Second Nature

by Nora Roberts

  God, had he wanted to hear that so badly? Struggling to understand what those three simple words had triggered, he buried his mouth against her skin. But he couldn’t think, only feel. Only want. “You have me.”

  With his hands and lips alone, he took her spiraling over the first peak.

  Her movements beneath him grew wild, her murmurs frenzied, but she was unaware. All Lee knew was that they were flesh-to-flesh. This was the storm he’d gentled the night before, the power unleashed, the demands unsoftened. The tenderness became passion so quickly, she could only ride with it, blind to her own power and her own demands. She was spinning too fast in the world they’d created to know how hungrily her mouth sought him, how sure were her own hands. She drew from him everything he drew from her. Again and again she took him to the edge, and again and again he clung, wanting more. And still more.

  Greed. He’d never known this degree of greed. With the blood pounding in his head, singing in his veins, he molded his open mouth to hers. With his hands gripping her hips, he rolled until she lay over him. They were still mouth-to-mouth when they joined, and her gasp of pleasure rocketed through him.

  Strength seemed to build, impossibly. She thought she could feel each individual muscle of her body coil and release as they moved together. Power called to power. Lee remembered the lightning, remembered the thunder, and lived it again. When the storm broke, she was clasped against him, as if the heat had fused them.

  Minutes, hours, days. Lee couldn’t have measured the time. Slowly, her body settled. Gradually, her heartbeat leveled. With her body pressed close to his, she could feel each breath he took and found a foolish satisfaction that the rhythm matched her own.

  “A pity we wasted a week.” Finding the effort to open his eyes too great, Hunter kept them closed as he combed his fingers through her hair.

  She smiled a little, because he couldn’t see. “Wasted?”

  “If we’d started out this way, I’d’ve slept a lot better.”

  “Really?” Schooling her features, Lee lifted her head. “Have you had trouble sleeping?”

  His eyelids opened lazily. “I’ve rarely found it necessary to get up at dawn, unless it’s to write.”

  The surge of pleasure made her voice smug. She traced a fingertip over his shoulder. “Is that so?”

  “You insisted on wearing that perfume to make me crazy.”

  “To make you crazy?” Folding her arms on his chest, she arched a brow. “It’s a very subtle scent.”

  “Subtle.” He ran a casual hand over her bottom. “Like a hammer in the solar plexus.”

  The laugh nearly escaped. “You were the one who insisted we share a tent.”

  “Insisted?” He gave her a mildly amused glance. “I told you I had no objection if you chose to sleep outside.”

  “Knowing I wouldn’t.”

  “True, but I didn’t expect you to resist me for so long.”

  Her head came up off her folded arms. “Resist you?” she repeated. “Are you saying you plotted this out like a scene in a book?”

  Grinning, he pillowed his arms behind his head. God, he couldn’t remember a time he’d felt so clean, so…complete. “It worked.”

  “Typical,” she said, wishing she were insulted and trying her best to act as though she were. “I’m surprised there was room in here for the two of us and your inflated ego.”

  “And your stubbornness.”

  She sat up at the word, both brows disappearing under her tousled bangs. “I suppose you thought I’d just—” her hand gestured in a quick circle “—fall at your feet.”

  Hunter considered this a moment, while he gave himself the pleasure of memorizing every curve of her body. “It might’ve been nice, but I’d figured a few detours into the scenario.”

  “Oh, had you?” She wondered if he realized he was steadily digging himself into a hole. “I bet we can come up with a great many more.” Searching in her pack, Lee found a fresh T-shirt. “Starting now.”

  As she started to drag the shirt over her head, Hunter grabbed the hem and yanked. Lee tumbled down on top of him again, to find her mouth captured. When he let her surface, she narrowed her eyes. “You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” He caught her chin in his hand and kissed her again. “Let’s have breakfast.”

  She swallowed a laugh, but her eyes gave her away. “Bastard.”

  “Okay, but I’m still hungry.” He tugged her shirt down her torso before he started to dress.

