A Daring Proposition (15 page)

He jerked the spread and blankets from their neat folds on the bed. “Lie on your stomach with your head at the bottom of the bed,” he suggested. She understood when he switched on the high-intensity lamp and angled the bulb so that it would shine on the base of her foot. But as for getting under the sheets, there seemed no point in that, no point in being imprisoned by covers. Brian was staring at her. “Somehow I thought you’d be more comfortable covered. Unless you’re wearing a full dress uniform under that.”

She flushed, and hurried to do as he said. “You make this sound like an operation,” she tried to joke.

“It may be. Mercurochrome was all we could do on the boat, Red, but it’s a damned deep cut. We’ve got to make sure you haven’t got any coral imbedded in there.” His tone was as impersonal as a stranger’s; he flipped the blanket over her back, sat down by the headboard and put her foot in his lap. The lamp was hot on the sole of her foot and his touch sure. His fingers felt warm and dry.

“So, will I live?” she finally asked.

“It looks clean enough. A bit wrinkled,” he said dryly. “You like your showers hot, don’t you? This is going to sting.”

She didn’t flinch, though it did burn.

“So you
can
be brave on occasion?” There was something different about him tonight; he was familiar and yet strange in a way Leigh couldn’t understand. “Now just close your eyes and relax for a minute. Let it dry. The air should be better than a bandage for it until morning.”

He put her foot down and rose. “Just stay there.” Sounds rustled at the head of the bed; he was putting away the first-aid supplies. He diverted the lamp glare so that it made a circle of light on the carpet.

“Are your eyes closed?” he asked quietly.

“Is this all part of the healing process, doctor?” she asked wryly, but she closed her eyes. She was exhausted and the sheets felt soft and soothing beneath her; she was warm again. She must have lain there several minutes under the pretext of waiting for the disinfectant to dry.

The covers shifted from the opposite side of the bed, letting in a draft of cool air. A flutter pulse in her throat threaded out a sudden uneven beat. She opened her eyes and started to get up. Brian was there, waiting. Not urgently, he caught hold of her arms, and losing her leverage she fell back on the silken sheets. The terry robe had loosened, and as he leaned over her to keep her wrists firmly pinned on the mattress, his bare chest brushed her own. His flesh was shockingly cool and almost bristly next to her soft white breasts; one heartbeat hovering over another. Leigh went rigid, feeling disbelief and betrayal as she stared at him accusingly.

His eyes never left hers. For all the firmness of his grip, he was not hurting her, but simply forcing her to remain still. “It’s past time, Leigh,” he said softly. “You’ve had years to put your ghosts to rest. You’ve no business letting them spoil your life. Your fear is real, I know that. But you haven’t even experienced the emotions you think you’re afraid of. You’re not afraid of making love—you don’t even know what it is. What happened with Peter was a…mistake. Do you hear me?”

She shook her head perversely, a hint of tears accenting her vulnerability. She was rigid and trembling violently at the same time, and she couldn’t seem to remember how to breathe properly.

“You understand?” He denied her head-shaking. “You know I won’t hurt you, Leigh.” His voice was like raw silk. He kissed her eyes shut. “Fight, Leigh. It’s all right. Anything you do is all right,” he whispered. “But we’re going past that fear, Leigh.”

“You promised,” she whispered, opening her eyes wide. “Don’t. Please, Brian. Please.”

In answer, the weight of his chest increased, and her wrists were released when she was pinned by his body itself. With infinite gentleness, his hands reached up to tangle in her hair, his fingers cradling her head. His lips touched hers, teasing and light. Once more he kissed her lids closed, and then he kissed the faint salty dampness of tears on her cheeks. Smooth and warm, his mouth trailed a slow erotic path down her neck, taking a year to do it, learning everything there was to learn along the way as if he had decades to devote to just the skin of her face and neck.

Leigh was utterly still for a long time, her eyes closed. As consuming as the fear was, she felt other sensations that contradicted the instinct to flee. And somehow she didn’t move in that single moment when she could have, those seconds when he removed his pants and was not holding her with both hands. Then his weight shifted back to her, and she felt the graze of his thighs as he slid lower, one of his legs nudging apart hers. His head nuzzled the material of her robe to open it further. There was a moment when he didn’t touch, when she knew he was just looking. The sight of breasts—how many dozens had he seen?—but he treated them as if he’d never known anything so lovely. His head dipped; his lips brushed back and forth on the firm satin flesh, light sensual flicks of his tongue heated and cooled. The nipples swelled and stiffened beneath his touch. It shocked her, her reaction to the feel of his lips on her breasts, the betrayal from within.

