An Unforgettable Lady

by Jessica Bird

  But the scars? He didn't talk to anyone about them, not even his boys like Tiny and Eddie.

  Not all of the wounds had been inflicted on him as an adult.

  "You said I could pick," she whispered. "And I have."

  Smith cleared his throat, searched his mind for words and came up with a whole lot of nothing.

  Her hand landed softly on his shoulder and he flinched. Through the undershirt, he could feel her fingers move slowly down his back as she explored his skin, lingering here and there.

  Smith would have run, if he could have. But his body felt like lead.

  When she got to a round scar on his side, one of the oldest, she went no farther. "Tell me about this one."

  An image cut through his mind with the gruesome precision of a knife and he saw clearly events that were decades old. Feeling nauseous, he told himself to keep quiet.

  "Please."

  The soft word was a promise of comfort that he'd never had. That he'd never wanted before.

  He responded to it before he could stop himself.

  "Cigarette burn." Smith didn't recognize his own voice. Stiff and a little hoarse, he heard it from a far distance. "My father liked to smoke. He could always find a match. Ashtrays were a different story. Eventually, I got so I could outrun him but it took a long time."

  He heard a hiss and realized it had been from her.

  Smith didn't go further. She didn't need to know any more details.

  "I'm so very sorry."

  This was totally wrong, a voice inside of him yelled.

  With all the women he had had, whose hands he'd allowed to touch him, he had never, never, let the subject come up. Even the ones who had had a few lacerations of their own had known not to speak of his map of horrors. And now, this achingly beautiful woman, this lady, who could know nothing about what had been done to him, about the kind of places he'd been and the people he'd dealt with, this delicate woman, wanted in on the nightmare.

  "Are they all from..." She didn't finish her question.

  A muscle began jerking in his jaw.

  He forced his shoulders into a shrug. "Let's just say, I've been around the block a few times."

  "I want to see them. All of them."

  With a lurch, he pulled away from her. "This has gone far enough."

  "I don't think it has," she said, moving toward him.

  Smith was completely incapable of anything rational as her fingers went to the bottom of his shirt. He grabbed her hands in a brutal grip.

  "You don't want to do that."

  "Yes, I do. I'm not afraid of your past."

  "You should be."

  "I'm not. And I'm not afraid of you, either."

  Gently, she removed his hands and slowly inched up the thin fabric. His breath began coming out in bursts and his body, caught between her will and his, begin to quake in the conflict.

  When the air hit his skin, he couldn't take it anymore. He exploded up from the bed and wrenched the goddamn thing off. He stretched his arms out wide, feeling his muscles expand.

  "Here, I'll give you the whole show," he said ruthlessly. "Front and back."

  Her eyes stayed on his face.

  "Come on, Countess. You don't want to look now? Too much?" He was sneering at her, lashing out. She'd made him feel weak with her empathy and he resented how exposed he felt.

  She shook her head and her eyes were grim, as if she'd taken his past deep down into herself and felt the echoes of pain in her own body.

  "Not in such a big hurry to touch me anymore, are you. Now that you can see everything."

  He was hoping if he pushed her hard enough, she'd back away. The others who had tried to get close had fled when he'd showed them the same rage.

  But Grace didn't run.

  Slowly, she rose from the bed and reached out a slender gentle hand. When she touched his stomach delicately, he inhaled with a rasp.

  His first instinct was to yell. He was infuriated that she had challenged him and exposed him. That she was near enough so he could smell her. That she was offering him compassion and understanding and warmth when he was battle-scarred and hard and ugly.

  "I think you are beautiful," she said softly, looking up at him.

  "Then you're fucking blind."

  She shook her head slowly. "I see you, all of you. Clearly."

  Grace traced a path across his stomach and stopped when she got to the waistband of his boxers. He felt himself swell for her touch and became instantly aware that he was half-naked and she was wearing close to nothing and they were alone in dim light.

  He grabbed her upper arms and jerked her against him. Hard. Her only response was to tilt her head back so she could continue to meet his eyes.

  "You might want to keep your hands to yourself." He made his words as cold as possible. "You touch me like that and I'm not thinking about what a courageous Florence Nightingale you are."

  "So what are you thinking? "

  He gave her a shake and watched as her hair swung around her shoulders and caught the light.

  "Damn you," he growled. "Don't do this."

  Her eyes were soft, luminous. Heated. He knew what she was thinking about and it didn't have anything to do with talking. In that hooded glance, she was asking for what she wanted. And she wanted him.

  In spite of his anger. In spite of the marks on his skin.

  The only honorable part in him spoke up.

  "Listen to me, Countess. This body of mine is built for fucking. Do you even know what that is? We're talking one-night stands, up against a wall, don't know her name and don't care kind of shit. You don't want that."

  She looked downcast, as if he'd robbed her of something.

  "Hell." He let out some of his frustration with a deep breath. Everything that he'd been dreaming about was in his arms but the only thing he could do was let it go. "Don't you understand? You deserve better than what I can give you. You need someone who's going to make love to you. Not screw you and then leave you and your bed in a mess."

  "You wouldn't do that."

