A hoarse cry caught in her throat and she collapsed against him. As if she weighed no more than a feather, he tipped her over his shoulder and rose to his feet. The room swam past in a blur as he strode to the bed and dropped her there, just carelessly enough that she bounced gently on the mattress.
He turned on the bedside lamp and leaned over her, his eyes glittering. “You’re not lying now, though, are you, Gabriella? You want to make love, don’t you?”
Beast! He already knew the answer, but he was going to make her beg anyway! “I don’t really care one way or the other,” she said weakly and closed her eyes.
“Look at me when you say that.”
Mesmerized, she obeyed. When he saw that he bad her unblinking attention, he reached for his belt. The buckle glimmered in the lamplight. He unsnapped the waist of his jeans, and slowly opened the fly. “Do you still not care?”
She bit her lip and refused to answer.
He smiled grimly. “You want to touch me, don’t you, my love?”
“No,” she whimpered, even as her hand stole out to shape him. He was hard,powerful; throbbing with sup pressed energy and life.
“Shall I leave you then, and go take a cold shower?”
“No!” Driven past all reason, she lunged at him and tore frenziedly at the blue jeans. He wore jockey shorts underneath, dazzling white against the dark tan of his thighs. And oh, such thighs they were, tapering from his hips in one long, smooth sweep of muscled flesh!
“Help me!” she implored, struggling with the unyield ing denim and quite beside herself. She wouldn’t settle for a hurried, halfhearted coupling, not alter all those days and nights of unanswered yearning!. “You’ve got me where you want me—naked and vulnerable. I want to see all of you, as well.”
Pinning her in a searing, heavy-lidded gaze, he shucked off what remained of his clothes and stalked her across the bed with the unhurried grace of a lion moving in for an easy kill.
When at last he was close enough that his breath ruffled her hair, he growled, “Not quite naked, my love,” and stripped off her panties, then pushed her back against the pillows and went about the business of reacquainting him self with her body, touching her first with his hands, and then with his mouth.
He kissed her eyes and her throat; her elbows, her feet, each separate vertebra in her spine. And when every other inch of her had received its benediction and was humming with pleasure, he pushed apart her knees and touched his tongue to her most secret and sensitive flesh.
He’d brought her to climax before, but never so swiftly or so savagely. She tried to resist it, to tame it. But her body had gone too long without him and responded with the avid greed of a starving thing. Racked by spasm alter spasm, she clung to him, sobbing his name.
As the tremors faded to a sweet echo, he sank down beside her and went to take her in his anus. But seeing the tears tracking down her face, he rose up again on one
elbow and said ruefully, “Heck, Gabriella, it seems no matter how hard I try to please you, all I ever do is make you cry.”
She uttered a shaky laugh, and ran her hands over his torso, loving the feel of him, all muscle overlaid by smooth, olive-tinted skin. “You took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“Keep up what you’re doing, and you’ll be surprised all over again,” he warned her. “You’re wandering into dangerous territory, sweetheart, so unless you’re prepared to deal with the consequences, better keep your hands to yourself.”
“Not a chance,” she said, pressing him back against the mattress. “You’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn.”
The hint of complacency in his smile suggested he thought there was little chance she could wreak on him anything approaching the havoc he’d brought to her, but as she inched her way down his chest, she heard the un even thump of his heart and knew he wasn’t nearly as much in control as he’d like her to believe.
“Is this what you meant, when you asked me if I wanted to touch you?” she whispered, closing her fingers possessively around the straining evidence of his arousal.
He inhaled sharply.
Encouraged to boldness, she inquired huskily, “Or is this more what you had in mind?”
At the brush of her lips, a groan escaped him. “Woman,” he ground out, “you’re playing with fire.”
Undeterred, she swept her mouth over him again, branding him with hot, impassioned kisses. Being together with him like this was a gift from the gods she did not intend to waste. The next time he was tempted to stray, she wanted hers to be the touch he’d yearn for, hers the face to haunt him in the night.
He might resent her until the day he died, but like it or not, she was his wife, and for all that she’d thought di vorce was her only option, she knew now that she would not easily relinquish the role to someone else. Suddenly, For better or for worse, till death us do part assumed new and powerful meaning.
“Gabriella.J” Her name emerged on a lonE, unsteady breath Gripping her shoulders, he hauled her up beside him again, rolled her onto her back, and knelt astride her. His forehead gleamed with sweat. A pulse raced at the corner of his jaw, keeping pace with the speeding rush of her own heart. His voice rough with passion, he said, “Enough! I want to be inside you when I come.”
“Yes,” she sighed dreamily, her entire body vibrating with anticipation as he nudged apart her thighs. And then the long, lonely’ waiting was over. He was where he be longed and for once happy to be there.. .velvet sheathed in satin.., and they were moving together in remembered rhythm. Rediscovering each other. Turning painful past knowledge into beautiful, shimmering new experiences. Holding on to each other as the tempo increased and they tried to outrace the roaring tide gathering force and threat ening to tip them, end over end, into extinction.
