He kissed her, then trailed his lips down her throat and breasts, all the while stroking her rounded hip and long thigh with light teasing fingers. Her breathing grew more ragged, and she moaned at his touch, but made no effort to return his caresses.
How odd, he thought, that a married woman…
He paused, suddenly afraid. What if her husband had mistreated her in their marriage bed, turning her cold and unresponsive?
He propped himself up on one elbow and stared down at her. “Does my body repulse you?”
“Repulse me? Of course not. I—I think it’s beautiful.”
He guided her hand to his chest. “Then touch it.”
“You like being touched?”
“You seem surprised. I like it just fine.”
She turned her head away. “Robert never wanted me to touch him…that way.”
Nevada grew very still. “Never?”
“Never. I—I thought all men disliked being touched intimately.”
Few things penetrated his calm and drove him to rage. He fought against it to no avail. He couldn’t speak. He released her hand and sat up, jabbing his fingers through his hair. “God damn him! If I had his good-for-nothing neck between my hands right now, I’d—” He calmed down and placed his hand on Honor’s shoulder. “I don’t know what kind of twisted game he was playing with you, but most men like to be touched that way.”
“Oh.” Honor stared down at the sheets for a moment, then looked up at him. “In that case, you’re really the first man I will love.”
Her touch was shy and tentative, and she watched him warily for the slightest sign of displeasure. His eyes darkened and glazed with passion when she touched him here. He bit his lip when she touched him there. The moment she felt his body tense helplessly beneath her hand, Honor’s reserve fell away, and she finally relished the feminine power she had never known as Robert’s wife.
Time stood still as they pleasured each other relentlessly. They never noticed the rain drumming harder against the roof, the fire dying, and the room growing cool.
Almost delirious with wanting and need, Nevada possessed her, fitting her as perfectly as if he had always been her lover. He moved slowly at first, holding himself back, bringing her just to the brink of ecstasy time after time.
“Please!” she finally begged, on the verge of madness, her nails raking his shoulders in painful supplication.
Her need made him lose control, and he rocked faster and deeper against her. Finally he felt her whole body shudder as she cried out his name. Then his own climax hit him like a tornado, swirling him upward, and then letting him float back to earth.
He sighed in satisfaction and drew her against him, still intimately joined, then pulled the covers over them to ward off the night, and slept.
During the night they awoke and made love again.
The rain had finally stopped, and now the thin, gray light of dawn flooded the room through the curtains they had forgotten to draw last night. The fire had died long ago, but Honor felt snug and warm in his wide bed, the musky scent of their lovemaking still clinging to their bodies.
Now she knew what she had been missing as Robert’s wife. By never allowing her to physically love him in return, he had kept her at arm’s length. Oh, he’d made it appear that her pleasure alone was his sole, unselfish concern, but now she understood that he derived a twisted satisfaction from thwarting her attempts at intimacy.
She had known only half a marriage.
Honor rolled onto her side and studied Nevada. He lay on his back, still asleep, one arm flung across his forehead. The arm was lean but strong, the wristbones prominent and finely sculpted. She thought of how tightly and securely that arm had held her last night, and smiled.
My lover, she thought.
She lifted the covers to take a naughty peek at the rest of him. He lay sprawled across the sheets in rangy masculine display, as sleek as a racehorse. Honor’s gaze traveled down his flat belly and narrow hips, and back up his body.
She nuzzled Nevada’s cheek until he opened his eyes and smiled the sensual, lazy smile that made her feel all warm and fluttery inside. “Did I please you?” she whispered, already knowing the answer, but needing to hear this laconic man say it.
He pushed the hair away from her face. “You pleased me so much,” he said, “I’m never letting you out of my bed.”
She giggled. “Never?”
“Never, so get used to it.”
Never had a man wanted her so badly. Bursting to know more about him, Honor stroked his shoulder and said, “How old were you when you first slept with a woman?”
“You think of the damnedest questions to ask a man at the damnedest times.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Not until I was fifteen. Surprised? Just because I lived in a whorehouse doesn’t mean I spent every waking hour rutting like a stallion. My mother’s friends all knew enough to keep their hands off me. When she died and I later became a paying customer, that was different.”
“My, oh, my, they did teach you well, Mr. LaRouche.”
He grinned. “Not meaning to brag, but they used to say I was their best student.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Eyes shining with mischief, Honor said, in her best imitation of Nevada’s soft drawl, “Why’d your mother name you Nevada? Why not New Mexico or Colorado?”
He gave her an exasperated look. “She didn’t. Nevada isn’t my real name.”
“What is it? You can trust me. I won’t tell a soul.”
He raised one brow. “Trust a lawyer?”
Honor lightly punched his shoulder. “I resent that slur upon my profession. I’ll have you know I’m extremely trustworthy, so tell me your real name.” When he hesitated, she said, “I’ll tell you my nickname in law school if you tell me your real name.”
He grinned. “You first.”
“The men used to call me Steel Stays Elliott behind my back.”
His smile died. “Not a very flattering nickname.”
“I took it as a compliment.”
He stared at her as if he didn’t believe her. Finally he said, “I know I’m going to regret this, but it’s Clovis.”
“Clovis? That’s your real name? Clovis?”
“A moniker to be proud of, isn’t it?”
Honor tried to control herself. The corners of her mouth twitched with the superhuman effort. Her shoulders started shaking, and without warning, she burst into whoops of laughter. “N-no wonder you changed it!”
He narrowed his eyes in mock affront. “A man’s name is no laughing matter, woman.”
