She leaned against him. She liked the warmth. She liked the strength of him. She liked his size. She didn't mind in the least being ten inches shorter. Looking up at him might give her a crick in her neck, but she'd gladly put up with it to feel his arms around her, to feel safe and protected.
She had to remind herself she wasn't safe and protected. He only had his arms around her because she asked. Tomorrow he was going to force her to go away.
"Would you kiss me?"
Lily couldn't believe her own ears. She couldn't have really asked Zac to kiss her! She was surprised the night sky didn't glow with the reflection of her embarrassment.
"Why would you ask something like that of me?"
"I've never been kissed before. If I'm going to have to marry somebody rich and proper, he might also think it's a good thing to be immune to the lures of the flesh. Then I'd never know what it's like."
"No man could marry you and be immune to anything."
"Hezekiah could."
"Then he's already dead and doesn't know it."
He didn't want to kiss her. That's why he was stalling. Well, it ought not surprise her. Nobody else had either. Maybe all those boys hadn't been scared off by her father. Maybe they simply didn't want to kiss her in the first place.
"I'm not the kind of man who ought to give you your first kiss," Zac said. "You ought to share that with some boy who's as innocent as you, someone so swept away by your loveliness he wouldn't even think about what he's doing."
"Can't you do that? I'd rather be kissed by someone with experience."
No. It was obvious from his expression he couldn't. But he did look sorry.
"Experience can never take the place of true feeling."
"I know you don't like me, but--"
"That's not true. I like you very much, much more than I should."
"Then why is it so hard to kiss me?"
"It's only hard not to kiss you."
"But I want you to. I--"
"I might like it so much I wouldn't want to stop."
Lily didn't know why Zac thought she would feel cold. She felt almost too warm. "Then you do like me. You do think I'm pretty?"
"I've always thought you were beautiful. Everybody does. You ought to hear Dodie. Even Anthony Bellrose says--"
"I don't care what Dodie or Anthony Bellrose say. Only you."
"You shouldn't. Wasn't there a boy back in Salem you liked more than all the rest? Maybe if you--"
"Don't you think if I had found anybody in Salem I could love, I'd be married already?" Lily asked. "Stop making excuses and kiss me."
Zac was looking at her in the most peculiar manner. For a moment she thought she might have been too frank. Men liked to make the first move. Even the slightest suspicion they were being pursued, and they were off like a deer. But she must not have shocked Zac too much for he took her in his arms and kissed her.
Not on her lips as she expected. He kissed her on the end of her nose. It felt funny, but she liked it. Then he kissed her eyes. That was something Sam had never done to Mary Beth. Lily wondered what she would have thought of it. But Lily had fewer and fewer thoughts to give to anything other than what was happening to her.
She liked being kissed with her eyes shut. Zac had his arms around her in the most satisfactory fashion. He felt wonderfully strong, and she felt wonderfully secure. She slipped her arms around his neck. For a moment she was afraid she was being much too bold, but she'd been shameless already. It didn't much matter what she did now. He couldn't think much worse of her.
Then she reminded herself Zac was used to abandoned women. He probably preferred them. Most likely the kind of female he was least familiar with was a bashful, blushing, nervous virgin. She was certain Zac's usual females could think of something much more stimulating than putting their arms around his neck.
He was kissing her ears now. Shivers raced up and down Lily's spine. She didn't think Sam had done this, either. She was certain Mary Beth would have told her of anything this absolutely delicious. She felt Zac's breath on her ear, on the fine hairs on the side of her neck, and her body turned to jelly. She'd thought kissing was a couple of smacks on the lips and that was that. Wait until she told Mary Beth what she'd been missing.
Then Zac kissed her on the lips, and it didn't in the least resemble a couple of smacks.
He merely brushed her lips at first, toying with the side of her mouth, nibbling at her lower lip. Then he moistened her lips with the tip of his tongue. Slowly, thoroughly. His lips were warm and soft, gentle and insistent, firm and moist. Lily had never known her lips could be so sensitive. To be such an innocent part of her body, they held a hidden treasure of feeling.
If Zac hadn't been holding her, she was certain she would have melted into a quivering heap. Tiny electric shocks exploded in every part of her body turning her into a pincushion of achingly sensitive nerve endings. She was hot and cold at the same time, tense and limp, petrified of what was happening yet eager for more.
She was aware of his hands on her back, supporting her, cradling her, holding her close to him. It was impossible not to be aware of her breasts pushed firmly against his chest. Not only had Lily never been kissed. Her body had never touched a man's body. Her breasts had never been pushed up against the firmness of a man's chest.
Feelings, sensations, desires which Lily had never experienced before woke from their long hibernation and rushed to the surface of her consciousness. Her entire being was flooded with feelings not only new but tremendously exciting. It all seemed to pool in her belly into a ball of heat that gradually grew in size and intensity. A kind of liquid heat seemed to flow outward until it reached every part of her body.
Then Zac took her mouth, and Lily felt jolted all the way down to her toes. The intimacy of it was shocking, exhilarating. In that moment Zac seemed to belong to her, and she to him. She found herself kissing him back, felt a hunger made voracious by so many years of starvation.
