Billionaire Bachelors: Garrett Page 13

  He still held the cat food and the flashlight, but she wound her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him, fervently raining kisses across his chest and up his chin. Unable to resist the invitation, he reached behind her to set down the items, then put both hands on her bottom and hauled her up against him as she found his mouth and began to kiss him.

  She was a wild thing in his embrace, burning him alive with her mouth and her tongue as he let her take the lead. Slowly she slipped down his body, pausing a moment when her mouth brushed over the cat scratches. “We should clean those,” she purred. “They can be nasty.” But she already was moving on, finding his flat male nipple with her swirling tongue, nipping at him until the sweet sensation plucked a strong answering chord in his groin and he threaded his fingers through her hair and pressed her to him.

  “Later,” he said hoarsely. “We’ll clean them later.”

  Ana slid farther down his body, her mouth following the line of hair that arrowed down his torso, her tongue probing his navel as her hands worked at the soaking fabric of his trousers.

  He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, groaning as he felt the fabric give way. Cool air washed over his erect flesh, then Ana’s warm hand closed around him, easing him free of the clinging material. “Lord,” he said in a guttural tone that he barely recognized as his own, “Ana, stop. No, don’t stop.” He bared his teeth in a feral smile as she sat back on her heels and looked up the length of his body with triumphant eyes.

  Her hand moved slowly over him as she returned the smile with a slow, confident feminine expression that tightened his body in another wild rush of sensation. He saw her intent in her eyes moments before she leaned forward, bathing him with her sweet breath for an instant before her mouth closed over him.

  His breath wheezed out in an agonizing sound of pleasure too great to be borne and his hands clenched in her hair as her questing fingers brushed between his legs and clasped his thighs. She loved him with hot, wild strokes of mouth and hand, using her tongue to bring him quickly to the point of no return. As he gave himself to her sweet ministrations, the storm broke over his head, driving him to a harsh, breathtaking climax that left his knees shaking as he stared blindly at the ceiling, gasping for breath.

  Ana rose fluidly to her feet and took his hand while he was still trying to regulate his breathing, saying softly, “Let’s go upstairs.”

  But as she turned away, he used the handclasp to drag her back against him. To his shock, he realized that all she wore was the T-shirt she’d pulled on earlier. He yanked up the fabric in handfuls and pressed her smooth bare curves hard against him, seeking her mouth as her warm female form ignited a desire he’d have sworn he couldn’t possibly feel again so quickly.

  “Ana,” he muttered against her mouth as his hands streaked over her body possessively. “Do you know what you do to me?” Cradling her skull, he held her head against his shoulder as he kissed her long and deeply, loving her mouth as thoroughly as she’d loved him minutes before.

  When he lifted his head, she raised a hand to his lean jaw, and her eyes were dazed with soft pleasure. “Garrett,” she murmured. “I love you.”

  The husky words confirmed something he had barely allowed himself to consider, and he was shocked by the fierce masculine satisfaction rushing through him. Although he couldn’t pinpoint the moment when his life had changed, he knew it had. Forever. He could no longer imagine his future without Ana in it, could no longer imagine his life without her.

  But at the same time, a desperate voice in his head shouted for caution. Very deliberately, he shut off the thoughts clamoring for his attention. He could think later. Right now…right now it was enough simply to feel.

  Ana stirred in his arms and he realized her words still hung between them. Touching his mouth lightly to her forehead, he said, “Let’s go upstairs.” He set his mouth on her again and lifted her into his arms at the same time. Her arms went around his neck as he carried her through the living room and up the stairs to the bed they’d shared through the hours of the morning.

  I love you.

  The scary thing, Garrett decided as he lay sleepless several hours later, was that he’d wanted to say the words back to her…had nearly blurted out those three small, single-syllable words that could irrevocably change a person’s life. His life.

  And though everything in him had urged him to throw caution to the winds, he’d held his tongue. He cared for her, cared for her in a way that he had to acknowledge he’d never felt before about any woman. Even Kammy. Especially Kammy. He’d thought she was special, had thought he’d loved her. But now…now he knew better. And the knowledge made it even more difficult not to respond to Ana’s declaration.

  But he couldn’t. Wouldn’t, because he knew these feelings weren’t real. Thank God his last attempt at intimacy had ended as it had; he was a lot smarter because of it. Though he’d hated Kammy at the time, now he realized he was lucky to have learned the truth about her before the wedding.

  So what was the truth about Ana? He desperately wanted to believe she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, as well. But he couldn’t believe it was that easy. The facts gave him pause.

  He had money. Ana needed money. Even if he did buy out her half of the cabin, it wouldn’t be a sum that would last her any length of time. Realistically it would barely be enough to allow her to properly set up the kind of small business she had in mind.

  The logical extension of their new involvement would be for her to move in with him. Was that what she’d been angling for all along?

