“I know I should have left, Marc, but I was so afraid for the children, afraid he would take them away from me. You see, by then I believed he was completely powerful, that there was nothing I could do or say to change things. Unless you’ve lived in fear of that kind, you can never understand. I’ve had a wonderful therapist helping me to understand, and without her, I never would have come through this.
“But I didn’t have her then. I didn’t have even an ounce of courage.”
Pulling himself up against the headboard, he turned to stroke her hair, rub her cold arms below the sleeve of her robe. “You don’t have to go on with this, Sharon. I think I get the picture. I understand why you don’t want to play. I’m just sorry I ever pressed you to do it.”
She lifted her head and smiled at him. She knew neither of them was sorry he had pressed her to do the other thing she had once been so bad at. “No,” she said softly. “You never really pressed me. You just … asked.”
“And he ordered?”
“That’s right.”
“You said something when we were making love. You said, “don’t let it stop this time.” Was that part of what he did to you?”
She nodded, and even in the dim light, he saw color stain her cheeks. “He … didn’t touch me, really, other than in hatred, I suppose. He would … seduce me, I guess is the only word for it, make me want him, and then leave me… unfinished. It got so I hated sex as much as I hated music, and the harder I tried to be successful with either one, the farther from it I fell. He said I had become frigid through having Roxy, that if I had done what he wanted, none of this would ever have happened. And then … finally, he left us. I felt nothing but pure, unadulterated relief.”
“But still, you can’t make yourself play?”
She shook her head, meeting his gaze in the half-light. “Oh, I can play. You heard me at Jeanie’s wedding. I want to. It’s just that I won’t. I told you I wasn’t a failed musician, Marc. I’m simply one who quit.”
He couldn’t even begin to understand. He hadn’t quit what he loved doing because he’d chosen to, but because he’d been driven to it. “Why?” he asked. “Why, when it meant so much to you?”
“It still does. I ache, sometimes, to play. But if I do, then I know I’ll compose again.” Her face closed up, became devoid of expression, yet taut anger strained her voice as she added, “And that, I refuse to do. I won’t give him anymore of myself. Not one more thing!”
Chapter Seven
MARC PULLED THE COVERS up over her legs and drew her against his shoulder, curling an arm protectively around her. “What do you mean, give him any more of yourself? Does he want you to compose again? How can you let that prevent you?”
Almost to herself, she repeated her earlier words: “I won’t give him any more. He had it all once, and he came very close to destroying it. I won’t allow him to destroy me.”
“How would your composing give him anything?”
“I told you. He owned me, owned my name, owned my music. He still does. The Christmas he came back—we hadn’t seen him for nearly three months—he was nice at first.”
She gripped his hand so tightly, he thought she might crush his bones, but he let her hold him, knowing she needed to draw on his strength for what was coming.
He didn’t want her to go on, but some kind of horrified fascination made him listen. Her sentences were short and choppy, her voice jerky. “He … said he was sorry he’d left, but he’d had things to work out. I knew that meant another woman. He said he still cared about me, wanted things to be right between us again. I should have known he was lying. He always lied to me, but it was Christmas, and I had been terribly lonely even though Jeanie and the children were with me. I’ve always wanted a complete family. I guess because I lost my parents. He … he was supposed to be the one to complete it. I had believed that for so long, and after we talked, I was ready to believe it again. We … well, we went to bed together.” Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to continue.
“I tried. I really did. But I simply wasn’t good enough for him, and I froze up when he started telling me what a bad lover I was. Only this time, I got mad and accused him of being a bad lover too. I knew better than to talk like that to him, but I’d had enough disappointments. He slapped me a few times, then said he wanted a divorce, that he’d never really wanted me back, he’d just been trying to soften me up, and all he’d really come for was my work. He said he might as well be paid at least a part of what I owed him, and maybe he could sell some of my compositions to somebody for a few bucks.
“I told him my music was mine and I wouldn’t give it to him to finance his affair. He went to the desk where he’d locked it up, but it wasn’t there. I’d found the key and moved it. Our shouting woke the kids. I could hear Roxy crying in her room. Jason came out of his. Ellis was shaking me. My face was swollen. I could hardly see, but I saw Jason try to stop him. He tried to help me. He was seven years old, Marc! He was so little, so helpless against an adult man! When Ellis hit him and dropped him in the middle of the room, he asked me if I wanted him to do the same to Roxy.”
She gazed at him, the tragedy of the scene etched on her face, and added in a whisper, “I gave him my music.”
“Yes.”
She blinked, reached up and touched his face, finding it wet. “Are you crying for me?” She sounded shocked.
“Yes.”
“Please don’t. It was worth the trade, believe me. He left, but he still owns my name, and anything I write, so I don’t write music anymore.”
“What happened then?”
“Jeanie came home from a date and found Jason and me on the floor. She called an ambulance and the police, but by the time the police went after him, Ellis had got on a plane and was in Europe. In time, our bruises healed, but Jason still has scars inside. He’s never forgotten that night. For a couple of years, he didn’t even like the smell of Christmas trees, but this year he didn’t say anything when we put it up.
