“You okay, doll?” he asked. “I mean, was it okay for you? I mean....” He faltered, tied up into knots by his own blasted clumsy tongue.
She smiled mistily up at him. “Oh, yes, it was wonderful. I was only thinking something...silly.”
“Tell me,” he insisted, giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze.
“I was just wishing that it could have been as special for you as for me. That it was your first time, too.”
“First time for what?”
“N-nothing.” Looking as though she already regretted her words, Sara nuzzled her face back in his shoulder.
Still hazy from their recent lovemaking, it took a moment for his brain to focus. Then it did so with dawning horror.
“You—you’re not trying to tell me it was your first time for—That you were still a—”
He shifted, trying to peer into her face. Sara shrank deeper against his chest.
“Sara! You were! You were still a virgin!”
“Was it illegal?” she asked.
But Mike couldn’t even begin to joke about it. He sat up so abruptly, Sara’s head plunked down on the mattress. Dragging his hands back through his hair, he muttered, “There was a moment when I almost suspected, but I thought, nah, impossible. You’ve got to be almost...”
“Twenty-five years old.” Sara winced. “I told you I’ve always been a little different.”
“So what the heck were you doing? Saving yourself for the right man.”
“Something like that.”
“Then, boy, did you make a wrong turn, sister.”
“I don’t think so.” Sara tugged gently at him, until he shifted to lie uneasily back down beside her. “It’s no big deal, Michael,” she said. “Though I guess now I will have to give up on ever catching that unicorn.”
She was teasing of course, but Mike squirmed, feeling as if he had cheated her out of something. He didn’t know quite what. Maybe just that her first time should have been more romantic. Moonlight and roses. A guy spiffed up in his best suit and smelling of expensive cologne. The right guy. Mr. Prince Charming himself.
No matter how incredible a job Sara did of kissing Mike Parker, in the morning he was still going to be a toad.
“You should have told me,” he grumbled.
“But then you might have stopped,” she said.
“No.” Mike knew himself better than that. He couldn’t have been that self-sacrificing. Toads seldom were.
“But I could have been more careful, tried to make it better for you.”
“It couldn’t have been any better,” she said, rubbing her fingers lovingly over the expanse of his chest.
His male ego should have been flattered. He should have made some snappy comeback and just let it go. But somehow being Sara’s first lover seemed to carry such an awesome weight of responsibility and he wasn’t sure he could handle it.
When he fell silent, staring up at the ceiling, Sara pressed closer, coaxing him anxiously. “Come on, Michael. I can’t be the first woman you’ve ever known that was—er—inexperienced.”
“I don’t usually get my dates fresh out of the convent, Sara. Most women I’ve known I picked up in strip joints or bars.”
After a brief hesitation, Sara asked, “Is that where you met your ex-wife?”
“No, I found her in a cake.”
He almost laughed at Sara’s look of confusion. “I was at this wild bachelor party and Darcy was the exotic dancer who popped out of the cake. I must have been drunk, but I took one look at her and felt like I got hit with a ton of bricks. After a whirlwind weekend together, we ended up married.”
“It sounds terribly romantic,” Sara said wistfully.
“I don’t know about that. We were a lot alike. Darcy had had a pretty rough childhood, too. Both of us were smart street kids. I guess we understood each other. We had a lot of laughs. Until the cake ran out.”
Until Xavier Storm had come along. But the thought didn’t carry its usual sting tonight. In fact, lying here with Sara, none of what had happened with Darcy seemed important at all.
Sara hugged a pillow to her breast, looking pensive, and Mike cursed himself, wondering how much more of a dope he could be tonight. Going on about his ex-wife to the woman he’d just made love to.
Tugging the pillow away from her, Mike pulled Sara back where he liked her best, tucked all safe and warm in his arms.
“And what about you, angel?” he asked. “You gonna tell me there wasn’t ever any guy who tempted you to part with your virtue before I came along?”
