by Nina Bruhns
"What sort of provision?"
He hesitated, then said, "If a woman falls in love with me, she may lift the curse by choosing to die in my place."
Clara blinked. At first she didn't understand, then she realized what he was saying. Her jaw dropped.
"Is that what you've been worried about? That I'll sacrifice my life for you? So Sully's curse will be lifted?"
A cloud of consternation passed through his eyes. "Granted, it sounds fairly unlikely, but women have always been a great mystery to me. You in particular. I simply didn't want to take the chance. Love does strange things to a person."
He looked so sincerely troubled by the possibility, her heart melted. She reached for him, slid her arms around his neck.
"Oh, Tyree." She kissed and held him close. "How could I ever do anything that would make our time together even shorter than it is?" she whispered.
"Promise you won't?" he softly asked. "Nothing foolish? Swear?"
"I'm not the foolish type. Besides," she reminded him, "what about those beautiful bras you bought for me? I wouldn't want to miss trying them all on."
That earned a roguish smile. "No?"
She shook her head no, feeling a pinch of heat in her cheeks. She still hadn't quite gotten used to their easy intimacy. But she liked it. A lot.
She liked him a lot, too. More than she'd liked any man she'd ever met.
His arms tightened around her. "How 'bout now?" he suggested in a low murmur. She felt a hand stray under her top.
She slapped at it. "Tyree!"
"Sweeting, I'm dead, not a saint."
She chuckled, pulling back. "I still have work to get done this afternoon."
"Now who's the spoilsport?"
"Very funny. What will you do?"
"I believe I'll watch," he said, strolled over and stretched out on the window seat, stacking his hands behind his head. He looked every bit the aristocratic gentleman of leisure from a bygone era. Even the faded jeans didn't detract from his insouciant aura of nobility. The wayward grin on his sculpted lips, the way motes of sunlight danced in his near-black eyes and blacker hair, she found it almost impossible to tear her gaze away and concentrate on her dusty old books. She'd much rather be dancing in those beautiful eyes, too.
Somehow, she managed to make herself sit at the table and take notes on her own ancestor, who was growing less and less interesting for each hour that went by. At least by comparison to the flesh-and-blood man dangling a negligent boot off the window seat. He gazed contentedly, if a bit pensively, out the window at the birds and flowers, watching clouds float by, and she wondered what he was thinking about. Occasionally he turned his eyes to her. When he did that, he looked less content. More like a leopard reclining on a tree branch waiting for the tasty morsel he'd picked out for dinner to wander into his reach. Only the twitch of his tail gave him away—or in Tyree's case, the flick of his boot toe.
Suddenly, Mrs. Yates came tottering into the room in a flurry of lavender and gray. "Captain! Oh, Captain, I thought you'd like to know right away!"
Tyree was off the window seat and by her side in a flash. "What is it? Sully? Has he—"
"No, no. It was—" she gulped a breath and plunked down in the chair next to Clara "—on the news just now. A fire. There's another fire!"
Clara's eyes met Tyree's. "Another fire?" they said in unison and clutched at Mrs. Yates. "Where?"
"Angel Island." She took another breath. "It's arson. They think it's the same person."
Clara looked at Tyree questioningly. "Angel Island?"
"Close. Only about seven miles down the coast. When did it start?" he asked Mrs. Yates.
"A couple of hours ago."
"In broad daylight?"
"Apparently, the owners of the house both work. The report said the fire is still in progress."
Clara let out a light sigh. "Well, I guess that lets us off the hook as suspects. Being with the fire chief is a pretty solid alibi."
Tyree chuckled, but immediately became serious again. "The guy's escalating."
"Huh?"
"The timing of the fires. They're getting closer together. And now, setting one in the daytime. It's like his sickness is getting worse and he can't contain himself."
"Or he has a deadline," she murmured.
Tyree's head shot up. "What do you mean?"
She glanced down at her hands and shrugged. "I don't know. Probably just projecting." She looked up and pasted on a smile. "I tend to work hardest just before a deadline. Don't you?"
