Gift of Gold (33 page)

Verity held her breath for a few seconds and then rushed into the question that was hovering in her mind: “Do you really think I’m a petty tyrant?”

“Little, not petty. There is nothing petty about you, honey. But there are a few little things I could mention.” He half opened one eye, obviously prepared to turn the conversation into sexy channels.

“Jonas, I’m serious,” Verity said urgently. “You think I’m a shrew, don’t you?”

“It’s part of your charm,” he assured her blandly.

Verity got angry. “No, it’s not part of my charm. You’re always pointing it out and making rude remarks about it. And now there’s this other thing about your talent getting more bothersome. Let’s face it, Jonas, I’m not your kind of woman.”

“Oh, hell.” He closed his eye again. “I get the feeling someone is spoiling for a fight tonight, and it’s not me.”

“I’m not looking for a fight. I just want to clarify a few things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as why you’re hanging around.”

“I’m hanging around because I need the job and I have discovered that sleeping with you is like sleeping with a cactus. Once a man gets past the thorns, the fruit is very sweet.”

“If that’s supposed to thrill me, you’re in for a surprise. I don’t like being compared to a cactus,” Verity muttered, feeling put upon. She was prepared for an intense, in-depth, thoroughgoing discussion of their relationship, but Jonas was in a bantering mood.

He put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her against his side. “Hey, what is this?” he asked gently. “We’re supposed to be relaxing after a long, hard day.”

“I’d like us to be honest with each other, Jonas. You find me a shrew and a tyrant. You say I’m sarcastic. I don’t pay well. Furthermore, we’re complete opposites in a lot of ways. We don’t even share similar nutritional habits. There is nothing between us but sex and your weird psychic talent.”

“I’ve got news for you, honey. That’s a lot to have between us. More than I’ve ever had with any other woman.” He lifted his dark lashes again and examined her intense expression. “And it’s more than you’ve ever had with any other man.”

Verity leaned back against his arm. “Maybe we’re just using each other. You need me to explore your psychic abilities and I need you to give me a taste of what passion is all about.”

“Even if that’s all there is to this relationship of ours,” Jonas said roughly, “it’s enough for now. Verity, you’re going to drive yourself nuts if you dwell on this too much. Just relax and go with the flow.”

“That’s good advice for someone like you who’s lived by that principle for years. But I’m different, Jonas.”

“I know,” he said wryly. “You’re going to spend an enormous amount of time and energy dissecting our relationship, examining it inside and out, and generally working yourself up about something that should just be taken one day at a time. It’s your nature to try to label and organize things.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “Maybe we’d better change the subject. When’s Dad going to pay off that shark?”

“Reginald C. Yarington? In a couple of days. As soon as Haggerty’s check clears, I imagine.”

“I hope Dad doesn’t get so excited by the prospect of having all that money in his hands that he rushes out and places a few bets at the track instead of paying off the shark,” Verity said worriedly.

“Don’t worry, I’m certain Emerson will pay off his loan. He really does think of a gambling debt as a debt of honor, you know. He also assures me that Yarington is not a man to be trifled with. Emerson doesn’t want to have to spend the next few years looking over his shoulder.”

Verity shuddered. “Dad and I owe you for this, Jonas,” she said very seriously. “You helped us a lot by handling the sale of those pistols. Neither of us would have known how to go about contacting big-time private collectors and we wouldn’t have been sure of what to ask for the guns.”

His hand tightened abruptly on her bare shoulder. “Let’s get something straight, Verity. Your dad may feel he owes me a favor or two, but you don’t owe me anything. Got that?”

She was startled by the harshness of his voice and the fierceness of his grip. “But, Jonas, we do owe you, and even though you think I’m a shrew, I want you to know that I always pay my debts.”

“Shut up, Verity,” he said gently. “There is no debt between us, and if you bring up the matter one more time I may do something rash. And for the record, I don’t mind taming the occasional shrew. A man needs a challenge once in a while.
Ouch!
”
He doubled over, clutching at his ribs as Verity landed a quick punch.

