by Nora Roberts
"I always figured you'd take it for granted. Misconceptions," he murmured as they walked toward the ballroom again. "There's a lot more I don't know about you than I do."
"Templetons don't take anything for granted." And because she didn't, she stepped inside the ballroom prepared for anything.
It was chaos. Half the tables for the evening's mass literacy signing were set up, half were still stacked and waiting. Mountains of boxes lined the walls. Even the thought of what it would take to unpack them and distribute the books to the right spot made her eyes cross. That, at least, was not her job.
"Laura." It was Melissa again, her wire-framed glasses sliding down her nose as she all but leapt across the carpet and into Laura's arms. "I'm so glad you're here. We still haven't been able to locate shipments for six authors, and an entire shipment from one of the publishers is lost somewhere in the bowels of the hotel."
"I'll put a trace on them. Don't worry."
"Yes, but—"
"And I'll go down to shipping and receiving myself." Her smile was meant to be reassuring and not weary. "If necessary, I'll brave the bowels personally and find the books."
"I can't tell you what that means to me. You have no idea what it's like to have to tell an author she doesn't have any books to sign. It doesn't matter if it was flood, pestilence, or Armageddon, she's going to jump you."
"Then we'll see that they're here, even if we have to send someone out to raid the bookstores."
Melissa blew the hair out of her eyes. "I've worked four nationals and six regional conferences. You're the best I've ever worked with. And I'm not saying that just because my life is in your hands."
Relieved, she shifted her gaze to Michael, smiled winningly. "Hello. I'm Melissa Manning when I'm not insane."
"Michael. Are you a writer?"
"Yes, I am, even—maybe particularly—when I'm insane."
"Got a book I can buy?"
She blinked, her eyes lighting with delight behind the lenses of her glasses. "As a matter of fact, I happen to have one in my briefcase, which you can have. Would you like me to sign it for you?"
"That'd be great."
"Just give me a minute."
"That was very sweet," Laura murmured when Melissa dashed off for her briefcase.
"I like to read, and I might learn something." He shifted, slid a hand down her arm until it linked with his. "How about dinner tonight, maybe a drive, maybe some wild, unbridled sex?"
"As usual, an interesting offer." It was humiliating to have to clear her throat, but she had no choice. "I'm working here tonight."
"Now that's insane." Amused, Melissa strolled back and handed Michael her book. "You're a stronger woman than I, Laura, choosing work over hot, unbridled sex."
Michael grinned. "I'm going to like your book."
"I hope you will."
"Count on it. Excuse me a minute."
He tugged Laura into his arms, lowered his head and kissed her until every ounce of blood in her head drained to her feet and tingled. He let her go and nipped lightly at her chin.
"You're still holding the rain check, sugar. Nice to meet you, Melissa."
"Yeah." Staring after him, Melissa rubbed a hand over her heart. "I believe in quality, descriptive, and well-crafted writing," she began. "And all I can think of to say now is, Wow." she blew out a breath. "Wow."
"Yeah." Laura made an effort to find the top of her head. It had to be spinning somewhere close by. "I, um…"
"It's okay. Take a minute."
"I'm going to book on those checks for you right away."
Melissa tucked her tongue in her cheek. "Appreciate it."
"Excuse me."
As Laura struggled not to stagger to the door, Melissa indulged in a long sigh. "God, I love this business."
Chapter Twelve
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It was after ten when Laura turned up the drive to Templeton House. She had the good, solid tired of accomplishing a job well. The kind of tired, she realized as she let herself in the house, that didn't yearn for sleep.
Still, she reminded herself, she had another full day coming up starting in just over nine hours. What she needed was a nice hot bath and bed.
After checking in on her daughters and finding them both deeply asleep, she drew that bath, filled it lavishly with fragrant salts and bubbles, and sank in with a long sigh.
She stretched out, gazed up through the tiny skylight over the tub, and dreamed over the stars. Her life was clicking back into gear, she thought. She had her daughter back. There were bound to be some bumps along the way, and she would negotiate them. But everything had been so blissfully normal that morning on the drive to school.
Her family was in order—her parents busily enjoying their lives and their work, Josh and Margo doting on their new baby, Kate and Byron anticipating theirs.
Her job at the hotel was fulfilling, and made her feel part of the Templeton team again. And the shop… she smiled and smoothed frothy bubbles down her leg. The shop was an exciting, unexpected fantasy that brought so much pleasure, so many surprises. As busy as she'd been throughout the day, she'd missed swinging in, ringing up sales, talking to customers. Just being with Kate and Margo.
She would manage a few hours the next afternoon, barring any calamity. Then again, she'd begun to enjoy, even to anticipate, certain kinds of calamity. They offered her the challenge of finding the right answer, the satisfaction of knowing that she could find the solution, inside herself.
Like a book, she mused, a whole new chapter of her life was opening up. She was going to enjoy it.
She let the water drain, stepped out of the deep, oversized tub, toweled off slowly, and creamed her skin dreamily. After removing the pins from her hair and placing them in the little silver box where she kept them, she brushed until the curls bounced and shone.
It wasn't until she was dressing again and caught herself humming that she fully realized she wasn't going to bed. Or not alone.
