Diamond in the Ruff (Matchmaking Mamas Book 13) (14 page)

So, with a wave of what he felt was close to superhuman control, Christopher forced himself to back away from what could have easily become his with just the right moves.

He wasn’t about “moves,” he reminded himself, he was about sincerity, no matter
what
his body was attempting to dictate to him.

Drawing back, he paused to take a couple of discreet, very deep breaths, doing his best to regulate the timbre of his voice.

“Thank you again,” he murmured.

She knew he wasn’t thanking her for helping him to unpack those few boxes. She struggled to stifle the blush that wanted so badly to take root. But she didn’t seem to have a say in that. Her body seemed to be on its own timetable, one that had little to do with anything she might have dictated.

After a beat, Lily cleared her throat, managed to murmur something that sounded like “Don’t mention it,” and then left quickly with her puppy.

* * *

She wasn’t sure just how long it had taken for her heartbeat to settle down and return to normal. All she was aware of was that it had remained rather erratic for the entire trip home, and even for a few minutes after she’d walked into her house.

She was also aware of the happy glow that had taken hold of her.

This, she felt rather certain, was the very first leg of the journey that ultimately led to genuine affection. Lily stubbornly refused to use the
L
word to describe what she might wind up achieving since she felt if she did, she might just jinx what was happening.

Deep down, though she wasn’t a superstitious person by nature, she was afraid that thinking about falling in love with this man would almost assuredly guarantee that there would be no happily ever after waiting for her at the finish line.

Besides, she hardy knew anything about the man except that he hated unpacking—and he had a killer smile. The really safe, smart thing to do, Lily told herself as she unlocked the front door and Jonathan pushed the door opened with his shoulder, walking right in, would be for her to find Jonathan another veterinarian.

If she went that route, it would guarantee that she would have no entanglements with the man whose house she’d just left, no further temptation to wander down the wrong road someday soon.

Oh, who are you kidding?
she scolded herself.

She had never been one to automatically opt for doing things the “smart way,” especially if that “smart way” promised just more of the same.

More dullness, more playing it safe.

And that in turn meant that there wouldn’t be anything to light up her life. Nothing would cause her fingertips to tingle and her imagination to take flight, going to places she would have never admitted to yearning for, at least not out loud.

“You continue torturing yourself like this and you are not going to get any sleep no matter what you try. Turn off your brain, change into your pj’s and for God’s sake, get some rest before you wind up dropping from exhaustion.”

Easier said than done.

Oh, she could certainly change into her pajamas and crawl into bed. The next-to-impossible part of the equation was the part about turning off her brain.

Her brain, it seemed, wanted only to vividly relive that last kiss and play it over and over again in her mind’s eye, heightening every last nuance to its uppermost limit.

She was doomed and she knew it.

Resigned, Lily went up the stairs to her bedroom, her four-footed black shadow following right behind her, barking happily.

Chapter Thirteen

C
hristopher knew it would make a difference, but until the job was almost completed, he hadn’t realized just how
much
of a difference the undertaking would actually make.

Each time he looked around, the amount of space surprised him all over again. Without fully being conscious of it, he’d gotten accustomed to weaving his way in and out between the boxes, accepting the clutter that existed as a given. With Lily insisting on helping him unpack the countless boxes, large and small, that had been here for months, the house gradually returned to looking like the place he’d known during his childhood, growing up with a single mom. Lily had not only gotten him to organize and clear away the physical clutter, but through doing that he had also wound up clearing away some emotional clutter, as well.

Without boxes being everywhere he turned, Christopher felt as if his ability to think clearly had vastly improved, allowing him to finally move forward in his private life.

It was almost as if his brain was like a hard drive that had been defragmented. The analogy wasn’t his. Lily had tossed the comparison his way when he’d commented that he felt less oppressed, more able to think these past few days. He thought her analogy seemed to hit the nail right on the head.

As they worked together, he discovered that Lily had an uncanny ability to simplify things. She seemed to see into his very soul.

Without discussing it or even being fully conscious of it, he and Lily had settled into a routine that was beneficial to both of them. Weekday mornings she would swing by with Jonathan, dropping the Labrador off at the animal hospital, and then in the evenings she would collect her pet and then follow Christopher to his home. Once there they would both tackle emptying out and breaking down at least one of the boxes, if not more.

They also ate dinner together, usually one she had prepared in his kitchen. It was just something she had gotten into the habit of doing. While he continued to tell her that she really didn’t have to go out of her way like this, Christopher made no secret of his enjoyment of each and every meal she prepared.

As much as he appreciated her help de-cluttering his house and looked forward to exhibits of her stellar culinary abilities, what he looked forward to most of all were the conversations they had. Each evening while they worked and ate, they talked and got to know one another a little better than before.

