Passion's Dream (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 1) (5 page)

He just chuckled.  “This is nothing.  It’s only April.  Wait until July and August when the temperatures hit the mid-nineties, with humidity to match.”

“How do people stand it?” she asked, plucking the neckline of her silk shirt away from her clammy skin and shaking it to try and increase the cooling effect.  “It’s like living in a swamp.”

Another chuckle.  “Well, since that’s what a lot of this land used to be, that would be appropriate.”

“Who in their right mind comes to a swamp and says, ‘By golly, Maude, why don’t we just settle down right
here
?’”

“You’ll see why very shortly,” Clay promised, turning onto a broad boulevard.  “In fact, I’m going to go just a little bit out of our way so you can get a really good look at what makes this place so special.”  He turned left onto I-95 and headed north.

Now that Leah had cooled off, she could admire the beauty of the day.  The sun was shining as fat white clouds drifted across an achingly blue sky. Clay exited at Okeechobee Boulevard, turning right onto the wide street that had large, gorgeous blue lakes on either side of it.

“Oh, my,” Leah breathed.  It was a tropical paradise with palm trees, hibiscus bushes laden with large red and orange flowers, and purple bougainvillea everywhere.  “It’s beautiful.”  They passed the performing arts center, the Palm Beach convention center, City Place, an upscale residential and shopping mecca, and lots of ritzy, high-rise residences, before swinging up onto a bridge and stopping at the light.  “This is the Intracoastal Waterway,” Clay said, “also known as Lake Worth.  The land you see ahead of you is the island of Palm Beach.”

The Intracoastal was full of people in boats and on jet skis.  Yachts of all sizes, including one large enough to have a car on the rear deck, were anchored at a marina to her left.  Other boats, large and small, including a tall-masted schooner that had just passed through the drawbridge the BMW was about to cross over, were motoring slowly north toward the Palm Beach Inlet, the closest access point to the Atlantic.  As soon as the drawbridge was completely closed, they crossed the rest of the bridge, emerging onto Royal Palm Way, a street lined on each side with investment firms and yacht brokerages, and down the middle with tall, stately Royal Palm trees.  “Okay,” Leah said, “I take back what I said about the wisdom of living here.  This,” she spread her hands, “is worth it.  Maude would totally approve.”

Clay laughed.  “Just wait,” he teased with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.

Damn, that’s sexy!

Really, the man was maddening.  How could he remain so calm and detached while she was achingly aware of him with every cell in her body?  The electric tension that had been pulsing between them all along filled the tiny space with its heavy charge.  Her fingers tightened their stranglehold on her purse as she tried to appear nonchalant.  Geez, how could she be the only one feeling this?

Royal Palm Way ended at the Atlantic Ocean, making Leah gasp.  The water was a beautiful, glassy blue-green color, with darker patches where it was shaded by the clouds.  It looked warm and inviting, not like the perpetually gray, frigid water of San Francisco Bay.  As Clay turned to the right, she leaned forward to watch the ocean, which was so calm only the tiniest of wavelets caressed the shore.  Off in the middle distance, a catamaran skimmed easily across the smooth surface, its orange and red-striped sail making a brilliant splash of color against the shining turquoise water.  Another large sailboat was even farther out.  Businesses and high-rise apartments on Leah’s right gave way to estate homes, growing ever larger and more sumptuous as they progressed southward.  “Yep.  Definitely worth slogging through a swamp to get to this.”

Clay smiled.  His hand reached out again, this time to turn on the radio.  And this time she managed not to flinch.  As the strains of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A filled the space between them, she actually began to relax.  She even grew brave enough to slant him a glance from underneath her lashes, admiring the sure touch of his lean hands on the BMW’s leather-covered steering wheel.  He drove as she knew instinctively he’d do everything else, with skill and self-assurance and a smooth cat-like grace that sent the now-familiar tingling sensation curling through her belly.  Her hands clenched convulsively around her purse. 
Good grief, you have to stop reacting to him like this!  You just
have
to!

