First her virginity, then her faith. He could easily grow to hate himself.
But trying to do the noble thing and keep away from her was impossible. He had to go to the bookstore, and she was there every day, appearing at his side with books, with suggestions. Or just to tug on his arm and drag him off to view a piece of history, restored or otherwise, somewhere in the city. And through it all, she’d be leaning into him, wearing that scent that drove him crazy, that expression that reduced his resolve to the consistency of ice cream left out on the counter.
They played tourists.
They played lovers.
Whatever good intentions he had, they amounted to just so much rumble in the face of her sensual enthusiasm. A part of him hoped that if he gave in to his desire enough, his appetite for her would fade. Nothing could be further from the truth. The more he had Brooke, the more he wanted her, until he was completely consumed with the thought, the feel, the reality of her.
Lying on her stomach, her ankles crossed, nude as the moment she was born, Brooke seemed completely oblivious to the effect the sight of her was having on him. You’d think that after making love with her for the past hour, he would be completely spent, and yet there was still more left in the account. And the interest was accruing with each moment that passed.
He’d left the shop early today, telling Brooke he had something to do. He had an appointment to meet with Tyler and give him a progress report. But there were no readings scheduled at the shop for this evening, no special events of any kind and much to her joy, her father was regaining his former interest in running the store. That meant, she’d told him, that she was free to “tag along.” He knew he couldn’t tell her not to without either hurting her feelings or arousing her suspicions. He wanted to do neither.
So he’d stopped at his apartment on the pretext of picking something up and made a quick call to Tyler, rescheduling. When he’d come out of his bedroom, she was waiting for him. Looking so damn delectable that he lost track of his own thoughts.
Rather than coming up with an excuse, he resorted to distracting her. And himself. He began separating her from her clothing and reunited her with him.
And all the while, as he made love with her, he felt like the kid he’d never been.
“You have to have something,” she insisted. “A paragraph, snatches of brilliant thoughts.”
A smile playing on her lips, Brooke raised her eyes to his face as if she didn’t have a clue what she was doing to him. He reached for his jeans, telling himself he’d stand a better chance resisting her if he were dressed.
It was a lie.
“Nothing intelligible,” he muttered.
Behind him she scrambled to her knees, placing her hand on his shoulder. Holding the sheet to her only as an afterthought.
If it was meant to cool his ardor, it wasn’t very effective. He found the sight of her like that impossibly arousing.
“Let me be the judge of that. Please,” she coaxed. “I want to read something you wrote.”
This part of the plan had fallen by the wayside. He didn’t have anything to show her. “It’s not ready to have anyone read it.”
She put her own interpretation on his reluctance. She’d been around enough writers to know that they always had something they’d written down, bursts of inspiration that came to them out of the blue and which they felt were brilliant.
“You think I’ll be disappointed.”
Grateful for the lifeline, he grabbed at the excuse. “Something like that.”
Brooke sat back on her heels, her eyes intent on his face. And they were laughing. “Oh, Mark, don’t you know that there’s nothing you could do that would disappoint me.”
Wrong. Guess again, he thought.
But she was already drawing closer to him again, nuzzling against him. He could feel her breasts moving against him beneath the thin cotton. He wondered if she had any idea what her body was doing to him? If she had a clue just how much he wanted her?
And then he saw the smile on her lips, the look in her eyes.
She knew.
He gave up the pretense of getting dressed. Letting his jeans drop to the floor, Mark cupped her chin in his hand.
“Have you always been such a temptress?”
“I’ve never been anything until you came along,” she whispered to him.
And it was true. She felt as if she’d been asleep all this time, waiting for him to come into her life. Waiting for him to wake her up with a kiss. He was her Prince Charming, even if he did appear to be more on the brooding side. She liked that about him, too. Liked everything about him.
There it was again, guilt, standing in the middle of his soul like some kind of steel edifice being constructed, girder by girder. Cutting off his air. Crushing him.
He had to tell her.
Somehow, some way, he needed to tell her who he really was, that he’d been hired by Tyler Carlton and, indirectly, by the D.A., Robert Jackson, to find her father. That falling for her hadn’t been part of the plan.
She wasn’t going to believe him. Why should she? He’d lied to her about everything else.
She was by far the best thing that had ever happened to him. And he was going to lose her the moment she found out, because she valued truth above all else and he had done nothing but lie to her from the first moment they had met.
Brooke’s cool fingers smoothed out the furrow forming on his brow. Pulling himself back from the quagmire of his thoughts, he raised his eyes to hers.
“You’re thinking too much again,” she told him softly. “And every time you do, you start having doubts.”
It had become her personal mission, her goal, to show him that he couldn’t live without her. To that end, she intended to use everything she had at her disposal. That included making love with him as often and as much as she could.
He had to stay.
Because life without him had become unthinkable. Without meaning to, he had stolen her heart and she had to go where it went.
