Carly couldn’t answer. Her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. Her mind spun. Her heart seemed to have stopped.
Marry Piran? Be Arthur’s mother? Share their lives every day? Travel and dive and write books with Piran for years to come?
Just like that. It felt so right—and yet so wrong. So logical. So cold-blooded.
And yet Carly didn’t feel cold-blooded at all. She yearned. She ached.
Piran didn’t move. He waited.
‘If I…if I say no?’ Carly whispered after a moment. ‘What then?’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean, what then?’
‘I mean, are you just going to go into town and ask the next woman you meet?’
‘What do you think I am? I want you. It solves all our problems, doesn’t it? You want marriage. I want a mother for Arthur. We both want to go to bed!’ The smile he gave her had a wry, almost wistful quality to it. ‘But if you say no I’m not just going to go looking for another warm body, I promise.’
As a marriage proposal, it left a lot to be desired. John’s mere hinting had been considerably more romantic than Piran’s flat suggestion. But Carly didn’t want to marry John.
She’d never stopped wanting to marry Piran.
But, even acknowledging that, she hesitated to say yes. It seemed the height of folly to get into a marriage that was no more than a convenience.
But perhaps it was a bigger folly not to be willing to try.
She didn’t believe that Piran would cheat on her. When he gave his word, he kept it. He tried to do the right thing. He was morally upright and judgmental almost to a fault. He also believed in duty. If he said marriage vows with her, Carly felt he would honor them.
Marriages had started with less.
She heard a whimper from the bedroom. And, of course, there was Arthur. She would have Piran. And she would have Arthur. Maybe she would have other children. A home. A family. Her childhood dreams come true.
Well, perhaps not quite.
But close.
She remembered her mother, leaping into marriage after marriage, always hoping for the best.
‘You can’t be afraid to risk, Carly,’ she’d told her daughter time and time again, even when she’d got hurt.
Carly knew she could get hurt marrying Piran. But would she hurt less if she turned him down?
She looked at him, still waiting.
‘All right,’ she said slowly, lifting her gaze and meeting his levelly. ‘I’ll marry you. Yes.’
CHAPTER NINE
THEY got engaged, they fed and changed Arthur and put him to bed, and then they finished chapter eight.
‘I’ll get started on nine,’ Piran said when he’d ap proved her corrections. ‘The last chapter. You look tired. You can go on to bed.’ His tone was brusque, not exactly that of a doting fiancé.
Carly gave him a wan smile and nodded. ‘Yes, I am tired. I’ll see you in the morning,’ she said.
But Piran was already consulting his notes and pecking away at the keyboard. He didn’t even turn around.
She hadn’t really expected romance, she thought as she stripped off her clothes and got ready for bed. After all, their ‘engagement’ was not precisely a love match. Not on Piran’s side, at least. On her own, no matter how much she might wish otherwise, she very much feared that it was.
She didn’t admit it, of course. The only thing she had left, it sometimes seemed, was the dignity she was clinging to by not wearing her heart on her sleeve.
If Piran knew how much she loved him, she wouldn’t even have that.
She washed her face and brushed her teeth and stared at her reflection in the mirror. ‘You are engaged to Piran St Just,’ she told herself out loud.
Years ago she had said those words to herself in the mirror, trying them out, and they’d made her smile secretly and hug her feelings for him close against her heart.
Now the smile wouldn’t come, and the feelings that hugged her heart were tangled with feelings of worry.
Would it work? Would they be good parents for Arthur? Good spouses to each other?
Would Piran ever really care about her?
‘Tune in tomorrow,’ she advised her reflection, ‘for the next exciting installment of the “Follies of Carly O’Reilly”.’
‘And what follies would those be?’ asked a voice from just beyond the half-opened door.
Carly spun around, her mouth sounding a faint, ‘Oh!’ She stepped back, bumping into the sink, surprised.
Piran gave her a wry grin. ‘You were expecting someone else?’
