by BJ James
Kate met his kiss with a kiss, his caress with a caress. With each unspoken promise she made one of her own as she opened to Devlin like a morning glory to the sun.
His touch drew her further into madness. Retreat left her bereft and lonely. Her mind was in total disarray, with no clear thought to serve as anchor. She was fearful though she knew there was nothing to fear. She was fretful and the reason eluded her. For the first time in her life there were needs beyond her control. A lusting hunger only Devlin could fulfill.
His body was hard and harsh in his own need as he leaned over her again to steal another kiss. To pillage lightly and quickly from her willing, parting lips. When he would have moved away to tease and cherish once more, with a strangled cry Kate clasped the nape of his neck, her fingers threaded through his hair. Her hoarsely urgent protest echoed within him, touching every sentient part of him. In that plaintive cry he heard passion as wild and hunger as primitive as his.
As she guided his mouth to hers, to claim kisses of her own, Devlin’s fate was sealed for this moment and this day. But more than that, he knew it would be forever.
“No.” The word was restraint, never denial, and his whisper was breathless and hoarse as he struggled away. Putting the little space he could bear between them, he contented himself with fingertips lying against the satin flesh of her nape, and the stroke of the pad of his thumb over the line of her jaw. “We can’t, Kate,” he muttered again, his tone a little unbelieving even as he reasoned with himself as well as with her. “Not like this.”
Kate was bemused, her mind governed by her body and the tumult he’d fueled and ignited. All she grasped or could think was that he had gone too far from her. The separation was too empty and desolate without him.
When she reached out for him, his hand closed over hers, drawing her palm to his lips. Stroking her trembling flesh, his breath adding to the heat that threatened to consume her, he whispered, “No, sweetheart. No.”
Kate made a small protesting sound. A lament of entreaty that made his heart soar.
“Shh, darlin’. Hush now,” he whispered into the hollow of her palm. “I’m going to make love to you. For as long as you want me and with all that I am, I’m going to love you. But not here.”
As he stroked away the moisture left by his kiss, Kate shivered and her fingers convulsed over his. Devlin turned his head slowly in a small and solemn denial of surging passion. Mustering every share of O’Hara fortitude and honor, determined, he stood fast. “Not like this. No quick, awkward tumble on a stranger’s sofa with our clothes torn away in haste and the heat of passion.”
Breaking off, he chuckled hoarsely, but with little humor, at the vision of Kate in nothing but a shirt opened a challenging inch or two. “On second thought—” lashes dipped over a steady blue gaze “—maybe someday.” Brows slanted wickedly, blue eyes traced the line of her throat to the shadowed cleft of her breasts, and for a brief instant he was the teasing Devlin of old as he amended, “Most assuredly, I promise, someday.”
Then, as quickly as it had come, the small humor vanished. “But, my dear love,” he murmured softly, “never our first time.”
Standing in an unhurried move, then folding his hand more securely over hers, he brought her up with him. When she swayed, her body leaning into his, he was there to hold her. But the touch of his body was more than support, more than substance and strength. He was power and valor, honor and temptation incarnate. With every rugged plane, every muscle and sinew a caressing flame reminding her of the inferno that threatened.
Clinging to him as she’d never clung to anyone, she repeated in words that were both question and affirmation, “Our first time.”
“Yes,” he answered in hushed assurance. “The first and the perfect time for all the other times to follow.” With a finger at her chin, he raised her fathomless gaze to his. “You must know this is more than sex, more than a fling answering the heat of lust. I’ve had my share of one-night stands in the past. But this isn’t the past, and I promise you, once will never be enough for either of us.”
Bending to her, raking his fingers through her hair and framing her face with the heels of his hands, he let his probing look range over her. From the top of her head to the fullness of her breasts, his look touched and searched and lingered, returning, at last, to recapture her gaze with his. Holding her spellbound with a look and a gentle clasp, he questioned softly, “You understand, don’t you, that this is only the beginning?”