  "Oh yes, I would." Smith couldn't turn away but didn't want to kiss her because he knew he'd be lost.

  So he pushed his hands into the waves of her hair and pulled them forward. The ends landed below her breasts, which were rising and falling as she breathed through her mouth. He lifted a strand and carried it forward to his nose. Breathing in, he caught the fragrance of jasmine. As he let the hair fall, he watched it settle between her breasts and curl obligingly around one silk-covered nipple.

  Sweet Jesus, he wanted her.

  He looked at her lips. They were parted, bow-shaped, tender.

  "I don't want to hurt you," he said darkly. The truth was a surprise.

  "I know." She reached up and touched his face, moving her palm down over the rasp of his beard growth. "But I don't want to be saved. That's not what I want. Not tonight."

  Fighting himself was hard. Turning her down was ... impossible.

  Smith bent forward and softly he stroked her mouth with his own. When he heard her moan, he put more pressure into the kiss and gathered her into his arms. As his tongue stole out to lick her lower lip, he felt her hands grip on to him. Moving even closer, he explored her mouth, delving deeper and deeper.

  His fingers went to the straps of her nightgown. Slowly, he released the satin ribbons from her shoulders until she was bare to his eyes and the silk bodice was a pool around her hips. Blood roared in his ears and he pulled her down to the bed so that she was lying back against the lace covered duvet. He began to kiss the skin at her collarbone and then went lower, ravishing her breasts and then her stomach.

  With growing urgency, his hands moved over the swell of her hips and down her thighs. Going under the thin wisp of her nightgown, he stroked her legs, pushing the fragile silk up as he went.

  When Smith slid his hand to her inner thigh, he felt the soft skin and the heat coming off of her. As he moved higher, he relished the sensation of her undulating under
neath him and he looked up. The image of her with her arched back and her head cocked at an angle so she could watch him was the most erotic thing he'd ever seen.

  He put his mouth on her stomach, just below her belly button, and prayed for self control. As his hands moved ever closer to her core, his mouth followed, kissing her skin through the silk. He had every intention of learning her intimately. With his fingers. His tongue. His body.

  Smith's excitement grew to such heights that at first he didn't notice when her hands began to push against his shoulders. She started to thrash around but he assumed it was from the same passion he was feeling.

  He was wrong.

  "No! Stop!" Grace said, with alarm, jack knifing up straight.

  She began to struggle with the nightgown and then gave up, pulling over a pillow to cover her breasts. She was shaking and pale.

  Smith shifted to the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. He was fighting to slow down the raging hunger in his body, cursing himself with every ragged breath.

  "I'm—I'm sorry," she said softly. She reached out to him, touched his arm.

  He yanked back. The last thing he needed was her hand on him. Not while he was trying to convince his inner caveman to get civilized.

  "It's not that I don't want to..."

  "But the wrong side of the tracks was tougher to visit than you'd thought?" His voice was hoarse.

  "Good God, no. It's not that at all. It's just that... my husband—"

  "I don't really want to hear about him right now, if you don't mind." Smith got to his feet. He needed to get the hell away from her. "Good night, Countess."

  He left in a rush, walking back to his room in long, angry strides. He wanted to close all of the doors between them.

  Lock them tight, for Chrissakes. He felt like,he needed something a hell of a lot more sturdy than his will to keep them apart.

  chapter

  11

  The next morning, Grace fumbled to shut off the alarm. Her hand flapped around the bedside table, running into her diary, the lamp, everything except the clock. She opened her eyes, slapped the thing into silence, and collapsed back onto her pillows.

  Outside it was storming and rain lashed against the windows.

  She looked down and saw the shirt Smith had wrenched from his body. A flush went through her as she remembered what had happened next. She could still feel his mouth, hungry on hers, and his hands traveling across her skin. It had been a blur, going from his anger to their kisses, from the edge of reason to beyond control. She'd felt as if she was being possessed by him.

  Pulling back, stopping him, had been an act of self-preservation.

  Sometime after he'd laid her down, as he was kissing her belly and stroking her legs, taking her higher and higher into some kind of frenzy she'd never experienced before, she'd become overwhelmed and a little frightened. He wasn't hurting her but things had been moving so fast that she hadn't been able to process what bubbled up into her consciousness. Insecurities, insipid and disturbing, had cut through the passion and brought up memories she couldn't escape.

  By the end of her marriage, her sex life with Ranulf had disintegrated into a painful exercise in humiliation for her. As he became more and more disenchanted with his wife, he grew rougher as a lover until she learned to dread the feel of the bed dipping down when he slid in next to her at night. What had previously been a pleasant enough experience became something she endured and her cool response to him only made the situation worse. He became impotent and laid the blame for his sexual dysfunction on her. With every failure, he railed against her, telling her she was frigid and hardly a woman. She had stood up to him once, explaining that a woman needed more than just rough hands spreading her legs to enjoy sex, and that had been the only time in her life she feared a man would strike her.

  Although she knew Ranulf taunted her to be cruel, because he was humiliated as well as disillusioned with her and the marriage, a part of her wondered if he wasn't a little right. She'd had one lover before her husband and wouldn't have described her attraction to either of them as overwhelming. Between her past experience and Ranulf's vivid and disparaging vocabulary, she had doubts whether she could satisfy a man. And whether she herself could be satisfied.

