Midnight Rose (21 page)

“I can help myself.” She grabbed the laundry basket and headed up the steps. “I’ll start packing in the morning. Goodnight, Gideon.”

He didn’t reply. When she got to the top of the west wing stairs and glanced back, the landing was empty.

Lost in desolation, Kate stepped inside her bedroom and let the door close behind her. A single table lamp cast a gentle glow across the room, so that every detail appeared limned in ivory and gold. The ethereal elegance of it stopped her, momentarily stole her breath and the ache in her heart.

The few weeks she’d spent at Sister Oaks had taught her about beauty in all its forms. Wild and earthy, elegant and pristine. Sunshine and shadow. She’d fallen in love with all of it, first with the rolling landscape, then with the house and its whispery secrets, and finally with the man and the boy. It had changed her. Altered the edges of her perception, so that even if she tried, she couldn’t return to the puzzle of her life in Richmond. She didn’t know where she belonged anymore.

Tears welled and trickled faster than she could wipe them away. She wasn’t a weeper, damn it. The sound rising in her chest wasn’t a sob. Choking it back, she set down the laundry basket, reached for the box of tissues on the dresser, wiped her eyes.

And saw the vast bouquet of crimson-black roses scattered across her bed.

For a moment she didn’t move. Then a shaky breath escaped her and she approached the four-poster, counting the stems strewn over the comforter. Thirty-six. One for every day she’d spent at Sister Oaks.

Reaching down, she fingered the edge of a silky petal. So deeply red, it appeared black. Gideon’s rose—the color of midnight.

She picked one up, mindful of the rapier thorns, and trailed the petals against her cheek. The flower’s fragrance was rich, sweet, with a hint of spice and wood. It suffused her senses and settled in her veins like a warm sip of brandy. She’d never experienced anything like it. It was Gideon’s life work, a rare and priceless gift.

Breathless, Kate retreated from the room, dashed toward the landing and up the east wing steps. Silence held reign over the darkened house.

She paused outside his bedroom doors, fist poised to knock. What would she say? There were no words. She loved him. Only a touch would convey her feelings. An embrace, if he’d let her.

Tapping softly, she waited for the sound of footfall on the other side of the door, and heard nothing. She tapped again. No response.

Disappointment wrapped around her anticipation, sunk like a lead weight to the pit of her stomach. He could be anywhere in the house. She’d check the downstairs rooms, then head outside, in the dark, if she had to. She would find him while her realizations were still bubbling fresh beneath the surface. She loved him . Even if it were the last thing she’d ever do at Sister Oaks, she’d tell him.

As she passed Jude’s bedroom, she noticed the door was cracked. With silent steps, she backtracked and peeked in.

Gideon was sitting on the edge of Jude’s bed, the pale glow of a single lamp spilling across his shoulders.

His profile was engulfed in shadow as he regarded his sleeping son, but Kate could feel the regret and pain shimmering from him in waves.

As she watched, he smoothed the blankets beneath Jude’s arms, stroked the hair back from the boy’s face, then leaned over and pressed his lips to Jude’s forehead.

It was a rare, stolen moment of affection, and its poignancy constricted Kate’s throat. Jude would never let his father kiss him under normal circumstances, nor would Gideon try. But the trauma and agony of the endless afternoon had left Gideon vulnerable and visibly shaken. He lingered a little longer, attention fixed on his son’s flushed features, then rose and found Kate watching him from the doorway.

She said nothing, just stood there, twirling the rose between her fingertips as he moved toward her.

When he reached her, he gently took her elbow and led her into the hallway, closing the door behind them.

In the silent darkness of the corridor, the flower’s scent wafted between them.

“I found the roses,” Kate started to say, but Gideon pressed a finger against her lips and stepped closer, pinning her between his body and the wall.

He glanced down at the stem she held, then back at her face, his eyes liquid-black with desperation and pain. “Will you put your arms around me?”

Something inside Kate melted and sent a river of sweet emotion rushing through her. “Oh, Gideon…” She stood on tiptoe and slid her arms around his neck, drawing him against her. He didn’t hug her in return, just stood in the circle of her embrace and let himself be held. When the time came for her to let him go, she stepped back and met his eyes.

