by JoAnn Ross
Shayne decided the government had spent a great deal more money on a lot less admirable pursuits. Besides, he’d enjoyed frustrating the antique dealer who’d obviously given Bliss such grief. By the time he’d paid triple the asking price for that silly-looking piece of furniture Bliss had told him was a fainting couch, the smoke had practically been coming from the top of the other man’s head.
Bliss thought about all they’d managed to buy today—the hand-carved mantel, the French doré clock, the Napoleon III black-lacquered chair, the Regency bench, not to mention that darling ivory satin-covered fainting couch that would look so wonderful in the upstairs dressing room, and felt a surge of satisfaction.
She’d even managed to pick up a few things for her own shop when Nigel, who’d finally realized that Shayne intended to live up to his threat, had begun to back off.
“I feel like celebrating,” she said.
“You read my mind.” He looped his arms around her waist. “How about going somewhere fancy for dinner?”
Looking up at him, Bliss decided that the time for pretending had passed. It was time to admit that she was hungry. But not for food.
“Actually, I think I’d rather share a private celebration.” Her voice was soft, her meaning crystal clear.
“I want you to be very certain about this, Bliss.”
“I am.”
Hell. What was wrong with him? A stunningly gorgeous woman had just offered herself to him and what happened? He was struck with an attack of ethics he hadn’t even known he possessed until now.
“You know I’ve wanted to make love with you from that first night.”
She nodded, trying to read his inscrutable face for some clue of what he was about to say. It had taken all her nerve to make the offer in the first place. If he turned it down...
“And I’ve wanted you to make love to me.”
Once again it crossed his mind that his initial impression was right. She truly was the most open, guileless individual he’d ever met. No wonder Fortune had been able to do such a number on her.
“With.” At her questioning look, he said, “There is a difference.”
Her answering smile lit up her eyes and made her face appear almost translucent. “Yes.”
Once again Shayne was sorely tempted to drag her off to the nearest motel. Once again he felt an uncharacteristic need to be honest. Or, at least as truthful as he could under the circumstances.
“The thing is, I have the feeling that you’re a forever kind of woman. And I can’t offer you that, Bliss.”
Even as she felt her open heart plummet, Bliss thought how different this man was from her former husband. Alan had lied from the moment they’d met. Shayne, on the other hand, had proven unflinchingly honest. She thought yet again how much this man reminded her of Michael O’Malley. In more than just looks.
“I understand.” Her smile only wobbled slightly. “I’m not asking for forever, Shayne.” But, oh, how she wanted that! “We’ll just take things one day—and night—at a time.”
Tom between conflicting emotions—Lord, where the hell had this damned conscience come from?—Shayne weighed his options. Although he knew he was being self-serving, he told himself that he’d risk hurting her feelings and embarrassing her if he turned her down.
“Let me go pay for the things we bought and arrange to have them delivered,” he said. “Then we’ll leave.”
Bliss let out a deep breath. “I’ll wait in the car.” Then, mindless of the fact that they were in a public place, she went up on her toes and brushed her lips against his in a light kiss that promised so much more.
After giving her the keys, Shayne watched her walk back to the Jag, his mind concentrating for once, not on that nice rounded bottom, but on her heart. He knew that if he ended up hurting her—which he now seemed destined to do whether he took her to bed or not—Michael would kill him. Which wouldn’t be nearly as painful as the disgust he’d feel for himself.
Cursing under his breath at this box he seemed to have nailed himself into, Shayne pulled out the platinum Amex card and went off to spend more of Uncle Sam’s money.
BLISS WAS LITERALLY shimmering with anticipation. She felt it humming through her veins, like electricity. As they drove away from the plantation house, she realized that it was indeed possible to feel furnace-hot and ice-cold both at the same time.
“I’d take you to my place,” Shayne said, “but there’s no furniture, and although I’m willing to take you any way I can get you, I think a bed might be a nice touch.”