Kate’s lashes fluttered down, but only to ease a moment of turmoil before capturing and keeping the glittering stare of sapphire eyes turned to midnight. Because what she saw in that glitter raged within her, as well, she was not shocked by the bold, bottomless desire. Nor by his promise of a time to come.
No. The silent reprise rang in her fevered thoughts. As surely as his touch was kindness and madness in one, as surely as she’d given herself up to the primal male and his primal needs, as surely as she would again, there must be more.
Shivering at the magnitude of his promise, Kate’s lashes brushed her cheeks, shielding her eyes. For one short moment she wanted to step back, to move away from Devlin and the wild, sweet magic he wove. For one short moment she wanted to cling to the past, to hide in the safety and penance of grief and guilt. In a perverse way it was frightening to forsake emotions that had been her constant companions, perhaps her asylum, for months. She was tempted to hold them like a bulwark before her, but she couldn’t.
Even knowing that in the return of saner times, grief and guilt would increase tenfold, a hundredfold, she couldn’t.
In deliberate decision, her lashes lifted. The eyes that looked out at Devlin from the shelter of the gold-tipped fringe were the unfaltering regard of a tigress. Her face was a study in contrast marked by light and darkness, and so lovely she set his heart hammering in his chest, and the blood coursing through his body at a demented speed.
Devlin, the fearless, who had faced true tigers on the plains of India, and in the jungles of Africa, felt his knees give with the weight of waiting for her response.
Her meticulous study roamed his face as she raised her hand to curl her palm about his cheek. Letting it slide ever so slowly to his jaw, her eyes followed, their solemn regard settling on his lips in arrant fascination as one finger traced their line from corner to corner. Not taking her finger away, she paused at one sensitive corner that quirked as a muscle in his jaw tensed.
Drawing a long, hesitant breath, at last she admitted with unexpected candor, “I know.”
Devlin wasn’t certain he heard her correctly. And, for a dreading instant, the old doubts came flooding back. But only for an instant, no more. There was too much between them, what he felt and what he recognized in Kate was too strong for doubt.
Turning his head only the little needed to touch his lips to hers, he reveled in her strength, and her desire. A guttural groan rumbling in his throat, he tore himself from her kiss, and sweeping her into his arms, stalked the interminable length of the narrow hall leading to her bedroom.
Steam rose around her, warm and soothing. Muscles she hadn’t realized were tense relaxed. The shower was a luxury she hadn’t anticipated. Even with no electricity for most of the day, she hadn’t thought to start the generator. But Devlin had assured her it would take more than part of a day to cool the tank.
With that assurance, he’d virtually herded her into the bath, urging that she take her time. Confused and, yes, she would admit it, a little wounded by his poised demeanor, she’d done as he asked. Now, she stood beneath the pelting shower hoping to wash away the unresolved torment smoldering only hotter within her.
Perhaps the muscles had begun to relax with the steam and heat, but a part of her mind, only newly wakened, had not. Not by one part, parcel, or fragment, it hadn’t.
Closing the taps at last, she stood with her hands braced on the tile wall, her thoughts scurrying, wondering what she would find when she walked through the door. What waited for her
in the darkness of this great house by the sea?
Would Devlin O’Hara be waiting for her? Would he be gone? From her bedroom, from the specter of her bed? From her life.
“He won’t be.” Her words echoed in the tile and glass enclosure of the shower. As she reached for a towel and, finally, her nightshirt, Kate knew Devlin waited.
The bedroom was not dark as Kate expected. Instead there were burning candles by the bed and scattered in corners. In their wavering light the room took on a bewitching ambience. The turned-down bed with its taupe linens loomed prominently and shone like raw gold. Across one pillow lay a rose from the climbing vine that covered one wall by the pool. As her seasons on the island had crept from summer into autumn, and the ancient vine recovered from summer’s unrelenting heat and humidity, the blooms were profuse, the fragrance enchanting.
