Almost To The Altar Read online

  As she shot away from the curve, he had the sensation of being on an emotional roller coaster. -Whatever happened today, it had the potential to be exciting, adventurous, and more than a little terrifying.

  Late that evening, Wil rubbed his thumb on the top of her hand, where it lay nestled against his thigh. Elsa had deftly managed to keep him scrambling for verbal and mental balance for the better part of the day. By mutual consent, they hadn’t discussed what had occurred between them. Neither of them had agreed to let the morning lengthen into afternoon, and then become evening, but neither had seemed ready to end the day. When she drifted off to sleep, almost as soon as they’d left the city, he’d been grateful for the silence, his first opportunity to sort through the day’s events.

  Being with Elsa again had been even more potent than he expected. Her ready laugh, the way his heart missed a beat when she smiled at him, laughed at him. In a few short hours, she’d reawakened feelings in him that he’d long since suppressed. Before today, he’d convinced himself that his life was complete. He didn’t need or want the chaos that Elsa would bring back into his world.

  But he craved it. Like a man addicted to a deadly substance, he hungered for her. And he was fooling himself if he thought he could dismiss the feeling as anything so mundane as physical attraction. Even the sexually charged atmosphere that had him aching to touch her probably wouldn’t have destroyed his mind so thoroughly if it wasn’t so easy to enjoy her company.

  After procuring the part, they’d driven out to the Brooks Stevens Automotive Museum to see the impressive collection of racing cars. They’d spent hours debating the merits of the various technological innovations and aerodynamic designs. When their conversation developed into a friendly argument about the year Chrysler introduced champagne blue into its paint selection, Elsa had been the one to lead the charge to a nearby library, where a 1946 edition of The Saturday Evening Post had proved her correct. Laughing the kind of laugh that made his nerve endings tingle and his palms sweat, she’d made him buy her dinner in exchange for losing the argument.

  Dinner, he decided, had been his worst mistake. By seven o’clock, he’d started to feel more than a little desperate. Urgently he’d needed an edge. That was why he’d chosen Annalina’s.

  Like a fool, he’d convinced himself that if he could see her in a familiar backdrop, one that would remind her, and him, of home, he could remember all the things that had torn them apart. So he’d taken her to Annalina’s, the Swedish diner his father frequented when business or pleasure brought them into the city. Seconds after he had them settled in the booth, he began to feel a strange discomfort seeping through his blood.

  If he expected, hoped, that Elsa would be out of place amid the boisterous atmosphere, the too-friendly staff, the music and food that were a painful reminder of the past, he’d grossly miscalculated.

  She’d been enchanted. She’d settled readily into the spirit of the restaurant, unconsciously tapping her fingers to the music, digging into a plate of buttered noodles and Swedish sausage with a gusto that made his blood pump faster. He’d watched her nibble and lick her way through a piece of raspberry krydderi until his insides threatened to spontaneously combust.

  By the time he gratefully paid the bill and hurried Elsa from the restaurant, sweat had pooled at the base of his spine, and the thundering pace of his heart had had nothing to do with anxiety and everything to do with raw sex-!!ual hunger.

  Beneath his fingers, her hand felt soft, warm, welcoming. His own hand had trembled as he enfolded hers. At the feel of Parker Conrad’s diamond pressed against his palm, Wil had gritted his teeth. Once again, he wanted the woman he couldn’t have, a woman who wanted something he couldn’t, wouldn’t give her. With startling clarity, he’d realized that, before he even recognized the signs, the emo-!!tional storm had engulfed him. No false moves required-!!he was in the middle of it, fighting for his life.

  With a deep, shuddering sense of defeat, he eased his car into a parking space near her apartment. After waiting several long, calming moments for the demons to subside, he tapped her on the shoulder. “Aina, we’re home.”

  The sooty curtain of her lashes drifted slowly open. “Hmm?”

  “Your apartment. We’re here.” He couldn’t make himself remove his hand from her shoulder. The nubby feel of her cardigan proved too much of a temptation to his palm.

  She continued to watch him through half-closed eyes. “Did I fall asleep?” she muttered.

