by Anne Stuart
The room was dark, shadowed, only the early-morning light coming in from the uncurtained windows. Her face was shadowed as well, but it didn’t seem to matter. They lived in shadows, the two of them, with secrets and lies surrounding them.
But what lay between them was real. And that was all that mattered.
He kissed her then, a slow, deep, claiming kiss, and her fingers dug into his shoulders and she trembled. He’d never made a woman tremble before, but Carolyn was different from all the women he’d had over the years. He was through fighting it—he had too many other things to fight. He could lose himself in her body, in her soul. And he wanted it.
“You ran away the last time,” he whispered against her mouth. “Are you going to run away again?”
“No.”
“Even though I’m a cheat and a liar and a con man and a thief?”
“Are you?”
“Do you care?”
“No,” she said in a fierce little voice. “I want you. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you are—none of it matters. I need you.”
He hadn’t realized he’d been holding some sort of rein on his emotions. Her words broke it, broke through the formidable self-control he’d built up since he was a child.
She didn’t want to think, and neither did he. He took a step away from her. “Take off the rest of your clothes,” he said hoarsely, pulling his sweater over his head.
For a moment she hesitated. Her eyes never leaving his, she reached for the snap of her jeans. She skinned them off, but she was still wearing plain white underwear and a pair of socks. There was something ridiculously beguiling about those socks, and he didn’t want her to take them off.
He shoved his jeans off, stepping out of them, but she still kept her eyes on his. They’d made love before, she hadn’t been a virgin, and yet she was still shy about bodies. His and hers. “Get on the bed,” he said.
He could see her uncertainty, and he knew he couldn’t force her. “Change your mind?” he asked quietly.
She didn’t move. “Have you?”
“Look lower and you’ll get your answer.” Her gaze dropped to his erection, then jerked away. “We already agreed I’m too crude for you, Carolyn,” he taunted. “You can still run away. This is your decision this time. I’m not going to force you, not going to make it easy for you. If you want to get your clothes back on and leave, go ahead.”
“I’m afraid,” she said in a very quiet voice.
“I know you are. And I can’t figure out why. We’ve already done it once and you didn’t suffer any Victorian trauma. You know I won’t force you, you know I won’t hurt you. What’s the problem?”
She stood very still. “I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with you.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. And then a faint, reluctant smile curved his mouth. “Well, you can’t say I haven’t been doing everything I can to keep that from happening.”
It started a laugh out of her. “True,” she said.
“Listen,” he said. “I know all about you. About your relationships, about your weaknesses. Warren had very thorough notes on everyone in this household. You don’t make stupid mistakes when it comes to men. You get involved with decent, sensible men. You don’t fall in love with bad boys. I’ll just be a temporary fluke.”
“I was in love with the real Alex.”
He could only hope she couldn’t see his reaction. “You were thirteen when he left,” he said roughly. “Thirteen-year-old girls don’t know anything about love. And he was a selfish, spoiled brat who didn’t care who he hurt.”
“I loved him.”
He wanted her to stop saying that. He wanted her to say it again. She was very calm now, as if she’d made up her mind, and he was willing to let her go.
“Listen, babe,” he said with a deliberate drawl. “It’s getting light, and sooner or later the family’s going to start bustling around. Do you want to do it or not?”
He waited for her to grab her clothes and storm from the room. She looked at him slowly, letting her eyes move down the length of his body, dancing across the white scarred line across his hip, then moving to his cock.
That was one major problem with being a man. You couldn’t pretend disinterest if you were standing there naked, with a half-dressed woman watching you. And not just any half-dressed woman. But Carolyn—sweet, tart-tongued, fiercely loyal Carolyn. He wanted her without lies, he wanted her every way he could take her. He wanted her whether she wanted him or not, but he wasn’t going to make a move.
He didn’t need to. She crossed the room, and before he realized what she was planning to do she sank to her knees in front of him and took him in her mouth.
He climaxed immediately, half in shock, unable to stop himself, and she held his hips with her strong hands, taking him, as he struggled vainly for control that was lost the moment she put her mouth on him. And then she sat back on her heels and looked up at him out of calm, knowing eyes.
They didn’t make it to the bed. He shoved her down on the rug, following her down, yanking the rest of the clothes off her in savage haste. He was still hard, and she was completely aroused by what she’d done, and he slid deeply into her, pulling her hips up higher so that he could fill her.
She convulsed around him, and he knew a fierce satisfaction in it, as he put his mouth over hers and drank in her strangled cries of completion.
Her climax was endless, shuddering, and he almost came again before she finally stilled, panting, her eyes glazed. He pulled away from her, and she reached out for him in sudden desperation.
“Turn over,” he said. “I want you that way.”
He half expected her to object. She didn’t. She did what he wanted, and her strangled cry of pleasure when he pushed back inside her almost finished him.
He wanted, needed to make it last. To take her every way he could think of, and more, so there would be no more secrets between them, no more lies. She was even tighter from this angle, and he tried to think of something else, to slow himself down, but he couldn’t, all he could think and feel and hear was Carolyn, the soft, desperate little cries she was making, the rich scent of sex in the air, the silky smoothness of her back, the deep, clenching tightness of her.
