Beyond Eden

by Catherine Coulter

“But one million—”

  “One million dollars is nothing more than a finger in the dam, so I hear. Now, this notion of giving all your inheritance to him—I advise you strongly against it. As you said, what would it change? You think to buy his love? It wouldn’t, you know, and I think you’re smart enough to realize that. Nor would it buy his respect. It would buy exactly nothing. I think you should return to New York, Lindsay, and do some thinking. Your grandmother has laid a heavy burden on your shoulders. Here is my card with my private number at home. I will be here for you.

  “I shouldn’t say this, but I must. Don’t let your father intimidate you. Don’t let him make you feel guilty. Don’t let him destroy you with that old scandal in Paris. I know it was all twisted from the truth. Your grandmother told me that. Will you promise me?”

  She gave him a look of naked pain.

  “Promise me,” he repeated.

  “All right. I promise.”

  “Good. When are you going back to New York?”

  “Now.”

  “Er, what about the house?”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “This house, the Foxe mansion. You own it. It’s all yours, free and clear. Your father and his wife live here. What do you want to do?”

  She waved a vague hand. “I don’t know. As you say, they live here. Let them stay. I can’t quite imagine going in the library now and informing them to be out by three o’clock.”

  Grayson Delmartin thought evicting Judge Foxe would provide him the most satisfaction he’d had in a good ten years. “Do you wish me to instruct Mrs. Foxe that no changes are to be made without your express permission in writing?”

  She looked up again at her grandfather’s painting. Would Holly send it to the trash bin if she had her way? “Whatever you believe appropriate, Mr. Delmartin. No, I don’t want any changes, at least not yet. Yes, in writing. That makes it very official.”

  “Good, good.” He rose and offered Lindsay his hand. “I will wait here until you’re packed. Then I will drive you to the airport.”

  She smiled. “Ah, my protector from the ravening wolves.”

  “Yes, exactly.” Telling Mrs. Foxe she couldn’t lay a fat finger on the house would also give him some satisfaction. At least enough for now.

  As he drove the very wealthy Miss Foxe to the San Francisco airport, Grayson Delmartin hoped that she had a protector in New York. She needed one, at least until she got herself on an even keel. He’d forgotten the scandal about the prince and his rape of an eighteen-year-old Lindsay. He shook his head. Jesus, a father calling his daughter a slut. It defied any logic he knew of and it defied any understanding Grayson could bring to bear on Judge Royce Foxe’s dislike of his younger daughter.

  The man, he thought dispassionately, was a shit.

  It was on the way to the airport that Lindsay realized exactly what it was her grandmother had done for her: she’d given her power, ultimate power, the only kind of power Gates Foxe had understood, and she’d given it free and clear with no strings. Power. Lindsay smiled. Immense power, but now she had no need of it. She wished she could tell it to her grandmother now, but it was too late. Power wasn’t to Lindsay what it was to Gates Foxe. To her it was understanding and acceptance of things she couldn’t change. It was overcoming fear, putting the pain of her father’s words behind that curtain she’d seen so clearly in the dining room the night before. Power was not letting the past obstruct the future. Power was knowledge of oneself, of what one was, of what one could become. Power was seeing her family as they really were, namely, jerks, and accepting that they’d never change. And it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t have to play their endless destructive games. She was free of them. She drew a deep, clean breath. Delmartin looked sharply at her, but when she just shook her head, he remained quiet.

  To her utter surprise, Lindsay slept most of the way back to New York. She didn’t dream. She didn’t cry anymore. She felt numb, then she slept. The last half-hour of the flight, she was in that vague semiawake state, and all her thoughts were focused on Taylor.

  She wanted to see him. She wanted to be close to him. She wanted to touch him, breathe in his scent. She wanted to know that she wasn’t alone. Always alone, she thought. God, she wanted Taylor.

  It was just after midnight when she came through the gate tunnel. She knew she was hurrying, she couldn’t help it. She wanted Taylor, and even a second longer to wait was too long. She nearly tripped once and felt a man’s hand grab her arm, to straighten her back up. She smiled her thanks, her eyes darting beyond him, and kept hurrying.