And instantly forgot how to breathe. Raw desire was stamped across his features, darkening his brow, wiping the grief from his expression. “I have to taste you,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He bent and let his mouth whisper over hers, a gentle, tentative caress.

When she inhaled out of sheer necessity, it filled her with the rose’s sweet fragrance, and something deeper, richer, sexier. Gideon’s scent. Her fingers curled into the soft material of his shirt, mindless of the stem pressing against her palm. A prick of pain jolted her from her hazy pleasure and she glanced down at the droplet of blood welling on the pad of her thumb.

“Mind the thorns,” he whispered, lifting her hand to examine it. Locating the tiny wound, he pressed his lips against it. Her lashes fluttered closed as she felt the sinuous dance of his tongue against her thumb, whisking away the blood and pain, filling her body with the hot, rhythmic surge of want.

“God help me,” he said with a shattered exhalation. “You make me feel human again.” He caught her around her waist and lifted her up against him, mouth ravenous as it opened over hers, desperation and desire merging to create a thunderous tempest around them.

This was the unrestrained clashing Kate had waited for, more fiery and desperate than anything that had passed between them before. It was the first kiss all over again, wiping out the reserved embrace by the creek, or the sweetly forbidden caresses in the music room. The pure, earthy reality of this kiss drizzled over the searing details of the dream she’d had about him, the intoxicated possibilities of two nights ago, and melted it all away.

They clutched and held and kissed with no volition, sinking into each other, until the turmoil that had drawn them together gradually abated beneath the heaviness of desire. Then clutching hands loosened, moved into caresses; mouths that bruised and devoured softened, tongues no longer sparred but slid together in a sinuous dance.

Kate didn’t realize Gideon’s fierce embrace had hauled her off her feet until his arms eased her down to touch ground. They slumped against the wall with a gentle thud, both panting, caught in the stir of growing sensuality.

“I can’t stop,” he said, eyes closed, forehead pressed against hers.

She slid her fingers into his hair, letting her words whisper across his lips. “I don’t want you to stop, Gideon. It’s right, or it wouldn’t be happening.” A cross between a laugh and a groan escaped him and his hand cupped her neck, pulling her mouth back to his. This time…oh, this time his kiss was deliberate, seductive, tongue seeking and finding the tender places in her mouth, hands at her throat, then at the rise of her breasts against her T-shirt.

“We’ll wake Jude,” he murmured finally. “Come with me.”

Leading her down the hall, he pushed open the door to his bedroom and allowed her to enter before him.

The sound of the lock clicking into place brought her around to face him.

“Be sure,” he said, his eyes the color of midnight.

“I’m sure.” She swallowed, her breath coming in ever quickening pants. They were going to make love.

Whatever had transpired in his life before her was the past; a past too painful for him yet to recount, and Kate’s passion was too great to wait for the emergence of buried truths.

He took the rose from her, laid it on the night table. Then his fingers went to the buttons at the front of his shirt, freed them in rapid succession as he moved toward her, slow and intent.

Kate backed up. She didn’t have time to examine the nervousness weakening her knees; her need for the man coming to claim her outshone any other emotion at that fragile moment.

All rationale was swept away as her gaze skimmed the bare, muscled torso exposed by his open shirt.

His beauty was unearthly; it stirred a deep, secret place within her, more than a woman’s desire. More than sexual need. A wild fusion of awe and delight flickered through her, a soul-deep awareness that few things so magnificent existed in life.

She reached out a trembling hand, brushed between the gaping edges of his shirt, and laid her palm over his erratic, dancing heart. His skin was smooth, stretched tight over muscle, strangely cool to the touch.

“Gideon,” she whispered, letting her fingers drift down his ribs. “You’re beautiful.” When she sought his gaze, she found his eyes closed, fists clenched at his sides. Experimentally she let her fingers drift across his stomach, felt the hard contraction of the washboard muscles beneath his woven leather belt. An agonized expression deepened the furrow between his brows and he braced a hand against the bedpost by her head, his shirt hanging away from his torso and exposing his chest to her exploration.