  Lying back, Lee strugggled into a pair of jeans. “I don’t suppose, now that the point’s been made, we could finish out this week at a nice resort?”

  Hunter dug out a fresh pair of socks. “A resort? Don’t tell me you’re having problems roughing it, Lenore.”

  “I wouldn’t say problems.” She stuck a hand in one boot and found the inside damp. Resigned, she hunted for her sneakers. “But there is the matter of having fantasies about a hot tub and a soft bed.” She pressed a hand to her lower back. “Wonderful fantasies.”

  “Camping does take a certain amount of strength and endurance,” he said easily. “I suppose if you’ve reached your limit and want to quit—”

  “I didn’t say anything about quitting,” she retorted. She set her teeth, knowing whichever way she went, she lost. “We’ll finish out the damn two weeks,” she mumbled, and crawled out of the tent.

  Lee couldn’t deny that the quality of the air was exquisite and the clarity of the sky more perfect than any she’d ever seen. Nor, if he’d asked, would she have told Hunter that she wanted to be back in Los Angeles. It was a matter of basic creature comforts, she thought. Like soaking in hot, fragrant water and stretching out on a firm, linen-covered mattress. Certainly, it wasn’t more than most people wanted in their day-to-day lives. But then, she reflected, Hunter Brown wasn’t most people.

  “Fabulous, isn’t it?” His arms came around her waist, drawing her back to his chest. He wanted her to see what he saw, feel what he felt. Perhaps he wanted it too much.

  “It’s a beautiful spot. It hardly seems real.” Then she sighed, not entirely sure why. Would Los Angeles seem more real to her when this final week was up? At the very least, she understood the tall buildings and crowded streets. Here—here she seemed so small, and that top rung of the ladder seemed so vague and unimportant.

  Abruptly, she turned and clung to him. “I hate to admit it, but I’m glad you brought me.” She found she wanted to continue clinging, continue holding, so that there wouldn’t be a time when she had to let go. Pushing away all thoughts of tomorrow, Lee told herself to remember the wildflowers. “I’m starving,” she said, able to smile when she drew away. “It’s your turn to cook.”

  “A small blessing.”

  Lee gave him a quick jab before they cleaned up the dishes they’d left out in the rain.

  In his quick, efficient manner, Hunter had the campfire burning and bacon sizzling. Lee sat back, absorbing the scents while she watched him break eggs into the pan.

  “We’ve been through a lot of eggs,” she commented idly. “How do you manage to keep them fresh out here?”

  Because she was watching his hands, she missed the quick smile. “Just one of the many mysteries of life. You’d better pass me a plate.”

  “Yes, but— Oh, look.” The movement that had caught her eye turned out to be two rabbits, curious enough to bound to the edge of the clearing and watch. The mystery of the eggs was forgotten in the simple fascination of something she’d just begun to appreciate. “Every time I see one, I want to touch.”

  “If you managed to get close enough to touch, they’d show you they have very sharp teeth.”

  Shrugging, she dropped her chin to her knees and continued to stare back at the visitors. “The bunnies I think about don’t bite.”

  Hunter reached for a plate himself. “Bunnies, fuzzy little squirrels and cute raccoons are nice to look at but foolish to handle. I remember having a long, heated argument wit
h Sarah on the subject a couple of years ago.”

  “Sarah?” Lee accepted the plate he offered, but her attention was fully on him.

  Until that moment, Hunter hadn’t realized how completely he’d forgotten who she was and why she was there. To have mentioned Sarah so casually showed him he needed to keep personal feelings separate from professional agreements. “Someone very special,” he told her as he scooped the remaining eggs onto his plate. He remembered his daughter’s comment about simmering passion and falling in love. The smile couldn’t be prevented. “I imagine she’d like to meet you.”