Carly shook her head, flustered. ‘Of course not. What do you want?’
‘To kiss you goodnight?’
Carly’s eyes widened. She groped for the towel and held it in front of her thin nightgown, realizing even as she did so how foolish she was being. She scraped her dignity together.
‘Fine,’ she said, and leaned forward quickly and just far enough to brush her lips along the line of his jaw, then pulled back. ‘Goodnight.’
Piran shook his head slowly. ‘Not good enough.’
Still clutching the towel, Carly tried to move past him, but he didn’t budge. ‘Don’t be silly, Piran. I’m going to bed and you’ve got to get to work on chapter nine.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘But you said—’
‘I know what I said. I was being noble. I wasn’t going to push. But—’ he shrugged ruefully ‘—I have a very low nobility span, it seems.’
He didn’t say anything else, offered no more arguments, no convincing lines. He simply stood quietly, speaking and touching her only with his beautiful eyes.
Carly felt the heat of his gaze as if he’d made physical contact. A delicate frisson began at her shoulders and swept slowly down over her breasts, the curve of her hips, the tanned length of her legs. Everywhere Piran’s eyes touched her, her body grew taut and seemed to hum with awareness.
‘What follies, Carly?’ he asked again, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Follies like this?’ He lifted his hand and touched her cheek, traced her jawline with one finger, then ran it along the line of her lips and finally leaned toward her to touch them with his own.
There was no demand in this kiss, no urgency, only a lazy, teasing playfulness, a hint, a promise. It was a nibble, no more.
‘Was that a folly, Carly?’ he asked softly. ‘Is this?’
His lips met hers again. This kiss was longer. It touched, teased, tasted. Lingered. And then, just when Carly’s breathing began to quicken and her toes to curl, it ended.
She’d been a part of him—fleetingly—and now she was alone again. She squelched a whimper. She couldn’t quite uncurl her toes.
‘I think it was,’ Piran said raggedly. ‘But I’m not sure. I think I’d better try that again, don’t you?’
He didn’t wait for her response, but instead ducked his head once more and melded his lips with hers. His hands came up this time, taking hold of her arms, drawing her into his, slipping around her and bringing her against him so that from lips to knees their bodies touched.
Carly felt a quiver run through her. Her own hands, which had been curled as tightly as her toes, slackened and came up around him, sliding under the cotton knit of his T-shirt to press against his hard, warm, muscular back.
Folly? Probably. Carly didn’t know any more. All sense of self-protection, all rationality had deserted her. She was at the mercy of her need—and her love—for Piran St Just.
‘It’s not enough,’ Piran said against her lips. ‘It’s so good, but it could be so much better.’ She heard urgency in his tone now. The teasing was overlaid by a desire that sent tremors through him, but he made no move to steer her out the bathroom and toward the bed. ‘Carly?’
‘Wh-what?’ Stop talking! she wanted to shout at him. Her nails dug into his back.
‘Do you want me?’
‘What do you think?’
He grimaced. ‘I think you’d better. But if you don’t
I need to know now. I’ll stop.’ He gave her a rueful look. ‘I can stop these days. I’ll wait till we’re married if that’s what you want. It’s up to you.’
She lifted her gaze to meet his. ‘I want you,’ she whispered. I love you, she told him in her heart.
He took her hand and drew her with him into the darkened bedroom, flipping off the bathroom light switch as he went. ‘Here?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a bigger bed in my room.’
‘Do we need a bigger bed?’
Piran gave her a lopsided smile. ‘No.’
‘Then here’s fine.’
There was a certain poetic rightness to it, she realized as she moved to lie down on the bed and reached for his hand to draw him down beside her. This had been her room during the times that she had come down here as a teenager. This had been the bed in which she’d lain while she’d entertained her adolescent fantasies.
She remembered how the moon had hung above the trellised bougainvillaea, spilling its cool light over her heated body as, night after night, she’d imagined loving Piran and Piran loving her.
And now he was here.
