“For what? You to get naked? No, thank you. Take your money and go.”
He put away his wallet with deliberate movement. Voice toneless, he said, “Selling yourself a little cheap, aren’t you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not selling myself at all, you sorry—”
“Well, that’s just fine,” he cut across her tirade, “because I’m not buying. Anything except pizza, that is.” He picked up the bills, fanned them, and held them out to her so she could see it was not nearly enough for what she obviously thought was taking place.
Silence descended. He saw the color recede from her face until her freckles stood out against the powdery fineness of her skin like flecks of gold and he was afraid she might faint. The words husky with strain, she repeated, “You’re paying for the pizza.”
“That’s the idea.”
She closed the door, then leaned her head against the frame a second with her eyes closed before she turned back to him. “I don’t know what to say. I thought—”
“I know what you thought. Sorry to disappoint you, but, believe it or not, I’ve paid for sex exactly as often as you’ve sold it.” He met her clouded gaze, willing her to accept his word, offering her his own belief in her integrity.
Quiet hovered between them. She searched his face, her own shaded with lingering doubt. “That first day, at Hallowed Ground, you seemed to think I was some kind of call girl.”
She was right. “I discovered my mistake.”
“Yes, you did,” she agreed darkly.
“I didn’t mean it that way.” He wanted to move closer, to take her in his arms, but was too wary of the implication she might put on that urge to move.
“No,” she said on a deep breath as she linked her fingers at her waist. “I don’t suppose you did. I may be a little touchy on the subject.”
It was a definite understatement, but Kane was sure she had her reasons. What surprised him was how much he wanted to know what they might be. He was also puzzled as he recognized that he bore her no grudge, but respected her stand.
A crooked smile tugged at his mouth as he asked after a second, “Would you really have thrown me out?”
“I’d have tried.” She shook back the bright curtain of her hair as if daring him to laugh at the idea.
“Good. I like a woman who knows what she wants.” It was the exact truth, though he had never expected to say it to Regina Dalton. Especially not tonight.
She watched him a long moment, her expression still shadowed. “Fine,” she said at last. “What I want now is food.”
It was not the start that he’d planned for the evening. The question was, could he salvage the end he had in mind? All he could do was try.
They ate their pizza in an atmosphere of subdued politeness punctuated only by scant comments about the food. They might as well have been eating cardboard, however, for all that Kane knew or cared. It was only as he disposed of the scraps and she opened the container holding the dessert he’d brought that things began to loosen up.
“Strawberries,” she said in awe as she saw the big, ripe berries inside, then leaned over to inhale the sweet, fresh-picked fragrance that rose from them. “Did you get them at a farmer’s market?”
“From Aunt Vivian’s garden. She’s as good at growing fruits and vegetables as she is at cooking them.”
“And this is a sauce?” She set the ceramic bowl with its center depression holding coconut cream on the table between them, then sat down across from him once more.
“A dip. Something decadent my aunt whips up out of cream of coconut, cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla. You dunk the berries in it like this.” He demonstrated, holding the strawberry by the hull and stem that had been left when the berries were rinsed clean. With the thick, rich cream dripping from the dark red strawberry, he offered it to her.
“Ummm,” she said as she opened her lips and bit off half the berry, then reached for the rest. “That’s wonderful. I do love strawberries.”
Kane agreed, while ignoring the drawing sensation in the lower part of his body caused by the sight of her lips enclosing the round, tender fruit. Reaching for a berry for himself, he said, “You realize that, all things considered, we know very little about each other, our likes and dislikes, what we enjoy and don’t, or even things more important. For instance, you’ve mentioned very little about your life in New York, other than the fact that you live with a cousin and have a son.”
“There’s nothing much to tell. I buy and sell jewelry, travel for auctions and appraisals. When I’m home, I help my cousin with his paperwork.” She shrugged without looking at him as she swirled a second strawberry in the dip.
“No other family? No grandparents, for instance?”
“None on my mother’s side. She always said that she was an orphan, though I think her family may have washed their hands of her when she ran away from home in Kansas to marry my father. As for his parents, they may still be alive somewhere, but I never knew them.”
No family, or at least none who cared about her. She had apparently taught herself not to mind, but it had affected her, Kane thought as he watched the flicker of emotions that crossed her face. Sympathy was not going to help him, however.
He said, “So who was it took care of you after your mother died?”
“An aunt.”
“But I thought you had no contact with either your mother’s or your father’s families.” His tone was carefully neutral, though he watched her closely.
“Actually, she wasn’t related, but only a friend of my mother’s, a woman she met soon after she came to New York,” she answered, her gaze wary, as if she suspected what he was doing. “She decided we should tell people she was my aunt to avoid trouble with the child-service people. She was afraid they wouldn’t let me stay with her if there was no blood tie, though I doubt they cared. Anyway, it became such a habit that it almost seemed true.”
“I think you said before that this woman died?”
She dropped the hull of the strawberry she had just eaten onto her plate and didn’t reach for another. In toneless agreement, she said, “Five, almost six years after I went to live with her.”
