The Colors of Love (12 page)

"So you did your best to please your father." He'd seen enough adolescents in his practice to understand how losing her mother at the age of twelve could leave a young girl rootless, unable to find herself.

"I hit the honor roll, got into a good college, graduated with honors—but in the end I couldn't do it." She smiled and brushed the emotion in her voice away with a light gesture that sent her curls tumbling on her shoulders.

"Does Sara remind you of yourself as a child?"

"Perhaps, a little. I would never hurt Sara, Alex."

Perhaps she thought she wouldn't, but one day the passion for Sara would be gone, like the passion for a painting once it was finished. Then Sara would be abandoned by this woman whom she might be foolish enough to try to put in her mother's place.

Across from him, Jamila picked up her fork and twisted a piece of fettuccini around it. He picked up his knife and focused on the steak.

... I believed we would be lovers.

Whatever happened, they weren't going to talk about
that.

* * *

An hour and a half later, driving her home in the quiet of Seattle's Wednesday night streets, Alex was amazed they'd found so much to talk about. From the social value of art to the duties of a pediatrician, from the new mayor's policy on the homeless to the latest best-selling political expose, they'd discussed everything with an energy that left him both exhausted and content.

She was quiet now, her lively opinions silenced as they rode with the sound of Chopin surrounding them.

He turned the corner to her street and stopped in front of her house. He hoped she would invite him in, and knew he must refuse if she did. She opened her eyes and smiled, then opened her door before he had a chance to get out and do it for her. He got out of the car and reached for her keys.

They'd survived dinner nicely, and it was time to say good-bye. He unlocked the door and held it open for her, but she didn't step inside.

"Tell me about Diana," she asked. "Are you committed?"

"No," he said, although it would be wiser to lie.

"Lovers?"

"Not yet."

She tipped her head back and let her eyes become shadows while the porch bulb he'd replaced bathed her cheeks and throat with pearly light.

"Diana was a Roman goddess, beautiful and swift, Diana the huntress."

He fought to remember how perfect Diana was, found his gaze tangled in the soft curve of Jamila's cheek and his hand clenched, resisting the need to glide along the side of her throat and feel her pulse.

Lovers, he thought.

"Diana," he said desperately, reminding himself. "I intend to marry her. She's exactly the wife I want."

"Practical?"

"Yes."

"Not selfish, impetuous, or irresponsible?"

"Definitely not." He wanted to list Diana's virtues, but the fresh softness of Jamila's skin filled his nostrils and his mind.

"Alex, kiss me again before you go back to Diana. I want to remember."

She filled his arms and he struggled once for something, breath or sanity, he wasn't certain which, then surrendered to the pulse throbbing in his body and buried his mouth in hers.

Soft, he felt softness, lips shaping to his, the fragile narrowness of her waist under his hands, the pliancy of her body as he drew her so close his own heartbeat echoed in her body.

Then she opened her mouth fully, and the softness shifted and flamed into thirst raging in the desert. He gasped and pulled her tight against him as he plundered her mouth. She responded, her tongue dancing with his in the rhythm of dark desire.

He needed her closer, harder, knew he must taste the pulse at her throat or he would never know... twisted and pressed her against the door of her own home, and tumbled inside as the door swung open against their weight, hungrily seeking the taste of her flesh.

She smelled warm and exotic, perhaps a perfume she'd touched to her throat or her own seductive heat. He felt her fingers in his hair, her hand against his heart, his own body rigid with hunger that pulsed and ached to thrust deep inside her.

Soft, so hot. He growled something, some sound, as his mouth found the pulse at her throat. It wasn't enough, could never be enough. His arm slipped down and shaped her hips, a sigh or a moan, something from her throat... or his. Her waist felt fragile above her hips, her ribcage flaring in a sweet feminine curve as he traced it with one hand.

She twisted against him, coming closer, pulling away—he wasn't sure, only that her movement set loose something wild inside him, deep inside, and his body clenched and struggled against hers, while his mouth seeking more, more.

