Demon Lover (34 page)

Chayne wasn’t coming back. She was sure of it. He’d been gone for three days. If he’d decided to quit SAT, it wouldn’t have taken him so long; and if he’d decided to stay and wanted her to face the hazards with him, surely he’d have called to ask for her decision.

So…he wasn’t going to give her that chance. He’d decided she couldn’t live with his job, and thought he’d spare them both the torment of another parting. Already, at that very moment, he was off somewhere in a secret clinic, preparing to have his face and body rearranged.

And even if I should some day run into him, just by chance, I wouldn’t even know him.

You do have a tendency to be melodramatic, Julie.

She could hear Chayne’s dry rumble as clearly as if he had spoken.

But what if I’ve lost him?

She’d been a complete idiot. A fool. What was all this garbage about decisions and scruples and self–respect? Nothing mattered if she lost him. Nothing.

She’d felt alone before, and frightened, but never quite like this. She wanted Chayne—wanted him desperately. Wanted the feel of his arms around her, the taste of his skin in her mouth, the scent of him in her nostrils. How could she ever face a life without him?

At last, giving up on sleep completely, she got up and padded across the hall to the bathroom. She washed her face, got a drink of water, and then, instead of going back to bed, found herself turning down the hall to Chayne’s room.

Of course he didn’t live there now, and the clutter of mementos on the shelves and walls was from a long time ago—plaques and trophies, pennants and banners from high school, photographs of a younger Chayne, laughing, with "eyes that could light up Carnegie Hall." But they were Chayne’s things. They’d been a part of him, and they brought him closer, somehow.

Most of the things hanging in the closet were old, too. Julie recognized a letter sweater and a football jersey. But there was a pair of scuffed tennis shoes on the floor that looked as if he’d just stepped out of them, and hanging on a hook inside the door, a brown terrycloth bathrobe. Julie buried her face in it and inhaled deeply. He seemed so near—as if any minute he would walk out of the bathroom mopping flecks of white lather from his dusky skin.

Taking the bathrobe from its hook, she folded it in her arms and sat down on the bed. Chayne seemed so close that when the bedroom door creaked slowly open, her heart nearly leaped out of her chest. But the eyes that peered at her with sad commiseration were liquid brown, not demon blue.

"Oh, Jack," Julie whispered. "Poor Jack. Do you miss him, too?"

The dog padded across the rug, nudged at her leg and then laid his muzzle on her knee. Julie leaned forward impulsively and buried her face in the silky fur. "Oh, Jack. He’ll come back. He has to."

* * *

Jack was whining. Probably wanted out. Darn.

She’d have to get up and let him out. Served her right for falling asleep with a dog…

She’d fallen asleep on Chayne’s bed, wrapped in his bathrobe. It was warm, and she didn’t want to move. Jack had jumped off the bed; probably he’d find his own way out.

There were small scuffles and thumps, a smothered exclamation of surprise. A weight pressed down on the edge of the bed, and something warm brushed her cheek.

"Go ’way, Jack," she mumbled, pushing at it.

"Hmm. I’m gone three days and already you’ve got somebody else?"

"
Chayne?"

"So who’s this Jack, hmm?"

"Oh God— Chayne…"

"Shh…be still and kiss me."

Her heart, so electrifyingly roused, exploded and took off like a rocket. With an inarticulate cry, she threw her arms around his neck and clung to his mouth as if it were her only lifeline.

"Oh God— I can’t believe— I thought—" she gasped when she could speak again.

"Guerita," Chayne growled, "I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you talk too damn much." His mouth closed over hers, his tongue sliding over her lips, dipping in and out, not in haste but savoring. She felt his hands on her neck pushing aside obstacles to his searching mouth. "My old bathrobe?" A warm gust of laughter exploded against her throat. "Ah, Julie. God, how I’ve missed you. I can’t believe how much I need you. Need to touch you…taste you." His tongue fluttered into the hollow at the base of her throat, while his hands massaged her breasts through the thin fabric of her nightgown and tugged with growing impatience at even that fragile barrier.

"Julie…get this damn thing off. I can’t find the buttons."

