She’d undressed for an audience that wasn’t there. She’d offered her body to an empty room. She’d been playing a love scene, the love scene of her life, all alone.
‘What did you say?’ Marcus called from the bathroom.
‘Uh…nothing!’ she cried out, panicked, her hands scrambling for the robe, digging into the sleeves—Damn! Wrong sleevesl she cursed silently.
‘Cute.’
Her head flew up and she gasped, blue eyes wide as she gazed at Marcus’s silhouette in the bathroom doorway.
‘You have it on backwards, you know.’
Her mouth twitched in a weak smile. ‘Really?’
He shook his head fondly and ducked back into the bathroom while Rebecca scurried away from the light of the fire, into the shadows beyond, clutching the panels of the robe closed over her buttocks. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ she muttered under her breath, arms fumbling within the robe to turn it around without actually taking it off. God knew when he might come out of the bathroom for good, maybe flip on a lightswitch and catch her doing this asinine comedy routine…‘Ouch!’
Her toes had slammed into something hard during her struggles, and she doubled over to clutch at them, robe on frontwards at last, but gaping wide as she hopped on one foot, holding the other.
‘What on earth…?’
She shot straight up, grabbed the sides of the robe and jerked them closed just as the room was flooded with harsh light from an overhead fixture.
Marcus was standing just outside the bathroom, his hand still on the wall switch, frowning in her direction. Rebecca stood immobile, a strange, clenched-teeth smile frozen on her face.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked uncertainly.
Her head jerked up and down furiously until she remembered to stop it.
His gaze traveled from her face down to where her bare toes peeked from beneath the piled folds of the robe’s hem. ‘It’s much too long for you to walk in. Did you trip?’
She extended her neck to peer down at her toes, then raised only her eyes to look at him. ‘Almost,’ she whispered. ‘Stubbed my toe.’
His brows twitched, then his hand swept down over the wall switch and the room was blessedly dark again. Pathetically grateful, Rebecca fumbled for the robe’s belt and tied it closed with a tug so vicious that she nearly took her own breath away.
His voice moved around the room as he talked. ‘You shouldn’t be walking around in the dark anyway. Here.’ A small lamp on the other side of the room shot a golden cone of light on to a paneled wall when he turned it on. ‘That’s better,’ he murmured, crossing to another lamp and turning it on as well.
She watched him warily, noticing that he’d changed into dry clothes—faded jeans and a white shirt he hadn’t had time to button yet. It flapped open as he walked, exposing a triangle of dark on a golden chest, a flash of rigid stomach muscles rippling down to his waistband. The sleeves were rolled almost to his elbows, and his feet were bare.
He’s dressed and you’re not, her mind taunted her. He’s wearing clothes and you’re buck naked under this thing…
‘I think…I think I’ll go up and put on some dry clothes,’ she said hastily as he started across the room toward her. She took a step backward as he drew near, bumping into something she hadn’t even sensed behind her, nearly stumbling.
His arm shot out and grabbed hers, steadying her. ‘Take it easy, Becca,’ he murmured, tugging her gently into the circle of one arm, frowning when he felt her shiver. ‘You’re still chilled,’ he muttered. ‘My fault, dammit. I should have known better.’
Rebecca’s mouth tightened in a grim smile as she let him guide her back to the settee. She wasn’t about to tell him her shivering had nothing to do with being cold.
‘Let yourself warm up a little longer first before you go upstairs to change.’ He pushed her gently to a sitting position, then gazed down at her, his hand cupping her cheek with a tenderness so profound that it was all Rebecca could do not to press her hand over his, to make it stay there forever. ‘I’ll be a while in the kitchen anyway.’ His head tipped to one side and his frown deepened, tightening the skin around his eyes. ‘Sorry about that.kid stuff out there. I don’t know what came over me, rolling you around in the snow in that silly California dress of yours…’ His lips closed abruptly.
‘Kid stuff?’ Rebecca asked weakly.