It definitely made Christopher anticipate each evening.

Oh, he loved being a veterinarian, loved being able to improve the lives of almost all the animals who were brought to his hospital.

He was lucky enough to treat a larger variety of pets than most, everything from mice, hamsters and rabbits to dogs and cats and birds, as well as several other types of pets who fell somewhere in between. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t wanted to be a veterinarian, and if he hadn’t become one he honestly didn’t know what he would be doing these days.

But Lily, well, she represented a completely different path in his life, a path he was both familiar with in a distant, cursory fashion, and one different enough for him to feel that he hadn’t actually traveled it before.

She very quickly had become an integral part of his life. Being around her made him feel alive, with an endless font of possibilities before him. It was akin to being brought back from the dead after having attended his own funeral. He’d never thought he could feel like this again—and it was all because of Lily.

* * *

“We’re almost done, you know,” Lily said one evening, pointing out what she knew was the obvious. But it felt good to say it nonetheless. “There are just a few boxes left. When they’re gone, I really won’t have a reason to stop by here after work each night.” She held her breath, waiting to see if Christopher would express regret or relief over what she’d just said.

His answer more than pleased her—and put her mind at ease. “I could try rustling up some more boxes, maybe steal some from the local UPS office or from FedEx, or the post office on Murphy if all else fails.”

She laughed at the very thought of his contemplating hijacking boxes. He was nothing if not exceedingly upstanding. “It’s not the same thing.”

He stopped working and looked at Lily seriously. She had become part of his life so quickly that it all but took his breath away.

Just like she did.

“I’d still do it if it meant that it would keep you coming over every evening. Besides, as selfish as this might sound, you’ve gotten me hooked on your cooking. I find myself expecting it by the end of the day,” he freely admitted. “You wouldn’t want to deprive me of it, now, would you?”

She turned away from the box she’d almost finished emptying and gazed at him, a hint of a pleased smile playing on her lips. “Just so I’m clear on this, let me get this straight. You want me to keep coming over so I can continue unpacking your boxes and cooking your dinner, is that right?”

“What I want,” he told her, crossing over to Lily and taking the book that she’d just removed from the last box out of her hands, “is to continue having
you
to look forward to each evening.”

His eyes on hers, Christopher let the book he’d just taken out of her hands fall to the floor.

He realized that he was risking a great deal, crawling out on a limb that had no safety net beneath it. But if he didn’t, if he didn’t
say
something, he ran the very real risk of losing her, of having her just walk away from his life.

This, he knew, was a crossroads for them, for although they had shared an occasional heated moment, an occasional kiss, they had each always returned to their corners, respectful of the other’s barriers and limits. They pushed no boundaries, leaving envelopes exactly where they lay.

Risk nothing, gain nothing.

Or, in this case, Christopher thought, risk nothing, lose everything.

He didn’t want to lose everything.

“I’d still be stopping by the animal hospital to pick up Jonathan,” Lily reminded him. “That is, if, once we’re finished here, you’d still be willing to have me drop him off with you in the morning.”

“Sure, that goes without saying,” he assured her. Jonathan barked as if he knew he was being talked about, but Christopher continued focusing on her. “Everyone looks forward to having Jonny around during the day. But that still leaves a large chunk of my evening empty. I’m not sure I’d know how to deal with that,” he told her in a voice that had become hardly louder than a whisper.

As she listened, giving him her undivided attention, that whisper seemed to feather along her lips, softly seducing her, causing havoc to every single nerve ending within her body.

“Why don’t we talk about it later?” Christopher suggested in between light, arousing passes along her lips.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said. It was an effort for her to think straight. “You’re just trying to get me to stop unpacking the last boxes.”

She saw his mouth curve in amusement,
felt
his smile seeping into her soul.

“I always said you were a very smart lady,” Christopher told her.

“And you are exceedingly tricky. Lucky I majored in seeing through tricky,” she quipped.

“Maybe lucky for you, not so much me,” he told her in a low, unsettling voice.

He was still playing his ace card, Lily thought. Still managing to reduce her to a pliable, warmed-over puddle. And she’d discovered something just now, in this moment of truth. Christopher wasn’t just hard to resist. When he got going, moving full steam ahead, the man was damn near
impossible
to resist.

Even so, she did her best to try.

Her best wasn’t good enough.

Gladly taking the excuse that Christopher had so willingly handed her, she completely abandoned the box she’d been emptying, leaving it to be tackled on some other day. She certainly wasn’t up to doing that this evening.

Tonight had suddenly become earmarked for something else entirely. Tonight she was finally going to give in to all the demands that had been mounting within her, all the demands that were vibrating within her.