“So, you own your own landscaping business?” she asked, more to break the charged silence than for her own edification.

“Actually, the bank owns most of it.  If it weren’t for this estate job, I’d be pretty much unemployed right about now.”

“Business is that bad?”

He just shook his head.  “Landscape businesses are a dime a dozen around here.”

She turned her glance toward him and her heart stopped.

He was looking straight at her.  They had stopped once again, at another traffic light.  She held her breath, bound by the intensity of his gaze, as if she’d been placed under a wizard’s spell.  Slowly, as if he, too, were caught up in the same spell, he reached out his hand and brushed his hard, calloused fingers across the silky softness of her cheek.  It was a light touch, heavy with unspoken promise.  She longed to turn her face into his hand and kiss his warm palm.  Her body ached to feel the weight of that hand upon her, stroking her, caressing her, discovering all her moist and secret places.  Her belly clenched, drenching her already-wet panties.

God, it’s happening again!

With a stifled moan, she shut her eyes, turning her head to pull away from his touch, but his hand followed, never breaking contact.  “Please, Mr. Knight—”She shrank against the car door, pressing her shoulder into the padded paneling

“Clay,” he said, moving his fingers to stroke sensually along her jaw line.  Everywhere he touched, her skin burst into flames.  “Say it.”

She just shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes.

His fingers tightened on her chin, “Say it, Leah,” he insisted.  “Please say my name.  I want to hear how it sounds on your lips.  I’ve been wanting to hear it for the past three years, ever since that day on the beach.”

There was a long silence while she swallowed convulsively, struggling to regain control of her runaway emotions.  Three years ago this man had held her and let her cry, demanding nothing from her in return, not even her name.  And she had
let
him!  She had taken the comfort he’d offered, greedily and without thought, soaking it up like one of those compressed sponges that explode the instant they touch water, expanding beneath his comfort.  Until, suffused with shame for displaying such weakness in front of a complete stranger, she had run from him like the very devil was after her, not even bothering to say thank you.  “Clay,” she managed finally, in a strangled whisper.”

“Thank you,” he said simply.  He stared at her averted face for a moment longer, idly brushing a curling tendril of honey-gold hair back behind her ear, his fingertips scorching her tender skin.  In spite of a massive struggle not to, she turned her head and met his eyes for a brief, drowning moment.  “Clay, I—”

“Hey buddy, move it or lose it!  I ain’t got all day!”

Jerked out of the moment by the unpleasant shout and the raucous blaring of a horn behind them, Clay shifted rapidly and roared off down the road, leaving Leah to deal with the raging tumult of emotions he’d stirred inside her.

Here the estates were more private, surrounded by high stone walls and beautifully-manicured hedges preventing the stares of the curious from intruding on the private lives of Palm Beach’s residential elite.  Only open driveways and wrought-iron gates afforded tantalizing glimpses of magnificent houses and beautifully landscaped green velvet lawns.  Finally Clay slowed and turned onto a concrete driveway, blocked by two enormous wrought iron gates.  On both sides of the gates stretched an eight-foot-tall stone wall painted pink and fronted by precision-trimmed sea grape hedges and scarlet hibiscus bushes.  Clay pulled to a stop and aimed a remote at the gates.  They began opening immediately.

“We’re here,” he said unnecessarily, nosing the BMW through the gates, which closed automatically behind him.  Just inside the wall to the right was a one-story stucco house surrounded by hibiscus, bougainvillea, palm trees and oleanders.  “Julio’s house,” he said, following the direction of her gaze.  He drove up the gently-curving driveway, flanked on each side by graceful coconut palms and thick oleander bushes, their shiny, dark green foliage a striking backdrop for the colorful sprays of delicate pink and white blossoms.