Betrayal… She moved then, suddenly, desperately, writhing to get free. She kicked out, shaking off the covers, frantically trying to kick him. Wild, uncontrollable tremors coursed through her body. “Easy, easy, Leigh…” She heard the tone, the gentleness out of nowhere, just as she felt the firm, sure touch of him, controlling, not hurting. She shot up a knee; his hand was waiting for it. Her teeth grazed his shoulder but could not connect. And still, his words kept coming, soft and sure: “I
know,
Leigh…a little fight, love. A little. To let it out…sooner or later you’ll stop fighting. I’m your husband, Leigh, and I’m not going to hurt you. No matter what you do…it’s all right, Leigh.”

“I hate you!” Tears streamed from her eyes. And yet surging through her bloodstream was a terrifying instinct to just let go. “I hate you,” she repeated desperately, pinned beneath his hard, virile body. Helplessness was an emotion she couldn’t handle, would never again be able to handle.

For hours, it seemed, she found herself staring up at him, her breath still coming in frantic little pants, consumed by bitterness, and exhaustion from that brief struggle. Her breath came normally after a time, but the trembling from the contact with him would not cease. He saw. Damn it, he saw. She could see it in his eyes, that he didn’t believe in her hate, and that nothing she said was going to make any difference. His palm softly traced the line of her cheek, smoothed back her hair. His gentleness… Like a pent-up dam she had the terrifying feeling she was about to explode, yet she couldn’t seem to move, and she was held in those black depths of his eyes, mesmerized.

“Now we’ll try, Leigh,” he whispered.

“It won’t work. Please, Brian…” Yet her whole body burned when his mouth pressed on hers, when his hands started caressing. Every place he touched, a fire of rage and desire was ignited. Leigh felt confused, humiliated. Still her lips yielded to the searing pressure, to the probing softness of his tongue. Such power in his hands, such terrifying power! He cradled her hips against his, rubbing a tension to the sudden silk dampness of her skin that she felt like a cry inside of her. She couldn’t breathe; he just wouldn’t stop to let her breathe, and the wildness inside threatened to split her apart.

A volcano of hurts was trying to bubble over, free itself. One minute she was feverishly kissing him back, responding from her soul, and the next she was struggling again, frozen and terrified. The waiting was unbearable. If it could just be
over;
but instead the heat kept building, along with an aching that echoed like pain.

And then Brian took over. “Softer now, lady,” he whispered raggedly. In slow motion, his hands explored every hollow, every crevice, every plane of her body. His mouth pressed relentlessly on hers, demanding her commitment. His eyes were like dark glass in the muted light; they loved her, caressed her, were as involved in her every reaction as she herself was. He nurtured her awakening passion as if it were a live thing newly born—nurtured, fed, encouraged, comforted.

The commitment was given. Her back arched, straining to him. Soft whimpers escaped from her lips. She whispered his name over and over, pleading with him as he continued to stroke and caress her most intimate places. She felt his leg push hers open, his hands tangle in her hair, and then his mouth came down on hers to swallow that shock as his body melted into hers. To her surprise, the discomfort was negligible. Her body was treacherously ready for him, opened to him like a flower, and a wetness she hadn’t known was there smoothed his entry into her flesh. Their bodies joined, but he didn’t move yet, combing his fingers through her hair, planting sweet, encouraging kisses on her forehead, her cheeks, her lips.

At last he shifted, asking so tenderly that she go with him, his body moving slowly, then faster as she took up the rhythm. Her fears seemed to evaporate as she strained to stay with him, crying, exhilarated, somehow knowing exactly what he wanted, somehow craving the identical motion herself. Flame turned to fire; tinder exploded. She cried out; then he did.

Leigh’s body shuddered in relief, in wonder. She had never dreamed it could be like that, still couldn’t believe the beauty, the joy of it. Brian held her for a long time afterward, caressing her still, pressing his lips to her forehead over and over as if he were calming a child. And then that passed, too. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder, feeling strangely embarrassed and shy.

“Bashful? Well, you should be,” he teased gently. “If that’s your definition of frigid, Red, I think it’s time they rewrote Webster’s.”

He finally removed his arms, got out of the bed and stretched, grinning at her like a Cheshire cat. “Don’t go away.”

Naked, he strode from the room, returning a few minutes later with a glass of wine for himself and grape juice for her, ruby-colored in the soft light. “Did you know it was midnight?”

She shook her head mutely. Shock was beginning to set in, shock that the entire world had gone right-side up in such a short time—love and shyness and an indescribable sense of wonder. And Brian was so casually sorting through the bedclothes, setting the pillows comfortably behind them, tucking the covers around her to ward off the chill of the night.

