Song Without Words

by Betsy Warren

  'What the hell are you doing here?' he asked, very softly. There was none of the angry challenge there had been the first time he'd put that question to her. There was pain, however, and a sense that he didn't quite trust what he was seeing.

  Shauna moistened her lips. 'I—I know about the song.' she said. 'I know you didn't give it to Carla D-Decker. I think she must have taken the lead sheets out of your desk that day she was in your office alone. The things I said to you the other night… I was angry and hurt… and j-jealous.' She saw something flare deep in his eyes for a split-second before it was ruthlessly extinguished. 'I'm sorry. I—I should have trusted you.'

  'Why? I never gave you any reason to trust me.'

  'Yes, you did!' she protested, the words tumbling out. 'You tried to help me—understand me. You…shared things with me.'

  'I didn't share enough,' he said. 'I've spent so damn much of my life keeping people at arm's length, never letting anybody get close enough to betray me the way my mother—' He broke off. She watched his strong-fingered hands clench into fists. The torment she felt radiating from him tore at her heart. She wanted to move to him, to comfort him, but she wasn't certain he'd accept that from her—not now.

  'You broke Carla's contract, didn't you?'

  'I wish I could have broken her neck!'

  The brutality in his voice shook her. 'It's going to mean a big loss for SEE…' she commented hesitantly.

  'Considering what Carla's cost me personally, any price I have to pay to be rid of her professionally will be a cheap one.' He expelled a long, sighing breath. 'Shauna, I think you'd better go.' His voice was strained.

  'You—you want me to go?' She barely got the ques­tion out.

  He looked at her. For the first time, his defences were totally down. There was raw, undisguised emotion—naked vulnerability—in his eyes.

  'No,' he said, 'I don't want you to go. But I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have, either. And if you stay—'

  'You haven't hurt me, Michael.'

  'Haven't I? Look at yourself, Shauna!'

  She smiled a little, realising he meant her return to the staid, touch-me-not hairstyle and the defensive glasses. 'I have,' she replied simply. 'But now I want you to look at me. This is how I was before we met… before you made me understand what I was doing to my life, and why. I don't want to be this way any more. So—'

  She took a deep breath, praying that what she was about to do would convince him of her feelings. Slowly, she removed her glasses. After a moment's hesitation, she deliberately dropped them on the floor. Her hair came next. She unpinned it with unsteady fingers and shook it loose. Finally, she undid her coat and took it off, letting it slip to the floor. She was wearing the same rust dress she had put on a week before in hopes of pleasing him.

  Michael rose, lithe and commandingly male. He said nothing.

  'I… don't want to be "Miss Whitney", ' Shauna told him, struggling to hang on to the remaining shreds of her courage. 'Please, Michael…'

  'Are you asking me to forget my rule about Mon­days?' he asked quietly. His tone gave away nothing, and he was standing far enough away so she couldn't accurately read his expression without her glasses.

  Shauna coloured, veiling her eyes with her lashes. She had hoped… wished… for more. But if this was all he was prepared to give, she loved him too much to turn away from it.

  'Yes,' she whispered.

  She watched him walk towards her then, with silent, predatory tread. Her body burned with a blood-heating physical awareness of him.

  He came to a halt perhaps a foot away from her—near enough so she could smell the distinctively masculine scent of him; near enough so she could reach out and touch him.

  'I don't want to seduce you, Shauna,' he said. There was an aching tenderness in the way he pronounced her name. 'What I want to do—what I've wanted to do practically from the first moment I saw you—is to love you… to cherish you—'

  Then she was in his arms, and he was holding her, moulding her against him as though they were two halves of a perfect whole. Trusting her instincts, Shauna melted into the embrace, surrendering to his strength. In a wordless movement of supplication, she tilted her head up. Michael would never have to take from her; she would freely give him everything he wanted.

  For a heart stopping moment, he seemed to hold back. Her eyes huge and melting with love, Shauna reached up and touched the lean plane of one of his tanned cheeks. Her lips parted as she felt a tremor of reaction run through him. Emboldened by his response, she lifted her hand higher and brushed back the lock of dark hair that had once again curved down over his forehead.

