The Lady and the Lion

by Kay Hooper

“Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure. Neither of them knows I told a different story to the other. Once I disappear from their lives, all they can have are a lot of questions and no answers. I hadn’t pushed them over the edge yet, and now I never will.”

  “Can you let go of it?” Erin asked hesitantly. “Really let go, I mean? If you’re walking away only because I couldn’t take it, you’ll never be free, Keith.”

  He shook his head slightly, his eyes steady. “I can let go. I have. When all this started, I’d lost everything. I didn’t have anything else to hold on to, no way to fight the anger. Now I have you. I’m looking at life instead of death, feeling love instead of hate. I don’t want revenge anymore, Erin. I don’t need it. All I need is you.”

  “I love you,” she murmured.

  She was radiant with happiness, her haunting eyes glowing with love, her beautiful face softened and tender, and he could hardly believe the incredible luck that had brought her to him. And then he had come so close to throwing it all away…He’d been such a blind fool, a real bastard more than once, and yet Erin loved him. He didn’t deserve her love, but he knew he would spend the rest of his life trying.

  “I love you, too, baby,” he said huskily, kissing her with all the gentleness a man of his unruly temperament could claim. Still, after an intensely emotional day, it was hardly surprising that the desire between them would have been heightened, particularly by acknowledgments of love.

  It was burning now. Keith became suddenly, achingly conscious of the warm weight of her in his lap, the firm pressure of her breasts against his chest, the bold yet somehow delicate response of her tongue to his. He kissed her again and again, claiming her now, his love feeding a desire too hungry to ever be satisfied. He’d come so close to losing her that now he wanted to love her wildly, to give her all he’d held back before, all of himself.

  Drawing back just far enough to take a ragged breath, he looked at the huge green eyes that were sleepy with desire, the soft lips reddened and moist from his kisses. She was lying against him limply, warm and more than willing, everything he wanted and needed, and only his love was strong enough to hold desire at bay for a moment so he could admit something that had been bothering him.

  “I’ve been such a bastard,” he muttered, kissing her once more because he had to. “Telling you it was sex or nothing, keeping you in this hotel—hell, mostly the bedroom—as if that was all that mattered to me. Feeling crazy with jealousy if you went out to the beach or pool without me, or even if you smiled at the room service waiter.”

  “Did you?” Her mouth curved slowly. “Except for the remark about my bathing suit, I didn’t see any sign of jealousy.”

  His laugh was low and a little rough. “Did you notice a couple of days ago when we started being served by a female waiter?”

  Erin blinked, then said, “You didn’t—?”

  “Damned right I did. I knew I was going to take that boy’s head off if I caught him smiling at you once more—even if it was the most anxious-to-please puppy dog smile I’ve ever seen on a human face. So I called the manager.” Keith felt a sheepish grin tugging at his lips. “I told him there was nothing wrong with the kid’s service. I just had this uncontrollable urge to deck any male past puberty who came within ten feet of my lady. I guess hotel managers get used to wild requests; he said there was no problem at all, he’d just assign us a female waiter, as polite as can be. And he did.”

  “I can’t believe you did that,” she said wonderingly.

  “I wanted you all to myself. But it wasn’t fair to you, Erin. Do you realize that except for a couple of walks on the beach, we haven’t left this hotel together since we met? We’ve barely left the suites. You must have thought I didn’t want anything except a sexual toy.”

  “You as good as told me that.” She lifted one eyebrow at him, ruefully amused.

  “I was an arrogant bastard, and I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t say I didn’t mind, at least in the beginning when you were stating your ‘terms’ so brusquely. My pride had already gone down without a whimper, and once I realized I loved you, I had to take whatever you were willing to give me. It hurt, but not as much as it might have.”

  Keith winced. “If it’s any comfort, I barely knew what I was saying or doing. I had some damned stupid idea that everything would be fine if I could just get you into my bed.”

  Erin couldn’t help it; she giggled. It was the tone of his voice, so sheepish.

