A Wedding Story (16 page)

He should have told her to stop right there. It was the last thing he needed, this thread of commonality with her. “It happens.”

“Well, it wasn’t supposed to happen to us!” He felt her relax against him—her spine softened against his chest, her legs went lax, as though she was too distracted by the tale to guard herself against him any longer. “We weren’t prepared. We’d no way…I had sisters. Two of them, younger than me. One much younger. I was accustomed to caring for her anyway—my mother died within weeks of Emily’s birth.”

“So you did it for them,” he said flatly.

“Well, no, that would perhaps be broadening the truth a bit.” She refused to latch on to the excuse he’d so conveniently handed her. “I was concerned, no doubt about that. But we may well have made it. Anthea had a job. But…I am unsuited for struggle. I’m sure that is no surprise to you. We’d no experience in it. There seemed no reason…why should one live like that if one didn’t have to? It seemed an imminently practical solution at the time.” Her voice hardened. “It
was
an imminently practical solution.”

“Practical.” It was no different than most of the marriages he’d known in his youth. No different than his own parents’ had been, if it came right down to it. Which was probably why the mere suggestion of it made his blood run cold. “Poor Doc.”

“Poor Doc!” She laughed. “Who do you think suggested it? And in precisely those terms, if I remember correctly. I thought you knew the man better than that, Jim. If there’d ever been one shred of warm feeling in his soul, it died with Elaine.”

Stop! Stop right now, he told himself. But he’d never been able to hold firm against his curiosity; it was the one thing that kept him hacking through a jungle when it would have been so much easier to quit. “So he really didn’t care?”

“Didn’t care? I suppose you could say that. He liked looking at me. He liked his colleagues, his acquaintances, looking at me and knowing he could claim me. He liked me ordering his life and otherwise staying out of his way. That was what he cared about.”

“And he didn’t mind if you…explored other interests?”

“Explored other interests? Why should he?”

“Most men would.”

“But…oh.” She stiffened abruptly, sitting up, away from him. He should have known better.

He should have bit off his own tongue before going down this topic. Now she’d moved away, and he’d loved the feel of her against him even if he wasn’t very fond of her.

“You thought that…you thought that because of what we did, you assumed that’s how I am. That I did that with anyone. With everyone.”

“Well.” He paused, tried to think. For most women what he suggested would be a terrible insult. But for her…she was what she was. Maybe. “You were not…you were not the most, er, remote woman I’ve ever met.”

She laughed. Not joyfully, but as if she couldn’t help it, with the hopeless, bitter edge of one who knew it was no use to do anything
but
laugh. “You thought because I kissed you so easily, so shortly after we met, that I was…loose?”

“I…” His brother, his father, might have been slick enough to talk their way around it. He was not. “Yes.”

She kept laughing. She was still sitting in the spread of his legs and she put her hand on his shin, bending over with the force of hollow amusement until the sound of it veered toward hysteria.

He placed a calming hand on her back. “Kate—”

She shook him off. “I should have known. I never thought—”

“What?” he asked gently.

“Guilt is an interesting thing, isn’t it? That night, with you, that one lapse—it probably did more to turn me into the wife he wanted than his money ever did. From that day on, I don’t think I disagreed with him once.”

“So…” Careful, he reminded himself. He knew better than to assume when on expedition. And she must have been courted by half of the gentlemen in the eastern United States, men far more experienced in luring married women into betraying their vows than he. It would be absurd to let his pride—and his hope, he admitted—lead him into thinking that he was the lone exception to her rule. “It was just that time? With me?”

“Yes.” He wished he could see her. Look into her eyes, see her expression. But perhaps it was better that he couldn’t. Those eyes had been created expressly to lead men astray. “It was just you.” She sounded inalterably tired. As if she’d just dragged the whole world behind her all the way up the seacoast.

“All right.” He touched her shoulder. “It’s late, and it’s only going to get colder. Let’s get some sleep.”

She jerked. “What?”

