A Season for Love

by Heather Graham

  Henri and Gretel would be going with Pieter. Drake and Ronnie would take the horses and dogs. And Dave would care for the pleasure boats Drake kept on the Great Lakes.

  Dreams could come true, Ronnie realized, her head spinning with the details the men conscientiously considered, with all ends tied up nicely.

  Ronnie wasn't surprised when Drake followed her into the suite, but she was somewhat startled when he comfortably removed his jacket, vest, and tie and slung them casually over the arm of the love seat before seating himself to remove highly polished shoes.

  He caught the consternation in her eyes and smiled with wicked amusement, answering her unvoiced question. "Yes, I am staying the night. This is not Pieter's house, and I can't stand one more minute of propriety. I'm not that much of a gentleman. And besides"—he moved toward her with slow deliberation, his feet soundless on the carpeted floor as he gapped the distance between them—"there is one thing I learned from Pieter that far surpasses any wisdom he gave me pertaining to sculpture." He took her face gently between his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. "Life is a very precious gift, not to be wasted. Love is even more precious. I am a very lucky man. I have them both. I don't intend to lose another second of either."

  "Oh, Drake." Ronnie trembled as she circled her arms around his neck.

  He smothered her against him, his hands raking the silklike hair down to her spine and beyond, to the two shadowed dimples he knew he would find at its base. "Ronnie," he groaned, the sound a thundering from deep within his chest. "You're crazy if you think I could leave you tonight. I haven't slept nights, dreaming of you the way I left you, your hair splayed across the fur, your provocative, beguiling shape so visible beneath that misty garment. In my dreams your eyes invited me, they were sparkling with liquid, sensuous beseechment. . . ."

  She pulled away from him and asked wistfully, "Like they are now? Can the reality live up to the fantasy?"

  "Reality," Drake said, pulling her back to his chest, where the beating of his heart combined with hers, "outshines the most fervent imagination in your case, my love." His kisses fell to the eyes that held such enchantment, they covered her face, and grazed the long slender column of her throat. A very familiar heat filled him, one only she could create, one only she could satisfy.

  Ronnie felt as if her body melted to his like mercury. She could feel his rising desire, and her own spiraled to meet it. Her hips formed to his tauntingly while she arched to work at the buttons of his shirt. Her face tilted to his; her eyes became those of a cat, gleaming, exotically narrowed, seducing subtly with the hint of wild abandon. "Tell me more about your fantasies," she urged him, pulling his shirt from his waistband and allowing her fingers to provocatively run along the newly exposed flesh.

  His satanic smile came into play as he caught her hands deftly and reversed the aggression, finding the zipper of her dress, releasing it, and allowing the fabric to fall to her feet like an ocean wave.

  Indeed, he could well imagine she was Venus rising. Breasts of alabaster cream rose proudly over the lace of a teal-blue bra, her deep rose nipples peeking through the lace. He bent to remove the matching slip from her, allowing his hands to glide along her smooth midriff, over her hips, and down the velvet of her shapely legs as the slip too joined the dress on the floor. He heard her soft moan as his hands grasped her hips firmly, and his lips followed the course they had so recently taken. The sound of her pleasure sent his pulses racing to a fiery speed, and an urgent, fundamental, totally masculine, wildly primitive need to hold and conquer the exquisite feminine beauty that was his gripped him with shattering intensity. The dark depths of his passion showed in the taut lines of his face as he rose to meet his Venus, wordlessly sweeping her into his arms, leaving behind the discarded clothing as he swiftly walked her into the next room and lay her upon the bed. His eyes continued to hold hers as he impatiently doffed his clothes.

  Ronnie watched him with unabashed longing, the warmth in her body growing as she anticipated the rough touch of the hair upon his chest against her breasts, which tingled and peaked in expectation. A quiver began to ripple through her. The extent of his desire was unmistakable, the sight of his long sinewed legs intoxicating.

  His kisses ravaged her breasts as he hovered over her, even as he lifted her to him and sought the snaps to release the bra. Ronnie moaned and shuddered as he moved on to remove her last remaining garment, gossamer panties that slid sensuously down her legs. The heat in her was intensifying, but Drake found the core of her longing and stroked it languorously with knowing fingers that found in return complete reception. His eyes found hers again as he gave pleasure and sweet torment, and with a strangled cry she gripped her fingers in his hair to bring his face to hers. Her tongue traced the line of his mouth, then jutted into the demanding warmth. She felt as if she were going mad with

  her own desire, whirling into endless space with a burst of sensation. Her mouth left his to bite lightly into a bronze shoulder, her body undulating to his, speaking a plea of its own as she beseeched him with barely comprehensible whispers to make her his.

  "Fantasy, my love, or reality?" he whispered hoarsely.

  "A little bit of both," she sighed. "Drake . . ."