“Anyway, Ellis divorced me and married a twenty-three-year-old student of his. Two or three times a year he releases a piece of “her” music. She’s receiving quite a lot of acclaim internationally. I only hope he doesn’t get jealous of that.”
“Her music?” Her stressing of the pronoun hadn’t escaped him.
She shrugged. “If it belongs to him, and it does—that’s ironclad, I was told by a lawyer—then I guess he can give it to whomever he wants and call it hers. All I know is that it isn’t mine, even though a bit of my soul is in each and every note.”
Wrapping her in his arms, he slid them both down in the bed and covered them warmly again. “Your lawyer or his?”
“His, but what difference does that make? A lawyer’s a lawyer.”
“Don’t you believe that for one minute longer!” he said. “We’re going to look into this business, my darling. We’re going to see just how ironclad his “ownership” of your music really is.”
“No!” she said, lifting her head in alarm.
“Yes,” he insisted, gently putting her head back down on his shoulder where he wanted it.
“Marc, believe me, I’m just glad to be out of that mess. I don’t want to stir it up again. He might still hurt my kids or try to take them!”
“I will never let him hurt you or the children! And you won’t be stirring anything up. I can do it in such a manner that he’ll never guess it’s being done until it’s all finished and I’ve proven that he doesn’t own much more than the hairs on his head, if that.”
“How can you do that?” she asked. “Were you a private investigator in one of those lives of yours, until it wasn’t fun anymore?”
He was very still for several minutes. “No, Sharon. I was a lawyer. I still am and it never stopped being “fun.” It just stopped being … possible. And I was once very good at proving things about people.”
“And?” she prompted.
“And now I’m going to prove to a certain lady of my acquaint
ance that she is anything but frigid, that she can and will have several very satisfactory climaxes before we both go to sleep.”
He must have been a very good lawyer, she thought a long time later.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” Marc caught her and held her by one ankle, leaving her half on and half off the bed.
“I’m going to work,” she said. “I have a family to feed.”
He drew her slowly but inexorably back onto the bed. “How about me? I’m hungry too.”
“Pooh!” she scoffed. “You’ve had enough to last any normal man a month!”
He grinned, clamped his hands around her bottom, and pulled her to him, showing her that he wasn’t kidding, that his hungers were very tangible. That had the odd effect of triggering her appetite, too, but she braced her hands on his chest and pushed him away. He let her go reluctantly, and it was all she could do not to fall back into his arms. It was the only place she really wanted to be. Who in her right mind could choose a library over Marc Duval? she wondered.
But she resolutely turned away, went into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. She hadn’t been in her right mind since he’d first parked his camper next door last August. Sliding the doors shut behind her as she stepped in, she soaped herself liberally. She had just begun to rinse when the doors opened and she was joined by a very large man with very large hands. Soon, she was covered with a slick coating of lather again.
“Marc …” Her voice was weak as she leaned back against him, his hardness pressing into her buttocks, his hands cupping her breasts. “I’m going to be late for work …”
“No,” he said confidently. ”This won’t take long.” He turned her and lifted her onto him. She flung her head back, calling his name as he drove inside her, deep and hard, moving her slowly back and forth, up and down, so that her most sensitive spot rubbed against him. She cried out once, twice, then moaned softly in repletion as she went limp in his arms. He surged into her again, a groan of pleasure wrung from his throat, a deep sound of satisfaction that thrilled her more than anything ever had before.
He let her feet drop to the bottom of the tub, reached around her, and shut off the water. “See?” he said. “That didn’t take long at all, did it?”
Her day at work, however, took much longer than it should have. Never had she been so eager to leave that library. At noon, she watched the door, waiting for Marc to come through it as he had so many times before, big and broad-shouldered and bearded. And this time, when her blood raced and her temperature rose, she wouldn’t bother to fight it. She wouldn’t put on her tight librarian face, make her stare cool and repressing. This time, she would let him see all the delicious things he did to her, every little fantasy he had ever caused her to have.
Only he didn’t come.
She sighed and went out alone for a bowl of soup and a sandwich, looking with disenchantment at the Christmas decorations on the buildings and in the cafe, thinking it was time they came down. Why did people insist on leaving them up until after New Years? A miserable drizzle fell, soaking through everything, running in rivulets across the sidewalk and filling the gutters. After what they had shared last night, to say nothing of this morning, surely he would have wanted to have lunch with her?
That evening, she pulled a face as she parked the car and wished she and Jeannie hadn’t had to spend all that money last winter on a new roof. She’d really wanted a covered carport instead. Getting out, head ducked against the driving rain, she opened the trunk.
Juggling parcels, she fumbled to get her key in the lock, only to have the door swing open in front of her. She was greeted by warmth, good aromas, and strong arms sweeping her burdens away.
He set everything on the counter, gathered her up in his arms, and swung her around. “I missed you,” he said.
She sighed. “I missed you, too, and expected you to show up at the library. I had a lonely lunch.” She look aggrieved, her lower lip jutting out just a tiny bit. He bent, nibbled on it, then kissed it.
“I know what libraries are like,” he said. “And the head librarian would not have appreciated the things I’d have said to you, possibly even done to you, once I had hauled you back into the obscure poetry section. So I stayed away.”
