Forgotten Father Read online

  Making her his.

  Mitchell lifted his head, stroking his hand along her cheek and down the pale column of her neck. Bending to her again, he kissed and nibbled at her mouth, the trailing of his hand exploring the hollow of her shoulder, the firm skin of her arms.

  Consumed in her, his brain shutting down, he registered the faintest scent of some perfume in the curve of her neck, a tickling, haunting floral hint mingled with the sweetness of her skin. Burying his face there, intoxicated in the taste and scent of her, lost in the sweet cream of her skin beneath his tongue, he slowly became aware of her hand at the nape of his neck.

  Her head thrown back on the pillow of his arm as he damply traced the path of her throat, she held him to her. Her hand threaded through the hair at the back of his head, she cradled him closer. Urged him nearer.

  A sudden shaft of unnamable emotion bolted to him. She seemed untried in the tender way she held him, pure and eager in his arms, as if she’d been waiting just for him. Untouched.

  For one jarring moment, Mitchell wondered if she’d been with a man before. God, he hoped so. Being a woman’s first carried too many implications, too much responsibility.

  As self-absorbed as it might be, he didn’t want to worry about her emotional expectations just now, didn’t want to think about having to extricate himself from an entanglement afterwards. Any woman who was beautiful as her could only have avoided sex because she was holding out for the price of a wedding band.

  His presence at this party would be enough to convince most women of his ability to support them in the style to which they’d like to become accustomed.

  Stilled by his jarring thoughts, he paused, poised over her sexy, still-clothed body in the faint light.

  But in that instant, he felt the stroke of her hand, sliding over his bare shoulder, gliding down over his arm before tracing a delicate, searing path down his chest. Her lips moved at his jaw, her breath warm against his ear. She kissed him, gently biting at the skin below his ear, as her hand traced lower and lower.

  In a flash, blood thundered against his ear drums, rocketing through his veins. There was nothing virginal in the path her hand took, nothing untutored in the deft way she opened his trousers.

  Pushing her back on the bed, Mitchell plundered her lips, dragging at the knit dress covering her body. Greedily, he stripped the garment off her, enflamed by her answering hunger and the eager way she tugged at his clothing. Beneath the inky dress, she wore only two scraps of lace. Slipping the straps of her bra down, he cupped her breasts, stroking her delicious flesh before reaching around to loosen the clasp. Within moments, he divested her of her lingerie as she drew off the last of his clothing.

  Tumbling back against the bed, both naked, they grappled, locked in an erotic embrace, their bodies rubbing, pressing against each other. To his shocked pleasure, she touched him everywhere, as voracious for him as he was for her. Accustomed to more sedate and conservative bed partners, Mitchell reveled in her, reveled in the heady consciousness of having enflamed a passionate, desirable woman to want him equally as bad as he wanted her.

  She tasted sweet, everywhere. Kissing her kernelled nipples, he stroked the soft, smoothness of her tummy, the downy delta between her thighs. Intoxicated in their coupling, he lost consciousness of anything but the woman under his hands, the vixen who knelt over him, kissing and biting her way south until he couldn’t bear anymore and pushed her back against the bed.

  In the faint light from the window, her skin looked luminous as a pearl, pale and flawless, dark only at the crests of her nipples and the surprising auburn thatch between her legs. She was a true redhead, it seemed, a woman honest at least in her hair color.

  Honest too in her hunger for him, he thought with intense satisfaction.

  Mitchell knelt between her legs, every nerve screaming for completion. Not completely lost to sanity, however, he made himself pause long enough to get a condom from the dresser drawer.

  Then, returning to her, he knelt between her legs and sheathed himself.

  ******

  Lying naked, splayed on Mitchell’s bed, Delanie watched him put on the condom, her heart threatening to bruise itself against her breast bone. This was it, the moment she’d dreamed of, making love with the man who would be her sweetheart for the rest of their days. Her forever lover.

  Impatiently, she clutched at the bed covering as he smoothed the latex into place. Every part of her cried out for him, for his kiss, his warmth against her, for the absolute rightness of his touch.

