Why am I excited? she mused as she regarded the room. This is just another dinner with Roarke, nothing more, nothing less. She slowly limped over to the table in front of the balcony window and admired the crystal vase and candleholders in the center. The room was filled with an air of expectancy, but what was she expecting?
She lit the two tall tapers and watched as the flames flickered to life and twinkled on the crystal. Two perfect roses of deep blood red poised in the crystal vase seemed to flutter under the flames' reflections.
A light tap on the door caused a sharp intake of her breath. The door opened slowly and her heart quivered in her breast. Roarke was so handsome, her mind raced. His blue eyes sparkled when he spied her standing in the glow of the candles. The sheen of his deep burgundy silk shirt strained across the muscular breadth of his chest.
"You look lovely, Sam." He moved smoothly across the room toward her and took her hand in his and lightly kissed the palm. "I have to say, we've celebrated many things, Sara, but this is the first time we've ever celebrated an event of such magnitude. How is your ankle feeling?"
Sara blushed slightly, not from his teasing, but from the touch of his lips on her hand. "It's fine, although I still have to use this"—she pointed to the cane beside her chair—"for a few weeks. But it's great to have a little more mobility." She sat down and motioned for Roarke to join her at the table.
He glanced at the table and the champagne bucket set beside the empty chair. Reaching over, he took the bottle from its icy nest. "When Martha said we were going to celebrate, she really meant it, didn't she?" He pried at the cork and, laughing as it popped, he poured two glasses and handed one to her. Smiling slightly he said, "They're really spoiling you, aren't they? We haven't had champagne since…" A disturbed look momentarily flashed in his eyes and he stopped speaking.
Sara had been mesmerized by the touch of his lips on her palm and the low sound of his voice. When Roarke extended his glass toward her, she mentally forced herself to come out of the spell that had been cast. She tapped her glass against his and took a sip of the cold wine, grateful for the chill in her throat because it brought her back to reality. "Martha and Bradley have gone to a lot of trouble, and if they're spoiling me, I love it." She drank some more of the wine and the tingling started to warm her strangely icy body. Baffled, Sara thought, Why am I so dazed by all of this? Why do I have these surges of anticipation running through me? What am I anticipating anyway?
Sara looked around her. The room was bathed in a soft golden glow. The only other light in the room besides the candles was the lamp at her bedside. Sara wistfully reflected—if only life could be bathed in a warm golden glow, how nice it would be. The golden warmth smoothed over all the harshness. Candlelight has an effect on people that makes them speak in hushed tones and softens the hard edges of life, the side of life no one wants to admit is there but is reality. Sara shook herself out of her dreaming when she realized Roarke was speaking to her. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" She looked over at him.
"I said, a penny for your thoughts." Roarke leaned back in his chair, his eyes hooded by his long dark lashes.
"I was thinking about candlelight. It makes everything seem so much warmer. Did you ever notice there are no harsh lines in candlelight? Everything is smoothed out and softened." Sara stopped self-consciously. Her candlelight philosophy sounded so absurd when she said it out loud.
Roarke seemed amused. "Candlelight also makes dark corners and some people would be frightened by that. The kind of people who have to have everything right out in the open, with every corner well lit, every secret exposed. Don't dark corners frighten you?" Roarke looked at her intently.
"Dark corners! Roarke, don't you understand my whole life, my whole existence is one large dark corner." Getting up from her chair, Sara grasped her cane and limped over to the balcony window. "I know you find all this hard to believe, but it's true. You think I'm playing some kind of terrible game, but I tell you, I'm not." Sara turned toward the window so he couldn't see the tears that had gathered in her eyes.
Roarke leaped to his feet and stood in front of her. He placed his hands on her shoulders. "Look at me, Sara," he demanded.
She couldn't disregard the command in his voice. Slowly she turned with the faint pressure of his hands and looked deeply into his eyes. Her eyes sparkled in the glow of the candlelight, the unshed tears barely contained, misery echoing in every line of her thin face.
