“Come on.” He led her along the winding path back into the depths of the estate.
“What’s that?” She pointed at the ivied walls rising ahead.
“That’s where we’re going.” He led her toward the tall, heavy, timbered gate. Pulling the key out of his pocket, he showed it to her.
He felt her flinch. He heard her draw a breath.
So she recognized it. It probably matched the one she’d used to get into the house.
Fitting the key in the lock, he turned it. He experienced an odd sensation, a sort of breathlessness, although he didn’t know why. Then he realized—he actually anticipated the look on her face when he showed her. . . . He pushed the door open and stepped aside.
Her expression of delight was everything he could have wished. “Look. It is the Secret Garden!” She bounded in, her robe fluttering behind her.
Her enthusiasm bubbled up like champagne, intoxicating him, and he hurried after her, calling, “Would you slow down?”
“Don’t be silly!” She disappeared around the corner, and her voice called back, “How could I slow down when the moon is full and I’m in the Secret Garden?” She laughed, one of those full-bodied laughs that made his testosterone levels surge. Then, “Oh!”
He came around the corner and almost ran into her.
She stood stock-still before the wide expanse of lawn that was the heart of the garden. A tangle of pine and rhododendrons occupied one corner. An immense live oak spread its branches over a marble bench. An artificial waterfall sparkled over real boulders and into a pool, and frogs called their love songs.
And at the center of the broad sweep of the glade was a pergola where an ancient wisteria vine twisted up and over, thick with blooms.
It was just the way he’d planned it. He’d seen in the garden a marvelous asset. He’d approved its cleanup, the plantings, and the installation of the waterfall. Transforming the garden from a tangled jungle into a romantic hideaway made financial sense—after all, the value of the Secret Garden increased once lovers started hiring the hotel to plan their weddings.
But he wasn’t thinking of finance while he basked in the awe on her face.
“This is . . . so beautiful.” Her voice choked with tears.
In the moonlight, the garden glowed with light and shadow, glory and mystery.
So did Meadow. The moon’s glow lit her face, and at the same time she radiated pure joy. “Thank you for bringing me here. Thank you for showing me this. I don’t care what everyone says about you. You’re wonderful!”
Leaving him speechless, she danced away.
She twirled in a circle, around and around, laughing lightly. Then she did something that stopped his breath.
She shed her robe.
The moon shone through the thin white material of her nightgown. As she whirled, he could see her legs, her hips, her waist, her breasts in silhouette.
She was glorious, a white candle topped by flame.
Then . . . she pulled her nightgown up and off over her head.
He’d seen his share of naked women. He’d visited Mediterranean beaches where toplessness was a way of life. But he had never seen anything as bold and innocently sexy as Meadow worshipping the moon. She paid him no heed, but swayed to an inner rhythm, her feet bare, her thighs strong and muscled, her small breasts high and pale.
If he believed in witches, he would believe in her. She made him want to dance in the moonlight. She made him want to shout, to sing, to fuck.
She made him want to live. And that was goddamn stupid, because he was already living.
Except . . . as he watched her, he knew he was lying to himself. He hadn’t been alive for years. Maybe he’d never been alive.
Her expression was fiercely exultant, as if the night were her lover and she the only woman who could satisfy him.
But no. Devlin wanted to be her lover.
He discarded his shoes.
Stupid move, but not fatally stupid, because he kept his pants on. As long as those pants were on, the two of them were safe from something so impetuous, it would be madness.
He walked toward her, seeing nothing but her.
As she twirled toward him, her smile blossomed.
“Let me show you what moonlight is made for.” Sliding his arm around her back, he placed his hand on her bare back.
And for the first time, he got real benefit out of his Southern-gentleman training. Unhurriedly he guided her through the basic steps of the waltz, teaching her; then, as she gained confidence, he took her in wider and wider circles, speeding up, carrying her along with him.
She felt small in his arms, and with each turn her body brushed against him, teasing him. Her scent rose in his nostrils and fired synapses in his brain until he knew that if he were blindfolded and shoved into a crowd of women, he would identify her. The breeze sang in his ears, the trees and flowers and pond and pergola whirled past, and she smiled up at him as if he had enchanted her.
And she was naked in his arms.
Later he didn’t remember planning to do what he did. He was a man who plotted and schemed every moment of his life, his business, and his revenge, yet a silent melody and a merry face swept him away to someplace where only the two of them existed.
The circles got wider and slower.
Her smile dissolved. Her wide eyes focused on him—just him. The two of them loitered through the last steps, their bodies pressed together.
They stopped and stared at each other.
She broke away.
She took his hand.
And she led him toward the pergola.
20
Inside the pergola the fragrance of wisteria hung heavy in the air, and the moonlight lay shattered in bright bits on the marble bench, the flagstones, and Meadow’s face.
She struggled to get Devlin’s jeans unbuttoned and unzipped.
He didn’t help her. Hell, why would he, and miss the accidental touches to his groin and occasionally—okay, more than occasionally—the touches to his dick?
