by Gayle Wilson
“I don’t think you would know the meaning of those words. Are you always so responsive?” he asked seriously.
“I didn’t know I could feel like that,” she answered with the simple truth.
“Go to sleep. You are making me want you again, and I need to sleep. Tomorrow night…will you let Diego bring you to me?”
“I thought you were going to walk away in the morning, and I was just going to be one of your pleasant memories.”
“I think this memory will be too pleasant for that.” His lips found her temple, and he kissed her gently, without passion, but not without feeling. “Forgive me, my heart. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I can make no promises. There are too many problems that can’t be resolved even by what we feel for one another.”
“We could go away. Somewhere where no one would ever find us.”
“Would you do that? Give up your life to run and hide with me? Think, querida.“
“No, I can’t think. If I think, I don’t know what to do. I just want to feel. To feel again what we just felt. And then I have no doubts about anything.”
“Kiss me,” he demanded suddenly, finding her mouth. He tasted her lips slowly, carefully, his tongue seeking hers and engaging in a joining as deep as their bodies had shared.
She felt the tears begin as she thought of the distance that lay between them. He found the moisture when he kissed her eyelids, and he propped his body on one elbow, leaning over hers, and used his thumb to wipe away her tears.
“Why are you crying? God, I wish I could see your face. Don’t cry, my heart. We have tonight. Nothing can take away what we’ve had tonight.”
“I’m afraid that’s all we’ll have. You said—”
“I said a lot of very foolish things. As long as I can. As long as it’s possible. And when the time comes—”
“Don’t say it.”
“And when the time comes,” he repeated relentlessly, “you go back into the light. You can’t live in the darkness I would condemn you to. You are too beautiful, too fine, to be imprisoned in my world. The choice is not yours, querida, but mine.”
“And I’ll have no say, no voice in that decision?”
“You don’t decide with your mind. You make decisions with your heart.”
“But that’s not wrong, you Latin chauvinist.”
He laughed, touching her forehead with his lips. “Not wrong, but not logical. Not reasoned. Not unemotional.”
“And you’re so controlled,” she mocked. “I was here with you, remember? I heard the things you said.”
“A man isn’t responsible for what he says when he’s making love to the woman—” He broke the sentence, but she felt the thought, felt it and wanted him to acknowledge it.
“To the woman?”
“To whatever woman is in his arms.”
“One of many pleasant memories.” She could hear the bitterness in her voice.
“The most pleasant of all. And I think perhaps I am not so tired as I imagined.”
He lowered his head to her breasts. His tongue laved in tender spirals, delicately, until she pushed upward into his touch. She heard him laugh, but he took the peak into his mouth, sucking strongly, and then gently nibbling the distended nipple. She gasped with the pleasure and felt her body lift against his, trying to bring herself in contact with the strength that had filled her before.
“Patience. You have no patience,” he admonished softly. “You’re like a child.” The richness of his voice washed over her.
“Love me,” she begged.
“I am. All of you. Every inch will be mine.” He lowered his head again and his tongue trailed down her sensitized skin to bury in her navel. “Branded,” he taunted, and she knew she was. Her fingers moved to lock into his hair, and she held his head as his lips teased and caressed. “Marked,” he whispered. His mouth moved lower and lower. “Memorized,” he breathed against the softness where her legs met. Again she was boneless, mindless, her resistance melting into his promise, and then his tongue caressed the center of her soul.
This time he didn’t make her wait. She writhed beneath him, gasping her need into the night—until she knew that if this was his darkness, then she was lost already, for she couldn’t give up what he could make her feel.
Her body became flame, and as the slow fire began to burn along the veins and nerves and arteries that led from the touch of his lips, he moved to turn and lift her. He positioned her quickly over his hips and lowered her body until he entered her, as strong and fierce and demanding as before. She arched and cried out against his strength, but he held her hips as he moved fully into her.
“Show me,” he commanded.
She rose to her knees and then lowered along his hardness, hearing the soft growl deep in his throat in response to what she did. She eased from him again, and his hands tried to stop her lifting away from his body, but she knew what he wanted. She almost rose too far and then she eased herself down, millimeter by millimeter, finally sliding her knees away from his straining hips to deepen the contact between them. She lowered her breasts to lie against his chest and increased the tempo of her movements over the steel-hard evidence of his desire.
When she began to tremble above him, it was he who cried out this time, and she felt him convulse again and again under her body. Finally he lay still, the gasping breathing delighting her with proof of what she could make him feel.
“I love you,” she said as she held him, uncaring of what she had promised before.
“I know, my heart. I know you do,” he whispered, and they didn’t speak again.
She slept against the comforting, solid warmth of his side, but at dawn only the fragrance of his body on her sheets was left to assure her that this, at least, had been no dream.
Chapter Eight
“You said you set a trap. What kind of trap?” Diego asked.
“A very simple one. Baited with a great deal of money. Money is obviously what our friend is interested in,” his master said, smiling.
