Loe raamatut: «Resolved To»

Prologue

It was the final night of December, and the former Lucia Annette Falco and her new husband, Christopher Dodson Banks, were too intoxicated to fully understand what they were doing.

Their euphoric deficit of comprehension had nothing to do with alcohol. The only liquor either of them had imbibed on this New Year’s Eve was a few pro forma sips of champagne at their wedding reception. If they’d been tested, they would have registered stone-cold sober.

So why were Chris’s normally steady limbs as wobbly as a wino’s as he stood in the center of the hotel suite where he intended to consummate the marriage vows he’d uttered with such solemnity earlier that evening?

And why was Lucy feeling as giggly and giddy as a prom queen at a frat-house keg party as she anticipated doing exactly the same thing?

To put it simply—or not so simply, as things turned out—the newly wed Mr. and Mrs. Banks were drunk with love.

And dreams.

His dreams about her.

Her dreams about him.

Their dreams ... about themselves and their future together.

The fact that only a few of these dreams had been clearly articulated by either party—and that several of the more crucial unspoken ones seemed to be downright contradictory—was something neither the bride nor the groom had taken time to consider.

Such was the nature of their mutual intoxication.

Lucy melted against Chris with a purr of delight as he gathered her tenderly into his arms. She clung to him, nuzzling at his chest. Breathing in deeply, she savored the subtle spice of his cologne and the potent hint of natural male musk that lay beneath it.

She adored the way her new husband smelled.

And tasted.

And felt.

She was nuts about the way be looked, too.

Funny. She’d grown up assuming that when she finally surrendered to the urge to merge, her mate would be some hunky Mediterranean-type male. And why not? The vast majority of the guys she’d gone out with had been cast from the same dark-eyed, dark-haired, olive-complected mold. They’d sported tight jeans and black leather jackets. They’d also—with the notable exception of Chachi Palucci, who’d tried to impress her with plagiarized poetry—been prone to flexing their well-developed pecs in an effort to incite her admiration.

Whereas Chris ...

Well, the man to whom she’d given herself in every sense of the phrase had hazel eyes. His thick, straight hair was a sun-gilded caramel brown. Although his skin had been burnished by years of tennis, skiing and sailing, it was pale in the places the sun had never touched.

The bulk of his well-tailored wardrobe came from Brooks Brothers, Paul Stuart and Ralph Lauren. He wore leather on his feet and around his narrow waist, and that was it. He was tall—six feet to her own five-five-and built along lean, angular lines. While he was not the kind of man who indulged in false modesty, neither was he inclined to strut his stuff.

In short, Christopher Dodson Banks was not her type. No way. No how.

Or so Lucia Annette Falco would have sworn, until the sultry Saturday night when her gaze connected with his for the first time.

He had been checking out her chest when she registered his existence in the world. No big deal, really. She’d blossomed from soda-straw skinniness to a C cup the summer before she entered seventh grade, and she’d been getting ogled ever since.

Although she didn’t particularly relish the attention her bosom attracted, Lucy had come to terms with it. She’d also discovered that the apparently genetically ingrained male tendency to assume that a woman’s IQ was inversely proportional to her bra size could be turned to her advantage. She didn’t play dumb. She had too much self-respect to resort to that kind of ploy. But there were situations in which she consciously refrained from flaunting her brains up front.

The few genuinely offensive members of the opposite sex she encountered-specifically, the jerks who grabbed without asking permission and who couldn’t seem to grasp the concept that no meant no, not maybe or take me—she left to the not-so-tender mercies of her widowed father, three unmarried brothers, four uncles and ten male cousins. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe herself capable of fending off lechers. Quite the contrary. But as the only female Falco of her generation, she believed it behooved her to offer the men in her family the opportunity to defend her honor—and vent what she considered potentially dangerous buildups of excess testosterone—every now and then.

It was for her own peace of mind, really. As long as her macho macho relatives were preoccupied with protecting her, they weren’t going to have the time or energy to embroil themselves in any really serious trouble.

The tawny-haired stranger had lifted his gray-green eyes to her coffee-bean-brown ones a second or two after she glanced in his direction and became aware of his unabashed appraisal of her T-shirted breasts. She’d intended to blow him off like lint, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that she was sweating like a pig—thanks to her brothers’ spectacularly inept efforts at air-conditioning repair—and didn’t feel like being gawked at by some preppie-style prince who obviously didn’t belong in Falco’s Pizzeria. But as their gazes collided and locked, she’d felt a surge of attraction so powerful that she gasped aloud and grabbed for the side of the cash register she’d been tending for nigh on eight hours.