  He leaned forward and placed a damp, hot kiss on her belly.

  Laughing softly at the frustrated sound she made in her throat, Mitchell moved closer, his erection nudging her cleft. She reached for him then, urging him in, needing him like she’d never known she could need a man.

  Slowly, he entered her, inch by inch, filling the ache in her body the way he now filled her soul. Delanie clung to him, gasping as his long, slow thrusts sent ripples through her body.

  Above her, his face dark in the shadows, he loved her with tenderness and thoroughness that left her trembling and crying out, feeling more complete than she’d ever thought possible.

  Every touch, every stroke, the scent of his skin, the crisp texture of the hair on his chest. It was right, so right, at last.

  Spiraling upward, her unconscious cries harsh in her throat as he moved in her, she felt herself shattering, disintegrating into a million pleasure-locked pieces. His sudden hoarse cry and the stiffening of his body echoed her own. Together, they rocked in the moment, lost.

  Found.

  Together, at last.

  With his weight slumped against her moments later, Delanie felt a tear ease its way down the side of her face. Slowly, she stroked his bare muscled back, treasuring the shape and feel of him. No moment had ever been this perfect.

  Now that he was here, she’d never have to be alone again.

  ******

  Mitchell woke slowly despite the sunlight streaming through the window and the jangling of the phone on the bedside table.

  “Hello?” he said, finally locating the instrument.

  “Mitch!” his grandfather barked. “Are you still in bed, you rascal?”

  ”Yes.” Mitchell rolled onto his back. How like Donovan to be so hale and hearty first thing in the morning.

  “Alone?” his grandfather asked with a suggestive chuckle.

  Mitchell glanced at the tumbled bed, his gaze scanning the empty room. “Apparently.”

  Donovan laughed again. “Well, get the hell up and come have breakfast with me. No point in lying around in an empty bed.”

  “Okay. Give me a few minutes.” Mitchell sat up, rubbing at his sleep-fogged eyes.

  “No more than fifteen,” Donovan insisted. “I didn’t get a chance to introduce you to my favorite employee last night, so I invited Lanie to join us for breakfast in the Blue Salon.”

  “Of course, I’ll be right there,” Mitchell said carefully keeping the grim note out of his voice.

  Hanging up the phone, he thought again of the real reason he’d cleared his schedule in order to attend The Cedar’s reopening.

  Lanie Carlyle. His grandfather’s mistress. The woman who’s pretensions he’d come here to deal with. She could sleep with his grandfather all she wanted—more power to the old goat, but the clever Ms. Carlyle wasn’t laying hands on Donovan’s money. Mitchell had a responsibility to make sure of that.

  Jolted back to reality by his grandfather’s call, Mitchell got up, rubbing a hand over his face to try and clear the mists from his head.

  Still, he felt surprisingly good this morning considering he’d spent much of last night locked in carnal pleasure with a woman straight out of his best dreams.

  Had she left while he slept?

  Looking into the bathroom and the sitting room for signs of his mystery woman, Mitchell frowned. Nothing. She was gone. His sensuous, passionate lover of the night before had crept away while he slept.


  Further inspection found no evidence of their encounter left behind, no small evening purse or tangle of earrings on the dresser.

  He glanced at the dresser again. No note, either. It was as if he’d made her up, actually dreamed her.

  Sinking back onto the bed where she’d lain, Mitchell picked up her pillow and pressed his face against the white linen. No. He hadn’t imagined her. Her clean, teasing scent clung still to the fabric.

  Curious as to why she’d disappeared, Mitchell comforted himself with the reflection that finding her wouldn’t be difficult. A large sprawling Victorian-era resort, The Cedars had recently been restored to it’s earlier grandeur, but it wasn’t yet open to the public.

  The only people here now were those invited to the re-opening festivities. How hard could it be to locate one breathtakingly sexy redhead in such a small group?