“I’m tired. Talking’s hard on a man, you know. Not much practice. Can’t do it long without needing a nap to recuperate.”

“That’s…it?”

“What more do you want? You want to know that I’ve never been so damn flattered in my whole life? Better we go to sleep right now because, if I think about that much longer, I might get so puffed up I might not fit back out the cave entrance.” And if they didn’t go to sleep, right now, he might get too caught up in the knowledge that she was not the woman he’d hated, not the one he’d mistrusted. But this was no better. She was a woman to be courted and married, a woman who could demand a thousand things that he could never give her.

“Nothing to be proud of.” She mouthed the words automatically. “Maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe you were just there the exact moment I was at my weakest.” She fell silent for a moment, and then, tentatively, “You believe me?”

“Yup,” he said easily.

“But…” She couldn’t seem to settle in to it. Couldn’t believe it was that simple. She tried not to assume, to tamp down on the warmth and hope that sparked and swelled.

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t believe you?”

“You’ve heard me…shade the truth before.”

“But not to me. And only when you want something. Do you want something from me, Kate?”

She was tucked between his legs, her skirts frothing over his shins. They were insulated from the world by the sea, by the night, and she couldn’t bring herself to answer.

“We should sleep now,” he said and held out his arms to her.

Carefully, she eased back down, settling in. His chin rested on her head, his heart thumped against her back, and her rump snugged right up into the V of his legs.

Dear God,
she thought. She was in a cold, damp, and smelly cave. They were stuck on a stupid little island in the middle of nowhere. And, right at that moment, there was no place on earth she would rather be.
Dear God, she was in trouble.

Spending a night sitting upright, leaning against chilly stone, made the morning every bit as painful as Jim expected. His back screamed at him for his foolishness; his hips ached, and his knees protested even before he asked them to move.

He’d counted on waking up with Kate in his lap to distract him. Unfortunately, he woke up empty-handed.

Gray morning light washed through the cave, penetrating ten feet or so into the interior. Mist blurred the light, making it dim and soft and hazy. It had to be early, very early, and the chill seeped up from the floor and sank deeply into his bones.

She knelt a few feet away, frowning as she tugged her fingers through the snarled length of her hair. Her outlines were indistinct, as if she were a figure that came to him in a dream. Her blouse was untucked, thoroughly crushed, and beneath it her curves were soft and unstructured. She looked like a woman who’d spent an entire night in slow, hot lovemaking and had only just rolled out of bed, surrendering very reluctantly to the morning.

She must have felt his gaze upon her for suddenly she looked up, meeting his eyes only briefly before dipping her head again.

“Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?”

“I’m such a mess,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to…oh, just don’t look at me right now. All right?”

He got up and went over to her and then knelt down in front of her, near enough for their knees to bump gently. She kept her head down, limp swaths of golden hair shielding her face.

“Do you want to know the truth?” he asked quietly.

“No. Whyever would I want the truth?”

He chuckled. “You’re getting it anyway.” Gently he brushed back her hair, exposing the side of her face, beautiful bones that stood out more sharply now than in her youth. “You’ve never looked more kissable in your whole damn life than you do right at this moment.”

“What?” She whipped her head up, disbelief written on every feature.

“You heard me.”

She searched his face, trying to see through to the truth of it. Then she shook her head. “You lie so prettily.”

“No.” He let his fingers trace down the curve of her cheek, the slope of her jaw before he placed them beneath her chin and tipped her head up. “Usually you look”—he hesitated, trying to form the thoughts clearly—“perfect. Like you wouldn’t be warm to the touch. Like a man should be afraid to tumble you because he might disarrange your hair. Like a man might take his pleasure
looking
at you, but he could never hope to
share
any with you.”

She was mute, her eyes wide and brilliant blue. “But right now you look real. Real and alive and wholly female, the sort who could get sweaty and wild in bed, one who’d give as well as take. A woman a man could
live
with, rather than just worship.”

She stared at him for so long he was afraid he’d really mucked it up and insulted her horribly. He knew he was not the sort of man she was accustomed to, full of pretty phrases and empty compliments. But Christ, did she really think a few hairs out of place muted her appeal?