For how could she not touch it? It was gigantic.
He wanted to chuckle at himself for his testosterone-fed flight of imagination. Trouble was—his dick felt gigantic. It felt powerful. He felt powerful.
She pushed his jeans off. His boxers. She ran her fingertips from his balls to his tip.
No other touch had ever felt so good, and he groaned like a callow boy.
“Do you want to dance now?” she whispered, and her husky voice trembled with suppressed laughter.
“You little tease.” Picking the robe off the bench, he spread it over the marble. In one efficient motion he twirled her around and flat onto her back.
For the first time she saw him with a face stripped of guile. The moonlight showed her his soul before the circumstances of his life had stripped away his pleasure in life. Tonight he wasn’t a control freak or a tycoon or a mystery. Tonight he was just a man.
No, he was a guy, controlled by his testicles and happy to obey their dictates.
And who was she? A woman who had disregarded her mother’s warnings about the fatal combination of moonlight and men.
Now she was as helpless as he was.
She held up her arms to embrace him.
His dark eyes gleamed in the shards of moonlight, and his teeth flashed as he smiled. With his hands on her shoulders, he pressed her back.
Then those hands wandered . . . down across her breasts, brushing them, learning their shape, their sensitivity.
Her eyes closed as he caressed the curve of the underside, the small circle of her nipples. He knew exactly what he was doing, touching her in such a way that she thought only of the slow, warm slide into arousal.
She didn’t know what to do with her legs. Put her feet on the ground? The bench would be between them. She would be revealed, and it seemed too early for that. Yet when she bent her knee and put one heel against the seat, he murmured, “Darling,” and kissed her inner thigh.
They we
re going to make love, in this secret garden on this perfect night . . . and maybe this was what she’d planned all along. Her untried emotions felt new and raw, different from any she’d experienced. She felt like an adventurer visiting a place she’d only imagined.
When he slid his hand up her thigh and buried it in the carefully trimmed thatch of copper curls, she arched off the bench in a tumultuous excess of anticipation. “Devlin,” she whispered.
“What? Do you like that?” His finger slid inside her, a deep, leisurely violation. “And this?”
Her eyes opened wide, and when she looked up at him, she saw a handsome face made wondrous by the desire he could fire in her. He was all strong muscle over heavy bones, a man made tough by the fight for success, for honor, for his identity.
He thrust his finger inside her again, and she was swollen, damp—her body betrayed her need with excruciating detail.
She wanted that shirt off him. She wanted it off now. “Take it off.” It was not a request.
He smiled. He withdrew his finger from within her and straightened. His hands went to his buttons. One by one he unfastened them, and as unhurriedly as he moved, she might have thought him indifferent to passion.
But as his shirt fell open, she saw his sculpted chest and belly . . . and the proud erection that reached up from his groin.
He stood between her legs, one knee on the seat, masculine, dominant—yet he needed her desperately. She didn’t even know if he realized how much he needed to be civilized . . . no, not even civilized.
Humanized.
The shirt still hung from his shoulders as he leaned down to kiss her breast, taste her nipple. Goose bumps rose in a wave, rushing away from the sensation like a wave, cresting in the sensation that lifted her hips toward him.
He laughed again, very much the man in command, the conquering hero.
She couldn’t allow that.
She sat up on one elbow. She licked one finger and, with its damp tip, she swirled it around the head of his penis.
He groaned—a spontaneous, vibrant sound that made her laugh for joy.
She licked her finger again, but before she could touch him, he caught her wrist and squeezed. Not painfully, but somehow she knew . . . the moonlight, the scents, the passion had broken his fierce will.
They stared at each other, eyes locked.
Then he picked up her knees and spread them wide. He sat on the seat and dragged her toward him until they were groin-to-groin.
The pressure of his erection against her wrenched a moan from her. She wanted . . . needed . . . She tried to position herself to thrust herself on him.
He didn’t allow her that. Didn’t allow her any control. He rubbed himself against her, a long stroke that massaged her clit and made her whole body clench in anticipation. He found the entrance to her body and gradually thrust inside.
He lifted her hips toward him, and each inch filled her past the point of comfort, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t comfort she sought; it was satisfaction, and the craving made her supersensitive.
The scent of him mixed with the fragrance of the night-blooming flowers, the grass, the air. Above him she could see the wisteria hanging off the arbor like ripe clumps of grapes, and beyond that the night sky and moonlight . . . so much moonlight. She could hear the rough rasp of his breath as he thrust all the way in, then reluctantly drew out, and she wanted to clutch at him, make him stay tightly inside her.
But like some Greek god, he sat above her, looking down at her, his gaze never leaving her. He held her hips and directed their movements until she wanted to scream with frustration.
Yet she did nothing but writhe and moan . . . because everything he did to her felt so good. Too good.
She clutched the robe-draped sides of the bench, bunching the material in her fists in building frustration. Each time he lifted her, he leaned in so his groin connected with her clit, and the pressure . . . the pressure built.