Roarke moved his hand from her shoulder and cradled her face with his palm. "Sara…" he groaned. Gently he gathered her into his arms and held her head against his heart. "Sara, I want to believe in you, I want to trust you again."
Sara pulled away and raised her face to look at him. "Why can't you believe in me? What did I do to you to make you doubt me? Please tell me, I have to understand what there was about me that would make you distrust me. Please, Roarke, please! Can't you understand I need to know?" Sara's eyes pleaded with him, her hands gripping his forearms.
Again he moaned her name and gently pulled her to him, his face an anguished mask.
There was a tap on the door and Bradley and Martha came in with their meal. Roarke drew away from Sara and she sagged inwardly, deflated from frustration, wondering what he had been going to do or say. It was the first time since she had come home that he'd been this open with her—open enough at least for her to feel sufficiently safe to expose her fears to him. They went back to the table and sat in silence while Bradley pushed the cart over to them.
Martha busily uncovered dishes and Bradley checked the champagne bottle to see if it needed replacing. Sara could barely control the urge to cry and tried to concentrate on Martha's chatter about the dinner, hoping to divert her stormy thoughts.
Roarke seemed to share her frustration; his movements were abrupt as he lit a cigarette. "Martha, Bradley, thank you for this, however, we will serve ourselves. I'll ring if we should need anything else."
What was his hurry to get rid of them? It didn't matter if they were alone or not. In Sara's mind their moment had been ruined and she despaired of ever having another chance to convince Roarke that he could trust her.
He talked with her about the weather and other trivial matters, but he seemed to be deliberately skirting the subject of the past. Sara became more impatient while listening to his trivial conversation. This was the side of him she had become accustomed to seeing these past weeks. But she didn't want impersonal charm, she wanted honesty.
"Sara, you have to eat more. All you're doing is moving your food around on your plate. You haven't eaten more than a few bites. You'll be back in the hospital if you don't put on some weight soon."
"I just don't have very much of an appetite. Food seems to stick in my throat." Sara threw her napkin on the table. "I think I'll turn on the news." She started to rise from her chair.
Roarke leaned back, watching her intently. "You're doing a lot of things you never did before. Like staring at that TV. You always said television was a waste of time and turned people into mindless zombies." Roarke's cigarette smoke hid his face, and Sara couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic.
She shrunk back in her chair like a balloon that had lost its air. "I've told you a thousand times that I don't know what I did before."
Roarke stubbed out his cigarette and seemed to be in deep thought. A frown creased his handsome forehead and his lips pursed tightly. His face was a closed book; he obviously wanted to keep his thoughts to himself.
CHAPTER FIVE
Roarke poured them more champagne and stood up and prowled around the room sipping his drink. Sara watched him, turning her head as he walked behind her chair. Roarke came back to the table and scooped up the bottle and emptied the remaining champagne into his glass then continued his restless roaming. He picked up the sketch pad lying on the chaise and sat down, setting his glass on the floor beside him. Throwing back the heavy cover, his eyes narrowed as he examined the sketch of his face. Glancing over at Sara, he took the loos
e page out of the pad and his face clouded when he noticed the second sketch. Tearing the other sheet of paper from the pad, he held the two sketches at arm's length and studied them.
In a low, hoarse rasp, he asked, "When did you do these?" He laid them on the chaise beside him and reached down to pick up his glass.
"This afternoon."
"Both of them?"
"Yes."
Roarke looked over at her, his shadowed face a graphic sculpture of sorrow. "Why are there two?" he said, holding them up again in front of him.
"Well," Sara paused, "I was out on the balcony and had a vivid flashback and when I came out of it, I had drawn one of them."
"And the other?"
"I… I did it later," she lowered her head.
He studied them again, absorbed with his thoughts for a few minutes then suddenly he added, "You mean you don't remember doing one of them? Which one?"
She pointed to the drawing of the smiling Roarke in his left hand. "That one."