  He kissed her, gently, almost reverently. She answered him with a yearning eagerness, opening her lips to him. He deepened the kiss, drinking in her sweetness with the compelling need of a thirsty man who has gone too long without the taste of fresh water. Shauna's arms swept up, locking around his neck. The unconscious movements of her slender body were un­tutored but unmistakably arousing. She was aware of the press of her soft breasts against the hard wall of his chest and of the strain of her thighs against his.

  There was a wild, wanton beauty in her delicate features when he finally broke free of the embrace and put her away from him. He took a deep gulp of air, breathing like a distance runner at the end of a marathon race.

  'Michael—' Shauna asked dazedly.

  'You've got to help me,' he said. 'We have to talk, Shauna… before we go any further. Afterwards—' She saw the heat of desire flare in his eyes, turning the gold glints there molten. His gaze moved over her in frank hunger, marking her femininity and claiming it for his own. 'Afterwards, if there's going to be a first time for us, I want it to be right. The perfect time… the perfect place.'

  She didn't even realise that he was quoting her own words at her. Only one word registered, slicing into her consciousness like a deadly shard of glass, '"if"?' she asked. Such a small word. So little, but so painful.

  'I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you for the first time,' he said. 'But I was too blind to realise what had happened to me. Love wasn't—isn't—an emotion I have much familiarity with. I saw what loving a woman did to my father and I decided that wasn't for me. Then, growing up the way I did, making a career in this business… there were women. I used them. They used me. And love was just a word I put in my songs. Until you.'

  The rawness of his confession moved her deeply. He spoke awkwardly, with none of the verbal ease she had seen him demonstrate over and over again during their two weeks of working together.

  'Michael—' she said, touching his arm. 'It doesn't matter. You don't have to explain—'

  His hand closed over hers, his clasp warmly pos­sessive. 'But I do. When I said I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, I didn't mean here in the studio. I was talking about that scene at the elevator.'

  She opened her mouth to say something. He silenced her gently, pressing a finger to her lips.

  'Carla Decker and I had an on-off affair for several years. I never wanted to get seriously involved with anyone, but I am a man… with a man's physical needs. Carla was there. She didn't want to get involved, either. The only two things she's ever cared about are herself and her career. Having an affair with me—appearing to have one, in recent months—was useful to her.' He paused, watching her face searchingly. 'Shauna, it's not a relationship I'm proud of. Especially not since you were hurt by it. That day you caught the two of us on the elevator was the day I saw just how empty and meaning­less things were between Carla and me. How empty and meaningless so much of my life was.'

  'I—I don't understand.'

  'The look on your innocent, beautiful face stopped me cold. I made the remark about outraged virtue because I didn't want to admit what you made me feel about myself.' He hesitated, obviously choosing his words with care. 'I haven't touched Carla—or any other woman—since that day. And if you're wondering about finding her at my apartment, don't. She was onl
y there because there'd been some mix-up in her hotel reservation and she invited herself to stay. I have two spare bedrooms. She slept in one of them, alone.' His lips twisted into a brief smile. 'Carla's a talented, thoughtless bitch, but she's got infallible instincts when it comes to protecting her own interests. I think the reason she came on so strong that morning, and on the other occasions when you saw her, was because she recognised that you were something very special. And I… I was do damned confused about my feelings—'

  'You were confused?' Shauna exclaimed. 'I never knew what to think from one moment to the next!'

  He stroked her silky hair in a tender movement. 'I was afraid,' he admitted. 'I wanted you badly, but I knew simply taking you to bed wasn't going to be enough. I was jealous—God, I wanted to strangle Jamie for the way you smiled at him! And that day you were late to the office… I was terrified I'd never see you again. Even once I had the guts to accept the attraction was more than physical, I still tried to fool myself. I tried to tell myself the reason I kept hammering at the psychological fortress you'd barricaded yourself behind was that I couldn't bear to see someone with your warmth and talent lock herself away. The truth was—the truth is—I can't stand the sense of being closed out.' Michael cupped her face in his palms.

