Jo Goodman (30 page)

"I never said I was a kind man," he told her. "You did."

"Well, I'm reconsidering."

"Good. Now let me put this to you: The boy can have your rooms under one condition."

"But you just said—"

"I said he couldn't
share
the suite with you. There's a difference if you're not living there."

Berkeley frowned. For all her prescience in other moments she was blind to the outcome of this one. "I don't understand," she said. "Where would I live?"

"With me."

* * *

Berkeley sat on the window seat in Grey's bedroom. As long as she stroked Pandora's back the cat remained comfortably curled in her lap. Behind her the window was open a few inches. It was enough that she could hear that Portsmouth Square was finally quieting. There were occasional shouts and some off-key singing, but most of the adventurers and risk-takers had found their homes for the night. Berkeley could make out the strains of music coming from downstairs in the Phoenix's gaming hall. It would be hours yet before the band was allowed to leave. The musicians had agreed to play until daybreak.

Berkeley yawned hugely. She had greeted hotel guests and would-be gamers from eight until ten. Afterward she moved among the crowd in exactly the way Grey had asked her to, staying longer at tables where there was a run of good luck for the customer and moving quickly away when it ran for the house. It wasn't long before the illusion of cause and effect was firmly established in the minds of most of the players. In addition to the rumors about Berkeley's special sighted gifts, she also appeared to be blessed by an aura of good fortune.

It was after midnight before she chose a palm to read. She was so tired by that time Berkeley thought she might very well fall asleep over it. The miner hailed from Texas, was unmarried, and had enjoyed a fair amount of luck in the goldfields and at the gaming tables. She predicted he would hit another vein inside of three months and draw to an inside straight this evening. She had no idea if either of those things would happen but when she left him, he was sitting at the poker table waiting for the lucky draw. If he had enough money, Berkeley supposed the odds would eventually favor him.

She had excused herself after that, but not without first asking Grey's permission. He had bent his head toward her solicitously and posed a single question that was overheard by no one: "Where's the boy sleeping?"

"In my room," she said.

"Then I can expect to find you in mine."

Berkeley hadn't confirmed it then. There was still the matter of her pride. It wasn't important to her that Grey was certain of her final response; she needed to wait as long as possible to give it.

"Perhaps he means to turn in with Nat," she whispered to the cat as she glanced at the mantel clock again. It was almost two. "He might, you know. He would let me worry all day long, then do the unexpected." Pandora raised her head and offered Berkeley a frankly skeptical look. "What do you know? It's not beyond all possible reason."

Berkeley had spent the day considering her choices. Sitting with Mike, helping Sam at the bar, or offering her opinion of the menu to Annie, were merely things she did to cover the direction of her thoughts. She joined the search for suitable clothes for Nat and assisted Shawn with the new employees, but all the while she was contemplating her dilemma.

She could go to the El Dorado or the Palace or any of the other gambling houses now. Grey Janeway had crafted a reputation for her that any of the gaming establishments would have been happy to employ. What was less certain to her was how willing the other owners would be to cross Grey. The fact that he'd managed to get Annie Jack from the El Dorado made Berkeley suspect there was at least one owner who would eagerly take her on. It didn't follow that she would be any safer there.

She had choices. They just weren't particularly good ones.

Berkeley gently moved the cat from her lap and stood. She picked up the throw at the foot of Grey's bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. The bed looked inviting. She had made it that way, in the precise fashion that Anderson had taught her, squaring off the clean sheets, turning down the coverlet, plumping the pillows. The wayward thought of her late husband made Berkeley shiver. She returned to the window seat and curled in the corner. Pandora approached again, stretched, and laid her forepaws on Berkeley's bare feet. Berkeley smiled sleepily as the cat began to lick her toes.

An hour later she was not entirely uncooperative when Grey helped her out of her gown and dressed her for bed. She held on to his shoulders while he unfastened the tiny ivory buttons at her back and laid her forehead wearily against his chest while he lifted her out of the yards of silk. A little later she stumbled out of all six of her petticoats and made a halting pirouette to present her back for the removal of her corset. She missed Grey's indulgent smile.

Berkeley raised her arms obediently so he could remove her chemise, and they remained that way while he slipped her sheer nightshift over her head. Her head lolled forward. He lowered her arms and kissed the silky back of her neck. A gentle push was all she required to move toward the bed.

A few minutes later Grey turned back the lamps and crawled in beside her. Berkeley rolled toward him. She rubbed her chilled, slightly damp toes against his legs. Grey pushed Pandora out of bed before she burrowed under the covers and began licking his feet. He slipped one arm under Berkeley's pillow. Their foreheads almost touched. Her palm lay flat against his chest, and he covered it with his hand.

Grey thought about what she'd said when she held his palm in her hands. His voice barely reached the level of a whisper.

"Did you know you were the woman who would complicate my life?"

* * *

Dawn came to San Francisco in all its monochromatic splendor. Milky and murky, fog blanketed the city. Cool gray fingers of it crept into the room from the square. Berkeley remembered that she hadn't closed the window. She opened one eye and promptly closed it again.

"You're awake," Grey said quietly.

"No," she said. "I'm not."

One of his dark brows arched lazily. "Oh."

Berkeley became aware of how close she was to him. She did not need to open her eyes to understand the band of heat around her waist was Grey's arm or that the warmth she felt between her legs was because he had insinuated one of his own there. Her nightdress had risen almost to the level of her hips. She reached under the blankets to push the hem lower and her hand brushed Grey's erection. His flannel drawers covered his arousal. They also outlined it.

"I know I'm awake," Grey said.