The house, when it finally came into view, was breathtakingly beautiful, and Leah gasped with pleasure.  It was an enormous two-story Spanish-style structure covered with cream-colored stucco.  The windows were shaped like Moorish arches, trimmed with colorful patterned tiles and delicately carved stone embellishments in a darker color than the house.  These embellishments also framed the doors and trimmed the roofline, like decorations on a wedding cake.  At one end of the house a square, turreted tower soared to a third story.  The roof was Cuban barrel tiles, their earthy red tones weathered and streaked by years of exposure to rain and the blistering Florida sun. 

Clay pulled to a stop in front of the garage, a separate building at the side of the house, and connected to it by a cloistered colonnade, topped by the same red clay tiles as the roof and draped with purple and fuchsia bougainvillea vines.

He came around and opened her door, reaching out his left hand to grab her elbow and help her up out of the car’s low seat.  To clear her from the door’s path, he pulled her toward him, then leaned forward slightly to give it a push.

She found herself only inches away from him, staring at his broad, muscular chest.  He was practically embracing her, and his potent nearness sent a new wave of heat spilling through her.  Fighting the urge to close the distance between them, she stepped back blindly, turning at the same time and lifting her elbow to pull it free of his grasp.

She wasn’t quite sure what happened next.  She either stepped in a hole in the pavement, or the heel of her sandal slipped out from under her foot.  In any event, she suddenly felt herself toppling backwards and would have fallen to the ground had Clay not reacted swiftly by grabbing her other elbow and pulling her up against his hard, solid body.

“Oh!” she cried, more shaken by the sudden rush of warmth caused by his touch than by her near accident.

His arms were around her, one large hand cradling the back of her head, the other stroking her back.  For one blissful moment, Leah closed her eyes and rested against him.  How incredible it was to feel so safe and secure.  Belatedly, she realized, through a haze, that her own arms were locked around his waist.

Quickly, as if she’d been burned, she dropped her arms to her sides and stiffened slightly.  Both of his hands lowered to rest lightly at the back of her waist.  She lifted her arms to push against his chest, levering her upper body away from him.  His arms tightened and remained where they were, effectively trapping her against his hard, masculine body.  The thick ridge of his erection against her belly left her in no doubt as to the effect she was having on him.  Feeling awkward and stupid, she increased the pressure of her arms against his chest.  “Thanks for the rescue,” she managed with a shaky little laugh and a too-bright smile.  She raised her head, but couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes.  “I guess next time I’ll watch where I’m going, won’t I?”

“No need,” he said, his deep, silken voice flowing over, through and around her, “I know where you’re going.”

She froze, pressing her lips together.  Part of her wanted to ask, “Where?”  The other part was terrified of hearing the answer.

CHAPTER THREE

Christ! This was probably the biggest mistake he’d ever made. How could he have let Burke talk him into going along with this cockamamie idea? It had been three years, for chrissakes!  Three fucking years!  How could he still be so attracted to this woman?  And yet, damn it, he was.  He knew nothing about her, except that she appeared to be deeply submissive and that called to every Dominant bone in his body.  Somehow, in those few stolen minutes three years ago, she had managed to plumb some hidden place deep inside him, and he’d been thinking about her ever since.  About how soft and silky she would be.  How tight and hot and sweet she would be.  And he wanted it—wanted
her—
as he’d never wanted any other woman he’d ever met.  His cock was so hard right now it was a wonder it hadn’t split the threadbare fabric of his cutoffs.  As it was, they were so holey he had to wear briefs with them to keep from being arrested for indecent exposure.  One more washing and they would be history.

He watched her, knowing she was fighting this…
thing
that was happening between the two of them.  And, damn it, he didn’t want her to fight it.  He knew he affected her as much as she affected him, and he wanted her to admit it.  Three years, for chrissakes.  Three fucking years!  And now that he’d seen her again, heard her voice, he was afraid that this time, he’d never be able to let her go.