He was tugging his shirt over his head and tossing it on the floor. He was planting an arm on either side of her and settling his knees astride her thighs. His fingers were easing up the hem of her gown, exposing more of her thighs. She trembled at his touch, marveled at the intensity in his face.
She lifted her hands and touched his chest, raking her fingers lightly down through the dusting of dark hair that arrowed toward his navel. The muscles tightened at her touch. He bit down on his lip and she saw a shudder run through him.
‘Careful,’ he said, and his voice was unsteady. ‘We’re going to do this right.’
‘Whatever you do will be right, Piran.’ She touched him again, brushed her palm against his belly, slid her fingers just beneath the waistband of his cut-offs.
‘Carly!’ He sucked in his breath sharply.
She smiled. Folly? Oh, no doubt. But it was a dream come true to touch Piran like this, to make him quiver and hear the catch in his voice, the urgent strangled sound at the back of his throat.
He shifted again so that now his knees were between hers. His hands slipped beneath the sheer fabric and pushed it up past the thin barrier of her panties, across her belly, over her breasts. His thumbs grazed her nipples and a shiver skated down her spine. Her breath caught in her throat.
He urged her up so that he could slip the gown over her head and in the same motion tossed it to the floor to lie beside his shirt. His eyes never left hers until he hooked his thumbs in the elastic of her underwear. Then he bent his head, watching intently as he slowly stripped away this last garment and Carly lay naked before him.
Slowly, deliberately, he drew his hands down and cupped her breasts, traced circles on her skin, making her quiver and twist. With her fingers she grabbed handfuls of the sheet. He smiled. His hands moved on down, outlining the curve of her hips, then coming together at the downy apex of her thighs. His thumb teased her heated flesh. Her eyes widened. Her jaw clenched. He touched her again, stroked her.
‘Piran!’
Her fantasies had never been this explicit. Oh, they’d been naked together, but somehow their clothes had melted away, not been removed with such exact care, such disturbing caresses. And, while they’d touched in her dreams, she’d never imagined a jolt like the one she felt when Piran’s fingers actually touched her.
And besides his touch it was even more intimate because he was watching her reactions. Never in all her dreams had she and Piran looked at each other so hungrily; never had they devoured each other with their eyes.
‘Not fair,’ Carly whispered now, stunned at the shakiness of her voice. ‘I want to see you too.’
Piran’s mouth twisted. ‘By all means.’ His hands went to the buttons on his cut-offs, but Carly’s reached out to still them.
‘My turn.’
He looked for an instant as if he might protest. But then his mouth twisted further and he straightened up, kneeling tall between her legs. ‘Whatever you say. Go ahead. Have your way with me.’
Carly smiled. ‘I think I will.’
She couldn’t believe she’d said it, let alone meant it. But once the words were out she knew that when dreams came true, folly or not, a woman made the most of them.
Carly had dreamed for years of loving Piran right here in this bed. Now that she had the chance, she was going to enjoy every minute of it.
She took her time. She didn’t start at once with the buttons. Instead, with a daring she hadn’t known she possessed, she let her fingers drop down to his knees, then they drifted back up, tracing, teasing, touching lightly the hair-roughened insides of his thighs, brushed the scraggly cut-off fringe of his shorts, moved up briefly beneath it, then slid down and began their trip all over again.
As her hands made their upward journey, Piran’s jaw tightened. He shifted slightly, spreading his legs a bit more, allowing her more access. She went higher, slid her fingers right beneath the hem of his briefs, touched him, caressed him with her fingers, traced him lightly with her nails.
He moaned. ‘Carly!’ Her name was an explosion of breath.
She looked at him worriedly. ‘Aren’t I doing it right?’
‘Too damn right! You’re torturing me.’
She laughed. ‘And myself.’
‘Then let’s get on with it!’ His hands went to the buttons again, but she forestalled him, easing them open herself, one by one, slowly, carefully. Her fingers felt the heat of him pulsing through the thin cotton of his briefs. He held very still until the last button came undone and she peeled the cut-offs down his hips. Then he practically scrambled out of them, yanking his briefs off with them and pitching them both aside.