“Just how many shrews have you tamed?” she asked a little too sweetly.

“You’re the first,” he admitted, still holding his ribs. “And at this rate, you may be the last. One shrew per lifetime may be the limit for any man.”

Satisfied, Verity settled back against his arm. Her mood had suddenly lightened, she discovered. On to other topics of conversation. “What are you going to do now that you’ve started exploring your talent again, Jonas? Go back to teaching history? Or work for a museum?”

“I don’t want to go back to teaching. I’ve been away from it too long. One thing I discovered during the past five years is that I don’t miss grading exams or lecturing to a classroom full of students who’re more concerned with the development of their sex lives than with the contrast between Renaissance humanism and Renaissance military philosophy. To put it simply, teaching sucks. But it has crossed my mind that I could go back to making a few bucks doing consulting work. It pays well, doesn’t demand a lot of time, and it’s interesting.”

“You said something earlier today about getting stronger,” Verity said slowly. “Do you think you’ll get to the point where one of these days you won’t need me to anchor you when you enter that corridor?”

Jonas sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t know, Verity. I’ve got as many questions as you have about what happens between us when we enter that corridor.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Verity turned Jonas’s words over in her mind. He was right, she was dwelling on the relationship far too much. Verity wondered if Caitlin Evanger had ever found herself involved with a man to the point where she spent a great deal of time and energy fretting about the relationship.

“What are you thinking about?” Jonas asked whimsically. “I was thinking about Caitlin; wondering if she ever had a great love in her life.”

“I doubt it,” Jonas said with flat certainty. “I can’t see her loving anything but her art, and she’s apparently planning to abandon that.”

“I think there’s a lot more to her than you can see,” Verity said earnestly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she went through some great trauma at some point in the past. Something other than the car accident, I mean. Perhaps she was badly hurt emotionally. No one withdraws from the world the way she has without a good reason.”

“Some people are born cold-blooded, Verity. Take my word for it. I’ve met men who can kill with as little concern as they apply to eating breakfast.” He paused. “Kincaid’s cold.”

Verity glanced at him in astonishment. “What makes you say that?”

“Something in his eyes when he looked at you. Don’t tell me: you found him warm, charming, and attractive, right?”

She thought about it. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know quite how to take him.”

“He’d take you in a hot second if he thought he could get you into bed.”

Verity nearly choked.
“
What?
Are you serious, Jonas?” She was shocked. “I’m not his type at all.”

“Yes, you are,” Jonas said thoughtfully. “A man like Kincaid has a lot of types, and one of them would be the bright-eyed, fresh, wholesome type. Just the type to cleanse the palate after a surfeit of sophistication and glamour. You don’t know how perpetually innocent you look, honey. There’s a genuineness about you that makes a man think you’d hold nothing back if he could just get you into bed. If I hadn’t been around, I have a hunch Kincaid might have tried to seduce you. If you were still a virgin and he had known it, I would probably have had to use that dagger on him to keep him away from you. Not because he had fallen for one Verity Ames on sight, but because he’s the kind of creep who gets off on the idea of seducing virgins. Hell, the main reason I pulled that stunt with the dagger was that I wanted to get his attention off you. I knew that for him, the idea that he might have been conned would be a whole lot more important than any woman.”

Verity was stunned. She stared at Jonas, open-mouthed in astonishment. “Do you really believe that Damon was attracted to me?”

“Don’t look so dumbfounded. I’m a man. Give me some credit for being able to judge the members of my own species. And like I said, it wasn’t you, the person, that attracted him; it was you, the sweetly smiling innocent, he wanted.”

“Dammit, I am not an innocent!” She frowned fiercely and touched the tip of her nose. “Maybe it’s the freckles that give people that impression.”

Jonas chuckled indulgently, bent his head, and kissed her parted lips with quick, hard possessiveness. “I find it very reassuring to know we’re highly unlikely to ever run into Damon Kincaid again. The truth is, I’m glad you live here at Sequence Springs, where the population of available males is, according to your friend Laura, as limited as hen’s teeth.”

