“Nanara has that old bastard well in hand. No worries there. And Doc can take care of anything that comes up. For the rest of the day, you belong to me, and I will hear no arguments. Understood?”
He meant to be forceful and demanding. But the light in his eyes, the love that seeped out of him like heady perfume, stole the impact of his words. She threw him a mock salute anyway, a smile sneaking onto her face.
When was the last time she’d been happy? She couldn’t remember exactly, but it had been a very long time. She made no assumptions that it would last.
Eventually, Paul would grow tired of her and move on to the woman he might eventually marry. But for now, she’d allow him to replace all of the bitter memories with new ones. This time, she had her eyes open. This time, she wouldn’t be hurt.
At least, not for a while. “Where should we picnic?”
“Right here. I’m not letting you out of that bed for at least a day.”
He was true to his word. They spent the afternoon sipping wine and feeding each other bits of fruit. They played cards, Helen defeating him in three straight sets of rummy, while he earned a small fortune in mock bets over a poker match that lasted more than two hours. In between, they made love, rising to a passion Helen had never known. It seemed as if the world had finally agreed to her existence. She belonged to someone. She belonged somewhere. She wasn’t the dressed-up doll of a socialite mother. She wasn’t a decoration on the arm of a man who didn’t care about her.
She was in love.
Nanara sat in front of the window in Djuru’s room, looking into the back garden where Doc grew his amazing flowers. They were quite lovely, with the bright red and yellow petals. She’d decided she liked roses.
Behind her, Djuru slept soundly. The medicine she’d given him for the pain in his leg was responsible for that. He’d been sleeping for four hours, so she’d made her way back into his room, expecting him to wake any time as the pain returned. Besides, the quiet was nice. She’d spent most of that four hours with Marla McIntyre, who often visited the clinic these days, and the little tyke had liked to talk her ears off. But it was unavoidable. Helen had abandoned the clinic, at least for a day or two. Nanara had met Mrs. Stanwood and could hardly blame Helen for finding shelter from the storm.
The sheets rustled, and Nanara drew her attention away from the window. She brought the chair next to the bed and folded her hands in her lap. It was a necessary precaution. Otherwise, she’d be tempted to draw her touch over the lines of Djuru’s face. His wide brow and amazing eyes made his entire face seem so open, so expressive. He had a defined, square jaw, and his lips were so full, she was tempted to taste them as he slept.
Who would know?
Her stomach fluttered.
She’d been in love with Djuru since they were children, but always from afar. They belonged to different clans, but had played together often. When she reached her woman-time, they’d been told they would soon marry. She’d been thrilled! The problem was that Djuru didn’t like the idea. He hadn’t liked her. At all.
By the time they were old enough to be married, he’d decided he wanted to be with a white woman. She supposed it made sense, since his own mother had been white. But he was all Aboriginal, from the ideals he lived by, to the fights he fought to bring equal rights to the black man. The only things that indicated his mixed heritage were the lighter color of his skin, almost like the coffee with cream that Doc sipped on each morning, and the greenish-blue of his eyes. Those, he’d inherited from his mother.
She hadn’t cared about any of it. When she’d become a woman, she’d been prepared to give herself to him, to bear his children. Now, years later, he was back in her life, and she loved him as much as ever.
One little kiss wouldn’t matter, would it? He wouldn’t have to know.
Unable to resist the temptation, she closed her eyes and bent to his lips. When she touched them with her own, a sudden fire spread from her head to a part of her she hadn’t even known existed, low in her belly. He tasted heady and sweet, his breath falling on her cheek in a soft caress.
He kissed her back, moving his lips over hers with erotic ease. He touched her shoulder, massaging her with slow, hesitant strokes.
For more than a few seconds, she relished the attention. Lost in a flurry of excitement and an unfamiliar haze, she allowed herself to float on a cloud of light and air…
Then her eyes flew open and she leapt away.
He pinned her with those unusually light eyes, and half of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Was it what you expected, love?”
Nanara couldn’t have spoken if she tried. Instead, she covered her lips, still burning from his touch, and fled the room.
15
I win again!” shouted Helen, slapping the playing cards onto the rumpled bedsheets. She hadn’t been out of bed all day, and while a measure of guilt at ignoring her duties spun a lazy, nagging course through the back of her mind, she had enjoyed every moment of it. Especially the stoically astounded expression on Paul’s face as she won her fifth hand of rummy.
“You’re cheating, I’d wager,” he scowled.
“If you were wagering, you’d be penniless by now,” she laughed, stacking the cards and setting them on the table next to the bed.
With a sigh, she fell back onto the pillow. No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop smiling. The world could come to an end at precisely this minute, and she would smile through it, like some idiot. She laughed, covering her mouth at the impropriety of such a thought.
“You’re beautiful when you laugh. Did you know that?” Paul settled onto the bed beside her, the sheet pulled over his lower belly. Her gaze fell to the hard lines of his stomach and chest, sprinkled with light hair and rounded with firm muscle.
“You’re beautiful, as well. Did you know that?”