  Until John Smith had come along.

  Her reaction to him blew the doors off the notion she was frigid. But it did nothing to dispel the other side of her self-doubts. If there was one man on the planet she wanted to satisfy, it was Smith. She just wasn't sure she could.

  Knowing the basics of sex was no guarantee you could make all that thrusting anything more than a mild cardiovascular workout. Hell, she learned that from Ranulf— before he got mean.

  When the doubts in her mind had cut through the desire in her body, she'd only wanted to slow down what was happening between them. She'd needed a moment to catch her breath, prepare to make the leap into unknown territory.

  But when he didn't stop, she panicked because the struggle reminded her of Ranulf.

  She didn't blame Smith for leaving in a foul mood.

  Throwing the covers back, Grace got out of bed and picked up his white shirt. She didn't want him to think she'd pulled back because she hadn't wanted him. She might have lost her nerve temporarily but not her desire for him.

  Pulling on a bathrobe, she left her bedroom and found him in his room, sitting on the chaise lounge by the window. He looked up from the book he was reading the instant she appeared at the door. His expression was totally closed.

  "Are you skipping the run this morning?" he asked briskly.

  She nodded as a gust of wind pushed the rain against the windows and the water landed in a pattern of sound.

  "I—ah, I brought your shirt back." She put it on one of the beds and cleared her throat. "Listen, about last night—"

  He snapped the book shut and stared out at the gray morning. "I owe you an apology."

  Grace frowned. "What are you talking about?"

  He shot her a dry look. "Aside from the fact that I never should have put us in that position, I didn't let you go when I should have. I didn't know you wanted to stop. The only excuse I can offer is that I don't usually get that... preoccupied."

  Her mouth slacked in surprise. She'd expected him to be mad because he hadn't gotten what he'd wanted. That had certainly been the first response of her father and Ranulf.

  Smith's eyes were hooded as he cut her off before she could speak.

  "I didn't mean to scare you. And don't deny it," he said when she shook her head and opened her mouth. “I know what I saw in your eyes last night. It was fear."

  "But I want you to know why I couldn't—"

  "It's none of my business and, to be honest, I don't want to hear the whys. They're not relevant. The last thing you need is to be afraid in your own house. Of me.”

  "I'm not threatened by you." Grace's voice was earnest.

  He considered her thoughtfully but then shook his head.

  "Even if that's true, it doesn't matter." Smith reopened the book. "Let me know when the shower's free."

  "John..." He looked up with a dark expression. "I didn't pull away because I don't want you."

  "Frankly, I wish that was the reason."

  She frowned. " But why?"

  He didn't reply. Instead, his eyes returned to the book.

  Grace had no choice but to leave him. There was so much more to be said but she knew he wouldn't talk anymore.

  * * *

  When they reached the Hall Building, after a long, quiet ride through traffic, Grace paused to talk to some people in the atrium while Smith went over and checked in with the security officer on duty.

  "Is that the consultant?" one of the staff whispered while nodding over at Smith.

  So word had gotten around, Grace thought as she nodded.

  "He looks a little ... hard for an OD guy."

  "He's a specialist," she said, hoping the subject would drop.

  "I'll bet he is," another woman
chimed in while looking Smith up and down.

  Grace was in a bad mood when she got into the elevator with him.

  As soon as it was just the two of them, he said, "Why are you looking like that?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like in your mind you've got your hands around someone's throat."

  "I don't know what you are talking about."

  "Sure you do."

  The elevator doors opened on her floor and she shot him a challenging look. "Do you really want to keep going with this? Because as I recall, this morning you were the one with the closed mouth."

  Smith gave her a lazy smile as they walked down the hall.

  "Touched" he said softly as they came up to Kat's desk and the girl looked up.

  "Senator Bradford called," she said to Grace. She glanced at Smith warily, as if she expected him to walk right by her again. "She wanted to remind you to come to the Plaza on Friday. Seven p.m. Black-tie."

  "Thanks. I'll be there with bells on."

  "Morning, Kat," Smith said casually.

  "Good morning." The girl's eyes flared.

  "How was the IT guy?"

  "Er—he was actually kind of okay." A tentative smile appeared. "He likes baseball, too, and, ah, I might go out again with him."

  "Make sure he pays for dinner."

  Her eyes bounced around a little, as if she was flustered by the attention. "Hey—do you need something? Coffee?"

  "Coffee'd be great, thanks. Black."

  After Grace and Smith walked into her office, he went over to the conference table and sat down, opening the files he'd spent days poring over. As he began to make notes, she knew he was deliberately avoiding the look of approval she was sending him.

  When Kat came in with the coffee, she closed the door behind her.

  "What's wrong?" Grace asked.

  "There's a man outside," the girl said as she gave a steaming mug to Smith. "He doesn't have an appointment and he's demanding to see you. Someone named Fredrique."

  Grace winced. "It's about the Gala. He did the party planning and the catering last year for us but I didn't rehire him because he cost a small fortune. He probably just wants to pitch me for business I've already turned down."