  Ana mumbled something and shifted in his arms, and he realized his embrace had tightened around her. Carefully he relaxed the tense muscles of his shoulders. She snuggled more closely against him again and a pleasant sexual shiver ran down his spine as her warm breath feathered across his throat. Her body was soft and pliant, her sleep deep and peaceful. He liked the way she felt in his arms, the way she fit so perfectly against his body, the way she moaned and arched up to him when he took her. He probably could spend the rest of his life in bed with her and never mind it for a minute.

  No, she didn’t really love him, he decided, though she even might believe she did. A few weeks ago, he’d have thought she was using those words as Kammy had, in order to wrap him around her finger for money or security or whatever her particular needs happened to be. Now he knew that wasn’t the case, at least, not the whole case. If Ana said she loved him, she thought she was telling the truth.

  I love you. It was the sex talking. It had to be. And that, of course, was why he’d nearly responded. It was easy to confuse the two. Great sex produced strong emotion, and a lot of people believed that was the same as love.

  He knew better, he reminded himself again, though perhaps she didn’t realize there was a difference. Ultimately it didn’t matter. If she wanted to fool herself, it was fine by him. The bottom line was that he’d sworn never to let himself be manipulated by a woman who might be after his money ever again. Ana wasn’t like his former fiancée in most ways, true, but…there was a niggling corner of dark doubt in his mind. She needed money. He had money. He was merely being realistic. The bottom line…if he’d been penniless, would Ana still tell him she loved him?

  He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t. But as long as he accepted the real bottom line, there was no reason he couldn’t enjoy her for as long as they were together.

  And they were going to be together for a while, of that he was positive. Whatever her relationship with Robin had been, he no longer cared. She’d made his stepfather’s last years of life happy, had given him joy and pleasure that he clearly hadn’t known before. How could he resent that?

  She woke when Garrett eased his arm from beneath her neck and slid from the warm nest of the bed. Slitting her eyes against the early-morning sunlight that flowed in the large window, she watched as he padded naked across the floor to the bathroom. God, he was beautiful. His legs were long and straight, and the lean
hollows of his buttocks made her palms tingle with the need to trace the smooth skin. His shoulders, in contrast to his narrow waist and hips, looked as wide as a house.

  As he disappeared into the bathroom, she inched over into the warm depression he’d left. She didn’t want to wake up, didn’t want the day to begin.

  Things would be different between them now, she feared. He hadn’t responded to her declaration of love last night. She hadn’t really expected him to, hadn’t really even intended to say the words herself, but they’d burst out without warning. She wasn’t sorry…exactly. But she was a little nervous. Would it change things between them? Would he step back from the warmth and intimacy they shared? Yesterday, she’d assumed that when they returned to Baltimore they’d be returning together, making plans together.

  His silence last night had erased all her assumptions.

  He came back out of the bathroom without warning, and before she could close her eyes and play possum, his startlingly blue, stunningly beautiful eyes had snared her gaze. His held a warm intimacy. “Good morning,” he said as he crossed to the bed.

  “Good morning.” She cleared her throat. He perched on the edge of the bed, cupping the ball of her shoulder where it was uncovered by the sheets. His thumb gently stroked her sensitive skin.

  “Want to go for a swim, sweetheart?” he asked.

  “That would be great.” Her heart lurched at the endearment even as she told herself it meant nothing. Then she screeched as he tossed back the blanket and scooped her into his arms. She clung to his neck as he strode down the stairs, balancing her on his knee while he unlocked the door. Then he carried her out of the cottage and down the path to the lake.

  “Garrett! Put me down! We can’t just run around naked.”

  He paused and looked down at her, laughing. “Why not? You’ve done it before.” Negotiating the steps to the dock, he walked all the way to the end. And before she realized what he intended, he shifted sideways, lifted her higher and swung her out over the water, releasing her at the last second and she splashed into the cold water with a shocked exclamation.

  When she surfaced, pushing handfuls of wet corkscrew curls back from her face, he was treading water beside her, still chuckling. She couldn’t hide the bubble of amusement that rose as she turned over onto her back and floated beside him. “Very funny. You know what they say about paybacks.”

  He gave a mock-shiver. “I’m shaking in my shoes.” Then he reached out and pulled her to him, moving around the side of the dock into water where he could touch bottom, though Ana still couldn’t. The water made their bodies slippery and silky and as his thigh slid between hers and his mouth descended, she forgot to laugh. Against her lips, he whispered, “There’s something I’ve always wanted to try in the water. Want to share a first with me?”

  He was hard against her belly as she wrapped her legs around his hips and offered herself to him. “I’d love to.”

  “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about,” she said an hour later, industriously buttering two slices of toast.

  “I know.” He was busy flipping over the eggs.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Today’s the day. As of today we are officially the owners of Eden Cottage. And my original offer still stands. I’ll be happy to pay you full market value for your half.”

  She was stunned. “That wasn’t…it’s not…” She’d supposed they had gotten beyond that. It was a shock to realize that the time they’d spent here together had done nothing to alter Garrett’s thinking. “I still don’t want to sell it,” she said carefully.

  There was a moment of silence. She could sense the tension growing between them. “You need the money,” he said, “don’t you? I thought you wanted to get your business off the ground.”

