Instead of her usual, unmanageable hairstyle, she had chosen to wear her hair in a crown of braids, as Analisa had done on the day they met. It was a style she had often worn in Corio, but felt far too plain for America. Having seen how elegant the simple style looked on Analisa, Rosa had hoped to achieve the same effect.
“I have brought food,” she announced, remembering Quentin, who stood just inside the door laden with covered plates. “Crostoli. My little friend in Busted Heel says they are cookies.” She shrugged, unsure if G.W.’s comparison was correct. “And I have also brought fresh bread with herbs and some tortellini.”
“How wonderful, Rosa. You should not have gone to so much trouble for us,” Analisa said graciously.
“Is not trouble for me,” Rosa assured them with a smile and shake of her head. She could not keep her glance from straying to the parlor beyond the wide archway. Was Kase willing to leave his room yet?
Caleb sensed her impatience to see his stepson. “Would you like to go up to see Kase? Anja has everything nearly ready, but take your time. We’ll eat in an hour.”
Rosa turned to Analisa. “Kase is not eating with us?”
The woman’s smile dimmed, and she looked at her husband for support. Caleb answered, “I’m afraid not, Rosa. He still hasn’t been downstairs. His stubborn pride won’t allow him to let us carry him down, and he refuses to let us celebrate up there with him.”
“Then I will eat in his room.” It seemed a simple enough solution until she watched them all exchange worried glances. “Is a problem?”
“Analisa didn’t tell him we invited you,” Caleb said softly, his voice apologetic. “We wanted to surprise him. We thought you might be able to entice him to come downstairs.”
“I see,” Rosa said. Suddenly the bountiful fullness of the day diminished. Kase had not sent for her. He did not even know she was joining the family. Everyone seemed to be waiting expectantly for her to do something, say anything to relieve the tension in the room.
“I will go up and surprise him, then,” she said, mustering her spirit and donning a wide if tremulous smile.
She lifted her skirt and carefully held it aside as she walked up the steps. Rosa could feel everyone in the hallway below watching her ascend the stairs, and for a moment she felt like a condemned prisoner walking toward her fate. She shook herself mentally and called to mind the scene she had envisioned in the sleigh. In a few moments she would be laughing at her fear.
Below her in the entry hall, Analisa Storm leaned back against her husband and called upon his steady strength. “I hope I have done the right thing,” she whispered.
“I do, too,” Caleb said. “I hate to see her hurt, but I know how our son is once he’s made up his mind.”
“Kase?”
Rosa stood just inside the door. Her gaze going directly to the bed, she found Kase missing. Then she heard a sound and turned to find him sitting near the fireplace in a straight-backed chair.
When she entered the room on the soft hush of velvet over rustling petticoats, Kase thought he had conjured her up. When she spoke his name aloud with the accent and inflection he knew so well, he was certain the vision was real, but he could not speak. He must have made some sound, for he watched her turn wide, startled eyes in his direction. She paused like a sparrow about to take wing before she crossed the room and stood close enough for him to become enveloped by the scent of her, a delicious, tempting scent that he could almost have sworn was vanilla.
“Hello.” Her voice cracked on the word and she was unable to say more.
“Buon giorno.”
“You speak good Italian,” Rosa said, longing to throw herself into his arms.
He let himself feast on the sight of her. The once oversized, baggy dress now fit her with maddening perfection showing off her full breasts and narrow waist. Zach’s words came back to haunt him and he stared hard at her. She looked thinner than when he’d seen her last. “I haven’t had much practice lately, though. You look”—he stopped short of saying ravishing — “nice.”
Nervously she ran her hands down the front of he skirt. “Grazie. Signora Flossie haltered my dress.”
Kase knew there was no use fighting the smile her innocently mistaken disclosure inspired.
Rosa’s heart tripped as she watched the familiar light blossom in his eyes and his sensual lips turn upward as he smiled.
“I think you mean she altered it for you. A halter is something a horse wears, Rose.” There, he thought. He had said her name aloud and nothing much had happened. Nothing except that the blood was surging through him in a way it had not in weeks. He still wanted her. Even his body was betraying him.
He did not ask her to sit down, but she sat in a chair across from him and stared at him for a moment, trying to gauge the extent of his recovery. He had regained his color; he had even smiled at her mistake.
“You, too, look nice,” she said, her words halting and suddenly awkward. “I am glad to see you are not in bed.”
He refrained from making a comment she knew she would not understand. “I’m feeling better every day. Still not walking, as you can see. But Caleb and Quentin insist on moving me around the room, so to keep them from nagging, I let them. It doesn’t seem to be doing much good, but then, it doesn’t hurt either.”
She nodded, hating his casual, offhand tone, wishing he would ask her to move closer, to sit beside him.
He stared back, wishing she would pull her chair closer to him.