  “I swear, Erin, I wasn’t thinking at all. I thought a hell of a lot before we became lovers, even if most of what I thought didn’t make sense, but after that it was totally useless. All you had to do was smile at me, and I couldn’t string three words together without tripping over two of them.”

  She wondered suddenly if that was why his lovemaking had always been virtually silent, but didn’t ask. She was too busy feeling both surprise at his words and a deep contentment at the confirmation of what she’d first believed about him: His emotions would always be honest ones, and now that he wasn’t holding her away, he didn’t hesitate to reveal them.

  “You never seemed to realize what you did to me,” he said, his arms tightening around her. “I couldn’t stop looking at you, touching you; if it had been more than three hours since I’d last made love to you, I started going wild—heart pounding, hands shaking, with no more control than a teenager. And right from the first you’ve been so completely natural with me. Warm and sweet, and so giving.”

  “The first,” she murmured, touching his lean face gently. “That really bothered you, didn’t it?”

  He kissed her a bit fiercely, and admitted, “The possessive part of me loved it; there’s something so damned primitive in knowing you were a woman’s first lover. But it also shook me up, more than a little—partly because I’d never been a woman’s first lover before.”

  “You hadn’t?”

  Keith shook his head. “I’d never thought much about it, to be honest. There have been women, but…”

  “But?” she prompted, feeling a small stab of jealousy of her own, even though those women had passed through his life before she had even known he existed.

  “I was never deeply involved with any of them, and I felt casual about my relationships. A little dinner, a little dancing, a little sex.”

  “Do I really want to hear this?” Erin murmured almost to herself.

  He smiled his crooked smile at her. “Sorry. The point is, I never felt casual about you. It was all instinct and tangled emotion. That first night I had to leave you, I nearly went out of my mind the whole time I was gone, terrified that I’d come back and you wouldn’t be here. When I saw you curled up in my bed, the relief was staggering. And then I wanted you so desperately I couldn’t even wait long enough to wake you up.”

  “I remember.” She kissed his wry mouth, her own tender. “I’d thought it was a dream.”

  “I know. You were dreaming, and I couldn’t stand not being sure that I was the lover in your dream. Lord, Erin, if I’d only been able to think clearly, I would have known I loved you. What I felt was so overwhelming it couldn’t have been anything else. I should have seen that.”

  “As long as you know now, that’s all that matters.”

  “I know I hurt you,” he said roughly. “Treating you the way I did. I swear I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

  “Keith, I love you.” Her big eyes were grave and gentle. “And even when you didn’t know you loved me, you made me feel loved and needed. Just go on loving me, it’s all I want.”

  He groaned softly, bending his head to capture her warm lips. The desire that had stirred earlier woke again, racing through him like fire in his veins. But now, because he loved her and knew it, all the other primitive feelings made sense.

  The fire in her, the incredibly explosive and uninhibited passion, rose to meet his instantly, making his thoughts spin into oblivion and his body shudder with need. Still kissing her deeply, he stood with her in his
arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  Clothes fell where they were carelessly thrown, some landing in the open suitcase she hadn’t finished packing. The bedroom was dim with approaching evening, but they could see each other; it was all that mattered. Their hunger was absolute, and they were so attuned to each other it was as if they were two halves of a single life, each half complementing the other to form a perfect whole. Her fire matched his, her sweetness tempered his force, her gentleness assuaged his turbulent nature, and her love spread a healing balm over his wounded soul.

  He had taught her passion but, much more than that, it was Keith’s vitality that had unlocked a part of Erin she hadn’t known existed. The overwhelming intensity of him, the raw, honest emotions he wasn’t afraid to let her see had, from the first, allowed her to free her own. With him, she could be herself. With him, there was no demand to be anything except what she was. And it allowed her to be all she could be.

