JAKrentz - Witchcraft (23 page)

She didn't meet his eyes, her gaze on the fire instead. "I owed you any protection I could give you," he returned bluntly. "Why?"

"Why?" He frowned. "For a lot of reasons. Because of what you did for Scott, naturally, and because you're my--"

"No, I mean, why did you follow me from San Francisco?"

"Oh, that."
Cavenaugh
hesitated. "Well, there are a number of reasons for that, too. I didn't get much sleep last night.

None at all, in fact. And somewhere around two in the morning I had the feeling something was really wrong." "More of your telepathy?" she mused. "It wasn't telepathy. Just the restless brain of a man who knows he's handled something very badly." She flicked him a wary glance.

"You're referring to the way you set up that meeting with my grandparents?"

"I didn't handle it well, Kim. I admit it. My only excuse is that I honestly thought I was dealing with a difficult situation in the most efficient manner. I thought ... I thought that after you got over the shock and had a chance to put it all in perspective you'd realize I'd done the right thing. I see now that I had no business springing it on you like that."

"Was it so very important that I be made to confront my grandparents,
Cavenaugh
?" she asked quietly. "Yes," he said flatly. "I saw your r
elationship
with them as the last barrier between us. "You were really that worried about the fact your current bed partner had a mental block when it came to dealing with powerful families?" He looked at her until she was compelled to switch her gaze from the file to his face. The emerald eyes gleamed with a relentlessness that astonished Kimberly. "I was not concerned about my current bed partner's feelings toward families. I was concerned with how my future wife dealt with the issue."

"Your wife!"

"I'm asking you to marry me, Kim. I was only waiting until we'd gotten the meeting with your grandparents out of the way." She swallowed uncomfortably as her fingers tightened around the stem of her wineglass.

Eyes wide, she stared at him. "
Cavenaugh
, you don't have to go that far out of some misguided sense of responsibility."

"I know you're not much interested in marriage, Kim," he returned softly. "You've gotten along fine for years without anything that really resembles a family. After pushing you into that meeting with your grandparents, you probably haven't changed your mind much. Especially when it comes to overbearing, arrogant males who happen to be heads of families. But I know that if you'll give us a chance we'll be good together in a lot of ways, not just in bed. I also know that I am not in a position to install a live-in lover in my household. Having you for a guest will work for a while, but quite soon everyone's going to want to know when I intend to marry you. Your grandfather will probably be at the head of the line demanding explanations." Kimberly sat very still, totally unable to read his mind at all now. "I don't particularly care what my grandparents think."
Cavenaugh
sighed. "No, I don't suppose you do." There was a long period of silence. "You said once that you loved me.

I realize you've had some, uh, second thoughts thanks to the way I forced you into that scene with your grandparents."

"I have done some thinking," Kimberly admitted cautiously. She remembered that under the influence of the herbal smoke she had been trying to tell
Cavenaugh
that she had made a mistake. He hadn't had time to listen then and so she had not told him that she still loved him, in spite of the scene in San Francisco. Perhaps it was just as well. After all, she had no real idea of how deep his feelings went for her. Except for the fact that he's asking you to marry him, she reminded herself. That didn't mean he was in love with her, of course. He was attracted to her and he felt a strong sense of responsibility toward her.
Cavenaugh
might also have found her useful in organizing his household. What was it Starke had said? Something about
Cavenaugh
needing a woman who could occasionally protect him from his own sense of duty. "Sitting here now reminds me of that evening I came to get you, after you'd phoned the house a couple of times,"
Cavenaugh
mused. "You were just as wary and cautious then as you are at the moment." He was right, Kimberly thought. She was wary.

But for different reasons. Falling in love with Darius
Cavenaugh
had been a dangerous thing to do. It left her vulnerable in a way she had never been before. She wished desperately that she really could see into his head. What was he thinking she wondered. How did he feel?