Rising on her knees again, Brooke laced her arms around his neck, her sheet falling seductively away from her body. Murmuring his name, she lightly pressed her lips against his. When he began to deepen the kiss, she abruptly pulled back.
He looked at her, confused.
There was a teasing expression on her face. A laugh echoed in her throat.
He laughed as he shook his head. “You are such a temptress,” he said again.
Her eyes slowly slid down his torso, and a satisfied smile took hold of her features. Triumph pumped through her veins. She was affecting him again.
The next moment the laughter was gone. Only the desire remained.
“I’ll be anything you want me to be,” she told him a moment before she brought her mouth back to his.
His arms tightened around Brooke, holding her hard against him. Wanting her so much that it scared the hell out of him.
He hardly knew himself.
Even after being with her, he still wasn’t accustomed to the level of desire that repeatedly took hold of his body. Until he’d met her, his had been a life devoid of emotion. Yes, he was close to Nick, but even there, things went unsaid, undemonstrated. He’d been as open with Dana as he thought was possible for him. But it was nothing compared to how he felt around Brooke.
He wanted to be with her all the time, make love with her all the time. She had become his obsession as well as his salvation. Being with her kept him back from the brink of despair.
It was as if he became someone else in her presence. Someone for whom there were still possibilities left in life instead of only a barren desert. When he was with her, there was hope and light.
And most of all, there was her.
For the short duration that this would last, he felt blessed.
Locked in an embrace and each other, they fell onto the bed again. Time, schedules, responsibilities, everything was forgotten.
The only thing that existed was the bed they were on and each
other.
He was strumming her like a guitar, Brooke thought. Making every part of her vibrate, creating music out of thin air. He used his hands, he used his mouth, caressing, branding, making her moist. Creating small tidal waves throughout her being.
The tempo increased, snatching away the very air out of her lungs.
Mark showed her the way to paradise, to places that she hadn’t even suspected existed. She lost control over her own body. It became entirely his, an instrument of pleasure for him to play however he chose.
When she felt the heat of his mouth at her inner core, she couldn’t keep the sounds from escaping her lips. Guttural sounds born of ecstasy, surrounding her and fading into the very walls.
His ardor branded her.
Forever and always.
In her heart, she knew this. Even if Mark left her, she would always, always be his. No matter what happened after today.
Exhausted, panting, she looked up at him as he slid himself over her. She felt every nuance of his body against hers.
“Just when I thought I knew everything, you surprise me,” she whispered.
Mark looked down into her eyes, a sadness all but overwhelming him.
If you only knew.
She blinked and looked at him. There was something in his eyes, something she couldn’t fathom but that frightened her all the same. Everything within her went on the alert.
“Mark, what is it?”
Mark placed his finger to her lips. “Shh,” he cautioned.
He would tell her. By and by he’d tell her. He had to. But not now. Not tonight.
He wanted just one more night with her. Just one more time to make love with her until they were both completely senseless. If that made him a terrible human being, well, he was already slated to burn in hell, what difference did one more offense make?
And it meant so much to him.
The look in his eyes was really scaring her. She tried desperately to interpret it.
Was he growing tired of her? Was he searching for some way to tell her that he was going to be leaving soon? Maybe back to New York or somewhere else?
Didn’t he know that she’d go anywhere with him? All he had to do was ask.
But maybe he didn’t want to ask.
No, she wasn’t going to think about that. That was for tomorrow, not now. She wanted now. More than that, she wanted forever, but she had to have now. Because, if she was very, very lucky, forever would be created out of the building blocks of now.
With renewed energy and purpose, Brooke raised her head, bringing her mouth to his, kissing him over and over again with ardor. Surprising him.
She felt Mark giving way under her assault, and she made her move, shifting their positions until she was the one on top.
With a wicked laugh she straddled him, then slipped him inside of her.
The surprised look on his face empowered her. Fused against his body, she began to move, at first slowly, then faster and faster until she had gotten completely caught up and entangled in her own trap. In the end, it was difficult to say whose breath was whose. Two streams mingled, becoming one.
Just the way they had.
An exhilaration filled him. He felt as if he was free-falling through space. Mark held on to her hips, moving her against him, trying to control the uncontrollable. And then he gave up.
Surrendering himself to the feeling.
To her.
She was like some kind of wild force of nature, and she was the most magnificent thing he had ever beheld.
And just for the moment she was his.
He couldn’t lie to himself, even in the throes of the climax that was seizing him. She wouldn’t be his much longer. But, for this one moment, this one eternity, she was his, and that was all any of them ever really had.
Only now.
When it was over, when the climax had come and gone, slowly taking euphoria along with it in its wake, he held Brooke in his arms a long time. And pretended that he really was nothing more than a hopeful would-be nonfiction writer.
And the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Because he had found her, and with her, a corner of heaven.
