“It?”
“Whatever made her tell him to go to hell. Given his history, my guess is another woman.”
Don said something scathing and profane under his breath. “She isn’t weakening, is she?”
“I hope not. But I know it’s tough on her, seeing her twin with a husband and a kid, and she doesn’t have anyone at all.”
“She could marry Tony and still not have anyone,” Don said sardonically.
“She figured that out all by herself. That doesn’t make being alone any easier.”
“You ought to know.”
Archer shrugged, but his eyes were the color of steel. “I’ve seen too much. Done too much. I’m not a good bet for hearth and home.”
For a moment Don was too surprised to say anything. Then it was too late. Jake was coming down the hall carrying a happily crowing Summer. She was sitting on his broad shoulders with his hand braced behind her back. Her little fists were buried in his dark hair. She was holding on hard enough to make his eyes slant.
“Make way, make way,” Jake said from down the hall. “Summer the Magnificent is coming through. Closely followed by Lianne the Gigantic.”
Lianne gave Jake a swat on the butt as she walked past him. “Gigantic, huh? Watch it, big guy. I’ll dump you on your pride and joy.”
“Not for a few months you won’t.”
“I’ve got a long memory.” She winked at Archer and smiled at The Donovan. “It’s a shame how you got all the looks in the family, Dad.”
He held out his arms and gave her a hug that lifted her right off the floor. “How’s my favorite jade expert?”
“He’s in the kitchen making icing, last I heard.”
“I meant you, beautiful, not that tall blond ox you married.”
“I’m fine. Eating for three.”
“I hope they’re girls. The world needs more women like you.”
Lianne’s whiskey-colored eyes darkened with emotion. The generous acceptance she had found in the Donovan family kept surprising her. Her in-laws truly loved her like a daughter. And she loved them right back. She kissed The Donovan on both cheeks, hugged him hard, and grinned up at him as he set her back on her feet with the easy precision of a man whose lifelong love was fourteen inches and one hundred pounds smaller than he was.
Summer gurgled and bounced and held out her arms toward her grandfather. Don picked her off her father’s shoulders and started making gobbling noises against her tummy. Squealing with laughter, Summer grabbed his thick, silver-streaked hair.
“How is Susa?” Lianne asked Archer as the others drifted off in the direction of the kitchen.
“Looking and moving like her old self.”
The relief on Lianne’s face sent warmth through Archer. He cupped her cheek in one hand. “Kyle is a lucky man.”
She smiled, but the eyes searching his were intent. She sensed the turmoil beneath his outward calm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing that you can cure.” He bent and kissed her. “But thanks for caring.”
“That’s what families are for.”
He thought of Len, who had never known a real family and had refused one when it was offered. And of Hannah, who had never known real love and had refused it when it was offered. Sex was all she wanted. Cold screwing. No emotion required or desired.
“How are my nieces?” Archer asked, putting his hand on Lianne’s round, tightly stretched belly.
“Nieces,” she said, rolling her eyes, but she guided his hand to the side, where one of the twins was doing backflips. “You and Dad. What if I have boys?”
This time Archer’s smile reached his eyes as a tiny foot or elbow drummed against his palm. “Susa will lecture you on training them young, really young, because they’re going to be big, really big trouble.”
“Huh. Like your twin sisters never got in trouble.”
“Of course they did. I led them down the primrose path every chance I got.”
“Until they started wearing bras,” Lianne said dryly. “Then you turned into a conservative monster.”
“I knew how gullible they were. Somebody had to protect them.”
She laughed. “That’s not how they saw it.”
“Sisters never appreciate their brothers.”
“I appreciate you, even though you hated me on sight.”
“I didn’t hate you.”
“Could have fooled me.”
Archer bent and kissed her nose. “I was worried you were taking Kyle for the kind of ride that would break his heart—and the rest of him, too.”
She patted Archer’s hand where it lay on her restless belly. “I know. You’re very protective of the people you love.” She looked at him, measuring the changes. Tension where there had been relaxation. Ice where there had been laughter. Ruthlessness where there had been gentleness. She hadn’t seen him like this since the night they had sneaked onto an island and stolen a priceless jade burial shroud. There had been danger then, but there was no danger here and now, no reason for his fierce wariness. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his bristly chin. “We love you anyway. C’mon, let’s go get our share of chocolate icing before Kyle eats it all.”
“Icing?” said Faith from the hallway leading to the suites. “Did I hear rumors of chocolate icing?”
“Rumors will be all that’s left unless we hurry,” Lianne muttered. “My husband can be trusted with a lot of things. Chocolate icing isn’t one of them.”
Faith’s smile gave a gleam to her silver-blue eyes that hadn’t been there when she woke up from her nap. She had had to nerve herself up to deal with the happy marriages of her sister and brother. It wasn’t that she was jealous of her siblings. She simply ached to have that kind of partnership herself, to love a man and know that he loved her no matter what, to tickle her own baby and laugh when her baby laughed.
Simple things. Impossible things. At least for her. It had been a bitter admission to make, but it was better than continuing to live with Tony and kidding herself that it would all turn out okay in the end.