  “I love you,” she said huskily, staring up into those fierce, wonderful eyes that were no longer enigmatic or shuttered. Now they were clear and vivid, nakedly expressive of everything he was feeling, and he felt so much she was humbled by it.

  “I almost lost you,” he said tautly. “Oh, Erin, I love you so much!” His hands were shaking as they moved over her slender body, and he kissed her frantically as if to assure himself she was real, she was there.

  She gave him the assurance he needed, taking fire in his arms, murmuring her love and hunger as her body responded to his touch. She lost control in his arms, but that was perfect, that was wonderful, because he lost control, too. They were connected…bonded…mated…and when the hunger grew too intense, when necessity demanded the completion that was flesh as well as spirit and emotion, it was like nothing they had ever experienced before, so incredibly powerful that it left them drained of everything except the certain knowledge that they belonged to each other.

  —

  They spent the remainder of that evening quietly, close together. Saying little except with glances and touches. When they realized that neither of them had eaten, they ordered food. When they felt like sleeping, they did.

  Erin woke sometime around dawn to find herself alone in bed. She got up and shrugged into a robe. She went into the sitting room and saw that the balcony doors were open. Keith was there, standing naked as he stared out over the ocean. Silently, she joined him, sitting down on the chaise.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” he murmured.

  “It’s all right.” She looked at him, so vital and compelling, his muscled body magnificent in the stark gray light of dawn, so strong and proud. And, very gently, she repeated, “It’s all right, Keith.”

  He shuddered, as if shaken by a wave of intolerable emotion, and then began to talk. His voice was low and hurried, driven from him by the pressure inside, aching with feeling.

  He talked about his family. About the stepfather who had raised him. About the mother who had borne him. About the sister who had been able to wrap him around her finger.

  While dawn marked the pause between darkness and light, he talked, sketching the years and the love, filling in the bare outlines he had offered her once before. He made his family come alive for her as they lived in him, made them walk and talk and breathe.

  And, finally, as the first bright rays of the morning sun spilled over his powerful frame, he cried. His head buried in her lap, arms wrapped tightly around her. All the corrosive anger and bitterness, and the desolate grief, released at last in acid tears that would begin the healing.

  Chapter 9

  Almost a week later, as Erin and Keith entered their Nassau hotel after having spent the morning and early afternoon out on the sailboat he had rented, she paused to say, “Hold on a second; I want to buy a newspaper and find out what’s going on in the rest of the world.” She raised herself on tiptoe to kiss his chin. “I’ll be right back.”

  He stood watching her cross the lobby to the newsstand, admiring the graceful way she moved. She’d put on a denim skirt and blouse over the scandalous swimsuit, an outfit that would have looked casual on any other woman and was stunning on her.

  How he loved her! He still considered it the most miraculous thing that she loved him. And probably, he thought, always would. After what he’d put her through…But she did love him, and the vast warmth of that filled all the places inside him that had once held only blind anger.

  “Mr. Donovan?”

  Something about the emotionless voice touched a faint cord of memory, and he turned his head quickly. The first thing he saw was the discreet flash of a badge; the wallet containing it opened and closed so smoothly that he doubted anyone else in the busy lobby had noticed. The second thing he saw was the hard face and shuttered eyes of Wellman’s assistant, and though that was a shock, it was less unpleasant than it might have been because of the badge; the man was a federal cop.

  “My name’s Masters, Mr. Donovan. I’m with the Justice Department.”

  Keith stared at him thoughtfully. “How odd. The last time I saw you, you were fetching and carrying for Guy Wellman.”

  A thin smile touched Masters’s lips. “You should be glad I was, Mr. Donovan. That fabricated background was good—damned good for an amateur—but there were a couple of loose threads. I snipped them.”

  With almost idle curiosity, Keith said, “And I suppose you followed me from the boat back to the hotel one night. That was careless of me.”

  “No, you weren’t careless. It was just that I’d been on Wellman for more than a year. I knew who you were.”

