Honest illusions(BookZZ.org) (53 page)

He thought he could hear her heart pounding. Barely, he resisted the urge to press his hand over her breast to feel that thud of life. His mouth was dry, and he knew he was breathing too quickly. But he was beyond illusion now.

He’d meant the segment to be romantic, sexual, and had known he would be treading deep water. But he hadn’t known how quickly he could drown.

He bent his head toward hers, his lips hovering, so close to tasting. The quiet sound she made as she struggled not to moan roared in his head.

He took her hand, running his fingers over the palm, down the back. When their fingers were linked he, too, began to rise. His eyes were riveted on her face as they lay suspended together. As the music began to fade, he turned his body, cupped a hand under her head and brought his mouth to hers.

Locked together, they tilted toward vertical, bodies revolving. When their feet touched the ground, his arms were still around her and her mouth was still a captive.

Jake clicked off the stopwatch and cleared his throat. “Don’t guess anybody cares about time,” he murmured and stuck the watch in his pocket. “Radio Shack,” he said, inspired. “Come on, Mouse. We gotta get to the mall.”

“Huh?”

“The mall, the mall. We need those parts.”

Mouse blinked in confusion. “What parts?”

“
Those
parts.” Jake rolled his eyes and jerked his head toward Roxanne and Luke. They’d drawn apart now, but only far enough to stare at each other.

“Oh, I need some things, too.” Teary-eyed, Lily grabbed Mouse and pulled. “I need lots of things. Let’s get going.”

“But rehearsal—”

“I think they’ve got it cold,” Jake said and was grinning as they pulled Mouse out of the house.

The silence spun in Roxanne’s already dizzy head. “It—it ran long.”

“You’re telling me.” He’d been ready to explode. Now he ran his hands gently up and down her back before freeing her from the levitation harness. “But it’s going to be a hell of a finale.”

“Needs work.”

“I’m not talking about that finale.” He released himself.

“I’m talking about you and me.” Watching her, he skimmed his hands under her sweatshirt and let them roam over the warm, smooth skin of her back. “And this.” He kissed her again, softly.

She had no choice but to grip his shoulders for balance. “You’re not going to seduce me.”

He traced his lips over her jaw, knowing just where to nip to make her shiver. “Want to bet?”

“I can walk away from you anytime.” But her body was pressed against his, and her mouth was racing over his face. “I don’t need you.”

“Me either.” He scooped her up and started toward the stairs.

If her body would stop shivering she was sure she’d regain her bearings. For now it seemed best to hold on tight.

She knew what she was doing. God, she hoped she knew. This terrible ragged yearning made everything else seem so small and pitiful. This was all there was, all there needed to be. On a moan, she pressed her face against his neck.

“Hurry,” was all she said.

He’d have flown up the stairs if he’d been able. It felt as though he had the way his muscles were quivering and his breath heaving. Once he’d kicked the bedroom door closed behind them, he sought her lips again. He could only thank whatever powers there were that he’d had the foresight to buy a bed.

And a hell of a bed it was. The huge, cushy four-poster gave like a cloud when they fell onto it. He paused for a moment, only a moment, to look down at her and remember—to force her to remember all they had been to each other, what they had done for each other, and to each other, beyond that gulf of five years.

He saw the struggle for denial in her eyes and battered it with a greedy kiss. She wouldn’t hold back from him now, he wouldn’t permit it. Cuffing her wrists in his hands he drew her arms high over her head.

If she touched him he’d ignite like a stick of dynamite. First he wanted to make sure she felt everything he wanted her to feel.

She twisted against his hold, her heart leaping to her throat to bang like a drum in the hollow. He only lowered his lips to it as a prelude to an exploitation of every secret he remembered.

He’d dreamed of this countless times, in countless rooms in countless places. Only this was more potent

than any fantasy. The taste of her, rioting through him, was like a feast after years of fasting. He wouldn’t deny himself now, or ever again.

She didn’t struggle against the flood of sensation. Couldn’t bear to. He was giving her back everything he’d taken away, and more. She’d nearly forgotten what it was to crave, and had never really understood what it meant to abandon all will. After so long an abstinence it was so simple, so right, to only feel. Every time his lips found hers, there was a shock of recognition and a shiver of the unknown.

