Patricia Potter

by Rainbow

  Gently, he took his hand away and brushed a lock of her hair back. The gesture was both gentle and sensuous as his hand hesitated near her ear, then touched it lightly, tentatively, as a child might reach out to touch a butterfly.

  The air between them was pregnant with questions unasked and unanswered and yet neither was ready to shatter a peace that astounded them both with its quiet intensity. For the moment, there was a rare understanding, a silent communication between them that neither wished the other harm. There was something magical between them and it would disappear if either questioned it too far.

  Meredith relaxed in his arms, her hands playing with the downy hair on his arms. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing arms the color of oak, deeply tanned and hard with muscle. There was so much strength in them. She had always sensed it in him, and felt it when he had kept her from falling that day at Brett’s bank. Now she watched the muscles straining against the skin, felt the tautness of a superbly disciplined body.

  No questions, she told herself, or he might disappear in a puff of smoke. Or he might start asking some himself, again. And she didn’t want to lie to him, not anymore. She wanted to look up at his magnificent turbulent eyes and feel their warmth, not their mockery.

  She wondered how anyone could feel this way, so tense and so eager and so alive. It was as if she had just awakened from a long sleep to find a world made of spun gold and silver and all the lovely colors of her beloved rainbows.

  Meredith pushed away the nagging doubts; the distrust and suspicion. He was the young man who was once kind to her, who wiped away tears and built a swing. He was strength. He was comfort.

  Yet there was a fragility about these moments. Like a crystal glass teetering on the edge of a table.

  Perhaps he felt it too, that tenuousness, for as his hands lightly massaged her arms she sensed that he was restraining himself. Every touch seemed a test of his control, and he, like she, was painfully holding back, afraid of what might happen if he did not. They were both waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  Perhaps, Meredith thought, for the trust that would make it perfect, that would drive away the private demons that, even now, made them wary of each other.

  She looked beyond him to the light streaming through the window. Perhaps several words, words that only a few people knew, would tell her what she wanted to know. But still she hesitated. At the moment, she was afraid to know, afraid that she was wrong, that she would be betraying all she believed in, that he was nothing more than what she once thought.

  Her hand ran along a muscle on his lower arm and felt his body tense. She wanted to lean down and kiss the back of that hand, to nibble the rich brown skin until he trembled as she was doing.

  Meredith shivered. She had never felt this way before. She had never really been kissed before, except by him, had never felt a man’s touch in this lazy erotic way.

  Her hand dug into his arm, and she felt him lean back against the wall of the cabin, pulling her firmly to him. One hand took her chin and guided it toward his face. “You are a pretty lady, Meredith, and an intriguin’ one,” he said in that low drawl that made all her senses sing with an excitement she still didn’t understand.

  But he didn’t give her any more time to analyze it, for his lips captured hers as a small groan rumbled from his throat. She could not stop one of her own as she hungered for a closer union of their bodies. She felt the bunching of his muscles against his clothes and the barely contained passion that warmed her clear through to her soul.

  The questions in her mind, the reasoning of her brain, all disappeared as the fire between them ignited once more, this time with more appetite and greed and fury. He smothered her mouth, his tongue darting inside with voracious, searching need.

  It was a need matched. Meredith had never known a kiss could have such power, could melt her down to her bones. An elemental force was between them now…as primitive and potent as the ocean pounding against cliffs or a tornado ripping trees from the ground. And as impossible to contain.

  Her hands glided up his chest, feeling every knotted muscle under the shirt, touching the smoothness of his skin as the cloth separated at the neck. Shamelessly, she proceeded, fascinated with every facet of his lean taut body, intrigued at the way her own body responded when she touched him. Sensations, like whispers of a growing wind, rushed with increasing power through her veins, reaching into every extremity, and then pounding against the confines of the shell of flesh.

  His mouth moved from her lips, and his tongue trailed fire upward until it reached the area around her eyes. It played against her skin with teasing gentleness, the gentleness that had once surprised her but did no more. She lifted her eyes and looked into his dark blue ones, and saw his own vulnerable puzzlement.

  Her hands went farther back, to the nape of his neck and started downward, wanting to feel more of him, but he winced and drew back. No woman had touched him there in twelve years.

  “You don’t know what you’re doin’, Meredith.” His voice was half groan, half plea, the drawl even more pronounced.

  Amusement danced in her eyes. “I think, perhaps,” she said slowly, even tauntingly, “I do.”

  But she didn’t, and he knew it. She was undoubtedly a virgin. That had been obvious from her puzzled and often frightened responses to his earlier kisses. For a woman of such Machiavellian traits, she was surprisingly innocent in many ways. There was a kind of…wanton shyness about her. He knew those were contradictory terms, and he hadn’t thought the combination possible. But he knew now it was. Her hands explored with a hesitancy that both soothed and aroused, while her eyes were like those of a startled deer, curious and fearful. He wanted her. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, yet he couldn’t have her.

  He should stop now, stop until the puzzle was solved, the riddle answered. He was astonished at the intensity of his own feelings, of the aching longing he had for her, even though a certain wariness persisted in the back of his mind.

