by Dani Collins
“You look beautiful.” He felt something slipping from his grip and remembered why he’d run out. He offered the box. “I thought you might need jewelry.”
“The rings?” Her smile fell away and her eyes widened enough to suggest panic. “No.”
Her quick rejection was a fresh jolt, disturbing him. Why was she so adamant? Why did it sting that she didn’t want to wear his rings?
“It’s a necklace and earrings.”
“Oh. On loan?” She was still wary.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then.” She came forward to take the box and opened it. “Thank you. They’re lovely.”
He watched her affix the earrings, thinking of her saying the night they went for dinner that he was only helping her out of obligation. Should he tell her that he’d spent a solid half hour choosing these for her, not because he was worried about how she looked, but because he wanted her to like them?
“Can you?” She lifted her hair so he could close the necklace.
He clasped the delicate chain and touched her shoulder, encouraging her to turn and face him again.
She smelled divine. He found his hand lingering on her shoulder, thumb lightly caressing the incredible softness of her skin. He barely resisted the desire to dip his head and taste her.
She shrugged and rubbed the spot where his hand had been, wiping away the goose bumps that had risen from her elbow up her arm. He wanted to rub them away himself, except he wanted to use a touch light enough to raise more. He wanted to draw her into his shirtfront and lick all the way up her throat until he was plundering the heat of her mouth.
“You’re so beautiful. So sensual.” His voice originated deep in his chest. “There couldn’t have been only me.” He hated the idea of her with another man. Hated it. But he couldn’t blame her for it. Couldn’t expect her to have been faithful to the vows he had made half-heartedly.
Her lashes flashed up, impossibly long and thick, making her look so innocent and vulnerable his insides ached. Shadows of hurt moved behind her gaze.
“You don’t want me. What makes you think anyone else would?”
Until this moment, he hadn’t believed she had been celibate. Now, as he saw how the breakdown of their marriage had only added to the rejections she had suffered from her father, battering her confidence into nothing, the truth impaled him.
She had denied herself sensual pleasure, not out of fidelity, but because she had been too hurt by him to risk another rebuff.
Remorse penetrated in a line from his throat to the middle of his chest, paralyzing him even as it stabbed excruciatingly deep.
“That’s not true, Imogen.” He took her arm again, feeling her stiffen at his touch, body already trying to pivot away from his. “I’ve said things to hurt you. Out of anger.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes, mouth not quite steady. “And it worked.” She carefully removed her arm from his hand. Her eyes were glossed with tears as she looked at the door. “Can we not start a fight right now? I’m already worried how this will go.”
“It will be fine.”
She sent him a resigned look, as if she knew disaster was inevitable.
He didn’t know how to convince her, though. How to repair the damage he’d done. With a nod, he moved to hold the door.
* * *
Imogen was doing well, so well. They had been among the last to board, tipping off Gwyn ahead of time to say they were running late so they could avoid the scrutiny of standing in the receiving line.
When Travis introduced her to his father on arrival, Henry was easily won over. It was painfully obvious he was dying for his son to marry and settle down.
Dark had fully fallen when the yacht left its mooring. The harbor was as still as a tub and the air crisp and clear under a fat moon and a blanket of stars.
Imogen felt as though she was an extra in a movie; everything was so perfect around her. The yacht was an elegant, ultramodern monstrosity with four decks, uncounted staterooms and an interior lounge of long sofas with a bar at one end. The whole thing was coated in holly and lights and wreaths and bows. On the outer deck off the stern, a small band from New Orleans played blues and jazz, Henry’s favorite, apparently. They threw a few Christmas carols into the mix while the buffet dinner was served. Now people were starting to dance.
Most of the guests were in Henry’s age bracket. They were curious enough about Travis’s secret marriage and divorce to strike up conversations with them, but they confined their questions to an interest in where Imogen grew up and other nonthreatening topics.
Other guests were Travis’s contemporaries, people he and Gwyn knew socially who also knew Henry. Some had worked for Henry during his years dominating the real estate markets in the Carolinas. They cast a few speculative looks toward Travis, but the South was known for its manners. Everyone was very civilized and the evening painless.
Until Imogen gaffed.
Of course she did. Of course it was her.
Gwyn was keeping Imogen firmly under her wing, giving her a rundown on who was who, frowning with distraction at a beautiful middle-aged woman who kept looking in their direction.
“She must be a plus-one. I don’t recognize her. Do you remember her from the receiving line, Vito?” When her husband shook his head, she drew Travis from whatever thoughts had him drowning his gaze in his drink. “Who is that woman in the black-and-white dress, the one with the adorable pillbox hat?”
Travis glanced over, instantly arrested. “That would be my mother. You didn’t invite her?”
“No.” Gwyn’s eyes widened in shock. “I’ve only seen one photo your father has of her when you were a baby. I’m sorry, but I can’t even recall her name.”