  He moved from her for a brief moment, one well used. His kisses covered her body moistly, feverishly, seeking all the places his hands had discovered and reawakening them even further into a flame run so rampant, it threatened to consume her. Each of Ronnie's pleasure-filled responses drove Drake to heightened desire, and he lowered himself over her, spreading thighs that wound to his own sinewed ones with the sweetest of welcomes.

  "Forever, Ronnie," he groaned, shuddering fiercely with the wonderful release of taking her, becoming one with her in a volatile entry. "All this forever, my love."

  Her answer was a moan, inaudible, but heard by him. "Forever." It was forever. Stroking, gliding, sailing into the stars. Drake's passion and desire were such that he was rough, but his aching love guided even that ardor, and he took her with him every step of the way. Their rhythm was mutually combustible, wild as the wind they both adored, as natural and primitive as the inevitable predestiny that had brought them together as man and woman.

  The tempo increased, madly, sweetly, aided and abetted by the fact that neither could keep their hands still. Their lips would cling and part, their tongues touch, duel. The end, the beginning of heavenly oblivion, came upon them together as a crescendo of tenderly violent impact that left them both in trembling awe, satiated, saturated with wonder. They did not part but held tight together, waiting in languorous pleasure for their breath to return and the quivering of their limbs to subside.

  The satisfaction of their union, tenfold sweet with the admission of a binding love, had exhausted Ronnie. Her eyes began to close in a rest that was overwhelming with the release of all the tensions she had suffered—pain, worry, denial. She had cast them all upon Drake's broad shoulders, and in the wild and chaotic beauty of their union she had found peace.

  She blinked, realizing she had dozed off, to find Drake seated Indian-style on the bed, drawing idle patterns around her navel. A very slow smile crept into her lips as she watched him through lazy, half-closed eyes. A smug thrill of feminine satisfaction invaded her; there was something boyish about his pose as he sat vulnerably naked, yet there was nothing boyish about his sinewed physique, taut over his bone structure even as he leaned forward.

  He knew intuitively that she had wakened, asking without glancing at her face, "Are you happy, Ronnie?"

  She nodded and caught the hand caressing her skin to kiss it. "So happy, and scared. Can this really last?"

  His strongly planed features grew grave. "Yes, it can. Not every minute can be ecstasy, or blind passion, but love can be—and ours will be—a shelter against outside storms. Love is trust, and peace and security in that trust. It's a wonderful thing, even in the worst of times."

  Ronnie absorbed his words without speaking, her eyes downcast. When she opened
them, she found Drake watching her with a brooding intensity.

  "Why didn't you tell me that you'd never made love to Pieter?"

  She caught her breath and watched him blankly for a second. "How did you know?"

  "He told me."

  Ronnie gasped with surprise. Her voice quavered. "When?"

  "We had quite an interesting dinner that last night. Pieter told me a lot I already knew—about Jamie's death and your marriage in Paris. He also told me a lot you didn't. He told me that you knew from the very beginning that you were entering a platonic marriage." Drake paused for a minute. "He also told me how bad it was for you all those years, how he used and abused you, and how you withstood it all with unbreakable patience and endurance."

  Ronnie's hand tightened convulsively on the one she held. Her lashes lowered and she held her voice steady. "It wasn't that bad, Drake. You see, I always knew the real Pieter von Hurst. I knew he would never really hurt me. I knew that no one else could understand what he went through as I did. I—" She stuttered momentarily. "I never told you that our marriage had always been platonic because one thing Pieter clung to was his pride."

  Drake adjusted his weight over hers and gently took her chin in his hands. "Look at me, Ronnie," he commanded with tenderness. "I'm not angry or upset that you didn't tell me. I admire what you tried to do. All these wonderful quirks of that crazy proud personality of yours are what make me love you so very much."

  Her heart was in her eyes as she met his, offering the depths of a soul that had remained innocent and pure through everything.

  "Oh, Drake," she murmured with loving gratitude, placing kisses of tremulous emotion in the hollows of his collarbone. "And I love you so much for all that you are!" Her voice softened. "For all that you've done for Pieter."

  Drake smiled at her. "I have to admit, it's been a lot easier to be Pieter's friend now that I know you two were never lovers. You can't imagine what it's like to sit at a dinner table with a man and try to carry on a normal conversation when you know you've made love to his wife."

  Ronnie chuckled and sobered. "Drake—you know I'll always be concerned for him."

  "Yes, Ronnie," he said gently. "I do know. And I'll always share that concern with you."

  He shifted back to a sitting position abruptly, pulling her with him into his arms. "Enough of this deep conversation for the night!" he charged severely. "If one of us slips on a robe, I think we might find a bottle of champagne chilling outside the door to the suite." "Champagne?" Ronnie arched a brow with amusement. "Mr. O'Hara, you do know how to treat a fiancee!"

