Against All Odds (Arabesque)

by Gwynne Forster

  He leaned forward to replace the glass in the bar, and an envelope slipped out of his coat pocket. He opened it and read what he’d written. A puny declaration compared to what he felt and what he needed from her. But he couldn’t ask for what he needed, and if she offered it, he couldn’t accept it. His family’s views about him and Melissa didn’t matter, but the insidious annihilation of Leather and Hides did matter—and until he solved that mystery, he couldn’t allow himself to become too deeply involved with her. He leaned back in the downy softness of the exquisite leather seat, leather tanned as only Hayes/Roundtree Enterprises, Inc., could, and his thoughts drifted to his growing dissatisfaction with his life. He loved his family and his work, but he needed a woman whom he loved and who loved him, and he wanted children. In his mind’s eye he saw Melissa in his home with his baby at her breast. “Damn! I must be losing it.” He reached for the handle on the door of the bar, decided against a drink, and turned on the radio. But he didn’t need to hear George Strait sing “You Can’t Make a Heart Love Somebody,” so he flipped it off and asked himself why he was so restless. He had the driver go into Frederick and wait while he pushed the envelope into Melissa’s mailbox. His heart pounded as he held his hand suspended next to her doorbell, but he resisted, got back in the car, and went home to Beaver Ridge.

  * * *

  “Anything happen here while I was gone?” he asked his mother when she greeted him at the door.

  Mary Roundtree bussed her elder son on the cheek. “Not a thing. Looks to me like those dreadful crooks do their devilment at Leather and Hides either when you’re out somewhere with Melissa Grant or when you’re over at The Refuge. Never when you’re home. I guess they didn’t know you were out of town.” He kissed her quickly, grabbed his garment bag, and headed for the stairs.

  “Sooner or later they’ll show their hands and trip themselves up,” he threw over his shoulder. He would not be drawn into a discussion of Melissa, and if his mother insisted on it, she’d learn exactly what he felt. He hung up the garment bag, his overcoat and jacket, pulled a chair up to the desk that faced the window, and dialed her number. When she didn’t answer and had forgotten to turn on her answering machine, he hung up and stared at the wintry scene through his window, stunned at the intensity of his disappointment. He was full of her, day and night, and he had to do something about it. He changed clothes, got his sports bag, took the Jaguar, and set out for the sports center in Frederick.

  * * *

  Melissa put on her swimsuit under her fatigues, added a winter coat, and went to the sports center. She checked her mailbox as she left the house and opened the unaddressed envelope that she found there. A red, silver-tipped feather fell to the floor. She picked it up, looked into the envelope, and found a card on which was printed, “When I saw this, I thought of you. It’s unique, elegant, and it’s soft—just as you are—A.” Excitement enveloped her. Had he put it there before he left? Or had he stopped by after his return? She had to fight the temptation to telephone him, and she walked less briskly than normal, skipped occasionally, and spun around a time or two.

  “Adam.” She wanted to scream his name. “Oh, Adam.”

  * * *

  Melissa patted the water from her glistening body, threw the beach towel across a lounge chair, and prepared to relax after her vigorous swim. But she sat up abruptly when her eyes caught sight of a flawless male figure, his slim brown hips accented by a yellow bikini, as he stepped up to the diving board and arched his body into a breathtaking dive. Who was he and how could she feel an attraction for a man when she’d seen only his near naked form? Her breath hissed from her lungs as she watched his rhythmic strokes take him to the opposite end of the pool. He reached it, flipped into a turn, and she stood up, feeling his raw masculinity from her brain to her toes. She continued to gape at him as he swam toward her with his head down, impatient to see his face. He surfaced right at her feet and climbed out.

  “Adam!”

  “Melissa! I didn’t know I’d find you here.” He must have seen the fire in her, must have sensed her need of him, because his gaze reciprocated what she felt. Want. Hunger. Reluctance. Pain. She saw it all reflected in his eyes, eyes that also bore a sadness she hadn’t seen in him. She knew she’d give him whatever he wanted, but could she handle the certain repercussions? She panicked and dove into the water. Within seconds she heard his splash and felt his strong arms about her.

