by Nora Roberts
“I’ll do that Howard.” She glanced at the card, but it gave no clue to his profession. “I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Don’t let any grass grow under your feet, either.” He gave her a last wink before turning to Jared. “I’ll expect those papers.”
Savannah smiled at his retreating back. “Quite a character,” she murmured.
“You sure handled him,” Jared observed.
“I’m used to handling characters.” She tucked the card away. “I’ve finished downstairs. If I wouldn’t be in your way, I could finish up here.”
“Sure.”
He leaned against the doorway, watching her as she lifted the painting behind her. “A little more to the right,” he suggested. “Howard’s got an eye for the ladies.”
“Yes, I gathered that.” Satisfied, Savannah set the painting down and prepared to hammer in the hanger. “And I’d venture to say he’s been faithful to his wife for…oh, twenty-five years.”
“Twenty-six in May. Three kids, four grandchildren. He has an eye for the ladies,” Jared repeated, “but he’s one of the shrewdest businessmen I know. Real estate, mostly. Buys and sells. Develops. He owns a couple of small hotels, and the lion’s share of a five-star restaurant.”
“Really?”
“Hmm… He’s on the arts council, works with the Western Maryland Museum.”
As the card in her pocket suddenly took on more weight, Savannah nearly bashed her thumb. “That’s interesting.” Carefully, she set down the hammer. “It looks like I was in the right place at the right time.”
“He wouldn’t have told you to call him if he didn’t mean it. I’m not sure how an artist might feel about having her work in hotels and restaurants and law offices.”
She closed her eyes a moment. “I’d feel fine about it.” She hung the painting, stepped back to study it. “I’d feel just fine.”
“No artistic temperament?”
“I’ve never been able to afford artistic temperament.”
“And if you could?”
“I’d still feel fine about it.” She turned then to study his face. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I suppose I’m wondering why you wouldn’t want or ask for more.”
She wasn’t sure it was only art that he was speaking of now. But the answer had to remain the same. “Because I’m happy with what I’ve got.”
His lips curved slowly as he reached out to touch her face. “You’re a complicated woman, Savannah, and amazingly simple. It’s a fascinating mix. Why don’t I take you to lunch?”
“That’s a nice offer, but I want to get this done. If you’re going, I could hang the pieces in your office while you’re out.”
“Why don’t I stay, and we can order in? I’ll watch you hang the pieces in my office.”
“That would work.” She tucked her restless hands into her pockets, then pulled them out. “Actually, there’s something I’d like you to see. You didn’t pick it, but I thought if you liked it, you might want it in your office.”
Curious, he watched the nerves jitter in her eyes. “Let’s take a look.”
“Okay.” She walked down the hallway to where she’d left the painting, still wrapped. “If you don’t like it, it’s no big deal.” She shrugged and shifted past him to carry it into his office herself. “Either way, it’s a gift.” She set it on his desk, stepped away, jammed her hands into her pockets again. “No charge.”
“A present?” He stroked a hand over her shoulder as he went to the desk for scissors to cut the twine.
The idea of a present from her delighted him. But when he folded back the protective paper and saw it, the quick smile faded. And Savannah’s heart sank.
The woods were deep and thick, filled with mystery and moonlight. Black trunks, gnarled, burled, rose up into twisted branches that held leaves just unfurled with spring. There were hints of color. Wild azalea and dogwood gleamed in that ghostly light. The rocky ground was carpeted with leaves that had fallen the autumn before, and the autumn before that, a sign of the continuous ebb and flow of life.
He could see the trio of rocks where he often sat, the fallen trunk where he had once sat with her. And in the distance, just a hint through the shadows, was a glow of light that signaled his home.
For a moment, he wasn’t sure he could speak. “When did you do this?”
“I just finished it a few days ago.” A mistake, she thought, cursing herself. A sentimental, foolish mistake. “It’s just something I’ve worked on in my spare time. Like I said, it’s no big deal. If you don’t like it—”
Before she could finish, his head came up, and his eyes, swirling with emotion, met hers. “I can’t think of anything I’ve ever been given that could mean more. It’s the way it looked the night we made love for the first time. The way it’s looked countless times I’ve been there alone.”
Her heart stuttered, then crept up to lodge in her throat. “I was going to paint it the way it would have been in autumn, during the battle. But I wanted to do it this way first. I wasn’t sure you’d… I’m glad you like it.”
He reached out, cupped her face in his hands. “I love you, Savannah.”