“It’s your own fault, lady. I’d had enough of your jumping at the touch of a fingertip, I’ll admit that. And I’ll admit that I wasn’t going to let you go until you responded, and I shook you out of that shell you’d enclosed yourself in. You damned near could have killed yourself today, and I barely laid a finger on you on the boat. But that was all I intended, Leigh. I would never have forced you to go any further. You forced that issue yourself. Although if I’d known you had that sort of fire underneath…” He handed her the glass, toasting her as he did so, his black eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Brian…I… Thank you” she murmured inadequately.

“Thank
you,
” he responded vibrantly. His exuberance faded with a sigh that recalled the long and eventful hours of the day. He tucked his arm around her shoulder, and sipped his wine. “Are you hurting, Red?” he asked huskily.

Unbearably. Hurting with a feeling of love for him, so intense and complete that she didn’t know quite what to do with it. But she knew that wasn’t what he meant. “No, not at all,” she murmured, and added quietly, “I’m sorry, Brian. If I hurt you when I was—”

Almost roughly he kissed her with wine-flavored lips. “You took a long time in the persuading, love, but then the sort of fears you’ve been living with aren’t easily erased. And I don’t expect they are now, altogether—but they will be.”

Her eyes widened at the implication that this was not to be a one-time occurrence. She hadn’t even thought of that, and she didn’t want to now. She had encountered a new kind of fear during their lovemaking. A fear of being mastered, of losing oneself entirely in the possession of another. It was a delicious and dangerous feeling, and had added to the thrill of the passion itself.

But it was the feeling of love that had turned the tide, born of his possession, his power over her, his incredible tenderness. She had responded to the concern she felt in him, a concern far more potent and powerful than her fear. That was what had bridged the years of fears, of memories. Not just passion, but passion in loving. But she didn’t know how to tell him that.

The other side of the bed was empty when Leigh awoke. It was nine o’clock, yet still she burrowed deeper into the covers for a few minutes. Last night…

She closed her eyes again, savoring the warm memories that washed over her. Never would she have believed she could forget the pain and degradation she had suffered at her stepfather’s hands, that she would be free to experience the depth and wealth of loving she had found with Brian. He had taken away her choices the night before, but given her back one she had never expected: the simple and fierce desire to give of herself, the need to give, the right to love. And she did love him. It wasn’t just the sexual passion, but so many things she could think back on now and see where she had been afraid to admit her own feelings. Even from the very beginning, she thought ruefully, she had been drawn to this man she wanted as the father of her child, the man she would choose again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Leigh stretched luxuriantly, feeling alive and warm and whole. But suddenly a disquieting thought struck her. Her world had turned upside down overnight, but there was no reason to think that Brian’s had. Brian wanted no love; he saw passion as a physical need, and emotional commitment as a burden. He had never said anything to indicate that his feelings had changed—except his sexual feelings for her. She shivered suddenly, bitterly aware of the terms they’d set for the marriage. How many times had she promised him he could get out whenever he wanted? That she would never tie him down, become clingingly attached to him?

“Hey, lazy one. You’ve been squandering the whole morning away!” With a tray in his hands, Brian used his foot to kick open the door. Scrambled eggs with a faintly scorched aroma and a platter of toast was set before her, as she sat up in bed.

There was enough for two but only one tray, and she really did have to laugh at him. More crumbs ended up on the bed than in either of their mouths, and he hadn’t lied when he said he was no cook.

He grimaced at the taste of the rubbery eggs. “It wasn’t my fault. The toast had the nerve to come up just when the eggs were done, and then I had to butter that before it got cool. I thought I’d turned the eggs down, but instead I’d turned them up.”

She laughed, forgetting her worries. “It’s delicious, Brian,” she soothed him. “Don’t you know that everything tastes delicious when you don’t have to cook it?”

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that. I was rather hoping you’d lock me out of the kitchen forever.” He talked on. They had one more full day, and then it was back to work for Brian. Wednesday he had invited the Harrises and their wives and Jackson Cunningham for cocktails, to hear their decision on his proposals. Phil and Dan Harris were the owners and Jackson Cunningham the potential manager of the complex. They were as difficult to deal with as any clients Brian had ever had. But the commission was excellent, and wintertime commissions of any kind were rare. With the state of the economy as it was…

Although Leigh was interested and listening, her attention kept returning to his eyes, which reminded her of the stone called Apache tears—black, with a particular luminescent quality that gave an illusion of transparency.