But a hundred blooms would never be as enchanting as this single rose. There would never be another as breathtaking as this gift of a tender lover. As its perfume mingled with the scent of candles and a salt-laden breeze drifting through open doors, Kate knew there would never be another as beguiling.
Candles to ease her way in the dark. A rose for her pleasure. A turned-down bed to tempt. But no Devlin.
Yet Kate knew the wait for her lover would not be long.
Her sense of time suspended, taking the blossom from the pillow, she brought it to her cheek, caressing her skin with its soft petals, surrounding herself in its balm. As with everything, the flowers of the island fascinated her. And as with everything, she’d read and studied them, learning that more than a century before, this delicate pink, with a fragrance as delicate, had come by way of India in the hold of a merchant ship.
In the renowned tradition of Southern reverence for flowers and beauty, it was protected and reproduced, and thus proliferated through the years. In those years it adapted and flourished, until it grew, inherently, like a domesticated wildflower.
Now with its petals shimmering as gossamer, and its scent the incense of the night, it would linger forever in her memory.
Returning the rose to the pillow, in a slow spin Kate looked around her. Only a man of true passions, only a romantic, would create such a mood. “Only a gentle dreamer,” Kate whispered, as if with her voice she might shatter the enchantment he created. Smiling, she drew the backs of her fingers across the rose. “Devlin.”
“Yes, my love?”
He stood in the doorway, the curtains billowing around him. Droplets of water clung to his hair and shoulders, and beaded his chest. Each brilliant sphere capturing the flame of candles in reflection. Beneath its sheen, his sun-burnished skin seemed darker still, in contrast to the immaculate taupe towel draped about his hips and tucked securely at his waist. Kate knew then that while she showered, Devlin had gone to the sea.
Embers of desire banked only a little by the quiet time in the shower stirred at the sight of him. His body painted in dancing light and flickering shadows, with the last traces of the cleaving sea emulating fire, spoke of barely leashed carnal need, and the promise of an undiscovered paradise.
Kate’s heart faltered at this sight of him… Devlin, as she’d never seen him. Brawny, vital, his eyes feverish and bright, his barely concealed body taut and on edge. The allusion of tensions, exhilaration, and pent-up energy seethed, as if an overpowering storm brewed within him, arousing him.
Shivering under the intensity of his fierce, searching study, and lifting her head a small challenging measure, she let her own stare contend with his, hotter and more scorching than any flame. Her cheeks paled, her eyes grew large, luminous, and in them there was desire for Devlin to see. For all the world to see.
But their world was here. Their world was now.
She had called his name, and he was there. But now he waited. Devlin, ever the gallant.
“I didn’t want this…” Her voice broke and a tear glistened on her lashes.
Devlin watched and listened and endured with sincere concern and an iron control. Kate was proud and beautiful, and incredibly brave standing before him in pale candlelight. So proud and beautiful and brave he ached for her. The minute he stepped through the door, he saw she wore the familiar nightshirt. A wisp of orange silk flowing from her shoulders to the tips of her breasts, then falling away to scarcely skim her hips before ending a paltry inch above her knees.
She was naked beneath the shirt. Only a scrap of orange and four pearl buttons trailing from an unwitting décolletage halfway to the hem shielded from his sight what his heart and body wanted most desperately. In a strange way it seemed he had always wanted her most desperately. Even long before he knew her.
Soul mates, needing only the right time and place to come together? Had this moment been preordained? Devlin was the first son of an only son, not the seventh of the seventh, and he didn’t know. In this time, he didn’t care. All that mattered was another part of the equation that must be resolved before he could make her his.
Just one, he thought, gathering his strength as he heeded and attended the soft voice reaching out to him.
“I never meant this. After Paul, I was determined I would never want or need anyone.” She turned to her bed where candles held the darkness at bay. In the spill of their light, the rose waited. Devlin’s treasured rose.
“I told myself time and again that I wouldn’t want you or need you for more than a friend. But from the moment you stood at my door with a cocky grin and a packet of pilfered coffee, I did. I have.” She looked at him then. His teeth were clenched, rippling a muscle in his jaw. Framed by the shaggy disarray of his hair, tendons in his neck were starkly visible. His chest rose slowly in one carefully controlled breath after another.