Her skin grew so sensitive that even the cool breeze felt like a caress. It hurt to breathe, hurt to have Devlin thrust inside, hurt to have him slide out. “Please. Please, please, please, please . . .”
She didn’t care what he thought, whether her begging constituted some triumphant mark on his supremacy scoreboard. She knew only that he had better do something about this intense compulsion that drove her to madness or . . . or she really would lose her mind and her memories, and be lost in some glorious place with Devlin.
“Please.” She kissed her fingertips and placed them on his lips.
His lips returned the kiss. Then his stark features tightened; his lips parted as he pulled air into his lungs. He lifted himself—and her—and rode her in a driving rhythm.
Her back went taut as a bow. She wrapped her legs around his hips, accepting him, welcoming him, taking him as he took her—and finally, finally climax seized her.
Thank God.
Devlin had held her off too long, and her orgasm was almost painful in its intensity. She screamed. Her hands went over her head and gripped the bench behind her. She heard him say one word: “Meadow!”
To hear his deep, warm, Southern voice call her name sharpened her response, and the climax, already so powerful, blotted out the rest of the world . . . except for Devlin. Always she was aware of Devlin.
And he was aware of her. Even as his balls drew up tight against his body and that shudder ran up his spine, he couldn’t stop observing her—the way her small breasts lifted as she clutched the bench over her head, her taut belly, her expression of mingled agony and exaltation. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to spend every moment of his life inside her, kiss her mouth, her breasts, her belly. He wanted to pleasure her until she believed the tale he wove of their love, until she remembered no life except with him.
He wanted this moment to go on forever . . . and he couldn’t stop the rush of semen that spurted from him. He laid claim to her in the ancient, primal way dictated by the moon for generations past . . .
And it wasn’t until he finished, until he rested on her, panting, and felt the rise and fall of her chest as she gasped beneath him, that he realized—he hadn’t used protection.
For the first time in his life, he hadn’t used a condom.
21
Clad in the innocuous black-and-white uniform of a security guard, Judith stood under the huge live oak and watched as Meadow and Devlin pranced toward the house.
They’d had sex. Great sex.
So freaking lovely for them. The only time Judith had had great sex was when she was alone and had an unending supply of D batteries. Men didn’t seem to be interested in a woman with a broad chin, thin lips, legs like tree stumps, and a waist as broad as her beam. It wasn’t fair, but she was used to “not fair.”
What was fair was acquiring a sponsor like Mr. Hopkins, who helped her get a job in the right place at the right time doing the right thing—being a security guard at the house where Isabelle’s painting was hidden. Here she could keep tabs on Four and Meadow as they searched Waldemar, and when they found it . . . she would be the first to know.
But never for a second did she imagine she would end up with custody of the painting. She had made a deal with the devil, and better than anyone in the world, she understood the nature of evil—her father had taught her that—and respected its strength.
Besides, in the end, she would get what she wanted. Mr. Hopkins had promised she would have the credit for discovering that painting.
“Why are we sneaking back into the house?” Meadow stage-whispered.
“Because every security person in the place is watching and—” Devlin broke off. Why were they sneaking into the house?
He couldn’t herd Meadow across the lawn and through the corridors to their bedroom without every security person on duty—and probably a few who weren’t—seeing them. And he knew damned good and well the conclusion they would draw from their disappearance—the right conclusion. Especially since he claimed Meadow was h
is wife. And because she was still dancing, although now she wore her nightgown and robe—but only because he made her.
And she was smiling. She was so happy.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
He couldn’t believe he’d been so criminally careless.
He couldn’t believe he let her take his hand and swing it as they walked. He should have explained the danger they’d courted. Instead, he let her blissfully babble on.
“My mother always told me that mankind isn’t as far removed from the primitive as we would like to believe,” Meadow said. “That when we take the time, we respond just as our ancestors did to moonlight and springtime and nature. I think tonight we proved she was right.”
He thought about cornering Meadow, asking her how, when she had amnesia, she remembered what her mother said, but Meadow grinned at him so mischievously he couldn’t.
He’d made her sparkle. He’d given her satisfaction. For some ridiculous reason, tonight she trusted him. With her joy and easy acceptance of their relationship, she made him feel like Scrooge—armored against the good things in life, suspicious . . . old.
And horny. She made him horny.
It was damned embarrassing, walking around like some bull moose following a female in heat.
She’d been so small and tight. For a horrified, exultant moment he’d been afraid she was a virgin.
But no, only seldom touched, and not for a long time. And he, who had intended to take his pleasure of her—but on his terms and in his own time—had put his heart and soul into claiming her.
Without protection.
She could be pregnant right now.
“Watch your step.” He led her up onto Waldemar’s wide porch and opened the door.
Inside, moonlight streamed through the windows and lurked in square patches on the carpet, and, suddenly superstitious, he avoided walking through the white light. What if her mother was right? What if it was the moonlight that had caused his madness? He certainly had no other explanation.
Meadow showed no such care. She skipped along, apparently energized by sex with him.
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