Shocked, she stared at the reflection in the mirror. The woman there, simply dressed in silk slacks and blouse, stared back. She'd been preparing for a man, she realized. The bath, the lotions, the scents. She'd been preparing for Michael.
But now she was thinking again, and she wasn't sure she could go through with it.
He wanted her, but he didn't know her. He didn't know what she wanted, needed. She wasn't certain herself, so how could he be? She didn't know how to offer herself to a man. Not in reality. In dreams, perhaps, where everything was slow and misty, but in the clear dark where there were movements and consequences, she wasn't sure.
Once she had offered herself to another man, in another life. And it hadn't been enough. To do so again, and fail again, would destroy her.
Coward, she thought, closing her eyes. Was she going to remain alone and celibate for the rest of her life because she hadn't succeeded as a wife, and therefore as a lover?
If he wanted her, she wanted to be taken. Tonight. She wanted him to give her no choice tonight.
She rushed downstairs quickly before she could change her mind.
And the night was thrilling, windswept, full of sound and scent. She ran through it as women had for centuries. Toward fate, toward a man.
And lost her nerve at the base of the steps.
His lights were on. She had only to climb up that one short flight of wooden stairs and knock on the door. He would know, and would take. She would, she promised herself as she crossed her hands over her speeding heart. As soon as she had composed herself, as soon as the giddiness faded a little.
She went into the stables instead, moving down the line of drowsy horses. She hadn't seen the foal since its birth, she reminded herself. She only wanted to look, to admire. Then she would go up and knock.
At the stall door, she studied the mother and child. The foal lay curled on the hay, the mare standing slack-legged beside her.
"I miss having a baby who needs me," she murmured. "They trust you
to take care of them. It's the most incredible feeling, isn't it? Knowing that came from you."
She indulged herself another moment, stroking the mare's head when it was offered. Then she turned, and he was there. All in black, he was like a shadow that became real in a blink. She stepped back.
"I was—I hadn't seen the foal since—I didn't mean to disturb you."
"You've been disturbing me for a long time. Longer than I realized." His gaze holding hers, he stepped forward. "I saw you, running across the lawn. In the starlight. You looked like something out of a dream. But you're not, are you?"
"No." She retreated again, nerves shattered. "I should go, I—" She couldn't take her eyes off his as he came closer, boxed her against the stall door. "I should go."
"Pretty Laura Templeton," he murmured. "You always look so polished, so perfect. Nothing out of place." He skimmed a finger over the soft lapel of her blouse, dipped a finger in the vee and watched her eyes go dark. "Makes a man like me want to muss you up, get right under that polish and find out just who the hell you are."
He closed his hands over her breasts, calloused hands over thin silk. Felt her shudder. "Who the hell are you, Laura? Why are you here?"
Her heart was pounding against his palm, so violently that she wondered it didn't simply leap out into his hand. "I came to see the foal."
"Liar." He pressed her back against the wood, and when the door gave, she would have stumbled if he hadn't held her. "I bet he never mussed you up, did he? Always polite, always the gentleman. You won't get that from me."
"I—" She was panicked now, thrilled, terrified. Her gaze darted from his as hay crackled under her feet. The stall was empty but for them. She was alone with him. Trapped. "I don't know how to do this."
"I do. I can make you stay, or I can make you run. I wonder which it'll be. But you came to me, so it'll be my way."
He fisted his hands on the opening of her blouse, shredded it in one quick, shocking yank. "Stay or run."
His eyes were dark, demanding, focused on hers. Cool air shivered over her bare skin. "If you stay, you're mine. My way. Stay or run." He gripped her hair, yanked her head back, and watched her, waited.
"Stay," he murmured, then crushed his mouth to hers and ravished.
Speed and desperation. She was pummeled by both as he dragged her down into the hay and branded her lips, her throat, her breasts. She cried out when his teeth closed over her, lancing heat from breast to loins until her body was a bucking, writhing mass of sensation.
The asking was over, she knew. The choice was made. Now he would take, as he had in the dreams that haunted her at night. Rough and fast and mercilessly.
And she wanted that, the painful spin out of control, the hard, tough, impatient hands scraping her skin, the relentless, almost brutal mouth feeding on her.
She found his flesh—hot, smooth. The hay beneath her was prickly, abrading her skin and adding one more reeling sensation. The sound of her clothes tearing under his frantic hands, hands that streaked back to squeeze and probe and possess, was unreasonably erotic.
She could hear herself cry out, hear her own short, harsh panting, each gasp of shock and pleasure. Helpless as a raft on a storm-tossed sea, she rolled, thrashed, and gave herself over to fate.
Every time her hands gripped him, those neat lady's nails biting in, his blood swam. Each time she whimpered, moaned, his pulses whipped. The first time her body convulsed and his name—his name—burst like a sob through her lips, his head reeled.
He could see every fresh shock in her eyes, those clouded gray storms that widened, unfocused, closed on a throaty moan. No one had given her this, of that he could be sure. No one had taken her where he would take her. Of all the things she'd been given, all the places she'd traveled in her privileged life, this was new. Though some part of him, deeply buried, hurt that this was all he could offer, he would make it enough for tonight.
