The Lady and the Lion

by Kay Hooper

  “Why not a promise, Cy? Every woman needs that, even if it’s an empty one.”

  “It isn’t in him to make empty promises, my sweet.” Cyrus smiled at his own delicate and lovely lady, his wise dark eyes unshuttered for her. Only for her. “He believes it would hurt her less if he prevents her from caring about him.”

  “He’s wrong,” Julia said.

  “Yes. But he’ll have to discover it for himself. And he’ll have to discover he can’t hide from her, not for long. She’s too close.”

  “And he’s afraid of closeness?”

  His smile dying, Cyrus said, “He has reason. The sword over his head can endanger them both. If he makes a single mistake, speaks one wrong word, the men he’s after will kill him. He doesn’t want that part of his life to touch her, doesn’t want that peril threatening her.”

  A bit hesitantly, Julia said, “Perhaps this isn’t the right time for them.”

  Cyrus was smiling again, and his rich, powerful voice was tranquil. “It’s the perfect time, sweet. Destiny commands. They are both at crossroads in their lives, where it was intended they should meet. All their experiences, particularly in the last year, have shaped them to face each other now.”

  “Can’t we help?”

  “We have. The connecting doors between their suites are unlocked.”

  Julia thought about that. “Such a little thing.”

  “No, sweet. An important thing. He must open the door from his side; she must open the door from her side.”

  She smiled slowly. “Fortune. A hypothetical guiding force. Did you know you were hypothetical, Cy?”

  The white-haired, snowy-bearded, very old man looked so innocent that he would have deceived anyone. Except her. “Why, no, love, I didn’t. I just like to meddle in other people’s business, that’s all.”

  —

  During those girlhood daydreams when she had imagined falling in love, Erin had never considered doing so with the wrong man. He had always been a prince, naturally, untitled but the genuine article. And, of course, had adored her in return. Beyond that, he had laid claim to all the virtues a girl could want in her man, presenting her with an unscarred heart, a personality without complexities, and an unshadowed smile.

  Only distantly aware of salt spray clinging to her and sand on her bare feet, Erin undressed and showered, then donned a silk nightgown and negligee. She sat on the edge of her bed and used her travel dryer on her wet hair, letting it dry wild because that was how she felt. She tried not to think, almost numb from the emotional battering of the day, but she couldn’t stop the disjointed thoughts and feelings.

  Keith was no bloodless fairy-tale prince born in a girl’s uncomplicated heart. No innocent girl could ever have created him, or would have known what to do with him if she had. He was no man for a naive girl; there was too much of him, too much force, too much pain and anger, too many secrets.

  But Erin wasn’t naive or innocent, except in one strictly technical sense. The girl who had dreamed those chaste and simple dreams had grown into a woman well aware of the fact that men weren’t princes. She knew happy endings weren’t gifts, but something earned and never without a price. She even knew that sometimes a happy ending was beyond reach.

  She knew.

  The loud hum of the hair dryer died into silence, and she shook back her thick hair without caring what it looked like. Putting the dryer aside, she rose to her feet and wandered out into the dimly lighted sitting room. She didn’t go near the balcony, but found herself gazing at those other doors, the ones that opened into his suite.

  “Idiot,” she murmured, her own voice startling her a little in the silence of the room. “Don’t be one. Just don’t. So what if you love him? That’s as mad as all the rest. The last thing he wants from you is love. He wouldn’t even be kind, he said so.”

  But he wouldn’t be cruel.

  She tried to ignore the wistful little voice in her head, tried to convince herself that getting on the plane tomorrow would be the best thing she could do. He was shut away, and wouldn’t open for her.

  You could try.

  What would she have when it was over? Scars on a part of her no one would see. Memories. She could, perhaps and in time, forget Keith, but if they were lovers, would she ever be able to forget him then?

  Do you want to?

  “No.” She heard her voice, the instant denial, and knew it was true. She didn’t want to forget Keith, no matter what the cost. And she couldn’t walk away. She had to take the risk, had to take what he offered and gamble that she could build on it somehow.