How long would it take him to fall in love with her? Or would his feelings always be limited to a combination of duty, responsibility and attraction? "I think," she began hesitantly, choosing her words carefully, "that we need more time ." To her surprise,, he nodded and lifted his glass to his mouth. "I agree with you. We need time for you to get to know me well enough to trust me again. Unfortunately, time is not something I have a great deal of to spend as I choose. You've lived in my house for several days. You know what it's like. Someone or something is always needing attention. It would be hard just trying to get away to see you on occasional weekends. And I don't want to limit our time together to just weekends."

"A life full of responsibilities," she said thoughtfully, more to herself than to him. "It's the life I've chosen, Kim. Or perhaps it chose me. I don't know and it doesn't matter. That's the way it is. That's the way I am." His voice had roughened and it seemed to her that the emerald in his eyes was lit with implacableness. "And you want me to be a part of that life?"

"I think you can be happy in it if you'll give yourself a chance. I know it will be a change for you and I know there will be adjustments. But you've already proven you can handle the day-to-day hassle. You've taken control of it rather than let it control you. Things are so much more organized at home now and they'll be even calmer when Julia and Scott move out. You can have all the privacy you need for your work. I'll make certain the staff understands that. I'm asking you to make changes, I know, but I think that a woman who is brave enough to taunt a witch and face an attacker with only a broken wine bottle in her hand is brave enough to risk a new lifestyle."

"
Cavenaugh
... " He lifted a hand to silence her. "Let me finish, Kim. I said I understand your need for time, and I'm proposing to give it to you." "How? You've just said you would find it uncomfortable to install me as your live-in lover." she gritted, thoroughly irritated with the description. "I'm asking that you marry me. In return I'll give you the time you want." She looked at him blankly for a second, not comprehending. And then it hit her. "Oh, I see." She was suddenly, inexplicably embarrassed. "We'll, uh, have separate bedrooms after we're married?"
Cavenaugh
took a very long swallow of wine. Kimberly had the feeling he was nerving himself up for something. "I thought it would take some of the pressure off you," he explained evenly. "I realize that for you the sex is more than just, well, pleasant."

"Pleasant?" she repeated faintly, wondering how going to bed with Darius
Cavenaugh
could ever be described by such a mundane word as pleasant. "Is that all it is for you?"

"No!" The glass in his hand suddenly appeared very fragile as his knuckles whitened around it.

"You know damn well it's not just pleasant. Now let me finish!"

Kimberly arched an eyebrow but kept her peace. It was becoming clear that
Cavenaugh
was straying near the bounds of his normally excellent self-control. She wondered why. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he hadn't had any sleep in the past twenty-four hours. "As I was trying to say," he went on, "I am aware of the fact that you give a great deal of yourself when you go to bed with me. To be blunt you give yourself completely." His eyes locked with hers as if daring her to deny it. Kimberly again kept her mouth shut and covered the uncomfortable moment with another sip of wine.
Cavenaugh
continued cautiously. "I feel that asking you to share my bed would be putting an added strain on you while you settle down in my household as my wife.

It might make you feel too vulnerable, too committed to something you weren't yet really sure you wanted."

"And you don't think just the existence of the wedding license would put a similar sort of strain on me?" Kimberly inquired far too politely. "Are you trying to tell me that if I decided I don't like being married to you I will be free to walk out the door? That I will feel free to do so because we're not sleeping together?"
Cavenaugh
set down his wineglass with an audible snap. "Don't twist my words, Kim!"

"I'm not twisting them. I'm only trying to figure out what they mean!" He surged to his feet, striding over to stand in front of the hearth. With one hand resting on the mantel he turned to glower at her. "I don't see how I can make the matter much clearer. I'm asking you to marry me. I'm sorry if I'm botching up the job but this is the first time I've tried it."

"You're nearly forty years old and you've never asked a woman to marry you?"

she asked disbelievingly. "Up until two years ago I wasn't particularly interested in marriage. There was no room in my life for a permanent woman. Since then I've been too busy trying to put the winery back on its feet financially," he explained harshly. "And now you've come to realize that it's time you married," she concluded with a nod of comprehension. "You have, after all, a responsibility to continue the family line, right? People will expect you to marry. You'll need a wife to lend the proper background to your role as an established, prosperous vintner. And, of course, I now have a thoroughly respectable background myself, thanks to your tracking down my grandparents." He watched her through narrowed eyes, his lean body dangerously poised. "I warned you not to twist my words, Kim."

