by Day Leclaire
“She reminded me of someone I once knew,” Shayne admitted.
“You sent her home, didn’t you?”
“She didn’t belong. She’d only come because she wanted to escape her home life. I suggested some alternate ways she could accomplish that without marrying a perfect stranger.”
“Unlike you?”
The question hit home. “I’m not eighteen, nor am I trying to escape an unhappy home life.”
“What are you trying to escape?”
“Nothing.” She took a deep breath, struggling to open herself to him. Once upon a time, she’d have shared her innermost thoughts and feelings with ease. But over the years, she’d become more cautious. “I’m not trying to escape anything, Chaz. I’m trying to find something.”
Tension built along his shoulders and tautened his spine. “Find what?”
Respite from the past A love she’d lost long ago. “My future.”
“And you think that future’s with me?”
“I haven’t decided, yet,” she admitted with perfect candor.
“If you’re looking for some sort of fairy-tale romance, you’re talking to the wrong man. I’m not interested in love. I’m after someone who’s interested in a practical relationship, who’s willing to help create a home. A woman with a sense of humor and a generous spirit who’ll stick by me when life gets tough.” He turned and faced her. “Are you that woman?”
“Let me get this straight I can share a life with you, but not love?”
“Not unless you want a world full of hurt.”
“And that’s supposed to induce me to marry you?”
“No. That’s supposed to make you think long and hard. Are you in the market for practical or are you Cinderella waiting for the prince? Fantasy or reality?”
Didn’t Chaz realize? He was that prince, their hearts and souls joined on a fateful night nine impossibly long years ago. He might regret ever having met her, but what they’d shared had been special. She refused to believe otherwise. Their joining had been a delicious combination of fantasy and reality. Otherwise, the feelings would have faded over time, only brought to mind on rare occasions, to be examined unemotionally with a sigh of regret or a smile of distantly remembered pleasure.
She faced him, feeling impossibly small and fragile beside his indomitable strength. She had to win this battle of wills. There was no other choice. She had to make him believe in dreams again. “Why don’t you kiss me, Chaz, and we’ll see whether it’s fantasy or reality.”
Something dark and powerful moved in his gaze. “All right, sweetheart. Have it your way.” His words were pragmatic enough, but the tone told her something far different. It warned of a man fully roused, a man who took what he wanted, no quarter given. “Let me prove that it isn’t Prince Charming you’re kissing, but the real thing.”
“Or perhaps it’ll be a little of both.”
“Don’t fool yourself, darlin’.” He captured her in his arms, his hands strong and firm on her back. Then they slid to her hips, settling on the gentle swell flaring beneath her narrow waist. “I intend to see to it that you go into this marriage with your eyes wide open.”
“They’re open.”
“Keep them that way.”
Reaching up, he ripped off his mask, revealing the features that had haunted her memory all these years. The boyishness had given way to leaner angles, emphasizing his blade-straight nose and cheekbones set at an interesting slant. His mouth was broad, the lips wide enough to be considered sensuous, yet decidedly masculine. And his chin warned of a man set in his way. But his eyes... His eyes held her, drew her in, denying the coldness of his words. Somewhere behind the barriers of pain, buried beneath years of denial, lay a heart capable of a love so deep, so indomitable, she’d do anything to find it again.
As though sensing the direction of her thoughts, he reached for her mask. “Still intent on keeping this on?”
“Please, don’t!” She evaded his hand with a quick twist that stirred her bells to life. She had no choice but to hide her face. Any chance of establishing a relationship with him would end the instant he saw who she was.
Chaz reacted without thought. She shouldn’t have run. The primeval urge to hunt forced him to give chase. He couldn’t explain what ancient cravings drove him—whether it was the mystery of her features, or the fleet grace of her movements, or the generous womanly curves set in a dainty frame. Perhaps it was something far more basic, man scenting a woman’s desire. All he knew was he had to have her. Now.