  Her decision made, the chaos in her mind settled down instantly. Any decision is better than none, she mused, remembering her father’s oft-repeated words. It was a fleeting thought, because all her attention was focused on those closed double doors. Locked, probably; she knew they had been when she’d first arrived, because she had checked. Still, she squared her shoulders and walked over to them, putting one hand on the right doorknob and turning it.

  Not locked.

  On the point of drawing the door open, Erin hesitated. His side would be closed, and he had to open it. Which meant she’d have to knock. What could she say to him? After she’d run from him so desperately on the beach, what could she possibly say? I changed my mind?

  Unnerved, but refusing to let the hesitation throw her back into painful confusion, she drew the door open. At first, she thought his side was closed, but then she realized it was ajar a couple of inches. Was he so sure of her? Or had the maid simply been careless?

  She was tired of questions, at least for today. Pushing his door open, she stepped quietly into his suite. There was a dim light coming from the bedroom, but he wasn’t in that room. The balcony doors were standing open and he was out there, on the balcony, silhouetted in moonlight.

  Her bridges burned behind her, Erin walked silently and steadily through the sitting room until she reached the open doorway. His back was to her and he was naked from the waist up, wearing sweatpants, barefoot like her.

  “Keith?”

  When he heard her voice, it was almost as if this long, tense day had never happened. Her sweet voice on a dark balcony…but the moonlight was bright, and it wasn’t even midnight, and today had happened. Now he couldn’t draw peace from her voice, because that was no longer enough. Instead, his heart hammered in his chest and it was hard to breathe evenly, and he wanted her so fiercely he could hardly bear it.

  He turned slowly and saw her standing in the doorway, starkly beautiful in the moonlight, her bright hair painted dark but gleaming and tousled around her face. Her eyes were huge, colorless, like bottomless wells. She was dressed for bed. Dressed for him.

  Keith didn’t remember moving, but suddenly he was standing before her, his hands lifting to her shoulders, and he didn’t think he’d be able to let go of her this time.

  “Are you sure?” he demanded, his voice harsh.

  She didn’t flinch from the sound, and her arms went up around his neck as she stepped closer. “I’m sure.” It was hardly more than a whisper, but there was no uncertainty, and Keith had no will left to ask the question again.

  It felt as if something had broken inside him, some restraining wall around the desire that had smoldered there since he’d first spoken to her. He bent slightly from the waist, both his arms wrapping around her, and when he straightened he had lifted her completely off her feet. He heard her catch her breath, and then his mouth covered hers and he heard only the hot roaring of his own blood in his veins.

  Erin heard—felt—a pounding, but didn’t know if it was her heart or his. Wrapped in his powerful arms and almost crushed against his immense chest, she felt so surrounded by him that they might have had only one heart between them. Her entire body seemed to soften and mold itself to his, all her senses responding wildly to the touch of him. And the taste of him. His mouth was hot and hard on hers, moving with a fierce, driven insistence that would have seduced a stone statue.

  Sh
e wasn’t made of stone. Her flesh was heating, yielding, her mouth opening eagerly to invite a deeper exploration, and she heard that strange sound again, that purr of pleasure vibrating in the back of her throat. He shuddered against her, his arms tightening almost convulsively, and then he lifted his head to draw a ragged breath.

  She murmured a protest, her fingers twining in his thick hair as she tried to pull his head back down. But Keith was too impatient to be content with kisses. He shifted his hold on her and swung her up easily into his arms, leaving the balcony to stride toward his bedroom.

  Erin hadn’t been carried in her adult life, and she was surprised at the sensations. She wasn’t a small woman, yet Keith’s effortless power made her feel fragile. It was exciting and a little unnerving, and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  He set her on her feet beside the turned-down bed, the lamp on the nightstand providing a warm glow that showed her his hard, intent expression clearly. She had never seen desire in a man’s face, not like this, so potent and primitive and utterly male, and she was unprepared for the fiery jolt of her own senses in response. It made her knees go weak suddenly, all the strength rushing out of them, and she might have fallen if he hadn’t been holding her.

