Only Forever. Linda Miller Lael

of fragrant sweet-and-sour chicken, chow mein and fried rice.

      He smiled and shook his head when he saw the jumpsuit. “Feel better?” he asked.

      Vanessa felt a number of things, and she wasn’t ready to talk about any of them. She went to the cupboards and opened doors until she found plates for their food. They ate at the breakfast bar, perched on stools, and Nick insisted on using chopsticks.

      “Show off,” Vanessa said, spearing a succulent morsel of chicken with her fork.

      He surprised her by laying down his chop-sticks, reaching out and unfastening the top two buttons of the jumpsuit. “The weather’s getting nasty outside,” he commented, “but it’s warm enough in here.”

      Vanessa blushed, embarrassed. She knew Nick thought she was a hidebound prude, but she didn’t have the nerve to prove she wasn’t. Not yet.

      He leaned over and gave her a nibbling kiss on the lips. “Everything is okay, Van,” he promised her quietly. “Just relax.”

      A light rain spattered the windows, and Nick left his stool to light a fire on the hearth. The crackling sound was cozy, and the colorful blaze gave that corner of the room a cheery glow.

      Something Vanessa could not name or define made her leave her place at the breakfast bar and approach Nick. She knelt beside him, facing the fireplace, and said, “I’m not like you p-probably think I am. It’s just that you scare me so much.”

      He turned to her, smiling softly, and slid four fingers into her hair, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “I won’t tell you any lies, Vanessa,” he replied. “I want you—I have since I turned on the Midas Network and saw you standing there with a toll-free number printed across your chest—but I’m willing to wait.”

      “Wait?” Vanessa asked. Nothing in her relationship with Parker had ever prepared her for this kind of patience from a man. He had to want something. “You’re admitting, then, that there is a plan of seduction?”

      He laughed. “Absolutely. I intend to make you want me, Vanessa Lawrence.”

      Vanessa figured he had the battle half won already, but she wasn’t about to say that to him. In fact, she didn’t say anything, because Nick DeAngelo had rendered her speechless.

      He got up, leaving her kneeling there by the fire, and returned after a few minutes with two glasses of wine. After handing one to Vanessa and setting his own down on the brick hearth, he glanced pensively toward the rain-sheeted windows. “Do you want to go out to a movie, or shall we stay here?”

      Even though Vanessa was still wishing that she’d stayed home, indeed that she’d never met Nick at all, she had no desire to leave the comfort and warmth of his fire. She was, in fact, having some pretty primitive and elemental feelings where he and his comfortable home were concerned. It was almost as though she’d been wandering, cold and hungry and alone, and he’d rescued her and brought her to a secret, special place that no one else knew about.

      Vanessa shook her head. She hadn’t even had a sip of her wine yet, and it was already getting to her.

      “Van?” Nick prompted, peering into her face, and she realized that she hadn’t answered his question.

      “Oh. Yes. I mean, I’d like to sit by the fire and watch the storm.” Even as she spoke, blue-gold lightning streaked across the angry sky and a fresh spate of rain pelted the glass.

      Nick came back and sat down beside her on the rug. “Tell me about your life, Van,” he said, his voice low.

      She immediately tensed, but before she could frame a reply, Nick reached out and squeezed her hand.

      “I’m not asking about Parker—I know a little about him because we traveled in some of the same circles. You’re the one I’m curious about.”

      Vanessa took a sip of her wine and then told Nick the central facts about her childhood; that her father had died when she was seven, that her very young mother had been overwhelmed by responsibilities and grief and had left her daughter with her parents so that she could marry a rodeo cowboy. There had been cards, letters and the occasional Christmas and birthday gifts, but Van had rarely seen her mother after that.

      The expression in Nick’s eyes was a soft one as he listened, but there was no pity in evidence, and Vanessa appreciated that. Her childhood had been difficult, but there were lots of people who would have gladly traded places with her, and she had made a good life for herself—generally speaking.

      “You’ve always wanted to be on television?” Nick asked, plundering the white paper bag he’d brought home from the Chinese restaurant until he found two fortune cookies at the bottom.

      Vanessa sighed and shook her head. “Not really. I wanted to be Annie Oakley until I was six—then I made the shattering discovery that there was very little call for trick riding and fancy shooting except in the circus.”

      Nick grinned at that. “My childhood dream pales by comparison. I wanted to run my Uncle Guido’s fish market.”

      Vanessa laughed. “And you had to settle for a career in professional football. My God, DeAngelo, that’s sad—I don’t know how you bore up under the disappointment!”

      He had drawn very close. “I’m remarkable,” he answered with a shrug.

      “I can imagine,” Vanessa confessed, and as he touched the sensitive, quivering flesh of her neck with his warm and tentative lips, she gave a little moan. “Is this the part where you start making me want you?” she dared to ask.

      Nick nipped at her earlobe and chuckled when she trembled. “Yes. But that’s all, so don’t get nervous.”

      “What about what you want?” Vanessa asked.

      “I can wait,” he replied, and she knew she should push him away, but she couldn’t. The attention he was giving her neck felt entirely too good.

      Presently his hands came back to the buttons of the jumpsuit. Vanessa closed her fingers over his, realizing with a sleepy sort of despair that she wasn’t wearing either bra or panties beneath the worn blue corduroy, but Nick would not be stopped. He was a gentle conqueror, though, and she had no more thoughts of fear or of escape.

      She was lying on her back before the popping fire when he bared her breasts and watched the shimmer of the blaze and the flash of lightning play over them. Vanessa had never felt so feminine, so desirable.

      With a low, grumbling groan, Nick lowered himself to chart the circumference of her breast with a whisperlight passing of his lips. Vanessa watched in delicious dread as he moved toward the peak he meant to conquer, in an upward spiraling pattern of kisses. A whimper of long-denied pleasure escaped her as he touched her budding nipple with his tongue, causing it to blossom like some lovely, exotic flower.

      Beyond the windows, lightning raged against the sky as though seeking to thrust its golden fingers through the glass and snatch the lovers up in fire and heat. Vanessa shuddered involuntarily as Nick’s hand made a slow, comforting circle on her belly, his lips and tongue continuing to master her nipple.

      He’d said his goal was to make her want him, and he’d succeeded without question. Vanessa longed to give him the kind of intolerable pleasure he was giving her, to be joined with him in a fevered battle that would have no losers. But he was setting the pace, and Vanessa had no power to turn the tables.

      Her breasts were moist and pleasantly swollen by the time he brought his mouth back to hers and consumed her in a kiss as elemental as the lightning tearing at the afternoon sky.

      “Do you want me to make love to you, Van?” Nick whispered against her throat when the kiss had at last ended.

      Vanessa could barely lie still, her body was so hungry for his. “Yes,” she admitted breathlessly, her fingers frantic in his hair. “Oh, yes.”

      He gave a heavy sigh and circled a pulsing nipple with the tip of his tongue before saying the unbelievable words.