“Then, for God’s sake,” she said, low and urgent, “would you just please kiss me and get it over with?”

H
e shook his head, unable to believe what he’d just heard. “Excuse me?”

“When we…when first we met, the first time we…” She wrinkled her nose, as if she wasn’t quite sure of what she was about to say. “I was very young, and very lonely, and missing what I’d given up. What I’d never had, if the truth be told. Very susceptible to handsome, dashing young men who wander out of the moonlight.” She smiled with fond nostalgia. “I’ve been dreaming about that for all these years, which is no doubt why I’ve managed to build those few moments into something much larger and grander than they were.”

“Grander?”

“But of course.” Her uncertainty gone, she forged ahead as if laying out a business proposition. “It
couldn’t
have been that good. No kiss could be.”

“Is that right?” he asked flatly.

She continued blithely on. “Of course it is! I mean, it’s ridiculous. A few kisses between two young and, well, clearly irrational people. My imagination built the moment into something outrageous over the years because it had so little else to work with.”

“Undoubtedly,” he said, carefully neutral.

“And that’s why, after dwelling on such a minor thing for so long, I simply cannot seem to think about anything else now.”

He knew full well pride was a dangerous sin but, hell, how was a man supposed to take that? He didn’t trust himself to talk, to make one single move, because what she’d said was now lodged front and center in his brain, big as life, twice as tempting.

“So you see.” She spread her hands, as if the truth had to be perfectly obvious.

He shook his head.

“Hmm.” She pressed her lips together, impatient with his delay in comprehending the obvious. “Our trip would be much simpler and easier if…if I didn’t
think
about this so much. And so the reasonable step is for you to just kiss me and get it over with.”

“And you think that will help how, exactly?”

“Well, it certainly couldn’t live up to my memories, could it? Nothing could. It’s obviously only the
wondering
that’s got me so fascinated. Once we’ve proven that it is, after all, only a kiss, like every other kiss, then we can put it in its proper place and move on.” She beamed at him, securely pleased with her unassailable logic.

“Oh well, then. If you’re sure it’ll help.” He gave his shoulders a little shake, arching his neck side to side like a boxer preparing to enter the ring.

“I’m sure it will help enormously.”

It was a lot more likely it was going to hurt. For about three days, which is how long he figured it would take him to get the blood to flow back to his head.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Just a moment.” She started to smooth her skirt, then paused with her hands in mid-straighten. “Close your eyes.”

“You like taking the initiative?”

“No, I—just close your eyes.”

He complied. A moment later, he opened the lids the barest slit. He could see only a vague image, blurred and grayed, through his lashes. Her hands flew: tucking in her shirt, ruffling up her skirt and arranging it in perfect poufs along her thighs, fluffing out the mess of her hair into something resembling curls. She pinched color into her cheeks and gnawed on her lips, leaving them plump and gleaming.

“Okay. No, no wait!” She reached up and popped open the two top buttons of her blouse, a move of which he approved most heartily. Then she closed her own eyes, thrust her chin forward, and puckered up. “I’m ready.”

“You’re sure?”

“I—” She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly, fine lines scrunched at the corners. “Yes,” she said, firmly enough to convince herself as well as him. “I’m ready.”

He opened his own eyes completely. Kate held herself still, tension vibrating in the set of her shoulders and the rigid purse of her mouth. If he kissed her, he thought, she was just as likely to spring through the roof as kiss him back.

And so he looked at her instead. Took in the gleam of her skin, as if the mist had settled there, and the color that blushed along her cheekbone.

She is such a problem,
he thought. For now he could no longer fit her into that neat, off-limits package: the doctor’s deceitful wife. But as much as that revelation had released him, it now also chained him. For she was firmly placed back into the category of a “lady.” No more could he contemplate a simple tumble, one that meant nothing the moment after it concluded except an erotic memory, where she could go back to her life and he could hie off to unknown lands without a worry. Now there were rules attached to her, ones that his mother had drilled in well enough that even all his years away from England hadn’t drummed them out of him.

