by Nora Roberts
“So you’re up.”
Ky’s voice made her whip her head around. Her nerves were strung tight. He walked into the bedroom carrying a tray, wearing an easy smile.
“That saves me from having to wake you up to get some food into you.” Before he approached the bed, he went to both windows and drew up the shades. Light poured into the room and the warm breeze that had been trapped behind the shades rushed in to ruffle the sheets. Feeling it, she had to control a shudder. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine.” The awkwardness was unexpected. Kate folded her hands and sat perfectly still. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“You’ve already thanked me once. It wasn’t necessary then or now.” Because her tone had put him on guard, Ky stopped next to the bed to take a good long look at her. “You’re hurting.”
“It’s not bad.”
“This time you take a pill.” After setting the tray on her lap, he walked to the dresser and picked up a small bottle. “No arguments,” he said, anticipating her refusal.
“Ky, it’s really not bad.” When had he offered her a pill before? The struggle to remember brought only more frustration. “There’s barely any pain.”
“Any pain’s too much.” He sat on the bed, and putting the pill into her palm curled her hand over it with his own. “When it’s you.”
With her fingers curled warmly under his, she knew. Elation came so quietly she was afraid to move and chase it away. “I didn’t dream it, did I?” she whispered.
“Dream what?” He kissed the back of her hand before he handed her the glass of juice.
“Last night. When I woke up, I was afraid it had all been a dream.”
He smiled and, bending, touched his lips to hers. “If it was, I had the same dream.” He kissed her again, with humor in his eyes. “It was wonderful.”
“Then it doesn’t matter whether it was a dream or not.”
“Oh no, I prefer reality.”
With a laugh, she started to drop the pill on the tray, but he stopped her. “Ky—”
“You’re hurting,” he said again. “I can see it in your eyes. Your medication wore off hours ago, Kate.”
“And kept me unconscious for an entire day.”
“This is mild, just to take the edge off. Listen—” His hand tightened on hers. “I had to watch you in agony.”
“Ky, don’t.”
“No, you’ll do it for me if not for yourself. I had to watch you bleed and faint and drift in and out of consciousness.” He ran his hand down her hair, then cupped her face so she’d look directly into his eyes. “I can’t tell you what it did to me because I don’t know how to describe it. I know I can’t watch you in pain any more.”
In silence, she took the pill and drained the glass of juice. For him, as he said, not for herself. When she swallowed the medication, Ky tugged at her hair. “It hardly has more punch than an aspirin, Kate. Bailey said he’d give you something stronger if you needed it, but he’d rather you go with this.”
“It’ll be fine. It’s really more uncomfortable than painful.” It wasn’t quite the truth, nor did he believe her, but they both let it lie for the moment. Each of them moved cautiously, afraid to spoil what might have begun to bloom again. Kate glanced down at the empty juice glass. The cold, fresh flavor still lingered on her tongue. “Did Dr. Bailey say when I could dive again?”
“Dive?” Ky’s brows rose as he uncovered the plate of bacon, eggs and toast. “Kate, you’re not even getting up out of bed for the rest of the week.”
“Out of bed?” she repeated. “A week?” She ignored the overloaded plate of food as she gaped at him. “Ky, I was stung by a stingray, not attacked by a shark.”
“You were stung by a stingray,” he agreed. “And your system was so depleted Bailey almost sent you to a hospital. I realize things might’ve been rough on you since your father died, but you haven’t helped anything by not taking care of yourself.”
It was the first time he’d mentioned her father’s death, and Kate noted he still expressed no sympathy. “Doctors tend to fuss,” she began.
“Bailey doesn’t,” he interrupted. The anger came back and ran along the edge of his words. “He’s a tough, cynical old goat, but he knows his business. He told me that you’d apparently worked yourself right to the edge of exhaustion, that your resistance was nil, and that you were a good ten pounds underweight.” He held out the fork. “We’re going to do something about that, professor. Starting now.”
Kate looked down at what had to be four large eggs, scrambled, six slices of bacon and four pieces of toast. “I can see you intend to,” she murmured.
“I’m not having you sick.” He took her hand again and his grip was firm. “I’m going to take care of you, Kate, whether you like it or not.”
She looked back at him in her calm, considering way. “I don’t know if I do like it,” she decided. “But I suppose we’ll both find out.”
Ky dipped the fork into the eggs. “Eat.”
A smile played at the corners of her mouth. She’d never been pampered in her life and thought it might be entirely too easy to get used to it. “All right, but this time I’ll feed myself.”
She already knew she’d never finish the entire meal, but for his sake, and the sake of peace, she determined to deal with half of it. That had been precisely his strategy. If he’d have brought her a smaller portion, she’d have eaten half of that, and have eaten less. He knew her better than either one of them fully realized.
“You’re still a wonderful cook,” she commented, breaking a piece of bacon in half. “Much better than I.”
“If you’re good, I might broil up some flounder tonight.”
She remembered just how exquisitely he prepared fish. “How good?”
“As good as it takes.” He accepted the slice of toast she offered him but dumped on a generous slab of jam. “Maybe I’ll beg some of the hot fudge cake from the Roost.”
