Free Cupid's Confederates by Jeanne Grant

forth between his shoulder blades.
    “So maybe I never should have told you about Andrew? Or maybe you shouldn’t have asked. How was I to know it was going to bother you so much?” Her lips pressed tightly on the nape of his neck, then trailed along the curl of his shoulder in a series of very light kisses. “Or I could have told you he was a bastard. That the sex was dreadful.” Bett took a breath, and then let her tongue erase all those little kisses on the way back to his neck. “Loving with you is perfect, you know. There isn’t any comparison, and never has been. But I refuse to lie to you, Zach, out of…pride. Yes, I had another relationship, and it was a very good one. I grew up because of it; I was ready to learn what love was and what I wanted from a relationship because of it. Without Andrew, Zach, the two of us might never have been. So if you expect me to be ashamed of what happened before I even met you—”
    One instant Bett was perched on his back and the next she was sprawled beneath him. Amazingly, Zach no longer had the lazily relaxed qualities of a man ready for sleep. Something very definitely alive and unyieldingly firm was pressing against her abdomen. Zach’s skin was warm and vibrant, and his mouth anchored on hers, interrupting her speculative monologue. Her arms slid lightly around his neck as she savored all the allure in that kiss, all the tender, sweet, intimate taste of her lover. Only after an age did his mouth lift from hers. “There are times you make me feel like a fool, Bett. So the old mountebank got to me,” he grumbled softly. “Haven’t you ever felt jealousy?”
    Her fingers traced the line of his jaw. “Definitely. When I see a woman look at you in a certain way, I feel this ugly, smothering urge to lock you up out of harm’s way. And when I think of women you slept with before we met, I could paint my fingernails emerald. But, Zach, it’s not the same.”
    He raised some of his weight from her by balancing on his elbows, his lips still dipping down to her nose, her cheek, into her hair. “ How is it not the same when I feel jealous of you?”
    “Because I don’t want you to.”
    His smile pressed on her smile in a lazy kiss. “Two bits, that isn’t rational.”
    “So?”
    Zach’s laughter rumbled from deep in his chest. He drew her closer to him, holding her tight, engulfing her with his warmth. His leg slid between hers as they rolled to their sides. The motion was intimate, their change of mood mutual. Bett’s breasts swelled against him, aching as his palm possessively captured one sensitive orb.
    She nearly jumped to the ceiling when she heard the gentle tap on the door. The door opened just a crack, about the time the top sheet was hurriedly being rustled into place.
    “Brittany?” Elizabeth whispered. “Don’t wake Zach, darling. I figured you wouldn’t be asleep just yet…”
    She couldn’t find her crochet hook. Surely Bett had seen it? And in the meantime, Bett used to stock cinnamon tea; Elizabeth had looked all over the kitchen…
    Bett rose, grabbed her robe and belted it around her on the way downstairs. A half hour later, she returned to bed. Zach was still awake, but the mood was clearly broken. Exhaustion claimed both of them as she curled at his side.
    “Bett?” Zach murmured just before sleep overcame them.
    “Hmm?”
    “Your mother is a very nice lady.”
    “Hmm,” Bett responded again.
    “That’s the third time this week that she’s prevented her daughter from being ravished. Now, is it me, or does she have ESP?”
    Bett smiled, her eyes closed. “Zach, when she gets…lonely, she just doesn’t think. That, and I wouldn’t be an acceptable member of the family if I didn’t have insomnia.”
    “Try that again.”
    “My mother has insomnia. So did her mother; so did her mother; so did her mother; ad infinitum. Obviously, I have it, too. So she doesn’t think she’s waking me—”
    “You’ve mentioned that you sleep