Ecstasy Wears Emeralds (12 page)

Silence invaded the small confines of the carriage and he waited, dreading the conflict and wishing he could take it all back and repair the conversation. True or not, he was sure he'd gone too far only because his heart was stinging from his own wounds.

The carriage stopped, and Rowan opened the door to climb out, reaching back to help her down. He dismissed a weary Theo with a single wave and escorted her up the steps into the unlit brownstone. He'd half expected Carter to defy him and still be up and at watch in the entryway, snoozing next to a candelabrum, but there was no one to greet them in the predawn darkness.

He lit a taper and turned to hold out his arm. “Here. I'll walk you up to your floor.”

She took his arm, her fingertips barely resting on his arm, as if the physical contact was loathsome. Up the dark staircase, they walked without speaking, and he wasn't sure what to say after their hurtful exchange in the carriage. He should have been gloating at that glimpse of her tender heart and feminine weakness—instead his own pain had almost spoiled his ruthless plan. But he had no doubt he'd won the day and she would be gone on the morrow.

He stole a glance at her in the candlelight, moving gracefully next to him, the flickering light accenting the regal lines of her profile and the sensual turn of her neck and shoulders.
She is so impossibly proud. I feel like a ham-fisted idiot trying to break an Arabian without killing its spirit.

They reached the landing on the third floor and he stopped, fighting the urge to beg forgiveness or explain himself.

Finally she spoke from the shadows, her voice soft and steady. “You're right, Dr. West. What good would I be to my patients weeping at every turn? Jackson needed you to be strong for him, and you were. It is a lesson I will never forget.”

He held out the taper for her to take. “It is a lesson I should have found a better way to teach. But, here, take the light and try to sleep.”

He started to go, but she stopped him.

“Rowan? Did those men in India really stop their own hearts?”

He turned back and she was so beautiful that his own heart seemed to arrest its rhythm in a bittersweet irony that made everything inside of him feel tangled and hot, restless and hungry.

“They did.”

“It wasn't a trick?” A single tear rolled down her cheek, a wayward diamond in the candlelight that drew him closer and made him forget everything but the need to comfort her.

She was there and he was standing near enough to inhale the fragrance of her skin and absorb the heat of her body inches from his in the cool of the house.

He was trapped in place, held by a desire to touch her and all too aware that he shouldn't. Ever so slowly, she tipped her head back as if inviting the kiss that seemed inevitable to him now.

Her breath fanned his chest and then his neck, and he looked down into her eyes, speaking aloud without realizing it. “Some things are simply true.”

“Even if we don't understand them,” she finished in a whisper.

He bent down, intending to take only a gentle, fleeting sample of the soft satin of her lips, but at the first brush of heated flesh to his, all his good intentions vanished.

It was the lightest touch at first, dreamlike contact that she could have credited to her imagination—the hot silk of his mouth passing over hers.

But then there was a fire that overtook denial.

This was no dream.

The pressure of his lips increased, and she matched it and yielded to it, all at once. Her mouth parted to taste him, drawing against the supple flesh of his lower lip and testing it gently to savor the sensation of her first kiss. It was not the chaste contact she'd envisioned. This was an act that evoked a fever in her blood and made her aware of every inch of her own skin, as if by tasting his lips she'd awakened her own senses.

His warm hand moved up her back to hold her close, and then he caressed her cheek with his other hand, his fingers gently trailing up her jaw line only to slide into her hair to cradle the back of her head, holding her a willing captive to the onslaught of passion she was greedily lapping up.

His tongue moved to explore her mouth and she welcomed it, the salty cinnamon of him pushing her hunger into a spiral of need that she didn't fully recognize and couldn't control. Arcs of electric heat began to connect the hardening peaks of her breasts to a languid pool of restless wanting between her thighs.

Her breath mingled with his and she marveled that she wanted nothing but this. More of this. More of him. More of whatever could come from the sustenance that he alone provided—for this felt like a feast of taste and touch and she took all that was offered only to beg for more.

His strong arms encircled her, pulled her even closer against the hard, firm plane, and she moaned at the delicious feel of her feet leaving the ground by the merest inch.
Just one kiss and I am already lost.

The jarring sound of the candle holder striking the hard wooden floor and the sudden plunge into darkness as the candle was extinguished pulled her back to an awareness of the world beyond his arms.

