It went on for minutes, then she swept past them, out of the room, her perfume lingering after her angry footsteps had died away. A tremor ran through Tina, and unaware she had wrapped both arms about John’s waist as though to protect him. She heard him laughing very quietly, and when she glanced up at him, he said wryly: “What a pair we are! Crazy about each other, yet scared stiff to say so in case it wasn’t the same for the other person.”
“Is that why you were so angry this morning?” she asked.
“I wanted to knock that guy’s handsome head clean off his caveman shoulders.” John swung her to face him and his blue eyes were dark with feeling in his lean face. “He was bending over you, and there you were, taking it like a lamb, not grabbing a hank of his hair and fighting like a little wildcat. . .”
“Try me now,” she whispered.
And suddenly he was holding her so close and hard that he seemed to want to absorb her into his very being. He was hurting her, but it was a pain she welcomed with all the strength of her love. At last, as surely as she knew the color of his eyes, she felt the love in him, the passion and the unimaginable need that only she could assuage. She just about managed to say his name, the rest was lost in his kiss.
The length and strength of his kiss—the heaven of it!
“Oh, John!” she gasped, pulling away, burying her face in his shoulder.
“Oh, Tina!” He ruffled her hair, and in a while when she looked at him she saw sparks of fire glimmering in his eyes. A tense awareness vibrated between them, high-voltaged, unbearable, and with a low groan he swung her up into his arms and marched downstairs with her. They saw Nathaniel in the hall, and John, without a touch of embarrassment at being caught carrying his wife, asked that coffee and snacks be brought to them in the salon.
“Yassir!” Nathaniel was beaming as he came across to open the doors of the salon. He evidently considered it quite in order for the master of the house to behave in this ardent fashion.
The world closed out and coffee on a table in front of them, they talked at last of Joanna. “I loved her in the beginning,” he said. “She was utterly beautiful, like a dream come true, a dream that shattered when I awoke to the reality of her. Love is a gift, not a possession. You give it, you don't take—take. She couldn’t help what she was —there’s a name for it—and I’m glad the torment didn’t go on for her.”
He sat quiet a moment, gripping Tina’s hand. ‘I guess Liza will be okay. I think she takes after me.”
“She’s you all over again, John,” Tina assured him gently.
He nodded and sat looking into Tina’s eyes. “I love you unbearably, do you know that? It hurt like the devil that night you rejected me. I thought you couldn’t bear me to touch you.”
“I can bear that,” she said, bringing his hand to her cheek. “What I couldn’t bear was thinking you were making a substitute of me.”
“For Paula?” His hand went round, into her hair, finding the nape of her neck. He drew her forward until her lips were almost under his. “We’re leaving Ste. Monique and our friend Paula. I’m selling Blue Water House and we’re going to live at Barbados. We’ll be near Liza, and we’ll have moonflowers in our garden.”
“When did you decide to do that?” she whispered, weak as water at his closeness, his touch, the love in his eyes.
“After seeing you on the beach with d’Andremont. I drove off in a temper, then I decided that this damn place was unlucky for us and I stopped off to see Ralph and to ask his advice. He agreed that it might be a good plan to get shot of the house, for us to get away together. Is it a good plan, my darling?”
“A lovely plan.” Her voice died, but everything else was gloriously alive as he lifted her completely into his arms and commenced to make up for some of the time they had lost.
THE END
Bride's Dilemma Page 18