Eden Burning

by Elizabeth Lowell

  But why couldn’t it have been black or brown or blond? she asked herself silently.

  Because it’s red came the swift reply—the words that her mother had used every time her tall, skinny daughter complained about her bright mop of hair.

  Cocking her head, Nicole listened to the faint sounds coming from the stage despite the soundproofing. The students were chanting back and forth, ending their act with a dance of their own creation, a hip-twitching mixture of Tahitian and nightclub dance moves that evolved into a dreamy version of Hawaii’s majestic hula.

  She had just enough time to finish dressing. She hurried to a small changing room backstage and pulled traditional wrist and ankle decorations from a drawer. Just as she bent over to pull on her softly clashing shell anklets, the drums began a rhythmic pulsing.

  She froze, knowing instantly that Bobby wasn’t the drummer. This drummer was different. Cleaner. Quicker. More intense.

  Bobby was very good.

  This drummer was extraordinary.

  Anticipation of her own coming dance bloomed in Nicole as she pulled a ginger-flower lei from the refrigerator. The cool petals made a wonderful contrast to the heat of her body. The flowers heightened the golden tone of her skin and deepened the fiery lights in her hair.

  The thick tassels of dried grass she carried in each hand repeated the sunny color of the flowers splashed on her lavalava and halter. A cross between a long, soft brush and a small pom-pom with a handle, the grass tassels rustled and snapped with each motion of her wrists, emphasizing and enhancing the rhythms of the dance.

  Soundlessly she stepped out, closed the door behind her, and went to stand behind the rear curtain of the stage. There she moved to the slow, stately rhythms of the hula, warming her body for the strenuous Tahitian dance to come.

  Instead of accompanying the dancers with a chant, Bobby was playing Bolivian panpipes, an instrument made by natives of the high Andes Mountains of South America. The pure, husky sounds of the pipes tugged at something deep within Nicole.

  Bobby played two pipes at once, each pipe containing half a scale. Harmony was possible. Barely. To get it, he had to move his mouth very quickly and blow in short, sharp spurts. The result was a ghostly staccato that evoked spirits chanting to one another across bottomless mountain chasms.

  Shivers of pleasure coursed over Nicole’s skin as the primal drums and husky pipes called urgently to the dancers. The possibilities of the dance raced through her, making her want to sweep aside the curtain and begin the sensuous movements.

  Applause erupted as the stage vanished into darkness. While she stepped onto the stage through a slit in the curtains, the less experienced dancers streamed by her, leaving the advanced students on the stage. The dancers’ quick comments told her that they had been as excited by the new drummer as she was.

  Impatiently she looked toward the drums, but there wasn’t enough light for her to make out more than the silhouette of a broad-shouldered, powerful man whose short hair was even darker than the nearly black stage. He could have been haole or Hawaiian, old or young or anything in between.

  And his fingertips smoothed a sensual, pulsing rhythm from the drums that raced through her like wine. Each beat echoed in her blood and in her rippling impatience for the moment when she would turn and challenge the mysterious, powerful drummer on a stage empty of other dancers.

  Suddenly the lights came up onstage, making Nicole’s hair blaze from crown to hip as though each strand was truly made of fire. Murmurs of “Pele” raced through the audience, telling her that they hadn’t expected her to appear this late in the night’s entertainment.

  The panpipes unleashed a husky, triumphant sound that was more electrifying than a shout.

  The drummer hesitated for an instant, then settled in with the assurance of a river of molten stone pouring swiftly down to a waiting sea.

  As had happened the night before, advanced dancers came forward to challenge one another, then fell away one by one until only Sam was left to face Pele. The drums slowed to a languid, almost taunting rhythm that exactly echoed the lithe motions of Nicole’s hips as she danced barefoot into the spotlight. Grass whispered and rustled rhythmically in her hands, underlining each fluid movement of her torso. The ginger lei swayed against her breasts, caressing her skin with smooth, cool petals.

  The rhythm of the drums changed subtly, picking up speed without losing either its clarity or its oddly taunting quality.

