Heart Duel (12 page)

But Lark had. She'd begun to crave simple contact even before he'd died. She'd started wondering how to free herself and teach them both to give and take natural pats or hugs.

Now here was Holm, helping her from his glider, holding her hand as they walked to the beach; touching her casually, easily, often. How could she say no to him, even though she was frightened that she'd want too much or too little, or she wouldn't know how to return his touches, or the price of every touch would be too high, or—

“Bélla.” Holm stopped and curved a hand around her face. Her heart thumped.

“You're thinking too hard.” He sent a sizzle of energy through the link that evaporated her fuzzy worries.

She blinked, smiled, and deliberately relaxed. Soon the sun and sea and beach worked their natural magic to remind her of the value of life and the world around her.

The beach was dotted with small clumps of people. Phyll and Meserv danced around lapping waves, pounced on seaweed, raced and tumbled and hid behind small dunes and attacked each other. And made her smile and Holm laugh aloud.

He laughed and his head thrown back drew Lark's notice to his muscular neck, and the red-violet bruise she'd placed upon it the afternoon before. Tingles rippled into waves of sweet sensation within her, growing despite her resolution.

“Ah, here we go, seats.” Holm gestured to several pale logs set on the beach, denuded of their bark, smooth and shiny with use. He sat down. “Come, take your shoes off and let's walk barefoot in the sand.”

She smiled and settled beside him, slipping her shoes and liners off, laughing and wiggling her toes that looked milk pallid against the maroon sand.

When she glanced at him, he'd gone completely still. Deep emotion gleamed in his eyes. She looked back down at her feet.

“That's the first time I've heard you laugh,” he said, a rough note in his voice.

Startled, she looked up. “Surely not.”

Now he smiled. “Surely so. Boots off!” he ordered. His footgear and liners vanished. Then the brown furrabeast leather boots stood at attention beside him. Holm wore full-cut breeches that ended at his knee, showing athletic calves with fine hair.

The kittens tumbled to their feet and fought with tiny growls and hisses.

Holm laughed, took her hand, and tugged her up as he rose himself. He glanced at Lark, and freed his hand from hers to form a fuzzy pink puffball in the air, larger than both kittens. The delicate Flair-construct looked like a huge, pale pink dandelion gone to seed.

Lark smiled back at Holm, but felt a little pang. He'd made the toy so surely, so easily, that she knew he'd often done it before. His Family must have often played with the creation. Or—she thought as she eyed the puffball's airy, bouncing path—they continued to play with it. Holm had a younger brother.

Meserv leapt for the ball and missed, Phyll twisted in the air and sent it whirling with one small paw. It zoomed through the air to hit Lark in the face, and she laughed at the tickling softness of the thing. She snagged it as it rebounded from her head, then frowned, sniffed. “What's that smell?”

Holm looked wicked. “Catnip.”

She lowered her brows even more. “Drugs for the cat? D'Ash's instructions—”

“Don't lecture.” Holm ran to her, swung her around, and kissed her. His eyes darkened. Seeing his passion rise, she pulled away, but his hand slid down until he held her fingers, which he lifted. He nibbled on the tips. “We can play.”

Sweet sensation tingled from her hand to spread through her. The puffball floated on the edge of her vision. She tugged her hand away and swatted it, feeling her lashes lower and a curve shape her lips. “We'll play with the kittens.”

Holm shook his head and placed a hand over his heart. “The lady prefers play with kittens to a different type of ‘play' with me. I am devastated. My ego is in ruins.”

Lark laughed again and realized she felt more lighthearted than she had for years. And she'd laughed more in the last few minutes than all of last month.

Play!
Phyll said, jumping for the ball hanging just out of paw-reach. His leap was the epitome of feline grace and beauty.

Play!!
Meserv said. With a grunt he managed to spring a centimeter higher and bat the ball down and to his twin.

They both attacked it, sending it back and forth.