“What then? You must have still been fairly young since you were only—what? Ten, wasn’t it—when your mother died?”
“The woman had a son who was like a brother to me. I stayed on with him.”
“So the two of you made a family of sorts.”
“Of sorts,” she echoed, her gaze on the strawberry hull she nudged around the edge of her plate with the tip of one finger.
“Except he isn’t really a cousin.” Kane wanted to accept that the situation was as she said. The surprise was how much he wanted to believe it.
“You’ve no idea what a hassle finding an apartment can be in New York. I keep meaning to move out on my own, but somehow, with the traveling and everything else, I’ve never gotten around to it.” She abandoned the strawberry hull. “I suppose it must seem strange to you, considering the size of your family.”
“It’s a bit hard to imagine.”
“Having so few people close to you makes you cling to those who are there,” she said, lifting her gaze finally and holding it level.
Kane refused to be affected by the undercurrent of stress in her voice. “Especially your son, I imagine,” he added quietly. “Who takes care of him when you’re out on the road like this?”
“He’s in a special boarding school because of a learning disability. It makes him frustrated and hyperactive, and…resistant to discipline or control of any kind, which is dangerous in a place like New York where he might dart into traffic or wander away from the apartment and be found by anyone, any kind of creep. He takes medication, but still needs constant supervision.” She made a helpless gesture as she trailed into silence. The sheen in her eyes had the look of unshed tears before she glanced away toward the strawberry bowl. She reached for another berry and took a bite, though he didn’t think she wanted it.
> “Is the boy the reason you never married, never started a real family of your own?”
She swallowed and licked some sugary dip from a finger before reaching for a napkin. “Part of it, I suppose,” she answered, “though you know the rest.” She looked up, her face changed, hardened. “What is this interrogation? If you’re going to keep asking questions, maybe I should call in another lawyer.”
“Only if you have something to hide,” he said, and waited with a suspended feeling in his chest for her answer.
She hesitated a millisecond and her eyelids flickered, then she gave a low laugh tinged with irony. “I don’t suppose I have any more secrets than the average person. You, for instance.”
She was good, he thought. So far, she had told enough of the truth to be plausible while still concealing the facts by omission. Yes, she was very good, but so was he.
“The only thing I’m hiding,” he said, smiling ruefully as he propped an elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm, “is a strong urge to see how you taste with Aunt Vivian’s dip on your mouth.”
“Like coconut and strawberries, I’d imagine,” she said, her voice suddenly uneven.
“Two of my favorite flavors.”
She licked her lips. “Are they?”
It was all the encouragement he needed. He got to his feet and moved to her side of the table. Taking her hand, he pressed the palm to his lips, then placed it at his waist as he bent over her. With a knuckle under her chin, he tilted her mouth and settled his lips on hers.
The luscious mixture of tastes, including her own nectar, melted on his tongue, spread through him with the power of some mystical elixir. It made him yearn for more, even as he knew it would never be enough. Bemused by the magic, he lifted his head and saw the same glazed wonder in her face.
Why? Why did it have to be so good? Why couldn’t he have found this amazing physical affinity with some simple, loving female who believed in all the things he believed in, who understood his values, hopes and dreams? Why did he have such bad luck with women? Were there no honorable ones, or was he simply, inevitably, attracted to the wrong kind because of some inner flaw?
It was a useless question, one that vanished from his mind the instant he took her mouth again. His senses expanded as he realized there was no shrinking, no denial in her touch. She was all giving grace and accommodation. She allowed him entrance, followed his lead, swayed a little and caught his arm for balance with a touch that seemed to burn through his skin to the bone.
His heart was on fire, and his lower body, as well. He needed her as he had never needed another person in all the accumulated days and minutes of his life. Against all common sense, he wanted to lavish her with love.
Impossible. But he could do the next best thing. He could show her a different kind of loving, teach her the intense communication of selfless physical passion.
He went down on one knee, at the same time placing a drift of small kisses along the point of her chin to the pulse in the long sweep of her neck, down to the hollow of her throat. She wore a rust silk blouse that glided open beneath his questing fingers. To pull it free of her skirt took less than a second.
Her breasts were milk white and blue veined under a covering of peach lace, gentle globes that fitted his hands as if molded for them. Their warmth and delicate fragrance mounted to his head with narcotic force. His senses reeling with it, he pressed his hot lips to the valley between them while he slid her bra straps down her arms.
It had been too dark to see the night before. Now the beauty of her nipples, like tight and tender rosebuds, moved him beyond words. To touch them, it seemed, was to risk damaging them, yet his mouth tingled with the need to capture their perfection. Unable to help himself, he bent his head and wet first one, then the other, with his tongue. That glistening moisture was the ideal enhancement. A faint smile curved his mouth before he tasted them again.
But there was another variation lying like a gem in his mind. Moving with slow care, he reached to scoop his finger into the bowl of coconut-flavored dip. Applying it to the nearest nipple, he spread it in a slow circle.
“What are you—doing?” she asked with a catch in her voice.
