Nan Ryan (37 page)

After that, well, she didn’t really care if the marriage between Malcolm and Marie survived. Matter of fact, it might be well worth paying the girl off and sending her on her way, as well. The prospect of having Miss Annabelle, Marie, and a squalling, spitting baby underfoot was most repugnant.

No need worrying about that now though. First things first. And first, Marie had to get pregnant. Quincy sighed. And wondered if her absent-minded Professor son had taken the girl to bed yet. Doubtful. He wasn’t like that rounder, John Roulette. Quincy frowned suddenly. John was a dangerous man, just like his father before him. Coloring at the recollection of the young, virile Louis Roulette and her reaction to him, Quincy worried for Marie’s safety. The girl was young and very refined—easy prey for a predator like John Roulette.

It was faint at first. A distant rumble from the south. Nevada turned her head to listen. And heard it again. Rising from the long brocade sofa, she crossed to the window, flung back the curtain, and looked out at the night sky.

She smiled.

A streak of summer lightning flashed across the southern heavens. An echoing roll of thunder followed.

“I do believe it is finally going to rain,” she announced, turning to look at Malcolm.

He lowered the book he had been reading all evening. “I—I’m sorry, Marie. What did you say?”

“I said it’s almost midnight and I’m growing sleepy.” She came back to the sofa. “I think I’ll go up to bed.”

Malcolm nodded. “I had no idea it was so late.” He rose, kissed her cheek, and said, “You go on, dear. I’ll see to the open windows.” He sniffed at the air. “I do believe you’re right. It is going to rain.”

In her bedroom Nevada laughed when a clap of thunder was so loud, she automatically jumped. The scent of the rain was sweet, and already, before a single drop had fallen, the muggy air had cooled a bit.

Unhooking her dress, Nevada stepped out onto the balcony and inhaled deeply. The first small, sporadic raindrops began to pepper the white railing. Nevada, looking all about, quickly surmised that the porch’s broad overhang would protect her room from the rain; there’d be no need to close the French doors.

Smiling, she went back inside, stripped down to the skin, and climbed atop the turned-down bed as the rain began in earnest, drumming rhythmically on the roof over her head. It was a sound she’d always loved.

She lay contentedly atop the covers in the darkened room, allowing the rain-driven breeze to stroke and cool her bare, heated body. She sighed and stretched and, beginning to grow pleasantly drowsy, finally pulled the top sheet up to her shoulders and turned over onto her stomach.

This is going to be
, she thought dreamily as she closed her eyes against the brilliant flashes of lightning,
the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages
.

35

Flashes of near summer lightning illuminated the dark face of a man lying wide awake on his bed in the midnight blackness. Both hands cradled the back of his head. His elbows angled skyward, the muscles of his bare inner arms pulled tautly beneath smooth bronzed skin. His long legs, stretched out, were crossed at the ankles.

The man turned his head.

There on the pillow beside his face a filmy white batiste nightgown lay. Folded neatly, as though waiting for its owner to step up to the big bed and put it on.

Johnny’s hands came out from under his dark head and he slowly reached for the nightgown. For a long moment he held it in one lean hand directly above him. He opened his hand and released it. It fluttered down to settle softly on his naked chest.

Johnny inhaled deeply.

He could still smell the sweet fragrance of the woman who had worn it, despite the fact that the white nightgown had lain on the lawn all night—and atop his bed all day.

Johnny laid a hand on the downy soft gown and instinctively rubbed its perfumed folds down over his belly, back up over his chest; and finally up to his throat. His smile broadened as he draped the intimate garment on his head.

He moved his hands back down to his sides and lay there for a while, the gown covering his face, the lightning shining through the thin white barrier. Storm-driven gusts of wind swirling through the tall open windows pressed the supple batiste against his nose and his lips, while raindrops drummed rhythmically against the roof of the old
garçonnière
.

