Reilly's Return (19 page)

She was scared. He was shaking the foundation of her world and she didn’t like it. But she loved
him. That was all he needed to hear for the moment. They would deal with the rest later.

“All right, then,” he said with a nod and a satisfied sigh. “Stop backing away from it.”

He kissed her soundly, then turned and started toward the obdurate Pinafore.

Jayne stared after him, slack-jawed. She felt as if she’d been knocked senseless. Her head was swimming. Reilly had just bullied an admission of love out of her and calmly walked away as if nothing earth-shattering had happened at all!

“Reilly!”

“Shake a leg, sheila,” he said, tossing her a glance as he scooped up Pinafore’s lead rope. He tugged down the brim of his hat and stared off down the trail that led north and east. “We’re burnin’ daylight.”

He clucked to the llama. Pinafore immediately stood and stretched, then looked off down the trail as if to tell everyone she was more than ready to leave.

Reilly grinned and winked at Jayne’s look of outraged disbelief. “Guess I’ve just got a way with the ladies.”

Jayne bit her lip on her retort. She didn’t want to think about Reilly’s way with the ladies. Uncertainty swirled inside her like a chilly wind. She
was on the brink of giving her heart to a man who had a reputation for whipping women into a sexual frenzy with nothing more than a casual glance.

But it wasn’t as if he encouraged them, was it? As she plodded down the trail with Jodhpur breathing down her neck, she thought back on all that had happened since Reilly had come to Anastasia. He could have stayed in L.A. and soaked up the publicity from the
WE
article, but he hadn’t. When the press and his fans had discovered his whereabouts, he could have leaped into the limelight and let them lavish their attention on him, but he hadn’t. All he had asked for from the start was to have some time to spend with her, Jayne Jordan.

Her heart warmed at the thought as she took Jodhpur’s rope and started down the trail after Pinafore and Reilly.

Maybe Reilly was right. Maybe she was simply feeling overwhelmed, and her natural reaction was to back away. Maybe this had nothing to do with the fact that her bracelet wasn’t working. Maybe this was about going after something she wanted, following a rainbow, and claiming the treasure at the end of it.

She ignored the niggling doubt in the back of her mind. Reilly had accused her of being an observer
of life rather than a participant in it. Well, she had him all to herself now, and she was darn well going to participate, she thought as she focused a purposeful gaze on his back.

They stopped for lunch in a sun-dappled glade beside a clear stream. All around them towered the redwood trees the area was known for. Nearer the ground, ferns and other lush green growth spread out in an edible carpet the llamas found irresistible. Rowdy found a sunny spot to curl up and nap in. Reilly plunked their food pack down on a rock and began rummaging through it in search of a sandwich.

“Hungry?” Jayne asked in the most sultry voice she could conjure up, concentrating on memories of old Lauren Bacall movies.

“I’ll say. I’m so hungry I could eat—” The words stuck in Reilly’s throat as he glanced over his broad shoulder at Jayne.

She stood no more than five feet behind him, her burnished dark hair loose and lifting around her shoulders on the slight breeze. Her dark eyes were glowing with sensual promise. Her dainty fingers were slowly undoing the buttons on her blouse. The vee of exposed skin reached almost to her tummy.

“I’m hungry, too,” she murmured, her gaze
locked on his. She paused for just the right effect and added, “For you.”

Reilly’s hormones bolted to life with a speed that was nearly painful. Want of Jayne was something he had learned to live with. Thankfully, it was no longer something he had to deny. Forgetting all about the sandwiches, his full attention focused on the woman before him, and he smiled with a sense of anticipation and wonder.

Jayne had never played the seductress with him. He had always initiated their lovemaking. In fact, over the past couple of weeks he had sensed a certain reluctance in her. He had felt her pulling away because of all the attention he was getting from the paparazzi and his fans. But now Jayne was clearly assuming the role of the aggressor. Reilly wondered dimly if it had anything to do with their being isolated. If it did, he decided as Jayne slid her blouse back off her shoulders and let it drop, he was going to chuck it all and become a hermit.

“What are you doing, Jaynie?” he questioned softly as she lifted her hands to his shirt front and began to slip the buttons from their moorings.

“You told me to stop backing away,” she said.