Again he examined the two sketches. Finally he held up the sketch he clutched in his right hand, the taut, tense face staring back at him. "My God, Sara, is this how you see me? Do I really appear so hard to you?"
Sara got out of her chair, clasped the cane, and went over to stand in front of him. "I don't know what to say, Roarke. I don't want to hurt your feelings but… yes, you do. I feel that every time I ask you anything about us, you close yourself off from me. I felt like your prisoner at first and now I'm feeling like your guest, not your wife. I have never felt that you've treated me like your wife, let alone someone who belongs in this house. I've had to put up with it because I don't know what to do or where to go. When I saw what I had drawn at first, I was angry because I don't remember ever seeing you look like that and… and in my anger and frustration, I drew that." She pointed to the picture.
Roarke jumped to his feet and threw his arms around her, pulling her roughly to his chest. "My poor Sara, my poor darling. Have I really been that rotten? I've tried to explain to you how confused I am, but I guess I didn't do a very good job of it." His lips touched her forehead. "I'm sorry, Sara." His voice was husky. "I never meant to hurt you so much. I never meant to make you feel like a prisoner. Sara, you don't know how I have to force myself to stay away from your room at night. I stand by your door, listening for any sound, any excuse to come in to you."
"Why haven't you told me this before? Can't you see how much I need you? Haven't I begged you for answers?" She tried to twist out of the steel arms that held her snugly pressed against his broad chest.
"I know you need me, Sara, but I'm not talking about that kind of need. I'm talking about my need to hold you close, to love you. It drives me crazy knowing you're sleeping across the hall, so near yet so far away from me." He lowered his head and brushed his lips across hers.
She jerked her face away. "I know that need, Roarke, I'm very familiar with it. I'm confused by my mixed feelings about you though, my reactions when you touch me. It's like my body remembers you while my mind doesn't. But how can you expect me to give into that instinct when I feel as though you've built a wall between us? You're the one who put me across the hall from you. I didn't."
Roarke tilted her face up. She saw the passion and hurt in his eyes. Her heart picked up its beat and the blood roared in her ears as he said softly, "Let me love you, Sara. Let me show you how I feel, I need you so much."
Roarke pulled her still more tightly against him and Sara hesitantly slid her arms around his waist, lured by his words. Bringing his face close to hers, he placed soft lingering kisses on her cheeks, and Sara could feel her face becoming warm wherever his lips touched her skin. Then his lips tenderly sought hers. He kissed her gently at first but soon hungrily entwined their bodies in a passionate embrace. His lips were soft but firm and tasted sweet. The pressure slowly parted her lips and Roarke's questing tongue invited hers to join his, and as their tongues tentatively touched, she found herself, surprisingly, responding with equal fervor. His hand slipped around and caressed her throat, then she could feel it slide downward to her breasts.
Sara's awakened passion surged through her body. She molded herself to him; the need to have him make love to her overpowered her defenses. Clinging to him, her hands clutching his back, she tried to draw him even closer to her. The familiarity of his kiss, his body, and her response to him shook her to the depth of her soul.
Slowly he moved her jacket off her shoulders and she dropped her arms to let it slide to the floor. Urgently she grasped his body with her hands again, digging her nails into the silky material of his shirt. He kissed the hollow of her throat and ran his tongue along her shoulder. His lips left a trail of fire that ended at her mouth, and his hand slipped the strap of her dress along the soft skin of her upper arm. Stroking her bared breast with his fingertips, he ran kisses down the valley between them and then his lips softly caressed the mounds of silken flesh. Sara didn't want him to stop. She could feel the warmth from his touch rising, slowly, insistently, within her. Her need for him was uppermost in her mind, and she knew her submission to him was absolute.
Roarke's searching lips ceased their exploration and he drew away from her slightly. For one aching moment Sara thought Roarke had decided to blind himself to her needs as he had since she had awakened in the hospital. His eyes questioned hers and she knew her consuming desire to be close to him glowed from her eyes and the answer to his unspoken question was there for him to see. He gently slipped the other strap off her shoulder and his lips lightly touched the skin where the strap had lain, as his hand played with the zipper in the back. The dress slithered down her body and curled around her feet, lying like a blue shadow on the carpet.
