by Valery Parv
But Ryan was relentless. "Too late. What gives with you two? Is there anything permanent on the cards?"
Jeanette came to her rescue. "Enough, already. If Tara has something to share with us, she'll do it in her own good time, won't you, Tara?"
"There's nothing to share," she denied. Her friend had always been perceptive but she doubted whether he knew her as well as he claimed. She had probably given herself away in other ways when they were children, but he had preferred to let her think he could read her every thought.
She had confessed to loving Zeke and had agreed to accept whatever he was prepared to give, even though it would never be as much as she yearned for. Tonight, watching Ryan and Jeanette together, so easy in each other's company, and so obviously perfect for each other, she had seen exactly what she had agreed to give up. But she loved Zeke and she intended to honor her agreement, no matter what it cost her.
Zeke pushed his chair away from the table as if he sensed her growing discomfort, although she hoped he hadn't guessed the real reason. "We must go. Thanks for a wonderful evening."
"The meal was delicious," Tara added.
"I hope you aren't letting Ryan get to you," Jeanette said, sounding concerned.
"Hardly. He's like another brother to me."
"You mean, equally trying?"
Hearing the affection that softened Jeanette's words, Tara shook her head. "Seriously, it's good to see you again, Ryan. We'll catch up again while I'm here. Lovely to meet you, too, Jeanette," she told his wife.
Ryan kissed her lightly then shook hands with Zeke. "Shall I drive you back to Manna Cottage?"
"Thanks but there's no need," Zeke said. "Stay and finish your coffee. It's such a lovely night, we'll walk back."
"Thanks for rescuing me," Tara told him when they were out of earshot of the house. The path was painted silver by a lustrous moon, but she welcomed Zeke's arm to guide her over the rough patches. "Ryan still thinks of me as a kid he can tease."
Zeke's eyes flashed a denial. "Then it's time he got his eyes tested."
"He's well aware that I've grown up, but old habits die hard."
"Yes, they do."
Something in his tone alerted her. He stopped midway along the path and turned her to face him, tilting her chin so her mouth was within reach. When he kissed her, a shiver ran through her although his words made her uneasy. Was she simply a habit with him? She had accepted his explanation that lasting commitments were not his style, but was it the whole story?
He sensed a change in her and he lifted his mouth from hers, his gaze questioning. "Is something the matter?"
"No, everything's fine. Why?"
"Because Ryan's right. You do wear your heart in your expression. I can't believe I never noticed it before."
She strove for lightness but missed by a mile. "You shouldn't listen to him. He also said I believe in signposts written in Penguin."
"He's right about this."
What was her expression telling him now? Nothing he wanted to know, she feared. She summoned a smile and tried to avoid meeting his look. "Then you should be getting the message that I'm tired and ready for bed," she said lightly.
"I'm ready for bed, too, but not because I'm tired, and I don't think you are, either."
She wasn't. Every nerve ending sang a siren song of need that she knew would keep her wide-awake if she tried to sleep now. "I don't think I like being so transparent," she complained. Useless to deny what he could see for himself.
"Only to people who know you well."
She lifted her chin, determined to brazen this out. "Then what am I thinking now?"
In the moonlight, he studied her intently and a lazy smile spilled across his features. "The same thing I'm thinking. Why wait until we get back to the cottage?"
"Zeke, we can't," she squealed, horrified because it was in her mind. But he caught her hand and tugged her off the path toward the beach. At this late hour it was deserted, the hordes of tourists who came to see the penguin parade rarely venturing to this part of the island. It didn't mean a local fisherman wouldn't come along.
"Live dangerously," Zeke urged when she hesitated.
"Life with you is always dangerous," she said, knowing she didn't mean his life as an investigative journalist. That kind of danger at least made sense. This threat was to her deeper self, urging her to compromise her ideals to keep him in her life. How far could she go and still face herself in a mirror? As far as it took, she accepted on a silent exhalation. With Zeke she had few boundaries, fewer limits, and almost nothing she wouldn't do for him and with him. What kind of fool did that make her?
He led her through the undergrowth to a secluded cove ringed by bushes sculpted by the sea breezes into strange shapes that looked eerily alive in the moonlight. Removing his jacket, he spread it out on the sandy soil, then pulled her down on top of it. Tonight, Tara had worn a short pewter-colored shift. Now the tweedy texture of his jacket chafed her bare knees and her dress rode higher on her hips. When she tried to tug it down, he cupped his hands around her hips and pulled her against him.
With a sigh, she linked her arms around his neck. When had she ever won a battle with Zeke? Or with herself when he was around?
"I've wanted to do this all evening," he said when he tore his mouth away from hers at last. "I've wanted you all evening."
"Me, too," she agreed. She didn't add that much of her suffering came from seeing Ryan and Jeanette together and knowing she could never have what they had.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, she ordered herself angrily. With Zeke she had more than many women ever dreamed of. Wanting more was pure greed and she wasn't usually greedy. It was only around him that it surfaced, she acknowledged. It was time she started counting her blessings.
He grazed a finger across her forehead, smoothing the crease her thought had put there. "A frown, Tara? Was it something I said?"