But she was not a complete innocent. And it wasn’t as if they hadn’t kissed before. She wouldn’t make too much of this, would she?

And when it came right down to it there was no way in hell he could refuse her this. Not just out of curiosity, although there was a fair helping of that as well, the same curiosity that no doubt spurred her. Would it be as he remembered? Had she learned something over the years?

But mostly because, on her knees in front of him, waiting for his kiss, she was the most wildly tempting thing he’d seen since he’d walked into that damned gazebo and laid eyes on her the first time.

Kate got tired of waiting. Her eyes popped open, and she jammed her fists on her hips. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

“Maybe I’m not waiting. Maybe I’m just taking my time,” he said slowly. And then he reached out and laid his hand along the side of her neck, his thumb stroking the cords of her throat and easing along the first ridge of her collarbone. “Lord, but your skin is soft.”

Her pupils dilated, deepening the pure blue to midnight. “Atkinson’s Honey Complexion Cream,” she murmured automatically.

His lips twitched. Laughter right as this moment, he decided, would be a very bad idea. But who would have guessed she was so
sweet
? Exceptionally confident in one realm, heartbreakingly unsure in another. Alternately sharp and fiercely protective.

His thumb made soft little circles in the hollow of her neck. He breathed in the anticipation, the feminine scent that seemed bound to her skin. And waited for her to relax.

She’d so clearly braced herself. As if expecting a blow rather than a kiss. But sooner or later one had to breathe, muscles had to unkink. Finally her neck softened and her shoulders dropped. The tense line of her mouth eased and her forehead smoothed.

It lasted only until he bent nearer, bringing his mouth within inches of hers. She stiffened again, relentlessly apprehensive. He should give her one more chance, he thought, to back out. But it was too late for him; she’d given him the opening, and he could no more resist it than he’d ever been able to resist her.

“Easy,” he murmured. He was close enough to feel the heat emanating from her skin, the moist wash of her breath touching his lips.

“Oh, please, just get it over with!”

“Now there’s what a man wants to hear.”

“But—”

He took advantage of the slight opening as she formed the words, lowering his mouth to hers at the first syllable. Softly, surely, a bare meeting where their breaths tangled more than their lips. He held his mouth still, though he felt the effort of it through his shoulders, in the tight coil of tension in his belly, and just breathed her in, smell and taste and feel.

“Oh,” she sighed softly, and went lax. He felt the tension seep out of her, the easing of her muscles where he touched her, the softening of her lips against his.

And he lost all intent, all plan and control. It blurred into one great, shimmering haze of sensation, the physical experience overwhelming thought.

Her mouth trembled and opened for him. Her hands found his back and clutched there, crumpling his shirt, digging deeply into muscle.

Tenderness surrendered to greed. Too many places to touch, to much to explore, too many wonders to appreciate—he couldn’t separate out any one of them, couldn’t focus on her mouth or the feel of her back twisting beneath his hands. There was just one slick blur of her, a heated, shifting fantasy of all the dreams of her he’d ever had, all the visions he’d never allowed to star her face, and
now
, the woman he held, her vivid presence making all the rest, those memories that had tortured him for so long, suddenly go pale.

“Oh, God.” She broke away, jerking herself from his grasp, stealing her wonderful mouth from his with such abruptness it left him dazed, grasping at empty air.

“Oh!” She flapped her hands before her face, as if trying to dry away tears, and pressed her knuckles to her mouth.

She swayed on her knees, only a few tempting inches away. Her skin was flushed, her mouth tender-looking. Without thought, without intent, he reached for her again.

“No!” She shrank away. “Damn. Damn
you
.”

“What?” All right, perhaps he’d been too lost, too taken with her, at last, in his arms, to take the care he should have. There were a thousand tricks, a hundred secrets he’d learned in mysterious corners of the world, and he’d been too absorbed in her to use any of them. “Here,” he said. “I’ll fix it. Come—”

“Damn you,” she said again, the sweet, passionate haze in her eyes sharpening to open accusation.