Her lips curved under the gentle caress of his, then parted, heated, as he steadily deepened the kiss. His fingers tangled in her hair, still damp from the rain. Her arousal was slow and sweet.
“I should hang it for you.”
“Mmm…” Quite suddenly, as her body pressed to his and her mouth began to move, he had a much better idea. He tucked an arm around her to hold her steady and reached over his desk to pick up the phone. “Sissy? Why don’t you go to lunch now? Yeah, take your time.”
Savannah’s gaze followed his hand as he replaced the receiver. Then her eyes shifted blandly to his face. “If you think you’re going to seduce me here in your office, have me rolling over your fancy new carpet with you while your secretary’s out to lunch…”
Jared walked over, closed the door. Locked it. Arched a brow. “Yes?”
She tossed her hair back, leaned a hip on the desk. “You’re absolutely right.”
He shrugged off his jacket, hung it on the brass coat hook by the door. His tie followed. Keeping his eyes on hers, he crossed back. One by one, he loosened the buttons of her shirt.
“Your clothes are damp.”
“It’s raining.”
Very slowly, very deliberately, he peeled the bright cotton away. His eyes never left hers as he slipped a finger under the front hook of her bra. Never left hers when he felt the quick quiver of her skin and heard the little catch in her breathing.
“I want you every time I see you. I want you when I don’t see you.” With a flick of his thumb and forefinger, he unsnapped the hook. “I want you even after I’ve had you.” Lightly he traced his fingertips over the curve of her breast. “You obsess me, Savannah, the way no one and nothing ever has.”
She reached out for him, but he shook his head and lowered her arms to her sides again. “No, let me. Just let me.”
His thumbs brushed over her nipples, his eyes stayed focused on her face. “I lose my mind when I touch you,” he murmured. “This time I want to watch you lose yours.”
Fingers, thumbs, palms, cruised over her. Rough, then gentle, tender, then demanding, as if he was refusing to let any one mood rule. Driven, she pulled at him, tried to tug him closer. But each time she did, he stopped, patiently lowered her arms until she had no choice but to grip the edge of the desk and let him have his way.
No one had ever made love to her like this, as if she were essential, as if she were all there was and all there needed to be. As if her pleasure were paramount. Pinpoint sensations percolated along her skin, chased by others, whisper-soft, then still more that seeped slyly through flesh to blood and bone.
She arched back on a keening moan when he closed his teeth over her, shot her to some rugged ground on the border between pleasure and pain.
“Just take me.” Her arms whipped around him, her body stra
ining, pulsing.
But he took her hands, locked them to his as he kissed her toward delirium. Her mouth was a feast, full of hot flavor and a hunger that matched his own. But this time he wasn’t content to sink into it, or her. He used his teeth to torment, his tongue to tease, until her breath came in tearing gasps.
“Let me touch you,” she demanded.
“Not this time. Not yet.” He closed her hands over the edge of the desk again, held them there while his mouth raced to her throat, down her neck, over those tensed and beautiful shoulders. “I’m going to take you, Savannah.” He eased back, because he wanted her to see his face, and the unshakable purpose there. “I’m going to take you inch by inch. The way no one ever has.”
For her pleasure, he told himself. But he knew a part of it was his own pride. He wanted to show her that no man before, and no man after, could make her feel what he could.
So he showed her, traveling like lightning down her torso, her flesh damp now, not from rain, but from passion.
She gave herself over to him as she had never done with any man. Surrender complete, she braced herself on the desk and let him ravage her, body and mind.
He tugged off her shoes. She let her head fall back, let herself moan deep as he eased her jeans low on her hips, caressed that revealed flesh with his lips. She shuddered, nearly sobbed, as his hands kneaded and his mouth closed over her, fire to fire.
She crested fast and hard. Terrifying. Wonderful. He never stopped, and as the pleasure whipped her ruthlessly higher, she prayed he never would. Naked, stripped of clothes and all defenses, she could do nothing but experience, absorb and give.
He’d never known this kind of desire. To take and to take, knowing as he did that he was filling her with unspeakable pleasure. The blood swam in his head as he felt her peak yet again, heard that breathless cry catch in her throat.
The strong muscles in her legs were quivering. He ran his tongue over them, lingering over the symbol she’d branded herself with, before making his way, purposely, greedily, up that long body.