Verity shook her head in amazement. “Well, I’ll be darned. Damon Kincaid. Who would have thought…?”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Jonas interrupted dryly. “I can see I should have kept my mouth shut. Now I suppose your female ego will be inflated to triple its normal large size. I should have known better than to do anything to stroke it.”

Verity smiled brilliantly and nuzzled close to Jonas. “Actually, there are other portions of my anatomy that I wouldn’t mind having stroked.”

Jonas smiled slowly, a sexy grin. “Is that right? You must tell me exactly where, my sweet, in great detail.”

Verity forced back a blush. She still wasn’t accustomed to all the freewheeling, sensual nuances of Jonas’s lovemaking. “You already know where,” she said, her lips against his chest.

His arm closed around her and he lifted her onto his thighs. “I want the words, honey. I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Pervert.”

“You love it,” he said confidently.

Not only that,
Verity thought wistfully,
I think
I
love you, too. What am I going to do when you leave, Jonas?
But she didn’t say those words. Instead, when she felt his hand part her legs under the water, she gave him the words he wanted to hear. Words that begged, promised, cajoled, and pleaded. Jonas drank them from her lips while his hand moved in precise response to her every command.

When she tried to wriggle around so that he could enter her, Jonas held her still.

“Not so fast, love. Verity is the spice of life,” he said. “I’m going to show you just how spicy you can be.” Then his long fingers moved inside her, probing the narrow, warm passage until she was shuddering in his arms. Her legs tightened around his hand and he laughed softly.

“So hot,” he whispered as he leaned down to kiss one nipple that projected above the surface of the water. “Clean, hot, honest fire. Burn for me, baby.”

And she did, until she was a trembling, twisting wanton in his arms, a woman who craved the man who could do such things to her. When he thrust his tongue into her mouth and simultaneously thrust two fingers deeply, slowly into her body, Verity cried out. He held her tightly as she convulsed delightfully in his arms.

“Now we’ll go back to your cabin and I’ll get my turn,” he announced, heaving himself up out of the water with Verity cradled against his chest.

She looked down as he set her on her feet and reached for their clothing. His iron-hard manhood appeared ready to explode. Dreamily she put out a hand to cup him with soft fingers.

“I’ll never make it back to your place if you keep that up,” he warned in a husky voice.

Verity smiled at him and continued to stroke him gently. Jonas took one look at her smile and groaned in surrender.

“I guess we can always go back to the cabin later,” he muttered.

He put her down on top of the pile of clothing, parted her legs with hands that trembled with passion, and thrust himself heavily into her warmth. Verity tightened herself around him, drawing him into her until he was lost.

A long while later Jonas slid out of Verity’s bed and pulled on his jeans and boots. He hooked his shirt over one shoulder and turned to take one last look at Verity, who woke up long enough to smile sleepily.

“Good night, Jonas.”

“Good night,” he muttered and let himself out of her cottage. It was cold outside. He shrugged into the shirt but didn’t bother to button it. He would be inside again soon enough.

He remembered what Emerson had said a few nights ago when Jonas had tried to let himself silently into the cabin.

“All that racket. Night after night. Why the hell don’t you just move in with her?” Emerson had complained in a muffled voice.

“I haven’t received an invitation,” Jonas had growled back.

Tonight her small but persistent act of independence bothered him more than ever. He sensed that by sending him away each night she was somehow trying to preserve the fiction that he was only a casual, part-time lover to her, not someone to whom she had committed herself, body and soul.

Jonas walked quickly down the short path through the trees to the other cabin. The stars were almost hidden by the canopy of dark branches overhead. The lake was a black mirror silvered with moonlight. Jonas saw that Emerson had left on the old, weak porch light. He paced toward the small yellow beacon, his mind on Verity’s body and soul. He had to admit that his thoughts were probably weighted more toward her body, which he had thoroughly enjoyed tonight, than they were toward her soul.

She was so incredibly responsive. He’d never felt anything like the way he felt when she tightened her legs around him and pulled him to her.

Jonas was wondering what to do about the erection he was developing when he caught the faint movement out of the corner of his eye.