by Paula Roe
“Do you want a drink?”
“Okay.” Inside, her heart was doing a dance on her ribs. “I’ll be down in a moment.” She went to the stairs, gave him one brief glance then went up to her bedroom.
Dressed in a pair of loose drawstring linen pants and a blue tank top, Beth paused at the top of the stairs. Below lay an abyss of darkness, punctuated only by the candles on the coffee table, their familiar fragrance drifting through the ground floor. The flames danced and teased, as if they knew their purpose was to calm and soothe but deliberately doing the opposite.
She took a deep breath and descended. Luke’s long legs stretched out on the floor, crossed at the ankles. His back was cradled by the leg of the couch and in his hand he absently twirled a half-full wineglass.
Swiftly she crossed the room and tugged the curtains apart. “You should really see the sky—it’s great on a night like this. See?”
Through the inky blackness, past the fence line, the river rippled and tossed with the wind. In the distance a brief glimpse of stars glittered, tiny diamonds in indigo velvet, before the rolling black storm clouds gradually engulfed them.
“Here comes that rain.”
“Yep.” Luke poured some more wine then gestured to the spot beside him. She sat, took the glass he offered then sipped in silence. And slowly, the lull of the alcohol, the slashing rain and the flickering candles began to work their magic.
With a gentle snort, Beth shook her head.
“What?” Luke said.
“Your aunt.” At the questioning curve to his eyebrow, she added, “She really loved Gino, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
Beth sighed. “My parents missed out on so much.”
Luke watched her contemplate the fabric of her pants, as if they provided an answer only she could decipher.
“Tell me,” he said softly.
She shot him a brief glance from under her lashes then focused on her hands, linking her fingers together. Here is the church, here is the steeple…
“Oh, just…” She gestured with a shrug. “It’s nothing.”
“Not nothing.”
When her expression tightened, Luke sensed the remnants of something more, something worrying enough to make her shift uncomfortably and straighten her shoulders.
Then she took a deep breath and began to speak.
“I was seventeen and just out of high school while my mom worked two jobs. Then one day, in the middle of fourth term, she booked us on a flight to Perth with money I knew we didn’t have.”
She stopped abruptly, letting the silence swallow her confession. Luke remained still, allowing her time to reveal the pieces of her past.
“I had no money, no life and barely a functioning parent,” she eventually continued. “For once I wanted to be normal, to travel, to experience new things.” He could almost hear her wistfulness as she recalled long-forgotten dreams. “I should’ve said no but she was so excited. She never got excited about anything, not since my dad left. I couldn’t—” she hesitated, then finished lamely “—bring myself to rain on her parade.”
I was just a naive teenager, Beth reminded herself. Wanting an adventure. An escape from the endless boredom of my life.
Her mouth tilted at the memory. She’d locked her past tightly away and she could try to convince herself that Luke’s appearance had forced the memories to surface. But the truth was, her very existence had already begun to turn the key. Now the door gaped wide-open.
Yet her slowly blossoming trust continued to war with a lifetime of secrets. She could feel the warm burn of his eyes and braced herself for the breathlessness and panic to set in. It was there, buzzing faintly in the background, but way less urgent, less dark than before.
That meant something. It had to.
“I was in an accident and people died, my mother included. So about a year later, I met a guy. He seemed nice and I liked him. I was eighteen and of course, you fall in love with every guy you date, right? So one night, after we…uh, were in bed—” she swallowed, embarrassed “—he told me he was a reporter, that he’d been trying to track me down for weeks and could I give him an exclusive.”
From the corner of her eye she could see Luke’s still profile. The dim light and deep shadows cast his features into sharp angles, doing nothing to hide the flint in his eyes or the tightening of his jaw.
She didn’t want to take that step backward, to delve into that pool of loss, betrayal and the inevitable vulnerability that failure had brought her. The past was dead and gone but still had the power to humiliate. Just as she felt a mild panic attack well up in her chest, she recalled the tiny bits of memory she’d shoved away—the irritation on Jack’s face when she’d slammed out the door, the hurtful revelation that cut like tiny shards of glass. And the sickening realization she would never truly be able to leave the past behind. She had to get out before it completely destroyed her.
She straightened her back against the hard couch leg. The panic attack faded as she went on. “So, there you go.” She drew a stray curl behind her ears with a firm hand. “That’s why I don’t trust anyone.”
When he reached for her, she pulled back. “Don’t.”
He ignored her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Don’t what?” he murmured. “Don’t touch you? Or don’t care that you’ve been hurt?”
She buried her face in his chest, her answer muffled. “Both.”
“Too late.”
As they sat there on the floor cradling each other, she felt the tight constraints of her past begin to crumble.
“You’re into touching a lot, aren’t you?” she muttered against his shoulder.
“Yep.” She closed her eyes as his fingers went into her hair. God, that felt good. “Get used to it.”
After an eternity of her against the world, Beth nearly convinced herself he meant that. He’d slowly attacked her defenses, questioned her reasons for being alone. She knew she couldn’t hold out forever under this tender barrage. Openness was a luxury she did without, and yet she could feel herself warming to it, welcoming it.