He dropped his hand, looked away for a moment, his eyes nostalgic. That’s just what it was like, you know—being a kid again. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I felt anything remotely like that.’ He shook his head and looked back down at her, smiling softly. ‘What a gift you gave me tonight, Rebecca Hutchinson,’ he murmured, and then he left her.
You think that was a gift? she thought miserably as her eyes followed him to the door. You should have seen the one you almost got.
For a long time after the double doors closed behind him, Rebecca sat with her hands folded primly in her lap, staring at the fire, trying to put the puzzle of Marcus Flint together in her mind.
It didn’t help, being so hopelessly inexperienced with men. She’d read, of course, that men were more controlled by sexual impulse than women, that it was women who usually gave hearts first and bodies second, while men could ignore the order altogether. Was that what had happened tonight? Had the romp in the snow and the childish snowball fight released the boy in Marcus, a boy who had been long oppressed by the pain and loss of adulthood? Had he then simply been swept away by biological urges that only an adult could control, stopping only when he’d come to his senses and realized what was happening?
She steepled her fingers between her brows, trying to push back the scowl that was giving her a headache. You’re lucky, Rebecca, she told herself over and over again. A less honorable man would not have stopped at all with such a willing woman beneath him. A less honorable man would have damned the consequences and taken you right then, out there in the snow, and then perhaps again in here by the fire…
She placed her elbows on her knees and covered her eyes with her hands, a moment of weakness making her wonder just what was so damn good about all this honor anyway.
A sudden wave of weariness pressed down on her shoulders, her neck, her arms. Rebecca, she told herself with a rueful smile, you’ve had a very, very busy day. She remembered her panic at learning Victor wouldn’t be coming, the long walk across the meadow and up the hill, the hard labor of stacking wood in the little shed and then the trip to the hospital and the snow. Lord, had all that happened today?
She shivered a little, physical and emotional exhaustion letting her feel the cold at last. She eased down on a folded arm and gazed tiredly at the fire, tucking her legs up beneath the heavy robe. Her eyes blinked, then forgot to blink, then her lashes drifted down to rest lightly on her cheeks, and stayed there.
Rebecca awakened in stages, one sense at a time. Her nostrils flared slightly, breathing in the mingled scents that recalled Marcus’s bedroom—wood burning in the fireplace, the forest smell she had noticed earlier, and the very faint aroma of something delicious, as if a plate of mouth-watering food had been passed under her nose, and then whisked away.
She heard the soft sound of her own exhalation, the muted crumble of a wood fragment falling through the fireplace grate, and nothing else. It was very quiet.
Her eyes opened on the dying embers of the fire, and she blinked, disoriented. She must have been asleep for hours.
There was a back-glow from the lamps that were obviously still lit in the room behind her, providing enough illumination to see the puffy down comforter that covered her. She smiled at that, tugging it up under her chin and snuggling beneath its warmth, imagining Marcus covering her tenderly as she slept.
Marcus. She jerked instantly to a sitting position, her eyes darting left, then right, then softening when they found him.
He’d pulled a chair and ottoman close to the fire, angling it so that it faced the settee. He was watching me, she thought, feeling her heart
lift in her chest. He was watching over me as I slept.
He was asleep himself now, leaning back with his legs up, his head thrown back, lids closed smoothly over quiet eyes. A plaid afghan covered his legs and feet, but the white shirt still gaped open over his chest. His hands hung over the ends of the chair-arms, long, strong fingers slightly curled in complete relaxation.
Rebecca’s eyes traveled up the exposed forearms, where a pattern of dark hairs dipped and curved over the pronounced musculature, up further to the broad shoulders and then to the magnificently masculine face, more heart-stopping in sleep that it had been awake.
Her lips parted unconsciously as she drank in the sight by inches, memorizing the wayward strands of black that fell so persistently, so boyishly over the broad sweep of his unlined brow, the strong, straight nose and the bold line of his jaw. She focused briefly on the sharply defined mouth, then caught her breath at the immediate tactile memory of what that mouth had felt like on her breast. She looked away quickly, her face hot.
She sat in utter silence for a moment, staring at the soot-blackened bricks behind the fire, breathing shallowly through her mouth.