His blood burned when he heard his name tumble from her lips. Each sigh, each moan was a hammer thrust in his gut. Frantic for more, he released her hands to tug at her clothes. He groaned in violent pleasure when he found her gloriously naked beneath.

“Hurry,” she said again, tearing his shirt in her rush to be flesh against flesh. The furnace building inside her was nearing flash point. She wanted him in her when it exploded. She wanted him stoking that fire inside her.

He wanted to savor. He needed to devour. Gasping for air, he fought the snap of his jeans while her hands tortured him and her mouth seared like lightning over his shoulders and chest.

He plunged. At the first urgent stroke she came in a geyser of dark, nameless delights. Her body arched, vibrated like a harp string. Air tore from her lungs in a cry that was both pain and triumph.

Then she locked around him, her legs soft as silk, strong as steel. Half mad, he drove himself into her, again and again, until he found his own release, and perhaps his salvation.

He stayed where he was, spread over her, intimately joined. He knew she’d been silent for too long. If things had been as they once were, she would have lifted a hand to lazily stroke his back. She would have sighed and nuzzled or whispered something to make him laugh.

But there was nothing but that long empty silence. It frightened him enough to kindle temper.

“You’re not sorry this happened.” He curled a hand possessively in her hair to keep her still when he leaned back to look at her. “You might be able to convince yourself of that, but not me.”

“I didn’t say I was sorry.” How difficult it was to be calm when your life had just shifted on its foundations. “I knew it would happen. The minute I walked into my dressing room and saw you again, I knew.” She managed what passed for a shrug. “I often make mistakes without being sorry for them.”

His eyes glinted before he rolled away from her. “You know just where to hit, don’t you? You always did.”

“It’s not a matter of striking back.” She was going to be practical about this. If it killed her. “I enjoyed making love with you again. We were always good in bed.”

He snatched her arm before she could reach her knotted sweatshirt. “We were good everywhere.”

“Were,” she agreed, carefully. “I’ll be honest, Callahan. I haven’t made much time for this sort of thing in my life since you left.”

He couldn’t stop it. His ego inflated as helplessly as a balloon swells with helium. “Oh, yeah?”

She couldn’t understand how one man could infuriate, arouse and amuse a woman simultaneously.

“Don’t look so smug. It was my choice. I was busy.”

“Admit it.” He traced a lazy finger down her breast. “I spoiled you for anybody else.”

“My point is.” She slapped his hand away before the touch dissolved what was left of pride. “You happened to catch me at a . . .” Vulnerable wasn’t quite the word she wanted. “An incendiary time. I imagine anyone who held the match in the right spot would have set me off.”

“If that’s the case, you should be pretty well burned out now.”

He’d always been quick. She shouldn’t have been surprised to find herself on her back again with his hands proving that fires could be kindled out of embers.

“It’s just sex,” she managed to gasp.

“Sure it is.” He laved the damp flesh between her breasts. “And a redwood’s just a tree.” He used his teeth to torment her nipples until her nails dug crescents into his back. “A diamond’s just a rock.”

She wanted to laugh. She needed to scream. “Shut up, Callahan.”

“Glad to.” He lifted her hips and slid gloriously into her.

She didn’t think she was burned out. Hollowed out was closer. There didn’t seem to be a nerve left in her body. When she managed to open her eyes again, the light had gone rose with twilight. To give her mind a chance to settle, she took note of the room for the first time.

There was nothing in it but the bed where they sprawled and a single enormous chest of drawers in gleaming cherry. Unless you counted the clothes that were tossed over the rugless floor, draped over the doorknob or piled in corners.

How like him, she thought. Just as it was like him to have shifted his body so that hers could curl naturally against it.

How many times had they lain just like this, night after night? There had been a time when she would have drifted right off to sleep, safe, secure, satisfied.

But they were different people now.

She started to sit up. His arm merely tightened around her.

“Luke, this doesn’t change anything.”