She had given herself endless pep talks against taking the step she was contemplating, mentally listing all the reasons she would regret crossing this final line in the sand. The line separating flirtation from something a great deal more serious.

And possibly a great deal more fulfilling.

Commitment and, yes, possibly even love were on the other side of that line.

But just because she was willing to cross that line, Lily reminded herself, that did not necessarily mean that he did or would.

Even if Christopher said it, said that he
wanted
to cross the line and made a show of embracing both concepts—commitment
and
love—that wouldn’t really make it a reality. She wasn’t naive enough to believe that just because someone said something meant that there had to be even an iota of truth to it.

That was the part where a leap of faith would need to come in.

She knew that. Logically, she knew that. But right now, logic had been left standing somewhere at a door far away. She would have to deal with this later, one way or another.

Right now, at this burning moment in time, Lily realized that what she wanted, what she
needed,
was to have him make her feel wanted, make her feel that she was special to him.

Never mind whether or not it was true. She would pretend it was true.

And maybe, just maybe, if wishing hard enough could make it so, it
would
be true. But again, that was a struggle, a battle to be undertaken later.

Right now, every fiber of her being wanted to be made love to—make love with—Christopher.

So rather than resist, or coyly move just out of his reach, gravitating toward another excuse, another roadblock to get in the way of what she knew they both wanted, Lily remained in his arms, kissed him back the way he had kissed her and, just like that, effectively brought down every single barrier, every makeshift fence, every concrete wall they had each put up to protect the most frail thing they each possessed: their hearts.

This was different, Christopher realized. She wasn’t kissing him back with feeling, she was kissing him back with fire. He could feel the passion igniting, could feel it being passed back and forth between them and growing sharply in intensity by the nanosecond.

He kissed Lily over and over again and with each kiss he only craved more. He made love to her with his mouth, first to her lips, then to her throat, sliding down to the tender hollow between her breasts.

Her moan only served to inflame him more. It increased the tempo, inciting a riot right there within his veins.

Christopher was afraid of letting loose. And equally afraid not to.

To contain this amount of passion would bring about his own self-destruction. Not someday but before the evening’s end.

Her hands passed over his chest, possessing him even before her fingertips dove beneath his shirt, sliding along the hard ridges of his pectorals, hardening him at the same time that she was reducing him to a mass of fluid flames and desires.

He had to hold back to keep from ripping off her clothes. But even as he tried to keep himself in check, he felt Lily’s quick, urgent movements all but tearing away his shirt and slacks.

It was the proverbial straw, unleashing the passionate creature caged within.

His hands, sturdy and capable yet so gentle, were everywhere, touching, caressing, possessing.

Worshipping.

He just couldn’t seem to get enough of her. He felt himself feeding on her softness; feeding on her frenzy as if it comprised the very substance of his existence.

As if Lily and only Lily could sustain his very life force.

Christopher was making her crazy, playing her body as if it was a highly tuned musical instrument that would only—
could
only—sing for him, because only he knew just how to unlock the melody that existed just beneath the surface.

Lily ached to feel his touch—to feel
him
along her body.

She arched her back, pressing herself against him as he made the fire inside of her rise to greater and greater heights.

There hadn’t been all that many lovers and she knew she wasn’t exactly all that experienced before tonight, but Lily honestly thought that she’d been to the table before. It was only now that she realized she had only had her nose pressed up against the glass window, aware of the existence of these sensations, but never really
feeling
any of them
.

Certainly not like this.

She felt things now, responded to things now. Did things now, things that had never even crossed her mind to consider doing before tonight.

But suddenly, she wanted to pleasure this man who had utterly lit up her entire world. She wanted to give him back a little in kind of what he had so generously given her.

With the feel of his breath trailing along the more sensitive areas of her skin still incredibly, indelibly fresh along her body, Lily arched and wrapped her legs around his torso, teasing him, urging him to cross the final line.

To form the final union.

Her body urgently moving beneath his, Christopher discovered that he hadn’t the strength to hold off any longer. His goal had been to bring her up and over to a climax a handful of times before he claimed the irresistible, but he was only so strong, could only hold out for so long and no more.

That time was now.

With a moan that echoed of surrender, Christopher proceeded to take what she so willingly offered him. Shifting seductively, Lily opened for him.

His mouth sealed to hers and, balancing his weight as best he could, he entered her.

Her sharp intake of breath almost drove him over the brink. At the last moment, he did his best to be gentle, to rein himself in before the ultimate ride took hold and control was all but yanked away from him, no matter how good his intentions.

The more she moved, the more he wanted her.

Wanting her became his only reality.