"I was just trying to get all the details straight," she flung back, feeling increasingly incensed. "So far I can see what's in it for you, but I'm not sure what's in it for me."

"You need a husband!" he blazed. "You need me!"

"I do?" He moved toward her with unnerving intent, reaching down to pull her up out of the chair.

Cavenaugh's
emerald eyes reminded Kim of a bird of prey, and quite suddenly she knew she had goaded him too far. "
Cavenaugh
, wait ... I"

His hands closed around her waist, holding her securely. "Little witch," he muttered, "you don't know when to stop, do you? Did you think you could just sit there and provoke me indefinitely?" Before she could respond, his mouth was crushing hers. Kimberly stood trapped in his arms and let the storm of his emotion break over her. The frustration and implacable determination she sensed in him told her more than words could have just how close he was to the end of his tether.

The strange thing was that her instincts were to yield and soothe rather than resist. Kimberly parted her lip s obediently when he demanded entrance to the warmth of her mouth and she let her body sway against his.
Cavenaugh
moved his hands up to cradle her head. His low groan of need and hunger reverberated through his chest, touching her at a deep level of awareness. He wanted her. She knew that with a certainty that went beyond words. His tongue probed deeply, simulating the primitive rhythm of lovemaking until Kimberly moaned softly in response. Then she felt his teeth nip at her lower lip with passionate care. Keeping one palm wrapped around the nape of her neck,
Cavenaugh
ran his other hand down her back to her buttocks, pulling her up and into the heat of his lower body. "You have a talent for driving me crazy," he rasped against the curve of her throat. "
Cavenaugh
, listen to me." Kimberly pleaded with the last remnants of her intelligence. "This is dangerous.

Neither of us is in any condition to handle a major discussion about our future right now. I'm sorry if I've provoked you. But the truth is both of us need sleep and ... and some time to think. We're exhausted and we've been through some very traumatic scenes in the past twenty-four hours."

"I've tried to reason with you," he growled, his fingers on the buttons of her blouse. "And I've tried to set up an unthreatening situation. But you're determined to resist every inch of the way."

"That's not true!"

"Yes, it is. But I know one way you won't fight me. I said earlier, when you're in my arms, you give yourself completely. I'm going to make love to you until you can't say anything but ',
Cavenaugh
,' until you're shivering and hot and completely mine." His hands were moving inside the parted edges of her shirt. "Is this what I could expect if I agree to your proposal? If I marry you will you immediately forget your promise to give me some time before demanding your conjugal rights?" There was a moment of lethal stillness.

Kimberly realized belatedly that she was holding her breath. And then
Cavenaugh
slowly raised his head to look down at her with eyes that were dark and dangerously enigmatic. "Lady, you sure know how to walk a risky line." His hands fell away from her, and he moved slowly back to stand in front of the fire. "You'd better go to bed, Kim," he went on in an unnaturally level voice. "I'll sleep out here on the couch. I know where the blankets are." Kimberly trembled with love and emotion. She could feel the leashed emotion in him even though she couldn't be certain just what those emotions were. The intensity of his manner ate at her heart and she longed to comfort him. But there was a self-protective wariness in her, too.
Cavenaugh
had the power to hurt her as no one else could. And she was still uncertain of his underlying feelings for her. He was asking her to take all the risks, Kimberly told herself as she watched the rigid line of his back. No, that wasn't strictly true. Whatever he felt for her, it was not superficial. She knew that with her deepest instincts. While she couldn't actually read his mind, she did know that the intensity and power of his commitment was genuine. He would be a strong, dependable, honorable husband. And she loved him. "
Cavenaugh
," Kimberly whispered, "I'll marry you." He swung around, his gaze piercing in the soft light. But he made no move toward her. A curious tension hovered between them. "You're sure? Be sure, Kim, because I won't let you change your mind in the morning." She shook her head. "I won't change my mind." He took a deep breath and inclined his head almost formally. "I will do my best to make you happy, Kim." In spite of her tension, Kimberly found herself smiling.