He stared at her for a few moments. "That's not what you meant."
"Well," Mrs. Yates declared, pulling herself out of the chair, "I think I'll go downstairs and make a few phone calls until closing time. Someone in the village must know something."
"That would be very useful," Tyree agreed, and went to help her down the stairs.
Clara took the opportunity to march to the window and scold herself. She shouldn't have said that. She hadn't thought. She didn't want to remind him again of his mythical deadline. Nor did she wish to remind herself of her own all-too-real one.
After a few moments, she felt him glide up behind her. She leaned back into him and he slid his arms around her waist.
"Let's not think about things we cannot control," he murmured. "Or we'll both go crazy."
At the moment, crazy didn't sound so bad. She wished she could just forget about the future, as he was apparently able to do. Live for today. Que sera sera. If that's what crazy meant, she wanted some of it.
"Are you finished for the day?" he asked.
"Close enough. I doubt I could concentrate anyway." Especially with his arms around her. He felt so good, she could stay there forever.
"Good. Let's get out of here."
As he stepped away she checked her watch. Only 3:30. "Where to?"
"How about a Sea-Doo ride?"
"As in a seven-mile Sea-Doo ride? Not a good idea."
"Why not? I really want to know if our arsonist took another painting. And what else he was up to. If anything's changed in his pattern."
"We can call Jake Santee later and ask. From home."
Tyree gave a resigned sigh. "I suppose we could check the insurance records on the Internet in the meantime."
"I didn't hear that," she said disapprovingly, and started packing up her books and papers.
He managed a grin. "I'm an insurance consultant. The fire chief said so."
"You also told him you were in antiques. What are you going to do when his Miss Grosvenor calls and wants an eighteenth-century beveled glass vitrine with ball-and-claw feet?"
With hiked brows he took the pile of books from her. "I'm impressed."
"My grandmother has one."
"Ah." His grin faded away. "Well, I doubt I'll have to deal with Miz Grosvenor anyway."
Damn. She'd done it again. Made the future loom ominously over them.
She wished like hell he'd just tell her what was going on Saturday. Surely, knowing couldn't make things any worse.
On their way out, they waved to Mrs. Yates, then opened the front door to the gorgeous afternoon. It was warm with a touch of humidity, and Clara could just catch the salty scent of the nearby sea.
She turned to Tyree as they went around the corner. "Would you like to stop for ice cream or something?" He looked dubious. She rummaged in her tote and pulled out the headset he'd given her at the pub yesterday and dangled it from a finger. "See what I brought? So you don't have to worry about being invisible." Inwardly, she cringed. Had she really said that?
He shook his head and kept walking. "I don't think so."
She jammed the headset over her hair and trotted after him. "Okay, a beer then," she quickly suggested, noticing they were right in front of the Moon and Palmetto. She could go for a beer. And maybe one would loosen him up.
"Clara, I really—"
She reached for his arm. "Please?" She deliberately batted her eyelashes, coaxing a reluctant smile from him.
He looked both ways down the sidewalk, then caught her by the waist, swung, and pressed her up against the pub's window.
She gasped in surprise. "Tyree!"
"Sweeting, we have beer at home, and ice cream. I think Mrs. Yates even keeps some chocolate syrup in the fridge." He leaned in close. His tongue swiped lightly over her bottom lip. "I saw a movie once where they did some very interesting things with chocolate syrup."
Scandalized for being so intimate in a public place, she nevertheless was helpless to prevent her lips from parting, or her tongue from meeting his. She tasted him and closed her eyes. "Mmm. Really?"
His mouth covered hers and she felt the headset slide down to circle her neck.
Perhaps going home wasn't such a bad idea. In fact, it was a darn good one. She hadn't had ice cream with chocolate syrup in ages.
"Shall we?" he murmured, and a coil of heat wound through her at the unspoken promise in the words.
"Okay," she breathed, and opened her eyes.
Suddenly he froze, peering at something just behind her.
