She started to rise. The hands she was holding moved; fingers curled around hers.
She didn’t see his eyes opening to slits, still covered by the dark shadows of his lashes.
If she had, she would have realized that never before had he appeared so like a tiger.
Eyes glowing amber and gold, muscles corded, ready to pounce. He felt the greatest burst of triumph—and happiness—in his life.
“I love you.” He was careful to keep his words a whisper.
“I love you. Please, I’ll get help—”
“No!” he croaked, exerting more pressure against her hands when she would have risen.
“Rafe, you’re hurt!”
Guilt touched him. He opened his eyes a little more and saw the terrible anguish on her beautiful features, in her moon-silver eyes. The guilt was painful, but there was the rest of their lives to consider, and he couldn’t lose her now.
“Tara...you have to listen. Before God, I love you. I started falling in love with you the moment that I met you. The first night. And each time I saw you, I fell further under your spell. I thought at first that I was a fool, that you had bewitched Jimmy the same way, had led him into disaster. And then it didn’t matter. I’d have died a fool if that had been the case, because I love you so much. Tara—”
“Oh, Rafe! It doesn’t matter. Shh! You musn’t talk. I’ll get help. You need care—”
“No, no, Tara. Tell me you believe me. Tell me that—if I make it—you’ll marry me.”
“Rafe, you need—”
“I need your promise, Tara. Swear that you’ll marry me....”
“Yes, yes, oh, yes! Now let me get help—”
He wasn’t about to let her go. The tiger pounced.
He sprang up, sweeping her into his arms, kissing her lips quickly, pressing her against his chest and letting out a hoarse cry.
“Rafe...”
She accepted his hug at first, returned it with fervor and delight, but then, she realized that he was solid and warm and moving—and completely healthy.
“Rafe!”
Tara slammed her palm against his shoulder, pushing him away, her cheeks crimson. “You’re not hurt at all!”
“I do beg your pardon. Elliott had a very nasty punch, and I’ve got a mile-long cut inside my mouth.”
“Oh! You made me think—”
“Oh, yourself! Did you want me broken and bleeding?”
“No! No! Of course not! It’s just...”
Her voice trailed away, because he was grinning, with relief, with a smug happiness that caught hold of her just as his energy could, just as the need to be with him had infected her from the very beginning. She was dizzy with relief, ready to throttle him—and then so incredibly happy that everything could have come out all right when it had begun so bleakly and horribly.
“You’re terrible!” she accused him. “That was the most devious thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”
He brought her down to the ledge, kissing her swiftly again, staring into her eyes, hovering above her.
“Would you believe me if I swore never to be devious again?”
“No.”
“Have a heart. You’re supposed to trust your husband.”
“Husband!”
“You just promised to marry me.”
“You tricked me!”
He smiled down at her ruefully, his knuckles tenderly grazing her cheek.
“I had to have your promise. I might never have had the opportunity again, Tara. I had to make you forgive me.” His smile left. He was suddenly, painfully serious. “Tara, when I knew that he had you, I almost went mad. And when I saw him with you, I think I did lose my mind. There were things I didn’t say to you, but I swear, I never said I loved you when I didn’t mean it with all my heart. I wanted to kill Tine. I felt like an animal. I wanted to kill him because he was endangering you.”
She reached up and touched his hair, studying his eyes with tears forming in her eyes because she loved him so much and because she knew, with all her being, that he loved her just as deeply and that it was a good love, honest and real, and that it could and should last forever.
“Oh, Rafe.” She smiled. “I do love you. And I’m glad you didn’t kill him.”
“In the end, I suppose, I’m not an animal. Just a man.”
“Just a man,” Tara repeated the words, a whimsical smile touching her lips. “Just the man who means everything in the world to me.”
Slowly, he started to lower himself to her again. To touch her lips with the reverence that the night and the moon and the mountain demanded. He was just able to touch her mouth and taste the sweet salt of tears and the hunger and the warmth, when their moment alone on the ledge in the darkness came to an end.
“Tara! Rafe! Where are you?”
It was Ashley—anxious, concerned.
Rafe lifted a brow to Tara. “We’re here, Ashley. Coming!”
“Are you all right?”
Tara answered her, curling her arms around Rafe’s neck, meeting his eyes with a promise deeper than words, her eyes softening to a misted silver.
“We’re fine, Ashley. We’ve never been better.”
Rafe rose and helped Tara to her feet, and his arms were around her all the way up the cliff, as if he would never let her stumble again.
CHAPTER 15
The mask was really unique. It was up high in a protective glass case, and there was a plaque beneath it, giving a few brief particulars: that it was Mayan; that it was ceremonial; that among its stones were forty-five diamonds, sixteen rubies, and nearly eighty small sapphires. It was on loan from a museum in Mexico City.