He found her mouth open, avid, greedy with passion as he drank, feeding his own dark desire. His hands sought and found her breasts, sinking in with a groan. Her nipple peaked against his palm and he found the nub with his thumb, drawing a deep moan from her. More... closer... deeper. He brushed buttons aside and shoved the silk of her dress away, bent and fastened his mouth hungrily on the soft free curve of her breast through the black lace.

She cried out and he reared back, staring at her through narrowed eyes, his gaze blurred with passion, her head thrown back, the long white line of her throat exposed to him. The bodice of her dress was open to the waist, pushed back over her shoulders, pinning her arms, her breasts soft seduction encased in black satin. Over one breast, he saw the moisture of his own mouth, heard his own harsh breath tear open the silence of the night. Lace, black lace, with a ribbon threaded through.

Her eyes opened and she stared at him, green fire in her eyes.

He knew he'd be mad to let this go any further, yet his fingers fastened on the ribbon threaded through her lace undergarment and he pulled, slowly unraveling the bow, exposing the precious white of her breast. He didn't realize he was trembling until he watched his own hand brush the satin away from her breast.

"Jamila..." His lips were millimeters from her soft flesh when the deep sound of an engine shattered the night, reminding him of the open door, the world outside.

He pulled her to him and shoved the door closed. He heard a sound, soft and steady, and saw a glimpse of orange. Sara's cat.

Jamila, her eyes watching him, the mark of his mouth on black lace, the ribbon untied and the curve of her cleavage visible. The hunger...

"This is madness," he said.

She stepped back, somehow stepped
past
him, then turned and pulled the bodice of her green dress up. The buttons still hung open over a slash of black that reminded him too graphically of the painful hardness throbbing in his loins.

She picked up the cat.

Squiggles mewed and curled against her unbuttoned bodice.

"My keys," she said, her voice husky.

He needed to drag her into the light and
really
see her eyes, to know what their green revealed. But if he touched her again, he'd be lost.

"Keys?" he echoed.

Her keys, he must have put them in his pocket. He pulled them out and dropped them in her hand, careful not to touch her palm or fingers. She stood in front of him, the cat purring against her half-naked breast, and he wasn't certain he had the strength to leave.

Damn! Get out of here. Don't come back.

He yanked the door open, careful not to look back at her as he stepped through.

She didn't close the door behind him, and he forced himself to walk to his car.

One hand on his car door, he turned and saw her standing in the doorway, but he could read nothing from the quiet stillness of her face. He wanted to believe that when he left, she would paint wild dark swirls of thirst, hunger, and madness.

He forced himself into the car and shoved his key into the ignition.

* * *

"What are you calling it?" asked Liz, walking slowly to the right side of the painting Jamie had finished the night before, her eyes locked on the canvas as she moved.

"The Fire Below."

"The color values are good. It's... shattering."

Jamie picked up the kitten at her feet and rubbed the orange fur against her face. Nervous, she thought, she'd been nervous. This painting was so different, completely unlike the moody portraits and landscapes she usually painted.

Liz paced to the left of the canvas, then back to center where she stood, absently tucking a strand of blond hair into the smooth roll at the back of her head. "It's recognizably a
Jamila.
The bold use of contrasting colors, the quality of tangled emotion—but this is deeper, darker. What are you working on next? Another abstract."

The painting on her easel was half-formed, painful to work on and difficult to share. "Yes," said Jamie, "you'd call it an abstract."

"A series would be great. Even if you only do three, we could give them their own wall in the fall showing. Five would be better, and a name for the series would be good. Think about that while you're painting them. Where's the man in the rain?"

Jamie gestured to the wall behind Liz, and the older woman swung around to examine the painting.

Jamie stroked the kitten, soothing herself with the purr. She'd been restless all morning. She'd awoken at four and had spent hours on the new canvas, painting her dreams and her tension, transferring color and emotion to canvas. Then, abruptly, the energy had drained from her and she'd been alone, standing in the room she'd taken over for her painting, staring at the canvas that had absorbed her ever since she awoke.

