And he loved her with every ounce of his being, every last faltering beat of his heart. Without her, he had no purpose or reason for living. She was his peace, his light, the still waters of his soul. She was sun and moon to him; sweet dreams, the pleasures of a soft breeze, and the fragrance of old-fashioned roses. He would protect her with his last breath, or die trying.
Yes, or die loving her, because he wanted her with a virulent need that sapped his strength and fired his brain with images that would not go away. He wanted to lie down with her somewhere and not get up until they were both sated—say, in fifty years or so. He wanted to see and taste, caress and hold, every part of her; to know her so intimately that he could tell her from a thousand others at a single touch in the dark.
He thought of going inside and dragging her from the bathtub, all slick and wet, to make love to her on the cool tiles of the floor. Or maybe helping her dry herself, taking the drops of water from her back and belly one by one with lips and tongue. Or catching her before she put on her nightgown, draping her long hair around her, using it to bind her to him while he…
The screen door creaked as it opened. Her shadow, thrown across the veranda floor by the hall light behind her, shifted and moved as she stepped outside. She walked toward him with her nightgown, caftan and cape of long hair swinging with her gentle, gliding steps. She looked so guileless yet stunningly seductive that his tongue clung to the top of his mouth and he felt the back of his neck grow hot and stiff.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked as he held the swing still while she settled beside him and tucked her bare feet up under her gown and robe.
“Thinking.” It was the most he could manage.
“About what?”
“Just…things,” he said softly. He couldn’t begin to unravel his complicated impulses toward her and was afraid that any attempt might set off a more primitive response than she was prepared to accept. He set the swing moving again in a steady back-and-forth tempo.
“Such as why people act the way they do, the feelings and past events that move them?”
Humor colored his voice as he answered, “In a way. You, too?”
“You could say that.” She went on with barely a hesitation. “I called just now to check on Maisie. She came through the flight well and is holding her own.”
“That’s great. Gran will be glad to hear it.” He had called his grandmother earlier, not wanting her to get the story first from some garbled account on the grapevine.
The hair falling over Laurel’s shoulder shimmered in the dim light with the movement of the swing and the deep breath she took. “I hate that it was Maisie in my car,” she said in constricted tones. “She could have died.”
“Or you could have.”
She made a quiet sound of assent. “I think maybe that’s why I feel so…alive. Does that sound strange?”
He turned his head to watch her, his every sense springing into full alert at the timbre of her voice. “Sounds natural to me. Mother Nature has a way of making sure we appreciate what we have, of seeing to it that, in spite of everything, living strikes us now and then as a fair bargain.”
“It’s a little heartless, don’t you think?”
“Why? It doesn’t mean you don’t care. What’s the alternative, anyway? Beating yourself up over whatever happened while moaning mea culpa? I don’t see how that’s supposed to help.”
“I know, but I shouldn’t feel so…”
She stopped. In the silence, the moonlight shadows shifted over the front garden and the fountain played in musical counterpoint to the whisper of the night breeze. The scent of honeysuckle and roses drifted to him along with the sweet, warm, mind-blowing fragrance of clean female.
He traced a path with his gaze from the white oval of her face down the graceful curve of her neck to her breasts. Even through the double layer of clothing she wore, he could see that the tips of her breasts were as tight with promise as new rosebuds.
“What is it you feel, Laurel?” he asked, his voice deep, steady. “What is it you want? Tell me. Or show me. I won’t think any less of you for it, I promise. And I won’t fail you. There is nothing you can ask that I won’t give with absolute pleasure.”
Laurel stared at him with incredulity for the understanding in his voice. The seduction of it brought heat and heaviness to her lower pelvis. “Shall I, really?”
“Please,” he said, the single word as rough as the bark of the pine saplings he had cut around her house.
She swallowed against the tightness in her throat as she reached to touch his face, trailing her fingertips along the hard planes and over the strong angle of his jaw. Skimming down his neck, she flattened her palm over the spot where she knew his dragon tattoo lay sandwiched between his heart and his soft cotton shirt. Then, clutching the cloth for balance on the dipping, gliding swing, she rose to her knees and eased one thigh across his lap to straddle him.
“What,” she asked softly as she settled into place, “do you think of this?”
“I’ll tell you, when I catch my breath,” he said. Kicking the swing into a higher pace, he put his hands on the curves of her hips, holding her firmly in the cradle of his thighs.
“It’s all right?” Her words were a little anxious.
“No,” he answered on a near groan. “I’d say it’s more like fantastic.”
A sound between a laugh and a sigh left her, then she slid her free hand behind his head, tangling her fingers in his hair. She found the thong that held it confined and slipped it free before dropping it to the floor. Then she wrapped the coarse black silk securely around her hand.
“I’ll cut it tomorrow if you don’t like it,” he offered.
“I’ll do it,” she said, “but only a little. I love having a…”
“Handle,” he supplied, his lips curving in an irrepressible smile.
“Exactly.” She used the leverage of it to raise herself, fitting herself over his long length more precisely.