They talked of Busted Heel. Kase asked after everyone he could think of, which was everyone in town, and Rosa told him all she knew. Things were slow now that the snow had come. Even the farmers from outlying homesteads had given up coming into town. Slick, Paddie, Flossie, and the girls kept her busy cooking for them. Floss had once again asked her to move in and cook for her exclusively now that winter had diminished the restaurant trade. Rosa told him she still refused.
“Stubborn as ever,” he said softly.
As you are, she wanted to respond, but she bit her tongue. “A person should take care for themselves.”
“Independent.”
“Sì. Independent.”
If it had not been awkward to do so, Kase would have been content to sit and stare, to memorize every detail of her features, from the way her lashes curled upward at the tips to the way her full lower lip tempted him to kiss it. Her eyes shone like two huge, evenly matched topazes beneath her fine, arched brows. He knew without touching her that her skin was as smooth as satin and as warm as the velvet she wore.
“I brought you some cookies,” she said, trying to break the spell his lazy gaze had cast over her.
“Thank you. I can’t wait to try them.”
“Your father said you will take dinner here. I will eat with you.”
“I don’t want you to miss the fun downstairs.”
“You have no wish to join them?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m getting used to it here. It’s a good place to think.” He watched her stiffen and straighten on the chair.
“You think of me?”
“Sometimes,” he lied. He could not tell her she was never out of his thoughts.
She tried to read the truth in his azure eyes, but his feelings were shuttered away. With every passing second, Rosa fought to ignore the tension building between them. It did no good for her to look away from his eyes, for everything about him made her want him more. The brilliant white shirt he was wearing only accentuated his smooth copper skin. His dark hair was neatly combed into place, no longer subjected to the wind that continually tossed the wayward, endearing lock over his forehead. The eyes, the nose, the lips she had come to love had not changed. It was the shuttered expression his features assumed—the cold, unswerving aloofness so reminiscent of the way he looked at her when they first met—that she could no longer stand.
She should never have come back.
—Abruptly Rosa stood. “I still love you,” she blurted out.
&nb
sp; “Rose, listen—”
She cut the space between them in two. “To give up is the coward’s way.”
“Rose, stop.”
She refused to beg, but she knew that if she had the least hope it would work, she was not too proud to try. This was her last chance. Soon he might be gone. She remembered what Flossie had said earlier: Some men are too proud to bend. Rosa leaned down, braced her hands on his shoulders, and pressed her lips against his.
Kase let her kiss him, but he steeled himself against the inevitable reaction. He kept his hands clamped around the edge of the chair seat, afraid to touch her, afraid of crushing her to him, of pouring out words of love.
When she did not end the kiss, but demanded more of him—deepened the pressure on his lips and played her tongue against the seam of his mouth—Kase felt his body come alive with sensations he had denied himself for far too long. The blood pulsed in his veins and surged into his loins with every heartbeat as his desire and need for Rose heightened. He fought against overwhelming need, refused to take advantage of her willingness when he knew it would only lead to pain.
Rosa let go of his shoulders and cradled his face between her palms. Now that she had tasted his lips, there was no turning back. She would make him love her, make him see that they belonged together forever. Under her unrelenting assault, his lips parted and she groaned with the pleasure of success as she slipped her tongue into the warm recesses of his mouth. Their tongues met and parted time after time as Kase and Rosa reveled in the reunion of senses.
His willpower crumbled as easily as dry leaves turned to dust underfoot. Kase enfolded her in his arms until he crushed her against him and she was lying across his lap.
Rosa melted into his embrace, her heart singing with joy. Kase loved her still. Just as she could not keep herself from loving him, he could not resist the temptation she offered. Aware of her position, she became suddenly wary, afraid of causing him pain or further injury, but when he pressed her closer and reached out to shift her against him until she was more comfortable, she felt the proof of his desire burgeoning beneath the pin-striped wool of his pants.
She slipped her arms about his neck and clung to him, afraid to speak for fear she might break the spell of love that bound them together. She knew that as long as she lived—whether she convinced him they belonged together or not—she would never forget this moment or the overwhelming desire and love that welled within her.
Kase knew he should stop himself, knew he should end the kiss and put aside the temptation she presented, but he could not stop himself any more than a starving man who had been invited to a banquet would deny himself food.
He groaned, half in protest, half in pleasure, when he felt her fingers loosen his waistband and then move down to free the buttons along the front of his pants. His throbbing member came to attention upon release and he heard her gasp when her warm fingertips tentatively touched his smooth, hard flesh.
She clung to him, eyes closed, lips seeking, as he held her there in his arms. Finally resigned to the fact that things had gone too far to be halted, Kase reached out and grasped her ankle, then ran his hand slowly along the gentle curve of her leg and up over the satin smoothness of her thigh until he reached the moist heated nest at the apex of her thighs.
Rosa was afraid to open her eyes for fear of finding that all she was experiencing was a dream, afraid that any moment he would reject her love again. Cradled in Kase’s strong embrace, she willed herself to relax and enjoy the sensations that were building inside her. She dared not think about his family gathered downstairs, or what Analisa or Caleb would say should they walk in and find her on his lap. It was as it had always been with this man; she could deny him nothing.