The gown was Nevada’s. Just why it had been lying on the lawn beneath her windows early that morning was a mystery to Johnny. He could conjure up a scenario, but it was one he did not like. That of his stepbrother sneaking into Nevada’s room, hurriedly stripping the gown from her, then making love to her there in her bed while his mother and Miss Annabelle slept just down the hall.

Not quite.

That would be totally out of character for Malcolm Maxwell. More likely it was that Nevada had grown too warm in the middle of the hot June night, had risen, pulled off the gown, and carelessly tossed it away, never realizing that it had sailed right over the balcony.

With thumb and forefinger, Johnny slowly slid the gown down from his face. He grinned wickedly in the darkness as a pleasant memory came flooding back. The memory of being sound asleep on a rainy night in London. Of automatically turning to a soft warmth beside him. Of a pair of baby-soft lips molding themselves, oh, so sweetly to his. Of opening his eyes to find the tempting Nevada in his bed, in his arms.

Clutching the gown to his chest, Johnny rolled to a sitting position, swung his long legs over the bed’s edge, and stood up.

His wicked smiled broadened.

Wearing only tight dark trousers and a pair of wine velvet bedroom slippers, Johnny ducked in out of the rain, his bare shoulders and dark head wet, beads of water running down his face. Kicking the soggy slippers from his feet, he stepped just inside Nevada’s open bedroom doors. There he shook himself like a great dog, then spread the dampened white batiste nightgown out on a chair to dry.

Barefoot, he tiptoed quietly to the bed. And felt his chest tighten. Nevada lay on her side, one knee pulled up and resting on the mattress, the other pale slender leg stretched out full-length. The sheet was riding her well-arched right hip, leaving her torso bare to his perusal.

Several rapid flashes of lightning illuminated the white bed—and the lovely woman in it—highlighting the palehued breasts and creamy skin and raven hair spilling around her bare shoulders.

A glorious sleeping beauty. A defenseless naked nymphet. And he? Good Prince Charming here to awaken her with a kiss? Or dark, savage satyr come to take her against her will?

Johnny was not entirely certain which as he anxiously unbuttoned and shoved his trousers down over his slim hips, his black, heated eyes never leaving the milky-skinned perfection awaiting him in the bed. When he was as bare as she, he very carefully put a brown knee on the bed and softly spoke her name.

“Nevada.”

She didn’t stir.

He said it again, a little more loudly, but a boom of thunder drowned him out. “Nevada.”

She remained just as she was.

Johnny didn’t lift the sheet, much as he wanted to. He lay down on his side, close to Nevada but not quite touching her. At least not at first. His breath was so loud in his ears and his heartbeat thumping so powerfully against his ribs, he was sure she would waken.

She did not.

So Johnny began to relax. He drew a deep, sighing breath and cautiously put a long arm around Nevada’s naked waist. He curved his long body around hers as the thunder and lightning continued. He snuggled to her and with a well-placed, deft big toe, he managed to pull down the sheet lying across her flared hip. In seconds the protective sheet had slipped away, leaving Nevada lying there bare and beautiful.

Johnny cautiously lifted his head from the pillow to admire that which he had undraped. The curve of her bare hip, the firmness of her thigh, the shapely calf of her leg were appealing. But the sweetly feminine part he most longed to see and touch and taste remained alluringly hidden by her bent knee.

Johnny lay back down. And he moved just a little closer, so close the thought struck him, as it had before, that she was so tiny and he so big, he would have to take great care not to crush her with his weight. Guardedly he held the small, naked woman in his arms.

Nevada could actually feel his muscled strength against her back, his powerful arms around her. She sighed softly in her slumber and squirmed more deliriously close to the heat.

Johnny smiled his pleasure and patiently, carefully swept the dark curtain of her tousled hair back away from her sleeping face and nuzzled his nose and mouth against the sensitive spot just below her right ear. Nevada shuddered and licked her lips.