  Shauna realised she had been holding her breath. She let it out slowly. 'You're not closed out,' she told him, her hazel eyes shimmering. 'I love you.' There! She'd finally said it!

  'Oh, God… you don't know what it means to me to hear you say that,' he said thickly.

  'As much as it would mean to me to hear you say it.'

  'I do love you, my darling,' he told her fervently, the melting adoration in his eyes echoing and underlining the declaration in compelling fashion. 'The music I wrote—that I used with your poetry—I always knew it was incomplete. Melody but no meaning. My song without words. But you've given me the words—the meaning…'

  His arms slipped around her, protective and pos­sessive at the same time. Shauna gloried in the embrace, feeling her heart expand with happiness. She stared up at his lean-featured, handsome face, seeing the look of love with the eyes of love. The true measure of what he felt for her was that he'd opened the doors of his own psychological fortresses… hammered down the barriers of caution and mistrust so they could reach each other without restraint.

  'Tell me what you want, Mr Sebastian,' she urged in a softly provocative voice. She could feel the virile thrust of his desire. The heady knowledge that she was the one who was arousing it sent a wave of pleasure washing over her.

  A slow smile curved his lips as he frankly conceded her power over him. 'What do I want? I want to make music with you.' He pressed a kiss to one corner of her waiting mouth. 'I want to make love with you.' He favoured the other corner. 'And—' he teased the soft pink curve of her lower lip with the tip of his tongue. Their breaths mingled intimately. 'And, I want to make a life with you.'

  'A life?' Her knees started to buckle as the impli­cations of this comment hit her. His hands tightened on her hips.

  Michael made a sound of affirmation, deep in his throat. 'You said you didn't want to be "Miss Whitney",' he said. 'How would you feel about being Mrs Michael Sebastian?'

  She managed to pull away from him for an instant. 'You're asking me to marry you?'

  'Only if you're going to say yes. Otherwise, I'm telling you.' His manner turned masterful.

  'But—'

  'We can have Jamie make the room arrangements for the honeymoon,' he went on, playing his fingers caress­ingly up her back, his heated touch burning through the clinging jersey fabric. 'Although he'll have to make sure we've got a smaller bed than the one up in Hartford. I don't ever want to spend another night sleeping with you, my passionate little poetess, without realising it.'

  'Michael!' He was kissing her again, rousing every fibre of her body to flushed, excited life.

  'You'll put on those damned glasses of yours so I can take them off again. And pin up this lovely hair of yours so I can let it down,' he continued huskily, sending erotic shivers up and down her spine and stirring her to the very core. 'And then you'll cover nearly every exquisite inch of you in that virginal incitement to seduction you call a nightgown, and I'll give both of us the pleasure of very, very slowly removing—'

  'Yes!' she burst out breathlessly, her heart full to overflowing. 'Yes!'

  'Yes to what?' he demanded, suddenly fierce.

  'To everything.'

  'So, what do you think?' Michael asked, lifting his hands off the keys of the piano. He rose with effortless ease, stretching with the lazy grace of a jungle cat. Clad in nothing but a pair of faded jeans, he exuded a potently virile appeal. 'Shauna?'

  Curled contentedly in the corner of the modular sofa, Shauna Whitney Sebastian smiled over at her husband. There was more than a hint of invitation in the languid way she shifted her robe-clad body and slowly combed her fingers through her tumble of chestnut hair.

  They'd been married nearly a month, and the light­ness of it took her breath away. The notion of a 'perfect time' now held a promise of forever in it, and the 'perfect place' was wherever they could be together. By trusting and loving, they were creating a harmony that went far beyond physical intimacy.

  'Shauna?' Michael repeated, his voice husky and amused as he walked to where she was seated. The quirk of his brows and the sudden gleam in his eyes told her he was attuned to her mood.

  'It's a beautiful piece of music,' she said honestly.

