by Kay Hooper
A mock frown drew her brows together. “What’s that got to do with you?”
“Cat.” Kane kissed her again, then gently withdrew from her. She didn’t try to hold him, but willingly returned to his arms when he got them both into his sleeping bag. He reached out with a long arm to turn down the lamp still burning a foot or so from the mattress, and the tiny cabin was lit only by a dim glow.
He hadn’t noticed the motion of the ship until then, but realized that it had grown a bit rougher; the storm was building outside. It didn’t disturb him, since he and Tyler were both good sailors. They’d probably sleep through the worst of it, he thought, unless the ship sank. And it wasn’t likely to sink, not with cargo aboard; Dimitri wouldn’t allow that.
He felt a little sigh escape Tyler, and his arms tightened around her; she was already asleep, he knew, her slender body boneless in that way that never failed to make something inside him turn over with a lurch. He thought back to the first days of this trip, when he had wondered if taking her would be enough, if he could afterward forget her. He had thought it unlikely even then; now he knew that he would never be able to forget Tyler.
And he was uneasily aware that after this there was just no predicting her attitude toward him. She was staunchly independent, and the rueful conversation of minutes before had told him only that she intended to be matter-of-fact about this new turn in their relationship.
He knew only too well the risk he had run in forcing her to confront her fear, and the question lingered in his mind now. Tyler had chosen this, but had she done so out of desire and deeper feelings for him—or simply because she was a fighter and it had been the only means to conquer her fear?
He didn’t know. But as sleep tugged at him, his arms remained firmly around her and his last conscious thought was a grim resolve he didn’t examine very closely because it simply was.
The fiction had become fact. She was his woman now. Partner, rival, enemy . . . lover. And he meant to make certain she recognized that as well as he did.
TYLER HADN’T SLEPT well the last few nights, but that night she slept deeply and dreamlessly until past dawn. She didn’t know another day had begun when she woke in the cabin that boasted only artificial light, but she thought she’d slept for a long time. The cabin was stuffy enough so that Kane had left the sleeping bag unzipped, and she slipped away from him cautiously.
How on earth had she ended up on top of him? Bemused, not quite certain what she was feeling about all this, she concentrated on not waking him, and a glimpse at the luminous dial of his watch told her it was nearly seven. In the morning. He didn’t stir when she left him, which surprised her since he usually slept with the lightness of a cat. Still, he was no doubt tired. . . .
Tyler felt herself flushing. Swearing silently, she collected the clothes that had been flung all over the floor. She put yesterday’s shirt and underwear aside, then dug into her pack for a clean shirt and panties, and the small zippered pouch that contained her toothbrush and a few other items. The bathroom was tiny; her elbow was brushing the musty shower curtain when she closed the door behind her. An experimental flick of the light switch caused a dim bulb to flicker awake.
She didn’t look at herself in the cracked mirror over the tiny basin, but quickly put her hair up with the big barrette she kept in the pouch, and then took a hasty shower. She tried not to think about the difference in her body this morning, but it wasn’t really something she could ignore. There was a faint soreness in her muscles and deep in her body, and her very flesh felt sensitized, as if all the nerve endings were closer to the surface.
When she finally faced her reflection in the mirror, she saw that her lips were fuller, redder, even now, hours after his hungry kisses. She saw her eyes go distant at the memory, and muttered to herself as she got her toothbrush from the pouch. She brushed her teeth, and put the brush away, then pulled a small plastic case from the pouch and stared at it.
Kane had been right in his belief that she had never let a man get close in ten years, but both Tyler and her doctor had been practical in considering her unusual lifestyle, and she had been on the Pill for the last few years. Since Kane was always careful to give her as much privacy as possible, she’d been able to keep to her schedule without his noticing. But there had been a couple of days without her pack. . . .
Well, there was nothing she could do now but wait. Her periods were irregular, not even the Pill had changed that, but she thought another couple of weeks would provide the answer.
The carefully matter-of-fact thought shattered suddenly, and Tyler realized dismally that it wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t be bland about this, couldn’t accept with casual ease the fact that she had a lover. She could pretend with Kane, but not with herself. It wasn’t casual, not to her.
Kane was her lover. And the single inescapable reason he was her lover was that she loved him.
Automatically Tyler finished in the bathroom and then crept out into the cabin. He was still asleep. She put her things away, then eased out into the hallway and headed for the ship’s galley, more to be moving than because she was hungry. On deck she paused, drawn to the rail by the clear sparkle of an ocean washed clean by the storm she had slept through.
When had it happened? she wondered vaguely as she stared out over the water. She knew things about him that only dangerous situations could reveal, things the average person could learn about a lover only after a lifetime, if then. Yet she didn’t know the simplest facts of his life, his background. He could make her angrier than any man she’d ever met, yet he had been the one who had put the last broken piece of herself back into place and healed what another man had done to her.
Tyler drew a deep breath and turned away from the rail, heading once more for the galley. It didn’t matter when it had happened. Or where, or how. It didn’t even matter why, because it was nothing she could change. She was in love with Kane.