It was unique, probably beautiful in its way, but Tara shivered as she stared at the grinning golden face. It seemed to be an evil thing—and it had brought only evil. She didn’t think she was superstitious, but she’d be glad when the mask was returned.
She left the Mayan display and hurried down the corridor, knowing exactly where she was going. And when she reached the room she wanted, she paused happily, staring.
This sculpture really was magnificent.
It was in the Roman section of the museum, with a plaque under it: Anonymous, A.D. 100, Black Marble.
Tara was still entranced by it.
Her life-size tiger, standing, watching. He was all power, all grace. There was nothing she wanted to study so much as the tiger.
Her back was to the doorway when she became aware that she was no longer alone. Someone had joined her in the tiger’s room. Watching the tiger? Or watching her?
She looked up. In the glass case around a majestic granite centurion, she could see the reflection of a man. He seemed as tall as the centurion in the display case, seemed to tower in the dooorway, blocking her way. He stood there, as striking and haunting as the ancient works of art on display.
She grinned and reached out as he came around to her. There was a simple gold band on her hand now, one that nicely complemented the diamond she had still never managed to take off her finger.
“Hi,” he said, slipping his arms around her to pull her against his chest so that they both stared at the sculpture. His chin nestled in her hair. “I thought you wanted to see the mask.”
“I did. I hate it.”
“It’s only a mask,” he murmured softly.
“Encased in glass,” she agreed, adding, “just like Tine and George are caged behind bars. I still can’t believe that George was involved.”
“George kept Tine’s business going once he couldn’t flit back and forth between the States and South America himself. One of us should have figured it out before.”
She didn’t answer. He knew that she was thinking of the years she had spent with such ruthless people, never suspecting. She shivered beneath the silver fox fur of her coat, and he hugged her more tightly.
“It’s all over now. And there were a few good things that came out of it. Jimmy would have never met Tanya, and they’re certainly happy. Ashley would have
never started her own business—and Mary might never have run off to Italy with my ship’s captain.”
She turned around, meeting his dark eyes, smiling at last.
“Myrna thought I was a sleazy felon!” Tara laughed.
“No. A felon, but never sleazy. And you made her day when you told her you’d be pleased to death to have her take care of things. Jimmy and I in the same year, keeping her busy with weddings. And Sam was so proud to give you away.” He laughed happily. “And I’ve never seen such a beautiful wedding party—Ashley, Mary, Cassandra! And, of course, the bride. In silver that matched your eyes...”
She felt the golden warmth of his eyes, alive, tender and, as ever, hungry...like the tiger.
She lowered her eyes, staring back at the marble beast.
“The first time I saw you,” she murmured, “I was astonished by the similarities.”
“Yes?”
She laughed. “Between you and this tiger. I told you.”
“Oh, yes, the tiger.” Smiling, he moved around, surveying the sculpture. He gazed at her wryly.
“I’m not sure I find that terribly complimentary.”
Tara grinned, walking around to him, slipping her arm through his. “Oh, I thought you were gorgeous. Full of intrigue and sleek power and grace and...well, you were on the prowl. And you were damned well ready to pounce!”
He grimaced. “You promised to forgive me.”
“Oh, I have. And I meant to give you a compliment. The tiger may be dangerous, but he’s also totally fascinating. I was drawn to him. And I was drawn to you.”
He caught her hands, eyed the room, and saw that they were alone and pulled her close to him. “Was drawn?” he whispered in the tone that always sent her senses reeling.
She gave him a slow, enchanting smile. “Am drawn.”
“What time did you promise to meet Ashley for lunch?”
“One.”
“It’s only noon. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“Time?” Tara said, startled.
“The apartment is close. Come on!”
“Rafe!” she protested, but she was laughing. He took her hand and they started toward the door. He paused, looking back at the tiger.
“Thanks, pal,” he murmured softly, winking.
Tara was almost convinced that the sculpture winked back.
They left the museum, ran down the steps, and hailed a taxi on the street. Sam was somewhere in the museum, but Tara would have been horrified if Sam had driven them. Rafe wondered what difference it would have made—Sam was surely old enough to know what went on in a marriage, but Tara would have blushed and objected strongly to being obvious.
That was one of the things he loved about her. She had the unique beauty and sensual appeal of a siren, but she had somehow maintained the innocence of an angel.
It was the siren who entered the apartment with him, though. She walked straight through to the bedroom, heedlessly shedding her coat.
He followed her, tearing off his jacket.
Then she was barefoot, curled up on the bed, smiling, as she awaited him. The sun fell through the glass overhead, catching her hair, making it a gold finer than any created by the earth.