She shook her head. "You aren't responsible for the whole universe, you know."
He nibbled at her ear. "Just this corner of it."
She closed her eyes, almost purring as he trailed kisses along the slender column of her throat and down to the cleft between her breasts. When she felt him slide the zipper of her dress down, she didn't protest. Nor did she demur when he pushed the garment off her shoulders and let it pool around her waist. She was too busy trying to deal with the sensations rioting through her.
She felt hot and cold by turns, none of it having to do with the weather. The evening was balmy and the sea breeze whispered gently across her skin. So Zeke's mouth had to be responsible for the liquid fire raging through her even as she shivered with delight.
Her hands shook as she undid the buttons of his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. At last. She splayed her hands across his ribs, tracing the outline of them with her fingertips before she pushed further down, past the waistband of his trousers, then lower still until her touch made his breath escape in heaving gasps. Two could play this game.
He opened passion-filled eyes. "Tara."
Her name seemed to be dragged out of him as if speaking cost him. She knew how he felt. There were no words for the turmoil inside her, so she didn't even try. Instead she pulled him down with her, heedless of the sand rasping her back. He paused long enough to tug at his jacket so she was cushioned by it.
She wanted to scream at him to forget comfort, forget being civilized. She wanted him crazy with need for her, beyond reason, beyond thought. Certainly beyond words. He had chosen this place. He could hardly blame her if she regressed to match the surroundings.
So had he, she saw as she met his gaze. He looked primitive, dangerous. She had no time to wonder what she had unleashed before his mouth crushed hers.
Still, she sensed that a word of objection would have pulled him back from the brink. But she had no objections to offer. She pulled his head down, feeling her world explode in flames.
His hands usually so gentle, became demanding as they explored, drove into,
skimmed across her until she arched her back in ecstasy. His passion was relentless, but she matched it easily, desire carrying her along as if on a tide.
She felt as if she had touched off a volcano.
Zeke felt the volcano build and knew there was no way to stop it now. He could be risking everything by giving free rein to the driving need he could no longer restrain. But he couldn't seem to get enough of her in his hands or his mouth.
As her increasingly uninhibited responses unleashed the beast in him, he felt heat and hunger grip him until they were almost unendurable. He fed his need by suckling her glorious breasts in turn, taking as much pleasure from her gasps and mindless murmurs of encouragement as from satisfying his own cravings.
Skin touched skin, nerve seared nerve. Still he wanted more. He wanted everything she had to give. He wanted to give her everything.
He pulled the dress all the way off her, tolerating no barriers between them, not even the flimsy thing she was wearing. He had to stand up to shed his own clothes but he did it fast, not caring what fastenings he tore or where things landed. Then he knelt between her beautiful long limbs, worshipping her with his touch, the flames leaping through him all but consuming him.
He had already discovered that her body had changed, but wondrously so, he recalled through the haze fringing his vision. He marveled anew at how soft and round she was, with the faintest silver tracery of marks around her hips. How come he hadn't noticed them before? They must be the stretch marks women made such a fuss about. To him they were a web of beauty and intrigue, hinting at mysteries no man could hope to penetrate. He ran a finger over the marks and she bucked beneath him.
Surely they weren't sensitive? he thought in confusion. Then he understood that Tara herself was sensitized to his slightest caress, not only on the faint marks but everywhere he touched her. He experimented, glorying in her responses as he drove her higher and higher.
"Now, now," she gasped, lifting herself to meet him. "I can't stand any more, Zeke."
He fumbled for his wallet in his discarded pants. His hands shook as he found what he needed, the shaking intensifying as he put protection on. He wanted Tara so much that he felt like throwing caution to the wind, but he was rational enough to want to protect her, although just barely.
When he entered her she enveloped him like molten silk until he felt as if he was dying, but he clung to sanity long enough to make himself move slowly. No need to drive into her like a barbarian, even if he had never felt more like one.
"Please."
Was he hurting her in spite of his care? The fingernails raking his back made it hard to believe and when he looked into her eyes, they were wild and her head was thrown back, her breaths coming in great gulps. He almost stopped until his fogged brain decoded the message in her protest. She didn't want this slow and easy any more than he did. So be it.
As he gave her what she wanted and more, his name became a sob on her lips, then a demand, then a cry that lost itself in a searing, mindless moment when time stood still, before he plunged headlong back to earth, shaken and soaking with perspiration.
She was the same, he saw when his vision cleared. Her whole body trembled with little aftershocks and there was a tiny bruise on her upper lip where his teeth had nipped her in a too passionate kiss. He hadn't been aware of inflicting it and he felt badly at the thought that he had damaged her in the slightest.
He pushed a tendril of hair out of his eyes, and took his weight on his elbows, wondering how to apologize for being such a brute. She was the only woman who could drive him to such excess. Why didn't she open her eyes and tell him she hated him? He deserved it. He deserved a firing squad, he thought when he saw a tear trickle out from her closed lids.
"I'm sorry," he said, his insides twisting into knots. "I didn't mean to be so barbarous."
She did look at him then and her eyes shone wetly, but she was smiling. "You weren't. It was wonderful. You were wonderful."