It was splendor enough, more than she’d dared dream about, and she would not have asked for more. But just as he lost the battle for supremacy and his seed spilled hotly within her, he gave her one last gift—words dredged up from the darkest depths of his soul, tortured and almost
indistinguishable. ..
“Darling!” he muttered feverishly, crushing her to him. “Beloved!” -
Impossible words. She could . heard him correctly.
Lifting her hand, she stroked the hair from his brow. “What did you say, Max?”
He let out an exhausted sigh and rolled to his side, his body still fused with hers. “Hush. It was nothing.”
“You called me ‘darling.”
“Uh-uh. ‘Devil’, more like it.”
“And ‘beloved.”
“Let it go, Gabriella.” He flopped onto his back and tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder.
“I can’t,” she cried, bereft of his warmth and the sweet sense of completion that came of having him buried inside her. “What just happened.. .didn’t it mean anything to you?”
“What do you think?”
“That it was beautiful. That for the first time ever, nei ther of us was using the other. Instead, we gave to one another, and in doing so, we truly did make love.” She stopped and drew in a tormented breath. “Am I wrong?”
He debated the question so long that she found herself biting her lip to keep it from trembling. Please, she begged him silently, please don’t turn what we just shared into something cheap and tawdry!
“You’re not wrong,” he finally admitted. “The ques tion is, where does that leave us?”
“We’re husband and wife, Max. Can’t we take it from there and try to make something worthwhile of our mar riage?”
“Being legally bound to each other no more makes for marriage than great sex does. Face it, Gabriella, your life isn’t with me, it’s wherever your work takes you, be it Rome or Paris or Buenos Aires.”
“If you asked me to, I would give it all up in a heart beat.”
“In exchange for what? Being unhappy, the way you
were before you made a new life for yourself away fr me?”
“I could be very happy
with you, if you’d let me,” she said urgently. “Will you do that, Max? Will you give us another chance?”
“I’m tempted, I admit.” He looked at her long and seriously before continuing, “Will you settle for giving it a trial run on the understanding that, after your parents leave, we’ll take an honest look at where we stand and if we find it isn’t working out, we’ll agree to parI without recrimination or blame on either part?”
It will work out! she promised him silently. “Agreed.”
“Not so fast. You also have to promise me—”
“Anything!” she cried softly, the fulfillment of all her hopei and dreams hanging by a thread.
“There’ll be no more lies. And I’m not just talldng about lying to each other. We’ve got to stop fooling our selves, Gabriella. Regardless of where it might lead, I want your promise that you’ll assess us honestly. No skat ing over the bits you don’t like, no pretending that if you ignore them, the problems will go away. Otherwise, we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of repairing what’s broken between us.”
Solemnly, she drew a cross over her heart. “I give you my word. And, Max, one more thing...”
“What now?” -
She picked up the necklace from the bedside table where Max had tossed it, and fastened it around her throat again. -“Thank you for this. I love it.”
“Good. Because I pressured Gio into staying late at the shop and taking some of the links out of the chain so it would fit properly.” He leaned over and switched off the bedside lamp. “If you behave yourself, I might have him
make up something from the left-over diamonds and gold.”
“I don’t need anything else,” she whispered. “What you’ve given me just now, here in this room, is worth more to me than all the diamonds and gold in the world.”
He reached for her in the dark. “Want to know the best part about tonight?” he said, his voice rough with re newed passion. “It isn’t over yet.”
It was after ten when she opened her eyes the next morn ing. “You should have woken me sooner,” she scolded her mother whom she found snipping dead roses from the climber on the terrace while her father put himself through his usual twenty laps in the pool. “Imagine letting me sleep most of the morning away when you’re already half way through your time here!”
Her mother uncovered a dish of berries and cream wait ing on the patio table. “Your man said not to disturb you. And he is right. -You’re worn to skin and bone, my daugh ter. You need rest and good food. So, sit and eat, and I will make eggs the way you used to like them, with fresh rolls and sweet butter.”
“No eggs, Mama, thank you. Fruit and a roll will be enough, though I’d love a cup of coffee as well, if you’ll join me.”
Humming under her breath, her mother bustled inside the penthouse. Overhead, seagulls glided across a calm blue midsummer sky. A rose in a bud vase in the middle of the table glowed deep gold in the sunlight. Down in the bay, a boat drifted slowly under sail, headed for the open sea.
Paradise! Gabriella thought, stretching lazily and sa voring every tiny body ache for the reminder it brought of the night just past. She closed her eyes, the better to
review the film unwinding in her mind—of waking some where around two in the morning, with the moon casting long pewter shadows over Max’s limbs entwined with hers; of the sandpaper burn of his beard against her skin, the thrilling crescendo to their lovemaking, so vivid in recall that a tremor of sensation spiraled through her womb. Of the musky scent of afterward, deeply private, intensely intimate, and the warm, secure feel of her hus band’s arms folded around her in sleep.
Yes, paradise indeed—or a miracle so impossible that she found herself wondering if it had all been just a dream. Would he come home later and look at her from cold, empty eyes? Would his kiss once again be only a parody of the real thing?
