by Nora Roberts
Her lashes fluttered down, her lips parted. Mindlessly he pulled her against him until their bodies were crushed close. She didn’t resist, but went with him as they slid from the bunk and onto the rug.
She’d wanted this—the triumph and the weakness of being touched by him. She’d wanted the glory of letting herself go, of allowing her longings freedom. With his mouth hungry on hers, there was no need to think, no need to hold back what she’d wanted so desperately to give him. Only to him.
Take more. Her mind was reeling from the demands of her body. Take all. She could feel him tug at the wide neck of her sleep shirt until her shoulder was bare and vulnerable to his mouth. Still more. She skimmed her hands up his back, naked and warm from the night breeze flowing in the windows.
He wasn’t easy as a lover. Hadn’t she known it? There was no patience in him. Hadn’t he told her? She’d known it before, but she was already aware that she’d never know relaxation with Shade. He drove her quickly, thoroughly. While she experienced all, she had no time to luxuriate in separate sensations. Masses of them swirled around, inside her.
Tastes…his lips, his skin—dark flavor. Scents…flowers, flesh—sweet and pungent. Textures…the nap of the rug rubbing against her legs, the hard brush of his palm, the soft warmth of his mouth. Sounds…her heartbeat pounding in her head, the murmur of her name in his whisper. She could see shadows, moonlight, the gleam of his eyes before his mouth took hers again. Everything merged and mixed together until they were one overpowering sensation. Passion.
He pulled the shirt lower until her arms were pinned. For a moment, she was helpless as he trailed his lips down her breast, pausing to taste, taste thoroughly, with lips, tongue, teeth. Some women would’ve found him merciless.
Perhaps it was the sound of her moan that made him linger when he was driven to hurry on. She was so slender, so smooth. The moonlight filtered in so that he could see where her tan gave way to paler, more vulnerable skin. Once he’d have turned away from vulnerability, knowing the dangers of it. Now it drew him—the softness of it. Her scent was there, clinging to the underside of her breast where he could taste as well as smell it. Sexy, tempting, subtle. It was as she was, and he was lost.
He felt his control slip, skid away from him. Ruthlessly, he brought it back. They would make love once—a hundred times that night—but he’d stay in control. As he was now, he thought as she arched under him. As he’d promised himself he would be, always. He would drive her, but he would not, could not, be driven by her.
Pulling the material down, he explored every inch of her mercilessly. He would show no mercy to either of them. Already she was beyond thought and he knew it. Her skin was hot, and somehow softer with the heat; her scent intensified with it. He could run those hungry, openmouthed kisses wherever he chose.
Her hands were free. Energy and passion raced together inside her. She tumbled over the first peak, breathless and strong. Now she could touch, now she could enrage him, entice him, weaken him. She moved quickly, demanding when he’d expected surrender. It was too sudden, too frantic, to allow him to brace himself against it. Even as she raced to the next peak, she felt the change in him.
He couldn’t stop it. She wouldn’t permit him to take without giving. His mind swam. Though he tried to clear it, fought to hold himself back, she seduced. Not his body, he’d have given that freely. She seduced his mind until it reeled with her. Emotion raged through him. Clean, hot, strong.
Tangled together, body and mind, they drove each other higher. They took each other over.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They were both very careful. Neither Bryan nor Shade wanted to say anything the other could misunderstand. They’d made love, and for each of them it had been more intense, more vital, than anything they’d ever experienced. They’d set rules, and for each of them the need to abide by them was paramount.
What had happened between them had left them both more than a little stunned, and more wary than ever.
For a woman like Bryan, who was used to saying what she wanted, doing as she pleased, it wasn’t easy to walk on eggshells twenty-four hours a day. But they’d made themselves clear before making love, she reminded herself. No complications, no commitments. No promises. They’d both failed once at the most important of relationships, marriage. Why should either of them risk failure again?