Honor roared helplessly, clutching her aching sides. “It is when it’s so funny. Cl-clovis… I’ve never heard such a ridiculous name in all my life.”
He gave a long-suffering sigh. “I guess I’ll just have to teach you some respect.”
He reached for her, kissing her laughing mouth and fondling her sweet body until her laughter dwindled into an appropriately respectful silence.
Later, nestled against his shoulder, Honor said, “What was Dr. Wolcott like?”
Nevada wondered why women always waited until they got a man into bed and turned his brains to mash with their loving before asking such questions. Perhaps because a man as more apt to let down his guard and tell them the truth.
“She was a lot like you.”
“Really? In what respect?”
“She was intelligent and strong-willed, unlike many other women. Very feminine. Liked to wear pretty clothes. Passionate about helping people. She didn’t suffer fools gladly, either.” He grinned. “And, like you, she realized what a splendid fellow I am.”
Honor yanked on his chest hair. “Conceited oaf.” She paused. “How are we different?”
“Well, she was fair, with pretty blonde hair and green eyes. You’re more serious. Sybilla used to make up her own swearwords. You had to be a doctor to know what they meant, but they sounded funny when she said them just the same. And she had this skeleton from medical school that she named Bonette. Hung it in her office and treated it like a pet cat or dog.”
Honor smiled. “A skeleton named Bonette…that is funny.” Her smile died. “I wish I had known her.”
“You would have liked each other.”
“If she’s anything like me, we would have fought over you.”
Nevada rolled over on his side so he could face her. “Sybilla’s gone. A part of me will always love her, but you’ve gone a long way toward filling the hole in my heart. I’m not with you because you remind me of her.”
“I wouldn’t be here with you if I thought I was a replacement for another woman,” she said softly. “I also want you to know that I’m not here with you just because my husband left me and I’m lonely.”
He ran his fingers down her arm in a gentle caress. “What will you do now? Divorce him?”
She smiled ruefully. “I’d have to find him first.”
“You don’t know where he’s gone?”
She shrugged helplessly. “I haven’t a clue.”
“Maybe he went home to be with his kin. Where’s he from?”
“Maine, but I doubt if he’d return there. His parents are both dead, and he sold their family farm a while back. He lived in Lowell, Massachusetts, for a time, but I doubt if he’d go back there, either, because of the scandal.” While Nevada listened, she told him the tragic story of Priscilla Shanks.
He just shook his head. “No offense, but he’s not an honorable man, your husband.”
“No,” she agreed softly, “not an honorable man at all.”
Nevada pulled the covers closer about them. “So you won’t be free of him until you find out where he is and serve him with legal papers stating your intention to divorce him.”
“That’s how the law works, but I won’t be able to do that until my financial situation improves. I also have no grounds.”
“Grounds?”
“Legal reasons for divorcing.” Honor told him why she had no grounds for divorce. She smiled ruefully. “After tonight he has grounds to divorce me, but he’d never want the world to know his wife slept with another man. So I guess I’ll remain married whether I want to or not.”
“That’s a kind of slavery.”
She shrugged. “It’s the law.”
He slipped his hand behind her neck and pulled her toward him for a kiss, a plan to free her beginning to form in his mind.
After a late breakfast, Honor and Nevada strolled arm in arm through the grounds, following a path high on the cliff overlooking the Hudson River.
Honor looked over at Nevada’s sharp profile and touched his arm. “Feel better today?”
He placed his hand on hers, resting in the crook of his arm. “I do, thanks to you.”
Honor ignored the wet leaves clinging to her skirt hem. “It’s terrible for a parent to lose a child, but for its mother to be a doctor and not be able to save him…”
“The doc always was the philosophical sort. She said that death is a part of life, but a child’s death always hit her doubly hard because the child’s promise would never be fulfilled.” His eyes grew hard and bright. “Now death has claimed her own little boy.”
Honor sought to distract him. “Why did she become a doctor, then?”
“Sybilla once told me that when Catherine’s ma gave birth, the doctor in charge left her too soon because he was in a hurry to get to a social engagement. Catherine’s ma started bleeding, and they couldn’t stop it. She bled to death. As she grew up, all Catherine could think about was becoming a doctor so other women wouldn’t die so senselessly.”
Honor thought of her father. “I can understand that.”
Nevada glanced at her. “You became a lawyer because of what happened to your father.”
She took a deep breath, her eyes brimming with tears. She couldn’t keep her terrible secret locked inside any longer. “I’m to blame for his death.”
Nevada stopped in the middle of the path and turned to her. “What did you say?”
“I—it was my fault.” The words tumbled out, faster and faster. “He wanted to play chess with me on the night of the murder, but I was furious with him about some inconsequential childhood slight, and I refused. So he went to that man’s house instead, and you know the rest.” She stared at Nevada. “Don’t you see? If I had only played chess with him that night, he’d still be alive.”
Nevada grabbed her shoulders. “You don’t know that.”
She bobbed her head. “But I do. The murderers were counting on him being there.”
Nevada wrapped her in his arms and held her close, his cheek pressed against hers. “Maybe he would have gone there anyway after your chess game, or maybe he would have stopped playing to keep his appointment. Did you ever think of that?”
Honor pulled away. “When I grew older, I realized that what you say is true. My father would have stopped playing chess to keep his appointment. It was his destiny. But somehow the child inside me still blames herself.”
Nevada grasped her shoulders again, giving them a little shake. “It’s easy to look back and see what you should have done. If I had thrown out the drunken cowboy who was my mother’s last customer, he wouldn’t have cut her throat.”
So that was how his mother had died. Honor shivered. “Did you blame yourself?”