Regretfully, she drew back and felt a surge of terrible loss. But that was dumb. How could she lose what wasn’t hers?
“Why do you blame yourself for Gino’s death?” she asked after a while.
His eyes watching her over the rim of his wineglass suddenly sharpened. “You really want to go down that road?”
She tilted her chin up. “Yes,” then, more softly, “I want to help you.”
“I was suspended, I confronted Gino, we argued and he had a heart attack,” he stated flatly.
He paused, almost as if he expected her to run screaming from the room. She stayed right where she was.
“Don’t look at me like that!” he muttered.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re doing right now. I don’t deserve it. I don’t need it.”
Beth sighed. “You don’t think you deserve my understanding and support?”
“No. Weren’t you listening? I killed my uncle.”
“So you said.”
Her composure was beginning to irritate him. “So I don’t need—”
“Don’t tell me what to feel, Luke.” She poked a finger in his chest. “You loved Gino. You miss him. How he died doesn’t erase a lifetime of good memories. Do you even know what I would’ve given for a family like yours?”
Luke’s scowl matched hers. “They’re not saints.”
“So whose are? At least they love you.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“Whatever taints them taints you, right?” From the look on his face she knew she’d hit a nerve. “And you think bottling up your misplaced guilt is a good way of handling it? If Gino were alive, you’d still have to go through the inquiry. You’d still be on suspension. Nothing would’ve changed. Would Gino have wanted you beating yourself up about it?” She went on more gently. “With all this craziness around you, you don’t need to tak
e the blame for Gino, too. You can’t do your job if you don’t respect your own decisions. Believe me, I know.”
Luke was staring at her, his dark eyes narrowed to speculative slits.
“How do you do that?” he muttered.
“What?”
“Know exactly what—” He looked away.
“What you’re thinking?” She gave him a smile. “You’ve hardly cornered the market on the guilt trip. Don’t punish yourself. Tell Rosa how you feel.”
Luke snorted. “And have her hate me?”
“She won’t hate you. She loves you.”
Luke just stared straight ahead, intent on his thoughts.
His profile was perfect—full mouth, strong nose, broad brow. And underneath lurked a vulnerability that tugged at her heart so badly she wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let go.
“You can trust me, too, you know.”
Luke tilted the glass to his lips and swallowed, letting her statement hang until it felt like a leaded weight.
“It’s gone. I’m over it.” Yet the tightness in his shoulders, the gleam in his eyes told a different story.
She reached out and touched his arm. “Okay.”
He looked down at her hand, then up to meet her eyes. And gave her a glimpse of pain so raw it stole her breath. “Sometimes it comes back to me, you know?”
“Gino?”
“Gabrielle,” he said thickly. “Is there something I could’ve said or done differently. Anything to stop her from—” He cleared his throat with a scowl. “We were eighteen, she got pregnant. The baby was six months old when she took his life, then her own. I found them both and—” He slashed his gaze to the floor, his jaw working. “It’s like I’ve got a private movie going on here—” he tapped his temple “—and it’s an all-night screening.”
Instinct kicked in. Going to him in his moment of need seemed perfectly natural. Perfectly right. Beth selfishly absorbed the way he felt in her arms, dragging in the smell of his skin, his warmth.
“When you make it through a day without thinking about it, you feel like cheering,” she said softly, her chin on his shoulder. “A week passes, then a month. Before long a year or two’s gone by and you forget the way they smiled, or spoke or hummed a certain tune when they were happy. And you wonder if forgetting is the best way to remember them.”
“Yeah.” He let out a deep breath and drew back and Beth felt suddenly bereft.
“Do you like what you do, Luke? I mean, apart from this last week.”
He dragged his fingers through his hair. “My parents died in near poverty, uninsured and in debt. I was determined to be smarter than that. Better. More…” He sighed. “In control.”
His soft statement hit a chord inside. He was way too close, evoking emotions he had no right to be evoking. Beth felt her face warm, followed by other, very intimate places.
Luke knew the exact moment everything changed. The melancholy scattered, replaced by a surge of desire that went straight to his groin.
His next question came out rough. “Don’t you miss it at all?”
“Miss what?”
“The intimacy. Sex.”
“Frankly, no.” She glanced away, her discomfort obvious. “It wasn’t that good.”
“Maybe you weren’t doing it right.”
She snorted. “What’s the saying? ‘If it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.’”
“I think they’re talking about pizza.”
He grinned at her quickly smothered smile. “Trust me, there’s a big difference.”
“I see.”
The still, warm silence in the room was suddenly more intimate than a caress.
Luke knew Beth was wary, scarred by her past. Hell, he was, too. But this time there was something more, something more than just physical attraction. She intrigued him, her sexy body combined with that don’t-touch-me glow. She tried so hard for control and calm yet when you scratched below the surface, complex emotion bubbled out. He wanted nothing more than to dislodge that exterior.
He linked his fingers through hers and watched in fascination as the intimate slide of flesh on flesh sent a shiver over her skin.