He felt her smile against his shoulder. “I suppose there might have been one. I came close once with a bank officer I worked with. Wallace Hatcher.”
“Sara, no woman could come close with a guy named Wallace Hatcher.”
“He was a very good man, Michael. A perfect gentleman, something rare in this day and age. Very steady and kind.”
Neither of which could be applied to Mike Parker. He was annoyed to discover he felt a surge of jealousy over this bozo.
“So what happened?” he growled. “Why didn’t you end up marrying Mr. Perfect?”
“We were almost engaged, but well, that’s when I had my big revelation and I decided to come out of closet, psychically speaking. Poor Wallace didn’t quite know how to handle it.”
“So the creep dumped you?”
“No, I let him go.” She levered herself up a little to look at him, her eyes sweet and serious. “You see, Michael, I already have to deal with so much skepticism. I couldn’t possibly marry a man who didn’t believe in the things I do, accept me for what I am.”
“But still, no matter what he believed, this Wallace jerk wouldn’t have let you send him away if you two had really been in love with each other.”
“But I thought you don’t believe in love, Michael. Do you?” she added softly.
“Well, I...” Their eyes met, a look stealing into his that took Sara’s breath away. But the candle chose that particular moment to run out of wick, leaving them in darkness.
With his face lost to the shadows, she felt Michael shift a little away from her. “Of course I don’t believe in all that true love mush. I was only saying—” He rubbed one hand across his eyes in a weary gesture. “I don’t know what the hell I was saying. I spout a lot of nonsense when I get tired. Would you mind if we stopped talking now and went to sleep?”
“N-no. I suppose not,” she said, swallowing her disappointment.
“Good.” He didn’t exactly roll over and turn his back to her, but Sara could feel his retreat, even though all he did was close his eyes.
Settling back on her own pillow, she stifled a sigh. So what had she expected? Some impassioned declaration from the man? Some tender outpouring of emotion at last?
Even with what little light was left she could make out the stubborn outline of his jaw. It would take more than one night to convince him there was some magic left in the world.
Frustration with the man warred with tenderness as she pulled on the coverlets, dragging the light bedspread and sheet up to tuck them both in. Hovering over him, Sara carefully brushed back a strand of hair from his brow.
“I love you, Mike Parker. I do. So there. I think the heavens meant for us to find each other whether you believe in such things or not. Maybe I can believe enough for both of us.”
She whispered the words very softly, taking care not to wake him, though she realized she needn’t have worried. Even in the darkness, she could tell how exhausted the man was. She had a feeling Mike Parker had been running on empty far too long.
“Sleep, Michael,” she said, pressing a soft kiss to his brow. “Because I’ll be here. Catching all your bad dreams tonight.”
Nine
“Good morning, Mr. Parker.”
The voice was light and airy as a fairy’s wings. Mike thought he must be dreaming. He was used to being awakened by the jerk in the apartment next door blasting “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” over his stereo or the trashme
n rattling garbage cans in the alley below.
But the silvery voice came again, soft, but persistent. “Good morning, Michael.”
Groaning, he managed to force one eye open, then the other, mere slits as he squinted against the brilliant flood of light. He seemed to be floating on some soft white cloud trimmed with eyelet and lace.
And at the foot of his cloud, haloed by sunlight stood a truly celestial being, her feminine curves undulating beneath a satin robe of shimmery blue, golden hair spilling about her shoulders. And she was holding out a cup of—
Coffee! Mike sniffed the air, a tantalizing aroma wafting to his nostrils. He must’ve died and gone to heaven. Better grab both the mug and the angel before somebody realized they’d made a mistake. Struggling to a sitting position, he forced his eyes open. The sunlight shifted, the angel becoming Sara smiling down at him.
Sara’s face. Sara’s bedroom. Sara’s apartment. Memories of what had happened last night came flooding back to him with a real jolt. Perhaps because for the first time in his life, he had memories too good to be true.
