Reinstated Bond Read Online Free Page B

woman until she finally relented and let him take her out. And it
wasn't that Nicola had been protesting so much. They were just so different.
She was Salvadoran with German Jewish ancestry. Harold was a Southern black
man, raised in the Baptist church, and couldn't understand much of what the
woman was saying. Still, from the time he met her at the little kosher grocery
store her father owned, they'd clicked. They were each other's one great love,
even if a lot of what they said was lost in translation early on.
    Marilyn opened the door. She leaned against the little wall
between the bathroom and the greater room and cleared her throat.
    Carter lay on the bed, twirling the cuffs around one index
finger. He stopped twirling when he saw her. "Holy shit, woman." He
sat up as she sashayed over to him.
    "You like what you see?" she asked, borrowing his own
line and tossing it back at him.
    "I'd be dead if I didn't." He tossed the cuffs onto
the nightstand and drew her between his parted legs. He ran his hands down her
back and caressed her lace-clad rear. "Damn, girl. I'm kind of offended
you've chosen this method of distraction. Do I look that easy?" He hooked
his thumbs around the elastic at the tops of her thighs and worked her panties
down.
    "Yes."
    He chuckled and pressed his nose against the soft curls he
exposed one centimeter at a time. "I've wanted this since I was seventeen.
Cut me some slack if I seem enthusiastic."
    She had to hand it to him. He'd never pushed her. Sure, they'd
discussed sex a few times and came damn close to it on several occasions, but
he had never gotten angry or impatient when she pulled back. She was the one
who'd decided prom night would be it…until it wasn't.
    "So, you're going to screw me tonight and hand me over in
the morning?"
    He pulled back. "Whoa! You started this tango. I just said
yes to the dance."
    "Charming." She slapped his hands away from her panty
elastic and hiked her underwear back up with a growl.
    He let out a long sigh and shook his head. When she moved away
he put his feet back up on the bed and resumed his former television perusal.
    She crawled under the covers at the space to his right and
pulled the blanket up to her chin.
    "I imagine you'll keep your hands to yourself?"
    He didn't even look at her. "I'll be a gentleman."
    *
    Carter got hot all of a sudden and forced one heavy eyelid
open, then the other. He let his eyes adjust to the dark and his brain
recalibrate to remind him where he'd fallen asleep. There was a naked leg slung
over his, an arm draped across his chest, and a face jammed into the crook of
his neck, constantly blowing hot, tickling breath onto him. At some point
during the night, Marilyn had bridged the wide gap between them on the king bed
and sidled up to him for a cuddle. He was happy to oblige her, but suspected if
she woke to find him enjoying her warmth as much as she obviously was his,
she'd likely balk.
    He wanted to savor the sensation of her soft skin against his
once again if only for a moment. But as right, good , as it felt--he worried it was
something that wasn't meant to last. If it had been, he would have followed her
when she ran off that ill-fated prom evening.
    He buried his nose in the lush halo of her hair and inhaled the
heady, fruity scent that hadn't changed in all those years. He relaxed into the
comfort of it--the sameness that anchored past to present. He wrapped his
fingers around the hand she'd draped over his trunk and gave them a squeeze.
"Is that all that's stayed the same?" he whispered to himself.
    What had happened to his smiling, trusting Marilyn? The one who
used to run and jump for him to catch her when they met in their secret,
special spots? Again, he wondered if he'd been the one to spur that change in
her. And then he scoffed, thinking it was self-centered of him to keep assuming
it had to be about him. He didn't know what she had endured in the ten years
since they were together, any more than she did