“Looks like I’ll have to be on my best behavior.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Ky…” She was already beginning to poke at her eggs. Had eating always been quite such an effort? “About last night, what happened—”
“Should never have stopped,” he finished.
Her lashes swept up, and her eyes were quiet and candid. “I’m not sure.”
“I am,” he countered. Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her, softly, with only a hint of passion. But the hint was a promise of much more. “Let it be enough for now, Kate. If it has to get complicated, let’s wait until other things are a little more settled.”
Complicated. Were commitments complicated, the future, promises? She looked down at her plate knowing she simply didn’t have the strength to ask or to answer. Not now. “In a way I feel as though I’m slipping back—to that summer four years ago. And yet…”
“It’s like a step forward.”
Kate looked at him again, but this time reached out. He’d always understood. Though he said little, though his way was sometimes rough, he’d always understood. “Yes. Either way it’s a little unnerving.”
“I’ve never liked smooth water. You get a better ride with a few waves.”
“Perhaps.” She shook her head. Slipping back, stepping forward, it hardly mattered. Either way, she was moving toward him. “Ky, I can’t eat any more.”
“I figured.” Easily, he picked up an extra fork from the tray and began eating the cooling eggs himself. “It’s still probably more than you eat for breakfast in a week.”
“Probably,” she agreed in a murmur, realizing just how well he’d maneuvered her. Kate lay back against the propped-up pillows, annoyed that she was growing sleepy again. No more medication, she decided silently as Ky polished off their joint breakfast. If she could just avoid that, and go out for a little while, she’d be fine. The trick would be to convince Ky.
Kate looked toward the window, and the sunshine. “I don’t want to lose a week’s t
ime going over the wreck.”
He didn’t have to follow the direction of her gaze to follow the direction of her thoughts. “I’ll be going down,” he said easily. “Tomorrow, the next day anyway.” Sooner, he thought to himself, depending on how Kate mended.
“Alone?”
He caught the tone as he bit into the last piece of bacon. “I’ve gone down alone before.”
She would have protested, stating how dangerous it was, if she’d believed it would have done any good. Ky did a great deal alone because that was how he preferred it. Instead, Kate chose another route.
“We’re looking for the Liberty together, Ky. It isn’t a one-man operation.”
He sent her a long, quiet look before he picked up the coffee she hadn’t touched. “Afraid I’ll take off with the treasure?”
“Of course not.” She wouldn’t allow her emotions to get in the way. “If I hadn’t trusted your integrity,” she said evenly, “I wouldn’t have shown you the chart in the first place.”
“Fair enough,” he allowed with a nod. “So if I continue to dive while you’re recuperating, we won’t lose time.”
“I don’t want to lose you either.” It was out before she could stop it. Swearing lightly, Kate looked toward the window again. The sky was the pale blue sometimes seen on summer mornings.
Ky merely sat for a moment while the pleasure of her words rippled through him. “You’d worry about me?”
Angry, Kate turned back. He looked so smug, so infuriatingly content. “No, I wouldn’t worry. God usually makes a point of looking after fools.”
Grinning, he set the tray on the floor beside the bed. “Maybe I’d like you to worry, a little.”
“Sorry I can’t oblige you.”
“Your voice gets very prim when you’re annoyed,” he commented. “I like it.”
“I’m not prim.”
He ran a hand down her loosened hair. No, she looked anything but prim at the moment. Soft and feminine, but not prim. “Your voice is. Like one of those pretty, lacy ladies who used to sit in parlors eating finger sandwiches.”
She pushed his hand aside. He wouldn’t get around her with charm. “Perhaps I should shout instead.”
“Like that too, but more…” He kissed one cheek, then the other. “I like to see you smile at me. The way you smile at nobody else.”
Her skin was already beginning to warm. No, he might not get around her with charm, but…he’d distract her from her point if she wasn’t careful. “I’d be bored, that’s all. If I have to sit here, hour after hour with nothing to do.”
“I’ve got lots of books.” He slipped her nightshirt down her shoulder then kissed her bare skin with the lightest of touches. “Probably lay my hands on some crossword puzzles, too.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“There’s a copy of Byron downstairs.”
Despite her determination not to, Kate looked toward him again. “Byron?”
“I bought it after you left. The words are wonderful.” He had the three buttons undone with such quick expertise, she never noticed. “But I could always hear the way you’d say them. I remember one night on the beach, when the moon was full on the water. I don’t remember the name of the poem, but I remember how it started, and how it sounded when you said it. ‘It is the hour’,” he began, then smiled at her.
“‘It is the hour’,” Kate continued, “‘when from the boughs the nightingale is heard/It is the hour when lovers’ vows seem sweet in every whisper’d word/And gentle winds, and waters near make music to the lonely ear’…” She trailed off, remembering even the scent of that night. “You were never very interested in Byron’s technique.”
“No matter how hard you tried to explain it to me.”
Yes, he was distracting her. Kate was already finding it difficult to remember what point she’d been trying to make. “He was one of the leading poets of his day.”
“Hmm.” Ky caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth.
“He had a fascination for war and conflict, and yet he had more love affairs in his poems than Shelley or Keats.”
