Can't Stop Loving You (7 page)

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered.

“No... don’t... stop.”

Familiar smells washed over her, the cool,
out-doorsy fragrance of his after-shave, the clean just pressed
smell of his linen shirt, the tart/sweet aroma of his skin, like
apples dried in the sun. She soaked up familiar tastes and
textures, reveling in them, drowning in them—the deep richness of
his tongue in her mouth, the feel of crisp hairs on the back of his
hands and arms, the wondrous feel of linen caressing silk, the
indescribable joy of hard chest against tight, hard nipples.

He backed her against the table, lifted her
up. She wrapped her legs around him. Wanting him and not caring if
he knew it.

Desperate. Shameless.

He shoved the chocolate cake out of the way,
then spread her across the table. Silver clattered to the floor.
Glass clinked against glass.

Her robe fluttered open. Or did he pull it
open? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the ecstasy of his
wet, warm mouth on her breasts, the exquisite torture of his hands
molding her thighs, parting them, delving inside.

Was it too late to stop?

“No,” she whispered.

His eyes were dark pools with demon lights in
the center.

“No, what? Stop?”

She drew a hitching breath. How could he stop
a dying woman from reaching for paradise?

“I’m a dying woman,” she whispered.

“Not yet.”

He spread her out like a prisoner he meant to
torture... or a banquet he meant to devour.

She was at his mercy.

Except that you can scream
.

The voice of her conscience was far too small
and came far too late. She was beyond listening, beyond caring.

He closed his mouth over her and
devoured.

She had always been a noisy, grateful lover,
and it was no different now. No matter that any one of a dozen
staff members or half a dozen guests might hear her moans and rush
through the kitchen door to save her.

She didn’t want saving. She didn’t want
anything except the spiraling joy that carried her upward toward
the stars.

Her fingernails dug into his back. She felt
them score flesh, even through his shirt. Tomorrow he’d have
scars.

She already had scars. Scars of the heart,
scars of the spirit, scars of the soul.

He caught her face between his hands.

“You always did drive me wild.”

“It’s not intentional.”

“Oh, no?”

“No... yes... I don’t know.”

His hot breath on her neck destroyed her
reason. If she had ever had any where he was concerned. Marsha had
said she hadn’t.

She didn’t know. All she knew was that she
didn’t want this forbidden ecstasy to stop.

He slid her straps down her shoulders, slid
the gown down to her waist.

“My God...” Leaning back, he looked down at
her, awe clearly written on his face.

Female pride made her want to gloat aloud.
Better than Miss Mt. Rushmore.

Caution kept her silent. Tomorrow would be
the time to gloat.

Or the time to regret.

o0o

Brick hardly knew what he was doing.

Revenge,
his mind said.
Love,
his heart told him.

Reason had never been a part of his
relationship with Helen, only gut instinct and raw emotion and the
dead-level certainty that they had been brought together by the
invisible hands of fate. Nothing could break that bond. Not their
separation, nor their divorce, nor the two long years of
silence.

She was good, so good. There had never been
another woman like her. He was lost in her sweet flesh, in the
long, silky legs pressed around him and the soft sounds of
satisfaction she made.

This is revenge
, he kept telling
himself. He would make her want him—already had, as a matter of
fact. And when she reached a certain state of torture that only he
could satisfy,
then
he would back away. Then he would
leave her the way she had left him.

Ah, but not yet, not until he had feasted,
had memorized, had absorbed the look and feel and taste of her into
his very soul. It had been so long. Two years. Two lost years
without the love of Helen, the love that had always been a
miracle.

“Brick.” Her whisper was anguished,
desperate.

Good.
That was what he wanted.

Wasn’t it?

Her fingernails scored his flesh. He felt the
sting through his shirt. His heart slammed so hard against his
chest, he thought she must hear, must feel, must know. He skimmed
the inside of her legs with his tongue and felt her shiver.