  Keith shook his head a little, still showing no more than faint interest in the subject. “Yeah, I counted too much on being unknown to all the players. Definitely amateur time. Any particular reason you’ve looked me up now? I mean, am I going to be hauled back to Miami and arrested for impersonating a drug lord?”

  “Hardly. I thought you might like to know what’s happened since you folded your tent.”

  “What’s happened to whom?”

  “Wellman and Arturo, naturally.”

  The radar that never failed him where she was concerned alerted Keith, and he turned his head to see Erin coming back across the lobby. Absently, he said, “They can live for all I care.”

  “Generous of you,” Masters said with something of a snap, both surprised and a bit irritated. Then he followed the other man’s intent gaze, and his mouth fell open. He’d seen beautiful women before, but the redhead coming toward them was like something out of a dream. And it wasn’t just the perfection of her delicate features, her vivid coloring, or the centerfold body. She was…radiant. Heads were turning all over the lobby to watch her, smiles breaking out almost unconsciously. Masters could feel one pulling at his own strictly trained mouth.

  “Sort of takes your breath away, doesn’t she?”

  The mild question yanked Masters from his trance, and he looked to see Donovan smiling at him. He wanted to step back away from that smile. In fact, he wanted to back away rather hastily. It wasn’t a specifically threatening smile, it just made the hair on the back of his neck quiver.

  But he stood his ground, and even managed an ironic tone when he answered, “Sort of, yeah.”

  The redhead reached them just then, tucking a folded newspaper under one arm and reaching out a hand even as Donovan did, their fingers twining with a look of ineffable belonging, as if a connection had been made. Trained to be observant, Masters caught the gleam of two wedding bands.

  Well, no wonder he’s lost interest in revenge, Masters thought, knowing very well that Donovan had been single when he’d arrived in Florida.

  “Erin, this is Mr. Masters; he’s with the Justice Department. Masters—my wife, Erin.”

  “Justice Department?” She looked up at her husband, a hint of worry momentarily dimming her bright eyes.

  “It’s all right, he hasn’t come here to arrest me,” Donovan said. It was obvious from his reassuring smile at his wife that she knew the entire stor
y.

  Erin turned a somewhat guarded gaze to Masters. “No?”

  “No, ma’am,” he affirmed, back in control again. “I’d just like to talk to your husband for a few minutes. In private would be best.”

  “We can go up to the suite,” Keith said, and began leading his wife toward the elevators as if he didn’t much care whether Masters followed.

  —

  “I’d been trying to get to Arturo through Wellman,” Masters began a few minutes later, seated in a chair in their sitting room as he looked at the two of them on the couch. “Wasn’t having much luck, not with specifics. And I wasn’t delighted when Wellman bolted down to Miami—until Arturo followed him. Things finally started to get interesting. Then you showed up.”

  “A wild card,” Keith murmured.

  “I’ll say. The only thing I knew for sure was that you were after those two. I didn’t know what your plan was. By the time I’d figured it out, you were very neatly playing them against each other, and that game was so dangerous I didn’t dare interfere.”

  “So you waited.”

  “It seemed best. Wellman was acting friendly with Arturo again, spending more time with him, thanks to you, and I was picking up bits and pieces of the kind of information I’d been working to get. Even with the payoff, though, my superiors weren’t at all crazy about your participation. I expect to be read the riot act when I get back to D.C. But I had a feeling you could break the whole thing wide open, one way or another, so I made a judgment call and elected to let you run with your plan. And, to be honest, I wasn’t exactly anxious to try and pull you out; I knew enough about you—and your motives—to be fairly sure I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping you, short of putting a bullet in you.”

  In a faintly surprised tone, as if the man he had been then was a stranger to him now, Keith said, “I was as close as I ever want to be to insanity.”

  Masters grunted. “Yeah, but crazy like a fox. By the way, if you ever want a job, look me up.”

  A genuine smile of amusement gleamed in Keith’s eyes. “No, thanks. I’m an engineer and a businessman.”