  Lee felt something cold squeeze her heart and fought to ignore it. They’d said nothing about commitment, nothing about exclusivity. They were adults. She was responsible for her own emotions and their consequences. “Would she?” Taking the first bite of eggs, she tasted nothing. Her eyes were drawn to the ring on his finger. It wasn’t a wedding band, but… She had to ask, she had to know before things went any further.

  “The ring you wear,” she began, satisfied her voice was even. “It’s very unusual. I’ve never seen another quite like it.”

  “You shouldn’t.” He ate with the ease of a man completely content. “My sister made it.”

  “Sister?” If her name was Sarah…

  “Bonnie raises children and makes jewelry,” Hunter went on. “I’m not sure which comes first.”

  “Bonnie.” Nodding, she forced herself to continue eating. “Is she your only sister?”

  “There were just the two of us. For some odd reason, we got along very well.” He remembered those early years when he was struggling to learn how to be both father and mother to Sarah. He smiled. “We still do.”

  “How does she feel about what you do?”

  “Bonnie’s a firm believer that everyone should do exactly what suits them. As long as they’re married, with a half-dozen children.” He grinned, recognizing the unspoken question in Lee’s eyes. “In that area, I’ve disappointed her.” He paused for a moment, the grin fading. “Do you think I could make love with you if I had a wife waiting for me at home?”

  She dropped her gaze to her plate. Why could he always read her when she couldn’t read him? “I still don’t know very much about you.”

  He didn’t know if he consciously made the decision at that moment or if he’d been ready to make it all along. “Ask,” he said simply.

  Lee looked up at him. It no longer mattered if she needed to know for herself or for her job. She just needed to know. “You’ve never been married?”

  “No.”

  “Is that an outgrowth of your need for privacy?”

  “No, it’s an outgrowth of not finding anyone who could deal with the way I live and my obligations.”

  Lee mulled this over, thinking it a rather odd way to phrase it. “Your writing?”

  “Yes, there’s that.”

  She started to press further, then decided to change directions. Personal questions could be reciprocated with personal questions. “You said you hadn’t always wanted to be a writer, but were born to be one. What made you realize it?”

  “I don’t think it was a matter of realizing, but of accepting.” Understanding that she wanted something specific, he drew out a cigarette, studying the tip. He was no more certain why he was answering than Lee was why she was asking. “It must’ve been in my first year of college. I’d written stories ever since I could remember, but I was dead set on a career as an athlete. Then I wrote something that seemed to trigger it. It was nothing fabulous,” he added thoughtfully. “A very basic plot, simple background, but the characters pulled me in. I knew them as well as I knew anyone. There was nothing else for me to do.”

  “It must’ve been difficult. Publishing isn’t an easy field. Even when you break in, it isn’t particularly lucrative unless you write bestsellers. With your parents gone, you had to support yourself.”

  “I had experience waiting tables.” He smiled, a bit more easily now. “And detested it. Sometimes you have to put it all on the line, Lenore. So I did.”

  “How did you support yourself from the time you graduated from college until you broke through with The Devil’s Due?”

  “I wrote.”

  Lee shook her head, forgetting the half-full plate on her lap. “The articles and short stories couldn’t have brought in very much. And that was your first book.”

  “No, I’d had a dozen others before it.” Blowing out a stream of smoke, he reached for the coffeepot. “Want some?”

  She leaned forward a bit, her brows drawing together. “Look, Hunter, I’ve been researching you for months. I might not have gotten much, but I know every book, every article and every short story you’ve written, including the majority of your college work. There’s no way I’d’ve missed a dozen books.”

  “You know everything Hunter Brown’s written,” he corrected and poured himself coffee.

  “That’s precisely what I said.”

  “You didn’t research Laura Miles.”

  “Who?”

  He sipped, enjoying the coffee and the conversation more than he’d anticipated. “A great many writers use pseudonyms. Laura Miles was mine.”

  “A woman’s name?” Confused on one level, reporter’s instincts humming on another, she frowned at him. “You wrote a dozen books before The Devil’s Due under a woman’s name?”

