“Are you all right?” Shelley asked, seeing him hesitate.
“Just stiff. I took a header in a creek.”
Her hands and eyes went over him, but found no injury. She dried him with a towel bigger than she was and not nearly so soft. He yawned repeatedly, apologizing; then he yawned again and she laughed softly.
“Face down, sleepyhead.”
She aimed him toward the waiting bed and gave him a slight push. Then she wrapped herself in another towel and went to the side of the bed. Sleepily he put an arm around her hips and tugged her close.
“Not yet,” she said. “Go to sleep while I rub the stiffness out of your back.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right beside you when you wake up.”
With a deep sigh Cain relaxed. Shelley took off her towel, warmed fragrant oil in her hands, and knelt next to him on the bed. When her hands began to knead his body, he groaned contentedly. Smiling, she leaned into her work, massaging from his hips to his shoulders and down to his hands. She kissed the fingertips, the palm of each hand, and smiled when his fingers curled into his palms as though to hold the warmth she had given him.
She worked over him in silence, enjoying just having him near. She went to his feet and massaged upward gently, firmly, until the long muscles of his body were finally supple again.
“Are you asleep?” she whispered.
His answer was lost in the mattress.
“Roll over, lazy man. The other side of you has muscles, too.”
“It’s stiff, too.” He rolled over.
Her breath caught. “I thought you were too tired.”
“I am.”
“You could have fooled me.”
Laughing, she slid out of his grasp and resumed the massage. She went from his feet to his calves and then on to the muscular resilience of his thighs.
He groaned when her fingers feathered through the wedge of hair on his abdomen, teasing him by not touching him in the way he needed to be touched.
“Mink?”
“You’re too tired. See?”
With a lithe movement she evaded his searching hands.
“Close your eyes,” she said gently. “You’ll be asleep in no time.”
“Shel—”
The rest of her name was lost in a thick sound as she bent over him, her breasts brushing against his aroused flesh as she massaged him from his hips to the pulse beating heavily in his neck. She kissed his neck, savoring the race of his heart.
“Close your eyes,” she said. “No, don’t move. You don’t have to do anything at all.”
Her lips rubbed over the curly brown hair hiding the muscles of his chest. His breath came in hard and deep.
“Let me take care of you,” she whispered. “Let me show you how glad I am to have you home.”
He looked at her for the space of several heartbeats. Then he sighed and closed his eyes, giving himself to her. Gently her mouth moved over one dark nipple and then the other, until both tightened into tiny, hard buttons.
Long fingers searched through Shelley’s hair, caressing her scalp even as her teeth closed on a sensitive male nub. She tugged and sucked gently, enjoying the shiver of response that went through his strong body. Her hands searched over his chest, moving slowly, sensitizing every bit of his skin. Her breasts brushed against him repeatedly, intimately, caresses that made fire shimmer through her as certainly as it did through him.
Softly, inevitably, she slid down his body until her cheek was against his hard abdomen and her hair was a dark, silky fire burning between his legs. She moved her head languidly against him, watching pleasure course through the man she loved. With a shiver of desire, she kissed his hot skin, caressing him, cherishing him with lips and tongue and teeth.
Cain groaned thickly and moved against her with a slow sensuality that belied the urgency he felt. When he could take no more, he called her name in a low voice, telling her what her loving touch was doing to him, how much he wanted her, the need to be sheathed in her liquid fire.
His words were as soft and hot and intimate as her tongue against his naked flesh, words caressing her until the satin flower hidden within her body bloomed and she moaned, needing him. With dreamlike slowness she settled over him, wanting to cherish and remember each instant of their joining. Smiling, eyes half closed, she took him wholly into herself, completing both of them.
She bent to kiss him, and the kiss was as hot and as slow and as deep as their joining. She glided over him in rhythms of love and loving. The long, sliding caress of her body made him moan thickly. She moved again and then again, slowly, deeply, using every bit of their mutual hunger, making tongues of fire lick through their bodies.
Tension gathered in him, sensual heat and need growing, taking his body, giving it to her. At the last instant he fought to control himself, holding back, waiting for her.
She knew. She moved slowly, holding him tight and deep. Then she bent down and whispered against his lips.
“I love you, Cain.”
The words stripped him of control. With a thick sound, he gave himself entirely to her soft, sliding heat.
She felt ecstasy explode through him in exquisite pulses. For a timeless instant she savored his release, but his pleasure undid her as surely as her statement of love had unraveled him. Moaning, moving slowly, she gave herself to ecstasy, to him, coming apart around him in a shower of satin fire.
His arms held her for long, quiet minutes, supporting her as she lay limply on his chest. When their bodies were again their own, he held her against him. With one long arm he dragged a quilt over both of them. Sleep pulled at him, but he fought against it.
“Tell me again,” he said. “I love you.”
He gave a long, shuddering sigh. “Thank God. I was . . . afraid you wouldn’t . . . let . . .”
Cain’s voice faded into sleep.
Smiling, she kissed his chin and burrowed into his warmth. Soon she was as deeply asleep as he was.
