After Innocence (48 page)

She gripped his shoulders, looking up at him. “Oh, Jake.”

He met her gaze for an instant, revealing his soul-deep hunger. And then his mouth was on hers, engulfing her, tearing at her, as if he were a starving man. Suzanne cried out. She thrust her pelvis up against his swollen loins. His heated hardness burned her. This was no fantasy. This was Jake.

Without removing his mouth from hers—and now his tongue plumbed her depths—he lifted her into his arms and strode swiftly through one pair of black arches into a black
and white marble-floored salon. Suzanne heard a door slam closed. Jake settled her onto a sofa, coming down on top of her, finally breaking the kiss.

He cupped her face in his hands and stared searchingly into her eyes.

“I love you,” Suzanne said hoarsely. “I do, Jake, I really do.”

His jaw flexed and he covered her mouth again. When he lifted his mouth from hers, many minutes later, he said, “Show me.”

There was a challenge there. Suzanne smiled, her eyes glowing, easily slipping into the role of seductress. She ripped open his robe. Still smiling, she let her gaze slide down the swath of hard, flat chest she had revealed, down his lean, tense belly, finally coming to rest on his distended phallus. She had forgotten how large and strong he was. For a moment, she could not breathe.

Then she ducked her head and teased the plumlike tip with her tongue. Jake cried out.

Suzanne encouraged him to fall backwards on the couch, following him and coming down on top of him. Instantly she took him in her mouth. Jake threw back his head and allowed her to minister to him. She was experienced, she knew exactly what she was doing, and she had not enjoyed doing this in a very long time.

“Enough!” Jake flung her onto her back, his hands behind her, expertly unbuttoning her dress. “It’s been so long,” he said roughly. “I want to see every inch of you, Suzanne. Every single bare inch.”

She laughed in excitement and irrepressible triumph. She knew she was in her prime, that she had never looked better. She wanted Jake to see her naked. She wanted to excite him with her lush, ripe beauty.

Her clothing rapidly formed a pile on the floor. Jake gripped her breasts, his eyes black now with passion, then bent to lave the long tips. Suzanne cried out. He sucked hard and harder still until Suzanne began to beg him for release. Ignoring her, he spread her thighs wide. He bent lower, inserted his tongue between the throbbing folds of her sex. Suzanne wept when he touched the most sensitive,
aroused bud of flesh there. Jake used his tongue on her the way a butterfly uses its wings to fly.

Suzanne shouted and sobbed in pleasure. Jake moved over her, impaling her immediately. Their bodies pumped, frantic and wild. Suzanne peaked again. Jake rolled onto his back, taking her with him. He slid one finger against her cleft, still driving into her, watching her face.

“Oh, you bastard,” Suzanne cried, eyes closed, head back, long white neck exposed. Another wave of almost painful pleasure washed over her and crashed around her. Pleasure drummed through her, again and again.

When her senses returned, she was still astride him, and he was very still, regarding her with his gleaming golden eyes. His gaze alone told her that he was far from finished, as did the fact that he was still hard and long inside her, pulsing there like an idling motor. Her eyes widened when their gazes met.

Jake’s smile was wicked. “It’s been a long time, Suzanne. I’m not a boy anymore.”

Her pulse elevated. “I never thought you were.”

He laughed once, harshly, and pulled her down, turning her beneath him in one very smooth movement. His mouth found the sensitive skin on the underside of her throat. He began to move inside her again, but this time very, very slowly.

The long silk draperies were surprisingly pale, the color of moonlight, and they pooled on the marble floor. No one had closed them, of course, and they formed a stark contrast to the black night outside the windows of the salon. Suzanne lay entwined with Jake on the sofa, in his arms. His red silk robe lay on top of the pile of her clothing on the pale cream and rose-hued Aubusson carpet on the floor.

She appeared to be asleep, but Jake knew she was awake, for her fingers stroked his wrist very lightly, and from time to time, she sighed.

Jake did not have to glance down at her face to know that she smiled like a well-fed cat. But he did. Without expression, and without very much feeling, either.

It hadn’t gone away. The emptiness was still there.

