"No," she said to his throat.
"Then would you look at me, please?"
Slowly, she lifted her head and looked at him. Her eyes were wide and blue and wondering, just like the last time. And he could see the fear there, too, also like the last time. But underneath... thank God, underneath there was sweet feminine heat, and the banked, burning desires of a woman, not a girl.
Zeke smiled. "Shall we start in here on the couch like we did before, or go straight to the bedroom? Tell me," he coaxed when she blushed and remained silent. "I want to know what you want. I want to know everything you want." He brushed his lips across hers. "Tell me."
With an inarticulate cry, Ariel went up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his head down to hers, stopping the tantalizing flow of words.
There was a searing flash of heat as their mouths met, a fierce, fervent surge of blood that drowned all coherent thought in a tempestuous rush of sensation. Zeke crushed her in his arms, dragging her closer, tighter, forgetting, for the moment, that he meant to seduce and not ravage.
Yes, she thought, as she yielded herself to him. Yes, this was what she wanted. Needed. To be swept away, and swept along in the firestorm of his passion the way she had been last night, with no time to think or consider. She felt herself lifted up off the floor and she grasped him tighter, holding on, pressing desperate kisses to his jaw and throat as he carried her down the hall to the bedroom.
She caught a quick glimpse of their reflection in the old Victorian mirror as they passed it; a fleeting image of herself being swept away in Zeke's strong arms as he strode toward the bedroom. There was something else in the mirror, too, a flash of white, a flicker of something... or someone... but Ariel forgot all about it as Zeke turned sideways and shouldered open the bedroom door.
Yes, she exalted, as he laid her down on the bed. Yes, this was exactly what she wanted. To be overwhelmed. Overpowered. Taken.
But he wasn't cooperating.
"Ariel," he murmured raggedly, resisting the pull of her arms when she would have dragged him down on top of her. "Sweetheart, wait a minute. Please." He grasped her hands in his, pulling them away from his shoulders, pushing than down to the bed on either side of her head.
She moaned in distress and squirmed against him, trying to wriggle her hands out from under his.
"Ariel, sweetheart." He half groaned, half laughed, the sound breathless and rough and excited. "I thought you wanted to slow things down."
"Not this," she murmured, and arched against him so that her breasts grazed his chest.
Even through their layers of clothing, the contact was electric. Zeke moaned but sat up, managing to resist her siren's call. "Well, I want to take things slow. Slow is better sometimes," he said raggedly. "And I promised, remember?" He lifted one of the hands he held captive, bringing it to his lips. "Let me show you that you can trust me, sweetheart. Let me keep my promise."
He kissed her clenched fingers, nuzzling his lips against them until they opened. And then he kissed her palm, softly, and brushed his lips lightly back and forth over the scented, sensitive skin of her wrist, and then further, planting whisper soft kisses along the length of her arm to the pale, fragile skin at the crook of her elbow.
He heard her sigh, felt the tension in her begin to relax under his gentle, undemanding touch. The hand still beneath his on the bed opened under his urging, the slender fingers spreading to twine with his. She murmured, drugged with the sweet pleasure of his soft caresses, and turned her head on the pillow, arching her neck, offering it as his lips journeyed up her shoulder.
Yes, he thought, as he folded back the collar of her dress to feast on her throat. This was the way it should be, this sweet surrender, this soft, slow arousal of the senses. He wanted to evoke that first time all over again, when it had been nothing but good between them. And then he wanted to make it better. To bind her to him with the strong, silken bonds of pleasure and voluptuous satisfaction. To make her yearn for him the way he yearned for her. To make her ache with the same heated, helpless desire he felt every time he looked at her. He hadn't known how to do that twenty-five years ago, he hadn't had the patience or the skill, or the knowledge to do it. Now, he had all three and he meant to use them to his advantage. And hers.
He undressed her slowly, tenderly, pausing often for soft kisses and soothing, gentle caresses, murmuring breathless accolades to her beauty, touching her lightly, skillfully, holding himself back until she was hot and soft and utterly defenseless under his hands.