Power pulsed through him. And something else,
something he didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to
acknowledge.

Now. Walk away now.

Not yet.

In his emotional turmoil he must have made a
sound, must have cried out.

“Brick? What’s wrong?”

He raised himself on his elbows so he could
see her. The strong kitchen light slanted across her face and her
naked skin. Any other woman might have suffered under the harsh
illumination. But not Helen. She glowed.

No woman had a right to be so beautiful. No
woman had a right to be so desirable.

“What’s wrong, Helen? You want to know what’s
wrong?”

Her nostrils flared wide, and she reached to
pull up her gown. He caught her wrists.

“No. Leave it. I want to look at you.”

She didn’t struggle, didn’t make a sound.
Instead she cut him to pieces with her eyes.

He felt lower than a toad, lower than a worm.
That was all wrong.
She
was the one who was supposed to
feel bad.

Silence thundered around them. The air became
heated, heavy, electrified, much the way it does in prelude to a
violent storm.

She must have made some small movement. Or
perhaps it was he. A silver fork clattered to the floor. Neither of
them moved.

“That body,” he said. “That exquisite
body.”

Still, she said nothing.

The silence was brutal.

Why didn’t she say something? Why hadn’t she
said something the day she walked out the door?

He raked her body again with a heated glance,
then with the back of his hand, chin to navel, one long, smooth
expanse of fragrant, silky flesh.

Once it had all been his.

“Perfect. You always knew how to keep
yourself perfect, Helen.”

“Does this conversation have a point?”

Her voice betrayed no emotion. But her
eyes.
They were kaleidoscopic, splintered with an unholy
light.

“Yes. It has a point.” He trapped her so
swiftly, she had no time to react. Hands bracketed on either side
of her head, he leaned so close, his chin brushed against hers.

“The point is this, Helen. Your body was
too
perfect, too perfect to be marred by children.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. Still, she said
nothing.

He pressed on, relentless in his
accusations.

“Things were going fine for us until I
mentioned having children. Then suddenly everything changed. I felt
you pull away, Helen. Literally
felt
it.”

Her nostrils flared again, and her lips
trembled.

He hoped she didn’t cry. He couldn’t bear it
if she cried.

Why didn’t she say something?

“That was it, wasn’t it, Helen? You couldn’t
stand to mar your perfect body with a pregnancy. You didn’t want my
seed planted in you. You didn’t want to grow fat and heavy with my
child.”

She damned him with her silence... and her
eyes.

Say that’s why you left me
, he
wanted to scream.
Say you didn’t stop loving me
.

He was breathing so hard, his chest heaved.
Sweat inched down the side of his face and dripped onto her
cheek.

She didn’t blink. Didn’t move.

His body was so rigid, he felt tied in small
knots. It would take hours of soaking under a hot shower to get out
all the kinks.

“Are you finished now?” Her voice was polite.
Remote. She might have been asking him if he’d finished his
dinner.

Why didn’t she react to him? That’s what hurt
him most of all, that she didn’t react.

A line from
Tosca
came to him.
“There is no greater suffering than the suffering that true love
brings.”

His suffering was almost unbearable, but he
would never let her see. Call it male pride. Call it
self-preservation. Call it anything. Just let him get out of the
kitchen.

“I’m finished.”

“Good. Then let go of me.”

Unconsciously he had moved his hands to her
shoulders. He was holding her so tightly, he’d made marks on her
skin. Guilt flooded him. But he would make no apologies.

With elaborate politeness he pulled her gown
back over her shoulders, fastened her robe at the neck.

Shivers skittered through him. Best to ignore
the feel of her skin. Best to ignore the heat.

She suffered his attentions in silence. He
gave her one last hard look, hoping for a reaction, a sound, a
tear.
Anything.

Even her breathing didn’t betray her. The
front of her gown rose and fell as if she were resting in her warm
bed instead of spread-eagle on the kitchen table under the glaring
fluorescent lights.