  Hips gracefully swaying, she danced for a few moments with her back to the drummer before she turned the stage over to Sam with a flip of the thick grass tassels she held in her hands.

  The panpipes picked up the challenge, urging Sam to greater and greater efforts. Smiling, he moved sinuously, quickly, with the muscular grace and potency possible only to a male dancer.

  Nicole copied his motions, her hands speaking teasingly to him with every rustle of grass, her hips easily keeping pace with his.

  The drumbeat reached a peak, paused, then started again with redoubled speed.

  Sweat began to gleam on Sam’s body, making him look like a beautiful polished idol. He leaped up and came down closer to Nicole. With every ripple and twist, his well-conditioned body spoke to her of the joys that would come when she stopped leading him on this sensual chase.

  As an answer, she turned her back and danced, letting him see the grace and power of the hips that would never belong to him, for he was merely mortal, and Pele demanded something more of her lovers.

  With a low cry, he jumped in front of her again, trying to entice her to give the contest and herself to him. At each beat, each thrusting rotation of his hips, he came closer to her, coaxing her senses with his display of strength and grace and sexuality.

  Smoothly, heartlessly, the goddess Pele flicked her hips and picked up the pace in the same instant that the drummer did. For her, the sensation of neither leading nor following the rhythm was extraordinary, as though drummer and dancer were somehow joined. Eyes half closed, she tilted her head back and smiled like a woman opening herself for a lover.

  She didn’t see Sam’s eyes narrow in male response, nor did she see the sudden tension in the drummer’s body as her elemental smile ripped through him. She sensed only that the rhythm would change soon, becoming even faster, drumming Sam right off the stage, leaving only Pele and the drummer who courted her with every beat of their joined hearts.

  Even as the change in rhythm came, she met it. Her body shimmered with life and sensual fire. Her hips described flashing, rhythmic arcs that were so quick no individual motion could be seen.

  For a minute, then two, Sam stayed with her, but he couldn’t keep up the pace. With a mingled cry of defeat and celebration, he sank to the stage with the other spurned dancers.

  When Nicole turned to face the unknown drummer, there was an instant of hush, like a missed heartbeat. She held her arms out. Her body moved seductively beneath the silky fire of her hair.

  Staccato rhythms poured out of the drums with renewed speed and potency, taunting her, daring her. Her hips moved in response, matching each beat, answering the male challenge with feminine grace and endurance.

  And then she surpassed the wild drumbeats with passionate gyrations that brought cries of “Pele!” from the audience, cries that were echoed by the panpipes’ hoarse, primitive harmonies.

  Without hesitation the drummer matched the increased speed of the dance.

  Matched her.

  A sense of inevitability, of uncanny rightness, streaked through Nicole like lightning, bringing a new heat in its wake. Here, at last, was a man who was Pele’s equal.

  She forgot the audience, forgot the stage, forgot everything but the dance, giving herself entirely to the elemental rhythms called by the stranger’s hard, skilled hands. She was no longer Nicole Ballard, haole. She was Pele, alive among the volcano’s fires, calling for a lover to equal her dance.

  And the drummer answered.

  Thunder poured from the drums, a wi
ld breaking wave of sound made up of distinctly individual beats. Each pulse of drumming was instantly met by a sinuous motion of Nicole’s body, as though she and the drummer shared the same heartbeat, the same breath, the same network of nerves burning with messages of fire.

  The panpipes gave out short notes, their panting cries telling of human endurance stretched to its breaking point.

  The drumbeat increased yet again, a god calling to a taunting goddess. Her answer was an incandescent shimmer of motion and color, a woman on fire with the sensual demands of the drums.

  She was Pele, inexhaustible, and the drummer was her more-than-human lover.

  At a distance Nicole sensed the fatigue in her own body, the unintentional blurring of the clean motions of the dance. It was the same for the sound of the drums, a slurring of perfection.

  And then she found out that she didn’t want to dance the drummer off the stage. He deserved far better than that, for he had brought out the best in her in a way no man ever had. He had called out both the discipline and the wildness, letting her burn within his primal rhythms.