“Beautiful? Men aren’t beautiful, love. We’re sturdy, and manly, and rough. Not beautiful.” He shuddered visibly, but the grin lied for him.
“You are,” she replied, a flutter of something new and exciting filling her womb. “I’ve never met anyone as understanding and wonderful as you. I don’t deserve it.”
“We all deserve it, Helen. It’s just that very often, we never find it. I have. For that, I’m more than thankful.” He placed a kiss on her cheek.
He’d meant it to be a gentle peck, a punctuation of his statements. But that wasn’t enough for Helen. She wanted more, and more, and more. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, she drew him close. The tips of her breasts brushed his chest, aching with desire that should have been quelled by now, but wasn’t.
She could never have him enough, make love to him enough. She kissed him, long and slow, with all of the energy she could muster. He returned the kiss, making love to her mouth with his tongue and his lips. Sliding alongside her, he positioned himself next to her with one leg trapping hers beneath a delightful weight.
She brought one of her legs over the top of his, running her toes over his calf until she could no longer discern where she stopped and he began. His hands traveled the length of her back, one hand coming to rest on her bottom, pulling her closer to his desire.
Slowly, as though she were so fragile he might break her, he drew his fingertip around her hip until it came to rest in the wiry thatch of curls between her legs. He separated the folds hidden beneath and touched her there, stroking and caressing until she thought she might come undone.
“So soft. So wonderful,” he murmured against her lips before shifting his mouth to her neck, in the soft place just below her ear.
Her head fell back, granting him more room to tease her tender flesh. She gripped his back, afraid that if she released her hold for even one second, he might fly away and leave her wanting and alone.
“I must have you, my love,” he panted. “I can’t wait. I’m sorry.”
There was no need for apology, she thought behind a cloud of passion. He had taken her to the peak so many times, and without even trying, he�
��d placed her there again. With barely a touch.
He repositioned her beneath him, the weight of his body covering her like a blanket, secure and warm. When he entered her, she gasped at the simplicity of such an act and the mountain of passion it welled inside of her.
Gradually, he moved faster. With a spiral of light and color, she met each of his thrusts. A vortex of energy built in her womb, spreading to her limbs with the heat of a mounting storm, the intensity growing and climbing to a peak she couldn’t see.
But she knew it was there, looming on the horizon. At once she reached for it and tried to push it away. Too late, she fell over the edge in a burst of light and exploding emotion. Paul moaned her name, the sound coming on the fringes of reality, winding inside her heart. His voice. Her name. Their love.
He became still, holding the bulk of his weight off her with arms that shook from spent passion. When he rolled to one side, she cuddled next to him, her nerves still firing from the memory of her climax.
“I’m never letting you go, you understand,” he whispered, his voice still ragged.
“Never.”
“If anything ever happened to you, I’d die. I know it.”
“Forever,” she answered from the edge of sleep. She closed her eyes, listening to the rumble of his breaths through his chest, the beat of his heart in time with the beat of her pulse.
When she woke, she had the distinct feeling that something had awakened her. A sound. She listened in the darkness.
How long had she been sleeping? Night had fallen, and the temperature had dropped considerably. She extricated herself from Paul’s arm and pulled at the blanket she found at the foot of the bed. The sound came again, suddenly.
A knock on the door.
She glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight.
Annie must have thrown Tim out of the house again, she mused. If they would simply get married, like both of them wanted, regardless of what Tim might bluster on about, they would be so happy. Shaking her head, she wrapped the blanket around herself like a great shawl and went to answer the door.
“You should marry her, you know that?” she quipped as she tossed the door open.
It wasn’t Tim. It was her father. He stood on the porch with his eyes wide, the whites practically glowing in the dark, while his jaw fell slack. He sputtered for a moment, then snapped his mouth closed. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Tugging the blanket around her shoulders that much tighter, she was tempted to slam the door in his face and hide in the nearest closet. Instead, she swallowed whatever cowardly apologies she might have made a year ago and looked her father directly in the eye. “I had to stay somewhere, didn’t I? You and Mother have taken over my apartment without so much as a by-your-leave.” She paused, waiting for the ax to fall. When it didn’t, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to speak with Paul Campbell. Doc said the two of you have been spending … time together, and I thought he might be able to help me convince you to come home.”
“You can talk to me about things like that, Daddy.” She frowned. “I can make up my own mind. I don’t need you or Mother or Reginald or anyone telling me what I should and should not do.”
“But you’re a woman. A young, confused woman. You haven’t made the greatest decisions.”
“If I make mistakes, they are my mistakes. If I choose poorly, then I choose poorly. You can’t protect me. Not anymore.”
“And this is how you choose to live?” He drew his eyes over her attire, or lack thereof, and sneered. “Throwing yourself at the first man who comes along?”
Suddenly furious, Helen did her best to control her rising temper. She tucked the sheet into her fists and growled, “I can do what I want, when I want. If I choose to sleep with every man who tosses an eye at me, then so be it. It’s my decision. Just for the record, Daddy, I don’t do that. I look at them, and they come to me. Now, if you will please get off my lover’s porch!”