Gayle pushed against him, shame and confusion tumbling in as cruel substitutes for the warm security of his embrace as he instantly released her. She was grateful for the darkness as tears threatened, and she fled to the laboratory and firmly closed the door behind her.

Heart pounding, she waited—unsure of what she could say if he followed, or if she would have the strength not to open the door and beg him to kiss her again. Her breath came in a ragged, uneven rhythm that had nothing to do with fear, and she leaned back against the door to wait.

The faint sound of his footsteps retreating down the dark stairs gave her the answer.

Gayle closed her eyes to fight the urge to step out and call him back. But she knew better.

The laboratory and her room were directly above his personal apartments, a fact he'd omitted in that first tour of the house. He could hear her pacing, a frenetic energy that was unsettling to track. He was always aware of her movements, thanks to the aging floorboards, and every late night of study had been telegraphed beneath her feet without her knowledge.

But this was a little different. Rowan was trying to imagine if she were pondering an escape from his unwanted advances, or more directly, how to take her revenge against her teacher for overstepping his bounds.

He undressed quickly, experience dictating that even an hour or two of precious sleep was worth pursuing. But he doubted that even exhausted, he'd enjoy much success in the chase tonight. His body was throbbing with unsatisfied lust, and he winced as he freed his hardened cock from the confines of his pants. He eyed the washstand with a sigh, dreading the cold-water remedy that awaited him.

It had been a difficult day, and even with the inevitability of Jackson's passing, it had hit him harder than he'd expected. Then to know that he'd hurt her. That he'd deliberately taken her on that call to try to shake her resolve and shove the reality of life and death under her nose.

She'd reacted as he'd hoped, with all the tearful sweetness of a woman confronted with the death of a child. His own pain had made him rough with her because he'd been so disgusted with himself. Grieving for Jackson, all he'd felt was envy that she could cry so openly and then fury at his underhanded ploy to break such a heart.

And then . . . he'd kissed her.

Impossible.

Unthinkable.

Undeniable.

Here was a desire that had edged past lust and caught him completely off guard.

One taste and he was a man walking out of the desert.

Chapter
9

Gayle retied her apron for the third time, and then caught sight of herself in the small polished metal mirror on the wall.

She'd hardly slept and had had disturbing heated dreams about kisses in darkened stairwells when she did manage a fitful slumber, so she knew there was a difficult day ahead of her. She dreaded seeing him again, but also longed for him to come quickly and put an end to this anticipation.

She closed her eyes and put her hands over her face. “As if yesterday wasn't hard enough.” She made a quick vow not to think about what had happened on that staircase and simply move forward.

She dropped her hands, taking comfort as a new idea came to her.
I wasn't myself. Jackson's death hit me harder than I'd expected and so I was . . . not myself.

Gayle paused, waiting for the delicate logic to fail, but it seemed to hold. She'd been so disappointed in herself, crying like that in front of Mrs. Blythe. It would have been an unthinkable mistake to throw herself at Rowan like that—but in her weakened emotional state, she'd done the unthinkable. She'd wanted so much to feel comforted, to be held and to connect with another person.

But even that might not explain why it had felt like more than just a kiss.

Because the overwhelming hunger she'd experienced had shattered her understanding of her own nature. She'd never been stirred to so much as flutter an eyelash at a man before and had just assumed that she was too serious in her ambitions to leave allowances for flirtation. Gayle had coolly ignored any man who showed an interest, seeing all of their gender as a barrier between herself and her freedom.

Her regret and shame at the incident would have made it easier to paint Rowan as the aggressor, taking advantage of her confusion, but he'd kissed her only when she'd invited it, and he'd released her the instant she'd protested.

All the more reason that she was more determined than ever to regain control over her runaway imagination and not give him any excuse to sever their contract.

She shuddered at the thought. She knew it was difficult to defend her behavior.
Not one word of refusal or outrage! Instead I was moaning like a wanton and begging him for more.

Their conversation about the duality of a man's expectations came back to haunt her. A single kiss had alerted her to its power to derail her rational self.
All the rules of society and decorum's restraint evaporated like so much smoke in a rainstorm, and now I just feel like an idiot for ever wondering why anyone would even bother with it. From the outside, it all looked so ridiculous. The notion of people mashing themselves together—it was distasteful to even think of it.