Marriage On The Edge

by Sandra Marton

  Heaven knew she'd spent most of the last few years alone.

  And, when she had, she'd either drooped around, missing Gage, or simmered with anger over his absence because she'd felt so lonely ... but being lonely and being alone weren't the same thing.

  Natalie turned on the lights in the kitchen.

  Solitude could be wonderful. Hers would be, once she learned to make the most {Jf it. She'd play the music she liked. Do the things she liked. Soak in a tubful of bubbles, if she wanted. Prop a book beside her plate and read through dinner whenever she felt like it. ..

  It sounded like heaven.

  "Like heaven," she said brightly ...

  Her voice broke. She buried her face in her hands. "What am I going to do?" she whispered.

  She still loved her husband.

  Natalie flung open the door. Jagged streaks of lightning scarred the distant sky; thunder rumbled over the churning water as she ran down the beach tqwards the sea.

  So what if she loved him? Their marriage hadn't worked, and it was over. That was what she'd wanted. Now, it was what she had.

  She had no regrets.

  "No regrets," Natalie shouted into the storm, but the wind tossed the words back at her, muffling them in the hiss and roar of the breakers as the sea flung itself angrily against the shore. '

  "Not a one," she whispered.

  The air felt hot and thick, filled with danger and promise.

  That was how the years ahead would be, too, if she could just get past this terrible despair.

  It was exciting, to begin life all over again.

  The surf frothed over her toes. Natalie wrapped her arms around herself and looked into the oncoming storm.

  She was still young. Perhaps she'd meet another man. Or maybe Gage would meet another woman.

  A lump rose in her throat.

  It was possible. More than possible. Hell, it was a certainty.

  Her husband was handsome and virile. He was successful. Women were drawn to him. She knew that. The bolder ones used to flirt with him right in front of her. .. not that he'd ever responded.

  But he would, once he was free. Maybe he'd started, already.

  They were separated, weren't they? On the very edge of divorce? She'd shoved that fact under his nose every time she'd had the chance. She'd even let him think that maybe there was something going on with Hans even though she knew damn well that Hans had a fiancée back in Amsterdam.

  Natalie shivered under the lash of the wind.

  Was that why Gage was in such a rush to finish things?

  Was there another woman, waiting to take her place?

  Natalie, the wind sighed, as it swooped around her.

  No. Please, no. She wasn't ready to know her husband was in someone else's arms. She never would be, not if she could stand here in the middle of a storm and imagine she heard him call her name ...

  "Natalie ... "

  Her heartbeat stumbled. Was that the wind calling her name? Or was it...

  Gage's hands, so strong and familiar, fell on her shoulders.

  He said her name again, turned her towards him, and her heart skipped into overdrive. The sight of him thrilled her. Stunned her. She'd been thinking of him, longing for him, and now he was here, he'd come to claim her, to tell her he loved her and wanted her ...

  "Dammit," Gage snarled, "what the hell do you think you're doing?"

  The smile that begun to tremble on her lips disappeared.

  Why was he so angry? And what right had he to shake her as if she were a rag doll?

  "There's a storm coming in. Do you want to get hit by lightning? Or are you waiting for a wave to carry you out to sea?" His fingers pressed into her shoulders. "You've lost every ounce of sense you ever had!"

  Gage knew that Natalie was looking at him as if he'd lost his mind. Well, he didn't blame her. None of this was what he'd intended to say. Hell, he wasn't sure what he'd intended to say or do, except confront his wife.

  But the sight of her, standing at the edge of the raging surf, had filled him with fear. And then, when she turned and saw him, looked at him as if he were the last man on earth she ever hoped to see ...

  "Answer, me, dammit." He shook her again, too hard, he knew, but why didn't she say something? Why didn't she say, "Gage, I love you, need you ... "

  "And to think-" she said, her breathing fast and shallow, "to think I was standing here, wallowing in self-pity because ... " She balled her hand into a fist and slammed it into his chest. "You-you arrogant, egotistical-"

  "Get up to the house!"

  "I do not take orders from you or anyone else, Gage Baron!"

  "How about trying some old-fashioned common sense?

  What in hell's wrong with you, standing out here like this?" His fingers bit into her flesh. "For the last time, dammit, get up to the house!"

  Natalie wrenched free. "Who in hell do you think you are?"

  Gage looked down into his wife's face, into those eyes that had once blurred with passion at his touch and now burned with angry disdain, and his last bit of control fled.

  "I'll tell you who I am," he said roughly. "I'm your husband. And, like the man said, I'm going to be, until death do us part."

  He caught her in his arms. She struggled fiercely but he was bigger and far more powerful, and her struggles only intensified what he felt, a primitive fusing of anger and desire as wild as the storm.

  "Damn you," Natalie sobbed.

  Gage clamped a hand around the back of her head and sought her mouth.