Think of something else, she commanded herself, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she tried to concentrate. Remember that he apologized for what happened between you outside; remember that to him it was merely a thoughtless, impulsive act he called ‘kid stuff’.
She sighed wistfully, turned her eyes left to a small wooden tray table that had been placed near the settee. Her nose twitched at the faint aroma of food.
The tray was crowded with a coffee service, cups, bowls, a basket covered with a linen napkin, and a small chafing dish with a silver lid. She leaned over her knees, inhaling deeply. Something wonderful was in that dish—something that might have gone cold long ago, but its tantalizing aroma still lingered.
He brought you a supper by the fire, and he watched over you while you slept.
She scowled at the way her own thoughts zeroed in on meaningless things, trying desperately to make them seem profound. Stop it, she commanded herself. So he brought supper in on a tray—you think that’s an act of love? Waiters do that much. And he wasn’t watching over you while you slept. That’s just plain stupid. He pulled a chair close to the fire to be warm, that’s all. For God’s sake, Rebecca, grow up.
Her scowl deepened as she glared at the covered chafing dish, reached tentatively for the silver lid, then decided it would make too much noise. Instead she lifted the napkin from the bread basket, uncovering a stack of rolls. She plucked one out, suddenly ravenous, and bit into it viciously. Already crisped by the drying effect of the fire, the roll’s crust crackled, making a terrible noise in the quiet room. Rebecca’s jaw went rigid and her eyes darted right to make sure Marcus was still asleep. She held the bite in her mouth for long seconds, then slid quietly from beneath the comforter and tiptoed around the settee, watching his face anxiously. Still watching, she finally chewed and swallowed, releasing a relieved breath when he didn’t stir.
She lifted the roll to her mouth again and turned to face the rest of the room, but stopped halfway, stunned.
The woods are in the house, she thought crazily, gaping at a long wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that faced the wooded hillside. Apparently Marcus had turned on the outside lights as she slept, and now they flooded a magical landscape, highlighting snow-encrusted tree trunks and gracefully drooping leaves that glittered like sequinned icing.
Gathering the skirt of the terry robe and lifting it clear of the floor, she moved like one in a dream toward the window and stopped right next to it, backing up a step when her breath fogged the glass.
Beautiful, she mouthed soundlessly, impatiently blinking back tears that threatened to blur the sight that had inspired them.
She stood motionless at the window for a long time, memorizing the sparkling fairyland outside much as she had memorized the contours of Marcus’s sleeping face.
Finally, reluctantly, she turned her back to the window and let her eyes travel the width and breadth of the room she had barely noticed earlier. Marcus had been the sole focus of her attention then, his surroundings an ill-defined backdrop that was utterly unimportant. But this was his room, and now her eyes touched the things that were his, the things he saw last at the end of every day, savoring every one.
The room was larger than it had seemed in the dark, with only a few pieces of carefully placed furniture, none of which interrupted the line of sight from anywhere in the room to the outside wall of glass. A massive bed dominated the darkly paneled wall opposite the fireplace, its maroon and green striped spread nearly buried at the headboard beneath a tumbled pile of pillows. There were nightstands on either side of the bed, bearing the lamps he’d turned on earlier and a clutter of books. There were more books in the cases that flanked the fireplace, still more piled on the towering armoire on the inside wall. A forest of green plants crowded each corner of the room, and she smiled at the towering Norway pines in their massive pots, the graceful fronds of ferns quivering in unseen air currents, remembering the woodsy smells she had identified, even in the dark.
There were no knick-knacks, no wall-hangings, no objets d’art in this room—nothing to detract from the beauty of nature beyond the glass wall, reality’s artwork that changed with the seasons.
Everything is here, she realized, right in this room. Nature’s feast for the eyes, literature’s feast for the soul.
Not unlike your own room, another errant, pathetic thought crept upward from the desperate depths of her mind. You both live in the views from your windows and in the books that clutter the stands by your empty beds. Do you see how alike you are?
