JAKrentz - Witchcraft (19 page)

Cavenaugh
strode forward, catching up to her as she paused to punch the elevator call button. "It wasn't just your grandfather's eyes you inherited, Kim. You've got the
Marland
pride. Just imagine how they felt tonight." To his surprise she inclined her head, not looking at him. "I know it must have been difficult for them. Twenty-eight years ago I'll bet they couldn't have managed it. Time changes everyone, I suppose."

"Everyone, Kim," he emphasized meaningfully as one of the bronzed elevator doors slid silently open. "Including you." She shrugged elegantly in the sleek black dress. "Look me up in twenty-eight years and I'll let you know."

"I'm not going to wait around that long for you to forgive me,'
Cavenaugh
snapped, beginning to feel goaded. "When you've had a chance to think about it you'll realize I handled this the only way I could."

"Will I?" She stepped inside the elevator and he followed quickly.
Cavenaugh
drew a deep breath, seeking patience. "I know you're upset, honey, but by morning you'll have calmed down.

You're too intelligent not to realize this has all been for the best."

She didn't answer him, her gaze fixed steadfastly on the closed elevator doors. Kimberly maintained her silence all the way up to the room and by the time he unlocked the door
Cavenaugh
knew he was more than tense.

He was getting damned scared. She wasn't coming out of it as fast as he had anticipated. When she slipped past him into the room he shut the door and leaned back against it, watching her through narrowed, brooding eyes. Kimberly went immediately over to the closet and began pulling out her small suitcase. "What do you think you're doing?"
Cavenaugh
asked harshly. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He came away from the door, moving toward her with such obvious intent that she stepped back a pace. Instantly
Cavenaugh
halted. "Damn it, Kim, don't look at me like that."

"If you don't want me looking at you like that then I suggest you don't threaten me."

"I am not threatening you. But neither am I going to let you pack up and leave this room," he growled. "Why would you want me to stay?" she asked too calmly. "Because you belong here." His patience was fraying to a dangerous degree, mostly because of his growing fear that he'd done something incredibly stupid tonight.

"You belong with me, Kim. Hell, you belong to me. You love me, remember?"

"Ah,
Cavenaugh
," she whispered hopelessly. "I remember. But the problem is that you don't love me. You proved that tonight. I had fooled myself into believing that you did, you see. That was sheer idiocy on my part, of course. You never gave me any reason to think that you did. When I told you that I loved you, there was no answering response from you, was there? Do you know I had decided that tonight was the night you would tell me how much you loved me? I thought that this trip to San Francisco was planned by you to give us a chance to be alone so that you could tell me your true feelings."

"Kim, now that we've gotten through that confrontation with your grandparents we're both free to talk about the future."

"I don't see much future for myself with a man who doesn't love me.' she flung back in a tight voice. "Give me a chance, Kim. This wasn't the way I wanted everything to go, damn it!" He ran a hand restlessly through his hair. His whole body was seething with frustration and anger. Standing with his feet braced slightly apart, adrenaline pouring through his system, he knew he was poised to reach out and grab her. He wanted to pull her down onto the bed and shut off the flow of her resentment with the kind of lovemaking that would remind her of just whose woman she was. "A man who really cared for me would never have done what you did tonight. He would never have set me up like that. He would have understood that I had a right to handle my past in any way I saw fit. He would have respected the fact I'm an adult and entitled to make my own decisions. He would have empathized with my feelings about my grandparents, even if he thought I should confront them. He might, conceivably, have tried to talk me into a meeting with them but he would never have arranged one behind my back the way you did."

"Kim, I wanted it over and done, can't you understand?

I had to know you were really free to love me. It's because I want you so much that I had to make certain what you felt was real. I didn't want any barriers between us, and I thought your wariness of families that wielded their power the way your grandparents once did was standing in the way of our relationship."

"So you decided to wield a little power of your own, is that it? Was tonight's act of sheer, unadulterated arrogance supposed to reassure me? My God, do you realize I had actually begun to think that you could almost read my mind? That we were becoming emotionally and intellectually intimate? That you understood me?"

"Kim, I'm a man!"
Cavenaugh
gritted, his fists clenching in impotent fury. "Men see some things differently than women see them. Sometimes we make mistakes dealing with women because we can't think like them. Maybe I made a mistake tonight. But I didn't intend to set you up. I only wanted you to face your past and deal with it. That's the way I do things, Kim. I face them. I don't pretend they aren't in my life. I don't build a fantasy world for myself as a way of dealing with real life."

"A fantasy world!" she snapped. "You think I live between the pages of my books?"

"Well, haven't you done exactly that?" She stared at him as though seeing him finally for the first time. "
Cavenaugh
, you don't know me at all, do you?"

"Kim, wait .

." She turned her back on him and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later she was back with her toothbrush and a handful of other items, stuffing them into her small case. Yanking the blouse in the closet off the hanger, she dumped it in on top of the rest and closed the lid. "Just where do you think you're going tonight?"
Cavenaugh
was almost afraid to touch her, fearing that once he did he would do something drastic. But he had to stop her. He knew his fingers closed much too tightly around her fragile wrist but she disdained any protest.

"I'm going to find a place to spend the night," Kimberly told him simply. "Alone."

"You're spending the night here. With me." He grappled with that single word. It would have been easier if she'd yelled something along the lines of "not if you were the last man on earth." He could have dealt with that kind of outrage. But
Cavenaugh
freely admitted to himself that he wasn't at all sure how to handle Kim in her present mood. He released her wrist as he realized that his hand was beginning to shake with the force of his barely restrained emotions.