Already, at eight in the morning she could feel herself waiting for him. Would he call? Visit? How long would she listen for the sound of his car on the gravel outside her house?

She'd kissed the man twice. The first time had been magic, seductive, tempting. The second—how many people made love without ever feeling the magnitude of what had happened last night in his arms? She'd come alive, had awakened passion, need, and pulsing desire. She'd emptied those emotions into the canvas this morning.

The painting had begun as two tall redwood trees tangled together. She'd had no idea if this picture was good or worthless. She'd called Liz to touch another human being, to anchor herself in her own world because she'd seen a vision of Jamie Ferguson waiting forever for a call that never came.

She'd experienced something earth shattering in his arms, and perhaps he'd felt the same thing, but if so, it had sent him out the door and away.

"I'm seeing someone," he'd said, but if he loved another woman, how could he have taken Jamie into his arms last night and devoured her with his lips, his mouth, and his hands, with such hunger it seemed that touching her meant more than life itself?

"Lunch," said Jamie, forcing herself back to the present and to Liz. "I promised you lunch, and I made reservations. Just let me make sure Squiggles has food and water."

A few moments later, just as Jamie finished locking the front door behind them, the telephone rang.

"Are you going to get it?" asked Liz.

If she tried, she would run inside, her heart pounding with excitement, knowing it would be him, that he couldn't stay away from her any more than she could have stayed away if it were her choice.

He had exactly the woman he wanted. He was a man who planned his life and his moves, and he had no time for a hot, tempestuous affair with an artist he desired but didn't approve of.

"No," Jamie said. "Let it go."

"The man in the rain?"

"Maybe, but he already has a woman he's planning to marry. Let's forget him. I'm buying lunch."

Liz shook her head with disapproval. "The artist does not take the gallery owner out to lunch. Gallery owners and clients
always
pay."

Jamie looped her arm into Liz's and led her to their two parked cars. "I'm not taking my gallery owner out to lunch. I'm taking my friend and mentor, and I want to pay. I can afford it."

When Liz laughed and the worry disappeared from her hazel eyes, Jamie vowed that if she was going to yearn for what she couldn't have, she would restrict herself to doing it with a paintbrush in her hand. That way, Alex could have his perfect wife, while Jamie and Liz made a profit from Jamie's desire to have a lover.

"My nephew George is coming to town," said Liz as she sipped her after-lunch coffee. "Come to dinner Saturday night."

"All right." This afternoon she'd call her father and talk him into Friday dinner despite his tax clients. She would book all her evenings, keep busy.

If she hadn't asked Alex to kiss her last night, she might never have known that hot sweep of desire. Lust, that's what it was, primitive and powerful, heedless of sense or will. Lust. She would draw it into her paintings until it became hers.

After lunch, Jamie and Liz parted in front of the restaurant and Jamie went to her bank to write a check for the balance of her student loan. Then she arranged to have the rest placed in term deposits, leaving herself only enough for the new easel and a couple of months' living expenses. Debt-free, she thought with satisfaction as she drove home. With care, what was left could last her a year.

At home, she called her father, only to be told he was with a client. She left a message, and shed her purse and jacket on her way to the easel that bore the distorted trees entangled in a bloodred sunset. Squiggles lay curled on the wicker chair beside the patio door. She left him sleeping and walked to the easel.

She felt emotion surge back as she stared at her own work, then slowly, she forced herself to study the line of green against red critically. Too distinct, too concrete. She picked up a brush and began to work.

Two hours later, she stood back. If she let her eyes lose focus, she could see the line of trees against the sky, but the painting had diverged from its roots in the redwood forest. She didn't know what she was looking at, had only the foggiest memory of exactly how she had blended and fought with the lines and colors on canvas. Again she had worked in oils, sensing that she needed the longer working time of the slow-drying medium, that she needed the rich smell and feel of oils as part of her creation.