Ariel had thought she'd remembered what it was like to be loved by Zeke. The trembling excitement of it, the breathless pleasure, the flash and fire... but where had this mindless helplessness come from? This languid softness inside herself? She felt as if she were drifting, floating through a heated cloud, buoyed by the gentle brush of his hands on her skin. Her body was pliant to his slightest touch, her will nonexistent, her mind fogged with pleasure. She found herself naked without quite knowing how it had happened. And then he was naked, too, his body stretched out beside hers, long and hard and hot. The clouds in her mind parted, just a little, and the unfocused sensations of pleasure sharpened.
His lips skimmed down the center of her chest to pluck delicately at her nipples. His tongue laved them, caressing them to turgid life. The hand gently stroking the curve of her waist and hip slid around to knead the fleshy globe of her bottom. His hard, hair-roughened thigh slipped between hers, pressing up against the moist heated core of her desire. His erection rubbed insistently against the sensitive crease between her hip and the top of her thigh.
A bit more of Ariel's languor vanished. She sighed and lifted her arms to wrap them around him, silently demanding more. More kisses. Deeper caresses. More. She smoothed her hands over the hard curve of his biceps and up over his shoulder and down the long, strong muscles of his back, feeling them flex and bunch beneath her palms. She caressed the nape of his neck, curling her fingers into his dark, shaggy hair to hold him as he suckled her. More, she thought. I want more.
But the silent demands weren't frantic or hurried. Enough of the clouds remained to soften the harsh edges of desire, and she knew, instinctively, he would give her what she craved. What she needed. All she had to do was wait. Accept. Receive. Absorb.
She kept her hands in his hair as he moved his head down her body. Not directing or guiding his movement, but caressing only, her palms curved around the shape of his head, her fingers stroking lightly, needing to give back some of the tenderness he was giving her. Her thighs opened for him easily, soft and fluid as water, and she sighed when he parted her petaled folds with gentle fingertips and began to love her with his mouth.
The breathy sigh turned to a low moan, and then a gasp when the first small explosion of heat rolled through her. Her fingers tightened in his hair; her back lifted from the bed; the muscles in her stomach and long smooth thighs tensed. He let the tension recede—turning his head to brush his lips against the inside of each quivering thigh to soothe her—and then drove her up again, a little faster, a little higher, a little hotter. She moaned again, a plaintive sound of need and desire, and tugged on his hair. There was a shifting of bodies, a rearranging of limbs. And then he slipped into her, easily, perfectly.
Yes! The word could have been a murmur, or a sigh, or merely a shared thought as they lay very still, savoring the transcendent, sumptuous melding of their flesh.
And then, slowly, prodded by the steadily increasing heat, they roused themselves, answering the age-old call to mate. His movements within her were steady and strong, slow-burning this time, like the embers of a fire rather than the crackling, fast-burning flame. Her pelvis rolled up to meet each heavy, measured thrust of his hips, taking him deep, and then deeper, each time. She felt as if her body were a furnace, glowing red, molten, growing hotter and hotter with each slow, deliberate stroke. And then finally... finally... the last of the languor vanished altogether. The molten ember that was her body burst into a
white-hot flame, pulsating, throbbing with exquisite feeling. With a low, voluptuous groan of utter satisfaction, Ariel arched her back and gave herself up to the heat. And to him.
"I love you," he whispered, as the fire took him.
Ariel held him tight and let herself believe it.
* * *
They found fruit in Zeke's refrigerator, and smoked salmon and three kinds of cheese. A quick search of the cupboards yielded whole wheat crackers, a small round loaf of pumpernickel bread and a bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano Mint cookies. "A feast," Ariel said, as she arranged everything on a tray for him to carry into the living room.
They sat facing each other at opposite ends of the wide, cushy sofa, their feet stretched out, bare soles touching. Zeke wore his jeans and the slanting rays of sunlight streaming in through the open windows. Ariel had wrapped herself in the thick blue terry robe she'd found hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Zeke thought it made her eyes glow like sapphires.
