A Season for Love (29 page)

He looked up suddenly from the pile of insulating material he separated with his strong, sure hands and laughed.

Ronnie sent him a querying frown.

"You'll never be able to accuse me of chauvinism." He chuckled to her dryly. "How many men would allow their wives' backs to be on display in museums all over the world?"

"The back is attached to a head," Ronnie retorted.

"And a derriere," Drake reminded her sternly.

She watched him for a moment, wondering if there were just the hint of a curl to his lips.
"Do
you mind?" she asked him.

He crawled through the various debris on the floor and held her, one hand molding over the anatomy under discussion. "No," he said, and there was a decided curl to his lips. "Not when I was in on the creation. But I do think the world has seen the end of the modeling career of Mrs. Drake O'Hara. If you get any professional urges, you'll have to come to me."

"You are a chauvinist," Ronnie informed him.

"Do
you
mind?"

She shook her head with mischief in her eyes. "Not at all. I can handle you."

Drake was undaunted. "That's right," he said gravely, fingering the band he had recently placed on her finger. "You can handle me whenever you like."

He teased her through all the work they did, and even when Pieter was present, the mood remained light. Meals were pleasant affairs with conversation running smoothly. But as the inevitable time to leave drew near, Drake knew that Ronnie was straining to remain cheerful.

The hour of their departure came. Ronnie was as beautiful and elite as ever, her apparel a smart beige suit with a vest that emphasized her slender curves beneath the tailored jacket. She wore shoes and a hat of complementing tan, and Drake thought with an admiring amusement that Ronnie was a clotheshorse. She had an instinctive ability to choose clothing, and each accessory was always perfect. Her hat dipped low over one eye, and he was reminded of the first time he saw her. She would always be innately regal, mysterious and intriguing. And always wear her pride like her clothing, a valiant shield that was impenetrable. Except to him. He concealed a tender smile, suddenly completely secure.

"Go say good-bye to Pieter," he told her.

"Alone?"

"Yes, I'll carry the bags and meet you at the boat."

Ronnie tapped at the door to Pieter's suite for the last time. She smiled and bit her lip as she heard his imperiously clipped,
"Entre!"

She opened the door and found him by the window, looking out, his thin hands clasped behind his back. His light eyes turned to her, and a soft smile curved into delicate lips.

"Everything is ready!" she began cheerfully. Then the effort failed. Her lips quivered and her eyes started to fill. "We're leaving."

His arms extended to her as they never could have before. She rushed to him, and the tears fell as he held her.

"Don't cry for me, Ronnie. Please, don't cry." He wiped the tears from her cheeks. "You gave me my art; you gave me life when I desired to end it. You must give me one more thing."

"What is that?" she asked, trying to smile again as she wiped her own eyes,

'The promise that you will live long and happily, and take all that Drake can give you."

Ronnie nodded, fearful that if she tried to speak, the tears would fall again.

‘I haven't lost a wife, you know," he told her, pale blue eyes starching hers. "A man cannot lose what was never rightfully his. I have, instead, gained a friend, and a very talented protégé to boot."

Ronnie nodded again, the shimmering beauty of her eyes giving him a love he would cherish to his dying day.

He kissed her forehead and shoved her lightly for the door. "Go now, Veiuinca. And don't cry. You will see me again."

She walked to the door with her head bowed, pausing before she whispered, "Take care of yourself, Pieter."

"You too, Ronnie."

She swung around like a water sprite and flew back to him with a strangled cry. He held her for second, and pushed her away. "Stop it, Ronnie," he said gruffly. "You're getting tears all over my shirt, and it's silk. Go now and tell that protege of mine that he'd better take care of you and make you happy."

Ronnie fled the room. Perhaps she had given Pieter his life, but he had also given her hers. He had given her Drake.

She moved swiftly out of the house, and in the garden that had once been her sanctuary, she reconciled all that her life had been with all that her life would be. Plucking a single rose, she held it to her cheek, then slowly left the garden and walked the pathway to the dock.

Her footsteps quickened as she neared the boat. Drake was already there, patiently waiting, his tall dark form a towering bastion of strength. He reached out a bronze hand and took hers, enveloping it with warmth and a tender, secure pressure.

A
promise
to
love and share into eternity was in the grip
of
that bronze hand, and as it led her onward Ronnie knew she would always follow without looking back, loving and trusting in return.

