The Burning Point

by Mary Jo Putney

  Technically she was visible only from the tops of her shoulders up--but knowing she was naked under a shimmering layer of foam made his mouth go dry.

  There were shadows under her eyes, but she still looked delectable. "I hadn't realized quite how quickly a whirlpool generates foam if bubble bath is added," she said. I can't run the jets for more than a couple of minutes at a time."

  He inhaled rose-scented air. Intoxicatingly feminine and romantic. "This hotel definitely gives honeymooners their money's worth."

  "I suspect that most of the guests are parents who hire a baby-sitter for the night and come here for a romantic getaway."

  He poured the wine, concentrating on her glass. Studying the amount of creamy flesh revealed by the bubbles would have been an exercise in pure masochism.

  He was about to retreat when he noticed an abrasion on her right cheek. "I thought you weren't hurt."

  "Only a brush burn. That and some bruises are the sum total of my injuries. Pretty amazing." She reached for the wine glass, iridescent foam trailing from her arm.

  He tried not to notice the way the movement exposed half her right breast. "Did the clinic give you a sedative? If so, you probably shouldn't be drinking."

  "They said to take ibuprofen. Very low-tech."

  "Well--don't fall asleep in here."

  His hand was on the doorknob when she said hesitantly, "How about getting yourself a drink and joining me?"

  She just wanted to talk out her nerves after the accident. He could handle that. "I'll get a soda."

  When he was safely outside the bathroom, he unbuttoned his shirt and used it to wipe perspiration from his face. He felt as if he'd just spent a night in the tropics.

  He unlaced his boots and kicked them aside, sending his socks after them. After filling a glass with ice from the bucket she'd left on the bar, he poured himself a ginger ale and returned to the bathroom.

  She took a sip of her wine. "Any idea why that chunk of ceiling fell on me? It really shouldn't have."

  He sat on the floor with his back against the door, one knee drawn up. "I took a look after you left. Old termite damage had badly weakened the rafters. The shock waves from the loader were the last straw. Sheer bad luck that you were underneath when gravity won."

  "Any accident you can walk away from doesn't count as bad luck."

  "You've had more than your share of accidents in your short history with PDI. I should ban you from all job sites."

  Instead of flaring up at him, she said, "You've had plenty accidents and near-misses, haven't you? I remember a couple from when we were married, and even then I suspected you weren't telling me everything because you didn't want me to worry."

  He smiled wryly. "I should have known I wasn't fooling you."

  "What was your most dangerous accident?"

  The bubbles had declined to just above the level of her nipples. He looked away. "Turn the whirlpool on to raise the suds level, and I'll tell you about it."

  Coloring, she hit the button that activated the jets. He practiced multiplication tables to distract himself until she turned the whooshing waters off again. Since a cautious glance showed bubbles up to her clavicles, he let his gaze rest on her again. "The worst was a fluke, not really a normal accident. I was spreading out leftover dynamite after a shoot so we could burn it off when a lunatic walked up, whipped out a pistol, and fired into the explosives."

  "My God! What happened?"

  "One hell of an explosion. Because I was kneeling, most of the blast went over me. Not entirely--there was enough force to throw me seventy or eighty feet. A couple of ribs were cracked, I lost some hearing in one ear, and my college ring was wrenched off. Not that I'm complaining. I got off lightly."

  "What happened to the man who set off the explosion?"

  "Dead. A frustrated implosion junkie." He pressed the icy glass against his forehead, remembering. It had been Phoenix in August, and hotter than the hinges of hell. "Apparently he wanted to kill someone from PDI because our security guards had prevented him from stealing any explosives from the site. He didn't mind blowing himself to smithereens in the process."

  "And you tell me I'm trouble-prone! I just fall down elevator shafts and get bopped by ceilings. You've had someone actively try to blow you up."

  "You've got a point."

  Kate crossed her arms on the edge of the tub. "When you've come close to death like that, have you ever had your life pass in front of your eyes? Thought about unfinished business?"