"How did you end up here?" Ariel asked, gesturing at the room with the cookie she held in her fingers. "It's a surprisingly lovely apartment, given the location and everything, but somehow I don't quite see it as you. Not even for six weeks or so. I would have expected you just to get a suite at the Regent Beverly Wilshire or rent one of the bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel." Or bunk in with one of your women. The thought skipped through her mind—fleetingly—but she resolutely pushed it away. She was feeling too relaxed. Too mellow. Too... loved. And she didn't want anything to spoil the mood. "Why here?"
"I'm beginning to think it was fate."
"Fate?" She washed a bite of cookie down with a sip of mineral water. "How so?"
"I was actually on my way over to the Regent but—what with traffic the way it is and all the construction going on—I had to make a couple of detours. I was turning around in a driveway across the street when I looked up and saw the Wilshire Arms in my rearview mirror." He paused dramatically, instinctively, like the fine actor he was, to let the tension build. "The superintendent was right outside the courtyard, putting up an Apartment For Rent sign. The very same superintendent who was here twenty-five years ago."
"Coincidences happen every day."
"Maybe. Except there's more."
Ariel raised an eyebrow, inviting him to elaborate as she reached for another cookie.
"Do you remember Jack Shannon? Eric Shannon's younger brother?"
"Vaguely. I only met him once or twice—and so much else was going on back then. He was younger than the rest of you, wasn't he? Closer to my age, I think." Her forehead puckered as she tried to recall some elusive bit of information about Jack Shannon. "He was a writer, wasn't he?"
"Reporter," Zeke amended. "He's a married man now, covers the city beat for the Times." He gave her a slanted look, knowing how she would take his next words. "His wife's the same age as Cameron."
Ariel's expressive eyes narrowed with disapproval. "You're kidding."
"It's not what you're thinking," Zeke chided gently. "Well , it is, in a way, I guess but..." He shrugged. "You'd have to see them together to understand. They've both been kind of battered by life. She's a lot wiser than her years and, in a strange way, he's younger than his. They're good together," he said, unable to explain it any better. "You'll have to read Jack's screenplay to really understand about them. It's on the desk in my office." He grinned. "His wife sent it to me by special messenger."
"He's a screenwriter, too?"
Zeke nodded. "I've already told him I want to produce Lovers and Strangers. And I want the right of first refusal on anything else he writes."
"He's that good?"
Zeke nodded again. "And that's not all." He waited until she raised an impatient eyebrow at him. "He was also apartment 1-G's previous tenant. He and Faith—that's his wife's name—were moving out the day I stopped by to look at the place."
Ariel paused with her bottle of mineral water halfway to her mouth. "You mean he'd been living here all this time? In the building where his brother died? That's macabre."
"No," Zeke said. "He'd only been living here for a couple of months. He said he'd been—and I quote—'drawn back' to the place."
Ariel shivered in the warm room. "Because of his brother's death?"
"Partly. He said he'd never really come to grips with Eric's suicide and the reasons for it, so there were a lot of issues to resolve. He felt he had to come back here to resolve them."
"And did he?"
"He's made his peace with it." Zeke sat up and reached toward the tray on the coffee table, helping himself to a serving of smoked salmon and cream cheese on pumpernickel. "And he and Faith are very happy," he said, and popped the morsel into his mouth. "He's convinced that she was the main reason he was drawn back. Want one?"
"No, thanks." Ariel waved away his offer. "Why did he think his wife had a part in drawing him back? Was she involved in Eric's suicide somehow?"
"Hardly. Remember, she wasn't even born when Eric committed suicide. Jack met her right here in the Wilshire Arms, less than two months ago." He slanted a glance at her. "And that's where it gets really strange."
"Strange how?"
Zeke grinned and hummed a few bars of the theme from the Twilight Zone.
"Stop that," Ariel demanded, nudging his hip with her bare foot. "And tell me what you mean."
"Fate," Zeke said, grasping her foot in his hand to still it. "Destiny. Kismet." He stopped his teasing litany, suddenly remembering... Maybe it's your turn now, Jack had said to him. And then Irina Markova... You were meant to come back. Carl Mueller's ramblings about the woman in the mirror and her power to see into the future. Faith Shannon's assertions that the ghost was very real, indeed. Was it possible?
"Zeke?" Ariel sat up, unconsciously scooting closer to him on the sofa. She felt uneasy, suddenly. Edgy and restive without knowing why. "Don't go spooky on me."