WHEN SHE ENTERED their cabin an hour later, Kane was just coming out of the bathroom. He was wearing jeans but was barechested, and had obviously just shaved.
“You’re supposed to leave a note on the pillow,” he growled.
Tyler set a thick mug on the upended crate wedged into a corner; they’d been using the crate as an occasional table. “I’ll remember next time,” she responded calmly. “I brought you some coffee, but I thought you’d rather go to the galley for breakfast. Nikos is a surprisingly good cook, but he doesn’t deliver and I hate carrying trays.”
Kane took a step and pulled her into his arms, kissing her hungrily. Her hands slid over his chest and up around his neck as she melted against him, and when he raised his head at last to stare down at her she was heavy-eyed and a little breathless. He moved his hands down to her hips, curved them around her firm buttocks as he held her hard against him, letting her feel his desire for something other than breakfast.
She cleared her throat in an uncertain little sound, and said with a stab at lightness, “This is going to sound like a ridiculous question, but you’re not married, are you? I mean, I draw the line at getting involved with married men.”
His lips quirked slightly even as his hands shifted to begin unbuttoning her blouse. “No, I’m not married.”
“A girl in every port, I suppose?” She was trying to keep her voice steady and having little luck. He opened her blouse to bare her naked breasts, and when his hands closed over them gently all the strength drained out of her legs.
“Only the ports where I found you, baby,” he murmured.
Tyler lost interest in the conversation for the time being. The response of her body to him no longer shocked her, but the swiftness of it, the instant need for him, disturbed her on a deep level, and she knew why. Because it was casual for him, an appetite to be satisfied, and if he displayed the control and skill to make certain she was with him all the way, well, that was only the mark of an experienced, unselfish lover.
But right now she didn’t care about that, she didn’t care about
anything but the touch of his big hands, his mouth on her, his body hard against hers. She was dimly aware of clothing falling away from them, her desire escalating so rapidly that she was whimpering when he lowered her to their bed. And when he gently spread her legs and settled between them, her panic was only an echo shunted aside instantly by need.
She wanted him now, wanted him with a burning hunger that was a starving thing because she loved him and this was all she could have of him. Her arms wreathed around his neck and she moaned when she felt the slow, throbbing push inside her. Wildfire was burning her nerves, her senses, he was filling her with himself and it was more than she could bear. Her legs lifted to wrap around his hips and she writhed suddenly with a strangled cry as her pleasure peaked in a stunning explosion of sensation.
Kane held her tightly while she shuddered, astonished and delighted by her capacity to enjoy what she had feared for so long, her wild response driving his own desire higher. The tight, hot clasp of her body shattered his control, and he slid his hands beneath her, lifting her to meet each deep thrust. He barely heard himself groaning hoarsely as she held him with her slender legs, her arms. He could feel the ebbing tension inside her begin to build again as she instinctively matched his rhythm, so attuned to him that she was rushing toward the peak again. And this time they reached it together, hurling over the rim of something that was almost insanity.
IT WAS A long time later when Kane raised himself on an elbow beside her and gazed down at her. Her eyes were closed and one of her hands rested on the arm lying heavily beneath her breasts, her body totally relaxed. God, she was incredible. He had considered it something of a miracle that she had trusted him enough to accept him as a lover, both because of her fears and their stormy past relationship; her total response to him, abandoned and uninhibited, was nothing short of staggering.
The satisfaction he found himself was unlike anything he’d ever known before, yet the moment he caught his breath and looked at her, he wanted her again. And it was more each time, deeper and stronger, something that edged into savagery.
“What are you thinking?” she murmured without opening her eyes.
He drew a deep breath and somehow managed to make his voice light. “I’m wondering how much Nikos would charge to deliver,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re going to starve.”
Her mouth curved, but before she could laugh Kane covered her lips with his.
chapter eight
A CITY FOR lovers. From the balcony of their hotel room, Kane could see the bell tower in St. Mark’s Square and, beyond, the mouth of the Grand Canal. Venice was lovely, the weather clear and cool, and for two days he and Tyler had enjoyed a rare taste of first-class accommodations while they performed the necessary research to chase down Drew Haviland’s paper search to the second chalice.
Kane went back into their room and settled into a comfortable chair by the bed, watching Tyler. She was lying on her stomach, maps and notes and papers spread out across the wide bed, propped on her elbows as she frowned down at the open book between them. Her hair flowed around her shoulders like wildfire, glowing in the late morning sunlight that came in through the open balcony doors.
“Interesting family,” she commented absently. “And the name dies with the present contessa. It’s a pity.”
They had indeed found a surviving member of the Montegro family, but only by marriage; the contessa, in her sixties, had been American-born and had married Stefano Montegro thirty years before. She had been a widow raising a young stepson, but had never borne a child of her own. To all intents and purposes, the Montegro name had died with Stefano ten years ago.
“There’s the villa,” Kane reminded her. “According to our information, it’s been in the family hundreds of years, and she inherited it.”
Tyler looked across at him suddenly, her amber eyes bright with interest and speculation. “It says here that when Hitler’s goons looted the area, they were mad as hell to find just a few trinkets in the villa. Think the family hid their valuables?”
“I would have.”
