own needs, dammit.”

She was a cougar in the wild, so fierce in her defenses, so furious when her own were attacked… Griff sighed, feeling something released inside him that had been locked up for a very long time. In the four years since the divorce, he’d never discussed or even admitted to himself any of the lingering guilt he felt about it. Susan was somehow his mentor. Minx, mentor…lover, wife…

He turned, rearranged Susan’s pillow and dragged her down and flat beneath him, smiling into her startled eyes. In a tough business world, he inspired respect; he knew that. Even a little fear. A few people even jumped when he walked into a room, and no one had scolded Griff Anderson in at least two decades.

Except Susan, who could barely shoo away a fly without worrying about having done the creature harm.

“I love you, Susan,” he told her tenderly.

The fires in her eyes softened as if cooled by a gentle rain. “I love you, too.”

“Yes. Well. I don’t want you starting any more nonsense like those acrobatics in the bathtub,” he said sternly. His lips dipped down to taste the hollow between her shoulder and neck. A most vulnerable hollow. “And just a few days ago, there was that episode on the new dining room carpet.” Edging lower, his palm gently cradled her right breast. Susan’s breath suddenly caught when his tongue touched down. “Hours before that, you wanted to christen the kitchen. Susan, we are never again going to try to make love in a kitchen. Any kitchen…”

So very, very stern. “Griff.” She could not possibly be feeling the renewal of fire again. Her head was spinning with Griff’s memories, still. Her own insecurities, which Tiger’s visit had triggered, had faded in a renewed understanding of why and how much Griff wanted his children with him. Beyond that, she was annoyed with Griff for harboring unnecessary guilt. All those emotions from the heart…yet her breasts went strangely taut under his lazy ministrations.

He suddenly turned them both on their sides, his brown eyes meeting hers in the dark room-full of the devil. Not to mention the devil’s advocate pressed deliberately against her stomach. “You knew when we married that I was more than a decade older than you,” he continued with mock gravity. “I hope you outgrow this…insatiable tendency of yours, Susan. I simply can’t keep this up. Just because you have this irresistible, luscious little body…”

She lifted up her body and planted her lips on his. There was obviously a time for soul-searing discussions as well as a time…to give in. She’d wanted credit for the kitchen episode, anyway. And tomorrow was Sunday. They could nap all afternoon.