Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) (14 page)

She drew her head up, her foot stilling over a stubborn wrinkle in the carpet. "About the school. Why, if I didn't have the school, I would have nothing," she said, as casually as she recited a recipe.

Noah brought his hand to his neck and attempted to knead away the pressure. He did not want to know her this well, recognize her fears, understand her dreams, witness her vulnerability. Liabilities he might use to bring the balance to his side if he grew desperate.

And he might be getting there.

Elle Beaumont packed enough force to knock him from his pragmatically grounded feet.

Crossing his ankles in what he hoped passed for casual lassitude, he pretended interest in straightening his cuffs while covertly studying her. She twisted her hair into a careless knot and raised her arm to slide an ugly clip into place. The elbows-out posture thrust her breasts forward against the cotton blouse that, he decided again, belonged in the garbage bin. He would bet a gold eagle against her wearing an item of consequence beneath.

He would just bet.

As unsought images intruded, he suppressed a groan. This was not the time to let lust, a response he had learned to subdue years ago, gain the upper hand. All because a girl who had once been a thorn in his side had turned into a beautiful, intelligent, exciting woman.

He shook his head, denied the yearning, but the evidence chafed against his buttoned fly. He felt like acting, taking,
overpowering
. Without even pausing to consider the ramifications, perhaps make a detailed list of pros and cons to decide if he should act or not.

Which, of course, he shouldn't.

Without trying very hard, he marshaled five reasons for not touching her and would have recorded them if he had pen and paper. He tapped his finger on the mantel. One, he would return to Chicago in another month, six weeks at best. Two, children and marriage were not on his agenda before the turn of the century. And, if he pictured getting married, it wasn't to a woman who made the blood boil in his veins.

No, thank you.

Elle brushed past him, her enticing scent trailing behind. He let his arm drop, hiding his bulging trouser fly. A brief affair, maybe. Elle claimed to be a modern woman. She said she didn't want marriage, and he certainly didn't want marriage with
her.
He envisioned a marriage of respect and... restraint. He did not plan to invite this loss of control into his life for the remainder of it.

No,
no
. Affairs always resulted in lies and seduction. Things he had not had much experience with, which led quite logically to number three—

"Merciful heavens!"

Startled, Noah reached the window in two long strides and ripped the drapery aside. A drop of water hit his face. He wiped his cheek and let the velvet settle into place. "The roof leaks."

She smacked the heel of her hand against her brow. "I can see why everyone thinks you're a genius."

He shot her a hot look but didn't reply.

She snatched a wooden bucket from behind the threadbare settee and shoved it at him. "Make yourself useful and put this over the bleached spot. That's the worst leak."

He centered the bucket precisely and returned to Elle's side. "Why don't you have the roof fixed?"

"I hoped it wouldn't happen again," she said and crouched, mopping the floor with a rag.

His restraint slipped another notch. Of course, her dress was bunched beneath her knees, slim ankles peeking out, round bottom perched high.

"Hoped it wouldn't happen again?" He went to one knee beside her, slipped a handkerchief from his back pocket, and did what he could with it. Anything to keep his hands otherwise occupied. "How like a woman to think a roof leak would disappear." He swiveled to wring the cloth in a potted fern by his side.

"I'm not sure what you mean." She paused to rub her nose, splattering drops of water on her chest. "Widow Wynne hasn't any family in town to help her. I do what I can, in exchange for board and use of the coach house, but I can't repair the roof." She glanced at him from beneath long, thick lashes, a smile spreading. "You remember my luck with roofs, don't you?"

He laughed, and the tightness in his chest eased. He and Elle were
friends.
They could laugh and cross wits. Even eat dinner together occasionally. Friends did those things all the time. Relieved, he said, "I'm not suggesting you repair the roof. Hire someone." How about that lovesick idiot, Daniel Connery, he wanted to ask?

She twisted her rag over the fern's pot, then leaned back, taking her warmth and her seductive aroma with her. "Repairs take money, Noah. Widow Wynne doesn't have much, and I don't have much, either. In fact, sending Annie to Atlanta is going to take everything I have."

