The cove was filled with colorful sailboats skimming a glistening sea. The sky was a perfect blue and there was a sun-drenched perfection to the cliffs above the cove. The rooftops below her window that tumbled down the hillside toward the water were awash with light. Her painting instructor would be thrilled by such an opportunity.
Mercy knew she was never going to get a better chance to capture the scene. Perhaps immersing herself in her watercolors would help take her mind off Croft Falconer. Quickly she set about dragging her paint box and easel outside onto the small deck.
Half an hour later, when she saw the black Porsche ease into the parking lot, Mercy acknowledged that she had been half right. This was, indeed, the perfect chance to capture the view with watercolors, but the project hadn’t done much to take her mind off Croft. She realized as she stared down, watching eagerly as he climbed out of the car, that on some level she had been waiting for him.
He looked up with that riveting gaze as he closed the Porsche door. “Good morning, Mercy.”
“Hello, Croft.” She had to stop herself from adding that she thought he would never get there. Ridiculous to be so excited. Deliberately she made herself put down her paintbrush, get to her feet and walk over to the railing. She leaned against it, watching him climb the steps to her apartment. He was a fascinating foil for the warm summer light, a creature of the night roaming at ease during the day. Croft was wearing jeans and a dark, short-sleeved shirt that left his sinewy arms bare. The jeans were close fitting, riding low on his lean hips. The open collar of the shirt emphasized the strong column of his neck. The darkness of his hair caught the sunlight and absorbed it.
When he reached the deck he paused, his eyes going from her to the unfinished scene on the easel. “So I was right. You’re the source of all the paintings on your walls.”
“I’m taking lessons. As you can see, I’ve got a few things to learn.”
He nodded, not denying it. “Yes, you have.”
Mercy wrinkled her nose. “You could at least tell me I’ve caught a unique interpretation of the scene or that I’ve got obvious talent,” she informed him.
He gave her a questioning look, as if to be certain she was teasing him. Then he apparently decided she was. “You’ve caught a unique interpretation of the scene.”
“What about obvious talent?”
He hesitated and then said carefully, “If you’ve got any obvious talent, I’m afraid it’s buried under all those layers of paint.”
Mercy held up her hand, laughing ruefully. “Forget it. You’re not much good with the social compliment, are you?”
“I can produce one if that’s what you want.”
“Somehow it just wouldn’t sound sincere now.” She tilted her head, studying him curiously. “What are you doing here today, Croft? I thought you’d gone back to Oregon.”
“Why would you think that? I told you, I’m going to Colorado with you.”
“You’ve got a one-track mind,” she said with a small groan.
He shook his head immediately. “No. Everything is interrelated. Understanding the whole makes it possible to understand the part. I try to focus my mind, but it’s not the same as being single-tracked. There’s a difference.”
She threw up her hands in mock protest. “Enough. It’s too nice a day to argue about your brains or lack thereof.”
“How about driving into Seattle instead?” he suggested easily.”
Her eyes widened. “Seattle?”
“We can have lunch there. Maybe walk through some of the galleries in Pioneer Square or take a ferry ride. How does that sound?”
“It sounds wonderful,” Mercy said instantly “Just give me a minute to put this stuff indoors.” She turned and swooped down on the paints, easel and the unfinished watercolor scene, gathering them up and hustling them into the living room. Five minutes later she brushed her hands on her jean-clad thighs. “I’m ready.”
“Just like that?” he asked.
“You want me to take another half hour to get ready?”
He grinned and there was an unexpectedly exciting, thoroughly wicked attraction in his rare laughter. “I’m not going to question my luck. Let’s go.”
They spent the afternoon as tourists, arguing over the merits of paintings in the galleries, eating a sidewalk picnic lunch on the Seattle waterfront and browsing through some downtown bookstores that were open on Sundays. They skipped the ferry ride on the grounds that the afternoon was rapidly slipping away and they didn’t want to spend a lot of time sitting and sampling the view through a window. Every minute seemed somehow very important. They ate dinner at a popular pier restaurant and drove back to Ignatius Cove as the late summer sun began to set.
The afternoon jaunt to Seattle represented the first time Mercy had actually relaxed around Croft. She savored the feeling, hugging it to her during the drive back. But by the time he had parked the Porsche in the lot below her apartment, a niggling sense of doubt had risen to ask if she hadn’t been meant to relax.
In the morning she would be on her way to Colorado and Croft had told her more than once he intended to accompany her.
She climbed out of the Porsche with a return of the uncertain feeling that had been pleasantly absent for the past several hours. As she closed the door of the car she looked at Croft over the low roof of the Porsche. He stared back at her, waiting.
“I’m still not going to invite you to go with me to Colorado, you know,” she said with what she hoped was a casual firmness.
“The evening’s not over,” he pointed out, not bothering to sound casual at all. “I thought I’d come in for brandy.”
“Did you?” Her pulse throbbed in her throat.
He didn’t say anything else. He simply took her hand as she walked around the car and started up the stairs. She probably ought to halt him at her door, Mercy thought.
But she knew she wasn’t going to do that.