  "To be honest, no. The incident has always been over before I had time to think about such things. Did you have those kinds of thoughts today?"

  "Yes." Her wine glass was empty, so she set it against the wall. "You must be ready to wash the day's sweat and dust off. Why not join me? This tub is big enough for two."

  "Jesus, Kate! How much have you had to drink?"

  "Only two glasses of wine. Not enough to get drunk." She took a deep breath. "Just enough to give me the nerve to...to proposition you."

  Her words triggered a rush of heat that dizzied him. "Don't start something you won't want to finish."

  "I don't intend to." Her eyes closed for an instant. "When I was lying under that slab, wondering if I was going to suffocate or get crushed by the loader, I realized that my biggest regret was being too afraid to...to be with you. I'm still scared, and Lord only knows if anything worthwhile can come of it--but I know now that this is one risk I'll have to take, or I'll never forgive myself."

  "You're sure about this?"

  "I'm sure."

  He stripped off his T-shirt and tossed it to one side. "Then let us hope, cara mia, that there is enough water in that tub to wash away a dozen years worth of very heavy baggage."

  Chapter 36

  Despite the warmth of the water, Kate shivered as she watched Donovan peel off his T-shirt. Years of construction work had layered hard muscle on his chest and arms, as well as adding a scar or two.

  She couldn't quite believe that after weeks of doggedly repressing her attraction, she'd finally had the courage--or craziness--to confront her fears head on.

  He unsnapped the waistband of his jeans. Before undressing further, he bent over the tub to tenderly touch his lips to the abrasion on her cheek. "You look ready to jump out of your skin. It's not too late to change your mind. But it will be soon."

  She slid her hand around his neck and turned her face, bringing their mouths together. Patrick, Patrick. She'd have known his lips, his kiss, anywhere in the world. Warm, firm, familiar. They'd shared so many kisses once. Some of passion, others of affection, sometimes as a casual token that they were bonded.

  This was a slow, gentle kiss of welcome and exploration. She could feel the desire in him. Her fear was replaced by tension of a different sort. "I won't change my mind. I promise," she whispered.

  She made herself look at the thin, almost invisible scar that ran from his left shoulder down his upper arm to almost his elbow. The sight made her stomach knot. She traced the faint line with her fingertip. "What about you, Patrick? Are you sure you want to get so close to someone who stabbed you?"

  He caught her hand and held it against his heart for a moment. "The only harm you ever did was what I drove you to, Kate."

  He'd learned a thing or two about patience in the intervening years. Rather than following up the first kiss with another, he slid into the far end of the tub. The water level rose as his powerfully muscled legs bracketed hers. Both of them had to bend their knees to fit comfortably into the tub.

  "I think this is a project worthy of some serious anticipation." He stroked the side of her hip with the arch of his foot. Sensuous. Sexy.

  "This tub seems much smaller than it did with just one person in it." She laid her hand on his ankle, then slowly skimmed upward over his shin and calf.

  "Togetherness is the whole point. Speaking of which, I haven't been celibate for the last ten years, but I had a blood test with a physical not long ago, and I don't have any horribl
e viruses."

  "Same here. And the contraception part is okay, too." She blushed a little. A modern woman was never supposed to trust what a man might say when he was under the influence of raging hormones, but this was Patrick. Though he'd wounded her more deeply than anyone else in her life, at the same time she knew he could be trusted absolutely to protect her health. As he could trust her.

  He captured the washcloth floating around the tub and did a little scrubbing. Thinking he might like the water jets, she restarted the whirlpool action.

  He leaned back in the tub as the currents swirled around him. "That feels good. I should use the whirlpool at home more often. Usually I just shower." His hand drifted up her leg, sliding from outside to inside on the way to her knee. Lazily he caressed her inner thigh with his knuckles.

  Sensation blazed through her. It took so little for him to kindle her. "Showers are good for washing hair. Baths are for serious recreation."

  "I'm willing to recreate."