  “Get dressed, get your things, and come with me. We’ve got to settle this.” Her breasts tingled, and a shudder shot through her as his strong fingers grasped her bare flesh.

  “Come with me,” he said, in a voice that soothed and cajoled.

  She couldn’t calm her runaway heartbeat. “No,” she told him, reaching for control though she knew he held the cards.

  “Yes. Come with me now. We aren’t children playing games, Melissa. It’s time for us. It has been for weeks, and you know it.”

  Melissa summoned her customary cool demeanor and told him in a calm, steady voice, “If I go, it will be because I want to, not because you shoved or wheedled me into it.”

  Adam stroked her arms and back. “If I have to shove you into it, as you put it, I don’t want you to go. It has to be mutual, Melissa. But we can’t continue this way.” As if he didn’t care who came in and saw them, he fastened his mouth to hers without warning. Shivers betrayed her tingling body as his lips took her nectar, his strong fingers roamed over her naked flesh, and she opened her mouth for the sweet torture of his hot tongue. Her senses whirled, and her feminine center pulsated wildly when he slipped his hand into the scant bra of her bathing suit and brought her full breast naked against his hard chest. Her moans filled his mouth, and she felt herself sag against him.

  “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Your house. Baltimore. A hotel. I don’t care, as long as you and I are the only ones there.”

  * * *

  She sat motionless beside him as the Jaguar raced toward the setting sun. She wondered if its now cool rays, hovering as if in silence over a declining sphere of the horizon, foretold what she would experience with Adam. Would their passion for each other peter out coldly like the dying sun? She thought of Gilbert Lewis, of B-H and her mother and the toll that thirty years with a broken heart had taken on her mother. The doctors hadn’t found anything wrong with her mother, because medical doctors didn’t have the tools

  with which to detect a broken heart. She couldn’t count on a life with Adam, but she would at least have this one night with him. She remembered the red feather and the note and forgot her fears, her anxiety. She realized that he had stopped the car and cut the motor.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me where I’ve taken you?”

  “You wouldn’t take me anywhere that I wouldn’t want to be,” she replied, and she meant it.

  “You’re sure?”

  “It’s one of the few things I am sure of right now.” She paused, trying to decide whether to thank him for the feather and his note. Uncertain about it, she didn’t mention his gift, but said, “And if I decide I want to leave here or anywhere else you take me, I only have to tell you.”

  Adam’s right thumb and index finger stroked his chin in slow sweeps. “Why are you so certain?”

  She stared into his eyes, masculine eyes that mesmerized, that twinkled for no reason, and that demanded confidence. In minutes she would give herself over to his keeping, so she spoke with honesty and candor.

  “I’m not positive of much where men are concerned, Adam, but you’re the rock of Gibraltar, and I’d go anywhere with you.”

  She knew from his demeanor that her words had affected him. He spoke in a slow, deliberate manner, as though to make certain of his ground. “You’re not setting me up, are you?” He got out and started around the car to open the door for her, but she met him in front of the hood.

  “Setting you up? Haven’t I always said precisely what I mean?” Heat coiled in the
seat of her passion as he growled deep in his throat and locked his arms around her.

  “Tell me more of what you mean.”

  She couldn’t believe that he needed the assurance, that he could be vulnerable. With her head against his shoulder in symbolic submission, she told him, “I mean the earth wouldn’t dare quake when I’m with you.”

  He looked hard at her, picked her up, and carried her into his lodge on the bank of the Potomac River.

  * * *

  She glanced around at her surroundings when he set her down, but he didn’t let her dwell on it. His fingers under her chin brought her lips within an inch of his, and she breathed in his words—“sweet, soft”—just before her body absorbed the shock of his tender kiss. On more than one occasion he had let her feel his power, his maleness, and he’d been tender with her, too, but he hadn’t drugged her with this sweet supplication. Hadn’t whispered loving words of encouragement, assuring her that her beauty beguiled him, that she was all a man could want in a woman.