Johnny tenderly nibbled on the side of her throat as his hand cupped a soft, bare breast and Nevada gave a funny little gasp of pleasure. With his warm palm he gently caressed the sleeping crest into a budding point of sweet sensation. He felt the nipple stiffen and seek closer contact as Nevada instinctively pressed her swelling breasts against his covering palm.

His eyes flashing in the darkness, he led her carefully, slowly, stirring her unconscious sexuality with his conscious stimulation. With feather-light touches and angel-soft kisses Johnny awakened her dormant desire.

And Nevada, sleeping deeply, lay innocently naked in his arms, allowing him to kindle her smoldering passions and coax them nearer to the surface. Immersed in slumber, Nevada enjoyed every second of the sensuous arousal. Keenly alert and watchful, Johnny enjoyed it as well.

She was sweet and warm and heaven to touch. His fingertips worshipped her, gliding and playing with infinite tenderness. Enthralled, he continued the strange sleepy seduction and cringed when a near flash of lightning crashed loudly just beyond the open French doors.

Holding his breath lest the storm waken her, he couldn’t believe his good fortune when, turning from her side and onto her back, her thick eyelashes never so much as fluttered. A fragile hand came up to rest against the wall of his chest and Nevada’s soft lips parted over her small white teeth, but she remained asleep. And he continued to tenderly stroke the bare female loveliness laid out before him.

When the silky flesh beneath his adoring hand was flush with heat, a slender, thrusting arm came up around Johnny’s neck and pulled his dark head down. And never even opening her sleepy eyes, Nevada’s soft warm lips sought his and her tongue made lazy circles around the interior of his mouth. The slow hot kiss continued as Nevada’s hand slipped down over his shoulder and went between their bare bodies.

Johnny felt the sharpness of her nails raking down his chest and then the flattening of her palm in the hollow beneath his ribs. His breath grew short. She continued to kiss him hotly even as her pelvis made lazy rocking movements against his tight belly.

He thought he might stop breathing altogether when, turning more fully to him, Nevada draped a pale slender leg up over his hip, hooking a bare foot behind his back. Her lips and tongue still pressed to his, Nevada boldly moved her wandering hand way down between their pressing bodies and it quite naturally closed around Johnny’s throbbing erection.

Her small warm fingers wrapped tenaciously around him proved his undoing. It was too sweet, too good—he couldn’t keep silent one second longer.

Breathless with excitement, he murmured her name in the beginning swell of ecstasy. “Nevada, baby … Nevada …”

“Johnny?” Nevada’s voice was a lazy whisper, her breath hot against his shoulder. “Johnny, Jo—” Her eyes came open and she was awake. Instantly aware that she was naked and Johnny was naked and that they were together in her bed, she was fixing to scream loudly and Johnny knew it.

Swiftly he clasped a hand tightly over her open lips and said against her ear, “Don’t, darlin’. You’ll bring the entire household down on our heads.” Her blue eyes flashed her fury at him and she thrashed and moaned and would gladly have murdered him if she could.

Johnny continued to whisper in low, commanding tones. “I won’t move my hand until you promise you’ll keep quiet. Will you?”

Her answer was more fierce struggling and whimpering and trying to bite his silencing hand.

“It’s up to you, sweetheart. We can stay like this all night, if you like.”

More flailing and writhing was the reply, and with each savage movement, each bucking of her bare curves against his hard length, Nevada succeeded only in keeping her dark subduer sexually aroused. Johnny told her as much, warned her that he would never be able to leave if she didn’t keep still.

Finally she gave up. Johnny saw the tired surrender in her eyes. Cautiously he moved his hand from her mouth. For an interminable time they lay there completely still, totally silent, staring at each other—she through cold, furious blue eyes, he through hot, amused black ones.

It was Nevada who broke the strained silence..

“What in the name of God are you doing here?” She scrambled up onto her knees, anxiously jerking the sheet around her.

“It was raining and I was afraid,” said Johnny, his sense of humor quickly returning. “Remember when you were afraid that rainy night in London?”