Lark blinked. “That's odd, I just noticed, though it happened yesterday, too. I can understand your kitten—”

Fam,
Meserv corrected, tongue lolling as he panted.

“—perfectly.” She frowned. “Phyll must be closely linked to his brother, and I, being linked to him, get an echo effect—yet, it didn't sound—”

“You must be right,” Holm said. He opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, “It might be additional Flair in this new generation of cats. Danith D'Ash has set up a screening and breeding program to enhance various characteristics.”

“Ah,” said Lark, distracted as both kittens shot between her legs after the ball.

As the septhour wore on, the playing evolved into a game of “keep away” with Lark and the kittens against Holm.

Lark shook her head as she realized it. Three competitive males. Of course, what else had she expected?

A complex bond spun between them all at various levels. She had a hard time masking her thoughts from Holm as she and the kittens devised a strategy. At a nod from her, Phyll and Meserv executed their plan.

Meserv teleported to cling to Holm's sleeve while Phyll nipped at Holm's bare ankles. He gasped with laughter. While he was diverted, Lark ran to him, hooked her foot around his other ankle, and brought him down. He even fell gracefully. He appeared completely shocked that she'd do such a thing, she noticed smugly.

The kittens pounced on him.
We won. We won! WE WON!!
they screamed with delight. Meserv collapsed atop Holm, closing his eyes. Phyll followed the puffball, caught by a wayward breeze, down the beach.

Holm lay there, looking outrageously male. The sight of him stopped her laughter and made her heart lurch. His body was perfect: the broad line of his shoulders, emphasized by his white shirt against the deep red sand. Then the masculine line narrowing down to lean hips; solid thighs outlined by his breeches; and his naked, sturdy calves and feet. The sun turned his hair to silver, and the rest of his skin looked golden tan from the long summer days.

She just stood, relishing the sight of him. This sought-after man wanted her. The gleaming humor in his eyes had changed into dark hunger as her perusal lingered.

His shoulders shifted as if he was about to rise, and Lark whispered, “Don't.” She was a meter and a half away, and he couldn't have heard her, but he must have seen her lips form the word, because he subsided. More, he flung out his arms in open invitation for her to study him as much as she wanted. And she didn't know if the thundering in her ears was the rushing of her blood or the pounding waves against the shore.

Sprawled, arms wide, he should have looked vulnerable, but didn't.

The moment spun between them. Lark became aware that a sea breeze had risen and shaped her clothes against her. His gaze lingered on her full breasts, dropped to study her equally full hips. Sexual desire licked her insides with small flames.

He wanted her. There was no doubt of that. For the first time in her life she allowed herself to stare at a man's groin. From the lowering of his lashes, the flush creeping beneath his skin, he liked the way she looked at him, how her own body obviously reacted to his arousal.

Holm was so incredible. And he wanted her. This powerful, wealthy, highly Flaired Heir to a GreatHouse wanted
her.

Memories of seeing him at other times, reflecting his sophistication and rank, paraded before her. As a striking youth, the right hand of his father T'Holly, active in FirstFamilies Rituals, Holm's Flair had been strong and true. As a man, laughing with a group of male friends, he'd looked more virile than them all. Once, kissing a woman's hand, his easy and elegant moves had told of his attraction to and affection for women. She thought of yesterday, Holm lounging on her red sofa, before and after they'd almost made love, outwardly casual, yet with smoldering emotions pouring from his eyes.

The most engaging image of all was the laughing, gentle man playing with kittens, but it was his affection when he'd first held her that had opened her heart to him.

Now he lay before her, desire evident, waiting with dilated eyes, watching her.

She knew he wanted her and reminded herself that she didn't want a husband. That she'd worked hard to apply for the head of Gael City HealingHall. That if she got the post, she would leave everything behind.

As for Holm, since his death-duel Passages foretold no HeartMate for him, he'd look for a woman less committed to her career than she for a wife, a woman entrenched in her Family. He'd seek a FirstFamilies Lady who'd bring good connections and a favorable alliance to GreatHouse T'Holly.

