as she slipped the light butter-colored dress over her head, Laura berated herself. They hadn’t agreed to fall pregnant. Not yet. It was an important and delicate matter, one they both felt strongly about. Still, perhaps she ought to bring it up again sometime today. Logically, she knew they had oodles of time to start a family; she was young and, at thirty, so was he. But that didn’t quell the awareness she felt building every day. More and more she noticed mothers with prams, baby commercials on TV, schools and parks with swings and kids laughing and chasing each other around like mad things.
After applying a lick of mascara and lip gloss, she set a brush to her towel-dried hair. Her thoughts wandered more, to places they’d never traveled before, and the brush strokes petered out.
Frowning at her reflection, she shook her head. No. She would never do it. Even if there were a way. Bishop used protection; his nature was to be cautious, to think before he leaped. Still …
How would he react if she accidentally fell pregnant? Last week she’d honestly believed that she had. She hadn’t planned it. Starting a family was a decision both people in a relationship needed to agree upon.
She started brushing again.
Definitely not. She would never intentionally, accidentally fall pregnant. Bishop would come around soon enough and then they could both go into this next important phase of their lives confident and with a clear conscience.
When she emerged from the bedroom, she found Bishop standing by the wall-to-wall windows that overlooked Darling Harbor’s sun-kissed sights. But he wasn’t interested in the view … traffic on the water, the busy restaurants, the fanfare facade of the Maritime Museum. Bishop being Bishop, he was still on the phone.
He caught sight of her, smiled, then obviously needing to concentrate, angled a little away. After the dinner suit he’d worn last night, those dark blue jeans, zipper at half-mast, were a different but still ultra-sexy look. No doubt he’d team it with a brand-name polo shirt. But for her part, she could gobble up the sight of that magnificently sculpted chest all day long. Every drool-worthy muscle was perfectly defined. The angle of those quarterback shoulders might have been crafted by Michelangelo.
He often stood with his weight favoring one leg. That unconscious pose now, in those heaven-sent jeans, gave him a too-hot-to-handle, rebel’s air that left her mouth dry. Still focused on the call, he shoveled a hand through his shower damp black hair and Laura’s pelvic floor muscles squeezed around a particularly pleasant pulse. With his fingers lodged in his hair, that bicep on display …
Laura fought not to fan herself. She only wished she had a camera to capture the moment and remember exactly how heart-poundingly handsome he was right now.
He disconnected and swung back to face her. Graceful, fluid … He didn’t walk so much as prowl. And the quiet throb, ticking at every erogenous zone in her body, said she wanted very badly to be caught.
Joining her, he dropped a kiss on the side of her neck and lingered to hum appreciatively against her throat.
“You smell almost too good to eat.”
Smiling, she dissolved against him. “Almost too good?”
His big hands measured her waist then slid higher. They didn’t stop until long lean fingers were splashed over her back and a thumb rested beneath the fall of each breast. His head angled more. She shivered uncontrollably as his teeth nipped the sensitive sweep of her throat. The pads of his thumbs grazed her nipples as he murmured, low and deep, against her skin.
“You heard me.”
That syrupy I-can’t-get-enough-of-you feeling sizzled like sparking gunpowder through her system. Her knees threatened to buckle and her lungs labored, unable to get enough air. When her hand drove up his arm, over the sinewy rock of one shoulder, her eyes drifting closed, she sighed as he nipped and his morning beard grazed.
“Are you suggesting we stay in today?” she asked, sounding drugged and feeling that way, too.
“I’m saying you can make me lose my mind.”
“That can’t be a bad thing.”
His face tipped up. His eyes were so hooded, she could barely see the blue.
He blinked once then asked, “Promise?”
She laughed. It was meant to be light, but he’d said that word with such earnestness … she wasn’t certain how to respond.
For once too overwhelmed by his intensity, she touched a kiss to his cheek and, winding out of his hold, moved to the galley kitchen. There were times she felt completely consumed by him. That wasn’t a complaint, but she wondered whether another woman might be able to handle his brute magnetism better. She didn’t see his innate power ever diminishing.
She didn’t want it to.
“I had blueberry pancakes sent up,” he said, reaching for a casual shirt resting on the back of the lounge.
Her gaze darted to the meals area and her previously distracted senses picked up on the smell. Feeling guilty after that slab of cheesecake last night, she held her stomach.
“You’re trying to make me fat.”
“Fat, thin …” He strolled to the table to remove the silver dome. “I’ll take you any way you come.”
Inhaling again, eyeing the fluffy discs dotted with berries and dusted with icing sugar, she conceded. She had lost some weight, after all.
Joining him, she collected a fork, cut a portion off the top offering and slid the cake into her mouth. She chewed slowly, savoring the divine butter and fruit textures and flavors. Swallowing, she groaned with appreciation as well as disappointment.
“I wish mine turned out as good as this.”
“Have I ever complained about your cooking?”
She gave a coy grin. “Never.”
“The benefit with room service is …” He curled over her and stole a kiss from her ice-sugared lips. “More time for us.”
More than tempted, she touched her lips where he’d tasted hers as she sliced off a little more cake. “You really do want to stay in, don’t you?”
“That’s a given. But there’s also that surprise I had planned.”
Her mouth was full again but, needing to know, she talked almost incoherently around it. “Wha ith it?”
He laughed and pulled out her chair. “Finish your breakfast and you’ll find out.”
Ten minutes later, he and Laura were walking through the hotel lobby. He had the ticket out, ready for the concierge to retrieve his car, when he recognized a figure standing in front of the lofty automatic glass doors.
Bishop’s step faltered.
What was Willis doing here?
When his second-in-charge recognized him too, he waved and came forward. Bishop slid a sidelong glance at Laura. He and Willis were friends. Willis knew he’d been married and how badly it had ended. But he didn’t want