Bliss was definitely unaccustomed to discussing sex so casually. “My place is out,” she murmured, wondering what Zelda would do if she showed up with this man in tow, then disappeared into her bedroom. Probably sing hosannas, and bake the pineapple-pecan upside-down cake she always served for special occasions.
“I could take you to my hotel, but that’s so impersonal.”
Bliss was relieved at his reluctance to go back to his room. Having gone to school with Thelma London, who was the night manager at the Whitfield Palace Hotel and a horrendous gossip, she knew that by morning the entire town would know that Bliss Fortune was sleeping with her client.
She forced a light laugh that didn’t sound nearly as carefree as she’d hoped. “Why do I feel like a teenager, trying to find someplace to park to make out?”
He laughed as well as memories of heated petting sessions on abandoned bayou roads came instantly to mind. “There is one possibility. But I’ll need to stop and make a call.”
“Fine.” That would give her time to gather up her composure and her nerve, both of which were beginning to disintegrate.
He pulled into the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly and Bliss watched through the window as he made the brief call on the pay phone.
“All set,” he said when he returned to the car. “So long as you’re up for a little ride.”
“It’s a lovely evening for a ride.” It was, indeed, a soft, pink evening, the air fresh from the light rain that had fallen while they’d been inside the plantation house, bidding against Churchill.
“How do you feel about boats?”
“I’ve never thought about them one way or the other. Why?”
“A friend of mine has a cabin in the bayou. He’s not using it this weekend and said it’s ours. If we want it.” He tossed a small brown bag into the back seat. “It’s stocked with food and basics and I picked up a couple of toothbrushes inside.”
Bliss realized that during the nearly two weeks they’d spent together, she’d never seen him with anyone else but herself. And one other person.
“This friend wouldn’t happen to be Michael, would it?”
“Actually, it is.” He didn’t mention that he, Michael and Roarke had all inherited equal shares in the cabin. He glanced over at her. “Would that bother you? His knowing that you’re spending the night with me?”
“I don’t know.” Bliss thought about the idea. “I guess not. Besides,” she said, her sense of humor returning to dispel her earlier uneasiness, “if you treat me badly, I can always get him to shoot you.”
As he chuckled along with her, Shayne wondered what she’d say if she knew her words were not exactly an idle threat. Oh, Mike would never shoot him. However, there was always the chance that if he hurt Bliss too badly, he could end up as his big brother’s punching bag.
“He said if we didn’t call back to cancel, he’d call your grandmother for you. And feed the cat.”
“That’s very thoughtful of him.”
“That’s Mike, Mr. Thoughtful.”
He didn’t mention the warning that his brother had given him concerning Bliss’s feelings. Not wanting to dwell on the negative, Shayne turned off onto a single-lane dirt road, and directed his atypically unsettled thoughts toward the night ahead.
THE AFTERNOON SUN was slanting low on the horizon, turning the dark waters to molten copper when Shayne stopped in front of a small dock. Tied up at the dock was a flat-bottomed b
oat.
Although she would have preferred something a bit more substantial, but trusting him implicitly, Bliss climbed into the boat. He started the engine with the same flair he appeared to do everything else and as they pulled away from the dock, Bliss was reminded of another boat ride she’d taken with this man and realized she’d begun to fall in love with him that first night.
They edged through the shallows, then skimmed across the water. “We’re lucky,” Shayne said over the drone of the motor, “the rains have raised the water. Sometimes the route turns to mud and you have to pole your way through, but we should have clear running.”
“It sounds as if you’ve been here before.”
“A few times,” he hedged. “Mike used to use it as a hunting and fishing cabin.”
It was that special, suspended time between day and night. The air was still, cicadas had begun to sing in the purple haze and fireflies were flitting through the limbs of moss-draped cypress. They came around a bend and suddenly the river opened onto what seemed to be a secret lake.