She’d tried to turn away, but found herself unable to do so. Her pulse had kicked like a chorus line. Her stomach had fluttered wildly. Nothing she’d experienced with any of the long line of neighborhood guys she’d dated during the five years since she’d celebrated her sweet sixteenth had prepared her for such a primal response.

Her ogler had flushed, obviously embarrassed. Obviously affected, too.

And then, astonishingly, he’d smiled at her.

It hadn’t been one of those hey-baby-I’m-so-sexy grins she was accustomed to fielding from the local lotharios. Rather, it had been a quirking of flexible male lips, punctuated by a glint of even white teeth.

There’d been a trace of surprise in the expression. As though the smile represented a surrender to impulse by someone not usually given to succumbing to hormonally generated whim.

Lucy had reciprocated. Briefly. Breathlessly. If Chris had blinked, he probably would have missed it.

Despite the fact that she’d been accused—not completely without justification, she was willing to concede—of being a tease by several of the neighborhood Romeos, she hadn’t been trying to be coy. Her control over her facial muscles had simply been too iffy for her to attempt a full-scale smile.

Lucia Annette Falco had not been hunting for a husband the day twenty-four-year-old Christopher Dodson Banks walked into her family’s restaurant. She’d hoped to make a happy marriage eventually, of course. But not until she’d proven herself. By herself. To herself. For herself. And not until she’d firmly established her emotional and economic independence from her family.

She’d never imagined herself tying the knot while she was still two semesters away from earning her bachelor’s degree in business administration. And even if she had, she certainly never would have envisioned a scenario in which the cause of her decision to reroute—some might suggest derail—her professional ambitions would be an Ivy League-educated lawyer who was the scion of one of Chicago’s most prominent families!

Lucy’s breath hitched in her throat as she suddenly recalled the disapproving expression she’d glimpsed on her new mother-in-law’s perfectly made-up face as she and Chris departed for their honeymoon. She quickly shoved the memory aside. She’d find a way to deal with Elizabeth Banks, she assured herself. But not on this, the first night of her married life.

“I can’t believe we actually did it,” she whispered, scarcely realizing that she’d spoken aloud. The enormity of the commitment she’d made washed over her like a wave. For a moment, she felt as though she might drown.

“Well, we did, sweetheart.” Chris hugged Lucy close, pressing his lips against the crown of her head. He inhaled sharply. The scent of a fresh floral perfume—and of warm feminine flesh—hazed his nostrils. Desire swirled through him like a zephyr. “You and me. Together. In front of a huge horde of witnesses.”

“I told you I had a lot of relatives.” There was an apology implicit in her soft voice. And an edge of defensiveness, too. The potentially troubling implications of both were lost in the rush of sensation unleashed by the stroking search of her hands.

“True,” Chris acknowledged thickly, plucking the pins from her hair and scattering them on the floor. Lucy’s family—boisterously affectionate, abundantly extended, the antithesis of his own limited network of blood kin—was something he envied her. Still, there had been more than a couple of instances during this evening’s nuptial festivities when he found himself growing irritated by the number of guests who seemed to believe themselves entitled to lay claim to his bride’s undivided attention. “But having to face all of them in the same place at the same time was a little overwhelming.”

“Overwhelming,” Lucy repeated in an odd tone, then shivered ardently as he finessed the nerve-rich skin of her nape. “I know... what you mean.”

Perhaps she did. Perhaps she didn’t. Chris decided that it wasn’t particularly important at this particular time. What mattered right now was that, after too many hours of being forced to share her, he finally had the woman he’d promised to love and honor as long as they both should live all to himself.

Was it selfish to want her so exclusively? he asked himself, unzipping Lucy’s dress and sliding it off her smooth-skinned shoulders. She accommodated his efforts with a provocative little shimmy, then began undoing the buttons on the front of his shirt. Was it wrong to resent her seemingly endless interest in other people’s problems?

Maybe, he conceded, sucking in his breath as he felt the delicate rake of fingernails against his hair-whorled chest. But it also struck him as being profoundly human.

They kissed again. Chris feathered his mouth back and forth, deepening the intimacy of the caress by carefully calibrated increments. Lucy’s lips grew pliant, then parted. He eased his tongue between them, absorbing his bride’s languid sigh of pleasure with a throaty invocation of her name.

She was so...different... from the kind of woman he—to say nothing of his parents, friends and professional colleagues—had expected he’d one day woo and wed. Not just in appearance. But in upbringing and outlook, as well.

This had unsettled Chris at the start of their relationship, and he’d tried to go slowly because of it. He hadn’t doubted Lucy. He’d doubted himself.