“Mmm …” He sighed as she pulled his shirttails from his jeans. “What about the llamas?”

“They won’t bother us,” she said, dragging the red shirt back off his broad shoulders, baring his chest to her gaze and her kisses. She brushed her lips over his skin and delighted in the scent and taste of him. Wild shivers coursed through her. Participating in life was fun, worrying wasn’t. That particular philosophy was gaining popularity with her in direct proportion to the increasing intensity of her desire. “I told them to take a nap after lunch.”

“And you’re not worried about them being your maiden aunts come back to life in hairy animal hides?”

Jayne broke off from her exploration of his chest to give him a narrow look. “I’m trying to seduce you here, Reilly. Would you mind just keeping your mouth shut for once?”

“No problem,” he said, fighting a grin. “But isn’t that gonna make it hard for me to kiss you?”

“Good point,” Jayne conceded, fighting an attack of giggles. She wound her arms around his neck and lifted herself against him, pressing her bare breasts to the sun-warmed planes of his chest. The contact was delicious, and it sent the last of her doubts scattering. Nothing ever seemed wrong when she was in Reilly’s arms. All their differences in personality and life philosophy just
melted away. All the distractions and demands of his profession disappeared. There was only the two of them and the love that was struggling to come to life between them.

She arched against him like a cat and nipped at the cleft in his chin. “So kiss me, you aggravating Aussie.”

“With pleasure,” Reilly murmured, tilting his head and lowering it toward hers.

It was a sweet kiss. A kiss full of welcome and relief. Reilly gathered Jayne up against him and reveled in the feel of her in his arms. This was what he wanted, this sense of peace and contentment he knew only with Jayne. It was something that his career denied him. It was something he could no longer depend upon his family for. Only Jayne gave him this haven. It didn’t matter that she could be a complete flake. It didn’t matter that she kept a tarantula and thought her jewelry spoke to her. She was the woman who believed in him. She was the woman he loved.

He lowered her to the blanket of clothes they had dropped on the ground. The clean, fertile scents of the forest filled his head, but overriding it was Jayne’s soft perfume. He buried his face between her breasts and drank the fragrance in, intoxicating himself with it. Trailing kisses from
one taut nipple to the other, he sipped at the sweet taste of her, then took his mouth to hers and drank in the wine of her kiss.

Jayne was filled with a pure joy unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She felt like Eve. Alone there with Reilly in the middle of the forest, it was as if they were the only people on earth. It seemed only right that they shed their clothing and were celebrating the wonders of life and love and nature.

She gazed at Reilly, poised above her. He was the perfect example of the male of the species—strong, ruggedly masculine, handsome in a way that wasn’t quite civilized. She stroked her hand down his chest and across his quivering belly to the most masculine part of him. With her gaze locked on his, her small fingers closed around his shaft and guided him to her.

They both gasped at the first touch of flesh to flesh. The gasps segued to groans as male hardness slid into the welcoming warmth of feminine silk. The groans trailed off into sighs at the first sensation of completion. They savored their union, kissing and touching and murmuring words of love. Then need urged them off the first plateau and made them reach for a higher one.

Reilly reached his climax first, clutching Jayne
to him as the explosion rocked him, blinding him to everything else except bliss. When the tremors subsided, he rolled onto his back and urged Jayne to take her own pleasure. He watched as she moved on him, her every expression crossing her face like scenes on a movie screen.

She was so open, so honest in her lovemaking, simply watching her aroused him all over again. Gripping her slender waist with his big hands, he lifted his hips to meet her as she slid down on him.

Jayne groaned Reilly’s name over and over, faster and faster, in time with their movements, until the tension coiling inside her burst, flooding her with fulfillment and love. Exhausted, she collapsed on his chest, her cheek pressing against his sweat-dampened skin.

Reilly wrapped his arms around her and pressed soft kisses to the top of her head. Lazily, Jayne traced patterns on his chest with her finger, her gaze fixed on the small gold key that dangled from her wrist and dragged along, catching in Reilly’s chest hairs.

This seemed so perfect. Why wasn’t her faithful source confirming that feeling?

“Are you happy now that you’ve had your way
with me?” Reilly asked, his voice at once soft and rough, like corduroy.