They traveled in Oklahoma, giving an entire day to a small-town rodeo. Bryan hadn’t enjoyed anything as much since the Fourth of July celebrations they’d seen in Kansas. She enjoyed watching the heat of competition, the pitting of man against animal and man against man and the clock. Every man who’d lowered himself onto a bronc or a bull had been determined to make it to the bell.
Some had been young, others had been seasoned, but all had had one goal. To win, and then to go on to the next round. She’d liked seeing that a game could be turned into a way of life.
Unable to resist, she bought a pair of boots with fancy stitching and a stubby heel. Since the van was too small to permit indiscriminate souvenir buying, she’d restrained herself this far. But there wasn’t any point in being a martyr about it. The boots made her happy, but she resisted buying a leather belt with an oversize silver buckle for Shade. It was just the sort of gesture he might misunderstand. No, they wouldn’t give each other flowers or trinkets or pretty words.
She drove south toward Texas while Shade read the paper in the seat beside her. On the radio was a raspy Tina Turner number that was unapologetically sexy.
Summer had reached the point when the heat began to simmer. Bryan didn’t need the radio announcer to tell her it was ninety-seven and climbing, but both she and Shade had agreed to use the air-conditioning sparingly on the long trips. On the open highway, the breeze was almost enough. In defense, she was wearing a skimpy tank top and shorts while she drove in her bare feet. She thought of Dallas and an air-conditioned hotel room with cool sheets on a soft mattress.
“I’ve never been to Texas,” she said idly. “I can’t imagine any place that has cities fifty and sixty miles across. A cab ride across town could cost you a week’s pay.”
The paper crackled as he flipped the page. “You live in Dallas or Houston, you own a car.”
It was like him to give a brief practical answer, and she’d come to accept it. “I’m glad we’re taking a couple of days in Dallas to print. Ever spent any time there?”
“A little.” He shrugged as he turned the next section of the paper. “Dallas, Houston—those cities are Texas. Big, sprawling, wealthy. Plenty of Tex-Mex restaurants, luxury hotels and a freeway system that leaves the out-of-towner reeling. That’s why I routed in San Antonio as well. It’s something apart from the rest of Texas. It’s elegant, serene, more European.”
She nodded, glancing out at the road signs. “Did you have an assignment in Texas?”
“I tried living in Dallas for a couple of years in between the overseas work.”
It surprised her. She just couldn’t picture him anywhere but L.A. “How’d you like it?”
“Not my style,” he said simply. “My ex-wife stayed on and married oil.”
It was the first time he’d made any sort of reference to his marriage. Bryan wiped her damp hands on her shorts and wondered how to handle it. “You don’t mind going back?”
“No.”
“Does it…” She trailed off, wondering if she was getting in deeper than she should.
Shade tossed the paper aside. “What?”
“Well, does it bother you that she’s remarried and settled? Don’t you ever think back and try to figure out what messed things up?”
“I know what messed things up. There’s no use dwelling on it. After you admit you’ve made a mistake, you’ve got to go on.”
“I know.” She pushed at her sunglasses. “I just sometimes wonder why some people can be so happy together, and others so miserable.”
“Some people don’t belong with each other.”
“And yet it often seems l
ike they do before they walk up the aisle.”
“Marriage doesn’t work for certain kinds of people.”
Like us? Bryan wondered. After all, they’d both failed at it. Perhaps he was right, and it was as simple as that. “I made a mess out of mine,” she commented.
“All by yourself?”
“Seems that way.”
“Then you screwed up and married Mr. Perfect.”
“Well, I…” She glanced over and saw him looking at her, one brow raised and a bland look of anticipation on his face. She’d forgotten he could make her laugh as well as ache. “Mr. Nearly Perfect, anyway.” She grinned. “I’d have been smarter to look for someone with flaws.”
After lighting a cigarette, he rested his feet on the dash as Bryan was prone to do. “Why didn’t you?”
“I was too young to realize flaws were easier to deal with. And I loved him.” She hadn’t realized it would be so painless to say it, to put it in the past tense. “I really did,” she murmured. “In a naive, rose-tinted way. At the time I didn’t realize I’d have to make a choice between his conception of marriage and my work.”