  His fingers found the spot where her sweater gave way to the worn cotton of her T-shirt. “Almost as soon as we left the city.” He ran his fingertip along the ribbed collar. “Must have been the krydderi.”

  “Must have been.” When she yawned, her head rubbed against the back of her seat.

  Wil’s fingers slid the final fraction of an inch to touch the warm skin of her neck. He felt, rather than saw, the crackling awareness that flooded away what remained of her languor. “Wil-”

  He didn’t wait for her to voice the doubt. If he did, she’d talk him out of kissing her. All day he’d needed to kiss her. The driving, insistent throb of desire had, at times, seemed to consume him. Now he needed the feel of her more than he needed his next breath.

  Like a man too long denied, he slanted his lips over hers, delving, devouring what she’d give him, tempted to take what she wouldn’t give. Everything about her confused him. Only this, only touching her, seemed to clear the conflict in his mind.

  This was right. This belonged.

  When he felt the cool pressure of Elsa’s hand curved around his neck, his heart slammed into an erratic rhythm. His sanity fled, and with it, what remained of his self-control. “God, Aina,” he muttered as he levered her back against the seat. “You’re tearing me apart.”

  She, too, seemed to lose herself in the heat of the kiss. When he opened his lips over hers, she moaned against his mouth, then sucked his tongue between her lips. Fumbling, Wil found the hem of her cardigan. He had a des-!!perate need to touch her flesh, to feel her warm and smooth beneath his hands.

  The T-shirt slipped from her waistband. Wil shoved his hands beneath. Her skin felt like hot silk as it flexed and shivered against his hands. When he cupped her full breasts through the soft lace of her bra, she arched into him. At the feel of her, warm and welcoming, he groaned, a ragged, needful groan, born of a deep, ravaging want. Finally, finally, he had her where she belonged. No woman had ever inflamed him like Elsa. Never had he needed so urgently to give pleasure, to cherish.

  Her lips yielded beneath his, soft and moist, as he ran his tongue along the line of her teeth. Elsa’s hands clutched at his neck, holding him to her with a strength that answered his passion. When his lungs screamed for air, he tore his mouth from hers. “Aina,” he murmured, raining a line of kisses along the curve of her jaw. “Aina, I want you.” His fingers flexed against her breasts. “I want you.”

  Elsa’s body shuddered. Through her bra, he felt her nipples bead into taut peaks. The exquisite sensation sent blood surging to his already aching groin. He found the lobe of her ear and nipped it with his teeth.

  “Wil—”

  “Don’t be afraid of me,” he urged, although he doubted she could possibly fear him as much as he feared the sudden flood of emotion that was clouding his judgment. He’d be a fool not to walk away from her. He knew that, but the feel of her shivering beneath his hands, arching toward his touch, beckoned him like a siren’s call. “Ineed you.”

  Her breath fanned across his face in a gentle gust as he pressed his mouth to the curve of her neck. “Wil—”

  “Shh.” He rubbed his lips against hers. “I won’t hurt you,” he muttered. “I swear, I won’t hurt you.”

  The tension seemed to drain out of her. Elsa relaxed against her seat. Sensing her surrender, Wil wasted no time claiming her. “Aina,” he whispered, “what have you done to me?”

  Pressing her into her seat, he ran his hands over her skin in a fevered frenzy as he sought, then
found, the front clasp of her bra. The catch gave way with a light snick. Wil dragged his mouth from hers. With hands that suddenly seemed too large and too clumsy, he shoved her T-shirt over her lush breasts, so that he could see them, taste them.

  When he pressed his mouth to one swollen peak, she gasped. Her fingers threaded into his hair to hold him to her. “Ah, Wil…”

  “Hold me,” he muttered against her breast. “Hold on to me.”

  Elsa’s breath was coming in fits and starts. He kissed the throbbing pulse at the base of her throat. Filling his palms with her breasts, he moved to kiss her once more. “I love the taste of you.”

  Elsa kissed him with equal passion, pulling at his mouth, sucking at his tongue. He couldn’t seem to get close enough, near enough, to satisfy her. She pulled at his shoulders, pressed herself against the hard length of his body..