Yet the
sane
part of his mind, the part that resided in his head and not his pants, knew he
had
to let her go.  He was not good for her.  The things he wanted from her were way too dark and raw, too blisteringly sexual.  He didn’t know how to be any other way.

“You feel it too, don’t you, Leah?”  He kept his voice low, rich and dark.  He heard himself saying it.  Hated himself for it, but couldn’t help himself.  It had to be said.  He had to frighten her off somehow.  “You feel it and you want it.”

“No.”  She shook her head, tugging her arms against his hold.

He should have released her then.  But he didn’t, he couldn’t.  His need for her over-rode everything else, including his conscience and his common sense.  “Yes, you do,” he insisted, a raw edge to his voice.  His hands came up to grip her shoulders.  “You can deny it all you want, but I can see how you react to me.  I can smell your arousal.  It nearly drove me crazy on the ride over here.  It smells like sweet, ripe fruit and I can’t wait to taste it.  I know it will be delicious.”

She groaned.

“I can’t wait to impale myself in your sweet cunt and coat my cock in your hot cream.  I can’t wait to fuck you, Leah.”

“Clay—”

“I’m going to fuck you so hard and give you so much pleasure you’ll be screaming my name.  You won’t want to, but you will.  Something inside us connected that day on the beach three years ago.  You felt it as much as I did, and that’s why you ran.”

She continued trying to pull away.  “No, no, I—”

“There’s something between us, Leah.  Something that’s been there from the moment we laid eyes on each other.  I know you felt it—I could see it in your eyes—can
still
see it in your eyes.”

“No—”

“Yes.”  His hands tightened, giving her a gentle shake.  “There’s no shame in admitting it.  Hell, I’m thirty-six years old and I admit there’ve been a few women in my life—okay a lot of women.  But you touched something in me that day.”  One hand lifted to graze her chin.  “Something that has never let me forget you.  And now, to find you, when I had given up all hope of ever seeing you again”—He broke off before the anguish in his soul was reflected in his eyes.

“It-it’s just…chemistry,” she dismissed breathlessly, raising her eyes to look at him defiantly.

“Chemistry, huh?”  He gave her a roguish grin that twisted her heart inside her body, releasing yet another flood of moisture.  “And here I thought it was biology.”  He raised his eyebrows and waggled an imaginary cigar next to his mouth and Leah burst out laughing in spite of herself.

The spell broken, Clay dropped his hands and she stepped back quickly, turning away from him to feign interest in the enormous, uncontrolled Banyan tree at one corner of the garage, its elaborately twisted hanging root system in serious danger of swallowing up that part of the building.  Clay stayed where he was, his gaze boring into her back, struggling with himself to leave her alone with whatever small sense of comfort putting distance between them gave her.

“You should do that more often,” he said solemnly.

“What?”

“Laugh.  It lights up your whole face.”

While she was casting about for a suitable reply, he retrieved her suitcase from the BMW’s trunk and came up behind her to take her elbow.  “Come on, let’s go meet Mrs. Murdock.  When I left for the airport, she was just taking the most gorgeous chocolate cake out of the oven.  If I’ve timed it right, she should be putting the finishing touches on the icing as we walk in.”

“Who’s Mrs. Murdock?”

“She’s the housekeeper Mr. Burke hired to make sure you eat something more substantial than peanut butter crackers three meals a day.”

She blushed and he found himself utterly charmed.  Fuck, she was gorgeous.  Fuck, he wanted her with every cell of his body, lying spread-eagled beneath him, wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts, writhing and moaning with pleasure.

Fuck, I’m in deep shit.

He opened an arched wooden gate and let her pass through ahead of him.  “And don’t worry about carrying on a conversation with her.  She answers all her own questions herself.”

They emerged into a cloistered walkway.  Straight ahead, through Moorish arches draped with massive clusters of purple bougainvillea, she could see a small formal garden with pebbled paths and a fountain in the center of the carefully-pruned greenery.  Beyond that, on a raised terrace, separated from the garden by an ornamental yew hedge, she could make out the bright shimmering light of a swimming pool, casting its dancing reflections against a huge, screened-in gazebo.