"I thought you had, I mean... I remember talk of a modest inheritance. From your mother, wasn't it? You used to tell me you were going to build a home for stray cats."

"My father controls that." The accent coloring her speech and her energetic scrubbing presented the only sign of agitation.

Before he comprehended his action, he'd captured her hand. "Why would he do that?"

She jerked her arm but not hard enough to pull from his grasp. "Mercy above, Noah. I'm an unmarried, twenty-five-year-old woman running a school which makes no money and is shunned by every man in this town. My father looks at me and sees a dismal failure, a frivolous spinster holding no prospects for the future, a dreamer lacking even an ounce of common sense." She swallowed, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He sees everything he hated about my mother."

Noah dropped his handkerchief to the floor, uncurled her knotted fist, and kneaded her palm until her hand sprawled open on his knee. Her skin was work-roughened in patches, marked by light blue veins and freckles, fingers long and slender. He traced the bones in her wrist, her pulse thumping beneath his fingertips. "Who cares what he thinks."

She hung her head. "It shouldn't matter, but it does."

"I understand." And he did. His brothers' respect had always meant more to him than anyone's. Colleagues, professors, students. Accordingly, their criticism cut the deepest and scarred the worst.

His grip around her wrist tightened, and she glanced up, slowly tugging her hand free.

A strained cognizance circled as rain pinked against the glass panes. She arched her back and swabbed the floor in a burst of intensity. The knot of hair at the base of her neck had begun to unravel. A lone curl brushed her collar; another lay beneath her ear. He lifted his hand and twisted the bright spiral about his finger. Her skin, moist and warm, lit the pad of his thumb afire.

A shudder rippled through her; her shoulders lifted. The delicate shush of air from her lips parted his on a strangled sigh. The heat radiated from her; a light sheen glistened on the nape of her neck. Taking a deliberate breath, he savored the fragrance that lingered in his dreams. Earthy and vital, the scent drew him. He wanted nothing more than to satisfy the reckless longing in his heart, ease the desperate hunger in his mind.

Giving in, Noah groaned low and curled his arm about her waist, pulling her against his chest. She gasped and dropped her head, exposing a patch of skin above her collar, an invitation he could no longer refuse. At the touch of his lips, the essence of her flowed into him, surging to the tips of his toes and back, leaving a mass of exposed nerve endings. He had never, never in his
life,
been crowded by as many images—sensual, intoxicating, enthralling.

Not a single lucid thought remained to suppress them.

"Sweet," he whispered and tangled his fingers in her blouse. He pressed light kisses along the edge of her lace-trimmed collar, following the curve of her ear to her jaw. His mouth parted over the hard ridge, desiring more, and moving toward it.

Elle murmured and sagged against him, giving him the opportunity he needed. Swiveling her around, he cradled her face in his palms, lifting her gaze to his. A fire burned in the green depths, one to match his.

A wave of virile self-satisfaction consumed him.
She wanted him.
Passion lived in each shallow breath she took, in the steady flush sweeping her cheeks. His hunger grew as he watched her lids flutter, her chin tilt, unwittingly bringing her lips closer. She had no idea the level of his desire, the crude images he entertained. And he knew somewhere deep inside that the touch of her lips would never be enough.

How could it be enough when she has belonged to you since the first day you saw her?

Noah reeled, the thought like a punch to his head. He opened his eyes to find hers fixed upon him, hooded and dreamy. Moonlight trickled in through a slit in the curtains, a golden glide across her slender shoulder, a fine-boned cheek. Her breath caught, body jerking beneath a blouse so revealing in its simplicity that he had imagined ripping it from her and taking her on the dirty
floor.

Fear had him releasing her in a sudden wrenching movement; anger shoved him to his feet. Blindly, he made his way to the entrance hall, his hands trembling. His gaze stole back to find her kneeling in the pool of silver, her hair unbound and surrounding her, her eyes luminous and seeking. Blessit, didn't she know what it did to him when she looked at him like that? He forgot his plans for the future, his strict code of honor and his decency crisping in the blaze. He needed to remember she was an innocent woman, even if she stared like a courtesan.