  He sat down beside her, gathering her close. 'I had some beautiful inspiration,' he told her, nuzzling gently at the sensitive curve of her jaw.

  'Ummm…' she breathed, her slender fingers drift­ing caressingly over the muscled warmth of his naked torso. 'And… am… I going to be… inspired… when it comes to the lyrics?'

  He sought and found her mouth. The kiss—deeply passionate but carefully controlled—was a long and lingering one.

  'Are you inspired, my love?' Michael asked softly after he lifted his dark head, his green eyes noting the sweet parting of her lips and the rosy flush of pleasure on her cheeks.

  'What do you think?' She brushed her fingertips lightly through his crisp mat of chest hair.

  'I think "Miss Whitney" would be very shocked if she could see us now.' He captured her hand. Lifting it to his mouth, he pressed a kiss to her palm.

  Shauna shook her head. 'No, she'd be jealous.' She cuddled against him with a blissful sigh.

  At Michael's insistence, they had waited until their wedding night to make love the first time. He'd been tender with her innocence, easing her instinctive fears and holding his own experienced desires in careful check. With loving expertise, he'd guided her beyond fantasies and poetic imaginings and initiated her into a world of intensely pleasurable realities.

  Michael slipped one hand underneath the fold of her robe, cupping her breast. Her breathing quickened as she felt his thumb stroke teasingly over the nipple, rousing it to taut, quivering responsiveness.

  'Didn't you say something earlier about wanting to watch Tempest's appearance on Saturday Show tonight?' he asked her in a deceptively innocent voice.

  She caught her breath. 'I totally forgot!' she ex­claimed. 'Is it too late?'

  'Hit the remote control for the television set and see,' he counselled indulgently.

  Shauna did as he advised, sighing with relief when she saw the programme was still on. The Saturday Show's resident comedy troupe was in the middle of a droll parody of a popular television series.

  'You don't suppose we missed it?' she asked, giving him an anxious look.

  Michael shook his head. 'This show is usually de­signed to close with a musical number,' he said knowl­edgeably. 'But if we did miss it, I'm sure Tempest will give us a private performance. After all, sweetheart, it's our song.'

  She laughed happily at this and snuggled against him. 'I like the sound of that,' she commented.

  'Let's hope you like the sound of the arrangement, too.'
r />   'I'm sure I—oh, here they are!'

  The announcer's introduction was short and the wel­coming applause from the studio audience was loudly enthusiastic. As the applause died down, Jamie stepped forward to the microphone, grinning boyishly.

  'Thank you,' he said conversationally. 'We'd like to do a brand new song for you now. It was written by two people Tempest cares a lot about… they care a lot about each other, too. I think once you hear this num­ber, you'll know these two have something special together. This is for Shauna and Michael.'

  There were four measures of introduction, played with elegant, almost classical, simplicity by Griz at the keyboard and counterpointed by a smooth progression of chords from Hank and Frank's guitars. Shauna could see the notes of the melody inked on the white sheets of paper Michael had given her. Those notes were en­graved on her heart and mind like the words penned beneath them.

  Jamie started to sing.

  Some think for each, there is a lover—

  to hold them through the night.

  To keep them safe, and give them comfort,

  'til the dark gives way to light.

  Until you find the one you're meant for…

  you go through life apart…

  Shauna pressed the remote control switch, shutting the television off. Her eyes were misty with emotion.

  'Shauna?' Michael asked softly.

  She looked at him for a long moment, drinking in his dark male strength. 'I'm glad we gave the song to Tempest,' she said, 'but I don't need to hear the whole thing to know how right it is. Besides, I know how it ends… I love you, Michael.'

  She could see her own feelings reflected in his ex­pressive face. 'That, my darling, is how it begins,' he replied, standing up. 'Come to bed.'

  They walked from the room hand in hand, fingers intertwined with an intimacy their bodies would soon repeat. As they reached the end of the hallway that led to their bedroom, Michael swept Shauna up into his arms, cradling her against his bared chest.

  'My love,' he said with tender simplicity.