Forgotten Sins

by Robyn Donald

  He said, ‘Tell me about your husband. What made him set up that trust?’

  Even as he said the words he wondered savagely what the hell he thought he was doing. She’d had too many betrayals in her life and here he was contemplating the possibility of another.

  Night-attuned eyes scanned the pale oval of her face, turned resolutely to the rising moon. With her shoulders squared at right angles to a wand-straight spine, her tilted chin, Aline’s whole body expressed a slender, indomitable refusal to surrender. He felt her resentment, knew that the large turquoise eyes would be flat and opaque.

  That inconvenient protectiveness—more debilitating than the restless lust that stirred his groin—almost made him give up, but he’d made a promise.

  Expecting a flat refusal, a curt suggestion to mind his own business, he was surprised when she answered. ‘Hope Carmichael reminds me a bit of Michael—partly it’s the colouring, so warm, as though the sun’s always shining on them. My sister and mother were like that too—they attracted people like magnets and wherever they went they brought laughter and empathy with them like gifts.’

  Jake watched her unblinkingly. Buried deep beneath the cool, level tone was a resigned envy, as though her own talents were worth nothing; her father’s legacy, probably.

  Jake found himself thoroughly disliking the man who’d convinced her she wasn’t worth staying alive for.

  He enjoyed women, but none had intrigued him like Aline, hiding her passionate intensity beneath a guarded self-possession. He wanted that caged passion for himself.

  Now, however, was not the time. Ruthlessly tamping down his familiar hunger, he observed, ‘And Michael Connor?’ She stayed stubbornly silent, so he remarked, ‘As well as a superb yachtsman, he was a brilliant photographer. I’ve seen his Oceans collection.’

  In that still, distant voice she said, ‘Yes. He loved the sea.’

  ‘How did he die?’ He knew, of course; the man had been a bloody hero.

  He heard the swift indrawn breath but her voice was steady. ‘He was out with Search and Rescue looking for a friend in the Southern Ocean. He went down in a helicopter. They never found his body.’

  Jake said roughly, ‘Hell for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘And now it seems I never had his heart either.’

  At last she slumped. Jake caught her, pulling her against him in a futile attempt to keep her demons at bay with his strength and his heat. Her slender, fragrant body shook, and he wondered if she was crying.

  She said steadily, ‘He set up the Trust because he’d had a mentor, a high school teacher, who gave him faith in himself and the courage to strive for what he wanted. He used to say that if it hadn’t been for that man he’d have ended up on the streets. He wanted to give something back.’

  No tears in her voice, in her words; she hadn’t cracked yet. Reluctantly Jake admired her sheer guts, although holding her was playing hell with his control. To take his mind off his damned awkward physical response, he said, ‘So he organised an appeal and New Zealanders subscribed by the millions.’ Literally. ‘Do you have anything to do with it?’

  After a pause so short he’d not have noticed if it had been anyone else, she said, ‘No.’

  She was lying. Jake said nothing, sardonically counting it a triumph when she stayed in his arms as the moon leapt from behind the hills, blotting out the stars with its glory. It brooked no rivals, the moon; Jake wondered whether Michael Connor had been like that.

  Well, he enjoyed a challenge. That Aline might have the answer to the riddle he was trying to unravel made things more complicated, but in the end he’d have the answer—and he’d have her too.

  The night blinded Aline with its beauty. ‘Moonlight is such a familiar miracle,’ she said, listening to his heartbeat, stable and strong against her cheek. She realised that it was picking up speed, and something inside her cracked and dissolved and was swept away. In spite of every warning female instinct handed down through the generations, she wanted to trust Jake.

  ‘Entirely familiar, and yet never the same. Like love,’ he said deliberately.

  Soon she’d pull away. ‘Have you ever been in love?’

  ‘I’ve thought I was occasionally.’

  ‘I’ve only thought it once,’ she said on a note of bitterness. ‘I’ve been waiting for him to come back for almost three years.’ She was silent again, and then she said, ‘I wonder if he ever loved me.’