  “I’ve never known a woman like you,” he whispered as she hid her face in his shoulder until he tipped up her chin and kissed her eyes.

  “Trust me, sweetheart. I want your happiness more than my own.” Her heart believed him, and she slumped against him in submission. “I need to love you,” he murmured, trailing kisses over her neck and collarbone, easing off her coat, “but I need to know that I’m giving you what you want, what satisfies you.” She held him closer, loving the feel of his lips skimming over her flesh, barely touching her, inflaming her. Unsure of herself and of her ability to please him, she fought her body’s urge to twist itself around him, to issue its own sensuous invitation. Fought until her nipples beaded and her hips moved forward in an urgent plea.

  “Ah, Melissa. My woman! I need you.” She could no longer resist her body’s wild hunger and its searing demand that triggered her frantic undulations when she felt him hot and hard against her belly.

  “Slow down, baby, and let me get a handle on this.” Out of control now, her hands stroked him inside his shirt in her eagerness to explore him, to know him. And her fingers became bolder, toying with his nipple until his unbridled moan thrilled her with the knowledge that she could excite him so easily. She looped her arms around his neck and took from his mouth the kiss that she needed. Her heart skidded, and she buried her face against his throat as he cradled her to him and started up the stairs. At the top he stepped away from her, giving her a chance to change her mind, and between quick, short breaths, asked her: “Are you sure this is what you want?” Her smile must have reassured him, for he kissed her quickly and by the time they reached his bedroom, she wore only her bathing suit,

  He threw back the bed covers with one hand without releasing her, and with exquisite care, placed her in his bed. He undressed himself quickly, removed her bathing suit with gentle hands, lay down beside her, and took her to him. Her body screamed in frustration as his talented, knowing assault on her senses began.

  “Your breasts make my mouth water,” he murmured, and she cried out as he circled a nipple with his tongue, pulled it into his mouth, and sucked it greedily. She swung her hips eagerly up to him. Seeking, begging. But he retained control of their loving, nourishing himself at her breast while his hand skimmed slowly down her body, tantalizingly, until he reached her woman’s treasure.

  “Adam, please!” she begged. “I think I’ll die if you don’t do something to me.” He released her breast, bringing a groan from her, and with his tongue deep in her mouth, began to simulate the act of love. She couldn’t restrain herself any longer, and her hips undulated wildly, as his knowing fingers began their witchery, working their magic.

  “Adam,” she pleaded, “I need you.” He quickened his strokes, heightening her pleasure while he murmured sweet, tender words of encouragement. She shivered as her heart hammered out an erratic rhythm, and an unfamiliar need seared the center of her passion, dampening her for his entry. Her love nectar poured out of her, flowing over his fingers, and she felt the involuntary movement of his steel-like erection against her thigh. Excited beyond reason, impatient to know him, all of him, she reached for him to bring him into her, but he resisted.

  “In a minute, baby. This is the most important thing that will ever happen to us,” he whispered. With skill and more patience than he’d probably thought he would need, he joined them. Afterward she nestled close to him, shaken by the intensity of her feelings, by the sense that he had become a part of her. She had already forgotten the pain of his penetration, but the awesome control and tender guidance with which he had accomplished the ultimate surrender of herself to him would remain forever with her. Her whole body had quivered uncontrollably in its final submission to him. She wanted to stay with him always.

  * * *

  Adam lay on his back and held Melissa close to his side. His lips brushed her hair as she relaxed against him in trusting slumber. He closed his eyes and suppressed a sigh. How had she come to mean so much to him? He’d controlled his release, because he hadn’t wanted her to know how deeply she moved him. Hadn’t wanted her to witness the effect that the powerful climax she drove him to would have on him. He’d feared that even in her innocence she would have recognized her power over him. And he had sworn never to give another woman the power to ring his bell. But if he wasn’t careful, Melissa could do that.