  Now those rhythms were faltering.

  With a soft cry she turned to face the drummer, holding out her hands in triumph and supplication.

  Even as she turned, the drumming peaked. Simultaneously the stage lights vanished, leaving drummer and dancer equally triumphant, sharing the victorious midnight.

  Into the silence and darkness came applause like storm waves breaking.

  Nicole didn’t hear anything but her own heart, her own breath. She felt a man’s powerful arms close around her, felt her own hands sliding over his hot skin, and then their mouths joined as though they were lovers separated since the beginning of time.

  Chase pulled Nicole against his body even as he opened her mouth beneath his. There was no hesitation in him, no awkwardness, simply a hot certainty that this woman belonged in his arms. He couldn’t taste enough of her, feel enough of her, get close enough to her. His arms tightened around her until he arched her strong, lithe body hard against his. His tongue claimed her mouth fully, penetrated deeply, repeatedly.

  With a husky moan she struggled in his arms, but not to get away. She wanted to be closer still, inside his very skin, as hot as the blood pounding through both of them. He tasted like heaven and hell, and she was stretched between, wanting to know it all.

  Needing it.

  To Chase, the sweet pain of her nails scoring his naked back was like a triple shot of whiskey. He forgot the stage, forgot the audience, forgot everything but the heat and taste of her exploding through him, destroying his normal control. His arms shifted, lifting her, pulling her legs around his waist. She clung to him like fire, surrounding him with the kind of heat and need he had never felt before.

  Nor had she. She didn’t know where she was or who she was. She knew only that this was the kind of fire the burning goddess within her had always sought and never found. Until now. Now she was the flame itself, twisting, burning, ravenous.

  Dimly Chase heard Bobby’s hissed warning. Only the knowledge that the stage lights would be coming back on at any moment gave Chase enough control to end the wild kiss.

  Nicole must have heard the warning, because her long legs shifted and she slid down him in a motion that came within a breath of putting him over the edge and taking the fire she offered.

  He managed not to lose control. But it was close.

  Too close. His heart beat like a drum beneath flying hands. His blood was a hammering rush through his hard, fully aroused body. He couldn’t force himself to let go of her completely. With one arm he held her against his side, letting the sensuous perfume of crushed flowers and hot woman mingle with the heady taste of her on his tongue.

  Never had he wanted anything the way he wanted Nicole right now. He could barely believe such need was possible. It was all he could do not to pull her down onto the dark stage and bury every hard, aching inch of his erection deep inside her untamed body.

  Chase forced himself to move away from Nicole.

  He wasn’t an instant too soon. Though the curtains stayed closed, the lights came up.

  Even under the slicing spotlights, he couldn’t force himself to step completely back from her. Hidden from the lights underneath the flaming veil of her hair, his fingers held her wrist so hard he could feel the bones move beneath her flesh.

  When he realized the strength of his grip, he told himself to let go of her. His fingers stayed locked around her wrist. The same primitive part of him that had almost taken her and to hell with the rest of the world simply refused to let go of her. He was afraid she would flick her hips tauntingly at him and disappear into the island’s volcano like the legendary goddess of fire, leaving him to burn alone.

  The curtains whipped apart. The audience was on its feet shouting, stamping, clapping, and whistling.

  Sanity returned to Nicole like a bucket of ice water. For the space of one breath, then two, she couldn’t believe what had just happened. She couldn’t have wrapped herself around a stranger and done her best to crawl inside his skin while their mouths mated in a frenzy that was still racing through her in wave after wave of heat.

  But she had done just that. She could still taste him.

  She wanted to taste even more.

  As they bowed together to the cheering audience, she felt the stranger’s vitality and power burning through her skin. She shivered in elemental awareness of a woman who has found her mate.

  When Nicole understood what her body was trying to tell her, she froze. She wouldn’t be vulnerable like that again. She simply would not.

  If she could have bolted in that instant, she would have.