Holm lifted his hand to stroke Meserv, who had promptly fallen asleep as soon as he'd climbed on Holm's chest.

Phyll was out of sight. She tested her telepathic bond with him and found him down the beach, stalking a wayward branch-let of dried twigs.

Her gaze went back to Holm's hands. Large and strong. Calloused and warm. Gentle and exciting.

The long minutes bred uneasiness as she sensed his demand for more than she wished to give. Trying to find words to end this interlude, she opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't.

His stare captured hers and the link between them doubled and redoubled, spinning from a thread to a braided band. Physical—the sparkling energy that circled between them, laced with undercurrents of passion. Emotional—she felt his desire, not only sexual, but the echo of something deeper, something even more insistent that could sway and command her own emotions. Danger, there. Mental—his mind nudged hers, asking for a clear telepathic connection.

The day had taught her to trust, to risk. She opened to him.

Look at me,
he said, his mental voice dark and rich.
You like looking at me, don't you?

Yes,
she replied in the equivalent of a mere whisper.

His lips curved. Again he lazily surveyed her. His hips shifted restlessly, and again her eyes were drawn to the front of his straining breeches. A warm, damp tremor rippled through her.

I like looking at you, Bélla, seeing your excitement. I like feeling you near. I like speaking to you intimately.
Gently he lifted Meserv and placed him in a nearby hollow of sand. The kitten grunted, curled tighter into a ball, and slept.

Come to me,
Holm said. The words were spoken with lazy power, with the full intention that she would do as he bid, laced with sexual promise.

It was a public beach. She looked around. They were quite alone. She touched her mind to Phyll's. He sensed no one else, either. She looked at Holm.

He smiled and raised a hand, palm up, fingers cupped in expectation.

She dug her toes into the sand. She stiffened her knees. She wasn't ready.

He grinned. He'd heard her thought and he grinned. One of the continuing pulses of desire inside her turned into pique.

I'm ready.
His brilliant silver-gray eyes were lost to her as he looked down his own body.
Give me a chance, darling, and I'll make you ready for me. Quickly.

She hesitated.

Come to me,
he said, and now there was additional will behind his words, a mesmerizing call from his mind to hers. She shook it off.

He frowned, sent a burst of energy to her that flamed up her nerves, so odd and male and vital. She jumped.

Feel what we have between us.
The circuit between them sizzled with cycling energy.

She found herself panting, caught her breath. She'd never handled this sort of Flair before, the powerful Flair of a virile man who wasn't a Healer. She should have fallen from the force of the link, cringed hurting into a fetal ball, hated it. It flowed through her, invigorating her, and as it swept through her and back to him, it changed. She saw his eyes widen as the power came back to him, transformed, female and—

Passionate
, he completed her thought.
Female and passionate and delightful. The energy is complementary to mine! You suit me like the Lady suits the Lord.

Instead of stepping forward, she stepped back, and broke the link. Coldness enveloped her. His words were true, and frightening. So she took another pace back.

Holm's hand flopped back on the sand as if in frustration or despair. No, it could not be despair, just male disappointment.

She tried to make her tones light as she put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. “Did you think I'd jump on you like a woman wild with passion?”

He opened his eyes and they were still the dangerous, hungry silver signaling desire. “I could only hope. You showed great promise when you marked me.” He touched the bruise on his neck.

Warmth flowed through her. “I, I—”

Holm held up a hand to stop her, then easily rocked to his feet, reminding her he was a fighter, and of all the differences between them.

She shut up and stepped back.

“Don't,” Holm said. “Don't ever run from me. Do you think I could ever hurt
you?
”

Lark blinked at his emphatic tone and shook her head, as much to try to clear her mind as to instinctively deny that he would ever harm her, at least physically.

“Good. We Hollys cherish women.”

She licked her lips. “Yes, everyone knows that.” Lark stiffened her spine. “I will not let you fog my mind again.”