by Nora Roberts
"Supper, then."
"No." Her hand trailed over, cupped the back of his neck. "Not supper either," she murmured and drew his mouth to hers. "You." She breathed it. "Only you."
"Kayleen." He'd intended to romance her, charm her. Seduce her. Now she had done all of that to him. "I don't want to rush you."
"I've waited so long, without even knowing. There's never been anyone else. Now I think there couldn't have been, because there was you. Show me what it's like to belong."
"There's no woman I've touched who mattered.
They're shadows beside you, Kayleen. This," he said and lifted her into his arms, "is real."
He carried her through the music and candlelight, up the grand stairs. And though she felt his arms, the beat of his heart, it was like floating.
"Here is where I dreamed of you in the night." He took her into his bedchamber, where the bed was covered with red silk and the petals of white roses, where candles stood flaming and the fire shimmered. "And here is where I'll love you, this first time. Flesh to flesh."
He set her on her feet. "I won't hurt you, that I can promise. I'll give you only pleasure."
"I'm not afraid."
"Then be with me." He cupped her face in his hands, laid his lips on hers.
In dreams there had been longing, and echoes of sensations. Here and now, with those mists parted, there was so much more.
Gently, so gently, his mouth took from hers. Warmth and wanting. With tenderness and patience, his hands moved over her. Soft and seductive. When she trembled, he soothed, murmuring her name, and promises. He slid the gown off her shoulders, trailed kisses over that curve of flesh. And thrilled to the flavor and the fragrance.
"Let me see you now, lovely Kayleen." He skimmed his lips along her throat as he eased the gown down her body. When it pooled at her feet, he stepped back and looked his fill.
There was no shyness in her. The heat that rose up to bloom on her skin was anticipation. The tremble that danced through her was delight when his gaze finished its journey and his eyes locked on hers.
He reached out, caressed the curve of her breast, let them both absorb the sensation. When his fingertips trailed down, he felt her quiver under his touch.
She reached for him, her hands not quite steady as she unbuttoned his shirt. And when she touched him, it was like freedom.
"A ghra." He pulled her against him, crushed her mouth with his, lost himself in the needs that stormed through him. His hands raced over her, took, sought more, until she gasped out his name.
Too fast, too much. God help him. He fought back through the pounding in his blood, gentled his movements, chained the raw need. When he lifted her again, laid her on the bed, his kiss was long and slow and gentle.
This, she thought, was what the poets wrote of. This was why a man or a woman would reject reason for even the chance of love.
This warmth, this pleasure of another's body against your own. This gift of heart, and all the sighs and secrets it offered.
He gave her pleasure, as he had promised, drowning floods of it that washed through her in slow waves. She could have lain steeped in it forever.
She gave to him a taste, a touch, so that sensation pillowed the aches. He savored, and lingered, and held fast to the beauty she offered.
When flames licked at the edges of warmth, she welcomed them. The pretty clouds that had cushioned her began to thin. Falling through them, she cried out. A sound of triumph as her heart burst inside her.
And heard him moan, heard the quick whispers, a kind of incantation as he rose over her. Through the candlelight and the shimmer of her own vision she saw his face, his eyes. So green now they were like dark jewels. Swamped with love, she laid a hand on his cheek, murmured his name.
"Look at me. Aye, at me." His breath wanted to tear out of his lungs. His body begged to plunge. "Only pleasure."
He took her innocence, filled her, and gave her the joy. She opened for him, rose with him, her eyes swimming with shocked delight. And with the love he craved like breath.
And this time, when she fell, he gathered himself and plunged after her.
Her body shimmered. She was certain that if she looked in the mirror she would see it was golden. And his, she thought, trailing a hand lazily up and down his back. His was so beautiful. Strong and hard and smooth.
His heart was thundering against hers still. What a fantastic sensation that was, to be under the weight of the man you loved and feel his heart race for you.
Perhaps that was why her mother kept searching, kept risking. For this one moment of bliss. Love, Kayleen thought, changes everything.
And she loved.
Was loved. She repeated that over and over in her head. She was loved. It didn't matter that he hadn't said it, in those precise words. He couldn't look at her as he did, couldn't touch her as he did and not love her.
A woman didn't change her life, believe in spells and fairy tales after years of denial, and not be given the happy ending.