“When are Justin and Lawe coming in?” Faith asked.
“Not until the end of the week,” Lianne answered. “They’re still in Brazil.”
“What happened? I thought Walker was flying down to bring them back.”
“He was,” Archer said. “When they went to take off, he didn’t like the feel of the plane, so he aborted. Last I heard, the three of them were up to their ears in engine parts and bad language.”
Faith worried her lower lip with her teeth.
“Don’t fret,” Archer said. “Walker is a careful man. They’ll be fine.” He drew Faith to his side in a one-armed hug. “You’re looking good. I like that new haircut. Short and sassy.”
“Tony didn’t,” she said absently, still thinking about her missing twin brothers. “He had a fit when I cut it.”
“Tony’s an anal orifice,” Archer said.
“I know. Finally.” She put her arm around Archer’s lean waist and Lianne’s swollen one. “Tell me, bro. How could a man as big as Tony be so small?”
“It’s the nature of assholes to be small.”
Lianne snorted. She hadn’t liked Tony at all.
“Yeah.” Faith tossed her head, making her short, sleek blond hair gleam. “So how could a smart woman like me be so dumb about a man?”
“A question for the ages,” Archer said.
Lianne gave her sister-in-law a squeeze. “You’re not the only one, Faith. A few years ago I was up to my lips in an affair with a man who didn’t want me. He just wanted a back door into the Tang family.”
Faith looked at her petite sister-in-law. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“How did you figure it out?”
“I didn’t. He dumped me.” She smiled thinly. “Being smart doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes. It just means you learn from them.”
As Archer gestured the women ahead of him into the kitchen, he wondered what he would learn from the mistake he had made with Hannah. Then he saw her standing next to his parents, listening intently to something Susa was saying, holding Summer while the baby gnawed on the big blue diamond Hannah still wore. He went still at the happy family portrait. When his mother glanced up and saw him, she nodded as though he had said, What do you think, Mom? Is this one a keeper?
If that wasn’t bad enough, his father had the same gleam in his eye that he did whenever he glanced from Lianne to Kyle, silently saying, Good job, son. This one will go the distance.
But Hannah wouldn’t. Not with him. The sooner his parents knew, the less it would hurt when they found out. Like yanking a bandage off—a gasp, a burn, and then it was over and healing could begin.
“There you are,” Don said to Archer. “I was just telling Hannah about Len’s mother. Figured she should know about us.”
Archer barely managed not to say, Why? Instead, he gave his mother a sidelong glance.
Susa smiled at him. “I know it continually surprises you, but your father and I both had lives before we met each other. Not nearly as good as the lives we had after we met, but lives just the same. Don was explaining to Hannah—so tactfully that the point was all but buried—that even at sixteen he knew the difference between lust and love. Len’s mother was cold and ruthless, but very sexy. Great material for a wild affair.”
Archer reached for the bandage.
And yanked.
“Hannah doesn’t have any trouble grasping that principle,” he said neutrally. “She feels the same way about me. Great sex. No future, because I’m cold and ruthless. Like Len. So you can get that warm glow out of your eyes, Mom and Dad. She’s not going to make an honest man of me.”
Silence spread through the room.
Hannah flushed, then went pale except for a line of red high on both cheekbones. “Bastard.”
“Notice she didn’t call me a liar,” he said to his parents.
“Bloody bastard.”
Archer gave her an ironic bow. “At your service. Quite literally.” He walked up to the icing bowl, ran his finger around the rim, and licked thoroughly. “Mmm. Your best yet, Kyle. Where’s the cake?”
The condominium was so quiet that Hannah couldn’t use city noise as a reason for her insomnia. She rolled over, punched the pillow into a new shape, and closed her eyes. The soft silk she wore—one of Archer’s old shirts—slithered up her hips like a lover.
At your service. Quite literally.
Put that way, it sounded so cold. The fact that it was true made it worse. She would never forget the shock in Lianne’s eyes, in Faith’s eyes, and the way the two women had gone to stand on either side of Archer as though to defend him from an attack. He had smiled at them, the kind of tender smile he once had given to Hannah, and told them to relax, it was all right. Just because Hannah doesn’t want me as a husband is no reason to be hard on her. She’s not the first person to think I’m a ruthless son of a bitch. She won’t be the last.
With that, Archer had led the conversation around to other topics—Faith’s newest jewelry designs, Jake’s negotiations for more Baltic amber, Lawe’s surprising decision to come home for a time, Justin’s unflagging love of wild country, and the end of the salmon-fishing season. Pearls hadn’t been mentioned. Neither had Len.
By the end of the evening, it was as though Archer had never said anything about Hannah’s opinion of him. The Donovans talked and laughed with her, washed dishes and tickled the baby with her, and generally made her feel at home.
Until she looked over and saw Archer watching her with icy eyes. No home there. No warmth. Just truth used against her like a sword.
At your service.
Heat snaked through her. She told herself it was anger. She had a right to it. He had embarrassed her in front of his family. He was exactly as she thought: cold and ruthless.