“So, lady, shower and do your stuff, and I’ll bandage that foot of yours, and we’ll be off.” He disappeared with the tray, and Leigh quickly scrambled out of bed, gathering her clothes together as she headed for the bathroom. Her spirits were soaring, but was this the way it was to be? Talking so easily, being pampered, teased—but what did it all mean? Was he this way with every woman he made love with, especially the first time?

Abruptly, she put these anguished thoughts behind her. One more full day with him; she would let nothing disturb her. Not yet… The shower was refreshing, tingling on her skin. She was only under the hot spray a minute when she felt a cold rush of air as the bathroom door opened. “Brian?”

There was no answer, and she thought she had imagined it. Then the glass shower door was opened, and wordlessly he stepped in with her, naked and tall. She might have smiled if he had been smiling; just a few minutes ago they had been talking so easily. But he was not smiling now. His dark eyes bored into hers, his intent unmistakable. She didn’t move, but there was a sudden frantic feeling clutching at her heart. Until he touched her…

“That’s why,” he said. “That’s why, Leigh. I don’t want you to think, not just yet.” He lathered the soap in his hands, smoothing it first over her back and neck, lingering over her hips and thighs before he turned her around. Slowly, deliberately, he slid his soapy palms from her throat to her breasts, then down her ribs to the soft mound of her stomach, his eyes intently watching her reactions. “We made the baby last night, you know,” he whispered. “Not before.”

“I wasn’t thinking about the baby last night,” she admitted breathlessly.

“I was. It wasn’t real until then. Not for me.”

Very gently, he raised her arms and laced them around his neck. His body was slippery when he molded her to him, and the stream of water on her back beat a rhythmic, sensual tattoo. The blood rushing through her veins remembered the wonder of the night before; the erratic pulse in her throat remembered years before. She raised her face instinctively to his, pleading with him. His lips dipped on hers, savoring the softness she offered, and desperately she clung, holding on as his kiss deepened in fire, arching her throat back. She had the crazy sensation that she would drown if he let her go, that last night would disappear and the fear consume her as it always had.

But he did not let her go. There was no patient, slow lovemaking this time. His hands had their own fever, which he transferred to her flesh wherever he touched; his mouth was hungry for the taste and feel of her. She could not breathe, suddenly, could not get enough of his warm, slippery skin against hers, could not bear the slow, insidious curl of need inside her, so raw, so sweet, so fierce.

She had only a vague memory of getting out of the shower, of being dried and then cradled in a towel. She remembered being pressed into cool sheets by the weight of his body; remembered the husky growl in his throat when she touched him…and kept on touching him. He had demanded nothing of her the night before, but now, she felt he was demanding everything—her body and soul. And she had it to give; he made it so easy. She cried out when his body blended with hers, not in pain but in the unbelievable joy of it. It was impossible to believe there could be anything wrong when his arms were around her. He was all tenderness again when it was over, murmuring endearments, soothing her trembling with soft kisses and velvet strokes.

For long minutes of silence, his arms enclosed her, protecting her. At last her heartbeat returned to normal, and she gazed up at his face, trying to read what he was feeling. He looked sleepy with his eyes half-shuttered, but he had a knack for keeping secrets, and suddenly she knew she could not just let it be. “Brian? Why did you make love to me?”

His eyes flickered open, then traveled over her body from head to toe, returning playfully to her eyes. “How much detail do you want in that answer?” he teased, his voice husky.

She shook her head, unhappy with his banter. “You never wanted me before,” she said softly.

“I wanted you from the first moment I saw you in my office with your hair loose and your glasses off. I wanted you even more—desperately—that night at your house when I saw you standing in that white robe of yours against the firelight.”

She gave him a startled look, then got out of bed.

“You couldn’t have,” she said stiffly as she bent to find clothes in the drawers. “You made it very clear that you couldn’t care less!”

Brian leaned back against the pillows, studying her. She could feel him watching as she slipped on a pair of panties and then more quickly drew on a summery shift of emerald-green. “I had no intention of breaking faith with you then, Red, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said quietly, the teasing note disappearing from his voice. “The opposite was true. I wanted a wife I could live with on my terms, and I was too eager to believe I had found one to push for something you so clearly didn’t want. That was what you had in mind, wasn’t it? For me to take care of all physical needs outside of this marriage of ours?”

She turned uncertainly. “Yes, that was what I had in mind,” she said defensively, staring with an odd feeling of lifelessness at the golden skin of his shoulders, naked above the carelessly tossed sheet. But when her gaze moved up a few inches, he caught her look and held it with his own. The starkness of honesty was suddenly there, in the charcoal depths of his eyes.