She bent over him, offering him the coffee with a light kiss on his cheek. “Sorry I had to wake you, but I’ll have to go out and open up the shop soon.”
“That’s all right,” he mumbled. He accepted the cup and took a deep swallow. Hot, black and strong. Just the way he liked it. He wondered how she could have known, but he’d given up asking Sara Holyfield questions like that.
The steaming brew seemed to clear away some of the fog from his mind. He rubbed the grogginess from his eyes.
“Did you sleep well last night?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, surprised to find that he had for a change. Deep, dreamless, secure. “What’d you do? Sprinkle some pixie dust over me?”
“Something like that.” She perched on the edge of the bed with that look on her face, the expression of a woman waiting for a good-morning kiss.
He set the cup aside and obliged, pulling her down into his arms, his lips meeting hers. The kiss did taste of morning—warm, bright and sweet.
The woman never failed to astonish him. He didn’t know what he had expected from her. A little awkwardness, embarrassment, some regret perhaps.
After all, she had wasted her first time at making love on an insensitive jerk like him. But she didn’t look deflowered. She looked blooming, melting back into his embrace with an eagerness that stirred his desires to life, stronger than ever.
But it had been far easier to give in to temptation last night, caught between the mystical light of her candle and the darkness of the storm.
Mike eased her away from him. “Maybe we’d better take these morning greetings a little slower, angel. Before things go too far.”
“Too late for that, Mike Parker,” she said with a laugh, shaking her hair back.
And she was right. But in desperation, he tried again. “Sara, about what happened last night. I—”
But she placed her fingers over his lips, refusing to allow him to continue, her eyes still smiling into his. “I suppose this is the part where the hero goes all noble and tries to tell the girl how sorry he is for stealing her virtue.”
“No.” Mike kissed her fingertips, moving her hand away. “Because there isn’t any hero here, sugar. Just me. A firstclass cynic. I was a mess last night and I took what you offered for my own selfish reasons. And I don’t have the decency to be sorry about it.”
“Good, because I’m not.”
“That’s because you have that misguided notion all females get, that you can take some poor slob and save him from himself, that you’ll find some kind of a prince of a fellow shining underneath. Well, that won’t work with me, Sara. I’m not worth the effort. You keep thinking—”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” Sara interrupted. She ran her fingers lightly, playfully down his bare chest. Mike felt his body tense in instant, eager response.
“Damn it, Sara. I’m trying to be serious.”
“So am I.”
Her hands drifted up and down the hard ridge of his rib cage, each time tracking a little lower, taunting, teasing. A half moan, half laugh escaped him. He was trying to warn her and she wasn’t paying any attention to him. The blasted woman was looking at him with stars in her eyes and he feared all he’d end up doing was extinguishing them.
“God, angel, what’ve I done to you?”
He didn’t realize he’d spoken the words aloud until Sara responded, “You made magic for me, Michael. I want you to make it again.”
Is that what she really believed? Then maybe it was up to him to show her that wasn’t the case. Prove to her that there hadn’t been anything magical or special about it. Prove it to himself, as well.
He caught her and flipped her back onto the bed, his kiss hard and rough. Her response was just as fierce, her tongue meeting his in a fiery dance. The two of them grappled in a heated embrace.
He tugged at the belt that held her robe, tossing it aside. Then he parted the folds, pushing them back, baring the lovely splendors of her body, naked except for the demure white silk of her panties. He ran his hands almost feverishly over her enticing curves, cupping and stroking the soft fullness of her breasts in his hands.
Sara’s breath released in a sigh, her lips seeking his as she melted closer into his arms. He was never sure at what point she infused something else into their embrace, some strain of tenderness that touched him to the quick. Beauty gentling the beast. Or maybe she was simply setting him free.
He inched his fingers inside the elastic of her panties and eased them down, slipping them off so that there were no more barriers between them. His maleness pressed against the soft apex of her thighs, seeking the union they both craved.