He had thought—even hoped—that he still loved her. Secretly and deep inside himself. But he felt as empty and alone as he always did after sleeping with a woman. Although he had known Suzanne for more than twenty years, although she had been his wife for ten of those years, although she had borne his daughter, there was nothing there, nothing at all, except for carnal lust.

And had he not been drinking with Delanza earlier that afternoon, shedding all of his secrets, unburdening himself in a way he had never before unburdened himself to anyone, not even St. Clare, he might have never caved in to the desire he still felt for Suzanne. He had been avoiding her siren call for years.

But in a way, their sexual reunion had been inevitable. He suspected now that he had needed to be with her again, to see if there was any love left at all.

But there wasn’t. Not a shred of it. He told himself that he was relieved, and the sane part of him was, but even more than that, he was so goddamned sad. Achingly sad.

How could a man have both wife and daughter, yet be barred in every substantive way from their lives? Suzanne was his wife, yet she would go home now to another man. Sofie was his daughter, but she did not even know that he was alive, and if she did, she would be shocked, and certainly she would be repulsed as well. He was a traitor, a murderer—and a liar. Jake closed his eyes, recalling how Edward had tried for hours on end to convince him that Sofie would be overjoyed to learn that he was alive—that she would not run away from him, but into his embrace. If only it were true.

Suzanne sighed again and languidly sat up. Jake looked at her, almost glad at having his morbid thoughts interrupted. She smiled, having no inkling as to his feelings—or lack thereof. Although she had hurt him so many times in the past, and he had likewise hurt her, he didn’t want to hurt her now. It was time to let go of the past—if he somehow could. “You have become a truly beautiful woman, Suzanne,” he said somberly. It was true. She was like a Venus, with her oval face and classic features, with her
cloud of mahogany hair, with her full breasts, her ripe hips, and her lush thighs.

Suzanne laughed, pleased, tossing her head. “And you are devastating, Jake. You are more beautiful, too.” She bent and kissed his mouth lightly.

Jake did not smile.

Her smile faded, too. “Jake?”

He wondered what he should say. He wondered what he could say. Slowly he sat up; swinging his long, hard legs over the pale, cream-on-white striped damask sofa, reaching for his robe. He slipped it on. Suzanne gripped his wrist. “Jake? What are we going to do?”

He tensed. “It’s late. You’ve missed supper. You’re going to have to go home, Suzanne.”

She did not move. “I realize that. But …”

He had no choice. “There are no buts. Benjamin is your husband now, not I.” He hesitated. “This was my fault. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened.”

She was on her feet, pale, aghast.
“This shouldn’t have happened?!
This was the best thing that has ever happened to either one of us. Jake! I love you! And you love me—I am sure of it!”

He stood up, closing his robe and tying the sash. She was very beautiful in her absolute nakedness, but he did not feel the slightest stirring of desire. He was struck by the realization that it was truly over for them. He wasn’t ever going to feel desire for her again. Somehow, he knew that. “No, Suzanne, you’re wrong.”

She stared, frozen. “What are you saying?”

“You’re married to Benjamin now, remember?”

“I said I’d leave him for you, and I meant it.”

“You can’t do that,” he said softly. “You would destroy yourself and you know it. You hated me once for taking you away from all of this. You’d hate me again if you could not hold your head up with your friends.”

“No. This time is different. This time you’re not a dirt-poor immigrant!”

He winced. “That hurts. For a minute there I thought you did love me in your own inimitable manner—not my money.”

“I do!” Suzanne wept. “You’re twisting my words around.”

But he knew that he hadn’t twisted her meaning. Just as he also knew that Suzanne did love him, in her own selfish, self-absorbed way. Just as he knew that he had once loved her—completely—and that he didn’t love her at all anymore. “Go back to Benjamin,” he said gently. “That’s where you belong.”

Suzanne gasped. “I belong with you. You know it, you bastard! What happened here today proves it. My God, we made love like animals for hours and hours!”

He felt sad for her. “Suzanne, you just hit the nail on the head. We were like animals. It wasn’t love. It was sex. Great sex, but sex. Nothing more. Go home.”

She whimpered, close to tears, her hand against her mouth. “I can’t live without you.”

“Yes you can,” he said. “You’ve been living without me for years.” He was still bitter, thinking about how easily she had adapted to his death, how quickly she had remarried.

