by Robyn Donald
Flagrant colour heated her skin as she seized on his statement with an eagerness that owed everything to humiliation. ‘So why did you bring me here?’ she muttered.
The silk of her camisole abraded the acutely sensitive tips of her breasts. Her body was aflame, greedily desiring satisfaction.
His smile didn’t reach the depthless eyes. ‘Because I was damned if I was going to talk in front of a room full of people.’
Shivering, Rowan closed her eyes, then forced them open and clenched her teeth as she wooed calm, but all she could bring to mind was the unconstrained strength of the arms that had held her, the heavy, driving beat of Wolfe’s heart, and that tantalising, elusive scent. And his warmth, the feeling she’d had of being protected as well as bewitched.
Why had he stopped? Had she disgusted him?
He swore, and then said with raw fury, ‘Don’t—for God’s sake, Rowan, don’t. I’m sorry—I thought—Oh, to hell with it! I tried! We can talk later. At the moment I want you past belief, past everything.’
This time he didn’t hold back, kissing her with complete abandon, desire stripping away everything but heat and hunger and the fiery pulse of urgency. And Rowan kissed him back without restraint.
This time they made it to the bed. Rowan fought out of her outer layers, but the camisole stayed in place as Wolfe’s mouth found the tips of her breasts through the silk, and she tore off his shirt and found his lean hips and pulled him against her so that she could feel his hard desire.
There was very little foreplay—she was ready for him, and slow, skilful seduction didn’t get a look-in. They took each other, feasted on each other, lost themselves in sensation and emotion, free at last of the past.
When he entered her she surged up to meet his first hard thrust, striving for that place where sensation ruled supreme. Almost immediately she found it, calling out brokenly as she was flung into an erotic rapture that burnt away everything but her love for him.
He went with her, and then, when she was still gasping into his shoulder, he began to move again.
Heat building inside her into a delirious tumult, she arched her hips into him, answering his silent question with a silent plea. Ruthlessly he used his strength and his considerable expertise to gather her up and push her higher and higher, holding her for an eternity on an exultant, merciless, singing point of existence until the world splintered in unbearable delight and she convulsed again in his arms.
Head thrown back, face carved in agonised pleasure, Wolfe made that primal journey with her, came down with her, and when it was over held her as though she was the most precious thing in his life.
It took long, wonderful minutes before his breathing slowed enough for him to speak. ‘Go to sleep now.’
‘I thought you wanted to talk,’ she said, mumbling the words in a delicious combination of tiredness and laughter.
His chest rose. Drily ironic, he said, ‘I’ve lost the urge. We’ll talk in the morning.’
But Rowan woke before then, aching with a sense of loss that bewildered her until she looked across the room and saw him at the window, a big silhouette against the light outside.
She could feel his anger in the quiet room. He was fighting a battle with himself, and she closed her eyes because it seemed obscene to watch him.
But she got out of bed and went across to stand behind him. ‘What is it?’ she asked gently. ‘Your mother?’
Still with his back to her, he said, ‘No. I’ve always thought of myself as a civilised man.’
Rowan’s mouth dropped open. Before she could say anything, he went on savagely, ‘Do you really want to know why I came to the exhibition?’
She swallowed. ‘Why?’
‘Because you’re mine. My woman. My mate sounds primitive, but I find I am primitive where you’re concerned. You belong to me.’
Her heart jumping, she said tentatively, ‘So what’s wrong with that?’
He turned his head and looked at her. ‘You can ask that? When Tony said exactly the same thing you told him to go to hell.’
Feeling very wise, she said, ‘Yes, but I didn’t love Tony and he didn’t love me. Wolfe, it’s as simple as that. Love makes everyone feel primitive—it’s quite normal. I feel very primitive and possessive about you—at the exhibition if you hadn’t told Tessa Whoever that we were going I’d have seen her off myself.’
He turned and cupped her face, holding it as though she was infinitely precious to him. ‘Why are you so certain that I won’t behave like Tony?’
‘Instinct,’ she said with solemn assurance, then smiled radiantly up at him. ‘No, more than that. Tony was utterly self-absorbed. You’re not. You cared for me when I fell in the water, and even though you threatened me, you listened to me. Tony never did—he only saw and heard what he wanted to see and hear. And you sent Jim to help me fell the oak tree, didn’t you?’