Then his tongue invaded her mouth, and Lily was certain the firestorm that blazed up within her would surely consume her, leaving nothing but ashes and wisps of smoke. She gasped in shock.
They broke apart.
Their parting was abrupt and jarring. She felt as though she'd suddenly been cut off from her life source. Her heart beat too fast; she couldn't breathe. She felt light headed. She was thankful for the cold wind off the ocean. It helped return her to normal
Lily was surprised Zac appeared to be as shaken as she. His breathing was quick and raspy. Even in the dark she could sense the tension that gripped his body; she could see it in the light that flashed from his black eyes.
After a long pause, during which his breathing gradually slowed, his body became less tense. "Now you can't say you've never been kissed."
She was thoroughly shattered. Zac sounded only a little less so.
"Thank you." Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.
They seemed such stupid words to say after what had just happened to her. Not only were they inadequate, they didn't even begin to reflect what she was feeling. But then it was probably best she kept that to herself. This was the end, not a beginning.
That made all the difference in the world.
"It's about time we headed back," Zac said.
He still sounded unsteady, but he was recovering faster than she was. "Can't we stay out here a little longer? It's such a lovely night, and the city looks so beautiful."
"It's getting cold."
"I'll wrap up. Just let's not go yet."
"Okay. But let's sit down. That way I can throw a blanket over you."
Lily allowed herself to be ushered to a seat built into the back of the boat. Zac started to wrap her in the biggest blanket she'd ever seen.
"Sit with me," she said, holding out her hand to him. "It won't be any fun alone."
He wrapped the blanket around them both. Lily snuggled up next to him, and Zac put his arm around her. She figured it was probably a very brotherly
snuggle, but since she'd never been snuggled before, it was quite satisfactory.
"Everything looks so big," she said. She was looking toward the sea and the mountains of granite that formed the gates to the bay. Beyond that the ocean stretched endless miles to distant and exotic lands she'd only vaguely imagined. Overhead the canopy of stars seemed endless, numberless. The moon, huge and low on the horizon, cast its reflection on the restless waves of the bay.
Lily felt tiny and insignificant. Yet the evening was the most momentous in her life. She had reached a decision. Some way, some day, some how, she was going to marry Zac Randolph.
* * * * *
You poor fool! What the hell do you think you're doing sitting here in the middle of the bay with a sleeping woman in your arms? An innocent, naive, trusting woman at that. You ought to have your head examined. You ought to get her home, get her into her bed, get her out of your life. You ought to do just about anything but sit here like a love-struck fool prolonging a moment you knew had to end even before it began.
You're too smart for this, Zac Randolph. You've never wasted your time on the impossible.
But he couldn't move, not yet. This night hadn't turned out as he had planned. He had expected Lily to put up more of a fight. Yet she seemed to know from the first it was no use. He hadn't expected to feel so bereft at the thought of her leaving. She'd disrupted his life from the minute she walked into his saloon. He should have been relieved she was going.
In a way, he was. She was an enormous responsibility, but he would be sorry to see her go. She seemed to have been able to touch everyone, to make them all seem a little more like a family. Not that he was big on the idea of family, but it was nice to have people thinking of the saloon as home more than a place to pause before passing on to something more permanent.
Somehow she'd made it all seem respectable.
Zac felt like kicking himself. He hated it when he got hung up on respectability. He didn't care what people thought. He had no intention of conforming to any rules but his own, but he hated it when people looked down on his girls.
Usually he was able to put that out of his mind, but Lily had brought it all to the fore. Now he was going to have to put it all out of his head again. It was never easy. He guessed there was just enough of his mother in him to keep him from being entirely comfortable ostracized from society.
But there was too much of his father in him to let him to be broken to the bridle of respectability. He was an outsider, a maverick. He always would be. No point in fighting a battle that had already been decided.
"Let's head back to shore," he said when the captain came on deck. "It'll be morning in a couple of hours."
As the yacht began its slow journey to the shore, Zac realized that for the first evening in nearly eight years he hadn't held a card, thrown a pair of dice, or spun a roulette wheel.
And he hadn't missed it.
Chapter Fifteen
The streets were empty. Or as close to empty as they ever got in the Coast. The cab wheels bounced over hardened ruts, and Zac thought wistfully of the cobblestone streets in the better parts of town. Lily didn't wake. She'd probably sleep until noon. He was certain she'd never been up half the night before.
When the cab stopped and he got out, the sun was just beginning to lighten the sky in the East. Zac was feeling a little sleepy himself. Rather than wake Lily, he picked her up and carried her into the saloon. The cab driver held the door for him.
The interior was dark, but Zac knew every inch of it more intimately than he knew any woman's body. He could have walked every aisle, gone unerringly to any table or wheel.
He was acutely aware of the woman he held in his arms. Thoughts he wouldn't have admitted to any man flashed through his brain. He hadn't completely recovered from the effects of the kiss. Desire still smoldered within him waiting only for the breath of passion to turn it into a conflagration. Zac knew that might happen at any moment.
