The village had been a terrible place. He had sensed death, and pain, and a raw struggle to survive.
Marissa must have felt for her friend greatly.
And tonight, Ian had wanted to hold Marissa, to smooth her hair. To give her security against …
He didn’t know.
Shrugging, he ground his teeth together hard and turned over with a vehement twist, pounding his pillow. He was tired; he should sleep. He had a meeting with the men tomorrow about the new buildings for the waterfront district. And he had to show his new wife and her friends something of the city. And there was young James to see settled in at the emporium. He was weary; he should sleep.
But he did not.
Ian was the one to lie awake most of the night.
It taunted him to know that Marissa lay just beyond the door.
A door she had not remembered to lock against him, despite her words.
There had been something about her, that night in England. Something that still teased and haunted his senses, something that made the present seem suddenly more important than the past. Something in her eyes had challenged him, something in her heart had awakened him. Something in her innocence still laid claim to him.
And she had not locked the door. It was his house, he had told her, his door. And he’d never made any promises or agreements.
She was so close. All he had to do was step through the door.
He turned again, closing his eyes tightly. She could not take Diana’s place. He would not let her. He could not let her be a wife in truth. And if his flesh burned and if his dreams were fraught with images of her, he would learn to get past them. That was why he had gone to see Lilli.
But Lilli, even with her pretty face and stately form, could not compare with Marissa. The lift of her chin, the emerald blaze of her eyes, the cascade of her hair. Her passion, so visible in her anger …
So sweet when she allowed it to flow and undulate in his arms. He could not forget the scent of her skin, the silk of her hair, entangling him.
Desire … It was natural, for she was beautiful, and she was young. The sparks of fury that flowed between them could so easily become more.
But tonight …
Tonight he had listened to her cry out to him. And she mocked him and railed against him.
But her words had been true, and she had awakened more in him than desire. He’d never intended to be a self-pitying monster. He had just missed Diana with all his heart.
He’d married Marissa; he’d made no promises. He had only to burst through the door, lift her into his arms and carry her in here, to his bed. He’d not force her. He’d make love to her, and her protests would die softly away as they had before. And he would ease the rage in his loins and the tension in his limbs.
He rose, sleek and naked in the night. He took two steps toward the door between them, then paused.
He might ease the tension and desire, but he’d create a new tempest in his heart. He could not bring her to this bed, for it had been Diana’s bed. He could not sweep Marissa into any world he had shared before.
He had married Marissa. He still could not allow her to be his wife.
The fog settled over the city, and the moon rose high above it to create a soft, surreal glow.
And Ian stood there, muscles knotting, his head cast back. He nearly cried out as pain and longing knotted together within his soul.
Minutes passed, long, aching minutes. He padded to the window and looked out again on San Francisco. He inhaled and exhaled slowly. It seemed that he stared out at the city forever.
A foghorn sounded and he started, then smiled, with just a hint of tenderness curling his lip.
She had just arrived. She was close, and it was his own fault. When she had still been endless miles away, he had not thought that having her so near could wreak such havoc upon him.
She slept in exhaustion. So innocently.
No, he thought wryly. He would not disturb her sleep, no matter what decision he had made within his heart.
He would leave her be.
He realized suddenly that light was breaking through the fog. He had stayed awake for hours, staring into the night.
He laughed ruefully.
He’d leave her be …
Maybe.
And then again …
Maybe he’d let her live in just a bit of the tempest that was nearly driving him to distraction!
Chapter Ten
Marissa awoke with a sense of disorientation. She opened her eyes to see her fingers stretched over embroidered cream sheets. Across the room, she could see the door to the bathroom slightly ajar. The morning light was streaming through the etched and beveled windows, and the entire room was cast in a soft glow.
The night’s sleep had done her a world of good, and she smiled slowly. This was all hers. These rooms were her domain. With their soft and subtle beauty, they were where she lived.
She rose, frowning for a moment as she tried to remember taking off her shoes, then she shrugged. She had been so very tired, she couldn’t even remember falling asleep.
Her bags were still on the floor at the foot of the bed. She rose, found her overnight case and searched diligently for her toothbrush and cosmetics, then headed into the bath. She doused her face and scrubbed her teeth and smiled to the image in the mirror over the porcelain sink. “A prison not so tortuous, I think!” she told herself. She was ready to wrestle with Ian once again this morning. With a vengeance.
She turned on the gold spigots for the tub, thinking of home. This house offered everything. At Uncle Theo’s, a bath had been a time-consuming chore. She had to heat endless pots of water, drag out the tub, fill the tub, empty the tub! Even at the manor there had been no running water. There had been several “necessary” rooms, but nothing like this.
She took bubble bath from the cabinet and added it liberally to the water. Then she quickly disrobed and stepped into the tub, luxuriating in the heat.
The bubbles rose around her and she was delighted. She sank down as the water rose, drenching her hair, rubbing her scalp. She inhaled the sweet rose scent of the bubbles and doused herself again, feeling like a child. Then, with a soft sigh, she settled back, her head resting on the edge of the tub, her arms elegantly draped over the sides.