‘Clever of you to guess,’ he said after a startled moment.
Rowan’s smile was slow and sweet and mysterious. ‘I’ve learned a bit of how you think. If I hadn’t organised this exhibition with as blatant a bit of advertising as you’d find anywhere—I insisted they put that torso with the scar on the brochure—you’d never have come near me, would you?’
‘No. Tony’s stalking—and the fact that I’d thought it entirely reasonable to harass you about his death—made it impossible. I didn’t have the right,’ he said distinctly, the deep rasp in his voice very pronounced. ‘But I’d have waited the rest of my life for you. Rowan, tell me why you’ve forgiven me. I didn’t expect that.’
She looked into his eyes, seeing into their dark depths for the first time. ‘Because I love you, and because I know why you did what you did. I believed that your sleeping with me was just a prelude to extracting information, but I’d lied in a court of law to protect my father. Oh, it was by omission, but I knew Dad had killed Tony. How could I blame you for doing what you could to help your mother?’
He dropped his hands and stepped back, watching her with hooded eyes and a cynical twist to his mouth. ‘There’s something else, too.’
Her heart compressed in her chest. ‘What?’
He said harshly, ‘The first time I saw a photograph of you—the day we met—I recognised the physical power you have over me. But even though I knew that you were the woman who’d been instrumental in Tony’s death, I could no more have turned my back on you the night we met than I could have last night.’
‘So it wasn’t just me,’ she said, heart lifting at his frank admission.
‘It’s never been just you. I went to that first exhibition solely to see you. I didn’t plan to meet you, or talk to you.’ He smiled mockingly. ‘Only my plans exploded in my face the second I set eyes on you. I only have to look at you to want you—hell, I don’t even need to see you! Your scent drives me crazy.’ He ran a long-fingered hand through his hair and said fiercely, ‘And the sound of your voice when you ask if I want milk in my tea makes me want to pick you up and carry you off to bed. It’s never happened to me before and it scared me—literally—witless. That first night, and all the time at Kura Bay, I stormed around in a rage of resentment because I was certain you’d made Tony suffer the same bitter hunger, the humiliating loss of autonomy, of independence.’
‘I know the feeling,’ she said wryly. ‘But Tony didn’t feel that way, Wolfe. He was utterly sure that he’d make me do what he wanted. That’s what scared me so much. I knew that if I gave in it would kill something in me, but towards the end I wondered if eventually I’d get so tired of fighting him that I’d just give in out of exhaustion.’
His hand came out and gripped hers, strength flowing from him to her and back again. ‘Not you,’ he said grimly. ‘For one thing, once we’d met I’d have taken you away from him. But my vast need for you, my inability to control or restrain it, made me angry with both you and myself.’
He raised her hand and kissed it. Rowan shivered as his mouth lingered over the skin.
�
�You’re cold,’ he said at once, and moved to close the window.
‘I’m not cold,’ she told him softly.
In a thickening voice, he murmured, ‘Perhaps I need to hold you while I tell you this.’
It would take him time, she realised, before he’d forgotten Tony’s legacy enough to feel confident abut her. ‘Perhaps,’ she agreed, and walked into strong arms that closed around her.
‘Anyway,’ he said into her hair, ‘last night of course I didn’t want to talk to you instead of making love, but I felt that I needed to re-establish some sort of control over the situation.’
‘Believe me,’ she said earnestly, ‘it’s entirely mutual—I don’t make a habit of going to bed with a man I’ve just met! That first night—when I thought about it afterwards I was awash with shame. I thought I’d gone mad. Do you still resent it?’
‘I did until I discovered that you loved me.’ He lifted her chin and dropped a kiss onto her expectant mouth, his smile a reckless gleam of white in his dark face. ‘It’s taken me a long time to admit it, but this is certainly not just a more potent than usual case of lust at first sight. I love you—beyond common sense, beyond idolatry, beyond anything I’ve ever felt before. I’ve tried damned hard to kill it, but it won’t go.’