As soon as he freed her she turned and started toward the door. "That's far enough, Kim. You're not leaving this hotel. For both our sakes, don't push me." He heard the lethal threat in his own voice and knew she understood it, because at the door she stopped and turned around to face him. Her head was still held with dignity but he could see the uncertainty in her eyes. Nice going,
Cavenaugh
. Now you've managed to frighten her. You've really handling this whole thing with finesse. "If you're going to threaten me,
Cavenaugh
, be up front about it. What exactly are you going to do if I exercise my right to leave this room?"

He closed his eyes in exasperation and then glared at her through narrowed lids. Back off,
Cavenaugh
, or you're going to blow this completely. Give her time. She needs a little time. He forced himself to speak calmly. "If you're absolutely determined to run instead of staying with me tonight, I'll call the front desk and get you another room in this hotel." Without waiting for her response he picked up the phone on the nearby end table. Kimberly watched him in utter silence.

In fact,
Cavenaugh
reflected a few minutes later as he escorted her down the hall to another room on the same floor, he got the distinct impression she didn't quite know what to make of his actions. Obviously getting her a room of her own without further protest was not what she had expected him to do. As he opened the door of her new room, he looked down at her. "This isn't how I wanted it to be between us tonight, Kim. You know that, don't you?"

"It isn't how I wanted it to be, either,
Cavenaugh
. As you've already taken pains to point out, I live in something of a fantasy world. But the fantasy I was living in was taking place in real life, not in one of my books."

"Damn you," he gritted and reached for her. He pulled her into his arms, deliberately giving her no opportunity to resist. Frustrated hunger and a large dose of his seething fury combined in the kiss. His mouth closed over hers with a possessiveness he made no attempt to hide. She might choose to sleep alone tonight but she would go to bed with the taste of him on her lips. Kimberly didn't fight him but that was probably because he didn't allow her to do so.
Cavenaugh
wasn't interested in a response tonight.

He only wanted to imprint himself on her in a way that would last until morning. He wanted her to lie awake thinking of him all night, he realized. The same way he was going to lie awake thinking of her. When he finally released her she stumbled back a step, her fingers lifting to touch her sensually bruised mouth. It seemed to
Cavenaugh
that he had never seen her golden eyes so wide or so unreadable. For a long moment they looked at each other and then
Cavenaugh
shook off the spell. "Good night, witch. Go to sleep. If you can." Two hours later the uneasiness became so intense that
Cavenaugh
knew he had to act. He hadn't slept at all but this restless feeling wasn't from lack of sleep. Something was very, very wrong. Unable to stand it any longer he climbed out of bed, pulled on his slacks and his shoes and went out into the hall. He was too late. Kimberly had left the hotel.

CHAPTER NINE.

She had been a fool, Kimberly told herself. A fool to think that she had achieved some kind of rare, magical intimacy with Darius
Cavenaugh
. A fool to let him trick her into that confrontation in San Francisco. A fool to let herself believe that
Cavenaugh
was somehow different from other men in his position. Most of all, she decided ruefully as she gripped the wheel of the rental car, she was a fool for making the long drive up the coast at one o'clock in the morning. But when you were running from your own foolishness, home was where you instinctively wanted to hide. And if home lay a hundred and fifty miles away, you just kept going until you got there. In spite of the lousy weather. Kimberly struggled with the tension of fighting the steady rain as well as her own inner anxiety. Refusing to spend the night with
Cavenaugh
hadn't been enough for her high-strung nerves. She'd needed to be alone, really alone. Kimberly didn't have any misconceptions about what would have happened if she'd stayed in the hotel.
Cavenaugh
would have been at her door when she opened it in the morning, waiting to see if she had gotten over her snit. And he would have continued to haunt her, arguing his case, condemning her own behavior until she finally admitted that he had been right. It infuriated her to think that she had been so blissfully unsuspecting about that trip to San Francisco. She should have paid more attention to her instincts. After all, there had been plenty of evidence that the trip wasn't starting out as a romantic jaunt for two! But she had chosen to ignore
Cavenaugh's
increasing silence and tension. When you were in love, Kimberly reflected sadly, you saw things the way you wanted to see them, not as they really were.
Cavenaugh
had been right about one thing. He was a man and he didn't think like a woman. More importantly, he didn't think the way she, Kimberly Sawyer, did. That was the bottom line. He didn't think the way she did. He might at times be able to almost read her mind, to k now what she was thinking, but that didn't mean he shared the same emotions or analyzed those thoughts the same way she did. He wasn't Josh Valerian. How many times had he told her that, Kimberly asked herself wryly. She supposed it had been his way of trying to warn her that the warm, shared intimacy that she imagined was beginning to take shape between them had its limitations. The truth was she had never confused him for a moment with her fictional male character. It would have been impossible to mistake
Cavenaugh
for anyone but himself. He was too real, too dynamic, too solid and far too virile to be a stand-in for Josh Valerian or anyone else. Everything about him was unique, Kimberly realized as she slowed the car to compensate for the increasing rain. The taste of his mouth, the earthy scent of his body, the feel of him as he crushed her deeply into the bedclothes. She would never forget the physical side of him. But what she would miss the most were the more intangible aspects of their short-lived affair. Damn it, she thought, there had been moments of shared understanding. She hadn't imagined them all. The night he had held her in his arms and told her he knew what it was like to be wired with tension after a frightening confrontation with violence, for instance. He had comforted and soothed her and she knew he understood exactly what she was going through. There had been other times, too, Kimberly remembered. He understood her need to be alone in a busy household. He had been quietly, deeply appreciative of the way she had interceded to establish some rules for his working hours. How could a man who seemed so in tune with her in so many instances do to her what
Cavenaugh
had done tonight? The answer was simple enough, Kimberly thought grimly. He'd given it to her himself.