Shelley awoke to the feel of Cain’s hands stroking her body, and his mouth pulling lovingly on her breast, taking her from sleep into sensuality. With a soft sound she shifted closer to him, the hidden flower blooming, her body ready for him in the hot, endless instant of waking.
When his long fingers caressed her and discovered her readiness, he settled between her legs. Hands cradling her face, he moved slowly, pressing against her, touching her intimately without taking her. Eyes still closed, she sought him blindly, aching for him until she cried out.
“Was I dreaming?” he asked.
His teeth closed on her nipple with exquisite restraint, making her arch wildly beneath him. The sultry moisture of her response made his body tighten violently; but even more than her satin heat, he wanted her trust, her love, her life.
“Tell me I wasn’t dreaming.”
His name was torn from her as fire took her. She felt him slide against her, into her, and then came a slow withdrawal that made her want to scream in protest.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
Her eyes opened, dark and hungry. “Yes.”
Still he waited, poised at the point of taking her, his eyes the hot gray of summer rain. He felt her shift slightly beneath him, felt her legs part even more, felt her thighs move slowly over his, asking for him.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice rough with passion and restraint. “I have to hear it. I have to know that I wasn’t dreaming.”
“I love you, Cain.”
Emotion transformed his face. She felt the ripple that went through his powerful body like a shock wave. He entered her in a single movement, watching her as she whispered his name and her love again and again, words and movements matching, overlapping, until there were no more words, just cries of ecstasy and completion.
When both of them could breathe again, he nuzzled her hair, her ear, the pulse still racing in her neck.
“I love you, Shelley. I’ve waited all my life for you.”
She
smiled, turned to catch his lips with her own, and murmured her love against his beautiful mouth.
“We’ll be married as soon as we can,” he said, sipping at her lips, her tongue, the soft lobe of her ear. “Three days, right? Isn’t that what California requires?”
Before she could answer, he took her mouth in a deep kiss. It was a long time before he lifted his head.
“Would you mind honeymooning in Chile?” he asked.
She caught his lower lip between her teeth and gently savaged it.
“Santiago?” she asked.
“For a few days. Then the Atacama.”
“That’s where my parents are. Are we going there to see them?”
“It’s a big desert, but we’ll find them.”
“I’d enjoy that, but . . .”
“What?”
“It isn’t necessary. We can wait for a few weeks. They’ll be in L.A. for Thanksgiving.”
“But we won’t. Like I said, the Atacama is a big desert. It will take months to do even a cursory mineral survey.”
Coolness washed over Shelley. She felt as though her skin was too small, drawing her flesh against cold bones.
“What do you mean?” she asked carefully.
“Basic Resources won a survey bid for the Atacama.”
“Oh.”
He smoothed his lips over one mink-brown eyebrow, then traced the eyebrow again with the tip of his tongue.
“It’s one of the few places in the world I haven’t really explored,” he said. “I was going to send someone else. Now I won’t have to. You love me and you love the desert. Together, we’ll listen to the silence, drink wine at sunset, and make love in the cool hours before dawn when the stars are so close they’re like a wave breaking over us.”
Her body was stiff. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe for the pain slicing through her.
I just made a home for him and all he can think about is leaving it.
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
Before she could gather herself enough to answer, he smiled and shifted onto his side, pulling her over with him.
“I’m crushing you again. Sorry,” he said, kissing her gently. “You’re such a wild thing when we make love. I keep forgetting that you aren’t nearly as strong as I am.”
Numbly she tried to think, to speak, to understand what had gone so terribly wrong.
His big hand tucked her head against his shoulder.
“By the time we’re tired of the Atacama,” he said, “the Yukon will be opening again. It’s a special place. Few trails and fewer roads, a forest like the sea, green and endless. There are lakes and rivers with no names because no man has been there long enough to—”
“What about home?” she interrupted, her voice bleak.
Surprised, he drew back until he could see her tightly drawn face. “When you’re in my arms, that’s home for me.”
“What about my home?” she asked.
“We’ll be in L.A. a lot of the time. If you want, I’ll sell this place and we’ll live in yours.”
“This place?”
Abruptly she sat up, throwing off his arms.
“This place,” she said harshly, “is the home I made for you! But you don’t care about that, do you? You can’t even be bothered to look at it!”
Pure rage echoed through her words, a rage as great as her passion had been.
Cain saw it. And he was afraid he understood its source.
“Mink?”
“How stupid can one woman be?” she asked the ceiling. “I made a home for a traveling man! I fell in love with a man who doesn’t want one goddamned thing but whatever is over the curve of the earth!”
“I want you, Shelley. I love you.”
She simply shook her head.
“But you don’t love me, do you?” he asked. “Not really.”
“That’s not true! I love—”
“No,” he interrupted fiercely. “You love the idea of home, not me!”
Her eyes opened. They were wide and dry and furious.
His eyes were just as angry. More.
“When will you figure out that we were born to love each other, Shelley Wilde? Or is it just that I was born to love you?”