He was self-aware enough to recognize that he wasn‘t—and probably never would be—entirely comfortable with the unearned privileges and unavoidable responsibilities that went with being the sole heir to the Banks family fortune. He’d needed to be certain that his desire to get involved with Lucia Annette Falco wasn’t the manifestation of some long-deferred impulse toward rebelling against his birthright.

It had taken a fair amount of soul-searching, but he’d finally satisfied himself that his feelings were not the product of a postadolescent identity crisis. Which had been terrific, up to a point. Unfortunately, all the clumsy scrabbling around in his psyche hadn’t help him figure out why he was drawn so intensely to a young woman with whom, by most objective standards, he seemed to have very little in common.

He’d replayed over and over again that first, heady moment when his eyes had connected with Lucy’s, attempting to make sense of his instantaneous hunger for her. While Chris was no stranger to physical passion, he’d never before encountered a female who could make his mouth go dry and his palms start to sweat simply by looking at him. He’d eventually abandoned his quest for a rational explanation of what had happened, deciding that he’d probably have better luck trapping a lightning bolt between his hands during a thunderstorm.

The woman with whom he’d tumbled so precipitately in love was neither classically beautiful nor all-American cute. Her brows were too strongly marked, her jawline was too stubbornly angled and her gaze was too direct to qualify her for inclusion the latter category. As for the former—well, her nose missed being aristocratic by several significant millimeters, while her lush-lipped mouth was a degree or so off plumb and bracketed by dimples.

The thing was, Chris hadn’t registered a single one of these flaws—if flaws they were—the first time he saw his future wife. Nor had he stopped to question why, after years of squiring lithesome blue-eyed blond debutantes, he’d suddenly found himself bewitched by a voluptuous brunette cashier at a pizzeria.

It had been her smile that initially snagged his attention. He’d seen her flash it at a slick-looking character in sunglasses and felt a strange stab to the heart. A surge of possessiveness had swept through him. He’d wanted that frank, feisty and oh-so-feminine expression directed at him—not some other guy.

After her smile, he’d focused on her skin. He’d longed to touch it. To taste it. To discover whether it carried the flavor, as well as the look, of sweet cream and sun-ripened apricots.

Her hair had compelled his senses, too. He’d yearned to free it from its haphazard ponytail and run his fingers through the long espresso-colored strands. To bury his face in the glossy tumble and breathe in its dusky fragrance.

As for the issue of when he’d noticed her breasts and exactly what he’d felt the urge to do with them—

“Mmm...” Lucy leaned back against the supportive circle of her new husband’s arms, her loosened tresses shifting against her shoulder blades. She was hazily aware that she was ahead—or was it actually behind?—in the disrobing process. While she was down to a pair of pale silk stockings and a few fragile of pieces of lace-trimmed lingerie, Chris was still fully clad from the waist down.

“Mmm, indeed,” he concurred, his normally cool eyes sparking emerald green and topaz gold from beneath partially lowered lids. Their expression was very focused. Almost fierce. His hands drifted down her back, curving seductively against her bottom. The warmth of his palms penetrated the fine fabric of her panties, kindling a melting heat between her thighs.

A tremor of uniquely feminine anticipation skittered through Lucy’s nervous system. She shifted her hips, conscious of the thrusting rise of Chris’s masculinity. She watched his nostrils flare on an abrupt exhalation of breath. A rush of color darkened the skin over his cheekbones. A thrilling sense of power—familiar in some ways, but far too new to be taken for granted—suffused her.

Although she hadn’t reached age twenty-one untouched or ignorant about the facts of life, Christopher Dodson Banks was the only lover she’d ever had. They’d begun sleeping together two months after their first date. In some ways, she’d been more of the aggressor on that initial occasion than he.

Which was not to imply that he’d been passive. Indeed not. Although reticent about public displays of physical affection, Chris was-intensely passionate in private. Making love with him was... well, it was a far cry from the whambam-in-the-back-seat encounters she’d heard about in the girls’ rest room! He was inventive. Uninhibited. And unwaveringly intent on ensuring that what was good for him was even better for her.

“You’re kidding me, Luce,” her maid-of-honor-to-be, Tina Roberts, had said one night about six weeks ago. They’d been sharing confidences and cannolis after a long day of shopping for her trousseau. Tina, who’d gone all the way and then some her freshman year of high school, was the only one of Lucy’s girlfriends who knew she’d been a virgin until Chris. Tina had also had a fair amount to say on the subject of how dangerous it could be for a girl to fall in love with the guy to whom she gave her physical innocence. “Without being asked?”

Lucy had fiddled with her pastry, wondering whether she’d been too forthcoming. “He said he enjoyed it because I...enjoy...it.”