Located on the banks of the lake, beneath the limbs of a huge spreading oak tree hundreds of years old, was an old-style planters cabin set on stilts.
“This is it,” Shayne said as he cut the engine. “It’s not the Whitfield Palace, but at least it’s private.”
Not having known what to expect, but secretly fearing some ramshackle building that was on the verge of being reclaimed by the bayou, Bliss was more than a little relieved as she studied the cabin. Constructed of weather-bleached cypress, it boasted a screened front porch and an outside stairway to the garçonnière, that place beneath the roof that had originally been designed for the young men of large families to sleep. It appeared to have sprung naturally from the wetland surrounding it.
“It’s lovely,” she said. “And perfect for this place.”
Until he felt the rush of cooling relief, Shayne hadn’t realized exactly how much her opinion mattered. As he helped her out of the boat, warning her to stay on the boards so she wouldn’t step in the deep mud, he considered that he was on the verge of sinking into quicksand himself.
The strange thing was, although he’d always enjoyed his hit-and-run relationships with women no more eager to get involved than he, and though Bliss offered more complications than he needed in his life, Shayne couldn’t have walked away even if he’d wanted to.
The inside of the cabin, while casually furnished, proved every bit as appealing as the outside. The pine furniture was obviously handmade, a black woodstove took up one corner of the main room, and in what she found to be a strangely appealing feminine touch for a hunting cabin, someone had hung moss green monk’s cloth curtains on the screened windows.
“I can’t see Mike doing that,” Shayne said, when Bliss commented on the charm of the curtains. “It must have been that woman that Mike’s brother’s supposedly involved with.”
“Daria Shea,” Bliss said.
“You know her?”
“Everyone knows Daria. She’s an assistant prosecutor who made a lot of headlines a few months ago when she nearly got herself killed investigating a group of prominent men who’d established a secret vengeance society. That’s how Roarke met her. She’s a nice woman.”
“That’s what Mike said.”
There was a puzzling hint of disapproval in his tone Bliss couldn’t quite decipher. “Have you ever met Roarke?”
“Yeah.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Bliss decided it was time to mention the problem that had been nagging at her since she’d returned from Paris.
“Do you realize that you know just about everything about me? But I know nothing about you?”
Shayne froze. He’d been wondering when she was going to bring that up.
“That’s not exactly true. I don’t know everything about you. For instance, I don’t know the name of the first guy who ever kissed you.”
“Billy Roberts. We were in the second grade and he caught me on the school playground and wouldn’t let me off the merry-go-round until I gave him a kiss.”
“That doesn’t count because it was coerced.” Shayne rocked back on his heels and eyed the crackling flames with satisfaction. “The kid’s lucky. These days he’d get arrested for sexual harassment. So, what was the first kiss you gave away willingly?”
“André Robicheaux. We were playing spin the bottle at a Mardi Gras party. I was madly in love with him all during high school.”
“Lucky André. Ever wondered what happened to him?”
“He’s married now with four kids. I’m godmother to his youngest daughter.”
He thought about the kind of woman who could remain close friends with not only her first great love, but the man’s wife, as well. This was yet more proof that he and Bliss were horrendously mismatched. She obviously savored old relationships the same way she favored antique furniture. Her roots ran deep in this hot, steamy land and he couldn’t imagine her ever leaving.
While he, on the other hand, was a man incapable of settling down in one place, with one woman. Which made him just like his father. And just like Roarke had been, until he’d apparently fallen for a deputy prosecutor who sewed curtains.
Life had made him cynical, experience had made him unwilling to trust anyone, with the exception of his brothers. While Bliss, even after her debacle, trusted too easily.
“I suppose André was your first lover, then,” he said.
“Actually, Alan was my first lover.” She paused. “Which makes you my second.”
Okay. Here was his cue, that nagging little voice of conscience told him. The only honorable thing to do would be to call this entire farce off now.