  And he very much wanted to locate her. Never in his life had he known a woman so…intimately, so totally. He couldn’t begin to define what she’d given him, couldn’t put into words how powerfully he’d been impacted by her combination of innocence and sensuality. Her complete surrender.

  She seemed like no other woman he’d known.

  In the meantime, however, he needed to get on with his purpose for coming to The Cedars. If Lanie Carlyle thought she had a shot at marrying Donovan Riese’s money, she was deluding herself.

  Stepping into the shower, Mitchell grimly considered everything he’d heard about the woman from his besotted grandfather. In her mid-twenties, she was the interior designer Donovan had chosen to handle the refurbishing of The Cedars.

  Despite the fact that the resort was only one small part of the Riese holdings, The Cedars held a corner of Donovan’s heart. Their family had built the place a hundred years before and his grandfather spent many a school vacation chasing girls here. Donovan and his now-deceased wife had spent their honeymoon at The Cedars when the place was long past its first glory.

  For a multitude of reasons, the old resort held his grandfather in its grip and Lanie Carlyle had somehow gotten associated with that passion. From what Mitchell had seen, she’d done an excellent job in restoring the place, but that didn’t give her the right to help herself to the Riese millions.

  For the past two years, Mitchell had listened to his grandfather singing the woman’s praises. She’d maneuvered her way into the older man’s confidence through their shared interest in the resort and quickly leeched onto him with all the vigor of a woman inspired by the opportunity to marry money. Despite the fact that he was three times her age.

  Then the checks started. Paid out of company accounts, their fabulous amounts had first alerted Mitchell that his grandfather was losing objectivity with the woman.

  Last week, Donovan had spoken to Mitchell on the phone about deeding a portion of The Cedars to her. That’s when Mitchell had known he had to take action.

  She was welcome to sleep with a sixty-seven year old man if that sort of thing floated her boat, but the avariciousness of her last move made it clear she didn’t care one iota for his grandfather.

  She had to go.

  Fifteen minutes later, Mitchell made his way to the Blue Salon, prepared for battle.

  He stepped into the plant-bedecked restaurant, ignoring the clink of cutlery and the hum of breakfast conversation as he scanned the occupied tables, searching for his grandfather’s gray head.

  “Mitch!”

  Mitchell turned, seeing Donovan waving from a seat by the far wall. Threading his way through the tables, Mitchell let his gaze drift to the woman seated next to Donovan.

  She looked back at him, a taunting, mischievous smile on her beautiful face, her copper hair framing her face in a smooth arc.

  Mitchell felt the blood drain from his head, but he kept walking, kept moving toward them. The muscles in his face ached with the effort of keeping his shock out of his expression.

  His woman sat next to Donovan.

  The woman from last night. The same woman who’s breasts he’d caressed, the one who’s body had clenched around him in intimate ecstasy…was his grandfather’s mistress.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Delanie stood up as Mitchell crossed the restaurant, her stomach fluttering with excitement.

  She loved him. More now than when she’d first seen him across that crowded cocktail party last night.

  “Good, he’s seen us,” Donovan said, reaching across to take her hand, a beaming smile on his face. “I can hardly wait to introduce you two. You have a lot in common, you and my grandson.”

  More than Donovan could ever know, Delanie thought irreverently, repressing the urge to giggle.

  Not six hours before she’d lain writhing beneath his grandson, her entire being going up in flames. They’d shared more than a night of passion, though. Each kiss felt like an exchanging of souls, each touch like an interconnecting of every part of themselves.

  He was her first true lover. The first man to ever really touch her heart.

  She’d woken this morning filled with a bone-deep sense of completion…a sense of true security for the first time in her life. Having found him, at last, everything would now be all right. All life’s bumps and jolts would be smoothed out just by knowing he was there beside her, loving her as much as she loved him.

  From that first kiss, she’d known they were as attuned as two separate people could be.

