by Nora Roberts
endless, echoing corridors.
She’d never seen Grant so relaxed for such a long period of time. Oddly, though he was still the remote, arrogant man she’d reluctantly fallen in love with, he’d been comfortable with the numerous, loud MacGregors. In one evening she’d discovered yet something more about him: He enjoyed people, being with them, talking with them—as long as it remained on his terms.
Gennie had caught the tail end of a conversation Grant had been having with Alan after dinner. It had been political, and obviously in-depth, which had surprised her. That had surprised her no more, however, than watching him jiggle Serena’s baby on his knee while he carried on a debate with Caine involving a controversial trial waging in the Boston courts. Then he had badgered Shelby into a heated argument over the social significance of the afternoon soap opera.
With a shake of her head, Gennie patted her skin dry. Why did a man with such eclectic tastes and opinions live like a recluse? Why did a man obviously at ease in a social situation scare off stray tourists? An enigma.
Gennie slipped into a short silk robe. Yes, he was that, but knowing it and accepting it were entirely different things. The more she learned about him, the more quick peeks she had into the inner man, the more she longed to know.
Patience, just a little more patience, Gennie warned herself as she walked into the adjoining bedroom. The room was huge, the wallpaper old and exquisite. There was an ornate daybed upholstered in rich rose satin and a vanity carved with cupids. It had all the ostentatious charm of the eighteenth century down to the fussy framed embroidery that must have been Anna’s work.
Pleasantly tired, Gennie sat on the skirted stool in front of the triple-mirrored vanity and began to brush her hair.
When Grant opened the door, he thought she looked like some fairy princess—part ingenue, part seductress. Her eyes met his in the glass, and she smiled while following through with the last stroke of the brush.
“Take the wrong turn?”
“I took the right one.” He closed the door behind him, then flicked the lock.
“Is that so?” Tapping the brush against her palm, Gennie arched a brow. “I thought you had the room down the hall.”
“The MacGregors forgot to put something in there.” He stood where he was for a moment, pleased just to look at her.
“Oh? What?”
“You.” Crossing to her, Grant took the brush from her hand. The scent of her bath drifted through the room. With his eyes on hers in the glass, he began to draw the brush through her hair. “Soft,” he murmured. “Everything about you is just too soft to resist.”
He could always make her blood heat with his passion, with his demands, but when he was gentle, when his touch was tender, she was defenseless. Her eyes grew wide and cloudy, and remained fixed on his. “Do you want to?” she managed.
There was a slight smile on his face as he continued to sweep the brush through her hair in long, slow strokes. “It wouldn’t make any difference, but no, I don’t want to resist you, Genviève. What I want to do …” He followed the path of the brush with his fingers. “Is touch you, taste you, to the absence of everything else. You’re not my first obsession,” he murmured, with an odd expression in his eyes, “but you’re the only one I’ve been able to touch with my hands, taste with my mouth. You’re not the only woman I’ve loved.” He let the brush fall so that his hands were free to dive into her hair. “But you’re the only woman I’ve been in love with.”
She knew he spoke no more, no less than the truth. The words filled her with a soaring power. She wanted to share it with him, give back some of the wonder he’d brought to her life. Rising, she turned to face him. “Let me make love to you,” she whispered. “Let me try.”
The sweetness of the request moved him more than he would have thought possible. But when he reached for her, she put her hands to his chest.
“No.” She slid her hands up to his neck, fingers spread. “Let me.”
Carefully, watching his face, she began to unbutton his shirt. Her eyes reflected confidence, her fingers were steady, yet she knew she would have to rely on instinct and what he had only begun to teach her. Did you make love to a man as you wanted him to make love to you? She would see.
His wants could be no less than hers, she thought as her fingers skimmed over his skin. Would they be so much different? With a sound that was both of pleasure and approval, she ran her hands down his rib cage, then back up again before she pushed the loosened shirt from his shoulders.
He was lean, almost too lean, but his skin was smooth and tight over his bones. Already it was warming under the passage of her hands. Leaning closer, Gennie pressed her mouth to his heart and felt the quick, unsteady beat. Experimentally, she used the tip of her tongue to moisten. She heard him suck in his breath before the arms around her tightened.
“Gennie …”
“No, I just want to touch you for a little while.” She traced the breathless kisses over his chest and listened to the sound of his racing heartbeat.
Grant closed his eyes while the damp, light kisses heated his skin. He fought the urge to drag her to the bed, or to the floor, and tried to find the control she seemed to be asking him for. Her curious fingers roamed, with the uncanny ability to find and exploit weaknesses he’d been unaware he had. All the while she murmured, sighed, promised. Grant wondered if this was the way people quietly lost their sanity.
When she trailed her fingers down slowly to the snap of his jeans, the muscles in his stomach trembled, then contracted. She heard him groan as he lowered his face to the top of her head. Her throat was dry, her palms damp as she loosened the snap. It was as much from uncertainty as the wish to seduce that she loitered over the process.