Joy exploded within her, joy and an acute, painful relief. Horrified, she felt tears clog her throat. ‘And I love you,’ she muttered. ‘For ever.’
‘For ever,’ he said deeply, and kissed her brow and her cheeks, and her mouth, kisses without the violent passion that had linked them from the first, each kiss a promise more binding than marriage vows.
Against his mouth Rowan said quietly, ‘Your mother wrote to me a couple of weeks after you left. I was surprised that you told her about Tony.’
He lifted his head and laid his cheek against hers. ‘In spite of everything, my mother’s a strong woman and she needed to know the truth. She heard me out, and then she said, ‘‘I was afraid it was something like that.’’’
‘Had he done it before?’
‘Once. I knew nothing about it, and she thought she’d convinced him that it simply wasn’t an option. When I told her about you, she grieved because she hadn’t got him the help he needed, and she grieved for you, too. And then, being my mother, she did something about it. She’s now working in an organisation that helps women who are being stalked.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ Rowan said, surprised and delighted.
‘She’s looking forward very much to meeting you,’ he told her, a note of concern rasping through his words. ‘Although she’s scared you might hate her for the rest of your life.’
‘Of course I won’t,’ Rowan said indignantly. ‘I never blamed her for Tony’s behaviour, and—well, she’s your mother. Do you hate my father for—for what he did?’
‘No. I understand. I’d kill to protect you too.’
Rowan’s heart thudded, then sped up. ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ she said quietly. ‘It wasn’t just my secret. If you’d been a different man, wanting revenge, my father’s superior might have lost everything, and I couldn’t do that to him. He’d tried to help in the only way he could—by saying nothing.’
‘I know.’ He hugged her closely to him, saying into her hair, ‘It’s over, darling. Let the past go now, and concentrate on the future.’
He loosened one arm, leaning down to switch on a lamp. Every muscle disciplined into passivity, she let him turn her face up again. Greenstone eyes surveyed her with excruciating thoroughness, their golden spangles glittering beneath the thick lashes.
Rowan tried to control the pulses that sped into overdrive as he smiled. Helpless against its hard-edged, masculine magnetism, she drowned in the knowledge of his love.
‘Tell me again that you love me,’ he commanded.
‘I love you.’ She said it simply, but with so much conviction that his expression softened.
‘Are you going to marry me?’
She hesitated. ‘I’m not the sort of wife you need, Wolfe. I’m not the sort of wife any man needs—if you wanted me to give up my work I’d probably do it, but—’
‘I’d never ask you to give it up!’ he said explosively. ‘If you don’t want to marry me say so, and we’ll organise something else, so long as you understand that you’re the only wife I’ll ever have,’ he finished on a soft growl, his face hard and demanding.
Rowan saw truth in his eyes. Pierced by joy that coloured her skin and warmed her eyes to radiant gold, she said, ‘If you can deal with a wife who pots and sculpts, I’ll marry you.’
‘When? In three days’ time?’
Laughing, she said, ‘Yes!’
‘Well, only on the condition that I never hear you even hint at giving up your work,’ he said, touching her trembling mouth with his finger. ‘You’ll be remembered when I’m long forgotten. Do you want to keep living at Kura Bay?’
‘You’ll be making enough compromises without having to fly in and out whenever you go away on business trips,’ she said, hugging him. ‘We can go to Kura Bay for holidays. I’d like to live by the sea, though, if we can do that.’
Laughing deep in his throat, he picked her up. ‘Of course we can, although I won’t be travelling nearly as much as I have been. We’ll buy land by the beach somewhere around Auckland, and build a house with a studio and a state-of-the-art kiln and whatever else you need, suitable—when you’re ready—for kids. And we’ll be happy, my dearest heart.’
She reached up, kissing his throat. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking up into his face, her heart in her eyes and her quivering smile. ‘Darling Wolfe, I’ll marry you and love you and have your children.’
‘Then let’s do it.’ The little galaxies in his eyes danced.
Not fool’s gold, she thought as he kissed her with mounting passion and she felt the familiar, ever-precious heat lick through her. No, the true gold of happiness.
Of love.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5922-9
WOLFE’S TEMPTRESS
First North American Publication 2005.
Copyright © 2002 by Robyn Kingston.
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