Jayne jerked her head around to look at him. Lord, he was sexy. His golden hair was tousled, his eyes were dark with sated passion. He looked perfectly at home, naked in the woods. She gave him a sassy look.

“Maybe I’m not finished with you yet.”

“Don’t let me rush you,” he said, stroking a hand down the supple line of her back and over the curve of her buttock. He pulled her tighter against his groin and groaned as her body responded by tightening around him. “I’m in no hurry.”

Propping herself up on his chest with one arm, Jayne reached up and brushed at the bits of greenery that clung to his hair. Her expression turned wistful. “I wish it could always be like this.”

Reilly didn’t have to ask what she meant. He would have wished it too, but it didn’t seem sensible. “We both have lives to lead, Jaynie,” he said softly, almost regretfully. “We’ve got jobs to do and people to answer to. We can’t shut the world out, and we can’t just watch it go by.”

“I’m not just watching,” Jayne said in protest. Hurt, she pulled away from him and collected what clothing she could without trying to move
Reilly. She jerked her blouse on and began fastening buttons. “I’m involved in life around Anastasia. I started the theater group. I took Candi in. I resent your saying I don’t do anything but watch. You make me sound like a voyeur.”

“Aw, Jaynie, that’s not what I mean at all.” He sat up and pulled her back into his arms, ignoring her struggles to escape. He gave her a squeeze to still her, then pressed a kiss to her temple. “I just mean we can’t always have the world to ourselves. You don’t like the way the press intruded on our time. I don’t like it either, but that’s part of my life. As much as I’d love to stay in these hills with you, I have other obligations. I’ll have to go down to L.A. next week for the opening of
Deadly Intent.”

Jayne felt a chill go through her like a knife. “What about the play?”

“What about it? I’ll miss one rehearsal. My understudy can walk through it.” He released her and began sorting through the rumpled, squished pile of clothes around him. Dismissing the topic of conversation, he stood up and pulled on his briefs and jeans.

Jayne watched him, absently finishing dressing, her fingers fastening buttons and snaps while her
brain concentrated on the horrible sensation of dread that was suddenly filling her stomach. “You’ll be back for opening night?”

Reilly pulled an athletic sock off a bush and gave Jayne a strange look as he pulled it on. “Course I’ll be back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

He shrugged as he pulled his shirt on. “Slipped my mind, I guess,” he muttered.

“It slipped your mind?” Jayne’s voice rang with disbelief. “You’ve got a multimillion-dollar movie coming out next week and it slipped your mind?”

“All right,” he conceded with a frustrated sigh. “Maybe I didn’t want to talk about
Deadly Intent
because I didn’t want to get another lecture from you on how I’m wastin’ my talent on movies that don’t mean anything.”

Jayne nibbled on her thumbnail and said nothing. What could she say? If
Deadly Intent
proved to be anything like its predecessors, then it had indeed been a waste of Reilly’s considerable talents. But she also knew he’d had his reasons for choosing the scripts he had. She couldn’t fault him for being loyal to his family and his friends.

“Truth to tell, it never slipped my mind,” Reilly mumbled, jamming his shirttail into his jeans. “The director is a pal of mine. He owns a piece of
the film, and he needs the thing to do big at the box office.”

Jayne listened, torn between love and suspicion. She loved the man who made sacrifices for the people he cared about. She was suspicious of the actor who dropped this kind of information ever so skillfully on the ears of a prominent film critic. And she hated herself for her doubts. She wished with all her might for some kind of sign to assure her that Pat Reilly wouldn’t play on her sympathies, then blithely break her heart. She hooked two fingers through the chain of her bracelet, hoping against hope for some special feeling, but nothing happened.

Reilly caught the action and frowned. He didn’t like the way Jayne took such stock in things like premonitions and karma and all that other crap, but her convictions were a vital part of who she was. A man had to take the bad with the good, he supposed. And there was a lot of good in his Jaynie.

“No more talkin’ business,” he declared, closing the distance between them and dropping a kiss on Jayne’s downturned lips. “We’re not likely to agree on it, and that’s that. We came up here to enjoy the scenery and each other. So,” he said, flashing her his famous Cheshire-cat smile, “if
you’ve enjoyed me enough for the moment, we can hit the trail, Calamity Jayne.”