“Maybe…” She exhaled softly and once again her gaze slid away. This time, when she brought it back to him, there was something in her eyes that tugged at his heart in new and uncomfortable ways. His anger with her drained away like waves in the sand.
“Do you believe in fate? Destiny, I mean.”
“Jeez, Celia…” He ran a hand over his hair as he sat back against the seat, then let out a hissing breath. “I don’t know…I guess so…maybe. Tell you the truth, I never thought about it.”
“Think about it.” She sat forward, hunched and intense, the champagne forgotten, one hand resting on his knee. “Two women…driving alone along a highway…one crosses over the line-never mind whose fault it is-and the two cars collide head-on. One woman lives, one dies.”
She looked down at the glass in her hand but found it empty. She said softly, “She had a husband and three grown children, do you know that? The woman who died. She was about to become a grandmother for the first time.” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat.
She lifted the gaze once again, and Roy’s heart stumbled. Her eyes…dammit…they reminded him of a lost dog confronting a possible rescuer…full of confusion and fear, and maybe a glimmer of hope. He tried to think of something to say to her that might help, but he was no healer. Her pain was beyond him. He felt helpless, frustrated, useless-ways no man wants to feel.
After a moment, she cleared her throat again and, in a low, husky voice, went on. “I used to wonder about it…why I lived and she didn’t. I felt so awful…”
“Survivors’ guilt,” said Roy, nodding, pleased with himself now, like a kid in school who finally gets a question he knows the answer to. “I guess that’s normal.”
She nodded. “That’s what I was told. I don’t know that it helped much.” She drew a deep breath. A smile flickered, then grew brave. “Then…I found you. And I thought, That’s why! I thought, it’s all a matter of destiny. I lived because I was needed to be there, on that particular beach, on that particular night, so I could save your life. You see? But then-” she held up a hand as if to keep him from interrupting her, though he couldn’t have spoken if his life had depended on it “-later on, when I heard you talking, and I knew what was at stake, and I figured out it was Abby’s boat you were investigating… Then I thought, This is why I lived! Because anybody walking on that beach that night could have saved your life, right? But only I could get you onto Abby’s yacht.”
When she finished, her voice was hoarse with emotion, her eyes fierce-a heroic effect that was spoiled an instant later when a tear tumbled swiftly, like an escapee, down her cheek. She sniffed and wiped at it, then continued thickly, “So, you see why this was so important to me. Why I-” she hiccuped loudly “-had to do it. Have-” she hiccuped again, then muttered a small, “Oh dear-have to do it. Don’t you?”
She gazed at him, waiting, and he stared back, unable to think of a single thing to say. And at that moment, with timing worthy of the best of Hollywood directors, the limo, with a polite jerk and a discreet squeal of brakes, came to a halt in Celia’s driveway.
His eyes flicked to the windows and he blinked, momentarily disoriented by the half-lit shapes of houses and cypress trees he saw beyond them. His lips moved and sounds came from them, but rusty and viscous, as if they’d been kept in the heat too long.
“We’re home,” he said.
She flinched and threw a look randomly into the night, like a startled animal uncertain which way to run. She caught a breath and said with desperate lightness, “Yes, I suppose we are.” Even without touching her, he knew she was trembling, her body’s vibrations stirring the air in some strange way that he felt in his soul rather than his senses.
The door opened and the limo driver stood there. Celia leaned forward to take his hand, and stepped from the car with the easy grace of someone who must have done such a thing a hundred times before. Roy followed somewhat less nimbly, his attention distracted, as he dealt with the driver, by Celia, who had gone ahead of him down the curving path. He could see her floating there in the near darkness, arms extended to each side as if she danced to music only she could hear, the distant surf a muted drumbeat. He paid, tipped and thanked the driver, then hurried after her, swearing under his breath. Behind him, he heard the limo growl quietly away.