His briefs ran low at his hips, snug, and to Gennie, fascinatingly soft. In her quest to learn, she touched him and felt the swift convulsive shudder that racked his body. So much power, she thought, so much strength. Yet she could make him tremble.
“Lie down with me,” she whispered, then tilted back her head to look into eyes dark and opaque with need for her. His mouth rushed down to hers, taking as though he were starving. Even as her senses began to swim, the knowledge of her hold over him expanded. She knew what he wanted from her, and she would give it willingly. But she wanted to give much, much more. And she would.
With her hands on either side of his face, she drew him away. His quick, labored breaths fluttered over her face. “Lie down with me,” she repeated, and moved to the bed. She waited until he came to her, then urged him down. The old mattress sighed as she knelt beside him. “I love to look at you.” Combing the hair back from his temples, she replaced it with her lips.
And so she began, roaming, wandering with a laziness that made him ache. He felt the satin smoothness of her lips, the rustling silkiness of her robe as she slowly seduced him into helplessness. His skin grew damp from the flick and circle of her tongue and his own need. Around him, seeping into the very air he breathed, was the scent she had bathed in. She sighed, then laid her lips on his, nipping and sucking until he heard nothing but the roaring in his own head.
Her body merged with his as she lay down on him and began to do torturous things to his neck with her teeth and tongue. He tried to say her name, but could manage only a groan as his hands—always so sure—fumbled for her.
Her skin was as damp as his and drove him mad as it slid over him, lower and lower so that her lips could taste and her hands enjoy. She’d never known anything so heady as the freedom power and passion gave when joined together. It had a scent—musky, secret—she drew it in. Its flavor was the same, and she devoured it. As her tongue dipped lower, she had the dizzying pleasure of knowing her man was absorbed in her.
He seemed no longer to be breathing, but moaning only. She was unaware that her own sighs of pleasure joined his. How beautifully formed he was, was all she could think. How incredible it was that he belonged to her. She was naked now without having felt him tug off her robe. G
ennie knew only that his hands stroked over her shoulders, warm, rough, desperate, then dipped to her breasts in a kind of crazed worship.
How much time passed was unknown. Neither of them heard a clock chime the hour from somewhere deep in the house. Boards settled. Outside a bird—perhaps a nightingale—set up a long, pleading call for a lover. A few harmless clouds blew away from the moon. Neither of them was aware of any sound, any movement outside of that wide, soft bed.
Her mouth found his again, greedy and urgent. Warm breath merged, tongues tangled. Minds clouded. He murmured into her mouth; a husky plea. His hands gripped her hips as if he were falling.
Gennie slid down and took him inside her, then gasped at the rocketing, terrifying thrill. She shuddered, her body flinging back as she peaked instantly then clung, clung desperately to delirium.
He tried to hold on to that last light of reason as she melted against him, spent. But it was too late. She’d stolen his sanity. All that was animal in him clawed to get out. With more of a growl than a groan, he tossed her onto her back and took her like a madman. When she had thought herself drained, she revitalized, filled with him. Her body went wild, matching the power and speed of his. Higher and higher, faster and faster, hot and heady and dark. They rushed from one summit to a steeper one, until sated, they collapsed into each other.
Still joined, with the light still shining beside the bed, they fell asleep.
* * *
It was one of those rare, perfect days. The air was mild, just a bit breezy, while the sun was warm and bright. Gennie had nibbled over the casual, come-when-you-want breakfast while Grant had eaten enough for both of them. He’d wandered away, talking vaguely of a poker game, leaving Gennie free to take her sketch pad outdoors alone. Though, as it happened, she had little solitary time.
She wanted a straight-on view of the house first, the same view that could be seen first when traveling up the road. Whether Daniel had planned it that way or not—and she felt he had—it was awesome.
She moved past the thorny rosebushes to sit on the grass near a chestnut tree. For a time it was quiet, with only the sound of gulls, land birds, and waves against rock. The sketch began with rough lines boldly drawn, then, unable to resist, Gennie began to refine it—shading, perfecting. Nearly a half hour had passed before a movement caught her eye. Shelby had come out of a side door while Gennie was concentrating on the tower and was already halfway across the uneven yard.
“Hi. Am I going to bother you?”
“No.” Gennie smiled as she let the sketchbook drop into her lap. “I’ll spend days sketching here if someone doesn’t stop me.”
“Fabulous, isn’t it?” With a limber kind of grace that made Gennie think of Grant, Shelby sat beside her. She studied the sketch in Gennie’s lap. “So’s that,” she murmured, and she, too, thought of Grant. As a child it had infuriated her that she couldn’t match his skill with a pencil or crayon. As they had grown older, envy had turned to pride—almost exclusively. “You and Grant have a lot in common.”