  She’d come awake in his bed at the first dawn, overwhelmed with a strange shyness. Having shared her body so completely left her feeling bared to the core. Swamped with how much she loved him, she’d simply stood next to the bed, watching him sleep. Then, motivated by that odd bashfulness mixed with a mischievous awareness that he didn’t yet know her name, she’d dressed and crept out of his room, wondering how he’d find her.

  Knowing he’d find her.

  And here he was, pausing on the other side of the table, staring at her with the chattering, noisy restaurant a backdrop to their private rediscovery.

  “Mitchell,” Donovan said, sliding an arm around Delanie, “I want you to meet Lanie. She’s been my right hand in getting The Cedars back to its former glory. I don’t know what I’d have done without her!”

  “Ms. Carlyle,” Mitchell said, shaking the hand she offered, his face unreadable.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Delanie said with a wickedly demure smile as her gaze met his. His vivid blue eyes seemed shuttered, guarded as he greeted her, but the warmth of their contact seemed to sear the palm of her hand. Oh, Mitchell, can you hear the beating of my heart?

  He released her hand without comment.

  “Let’s sit and eat,” the older man suggested. “I ordered a little of everything. Doesn’t it look wonderful?”

  “Wonderful!” Delanie agreed as they sat down at the table, “One of the things I love about The Cedars’ chefs is they go all out for breakfast.”

  Across the table, Mitchell shook out his napkin without word.

  Donovan reached over, patting Delanie’s arm affectionately. “I’ve been wanting you to meet my girl, Mitch. Lanie really made this project fly. She’s got such good taste. Just look around you.”

  Mitchell glanced at her instead.

  Meeting the intensity of his gaze, she couldn’t resist tweaking her too-solemn lover a little. She said with a teasing smile, “I just know what I like and when I see it, I go after it.”

  “Do you?” Mitchell asked, watching her intently. “Always?”

  “Yes, always,” she said with a smile, lifting a succulent strawberry to her lips as her eyes met his.

  Like the focusing of the sun beneath a magnifying glass, she felt the heat of his regard and reveled in it, rejoicing inside herself.

  Here he was at last. Her mate. Her future.

  “Did you notice the drapes in the lobby?” Donovan went on, oblivious to the tension between them. “I never would have thought of that color combination. All those greens? But it really works.”

  “Very nice,” Mitchell said color
lessly, flicking his grandfather a frowning glance.

  Delanie smoothed the napkin on her lap, her fingers trembling still from the intensity of their wordless interchange. She wanted to cast herself into his arms and kiss his beautiful mouth the way she had last night. But she sensed the constraint in him, an awkwardness that left her feeling both tender and amused.

  She’d thought immediately that he might have been hesitant to greet her openly out of respect for his grandfather. Donovan had to know they’d only come into contact the night before, but, on further consideration, Delanie didn’t think Mitchell would be inhibited by his grandfather’s potentially conservative response to their relationship. Somehow, she knew Mitchell was simply a man who kept his private feelings private.

  Eventually, he’d loosen up. She’d make sure of that, she thought with humor as she bit into another berry.

  He’d almost kissed her in the middle of the party last night, but that was easily attributable to the power of their first meeting. And it wasn’t quite the same as openly acknowledging their couplehood when the thing was still so new, Delanie told herself.

  How could he explain that to his grandfather? How could they convince anyone of such an immediate intimate connection? And yet the awkwardness she sensed in Mitchell, the cool, distant politeness from him, left her wanting to kiss away his frown.

  Was he upset with her for leaving him so early, she wondered with a piercing tenderness. Had he wanted to wake with her in his arms?

  When she’d tip-toed out while he slept this morning, she hadn’t expected Donovan to rope her into this breakfast meeting, hadn’t expected to have to greet her lover again in the midst of a crowd.

  “Did you see the statuary in the formal gardens?” Donovan demanded, his face full of pride. “Delanie found those. I wasn’t sure we needed statues outside, but she was right, as usual.”

  “The talented Ms. Carlyle,” Mitchell murmured, not looking up from the roll he was tearing apart.

  “Why thank you, kind sir,” she responded, sending him a glance under the cover of her lashes.