He jerked a boot on, then fumbled for the other. He'd struggled to create a life from nothing. To let Elle into his heart would demand examination of a past he had already paid the price for. He grabbed his coat from the hall stand and jammed his arms in the sleeves. She roused everything he'd spent years burying beneath layers of self-sufficiency and detachment. Call him a coward, but he couldn't allow her to hold such power over him.

Her fingers grazed his arm and he flinched, turning to find her standing directly behind him. He felt a renewed burst of desire; he wanted to touch, kiss,
mate
.

The beveled doorknob slid from his grasp. Wiping his hand on his trousers, he tried again, ducking just before he hit his head on a low beam on the way out. The rain on his face was welcome. Hell, he would welcome anything that washed away the taste of her. Finally, when he was calm, he said, "Close the door, Elle. I'll be right here."

"Noah." His name on her lips sounded thick and tender, heavily accented, the way it had years ago. Starting to turn, he checked the motion before he had a chance to see her face. Tears might be enough to defeat him. He clenched his hands at his side and stared into the black sky.

Let her cry. Let her despise me until the end of her days. Let her think I'm heartless. Cruel. A bastard. Just let her close the damned door and put something tangible between us.

With a faint click, she did.

Noah released a tense breath he had not known he held and leaned against the porch railing, his heart aching. He relaxed his fists with some effort, fear still holding him in its grip. Sentiment born of emotions deeper than lust bullied him:
Go back. Finish what you started.

How he had come to feel so much for Elle Beaumont in such a short time dumbfounded him.

Worse, how in the world could he conquer his feelings?

* * *

Elle slid to the floor in a boneless, breakable heap. Oblivious to the rattling pane
of glass in the door or the steady drip soaking her shoulder, she dropped her head to her hands and prayed for the first time in months. Surely, God wouldn't let her... didn't plan for—

She slammed her fist against her bent knee, recognized she still held the damp rag, and flung it across the entrance hall. What did everyone in Pilot Isle expect her to do
but
fall in love all over again? Why should God be any different? Noah was handsome and brilliant and honorable, everything she had known he would be.

Why, he was close to perfect!

Knocking her head against the wall, she listened to his heavy footfalls. Six steps forward... a stagnant pause... six steps back. The cadence provided some level of malicious comfort. She could
hear
his confusion. He would never love her, but at least he coveted her. She understood enough from Magnus's inept groping and Christabel's candid clarification of men's motives. Elle had held Magnus off effortlessly, never worrying about her ability to deny him.

She rubbed the tingling spot on her neck. He had sucked her earlobe between his lips, then swirled his tongue inside—something she would have guessed felt similar to a dog's sloppy kiss. Heaven, nothing was further from the truth.

Admittedly, the attraction they shared posed a problem Was there a way to reduce it, like the flame on a gas lantern? She had no idea. She had loved Noah with a young girl's heart, never experiencing this, this...
physical
yearning that made her knees go weak and puckered her nipples beneath her shift. Nothing but a strong wintry gust or a swim in the ocean before June had ever caused this before.

Recalling the blatant terror on Noah's face brought a fresh burst of anger.
It nipped a woman's vanity to close her eyes to receive her first real kiss, then open them to find the lover in question tugging his boots on like he had a fire to put out.

Only a fool would be pleased by
that
reaction.

And Marielle-Claire Beaumont was no longer a lovesick fool.

No, but she recognized her limits. Kissing Noah stretched those limits to the breaking point and threatened to plunge her into the throes of unrequited love. And this time, she would want more than friendship. She might go as far as demanding the things Christabel had explained in delicious detail.

A drop of water struck her flaming cheek. She blew out a breath as Noah continued to pace outside. Scooting across the floor, she captured the rag beneath her heel and dragged it into her waiting hand. She wasn't some pathetic schoolgirl, she reasoned, and viciously scrubbed at the water stain.

For once in her life, maybe the first time, she planned to follow Noah's advice.