He walked faster. He had to get Lily to her bed and himself to his own room as quickly as possible. He was usually pretty good at curbing his sexual energy when necessary, but his self-control had been stretched to the limit tonight.
Carrying Lily up the stairs wasn't as easy as he had anticipated. He hadn't lifted anything heavier than a deck of cards in months. Maybe he ought to pay heed to Jeff's suggestion that he begin a course of exercise to keep himself in shape. After all, he was twenty-six. It wasn't going to be in the prime of his life forever.
The halls were narrow, and the floorboards squeaked. Zac had never realized it was so difficult to sneak into the saloon. He guessed that was one reason the girls rarely tried it.
There was a piece of paper tacked to the door of Lily's room.
"Cora Mae came back. Put Lily in your room. You'll have to go to the Palace."
Dodie
Damnation. He told Cora Mae she was making a mistake going off with that drifter. Men like him were never dependable. They didn't like to stay in one place long. They hated to feel responsibility for another person weighing on them all the time. Nobody knew that better than he did, but Cora Mae wouldn't listen.
He wished she could have waited one more night to come back. He didn't want to be traipsing off to the Palace at this time of night. Tyler was bound to ask questions. He always did.
Zac didn't want to put Lily in his room. It was inconvenient before. After what had passed between them tonight, it was inconvenient in a different way. It made him think of impossible things, of things that might have been if . . .
If was such an underrated word. If people only had the power implied in that word, whole lives could be turned around, changed into something they could be proud of.
Zac didn't know what was getting into him. He was turning philosophical, and that wasn't like him. It was a waste of time. Things were the way they were. The sooner he accepted that, the happier he would be. The sooner he got Lily to bed, the sooner he could go to sleep and hopefully put this odd, unaccountable mood behind him.
Zac made his way back through the halls to his suite. He managed to get the door open without dropping Lily. But by the time he laid her down on the bed, he was perilously close to the end of his strength. He was going to have to do something about this. Clearly an occasional session with the boxing gloves wasn't enough.
He looked down at Lily. She lay on her back, her head to one side, her legs slightly bent, her arms akimbo. Zac moved her limbs so she looked more comfortable. She sighed and rolled up on her side. He started to put a blanket over her, but decided he couldn't put her to bed with her clothes on.
There was nobody to undress her but himself.
Not that he hadn't undressed women before. But none of them had been Lily. If she woke up, he hoped she wouldn't scream until he'd had time to explain what he was doing.
Zac licked his lips uneasily. The buttons of her dress ran down the front. There seemed to be hundreds of them. He took a deep breath and started at her collar. He tried not to notice the white skin of her throat when the dress fell open. He tried not to think about the softness of her breasts as he undid the buttons in the valley between these tempting mounds. He ignored the gentle rise and fall of her belly. He closed his mind against all thought of the flare of her hips and the secret places of her body. Instead he forced himself to concentrate on getting the dress off her shoulders and her arms out of the sleeves.
He had to sit Lily up and lean her against him. Her softness, the feel of her head on his shoulder, nearly destroyed his concentration. He struggled to get the dress off before she woke up or he lost control.
Lily's body was limp. She mumbled and made sounds in her sleep, but she didn't wake up.
Zac finally undid the last sleeve button and was able to get her arms out. He laid her down and breathed a sigh of relief. After that it was a simple matter to slip the dress from under her. He laid it across the wing chair nearest the door. He unlaced her corset, slipped that from under her, then covered her with a sheet.
>
He backed away, breathing like a man who'd just performed a strenuous task. Nothing had ever strained his self-control like the events of this night. But that was his fault. He'd made a serious miscalculation. He'd begun this evening thinking he could control his feelings for Lily, that they were no different from what he felt for other attractive women. He ended by realizing he hadn't been able to forget her even when she wasn't around. When she was, he couldn't think of anyone else.
It was a good thing she was moving to the Palace in a few hours. This situation was fraught with all kinds of danger.
He started to gather some things to take with him to the hotel but changed his mind. Dodie would be getting up soon. Lily could move to her bed, and Zac could crawl back into his own. He wouldn't have to go anywhere or make awkward explanations.
He would sleep on the couch. It would only be for three hours at most.
Zac undressed, carefully hung his clothes in the closet -- he hated rumpled clothes -- and put on a bathrobe. There were blankets in the closet and extra pillows on the bed.
The minute Zac's head hit the pillow he realized he wasn't sleepy. His mind wanted to replay the whole evening over and over again. He knew that was useless. It would only make him more restless, more awake.
Making use of the concentration that had made him such a successful gambler, he pushed everything out of his mind. He dropped off right away.
* * * * *
Zac woke to find blinding amounts of sunlight streaming in through the windows. He groaned. He had forgotten to close the curtains. He shut his eyes, but the sense of light was still there. It was amazing how bright the sun could be at nine o'clock in the morning. Why couldn't it be rainy or foggy? It was most mornings.
Unable to even consider going back to sleep with the sunlight searing his eyeballs, Zac got up from the sofa. Only then did he remember where he'd been sleeping. And why.
He glanced over at the bed. Lily was still sound asleep. Good thing there were no cows waiting on her. They'd be miserable by now.
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