He understood exactly. His wife hadn’t been cruel, she hadn’t been vindictive. She’d simply wanted things he couldn’t give. “So you married Mr. Nearly Perfect and I married Ms. Socially Ambitious. I wanted to take important pictures, and she wanted to join the country club. Nothing wrong with either goal—they just don’t mesh.”
“But sometimes don’t you regret that you couldn’t make it fit?”
“Yeah.” It came out unexpectedly, surprising him a great deal more than it surprised her. He hadn’t realized he had regrets. He hadn’t allowed himself to. “You’re getting low on gas,” he said abruptly. “We’ll stop in the next town and fill up.”
Bryan had heard of one-horse towns, but nothing fitted the phrase more perfectly than the huddle of houses just over the Oklahoma-Texas border. Everything seemed to be dusty and faded by the heat. Even the buildings looked tired. Perhaps the state was enriched by oil and growth, but this little corner had slept through it.
As a matter of habit, Bryan took her camera as she stepped from the van to stretch her legs. As she walked around the side of the van, the skinny young attendant goggled at her. Shade saw the boy gape and Bryan smile before he walked into the little fan-cooled store behind the pumps.
Bryan found a small, fenced yard just across the street. A woman in a cotton housedress and a faded apron watered the one colorful spot—a splash of pansies along the edge of the house. The grass was yellow, burned by the sun, but the flowers were lush and thriving. Perhaps they were all the woman needed to keep her content. The fence needed painting badly and the screen door to the house had several small holes, but the flowers were a bright, cheerful slash. The woman smiled as she watered them.
Grateful she’d picked up the camera she’d loaded with color film, Bryan tried several angles. She wanted to catch the tired, sun-faded wood of the house and the parched lawn, both a contrast to that bouquet of hope.
Dissatisfied, she shifted again. The light was good, the colors perfect, but the picture was wrong. Why? Stepping back, she took it all in again and asked herself the all-important question. What do I feel?
Then she had it. The woman wasn’t necessary, just the illusion of her. Her hand holding the watering can, no more. She could be any woman, anywhere, who needed flowers to complete her home. It was the flowers and the hope they symbolized that were important, and that was what Bryan finally recorded.
Shade came out of the store with a paper bag. He saw Bryan across the street, experimenting with angles. Content to wait, he set the bag in the van, drawing out the first cold can before he turned to pay the attendant for the gas. The attendant, Shade noticed, who was so busy watching Bryan he could hardly screw on the gas cap.
“Nice van,” he commented, but Shade didn’t think he’d even looked at it.
“Thanks.” He allowed his own gaze to follow the boy’s until it rested on Bryan’s. He had to smile. She was a very distracting sight in the swatch of material she called shorts. Those legs, he mused. They seemed to start at the waist and just kept going. Now he knew just how sensitive they could be—on the inside of the knee, just above the ankle, on the warm, smooth skin high on the thigh.
“You and your wife going far?”
“Hmm?” Shade lost track of the attendant as he became just as fascinated by Bryan.
“You and the missus,” the boy repeated, sighing a little as he counted out Shade’s change. “Going far?”
“Dallas,” he murmured. “She’s not…” He started to correct the boy’s mistake about their relationship, then found himself stopping. The missus. It was a quaint word, and somehow appealing. It hardly mattered if a boy in a border town thought Bryan belonged to him. “Thanks,” he said absently and, stuffing the change in his pocket, walked to her.
“Good timing,” she told him as she crossed toward him. They met in the middle of the road.
“Find something?”
“Flowers.” She smiled, forgetting the unmerciful sun. If she breathed deeply enough, she could just smell them over the dust. “Flowers where they didn’t belong. I think it’s…” She felt the rest of the words slide back down her throat as he reached out and touched her hair.