She sensed an urgency in him that frightened her because she wasn’t sure what it meant. "Chayne," she whispered half fearfully, and reached up to touch his face. He caught her hand and pressed it to his mouth, kissing the palm with the same hunger he had lavished on her mouth. Then he tore it away, slipped an arm beneath her hips and lifted her, dragging the nightgown up over her body. She arched her back and raised her arms, writhing a little to aid in its disposal, and then lay still, quivering with the sudden chill and with anticipation of his touch.

But now that she lay open to him he seemed content for the moment to feast on her with his eyes, devouring the pale outline of her body, caressing its dusky hollows with an oddly touching kind of wonder.

"You are a miracle," he whispered. "A miracle…"

His hands spanned her waist, and he watched with fascination the dark patterns they made on her silvery skin. As they slipped upward over her ribs, her body arched into his hands, her breasts swelling with yearning, the dusky aureoles an offering. His hands humbly accepted her offering while his eyes lavished praise upon it.

Julie lay with her arms still stretched above her head and watched him from beneath eyelids grown heavy with love. Her breathing quickened, thrusting her breasts against his warm, encompassing touch. A thumb and forefinger captured each hardened nipple and rolled it slowly, tugging gently, and she gasped, shivering with the urgency of her own need.

"What is it?" he growled when she made an inarticulate whimpering sound of frustration. "Tell me what you want."

"You. Just you. I love you. I thought you weren’t coming back. Oh God, Chayne…love me!"

"Sweet Julie, don’t you know I do? How could I not come back to you? You saved me. Gave me back my soul. God, Julie. I came back and you weren’t there. No one knew where you’d gone. I thought you’d decided—and then I came here and found you in my bed. That’s a miracle, and I’m still shaking. I just want to look at you…touch you…taste you. Love you."

His words were warm moist puffs against her skin, and then his mouth joined his hands in worshiping her body. His lips and tongue teased a nipple, and then he drew it deeply into his mouth. She groaned as the fierce, drawing pressure caught at the secret center of desire within her and made it throb and ache. One hand stroked down over her belly, then slipped under her thigh to encourage it gently upward. His fingers cupped and then parted her, fluttered lightly over her womanhood like a butterfly caressing the petals of a flower, then dipped inside the honeyed chamber, tantalizing, coaxing, urging her to a breathless, shuddering passion.

"This is me loving you, Julie. I love you. Feel my love." His lips and tongue feathered across the quivering flesh of her belly. "I love you—all of you. My sweet…sweet love."

As his mouth brushed soft feminine down, his hand slipped under her, lifting her to him. And then his mouth cherished her, his lips and tongue adored her, while she obeyed his wordless request and became molten and pliable in his hands. She felt herself being molded to the heat of his mouth, reshaped by his loving hands to become, now and forever, a part of him.

Again and again Chayne took her soaring to the heights of ecstasy, and then each time eased her skillfully back from the precipice, keeping her trembling on the brink of fulfillment until she was all but mindless with the sweet agony of it.

She sobbed his name when he left her, but it was only for a moment.

"I’m here, angel… I’m here. I’m not going to leave you, ever again." He slid over her body, grafting her to him with one swift, sure thrust. She arched upward against him, and he caught and held her tightly locked to his body. "Never again!" he growled fiercely, and took possession once and for all.

Much later, when Chayne’s breathing had slowed and deepened, Julie roused herself reluctantly from her own languid doze and stirred in his arms.

"Where are you going?" he demanded, instantly awake.

"Just back to my room, my love." She kissed him, a tender promise. "Your mother—"

"Forget my mother. Stay. You’re mine, and you belong in my bed."

"Chayne, don’t talk like that. I adore your mother."

"So do I. And I adore you. And I’ll bet anything she adores you. Stay."

Julie sighed contentedly and snuggled back against his chest. "Do you really think she won’t mind?"

"Mmm? I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell not going to ask for permission."

The idea struck Julie as funny, and she laughed breathily into his neck. He laughed too, a warm rumble of pure contentment. "We’ll wait and confront her in the morning with, as they say, a
fait accompli."
And he stilled their laughter with a deep, drugging kiss.

* * *

"Well, you were right. Maddy didn’t seem to mind our being together."

"I told you, she adores you. And so do I." Chayne tightened his arm around her, pulling her even more securely against his side.