  "Of course." Drake grinned, lifting her slightly to give her underside a light swat. "And since I thought of the champagne— French, of course—I think you should run out and get it."

  Giggling, Ronnie jumped from the bed. "This time, O'Hara. But don't get any ideas that I'll always jump when you swat!"

  Drake laced his hands behind his head and made himself comfortable on the pillow while Ronnie grabbed a robe. "Hurry!" he ordered imperiously, ignoring her comment. "By the way—I hope you had a lot of sleep last night, because I don't want you to count on much tonight."

  "Promises, promises!" Ronnie said mockingly, sighing.

  Drake threw a pillow at her but missed. He grinned fully, his face a devil's mask.

  "I always keep my promises."

  Chapter Ten

  They were married as planned three days later.

  Pieter von Hurst did attend the wedding. The papers, of course, got hold of the story, but the three involved found outside perplexity over the situation nothing more than amusing.

  Drake and Ronnie then flew to Chicago, where she met his parents. They were a charming couple, accepting her immediately with open arms. Drake's mother, an incredibly tiny woman to have produced such a son, was an attractive and spirited lady, literally pooh-poohing any fears Ronnie might have had about her being concerned with Ronnie's notoriety.

  The senior O'Hara was a Gaelic charmer, and Ronnie could easily see where Drake had inherited his size, coloring, and dangerously charismatic eyes. His speech enchanted Ronnie; he still carried the lilt of a brogue after almost forty years in the States.

  Drake watched with tolerant amusement as his parents and Ronnie instantly endeared themselves to one another. He had expected nothing less, and he thanked God fervently for both his mother and father when he saw the happiness in his bride's eyes that night. "Oh, Drake," she told him wonderously, "not only do I have you, but a family, too! It's been so long. . . ."

  He chuckled and enveloped her in his arms tenderly. She was so terribly strong, yet so sweetly vulnerable. "You definitely have a family," he replied ruefully. "They've adopted you already. In act, I think they prefer their new daughter to their son!"

  They weren't able to see much of Chicago, as Drake had spent

  too much time away from work and had to put some time in at the main gallery. Ronnie didn't care. She assured Drake that the city wasn't going to go away, and spent her days between her in-laws' house and her own new home.

  Drake's house was like the man—tasteful, fastidious, yet very warm and masculine. It was a split-level modern house done in brick and wood that complemented both the manicured lawn and rock garden and the untouched woodland that stretched behind it. A terrace of three-sided glass looked upon the rock garden, and Ronnie found herself continually drawn to the spot, trying to convince herself that the magical place was really her new home.

  "Like it?" Drake asked, slipping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her head.

  "Love it," Ronnie replied, slipping her hands over the pair that held her.

  She ran her eyes over the room. Drake's love for art was apparent everywhere: exquisite sculptures adorned the tables, paintings decked the walls with clever display. A strong mac-rame swing extended from a brass fitting in the corner of the room like an intricately woven birdcage. Earth tone throw pillows were nestled into the seat, and Ronnie blissfully imagine hours of curling into its circumference with a good book, swinging lightly, looking up now and then to view the garden through the spotless glass.

  "Change anything you want," Drake directed with a smile. "Hell—find a new house if you want! I am fond of this place, though. We have five acres, and we're still only a thirty-minute drive from the heart of the city."

  "I love the house," Ronnie assured him, "and I don't want to change a thing. Except maybe the—"

  "The what?"

  "The bedroom." Ronnie grimaced ruefully. "Not that I don't like it"—she thought of the room with its high platform bed, polished oak bookshelves and dressers, and rich chocolate drapes and bedspread—"it's just a little too male!" She smiled slowly at

  his confusion. "I want anyone who walks into that room to know that you do share it with a wife!"

  Drake laughed, but while he was gone that afternoon a package arrived for her. It was a huge luxurious white alpaca spread. Drake hadn't signed his name, just the word fantasy.

  Ronnie laughed delightedly and quickly changed the spread It made a wonderful change, coupled with the feminine articles she now had resting on her dresser, it made the room very intimate, very much that of a couple. White drapes, she decided would be the finishing touch. But they could come later. . . .

  When Drake returned home, his fantasy was fulfilled. She waited for him, swathed in the sheerest of black negligees stretched languorously 011 the fur, her hair a startling contrast of thick sable waves. Her eyes were those he had always imagined, captivating, seductive, heavy with a passion uniquely for him. . . . She was his marble beauty, half kitten, half tigress.

  Later, when their bodies had cooled and they clung together beneath the fur for warmth, Drake tugged lightly at a strand of silky hair tangled in his fingers. His eyes were deeply brooding as Ronnie stared into them.

  "Do you miss Von Hurst?" he asked softly.

  "No," she answered with honesty, meeting his gaze before issuing light kisses on each corner of his mustache.
"I went days without ever seeing Pieter when I lived on the island, and ..."