  "It's odd that the first time we were together--and not even on a real date!--sex was so easy and natural. Now I'm tied in knots."

  "Not so odd." His palm skimmed down her calf in the same relaxed tempo as his voice. "That night, we were both operating on instinct--a higher kind, not the purely hormonal. We knew that we should be together. But so much has happened since then. Hardly surprising that your mind has serious doubts."

  "I think too much. You used to tell me that, and you were right."

  "Like anything else, thinking can be good or bad." He sighed. "I can't blame you for thinking I'm trouble. I took a relationship that was a gift from God, and destroyed it."

  While she had lain trapped and frightened in the old hotel, she'd faced not only her cowardice where he was concerned, but other hard realizations as well. "There's enough fault to go around, Patrick. I handled the situation badly from the beginning. I made excuses for you, blamed myself for not being understanding enough, swore I'd try harder. And...and maybe I didn't take the problem seriously enough, because making up was always fantastic." In other words, from a mixture of motives, some good and some bad, she had to some extent colluded in her own abuse.

  "Great sex has a way of masking underlying problems. To me, the fact that we were still so passionate with each other meant there wasn't anything really wrong," he said. "It was also an excuse for me not to look at my own behavior. Since I was satisfying my woman, I must be a real man."

  She'd shared that unspoken belief that passion meant their relationship was solid. "When things got really bad, I fell apart. If I'd been braver and smarter, I would have stayed in Maryland and at least tried to fix our marriage rather than running as far and fast as I could. I only understood yes and no. Yes, this marriage works, or no, it's hopeless. 'Maybe' wasn't in my vocabulary."

  "Don't second guess yourself, Kate. Maybe things couldn't have been fixed then. Maybe we needed years of growing and learning before it was the right time. I'd like to think that."

  She scooped up a double handful of suds and watched them flow from her cupped palms down her wrists. So many perfect little bubbles, exquisitely iridescent. Could he be right, that there was a pattern and order to why things happened as they did? "I'd like to believe that, too."

  "Kate, I don't want anything about tonight to remind you of...the last time. So it's up to you to initiate, to do what you want, when you want it. You're in charge."

  With a shock of understanding, she recognized that he'd put his finger on her underlying anxiety. Their marriage had shattered in a conflict rooted in desperation and possession and power, not love. She'd been able to live and work with Donovan by denying everything she'd felt that day, but it would be impossible tonight. So he was doing his best to put the power in her hands. "In charge. I like that idea."

  After turning off the water jets, she glided to the other end of the tub. She settled on top of him, breasts brushing his chest, her body lightly resting over his. "Much nicer than being a victim."

  She nuzzled against him, licking his throat, running her hands over his broad shoulders and the darkly patterned hair of his chest. Pressing her lips to the ragged upper end of the knife scar. Under the dizzying fragrance of roses, she identified his personal scent. Unique, exhilarating. "Remember that night on the beach in Antigua, on our honeymoon?"

  "Of course. Moonlight and madness." His body came alive under hers, his hands planing down her back and hips with silken smoothness.

  She slid over him, buoyant in the water. She tasted and touched as every square inch of heated flesh imprinted the present, and recalled the past. "I tried to forget, but I couldn't."

  His erection was a velvety pressure against her belly, taut and unmistakable. She rubbed against it, teasing herself as much as him. He caught her hips, holding her close. "Ah, cara mia. I swear memories of what you do to me are engraved on my DNA."

  She'd wanted power, and she had it. Not the power of physical force but of shared passion, desire that was a fever in the blood. She flowed around and over him, kissing and rubbing and caressing, scarcely able to believe that they really were together again after so many years. This must be the most vivid dream of her life. Yet he was too real, too present, to deny.

  When she could bear to wait no longer, she raised her hips, then impaled herself on him. Satin heat, wicked promises. He groaned and arched upward, his whole frame rigid as he buried himself more deeply.