He reached between her legs and touched her, and she exploded, her scream no longer muffled, a sobbing cry of complete surrender and savage, ultimate pleasure.
And he gave himself up to it, filling her with everything he had left, pouring into her.
He wanted to throw his head back and howl in animal triumph. He wanted it to last forever, feral and real and all encompassing. Time seemed to stop, an endless, surreal moment, where only the two of them existed in the universe.
And then he looked up, and saw the faint shadow of someone watching them through the French doors.
Alex leaned over and wrapped his body around Carolyn’s, protective, covering her. She was drenched with sweat, trembling, and he knew she needed to collapse as much as he did. He glanced back at the window, but whoever had been watching was now gone, vanished, and there was no way he could tell who it had been, man or woman.
He rolled to his side, taking her with him, moving surreptitiously out of range of the windows. He wasn’t about to tell her someone had been watching, but he wasn’t going to give any pitiful voyeur another chance. She was shivering, trembling, but there was nothing he could grab to throw over her, he could only try to warm and calm her with the strength of his own body.
Slowly she stilled, her breathing returning to normal. He almost thought she’d fallen asleep, wrapped up tight against him, when he heard her voice. “I lied to you,” she whispered.
“Did you?” The floor wasn’t the most comfortable spot in the world, but it made no difference. He had no interest in moving. “About anything important?”
“You remember when I said I was afraid I might fall in love with you?” He could feel the shaky breath vibrate through her body. “It may be too late.”
And he lay there, wrapped around her, afraid to tell her one more lie.
Chapter Eighteen
THE EARLY-MORNING sun had begun to pour in through the French doors that led onto the terrace, mercilessly bright. Merciless was a good word, Carolyn thought, trying to make herself as still and small as she could with Alex’s body enveloping hers. There was no hiding from the glare of the clear morning sunshine as it moved across the carpeting to the spot where they lay, entwined.
She had no illusions that he might be asleep. Fate hadn’t been particularly kind to her in the last few days, and she doubted she’d be granted that particular dispensation. She was simply going to have to gather any remaining shreds of dignity left to her, pull herself out of his arms and somehow manage to get dressed.
She’d made a fool of herself on every level, and to top it all off she’d made the ultimate, idiotic confession. She should have known she’d tell him, sooner or later. She’d never been particularly sensible or self-protective when it came to those she loved, and the man pretending to be Alexander MacDowell had somehow become one of the select few, whether he deserved it or not.
Of course he didn’t deserve it. He was a fraud and a cheat. But he’d been genuinely loving with Sally—she couldn’t fault him for that.
She needed to get away from him. She needed to check in on Sally. She started to pull away, and for a moment his arms tightened around her, as if he were reluctant to let her go. And then he released her, rolling onto his back, and she knew he was watching her as she sat up.
“Keep out of range of the windows,” he said in an unexpectedly prosaic voice. “You never know who might be wandering around out there.”
Her bra was in reach, and she grabbed for it, struggling into it with her back turned to him. She searched around for the rest of her clothing. Her jeans and shirt were halfway across the room, but she had no idea where her panties were.
“Looking for these?”
She had no choice but to turn back to him. He was holding the wisp of white cotton in one of his large hands, and his expression was absolutely unreadable. She snatched them away from him, pulling them on over her sticky body with as much dignity as she could muster, which was just about nil. With that much clothing on she felt slightly better, and she turned to look at him, ready to tell him to get out of her life, forever, when she noticed something.
He had turned away from her, looking out the window, and she saw the scar on his shoulder, one she hadn’t noticed before. It was oddly round, with rough edges, shiny. It mesmerized her, like the eyes of a cobra, and without thinking she reached out toward it.
He turned back, his eyes meeting hers, and he didn’t move, didn’t flinch as she touched the ancient scar with delicate fingers. “What is that?” she whispered.
“What do you think it is, Carolyn? It’s an eighteen-year-old scar from a bullet.”
Someone was trying to force the door, and she whirled away in sudden panic, but the chair Alex had stuck beneath it held. “Carolyn, are you in there?” George’s voice sounded surprisingly intense. “You’d better come out, fast.”
She scrambled to her feet. “I’ll be there in a minute, George,” she called. “Is Sally worse?”
“Have you seen Alex? We can’t find him anywhere.”
Alex had already stood, yanking on his jeans with a complete disregard for his nudity and her watching eyes. Alex. The real Alex. The lying, deceitful, very real Alex MacDowell.
Carolyn was buttoning her shirt as she pulled the chair away from the door and opened it, uncaring whether George or anyone else knew what she’d been doing. “What is it?” she demanded.
But Alex had already come up beside her, taking her arm, moving her away from George before he could answer.
She considered struggling, then stopped, as the enormity of what was happening hit her.
Patsy and Warren were in the dining room, arguing loudly, their voices carrying through the downstairs. In the distance Carolyn could hear Constanza sobbing.
