She smiled, sadly, but didn’t look up.
“They don’t make your mom happy like you do,” he said.
“You make my mom happy,” she said. “Now, I mean—not before. Before you made her cry, but now you make her happy. I can tell.”
Only an idiot would misread the hope in that little girl’s face. And he was no idiot.
“I’m leaving on Sunday, when I’m done with the courtyard,” he said, softly, carefully, not wanting to cause this little girl any more pain. “I can’t stay here.”
“Where do you have to go?” Katie asked.
“Back to St. Louis,” he said, wondering why the words stuck and filled his mouth. Wondering why the future looked so damn bleak. “I have a lot of things I need to fix up there.”
Katie twisted her lips. “Well, when you’re done with that you should come back,” she said and jumped to her feet. As if it was that simple.
Man, you gotta love kids, he thought, they rebounded so fast. All that sadness was gone, at least for the time being.
On the other hand, he knew he would never rebound from his time spent here. Not in a million years. He didn’t even want to try.
“Remember what you said the other day about teaching me how you beat me at poker?” she asked.
He smiled. “I do.”
“How about tonight?”
“You’re on.”
MIDNIGHT FOUND MATT back in the good graces of Margot and Katie. He sat, a scotch at his elbow, one of Margot’s fine cigars between his lips.
Like a stranger brought in out of the cold and propped in front of a fire, Matt stretched out his legs and luxuriated in the moment.
He totally understood, right now, why his father had loved the tables so much. Why he’d sat again and again with the last of his money, with his kid waiting outside in the car—because it was warm.
Friendly, when the world was upside down.
“Katie,” he said, getting on with his lesson. “I hate to break it to you, but you’ve got a tell.”
Katie gasped as if he’d offended her honor. “I do not!”
“You do.” He leaned forward and caught Margot’s smile out of the corner of his eye. “When you’ve got a good hand you sit really, really still.” Katie’s eyes went wide as understanding dawned. “The rest of the time you’re like a jumping bean.”
“Oh, my gosh!” she breathed, then looked to Margot for confirmation.
“The man is right,” Margot said. “The more still and quiet you get, the better your hand.”
“So,” she asked wide-eyed, “what do I do?”
“Sit still!” Margot cried. “All the time. It’s what your mother and I have been telling you for years.”
The door behind Matt slid open, letting in a draft and the distinctive fragrance of lemon and vanilla. Katie’s eyes went wide, the cards fluttered out of her hands onto the table.
Margot swore.
Busted. Very, very busted.
“So,” Savannah said. “Here’s where you all are.”
“Hello, Savannah,” Matt said, turning to see her in the doorway, her arms crossed over the robe that was quickly becoming his favorite piece of clothing on the planet.
“What’s happening here?” she asked, ignoring him. He thought it was fairly obvious—Margot practically looked like a Vegas dealer with the deck of cards in her hand.
But when his companions stayed silent, Matt took the bull by the horns.
“Just a friendly game of poker,” Matt said.
“Matt!” Katie snapped. “What are you doing?”
“Like she doesn’t know?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure we’re all busted.”
“Let me guess,” Savannah said, addressing her daughter. “Matt’s teaching you poker? Like he taught you those card tricks?”
“No,” Katie admitted, pushing the cards away.
“Don’t be angry, Savannah,” Margot said.
“Angry?” Savannah asked. Matt winced at the tone of her voice, scooting his chair to the side in case fire shot out of her eyes. “Why would I be angry? I’ve only asked that this sort of behavior stop and that Katie, my eight-year-old, not learn how to gamble!”
“We’re not gambling,” Margot replied. “There are no stakes. She wanted to learn, Savannah. She’s been doing those card tricks for years and she’s so bright. She’s really very good.” Savannah’s eyes flared and Margot shut up, looking as contrite as a woman could, drinking a glass of scotch and smoking a cigar.
“It’s only bad if you let it be,” Matt said.
“What do you know about it?” Savannah snapped.
“I know that my dad used to leave me in the car so he could play blackjack. I know that after my mom died we had to move four times in the middle of the night because he’d lost the rent money. I know that when the cards went his way I got to eat steak and shrimp and drink Cherry Coke out of fancy glasses, and when they didn’t, I ate macaroni and cheese.”
Savannah licked her lips, leaving them damp and pink and he tried hard not to be distracted.
“But he always fed me. There was always a warm place to sleep. He helped me with my homework and was there for me. And I know he tried, Savannah. He really tried. And it took a long time, but I forgave him for those nights out in the car and the macaroni and cheese.”
“What’s wrong with macaroni and cheese?” Katie asked and Matt smiled at her. Really, she was such a cool kid.
“Nothing, but when you eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for, like, three weeks in a row it gets pretty gross.”
Katie nodded in sage agreement and he looked back at Savannah.
“I spent a long time trying to rise above my roots,” he said, remembering what Margot and Katie had said about Savannah the first time they’d played cards. “But it got easier to just live with them.”
Savannah’s eyes flashed to Margot who shrugged, delicately. “The man is right. You’re an O’Neill, and so is your daughter. No use pretending otherwise.”