She wanted to go to him, to offer an end to his anguish. But first there was more he should understand. More he should know. “Long ago, only months after I accepted Simon’s invitation to become a part of The Black Watch, I vowed that if I couldn’t love a man like Paul Bryce, I wouldn’t love any man.”
Devlin went very still. Nothing in the room seemed to move as even the breeze grew quiet. He felt as if the whole world held itself in abeyance in deference to the only issue that mattered. The truth of Kate Gallagher and Devlin O’Hara.
“I shouldn’t want you. I shouldn’t love you.” With a tilt of her head, Kate glanced away, as if she were thinking and remembering. Slowly she turned again, her eyes rising to meet and keep his gaze unflinchingly. “But I do.”
Her hands had been clasped tightly before her. Now her grip loosened and her arms dropped to her sides. Her fingers curled loosely in a posture that left her unguarded and vulnerable. But the wariness and uncertainty that had been in her voice were forgotten. And there was only tenderness and honesty in her face and her eyes. “I love you, Devlin O’Hara.”
Devlin had little memory of going to her. In one second he stood in the doorway, in another she was in his arms. Her lips were on his, her hands clasped at his nape. A soft cry revealed her hunger, as wild and desperate and as great as his. As the towel loosened around his hips then slid to the floor, all he knew was that there was still a barrier between them.
Only the grip of his hands at her shoulders kept them from shaking as he moved her from him. “Shh, love,” he whispered at her murmured objection. “Only a heartbeat, and this.”
He wondered if his clumsy fingers could manage the four buttons, and when they slipped free, he was grateful for silk and tiny pearls. Leaning forward, cupping her face in his palms, he kissed her again, tracing the shape of her mouth with his until her lips parted for him. He felt the heat of her mouth meeting his and lost the sense of his purpose.
It was only when she drew away to kiss his throat and his chest that he felt the brush of her shirt against him and remembered. Catching her wandering hands in his, he drew them to his lips, leaving a kiss in each palm before folding her fingers and releasing her.
“First, this,” he whispered as he traced a line down each side of her throat and over her shoulders, b
rushing the shirt from her as he went. When the flame-colored silk floated away to lie with the discarded towel, he sighed in quiet relief. “And now, this.”
Lifting her into this arms, he took her to the bed. Laying her gently on taupe linen that had gleamed gold in little light, he stared down at her, at Kate. His to cherish.
My love.
Devlin’s own words rang in his mind and in his heart. And he knew he meant them. All his life he’d called the women he knew and cared for little pet names. Names that ranged from teasing to comforting. But he’d never spoken of love.
Love. A condition of the heart, and a word too serious for platonic teasing.
The condition of his heart as she drew him down to her. Down to her embrace and her kiss. To the storm of desire that equaled his. Desire and passion reaching into the heart of him, becoming a never-ending part of all he would ever be.
As he turned with her, settling her over him to cradle her body intimately with his, she went with him. Laughing softly, exultantly, she rose over him, letting the sweep of her hair and the exquisite scent of her entice and enfold him. He reached for her. She caught his wrists, keeping them imprisoned by his own will. Setting her velvet trap, keeping him captive, for a long while, she looked down through candlelight. Down at their bodies contrasted in the dusk. Pale skin against dark, the strong and less strong, subtle femininity and aroused masculinity. Desire meeting desire.
When he would have spoken, she shook her head, then bent to his hostage kiss. With each move the fullness of her breasts glided over his chest. The soft swell seducing and tormenting with nipples growing ever darker, ever more voluptuous, with each contact.
Her first kiss had been fleeting, almost poignant. The pain and pleasure of it left him wanting more. Yet he was afraid that in his consuming need, he would move too fast, and want too much. When he lifted her over him, relinquishing control, he thought to calm the building fury. Now he realized the error of any thought or effort seeking to maintain control.
