"Maybe you're feeling a little too safe." He skimmed a fingertip over the swell of her breast.
"Maybe." She sighed when he began to nuzzle the side of her neck. "That doesn't scare me a bit. You're going to have to try a lot harder."
He rolled over, pinned her, then plundered her mouth with his.
"Oh. Nice work," she managed.
She was trembling, just enough to arouse him, and her skin was flushing warm. He could steep himself in her, in the tastes and textures. He could lose himself in that low, driving urge to give her pleasure.
He was tied to her. Perhaps he had been even before he'd met her. Could it be that all the mistakes he'd made, all the changes in direction, had been only to lead him to this time, and this woman?
Was there never any choice?
She sensed him drawing back. "Don't. Don't go away," she begged. "Let me love you. I need to love you."
She wound her arms around him, used her mourn to seduce. For now, she would trade pride for power without a qualm. As her body moved sinuously under his, she felt his quiver.
Hands stroked. Lips took. Breathy moans slid into air that had gone dim and thick. Long, lazy kisses built in intensity and ended on gasps of greed.
He was with her now, locked in a rhythm too primal to resist. The hammer blows of his heart threatened to shatter his chest, and still it wasn't enough.
He wanted to gorge on the flavors of her, to drown in that sea of needs. One moment she was pliant, yielding; the next, as taut as a bunched fist. When her breath sobbed out his name, he thought he might go mad.
She rose over him. Locking her hands in his, she took him into her, a slow, slow slide that tied his frantic system into knots.
"Malory."
She shook her head, leaning down to rub her lips over his. "Want me."
"I do."
"Let me take you. Watch me take you." She arched back, stroking her hands up her torso, over her breasts, into her hair. And she began to ride.
Heat slapped him back, a furnace blast that had his muscles going to jelly, that scorched his bones. She rose above him, slim and strong, white and gold. She surrounded him, possessed him. Spurred him toward madness.
The power and pleasure consumed her. She drove them both faster, harder, until her vision was a blur of colors. Alive, was all she could think. They were alive. Blood burned in her veins, pumped in her frenzied heart. Good healthy sweat slicked her skin. She could taste him in her mouth, feel him pounding in the very core of her.
This was life.
She clung to it, clung even when the glory climbed toward the unbearable. Until his body plunged, and she let go.
He made good on the soup, though he could tell it amused her to have him stirring a pot at her stove. He put on music, kept the lights low. Not for seduction, but because he desperately wanted to keep her relaxed.
He had questions, a great many more questions, about her dream. The part of him that felt that asking questions was a human obligation warred with the part that wanted to tuck her up safe and quiet for a while.
"I could run out," he suggested, "grab some videos. We can veg out."
"Don't go anywhere." She snuggled closer to him on the couch. "You don't have to distract me, Flynn. We have to talk about it eventually."
"Doesn't have to be now."
"I thought a newspaperman dug for all the facts fit to print, and then some."
"Since the Dispatch isn't going to be running a story on Celtic myths in the Valley until all of this is finished, there's no rush."
"And if you were working for the New York Times ?"
"That'd be different." He stroked her hair, sipped his wine. "I'd be hard-boiled and cynical and skewer you or anybody else for the story. And I'd probably be strung out and stressed. Maybe have a drinking problem. Be working toward my second divorce. I think I'd like bourbon, and I'd have a redhead on the side."
"What do you really think it'd be like if you'd gone to New York?" "I don't know. I like to think I'd have done good work. Important work."
"You don't think your work here's important?"
"It serves a purpose."
"An important purpose. Not only keeping people informed and entertained, giving them the continuity of tradition, but keeping a lot of them employed. The people who work on the paper, deliver it, their families. Where would they have gone if you'd left?"
"I wasn't the only one who could run it."
"Maybe you were the only one who was supposed to run it. Would you go now, if you could?"
He thought about it. "No. I made the choice. Most of the time I'm glad I chose as I did. Just every once in a while, I wonder."
"I couldn't paint. Nobody told me I couldn't or made me give it up. I just wasn't good enough. It's different when you're good enough, but someone tells you you can't."
"It wasn't exactly like that."
"What was it like?"
"You have to understand my mother. She makes very definite plans. When my father died, well, that must've really messed up Plan A."
"Flynn."
"I'm not saying she didn't love him, or didn't mourn. She did. We did. He made her laugh. He could always make her laugh. I don't think I heard her laugh, not really, for a year after we lost him."
"Flynn." It broke her heart. "I'm so sorry."
"She's tough. One thing you can say about Elizabeth Flynn Hennessy Steele, she's no wimp."
"You love her." Malory brushed at his hair. "I wondered."
"Sure I do, but you won't hear me say she was easy to live with. Anyway, when she pulled herself out of it, it was time for Plan B. Big chunk of that was passing the paper to me when the time came. No problem for me there, since I figured that was way, way down the road. And that I would deal with it, and her, when I had to. I liked working for the Dispatch , learning not just about reporting but about publishing too."
"But you wanted to do that in New York."
"I was too big for a podunk town like Pleasant Valley. Too much to say, too much to do. Pulitzers to win. Then my mother married Joe. He's a great guy. Dana's dad."
"Can he make your mother laugh?"
"Yeah. Yeah, he can. We made a good family, the four of us. I don't know that I appreciated that at the time. With Joe around, I figured some of the pressure on me was off. I guess we all figured they'd work the paper together for decades."
"Joe's a reporter?"
"Yeah, worked for the paper for years. Used to joke that he'd married the boss. They made a good team too, so it looked like everything was going to work out fine and dandy. After college, I figured to build up another couple years' experience here, then give New York a break and offer my invaluable skills and services. I met Lily, and that seemed to be the icing on the cake."
"What happened?"
"Joe got sick. Looking back, I imagine my mother was frantic at the idea that she might lose somebody else she loved. She's not big on emotional displays. She's sort of contained and straightforward, but I can see it, hindsight-wise. And I can't imagine what it was like for her. They had to move. He had a better chance of copping more time if they got out of this climate, and away from stress. So either I stayed, or the paper closed."
"She expected you to stay."
He remembered what he'd said about expectations. "Yeah. Do my duty. I was pissed off at her for a year, then irritated for another. Somewhere in year three I hit resigned. I don't know exactly when that became… I guess you could say contentment. But around the time I bumped into contentment, I bought the house. Then I got Moe."
"I'd say you're off your mother's plan and on your own."
He let out a half laugh. "Son of a bitch. I guess I am."
Chapter Fifteen
There was very little that Dana dragged herself out of bed for. Work, of course, was the primary incentive. But when she had the morning off, her main choice for entertainment was sleep.