So why did she see him every time she closed her eyes, hear him whispering as his mouth moved over her, need him until she wanted to curl into a ball and cry?
There was no answer for her question but the twisting, gnawing ache that was both lust and something more dangerous, something she fled from even before she admitted to herself that it existed. Yet she kept circling around it like a wary moon orbiting a dark planet. Whatever Archer was or wasn’t, he had come halfway across the world when she had asked, had put himself at risk for her, and had given her staggering pleasure.
In return, she had told him that he wasn’t fit to be her husband or father to her children in any way but the most basic biological one. Truth wielded like a sword, wielded against a man whose only sin against her had been to help her.
Reluctantly Hannah admitted that they owed each other an apology. Not for the truth, but for the method of telling it.
She unclenched her fists, took a deep breath, and punched number six on the lighted pad.
His voice floated out of the intercom speaker. “Yes?”
“Archer, I—”
“I’ll be right there.”
The intercom went dead.
Glumly, slowly, she got out of bed. She was enough of a coward that she would rather have apologized via intercom, but she had too much pride to insist on it. She went to the hall door and opened it a crack.
Archer’s hand pushed it the rest of the way. He was dressed in a pair of jeans he obviously had just pulled on. They were only half fastened. “Do you need protection?”
“No, I—”
She never finished the sentence. His mouth was over hers, breaking it open, taking it in a kiss as hot as it was deep. His hands kneaded her breasts and plucked at her nipples until her breathing fragmented into moans and her body went slack. His knee pushed apart her legs until she was riding his thigh. Holding her with one arm around her, he used his fingers to bring her to the shattering edge of orgasm. Writhing, breathing brokenly, she demanded that he take her.
He sent her over the edge alone.
While she was still shivering and crying, he put her on the bed, pushed her thighs apart, and opened his jeans the rest of the way. He was fully erect, already dressed for sex in a high-tech condom. Kneeling, he pulled her up his thighs and buried himself in her. Hips pumping, he drove her back to the edge. And held her there.
For Hannah it was like being caught in a wild, hot wave. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. She could only tumble out of control, darkness storming around her, blind ecstasy transforming her. Then came the lull between the waves, a lull that never quite let her catch her breath before another wave rolled over her, spinning her out toward the edge of consciousness, building and building and building until she could hold her breath no longer. Then she breathed in ecstasy and drowned.
Another wave came, rising, building, teaching her that she hadn’t died. Not yet. She was still alive, still breathing, still feeling the next wave sweep up to her, lifting her, blinding her, ravishing her. This time she rode the sensual wave with primal abandon, turning and balancing, twisting and grappling, taking and demanding until all colors exploded into black and she screamed, drowning again.
And he was the seething, powerful wave she drowned in. He moved over her, inside her, around her. In the savage, glittering darkness that smelled and tasted of sex, her breath sobbed and shattered and re-formed again after each climax.
Finally she was boneless, weightless, spinning and falling, echoes of ecstasy beating in her like a runaway heart. With the last of her strength, she said his name.
“More?” Archer asked.
A shake of her head was all she could manage. Sighing, she reached out to curl up against him.
Her hands found only emptiness. He was already out of her bed, out of her reach, walking away. He didn’t take time to dress because he had never taken time to undress.
With trembling hands, she pulled down the silk shirt that was wadded up beneath her armpits while understanding broke o
ver her in a different, colder wave. He had played her like an instrument. No tenderness, no holding; just raw, hot sex, as much of it as she could take.
A stud at her service.
Eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, Hannah remembered the way it had been in Australia. Hot, yes. God yes. Yet there had been tenderness as well as fire, sweetness as well as rending ecstasy.
Archer had understood it before she had. He had told her. Sex can wait until hell freezes over. Making love, now, that’s different. But then she hadn’t understood the difference between having sex and making love with Archer.
She understood it now.
With swift motions she ripped off the borrowed wedding rings and dropped them on the bedside table. It was a long time before she fell asleep, holding on to herself because she had no one else to hold her.
Fire all around and screams echoing. Len dumping Archer’s battered, bleeding body at Hannah’s feet. The shabby room vanished in Len’s laughter. She was in the center of a riot with blood all over her hands, her body.
Archer’s blood.
It was everywhere. She couldn’t carry him, couldn’t drag him, couldn’t get out of the violence that roared around her, black fire and red blood and screams like exploding glass. He had to get up, wake up, walk. Wake up! WakeupwakeupWAKEUP!
His eyes opened. He looked at her, through her, stripping her to her soul; but he didn’t know. He was blind, living only in pain, blood everywhere.
“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I didn’t think you would be hurt. I thought you were too hard to ever be hurt.”
Then he died and she screamed and screamed, her voice rising and falling, her hand clenched around a broken oyster shell while Len’s laughter rolled over her screams and midnight broke like thunder over her, destroying her.
Hannah awoke in a rush, all at once, her heart hammering frantically, her own words echoing in her mind. I didn’t think you would be hurt. I thought you were too hard to ever be hurt. Cold sweat covered her. Tears blinded her. She couldn’t breathe. She shuddered wrenchingly, rolled onto her side, and fought not to throw up.
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