  ‘Probably.’

  She thought of Lauren. ‘Not enough,’ she said soberly.

  ‘Men can separate love from sex.’ Jake’s voice was smooth.

  ‘Would you do that? Make love to a woman when you’d promised to love and stay faithful to another?’

  She felt his chest lift, and when he spoke she heard wry resignation in his tone. ‘No.’

  A simple word, easy to fake, but she believed him. Business was different from personal relationships, yet in business dealings the true nature of a man came through. Jake was tough, a hard negotiator, an astute, formidable businessman with an ice-cold intelligence she’d learned to admire and respect. And he was honest.

  ‘Nor would Keir,’ she said quietly. ‘He loves Hope so much I can’t believe he’d ever be unfaithful. Perhaps I just chose the wrong man.’ She gave a half-laugh. ‘Except that he chose me. And I think he must have loved Lauren—he told me we should wait to start a family.’

  ‘You could have been looking for something he wasn’t able to give,’ Jake said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Commitment?’

  Only the fine material of Jake’s shirt beneath her cheek shielded her from the heat of his body. He smelt of himself—faint, clean and somehow safe. She drifted for long moments, oddly secure, and then said, ‘I wasn’t enough for him.’

  ‘Enough what?’ he asked cuttingly.

  She shrugged, finding it strangely easy to talk to him in this dark room with the moon in glory outside, its light path rippling across the miles of sea in front of them. ‘Enough woman, I suppose.’

  He pulled her around, half lifting her across his legs so that she faced him. In the dim room his features were darkly imperious and angry. ‘You are more woman than most men ever dream of,’ he said forcefully. ‘You’re a woman who takes up residence in a man’s mind, tremendously sophisticated, composed and discriminating, a challenge that won’t go away, won’t leave a man alone.’

  ‘And all that means nothing compared to women who are bright and warm and sexy—women like Hope. Or Lauren.’ She made to swing her legs down. ‘You don’t know anything about me, Jake.’

  ‘I know one thing,’ he said in a low, dangerous voice, tipping her chin up with a ruthless hand. For a taut moment he stared into her pale face, then said between his teeth, ‘I know that if I don’t kiss you now I’m going to regret it. And if I do I’ll probably regret it even more. But, hell, taking risks is part of living.’

  She couldn’t move, waiting for the unknown—longing for it. Gently, purposefully, his mouth traced the upward sweep of her brows, her cheekbones, the length of her throat.

  And even when he kissed her lips it was almost carefully, until something exploded between them with all the temptation of original sin.

  Aline had kissed in love, kissed in affection and commiseration. She had never kissed like this before, wildly, with incendiary ardour, losing every sensible thought the second his mouth took hers and then drowning in the sensation of his expert kisses, ablaze with it, shaking with the energy it summoned—languorous and powerful and feverish.

  In the end all she could do was surrender.

  When Jake lifted his head she opened her eyes, shivering at the stark, stripped hunger in his face.

  She’d loved Michael yet he’d never done this to her. Jake Howard, with his warrior’s face and warlock’s ability to ravish her senses, had worked some black magic and set a dangerous desire thrumming through her veins, a desire so strong she could forget everything by yielding to it. />
  ‘I’ve wanted to do that ever since we met,’ she said raggedly, no longer worried about protecting herself.

  ‘Did it satisfy you?’ he asked thickly.

  She shook her head. ‘I want you to make love to me.’

  ‘It doesn’t work that way,’ he said, but his arms still held her against his lean, aroused body. ‘Making love isn’t something one person does to another.’ Before she could do more than flinch, he went on, ‘When we make love, Aline, we’ll do it together because that’s the only way it has any meaning. But it’s not going to happen now, not tonight.’

  The flinty note in his voice told her that he wasn’t going to change his mind.

  Just another rejection.

  ‘Why?’ Damn, her voice sounded croaky, as though she was going to cry. She sat up and began to pull away. When he didn’t let her go she stopped struggling; she should, she thought, feel physically threatened by his strength and unwavering will.