Suddenly, she needed to hear his voice, to hear him turn her name into an embrace, the way he had in the quiet hours before the dawn—Gabri... eli... a!
A remote phone lay on the table, preprogrammed with his office number. It rang twice before a woman answered. “Willow McHenry,” she puffed.
“I. ..um, that is, I thought I’d dialed...” Annoyed to find herself stumbling over her words, Gabriella sat up straight and began again. “Is this Max Logan’s office?”
“It is.”
“Then may I speak to him, please?”
“I’m afraid Mr. Logan’s unavailable at the moment. I’ll be happy to relay a message to him.”
If he was unavailable, why could she hear his voice quite plainly in the background? “No,” Gabriella said firmly. “I wish to speak to him in person.”
There was a muffled pause, the kind which comes from a hand being placed over a receiver to disguise the con versation taking place at the other end. Finally, her tone suggesting that importuning Mr. Logan was no one’s pre
rogative but hers, Willow McHeriry came back on the line to inquire, “Who may I say is calling?”
Who? The woman he made love to all last night, that’s who! “His wife,” Gabriella said.
Another pause, lasting perhaps five seconds or more, and so utterly silent this time that there was no question of any conversation taking place at the other end of the line. Gabriella flinched as the phone smacked against some hard surface, then Max’s voice came on the line, not as loverlike as she’d have preferred, but not chillingly neutral, either. “Hi, Gabriella. What’s up?”
“Well, I am—finally,” she said with a laugh. “But I missed saying goodbye to you this morning.”
“You were sleeping so soundly, I thought it best not to wake you.”
In the background, a door closed sharply.
“I wish you had.”
He waited a moment before replying, and there was answering laughter in his voice when be said, “I had a conference call scheduled for eight o’clock and didn’t want to risk being late.”
“I wouldn’t have kept you very long.”
“Yes, you would, you insatiable wench. We’d likely still be rolling between the sheets.”
She turned liquid with pleasure. “I miss you. Come home early, will you?”
“As soon as I can. I’ll take us all out for dinner. Choose some place nice outside town that you think your folks might enjoy seeing, and make a reservation for eight.”
Smiling, he hung up the phone.
“Well,” Willow said from the other end of the room, “aren’t you the dutiful husband all of a sudden!”
He cast her a sideways glance before turning his atten
tion to the contract lying on his desk. “I think we both know that’s been my role all along.”
“Not quite,” she said. “I remember an occasion when you came very close to forgetting you even had a wife.”
His hand stilled on the pages he’d been leafing through. “Let’s not rake up the past, Willow,” he said flatly. “We were both at a low point in our lives, but we managed to get past it without hurting anyone.”
“You might have, Max,” she said, coming to face him across the desk, “but don’t presume to know how I felt.”
He didn’t like the tone of the conversation; he liked even less the brittle tone in her voice. “We’re talking about a couple of kisses one night, eight months ago,” he said, staring her straight in the eye. “I thàught we’d both moved on since then. But if you find you haven’t, or can’t, I’ll be happy to arrange a transfer to another department, or give you a reference, if you prefer to move to another company.”
“No.” She flashed him a brilliant smile. “You’re quite right, we have moved on. I’m involved with someone else and you’re...still married.”
“Yes,” he said. “And the next time my wife phones, put her call through right away. I’m never too busy to talk to her.”
“Of course. She has a lovely voice, by the way. Charm ingly young and foreign. Naive, almost, which I wouldn’t have expected from someone so used to public
exposure.” She scooped up the letters she’d left for him to sign and made for the door connecting their two offices. “Oh, a couple of things I should mention before I forget. First, that person from the local TV station called again yester day, wanting to set up an interview with you. What shall I tell him?”
“Anything, as tong as I don’t have to go in front of the camera. That’s my wife’s forte, not mine.”
“All right. I’ll suggest they line something up with her instead.”
“Sure, as long as she’s agreeable.”
“And the Overseas Development Dinner’s next Thursday. Since you’re almost certain to win an award, shall I order extra tickets for your wife and her parents?”
“It hadn’t occurred to me before, but now that you mention it, yes, do. I think they’d enjoy themselves.”
“Fine.” She bathed him in another smile and was gone. He remained standing behind the desk, though, uneas iness tugging at his gut—with a dollop of guilt thrown in for good measure.
It had started out innocently enough with Willow:
working late, and sharing a take-out dinner while they raced to complete a deal on time; lunch to celebrate final approval on a building site or a five-star rating on the latest hotel; flowers delivered to her at home in recogni tion of the extra hours she pulled down when he was out of town; a token gift to go with the annual bonus at Christ mas; a friendly kiss at the office party:
He should have left it that. But then, there’d been the night at the penthouse, a couple of glasses of wine too many, an ill-advised attempt to start an affair which fiz zled before it properly began, and that had been it. As far as he was concerned, their relationship had been strictly confined to business ever since.
If anyone had asked him yesterday, he’d have said with absolute certainty that she felt the same way. She was too smart and attractive to hanker after a married man when there were any number of eligible guys available. And too ambitious to jeopardize a job that paid handsomely and
offered the kind of perks that went along with being chief assistant to the company boss.
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