Her eyes were closed. He used his mouth only to keep her poised and ready for him as he stripped off his shirt. He toed off his shoes, whipped his trousers aside. And dragged her to the floor.
The animal that had been pacing restlessly inside him sprang free. He drove himself into her, mindlessly, shuddering with a dark thrill when she cried out his name, hissing with hot pleasure as her nails scraped his back.
It was all heat and speed and plunging bodies, a rhythmic, tribal beat of flesh against flesh. The blood hammered in his head, his heart, his loins, relentlessly. She arched up to him, straining, straining.
His vision grayed, his world contracted. He emptied himself into her.
Savannah thought, if she really tried, she might be able to crawl to where her clothes were heaped. And she would try, she told herself. In just another minute or two.
Right now, it was so lovely and decadent to lie there on the antique carpet in Jared’s quietly elegant office with his body heavy on hers.
She had been, she realized, thoroughly and mind-numbingly ravished. As exciting as making love with him had been before, this was a different level entirely. She certainly hoped they would strive for it now and again in the future.
“I have to get up,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“To make certain I’m not paralyzed.”
“Did I hurt you?”
She kept her eyes closed, let her lips curve. “Another few minutes of that, and you’d have killed me.” Making the effort, she found the energy to stroke a hand through his hair. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” He let out a long, heartfelt sigh before he pressed a kiss to her throat. “Of course, I don’t know how I’m ever going to work in here again.” Moaning a little, he rolled off her. “I’ll have a client sitting in the chair while I go over the details of his case, and I’ll get a flash of you leaning naked against the desk.”
She laughed, then discovered she really did have to crawl. Her legs might never support her again. “He’ll get suspicious when you get a stupid grin on your face.”
“And start drooling.” Spent, Jared reached for his shirt. He angled his head to get a glimpse of her tattoo. “Hell of a way to kick off the new color scheme.”
“Didn’t you ever kick off the old one?”
He had to concentrate on remembering how to button his shirt, so it took him a minute. The snort of laughter came first. “You mean me and Barbara? I’m not sure she ever unbuttoned her double-breasted blazer in here. Not her style.”
In her underwear, Savannah turned to study him. “You were married to her, right?”
“That’s what it said on the license.”
“Why?”
“It has to say that. It’s the law.”
“Why were you married to her?”
“We had a lot in common. I thought.” He shrugged it off. “We both wanted to establish ourselves in our respective professions, knew a lot of the same people, attended a lot of the same functions.”
It disturbed him still how empty it sounded when he pulled things apart and looked at all the pieces. “She was a sensible, reasonable and sophisticated woman. That’s what I wanted—or thought I did. A kind of contrast to the hotheaded-troublemaker image I’d carved out for myself when I was younger.”
“You wanted dignity.” Still sitting on the floor, Savannah buttoned her shirt.
“That’s accurate enough. It seemed important then.”
“It’s still important. It always is.” Though she realized it would sound a bit foolish while she tugged herself into her jeans, she said it anyway. “I always wanted it, too. Not in the double-breasted-suit sort of way. Not my style. Just in the way people look at you, what they see when they do.”
She pulled on a shoe. “That’s why I like living here. I can start fresh.”
“We all look back.” He walked over to the coatrack for his tie. “It’s human nature.”
“I don’t.” She said it almost fiercely as she pulled on the second shoe. “Not anymore.”
He gave his full attention to the tying of his tie. “There’s no one? Of all the people you’ve known, the people who’ve touched you?”
She started to answer lightly, but then it struck her. He didn’t mean people. He meant men. And she remembered what he had said as he made love to her, made her churn and shiver.
The way no one ever has.
And so, she thought, hurt, that was the crux of it. “You mean lovers.”
“You said lovers. I said people.”
“I know what you said, Jared. No, there’s no one who was important enough to look back to.”
Bryan’s father. He nearly said it, nearly asked, but it stuck in his throat. In his pride. “You’re angry,” he stated, noting the glint in her eye.
“It just crossed my mind that what happened here was a kind of demonstration. A chest-beating male sort of thing, to illustrate that you’re better than anyone I might have had before.”
Now his own eyes glinted. “That’s a remarkably stupid observation.”
“Don’t tell me I’m stupid.” She snapped it out, then managed to pull herself back under control. Don’t let it matter, she reminded herself. Don’t let it sting. “You can relax, Jared, you proved your point. You’re an extraordinary lover. Right over the top.” She sauntered over to brush a hand over his tensed jaw. “I enjoyed every minute of it. But now I don’t have time to hang your paintings. I’ve got some errands to run before I head back home.”