She had seen Piran naked before—the first night she’d arrived and he’d hauled her up from the beach. That man had been fierce and intimidating. This man was beautiful.
She said so and was met with an embarrassed laugh.
‘I think that’s my line.’ He nuzzled her between her breasts, suckled each in turn, driving her wild. She gripped his shoulders desperately. Her legs shifted against his. Then his fingers went once more between her thighs and touched the core of her.
‘Piran!’ She reached for him, touching him too, needing to kindle flames in him that burned as brightly as those he was stoking in her.
‘Now?’ His voice was ragged.
‘If you—are you—?’
He gritted his teeth. ‘God, yes!’ And then he became part of her at last.
It was pain and pleasure, desire and fulfillment, fantasy and reality all rolled into one. There was, too, one instant in which Carly’s body resisted and panic flared in Piran’s eyes.
‘Carly?’ He gazed down at her, shocked.
She laced her fingers against his back and drew him deeper. That was her answer.
Apparently it was enough, for after a moment’s hesitation Piran began to move, slowly at first, so slowly that she thought she would die of frustration. Then his movements became faster, his breathing quickened into short, shallow gasps and her own matched it. Her fingers dug into his back, her thighs locked against his hips. Even their hearts seemed to pound in unison.
Once years ago Carly had gone bodysurfing. She knew the powerful building of the surf around her. She knew the sensation of having her body lifted by the surge of the wave and remembered the thrill of becoming a part of that flow of energy. Mostly she recalled the joy, the excitement of her headlong fall over the crest into the rush of the wave on to the shore.
That memory was as near as she could come to what she felt as she and Piran moved and crested and fell together. It didn’t even come close.
He collapsed against her and she held him tight, reveling in the weight of his body on hers, in the warmth of his breath against her cheek, in the dampness of his sweat-slick back beneath her hands.
I love you, she told him in her mind, in her heart. Heaven help me, I love y
ou, Piran St Just.
He lifted his head and their eyes met in the moonlight. His expression was grave. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
She knew what he was asking, and it wasn’t about love. ‘That it was my…She faltered.
‘First time,’ he finished for her. ‘Why didn’t you?’
‘Are you angry?’
‘Of course not. I mean…Hell!’ He looked more upset than angry. ‘I wouldn’t have just—just—I would have taken more time,’ he said finally. ‘Tried to make it better for you.’
Carly smiled. ‘It gets better?’ There had been a moment’s pain, but she certainly had no complaints about what had come after.
Piran gave a shaky laugh. ‘Not for me. But I would…I could make it better for you.’ He levered himself out of the bed. ‘Wait right here.’ He looked at her worriedly, as if she might vanish on him.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Carly assured him. A grin flickered over his face as he disappeared into the bathroom and came back moments later with a damp cloth and towel.
Gently—’The way I should have done if I’d known,’ he muttered—he parted her thighs and bathed her, then dried her with equal care. His touch was so tender that it made her shiver with longing and she was astonished to find herself becoming aroused again.
She moved restlessly and Piran cocked his head, looking at her. ‘Do you want…?’ he began, then stopped, shaking his head doubtfully.
But Carly had no doubts.
‘You. I want you,’ she told him, and reached for him once more.
Carly awakened to the sun spilling across her bed. She sat bolt upright and stared at the clock. Ten-forty?
It couldn’t possibly be. She couldn’t have slept that late!
And then she realized that, yes, in fact she could have—because she remembered how she’d spent the night, and it hadn’t been sound asleep.
But surely Arthur—?
She scrambled out of bed, starting toward his room, then realized something else: that she didn’t have a stitch on.
Her nightgown lay on the floor where Piran had tossed it. Her panties were a few feet away from it. Piran’s shorts and shirt—and Piran himself—were nowhere to be found.
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