  “Yeah. One of the problems with writing is that the name alone can project a certain perception of the author.” He offered her the last piece of bacon. “Hunter Brown wasn’t right for what I was doing at the time.”

  Lee let out a frustrated breath. “What were you doing?”

  “Writing romance novels.” He flicked his cigarette into the fire.

  “Writing… You?”

  He studied her incredulous face before he leaned back. He was used to criticism of genre fiction and, more often than not, amused by it. “Do you object to the genre in general, or to my writing in it?”

  “I don’t—” Confused, she broke off to try to gather her thoughts. “I just can’t picture you writing happy-ever-after love stories. Hunter, I just finished Silent Scream. I kept my bedroom door locked for a week.” She dragged a hand through her hair as he quietly watched her. “Romances?”

  “Most novels have some kind of relationship with them. A romance simply focuses on it, rather than using it as a subplot or a device.”

  “But didn’t you feel you were wasting your talent?” Lee knew his skill in drawing the reader in from the first page, from the first sentence. “I understand there being a matter of putting food on the table, but—”

  “No.” He cut her off. “I never wrote for the money, Lenore, any more than the novel you’re writing is done for financial gain. As far as wasting my talent, you shouldn’t look down your nose at something you don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be condescending. I’m just—” Helplessly, she shrugged. “I’m just surprised. No, I’m astonished. I see those colorful little paperbacks everywhere, but—”

  “You never considered reading one,” he finished. “You should, they’re good for you.”

  “I suppose, for simple entertainment.”

  He liked the way she said it, as though it were something to be enjoyed in secret, like a child’s lollipop. “If a novel doesn’t entertain, it isn’t a novel and it’s wasted your time. I imagine you’ve read Jane Eyre, Rebecca, Gone with the Wind, Ivanhoe.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Romances. A lot of the same ingredients are in those colorful little paperbacks.”

  He was perfectly serious. At that moment, Lee would’ve given up half the books in her personal library for the chance to read one Laura Miles story. “Hunter, I want to print this.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Her mouth was already open for the argument she’d expected. “Go ahead?” she repeated. “You don’t care?”

  “Why should I? I’m not ashamed of the work I did as Laura Miles. In fact�
��” He smiled, thinking back. “I’m rather pleased with most of it.”

  “Then why—” She shook her head as she began to absently nibble on cold bacon. “Damn it, Hunter, why haven’t you ever said so before? Laura Miles is as much a deep, dark secret as everything else about you.”

  “I never met a reporter I chose to tell before.” He rose, stretching, and enjoyed the wide blue expanse of sky. Just as he’d never met a woman he’d have chosen to live with before. Hunter was beginning to wonder if one had very much to do with the other. “Don’t complicate the simple, Lenore,” he told her, thinking aloud. “It usually manages to complicate itself.”

  Setting her plate aside, she stood in front of him. “One more question, then.”

  He brought his gaze back down to hers. She hadn’t bothered to fuss with her hair or makeup that morning, as she had from the first morning of the trip. For a moment, he wondered if the reporter was too anxious for the story or the woman was too involved with the man. He wished he knew. “All right,” he agreed. “One more question.”

  “Why me?”

  How did he answer what he didn’t know? How did he answer what he was hesitant to ask himself? Framing her face, he brought his lips to hers. Long, lingering, and very, very new. “I see something in you,” Hunter murmured, holding her face still so that he could study it. “I want something from you. I don’t know what either one is yet, and maybe I never will. Is that answer enough?”

  She put her hands on his wrists and felt his life pump through them. It was almost possible to believe hers pumped through them, too. “It has to be.”

  Chapter Nine

  Standing high on the bluff, Lee could see down the canyon, over the peaks and pinnacles, beyond the rich red buttes to the sheer-faced walls. There were pictures in them. People, creatures, stories. They pleased her all the more because she hadn’t realized she could find them.

  She hadn’t known land could be so demanding, or so compelling. Not knowing that, how could she have known she would feel at home so far away from the world she knew or the life she’d made?