He opened one eye. “Babe, if you want me to prove my point again, I’d be more than happy. You’ll just have to give me a couple of minutes.”

“The only point we’ve proved is that we still know how to scratch one another’s itch.” Most of her

anger had died, leaving a gulf of sorrow that was only more potent. “There’s no need to—What the hell is this?” She twisted to get a better look at the back of his shoulder.

“It’s a tattoo. Haven’t you ever seen a damn tattoo?”

“A few in my time.” She pursed her lips, studying it in the dimming light. Just above where the scars of his youth began their crisscross on his back was the painted image of a snarling wolf. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and opted for the former. “Jesus, Callahan, did you go crazy or what?”

It embarrassed the hell out of him. “Tattoos are in.”

“Oh, right, and you’re Mr. Trendy. Why the hell did you let somebody scar you—” She broke off, appalled. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugged and dragged the hair out of his eyes as he sat up. “I was feeling mean one night, a little drunk, a lot dangerous. I decided to get a tattoo instead of looking for a convenient head to bash in. Besides, it reminded me of where I’d come from.”

She studied him, the arrogant tilt of the head, the hard gleam of his eyes that warred with the encroaching gloom. “You know, I can almost believe in Lily’s amnesia theory.”

“Let me know when you want the truth. You’ll get every bit of it.”

She looked away. It was easy, much too easy for him to pull her in. “It wouldn’t make any difference.

There’s nothing you can say that can wipe away five years.”

“Not unless you’re willing to let me.” He caught her face in his hands, brushing her hair back so that only his fingers framed her. The gentleness he’d forgotten, that she had been certain had burned out of him, was back. Such things were harder to resist than passion. “I need to talk to you, Rox. There’s so much I need to say.”

“Things aren’t what they were, Luke. I can’t begin to tell you how much they’ve changed.” And if she stayed, she would say more than was wise before she thought it through. “We can’t go back, and I need to consider where we might go from here.”

“We can go anyplace. We always could.”

“I’ve gotten used to going on my own.” She took a deep breath before shifting away to dress. “It’s getting late. I have to go home.”

“Stay here.” He touched his fingertips to her hair, and tempted her beyond measure.

“I can’t.”

His fingers curled, tightened. “Won’t.”

“Won’t then.” She smoothed down her shirt, rose. It was easier to be strong when she was standing on her feet again. “I run my life now. You can stay or you can go, and I’ll deal with the consequences of either. If I owe you anything, it’s gratitude for making me tough enough to handle whatever comes.” She tilted her head, wishing her heart felt as courageous as the words. “So thanks, Callahan.”

Her easy dismissal sliced him open and left him bleeding. “Don’t mention it.”

“See you tomorrow.” She walked from the room, but was running by the time she hit the landing.

30

The house was in an uproar when Roxanne returned. She’d no more than stepped across the threshold when she was caught up in the chaos. While everyone talked at once, she swung Nathaniel up in her arms and kissed him firmly on his pursed and waiting lips, partly in greeting and partly in apology for not being the one to give him his bath and help him into his favored Ninja Turtles pj’s.

“Hold on.” She settled Nate on her hip, holding up a hand in a futile hope to stem the tide.

Delighted with the confusion, Nate bounced and began to sing a sea chantey about drunken sailors at the top of his voice.

She caught snatches about the telephone, caviar, Clark Gable, San Francisco and Aces High. Her mind, already muddled from her afternoon with Luke, struggled to decipher the code.

“What? Clark Gable called from San Francisco and came over to eat caviar and do card tricks?”

Because Alice laughed, Nate decided it must be a grand joke. Giggling, he tugged on his mother’s hair.

“Who’s Clark Gable, Mama? Who is he?”

“He’s a dead man, baby, like certain other people around here are going to be if they don’t
shut up!
”

Her voice had risen admirably on the last two words. There was a gratifying stunned silence. Before anyone could draw in the breath to start again, she pointed at Alice. Roxanne knew if she couldn’t count on Alice for a calm, reasonable explanation, all was lost.

“It really started because of
San Francisco,
” Alice began. “The movie—you know, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy. You know how the evening nurse likes to watch old movies on the television in your father’s room?”