"What?" She turned in his arms and saw he was looking at a big poster taped to the inside of the window. It was new since this morning.
He narrowed his eyes, and began to read. "'The Moon and Palmetto announces a Special Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Infamous Duel between Pirates Sullivan Fouquet and Tyree St. James,'" he quoted. "'Highlighted by the return of "The Pirates" to its Place of Honor over the bar. Saturday, nine p.m. Be there.'"
Tyree looked as though he'd seen a ghost.
An ironic laugh stuck in her throat. He wasn't smiling. "'The Pirates'?" she asked. "Who are they?"
"Not who. What. It's a painting."
An icy tingle of premonition worked its way down her spine. She knew the answer before she asked the question. But she asked anyway. "What kind of painting?"
"The one I told you about that used to hang inside. Of me and Sully. The one by Thom Bowden."
* * *
Tyree pulled Clara to his side and stared at the poster. Sure enough, there was the painting, reprinted in all its glory below the announcement. One of Bowden's better efforts. Tyree and Sully stared out from the dual portrait looking particularly bloodthirsty, backdropped by their ships and a couple of palmetto-bedecked islands on the horizon.
Tyree swore an oath he hadn't used in over a century and set his jaw. This was getting ridiculous.
"What's wrong?" Clara asked, eyes wide at his profanity.
"You don't find this an odd coincidence?" he demanded, more harshly than he'd intended.
She shrank away. "Well, I—"
He gathered her back in his arms. "I'm sorry." Clara was the last person he wanted to take out his frustrations on. "I need to get home and think."
He ushered her forward, striding double-time through the village toward Rose Cottage.
"Tyree, slow down!" she said, stumbling in her sandals for the third time. "I can't keep up!"
He didn't miss a step, just swooped her up in his arms and carried her. He should have done it sooner, but he'd been too busy trying to connect the dots in his mind. Unfortunately, they still resembled a jumble of unfamiliar night stars more than any kind of recognizable constellation.
"Tyree, you can't carry me the whole way home."
"Sure I can."
"It's over a mile. I'm too heavy."
He smiled. Truth was, he could barely feel her weight. Another benefit of his condition—an unnatural strength. But he couldn't resist teasing her. "If I get tired I'll just sling you over my shoulder like in the old days."
"Don't you dare!"
"Sling you over my shoulder, take you to my cabin and chain you to my bed so I can ravish you at will."
A tiny frown appeared between her brows. "Did that often in the old days, did you?"
He winked at her. "Heavens, no. Chains were far too noisy."
Her fist hit his biceps and he chuckled. "Sweeting, I told you I was no angel." He adjusted her so he could look into her fire-spitting eyes. "But, Clara, if I'd known you back then, things would have been different."
Her pretty mouth turned down in a moue. "How different?"
He halted on the path, yards from the bungalow. "Very different. I'd have been as good as chained to your bed."
He leaned in for a kiss. Her face averted.
"How can I believe you?"
"I'll prove it."
He covered the distance to the bungalow in long strides and swept up the steps, paused for a second to gather her against his chest and walked right through the front door.
He felt her eyelashes flutter against his neck. Without waiting for more reaction, he set her down and pressed his lips to hers. She sighed and wrapped her arms around him.
"But first," he murmured, "I want my lesson."
With that, he whisked off her top and reached for her waistband.
She sucked in a surprised breath, blinking at him as he slid her shorts down her thighs. She looked so adorably befuddled, like she had no idea how she'd gotten there wearing only two small scraps of embroidered satin.
She looked good enough to eat.
Perhaps he would.
He crushed her to his chest and fed on her mouth, on her neck, on the sweet nectar of her moans.
It was still all so new and unfamiliar, these feelings of overpowering desire and protectiveness he was experiencing. On the one hand, he wanted to drag her to the floor right there and bury himself deep inside her, never to reemerge; on the other, he wanted to lock her away and keep her so safe even he couldn't touch her or hurt her.