“You weren’t who you said you were. That shell of protection you built around yourself was just that—a shell. Someone, sometime, was going to break through it, hopefully before you’d built up too many more layers. By all rights it should have been a man you loved, a man you intended and really wanted to spend your life with. By all rights,” he repeated almost harshly, “it should not have been me.”

“Brian…” she said unhappily.

He shook his head, denying her interruption. “I didn’t forget about those rights, Leigh. But I deliberately put them aside. I wanted you, and I was certain I could reach you last night. More important than any of that was that I wouldn’t hurt you, and when I started to think about the wrong kind of man getting hold of you again, Leigh, I couldn’t stand the thought of adding to the scars you already had. Whether you believe it or not, it wasn’t for myself that I made love to you last night…at least in the beginning,” he admitted with just a touch of dryness in his voice. “But once you took fire…” He smiled at the sudden flush that softened her cheeks. “And I have to confess that good intentions had nothing to do with this morning. You just looked so damned beautiful lying in that bed with your hair all tumbled and toast crumbs on your breasts.”

“I…” But she hadn’t anything to say. She just watched as he drew back the sheet and stood up, his sleek, tanned body totally natural in nakedness.

His tone was brisk when he spoke again. “I’d like to regret breaking a promise, Leigh, but I don’t. And if you want to go back to the old arrangement, I will. It’s up to you entirely whether you want to share a bed. I won’t force you, and I won’t play any seduction games.”

He faced her, waiting. Her answer came out easily before she even thought. “Brian, I love you,” she said simply.

She thought she saw a strange flicker in his eyes before he put on his neutral mask. He picked up the towel from the floor and draped it around his waist, then approached her, brushing back her hair and resting his palms on both sides of her neck. “You don’t have to say that, Leigh. And I won’t hold you to it. You’re feeling good about yourself. You’ve become a whole woman, and I was around for the transition. There’s no harm in calling it love for now, but you won’t call it that later.” His brows were furrowed together, but his mouth curved in a smile. “Shall we just let it be?”

She felt a lump in her throat almost like clotted tears. “Is that what you want?” she asked quietly.

“The reason we’re talking is to determine what
you
want,” he said sharply.

But was it? she wondered.

Don’t bring love into it,
was what she understood him to be telling her.
Don’t love me, because I don’t love you.
Actually, it was what she’d expected from him; he had never lied to her about his feelings. She took a breath and managed to look up at him with a bright smile that masked her inner pain. “That’s rather a major decision to make on the spur of the moment. I mean, one single night isn’t proof that you don’t snore, or steal all the covers in the early part of the morning, or—”

Swiftly, his lips covered hers, and she responded, feeling as soft as buttercups inside, relieved to have answered him the way he evidently wanted, lightly. Inside, she thought fleetingly that perhaps in time… But she didn’t have much time to look her best for him. All too soon, her figure would be gone as the child within her grew; and even now, three and a half months pregnant, she was a long way from the svelte women he had been photographed with in the past.

***

“Lord, you weigh a ton!”

“Just put me down then,” Leigh protested. She was hoisted on Brian’s shoulders as they trudged back to the condominium from the beach. The sun had set hours ago, and it was just that many hours since they had started walking. In the beginning, Leigh had been conscious of her sore foot, but not so much that she would forgo this outing on the beach with her husband: the sunset, the moonlit stroll. By the time she was unable to avoid limping, they were far from home…too far for her to make it back on her own, as Brian had realized all too rapidly. “Just put me down,” she repeated.

“No. There’s a slim chance that I could learn to like suffering.”

She chuckled, glancing up. All day they had ridden along the coast, stopping to rest or snack as it suited them. All day there had been wind and blustery skies, but that had changed early in the evening. The moonlight was bright, reflecting silver on the long stretches of sand. A black ocean was indistinguishable from the night sky except for the flashes of white-tipped waves. The sound of the surf seemed eternal, coming from all around the blackness, hypnotic and romantic. They had stopped more than once for a kiss, occasionally for more than a kiss.

A short while later, they reached the condominium. Brian’s arms reached up, grasped her waist, and she was rather unceremoniously hauled over his head and placed on the doorstep. He flexed his shoulders in exaggerated complaint, and she opened the door with a smile, hobbling in ahead of him.

“So you think I’ve gained a little weight lately?” she asked teasingly.

“A little?”

“Don’t you think you’re making an awful lot out of a hundred and fifteen pounds? If you think of it in terms of carrying at least two of us…”

“Want anything?” He wandered to the bar, switching on the recessed lighting as he did so. “And what’s that supposed to mean— ‘
At least
two’?”

“No, thanks. These pants are wet at the hems, Brian. I’m going to change.”