* * *
“The sweetest gift I ever received in my life was that glass of fireflies.” Parker was stroking her back in the aftermath of lovemaking.
“Lightning bugs.”
He chuckled. “You’re learning. With help you might become a bona fide belle.”
“That was a sweet night all-’round. The sweetest. Until tonight.”
“Maris, that next morning—”
“Shh. I understand now why you had to be so wretched.”
“You do?”
“You had to get rid of me before you could bring Noah here.”
He tipped her chin up so he could see her face. “But you know I used you to get to him.”
“Your original plan was probably to have him catch us like this.”
He glanced down the length of their entwined bodies. “Yeah.”
“But that changed when you fell in love with me. You couldn’t bring yourself to subject me to an ugly scene like that. So you hurt me in order to protect me. You made certain I would leave.”
He stroked her cheek. “You’re so smart you amaze me.”
“So I’m right?”
“As rain. Especially about me falling in love with you.”
“You did?”
“I am. Present tense.” He lifted her face toward his and kissed her in a way that left no room for doubt.
“There is one thing I can’t figure out,” she said when the kiss finally ended. “I know we promised not to talk about this tonight, but I’d like to have one point clarified.”
They had agreed that they wouldn’t rehash everything tonight. They faced months, possibly years, of legal entanglements before Parker was exonerated and Noah was tried and punished for his crimes. She had a publishing house to run, and he had books to write. They didn’t yet know how they were going to divide their time between New York and St. Anne Island. She would grieve her father’s death for a long while yet, and Parker was deliberating whether or not to reveal Mackensie Roone to his legion of fans. They had much to work out but were committed to making it work.
However, they had agreed that tomorrow didn’t start until sunrise and that they deserved tonight to strictly enjoy one another.
“I don’t want to invite Noah into bed with us,” he said.
“I understand. And agree. But this isn’t really about him.”
“Okay. One point and then I want to do some more of what we were doing.”
“I promise,” she said, smiling. “Mike discovered that The Vanquished was actually your book with Noah’s title on it.”
“Right.”
“And he tried to contact you for an explanation.”
“It took him almost a year to track me down. By then the paperback edition had already come out.”
“Why didn’t Mike expose Noah then?”
“Because I threatened his life if he did.”
“Why?”
“I was in piss-poor condition, Maris. An ex-con who looked like a beggar and was living like one. I was wheelchair-bound. Only after years of physical therapy am I able to walk at all. If you can even call that walking. When Mike found me, I was weak, wasted. Addicted to pills.” He shook his head stubbornly. “I refused to confront Noah in such a reduced state when he was the book world’s crowned prince.”
“Enjoying the success that rightfully belonged to you.”
“I chose to wait until I was strong and confident.”
“And successful.”
“That, too. I wanted to challenge him as an equal, when I had the credentials to back up my claim that he’d stolen my book. I knew it might take years, but I was willing to wait.”
“I’m surprised you got Mike to agree.”
“He didn’t agree. He just gave in.”
“Or?”
“Or I swore that I would never write another word as long as I lived.”
“Ahh. That would have cinched it.”
Now that he had answered her question, she eased herself on top of him and opened her thighs. With a grunt of satisfaction, he pressed himself inside her, began to stroke with the barest upward motion of his hips.
“Hmm. You are incredibly talented, Mr. Evans.”
“Yeah, and I can write a fairly decent book, too.”
Sitting up, she reached behind her, between his legs, and stroked the underside of his penis at its base. He strained a curse between his teeth. “You’ve got talents of your own, Ms. Matherly. Where’d you learn that trick?”
“I read it in one of your books.”
“Damn, I’m good.”
She continued to caress him until he pulled her down onto his chest and hugged her tightly around the waist while he pushed into her as high as possible. His raw, choppy breaths were muffled against her breasts.
Finally he relaxed, his head falling back onto the pillow. She smoothed his hair back from his damp forehead. “Felt good?”
“It still does.” Cradling her face between his hands, he kissed her, whispering into her mouth, “We’re being awfully messy here.”
“I don’t mind it. I’d like a baby.”
“I can live with that.”
“Or two.”
“Even better.”
“Parker?”
“Hmm?”
“Make me come.”
She was ready. It took only a few strokes of his fingertip.
Later, they lay facing each other, their heads sharing the pillow. He was tracing her fragile collarbone when she said, “I recognized you the first time you kissed me. The night we met.”
His finger fell still in the hollow just beneath her shoulder. He raised his eyes to hers. “What?”
“That’s why that kiss alarmed me. Because I knew you. And not just knew you, but knew you well. Intimately. I had spent so many nights with you, poring over every word. Your book was like a personal love letter. Like you wrote it to me. Just for me.
“When you kissed me, it was so familiar, it was as though you had kissed me like that a thousand times.” Adoringly, she touched every feature of his face. “I have loved you for so long, Parker. For years. From the day I first read The Vanquished.”
He swallowed hard. “When you talked about it with such passion… You got it, Maris,” he said with glad emphasis. “You got exactly what I had wanted to get across with those characters and that story. God, listening to you talk about it, my heart nearly burst. Can you imagine how hard it was for me not to tell you that I was the author? That it was me, not Noah, you’d fallen in love with?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t. Not then. Not yet. Besides, I was afraid I wouldn’t live up to your expectations.”
She ran her fingers through his hair. “You surpassed them, Parker. You created my fantasies. Now you’re fulfilling them.”
They kissed long and deeply and when they finally pulled apart, she asked him what his original title had been.
And he told her.
And she told him that she liked it much better.
About the Author
Sandra Brown is the author of over sixty New York Times bestsellers, including most recently Low Pressure; Lethal; Rainwater; Tough Customer; Smash Cut; Smoke Screen; Play Dirty; Ricochet; Chill Factor; White Hot; Hello, Darkness; The Crush; Envy; The Switch; The Alibi; Unspeakable; and Fat Tuesday, all of which jumped onto the New York Times list in the numbers one to five spots. There are over eighty million copies of Sandra Brown’s books in print worldwide and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages. In 2008, Brown was named Thriller Master by the International Thriller Writers Association, the organization’s top honor. She currently lives in Texas. For more information you can visit www.SandraBrown.net.