His eyes closed. Suddenly he looked older than he was, as hard as the lands he had lived in. When he opened his eyes, they were the color of winter.
“You don’t trust me enough to admit that you’re hungry for new horizons,” he said. “Why? What have I done?”
“You don’t understand,” she said.
He waited, hoping he had missed something, that he was wrong.
“You simply don’t understand . . .” she said in an agonized whisper.
It was all she could say. It was the only truth she knew.
“Oh, but I do understand,” he said.
With savage restraint he shot out of bed and began yanking on his clothes, talking all the while, words as sharp as knives.
“I’m the one with frightening insight, remember?” he asked. “Well, this is my insight. You don’t even love me enough to give up your precious home part of the time and travel with me. You don’t love me one damn bit.”
The pain and bitterness in Cain’s voice broke over Shelley, stunning her. He was as hurt and outraged as she was.
“I do love you!” she said.
“Like hell you do. The only thing you love is the idea of a home. You haven’t gotten over your childhood. You still don’t know the difference between the appearance of a home and the reality.”
Fully dressed, he stood in the center of the master bedroom, truly seeing it for the first time—the chests and rugs, the photo of earth-rise over the curve of the moon, the Sahara tiger-striped by sun and wind, the ancient brass telescope, and the swirling universe of stars.
“Nice,” he said simply, meaning it. “Very, very nice. And when I leave, it will be as empty as your words of love.”
Shelley’s breath caught.
“But you don’t know that, do you?” he continued. “You don’t even admit that there’s a whole world out there and the only home that matters is love. Well, I know what’s out there, and I’m damned if I’ll hide in here with you, playing house and waiting for you to grow up.”
He opened the bedroom door, stopped, and looked back at her with eyes as bleak as his words.
“Send the bill to Basic Resources, homebody. This traveling man is hitting the road.”
Chapter Twenty
As Shelley stood in The Gilded Lily and looked at Billy’s father, all she could think about was how grateful she was that Dave Cummings and Cain Remington were stepbrothers, not blood brothers. Dave had dark blond hair, brown eyes, and a quick smile.
If he had resembled Cain in any way, she didn’t know if she could have hidden her emotions. In the three weeks since Cain had walked out of his home and her life, she had learned that there was something much worse than crying out in the night and hearing an answer in a babble of foreign language.
Crying out and hearing only silence was tearing at her soul.
“Thank you again for taking care of my son,” Dave said.
She smiled wanly. “It was my pleasure to have him around. You have a fine son.”
Without really meaning to, she held her arms out to Billy. He didn’t need her now that his father was back, but she had missed the boy’s laughter and his quick, curious mind.
Billy wrapped his arms around her in a hard hug, smiling with pleasure, silently telling her that he was as glad to see her again as she was to see him. Then he stepped back and looked at her with a child’s stunning honesty.
“You been sick, Shelley?”
Dave looked from Billy to the dark-haired woman with the haunted hazel eyes.
“Don’t be rude, son.”
“I’m not.” He looked at her more closely. “You should get to the beach more. You’re pale.”
“Billy,” Dave said warningly, reaching for him.
“It’s all right.” She touched the boy’s cheek. “I’ve had a lot of work to catch up on.”
“Well, now that Uncle Cain is back, you can . . .
She didn’t hear the rest. if she had been pale before, she was white now.
Cain is back.
He hasn’t called me.
All the endless hours of loneliness and he still doesn’t understand me, still doesn’t believe that I love him. Or maybe he has decided that he doesn’t love me after all.
Homebody. Child. Playing house.
Dave stepped forward and braced Shelley with his hand.
“Miss Wilde? Are you all right?”
She took a deep breath and tried to smile. “I’m fine. Just tired. I worked late last night.”
And the night before, and the night before that—all the empty nights stretching back to the instant when Cain had walked out on her, leaving her cursing and crying in the shell of the home she had made for him.
Traveling man, loving only the curve of the earth. All those landscapes of the soul calling to him. A whole world out there.
Am I hiding in here?
She tried to push the thought away, but couldn’t. It haunted her as surely as Cain’s absence.
Is he right? Am I caught in my childhood?
Distantly she realized that Dave’s hand was on her arm, still bracing her. With an effort she forced herself to breathe evenly, returning color to her pale cheeks.
“How’s Squeeze doing?” she asked in a strained voice.
“Great,” Billy said. “Thanks for giving me that huge aquarium.”
“He looks better in it than the fish ever did. Give him a squeeze for me. And if keeping him is a problem for you, bring him back.”
He grinned. “No problem. Genevieve kinda likes him.”
Dave ruffled his son’s hair affectionately. “That’s because you taught her how to talk snake.”
Billy’s tongue moved in and out quickly, imitating a snake. He frowned, not happy with his speed.
“No one does it as good as you do,” he said to Shelley.
Her smiled slipped. Cain had laughed when she had “talked snake” to him, but the laughter had quickly changed to passion when her tongue flicked teasingly over him.
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