She slammed the door.
Paul stood behind her, his head bent and his hands on his hips. “You tell him, love,” he whispered.
16
Thanks, mate.” Paul closed the door and hurried back to his room with a recently delivered envelope.
When he reached the door, he paused. Helen was still sleeping, hugging her pillow while her hair mussed around her slightly reddened cheeks. The linens draped over the small of her back. Her naked flesh shimmered in the sunlight that spilled through the open window.
They’d made love repeatedly the night before, losing themselves inside each other in a way he’d never believed possible. Still, his body awakened at the sight of her in his bed.
He couldn’t be sure what he’d ever done to deserve her, but he wasn’t going to argue with divine justice. He must have done something in a previous life. Whatever it was, he was thankful for it.
Quietly, he slipped between the sheets. Moving a lock of her hair, he placed a kiss on her temple. She tasted like pure silver moonlight and heady wine, the combination making him feel drunk just from touching her.
She stirred, moaning slightly against the pillow. “Is it morning already?” she mummbled.
“Aye. And time to rejoin the world, I’m afraid,” he replied, glancing at the envelope. He felt her eyes on him and grinned. “I have to get back to work someday, don’t I?”
“No. Let’s just stay here forever. Who needs food?”
He laughed, tearing open the envelope. He read the contract to himself. “I have to make a run to Perth for Bully.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she said with an adorable pout. “Tell him you can’t do it.”
“I have to do it, love. It pays a hundred quid.”
“Take me with you?” He loved the way she pleaded with him, her lower lip swollen with his kisses and her eyes canted in such a way that she seemed more innocent than the Virgin Mother.
“Ah, love. No room this trip.” He frowned. “You don’t want to see your oldies alone, is that it?”
She didn’t answer, but all playfulness in her expression vanished.
“Why don’t you stay here? I’ll only be gone a few days, and we can deal with your parents when I get back.”
She sighed, as though the entire world rested on her bare shoulders. “I have to see them eventually, and it really is something I should do on my own.”
“No.” He placed his hand on the back of her head, drawing her to him for a soft, slow kiss. “You never have to do anything on your own again.”
She smiled.
“I love you, Helen. Believe it.”
“I do.”
He kissed her again. If he had his way, he would kiss her every minute for the rest of his life, but his plane wasn’t going to fly itself to Perth. “Get up. Get dressed.”
“Must I?”
“Aye.” He dressed, then tossed her the package Annie had given him. A smile spread his lips at the thought that she hadn’t needed it for nearly two whole days. “From Annie.”
“Oh! My new dress. Thank you.”
He left her alone to dress, waiting for her in the front garden. When she appeared on his porch, he could only stare.
“What are you wearing?”
The smile she’d been wearing for the better part of two days disappeared, and he immediately regretted the question. Stumbling for something to say, he finally managed, “I like it. It’s pretty, but it’s not what you normally wear, is it?”
“No. It is more in keeping with what most of the women in town are comfortable with. Part of my new image.”
“You don’t need a new image, love.”
“It’s only a dress, Paul. It’s comfortable.”
“It’s too hot.”
“I like it.”
“I miss your legs.”
She rolled her eyes. “Precisely.”
With a slight skip in her step, she made her way to his car. “Are you going to take me home?”
“Aye, ma’am.”
Midway to her flat, her demeanor changed. By the time he pulled to a stop at the clinic, Helen was as stiff and hard as a wooden board. “Are you jake, love?”
She stared at the window of her upstairs parlor. “Fine.”
“We could collect your things and go straight back to my place, you know.”
“No. It’s bad enough half the town will know I’ve been there for two full days.” She cringed. “My parents already know.”
She climbed out of the car, and Paul followed her upstairs. She might want to face them alone, but he wasn’t going to let her. Her mother had the same compassion as a great white shark.
The shark was in the parlor. Having apparently heard them arrive, she was poised, teeth bared and ready to strike when Helen opened the door.
“Well!” she huffed. “It’s about time you ceased this horrible display of immorality!”
Helen didn’t utter a sound. Her shoulders shook beneath the weight of her mother’s words. Paul tucked his arm around her and drew her close. “Back off, lady. That’s my girl you’re talking to.”
“Your girl? She’s my daughter, and if you would be so kind as to take your hands off her!”
“I will not.”
“Helen, is this the way you intend to live your life? Giving yourself to every man who looks at you? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I’m … I’m not ashamed, Mother. I love Paul, and he loves me.”
“Love,” the old bat snorted. “Love is hardly the question here—”
“Priscilla, will you please shut up!” Byron stormed into the room and slammed a book onto the table to punctuate his harshly spoken words.
Helen’s mother turned on her husband with venom spewing from every pore. “What did you say to me?”
“I said, ‘Shut up.’ You have been haranguing the child for two years. Enough is enough.”
“You’ve never talked to me like this, Byron. What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? Perhaps living with a hypocrite for so long has addled my wits a little, but I wouldn’t say there is anything wrong with me.”
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