Then he reached out and gently removed the glass from her fingers before slowly bending to her mouth.
Her eyes fluttered closed, two dark sets of eyelashes feathering softly against her cheeks. At the last moment he detoured to that cheek, gently lipped the skin, then inched to the corners of her mouth.
Beth’s blood pounded as she leaned into him and took a deep breath. Skin, warmth and Luke. Home.
When he finally covered her mouth with his she sighed with contentment. He made her forget the convictions she held on to so tightly. He was heat and passion and tenderness all rolled into one. His lips and teeth and breath did everything his fingers didn’t—teasing, testing, savoring her.
When he finally released her mouth, she squeezed her eyes tight.
“Nervous, cara?”
She shook her head vigorously, finally opening her eyes. The passion in his stole her breath away. Gently, he caressed her cheek and her heart broke into a thousand pieces.
“You don’t have to live your life because of other people’s actions,” he said, his warm palm cupping her cheek. “If you do, it means they’ve won. It means you’ve allowed them to control you.”
He was right. Oh, how he was right. Something so simple should have occurred to her before now, but it hadn’t. She didn’t like how Luke forced her to take a long, hard look at her life, at herself. She didn’t like what she saw.
“I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Then don’t,” he whispered. “Just let go of thinking tonight.”
So when he kissed her forehead with infinite tenderness, then each cheek, then her mouth, she refused to think about anything but his lips, his hands and his heat easing its way into every crevice of her body.
He gently drew her down onto the rug, settling her beneath him.
“I’m not sure…” she muttered against his lips.
She felt the curve of his smile against her skin, his breath teasing her sanity. “I am. Let me show you.”
Then lips met, tongues gently teasing, coaxing, playing out a sensual game of tag. He slid his hand along her thigh and up to the indentation of her waist. She was so warm and soft! He could touch her forever, those beautiful legs, that hot satiny skin, that gently curving waist. That expressive face with wide green eyes watching his every move.
He yanked off his shirt then went for hers, needing to feel that skin against his.
She reached up and ran her hands over his chest, an expression of wary curiosity on her face. She touched the ridges, the bumps and crevices, caressed the muscle. Gently skimming over his stomach only to pause when he sucked in a breath.
When her eyes met his, passion shoved caution out the window. It made his breath hitch. He lowered himself to lie flush against her, kissing her mouth again, then her neck. She arched back to allow him better access and he teased the skin with teeth, tongue and hot breath. His heart pounded, but he deliberately forced himself to slow down, to take his time. He wanted to imprint the look on Beth’s face in his brain, keep her small gasps, the low breathy moans forever in his memory. He wanted to find every sensitive place on her body and kiss it until she begged him to make love to her.
He pulled away, her murmur of protest tightening his groin. But when he stood and silently extended a hand to her, she hesitated, her wide eyes churning with a multitude of emotions.
He smiled and said softly, “Beth. Come here.”
That’s all it took.
She put her hand in his and let him lead her up the stairs, first into his room where he rummaged around in a bag and came up with a strip of foil packets. She flushed under his smile, nervous, but that flush quickly became an all-over flame when he took her hand and led her into her bedroom.
And then she was in his arms. Their lips met. Then their bodies.
Wit
h deft fingers, Luke untied her pants as she peeled his shirt off. She drew in a deep breath, smelling the remnants of his cologne, warm flesh and the musky aroma of male perspiration.
He wanted her, really wanted her.
Mouth on mouth, their sighs mingled, then their tongues.
His skin felt like hot tempered steel under satin and tasted of sin. His hands brushed against her hip and every single sense erupted with awareness and longing as she settled against the length of his body.
Beth gave one desperate moan and knew she was lost.
Nerves crackled to attention, every inch of her skin alert and craving to be touched. A thin sheen of sweat broke out and trickled down the small of her back.
When he sucked on her bottom lip she jumped a mile out of her skin. A jagged breath came in, then out, as he stroked her belly.
She didn’t want to get used to his kisses, his touch. Yet she could hardly think straight with his mouth pressed to her neck and expert hands pulling off her panties.
When Luke’s palm curled around the moist juncture between her legs, she jerked and grabbed his hand. Stilled it. “Luke… I…”
“What? What is it, cara mia?” he muttered against her neck.
“I…” She pulled away to meet his heavy-lidded eyes, suddenly embarrassed. But all she could get out was, “I’m… not… very good…”
If his tender smile didn’t chase all her doubts away, his husky reply did it. “You’re beautiful, Beth. You don’t need to hide anything from me.”
The last remnants of her iron will came tumbling down. She captured his lips and kissed him deeply.
Hard, hot arousal ached between Luke’s legs as they continued teasing each other with lips, hands and breath. She let him put his mouth all over her neck. Let him trail his lips toward one sensitive breast. Let his questing hand cup the warmth of her femininity and massage gently. Lost in passion, the growl in his throat was low and predatory.
Her knees trembled as she clung to him, as if she were drowning and he her only hope of survival. And when she let out a husky whimper, it pushed him toward the edge. “Luke… I…”