  Perhaps she was nothing like Morgana. Or perhaps she was an even better actress. How could he even think about risking his neck, his freedom, again for a woman?

  But quite traitorously, his hand moved up and down her back, causing her to tremble once more, and his lips went to the nape of her neck, which he nuzzled, feeling every movement of her body as it reacted to his hands, to his mouth. He wished bitterly his own body wasn’t reacting in the same fundamental, undisciplined way.

  When a soft purr came from her throat, his mouth moved from the back of her neck to her lips. He claimed them urgently, with hunger and demand, with questions and accusations all unsaid, but there. They might as well have been spoken because her mind, all but senseless now, knew them. His kisses were punishment, and she meted out some of her own, her lips nibbling his, her tongue reaching into his mouth and spreading the same fire that was consuming her. And then his body was stretched taut against hers, and she could feel the swell of his manhood even through their clothes, could feel her own body’s response to it. It was a madness…an astounding, unbelievable lunacy.

  Yet despite both their reservations, their suspicions, their best intentions, there was no longer any way they could hold back. If anything, the lure of forbidden fruit had made it impossible to stop, and there was nothing on earth now that could hinder the inevitable.

  Quinn knew it even as he fought against surrender. But his body wouldn’t obey. His emotions wouldn’t obey. His hands wouldn’t obey as they went to the back of her dress and finished the job of unfastening the buttons. One hand played with her back, fingers running over her skin with breeze-light teasing while the other, with her help, tugged her dress and chemise from her body. He looked then, his dark gaze finding the elation, the wondrous expectation in her eyes, even as she shrank the slightest bit from the intensity of his eyes. Christ, but she was contradictory.

  His hand gentled against her bare skin as he looked at her openly, at the beauty she had always kept we
ll hidden. She had a lovely body, slender but well formed with breasts that held an invitation of their own. He leaned down, his tongue teasing the nipples into hard red buds, luring her body into new dimensions of yearning, of frantic hunger.

  Meredith felt every nuance of that hunger. She knew it wasn’t all physical desire. There was also a fierce need to enter that mysterious world he inhabited, to share the thoughts and feelings he protected so well, to uncover his cryptic past. For only then did she believe she would really know him. And she wanted to know him. She wanted to cross the chasm that separated them in so many ways, not just in this one thing. Not just in the fire they fanned in each other, not just in this fury to touch, to stir, to arouse, to sing the same sensuous song. Not just…

  Her hands slid into his shirt again, and she felt an almost imperceptible withdrawal, a warning that exploration would not be tolerated even as he probed every part of her body, slowly and carefully, as if memorizing it for some future time. Her eyes went up to his, and there was regret and even a kind of sorrow there, a certain despair that made her heart constrict painfully. She wanted to whisper reassurances to him, to soothe the raw agony that flickered briefly in his eyes, but it was gone so quickly she thought she might have imagined it. But she didn’t imagine the impact that impression made on her heart, swelling it until she thought it might burst.

  Then his mouth was nuzzling her ear, and she knew little but the wild beating of her heart, and the raging current of her blood. Having been silently warned about not touching his back, her hands went instead to his neck, burying themselves in now tousled black hair that curved around her fingers like down. She felt his fevered breathing against her neck and wondered at her own quickened breath.

  “Quinlan,” she whispered, saying his name to him for the first time since they had met as adults. Her voice quivered slightly, and his mouth smiled against her neck.

  “Quinn,” he corrected softly.

  “Quinn,” she amended obediently. And there was a smile in her voice because it sounded so right for him. It had a mystical, musical quality to it, yet also a fine strength.

  He moved away from her, and she watched as he peeled off his boots, then his trousers. She wished he would also discard his shirt. She wanted to see the whole of him. Instead, he went back to her side and, as the skin of his leg touched her skin, she no longer cared. Nearly bursting with bittersweet agony, she brought him against her…until her breasts touched his hard chest, and his throbbing manhood stroked the most private part of her. He stayed there a moment, letting her feel him, allowing the blazes in the very core of her body to rage out of control. And then he moved back slightly, his hand sliding between her legs, massaging and caressing, each subtle loving movement bringing forth the most miraculous sensations. He shifted his weight and looked into her face, his eyes glittering with blue fire.

  “Are you sure?” he rasped out, his body suspended above hers. “Are you sure, Meredith?”

  Meredith wasn’t sure at all, but her body was—and her soul. She nodded, unable to speak, for she was afraid she would say things she shouldn’t. Things like love. Love had never been mentioned between them, nor had affection. Her eyes closed with a fierce hurt. She wanted words of love, or promise, or devotion, and she understood in some way that this man would never give them.

  But she couldn’t stop now. At this moment she needed him more than she had ever needed anything in her life. She was on fire, and only he could extinguish the flames. She felt his warmth as he slowly entered her, his mouth lowering to shower kisses on her face. There was a quick sharp pain, and she couldn’t stop a small cry of surprise. She felt him hesitate, but her hands urged him on although her mouth could not because it was covered by his. He moved unhurriedly within her, and she could feel the taut control of his body, see the throb of a muscle on his cheek.