Flynn loved her. That was all she needed to know.
"Why do you worry?"
She blinked herself back. "What?"
"I feel it. Inside you." He lifted his head and studied her face. "The worry."
"No. It's only that everything's different now. So much is happening to me in so little time." She brushed her fingers through his hair and smiled. "But it's not worry."
"I want your happiness, Kayleen."
"I know." And wasn't that love, after all? "I know." And laughing, she threw her arms around him. "And you have it. You make me ridiculously happy."
"There's often not enough ridiculous in a life." He pulled her up with him so they were sitting tangled together on silk roses. "So let's have a bit."
The stone in his pendant glowed brighter as he grinned. He fisted his hands, shot them open.
In a wink the bed around them was covered with platters of food and bottles of wine. It made her jolt. She wondered if such things always would. Angling her head, she lifted a glass.
"I'd rather champagne, if you please."
"Well, then."
She watched the glass fill, bottom to top, with the frothy wine. And laughing, she toasted him and drank it down.
Chapter 6
All of her life Kayleen had done the sensible thing. As a child, she'd tidied her room without being reminded, studied hard in school and turned in all assignments in a timely fashion. She had grown into a woman who was never late for an appointment, spent her money wisely, and ran the family business with a cool, clear head.
Looking back through the veil of what had been, Kayleen decided she had certainly been one of the most tedious people on the face of the planet.
How could she have known there was such freedom in doing the ridiculous or the impulsive or the foolish?
She said as much to Flynn as she lay sprawled over him on the bed of velvety flowers.
"You couldn't be tedious."
"Oh, but I could." She lifted her head from his chest. She wore nothing but her smile, with its dimple, and flowers in her hair. "I was the queen of tedium. I set my alarm for six o'clock every morning, even when I didn't have to get up for work. I even set alarms when I was on vacation."
"Because you didn't want to miss anything."
"No. Because one must maintain discipline. I walked to work every day, rain or shine, along the exact same route. This was after making my bed and eating a balanced breakfast, of course."
She slithered down so that she could punctuate her words with little kisses over his shoulders and chest. "I arrived at the shop precisely thirty minutes before opening, in order to see to the morning paperwork and check any displays that might require updating. Thirty minutes for a proper lunch, fifteen minutes, exactly, at four for a cup of tea, then close shop and walk home by that same route."
She worked her way up his throat. "Mmmm. Watched the news during dinner—must keep up with current affairs. Read a chapter of a good book before bed. Except f
or Wednesdays. Wednesdays I went wild and took in an interesting film. And on my half day, I would go over to my mother's to lecture her."
Though her pretty mouth was quite a distraction, he paid attention to her words, and the tone of them. "You lectured your mother?"
"Oh, yes." She nibbled at his ear. "My beautiful, frivolous, delightful mother. How I must have irritated her. She's been married three times, engaged double that, at least. It never works out, and she's heartbroken about it for, oh, about an hour and a half."
With a laugh, Kayleen lifted her head again. "That's not fair, of course, but she manages to shake it all off and never lose her optimism about love. She forgets to pay her bills, misses appointments, never knows the correct time, and has never been known to be able to find her keys. She's wonderful."
"You love her very much."
"Yes, very much." Sighing now, Kayleen pillowed her head on Flynn's shoulder. "I decided when I was very young that it was my job to take care of her. That was after her husband number two."
He combed his fingers through her flower-bedecked hair. "Did you lose your father?"
"No, but you could say he lost us. He left us when I was six. I suppose you could call him frivolous, too, which was yet another motivation for me to be anything but. He never settled into the family business well. Or into marriage, or into fatherhood. I hardly remember him."
He stroked her hair, said nothing. But he was beginning to worry. "Were you happy, in that life?"
"I wasn't unhappy. Brennan's was important to me, maybe all the more so because it wasn't important to my father. He shrugged off the tradition of it, the responsibility of it, as carelessly as he shrugged off his wife and his daughter."
"And hurt you."
"At first. Then I stopped letting it hurt me."
Did you? Flynn wondered. Or is that just one more pretense?
"I thought everything had to be done a certain way to be done right. If you do things right, people don't leave," she said softly. "And you'll know exactly what's going to happen next. My