He drew a harsh breath. His voice not quite steady, he said, “I feel it’s only fair to warn you that, as fantastic as this may be, it could lead to things that will have our letter writer firing off a fresh batch of hate mail.”
“I don’t care,” she replied, then ruined it by immediately adding, “Do you think he’s out there?”
“Or she? Not really—at least I saw nothing just now.”
“We’re only swinging,” she said, tilting her head slightly, holding his shadowed gaze as she rose and fell with a gentle movement against him.
“Yes, and giving the word something more than even a sixties definition.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Only if I lose it—my mind, that is—which I may if we stop. Not to mention my temper and my grip.”
“We can’t have that,” she said in soft sympathy, leaning to press her warm, pliant lips to his.
She tasted of sweet woman and wanton glory. Her tongue slid sinuously along the quilted inner lining of his mouth, retreating before he could capture it with delicate suction. He was forced to follow, invading for the retrieval, the seizure, the thorough ravishment. At the same time, he slid a hand between them, creating greater contact, greater friction against her moist softness. Her low moan was his reward.
She didn’t have on panties—that was his next discovery as he burrowed with his fingers under the silk of her gown and caftan draped over him. His brain nearly exploded, but he didn’t let that throw him off stride. Instead, he took advantage, combing her curls with gentle precision, finding and concentrating on the fragile flesh that would provide the most pleasure to them both, eventually. And all the while, he diligently pumped the swing, easing lower on his backbone as each push of his long legs sent them swooping higher.
Laurel freed her mouth as she drew a swift breath of surprise and delight. Releasing his shirt and his hair, she smoothed both hands over the surface of his chest. Then, as if in desperate need of the feel of bare skin against
her, she sought the buttons of his shirt. She dragged them from their holes one by one, her fingers now nimble, now clumsy, depending on his manipulations under the hem of her gown.
“You’re so good at this you must have done it before,” she said somewhat breathlessly.
“Never. But I learn fast. With the right incentive.”
She laughed and leaned to nibble on his taut pap.
“Witch,” he muttered.
“Devil,” she gasped, as he rewarded her with a deeper incursion of a single finger, a higher swing. After a second, she asked, “Do you think maybe our letter writer was right, and we’re depraved after all?”
“If this is depravity,” he said, “I never want to be normal.”
“Yes,” she agreed and put her hands on the waist of his jeans, jerking the copper button from its hole.
He helped her, lowering the zipper, peeling down the cloth that clung to the muscles of his legs, pushing it lower to prevent the zipper’s metal teeth from chafing her smooth inner thighs. She sank onto him, sighing as she took him deep. He filled her, held her while he moved with a slow, erotic twist of his hips, which tested her hot, silken inner walls and satisfied something possessive deep, deep inside him. She sighed, keeling forward to brace her forehead against his, closing her eyes. He was still while he savored sensations too rich for easy recognition.
Then they took flight. Soaring and dropping, they glided in wide, breath-catching swoops accompanied by the protesting squeak of the swing. They went up and down and up again, light as air, joined inescapably, and as delirious with it as birds that mate on the wing.
They were free, untethered by pettiness or grief, doubt or fear, or even responsibility. They were alive and glorified by it. They knew its magic worth, accepted it with full, pounding hearts and strong minds.
“Look at me,” Alec said, his tone low yet harsh.
Laurel heard him, heard the deep need in his words. It was hard to do as he asked—an exposure of self far beyond mere nakedness—yet she opened her eyes by degrees. His gaze took hers, held it, invited her into the dark depths of his own. Who he was, what he was and how he felt were there for her to read, without evasion or hindrance. Finally knowing, accepting, she released all interior restriction and allowed him access to her innermost self. He took it, took her, and held her fast while the night coalesced, chiming in accord, around them.
Afterward, he rose and, still holding her to him, still joined with her, walked into the house. They fell into the bed, laughing, to begin all over. When the transcendent instant came again, they were, for that moment, almost sated, almost happy, almost safe. Almost.
Laurel came awake slowly. The light in the room was dim and watery. It was raining beyond the windows, a steady downpour illuminated by brief flickers of lightning and shaken by occasional thunder. It was a soothing yet amorously exciting sound, one connected with some dim dream of the night and early-morning hours. She let it sink into her while a slow smile curved her mouth. No, not entirely a dream.
Turning her head on the pillow, she sought the man who had slept beside her. He was watching her, his gaze proprietary yet thoughtful as he lay on his stomach with his chin propped on his stacked fists.
“Again?” he drawled, the bored disbelieving tone in direct contrast to the warmth in his eyes.
“Whatever. If you promise I don’t have to move a muscle.”
“Does that mean I get to have my way with you exactly as I please?”
“Exactly,” she said and sighed in an attempt at demure and maidenly acquiescence.
“What happens if you move, after all?”
She jerked up a suspicious brow. “After all of what?”
“Whatever,” he mocked her. “Do I get to ‘move not a muscle,’ then?”
“If you can,” she replied, giving him a slow and completely wicked smile.