  “I do.” She could barely speak around the lump in her throat that threatened to choke her. “But this place has become very special to me. Robin wanted me to have it. To share it with you.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  And suddenly she realized that this was the moment, though she hadn’t planned it as carefully as she’d intended. The time she’d been avoiding for weeks. She took a deep breath. “The reason it’s so special,” she said, “is that Robin was very special to me. He was my father.”

  Garrett went still. “Ana—”

  “Robin was my father.” She rushed on when he only stared at her in silence, his gaze dark and unfathomable. “He and my mother fell in love but he wouldn’t leave his first wife because she was already mentally ill. When my mother found out she was pregnant, she decided to go away.”

  Garrett’s eyes narrowed and he spoke for the first time. “Why? Seems like that would have given her more leverage to press for marriage.”

  His words hurtled against her like hailstones and she felt a defensive retort rise. “You didn’t know my mother,” she said in clipped tones, lifting her chin. “She wouldn’t have wanted to put Robin in the position of having to make a choice that would have haunted him forever. And at that point in time, no one had any idea how long Maggie would live.”

  “And you know this because…?” There was little inflection in his cool tone.

  “When my mother realized she was terminally ill, she wrote Robin and me each a letter to be delivered by her attorney…afterward.” She had to stop and swallow the grief that rose. “When Robin learned that he had a daughter, he was on my doorstep the very next day. My letter, as you can imagine, was quite a shock, since I thought my father had died years ago.”

  “I’m sure it was,” Garrett murmured.

  Encouraged, she said, “Mrs. Davenport told me that Robin and my mother built this place together. They only spent one summer here together before she left.”

  Garrett dropped his face into his hands and pressed hard against his forehead. “Ana…” He hesitated.

  She looked at him expectantly. Surely now he understood why she didn’t want to sell. And he also must realize that his assumptions about her had been completely off-base from the very beginning. “No apologies are necessary,” she said. “I intended to tell you long ago, but you made me so mad I decided to let you think whatever you wanted. And then I meant to, several times, but it just was never right, and then last night—”

  “Ana.” His voice was firmer, and she stopped in midsentence. “You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly. “If you want to keep half the cottage that badly, you can have it.” He patted his knee. “Come here.”

  Confused, she allowed him to take her hand and pull her down. What did he mean, she didn’t have to do this? Do what?

  “I want you,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. “Your past isn’t important to me. I’d like you to come to live with me.”

  At first the words made no sense. But then her paralyzed brain began to sort out sounds and meanings again and she nearly cried aloud as the ugly truth pierced her heart. He didn’t believe her! Dear heaven, in all the ways she’d envisioned this scene playing out, that he wouldn’t believe her hadn’t even been on her mental movie screen.

  “Ana?” His beautiful eyes were studying her, waiting for her answer.

  She was dying inside, her heart shriveling into a dried-up, unusable state, and the cold calm of utter shock took over. You can’t break down, she told herself. Not in front of Garrett. “For how long?” It was the only response that came into her head, not a question to which the answer particularly mattered. Not now.

  He shrugged. “Do we have to put a time limit on it? Why don’t we just see how it goes?” His hard arm was warm around her back and his fingers caressed her waist and the curve of her hip. “Just think how good it will be for you. You won’t have to find a new place to rent. You won’t have to work extra jobs. You can build up your millinery business while we’re together.” When she would have risen, he held her in place. “If it’s capital you’re worrying about, I’ll give you the money. How much do you estimate you’d need?”


  She recoiled. Pain punched a hole through her heart. “I don’t want your money.”

  “All right, if you won’t accept a gift, I’ll make it a low-interest loan. You can pay me back—we’ll set up a monthly schedule.”

  “No.” Quietly, but with steely resolve, she disentangled herself from his arms and rose, putting a safe distance between them. Her chest ached and the lump in her throat made it hard to speak. She swallowed. “Why are you so determined always to think the worst of me? Millions of people have had a bad experience with love and they don’t use it as a shield to hide behind.”

  “I’m not hiding behind anything,” he retorted, his eyes narrowing as the set expression on her face finally registered. “But I’m realistic. We enjoy each other’s company. We like some of the same things. We’re one hell of a match in bed.” He stopped and looked away, his features hardening. “Love has nothing to do with what’s between you and me.”

  The shattered shards of her heart were crushed to dust beneath the flat pronouncement. She studied him silently for a long moment, long enough that his gaze met hers again. He began to look distinctly uncomfortable under her uncompromising gaze. “If you truly believe that,” she told him, “I feel sorry for you, Garrett. Sorry that you let your father’s behavior and one woman’s deceit dictate your entire future. Sorry that because of those bad breaks you’re willing to throw away what we could have had together.” She paused and walked to the doorway. “You’re giving the past far too much power.”

  “I’m not—” His voice was tight, strident.

  “I loved you,” she said quietly. Tears were rolling down her cheeks but when he made an involuntary movement toward her she threw out a hand to stop him. If he touched her again, she’d break down completely. “My mother and father lost their chance at happiness but I was sure I’d found mine.” She closed her eyes. “What a blind fool I was.”