“Anointing you,” he said distractedly.
“Why?”
“For this,” he said, then began to lick the lovely treat he had created. She brought her hand up to run her fingers through his hair, but didn’t interfere. Nor did she object again.
How he moved her from the chair to the table was a mystery. It was also an improvement. By then, it seemed, her doubts had faded away. With a glance from under the veiling of her lashes that was as daring as it was wary, she dipped her fingers into the milky coconut concoction, too. Dabbing it in interesting spots on his chest, she chased the drips with her small pink tongue, catching the errant drops with maddeningly efficient flicks.
He loved it, loved her delicacy and shy participation, and encouraged both with his hands on the firm curves of her hips. Nudging her thighs open with his own, he pressed against her feminine heat, trying to assuage the ache in his groin. And the feeling that rose inside him was both earthy and sublime, a desire to possess in fast, hard coupling and the need to lose himself in her, a passion to take and a need to cherish.
Minutes ago, or perhaps it was vast eons of time past, he had held a motive in his mind for this particular form of seduction. It was gone. Long gone. Caught in her sensual spell, he didn’t care what she was doing to him or why so long as she didn’t stop.
Hot, he was so hot, and so on fire with need and pleasure that he lost all trace of finesse, abandoned the last vestige of mental deliberation. All that was left was instinct and power, hard muscles and moist, yielding flesh, rising passion and inventive explorations seasoned with coconut and exhaustive self-control.
Until he was tested too far. Then he pressed into her and set a rhythm that taxed his muscles and shivered his soul—a slow, endless testing of her silken depths, her arching acceptance, her achingly gallant response. He wanted to go on and on, connected, fused in a mutual bonding of heart and mind that was sealed with body heat and desperate intentions.
Mindless, disregarding time and place, he was lost in the wonder. Absorbed in the blood pounding in his veins and the wet, hot contact, he knew only the blessed striving that made them one for a single explosive instant.
But it couldn’t last, that oneness. Wouldn’t. Didn’t.
And its passing left him as empty and lost as he had been before. Left him weary and disgusted by his search for truth and glory where none was to be found.
14
The shrilling of the phone woke Regina. She lay in the semidarkness as her brain roused from the deepest, most complete sleep she had known in a long time. It was a strange feeling. Stranger still was the realization that she was naked under the blanket that covered her, and that Kane, whom she was using as a warm and embracing pillow, was in the same condition.
The phone rang again. Alarm struck through her like the blade of a knife. There was only one person who would call her here.
Gervis.
Kane was awake; she could sense the alertness in his nerves, feel the muscles under her cheek shift as he lifted his head. He stretched a long arm toward the phone that was on the opposite side of the bed from where she lay.
She sprang up in panic. Flinging herself across his body, she caught the receiver a split second before he touched it. Her voice was breathlessly tight as she spoke into it.
“What the hell’s going on down there, Gina? Why am I not hearing from you?”
“Sorry,” she said in swift answer, “but you have the wrong room.”
“Now that’s a stupid—” The man on the other end of the line halted. “Got somebody with you, that it? How about that, this time of night. Call me ASAP, baby, because you’ve got some explaining to do.”
“No problem,” she said in dismissive tones. As the line went dead, she reached to hang up again. She held the position a seco
nd, feeling her heart banging against her ribs and thanking God for experience with hotel nuisance calls that had given her an excuse for this one. Then she glanced back to Kane.
He was watching her. For an instant, she thought she saw accusation in the dark pools of his eyes. It must have been no more than the reflection of her own guilt, for she blinked and it was gone.
She started to squirm backward off him, but he clamped a hard hand on her backside. The sound she made was somewhere between a yelp and a gulp. In protest, she said, “I’m squashing you.”
“That’s not how I’d describe what you’re doing.” He began to massage the curve he held, smoothing his warm hand in slow circles, creating strange sensations in the pit of her stomach.
What was happening to him was not exactly a mystery if the heated hardness under her abdomen was any indication. “Let me up.”
“I don’t think so.” The scar beside his mouth, the scar she had traced with her tongue a short time before, stood out as a small half-moon.
“Turn me loose.”
His grasp tightened. “You’re driving me crazy, do you know that?”
“It’s all in your mind.” She wriggled, trying to move, but he was holding her down.
“I know. That’s the worst thing about it.”
There was a note in his voice that she didn’t like. She stilled, spoke with more determination. “Let me go. Right now.”
He rose up in bed with a sudden wrenching of muscles, using his momentum and leverage to flip her onto her back. In a coiling glide, he followed her, landing on top of her with his body pinning her to the bed though he rested his weight on his elbows. She lay staring up at the dark shape of his face, stunned yet entranced by the nudge of something very purposeful against the softness between her thighs.
“Am I bothering you?” he asked, his voice dulcet, but carrying an undercurrent of steel.
Was he? She hardly knew for the race of excitement and anticipation in her veins. To hide it, however, seemed pure mother knowledge. “No. No, you’re not bothering me. Exactly.”
Kane Page 20