“And if he takes the bait?”
“Then he comes to pick up his money. Which should be extremely interesting.”
“Here?” Diego asked in disbelief.
“Of course. You don’t sound very hospitable, Diego.”
“What about the woman?”
“He won’t see her. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Who is he?” Diego asked carefully, trying to read past the amusement.
“He hasn’t told me his name. I have the impression he doesn’t trust me,” he said. “Not a very trusting individual at all. Perhaps he’s dealt with treachery too long.”
“But you know who he is?” Diego asked and then realized the obvious.
“Of course,” his master said simply, and smiling, he laid the dark red rose, still misted with dew, beside her plate.
Diego’s knock on her door awakened her, and Rae knew by the light from the shaded window that the morning was well advanced. She almost gave him permission to enter before she realized she was naked. She finally found her T-shirt at the bottom of the bed. She pulled the soft cotton over her head and stacked the pillows behind her shoulders. She could still smell his body on the one she had been clutching when she’d awakened.
She straightened the top sheet, and although she realized Diego must know what had happened between them, she was embarrassed to have him see the evidence so clearly revealed in the disordered bed. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, pulling it back from her face as she attempted to compose herself. Diego knocked again, and she knew she couldn’t deny him entry any longer.
“Come in,” she called, making one more smoothing motion at the sheet that lay over her body.
When he entered, the aromas from the tray he carried were not those of Diego’s gray-yolked eggs. She closed her eyes, savoring the fragrances of real coffee and Canadian bacon, of eggs scrambled delicately in butter, and muffins.
“The cook’s back!”
“Yes.” An
d unbelievably Diego smiled at her. “But he spent so long with you last night I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get him up in time to prepare breakfast for you.”
“He spent so long…He’s the cook? He’s the one—”
“It doesn’t make him any less a man,” Diego interrupted, studying her face as he voiced the last assurance, lest she mistake his culinary talents as something less than masculine.
Her mind flashed back to the hard body that had mastered both her senses and her physical responses last night, and she was not even aware of the soft smile that Diego correctly interpreted as more than an acknowledgment of his master’s essential maleness. Aware finally of the silence that had grown as Diego watched her, Rae glanced up, finding some emotion in the dark eyes she didn’t understand.
“Don’t let it get cold,” she commanded, trying to hide her embarrassment, and reached for the tray. Diego brought it to the bed and placed it across her lap. It was not the simple kitchen tray he usually brought her meals on, but old-fashioned white wicker. And lying between the antique English porcelain plate and its matching cup and saucer was a long-stemmed red rose. She touched the velvet petals and then picked it up to hold against her cheek.
“He cut it himself from the garden,” Diego said as he poured her coffee.
She opened her eyes and smiled into his. “If I’d been awake, I could have seen him. My window looks out on the roses.”
Diego walked to the windows to raise the shades, and sunshine flooded the room. He looked down on the garden as if to verify the truth of what she’d said. She watched him as she sipped her coffee.
“If you had been awake,” he repeated, and she wondered at his tone, but he said nothing else.
She tasted the food the silver cover had kept hot and made such appreciative noises that they evoked a small smile from Diego.
“I’ll tell him you enjoyed it,” he said as he crossed to the door.
“Diego, ask if I can I see him this morning. I want to talk to him.”
He nodded before he stepped out into the hall, engaging the lock.
When Rae finished, she put the tray on the bedside table. Instead of getting up, she slid back down into the twisted sheets. She breathed in the familiar fragrance of his body, which filled even her bed now, and it evoked all that he meant to her. She wanted to lie here immersed in the memories and never move, never reenter the outside world to which they both still belonged, in which they owed such differing responsibilities. She closed her eyes and like a movie reel, the images rolled behind her lids. When she could endure them no longer, she rose to stand by the windows as Diego had.
The garden below was filled with light now, but she knew that by late afternoon it would be shadowed with the shade of the trees that blocked the western sun. The roses lifted to the light as she had strained into his touch last night. She thought about his walking along the path that wound below her room, pictured him bending to caress the blooms, to choose and cut her rose. He had been on the path this morning, and she knew that she would rise and watch for him from now on.
She carried the rose with her into the bathroom. She didn’t have a vase, so she filled the sink and deposited it there. It lay limply against the porcelain. As she bent to turn on the water in the tub, she smiled at the ridiculousness of trying to keep the flower alive. She stripped off the T-shirt and ran her hands over her body as if she could tell the difference his touch had made, could sense it physically.
She stepped into the bath and could feel the pleasant soreness of hard lovemaking. I won’t fit into your images of sweethearts and boyfriends, he had warned her last night. She thought he might be amused if he knew how few of either she had had. She had been too busy, too goal-oriented to give up time to a relationship. No one had attracted her enough to make the concessions that a successful romance required. And no one had ever made love to her as he had.
