If you change your mind you'll know where to find me.
She thrust her arms into the sleeves of her blue silk gown, fastening the belt about her waist while she pushed her feet into her soft mules, and then she was marching out of her suite and along the deserted corridor to knock on Chad's door before her courage deserted her.
The door was opened seconds later, and she passed the tip of her tongue nervously over her lips as she found herself face to face with Chad. He was wearing a green towelling robe that left his legs bare from the knees down, but it was not what he was wearing that interested her at that moment. His expression was inscrutable, but there was an oddly vulnerable look about his eyes and mouth which did not escape her. It stabbed her to the soul, and gave her the courage to go on.
'I've changed my mind,' she said unnecessarily, her heart thudding against her ribs.
'I was hoping you would,' he said, taking the hands she held out to him and drawing her inside.
'It wasn't an easy decision.'
'I know.' He closed the door, and the emotional tension spiralled between them as his eyes probed hers in the dimly lit room. He seemed to find what he was searching for, and then his taut features relaxed visibly. 'Oh, Megan!' Her name was a tortured groan on his lips. 'I want you so much that it's been driving me out of my mind!'
His fingers bit into her shoulders, and then he was sweeping her into his arms, crushing her small softness against the hard length of him with a force which threatened to drive the breath from her body. He rained fiery kisses on her face and throat before he sought her eager, waiting lips, and if there had still been the slightest doubt in Megan's mind then it was dispelled by the urgency of his kiss.
She wanted him so much that her body was aching with a need to be closer to him, and she could feel the muscles rippling beneath his robe as she slid her hands up across his broad back to cling to his shoulders as she ventured for the first time into this mad, ecstatic world of passion. This was going to be a precious moment in her life, and it would have to sustain her through to eternity.
'Make love to me, Chad,' she whispered urgently when his mouth left hers to seek out that erratic little pulse at the base of her throat, and he raised his dark head to look down into eyes which were almost feverishly bright with emotion.
'Are you sure that's what you want?'
'Yes, I'm sure.'
He hesitated for one heart-stopping moment, then he lifted her in his arms as if she were a child and carried her into the bedroom. His eyes were chips of steel with a dark fire leaping in their depths, and Megan wanted to lose herself in them, but Chad was brushing his lips across her eyelids as he lowered her on to her feet beside the bed.
Her gown and her flimsy nightdress fell almost unnoticed to the floor at her feet while his mouth made a sensuous exploration of the delicate contours of her face before it detoured down along the slender arch of her neck to her creamy shoulder. His mouth sought hers again in long, drugging kisses, and she could not recall when he removed his robe, but it came as a pleasurable shock to feel his naked, heated body against her own when he lifted her on to the enormous bed with its blue drapes and lay down beside her.
He made love to her slowly, his hands gentling her body until every nerve and sinew was quiveringly alert to his touch. He explored her sensitised flesh with his mouth and his hands, filling her senses with the taste and smell of him and igniting a fire inside her that made her impatient to be possessed.
'Oh, Chad!' she breathed his name unsteadily, her excitement mounting and her fingernails digging into the muscles stretching taut across his shoulders when he pushed his knee between hers to trail his hand along her inner thigh in search of the most intimate part of her body. 'I want you so much!'
Chad stayed the action of his hand when her trembling body arched involuntarily to meet his touch. 'What made you change your mind?' he asked throatily, his mouth seeking hers.
'Don't you know yet that I love you?'
The truth had spilled from her lips before she could prevent it, and she knew instantly that it had been a mistake. He stiffened against her, his head jerking up as if she had struck him, and the look on his face was frightening when he left her side with a muttered oath to shrug himself into his robe.
'Chad…please…I'm sorry.' Megan dragged the duvet up against her naked body and sat up in bed with a stricken look on her face as he tugged the curtains aside to stare out of the window. 'It doesn't have to change anything, does it?'
'It changes everything!' He tugged the curtains back across the window, shutting out the flickering city lights, and Megan shivered despite the air-conditioned warmth of the room when he turned to her with savage anger on his face. 'It changes everything for me!'
'Because I dared to say I love you?' she asked, her mouth suddenly so dry that she could scarcely raise her voice above a whisper while she fought against the pain and humiliation of his rejection.
'Yes!' He shot the word at her like a bullet out of a gun, and she flinched, her face whitening.
'I see,' she murmured, a cold, despairing anger coming to her rescue as she reached down on to the floor for her discarded nightdress and pulled it on over her head with as much dignity as she could muster.
'No, you don't see!' Chad was beside her in an instant, his eyes blazing with an inner fury and something else which she could not define when his hands closed about her shoulders like a vice to lift her off the bed and on to her feet. 'For heaven's sake, Megan, I've got to make you understand! Right up to the moment when you said you loved me there was still a part of me that wanted you and then wanted to be free of you!'
'Do you think I didn't know that?' she stormed at him in an anguished voice, her eyes dark with pain and misery and filling rapidly with tears. 'Don't you realise that it's because I love you so much that I decided to snatch this moment of happiness with you even though I knew it would be brief?'
Her insides were shaking, affecting her breathing, and through the film of her humiliating tears she saw a peculiar whiteness sliding up beneath the skin along Chad's jaw and about his mouth.
'You don't deserve this kind of treatment, and I think I've known that for a long time.' His voice was vibrant with an emotion she could not determine at that moment as he slackened his punishing grip on her shoulders. 'I'm glad I didn't make love to you now, and when I do, it must be because I have that right… as your husband.'
The room tilted crazily. This had to be a mad, impossible dream, but the touch of his warm hands on her shoulders was very real.
'Do you know what you're saying?' she croaked in disbelief, her legs threatening to cave in beneath her while she searched his face for the answer.