At the door he took the key from her without a word and turned it smoothly in the lock as if he had every right. Mercy took a deep breath and stepped inside her apartment, flipping the light switch on the wall. Across the room the unfinished watercolor scene confronted them. Croft’s eyes went to it.
“I’ll get the brandy,” Mercy said softly. She hurried into the kitchen. Perhaps it wouldn’t be totally impossible to take him with her to Colorado. She was only going to spend two nights with Gladstone. If her client objected too strongly to her bringing along a guest she and Croft could always stay at a motel. If she could convince Croft not to embarrass her by making his desire to own Valley too apparent, then maybe ... just maybe... .
A week in the Colorado mountains with Croft Falconer stretched out before her, tantalizing her unmercifully.
She shouldn’t do it. It was a bad idea. She barely knew Croft and she didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of her client. Besides, although she believed him when he said he wanted her, there was no doubt that he was equally interested in that damn book. Mercy didn’t want to play second fiddle to a piece of eighteenth-century pornography.
There were so many excellent reasons for not letting Croft accompany her.
He was still studying the watercolor scene when Mercy returned to the living room with the two glasses of brandy in her hand. He glanced at her assessingly as she moved to stand beside him. He looked as though he were choosing his words carefully.
“I should warn you, I don’t take criticism well,” Mercy told him, handing him his brandy.
“You’re taking the wrong approach with your painting,” he said very seriously.
“It’s just practice for my art class.” She glanced idly down at the scene on the easel. “Seemed like a nice day to catch the view. Do you paint?”
“I’ve studied watercolors.”
She sipped her drink. “That surprises me.”
“Does i
t? I found them very,” he paused, “satisfying.”
“Why?” she asked with sudden interest.
“Because on the surface the medium is very transparent. Very straightforward and obvious. There aren’t multiple layers of paint to get in the way of the viewer, just a clean wash of color. Watercolor painting lets the artist create an impression with light. What could be clearer than light?”
Mercy shook her head. “You said watercolor painting is that way on the surface. But I don’t think it would have held your interest if there had been nothing more to it.”
“You’re right. The transparent quality is fascinatingly complex when you study it. It reveals so much with so little. And that’s where you’re going wrong in your painting, Mercy. You’re trying to put too much detail in your work. You’re using a technique that depends on light as though it were pen and ink or oils.”
“Oddly enough, I didn’t let you in here tonight to give me a lesson in painting.”
His mouth edged up at the corner. “No? Then why did you invite me in this evening?”
She shied away from the blunt question, not wanting to admit the answer to herself, let alone to him. “Perhaps as a polite thank you for the pleasant day you gave me?”
He considered that and then discarded it as an unacceptable reason. “Not good enough. There is a place for polite responses, but this isn’t it.”
“Croft“
“Watch.” He interrupted her to lean down and pick up a brush. He dampened the fine bristles in the little dish of water and stroked it across a pot of yellow Then he combined the yellow with a touch of blue, creating a delicate green.
Mercy watched. She couldn’t help herself. He was thinning the paint out far too much for her taste, she decided. But then he drew the brush across the paper in a swift, sure stroke and she realized in amazement that he had just laid down the perfect shade of the sky at sunset over the cove. She would never have thought to use green to render that color and she would never have used such a restrained wash of paint to do the job. The result delighted her.
“Beautiful,” she whispered, entranced.
He set down the brush. “I think,” he said slowly, “that making love to you would be like painting with watercolors.”
Mercy went very still.
Croft put his hand around the nape of her neck, using his thumb to lift her chin. His eyes were almost golden. “All color and light.”
His mouth came down on hers before Mercy could even think of moving.
Chapter 4
Mercy felt her responses leaping to life the instant he touched her. The sensation was wildly disorienting, unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life. His touch was, she thought fleetingly, exactly as she had dreamed it would be, a riot of color for her senses.
The snifter in her hand trembled and then it was gone as Croft removed it from her fingers without lifting his mouth from hers. When both of his hands closed around her she caught her breath. His warmth and strength reached out to capture her and pull her into a glittering trap. All the fascination, the physical awareness and the deep, underlying compulsion to know Croft that had been unsettling her for the past two days swamped her now.
She knew he was aware of her reaction. It made her feel vulnerable, and for a moment some of her wariness returned to initiate a losing struggle against the inevitable. Croft’s hands tightened on her.
“You want me,” he said, his mouth brushing her own. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. You can’t hide it from me. Your eyes are as clear as a watercolor to me. And I want you. I’ll be careful with you. You have no reason to fear me, Mercy. I’ve told you before, you’re safe with me. You know that, don’t you?”
Once again she believed him, just as she had the first time he had told her she would be safe with him. Mercy relaxed in his hold, leaning into the captivating heat of his body. The pressure against her mouth was deep and persuasive and undeniable. When his thumb touched the corner of her lips and urged a response, she moaned softly. She opened her mouth to him and braced herself for the invasion of his tongue.
It was subtle when it came, not a storming of her defenses, but a careful, coaxing foray that left her shivering. It was only as he slowly filled her mouth, tasting her intimately, that she began to realize just how thorough his ultimate possession would be. This kiss was a sample, she knew, a probing exploration and a claiming that was only a forerunner of what was to follow.