  A shudder ran through him when he felt the heat of her against his groin. “Aina…” He tore his mouth from hers. “Aina, I can’t…” She arched against him. “Ah… don’t…”

  Elsa shuddered. “Don’t stop, Wil.”

  He fought a desperate battle for control. Desire raged like a fever as he looked at her flushed face, lips swollen and wet. “Aina—”

  Her fingers moved from the column of his neck to the plane of his chest. He felt the slight pressure and yielded, levering his body far enough from hers to see her face in the yellow glow of the streetlight. “Don’t stop.”

  For a moment, the temptation nearly overwhelmed him. But he knew that if he took her now, she’d resent him for it. A part of him suspected that she knew it, too. It would be too easy for her to withdraw from him again if he yielded to the clawing feeling of need that was slowly eating away at his insides.

  Gently he moved away from her. “Elsa—”

  The jarring whistle of a police siren interrupted him. A halogen light’s bright, intrusive glare broke the sensual spell in the car. Wil reared his head in the direction of the light, feeling a certain predatory antagonism toward the intruder. Parked behind them, a dark vehicle, with a flash-!!ing red light, had its searchlight trained on Wil’s car. “Damn it.” The horrified expression on Elsa’s face might have been funny if he hadn’t been so irritated, so aroused. “Take it easy,” he told her. “We’re not two teenagers caught necking.”

  “No,” she muttered as she struggled with her clothes, “we’re two adults caught necking. That’s worse.” She pulled at her bra, her T-shirt. “Move your hand.” Pushing him away, she yanked the cardigan into place.

  From the police car’s loudspeaker came an ominous “Please wait in your vehicle.”

  With a groan, she dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, God.”

  Wil combed his fingers through his rumpled hair. “I’ll get us out of this.”

  “You better.”

  “Hey, you’re the crackerjack lawyer. Isn’t this some kind of—” At the sharp rap of knuckles on his window, Wil bit off the sentence with a curse. “Never mind.” He rolled down the window, trying not to feel too irritated that the officer’s flashlight shone directly in his eyes. “Evening, Officer.”

  “Well, well, well.” The light zoomed closer. “If it isn’t—” Before the man could finish the statement, Elise’s breath came out in a sharp hiss. “Nikki! You fiend!” She dived for the handle of her door, leaped from the car and quickly rounded it. When the policeman dropped the light from Wil’s face, Wil recognized Nikolai Krestyanov, Elsa’s brother and a Chicago Police Department detective.

  Elsa launched herself at her brother in a flying leap that had him laughing as he fended off halfhearted blows to his chest. “Hey, hey, cut it out.”

  Elsa landed a well-aimed punch to his gut. “Moron! You scared us to death.”

  Nikolai laughed harder. “How was I supposed to know I’d stumbled on the scandal of the decade?” His gaze shifted from his irate sister to Wil. “How ya doing, Will”

  Wil eased himself from the car. “Fine, Detective.” Two years had passed since he’d last seen Nikolai. In the years since he’d left Chicago, he’d gradually lost touch with the friends from his former life. The younger man’s once youthful looks had matured, Wil realized, probably owing a good deal to the realities of his job. City detectives tended to grow up fast, and at thirty, Nikolai already looked toughened. Wil regretted the loss of innocence for his friend. “What brings you here?” he asked.

  In a quick move, Nikolai captured Elsa’s wrists, wrapped her arms around her body and held her fast, with her back against his chest. “There,” he said, “be a good girl, and hold still.” Elsa muttered something in Russian that made her brother laugh. If her irate expression gave any indication, the abrupt word needed no translation.

  “None of that,” Nikolai told her. “I’d let you go, but you’d hit me again.” With a grin at Wil, he told him, “I had to interview a potential witness out in Mendota. I was hoping I could get Elise to let me crash on her couch tonight, although—” he slanted a look at his still-struggling sister “—if you had other plans—”

  With the flat of her foot, she kicked him in the shin. “You big jerk,” she said. “I should let you sleep on the sidewalk.”

  With a final laugh, Nikolai freed her. “Go inside and make us some coffee, Knyieza, I want to talk to Wil.”