Experience counts, she acknowledged, smiling, and slid down so that her breasts were below the level of the scented water. She closed her eyes and allowed herself the luxury of a long soak, adding hot water until her toes were deeply wrinkled. She pulled the plug, wrapping herself in one of the huge towels, and then couldn’t resist lying down in the tangled sheets again.
Suddenly the thought of her father, of Paul Hardesty and Kyle Peters and all the men she worked with unpleasantly intruded into the fantasy she was weaving. She wanted out of here. Back into the safety of her old life. Back doing what she was supposed to do. She had always done the right thing, everything that was expected of her. Ridiculously, she found herself hoping that Paul would believe she was dead. She couldn’t go back and pretend to be what she had been before.
She climbed out of the bed that held all the memories and dressed, almost frantic to distance herself from what had happened last night, to regain some sense of the woman she had been before.
She realized that she had been walking back and forth across the bedroom only when she heard Diego knock. She attempted to control the involuntary increase in her heart rate—anticipation of being told she could see him, of being told that he might be coming to her room. She took a deep breath, locked her hands together behind her back and gave Diego permission to enter.
“He’ll see you. Downstairs.”
He allowed her to walk beside him. He even, for some reason, took her hand before he knocked on the library door, and at the sound of the voice that answered from within the room, her stomach turned over like hitting the bottom of a roller-coaster ride.
Diego gripped her shaking fingers and said softly, “It’s all right.” He opened the door and indicated the chair she had occupied five days ago.
“Thank you, Diego,” the voice said from the darkness on the other side of the desk. She looked again into the concealing light and knew only from the sound of the closing door when they were alone.
Neither spoke for a long time.
“Diego said that you wanted to see me, but I see that you have had second thoughts. Perhaps about many things.”
She dropped her gaze to study the hands that were twisting in her lap. She thought he would speak again, but he let the silence lengthen until its brittleness strained the very air of the room.
“I wanted to see you,” she affirmed when she could stand the quiet tension no longer.
“I’m so sorry, querida. I can tell there is regret for last night.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head in denial. “There is no regret for last night. For everything else, but not for that.”
“For everything else?” he questioned softly.
“For what you are. For what I am. For what I’m supposed to be,” she amended. “For the fact that I’m not what I thought I was and can never be again.”
“And why not?” The quiet gentleness lessened the hurt caused by the amusement she also heard there.
“Because I can’t go back to Paul and the others and look them in the eye and pretend none of this happened. Pretend I didn’t make love to you. That I didn’t betray everything I’ve ever been.”
“You have betrayed nothing,” he retorted, the amusement replaced now by anger. “You’ve done nothing for which you should be ashamed. You’ve survived. You’ve been kidnapped, drugged, terrorized, and through it all you have done nothing for which you should apologize to any of those men, to anyone, not even to your father.”
“I let you frighten me into giving you Kyle’s name.”
“I knew his name.”
“Then why did you show me the picture?”
“To verify it wasn’t Franklin. To see your reaction.”
“Did you think I would simply admit it? Even if I had been there? Did you think I’d tell you?”
“Why not? If you were the one, you had already dealt with the cartel. Why hesitate to do it again?”
“Then you’re sure the pickup team betrayed the courier.”
“There was no team. There was only one man.”
“And you knew that?”
“No. Not then. I had been told that you and Franklin were the ones.”
“Who told you that?”
“And now you’re ready to exchange information with me?” he questioned softly, reminding her.
“No,” she said, “you know—”
“Then no more questions. Those are the rules.”
“How did you get mixed up in all this—with the cartel? Why? You’re not like them.”
“The cartel has enormous amounts of money to handle.”
“And you do it for them.”
“Just what do you do for Paul Hardesty?” he asked. “Quid pro quo, querida.“
She shook her head, knowing that she could never reconcile what she felt him to be with the cold reality, with a reality she had met face-to-face in a dark room in Virginia.
“Your name and Franklin’s came to me from within your task force. And the courier was betrayed by someone inside that same group. Compared to the treachery that’s already been practiced, you have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said harshly. “Go back when this is all over and be what you are. A good cop.”
“Who let you make love to her.”
“Querida.” The tenderness of last night was suddenly back in his voice, and she wished she could read his feelings as clearly in his face.
“I want to see you,” she begged. “Please.”
“You asked Diego what I look like,” he said, his tone carefully neutral.
She laughed, remembering Diego’s answer.
“What is it?” he asked, the amusement back.
“Diego said that you looked like a man. He has such a way with words.”
“What do you think I look like?”
“I don’t believe I’m objective,” she whispered, fighting last night’s memories.
“That’s good,” he said, laughing. “You had earlier damaged my ego beyond repair.”
She smiled at his laughter and paused before she gave him what he asked for. “You have dark eyes and black hair that feels like silk under my hands. You’re maybe six feet tall with broad shoulders, very muscular arms and chest, but you’re a little too thin for your frame.”