  "Damn us both," he said, and kissed her ... And, when he did, she was lost.

  This man, her husband, was what she needed. Natalie moaned, wound her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the moment. Gage's rage, his desire, his heat. ..

  She wanted it all.

  Her lips parted to the possessive thrust of his tongue. She tangled her fingers in his hair, whispered his name against his kiss. They slipped to their knees in the sand, while the wind howled and the thunder rolled across the heavens.

  Gage cupped his wife's face in his hands, slanted his mouth over hers. She tasted of heat and of salt, and of the honeyed sweetness he'd hungered for all these weeks. He slid his hands under her T-shirt and cupped her breasts, and she gasped and lay her hands over his.

  "More," she said. "I want more, Gage. I want-" He pulled back and his eyes met hers.

  'What?" he whispered.

  "You," she said, "only you."

  Her name tore from his throat. He lifted her in his arms, carried her back up the beach to where a cluster of palm trees formed a windbreak, and lowered her to the sand.

  Lightning tore the night apart.

  "It's been so long," he said against her mouth. "And I've missed you so much, babe. Your taste. Your scent. The feel of your legs, wrapped around me ... "

  He tried to slow down what was happening but the power of the storm was raging through his blood, and through hers. Natalie arched against him, reached for him, cupped his straining flesh.

  "Now," she whispered against his mouth. "Oh, now, please, Gage, my love, please ... "

  That was what undid him. Not the sweet, drugging taste of her mouth, or the silken heat of her skin, not even the feel of her hand on him. It was that softly whispered endearment he hadn't heard in such a long, long time.

  The wind moaned through the trees above them, and Gage gave up the fight.

  Natalie's clothing tore apart in his hands. When she was naked, when she lay before him, an ivory offering to the night, he stripped off his own clothing and tossed it aside~ She reached for him but he grasped her hands, threaded hi~ fingers with hers, held her arms out to the sides and entered her on one long, velvet thrust, crying out her name as he did. She wrapped her legs around his hips and rose to met him and, as the storm rolled overhead, they were fused in an eruption of white-hot sexual heat.

  Natalie stirred beneath him.

  "The storm is over," she said softly.

  Gage gave her a
wicked grin. "Yeah. But it'll be back."

  She smiled, too. "I was talking about the thunderstorm." "Uh-huh. Well, that, too."

  Natalie laughed. "I have sand in my hair."

  He gave her a sexy grin, rolled to his side, and scooped her against him.

  "And everyplace else," he said.

  She sighed, snuggled closer, and pressed her lips against his chest. He tasted hot and salty and wonderful.

  "What if somebody comes along and sees us?"

  "It's a private beach." She could feel him chuckle. "Besides, we'd just tell them we're conducting a scientific experiment.'

  "Mmm?"

  "About electricity. You know, sort of a takeoff on Ben Franklin and his kite."

  She laughed again, eased up on her elbow, and kissed his mouth. "An experiment. Of course. Why didn't I think of that?"

  "I can see the headline now," he said. "'Violent Electrical

  Storm Causes Man to Die With a Smile on His Face.' " "It's too dark for me to tell. Are you?"

  "Am I what?" He groaned dramatically. "Dying?" "Smiling," she said, and gave him a poke.

  "That's it. Hit a guy when he's down." Gage stroked her hair back from her face. "Damn right, I'm smiling," he said softly. 'Or I would be, if I had the strength."

  "Look who's talking. It wasn't me who decided to play in the sand. Honestly, Mr. Baron, do you really think you should be carrying on this way at your age?"

  Natalie squealed as Gage grabbed her and rolled her onto her back. ''I'll have you know I'm in perfect physical condition, Mrs. Baron." He dipped his head and kissed the tip of her nose. "Besides, I'd never have gotten you back to the house. I mean, you're not the feathery slip of a girl you were when we met ... "

  'I should hope not. I was fifteen."

  " ... Or the petite little thing you were when we used to practice these moves in the back seat of my car on Superstition Butte."

  "We did no such thing," Natalie said primly. "We kissed, that was all, even though you used to try to talk me out of my clothes."

  "A likely story," Gage said with a wicked chuckle. "I did talk you out of them, although I don't recall having to talk very hard. Seems to me you were as intent on finding out what I had in my jeans as I was on finding out what you had in yours."

  Natalie sputtered with mock indignation. He grinned and pinned her to the sand.

  "But I like you all grown up like this, babe. Curvy.

  Female. Mature." His free hand drifted lazily down her body, cupped her breast, dipped lower, stroked her belly, then slipped between her thighs. "Oh, yeah," he breathed. "Mature, and sexy as hell."

  "Go on. Sweet talk me. See what good it does. You're not going to get anywhere until you apologize for even suggesting I need to lose a few pounds." Natalie bit back a moan as Gage's fingers moved against her. "I am-I am-"

  "What?" he whispered.