Just as he caught up with her, she pivoted tipsily toward him-and stumbled. She gasped and lurched sideways as one of her high-heeled shoes twisted and collapsed under her, and even though he remembered all too well the way she’d worked that particular trick on the prince earlier tonight, Roy did the only thing he could do, under the circumstances. He caught her and swept her up into his arms.
And miraculously, didn’t drop her a second later; he’d forgotten about his half-healed ribs. Fortunately, his hiss of pain was lost completely in Celia’s gasp as she hooked her arms around his neck and stared up at him with wide, shocked eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered in a slow, wondering way.
“No problem.” His voice was tight and air-starved, but she didn’t seem to notice.
She licked her lips and said thoughtfully, as he tottered with her the few remaining steps to the front door, “I think…maybe I’ve had a wee bit too much champagne.”
“Ya think?” On the steps he halted and croaked, “Keys.”
Her lips curved, catlike. “You have them, remember?”
“Oh, yeah…” Because Celia didn’t like pocketbooks, he’d taken to carrying her essential feminine odds and ends in his pockets. He thought about it now, frowning over the logistics of it because he was going to have to put her down in order to get to the keys. He was frowning, too, because the pain in his side suddenly didn’t seem so bad-either that, or sexual arousal trumped pain-and as a result, putting her down had become the last thing he wanted to do.
“I’ve had too much champagne,” she said, gazing into his eyes with a curious intensity, “but I am not drunk.”
“Okay…” He barely heard her. His head was swimming…all at once he felt as if he were drowning in her scent, her heat, her energy. The shape and weight and warmth of her in his arms crowded every other thought from his mind. Desire for her pounded like thunder in his temples. Wanting zapped across his skin like heat lightning.
It seemed almost an inevitability when she kissed him…a consequence of natural laws. She seemed to flow upward in his arms, like warm air rising, and her lips came to his as if gravity itself compelled them. He closed his eyes, and night spun into day. Heat engulfed him. He opened his mouth to hers…and flew headlong into the sun.
A long time later, he felt her body slide along the front of his, but molded to him still as if the heat from the kiss had melted them into one.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?” she whispered brokenly, her breath flowing over his lips and making them tingle, like warm champagne.
“How long?” His hands, helpless and awed, stroked her back.
How long? All my life. All my lives before this one. Maybe even forever.
She was numb with wanting. Dazed with wanting. Nothing else mattered, not even pride. “Since the first time. I’ve wanted so much…for you to kiss me again. But you didn’t. I thought…you didn’t want to.”
He stared fiercely over her head. His voice was guttural. “I wanted to.”
Her fingers curled against his shirt front. She wanted to pound on it and scream at him, and her jaws ached with fighting that impulse as she whispered, “Then why didn’t you?”
He laughed the way people do when something hurts. “Do you really want to get into that now?”
She was silent, listening to opposing wants colliding inside her head like bumper cars. Oh, she did very much want to get into this with him. She needed desperately to understand him. But right now…oh, right now, she simply wanted him.
Needed him.
She drew a shuddering breath. “No. I want you to kiss me…again. Please.” Her voice caught. Her smile flickered-pure ref
lex. “I don’t normally have to ask.”
Frowning, he held her face between his hands, stroked her cheeks with his thumbs and looked deep into her eyes. “Not now,” he said harshly. “Not here.”
Fear and anguish coiled around her throat. I want you so much. Why don’t you want me? Don’t make me wait again…please. In that constricted voice she managed to ask, “Why?”
His warm lips touched her forehead. “Because,” he said with a rasping sigh, “I’m not gonna make love to you on your front doorstep. What would the neighbors think?”
A single joyous note, one bright bubble of laughter burst from her, beginning the unraveling of the tangle of doubt and frustration and confusion and despair that had been inside her for so long. Laughing, she stood on tiptoes and held his face between her hands. She heard, “Wait-” but it was muffled and far away, and lost completely when she kissed him.
He leaned into the kiss, gasped and pulled away, then groaned and plunged back into it, all the way this time. His hands roamed frantically over her body, then abandoned the struggle and folded around her.