And Sally’s body lay empty and abandoned in her hospital bed. A bottle of pills lay scattered on the table beside it, and some littered the starched white sheet. But obviously, even in her weakened condition, she’d managed to take enough.
Carolyn stood, unmoving, as Alex walked past her. They hadn’t even closed her eyes as she stared sightlessly toward the ceiling, or removed her oxygen. Vaguely she wondered where Mrs. Hathaway was, then dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter. Aunt Sally had been ready to go, and she was never a woman to sit and wait when appropriate action could be taken.
She watched as Alex gently closed her eyes, then removed the oxygen tube from her nose and set it on the table, turning off the machines with calm efficiency. And then he turned and looked at Carolyn, and his Cossack eyes were very calm. “Do you want to say good-bye to her before the others start fighting over the spoils?”
“Aren’t you going to fight, too? Isn’t that why you came back?”
He shook his head. “I came back for her. I came back for the truth. She’s gone, and it doesn’t matter now. I’m ready to leave.”
She nodded, her emotions frozen. She walked past him, taking the seat she’d abandoned a few hours earlier. “Did you know she was going to do this?”
“I guessed.”
“And you didn’t try to stop her?”
“Would you?”
“No.” She curled her feet up underneath her. “Good-bye, Alex.”
He left her without a word.
SHE HAD MORE time than she would have imagined. Sally’s family kept their distance, though the raised voices that echoed back left little doubt about the subject of their cantankerous discussion. It didn’t matter. Carolyn sat in the shadows by Sally’s bedside, keeping a vigil that would mean nothing to anyone but herself.
She didn’t want to leave her alone, even though the Sally she’d loved and protected had already left. She had little doubt someone had seen to the formalities, and someone would come to take away the body before long. In the meantime, Carolyn wasn’t going to leave her unattended. It was ridiculous and old-fashioned, but she couldn’t stop from feeling she needed to honor her dead.
It must have been hours before Mrs. Hathaway came in, flustered, tearful, anxious. She cast a nervous glance at Carolyn before she swept away the spilled pills, the remnants of painkillers that littered the tables beside the bed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” she said in a low voice. “Mr. MacDowell insisted I take the night off, that he’d stay with her. If I’d had any idea I never would have left.”
“Alex can be very persuasive,” Carolyn said in a dull voice.
“Oh, no, it was Warren who sent me away,” Mrs. Hathaway corrected her. “He said he wanted time with his sister.”
Carolyn just shook her head. Sometime during the last few hours her mind, her emotions, had overloaded, and she’d gone into a blessed state of numbness. It didn’t matter who said what. It didn’t matter who was who. All that mattered was that Sally was gone, and for good or bad, Carolyn’s life would never be the same.
“It’s not your fault,” Carolyn murmured. “She was more than ready to go.”
The arguments from the living room seemed to have died down a bit, and she could hear the sound of a car pulling up in front of the house. She glanced outside and saw the local undertaker’s hearse. A Mercedes, only the best for the MacDowells. She rose, touching Sally’s hand in a final farewell.
“She was a good lady,” Mrs. Hathaway said with a sniffle.
Carolyn didn’t bother to argue the point. She had loved Sally dearly, but Sally Aylebourne MacDowell was too strong, stubborn, and ruthless to be called a good lady.
“I’ll go see if any of the others want a moment or two alone with her before they take her away.”
“You do that, Miss Carolyn,” she said. “I’ll just make sure the poor lady is tidied up.”
It was a waste of time, and Carolyn knew it the moment she stepped inside the library. Warren and George were in the midst of some heated discussion and barely noticed her presence, Patsy merely smiled dazedly, and Tessa didn’t bother with any civilities.
“They’ve come to remove Aunt Sally’s body,” she said baldly. “Did any of you want a last moment alone with her?”
“Don’t be macabre, darling,” Tessa said with a dramatic shudder. “I don’t care for corpses.”
“Who’s come to remove the body?” Warren demanded, looking up. “I didn’t make any arrangements.”
“Someone must have called the funeral parlor,” George said. “Someone high-handed.”
“It must have been Alex,” Tessa said, with a faint, smug smile on her artificially puffed mouth. “After all, it’s his mother.”
There was no missing the dark look that passed over Warren’s face. “I don’t think any of us need to see her,” he said after a moment. “After all, she’s gone.”
“So she is,” Carolyn said in a deceptively calm voice. “If no one minds, I think I’ll go for a drive. I’d like to get out for a bit.”
“But we might need you—” George objected, but Warren immediately overruled him.
“We don’t need Carolyn’s help, son,” he said. “I think we’re more than capable of handling this.”
Carolyn didn’t even blink. “I’ll be back in a while.”
“Er . . . which car were you thinking of taking?” Warren demanded. “I’ll be needing the Mercedes, and I’m not certain—”
“I’ll take my car.” At his perplexed look, she swiftly amended it. “The Toyota.”
“It’s in your name?”
“I bought it, Uncle Warren. Out of my own money. And I’ll be taking it with me when I leave,” she said matter-of-factly.