They were crossing the pasture, striding in step and without haste through grass still wet with morning dew. They had gone for a walk after breakfast and had turned by mutual and unspoken consent to retrace the path by which Chayne had first brought her to his home. There were no lingering ghosts of that terrible night. The sun was just burning through the morning fog of summer, bathing the pasture in golden warmth.

"How did you and my mother get to be such good buddies?" Chayne asked suspiciously. "You two seemed pretty thick this morning for a couple of people who just met."

"Oh," Julie said, smiling, "we have quite a bit in common."

"Hmm." They had reached the barbed–wire fence that bordered the road. Chayne held the strands wide for her to crawl through, and she did the same for him.

"It looks different in the daylight," Julie mused, gazing up at the adobe church. "Smaller."

"Come on." Chayne dusted his hands and started up the hill. "I’ll show you where I spent Sundays in my wicked youth."

Julie glanced at him in surprise. "You were never wicked, but I didn’t know you were Catholic."

"I’m not. Probably why it fascinated me so." They saved their breath for the last few steps of the steep climb. Chayne pushed open the massive, dark wooden doors and they went inside.

"I was right—the walls are three feet thick," Julie murmured in an awed undertone. She stopped to tip her head back and peer up at a peaked ceiling that was painted with roiling gilt–edged clouds and fat pink cherubs.

"They still held services here when I was a kid," Chayne said, moving down the center aisle, his feet crunching on a litter of plaster and mouse droppings. "The congregation was mostly Indian. I don’t know why they closed it down."

"It’s too bad. It has a kind of simple charm, even like this, without all the trappings."

"There," Chayne said, stopping at the kneeling rail and pointing. "I used to sneak into the vestry after Mass had started and watch the altar boys going about their business. I don’t know why. Maybe it reminded me of when I was very small, in Mexico. There were churches just like this in the little villages I grew up in." He thrust his hands into his pockets and glanced at her, ill at ease suddenly. "Do you have a church, Julie?"

"What? Oh. Well, actually I haven’t been very active since I left home, but …yes, I guess I do. Why?"

"I’d like to get married in a church." She was silent, and he turned to her with a touching note of doubt. "You will marry me, won’t you?"

Julie felt her heart fill to bursting, driving tears into her eyes. She reached for Chayne’s hands. "Yes, of course I’ll marry you."

"You haven’t asked about my trip to Washington. You don’t know what I decided."

"I decided," Julie said fiercely. "I decided it didn’t matter."

"So," Chayne said, watching her with wary eyes, "no more doubts and hang–ups about loving a criminal?"

"None," Julie said serenely. "It’s something I’ll tell our grandchildren with pride."

"And the fear?"

"I’ll always have that," Julie said with a little shudder, sober again. "I’d be afraid even if you worked in an office or a grocery store. I’d be afraid you’d get hit by a bus, or have a tree fall on you, or catch pneumonia. It’s what comes of loving somebody so much."

"I know," Chayne growled, his eyes electric. And then, clearing his throat, he said, "I’ve resigned from SAT."

"Oh." Julie held his hands tightly and looked into his eyes. "Because of my fears?"

"No. Because of mine. Ah, Julie." He gave a sigh and pulled her into his arms, as if he were finally bringing her home. "I’d have been no good at all to them. Life has become too precious to me. I’d never be able to face the risk that I might not get home to you." With his cheek pressed to her cotton–fluff curls, his voice hoarse with emotion, he went on, "Julie, I’d given up believing in anything, caring about anything. God, country, mom and apple pie—I’d believed in all of it once upon a time, and in a big way. But then, for a long time there was nothing. And then I had you dumped in my arms, this tiny little spitting kitten, so vulnerable and so damned defiant, and I was the only person who could protect you, get you out of that mess you’d stumbled into. I was responsible for you. Do you have any idea what it did to me, when I tore off that cap of yours and saw those big scared eyes staring up at me? It was like getting punched in the stomach."

Julie couldn’t answer, so she just held him tightly and listened to the erratic thumping of his heart. After a while she stirred and sighed into his chest. "Oh, Chayne, what are we going to do? Neither of us has a job, and neither of us is a nine–to–five person. I can’t see you behind a desk; I just can’t."