To her left, beyond the velvet expanse of plush green lawn, and a broad, sandy beach strewn with fronds of dried-up seaweed, was the Atlantic Ocean.  Here it was a much deeper turquoise color, shading to a rich teal where cloud shadows touched it.  Tiny rolling wavelets arched lazily, curling forward onto the seaweed-strewn sand.  The calm, slightly wrinkled surface of the water stretched outward to meet the aching blue brilliance of the cloud-studded horizon.

As Clay had predicted, Mrs. Murdock was in the wonderfully fragrant kitchen, just putting away her cake decorating tools.

“Mrs. Murdock, this is Dr. Leah Stanhope.  I know you two are going to get along like a house afire.”

The seventy-ish woman came forward and enveloped Leah in a warm hug that smelled like chocolate.  “How lovely to meet you, dear.  You must be exhausted after such a long journey.  Would you like a slice of chocolate cake?  Well, of course you would.  How long has it been since you had a decent meal?  And not that slop the airlines call food, either.  Good home cooking.  I’ll wager it’s been quite a while, if Mr. Burke is to be believed.  Well, you’ll get plenty of that here, or my name isn’t Edna Murdock.  Let’s see, would you prefer milk or iced tea.  It’s such a lovely afternoon for tea, isn’t it?  Do you take yours with lemon?  And I’ll bet you like it sweet, too.  Oh, so do I, dear, so do I.”

Within minutes Edna Murdock had steamrollered Leah and Clay into opposite chairs at the large kitchen table, and placed a humongous slice of decadent chocolate cake and a glass of sweet iced tea with lemon in front of each of them. While they ate, Mrs. Murdock kept up a running monologue, asking Leah questions, then answering them herself.

Clay knew that if he looked at Leah, she would burst out laughing and he had no wish to do anything that could possibly hurt the elderly woman’s feelings, so he suppressed a smile and concentrated on wolfing down the delicious cake, holding his plate out for seconds.

“Whoa, no more thank you.” Laughing, Leah covered her plate with both hands when the housekeeper would have given her a second slice, too.  “It was delicious, but if I eat another bite, you’ll have to roll me out of here,”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Murdock scoffed, picking up her plate and carrying it over to the sink.  “You’re nothing but skin and bones.  Why you modern young women think you have to be so skinny is beyond me.  In
my
day,
curves
were what made the young men sit up and take notice.  And when my Bert, God rest his soul, got a load of mine,” she patted her ample hip, “he was down for the count.”

Knowing it was unwise, Clay, nevertheless could not stop his gaze from exploring Leah’s own generous curves during this discourse, noting the slow rise of heated color to her cheeks as she struggled to ignore his scrutiny.  She was practically shredding the napkin in her lap.

“Surely you don’t look after this entire place yourself,” Leah said in a desperate attempt to get Clay’s attention off of herself.

“Oh, no, dear, bless your heart.  I just do the cooking.  Maria and Consuela come in on week days to do the housework.  I’m sorry, you won’t get to meet them until Monday.  They’re lovely girls.”  She chuckled.  “Girls.  They’re in their fifties, hardly girls.  Well, that cake should hold you until seven,” Mrs. Murdock said, putting a clear glass cover over what was left of the confection.  “That’s when dinner will be ready.  I’ve put you in the Alhambra Room at Mr. Burke’s insistence.  It opens out into a private garden with a lovely fountain.  Come, dear, I’ll show you where it is.”

“That’s okay, Mrs. M.”  Clay stood so suddenly, his chair legs screeched gratingly against the black and white checkerboard marble floor.  “Save your legs.  I’ll give Leah the grand tour.”