“Stay,” Matt pleaded, his eyes on Savannah. Katie beside him lit up like a skyrocket was inside of her.
“Yeah, Mom, stay.”
“Stay and have some fun.”
“Fun?” Savannah asked, as if she were considering eating poison.
Matt, Katie and Margot all nodded and pulled up a chair from the corner, pushing a shopping bag off its seat.
“Stay,” he said.
He could see the weigh scales inside of her head, the intricate systems she used to balance what she was against what she thought she and her whole family should be. He saw it all and he waited, hoping she could stop torturing herself with the idea of being someone else, and simply be happy with who she was.
She jerked the tie on her robe tighter and stepped to the table, all business.
“What are we playing?” she asked and everyone cheered.
And Matt fell totally in love.
TWO HOURS LATER Katie was curled up on Margot’s bed and Matt was getting schooled.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, watching as Savannah laid down her flush, killing his two of a kind. For about the third time in a row.
“She always was the best card player,” Margot said, watching her granddaughter with pride. “Even better than Tyler.”
Savannah’s smile was like a kitten with its paw in the cream, and it went right into his bloodstream. The robe’s tie was giving up the fight and shadows lingered between her breasts, the plush white curves of which looked like velvet against the dark satin robe.
She was all contradiction right now. Light and dark. Serious and coy. Flirtatious and crushing all in the same glance. Those breasts, her diamond-bright eyes, her long fingers, the swell and dip of her lips as she tried not to smile.
Her hair, all that magnificent blond hair, like some kind of veil.
And she was a shark. An absolute card-playing shark.
He was in love. No doubt about it. After she’d spanked him in the second hand he loo
ked up into her laughing blue eyes and realized—this was it.
There would never be another woman for him.
“You’re not too bad yourself,” Savannah said, watching him from the corner of her eye, a smile on her lips.
Christ, his erection pounded under the table. Absolutely all his blood was in his lap. He could barely see straight.
“I should go,” he said, after counting to a hundred and thinking of trees and sod and seedlings and anything but his disastrous feelings for Savannah.
“Me, too,” Savannah said, pushing the cards to the center of the table. She looked into the shadows where Katie was sound asleep on Margot’s king-size bed.
“Leave her,” Margot said. “No point in waking her now.”
Savannah nodded and stood. Realizing how loose her robe was, she tightened it, a blush on her creamy cheeks.
Sod. Rocks. Plants. Hard work.
He walked with her to the hallway, his blood still pounding, his mind crowded with thoughts of her, both imagined and real of her.
“Did you want to…” She stopped in front of the library where the baby grand gleamed in the moonlight. She turned toward him, so close he could smell her, so close he could see her pulse in her throat, and he lost control of his impulses. His feelings for her flooded the dam and he was powerless against them.
He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HE EXPECTED A SLAP, a push, some kind of violent rejection, and he waited, absorbing the feel of her lips against his before she shoved him away.
But it didn’t come.
She was all taut and trembling muscle, then the heavens opened, a chorus of angels sang and she kissed him back.
Throwing her arms around his neck she knocked him backward and he collided with the wall. He hauled her close and high against his body, taking her weight in his arms, pressing her hard against every part of himself.
She arched her hips against his, her teeth bit into his lips and he growled, low and menacing, feeling so close to out of control he was freaked.
“Savannah,” he said, between long sucking bites at her mouth. Her lips tasted like honey and inside… He groaned, sinking into her. “We have to stop.”
“Why?” she sighed, reaching those beloved hands up his shirt and across the hard muscles of his stomach that jumped in appreciation.
More. Oh, man, he wanted so much more with her. He wanted everything. He wanted to push her against the wall and eat her. He wanted to lay her out on a bed and cherish her, love her, and at the same time he wanted to bend her over a chair and make her scream as she came.
“It’s a now or never type thing,” he finally managed to say, forcing himself not to shove his thigh between her legs.
She pulled back, her fingers still drawing little circles over his skin. Torture. She was killing him with those circles.
“I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you,” he said, watching the truth sink into those blue eyes, lighting them up from deep inside. “And, as much as I’d like to pretend I’ve got rock-solid control, I don’t. Not around you. So, we should stop.”
Her lips pursed and he had to put his hands against the wall or that robe would not live another day.
“I don’t want to stop,” she said. Those circles under his shirt grew and grew until one of her blunt nails raked across his nipple.
“I have to leave on Sunday,” he said. “I…can’t stay.”
I could come back, he thought, but didn’t say. One word from you and I would be back here like a boomerang.
“I know,” she said, her smile ghostly. “But I want this,” she whispered, leaning up to kiss him, her teeth taking a small bite out of his lip. “I want everything you have to give me. For however long I can have it.”
“Savannah,” he groaned, her name a plea. It occurred to him to ask if she was sure, but then her hand slid down the front of his pants.
Doesn’t get more sure than that.
He swept her up in his arms, feeling very Rhett Butler.
Using his foot, he bumped open the door to the sleeping porch.