Now that Travis had noticed her, she approached. She was so much the beautiful feminine version of her son, it was uncanny. And she was younger than Imogen had expected. Her dark hair might have been colored to hide some gray, but it looked natural in its flawless chignon. Her skin was stunning, her makeup clever enough to take years off her already youthful appearance. Any woman of any age would be happy to have that figure.
“Travis, darling.”
He stiffly allowed her to touch her cheek to his, then introduced them. Without being rude, Vito quickly excused himself and Gwyn to the dance floor, leaving Eliza Carmichael holding Imogen’s hand with her ultrasoft, impeccably manicured and beautifully bejeweled fingers.
“How are you here?” Travis asked her.
“I came with Archie. Your father knew. He said he didn’t mind.”
“How long has that been going on?”
“Archie? It’s a friendly date, not a romantic one. I wanted to see you. Meet Imogen.” It was her clinging grip that got to Imogen. Eliza was cool and coiffed and smooth as silk, but there was something desperate in her hold on Imogen’s hand. A plea.
“My son never tells me anything,” she said, as if it was the oversight of a teenage boy neglecting to mention he’d asked a girl to prom. “I can’t wait to get to know you properly.”
“We have to mingle, Mother,” Travis said flatly, running his hand along Imogen’s arm until he had disengaged her from his mother’s touch and could weave his fingers through hers himself.
Eliza barely flinched and her smile stayed pinned firmly in place. “Come for dinner tomorrow. Or any night while you’re in town.”
“We’re at Dad’s tomorrow and Christmas morning, flying back to New York right after. We’re due in Hawaii by New Year’s. It can’t be changed.”
Imogen hadn’t known that “they” were going to Hawaii, but that wasn’t the issue right now. The issue was his mother was trying to reconcile with him and he was holding a grudge well past its expiration date.
“Why don’t you come by our hotel for breakfast tomorrow?” Imogen suggested.
Travis’s grip tightened, stret
ching the flesh between her fingers in warning.
“That would be lovely.” Eliza held on to her Southern persona, warm without gushing, charming without being needy. “I’ll look forward to that.”
She moved away, but Travis was already tugging Imogen from the main cabin and down a hallway. What did they call them on boats? The passageway? It felt like a gangplank. He refrained from grabbing her by the ear or poking her spine with a sword point, but he was mad.
He ducked them into the first stateroom he found with an unlocked door, then snapped it closed and latched it behind them.
“Not your place, Imogen.”
Oh, that got her back up. “Are you saying it is my place to put her in hers? I don’t think so. And don’t try to put me in mine. My instructions for this evening were to mind my manners. You were the one being rude when she only wants to spend a little time with you. That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request.” What was wrong with him?
“It’s called setting boundaries.”
“Really? Because it looks like a refusal to forgive. You said she cheated on your father, not you. Your father was big enough to let her come to his party. Why are you angry about it? What’s really going on?”
“Here’s another boundary—don’t try to get inside this. You know nothing about it.”
“Does she? I’ve been on her side of that kind of hatred, Travis. It’s not fair.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. I don’t hate her. I see her on my terms, not hers and not yours.”
“Why? What are you afraid of? That you might have to admit humans aren’t perfect? You said you and she were alike. Was it so traumatic to see her mess up? Did it make you realize you could?”
“Take a step back, Imogen, because you are standing on my last nerve.”
She was practically standing on his toes, chin hovering near the knot in his bow tie, genuinely angry on his mother’s behalf. Being cut out like that was incredibly unfair. She knew exactly how that felt. From him, even.
“Fine. Don’t spare her any of your precious minutes. I’ll have coffee with her myself.”
“You will not.”
“What’s the worst that can happen? You’ve never told me anything about yourself so I can’t spill any of your secrets. All I can talk about is me and I don’t reflect well in any of this, so your stellar reputation remains perfectly untarnished.”
“I am warning you. Do not get involved.”
“Oh, is your overactive need to control riled?” She poked him in the chest. She was that infuriated she just jabbed him right in the lapel, like pushing a button.
His hand shot up and grabbed her wrist. “My control is slipping by the second and you do not want to know what will happen when it’s gone.”
“What are you going to do? Kiss me into submission again? Prove that you can control me after all? Go ahead, Travis. Go right the hell ahead.” She knew it was a dare. Not to see if he would do it, but to hear him refuse to.
I’ve said things to hurt you.
Yes, he had. He’d said such hurtful things that she held her ground and dared him to say them again. To tell her he didn’t want her. To prove it.
He swore in one explosive epithet. Then he dropped his mouth onto hers and she met him with her own pent-up anger. She thrust her hands into his hair and dragged him down and scraped her teeth across his bottom lip.
His arms banded around her and he crushed her tight to the pleats in his tuxedo shirt, fingers digging into her buttocks as he took control of the kiss and pivoted toward the bed.
The kiss changed on a dime, from anger to white-hot passion. His tongue dove into her mouth and she groaned as she greeted him, shuddering at the onslaught of sensations that accosted her—his familiar scent, his taste, his strength and the iron hardness behind his fly.