“Oh, thank you, dear, if it isn’t too much trouble.”  Mrs. Murdock watched him circle the table and pick up Leah’s suitcase.  “I do have another cake just about ready to come out of the oven—for my grandson,” she added with a twinkling smile.  “When he found out I was going to be baking today, he made me promise to bake something for him, too.”

“I hope your grandson appreciates how fortunate he is to have you,” Leah said warmly.  “A lot of children don’t, these days.  How old is he?”

Mrs. Murdock laughed.  “Twenty-nine.”

Leah laughed with her.  “I thought you were going to say something like seven or eight.  I guess this just proves you never outgrow your need for your grandmother’s chocolate cake.”

“You did say she’s in the Alhambra Room, right?”  Clay stood next to Leah, placing his free hand on her elbow, a light, impersonal touch, yet it wreaked havoc with his libido.  Christ, her skin was so fucking smooth and he found himself wondering if the rest of her was as smooth.  What would it feel like against his own tough, sun-burnished skin?  Beneath his lips?  Straddling his—
Fuck!  Stop thinking about shit like that!  Damn her for being so fucking gorgeous!

“That’s right,” Mrs. Murdock confirmed with a nod.  Turning to Leah, she explained, “That’s old Mrs. Calloway’s room, dear—the former owner.  It used to be a grand salon, but when Mrs. Calloway developed MS and could no longer negotiate the stairs, she turned it into her bedroom.  I do hope you’ll find it comfortable.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it,” Leah said sincerely.  ‘I appreciate all the trouble you’ve gone to, Mrs. Murdock, but really, any room would be fine.”

“Nonsense.  Mr. Everett told me to look after you and that’s all I’m doing.  I’m just happy to have somebody to do for.”  The timer on the stove dinged softly.  “Ah, there’s my cake.  You two run along and I’ll see about getting dinner started.”

Leah followed Clay out of the kitchen into the formal dining room.  The long, room was at least thirty feet high with a ribbed, stone ceiling and a gigantic stone fireplace.  A massive oak table, large enough to seat twenty-four, was aligned down the center of the marble floor.

Next they passed through a very grand, Baroque room in shades of blue and cream.  From there they entered the main entry foyer.  The double front doors were ornate wrought iron and beveled glass and must have weighed a ton.  French doors at the back of the room led out into the garden.  Around three quarters of the way between the doors, a free-standing staircase rose gracefully up to a wide landing and balcony.  Hallways on either side led, Leah presumed, to bedrooms. 

They crossed the marble floor, passed through one of a series of arches, and stepped down three shallow steps into the two-story living room.  The floor was terracotta tiles interspersed at random with ceramic ones, hand-painted with intricate and elaborate designs.  The vaulted, beamed ceiling was hand hewn Florida pecky cypress.  Both the east and west walls featured twelve-foot-tall mullioned windows set in elaborate Moorish arches.  The diamond-shaped panes were hand blown Venetian glass, giving a distorted, slightly dream-like view of the world beyond them.

Comfortable-looking living room groupings were arranged on Oriental rugs.  She nearly came to a stop, staring at the paintings that hung everywhere, portraits, landscapes, and still lifes, spanning the entire history of art from the Renaissance to modern times, but Clay’s firm pressure on her elbow kept her going.  “They’ll still be here later.”

Leah let him finish leading her across the living room, up the three stairs and into a wide hallway, passing a library and a sitting room on the right, a study and another sitting room on the left, all of them filled with more art treasures.  Finally Clay opened the door at the end of the hall and she stepped into the cool, shadowed interior of the most beautiful bedroom she had ever seen.  Against the north wall was the bed, a four poster of rich, dark mahogany straight out of the Italian Renaissance, fitted with a canopy, curtains, and bedspread of crimson silk damask.  Through the French doors on either side, Leah could see a lush, private garden.  To her left, along the east wall was a long, shaded alcove, reached by climbing up three steps through a row of pillared arches.  Tall, arched windows looked out onto a swimming pool with the ocean beyond.  Two of the windows were actually doors, allowing private access to the pool.