She paused mid-flight, trapped by the railing, and spun to face him. Her gown belled out around her and he could hear the nervous give and take of her breath. For a long moment, she stared at him. And then her arms dropped to her sides in unconditional surrender. She was his for the taking and they both knew it.
He offered his hand and she pleased him by slipping willingly into his embrace. She was a contradiction that enticed, her pale hair bound into repressive order at the nape of her neck, while her dark eyes warned of an intensely passionate nature.
“Will you let me keep my mask on?” she asked.
“Keep it, if it’s important to you. But if I can’t see you, at least let me taste you.”
Her eyes fluttered closed, eyes that haunted him in unsettling and unexpected ways. “Chaz...”
Her whisper was sheer temptation, a siren’s call pitched to beguile even as it pleaded for his seduction. Her breath mingled with his, the honeyed warmth pulling him closer, demanding that he sample the lush flavor. He wanted to take her mouth, hot and fast. Instead, he drove them both insane with slow and thorough.
He drank, deeply, his thirst ravenous. Her mouth was every bit as soft as he’d anticipated, opening to him without hesitation. They began the ageless dance of lips and tongue and teeth, first gentle, then rapacious, teasing, then deadly serious. He wrapped a hand around her neck, feeling her desperate moan vibrate against his palm. The sound licked through him, piercing straight to a non-existent soul. He knew that distinctive feminine whimper. Knew what it meant. Knew what it demanded of him.
“It’s coming, my sweet. I have what you need.”
He felt for the zipper at the back of her dress and lowered it. The metallic rent meshed with the urgent babel of bells. Their mouths melded again and again while his fingers slipped along the smooth expanse of her spine to the hollow above her buttocks. He backed her away from the railing, deeper into the shadows of the balcony. Moonlight cut across her mask, highlighting the ivory beads and golden bells, and revealing the liquid darkness of her eyes. Black eyes. Familiar eyes. Eyes that haunted.
“I’m no prince, sweetheart. I’m all man, blood and bone and as tough as they come.”
She shook her head, hair loosened from their embrace slipping in a pale curtain about her shoulders. “You’re a man who holds honor dear and protects those in his care.”
“You couldn’t possibly know that.”
“I know.”
“You’re putting your faith in a man who doesn’t believe in such things. Blind faith isn’t smart, honey. Not with someone like me.”
“That kiss erased any doubts I might have had.” His gaze shifted to her mouth. Her lips were kissed into plump ripeness—damp and swollen and ready to be taken again. “Don’t kid yourself. That kiss was lust at its best.” He cupped her upper arms, nearly groaning aloud when her dress slipped downward, draping over his hands in silent supplication. Ivory-toned skin peeked through her curtain of hair, stirring an urge so dangerously primitive, he shook with it. “At least our marriage won’t be lacking in one area.”
“It won’t lack in any area. Not if you’re willing to give it a chance.”
He closed his eyes, speaking through gritted teeth. “A wife. A home. Sex. That’s all I want.”
“It won’t be. Not for long.”
“You play a dangerous game, lady.”
“It’s no game.”
Her arms lifted free of her dress and encircled his ne
ck. She was like some untamed mythological goddess. Masked, her hair tumbled in an appealing tangle, bared to the waist, her mouth lifted to his in generous invitation... He unleashed his control and allowed her spell to consume him.
She branded him with her delicate touch, igniting him, setting a wildfire that wiped clean all thought He leaned into her, fell into her, filling his hands with her lush breasts, filling her mouth with fierce, uncontrolled sweeps of his tongue. The scent of her drove him wild, her taste a distant, yet strangely familiar memory that had him acting on pure instinct. He bit her lower lip, tugging on it. And then he found the fine-boned joining of her neck and shoulder, and finally the pebbled tips of her breasts. Her soft cries of pleasure drove him onward, had him lifting the wide skirt of her gown to give her the completion they both so desperately sought
“Wait.” She stayed his hand. “We can’t. Someone might see.”