  She couldn’t. The man’s determination to hold on to her was as plain as the callused fingers locked around her wrist. She was a tall woman, and her body was conditioned by the demands of dance and of hiking through Hawaii’s wild countryside; yet she knew if she fought his grasp, she would lose. She couldn’t free herself unless he let her go.

  It should have frightened her. And it did.

  But not as much as it intrigued her.

  Reluctantly she understood that she was fighting against herself more than against him. She didn’t really want to escape. Not yet. The core of her was still in thrall to the siren cry of the dance and to the dark stranger who had matched her as no man ever had. She remembered the silky caress of his mustache against her skin, remembered tasting him on her lips, on her tongue, remembered how it had felt to want and be wanted in return.

  Waves of sensation surged through her, loosening her knees. She had loved being bent like a bow beneath the power of his sensual demands. She had loved feeling him shudder in return when her nails tested the strength of his naked back. Despite all common sense, despite all the sexual humiliations in the past, this stranger had responded to her with a male hunger that couldn’t be hidden or denied.

  And she had answered him.

  The possibilities were as dazzling as they were terrifying. If she didn’t get off the stage soon, her knees would finish turning to jelly and her confusion would be obvious to anyone with eyes.

  As though Bobby sensed Nicole’s need for time to gather herself, he walked out onstage, taking the attention from her. With a sweep of his thick arm, he gestured to the handsome, hard-faced man standing close to her.

  “Welcome to Hawaii, brother. Pele waits long time, sure-sure.” He turned toward the audience and said loudly, “Allow me to introduce Dr. Chase Wilcox—vulcanologist, biologist, and the hottest goddamn drummer I’ve ever heard!”

  The volume of the audience’s cheering shot up wildly.

  For the first time since Chase had seen Nicole’s flame-colored hair at the back of the stage, he was truly aware of the people beyond the footlights. Beneath his black mustache, his mouth curved up at one corner. He had come way too close to giving the folks a spectacle they never would have forgotten. As it was, he was lucky his lavalava was wrapped so that it concealed his arousal.
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  When he bowed in acknowledgment of the audience’s enthusiasm, he felt Nicole tugging discreetly against his hard grip. He eased it, but not enough for her to slip away. Her skin felt too good against his palm for him to risk her escaping.

  Nicole felt the measured grip and knew that she wasn’t free. Not yet. Half dazed, she remembered wondering if Dane’s brother had a sense of humor or was a womanizer.

  Dumb questions.

  Better if she had wondered what he would do if she fell into his arms and begged to be womanized.

  A sideways glance at him didn’t help to settle her mind. Tall, powerful, self-contained. He had the kind of dark masculinity most men would have killed for. His smile was piratical. He looked like he didn’t have a care—or a brain—in the world.

  She couldn’t believe that this skilled, passionate drummer was the internationally renowned vulcanologist Dr. Chase Wilcox, the man who had been selected to author a big, glossy book about Hawaii’s kipukas.

  With a curiosity she couldn’t conceal, she weighed the man standing so close beside her. He had dense black hair and fascinating ice-gray eyes. Once she got past their glittering beauty, she could see the intelligence beneath. And something more. Something . . . hard. His face was strong, angular, weathered, defined by twin black arches of eyebrow and a midnight gleam of mustache above a mouth whose heat and sensuality she could barely believe.

  Hastily she dragged her mind away from his tempting lips to the rest of him. His shoulders were wide and well muscled. His naked chest was darkened by sun, thatched with curling, glossy black hair, and gleaming with sweat. A black lavalava rode low on his lean hips. The cloth’s scattering of scarlet flowers only heightened his almost overwhelming maleness.

  Everything about Chase Wilcox was hard, from the line of his jaw to the fingers that were clamped just short of pain around her wrist.

  At Bobby’s signal the curtains closed once more. He stretched his arms. With one hand he briskly rubbed lips that were nearly numb from the panpipes’ demands. With the other hand he caught the back of Nicole’s head and tugged. Automatically she braced her free hand on his heavily muscled shoulder and came up on tiptoe to receive his congratulatory kiss.