Epilogue

Statuesque.

She was still a marble beauty, but like the exquisite marble work of the masters, she was alive, warm, vibrant, and bewitching.

She watched him, and he knew it; he returned her appreciative gaze.

They had had enough sun; it was time to fulfill the messages of their eyes.

He executed a perfect dive into the pool, and so did she.

His touch upon her satiny skin in the water was sheer agony to nerves heightened with anticipation. His breath, as he whispered in her ear, was a stimulant that sent her senses reeling.

"I'm Drake O'Hara, madam, and don't you ever forget it. I'd like to buy you a drink, but not poolside—in
our
cabin."

"That's nice," she murmured in return, nibbling at his lower ear and feigning a mock defiance, "then I can buy you one—in
our
cabin."

"If you don't stop that," Drake warned, pressing against her so that she gasped with the evidence of his desire, "we won't make it out of the pool."

Laughing, they broke apart, but they were scarcely through the cabin door before Drake pulled the string of her bikini top, robbing her of the garment as she glided ahead of him. Uttering a startled chastisement, Ronnie swung around to him.

She was a golden-tanned, exquisite, perfectly molded, proud beauty, the breasts he had bared high and firm, her waist a wraithlike thing of satin that led to lusciously carved hips. Her

chin was tilted in mock query and indignation for only a second, and then she was in his arms, her soft breasts crushed to his hair-roughened chest, sensitively hardened nipples teasing and teased by the crisp depth of black curls.

"Ronnie," he whispered with a groan that rippled a shudder through his torso. He caught her head and looked deeply into the pools of sapphire that had long ago bewitched him, and then he kissed her, softly at first, then deeply with an exploding passion, seeking every sweet crevice of her mouth with a plundering tongue. She returned his play with a fire of her own, moaning as their bodies meshed together with heat, taunting him further with gentle nips upon his lower lip to be followed by the tantalizing and healing balm of the moistly tender tip of her tongue. It was she who pulled away to search out his eyes and demand with panted breath, "What do you want, Drake?"

He grinned but his eyes held warning. "I want you," he growled, scooping her into his arms with a steellike force that advised her there would be no more teasing. "Now, and forever."

"Sir," she returned meekly, "you have got me—now and forever."

She was aflame for him as he deposited her upon the bed, impatiently divesting her of the bikini bottom, and exploding with incoherent murmurs of desire as he planted kisses into the newly exposed hollows of her hips. She began to quiver uncontrollably, and he continued his assault almost savagely, claiming her flesh with moist, heated lips from the tender rise of her breasts to the invitation of her sleek thighs, alternately demanding fiercely and grazing with the utmost reverence.

Ronnie's fingers clutched feverishly into the thick black luster of Drake's hair, trying to bring him to her before the longing he had elicited drove her wild. "Drake!" she pleaded desperately, moaning delightedly with each intimate assault. "Oh, Drake "

His weight moved firmly over hers, pinioning her with the incredibly toned form that enveloped her into another, permeating world of sheer mindless delight. His heated flesh quivering

like hers seemed to combine them in endless time and space, But though he pulsed against her and teased with taunting proximity, he again gripped her face firmly between his hands and gratingly countered, "What do you want, Ronnie?"

"You," she whispered, searching his eyes.

"Forever?" he queried, then touched her lips. "It isn't just a word."

"Forever," she vowed gravely. "Oh, God, Drake, no, it isn't just a word. Forever and ever and ever. . . ."

Her answer satisfied his mind, her movements satisfied his body. He had loved her from the beginning, but now that love was his, rightfully his, and the emotion guided their lovemaking. Their coupling was passionately wild, abandoned as the sea, as deep and obliterating as the sizzling dark depths of his eyes. But it was more than that. The intimate rhythm that drove them to the highest peaks of ecstasy was that of a combining of two perfectly attuned bodies; it was also the consummation of two minds that worked as one, two souls in harmony, two hearts that gave endlessly, unabashed to take in return. . . . They crested upon that pinnacle of sheer ecstasy together, their release so volatile, it almost stole consciousness, leaving them to shudder delightfully in one another's arms as they left their solely private dimension to travel together back to solid earth. Drake was loathe to move from her, even as he relaxed with the sense of fulfillment. He was a part of her, physically for the time, and it was right, it felt wonderful. He would stay where he was, savoring his love.