"Oh, it's nothing, sweetheart." Deliberately, he shook his strange mood off and reached out, putting an arm around her shoulders to hug her close. "I was just teasing you," he said, and pressed a kiss on top of her head.
"Tell me," she demanded.
"It's just a sad, silly story about some poor girl who drowned in the swimming pool that used to be down in the courtyard. Somehow, it's achieved legend status over the years."
"So tell me," she said again. "I like a good ghost story as well as the next person."
So Zeke told her about the young woman who had died under mysterious circumstances, about the legend that had grown up around the same time about the appearances of a ghostly woman in the old mirror in 1-G and her alleged ability to herald boon or bane to those who were lucky—or unlucky—enough to see her.
"I think old Mueller's the one who keeps the legend alive," Zeke said, giving her shoulders a little squeeze before he let them go. "He's never seen her himself, of course, but apparently, he tells the story to everyone who moves in here. He's a strange old bird. Do you want any more of this?" he asked, gesturing at the tray.
Ariel shook her head, watching as he picked it up and carried it into the kitchen. And then, when he was no longer in sight, her gaze wandered, inevitably, over to the mirror.
Had she seen something there when he carried her to bed? Someone? And if she had, was that someone trying to tell her that believing in Zeke's love would make all her dreams come true? Or warn her that her ex-husband was about to break her heart again?
Chapter 13
"Last chance to change your mind," Zeke whispered, bending his head so that only his daughter could hear him. "If we leave now no one would even notice until it was too late to stop us. I could have you halfway to Mexico before—"
Cameron jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. "Oh, Dad," she said, trying not to giggle and spoil the solemnity of the moment. "Behave."
"What?" he demanded in a deliberately injured tone, rubbing his side as if she had really hurt him. "What did I say? I was only trying to help you out of this mess you've gotten yourself into."<
br />
Cameron turned her head, giving him a knowing look through the misty tulle of her veil. "I know what you're trying to do." She tilted her head, touching her temple to his shoulder for just a moment in one of her typical gestures of affection. "And I love you for it, Daddy."
Zeke felt a lump the size of a baseball form in his throat. His daughter was getting married. His baby girl. He'd been talking nonstop nonsense to her all the way over to the church, giving her something to think about besides the butterflies he knew were fluttering around beneath the Chantilly lace of her tight-waisted wedding gown.
Now, suddenly, he couldn't have uttered another word to save his life. His baby was getting married!
"It's almost time," Leslie Fine said. She moved around behind them, making small adjustments to Cameron's already perfectly arranged train, tweaking the side of her veil into even more perfect folds around her shining blond head. "Wait just another moment and..." The five-note trumpet herald faded into silence and the first strains of the "Wedding March" swelled through the church. "Now," she said and touched Zeke's shoulder to get him started.
He couldn't seem to make his feet move.
"It's okay, Dad," Cameron whispered, patting his arm with the hand she had linked through his elbow. "There's nothing to be nervous about."
Zeke looked down to find his daughter smiling up at him through the gossamer sheerness of her veil, her face as calm and serene as the Madonna's, her dark eyes glowing with happiness, her nervousness miraculously gone now that they were finally ready to start.
"I love you, baby," Zeke murmured, forcing the words through the lump in his throat. And then, covering the cool, slender fingers that lay on his sleeve with the warmth of his hand, he started his daughter down the aisle toward her future.
His mind was all on Cameron as they paced slowly down the center aisle of the church. Pictures of her as she had been at different stages of her life kaleidoscoped through his mind in rapid succession. He remembered the sunshine brilliance of her wide, toothless baby grin and the way she used to raise her arms, demanding to be picked up whenever she saw him. He remembered the determined way she would toddle after him whenever he brought her on the set, ignoring the blandishments of the cast and crew in favor of being her father's faithful shadow. He remembered the way she'd always come flying into his arms whenever he picked her up from school, eager to show him her latest drawing or the A she'd got on her spelling test. He remembered, too, the way she had always come running to her daddy to make it better, whether it was a skinned knee or a project gone wrong or a thoughtless boy who'd broken her heart.
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