“A challenge,” he said. “Your first mistake.” He moved in for the attack.
Long minutes later, as she lay spread-eagled under him, held to the bed by the manacles of his hands and the hot, fierce hardness of him, he gave her a triumphant grin and declared, “I win.”
“You took unfair advantage of my defenseless state,” she said, trying not to laugh.
“Yes, and will again, every chance I get. But I’ve thought of a different prize I want.”
“Anything. I am yours to command.”
“I wish.” The words were derisive. “What I had in mind was an abduction.”
She wasn’t sure he was joking. His expression had changed, the laughter dying out of his eyes. Warily, she asked, “What kind?”
“Temporary. Unfortunately. I’m thinking of taking you with me to California.” He moved gently inside her, creating breathtakingly pleasurable friction.
“California—” she said, ending with a catch in her voice.
“Where you will be safe.”
He wasn’t joking at all, she could see, but was deadly serious. She closed her eyes tight while a shiver rippled over her. Then she opened them again. “Am I supposed to agree,” she asked, “because I’m too weak to refuse? Or do you intend to force me to go with you?”
His face changed, the planes and angles hardening to tempered copper. Abruptly he released her and ripped free. Slinging himself away from her, he rolled to sit on the side of the bed with his hands gripping the mattress edge and his head bent forward. The dark, curling tail of his hair shone between his shoulder blades. Goose bumps sprang out over the surface of his skin. A shudder gripped him, then he was still.
“Alec?” She sat up, ignoring the throbbing emptiness inside her as she reached out to him.
“Don’t!”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did,” he said in instant repudiation.
“I only thought that you…” She trailed off, unable to put her suspicion into words.
“You thought I meant to use sex to make you agree to what I wanted. I would never do that. Never! I suppose it’s my fault for playing at dominance, but I thought you knew it was a game. I thought you understood.”
“I do. Now.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t know how thin the line is between pretending and reality, how easy it would be to step across it when the stakes are high enough. No, or how deep the fear goes that I will. Before I can manage to overcome it, you have to trust me—maybe even more than I trust myself. I thought you did, but you can’t. You don’t, and you never will.”
“That isn’t true,” she said against the press of unbearable regret. “Anyway, you can’t expect me to read your mind. I’m only a woman.”
“A woman, my woman who I need to protect. But I can’t—not with things the way they are. I need to take you somewhere away from the danger, somewhere where I can watch over both you and Gregory without being torn apart between you. Let me do it. Please?”
The desperate sound of his voice made her heart ache, but the emphasis he placed on his brother’s name set off a chime of alarm in her mind. Was it possible he thought Gregory was behind the things that had happened? Was that why he was so determined to keep watch over her? And was his concern, just possibly, for his brother’s protection rather than for hers?
“You are free to go. I’m not holding you,” she said quietly.
He turned his head slowly to stare at her. “Oh, but you are,” he replied. “I just had no idea your grasp was so hard.”
20
Laurel was frying bacon when the storm began to pick up again. By the time she lifted the savory strips of meat from the electric skillet and put them to drain on paper towel, the world was dim and watery-green and rain was falling in a hard, drumming downpour. She kept glancing at the clock, thinking Maisie should be arriving at any minute. She wasn’t, of course, and might never work again, which was why Laurel was trying to get back into the swing of doing for herself.
Alec was in the shower—she could hear the water running. Whether he would stay to eat breakfast she didn’t know; s
he wasn’t even hungry herself. Still, she needed to pretend that something was normal just now, even if it was only a meal.
She was breaking eggs into the skillet when the phone rang.
“Mother? Can you talk?”
It was Marcia. The nervous, edgy sound of her voice, combined with her question, gave Laurel a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Yes, what is it?”
“Oh, good. I was afraid he might be there—Alec, I mean.”
“What difference would that make?” She couldn’t keep the sharpness from her tone.
“Because it’s about him, of course,” Marcia said, the words just as biting. “Or at least, it’s about the two of you.”
“I don’t think I want to go into this again,” Laurel began.
“No, and I can’t say I blame you,” came the surprising answer. “This is different, though. I hate being the one to tell you, but I don’t want you to have to hear it from someone else. Brother Stevens preached against you at prayer meeting last night.”
“He what?” She reached to turn off the heat control on the electric skillet. This was going to take a while.
“I know how you must feel, and I’m so sorry because I expect it’s my fault, in a way. Because of Jimmy, you know. He’s been wanting me to go see Brother Stevens for marriage counseling, but I refused. I mean, why sit through it when I know exactly what the man’s going to say, right? Marriage is a holy ordinance and I must pray to God to show me the way to righteousness, then beg my husband to give me another chance. But I won’t beg, Mother, and I don’t want another chance! I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand it anymore!”
“Oh, honey,” Laurel said in distress, “I never knew you were so unhappy.” She should have known, Laurel thought; might have if she had come out of her self-imposed isolation long enough to look around her. Typical mother-guilt, but she couldn’t help it.
Garden of Scandal Page 27