  He was there, leaning against one of the concrete posts, his arms crossed, his expression intent.

  She paused, looking directly at him. For the first time since she’d met him, she really saw him, saw to the bone and marrow of him, to the toughness and kindness of him, to the essence of him, and she felt something wild and heavy beat steady within her.

  She took a step forward, still staring at him, not understanding really, but wanting him more than anything. He’d said nothing, hadn’t moved. His head was cocked now to one side as he watched her.

  She dropped her bag and simply ran to him. He was a man of quick reaction time and he lifted her up against him, squeezing her so tightly she gasped for breath. When he lowered her, he felt the warmth and softness of her body and he felt something else. He felt urgency in her, and power and a frenzy, a wildness that had brought her to the edge. She didn’t lose her hold around his neck. Then she was kissing him all over his face, and he felt the heat of her mouth, the heat of her body.

  Sweet Jesus, he thought, his mouth opening to her urging. He allowed himself for the first time since he’d known her to let go, to react as he wanted to, to show her how much he wanted her, to forget control, to forget scaring her. He wanted her with all the pent-up madness in him, and—

  He moaned in her mouth, his hands now frantic on her back. He became aware of a laugh, and slowly, hating to be parted from her, Taylor raised his head. It took him an instant to focus his mind and his eyes. They were in the middle of Kennedy airport and any minute now he imagined he could very easily pull her pants down, open his, and slam into her.

  He drew a deep breath, took her face between his palms and kissed her lightly—her nose, chin, cheeks—smoothed her eyebrows with his thumbs.

  “Welcome home, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.”

  “Take me home, Taylor, now, please, home.” He’d never heard her voice so low, nearly ugly in its hoarseness. He felt himself responding with a reck-lessness he didn’t know was in him. He grabbed her bag in his right hand, her hand in his left, and dragged her toward the exit.

  They were nearly running, saying nothing. She focused on the utterly alien feelings shocking through her, but not hesitating, no, she wanted this—whatever it was—and there was no fear, no sense of revulsion. There was only Taylor and he would take care of her and give her what she wanted, what she needed. She was breathing hard, then harder still. His fingers tightened around hers.

  She looked at his profile, saw the flush on his cheeks, saw his partially open mouth. Dear God, she wanted to touch him, feel all of him, stroke her fingers down his belly, stroke his penis and make him hard and harder still, and bring him inside her. Yes, yes, oh God, yes. . . .

  Time suspended itself. Traffic went by the car in a blur of midnight sights and sounds. He was driving too fast, his hands, both of them, clutching the steering wheel, his knuckles white. There was nothing but her, there was nothing in the world but her.

  Lindsay stared straight ahead. She felt the strange rhythms in her body, pounding deep and deeper still, and she didn’t question them, rather she breathed fast and harsh, feeling him next to her, smelling the man scent of him, her fingers clenching, wanting to touch him, to feel him touching her.

  Suddenly, not more than a block from their apartment, she turned to face him and said only, “Taylor.” She swallowed; there was nothing else she could say.

  “Ye
s, Eden. Not long now. Not long.”

  They were breathless with their dash to the front door of their apartment. It took him too long to get the front door unlocked. He dropped her bag to the hardwood floor, kicked the door shut with his foot and grabbed her. She came fully and completely against him and he realized for the first time that they fitted perfectly together. But the clothes, the damned clothes. He wanted her naked flesh in his hands, pressed against him. All of her, this instant, heated flesh against him, smooth flesh, her flesh—

  “Taylor,” she said again, and this time she grabbed his hand and together they raced toward the bedroom. She drew him on top of her on the bed and he was heavy and hard against her and Lindsay knew she’d never imagined anything so wonderful as this. He kissed her, not lightly as was his habit, but deep, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, feeling her surprise at the touch of him, knowing that she’d never done this before, never allowed it, but now, with him, she did.