He never touched her, not in the most casual of ways. Unless they were making love, and then it was never casual. There was never any easy brush of hands, no gentle squeeze. Nothing. Until now, in the center of the road, between a parched yard and a grimy gas station.
“You’re beautiful. Sometimes it stuns me.”
What could she say? He never spoke soft words. Now they flowed over her as his fingers trailed to her cheek. His eyes were so dark. She had no idea what he saw when he looked at her, what he felt. She’d never have asked. Perhaps for the first time, he was giving her the opportunity, but she couldn’t speak, only stare.
He might have told her that he saw honesty, kindness, strength. He might have told her he felt needs that were growing far beyond the borders he’d set up between him and the rest of the world. If she’d asked, he might have told her that she was making a difference in his life he hadn’t foreseen but could no longer prevent.
For the first time, he bent toward her and kissed her, with an uncharacteristic gentleness. The moment demand edit, though he wasn’t sure why. The sun was hot and hard, the road dusty, and the smell of gasoline was strong. But the moment demanded tenderness from him. He gave it, surprised that it was in him to offer.
“I’ll drive,” he murmured as he slipped her hand into his. “It’s a long way to Dallas.”
* * *
His feelings had changed. Not for the city they drove into, but for the woman beside him. Dallas had changed since he’d lived there, but Shade knew from experience that it seemed to change constantly. Even though he’d only lived there briefly, it had seemed as though a new building would grow up overnight. Hotels, office buildings, popped up wherever they could find room, and there seemed to be an endless supply of room in Dallas. The architecture leaned toward the futuristic—glass, spirals, pinnacles. But you never had to look far to find that unique southwestern flavor. Men wore cowboy hats as easily as they wore three-piece suits.
They’d agreed on a midtown hotel because it was within walking distance of the darkroom they’d rented for two days. While one worked in the field, the other would have use of the equipment to develop and print. Then they’d switch.
Bryan looked up at the hotel with something like reverence as they pulled up in front of it. Hot running water, feather pillows. Room service. Stepping out, she began to unload her share of the luggage and gear.
“I can’t wait,” she said as she hauled out another case and felt sweat bead down her back. “I’m going to wallow in the bathtub. I might even sleep there.”
Shade pulled out his tripod, then hers. “Do you want your own?”
“My own?” She swung the first camera bag strap over
her shoulder.
“Tub.”
She looked up and met his calm, questioning glance. He wouldn’t assume, she realized, that they’d share a hotel room as they shared the van. They might be lovers, but the lack of strings was still very, very clear. Yes, they’d agreed there’d be no promises, but maybe it was time she took the first step. Tilting her head, she smiled.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“Whether you agree to wash my back.”
He gave her one of his rare spontaneous smiles as he lifted the rest of the luggage. “Sounds reasonable.”
Fifteen minutes later, Bryan dropped her cases inside their hotel room. With equal negligence, she tossed down her shoes. She didn’t bother to go to the window and check out the view. There’d be time for that later. There was one vital aspect of the room that demanded immediate attention. She flopped lengthwise on the bed.
“Heaven,” she decided, and closed her eyes on a sigh. “Absolute heaven.”
“Something wrong with your bunk in the van?” Shade stacked his gear in a corner before pulling open the drapes.
“Not a thing. But there’s a world of difference between bunk and bed.” Rolling onto her back, she stretched across the spread diagonally. “See? It’s just not possible to do this on a bunk.”
He gave her a mild look as he opened his suitcase. “You won’t be able to do that on a bed, either, when you’re sharing it with me.”
True enough, she thought as she watched him methodically unpack. She gave her own suitcase an absent glance. It could wait. With the same enthusiasm as she’d had when she’d plopped down, Bryan sprang up. “Hot bath,” she said, and disappeared into the bathroom.
Shade dropped his shaving kit onto the dresser as he heard the water begin to run. He stopped for a moment, listening. Already, Bryan was beginning to hum. The combination of sounds was oddly intimate—a woman’s low voice, the splash of water. Strange that something so simple could make him burn.