Outside, the rumble of distant thunder vibrated on the night’s silence, a simmering promise of the storm to come.

Kate’s fingers brushed the buckle on his belt, slipped behind it, into the hollow place between his stomach and the placket of his khakis. She felt his heartbeat every place her fingers made contact.

“I want to touch you,” she said. “I want to taste you everywhere.” He didn’t speak, nor did he stop her when she loosened his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, and knelt before him to press her hot cheek against his cool skin.

Her hands curved around his thighs and smoothed up the rise of his buttocks through his khakis. More muscle, like sculpted stone. She curled her fingers inside the waist of his pants and edged them down a little. More smooth flesh beneath her palms, silky and resilient. Her mouth pressed to the tender, hair-roughened skin where his thigh met his groin, then against his penis as it rose, demanding and impressive, beneath his boxers. The cotton material was in the way. She breathed into it, bathing him in heat. His erection stirred and throbbed like a creature with its own mind, and she slid her lips up and down its length, gauging its fever through the cotton.

Finally his fingers sifted through her hair and clung. “Oh, God,” he whispered, and Kate smiled.

Carefully, with a reverent touch, she eased his boxers over his penis and down his thighs, shoving his pants to his ankles.

In silence, Gideon stepped free of them and let his shirt slide off his shoulders until it whispered to the floor. Then his fingers returned to tangle in her hair, because Kate had encircled his shaft with her hands and now drew him between her lips, deep, deeper, as much as she could take, enclosing him in heat and wetness.

The only sound he made was a sharp inhalation, then his fingers tightened, drawing her to him in tiny, rhythmic increments. Pacing. She didn’t want him to pace himself. She wanted him to drown in pleasure.

Her palms slid around his naked hips where the skin was smooth, tight over sinew and bone, around to his buttocks and held him, urging him to take what she offered. She sensed the vague trembling of his body, read the gradual loss of his control in the flex and release of the muscles beneath her hands, and softened her lips around him when he finally, helplessly, thrust deep into her mouth once, twice, three times.

“Kate…” he said through clenched teeth. “Kate!” A warning cry. He freed himself from her lips and hauled her to her feet, the world spinning around them.

The lamp beside the bed flickered and died. Overhead, the chandelier went dark with icy suddenness.

“What’s happening?” she whispered, feeling for him in the void.

The glass in the panes rattled, and yet Kate didn’t hear more thunder. Blackness swallowed the room.

Her palm made contact with the hard center of his chest. “The power went out,” she said uneasily.

“For now.” His response sounded tight, a strange, harsh whisper, but ardor had reclaimed her and she offered her lips for the crush of his kiss in the darkness.

Instead, cool air brushed her skin as the hem of her T-shirt skimmed her stomach, up and over her head.

It seemed as though phantom hands undressed her. Lost in the dark, she sucked in her breath when his palms enclosed her breasts, shaping them, then his mouth, warm and wet, drawing on her nipple through the lace of her bra.

Something sharp brushed her skin and she startled. The glide of teeth, maybe. Quickly followed by a contrite whisper of breath against her nipple, arousing it to the point of sweeter pain.

Fingers slid beneath the front clasp of her bra and the wispy garment sprang open.

“You’re the beautiful one.” Gideon’s voice floated around her, a hundred places at once. She sensed him kneel on the floor before her, his hands embracing her hips.

Blindly, her fingers found his thick, soft hair, his shoulders, wide and strong. She caressed his ears, explored their shape, traced the sharp line of his jaw.

“Kate,” he whispered against her stomach. Again she felt the graze of his teeth, never knew a man could do such things to a woman’s navel with his tongue and lips. Her hands grasped haplessly for the bed behind her. Lust weakened her limbs, made them tremble, left her damp and aching in secret places, places he would soon touch.

As though sensing her thoughts, he straightened before her and led her to the bed, guiding her hand to feel for the mattress. She located it and sat on the edge, shivering with need and an odd apprehension.

The darkness rendered her blind, robbed her of the sight of his beautiful, familiar face, and the newness of his naked limbs. But her other senses had come to life with piercing acuity, and every whispering touch on her skin, every caress and brush of lips and fingers and tongue, set her on fire.