“Don’t stop me.” His breath labored in his chest and he trembled with the strain of speaking when the moment called for sheer physical expression. It had been so long since he’d had a woman, so long since he’d wanted a woman that he was almost mindless with need. “I don’t think I can stop now.”
“You don’t have to. But we can’t make love here.” She fumbled behind her for the doorknob. “This room’s been deserted for years. No one will find us.”
If he’d been paying attention, he’d have known the truth, known whom he held in his arms, understood why her kisses were so familiar, why they made him so frantic, why he could anticipate her every craving and she his. But he simply accepted her comment at face value, accepted that she would know the room was empty, that no one had used it for years, and that it lay silently in wait for the joining of two time-lost lovers.
Moonlight led the way inside and then deserted them, forcing him to rely on scent and sound. For some reason it intensified his arousal, drove the imperative to mate. The rustle of her dress pinpointed her location and he came after her, snatching her from the arms of darkness into his embrace. Her dress was a hindrance soon discarded.
“Where?” he demanded.
Somehow she understood his question. “This way.”
Three swift steps led him to a sheet-covered bed. He lowered her to the cool cotton, stripping away her nylons and panties. For a brief instant the moon unveiled itself again and he saw her clearly.
She was white on white, her skin a lustrous pearl on a bed of milky innocence. The only color was the hint of gold in the long strands of hair pillowing her head and textured between her thighs. And her eyes. Huge and black and filled with a woman’s vulnerability. For some reason her mask only added to that vulnerability, adorning her with shy mystery.
“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“I’m going to make you mine. Now. But I swear on what little honor I possess I’ll marry you afterward.”
“I know that, too.”
Her certainty cut with whiplike brutality, biting deep and leaving a scar he’d carry for years to come. He didn’t deserve such faith. But he wanted it. He wanted it as urgently as he wanted to sink into her softness. The moonlight dimmed, like the slow giving of day into the dusky embrace of night. Before it slipped away, he intended to be in her arms, to hold her close so she wouldn’t be alone in the dark.
His clothes hit the floor with decisive haste. Once finished, he came to her, wrapping her in warmth as the blackness descended, rolling onto his back with her on top of him. Her mouth scoured his chest with kisses of fire and her hair blanketed him, the strands so long they cloaked him all the way to his hips. He shuddered, tortured by a pleasure so intense he thought it just might kill him. If he could have found his voice, he’d have begged for mercy.
Instead, he flipped her onto her back. His kisses were too hard, too demanding. But rather than complaining, she cupped his face and lifted her mouth for more.
“Tell me this isn’t your first time,” he said, his voice so raw he barely recognized it as his own.
“It’s not my first time.”
“I don’t know if I can—It’s been so long that—”
“I want you. Very badly.”
The urge to fill her, to take her, to make her his in the most basic way possible clawed at him. But he fought it. From somewhere he found the few remaining shreds of decency. He touched her with exquisite care, instinctively finding the deliciously feminine spots that would give her the most intense pleasure. The sides of her breasts, the burgeoning tips, the sensitive skin at the lowest point on her belly, the backs of her knees, the upper slope of her buttocks and the creamy softness of her inner thighs. He found them all, anointed each and every one until her body wept for his possession.
And when he’d finished, he took her, filled her, rode the wildness that exploded between them. Only once before had he ever felt such divinity in an act, known such completeness in a physical joining. Memories stormed back, memories he was helpless to rein in. They possessed him as surely as he possessed the woman beneath him. The bells from her mask pealed, as though in joyous welcome. Unable to resist, he gathered her up, sent her surging toward ecstasy. And then he followed her into that glittering realm, at one with her. At one with nature. Heart, body and soul in perfect accord.
But it was an accord not meant to be.
From a great distance he heard the door open and harsh light impaled them. “Oh, excuse me,” a voice gasped. Ella’s voice. And then... “Oh, dear heaven. Chaz? Is that you? And... Shayne?”