Then he was tilting them onto the bed, one hand stealing into the slit on her dress as they went. While he dragged his tongue down her throat, his palm claimed the heat between her thighs. He rocked his hand there until she was lifting into the motion, breathing, “Travis, please.”
He rose enough to strip her panties down and throw them away, following the flow of the motion to drop off the edge of the mattress himself, onto his knees between her legs. He caught her thighs over his arms and grasped her hips, bringing her to the edge and his waiting mouth. Her skirt rode up and a silent scream gathered in her throat at the sudden, unavoidable, intimate contact. Ferocious, tingling heat flooded into her loins, pulled and gathered there into a coil of tension by his unabashed attentions.
Why this? Why make her feel so exalted? So worshipped and instantly swept away?
She arched herself to his pleasuring, hands clawing at the blanket beneath her, head thrown back and vision glazed by the rolling waves of arousal gathering strength as they radiated from her abdomen to her limbs, drawing her toward a screaming pitch.
She wanted to beg, but couldn’t even lick her lips. Tension caught her up so quickly she could only pant and gasp for air and finally drown in the swirling joy of sudden, sweet release.
It wasn’t enough, though. Even as her body pulsed in a flood of ecstasy, she ached for more. For all of him. Every inch of him covering her with his heat and weight.
While he pulled away, making her whimper in loss.
For about one second, as he rose to his feet, she thought he might have forced her into subjugation this way. He looked down on her, limp and wanton, and she knew he saw that she was utterly at his mercy. Her heart stuttered and stalled, going into free fall.
Then he tore off his jacket, dropping it behind him as he jerked open his pants, revealing his turgid shape, hard and ready. His knees hit the edge of the mattress, pushing hers further apart. He hooked his hands under her arms, moved her up the bed, and then his weight settled on her while the crest of his shape pressed for entry.
She was slick and aching, taking him in one easy thrust that brought a sting of homecoming to her eyes. She managed to hook one bare thigh over his, but their clothing was tight and in the way, providing an erotic mix of textures and constriction when he began to thrust. His pants were a friction against her inner thighs, the hidden button of his shirt poked her breast, the silk of his bow tie grazed her jaw before he dipped his head and kissed her deeply, thrusting and thrusting, smooth and deep. Familiar and rough-sweet.
She was dimly aware this was earthy and wild, but it was also what she needed. Unabashed and fierce. Her body responded to his steady, determined possessiveness by twisting under waves of acute pleasure. When he tightened his hold on her so she felt the full measure and depth of his thrusts, she moaned with gratification, nearly coming apart with the rising tension. She gloried in how he made her feel, never wanting him to stop, but no human body could stand this level of hedonistic intensity.
She scraped her nails across the crisp back of his shirt, catching at the waist of his pants to pull him in tighter. Faster. More. Now.
White light seemed to flash behind her eyes, then she was falling. Gathered in with implosive energy, then expanding into all the dimensions ever created. Each piece of her took part of him with her so they reverberated together, shock wave after shock wave, disintegrating into all corners of the universe, together forever.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE COULD FEEL her twitching beneath him, still quaking with the final spasms of climax, breath still unsteady, but he was afraid to open his eyes and meet her gaze. That had been...
His mouth opened against her shoulder, a caress that made her moan and squeeze him with her intimate muscles, still reacting in latent pleasure to their collision.
Even so, his conscience was heavy. He’d been too rough. Too unrestrained. Not only that...
“I didn’t use a condom,” he said as he forced himself to extricate, rolling onto the bed next to her. The loss of her heat, her softness and elemental scent, n
early undid him. A growl of refusal to be denied locked in the base of his throat.
“Should I be worried?”
His heart lurched. “About disease? No.” He had been a virgin of sorts for her tonight, having always worn condoms, even during their marriage. He had regular physicals, too, but... “Are you on the pill?”
“I’ll take one of the morning-after kind.”
A protest rose to his lips for no reason at all. He knew the precaution was for the best.
She sat up before he could decide what to say. Not even the sleeves of her dress were askew. When she stood to fetch her underpants and took her clutch into the bathroom, the only signs of their tussle were her ruffled hair and smudged lipstick.
He rose and straightened himself, locked in a kind of shock at how savagely they’d come together.
She emerged, makeup fixed, but pale and not meeting his gaze.
“Imogen.” He put out a hand and she halted beyond his reach, something in her stiffness keeping him from moving close enough to touch her. “Are you all right?”
“Of course.” She lifted her lashes, but her expression was the cautious one of supreme cooperation, like he’d seen after he had kissed her at the boutique. The one where she fell into line out of sheer defensiveness. His heart lurched.
“We don’t want anyone to know. We should go back out.” She veered around his outstretched hand and unlocked the door, glancing back before leaving without him.
He lingered, reached to straighten the blanket and hated himself a little more for erasing that small bit of evidence, when he would rather hang on to their moment of passion with both hands.
You don’t want me. What makes you think anyone else would?