New and…Improved? & Andrew in Excess Read online

  STILL DAZED and somewhat befuddled, Andrew turned off his bedside light with a snap. He’d set out to teach his wife a lesson and fulfill an obligation. Somewhere along the way he’d lost sight of both objectives and given himself over to pleasure. And something else he couldn’t name. Or wouldn’t.

  Kat followed suit with her light, but instead of plunging the room into its customary nighttime darkness, a faint glow illuminated the bedroom.

  Andrew propped himself on one elbow, trying to find the source. The glow seemed to originate somewhere to the right of Kat. “What’s that?”

  Beside him, Kat faced him in a similar fashion. “That is a night-light.”

  The emotional intensity of their lovemaking still disconcerted him. “Why do you need a night-light?”

  “If I had my own room, it wouldn’t bother you.”

  “I didn’t say it bothered me. Not exactly. But why’s it on?”

  “Maybe Toto can’t sleep without it.”

  Andrew harumphed his disbelief. “Toto could sleep next to a freight train.”

  In the shadows, the vulnerable look on her face told its own story. Just because he was annoyed by his own lack of control, he’d tried to bait her. He kicked himself for being an insensitive moron, anticipating her answer before the words left her mouth.

  “I’m afraid of the dark.” Embarrassment tinged her defiance. “So, now you know. Go ahead and laugh.”

  The indomitable, unflappable Kat Hamilton Devereaux Winthrop feared the dark. He realized what the admission had cost her. He was an ass for asking.

  Without forethought, he reached out and smoothed his hand over her unruly hair, drawing her down to the bed. He settled beside her, rubbing her back with a soothing rhythmic motion. It had been a hell of a day for both of them.

  “It’s okay. I don’t like spiders.” He’d never divulged that to anyone.

  She relaxed. “The light won’t bother you?” Impending sleep slowed her speech.

  “No.” Beneath his fingertips she tempted him again, a bewitching heady mixture of feminine flesh and muscle, wrapped in the scent of satisfaction. He swelled a bit recalling his role in her satiation.

  “You sure?” She sounded one step closer to slumber.

  “Positive.” This impromptu back rub qualified as torture. He’d given in to an urge to comfort her and look where it had landed him-more than ready to make love to her again, but they were on a once a day ration and she was almost asleep.

  Snoring intruded on the quiet.

  “Kat?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Does Toto always snore?”

  “Uh-uh.” Though she verged on sleep, the smile in her voice wrapped around him.

  “A’drew?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Thanks,” she slurred into her pillow.

  For the back rub? For marrying her? For his sperm donation? For being the kind of guy she wouldn’t fall in love with, one who’d walk away from his own kid?

  Kat snuggled her delectably plump rear against him, her even breathing punctuated by a gurgle of contentment. Andrew frowned into the dark of the night as his hand rested against her belly. Maybe even now in the aftermath of mind-boggling lovemaking, his numerous sperm were competing for a chance to form a new life-a red-haired little tyrant with serious gray eyes and a penchant for mischief.

  He’d never wanted a child. It wasn’t part of his plan. He was too dedicated to his career. Too remote. Too emotionally distant. He might be great at sperm donation, but he wasn’t good dad material. Was he? Could he be?

  His hand flexed in a protective gesture until sleep claimed him.

  KAT ROLLED OVER AND STRETCHED without opening her eyes, her face buried in Andrew’s pillow. The warmth of his body and his scent lingered. Still fuzzy with sleep, she breathed in the increasingly familiar combination of expensive aftershave and Andrew’s own masculinity.

  She turned her head and squinted at the nightstand. Six forty-five loomed at her from the digital readout. Closing her eyes, she snuggled deeper into the pillow, content to drift back to sleep.

  “Wake up,” a voice rang in her ear.

  Good God! The pillow not only smelled of Andrew, now it was sounding like him too! She jackknifed to a sitting position, slamming her head into a solid wall behind her.

  “Ugh.” A groan sounded in her ear.

  She whirled, now on her knees in the bed. The “wall” was Andrew. He stood by the bed, one hand nursing his right eye.

  “Are you okay?” She reached forward to examine his face. Even dim-witted with sleep, she appreciated the still-damp crispness of his hair, the clean line of his freshly shaved jaw, the scent of soap and sandalwood. And the rapidly discoloring flesh around his eye.

  He stepped back and snapped, “You could’ve warned me you were lethal first thing in the morning.”

  “Only when I’m scared out of my wits!”

  He felt beneath his eye and winced. “What scared you about a wake-up call?”

  “I was asleep and the next thing I know the pillow’s talking.”

  A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “You thought the pillow talked?”

  “Go ahead and laugh, you’re the one with a heck of a shiner coming up.” She mustered a grin that turned into a big yawn. “Just the thing for a successful attorney about to make partner.”

  “Thanks, Kat. A new wife and a black eye, all in one weekend.”

  She wasn’t a morning person. Never had been. Never would be. Her brain was mush first thing in the morning-overcooked oatmeal. She flopped back on the bed and pulled the sheet up to her chin, prepared to resume sleep. She spoke with her eyes closed. “Did you wake me up just to harangue me?”

  “No, I was hoping for a black eye.”

  She curled into a fetal position. “I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Kat?”

  The laughter in his voice irritated her.

  “What?”

  “Today’s Monday.”

  “Thank you. I’ll sleep better knowing that.”

  Within a matter of seconds, the implication penetrated her brain. She threw off the sheet and leaped from the bed, yanking down the hem of her T-shirt. “Monday. It’s Monday. Mrs. Fitzwillie!” Kat raked her hands through her hair.

  Andrew glanced at the bedside clock. “That’s it. Our first audience arrives in about ten minutes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she accused as she scrambled for the bathroom.

  “That just happened to be the pillow talk you heard.”

  Kat, incapable of a witty rejoinder at 6:50 a.m., contented herself with slamming the door on his smug, albeit swollen-eyed, countenance.

  “YOU SHOULD’VE ICED your eye while I was in the shower. It would have helped the swelling.”

  Andrew had never sported a black eye before. Although it hurt like the devil, he rather liked it. Stuffy guys didn’t walk around with black eyes. Not that he’d confess his surprising pride to his wife.

  He opened the bedroom door and waited for Kat to precede him into the hallway. “And deprive my loving wife the opportunity to tend to my wound? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  She snorted as he fell into step beside her. “Keep it up-there’s still that other eye you mentioned.”

  Eight minutes flat. That’s how long she’d taken to pull herself together. Despite the frown tugging between her red brows, he realized his initial assessment of Kat had been wrong. He’d thought her plain. Actually, she enchanted him.

  He laughed. “Has anyone ever mentioned you’re not a morning person?”

  Andrew heard Mrs. Fitzwillie humming in the kitchen.

  “Not and lived to tell about it.” She tilted her head coquettishly. “If you’d really wanted to play the loving husband, you’d have brought me a cup of coffee to wake up to-not sneaked up on me.”

  The humming ceased.

  He slipped his arm around Kat’s waist, pulling her to his side. He’d memorized every curve in the pa