“If that’s true, then all the men in New Orleans are either blind or out of their minds.”
“Neither.” She took a deep breath and met his eyes. “I was waiting until I met a man I felt I could love.”
Love. The word came crashing down on him. “Bliss...” For once in his life, Shayne O’Malley, a man whose occupation demanded a glibness with words, could think of absolutely nothing to say.
“I’m sorry.” She reached up and placed a palm on his cheek. “I wasn’t going to say anything. At least not until... well, later.” She hadn’t wanted to risk frightening him away before she could experience the heights she suspected he’d bring to what with Alan had been a less than thrilling experience. “But what you told me earlier, about not being able to offer me forever, made me realize how much we’re alike.”
That was nearly as much a revelation as the fact that she loved him. “In what way?” Shayne managed to ask.
“We both respect the truth. No matter how painful it might prove to be. So, since you were so honest with me, I thought it only fair that I be equally as honest with you.”
Hell, Shayne wondered if Roarke’s old shotgun was still in the bedroom closet. It’d probably be easier to just shoot himself now, rather than wait until everything came crashing down around them. This warm-hearted, open woman deserved a much better man than he could ever be. If he lived a thousand lifetimes.
“I don’t know what to say.” Now that, at least, was the truth.
Her smile, echoed in her wide, expressive eyes, bathed him in a warmth like nothing he’d ever known. “You don’t have to say anything, Shayne.” She twined her fingers together around his neck. “Just make love to me. With me,” she corrected, her voice trembling with a heady mixture of nerves and desire. “Please?”
He’d done his best to do the honorable thing. But reminding himself that he was only human, that he’d certainly never been bucking for sainthood—especially since Mike had already claimed that role in the O’Malley family by the time he’d been born—Shayne captured Bliss’s silky soft, parted lips with his mouth, scooped her off her feet and carried her into the adjoining bedroom.
10
THE BED WAS soft, but not uncomfortably so. “It’s like sinking into a cloud,” Bliss murmured happily. “A lovely, fragrant cloud.”
“It’s stuffed with Spanish moss. And some herbs, but I don’t know what kind.”
“If the way I’m feeling is any indication, they’re undoubtedly magical ones,” she said as she reveled in the wondrous, mystical emotions being in this hidden, secret place with Shayne instilled.
The mattress rustled as he sat down beside her. “Believe me, sweetheart, I know the feeling.” He touched his lips to hers and tasted her sigh. When he began slowly unbuttoning her blouse, she began to tremble.
Just as Shayne couldn’t recall the last time he’d been with a woman capable of blushing, he couldn’t remember ever being with one who trembled at his touch. The women he took to bed were experienced, worldly. Women who understood that seduction was, after all, merely an enjoyable game.
He folded the flowered silk back. She was wearing an ivory camisole trimmed with a delicate froth of lace. “You’re so lovely.”
Never had Bliss so wanted to believe a man. Never had she so wanted one to find her lovely. More than lovely, she thought as he touched his mouth to her collarbone and made her shiver.
She wanted to be stunning. Irresistible. She wanted to make him forget every other sophisticated woman he’d ever known. Women like that elegant blond she’d met in the bedroom in Paris, the kind of women who were born knowing how to wrap men around their bejeweled fingers.
“Are you afraid of me?” His lips smiled, although his eyes questioned.
“Not of you.” The words clogged her throat as he skimmed a fingertip just above the lace, over the crest of her breasts. “Never of you.” She hated the way her voice sounded so shaky. So needy. “It’s just that I’ve never been very good at...well, I’m not really a physical person... I’m afraid I won’t be able to give you what you want.”
Vulnerability surrounded her like a shimmering aura, like the Saint Elmo’s fire he’d witnessed innumerable times out here in the bayou. Never had Shayne been so humbled. And never, not even that first time, on a quilt in the bed of his brother Roarke’s borrowed pickup truck, had Shayne been so nervous about doing this right.