“Not so horrid a prison,” she murmured. And she lifted a hand, pointing as she might to make something clear to a schoolboy. “Mr. Ian Tremayne will be made to see that it cannot be had both ways, and then I think that I shall settle in very nicely! He will be put in his place, I swear it!”
“Really?”
The quiet, amused challenge of his voice coming from behind her was the greatest surprise of her life. She almost bolted from the bubbles, then managed to twist around beneath them to stare at him where he leaned against the door frame, his arms casually crossed, brows arched as he stared at her. He was dressed for business in a pin-striped suit with a gray silk vest and white pleated shirt beneath. Hatless, and with the errant lock of hair falling over his forehead, he was striking. Her heart began to pound, and she forgot for a moment that she was ready to wrestle with him. He was definitely one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. Yet it wasn’t just his looks that made him so arresting; it was that air of confidence, the energy, the tension. There was danger in his eyes, in the fire within them. And despite her pride, it was far too easy to flicker close to the flames burning there.
She remembered her pride at last. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded sharply.
“Oh, just listening to how you’ll put me in my place,” he replied with a casual smile.
Flames crept to her cheeks, but she remembered she was the one with the right to be indignant. “These are my private quarters—”
“I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”
“Then you weren’t given leave to enter!”
“You might have been drowning here, my love. I had to make sure you were all right. Indeed, I thought at first that y
ou were drowning, since your head was lost in the foam.”
“Well, I wasn’t drowning, and I’m quite all right, and you’ve no business in here at all!”
“I own the house.”
“But you gave me the bath!”
“I did not give it to you!” he protested. “I loaned it to you.” He took two long strides into the room and knelt beside the porcelain tub. Marissa tried to maintain her dignity by drawing the bubbles around her.
They were breaking up at an alarming pace.
She narrowed her eyes. “Out!” she told him sharply.
“I really don’t understand your distress,” he said, a leisurely smile curling his lip. “We’re adults, man and wife—be honest here! I’ve seen in the naked flesh all that you would hide behind those elusive bubbles—”
“In the dark, in London, a long time ago—and during a mistake, which you yourself apologized for!” she interrupted, her temper growing. He was so near. And the curve of his smile and the humor in his eyes were nearly akin to tenderness.
He touched her, drawing a soft line from her throat to her shoulder. “It was not so dark, what matters the city, not so long ago, and an apology would do nothing to alter my memory of every piece of your—of you. Dear Lord, those bubbles do not last long when you want them to, do they?”
If she was losing them anyway, Marissa determined in a flash of fury, she might as well use them well. She dipped a hand into the water and sent a spray of bubbles flying onto his face and chest. She was rewarded with a sharp oath and a sea of sputtering. “Marissa, you little witch—”
She leaped up, thinking to escape, remembered she was naked, and decided she had best run anyway.
He caught her just as she reached the bedroom. His hands slid over the length of her flesh, but she eluded him, for the soap that remained on her was slick and slippery. “No!” she shrieked, torn between panic and laughter.
“You’ve destroyed my suit!” he thundered.
“You destroyed my bath, and my privacy!” she retorted. The bed was behind her. She turned to grab the sheet, but he was moving again, striding quickly across the room. He caught her with an energy that sent them both flying down upon her beautiful bed. She was soft and slippery, the essence of the bubbles still upon her flesh.
“Off!” she commanded. “Ian, you rake—”
“Ah, but you were well warned to stay away!”
“I was in my own bath!”
“You saw fit to wage war.”
“I saw fit to defend myself!”
She had entered this marriage knowing everything.
But the texture of his tongue upon her flesh was rough and sleek and exciting, and the flames that had touched his eyes were growing to burst into a fire at the center of her being. She could not allow this.
This was too much like falling in love with him. She seemed to need the laughter in his eyes, the curve of his smile. She hated him because he had others in his life, and not because of the way he had manipulated her own life.
His kiss moved lower. His tongue tasted a patch of bubbles that remained high upon her breast. His fingers curled over hers and entwined, and his kiss moved farther down. Slowly. So slowly. The tip of his tongue just moving over her naked flesh, lower and lower upon her breast.
“You—you do not want me,” she reminded him.
His face lay within the valley of her breasts. He paused, pressing a kiss there, running his tongue lightly over that valley. She ached for more. Longing to have him take her deeply into his mouth. She wanted to run her fingers into the darkness of his hair and draw his face to hers and kiss his lips. And she wanted to strip away the soaked pin-striped suit and feel the naked tension of his body.
She swallowed hard and repeated her words, “You do not want me here, Ian. Ian!” She tried to escape his hold, twisting in a fury. But she could not fight his weight and his hold, and he had not released her. As she twisted she was only wedging herself more closely to him. His lips were pressed deeply against her breast, and the fire raged more deeply between her thighs. “Ian!” Taut and still, she called his name.
He was silent for a long moment. Then the husky, muffled velvet of his voice came to her. “Ah, but I do want you,” he murmured.
“Let me go!”
“Is that what you want?”
His head rose above hers. There was no laughter in his eyes, only darkness. His features were tense, his jaw hard as his gaze sought hers.