Pleased at the idea, Gennie glanced down at her own work. “He has quite a bit of talent, doesn’t he? Of course I’ve only seen one impromptu caricature, but it’s so obvious. I wonder … why he’s not doing anything with it.”
It was a direct probe; they both knew it. The statement also told Shelby that Grant hadn’t yet confided in the woman beside her. The woman, Shelby was certain, he was in love with. Impatience warred with loyalty. Why the hell was he being such a stubborn idiot? But the loyalty won. “Grant does pretty much as he pleases. Have you known him long?”
“No, not really. Just a couple of weeks.” Idly, she plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between her fingers. “My car broke down during a storm on the road leading to the lighthouse.” She chuckled as a perfectly clear image of his scowling face flashed through her mind. “Grant wasn’t too pleased to find me on his doorstep.”
“You mean he was rude, surly, and impossible,” Shelby countered, answering Gennie’s grin.
“At the very least.”
“Thank God some things are consistent. He’s crazy about you.”
“I don’t know who that shocked more, him or me. Shelby …” She shouldn’t pry, Gennie thought, but found she had to know something, anything that might give her a key to the inner man. “What was he like, as a boy?”
Shelby stared up at the clouds that drifted harmlessly overhead. “Grant always liked to go off by himself. Occasionally, when I hounded him, he’d tolerate me. He always liked people, though he looks at them in a rather tilted way. His way,” she said with a shrug.
Shelby thought of the security they’d lived with as children, the campaigns, the press. And she thought briefly that with Alan, she had stepped right back into the whirlpool. With a little sigh Gennie didn’t understand, Shelby leaned back on her elbows.
“He had a monstrous temper, a firm opinion on what was right and what was wrong—for himself and society in general. They weren’t always the same things. Still, for the most part he was easygoing and kind, I suppose, for an older brother.” She was frowning up at the sky still, and remaining silent, Gennie watched her. “Grant has a large capacity for love and kindness,” Shelby continued, “but he doles it out sparingly and in his own way. He doesn’t like to depend on anyone.” She hesitated, then looking at Gennie’s calm face and expressive eyes, felt she had to give her something. “We lost our father. Grant was seventeen, between being a boy and being a man. It devastated me, and it wasn’t until a long time after that I realized it had done the same to him. We were both there when he was killed.”
Gennie closed her eyes, thinking of Grant, remembering Angela. This was something she could understand all too well. The guilt, the grief, the shock that never quite went away. “How was he killed?”
“Grant should tell you about that,” Shelby said quietly.
“Yes.” Gennie opened her eyes. “He should.”
Wanting to dispel the mood, and her own memories, Shelby touched her hand. “You’re good for him. I could see that right away. Are you a patient person, Gennie?”
“I’m not sure anymore.”
“Don’t be too patient,” she advised with a smile. “Grant needs someone to give him a good swift punch once in a while. You know, when I first met Alan, I was absolutely determined not to have anything to do with him.”
“Sounds familiar.”
She chuckled. “And he was absolutely determined I would. He was patient, but”—she grinned at the memory—“not too patient. And I’m not half as nasty as Grant.”
Gennie laughed, then flipped over a page and began to sketch Shelby. “How did you meet Alan?”
“Oh, at a party in Washington.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“I live in Georgetown—we live in Georgetown,” she corrected. “My shop’s there, too.”
Gennie’s brow lifted as she drew the subtle line of Shelby’s nose. “What kind of a shop?”
“I’m a potter.”
“Really?” Interested, Gennie stopped sketching. “You throw your own clay? Grant never mentioned it.”
“He never does,” Shelby said dryly.
“There’s a bowl in his bedroom,” Gennie remembered. “In a henna shade with etched wildflowers. Is that your work?”
“I gave it to him for Christmas a couple of years ago. I didn’t know what he’d done with it.”
“It catches the light beautifully,” Gennie told her, noting that Shelby was both surprised and pleased. “There isn’t much else in that lighthouse he even bothers to dust.”
“He’s a slob,” Shelby said fondly. “Do you want to reform him?”
“Not particularly.”
“I’m glad. Though I’d hate to have him hear me say it, I like him the way he is.” She stretched her arms to the sky. “I’m going to go in and lose a few dollars to Justin. Ever played cards with him?”
“Only once.” Gennie grinned. “It was enough.”
“I know what you mean,” she murmured as she rose. “But I can usually bluff Daniel out of enough to make it worthwhile.”
With a last lightning smile, she was off. Thoughtfully, Gennie glanced down at the sketch and sorted through the snatches of information Shelby had given her.
* * *
“Frog-faced?” Caine asked when he met Grant in the hall.
“Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,” Grant said easily.
With an appreciative grin, Caine leaned against one of the many archways. “You had Dad going. We all got one of his phone calls, telling us the Campbell was in a bad way and it was our duty—he being by way of family—to help him.” The grin became wolfish. “You seem to be getting along all right on your own.”