As she slid down onto the bed like bourbon out of a bottle, the look in her eyes was a challenge and his blood pounded in response. Savannah wanted sex. And as she leaned backward and spread herself out against the faded, soft sheets, her knees bent, her arms spread, the tie on her robe giving up the best of her secrets, he knew how she wanted it.
The same way he did.
Wild. Hot. Now.
He leaned down and pushed open her robe, revealing the perfection of her body. The tight curve of her breast, the taut belly, the gorgeous mystery at the apex of her thighs.
Her skin was silk under his hand, her nipples hard as he rolled them against his palm, pinched them, just enough that her eyes went hazy, her lips parted in a moan.
He licked her open mouth, toying with her lips, her tongue, until she pushed herself up and sealed her mouth to his.
Then the fun really started.
His clothes, barely touched by her long elegant hands, fell off his body until they were skin to skin. The electrical current between them could light up the Manor for months, years.
She was strong and her muscles held him tight, gripped him hard. A leg around his hip, an arm around his shoulders and it felt as though she might never let him go.
And that was so okay with him.
His erection brushed the liquid heat between her legs and they both gasped, arching hard into each other.
“You better have protection,” she whispered into his ear, licking the rim, biting the lobe and his brain went blank.
Protection?
Her fingertips danced over his erection, her thumb tracing circles around the head. “Condom?” she said.
He blinked, unable to tell whether she was speaking English.
“Matt?” She smiled, womanly and knowing.
“You’re killing me,” he breathed, closing his eyes when both her hands got in on the act.
“We’ll both be hurting if you don’t have a condom.”
Oh, right. A condom.
He kissed her hard and leaned up on his arms, reluctant to leave the stunning heat of her body. More so when her breasts were gilded in moonlight, the nipples dark and hard. He sucked one into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth.
“A condom!” she cried, pushing him away slightly. “Hurry.”
He leaped from the bed and found his kit bag, grateful he hadn’t emptied it since his ski trip with Pauline almost a year ago. He pulled out a ribbon of condoms and whirled back to the bed.
Man, she was beautiful. Long-limbed and naked, her eyes hot, her lips wet.
“You’re staring, Matt,” she murmured, her legs falling open slightly, an erotic invitation.
“I’m stunned, Savannah,” he said, suddenly humbled that all this was even happening.
I love you. He caught the words in time, shoving away the impulse to tell her how he felt. It seemed wrong to do it now, as if all that he was feeling was tied to sex, which couldn’t be further from the truth. When he told her—if he told her—he wanted her to know it as the truth.
He’d come here looking for justice and found something better.
Salvation.
“You okay?” she asked, tilting her head. All that hair, silver in the moonlight, fell over her shoulder, and he couldn’t have walked away from her if he was on fire. There was simply no way.
“You’re a goddess,” he said. Her answering smile was indulgent, doubtful, and he knew that she didn’t believe him. Didn’t see all of her own beauty.
“And you’re very far away.” She smiled. “Come back to bed.”
He crawled over her body, pressing kisses to her knees, blowing air into the damp curls between her thighs, licking her belly button.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked, stroking the hair from her face.
“About what?” she panted, arching herself against the leg he pressed between he
rs. He pushed harder against her and she groaned, grinding herself against him.
“That you’re a goddess.”
“I have nice hair,” she conceded.
Laughter gushed out of him. “You’re stunning. Every inch of you.”
“Matt.” She shook her head. Her modesty doubled his lust. She didn’t know. She had no idea.
I’m going to have to show her.
His blood pounded and his mouth watered at the thought.
Retracing his steps, he trailed his tongue along those stunning collarbones, kissed his way across her breasts. Found every rib with his lips.
A kiss on her belly button and he slid down, easing open her thighs.
“Matt,” she sighed, pushing her fingers into his hair, scratching and petting him as he made his way to her secret heart and settled in to make love to the damp, hot mystery that was Savannah O’Neill.
SAVANNAH CALLED IN SICK the next day for the first time since Katie had gotten the chicken pox when she was a year old.
“You can handle things there, Janice,” Savannah said.
“Well, sure I can,” Janice agreed. “I’m just surprised is all. You don’t sound too sick.”
“It’s a stomach thing,” Savannah said and shot Matt a dirty look while he pressed kisses to the trembling skin of her belly. His chuckle blew hot air across incredibly sensitive flesh.
“I…ah…gotta go, Janice. I’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up Matt’s cell phone and glared at him, his rumpled hair so dark against her and the white sheets. His eyes so green, his smile so warm.
A knot of something hard and sad sat in her throat and she swallowed past it, not wanting sadness. Not now. Not until the moment Matt walked away. Until then, she wanted to absorb every single ounce and fleck of joy she could.
“You’re in trouble,” she told him, laughing as he tickled her belly button with his tongue. She kicked her leg over him and rolled him to his back.
The condoms, two fewer than before, were in reach and she tore another one from the strip.
“No,” Matt joked, palming her breasts. “Not that. Anything but that.”
She slid the condom on him, her fingers running over him until he groaned, his hands digging into her skin.
The Temptation of Savannah O’Neill Page 17