When he reluctantly broke free of her mouth and began to trail questing, tormenting little kisses along the line of her jaw and up to her earlobe Mercy sighed in wonder. Her arms wound around his neck. The hard, muscled contours of his shoulders compelled her touch. She pressed her nails delicately into the fabric of his shirt, finding the resilient flesh beneath the garment.
“I was wrong,” Croft muttered against her skin. “There’s more than light and color in you. There’s strength. Beautiful, subtle, feminine strength. We’re going to find something very special together, you and I.”
“Perhaps in time,” she whispered, closing her eyes against the exquisite feel of his teeth on her earlobe.
“Tonight,” he corrected.
She didn’t argue. She was already beyond arguing. This was what she wanted. He knew it and she could finally acknowledge it. It was happening much too fast. She knew far too little about him. But never in her life had she needed and wanted a man the way she wanted Croft Falconer. Denying herself tonight would have been to deny a possibility that until now she hadn’t even dreamed existed. She couldn’t leave that unknown unexplored.
“Are you still a little afraid of me?” he asked. His hands slid down her back, forcing her gently against the length of him. When his palms reached her rounded buttocks he cupped her and lifted her up into the heat of his thighs.
“Yes. No. I don’t know” It didn’t matter, Mercy realized. Whatever fear existed was submerged beneath the flaring desire. And the desire was mutual. She could feel the rigid shape of him pushing against the fabric of his jeans.
“How can you be afraid of me when you can tell so easily how much I want you?” His voice was a husky groan as he pressed her even more intimately against him.
“Oh, Croft.”
Mercy buried her face in the curve of Croft’s shoulder, inhaling the raw, primitive scent of him.
“I want to see you come alive under my hands the way a watercolor scene does on paper.” Croft shifted, turning her slowly in his arms until she was standing with her back against him. When she struggled slightly, not understanding, he whispered, “Don’t fight me, sweetheart. Open your eyes.”
Mercy did so and found herself staring at their reflected images in the mirror in front of her. She was almost shocked at her own languid, heavy-lidded gaze. She could see the desire in herself and it startled her. This was what Croft was seeing, this open invitation, this combination of sensual pleading and feminine command. The sight of herself might have embarrassed her beyond recovery if it hadn’t been for the other image in the mirror. This second reflection showed the hard-edged arousal in Croft’s face. His golden eyes glittered with it.
He watched her expression as he caged her within the circle of his arms and began undressing her. Slowly and deliberately his fingers moved down the front of her tailored shirt. When all the buttons were undone he eased the garment off her shoulders and tossed it casually aside. Then he put his lips into her hair, his eyes still meeting hers in the mirror as he cupped her breasts in his hands.
Mercy was aware of a wave of delicious weakness going through her. She stared into the mirror, fascinated by the sight of herself encircled in Croft’s bronzed arms. Her gently rounded breasts nestled in his hands, the nipples peeking over the edges. Even as she watched he lightly grazed his thumbs across the rosy peaks, drawing them to full attention.
She clutched at his arms, feeling so sensitized that she fear
ed the next caress.
“Please,” she managed, “I don’t…It feels so strange.”
“You’re very sensitive. I knew you would be. Are you afraid it’s going to hurt when I do this?” Croft circled each dark areola with the edge of his thumbs. He watched her face in the mirror with a relentless intensity.
Mercy gasped as her nipples puckered into even tighter peaks. The feeling was almost unbearable, an ache and a longing and a sizzling sensitivity. Her lashes lowered until her eyes were almost closed. She said with total honesty, “I’m not sure what to expect with you.”
“Sometimes there is a very fine line between pleasure and pain.”
“Do you always know the difference?”
“Yes. Always.”
She believed him and knew she should find the knowledge terrifying, but it was exhilarating. He was a man who was at home with violence. Perhaps he was not adverse to crossing the invisible barriers between pleasure and pain when he was aroused. Instead of caution, however, Mercy was suddenly filled with supreme trust. Croft did know the difference and he would never cross the line. She could give herself to him in perfect safety. With him she could learn the thrills and pleasures that lurked at the farthest edges of sensation without fearing the fall that would take her over the edge.
This man would always protect her. She could trust him. Once again her eyes met his in the mirror and this time she smiled at him.
It was a slow, sensuous, utterly female smile of invitation and longing and ancient promise that came from the depths of her being and radiated in her eyes. There was a warm flush to her skin that started just above her breasts and lightly colored everything in its path all the way to her checks. She knew from the look in Croft’s eyes that he was vitally aware of her glowing excitement. His body was tightening in reaction and he muttered thick, dark words of encouragement into her hair.
Her fingers still clung to his forearms but she offered no resistance when he released her breasts and let his hands glide to her waist. There was a faint metallic rasp as he unsnapped her jeans and slid the zipper down. Mercy could feel the shift of muscle and sinew in his arms as he began to push the jeans over her hips. She was very conscious of the hard pressure of his manhood straining against his own denims. He had pushed himself close into the small of her back where she could feel him very distinctly. He was big, she thought. Solid and heavy and totally male.
Midnight Jewels Page 6