He'd never been so confused in his life. Or death. Even his sweet, abiding love for Rosalind didn't compare to this … this aching, craving, uncontrollable need he had for Clara Fergussen. As he steered her backwards toward his bedroom, he told himself their affair wouldn't hurt her. She had a good life planned. A life filled with interesting things and places, much as his own had been. She would leave Magnolia Cove and think of him for a little while, then the memory of their love would fade as surely as the stars at dawn.
Nay! That thought was too painful.
He would find a way. A way to stay. To continue the curse if he had to. Somehow he would be with her. He must!
"Show me," he ordered softly when her calves hit the side of his four-poster bed. "Show me how."
* * *
Clara's flesh responded instantly to Tyree's low command, sensitized by their nights together, learning the nuances of his every touch, and the days filled with yearning to feel them again. His hands glided over her breasts, sending a shock of pleasure through her. His hard chest and thighs pressed into her yielding curves, making her body hum with desire and her mind empty of everything except the feel of him against her.
"Is it hard?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," she murmured.
He surprised her with a laugh. "You're not concentrating, my love."
"Hmm?"
"On my lesson."
He smiled down at her. His hair had slipped out of its leather binding and cascaded along his angular cheekbones down to his square, black-stubbled jaw. Long lashes framed half-lidded eyes of the darkest blue she'd ever seen. Blue like the sky at midnight. Her knees went liquid at the sight of him watching her, at the knowledge that she belonged to this magnificent man. Only to him.
"I'm of a mind to give you a lesson of my own," he murmured, stroking his thumbs along the front of her bra.
"What kind of lesson?" she asked with a whimper. She was already gone. Lost in the sensual magic her dream pirate spun around her with a single look or soft touch.
"Get on the bed," he directed huskily.
There wasn't an ounce of resistance in her. She wanted him so badly her body trembled. She scrambled up onto the high four-poster, self-conscious in just her lingerie while he was still fully dressed.
"What about your clothes?" she asked.
"All in good time." But he did kick off his boots. "Now, kn
eel and turn around."
"Why?"
"Do as I say, Clara."
So she did, the power behind the command impossible to defy even if she'd wanted to. Which she didn't. She felt the heated sweep of his gaze on her back and wondered where this fantasy would take them.
The silence lengthened. "What now?"
"Gather your hair and lift it high on your head. Hold it there and don't move."
The mattress dipped, and she felt him edge up behind her where she knelt. His knees slipped between hers and the large frame of his body whispered against her back. Cool breath licked over her fingers where they held her hair up on her head.
"Close your eyes."
She dropped her lids, leaving herself completely open and defenseless.
But not without power. She could hear the harshness of his breathing, could taste the musky scent of male arousal in the charged atmosphere of the room. Could feel the tautness of his body as it pressed harder into her. His arousal was solid and impressive, pulsing to the beat of her heart against the small of her back.
"What would you like me to do to you?" he asked, his voice like smooth southern steel.
"Touch me," she said, wanting to feel his hands on her. "Everywhere."
With a hiss of approval, he obliged, starting from her ankles, which lay alongside his calves on the bed, and working his way up. He used his fingertips, his hands, his palms, his fingernails, torturing her from behind with a slow, thorough exploration of every inch of her body. All except the few inches covered by creamy satin.
She moaned. "Please, Tyree. Please." She tried to lower her hands from holding her hair, wanting to touch him back.
His teeth nipped her shoulder and he held her arms firmly in place. "Too impatient, my sweet. Open your eyes."
His arms went around her as she did so. And she found herself facing the mirrored armoire door. Their eyes met in the reflected image of their embrace.
He fingered her bra. "How do I take it off?"
She licked her lips. "There are hooks in the back. Just undo them."
A light tug in back and she felt the pressure holding her breasts release. She'd never have guessed it was his first time. But then, he had shown talent for a great many things.
"Watch me," he murmured, and his fingers slowly slid the straps from her shoulders. She followed in fascination as he peeled the cups from her breasts, deliberately, a fraction at a time, until they were bare and free from encumbrance.