The Night Remembers (18 page)

"Do you want coffee?"

He picked up the cup on the counter, tasting it. "Not this stuff," he said, grimacing at her as he put it down. "Tastes strong enough to remove paint. How 'bout some wine instead?"

"Lovely," Daphne agreed, following him into the living room.

He put the tray down on the patterned Persian carpet in front of the fireplace, motioning her to sit down while he moved to the wet bar tucked into a corner of the large room. Dropping to his haunches, he opened a cabinet beneath it and flicked on the tape deck. The muted sound of a single jazz saxophone filled the silences between the crackle and hiss of the fire. A cork popped softly, glasses tinkled against each other as he lifted them from the shelf, and then he was back beside her, sinking down into a cross-legged position on the opposite side of the tray.

"A nice, dry Riesling," he commented, handing her a delicate tulip-shaped glass of the shimmering liquid. Daphne accepted it with a smile, holding it up as he raised his glass for a toast. "Here's to getting to know each other again."

Their glasses touched, eyes meeting over the rim. "To getting to know each other again," Daphne echoed softly. She lifted the glass to her lips and drank deeply, her eyes never leaving his.

"So, what would you like?" she asked, setting her glass on the hearth. She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater and picked up a plate, gesturing toward the cartons on the tray. "Sweet and sour shrimp? Almond chicken? Beef strips with snow peas? Fried rice?"

"Everything, please." He leaned back against the edge of the sofa, legs extended, ankles crossed, watching her as she put a little of everything on his plate. "You look beautiful in the firelight," he said suddenly.

Daphne looked up, startled, the laden plate extended midway between them as she paused in the act of passing it to him.

"Why so surprised?" He put his wineglass on the tray and reached out to take the plate from her. "Surely you've been told you're beautiful before."

"Not by you."

He shook his head. "By me," he said positively. "Hundreds of times."

"Only..." Incredibly, she felt herself beginning to blush. Head averted, she handed him a fork. "Only in bed," she finished softly.

He caught at her fingers, holding them when she would have drawn her hand back. "Only in bed?" He seemed dumbfounded. "Really?"

Daphne nodded. "Really."

Adam swore softly. "What a stupid young idiot I was." He came away from the sofa, leaning forward as he brought her hand to his lips. "Forgive me."

"Don't be silly, Adam." Gently, she pulled her fingers from him and began filling her own plate. "There's nothing to forgive."

"Come over here," he said when she had made her selections, patting the space next to him. "Please."

Daphne came, scooting around the tray so she could lean back against the sofa. They ate without speaking for a few long minutes, nothing but the gentle hiss and crackle of the fire, the low wail of the saxophone, and the sound of forks against china breaking the silence.

"When do you have to go back to New York?"

"My return ticket says Wednesday morning."

"And what do you say?"

Daphne pushed the food around on her plate. "Wednesday morning. I
do
have a business to run, Adam," she began, anticipating an objection. "It doesn't run itself."

"Did I say it did? No, don't answer that," he said before she could. "I implied it. I'm sorry. I know what you do for a living is as important to you as what I do is to me."

Daphne turned her head, eyes wide as she raised them to his face.

"Surprised you, didn't I?" He grinned disarmingly.

"Yes," she admitted. "You did." She paused, looking down at her plate for a moment. "You're full of surprises."

"Am I?"

"Definitely."

"Well." He shifted uneasily. "I guess I've learned a few things in the last eleven years." He pushed the food around on his plate, not looking at her. "Things that would have saved me a lot of trouble if I'd learned them years ago."

"Such as?"

"Such as women are entitled to a life outside of marriage," he said gruffly, with the air of a man who had something to say and was going to say it, no matter what. "Such as no one wants to live with a stiff-necked, pompous jackass who thinks his way is the only way."

"You?" Daphne widened her eyes at him.

Adam nodded, a faint blush beginning to color his beard-roughened cheeks. Talking about himself, baring his soul, had always made Adam as uncomfortable as a frog in a biology lab. Daphne couldn't help teasing him just a little.

"Well-l-l," she said, head tilted as she considered him from under the sweep of her lashes. "I'll go along with the stiff-necked part. And you certainly could be pompous at times, especially when you were talking about the sanctity of the medical profession. But jackass? I don't know." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "No," she said finally, shaking her head. "I never thought you were a jackass." She paused, waiting until he looked at her. "Not
all
the time, anyway."

He forked up a bit of fried rice before answering. "In that case," he said, hiding a smile, "I guess we won't go into what a jackass you could be at times."

"No," Daphne agreed with a heartfelt sigh. "Let's not." She took a tiny bit of chicken. "I'll be back in San Francisco before the end of the month," she said then, reverting back to the topic that was on both their minds. "Trunk shows for my summer line."

"What's a trunk show?"

"Just an informal sort of fashion show at the stores that carry my line. Lets the end customer, the consumer, meet the designer in person and get a close look at the clothes."

"Will you be here long?"

"A week or so."

There was a small, intense silence.

"Will you stay with me?"

Daphne put her picked-over plate down on the tray and reached for her wine. "Here?"

"Yes, here." He shot her a sideways glance. "Where else would you stay with me?"

Daphne didn't answer that. "Yes," she said, answering his previous question instead.

There was another small silence.

Adam continued eating.

Daphne sipped her wine.

"What about Marcia?" she asked, after a moment.

"What about her?"

"She won't like it."

"No, probably not. But Marcia hasn't got anything to do with us." Adam put his empty plate on top of hers on the tray. "And I don't intend to ask her permission, so it hardly matters."

Daphne took a sip of her wine. "Doesn't it? Matter, I mean." She drew her long legs under her, her shoulder against the sofa as she turned to look up at him. "You've always been close to your family and I'd hate to cause trouble—Adam?" she said, but Adam wasn't listening. He was staring at her with a bemused expression on his face.