Chapter Thirteen
Walter Parks was not a patient man. He never had been. He had always wanted things to be done yesterday. As far as he was concerned—and he firmly believed that his was the only opinion that mattered—this hunt for Marla’s brother, Derek, that spineless weasel, was taking far too long.
He frowned as he absently swirled his snifter of cognac, sending the dark liquid to and fro in the glass like a drunken tidal wave. He shouldn’t have to worry. A man in his position should have been able to coast for the rest of his life instead of still looking over his shoulder, still wondering if the empire he had put all of his energy into creating was in jeopardy.
It wasn’t fair.
This was his legacy, and the vultures were after it, damn them.
The small, annoying pain began again. The one just beneath his breastbone.
Rubbing his chest in small, concentric circles, he watched the rain as it slid down in sheets against the pane of his study window.
It was late but he felt wide awake. Wired, even though he was tired. Sleep, as always, was not his friend. Ever since he could remember, it had eluded him, playing an elaborate game of hide-and-seek with a mind that knew no peace, that always felt as if it had to be alert, waiting for some kind of subversive attack.
Even when things were going well he couldn’t sleep, and things were not going well.
The telephone beside him rang, disturbing the silence. Putting down his glass, Parks snatched up the receiver before the sound faded. “Yes?”
The voice against his ear was deep, low. “I’ve located him, Mr. Parks.”
Parks jolted to attention. There was no need for the voice to say who “him” was. The fewer details revealed over the telephone, the better. Some bugs defied the electronics expert’s sweep.
His hand tightened on the receiver. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“About time,” he snapped. Maybe now it could finally be ended. “You know what to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call me when it’s over.”
With that, Parks let the receiver fall back into its cradle. He smiled to himself for the first time in days. Even the pain in his chest abated.
Hands on either side of the easy chair, he pushed himself up to his feet.
Maybe now he could finally get some sleep.
Today. He would tell her today, Mark silently promised the reflection in his bathroom mirror.
He washed the last of the shaving lather from his face, trying to lay out a plan. Trying to pretend that he didn’t feel as if his life, the life he’d so recently attained, hung in the balance.
Leaving the bathroom, he went to his closet to get dressed. Outside, the wind howled and pelted the window with rain. He hardly heard it. His mind was elsewhere. On a street seven miles away, in front of a bookstore.
He’d go to Buy the Book and tell Brooke who he really was. And then he would approach her father and ask him to come forth and talk to Tyler and the D.A. It was the right thing to do.
As he quickly got dressed, his mouth curved in a mirthless smile. He shook his head.
The right thing.
Like he was the one who should be telling people what the right thing to do was. That he hadn’t meant for any of this to happen this way was no excuse. It had, and a wonderful woman was probably going to be irreversibly scarred because of it.
Buttoning his shirt, he tucked it in. He wondered if she would ever find it in her heart to forgive him. No, he suspected not. In her place, he didn’t know if he would have been able to handle a deception of this magnitude. He would have felt used. Just as she undoubtedly would, once she knew.
If Brooke let him, he knew he would be willing to spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to her. But in his heart, he had a feeling that really wasn’t
a possibility.
The rain that was lashing against his windows added to the pall that he felt closing around him.
If he could, he would gladly have held all this at bay just a little longer, resisting the inevitable. But it wasn’t up to him. He’d called Tyler Carlton late last night, after he’d taken Brooke home. He’d told him about the matching photograph. The man had been eager for details and happy that his long-lost uncle had finally been found.
Tyler wanted to approach Derek himself, but Mark felt that there was protocol to follow. These things had to be done a certain way. He needed to prepare Derek for the fact that his cover had been blown. By a man he’d taken into his home. A man who had made love to his daughter.
Mark blew out a breath as he finished getting ready. Right now it felt as if his conscience weighed about a thousand pounds. And it was getting heavier with every passing minute.
She’d woken up smiling. Smiling despite the less than spectacular weather outside. The rain had begun just before Mark had brought her home. She’d felt like dancing between the raindrops. And had. He’d laughed at her.
God, but she loved the sound of his laugh. Loved everything about him, even the way his mouth turned down when he was deep in thought.
She’d hurried through her shower and gotten dressed in record time, sailing down the stairs and beating her father to the kitchen by a good twenty minutes.
Breakfast was waiting for him by the time he came down.
Brooke had watched her father eat, too keyed up, too happy to eat. She toyed with the cup of coffee she’d poured for herself. When her father sneezed and then coughed, she expressed the proper amount of sympathy, offering to go and open up the store in his place. After all, until just recently, she’d been doing it for him for the past couple of months.
“You stay home, Dad,” she urged when he demurred. “Take it easy for a while.”
But he shook his head. “Don’t baby me, Brooke. As it is, I’ve been taking it easy for too long, letting you carry more than your load.” She began to protest, but he cut her off. “I’m not a sack of sugar, I won’t disappear if a little rain hits me.”
Diamonds and Deceptions Page 14