Berkeley did not move away. She moved closer. Grey's hand pressed the base of her spine, and her hips tilted forward. She held him in the cleft of her thighs. She raised her face and kissed the underside of his chin. His mouth came down on hers. The touch was soft, sweet. There was no hurry here. The exploration was languorous, vaguely sleepy in spite of Grey's words to the contrary.

"Berkeley?"

"Hmmm?"

"You do know what you're doing, don't you?"

What she was doing was tugging at the string securing his drawers. When the knot gave way her fingers slipped under the material. She cupped him in her hands. Her lips tickled his as she whispered against his mouth. "You showed me yesterday."

A chuckle vibrated at the back of Grey's throat. Her fingers tightened, and the short laugh melted into a groan. He had no choice, Grey thought, he had to believe she was awake.

He kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, then the sensitive spot just below her ear. He breathed in the lavender fragrance of her unbound hair. His fingers made a trail from her temple to her throat and then to her breast. He lowered his lips over her nipple and raised it to hard arousal through the thin fabric of her shift. She moaned softly. His teeth caught a little of the material and a little of her. Berkeley arched, crying out.

Grey's head came up. "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean—" He stopped because she was already shaking her head no, and her eyes were darkening with the proof of her arousal. She shouldn't look at him like that, he thought. Everything he meant to say to her went out of his head. The things he wanted to hear from her were going to be left unspoken.

Grey raised himself just enough to be rid of his drawers. They were pushed under the covers to the foot of the bed. Berkeley's slender thighs came around him as he laid her on her back. He kissed her again, deeply and slowly, and erased the moment's look of unease that he saw shadow her features. He was determined to go very carefully this morning. There would be no pain for her this time.

Her hands rested lightly on his shoulders at first. Her mouth softened as he looked at her. He was being very patient, she thought. Considerate. She stroked his upper arms, then his back. She felt the matched pair of dimples at the base of his spine. Berkeley's smile had a secretive cast.

Grey felt as if she'd reached inside his chest and pulled out his heart. He groaned softly in protest, then once more in surrender.

"Have I hurt you?" she asked. Her faint smile disappeared altogether.

"No."

"Good." Berkeley let him kiss her. "You have two dimples here." She knuckled them lightly to indicate her discovery. It had the effect of pressing Grey's arousal more firmly against her. Her eyes widened.

"You weren't expecting that," he whispered.

Berkeley shook her head.

One of his hands stroked her from breast to hip. He lifted himself off her and let his fingers dip between her thighs. She was small and tight and completely ready for him. Still, he stroked her. Her body accommodated one finger, then two. She sucked in her lower lip and pressed her mons against his palm. The pale triangle of hair was as soft as fleece beneath the heel of his hand.

Berkeley was turned toward him. Her thigh hooked over his hip. She was lifted slightly, held there while he probed, then settled by slow degrees until she had all of him inside her.

Berkeley spoke her thoughts aloud. Her voice was husky, almost inaudible. "It doesn't hurt this time."

Grey was gratified to hear it, but he didn't miss the underlying surprise in her voice. His lips brushed her mouth. He held himself still inside her. It had been his fault that she'd had pain before. Mostly his fault, he amended. Her omission that she was without experience had contributed to some of her discomfort and lingering fears. "I will never hurt you again," he said against her lips.

He was struck suddenly by what he heard himself say. He'd meant
it
not I.
It will never hurt you again.
The act. Not him personally. How was he supposed to manage that?

Berkeley drew his head back to hers. "You're a very good man," she said softly.

Grey almost believed her.

* * *

They stayed in bed until long after sunshine burned through the fog. Grey made love to her a second time as she came out of a light doze. He hadn't slept at all. She couldn't seem to help herself.

Grey leaned back against the headboard. His fingers sifted lightly through Berkeley's silky hair. Her eyes were closed, but this time he knew she wasn't sleeping. Beneath the sheet her hand stroked his thigh. It was almost too much. Almost.

He remembered how easily she had taken him into her that second time, how snugly she held him. She had explored him with her hands and fingers and finally her mouth. She had a generous mouth, soft and succulent lips. Her kisses were heady. She had moved over him slowly, tasting him, but more than that. Savoring. She did not seem to find anything about him uninteresting.

She hadn't shied away from the puckered scar on his side or the three stripes on his back. She'd kissed them without comment, her fingertips gentle in their search. Her touch raised heat under his skin that didn't dissipate once her hand moved on. She didn't talk at all. Except for a slight murmur, the hum of her pleasure, she was silent.

He moved over her and in her. Their bodies rose and fell in splendid unison. The tension and hunger had been there from the beginning. They had nurtured and sustained it with their searching mouths and hands and when they sought the final expression of it, pleasure surged over them.

It was Grey who came first, burying himself deeply inside her. He spilled into her while her fingers pressed whitely into his back. The tremor that rippled through him rippled into her, and she came under him, her body stretched taut, her head thrown back, her beautiful mouth parting on a sharply drawn breath.

Grey touched Berkeley's cheeks with the backs of his fingers. "Why did you run off this morning?" he asked.

Her smile was a trifle bittersweet. "To avoid this, I expect."

"This?"

Berkeley's hand stopped moving along his thigh. She opened her eyes and sat up. The strap of her shift fell over her shoulder, and she raised it back into place. "This," she repeated. "The questions. You have them, I suppose."

"A few," he said mildly. His eyes narrowed slightly as the strap slipped over her shoulder again. This time he put it up. He touched her chin and lifted it. "Don't you? Or did you really learn everything about me when I put my palm in your hand?"

She merely regarded him steadily. He had asked the question with too much lightness for her to answer. No matter how it appeared to Grey Janeway, there had been nothing impulsive about her decision to share his bed. Not last night and not tonight. "What do you want to know?" Berkeley brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek.