Blue Willow (47 page)

“You have that respect from me. I don’t have to agree with your beliefs to honor them.”

He touched her face, very slowly, his fingertips almost
but not quite motionless on her cheek. “Don’t,” she begged.

As if helpless to stop, he gave the faintest shake of his head. “I’m not asking you to forget him. I’m asking you to remember me.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“Lily.” His voice was the barest of whispers. “No matter what else you feel, I don’t think you can say you stopped loving me, even after you were married.”

Grief and guilt exploded. She jerked back. The teapot slipped from her hands. With the awful, stunning sound of something delicate and irreplaceable meeting harsh stone, it fell against the balustrade and broke into pieces.

The horror in her sharp gasp was echoed in Artemas’s low sound of distress. They stared at the ruins in shared misery. Lily dropped to her knees. Picking up a shard of porcelain, she closed her hand around it and bowed her head. “I didn’t mean to. I swear.”

He knelt close beside her and carefully pried open her hand. A tiny smear of blood marked where she’d pressed a sharp point into her palm. He took the piece into his hand and studied it with an anguished gaze. She cried out softly as he gripped it. When he opened his fingers, his palm bore a similar dab of red. Dropping the shard, he clasped her hand, melding their blood together.

Lily murmured his name with violent despair. He pulled her to him and ground his mouth on hers. Hard and wild, they fed on the provocation, his heat exploding into hers. She felt everything, every warning and alarm, screaming that she’d gone too far and couldn’t go back. Didn’t want to go back.

We can’t It won’t change anything
, she tried to say, but the words came out in a ragged moan.

He picked her up and carried her to the dark tunnel of wisteria. Under it, hidden from all view, they turned to each other with ferocious hands. He pierced her mouth with his tongue, and she was enveloped in the deep, searing heat of a blindness she’d known only with him. She
clung to it, to him, twisting her mouth on his, recklessly acknowledging that he could give her something no one else could.

Suddenly she was an animal that had to have him, and he was taking her wildness with stunning precision, his hands in rough sync with hers, his eyes burning with blind need as she pulled him to the ground. He dragged her jeans and cotton underwear down and jerked them off over one of her clumsy boots, while she sank her hands into his thick hair. They were both making guttural, furious, sexual sounds.

Lily dived forward and lightly sank her teeth into the swath of chest exposed by his open shirt, gripping the hard flesh over one of his nipples, then just as quickly putting her teeth to his stomach. He shuddered and jerked her to him, but she shoved him away, then latched her hands into his trousers. She tugged frantically as they caught on his soft leather shoes. The rip of the trouser hems brought a victorious sound from her throat.

But he grabbed her hands as she reached for the thick, greedy flesh jutting between his thighs. He pushed her onto her back, then raked his teeth and lips over her stomach and down to her sex, plunging his tongue between her spread legs. She writhed and arched her back. The scent of musky sex and wisteria joined in her brain. When she moaned helplessly, he slid upward, slower now, no endearments necessary, the feeling of being both lost and discovered simultaneously holding her as tightly as his hands.

In the next second he shoved her shirt and bra up and took her breasts with rough, scalding tenderness. She scooped her hands between their bodies and brutally massaged the fettered muscle and coarse hair of his chest and belly. He covered her breasts with hard, sucking kisses, wild in his possession, a possession that erased everything but the masculine incense of his sweat and the heavy weight of him, the complete and primal love she felt.

We can’t It won’t change anything
, she tried to say, but the words came out in a ragged moan.

He slid his arms under her bare back and down to her
buttocks, lifted them to his belly and thighs, tested her with a quick, expert hand high up between her legs, and when she cried out with pleasure, her head thrown back and eyes shut, he buried his head beside hers and arched into her with a swift, hard stroke.

She was already writhing under him and raising her hips convulsively. He came down on her with a gentleness she hadn’t expected, and tears burned her eyes. Lily wrapped her arms around him and shuddered with waves of sorrow and release. He met her in one last frantic, bowing arch of his body, his lips twisting against her cheek, his hands pulling her upward into the deep penetration, then holding her there, as they struggled together. It was done. Completed. Lost.

There was no peaceful relaxing after the fierce physical need faded. Frozen, they clung to each other harshly, her legs locked around him, his knees half under her, keeping her hips pillowed on his thighs. His arms still circled her so that only her shoulders touched the ground. His heart hammered against her breasts. She drew ragged breaths with the soft, damp texture of his hair against her mouth. Minutes of stark, fragile silence passed. Neither of them wanted to break the spell.

Guilt without shame. Love without pleasure. They merged as intimately as her body had joined with his. Slowly he drew his head up. The conflicting emotions had been waiting beneath it all, as inescapable as the warm fluid between her thighs, the tender but uncompromising look of triumph on his face. Victory. There was nothing brutal or careless about his expression, but the conquest, no matter how well-meaning, was there.

Lily turned her head to one side and shut her eyes. Shut him out. A different brand of tension infused the stillness in his body.

“Don’t,” he said.

“We’ve only made the problems worse.”

Pulling away, he lay on his side next to her, but when she started to move, he held her against his body. Lily twisted to lie with her back to him, quivering. Finally she
realized he was guiding her shirt together over her breasts. “Lets go inside,” he said gruffly. His voice seemed hollow, frantic. “Let’s try to make sense of this.”

“I have to go home,” she said desperately, sitting up. Artemas moved with her, closing a hand around her arm. “You are home.”

Tears that had not been possible before now slid down her cheeks. She hunched over her bare legs and pulled her clothes to her. His semen, warm and smooth and pungent, covered her inner thighs.

“You are home,” he repeated.

Lily twisted toward him. His open shirt made him as vulnerable and exposed as she. The urge to communicate her torment and gratitude made her reach out, brushing the backs of her fingers down his chest; then she quickly withdrew her hand and looked away.

His face mirrored her anguish, but she knew they couldn’t go any further. He lifted a hand to stroke her hair, but she froze, and he dropped his hand to his side. He looked at her grimly but said nothing. Her nerves jerked. Shivering, she dressed hurriedly, trying not to look at him as he dressed also. They rose at the same time and bumped into each other. “We’re not exactly graceful romantics,” she said in a lame attempt to sound casual.

He snatched her into his arms. His face was etched in deep lines of anger and sadness. “It’s only a matter of time. I’m not willing to sacrifice my happiness anymore. Or yours.”

“Maybe we had our only chance years ago, and we lost it.”

“You mean I threw it away. You’ve never forgiven me for that.”

She knotted her hands in his shirt. “You made your choice then. And you didn’t choose me.”

“There was so much about that I couldn’t control. I know you don’t understand why, but I’ll never be trapped like that again.”

“You’re trapped now. Between your family and me. Between what you believe about Richard and what I believe
about Julia. And if you have to choose again, I’ll lose this time too.”

“No. Stay with me. Fight for
us
. Give us that chance, and there won’t be anything we can’t overcome.”

“I don’t have that faith anymore. I don’t have that strength. I don’t know if I could survive losing anyone else I—” Lily hesitated, choking.

“
Love
,” he finished for her. “Anyone you love. Can you say that, at least, that you love me?”

Lily flinched.
I can’t do that to Richard
. “I loved you when I was eighteen. I love what I remember about you. But in so many ways, you’re a stranger now.”

“A stranger?” He let go of her. He looked toward the shadowy cavern they had shared beneath the wisteria. His face was set in a hard mask. “You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself.”

Lily touched his arm. She was desperate to tell him how much she wanted to forgive, and trust—and love—him, but she couldn’t. Her mind was filled with specters of a future that would tear his family away from him, and self-respect from her. His siblings would never comprehend her bitterness toward Julia, because they hadn’t seen how their sister’s vindictive harassment had tormented Richard and the others.

“For a few minutes we were invisible,” she told Artemas, the words whispered and hoarse.

She walked past the fountains, past the broken teapot, down the stone stairs dropping to the slope below the mansion, and followed a muddy path to the lake and the woods beyond. When she reached them and was certain he couldn’t see her anymore, she sat down in the darkening forest and, crying, put her head in her hands.

Twenty-three

Cassandra was hungry, thinking of the bowl of consommé she’d had for lunch and wishing she’d eaten more. Paradise was a place where women with no cellulite ate mounds of buttered rolls without gaining weight. Their plastic surgeons and diet doctors were in a special hell, along with Jenny Craig and Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda, perpetually reaching for bags of cookies held by fat, grinning demons.

She thought of Elizabeth, who had been slender and gotten plump but didn’t mind, and, with deep loneliness, of Julia, whose perfect weight had been maintained by frenetic energy. Julia.

Brooding, she smoothed suntan lotion over her bare breasts, hitched up the sides of a shimmering red bikini bottom, then moved Princess Di off her stomach. “Does Mother’s little baby want to get out of the sun?” The Yorkie, a reddish ball of hair with eyes, panted and stretched out in the shade under the lounge chair. Cassandra fussed over her, cooing, then settled back and shut her eyes wearily Animals were trustworthy She trusted them and her family, and no one else. The lake water lapped softly at the pavilion’s stone deck, and birds made small sounds in the trees. The July heat scorched the air.

Artemas was right about one thing—this secluded old estate made a person feel lost in a separate world. There were no self-serving men staring at her with greedy eyes, wondering what they’d have to do to curry her money and clout. There were no preening, ambitious artists sucking up to her to win her attention for their china designs, and no meetings to run for Colebrook International.

She draped one hand onto the warm male body stretched on the lounge chair next to hers, tugged at the chest hair, then at the beard, and when that brought only a sleepy groan, planted her fingers over the soft bulge covered in tight black swim trunks. “Armande.” She wanted to stop thinking about Julia, and about the tension in the family these days, with Lily Porter living nearby

Armande laughed in his careful, elegant way but sat up immediately. “Your wish is my command.” He yawned.

He knelt beside her chair and began drawing his hands over her long torso from breasts to thighs. She smiled and arched her hips. Armande pulled her suit’s bottom off with his teeth.

When he reached her feet, he slung the tiny bit of red material aside. Spreading her legs apart, he kissed his way back up, until finally his coyly moving head was twisting from one thigh to the other. He plunged his face into the center of the black hair between them. Cassandra laced her hands behind her head.
Bingo
.

She had discovered Armande two years ago, when she’d come to Atlanta to select a house. Someone had invited her to a party, and there he was, dark eyes flashing at her, black hair slicked back above the diamond stud in one ear, tight jeans, too much chest hair showing above the buttoned yoke neck of his silk shirt. He was a record producer—silly New Age jazz performers with names such as Moon Lover and Raine Forrest—but she forgave him that. He was local. Convenient. She needed a bed warmer in this new city Artemas had coaxed the family to adopt.

Ah, but Armande had become so much more than convenient. He was accommodating, polite, and always ready
Eventually she’d invested in his business, to reward him. She didn’t trust Armande, but she depended on him.

She pulled him up to her and kissed him. He made a sighing sound she took for pleasure, then kissed her back just as intimately. She pushed him onto the other lounge and stripped off his swimsuit. His erection was as reliable and accommodating as the rest of him, poking out grandly from his bearish brown fur. Cassandra drew her fingertips over it. Now she had him at her mercy. “Armande?”

“Hmmm, my angel, what is it?”

“Are you enjoying my brother’s estate?”

“Yes, it’s a lovely old place.”

“I’d like you to come here with me often.”

“Whenever that’s possible, my darling.”

“If my brother knew you have a wife, he’d never let you set foot here again.”

“You should have told him long ago.”

“He’s a little old-fashioned on the subject. The rest of my family is too.” She curled her hand around him and stroked expertly “I think it’s time you left your wife. I loathe sneaking around my family this way.”

Armande gaped at her. “Leave my wife for you? Such an idea! Why would I do that? She would hate me.” He shrugged with European nonchalance. “I have a very nice wife.”

She sat back on her chaise and stared at him. Humiliation soaked into her like the hot sun. Why did her relationships always end up in conversations such as this one? “Armande, I don’t care if you love me, but I expect consideration.”