And suddenly warmth and strength surrounded her. She felt euphoric and giddy and frightened, like a baby on a swing…and at the same time, grounded in that lovely warmth and strength, she felt entirely safe. Because, though she knew it was only for that moment, for that moment, at least, she felt…loved.
“Celia…”
“I know…”
“We can’t…”
“I know…the key…”
Somehow…gasping and trembling, overcoming obstacles like clumsy fingers and randomly placed kisses, they managed to remove the key from his pocket and open the door, tumbling into the shadowy quiet like puppies, oblivious and uncaring what parts of them touched where. That they did touch each other was all that mattered. For Celia, separating from him, even for a moment, even for such necessities as walking and undressing, seemed intolerable.
Articles of discarded clothing marked their progress through the house: her shoes and his jacket just inside the door; his cuff links and cravat on the kitchen counter; his shirt on the back of the couch. Even the silky tickle of his hair on her skin and the hot promise of his mouth couldn’t hold off the cold jangle of alarm she felt when he found the abbreviated zipper in the back of her dress and pulled it down, when she felt the fabric relax around her waist and the thin straps slither over her shoulders.
She gave a laughing gasp and caught the dress with her arm as it slipped below her breasts, before it could fall all the way to the floor. Roy, preoccupied with what had been uncovered, seemed not to notice. By that time, they were in the hallway where the light was dimmer, then in the bedroom where there was almost no light at all, and Celia relaxed and let herself become wanton again…
Chapter 13
Thought spiraled away into joyous light and heat and giddy, shivering excitement. His shirt hung open and her hands found the tight, hard muscle of his torso and she laughed with delight at the answering heat she could feel rising inside him…feel it burning through his skin and scalding her fingers. Daring in the darkness, she let the dress fall to the floor and leaned into him, pressing her palms against his ribs and her soft breasts against his hardness.
And felt him flinch. Heard him utter a sharp hissing sound, quickly silenced.
She jerked back, heart knocking sickeningly with frustrated wanting. “Oh God-your ribs-I’m so sorry-”
“Ssh…it’s okay…” His fingers rubbed their gentle and uniquely masculine abrasion over her back, from the base of her spine to her shoulder blades, sanding her from scalp to toes with goose bumps.
“But…your wound-I forgot-” She was shivering…bereft.
“Celia.” His hands lay heavy and comforting on her shoulders. He exhaled as he rested his forehead gently against hers. “Say g’night, Nurse Suzanne…”
Her suspended breath erupted in a single bubble of laughter, like uncorked champagne. “G’night,” she whispered, but still trembled as she eased back against him and tilted her face to find his mouth.
Relief and happiness and gratitude filled her; it had been harder than she’d expected, this throwing aside of pride and a lifetime of habit and expectation to ask for-no, demand-that which had always come almost as her due. To place so much trust in a man she knew so little had seemed to her a tremendous and terrifying gamble, and her awe at finding that trust vindicated now all but overwhelmed her.
I love you, she thought, knowing as she said it in her mind that in the long run it probably wasn’t true. Don’t make too big a thing of it, she warned herself. It’s probably only gratitude. But for that moment she allowed herself to believe it.
She believed it…because the sweet-hot demand of his mouth made her melt inside, and her legs go soft and trembly. She believed it…because the cool, silky feel of his hair on her skin made her want to cry. She believed it…because of all the times and all the ways she’d been touched, nothing before had ever made her feel so cherished.
His kisses were hot…slow…searing…almost more than she could bear. Laying her back on the bed with exquisite gentleness, he kissed her throat, her earlobes, the nape of her neck…not rushing, as if they had all the time in the world. And when she lifted her hands to the clasp of her necklace to give him clearer access, he smiled against her skin and murmured, “Leave ’em on. I’m gonna love you wearing nothin’ but diamonds…”
“They’re mostly topazes,” she whispered as he drew the last remaining scraps of her clothing away, her throat half-choked with wanting him.