“He wasn’t just trying to get you to—”

“No, Teen.” The answer had been quick and unequivocal. It hadn’t mattered that her companion was immensely more experienced than she. She’d felt very, very sure of her answer. “Chris isn’t like that.”

Tina had tapped her flashily manicured nails on the edge of the table at which they were sitting, an oddly wistful look flitting across her face. Finally she’d heaved a long-drawn out sigh and observed, “I guess that old line about still waters running deep is true, huh? I mean, I’m not blind to your fiancé’s appeal, hon. He’s cute. He’s classy. And even though I’ve never seen him do anything more than hold your hand, I can tell he’s crazy for you. Still. I never would have pegged him as a tiger in the sack.”

Lucy rose on tiptoe, brushing her mouth against Chris’s. Their lips caught and clung, the caress escalating from airy to erotic in the space of a few increasingly frantic heartbeats.

“I love you, Chris,” she whispered fervently. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Lucy,” he answered, then bent and lifted her. She locked her arms around his neck and kissed the side of his throat. She could feel the wild jump of his pulse. The faintly salty tang of his skin seeped onto her tongue.

He carried her into the suite’s elegantly furnished bedroom. Lucy glanced around wonderingly, absorbing a myriad of sensual details.

Flowers blossomed luxuriously out of a variety of vases. Roses, mostly. Brilliantly scarlet. Blush pink. Ivory pale. Her favorite copper-coral, too. There were arrangements of exotic-looking orchids and fragrant freesia, as well.

An iced bottle of champagne was nestled in a silver bucket that had been placed on a nightstand to the right of the bed. Two slender long-stemmed glasses sat next to the bucket. Lucy’s vision blurred for a moment as she realized that the glasses were engraved. The letters L and C had been etched into the bubble-thin crystal, their curving lines intertwined like lovers.

“Oh, Ch-Chris...”

“Happy honeymoon, Lucy,” the man she’d married said as she faltered on the verge of sentimental tears. “And happy New Year, as well.”

The king-size bed’s coverlet and blankets had been neatly turned back, revealing an inviting expanse of snowy-white linen. Bracing one knee against the edge of the mattress, Chris placed her down on the cool, crisp sheets. He then stroked his fingers though her hair, fanning it out against the pillowcase.

His movements were slow. Deliberate. Precise. As though he had all the time in the world at his command and intended to utilize every single second of it.

Lucy gazed up at her husband, mesmerized by his concentration and control. Lifting her left hand, she placed it gently against his right cheek. A gold band glinted on her ring finger, along with a flawless square-cut diamond, the precious symbol of the pledges she’d made less than seven hours ago in accordance with the word of God and the statutes of the state of Illinois.

Straightening, Chris kicked off his shoes. Then he stretched out on the bed and took her into his arms. She molded herself against him, tilting her face upward, wanting to feel his mouth on hers once again.

Their lips met. Fused. Their tongues teased and tantalized. The taste of him merged with the taste of her and became the honeyed essence of mutual desire.

Lucy moaned softly, moved sinuously. Experience had taught her some of the things that excited the man she loved. Instinct instructed her about most of the others. She let her hands roam up and down his back and torso, relishing the sleek ripple and release of well-toned muscle and sinew.

The catch on the front of her bra gave way to the coaxing of clever but not-quite-steady fingers. Cool air eddied briefly over freshly bared skin. Lucy shivered, catching her bottom lip between her teeth to mute a whimper of anticipation. A moment later, she felt the claiming cup of her husband’s palms against her naked flesh. She closed her eyes, arching into the allurement of his caress.

“Beautiful,” she heard Chris murmur in a reverent, rough-velvet voice. His hands were urgent, yet exquisitely gentle. He seemed to understand even better than she did where and how and when she wanted to be touched. “You’re so beautiful.”

And then she felt his mouth. His hot, hungry mouth, closing over the tip of her right breast. Licking. Laving. Sampling. Sucking. Each time his lips exerted their suctioning pressure on the burgeoning peak, there was an answering throb deep within her body.

Lucy opened her eyes. She uttered Chris’s name on a shaky whisper, her fingers spasming against his shoulders. Her nails bit briefly into the taut flesh of his upper arms as he transferred his attentions to her left breast. Again he suckled, drawing her aching nipple deep into his mouth. Again she experienced the yearning clench of response in her womb.

Chris kissed a path upward from Lucy’s bosom, drink- ing in the soft, swooning cry she made when his lips finally reclaimed hers. He was starving, he thought dizzily, and she was a feast to sate all his senses. But the more he tasted of her—the more he touched, smelled, heard and saw—the more acutely he hungered.