'I love you, Megan.' There was a break in his voice, telling her exactly how difficult it had been for a man like Chad to make that confession, but his tortured expression revealed a great deal more in that instant before he pulled her roughly into his arms. 'Heaven knows, I've been fighting a relentless battle with myself these past few months, and I've been going quietly out of my mind because of it, but I can't go on fighting against the truth. I don't just want your body, Megan, I want all of you, and it still scares the hell out of me, but… I want to marry you.'
Megan's heart stilled in her breast, then raced on at an incredible pace. This was reality, it was not a dream, she realised at last, and her happiness was so intense that she was suddenly laughing and crying at the same time as she flung her arms about his neck and buried her face against his broad chest.
'You don't know how much I've longed to hear you say those words, but I believed you never would,' she explained, her voice muffled and her tears dampening the front of Chad's towelling robe. 'Oh, lord!' she laughed shakily, failing in her attempt to wipe away her tears until a handkerchief was thrust into her hands. 'I know it's silly of me to cry, but I'm so happy that I—I just can't seem to help it.'
Chad stroked her silky hair, soothing her until she managed to control herself, but there was
a tolerant, faintly amused smile hovering about his sensuous mouth as he slid his fingers beneath her chin and tipped her face up to his.
'Does this mean you'll marry me?' he asked, pocketing his damp handkerchief.
'Yes! Oh, yes, Chad!' she whispered tremulously, her eyes alight with happiness, but her expression sobered the next instant. 'If you're sure that's what you really want.'
'I know now that nothing else will suffice, but…' The muscle along his jaw grew taut, and there was a flash of remembered bitterness in his eyes. 'It will have to be for ever,' he concluded on a warning note.
Megan understood, and her compassionate, loving heart reached out to him. He had made himself vulnerable by admitting that he loved her, but the fear of being hurt was still there, and her expression was grave when she took him by the shoulders and pushed him down on to the bed.
'Nothing is ever going to make me leave you, Chad,' she assured him with a fierce honesty as she knelt between his thighs. 'Nothing! Do you understand? You can throw me out of your life, but I'll come back in again even if I have to hammer down doors to do it.' Her luminous eyes held his, allowing him to see into her heart and beyond while she gripped his hands tightly with the urgency of the message she was conveying. 'Trust me, Chad. Trust me with your love as I trust you with mine.'
His taut features relaxed slowly, and she could almost feel the tension draining from him before he lifted her on to the bed where he held her a willing prisoner beneath the weight of his body.
'As I recall, I once told you that to trust a woman would be as foolish as to come between a hungry lion and its prey.' He smiled wryly at the memory, and she felt the faint stubble of beard scraping her skin when he rubbed his cheek against hers. 'I think, since that time you nursed me when I had malaria, I've known that I need never feel that way with you.'
'Oh, Chad!' Her sigh was ecstatic, and she wrapped her arms around him and she opened her mouth to him with a hunger which he did not hesitate to satisfy.
Fate had woven a spell around them that day, and the magic was still there, sharpening their hunger into desire as they clung to each other a little wildly, their bodies straining to get closer, but this time there was an underlying tenderness in the knowledge that they loved each other.
'Let's not wait, Megan.' Chad's low, throaty voice excited her almost as much as his erotic tongue flicking across her heated flesh as it trailed a devastating path from her throat down to where the V of her nightdress exposed the gentle curve of her breasts. 'Let's get married tomorrow before we return to Louisville.'
'I wish I could say yes, but I can't.' Her eyes were slumbrous with the extent of her emotions as she curled her fingers into his hair to stay the action of his tantalising mouth while she still had the strength to do so. 'I have to think about my family. I'd like their blessing on our decision, and they've been so good to me over the years that it's only fair to include them in our plans.'
'Yes, you're right,' Chad agreed, the smoky fire of desire in his eyes subsiding and a rueful smile curving his sensuous mouth. 'I'm selfish and impatient, and I have no doubt that this period of waiting will be an agony of a different kind, but you deserve to have a white wedding with all the usual trimmings. Just don't make me wait too long, because I know I shan't rest until you're mine.'
'I won't make you wait too long. I promise we'll be married as soon as it can be arranged.' She smiled up at him tremulously, loving the feel of his warm, hard body against her own as she slid her fingers through his soft, springy hair, and down along his lean jaw to his strong, sunbrowned throat. 'Thank you for understanding.'
'Megan! My Megan!' His face darkened with remorse as he eased himself away from her and captured one of her hands in his to bury his warm mouth against her soft palm. 'You've had me on a leash from the start, tugging gently to bring me to my senses, and I hope that some day you'll forgive me for hurting you so much.'
'I've always tried to understand the reason behind the things you've said and done, and that makes forgiveness unnecessary,' she said simply and honestly.
'You're a remarkable woman.'
'I love you, Chad,' she whispered, her thigh brushing against his when she shifted her position slightly, and she felt his chest heave beneath her hands.
'Lying here like this with you is the next best thing to making love to you, but it's not very good for my blood pressure,' he growled, and there was a noticeable tremor in his hands when he rose to his feet and lifted her up with him. 'It must be after midnight, but I know I won't be able to sleep tonight, so let's pack up and get the hell out of here,' he suggested with an understandable urgency as he picked up her gown and helped her into it. 'Let's go home to Louisville.'
'I'll get dressed and pack the last few things.'
Megan had fastened the belt of her gown about her waist and was about to return to her suite when Chad caught her up against him in a fierce embrace which almost drove the breath from her body.
'I love you, Megan,' he groaned, and the words seemed to come so much easier this time. 'I swear I'll spend the rest of my life showing you just how much I love you.'
His warm mouth shifted over hers in a hard, satisfying kiss, and Megan prayed silently that she would always be worthy of his love.
Bridge to Nowhere Page 18