He put a hand on her arm. He understood her well enough now to know that careless arrogance was one of her ways of covering anger. “I think we have something to talk about.”
“It’ll have to wait.” Reaching behind him, she flipped open the lock. “We’ve eaten up your lunch hour, and I imagine Sissy’ll be breezing back any minute.” She gave him a light, careless kiss before shaking her arm free.
“We have something to talk
about,” he repeated.
“Fine. You get it all worked out in your head, and we’ll talk about it tonight.” Knowing she was goading him, she curved her lips in a cocky smile. “Thanks for the demonstration, MacKade. It was memorable.”
She wouldn’t have gotten two feet if Sissy hadn’t rushed in below. “Hey, Savannah,” she called up cheerfully. “The way it’s coming down out there, you’re going to want to trade your car in for an ark.”
“Then I’d better get moving,” Savannah said, and walked down the stairs without looking back.
Chapter 11
He bought flowers. Jared wasn’t sure whether he was apologizing or he’d simply gotten into the habit of picking them up once or twice a week because Savannah always looked so surprised and pleased when he walked in with a bouquet.
He didn’t like to think the clutch of late-spring blooms was an apology, because he didn’t think he’d been completely wrong. Technically, he hadn’t asked, he’d only intimated a question. And why the hell shouldn’t he ask?
He wanted to know more about her, the who and what and why of her past. Not just the pieces she let drop from time to time, but the whole picture.
Of course, his timing and delivery had been poor. He could admit that. He could even admit that it had nipped at his temper that she’d seen through him so easily. But the bottom line was, he had a right to know. They were going to have a calm, reasonable talk about just that.
Perhaps because he was so primed, so ready, he found himself simmering when he drove up the lane and saw that her car was gone.
Where the hell was she? It was after six. He stood by his car, frowning, looking over the land. The rain had left the tumbling flowers on the bank vivid and wet. The azaleas she’d planted had lost most of their blossoms, but their leaves were a rich and glossy green.
He remembered the first day he’d seen her, digging in the earth, with pots of flowers surrounding her and the rocky, neglected bank waiting.
She’d done something here, he thought. Those roots she’d talked about were still shallow, but she’d dug them in. He needed to believe that she had made that commitment, and found comfort in the green of the grass she preferred to mow herself, in the mixed colors of the blooms she tended religiously, in the woods beyond that they both seemed to share on such a deep, personal level.
He saw Bryan’s bike standing beside the walkway, a bright orange Frisbee that had ended its flight in the middle of the sloping lawn, a wheelbarrow full of mulch parked beside the porch.
Details, he mused, little details that made a home.
And it hit him suddenly and forcefully that he wanted, needed, it to be his home. Not just a place where he left a few of his things so that it was convenient to spend the night. Home.
He didn’t want Savannah to be just the woman he loved and made love with. He’d failed at marriage once, and had been sure, so sure, that he would never put himself in the position where he could fail at something so personal and public again. Hadn’t he told himself he would be content to drift along in this relationship?
But he’d been lying to himself almost from the beginning, because he hadn’t been content and didn’t want to drift. So he poked at her, prodded, subtly and not so subtly, for those answers to who she was, where she’d been. While part of him, the part that was pride and heart, was wounded every time she didn’t simply volunteer the answers.
He wanted her to confide in him, to share with him every part of her that had been, that was, that would be. He needed her to turn to him when she was troubled or sad, or when she was happy.
He wanted, Jared realized, drawing a slow, steady breath. He wanted her to marry him, have children with him, grow old with him.
He started up the walkway, pausing to lay a hand on Bryan’s bike. He wanted the boy. That, too, was fresh and revealing news. He didn’t want Bryan to be Savannah’s son, but their son. Helping Bryan with his homework, boning up on baseball, cheering from the bleachers at a game. Jared realized he’d gotten used to those things, looked forward to them. Looked forward to that quick grin, the shouted greeting.
But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t make them family.
Love would. He’d grown to love the boy in a very short time, without even realizing it. Marriage would. Not just the legal contract, Jared reflected. The promise.
He and Barbara had broken that promise, and had proceeded to negate the legal contract without flinching with another. All very clean, very tidy, very civilized.
Wasn’t that the core of it? There was nothing very civilized about the way he felt about Savannah or Bryan. He felt protective, proprietary, possessive. They