“A secret room?” she suggested.
“Maybe. But the chance of it still being stuffed with the family silver are slight. It’s been more than forty years, and the family hasn’t been what you’d call rich for the last twenty. Stefano may have been a hell of a guy, but he was a rotten businessman. If the contessa wasn’t a stubborn woman, she would have sold the villa years ago.”
Tyler returned her gaze to the book. “I don’t know; how many people could afford to buy Palladian villas these days? A hotel chain, maybe, or a crazy billionaire.”
Kane didn’t offer a response, but merely watched her absorbed face. He had found himself doing that often since they’d become lovers a week ago. He had seen the slow change in her, the gradual blooming of a woman accepting and finding pleasure in her own womanhood. And it had been a slow thing, despite, or perhaps because of, her instant response to him physically. In his arms she was a deeply sensual woman, but she was only now accepting his presence as a lover; she was no longer self-conscious while dressing or undressing around him, no longer tentative about touching him, or elusive after waking in bed with him.
He was delighted with the changes in her, but he was also aware that she was still matter-of-fact about their relationship, and clearly considered it one without ties or promises. When he had belatedly brought up the subject of birth control, she had assured him calmly that there was no problem, she was on the Pill. And when he had casually asked if she’d thought about moving back to the States, she had merely replied that she enjoyed London and felt no inclination to move.
He thought of his ranch, thought of returning there alone, without Tyler, and he didn’t like the hollow feeling it left him with. Maybe it was unfair to want her to give up her life in London and live with him, but, hell, there were museums in the States where she could work as a consultant if she wanted to work, and it would be easier to move her out of a flat than it would be to abandon a ranch he’d worked ten years to build. She was his, damn it, he felt that certainty in his bones, and he had no intention of letting her get away from him.
“It says here,” she said in that absent tone, “that the contessa’s involved in historical preservation. I wonder . . .”
Kane wasn’t thinking of the chalice, or of the contessa or her villa, or anything but Tyler. She was lying there on her belly, wearing one of his shirts that just barely covered the seductive rise of her bottom, kicking her bare feet in the air slowly, and he was coming apart just looking at her. God, he was worse than a horny teenager with sweaty hands, always wanting to touch her, to grab and hold on tight.
He rose from the chair before he was even aware of it, taking two steps to the bed. He used one arm to sweep the clutter of notes and books and maps carelessly to the floor, then turned her onto her back in a single motion. Tyler looked up at him with eyes that were briefly startled, but they held no panic now, there had been no panic for days. The surprise vanishing, her arms slipped up around his neck, and her legs moved to cradle him as his weight settled on her.
“I thought we were going to have lunch in St. Mark’s Square,” she murmured.
“Later,” he growled.
THEY MISSED LUNCH, but Kane promised her dinner in the Square instead, which was fine with Tyler. They shared a shower, and then she left him shaving in the bathroom while she sat on the tumbled bed wrapped in one towel and drying her hair with another one. She listened to the sound of water running, her absent gaze moving to the phone, settling there.
Think of the chalice. It was something she reminded herself of often, using that businesslike focus to keep her balance and avoid any suggestion of clinging to Kane. It had become a virtual litany by now, a toneless exhortation aimed at the part of herself that ached to cry out her love and hold on to him with all her might. Because she couldn’t do that, couldn’t cling to him. Couldn’t tell him she loved him.
He’d said nothing to indicate she was anything
more than an enjoyable bedmate, and if there was a new look of satisfied masculine possessiveness in his green eyes, it was doubtless only because this conquest hadn’t been easy and the male animal was always triumphant after such a chase. His passion would burn itself out, probably soon, because a fire so hot had to be refueled eventually by emotions deeper than desire.
And then he’d say good-bye or, as in their past encounters, simply vanish out of her life.
Dear God . . .
How many women had loved him? She could imagine, but tried not to because the images evoked feelings so primitive she could barely hide them from him. He was a consummate lover, virile and skillful, arousing her to a degree she’d never believed possible, satisfying her utterly. She didn’t want to believe it was a normal thing to him, an average thing. That other nameless women had seen his vivid eyes blaze with hunger, felt his hands tremble, his body shudder in pleasure, heard that electrifying raspy sound of stark need in his low voice.
Think of the chalice.
She lost herself in him, and it was growing harder and harder to make herself separate from him afterward. The feeling of oneness was so overwhelming it was as if her flesh, her very bones, became a part of him. No longer only a brief but intense sensation during his lovemaking, that affinity caught her unawares at odd moments, stealing her breath as she looked at him or felt him moving out of her sight.
Think of—
The water was turned off in the bathroom, and Kane came into the bedroom buttoning his shirt. “A gondola ride,” he said.
“What?” She was proud of her tone, a little blank, slightly amused.
“You’ve been here before. Ever taken a gondola ride along the Grand Canal?”
“No,” she admitted, tossing her second towel aside and finger-combing her damp hair.
“Good. After dinner, we’ll take one.” He eyed her with a slight lift of one brow, which managed to convey a world of exaggerated masculine patience. “And since you’re not ready yet, I’ll go arrange everything and come back for you.”