He came over to her, and she rose to her knees, making a sensual act out of undoing his buttons, moving her fingers slowly, following each touch with a kiss, with the softest, hottest flick of her tongue. When she reached his belt buckle a sound rumbled in his throat, in his chest, and he caught her hair at the nape, raising her head to his, kissing her as sensation flamed higher and higher within him. She played her fingers against his chest and rubbed her hands down his torso, then caught the waistband of his pants. She broke the kiss and laid her cheek against the coarse hair on his stomach; with far less grace than she, he swore softly and tugged at her sweater, pushing her on the bed in his haste.
She laughed as he kicked away the remainder of his clothing and fell atop her, hands busy on the waistband of her slacks, eyes golden on hers.
“I’ll never forget the first time I saw you,” he murmured. “I’d heard that you were beautiful. I’d read that you were extraordinary...but none of it meant anything until I saw you.”
“Lust at first sight?”
“Hmm. Something like that. I wanted to strip you right there in the museum.”
He paused for a moment, gazing down at her naked breasts, touching them reverently with the palm of his hand, catching his breath as she moaned softly, her nipples rising to taut rosy peaks before his fascinated gaze.
“Right there,” he murmured softly. “I could have swept you off, into the Egyptian area maybe, into a temple, because you looked just like a goddess, and I felt...”
“Like?” Tara breathed, her lashes falling over her silver eyes glazed now with her growing ache.
“Like thunder. Like lightning. Like Zeus!—ready to take on any form to seduce the enticing maiden.”
His hands slipped lower, sliding away her clothing, teasing her flesh mercilessly with the vibrant power of his own.
“I never accused you of being a god,” she told him, smiling as he tossed her jeans away and moved over her, his shoulders gleaming in the sunlight. “Just a tiger.”
He lowered himself, carefully holding his own weight, until his lips were just a whisper away from hers. “Grr...”
She laughed until his mouth touched hers. Then laughter became a moan.
Whispers grew to a melody of passion, but the song that rose between them was more.
It was tenderness, and it was love. Fantastic and real and binding. And without thought, Tara knew in her heart that it had all been worth it. The past, and the treacherous road that they had taken to the present. Without the trauma, she would never have known that a dream could live. That her fabulous tiger-man could be real, could offer the love she had dared not believe in.
Tenderness and laughter, passion and fervor. She would marvel forever that she could be his wife.
And he her husband.
A tiger still, fascinating, intriguing, sleek and powerful, and delightfully...
Well, never quite, but sometimes, exquisitely tame...
And then sometimes, exquisitely wild.
* * * * *
“[Heather Graham] stands at the top of the romantic suspense category.”
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Keep reading for a sneak peek at New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham’s next thrilling novel,
A PERFECT OBSESSION
Join FBI agent Craig Frasier and criminal psychologist Keiran Finnegan as they track a madman who is obsessed with perfect beauty.
CHAPTER 1
“Horrible! Oh, God, horrible—tragic!” John Shaw said, shaking his head with a dazed look as he sat on his bar stool at Finnegan’s Pub.
Kieran nodded sympathetically. Construction crews had found the old graves when they were working on the foundations at the hot new downtown venue, Le Club Vampyre.
Anthropologists found the new body among the old graves the next day.
It wasn’t just any body.
It was the body of supermodel Jeannette Gilbert.
Finding the old graves wasn’t much of a shock—not in New York City, and not in a building that was close to two centuries old. The structure that housed Club Le Vampyre was a deconsecrated Episcopal Church. The church’s congregation had moved to a facility it had purchased from the Catholic Church—whose congregation was now in a sparkling new basilica over on Park Avenue. While many had bemoaned the fact that such a venerable old institution had been turned into an establishment for those into sex, drugs, and rock and roll, life—and business—went on.
And with life going on….
Well, work on the building’s foundations went on, too.
It was while investigators were still being called in following the discovery of the newly deceased body—moments before it hit the news—that Kieran Finnegan learned about it, and that was because she was helping out at their family establishment, Finnegan’s on Broadway. Like the old church/nightclub behind it, Finnegan’s dated back to just before the Civil War, and had been a pub for most of those years. Since it was geographically the closest establishment to the church with liquor, it had apparently seemed the right place at that moment for Professor John Shaw. They’d barely opened; it was still morning, and it was a Friday, and Kieran was only there at that time because her bosses had decided on a day off following their participation in a lengthy trial. She’d just been down in the basement or cellar, fetching a few bottles of a vintage chardonnay for her brother, ordered specifically for a lunch that day, when John Shaw had caught her attention, desperate to talk.
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