  “He was just leaving,” she told him.

  “I was not.” Wil leaned back against the side of his car. “I didn’t have any intention of leaving.”

  The glare Elsa shot him could have wilted a lesser man. “Just once, do you think it would be too much to ask for you to agree with me?”

  He wondered what she’d do if he told her how attractive she looked with her hair still mussed, her lips still swollen and moist. He decided to err on the side of caution. “This time it would.”

  With an irritated huff, Elsa glanced at her brother. “Then make your own damned coffee,” she said. With a brush of her hands, she freed herself from his light hold, then stalked toward the door of her apartment building.

  Wil waited until she’d disappeared into the building before he shared a laugh with Nikolai. “Well,” he said, of-!!fering the other man his hand, “it’s good to see you again.”

  Nikolai shook his hand. “Even under the circum-!!stances?”

  “Your timing could have been better.”

  “I bet Parker Conrad wouldn’t think so.”

  Wil released Nikolai’s hand. “Probably not.”

  Nikolai continued to study him in the dim light from the street lamp. “So,” he said after several nerve-racking seconds, “are you going to tell me what you were doing with my sister in that car, or do I have to pound it out of you?”

  “I’d think what I was doing should have been pretty ob-!!vious.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Wil nodded. “I know. We were—” he paused, not sure how to answer the question “—getting reacquainted.”

  “So I noticed.”

  Wil scrubbed a hand over his whiskered chin. “Look, what’s between me and Elsa is complicated. There’s no way I can explain it to you, when I’m not even sure I understand it myself.”

  After a brief pause, Nikolai gave Wil a slight nod. “Don’t hurt her again, Larsen. You did enough damage in the first round.”

  “The feeling was mutual.”

  At the soft admission, the younger man seemed to relent. He clapped Wil on the shoulder with a strong hand. “I’ll bet you a dollar Elsa made coffee anyway,” he said.

  Elise gave Wil a glacial look as she shoved a mug into his hand. “Coffee’s in the kitchen. I hope you choke on it.” Nikki’s warm chuckle only served to irritate her further. She sank down onto one of the overstuffed chairs in her living room.

  She heard them laughing in the kitchen, enjoying each other’s company. Once again, she felt like the outsider. Evidently Nikki and Wil had managed to maintain an easy camaraderie over the past ten years. Only she had been tossed out of the circle of warmth. She couldn’t stop th
e bitter resentment that rose in the wake of the realization.

  Nikki must have noticed her sour expression when he joined her in the living room. “You been sucking on a persimmon?” he quipped.

  “Very funny.”

  “You look madder than hell, Elise. What’s with you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she drawled. “Could it be that you two are having a good laugh at my expense?”

  “We’re not laughing at you.”

  Wil strolled into the room, cradling a mug of coffee in his large hand. “I assure you. I’m not laughing.”

  Nikki gave him a dry look. “If I were half the brother I should be, you ought to be sprawled on the pavement outside licking your wounds.”

  Elise snorted. “Well, that’s mature.”

  “Careful.” Nikki eased his jacket off, then quipped, “I carry a gun.” He removed the weapon from the rear waistband of his jeans so that he could set it on the end table. “Don’t fool with me.”

  Elise glanced from her brother to Wil, then back again. They both gave every impression of settling in for the night. Neither seemed to have given any thought to her presence, her obvious discomfort or the unsettling scene Nikki had witnessed in the parking lot. Wil seemed to have completely recovered, and it peeved her that he managed to en-!!joy an easy camaraderie with Nikki while her own equilibrium was still in a tailspin.

  Deliberately she tamped down her growing irritation. It would only make her look foolish if she lost her temper. The best thing she could do was assert her territorial claims to her apartment. This day, she now realized, had been a terrible mistake. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent an agendaless day with Parker. It had been too easy to enjoy Wil’s company, too easy to relax in the warmth of his smile and the bond of their remembered friendship. Around three that afternoon, she’d begun to notice something that felt suspiciously like a yearning begin to grow and flourish in her soul. Now it threatened to overwhelm her. Best close the lid on it before it soared out of control.