  But he was, his hands sliding down her back and curving over her bottom, holding her tightly against the pulsing fullness of his loins. A throbbing ache quivered through her, spreading outward from somewhere deep inside her shaking body, and she instinctively pressed herself closer because she knew only he could stop the tormenting pain. His mouth was moving over her throat, trailing fire, and she was already burning up, already so hot that she felt feverish and totally out of control.

  It was almost frightening, the heat radiating from her, as if he had lighted a furnace somewhere in the depths of her and she couldn’t contain the blaze, there was too much fuel. Her very flesh felt tight, almost hard, and so sensitized that even the pressure of her breasts against his chest was almost painful.

  His hands slid up her back, tugging the negligee off her shoulders, and she had to remove her arms from around his neck long enough to shrug the silk to the floor. She could feel him gathering the silky skirt of her long nightgown in his hands, drawing it up, and she shivered when the cool air touched her heated skin. Then one of his hands curved over her naked bottom, the slightly rough texture of his palm sensuously abrasive on her skin, and another shiver of pleasure rippled through her.

  A low groan burst from Keith, and he lifted his mouth from her throat and covered her lips. His tongue thrust deeply, met by soft touches of hers as she eagerly responded, and she was moving against him in a seeking way that made his desire spiral wildly to an intolerable pressure.

  Erin could feel that, as if there were something inside him clawing to get out, and though it seemed impossible for her fire to burn hotter, what she felt in him added more fuel. She couldn’t breathe, and her heart was pounding so fast and hard she knew it had to burst, it had to; it just wasn’t possible for a heart to race so frantically and not explode from the effort. But she couldn’t stop this, didn’t want to, and she would have fought like a wildcat if anyone else had tried.

  She wanted to say something when he finally ended that devastating kiss, to voice her astonishment or utter a plea she had no words for, or just to say his name, but all that would emerge was a soft sound she didn’t even recognize, another unfamiliar sound of pleasure. Keith didn’t wait for words. He drew the nightgown up over her head and tossed it carelessly aside, his brilliant violet eyes raking down her bare body with unshuttered hunger. Erin had never in her life stood naked before a man, but she was too dazed, too hungry herself, to feel embarrassment or self-consciousness.

  And he gave her no time to ponder any of it, even if she’d been capable of it. With another rough sound, he lifted her and placed her on the bed, then rapidly stripped off his sweatpants. Then he paused there for just a moment, looking down at her as she stared at him dazedly, as if he realized she needed to.

  Erin hadn’t expected to be surprised by him, not really. In a broad sense, she knew what a naked man looked like; she had lived in many countries far less modest than America when it came to nudity, and with friends had visited more than one European nightclub famous—or infamous—for risqué acts. But technical, detached knowledge was one thing, and in no way prepared her for what she felt when she looked at him.

  Until that moment, looking up at him from the bed, she had thought about only the emotional effects of becoming his lover. But it was impossible to gaze at his powerful body, gleaming bronze in the lamplight, and not think of the physical act. Her racing heart seemed to stop suddenly and then lurched once more into its impossible velocity, thudding madly in her chest. He was so big, so overwhelmingly, starkly male, his strength so vast that it made her vividly aware of what they were about to do and how vulnerable she was.

  An imposing man clothed, he was most impressive naked, as if the trappings of civilization had no place on his powerful frame. There was none of the overdeveloped bulges that made weight lifters look so unnatural; Keith’s hard body was packed with sinewy muscles that meant sheer, raw strength. Black hair covered his broad chest and arrowed down his flat stomach to the thicket over his loins, and her gaze clung there helplessly.

  Her entire body responded vibrantly to his arousal, the fire in her burning even hotter. But a pang of sudden nervousness shot through her, mixed with several emotional realizations as different as they were disturbing.

  Princes never took their clothes off, and dreamily chaste kisses didn’t begin to even hint at the reality of passion. The passion of a man and a woman. But this was real. And it was a little scary. She was going to be closer to him than she’d ever been to anyone, take him inside her; bear his weight, and after that nothing could ever be the same.

