“Do you have any?”
“No.”
Hannah laughed, she couldn’t help it. She just loved… Whoa, hold it. Loved? Don’t go there, Hannah, she cautioned herself. Avoid that word like the plague.
“Are you really the bad boy your mother called you?” she asked. Not that she believed he’d confess to her all about his philandering ways.
“Of course not. I’m worse.”
“Indeed. In what way?”
“You know,” he drawled, “I don’t know what you do for a living, but you should be in police interrogation.”
“I’m in marketing,” she said wryly. “And don’t try changing the subject. It won’t work. I want to hear all the lascivious details.”
“Lascivious?” Justin tilted back his head and laughed. “You are really something, woman.”
Woman. Again? Time to drag the knuckle-dragger into the twenty-first century. “Yes, actually, I am something. And don’t call me woman. My name is Hannah.”
He looked astounded. “You’re not a woman? Damn, you could have fooled me. Yesterday morning and last night. Mostly last night. And I’ll call you woman whenever I want to.”
“Okay.” Hannah pushed back her chair and stood. “I’m out of here.” Turning away, she walked to the phone mounted on the kitchen wall.
“Wait a minute.” His hand covered hers on the telephone receiver, holding it still.
She hadn’t even heard him move.
“Hannah, sweetheart,” he crooned into her ear. “I was only kidding. What are you doing?”
“Precisely what I said I was going to do today,” she said. “I’m going to phone the airline to book another flight, hopefully for tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“Hannah,” he murmured, his voice a low, coaxing siren song. Releasing her hand to cup her shoulder, he turned her into his arms. “Don’t go.”
She raised her eyes and dropped her guard. His gaze was shadowed, compelling. Oh, heavens, she had to get out of there, away from him, because if she stayed with him…she could wind up being hurt. Hannah knew her thinking was right and yet. And yet…
“Hannah.” Justin slowly lowered his head, to brush her mouth with his. “Don’t go. Stay here, with me, for a week, or at least a few more days.”
His tongue outlined her lips, and Hannah was a goner. Against her better judgment. Against everything she had believed about the folly of a rushed relationship, she knew it was too late to stop, too soon to bolt.
She wanted more of him. It was as simple and frightening as that. Surrendering more to her own needs and desires than to Justin’s plea, Hannah raised her arms, curling them around his strong neck to draw his lips to her hungry mouth.
“You said you had been married.”
“Hmm,” said Justin.
Hannah couldn’t see his face, since she lay tightly against him, her cheek resting on his chest. Justin’s angled body was curled almost protectively around her. The fingers of his one hand played with a strand of her long hair. The protective position of his long body sparked a memory of the night of the wedding reception.
After leaving Maggie in the bridal suite, Hannah had returned to the hotel lobby and gone straight to the coat-check counter. Draping the garment bag containing Maggie’s gown over the counter, she exchanged her high heels for the boots she had worn earlier. Shrugging into her coat and toting the garment bag and the shoe bag, she considered slipping away, before Justin began looking for her.
She started for the lobby doors, but with a sigh, changed direction to go to the banquet hall where the reception was being held. Hannah had been brought up the old-fashioned way. Good manners dictated she say goodbye to Justin’s family, thank his parents-whom she had learned had footed the bill for both the rehearsal dinner and the reception-for a lovely time at both events.
Peeking inside the hall, Hannah’s determination faltered. Justin was standing next to the table, talking and laughing with his father and Adam, and looking far too tempting.
She was on the point of turning to leave when little Becky had come up to tug at his pant leg. Gazing down at her, his laughter changed to a tender smile, and instead of kneeling to talk to her, he bent down, his body curved protectively over her. With her pretty little face turned up to her uncle, Hannah saw her mouth move, saw Justin’s move in reply before, with a laugh, he swept her up into his arms and headed for the edge of the crowded dance floor.
Hovering in the doorway, Hannah had watched, expecting Justin to whirl Becky around the floor. He hadn’t. Setting her on her feet, he’d bowed like a proper gentleman, taken her tiny hands in his and danced her onto the floor.
For some ridiculous reason the sight of Justin, so careful and caring of his niece, had brought a lump to Hannah’s throat and a hot sting to her eyes.
With a firm shake of her head, a stiffening of her spine-and her resolve-Hannah had used those few precious seconds while the music played to pay her respects to the Grainger family, then steal away from the hotel, and Justin.
Hannah was brought back to the present when a thought struck her. “Justin, do you have children of your own?”
Heaving a sigh, he rolled onto his back, spreading his arms wide in surrender. “No, Hannah.” He opened his eyes to look at her, his expression somber. “Angie…my ex-wife, said she wanted to wait a little while before starting a family.” His lips twisted, as if from a sour taste in his mouth. “Before the ‘little while’ was up, she put on her running shoes and sprinted away with another man.” He made a rude, snorting noise. “Would you believe, a traveling computer-software sales rep? Pitiful, huh?”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a subdued tone. “I shouldn’t have pried.”
“No.” Justin moved his head back and forth on the mattress; the pillow had somehow wound up on the floor. The icy look in his eyes had thawed…somewhat. “It’s okay, Hannah, you may ask anything that comes to mind.”
“Did you-” Hannah hesitated, before taking a chance of making him angry, bringing back the frost. “Did you love her very much?”
He managed a slight smile. “We didn’t know each other very well at the beginning. You could say it was a whirlwind thing. But yes, at the time, I loved her.”
Despite his omitting the words very much, Hannah had to fight to control herself from betraying the sharp twinge of pain in her chest. “Are you still in love with her?” It would explain his love-’em-and-leave-’em attitude toward women.
“No.” He stared directly into her eyes, his voice firm. “You want the truth?” he said, not waiting for a reply before continuing, “I realized I wasn’t really in love with her a month after we got married.”
She frowned. “But then…” She broke off in confusion.
Justin moved his shoulders in a shrug. “She was hot, and I was horny.”
Hannah didn’t know quite how to respond to his frank admission, so she circumvented that particular subject. “Have you ever truly been in love?”
“No,” he answered with blunt candor. “Have you?”
Hannah smiled. Turnabout was fair play, she supposed. “No,” she said, equally frank and candid. “But, like you, I thought I was for a time.” Her smile turned into a small grin. “But unlike you, instead of a measly month, I believed that I was in love for almost a full year.”
“So, what happened? That no-orgasm thing?”
Hannah felt her neck and face grow warm. This blushing was getting pretty damned annoying. Her expression must have revealed her feelings, because he grinned in a manner of sheer male hubris. She really couldn’t challenge him on it, for he certainly had cured that thing. Many times.
“Partly,” she admitted, on a sigh. “But that wasn’t the major issue.”
“What!” Justin exploded, jackknifing up to sit facing her. “Was he an idiot…or were you?” As before, often before, he didn’t allow her time to answer. “Not the major issue? If you believed you were in love, I would think it would be the most important issue.”