“How about out of his poems?”
“There too.” She closed her eyes as his tongue began to do outrageous things to her nervous system. “He used humor, satire as well as a pure lyrical style. If he’d ever completed Don Juan…” She trailed off with a sigh that edged toward a moan.
“Did I interrupt you?” Ky brushed his fingers down her thigh. “I really love to hear you lecture.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He traced her lips with his tongue. “I just thought maybe I could give you something to do for a while.” He skimmed his hand over her hip then up to the side of her breast. “So you won’t be bored by staying in bed. Want to tell me more about Byron?”
With a long quiet breath, she wound her arms around his neck. The point she’d been trying to make didn’t seem important any longer. “No, but I might like staying in bed after all, even without the crossword puzzles.”
“You’ll relax.” He said it softly, but the command was unmistakable. She might have argued, but the kiss was long and lingering, leaving her slow and helplessly yielding.
“I don’t have a choice,” she murmured. “Between the medication and you.”
“That’s the idea.” He’d love her, Ky thought, but so gently she’d have nothing to do but feel. Then she’d sleep. “There are things I want from you.” He lifted his head until their eyes met. “Things I need from you.”
“You never tell me what they are.”
“Maybe not.” He laid his forehead on hers. Maybe he just didn’t know how to tell her. Or how to ask. “For now, what I want is to see you well.” Again he lifted his head, and his eyes focused on hers. “I’m not an unselfish man, Kate. I want that just as much for myself as I want it for you. I fully intended to have you back in my bed, but I didn’t want it for you. I fully intended to have you back in my bed, but I didn’t care to have you unconscious here first.”
“Whatever you intended, I make my own choices.” Her hands slid up his shoulders to touch his face. “I chose to make love with you then. I choose to make love with you now.”
He laughed and pressed her palm to his lips. “Professor, you think I’d have given you a choice? Maybe we don’t know each other as well as we should at this point, but you should know that much.”
Thoughtfully, she ran her thumb down his cheekbone. It was hard, elegantly defined. Somehow it suited him in the same way the unshaven face suited him. But did she? Kate wondered. Were they, despite all their differences, right for each other?
It seemed when they were like this, there was no question of suitability, no question of what was right or wrong. Each completed the other. Yet there had to be more. No matter how much each of them denied it on the surface, there had to be more. And ultimately, there had to be a choice.
“When you take what isn’t offered freely, you have nothing.” She felt the rough scrape of his unshaven face on her palm and the thrill went through her system. “If I give, you have whatever you need without asking.”
“Do I?” he murmured before he touched his lips to hers again. “And you? What do you have?”
She closed her eyes as her body drifted on a calm, quiet plane of pleasure. “What I need.” For how long? The question ran through his mind, prodding against his contentment. But he didn’t ask. There’d be a time, he knew, for more questions, for the hundreds of demands he wanted to make. For ultimatums. Now she was sleepy, relaxed in the way he wanted her to be.
With no more words he let her body drift, stroking gently, letting her system steep in the pleasure he could give. With no one else could he remember asking so little for himself and receiving so much. She was the hinge that could open or close the door on the better part of him.
He listened to her sigh as he touched her. The second was a kind of pure contentment that mirrored his own feelings. It seemed neither of them required any more.
Kate kne
w it shouldn’t be so simple. It had never been simple with anyone else, so that in the end she’d never given herself to anyone else. Only with Ky had she ever known that full excitement that left her free. Only with Ky had she ever known the pure ease that felt so right.
They’d been apart four years, yet if it had been forty, she would have recognized his touch in an instant. That touch was all she needed to make her want him.
She remembered the demands and fire that had always been threaded through their lovemaking before. It had been the excitement she’d craved even while it had baffled her. Now there was patience touched with a consideration she didn’t know he was capable of.
Perhaps if she hadn’t loved him already, she would have fallen in love at that moment when the sun filtered through the windows and his hands were on her skin. She wanted to give him the fire, but his hands kept it banked. She wanted to meet any demands, but he made none. Instead, she floated on the clouds he brought to her.
Though the heat smoldered inside him, she kept him sane. Just by her pliancy. Though passion began to take over, she kept him calm. Just by her serenity. He’d never looked for serenity in his life. It had simply come to him, as Kate had. He’d never understood what it meant to be calm, but he had known the emptiness and the chaos of living without it.
Without urgency or force, he slipped inside her. Slowly, with a sweetness that made her weak, he gave her the ultimate gift. Passion, fulfillment, with the softer emotions covering a need that seemed insatiable.
Then she slept, and he left her to her dreams.
* * *
When she awoke again, Kate wasn’t groggy, but weak. Even as sleep cleared, a sense of helpless annoyance went though her. It was midafternoon. She didn’t need a clock, the angle of the sunlight that slanted through the window across from the bed told her what time it was. More hours had been lost without her knowledge. And where was Ky?
Kate groped for her nightshirt and slipped into it. If he followed his pattern, he’d be popping through the door with a loaded lunch tray and a pill. Not this time, Kate determined as she eased herself out of bed. Nothing else was going into her system that made her lose time.