  For one fleeting instant, she wanted to beg him not to hurt her, wanted to warn him that she had never done this before, but then her eyes met the fierce heat in his and the words died unsaid. She wanted him, wanted this—and an intuitive certainty told her that he might stop even now, even if it half killed both of them, if she told him she was a virgin.

  He had made this her choice. And she chose.

  Unconsciously, she held one hand out to him, and his eyes flared savagely as he joined her on the bed. He kissed her, a deep and hungry kiss, one big hand touching her stomach and then sliding up over her ribs until it closed around her breast. Erin jerked, moaning into his mouth, her fingers digging into his shoulders convulsively. Her eyes remained closed, even when his mouth left hers to trail down her throat, because she felt so dizzy she knew the room would be spinning if she looked at it.

  She was biting her lip, trying to hold back the sounds rising up from inside her, all her senses focused on what he was doing to her. His lips moved over her breastbone, then explored the satiny slope of one breast while his hand slowly stroked the other. She could feel his fingers kneading gently, and when his thumb lightly brushed her taut nipple the touch jolted through her like an electrical shock. She barely had time to gasp before his mouth clamped down on the other nipple, and that hot, wet caress wrung a cry from deep inside her.

  The pleasure was so intense she thought she was going to shatter with it, so acute that it was actually painful. But it was a pain she endured helplessly, because her body was completely out of control, her senses raging wildly, the fire inside consuming her.

  “Keith…” It was barely more than a whisper, a breath of aching sound.

  Just his name, but he shuddered when he heard the husky sound of it and almost groaned aloud. As frantic as his own need was, the compulsive hunger for her was far more than an urgent desire to find release in the welcoming heat of her body. It was torture to hold back, to delay a completion his every screaming nerve demanded, but it was the sweetest torment he’d ever known. She was so responsive, and the varied textures of her slender body enticed all his senses to the point of madness. Her skin, heated with desire, was unbe
lievably soft and smooth, the firm muscles beneath supple and graceful. Her round breasts, flushed and swollen, filled his hands perfectly, and her tight coral-colored nipples almost pulsed in his mouth.

  He wanted it to last forever, but his entire body was so tense that it ached intolerably, all his muscles rigid with strain, and he knew if he delayed much longer he’d go out of his mind. Still, the need to go on touching her had to be satisfied, and he lifted his head to gaze down at her as his hand slid over her quivering stomach.

  “Look at me,” he whispered harshly, anything approaching a normal voice beyond him.

  Her eyes opened, darkened to emerald and dazed in her softly flushed face. Her hands moved to his neck and locked there, trying to pull him back down to her breast, and she murmured wordlessly. He resisted, wanting to see her face when he touched her, when his seeking fingers found the silky hair at the base of her belly. Her eyes widened, locked with his, and a gasp escaped her parted lips when he touched her. She was tense for a moment, but then her thighs relaxed and her eyes went sleepy, and a faint little sound purred in her throat.

  That sound…that throbbing little sound made him crazy. It seemed to flicker over his senses like a brush of fire and caused his heart to lurch. He bit back a groan, clamping his teeth together so hard his jaw ached, his fingers slowly probing her damp, swollen flesh, stroking the most exquisitely sensitive nerves in her body.

  Erin cried out softly, her body shuddering, and there was a look almost of panic in her eyes. “Don’t,” she whispered raggedly. “I can’t—”

  “Shh.” He kissed her, over and over, his touch driving her relentlessly toward an unfamiliar brink until she was almost sobbing. When he finally widened her legs gently and rose above her to slip between them, she could only cradle his hard body helplessly.

  She was so frantic by then that nothing could have shattered the spell of desire, but when she felt the sudden alien pressure, blunt and insistent, there was a split second of fear, as much of vulnerability as anything else. But she wanted this, wanted him, and nothing else was important. The fear vanished, pushed aside by her need for him, and all the starkly intimate sensations overwhelmed her.