Rebecca turned her head slowly and gazed back across the room at Marcus’s still sleeping figure, thinking that, for all the beauty that was in this room, that chair held the most beautiful thing of all.
No, she told herself. We’re not alike at all.
And then, sadly, without a single thought of propriety, she crawled up on to the enormous bed and curled into a ball, pulling the folds of the thick terry robe close around her. She gazed out the window for a moment, then rolled her head to look back at Marcus. He was the last thing she saw before she fell asleep for the second time that night.
She wakened to the weak gray light of early morning filtering through the window and into the room. Instantly alert, she sat up on Marcus’s bed and covered the room in a single sweeping glance.
The fireplace was black and cold, the tray table was gone, the chair empty. Outside the window, the snow was already failing from laden leaves and branches in wet clumps that she imagined would make a wonderful plopping sound if she could only hear them. Graceful shadows wove between the tree trunks, blurred in the thin light, and then suddenly Rebecca focused on one and jumped to her knees on the bed, fists knotted and pressed to her thighs in excitement.
‘Marcus,’ she murmured under her breath without moving her lips. ‘Marcus!’ came a little louder now, a tight squeal that sounded as if it was trapped in her throat. ‘Marcus, Marcus, Marcus!’ she whisper-shouted over and over, her eyes riveted to the elegant shapes of deer moving through the forest right toward her.
At last she heard the double doors to the hall open inward, and felt him rushing toward the bed. ‘What is it? Becca? Are you all—? Oh.’ He stopped at the foot of the bed, chuckling softly as his eyes drifted from the window back to her awestruck face. ‘You like the deer?’
Her eyes never strayed from the window. ‘Look-look at them,’ she whispered. ‘Aren’t they beautiful? Aren’t they amazing? Can you believe we’re seeing this…?’
‘They are beautiful and amazing,’ he agreed, ‘and I see them every morning. They come for the corn at that little feeding station, see?’ He walked boldly toward the window and tapped the glass, pointing.
Rebecca had gasped when he’d moved toward the glass, afraid that the deer would panic and bolt away, but they only lifted their elegant heads, blinked languidl
y, then went back to eating, totally unconcerned. They’re not afraid of you,’ she murmured in amazement.
‘Of course not. They grew accustomed to me long ago.’ He turned and smiled at the innocent wonder in her expression, and for the first time her eyes stuttered up to his, then back to the deer.
‘You are the luckiest person in the world,’ she whispered fervently, ‘and this is the most magical place on earth. I would give anything to…’ She stopped abruptly.
‘You would give anything to what, Becca?’ he asked quietly, and she could feel his eyes on her as she frowned and looked down at her hands, still fisted on her knees.
‘What time is it?’ she mumbled.
‘Early. Barely seven. Are you hungry?’
She looked up at the deer again, wishing she could do nothing for the rest of the day but sit here quietly and watch them. ‘I had a roll in the middle of the night,’ she murmured, still gazing out the window.
‘I noticed. That was a long time ago.’
She nodded absently. ‘I’m sorry your supper was wasted. It smelled wonderful. You should have wakened me.’
‘Not for all the money in the world.’
She turned her head slowly and gazed up at him, the tiniest of smiles tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘We never even had a chance to talk about what I learned at the hospital.’
His eyes were a soft, feathery gray, steady on hers. ‘I’m not sure I care about that.’
Rebecca’s eyes wandered over his face, noticing that he’d shaved, wondering how he’d managed to do that so quietly. He’d changed clothes, too, trading the jeans and white shirt he’d slept in for a V-neck sweater of soft blue, and loosely fitting black pants. ‘You have to care,’ she insisted gently. ‘It might be important.’
He sighed noisily and looked down, shoving his hands in his pockets. He spoke very quietly. ‘For almost a year now I’ve thought of little else except the night Johnny died, what Charity did to him, what she was trying to do to me…No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It consumed my life, muddied everything I saw and did…’ He looked up at her quietly. ‘It all disappeared for a while last night. Last night, for the first time, I was free of it. It was. intoxicating.’
Dangerous Attraction Page 12