  But with her first cry of rapture, her first compulsive motions in reaction to the growing pleasure inside her, he moved faster, rhythmically, each time thrusting deeper and feeling her own warm moisture embrace him and ask for more. Suddenly Quinn felt a glorious conflagration, a soaring splendor that eclipsed all previous sensation, all previous knowledge. Vibrant fury and honeyed sweetness mixed together and spun wildly until her cry of profound pleasure and his own groan of exquisite satisfaction registered and whirled him back to a troubled present.

  Still indelibly, incredibly joined, they stared at each other, their bodies quivering with the afterglow of making love, with the enormity of what had just happened between them.

  Stricken by what he had done, by his complete lack of control, Quinn’s hand went to her mouth, which trembled slightly as her eyes questioned him. With every ounce of discipline he had ever built, had ever learned, he reconstructed his defenses and retreated behind them. His mouth quirked up in that curious way of his. “I wonder who is whose prisoner,” he said dryly, his blue eyes glittering like shards of crystal.

  The words could have meant anything. It was the eyes that destroyed her, that struck deep inside her, more painful than any sword. She had wanted reassurance, words of love, of tenderness. Warmth. Even a drop of warmth.

  Meredith swallowed. I will not cry, she told herself although she wanted to do just that. She turned her face away, not wanting him to see the wound he had just inflicted.

  Quinn flinched from the obvious pain in her face, in the way she turned from him, breaking away from him, from the union of their bodies. He swallowed words he wanted to say, afraid they would betray his own depth of feeling. He was afraid of it. He was afraid for himself, but mostly for her. He had been a Jonah to everyone who had ever cared for him. Yet he couldn’t resist touching her, caressing her arm.

  “Merry, what are we doin’ to each other?” It was more a groan than a question, and he expected no answer. He knew his drawl had deepened, a sure sign of his internal conflict. He was glad no one recognized it but him. His hand went to an unruly gold curl settling on Meredith’s back.

  Quinn held it for a moment, treasuring it, but then he dropped it quite suddenly. He unwound himself from the bed, going to his armoire, and extracting one of his silk shirts. He handed it to her knowing he would not get anywhere with her sitting naked on his bed. He leaned down and picked up his trousers, slipping into them quickly before she could realize how she was affecting him again.

  Meredith stared at the shirt, then her dress. She knew she could not put on the latter with her hands still trembling. She took the shirt and slowly slipped her arms into the sleeves. Despite its obviously newly laundered condition, it still smelled of him. Like the sheet.

  She buttoned the shirt carefully, trying to regain her poise, her disdain for him. She should hate him more than ever, but she couldn’t. And she hated herself for it, despised herself. He obviously didn’t care about her. His eyes had shown that only too clearly. He cared only about using her, only about extracting information from her, and he had used the cruelest possible way to do it. She decided to tell him no more, although minutes earlier she had nearly made the opposite decision.

  She watched as he stood there, his eyes as remote as ever, the curve of his mouth telling her nothing. It was as if what had happened had happened only to her. It did not seem to affect him in any way. She felt barren inside. Barren and dead. She wanted to do something, to say something to get a reaction. “You’re a bastard,” she attacked, her eyes going to a splotch of blood on the sheet.

  “Aye,” he admitted dryly, his eyes going to the same spot, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “And you, pretty Merry, are an impostor, a very lovely impostor. You might be many things, but lightheaded and simple you most definitely are not.”

  “Don’t call me Merry.” The words, derived from hurt so deep she didn’t know how it could be borne, were spit out.

  Quinn looked at her in surprise.

  “No one calls me that but Lissa and…”

  “And who?” Quinn asked the question quietly.

  She stopped. Her face closed. She ha
d been ready to say the Parson.

  “Who, Meredith?” Christ, he wanted to know. He wanted to know who else she had allowed into her life. The sudden jealousy was almost more than he could stand.

  “Who?” he repeated softly.

  Meredith looked up. His eyes were not cold now, but blazing, compelling an answer.

  His hand went around her arm, and she knew he wouldn’t release her until she replied. And she had to get away before he saw the tears gathering in the back of her eyes.

  “A…a minister…a parson I know.”

  Quinn closed his eyes as the words penetrated. He knew now. He should have known sooner. Maybe he had, but he just hadn’t been ready to accept it. He released her arm and went to the painting, studying it closer. Now he knew what had nagged him. It had been partly the signature, similar to the one on the canvas in Brett’s office, but it had also been that particular bend in the river. He had seen it at Briarwood, but he had seen so many bends in the river that his mind had not isolated it until she mentioned the Parson…and he remembered the sketch of the fox.

  Damn the man and his games to hell. He should have said something, damn him.

  Meredith Seaton was M. Sabre. Meredith Seaton had been at Elias’s warehouse because she was with the Underground Railroad. She knew the Parson because she was an agent. And her half sister Lissa was the reason. Meredith hadn’t faked her anguish earlier when she had talked of a half sister.

  He felt the budding of elation inside. No wonder they had been so attracted to each other from the first moment they’d met. They had more than one bond between them. Admiration for her swelled in him. She had played the fool’s role well, and it must have been a devilishly lonely game. He, at least, had Cam.