He stared at her in consternation. "You mean I don't have to shoot myself for behaving like a love-starved teenager?"
She shook her head. "Please don't. I'd hate to think this was the last time."
Not if he had anything to do with it. Still, he couldn't believe she was letting him off so lightly. "But I acted like a caveman."
"And I was your cave woman." She pulled his face down, kissing him lightly. "Aren't you the one who believes in living for the moment?"
"I certainly did this time"
"We did," she reminded him. "I had some say in it, too, you know?"
If he had given her a choice, he couldn't remember it, but evidently she did. He offered a prayer of thanks to the gods who protected men in the throes of passion and allowed some shred of decency to prevail. "Then I'll stop groveling, but not until you assure me I didn't hurt you."
"You didn't," she said, knowing he could only hurt her if she expected more from him than he was able to give. And surely that was up to her?
He eased away from her and wrapped his arms around his bended knees. "As a boy, I got so used to taking what I needed that I sometimes forget things are different now."
The pain in his voice shook her. "You don't have to take anything from me and you didn't tonight. We gave to each other."
"You may think so, but I know how I felt."
Sitting up, she traced the hard ridge of his backbone with a finger, seeing him shudder. "You don't need to worry about being abandoned anymore," she said softly, sensing the cause of his distress. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Even though I haven't offered you forever?"
"You don't have to. What we have is enough." As she said it, she knew it was true. Seductive as it was, she could learn to live without the domestic vision she'd seen played out between Ryan and Jeanette tonight as long as she had Zeke.
"But I left you," he reminded her hoarsely. "I was involved with another woman." Why did he feel as if he had to rub it in? To remind her that nothing lasted, not even the miracle they had just shared.
She forced aside the hurt that threatened to well up, recognizing what was going on at long last. "Nothing you can do will, make me reject you ever again. I'll always be here for you."
Zeke stared at her. Could it possibly be true? Everything in him distrusted the notion, although he had enough evidence by now that she meant what she said. "You didn't come with me to America," he reminded her, wondering again why he was stubbornly clinging to his old beliefs. Insurance against pain, he decided. Would the need for it ever go away?
Tara felt her expression turn bleak. "It wouldn't have worked. As soon as you found out about the baby, you would have offered to marry me and ended up hating me for it."
"I could never hate you."
"But you would have resented the pressure. Perhaps even the baby in time."
He shook his head. "I had too much experience of being an unwanted child myself, to do that to anyone else."
"You wouldn't have meant to," she accepted. "But you would have hated being forced into something you didn't want." Still don't want, she added silently.
"So you played the good little woman, waiting at home?"
"Not intentionally. I had no way of knowing you would ever come back."
"Did you hope I would?"
She had never stopped hoping, she saw now, although she had managed to hide it from herself. She nodded.
Zeke pillowed his head against her breast, feeling as if he could hardly breathe. "You're a gift to me, Tara. I…" He stopped, aware of almost crossing a boundary he had never considered crossing before. Three words, that's all they were, but saying them would change everything and he wasn't ready for that.
"Gifts are meant to be unwrapped," she said at his hesitation.
He wondered if she heard that laughter held as much relief as arousal. "There isn't much wrapping left."
"But there are still surprises."
This time she made him lie back, taking her own gratification from discovering the heights
to which she could drive him with her touch and her kisses. Seeing him shuddering with needs she had called up, she felt powerful, sensuous and giddy with love. When a small voice of demurral raised itself in some far corner of her mind, she managed to override it. If this was all she and Zeke ever had, she was determined to make it sensational.
* * *
Chapter 13
« ^ »
Tara was accustomed to waking up and finding Zeke's side of the bed empty, so when she opened her eyes and saw the bedclothes thrown back, she smiled lazily. He was probably writing down some idea that had occurred to him during the night.
Then everything came back to her. They were in the cottage on Phillip Island, having managed to get to bed—to sleep, anyway—as the first fingers of dawn stained the sky. It was after eight now, she saw from the bedside clock.
Useless to feel slighted by his absence, she told herself. Zeke was Zeke. Work had always been his priority. The aches in her body when she stretched luxuriously reminded her, if she needed it, that she had occupied more of his attention yesterday than anything else, even eating and sleeping.
Still, a cup of coffee would be nice, she thought, glancing at the bedroom door as if he might come through it carrying a tray. When he didn't, she bounded out of bed. She was perfectly capable of getting her own coffee instead of swooning against the pillows like a love-starved maiden.
She grimaced at herself in the mirror. She definitely wasn't love-starved and there was sand in her hair. Wrapping a robe around herself she padded barefoot through to the kitchen. "Zeke?"
No answer. Through the window she saw that his rental car was gone. Dismay stabbed through her. What was going on? She had agreed not to demand forever, but that didn't mean she would tolerate being abandoned next morning without so much as a goodbye kiss.
Then she saw the note propped against the door of the microwave. A phone call had alerted him to a new development in the baby farming story, she read. She frowned, annoyed that she hadn't heard the call. She wasn't to worry, he added in the note, but he was catching the twelve-thirty flight to Sydney and thought she would be safer staying where she was. He would call her later.