“Okay…them, too.”
He touched her then, intimately…deeply and unhurried, watching her all the while with eyes so somber…mouth so tender…and a sweet dusky passion haze like velvet on his skin. She lifted her hands and filled them with the thick, silky textures of his hair…and tried to keep her eyes open because she wanted to watch him, too, while he touched her that way, the intensity of her desire building on the intensity in his gaze.
But that became too much…too quickly. No longer hers to control, her passion-weighted eyelids drifted shut. She arched into him, breathing in panting gasps. Her hands flowed like liquid over his skin…
His skin felt sleek and feverish to her, like the hide of some magnificent animal, his body hot and hard and vibrant beneath. I love your body, she thought, but couldn’t bring herself to say it. Because it was so much less than what she meant. And, she told herself, he’d probably heard it so many times before…
My God, you’re beautiful, he thought, but remembered not to say it as he gazed down at her face in the almost-darkness. Somehow he knew, though he couldn’t really see her, that her eyes had closed, that her mouth would be blurred and soft from his kisses…her skin rosy and misted with desire. But he realized as he looked at her that what was so beautiful to him wasn’t anything he could have seen with his eyes anyway, but rather, a picture of her he’d been carrying around in his mind for a while now. A picture that had no particular age or expression, that wore no special makeup or hairstyle-or perhaps it was a composite of all the ages, expressions and styles, not just of the Celia who was now, but all the Celias who had been or would be. In short, it was simply…Celia.
And he wondered when he’d stopped thinking of the woman in his arms as Celia Cross, TV star, extraordinarily beautiful woman, every man’s fantasy and way out of the reach of a simple Georgia boy-and when she’d become that…simply Celia.
Dazed and overwhelmed, he lowered his head and kissed her, and was just in time to capture her whimpered moan in his mouth. The sound punctured his heart like a lance, and he tore his mouth from hers and drew a quick, gasping breath. “Want me inside you now?” he asked her in his torn, devastated voice. “Celia…sweetheart…shall I love you now?”
Her reply caught in a high little laugh. “Oh-yes…please. I thought I was going to have to take desperate measures…”
Laughing, relieved, he nipped her lower lip, while his mind whirled with a strange efferv
escent happiness like a pinwheel shooting off sparks. “Such as?”
“Such as-” between words she lifted her head and took his mouth in hungry bites “-jumping on you and ravishing your body…”
“Aha…” He kissed her throat, then lifted his head to drawl tenderly, “And you think you could do that?”
“I thought-” her gasp, as he closed his mouth over one tight, hard nipple, delighted him “-in your weakened condition…”
“Weakened, am I?” He’d never felt stronger or more sure of himself. He lay back on the mattress like a Roman emperor being pleasured by handmaidens. “Then give it your best shot…” The words felt good mixed with laughter, vibrating deep inside, and he wondered if this was what cats felt like when they purred.
Then her hair and her laughter were flowing over his skin…along with her hands and her mouth, and the sharp, cool kiss of diamonds. And topazes…yes, them too. And he wondered if he was losing his sanity, and if there could possibly be such a thing as too much pleasure.
“Celia…” he murmured, cradling her head between his hands.
“Mmm…wait…” She lifted her head, leaving the moisture from her mouth to cool his heated skin. “I’m not done ravishing you yet…” She sounded like a sleepy lioness.
“Yeah…well, feel free to pick up where you left off another time. For right now…that’s about all the ravishing I can stand-if you know what I mean…”
She gave an ecstatic little gulp as he took hold of her under the arms, just below the soft pillows of her breasts, and ignoring sharp protests from his mending ribs, brought her up along his body, then in one swift motion rolled her over and under him. Rocking them both onto their sides, he swept his hand down her back, over her bottom and along the back of her thigh, and she hooked her legs around him and arched, panting, to make a place for him. She raised herself, reaching for him, whimpering. Her fingernails raked his back and her teeth nipped at his shoulders, her urgency only mirroring his.
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