  She didn’t.

  ‘You’ve had a hell of a shock today; you’re not fully in control.’ His mouth hardened. ‘If we made love you’d regret it the moment you woke tomorrow. Probably the moment you climaxed in my arms.’

  An exquisite thrill shot down her spine. It gave her the courage to say honestly, ‘I don’t care.’

  He didn’t soften. ‘I don’t want to be used so that you can revenge yourself on a man who’s been dead for almost three years.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she protested, startled and dismayed.

  ‘Then what is it?’ he asked grimly. ‘A sudden rush of blood to the head? To be even blunter, if we made love now you’d be using me.’

  ‘But you’d be using me too,’ she pointed out, feeling that she’d die if she didn’t follow this thing through to the end. ‘You want me, and I’ve wanted you ever since we met. Surely that’s all we need?’ She shivered.

  That sensuous, involuntary shiver smashed right through his confident ability to resist her—that shiver, and her smouldering, avid eyes.

  Jake realised that for the first time in his life he was going to ignore his game plan.

  It no longer seemed important. Aline—composed, tantalising Aline, with her intelligence and her touch-me-not beauty—had the power to confuse his thinking, heat his blood with an urgent summons as imperative as it was seductive and shatter his will-power into unmourned shards.

  Slender as a thoroughbred yet enticingly curved, she smelt of woman: mysterious, infinitely desirable, potent with an age-old enchantment more powerful than mere charm or beauty.

  Every sensible caution dissolved in the searing reality of her red mouth as she kissed his throat through the open neck of his shirt. Jake had been about seventeen when he’d last been kissed like that—tentatively, almost shyly—yet behind Aline’s kiss sizzled a vibrating intensity that set him alight.

  Violent hunger throbbing through him, he looked down at her sleek black head, and did something else he’d wanted to do for months; he slid his fingers into her knot of hair and gently levered the strands free, letting them fall across his wrists like midnight silk, cool and sensuous and erotic. She didn’t even wince, so the bruise had gone.

  In a tone too abrasive, too raw, he muttered, ‘I don’t want you waking up tomorrow morning and regretting this.’ Deep in his brain he heard an echo of ironic laughter because he was the one who’d be doing the regretting.

  Once again he fought for control, reminding himself why he shouldn’t be doing this, but his resistance faded when she leaned back and looked him full in the face. Moonlight lingered lovingly across her features, pooled along her cheekbones, enlarged her eyes into huge, dark mysteries.

  ‘I know what I want.’ When he went to speak she clamped a slender, surprisingly strong hand over his mouth. ‘Michael’s been dead for almost three years, and this has nothing to do with him. As you pointed out, there’s been something between us since we first met, and I want to know what it is.’ Her voice deepened in frustration, its intriguing texture intensifying so that it stroked across him like a summons to paradise. ‘I want you, Jake.’

  God, this was more than flesh and blood could stand! He closed his eyes, then covered her hand with his, pressing the slender fingers against his mouth so that he could bite the palm. Her gasp finally splintered his waning resistance.

  He opened his eyes to see her staring at him, wide eyes dilating with a mixture of shock and fever.

  Carefully he lifted her hand from his mouth, pushed it between the buttons of his shirt and settled it on his chest. Her long fingers flexed and curled against his skin, blasting pleasure through him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said harshly, eyes narrowing.

  Aline’s pulses jumped at the note in his voice, his drawn, angular intensity. She thought she might faint with anticipation as they sat staring at each other, locked into stillness by an impulse that went deeper than the sexuality pulsing between them. Those intense moments were a primitive claiming, she thought, a bonding beyond the physical.

  Jake’s face was like chiselled stone, only the slight blurring of his mouth showing any softness. I did that when I kissed him, she thought with a fierce pride. His eyes glittered like chips of fire, searching, probing, penetrating.

  He said her name on a harsh, darkly possessive intonation.