"Sara, it's been so long since I've held you," he murmured as he swept her into his arms and carried her over to the bed and lay her down. "Your body is still the silky softness I remember." His fingers tickled over her skin. "Its perfection has haunted me and has made me want you again and again." The tenderness of his touch and his husky voice, filled with desire, held Sara spellbound.
She closed her eyes. She wanted to imprint every word, every sensation into her mind. She needed him, his love, his body, the body that hers remembered. Her need was so strong, it made her tremble. Her body moved sinuously under his touch, rising and falling to the concerto that was being played on her nerves. She felt the warmth of his fingers trace her jawline and earlobes and twine themselves in her long hair. The skin on her body tensed and relaxed, pulsating as the knowing hands and fingers probed and stroked. Slowly she opened her eyes when the sensations that had been bombarding her senses suddenly stopped. Roarke was standing beside the bed removing his clothes and she watched, 'entranced as his smooth muscular body, a deep bronze in the low lamplight, was revealed.
"Roarke," Sara whispered impatiently through passion-swollen lips. "Touch me, caress me, love me!"
He gazed into her half-closed eyes as he leaned over her, moving closer and closer. Then his mouth sought hers again and his embrace crushed her against him, holding her in a viselike grip. "Sara," he moaned, his lips moving on her lips as he gasped the words, his breath softly mingling with hers. "You're the only woman who could ever make me feel this way. You drive me crazy with desire. I need you so badly." Bare flesh pressed bare flesh, and Sara could feel his burgeoning desire.
As he ran his hands over her, her flesh ignited and inflamed her consciousness. His lips and tongue ran down across her breasts, circling the tip of each and then moved downward across her stomach.
Sara was enthralled, her senses drugged. She was no longer a rational human being. She was nothing but total sensation, a heat that had no fire, a throbbing body with no mind, no reason, just uncontrollable passion. Moaning, and grasping his wavy hair with her hands, the waves of heat rushed through her and her stomach tightened under the force of her tension. Cradling his face with her hands and curving her body, she drew his lips to meet hers. Her voice, guttural with ecstasy, begged, "Roarke, I wa
nt you… now!"
She clenched her arms around his strong torso and, in her urgency, controlled their tempo. She ascended the fiery peak and, meeting him there, they spiraled down the other side together.
Roarke held her close for a long time and Sara curled languidly against him. For the first time in weeks she felt at peace. Finally she had a sense of belonging. Right now her dark corners held no fear. He kissed the top of her head and lifted her chin, and their eyes met.
If only they could hold on to this afterglow and stay this close. She wondered if these shared emotions could be nurtured and transplanted into their relationship outside the bedroom. If they could, maybe she could find her way to the past and Roarke could trust her again.
Tentatively she reached over and ran her fingertips over his chest, tracing the muscles that glowed in the candlelight, and she played with the dark hairs that covered the sensitive skin. How could I have forgotten him?
Roarke leaned over and kissed her forehead then sat up against the headboard. He fumbled around for a cigarette on the tabletop, and when he couldn't find one, got out of bed. He picked up his trousers from the floor where they had been dropped in his earlier haste. Searching in the pockets, he found the pack, lit a cigarette, then sat back down beside her..
Sara sat up, pulling the sheet across her body. "Roarke, was it always this good between us?" she whispered.
The muscled body swung around and Roarke stared at her, his brows meshed together. Taking a deep drag on the cigarette, he said, "Don't you remember? That was the one great thing we shared. You didn't act like you forgot how to make love." He stood up and, with a sharp backward glance, started walking toward the bathroom, gathering his clothes as he went.
Flinging her hand out to him in a pleading gesture, Sara called, "Please, don't walk away! I don't remember!"
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