As he slipped his fingers inside her, Rosa hoped he was preparing the way for his own more intimate entrance. She clung to his neck and pulled herself closer to the throbbing shaft imprisoned between them. His fingers moved faster, his touch became more demanding as he sought to bring her to fulfillment without him.
Rosa groaned and wriggled closer to him. She heard him sigh. When he slowed his ministrations and began to work her pantalets down around her hips and past her thighs, she hid her smile against his lips. Soon now they would be one.
She pulled away and hid her face against his neck. Her breathing was rapid, as ragged as his own. She ran one hand down the front of his shirt. Lower, ever lower, her fingers explored until she came in contact with his shaft again. Rosa took full advantage of his silent consent. With trembling hands, she enfolded his pulsing, hardened member.
When he groaned aloud and breathed her name against her ear, tears welled behind her lowered lids. It was the sweetest sound she had ever heard.
“Please, Kase,” she pleaded softly. “Please love me.”
He carefully raised her heavy skirt until it was gathered about her waist. His hands steady and sure, Kase grasped Rosa by the hips and helped her stand. He turned her until she faced him, then urged her forward, until she straddled him. He closed his eyes as Rosa gently lowered herself, easing him into her honeyed inner depths. He pressed her down until he was sheathed fully inside, then clasped her to him, afraid to move, afraid that he would reach his peak before she had even neared her own.
Rosa kissed him again. As her body quivered in readiness, her mind reeled with the knowledge of what she had done. What they were doing. She turned the thoughts aside and ached for more, longing for the completion she craved, yet savoring every moment. As Kase sat immobile, encased inside her, Rosa realized that he was unable to move and bring her to climax. With her arms locked about his neck, she drew herself upward along his length and heard him catch his breath before she lowered herself again. Two, three, four more times she rose up and thrust downward until she heard his strangled cry.
White heat shot through Rosa as Kase grasped her hips hard, held her immobile and poured himself into her. When she started to cry out in ecstasy, he silenced her with his lips. Still, his precaution could not quell the explosion of release that tore through her.
Kase kissed her slowly, lingeringly, until the inner throbbing subsided. Rosa pulled back and rested her head against his broad shoulder. She gazed up into the crystal blue eyes that stared down into hers, drank in the sight and smell of him, then wet her lips with her tongue and smiled tremulously.
Kase thought she had never looked so beautiful as she did lying satiated and content in his arms.
Chapter
Twenty
He released her abruptly and in the most even, unfeeling tone he could manage said, “There’s water in the basin. You’ll want to wash up before you go downstairs.”
Rosa pushed away from Kase and stared at him in disbelief. “But—”
He steeled himself against the slowly building anguish he saw gathering in her eyes. “I’d help you up”—he said coldly—“but as you know, I can’t move.”
She held her breath, her shock a viable thing he could almost feel. Kase began to hate himself for what he had to do.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“This changes nothing, Rose.”
“You said that I must have a whole man. What we have just done proves to me that you are still a man. There is no need for you to go away.”
“There’s still the fact that I can’t walk. I can’t do even the simplest things for myself. I can’t work; I couldn’t protect you if I had to. You might think this is enough for now, but I don’t want to be around when you start hating me for the limitations I’d put on your life.”
“I care nothing for these things. They do not matter to me.”
“They matter to me. Would you please get up now?”
“Have you not enough love to trust me? I will never stop loving you.”
“That’s easy for you to say now. I’ve made up my mind.”
“You are a maiale, a pig. You think only of yourself.”
“Think what you want. Just get out and leave me alone.”
; She slapped him as hard as she could. “I hate you.”
His expression was emotionless. “Good.”
Humiliated, Rosa pushed herself up and away from him, then whirled around so as not to have to suffer the look on his face. The hem of her skirt dropped into place; then she nearly tripped over her pantalets as they tangled around her ankles. Her face aflame, Rosa bent and quickly pulled them up. Refusing to face him, she walked to the far side of the room and paused before the washstand.
He watched her walk away before he fastened the front of his trousers. Kase cleared his throat and finger-combed his hair into place. He longed to go to Rosa and hold her, to reassure her that it was best they parted this way—but if he could walk, if he could go to her, there would be no need to hurt her so.
Rosa found herself shaking. She tried to still the shudders that quaked through her, but found it impossible. She could feel him staring at her. Was he looking at her with disgust?
She refused to wash in front of him. There was no way she would humiliate herself any more than she had already. Determined to get out of the room while she still had the strength to do so, Rosa took a deep breath and whirled around.
Kase watched her straighten, tried to gauge her feelings when she turned toward him. His cool rejection had extinguished the glow in her eyes. Not only had the color in her cheeks flared but so had her anger. She was furious.
Good, he thought. Rose was a survivor. Her temper would see her through the next few hours and, he hoped, through the pain she would experience once the numbness left her. He only hoped it would be as easy for him.
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