  Feverish shudders raked her skin. Leaning forward, she touched his chin with her mouth, bit along his jaw. When she felt him tense beneath her mouth that inner wildness tightened into an unbearable pleasure.

  He stood up, arms coiling around her with supreme, calm strength. ‘I know a better place for this,’ he said curtly.

  Silently he carried her through the darkened room, past the kitchen and into the short passage that led to her bedroom. There he bent his head and kissed her again, a shockingly intimate kiss that coaxed her mouth open.

  Erotic, shattering and wonderful, the kiss lasted until he shouldered open the door into her bedroom. Not bothering to close it, Jake walked noiselessly across to the bed. Halfway there, when one of her shoes fell from her foot, Aline barely noticed.

  He released her slowly, sliding her down his body until her feet reached a floor that rocked beneath her.

  This time she was sure she’d faint. While her tension and arousal were hidden his were blatantly obvious—rampant and arrogantly male, the most primal signal of desire, and her doing.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, hard hands gripping her waist.

  Clutching his shoulders, her voice a husky whisper in the room, Aline asked, ‘Testing me?’

  His laugh was short and unamused. ‘Perhaps,’ he said enigmatically, lifting his hands from her waist. They slid upwards, coming to rest just beneath her breasts.

  Excitement shortened her breath. She pressed herself against him, winding her arms around his broad shoulders and pulling him into her. ‘Jake,’ she whispered.

  His thumbs stroked along her curves, almost delicately in spite of his strength.

  Instantly her breasts tightened and became heavy, the nipples beading beneath her bra so acutely sensitive she bit back a cry. She began to undo the buttons of his shirt, taking her time because her hands were shaking.

  A flutter of movement over his shoulder whipped her head up.

  Instantly Jake swung around, interposing himself between her and the window in one swift, silent movement. Ghosting the words, he asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just the curtain in the breeze.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  He turned and checked it. ‘I can close the windows.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want them open.’

  He laughed deep in his throat. ‘I could take this shirt off for you if you want me to, but I’m enjoying the way you’re doing it.’

  Deftly Aline went back to work until the garment fell open. ‘It’s finished,’ she said huskily, stroking the skin beneath.

  A quick shrug flicked the shirt onto the floor.

  ‘Now I’ll do the same for y
ou,’ he said, his voice steady with a bold male triumph.

  Aline watched as he unfastened the button at her throat, and then moved to those at her breast, his hands bronze against the silk. Spears of hot expectancy pierced her. She fought for breath, wondering how it had happened, this intense anticipation for a man she barely knew.

  Well, she’d tried love and it hadn’t worked for her, she thought. Now she’d give sex a try.

  Yet even as the cynical words formed in her brain she knew that there was more to this than surrender to a physical urge. She might not love Jake, but what she felt for him—this powerful, compelling force—was at least honest.

  A cool wash of air warned her that her shirt was hanging free. Jake pushed the soft material back from her shoulders, then stopped. ‘That’s a pretty chain,’ he said neutrally.

  Michael had given it to her.

  Aline dragged the fragile gold thing over her head and threw it across the room, turning back before it landed. ‘It’s gone,’ she said huskily.

  He looked down at her; lit by the moonglow outside, she could see the frown that drew his brows together.

  ‘It’s over,’ she told him, and when he still didn’t move she kissed the swell of muscle in one broad shoulder, kissed it and licked it, and bit into the smooth, heated skin with her sharp teeth. His taste flooded her mouth in a primal signal.

  When she heard his jagged indrawn breath and felt his arms close around her with bruising force, for the first time she accepted with a deep, inner confidence that she too possessed sexual power. He asked harshly, ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Very sure,’ she said as her shirt slid to the floor.

  Jake kissed her, unclipping her bra at the same time with an expertise that shouted his experience.

  Her bright, breathless anticipation dimmed—but why? She knew he was no virginal knight of old. Neither was she a maiden pure.

  He said in a voice that grated on her ears, ‘You are so beautiful—perfect for me,’ and eased the bra over her shoulders and down her arms.