“Yes,” she said on a sigh when he finally ended the kiss. “Oh, yes.”

He undid her sheer stockings and carefully peeled them off. Lucy watched silently as he did so, her expression ratcheting up old appetites at the same time it roused new ones. Her cheeks were flushed, almost feverish-looking. Her ripe mouth was moist and trembling.

My wife, he told himself triumphantly, touching the ball of his thumb against the plain gold ring that now adorned his left hand. My... wife.

He charted the shape of her legs with his hands in ardent, appreciative stages. From her prettily pedicured toes to her well-turned ankles. From her well-turned ankles to the backs of her knees. From the backs of her knees to the satin-cream skin of her inner thighs.

His fingertips hovered for an instant at the apex of her limbs, brushing lightly against the dampened fabric that shielded the entrance to her feminine core. His mind flashed back to the first time they’d made love. To the crazy jumble of emotions he’d experienced knowing that he was to be the recipient of something that could be surrendered only once.

He’d felt awed.

He’d felt unworthy.

He’d felt invincible.

He felt much the same right now.

“Chris—” Lucy began in a half-suffocated voice, propping herself up on her elbows.

“I need you, sweetheart,” he said huskily, sliding his palms over the silky fabric of her panties and hooking his thumbs beneath the lace-trimmed top edge. “All of you.”

Her dark lashes fluttered down a fraction of an inch, veiling a wildfire kindling in the depths of her expressive eyes. The corners of her lips curled in the start of a smile that sizzled through his bloodstream. A throbbing heaviness invaded his loins. Desire clawed in his gut like a jungle cat.

A languid lift of lushly feminine hips.

A swift downward tug by long-fingered male hands.

The last scrap of Lucy’s lingerie fluttered to the plushly carpeted floor, leaving her naked.

Chris swallowed convulsively, struggling for control as he surveyed the newly revealed flesh and the lovely triangle of dark, glossy curls. He disciplined himself to ease up, shift back. Forced himself to get to his feet.

He opened the buckle of his belt. Unzipped his fly.

Shucked his trousers and the briefs beneath them down his legs in a single seamless movement.

Kicked the garments off ... and away.

Lucy’s breath jammed in her throat at the sight of Chris’s sleekly powerful physique and flagrantly aroused masculinity. She’d been afraid the first time, she dimly remembered. Not so much of the hurt, although she’d been warned that was inevitable. No, her deepest fear had centered around the awful possibility that she’d fail to please at something it seemed all her friends found as natural as scratching.

There had been no hurt. A moment of discomfort, yes, but one so buffered by tenderness that she could scarcely be sure she’d really experienced it. And if she’d been less than adequate in her innocence, she hadn’t been able to discern it. Chris had responded to her as though she were Eve incarnate.

She dragged her gaze slowly upward, conscious of the pound-pound-pounding of her blood. She could hear it, hammering in her ears. She could feel it, pulsing in the tips of her toes and fingers.

Dark eyes locked with hazel ones, much as they’d done on a hot summer night barely six months before.

Lucy lifted her arms.

Chris rejoined her on the king-size bed.

They kissed. Caressed. Rolled across the crisp white sheets in a tangle of perspiration-sheened legs and arms. She found herself laughing with joy one moment, gasping in shocked pleasure the next. She said her husband’s name over and over again. He murmured hers, and a dozen different endearments besides. Then, in a lightning-quick change of mood, he nipped at the lobe of her right ear and began whispering a litany of darkly delicious promises.

His hands were everywhere. Testing. Tempting. Torching her flesh. She reciprocated in kind, charting the strong expanse of his shoulders, the long, taut line of his torso and the flat plane of his stomach. The shallow indentation of his navel held her strangely in thrall for several shuddering seconds, and then she shifted her tactile attentions downward a few inches.

“Lucy.” Chris speared his fingers through her hair. “Oh...Lucy.”

“Yes.” The word was an affirmation. An invitation. “Yes.”

They rolled over again. She ended up beneath him, feeling the nudge of his knee between her thighs as his mouth took hers in another searing kiss.

She opened eagerly, arching upward in welcome as Chris filled her with a strong, sure thrust. A glorious sensation surged through her veins. She wrapped her arms and legs around him as her consciousness narrowed to exclude everything but the moment...and the man.

Chris groaned hoarsely, his embrace tightening. His spine bowed, the intimacy of his possession of her increasing by a few ineffably exquisite degrees.

Closer. And closer still.

She shuddered, her body convulsing on the brink of sensory overload. Her brain seemed to blank out, as though it were too overwhelmed to form anything approaching a coherent thought. Then, suddenly, she shattered.

An instant later, she felt her partner do the same.