CHAPTER THREE
To my Long-Lost Bride,
It’s taken a full year before I could sit down and write this letter to you. I was so sure, so certain you’d be at the Anniversary Ball. I waited for you. Waited until dawn broke through the night sky. And then I left.
I’m not even sure why I’m writing this. Maybe it’s my way of saying goodbye. Maybe it’s because I never know when to let go. And I confess, I rarely give up. What did I tell you on the balcony that night? Fight until you’re unconscious or the other fella gives up. Well, I’m not out, yet. And I won’t have won this particular fight until you’re in my arms again.
I sold the property I’d bought for us and I’m back wrangling. The ironic thing is... I made a ton of money off the sale. Even your brother would be impressed. Ah, hell. What does it matter? There’s only one thing I care about.
Dammit, wife. Why weren’t you there? Where have you gone and how do I find you again? Or was what we shared pure fantasy? Maybe it was just a dream, a foolish fairy tale. And perhaps I’m the biggest fool of all for still believing.
Shayne... Sweetheart. My Forever Love. Where are you?
CHAZ jerked as though he’d been sucker-punched. “Shayne!”
“I can explain,” she began as Ella made a hasty retreat.
He grabbed the mask and yanked it from her head, flinging it across the room. The elaborate confection caught the moonlight as it soared through the air, glittering with soft radiance while the bells clattered in nervous panic. It hit the floor with discordant finality, sliding into a tangle of painful silence.
Light from the hallway had revealed a lamp on a bedside table, and he fumbled for the switch. Seventy-five watts of incandescent power stabbed through the room with punishing swiftness, darting into every corner and across every object—including her. Never before had she felt so naked. Without her mask, she lay in the middle of the bed still flushed and replete from Chaz’s lovemaking...her every thought and expression totally exposed to his unforgiving gaze. She snatched at the bedcover to hide herself. Fortunately, his attention remained fixed on her face, overlooking another of her secrets, a secret that would have been revealed if he’d paid closer attention.
The unnatural calm stretched into an unbearable minute, the tension as punishing as the light. Then he swore, the words harsh and crude, stealing the lingering traces of sweetness from the room.
“It was a trick!” He erupted from the bed. “From the beginning you and
your brother have made fools of me.”
“No, Chaz. Please. Let me explain.”
“What’s to explain?” He prowled the room, his nudity making his rage all the more unnerving. “Big brother ripped us apart nine years ago. And now, for some damn reason he’s decided to thrust us together again. The master puppeteer yanking the strings.”
“That was my fault. You were the only man I ever loved and—”
He approached the bed, magnificent in his rage. “And so now I’m good enough for him? Now that I have property and a home and money, I’m an acceptable husband for his sister?”
“He didn’t know you had those things. I didn’t know.”
“He had me investigated, Shayne. There’s no other explanation.” He snatched his trousers from the floor and thrust his legs into them. “That explains both the ticket and your presence. Well, thanks, but no thanks. I had my strings chopped off by the Beaumonts before. I won’t allow it to happen again.”
So history would repeat itself. Once more she’d share a single night with the man who’d captured her heart all those years ago. And once more, she’d lose love. No. No! She’d been passive for too long, afraid for more years than she could count. And what had it gotten her? She swept from the bed, wrapping the cover around herself like a sarong. Her hair tumbled in a wild tangle about her shoulders, but she didn’t care. She faced him down, anger and determination burning within.
“You’re not leaving without me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Shayne.”
“You promised.”
“Only because I didn’t know who you were.”
She had to convince him, no matter what it took. It was their only chance at happiness—a chance he needed as desperately as she, whether he realized it yet, or not. “You came for a wife. Or had you forgotten that minor detail? There’s not enough time to find someone else.”
“There’s time.” He thrust his arms into his dress shirt, shoving the tails into his trousers. It hung open, revealing the bronzed chest she’d taken such delight in kissing less than an hour ago. A shudder ran through her at the memory. “There may not be a lot of choice, but it’s not morning, yet.”