“I knew something was off,” he said with a shake of his head. “I just kept excusing it, excusing you.” A mirthless laugh escaped him as he looked into the spray of water. “Joke’s on me. Again.”
“I reminded you of Tina. Mrs. Trykowski told me what she did to you,” Carlyne said when his head whipped toward her in angry surprise. “She told me you locked your heart up after that, and-”
“Not good enough, I didn’t.” He gave a cynical smirk.
She’d have to show him how good it could be, if he’d just give them a chance. Gently, she nibbled at a corner of his mouth. Then the other corner.
“No,” he said, much less convincingly, and she tilted her head to the side to deepen the kiss, using her lips, her tongue, her heart and soul to tell him what he had to know-that no matter what she’d done, she still loved him, she’d always love him. He moaned and gripped her body tight as if he meant to pull away.
She softened their connection, tender and gentle, because she knew that was the true way to his heart, not aggression or heated passion, which he could have gotten from anyone.
He moaned again, then again when she used her hands, dancing them over his shoulders, his arms, anything she could reach, until finally he stepped with her into the shower fully dressed.
Wrapping her arms tighter around his neck, she breathed his name, but his eyes were tightly closed, his face a mask of agony and indecision.
He was still going to change his mind.
So she kissed him again, kissed him and slid down his body so she could start on the buttons of his shirt. He resisted, standing still and rigid as she kissed every inch of skin she revealed when she tugged his shirt down his shoulders, letting it fall to the shower floor, until he let out a helpless sound of pleasure and lent his fingers to the cause. His pants came next, and she went to her knees to drag them down his legs. Again, she kissed what she exposed, starting with a lean hip, a tense thigh, the spot between the two…
She’d barely gotten started when he lifted her, pressed her back against the wall and slid a hand between her thighs. Already he knew her, knew exactly where to touch to make her insides burn and her bones dissolve.
He opened his eyes, lifted his head and watched her with dark intensity as he slowly and purposely brought her to the very edge.
Her eyes fluttered closed.
“No,” he said in a rough whisper. “Don’t you hide from me, not ever again. Open your green eyes and look at me, dammit. Show me you, the real you this time.”
“It is me,” she gasped, because his touch was her world at the moment. “It’s always been me.”
“But I’ve never seen you. Not like this.”
His fingers never changed their rhythm. On the very verge of coming, she could hardly hear or see past the roaring in her head, past the raging need. “I…I can’t stand, Sean.”
Still stroking her, he wrapped his other arm around her waist and lifted her up, bracing her between the wall and his body, completely supporting her weight. “Do you want me?”
“Yes!”
She barely had time to spread her thighs wide when he thrust inside her with a single powerful stroke.
Instant orgasm.
When she could breathe, she blinked him into focus, his wet body, dark hair and those direct, intense eyes.
Still buried deep inside her, filling her to near bursting with his hot, throbbing length, he demanded, “What the hell do I call you?”
Spread wide, open to the touch of his body and his gaze, she couldn’t recover. Little aftershocks were still rocking her body. “What?”
“Your name,” he said roughly. “What do I call you?”
Oh. Oh.
Carly.
Carlyne.
Her deception, his pain.
Her own pain.
If she stopped to think about what would happen after tonight, she’d lose it, but she still had this, she had right now. And right now he was deep inside her, pulsing, hard as steel, with his hands all over her.
“Carly,” she whispered, choking back a sob. “I want to be Carly.”
“Carly,” he said thickly, withdrawing from her slowly only to plunge back inside.
He kept touching her, everywhere, and her insides started a deep trembling she couldn’t control. Unbelievably, she was going to come again. Her eyelids fluttered, but she forced them open so she could meet his gaze and see everything he felt, let him see everything she felt.
Another slow, purposeful stroke, and she was lost. She was always lost with him.
And when she was with him, she was found.
12
SHE WENT TO BED alone and woke up alone.
Princess Carlyne Fortier had definitely outstayed her welcome. Maybe Carly Fortune never would have, but that was a moot point now, wasn’t it?
Sean had learned the truth, and he’d clearly decided that not only couldn’t she be trusted, but she was far more trouble than she was worth.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, no one in her life had ever wanted her just for her. Why should now be any different?
Getting out of bed and back into the shower reminded her of Sean. In fact, she thought, gliding the soap over her body, she might never have another shower without remembering how he’d taken her the night before, how he’d touched and kissed her as if his life depended on it.
Hers certainly had.
But afterward, he’d still refused to talk. He’d sent her to bed and hadn’t come back to her.
Carly hadn’t expected to sleep, but she had. And now the house was awfully quiet. Too quiet.
She threw on clothes, raced down the hallway and came to a skidding halt in the kitchen. At the back door, with a big bag on one shoulder and Melissa in his other arm, stood Sean.
“You changed your hair!” Melissa cried, pointing. “It’s yellow and all cut off!”
Sean said nothing, his eyes cool and distant.
Carly fingered her short blond bob. She’d never colored her hair and always went for the low-maintenance type of cut, because fussing with it was a low priority. Not to mention she hated wasting time at the salon.
Most would be shocked at that fact, expecting her to enjoy the pampering.
“Pretty,” Melissa said. “You coming?”
“Where are you going?”
“Work,” Sean said curtly.
One more minute upstairs and she would have missed them.
“I get to go today.” Melissa beamed. “If I don’t touch anything.”
“I thought you’d be going back,” Sean said. “So I’ll take her with me.”
Her heart had dropped to her toes. “Back?”
“To your life,” he said. “After all, the game is over, isn’t it?”
She struggled with her composure and failed. “It was never a game. You’d know that if you would let me talk to you.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got to go.” He opened the door, but at the last minute turned back.
Her heart returned to its proper place because he was going to change his mind. They were going to talk.
“Bye, Carlyne,” he said quietly.
“Carly,” she whispered, but he was gone.
As always, she was left alone, all because of who she was.
When would she learn?
Lifting her chin, she went to her room for her purse. She didn’t want Carly’s things. They could stay. She’d come to prove she could make it in the real world, but instead she’d learned an important life lesson.
She was on her own.
And she’d survive.
NIKKI STARED at Melissa as Sean walked into his office. “Where’s the sexpot nanny?”
“Watch your language,” Sean said, and set down the wriggling Melissa. “And she wasn’t a sexpot.”
“Uh-huh.”
Sean looked at Nikki in exasperation. “She wore huge, baggy, shapeless clothing, long hair that hid her face and too much makeup. How is that a sexpot?”