"You really are incredibly beautiful in the firelight." He took her wineglass from her hand and put it on the tray, pushing the whole thing out of the way without taking his eyes from her face. "It makes your skin glow like peach silk," he murmured, touching her cheek with his fingertips. "And brings out the gold in your hair."

Daphne became very, very still. Waiting.

His fingers feathered through the wispy curls on her forehead. "It's so soft. Like a baby's curls." He tucked a bit of hair behind her ear with the tip of one finger. "And you have such little ears. I don't think I ever noticed what perfect little ears you have," he said, tilting her head sideways to take a better look. He leaned forward and ran his tongue around the curved rim of her ear.

Daphne gasped softly and stopped breathing.

"I think I like your hair this way," Adam continued, his right hand sliding down the side of her neck as he spoke, burrowing under the collar of her bulky sweater. His thumb rested in the soft hollow at the front of her throat, his fingers splayed along the tiny bones in the back of her neck. He pressed his lips to the warm flesh just under the opposite ear.

Daphne's head fell against his hand, baring her neck, offering, asking for more.

"It gives me access to all sorts of areas that I never noticed before. Your little ears. Your neck. You have a beautiful neck. Very elegant." He nuzzled his face against her neck for a moment, placing soft open-mouthed kisses all down its length, and then drew back to look at her. "You're an altogether elegant woman, Daffy. I like the way you've grown up."

"I like the way you've grown up, too," she said, her voice no more than a husky whisper. "I thought so the minute I saw you sitting out in the audience at the fashion show." She lifted her hand slowly and laid it against his cheek.

"What did you think?" he asked eagerly, turning into her palm, holding it against his lips with his left hand.

Her fingers curled against his mouth, soft as a flower curling against the night. "I thought you looked experienced and knowing and devastatingly sexy," she admitted, her eyes turning to pools of liquid gold as she watched the heat building in his. "I thought you had developed an infinitely more interesting face. And that you had..." She paused, inhaling sharply as he pulled her palm away from his mouth and began to kiss the end of each slender finger, touching the spaces between them with the tip of his tongue.

"That I had what? Go on," he urged gruffly.

"That you had kept the—ah, Adam!" His lips had found their way to the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist. "You had kept the magnificent physique that first attracted me to you."

"Is that what first attracted you to me?" he said. His voice was lazy almost slurred, but his eyes were hot and hungry. "My body?"

"Umm." She swayed toward him a little. Her lips were parted, wanting. Her breasts were swollen and aching beneath the bulky butterscotch sweater. "At first."

"That's what attracted me to you, too, at first. Your body." He rubbed his cheek against the inside of her forearm where the flesh was pale, the skin transparent enough to show the faint blue tracery of her veins. "When I looked up—flat on my back on the sidewalk—and saw those long silky legs straddling that bike... I wanted them to be straddling me."

"Oh, God, Adam, shut up and kiss me."

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Adam's right hand tightened on the back of her neck, drawing her toward him. He kissed her softly, gently, all the fierce, raging needs firmly under control. He nibbled, teasing her with quick open-mouthed kisses.

Greedy, needing, Daphne strained forward, trying to increase the maddening butterfly pressure of his mouth on hers.

Adam drew back, thwarting her. "No," he murmured, gently stroking the back of her neck with the pads of all four fingers. His eyes were heavy-lidded, simmering like a blue flame deliberately held on low. "Remember what I said this morning? Slowly this time. Very slowly."

Daphne struggled to understand, but the husky intensity of his voice, the seething passion in his eyes, were as drugging as a narcotic.

"I want to savor every—" he came to his knees, tilting her head back as he took its weight in his palm, and touched his lips to the rounded point of her chin "—delectable—" his mouth descended to the long elegant column of her throat, the tip of his tongue tracing a wet line down her windpipe "—inch." He nuzzled his face into the collar of her sweater and placed his mouth over the soft hollow at the base of her throat, sucking gently.

Daphne sighed brokenly, and her hands fluttered up and down his hard ribs, seeking to draw him closer.

Adam lifted his head and looked deeply into her eyes. "I want to make love to you, Daphne," he said hoarsely, his voice thick with passion, his hands trembling as they held her head. His soft words were half statement, half question. "With you."

"I want to make love with you, too," Daphne answered without a moment's hesitation.

He stood, pulling her to her feet, and led her toward the bedroom. It seemed cool after the heat in front of the fireplace. Cool and quiet and dark.

"Don't move. Don't do anything until I get back," Adam said, standing her beside the big bed.

Daphne stood there docilely, listening to the sounds of him moving around in the darkness. She heard the slide of his shoes as he took them off, the muted thump as they landed on the hardwood floor. She smelled the sharp sulfur fragrance of a match as he lit the cluster of fat ivory candles on the dresser, and then the softer, sweeter scent of sandlewood as they burned. She saw the crisp dark brown of the sheets as he pulled the striped bedspread off of the bed and peeled back the blankets. They were piped in cream, Daphne noticed, and the pillowcases were cream piped in brown.

He came around the bed then, without her quite being aware that he had moved. He reached for the buckle of her belt and released the catch. It fell to the floor with a dull thud. Like a child, Daphne raised her arms, waiting for him to pull the sweater off over her head. It joined the belt on the floor. He unbuttoned her leather pants and lowered the zipper, then knelt to peel them down her legs. Daphne placed her hands on his shoulders, balancing herself as she lifted each foot to step out of her pants.

Adam pushed them out of the way and rose, his hands whispering over the curves of her body as he straightened, feathering lightly over the smoothness of her bare calves and thighs, her rounded hips, the inward slope of her waist, the swell of her breasts under the peach camisole.