  It felt so good, so right, to have him inside her. She tangled one hand in his hair and wrapped her other arm around his waist as her body led his in a primal dance of thrust and retreat. She didn't know where she ended and he began, only that together they were one, united in passion and searing pleasure. Time was arrested, superseded by a higher harmony as he matched her rhythm exactly. No one had ever suited her so well, no one, no one....

  Time returned shatteringly when she convulsed, grinding against him as she lost all control. He surged inside her, his arms locking around her like iron as he gave a long-drawn out groan of raw urgency. Culmination, and completion, as she had not been complete in almost ten years.

  Dizzy with release, she wilted on his chest. "Lord, Patrick, I've missed you so much. So damned much."

  "Cara." He kissed her temple, her cheek, her ear. "Carissima."

  Dearest one. He'd always saved the endearment for their most intimate moments. For the space of a dozen heartbeats, she basked in the sense of rightness.

  Euphoria faded swiftly. She'd learned that the passion was powerful as ever. No surprise there, given the sexual tension that had been thrumming between them.

  But she'd also learned, again, that desire wasn't enough. Secretly she'd hoped that if she had the courage to make herself vulnerable, her fears would magically fall away and they could deal with each other as they were now, unshadowed by the past. Instead, fear had crystallized into a terrible conviction that she was teetering on the brink of an abyss. That loving him would come at the price of her soul.

  Where could they go from here? The genie of passion had escaped from the bottle and would not go back inside. She could not imagine them continuing to live under the same roof without being lovers, yet neither could she envision the shadows dissolving and her daring to make a forever commitment.

  She reminded herself that he wasn't asking for that. He wanted to test what was between them, but great sex didn't mean he was interested in remarriage. They'd always been physically compatible. It hadn't been enough then, so maybe he'd decide that it wasn't enough now.

  It was a remarkably liberating thought.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Dreamily Donovan stroked Kate, hoping she'd never move. Hard to believe how many years had passed since they'd made love. How had he lived without her?

  Very badly.

  The phone on the vanity rang, destroying the mood. He groaned when she sat up and climbed from the tub. "Don't go," he protested. "Whoever it is can leave a message on the voice mail."

  "We can't stay in a tub forever. We'd wrin
kle like prunes."

  "On you it would look good."

  Dripping, she picked up the phone on the third ring. "Hello? Oh, hi, Mr. Glazer. It was nice of you to call. I'm fine." She rolled her eyes at Donovan. "I just had a nice relaxing bath. Tomorrow I'll be as good as new."

  Since there wasn't much point in staying in the tub alone, he climbed out and wrapped a towel around his hips. Then he took another towel and began drying the elegant curves of Kate's back. He always enjoyed seeing her shining hair loose over her shoulders, but he had to admit that he also liked how the delicate line of her nape was exposed when her hair was pinned on top of her head.

  She caught her breath when he circled her thigh with the towel and slowly patted downward, absorbing droplets of water. "Yes, Donovan stopped by to see how I was doing. He's very...conscientious."

  He examined her body in leisurely detail. Her figure was a little fuller. Sexier than ever. But he frowned at the ugly bruises she'd acquired earlier in the day. There was an enormous purple patch on one hip where she'd hit the floor, and smaller ones in a dozen other places. He kissed each mark with gossamer lightness, wishing he could make them vanish.

  Then, because he was in the neighborhood, he touched one of her nipples with his tongue, lapping it to tautness. Kate's breathing quickened. Hastily she said good-bye and hung up. "That's a rotten trick, Donovan."

  "Is it?" He transferred his attention to her other breast.

  "Darned right. You said that tonight I got to call the shots."

  "Me and my big mouth." He exhaled, his warm breath sliding over her skin.

  "Well--I don't entirely object to your mouth. But it's my turn to dry you off."

  "I can live with that." He removed the clips that held her hair in place, enjoying the cascade of glossy tresses. She ducked away before he could play any more, and got a towel of her own. Very thorough, Kate was. By the time she'd finished drying him, taking special care not to neglect any vital body parts, he was ready to adjourn to the bedroom.