  "I am a sylph." Her words were uneven, her voice increasingly breathless. "And you'd better admit that, mister, if you want-if you expect-" Her lashes fluttered. "I love when you do that."

  "This?" he said softly, and moved his hand again. Natalie locked her arms around her husband's neck. "Yes.

  Yes, that . . ."

  Gage rolled her beneath him. "Do you, now," he said thickly.

  "You know I do."

  "But which do you like best? That?" He shifted. "Or this?"

  Natalie tunnelled her hands into his hair and dragged his mouth down to hers.

  "Do I really have to choose?" "Ah, you're a greedy wench."

  "In that case ... " She kissed him. Gage slid his hands beneath her, and they spiralled into the darkness again.

  The moon was skimming a star-studded sky when they collected the tattered remnants of their clothing and stumbled to the outdoor shower beside the back door.

  Gage eyed it warily. "Is it cold water only?"

  "I don't know," Natalie replied.. "I've never used... " She shrieked as icy water streamed down over them. "You rat," she said, gasping, and dragged him under the spray with her.

  Laughing, they let the water wash the sand from their bodies. Then Gage scooped his wife into his arms and carried her into the house, and to bed.

  "You just did that because you're afraid I'll beat you up for saying I was fat," Natalie whispered as he lowered her to the mattress.

  "Uh-huh," Gage whispered back.

  They smiled. Then, wrapped in each other's arms, they tumbled into deep sleep.

  Natalie awoke alone, to bright, blazing sunshine ... and the numbing realization that what had happened last night hadn't solved anything.

  She sat up and pushed her hands through her hair. There'd been so many questions to ask, so many things to say. Crista had given her good advice. Talk to him, she'd said. Discuss your differences.

  But she hadn't. She'd just tumbled into Gage's arms, and into bed, the way she'd done that night at Espada. And what had come of that night?

  "Hell," Natalie whispered, resting her forehead on her knees.

  Not a damn thing except, perhaps, even more pain because sleeping with Gage had only poured salt on the wound in her heart.

  The only thing she knew this morning that she hadn't known last night was that Gage wasn't involved with another woman. Whatever else he was, her husband was an honourable man. If there'd been someone else in his life, he'd never have made love to her.

  Color bloomed in Natalie's cheeks.

  Wild, incredible love. But then, sex had never been their problem, until she'd lost the baby.

  Natalie tossed back the covers and reached for her robe. Sex had become different then.

  She'd yearned for the warmth of Gage's arms. But when she'd turned to him, after she'd healed physically, he hadn't responded.

  "I don't want to rush you," he would say when he'd politely put off her advances.

  Eventually, she'd realized that what he'd really wanted was to make sure she didn't get pregnant again, that he'd hoped she'd take the initiative and go on the pill or get a diaphragm.

  When she didn't, he'd gone back to using condoms, the way he had years ago. Not that it had mattered. After a while, the increasing coolness between them had spilled over into their everyday lives. Sex had turned into something he did and she permitted.

  Natalie showered, pulled on a pair of jeans and an oversize blue T-shirt.

  Okay. So, somehow or other, maybe because they'd been apart for so long, sex was good again.

  Good? She looked into the mirror and picked up her hairbrush. It was great. But you couldn't hold a marriage together with sex. You needed love, and shared dreams. Commitment.

  Her hand trembled. Carefully, she put down the brush and curled her fingers over the edge of the dresser.

  And wasn't that, really, what having a child was all about?

  A baby was the embodiment of all those things. A child, created together in an act of love, was a shared, and shining, dream of the future. It was the most perfect way a man and woman had of looking into each other's hearts and saying, yes, we love each other and we always will.

  Tears rose in her eyes.

  It was so simple. And so complex. It was as old as time, as new as all the generations yet to come, and if you had to explain it...

  How could you explain it, when you knew it would be useless?

  Life was like a board game. That was the way Gage saw it. Risk this, win that, try something new. Rake in the chips and measure your success by the growing height of the stack. And yes, love your wife, too, in your own way. Shower her with the fruits of your winnings, seek her approval.

  And show complete bewilderment when she didn't respond the way you thought she should.

  Tell him how you feel, Crista had said. But what could she tell Gage? That there was more to life than winning, more to marriage than passion? He'd shown her how he saw things, time and time again, when he left her alone for days on end while he rushed off to open another resort, when he reached into the nightstand drawer for a condom.

&nb
sp; It was why she'd left him, why she couldn't go back to him ...

  Why last night had been a heartbreaking mistake. Natalie looked at herself in the mirror.

  How simple it would be to blame it on Gage. To say that he'd caught her at a weak moment, that she'd been feeling sorry for herself, feeling alone and abandoned, that otherwise it would never have happened.