He winced. “I—”

“I cherished that kiss in the gazebo for
years,
” she went on. “Boxed it away in glass, perfect and fragile. I dreamed of it, longed for it. For all the things I’d never had, never
would
have, I’d had that. If I had nothing else, I’d had a kiss for the ages.

“And now you—” She jabbed a finger into his chest, the force of her rage pushing him back. “You had to go and ruin it.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” he said, thinking frantically. What would she like best? He could—

“You
stole
that from me. To find out that my perfect memory was merely a girl’s kiss after all, that it was merely
nice
compared to what a kiss could be—oh, what am I supposed to do now? If I longed for
that
for a dozen years, I can barely guess how long
this
is going to haunt me.”

“I—” He shut up and let the words swirl around in his brain a bit until he was sure he was making sense of them. She…she wasn’t disappointed. She worried that he’d marked her for life?
Damn,
but that went to his head, a peculiar mix of pride and worry. For she’d marked him every bit as strongly, and wasn’t that a mess?

He had to say something that would make it okay. Preferably something that would make this nice and simple and clean for him, while ensuring she’d never forget one solitary instant. “Kate—” Hell. Words. What good were words? He gave in and reached for her.

“Oh, no.” She scrambled to her feet and backed away, hair and skirts swirling around her like a vengeful siren. “I can’t think straight when you’re touching me.”

“Trust me, darling, that’s a good thing.” He grinned and followed her up, smiling when she took a step back. Her skirt was damp at the knees and her mouth was still puffy from his kiss, and did she really think she could get away from him that easily? “A very good thing.”

“No.” She flung a hand out to put space between them and touched the other to her temple. “There’s a reason we can’t do this. I know there is. I can’t come up with it right now, but I’m sure there is.”

A very faint suspicion, the barest suggestion that she might be right, niggled at the back of his brain. He wouldn’t listen to it. It was paying attention to just those sorts of qualms that robbed men of fun all the time.

“You can’t come up with a reason because there isn’t one,” he said, and moved forward until the palm of her hand came up flat against his chest. Even that contact seared him, sent his heart into a wild rhythm as if it were trying to beat its way out of his chest to her.

Her eyes fell to where she touched him, her small hand pale and shaking and so erotic just laying there against his chest that if she touched him anywhere else it would surely destroy him. And in that moment he didn’t give a damn. Her eyes went soft and unfocused, and her fingers swept in a gentle arc while he held his breath and felt every single increment of movement.

And then her gaze cleared. She snatched her hand back. “No,” she said, with a ring of finality that sounded a death knell to his plans.

“Yes,” he said, one last-ditch attempt even as he knew it was hopeless.

“No. If there’s no reason not to, there won’t be any reason tonight, or tomorrow.”

But there’d be reasons. Doctor Goodale, big and real between them. The fact that Jim fit into her life no more neatly than she would fit into his, which was not at all. That they’d a competition to win, one that required more attention and thought than either one was expending on it at the moment.

But damn. Damn!

She rubbed her palms together, then smoothed them down the front of the ruin of her dress as if she didn’t know what to do with them. “I’m not the sort who leaps without looking,” she said. “I like to
decide
.”

“Maybe that explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

Her eyes darkened. “That’s not fair.”

He had the dim notion that someday—in a week or two—he’d know that it wasn’t. But at the moment, caught in the vicious, painful grip of frustrated passion, he didn’t much care about fair.

He turned away and strode over to the rim of the cave, staring out at the roiling gray sea. It seethed between him and the shore, waiting to slap at him with cold and power.

“Jim.” She’d come up behind him—nearer than she would have if she had the slightest inkling of how thin his control had shredded—and spoke softly.

“I wouldn’t,” he warned her, his voice dangerously low.

“Jim—”

“Not now.”
The icy churn of the water seemed the lesser evil. “Time to go swimming.” He began to strip off his shirt.