  She threw her left leg over his groin, and he sucked in his breath, his appetite for her whetted but far from sated. He tried to come to terms with her having been a virgin. His first. He wouldn’t have thought that would mean anything to him, but it did. When his first affair had crashed around him, he’d been young, still in his teens and, as youth are wont to do, he’d mended easily. This was different. He was no longer a boy, but a man who knew the value of the kind of loving he’d just had with Melissa and who had sense enough to realize that he’d probably never find it in another woman. She wasn’t as sophisticated as he’d once thought, and lovely as she was, if she was a virgin at twenty-eight, she had to care a lot to allow him to be her first man.

  If he told her about his first sexual encounter, would she forgive him? And what would she say about his misdeed at age sixteen when he got his revenge? He doubted that she would overlook either. Feeling the need to be closer to her, he pulled her over on top of him, and she buried her face in his shoulder and went back to sleep. His grip on her tightened; how could he let her go? But what if she were in cahoots with whoever was ruining his family’s business? He wanted her but for how long? Vexed with himself, he laid her on her back and tried to focus on the problem he’d caused himself. Why hadn’t he straightened it out, as he’d intended, before he made love with her. Lovemaking so explosive as they’d just experienced didn’t end after one session, and a man didn’t offer Melissa Grant a one-night stand.

  He felt her shift beside him and sit up. “Adam,” she whispered as she leaned over him, “we’ve done a dangerous thing. We could rekindle that awful feud between our families.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think it’ll reach its past furor. It’s worth watching, but there’s no fertile ground for it.”

  She nuzzled his neck and ran her hands over his broad chest. “No? Speak to your uncle B-H, and ask him if I’m right.”

  His hand stroked her tangled curls, and his gaze roamed over her lovely, sepia face. He wanted to know what she felt for him, but if he asked and she told him, he’d have to reciprocate. So he didn’t ask her. “If you know something about this feud that you think I don’t, tell me.”

  “Speak to your uncle. I’d rather he told you. You know, Adam, my father rides me constantly about you. He’s never had any genuinely fatherly feelings for me, but he hates you and your folks so much that he’s suddenly become very protective of me.”

  Adam propped himself up on his left elbow. “What do you mean, Rafer has no feeling for you. I thought you said—”

  She spoke quickly. “I couldn’t tell you then, and I hated misleading you. I’m his
property, a member of his family, that’s all.”

  He crooked his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “It’s his loss, Melissa. Any father should be proud to have you for a daughter.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “What about us, Melissa? What do you see ahead for us?” Regret laced her voice as she recited her misgivings, her belief that they’d had as much as they could ever have.

  “Do you mean that?”

  “I don’t want it to be true, but it’s what I believe. I don’t expect more, because our families come first.”

  “You’re not speaking for me. If you’re not prepared to deal with your family, I guess this is it.”

  She got up. “You can’t harness the Atlantic, Adam.”

  “No,” he answered, pulling on his fatigues, “but you can ride the waves. Let’s go, Melissa, before we manage to paint this black.”

  As though upon reflection and with apparent reluctance, he grasped the back of her neck with his large hand and guided her to face him. Standing mere inches from him, she made herself look into his penetrating gaze, and his naked passion. His unshielded want jolted her. Her arms encircled his neck, and her body found its haven in his tight embrace as she molded herself to him.

  He held her until her rapid breathing subsided, and she felt his fingers tilt her chin upward until she looked into his twinkling eyes.

  “This isn’t over, baby. It may never be over. We didn’t seek this, and I don’t think we wanted it, but it found us and we have to deal with it. And we have to decide whether we’re going to do that together or separately.” She started to speak, but he shushed her. “We’re too raw right now, and there are too many unanswered questions and unsolved problems—at least from where I stand, so let’s think about this.” He kissed her without passion.