She sighed again. “I noticed.”
“But I’m here now,” he pointed out.
“I noticed that too,” she said, sliding her hands into the hair at the back of his neck. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It seems to me I left you here sometime about sixty-five or seventy hours ago.”
“At least that,” he agreed, undoing the buttons on her coat, shoving it off her shoulders, and flinging it onto the kitchen table. For a long time they stood there wrapped in each other’s warmth and scent, kissing, murmuring. Then before she really noticed what he was doing, he had slid the zipper down the back of her dress and unhooked her bra.
She started to object, but he caught her mouth with his and silenced her while he took both dress and bra off her, stepping back just enough for them to fall to the floor at her feet.
She broke their lingering kiss and glanced down at the pool of clothes. “What are you doing?” She knew what he was doing. It just seemed sensible to have these things confirmed. After all, she might be wrong in her assumptions. Suddenly, she was looking at the top of his head.
“I’m undressing you.” His lips moved over the taut skin on her stomach as he spoke. He had dropped to one knee and was gently pulling down her panty hose and panties. Holding on to his shoulders, she lifted first one foot, then the other, shuddering as his mouth did incredible things to the insides of her thighs. She moaned when he put one of her feet on his raised knee and clutched her bottom, tilting her pelvis upward, his breath hot, his tongue probing.
“Marc!” It was a gasp of shock and pleasure. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she stared down at him. He was doing this to her right in her own kitchen. All her clothes were off, all the lights were on, and he was still fully dressed! “If I have to be undressed … so do you,” she managed to say, but he shook his head.
“This is so much fun,” he murmured, and continued. Her knees wobbled, her mouth fell open, and she gasped for breath. If she let go of his shoulders she would collapse, but her hands grew as weak as her knees.
“Marc … stop. I’m going to fall down!”
He stopped, lifted her, laid her on top of her coat on the table, and continued his sensual assault. “Marc! This is … ahh, so … wonderful,” she finished in a hoarse whisper, replacing the word “depraved,” which she had been going to use. She bucked and arched against his restraining hands as she climbed the high mountain and then slid down the other side. After a long moment, she smiled slowly and said, “You’re really nice to come home to.”
Lifting her off the table, he wrapped her coat around her and cuddled her close. “It’s really nice to have some—to have you come home to me,” he said. “I like to show my appreciation.”
He’d been going to say “someone”, that much she knew. She was thoughtful as she shoved her arms into the sleeves of her coat, then nestled back against him. “You certainly know how to go about it!” When was he going to tell her about the wife and child he had lost? She wanted to know, especially now that she had told him all the terrible parts of her past. But she hesitated to ask. What, after all, did this relationship mean to him? He had never said exactly. He’d said once that he loved her. He’d made some vague comments about the future, but that was a nebulous term which could mean anything from a few weeks or months to … eternity. But if he’d tried for eternity once and had it snatched from him, maybe he wasn’t willing to try again.
“It was all a plot,” he said. “I’ve been planning it all day.” That wasn’t quite true, he reflected. He had spent most of the day over in his own house making long-distance calls, learning much, but not enough to tell Sharon about.
He swallowed, thinking of other things he had to tell Sharon. He thought, not without prid
e, that he had managed to distract her quite successfully from asking the question he had been sure would be on her mind when she came through that door: If you are still a lawyer, and it never ceased being fun, then why aren’t you practicing law? That distraction, however, had not been a calculated act on his part, but one that just flowed naturally from their first kiss after she got home.
He knew the question would come. He just didn’t know how he was going to handle it when it did.
“Something in the oven smells heavenly,” she said, finally pulling out of his arms and bending to gather up her abandoned clothes.
“Roast beef,” he said. “This time of year, with all the turkey and leftovers, I start to crave red meat.” He pounded his chest. “Red meat. Makes a man out of a man. Puts hair on your chest!”
“Whew!” she said. “I think I’ll make you a turkey sandwich. You sure don’t need red meat.” Holding out her hand to him, she asked with what he found touching shyness and a hint of wistfulness, “Will it be ready anytime soon?”
He let her lead him toward the stairs. “No time soon at all.”
She gave a happy sigh. “That’s good. Because I don’t think I’ll be ready for it anytime soon.” Neither of them were.
“Hi, Mom!” When the phone rang, she untangled herself from Marc and sheets and blankets, rolled over, and lifted the receiver. Jason’s happy tones made her glance over at Marc and she blushed as if her son were able to see rather than just hear her.
“Hi, love. Are you having a good time?”
“Oh, yeah! Excellent!” He went into details about the day they’d had, and then put Roxy on. She was just as exuberantly happy about her unexpected ski vacation.
“Gramma Zinnie makes cookies as good as Marc’s,” she said, and indeed, it sounded as if she had a mouthful and was speaking around it.
“‘Gramma Zinnie’?”
“That’s what she and Grandpa Harry want us to call them ’cause we don’t have any real grandparents and they don’t have any real grandkids, but when they do they’re going to be our cousins and they’ll be calling them that so we may as well start now and get them used to it.”
Moonlight Man Page 9