Even now he wanted her. Even with anger
scorching his skin and holding his muscles rigid.

He stepped back and held out his hand to help
her off the table. She batted it back.

“Go,” she said.

What else was there to do? He had hoped to
humiliate her, hoped to punish her for leaving him. But the only
one he’d punished had been himself.

He didn’t dare risk another glance at her,
didn’t dare risk seeing how the silk gown molded her legs, how her
dark lashes rested against her cheeks, how her lips had the pouty,
slightly bruised look of a woman who has been thoroughly loved.

His footsteps sounded hollow on the kitchen
floor. There was no movement from the table. For all he knew, she
might be planning to spend the rest of the night exactly where he’d
left her, in exactly that position.

Every nerve ending was supercharged. Sight
and hearing were heightened. He could hear his own blood roaring
through his veins, like waterfalls when the snows have melted from
the mountaintops and the rivers are swollen with too much rain.

Outside the kitchen door, he stopped. He was
breathless, disoriented. There were no sounds from the kitchen, not
even the whisper of her bare feet against the floor.

She might have been made of stone. Perhaps
she was where he was concerned. Pure, cold marble. Untouchable.
Unmovable.

Leaning against the door, he swallowed a lump
in his throat.

His anger at her had already abated. He was
mad at himself, mad at the way he had treated her in the kitchen,
mad at the way he had let her get to him in the first place. But
most of all, he was mad at himself for losing her. He should have
been able to hold on.

What had he done wrong? Had he taken her for
granted? Traveled too much? Spent too much time and energy on his
career? Not satisfied her in some deep-seated way that was so
obvious, he should have known without being told?

Pain. There was so much pain.

He stopped trying to analyze why he was
hurting so. If he fell down the stairs and broke his neck, he
wouldn’t analyze the pain, he’d merely nurse his hurt.

He wished he’d brought a bottle of wine from
the kitchen. It was too late now. He’d have to nurse his hurt the
best way he could.

He pushed away from the kitchen door and
started toward the stairs.

That’s when he heard the crash. It was a loud
muffled thump, like something soft squashing against the wall.

It was quickly followed by another noise. The
tinkling of broken glass. Then the unmistakable sound of silver
being flung about the kitchen.

Riveted, he listened. Was that rage he heard?
Or pain?

“Noooo...”

Her cry of anguish made the hair at the back
of his neck stand on end.

She wailed again, the long keening sound so
tormented that only a rock would remain unmoved.

“Helen!”

The next cry chilled his blood.

My God. Was she killing herself?

“Hang on, Helen! I’m coming.”

As he bolted toward the door he prayed that
he would not be too late.

Chocolate icing dripped from the walls.
Crystal lay in shards at her feet. Silver was scattered over the
floor. The chicken looked as if it had been slaughtered on the
spot.

Helen was only vaguely aware of the
destruction. Pain blocked everything out, everything except what
Brick had done to her, what he had said to her.

God, he had thought she didn’t want children.
He’d thought she was so proud of her body that she didn’t want to
mar it with a pregnancy.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, down the side
of her neck, and wet the top of her gown. There were not enough
tears in the world to supply her anguish.

She hated Brick. Hated herself. Hated the
whole world.

A piece of glass crumpled under her foot. She
felt a sting, saw blood. Her own.

“Don’t move!”

Brick’s voice was thunderous, his face
mutinous. He filled the doorway, his heat sweeping through her as
if somebody had lit a furnace underneath her skin.

She turned toward him like a sleepwalker,
aware only of heat and blood and tears.

“Don’t take a step, Helen.” He moderated his
tone as he made his way toward her.

Somehow the sound and sight of him had a
calming effect. Logic kicked in. Rational thought returned. She
glanced from his face toward the kitchen wall. Chocolate was
everywhere. She’d made a royal mess.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered.

“I know. I know, love.” Crooning to her as if
she were a child, he picked her up and set her on the edge of the
table.