Sara parted for him, her arms encircling him, warm and generous. She took him deep inside herself, deep into that bright warm world that seemed to be uniquely hers.
Once more there was only Sara. Her healing fire, her gentle loving. The melding of their bodies was a joyous thing, transporting Mike far beyond the shadows of his past.
It was only later when his passion had faded into a hazy afterglow that Mike’s doubts returned to haunt him. He held Sara in his arms, the question she’d asked last night turning over and over in his mind.
You don’t believe in love, Michael. Do you?
No, he still didn’t. Did he? He wasn’t so sure anymore. After all, he’d been dead wrong about one thing.
It was morning. And the magic was still there.
Sara’s shop seemed destined to open late that day. It was nearly noon by the time they made it out to her kitchen for a bite of breakfast.
A soft summer breeze ruffled the gingham curtains and Sara’s golden curls, drawn up into a ponytail, still slightly damp from the shower. She bustled about the kitchen humming an off-key tune as she refilled their coffee mugs.
From his perch at the kitchen table, Mike found himself unable to keep his eyes off her, drinking in her every graceful movement. The sweet curve of her derriere in sassy white shorts. The soft flow of her top spangled with the signs of the zodiac, the bright blue fabric only bringing out the brighter blue of her eyes. Eyes still aglow from their recent lovemaking.
Mike could only watch her with a sense of amazement and growing guilt. Amazement, because he couldn’t believe it had taken a woman as innocent as Sara to teach him more about passion than he’d ever known in his life. Guilt, because he’d let happen again what never should have happened in the first place. Why did it seem like more of a sin to make love to an angel in the daytime?
Maybe because it was harder to avoid certain realizations with the sun glaring in your eyes. The knowledge that bedtime magic wasn’t enough to offset the kind of disagreements and disillusionment that could spring up between a man and woman when they weren’t tangled between the sheets. His experience with Darcy had taught him that all too well.
And there had never been two people more opposite than himself and Sara. Despite all her
exotic beliefs, Mike was fast discovering that she was a very domestic sort of gypsy. Her little apartment was smaller than his but it was filled with all those woman touches—African violets on the windowsill, cookies in the cookie jar, real napkins with a flower print, not the kind that had been swiped from McDonald’s.
All those small details that made her place into that intangible something he’d never had and never would.
A home.
The thought stirred in him both a poignant longing and a sense of deep regret. Sara drifted back across the room, setting the steaming mug down in front of him.
She settled across from him at the table, the soft fresh scent of her blending with the other aromas of her kitchen—the coffee, the fresh-baked apple-cinnamon muffins.
Mike took a sip from his cup and offered her a wry smile. He touched the T-shirt that Sara had laundered for him along with his jeans, and commented, “Clean clothes, a hot meal and a beautiful sexy dame who makes a mean cup of coffee. A guy could get used to this....”
“But?” Sara prompted, smiling at him over the rim of her cup.
“I didn’t say ‘but’ anything.”
“It was there in your voice, Michael.”
He was distracted for a moment, noticing how her bangs grew more soft and golden as her hair slowly dried, tendrils escaping her ponytail to frame her face like some kind of halo.
“A guy could get used to this,” he repeated with a rueful face, “but a guy like me shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because...” He hesitated, not wanting to hurt her, but it was far too late for him to be thinking of that now.
“Because even though what’s happened between us—was something pretty spectacular, the truth is, we’re two very different people, Sara.”
“I noticed that.” She slanted a wicked teasing glance down the length of his torso.
Great. For once he was trying to play the part of the sensible, responsible one, and Sara was cracking jokes.
Mike scowled at her. “When I leave here, you’re going to go back out to your shop with its nice little healing crystals and fairy wands. But me, I’m back to hitting the streets, tracking down cheating husbands, con artists and other kinds of scum, dealing with who knows what else....”