For tonight, and as long as it lasted, he would and could be to her what no one had ever been.
He could feel every dark flash of new pleasure sing through her body and explode inside his own. He could hear her shocked gasps, and swallow them. He could take more, still more, and make her arch violently against him in desperate greed. And that delicate ivory skin, so smooth, so fragrant, dewed with the clean sweat of good sex.
His hands, so strong, so quick, so powerful. They cupped her, bruised, destroyed. Her own were lost in his hair, dragging him down until his mouth found hers again, until she could answer that hard, vicious kiss with one of her own.
His body was so tight, so relentlessly male, muscles bunching under her hands, ridges of old scars sliding under her questing fingers. His skin was hot, burning, and bloomed damp when she bit desperately at his shoulder.
The air was ripe, thick, and tasted of him on each gulping breath she took. Whatever he did to her, she welcomed; whatever he demanded, she gave.
He lifted her hips, high, and his eyes burned into hers. With one violent thrust, he was inside her, hilt deep. The hands she'd gripped on his arms slid limply to the hay as her body simply erupted.
"Stay with me, Laura." His fingers dug into her flesh, and he began to move. "Stay with me."
What choice did she have? She was locked, trapped, steeped. Her breathing was slow now, shallow, her vision misted at the edges, but she moved with him. Stroke now for stroke.
He shuddered when she came, when she closed around him like a damp fist, and he fought a vicious war with himself not to follow. Not yet. There was more. Even as the blood roared like the sea in his head, he wanted more. And so he dragged her up until her legs locked around him, until her body flowed back so fluidly it might have been made of water. Worked her until her new frenzy was met, matched, until her head dropped on his shoulder.
Then, and then only, he buried his face in her hair and let himself fall.
His weight pinned her to the floor. It was an odd and drugging feeling, having a man's full weight on her again. And it was a triumphant feeling to know that he was incapable of moving, that he was as dazed, as sated, as she. She didn't have to doubt it. She'd seen his eyes, felt his hands, heard the gritty groan sound in his throat. He had been caught, trembling, on that stunning moment when he had lost himself and come inside her.
There, in the darkened stables with the sweet smell of hay and horses, her clothes in tatters and her blood singing, she felt like a woman again. Not like a mother, a friend, a responsible member of society. Like a woman.
She didn't want to fumble now, to begin stuttering out foolish truths. That it had never been this way before, that she hadn't known it could be. Better, she thought, for both of them, to keep it light.
So she smiled, found the strength to lift her hand and stroke his hair. "Looks like I redeemed that rain check."
His chuckle tickled her throat. "What was your name again, sugar?"
Gathering his reserves, he rolled lazily over, pulling her with him until she was sprawled on his chest. Her smile was both smug and sleepy. There was hay in her hair.
"God, you're pretty. Such a pretty little thing. The proper Laura Templeton with the surprising, and flexible, steam engine of a body. Who'd have thought it?"
She certainly hadn't, and she raised a brow. "I can't say that I or it has ever been described quite that way before." Her lips quirked. "I think I like it."
"Since you're in such a good mood, why don't you tell me now why you came here tonight."
"To see the foal." Fastidiously, she picked hay out of his hair, then shifted her gaze back to his. "On the way to you. You knew I'd come."
"I was counting on it. If you hadn't I'd have had to breach the castle walls and drag you out. I don't know how much longer I could have done without you."
"Michael." Moved, she laid her hand on his cheek. "Would you have ravished me?"
"Sugar, I did ravish you."
"It's the first time anyone has." She waited a beat, watched her own finger trace down his throat. "I hope
it won't be the last."
"I wasn't looking for one quick romp in the hay."
Satisfied with that, she nodded, smoothed his hair again. "Then I'll come back." She lowered her mouth to his, lingered over it. "I should go now."
He merely shifted their positions, pinned her again. "Laura, you don't really think I'm going to turn you loose tonight."
She felt the quick, hitching thrill of being overpowered. "You aren't?"
"No." That rough-palmed hand slid up, closed over her breast, and his mouth became busy at her throat. She arched under him, shuddered out a sigh. "Good."
Still, she hadn't meant to stay until morning. Hadn't meant to fall into twilight sleep in a pile of hay with her body curled around his. Hadn't realized she would awake fully aroused with his mouth on hers, and his hands… his hands.
"Michael." And when her eyes fluttered open, he slid slow and deep inside her. Moved inside her with long, lazy strokes that had dreams misting over reality.
He watched her face, that lovely flush from sleep and sex that warmed her cheeks. The eyes smoky and dazed. The mouth, swollen from his, that trembled on each breath.
They would look at each other now in the light, see as they took each other up with a rhythm soft and silky.
Hay motes fluttered in the fragile light of morning, danced in the quiet air. Night birds gave way to the lark. In the stables, horses began to stir, cats stretched and hunted up sunbeams.
And her hands reached for him, cupped his face, guided his mouth once again to hers as they gently slid over.
"Michael," she said again.
"I can't keep my hands off you."
"I don't want you to."
But he'd seen bruises on that delicate skin as she'd slept. "I was rough with you last night."