Grant acknowledged this with a nod. “The last time I was here, he was trying to match me up with some Judson girl. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Dad’s a firm believer in marriage and procreation.” Caine’s grin faded a bit when he thought of his wife. “It’s funny about your Gennie being Diana’s cousin.”
“A coincidence,” Grant murmured, noting the troubled expression. “I haven’t seen Diana this morning.”
“Neither have I,” Caine said wryly, then shrugged. “We disagree on a case she’s decided to take.” The cloud of trouble crossed his face again. “It’s difficult being married and in the same profession, particularly when you look at that profession from different angles.”
Grant thought of himself and Gennie. Could two people look at art from more opposing views? “I imagine it is. It seemed to me that Gennie made her uncomfortable.”
“Diana had it rough as a kid.” Dipping his hands in his pockets, Caine brooded into space. “She’s still adjusting to it. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me. And Gennie’s well able to take care of herself.”
“I think I’ll take a look for Diana.” He pulled himself back, then grinning, jerked his head toward the tower steps. “Justin’s on a streak, as usual, if you want to risk it.”
* * *
Outside, Diana moved around the side of the house and into the front garden before she spotted Gennie. Her first instinct was simply to turn away, but Gennie glanced up. Their eyes met. Stiffly, Diana moved across the grass, but unlike Shelby, she didn’t sit. “Good morning.”
Gennie gave her an equally cool look. “Good morning. The roses are lovely, aren’t they?”
“Yes. They won’t last much longer.” Diana slipped her hands into the deep pockets of her jade-green slacks. “You’re going to paint the house.”
“I plan to.” On impulse, she held the sketch pad up to her cousin. “What do you think?”
Diana studied it and saw all the things that had first impressed her about the structure—the strength, the fairy-tale aura, the superb charm. It moved her. It made her uncomfortable. Somehow the drawing made a bond between them she wanted to avoid. “You’re very talented,” she murmured. “Aunt Adelaide always sang your praises.”
Gennie laughed despite herself. “Aunt Adelaide wouldn’t know a Rubens from a Rembrandt, she only thinks she does.” She could have bitten her tongue. This woman, she reminded herself, had been raised by Adelaide, and she had no right denigrating her to someone who might be fond of her. “Have you seen her recently?”
“No,” Diana said flatly, and handed Gennie back the sketch.
Annoyed, Gennie shaded her eyes and gave Diana a long, thorough study. Casually, Gennie turned over a page, and as she had done with Shelby, began to sketch her. “You don’t like me.”
“I don’t know you,” Diana returned coolly.
“True, which makes your behavior all the more confusing. I thought you would be more like Justin.”
Infuriated because the easily spoken words stung, Diana glared down at her. “Justin and I have different ways because we led different lives.” Whirling, she took three quick strides away before she stopped herself. Why was she acting like a shrew? she demanded, then placed a hand to her stomach. Diana straightened her shoulders, and turned back.
“I’ll apologize for being rude, because Justin’s fond of you.”
“Oh, thank you very much,” Gennie said dryly, though she began to feel a slight stir of compassion at the struggle going on in Diana’s eyes. “Why don’t you tell me why you feel you have to be rude in the first place?”
“I’m simply not comfortable with the Grandeau end of the family.”
“That’s a narrow view for an attorney,” Gennie mused. “And for a woman who only met me once before when we were what—eight, ten years old?”
“You fit in so perfectly,” Diana said before she could think. “Adelaide must have told me a dozen times that I was to watch you and behave as you behaved.”
“Adelaide has always been a foolish, self-important woman,” Gennie returned.
Diana stared at her. Yes, she knew that—now—she simply hadn’t thought anyone else in that part of the family did. “You knew everyone there,” she continued, though she was beginning to feel like a fool. “And had your hair tied back in a ribbon that matched your dress. It was mint-green organdy. I didn’t even know what organdy was.”
Because her sympathies were instantly and fully aroused, Gennie rose. She didn’t reach out yet, it wouldn’t be welcomed. “I’d heard you were Comanche. I waited through that whole silly party for you to do a war dance. I was terribly disappointed when you didn’t.”
Diana stared at her again for a full thirty seconds. She felt the desperate urge to weep that was coming over her too often lately. Instead, she found herself laughing. “I wish I’d known how—and had had the courage to do it. Aunt Adelaide would have swooned.” She stopped, hesitated, then held out her hand. “I’m glad to meet you again—cousin.”
Gennie accepted the hand, then took it one step further and pressed her lips to Diana’s cheek. “Perhaps, if you give us a chance, you’ll find there are some of the Grandeaus who are almost as human as the MacGregors.”
Diana smiled. The feeling of family always overwhelmed her just a little. “Yes, perhaps.”