She bent and grabbed her chemise and pulled it on before facing him again. Clutching her dress, she said, “I am your wife. I’ve checked. Discreetly, of course. But legally we are still wed.”

“Then you’re also a bigamist.”

“That’s not my fault!”

“I’ll see if my lawyer can arrange a secret divorce somehow.” He had toyed with the idea before, but had always dismissed it, telling himself that a secret divorce was impossible. And he had every reason to be afraid of being discovered alive, both then and now. But now he wanted that divorce, if there was any way of gaining it in complete secrecy.

“No!” Suzanne cried. “Even if it could be done, I won’t sign!”

He shrugged. “Give up, Suzanne. It’s over.” He went to her and touched her cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything.”

She hissed and smacked his hand away. “It is not over. I’m your wife. I’m always going to be your wife. You’re not going to win in this, Jake! There won’t be any divorce!”

He stared at her for a long time.

Suzanne wet her lips. “I’m not ever going to give up. Do you understand me?”

He did not answer.

“Never!” she cried hysterically.

Jake turned and walked across the vast room, his red silk kimono ebbing and flowing around him, pausing at the door. “Good-bye, Suzanne.”

“Don’t! I love you! You bastard!”

He closed his eyes briefly. “It’s too late. Fifteen years too late, to be exact.”

Suzanne gazed after him, tearful and furious and frightened as he left the room. The black lacquer door closed behind him and he was gone.

Suzanne stood alone in the huge, high-ceilinged, black and white marble salon with its eerily pale furnishings, absolutely alone. Jake was gone, Sofie was gone. She was overwhelmed with anguish.

Abruptly she brushed away a tear. Crying was not going to win him back. Once, long ago, tears had been an effective weapon against Jake, but this man was far too wise for such ploys now.

But she would win him back. She had waited all these years, thinking him dead; she could wait even longer if she had to. Suzanne would do whatever she had to in order to get him back. It was a promise she made to them both. She was his wife. Nothing was going to change that, nothing short of an act of God.

S
ofie pretended absolute indifference as she walked through the lobby of the Savoy, carrying Edana. The baby was awake and she was regarding everything and everyone with innocent fascination. Sofie paused beside an older couple waiting for the elevator. She wore gloves, which hid the fact that her hands were ringless—which hid the fact that she was unwed and that Edana did not have a father.

Until an hour ago, Sofie had not ventured out of the hotel since arriving there late last night. She had not realized until she was preparing Edana for a walk in the park just how difficult going out in public would be. She knew very well that the hotel staff remarked her, and was certain they gossiped about her being in Edward’s suite, as well. As for the other guests, she refused to look at anyone, but she felt that they were all staring at her. It felt as if everyone knew the sordid details of her life.

The elevator came. The gentleman ushered his wife and Sofie in first. The elevator operator turned to her. “Which floor, miss?”

Sofie did not look at him for more than a half second. “Five, thank you.” Her cheeks burned. How could he have guessed she was not married?

They rode up in silence, and then the well-dressed matron said, “What a pretty baby. Is she a girl?”

Sofie nodded, very briefly meeting the woman’s friendly eyes.

“Who do you work for, do you mind my asking?” the matron continued. “Perhaps I know this beautiful baby’s mother.”

Sofie realized with utter mortification that this lady thought her to be Edana’s nurse. But then, she was dressed like a nurse, was she not? Her clothes were plain and shabby—she had needed a new wardrobe ever since returning from Paris. Sofie did not know what to say. It was insulting—but not as horrible as being labeled a scarlet woman. “I don’t think so.”

Fortunately the elevator lurched to a stop and the couple alighted. When the doors closed again, Sofie hugged Edana, trembling slightly.

On the fifth floor she hurried to her suite. She put Edana down in order to unlock the door. Rachelle had taken the afternoon to herself to browse The Ladies’ Mile and would not be back until dark. Sofie picked up Edana and pushed into the foyer, nudging the door closed with her toe.

She came up short. There was a light on in the salon—and she distinctly recalled turning off all the lights when she had gone out. Then she realized it must be Rachelle. She must have returned early. “Rachelle?” She walked towards the salon, pausing on the threshold.