  He was trembling with the force of his feelings, the surging lust that was making his heart pound and his loins painful and heavy. His hands were on her breasts now, kneading them, caressing them, tugging gently at her through her clothes. “Too much,” he whispered. The clothes were too much. “Yes, oh yes.” Lindsay bucked him off her to his side and her fingers were frenzied on the buttons of his shirt, then with a whimper of frustration she began yanking futilely on the zipper of his pants.

  All that she was, all that had lain buried so deeply within her, was in the open now, raw and painfully sharp, and she was whimpering with the frantic need that was driving her beyond anything she’d ever known, beyond anything she could have ever believed existed.

  Taylor couldn’t bear it any longer. He reared back off the bed, thrust his hands beneath her sweater to her slacks, and nearly ripped them open. He jerked them down her legs, bringing her panties with them, and her knee socks. He’d forgotten her boots and cursed, then yanked them off. In an instant she was naked to her waist and she was sitting up, grabbing at his pants and watching him as he jerked off his coat and his sweater.

  “Taylor, please.”

  He couldn’t stand it for another moment. He unzipped his pants and freed his sex. She stared at him and there was such hunger on her face that he moaned. He came down over her, parting her legs wide.

  “Eden, oh sweet Jesus, now.” And he parted her with shaking warm fingers and came into her, powerfully, in one long sure thrust.

  She yelled, arching off the bed. At the same time her arms were around his back and she was pushing upward, helplessly, not knowing what to do, but allowing the sensations to pour through her, and she felt him so deep inside her. She was pulsing and breathing so hard she thought she would die of it, but all she could think of was the power of him, the heat from him, the depth of his sex, pumping hard inside her, and she moaned and moaned, not ever wanting it to stop, but wanting something, something, that was building and bloating inside her, pushing hard at her, pushing—

  He was over her, his face flushed with his passion, and then he came down with all his weight now, so very deep inside her, and he began kissing her hard, then shuddering and pulling back, and kissing her with a tenderness that made her arch upward against him, drawing him deeper and deeper. And it was simply too much. “Come now, Eden, come to me.” In the next instant, his fingers were between their bodies and he’d found her and she was wet and swelled and he thought he’d die with the wonder of it. He caressed her flesh and she was crying now, her chest heaving, her raw moans filling the silent air, and he said again and again, “Come to me now, sweetheart. Yes, come to me. Give it up. Yes, come, come, come—trust me, trust me.”

  She did with a soul-deep shudder. Her eyes went blank and glazed. “Taylor!” She arched upward, her hips moving wildly against his fingers, drawing him even more deeply into her, and her muscles were contracting and he knew that it was all over for him. When her screams burst over him, he let himself go and heaved and threw back his head, yelling his climax. He knew even as he exploded inside her that this was her first orgasm and that he had given it to her and that something had happened to bring her to him in this wild frenzy, but he wouldn’t think of it now, oh no.

  And as he quieted, she said into his mouth, “My name is Lindsay, not Lynn. I hate Eden. Please, my name is Lindsay.”

  “I love you, Lindsay,” he said and in so saying it, he offered her all of him, without reservations and forever.

  “And I you,” she said, her voice hoarse and raw and dazed, her tongue warm in his mouth, and she was licking his upper lip, his tongue, nipping his chin, and she was tightening beneath him yet again.

  “I want to feel all of you,” he said, and pulled out of her.

  17

  Taylor / Lindsay

  It was beating wildly inside her again, this need, this urgency, this all-consuming wanting of this man. The orgasm that had hit her hard had dazed her, leaving her shaking and hot and strangely fluid, and she hadn’t really understood what had happened but knew that it was going to happen again. This frenzy, it was building fast inside her. She didn’t question it, didn’t hesitate for an instant. She came up and began ripping off her clothes.