“Ian—”
“What of you, Marissa? Do you want me?”
She caught her breath, unable to speak. His eyes were dark and demanding upon hers. This time they were not doing battle, nor were they jesting. And yet she was too afraid to answer him. She could not spill out her feelings, even if she could completely understand them herself. Then they came clear to her.
Love me! she wanted to cry out. For I have fallen in love with you, in love with a memory, perhaps. And even in love with the anger and the challenge and the arrogance. For I’ve seen the care, and the tenderness, too. And I’ve seen the beauty of what can lie between two people, and I never knew that my heart ached for that loving, too.
But he could not love her. He was in love with a ghost, and he made love with faceless women who did not count.
And she couldn’t say she loved him, for she was living a lie. She wasn’t the woman he thought he had married.
And still she wanted to touch his face, to draw it to hers, to taste his lips upon hers.
She did. She reached out, her fingertips falling upon the curve of his cheek and the bronzed contours of his face. Then she cried out, alarmed at herself, incredulous that she could forget her pride.
“No!” She twisted from beneath him, and he let her go. She sat with her back to him, her spine straight but her head lowered. “No!” she said, and the sound was more desperate than angry.
Not when you long for a dead woman! she added silently. Not when I would be nothing more than a dance-hall girl. She couldn’t say those things to him.
“And I meant to taunt you!” he murmured.
She looked at him. He was propped on one elbow, watching her with a wry smile.
“Pardon?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” His eyes closed, and a ragged shudder swept his body. He stood, and to her amazement he stripped the cover from the bed with a fluid motion and set it around her shoulders. “Breakfast is a buffet downstairs. We do share the dining room, since I haven’t two, I’m afraid. We need to get started, it’s a busy morning. Meet me there as soon as you can.”
She rose uncertainly, holding the cover around her. He grinned, came to her and stared into her eyes, then gave her a firm smack on the derriere. “Get cracking, lady. I’m American nouveau riche, a Yank, remember, not British gentry. I have to work to maintain my bank accounts.”
He didn’t wait for her answer, but left her, slipping through to his own room. She rose and followed him, meaning to lock the door. But she hesitated and did not touch the lock.
She turned pensively instead, and walked slowly to the bathroom to dress.
Ten minutes later she found him in the dining room.
A walk down the curving stairway brought her to the entry. She discovered, by walking to her left, that the dining room was there, beyond a large parlor with huge bay windows looking down the lawn to the street. Ian was sitting at the end of the table with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. He looked up when she arrived. He had changed into a navy suit with a paisley vest, and his errant hair had been combed.
“Biscuits and eggs are on the buffet,” he told her, and he reached across the table, where a place had been set for her, and picked up her cup. A coffee urn was sitting before him, and he looked at her before pouring from it. “Would you prefer tea?”
She shook her head and slid into her seat. “Coffee is fine, thank you.”
He poured her coffee. “You need to eat something. We’ll be out all day.”
“I’m not very hungry—�
�
“You need to eat. Lee, would you kindly fix Mrs. Tremayne a plate?”
Marissa started, unaware that the Chinese woman had been standing in the corner. Lee came forward to do as she was bidden, and Marissa stood, determined that she wouldn’t require any help from Lee.
“Thank you, Lee. I can manage myself.”
Exotic dark eyes touched her for a moment, their hostility still evident, then they fell as Lee bowed her head. “As you wish, Mrs. Tremayne.”
Marissa walked to the buffet and helped herself to fried eggs and biscuits and bacon and sat at the table. She had come down intending to be as mature and reasonable as she could. She had wanted to talk, to form some kind of a livable relationship between them.
But with Lee in the corner of the room, she couldn’t talk. She sipped her coffee, which was delicious, and bit gingerly into a piece of bacon.
“I’ll try to show you and the O’Briens something of the city this morning,” Ian said, glancing at his paper as he spoke. “But I’ll need to bring James into the emporium after lunch, and I’ve an appointment myself. John will be at your disposal to drive you around should you choose.”
Lee cleared her throat, as if waiting for permission to speak. Ian glanced her way curiously.
“Perhaps Mrs. Tremayne and her friend would prefer exploring on their own. The cable cars are wonderful.”
“Yes, Lee, they are. But perhaps they should become a little more familiar with their surroundings before exploring on their own. It’s a beautiful city—it can be a dangerous one, too.”
Marissa buttered a biscuit, smiling sweetly as a touch of resentment rose within her. “Um. I understand that the Barbary Coast offers all manner of entertainment, theaters and the like.”
“I think you are mainly thinking of years past, when brothels were thicker than flies, my dear.”
“They’ve all gone then?” Marissa queried innocently.
His eyes were hard. He sipped his coffee, then set his cup down. He leaned forward with a pleasant smile. “Not at all. But then, my love, I mean to show you the finer sights of your new city. Are you ready?”
She wasn’t ready at all, but it was apparent that he was determined to go. He was on his feet, pulling her chair out for her. “Tell John to meet us at the emporium around two, Lee, to pick up Mrs. Tremayne and Mrs. O’Brien.”
Forbidden Fire Page 15