  “Yes,” she said, all her concentration on getting her bra off, “I want to feel you, Taylor, I want to know everything about you, everything—to touch you, your belly is so beautiful and hard and—”

  He paused an instant, his breath coming fast again and faster still as he listened to her. He didn’t question that he wanted her again, as fiercely as he had but minutes before. Blood was pumping through him, and his skin felt itchy and hot. He felt incredibly strong. He watched her tugging clumsily at her bra. He laughed and slapped away her hands. It was a front clasp and he slid it quickly open, and he pushed it back and stared at her breasts, just stared, gulping, his lips moving because he wanted her in his mouth, to suck and caress. His hands cupped them, weighing them, holding them, filling his hands with her, and he groaned.

  “Hurry,” she gasped. “Oh, hurry, please, Taylor.”

  And he did. When he came over her, her legs parted for him and he moved between them and he felt all of her, her breasts against his bare chest, her belly against his, the length of her legs against his, and he closed his eyes at the intensity of the feelings crashing through him.

  “Ah, Lindsay, damn, I’d thought to make this time slow and sweet.”

  “No,” she said, pushing at him, trying to touch him with her fingers. He pushed up on his elbows and felt her hands thrust between their bellies and close around him. His eyes closed and he felt himself pushing against her soft hands, his breath heaving, quickening, and he had to jerk away because in another moment or so he would come again. “I can’t, dear God, stop it, sweetheart. Come over me, now.” He pulled her over on top of him.

  He saw she didn’t understand. “Come up on your knees and bring me inside you. Then you can move the way you want to.”

  She glowed at his words, her eyes as deep and hot as her body, and he saw the intense passion in her and it was dazzling. He watched her stare at his penis, then clasp him, and still she stared at him, her look absorbed and intent and eager. He watched her come up on her knees, saw her ease him between her widespread legs. He felt the heat of her as she slid him inside her. He’d known that heat would be there for him, and so it was, incredible and dark and smooth, this welcoming of hers. He felt the wet of his seed, and the wet of her, he supposed, a woman’s moistness, and the heat that was pouring onto him, and into him, and it eased his way. He didn’t think he could hold on. He grasped her hips suddenly in his hands and in a furious downward motion brought her down hard on him as he jerked up.

  She yelled, her back arched. He looked up to see her breasts thrusting out, her head thrown back, her lips parted. She looked pagan with all that thick waving hair like a nimbus around her head. She looked like a woman who had no thought beyond his penis pumping inside her and the pleasure she was drawing from him. He worked her, showing her how to
move on him, then paused. He raised his hand. He smiled up at her when, lightly, with a tempter’s touch, his fingertips found her clitoris and gently squeezed.

  “Taylor!” She yelled and bucked and heaved, and he went over the edge.

  Her palms were flat on his chest, and she was staring at him, seeing him climax, and then Lindsay felt the pressure build higher and higher still until she couldn’t contain it anymore. His fingers were fast and hard, then slow and easy on her, and she yelled again and again, rocking against him, madly, senseless with the lust that drove her.

  He watched her as her climax took her, watched her as the deep quivers slowly lessened and her legs relaxed their grip around his hips. She was staring down at her hands, palms flat on his belly. Jesus, he thought, gazing up at her. It was unbelievable, this insane and uncontrolled passion, but he would accept it, willingly, as he accepted her.

  He released her hips, saw that there would be bruises on her white flesh, and slid his hands upward to cup her breasts. She quivered again and he smiled.

  “You’re very responsive,” he said in the greatest understatement of his life, and he had to laugh at himself. “You’re wonderful, Lindsay.”

  “Not like you,” she said, her mouth dry, her mind sluggish, her body growing more limp with exhaustion by the moment. “Not like you.”

  “Give me your breasts. That’s it, lean down. Good.” And he took her nipple in his mouth and she jerked with the shock of it, the newness of it, the utter amazement of it, until she could take no more. Her body had stopped.

  She fell atop him, sprawling loosely, covering him, and he touched her hair, stroked his hands down her back, and felt himself still deep inside her.

  She’d been so tight that first time. Like a virgin, like a woman who hadn’t had sex in a very, very long time.

  She’d had two orgasms. He wanted to dance and shout. He wanted to give her ten more. Tonight. Instead, he eased her onto her back and came out of her. She moaned, throwing her arm over her eyes.