Masquerade (7 page)

She arched her back, pushing her breast at him and trying to make him take more of it. When he did, a raw sound of satisfaction came from her throat. Cole stole a glance at her, watching her head roll from side to side, her eyes closed and her lips apart. At last he could stand it no more. He had to touch her. He released one of her wrists and slid his hand down her arm and onto her body.

She was deceptively small and delicate, everything perfectly proportioned, from the narrowness of her rib cage and hips to the petite roundness of her breasts. But he knew the strength and power packaged in her delectable form. Not so much a physical strength as the mental one that came from a strong and indomitable will, a will that gave her boldness and the supreme confidence to be exactly what and who she was. And the power in her— she had the power to make him hunger, to make him ache, to make him vulnerable.

Yet none of that mattered to him as he played with her breasts—with his hands, his mouth, and his tongue. He listened to her sighs, her whimpers, and her moans, expressions of the sexuality that lived within her.

As he ran his hand up her leg to cup the soft swell of her bottom, she shuddered. "How could

I have forgotten the way this feels?" she whispered achingly. "How could I, Cole?"

He didn't have an answer for that, but he drew himself up and murmured against a corner of her lips, "Does it matter? Does it matter
now?"

"No," she groaned, and she turned to his mouth, carelessly commanding, "Love me, Cole."

He kissed her and she was all motion beneath him, her hands, her lips, her body exhorting and demanding satisfaction. He knew she didn't understand the urgency that pushed at both of them. She didn't realize this might be their last time together. But he did.

At this moment and in this place, she belonged to him and he was hers. That was the only certainty. It wasn't enough, but it was all he had, and he seized it.

She sighed his name against his neck, then raked her teeth across his shoulder. "Don't make me wait anymore, Cole. Take me now."

He couldn't resist her—not then and not now. He felt her shudder as he shifted onto her and spread her legs apart. Her breath caught on his name when he entered her. She was hot; she was tight; she was moist. Robbed of all thought by her, he could only feel as she wrapped her legs around him, her hips driving him even as he sought to drive her. The pressure built like the approach of a summer storm, all light, wind, and heat. Then the fury of it was upon them, and release came in a torrent that buffeted both of them and left them wrapped tight in each other's arms.

 

 

 

 

7

 

 

Nestled in the crook of his arm, Remy snuggled closer and rubbed her cheek against his chest. She wondered at this dichotomous reaction of hers that had her feeling both supremely content and oddly energized.

She tilted her head back to look at Cole, then couldn't resist reaching up to trace the sharp outline of his jaw with her fingertips. "Is it always like that with us?"

"Not always." There was a sexy laziness to the smile he gave her. "Sometimes it's even better."

Mockingly skeptical, she retorted, "That is impossible."

He caught her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips, a faintly mischievous glint in his gray eyes. "You're probably right."

His response surprised a laugh from her, the admission so contrary to the typically male boast of sexual prowess that she'd expected to hear. "You amaze me."

His look turned faintly serious. "Try not to forget that." There was a brief silence in which neither of them stirred, and then Cole said, "We'd better get up, Remy."

She made a soft protesting sound. "Not yet. I'm too comfortable."

His arm tightened slightly around her, offering a silent agreement that they would remain as they were awhile longer. She closed her eyes and breathed in the musky scent of their passion, still lingering ever so faintly in the air. She wished she could hold on to this moment, never have to stir, never have to remember. She frowned at the latter thought. Why wouldn't she want to remember?

She tensed, something flashing in her mind. It had to do with Cole. She was sure of it, in that same strange way she had been sure they were lovers without being able to actually remember any part of their affair.

She lay there mentally straining to recall what it was that she should remember about him, trying to make that indistinct impression of trouble become a memory. She couldn't. It had slipped away from her.

Sighing in frustration, she was swept by a surging restlessness, her previous contentment gone. "I think we'd better—" As she started to rise, his hand slid limply off her hip. She turned and discovered he was sound asleep.

Smiling, she laid a hand on his shoulder to awaken him, but the sight of his harshly masculine features composed in the peace and innocence of sleep stopped her. Deciding it couldn't hurt anything to let him sleep a little longer, she withdrew her hand and slipped quietly from the bed.

She crossed silently to the bedroom's private bath and closed the door behind her. She showered quickly, then donned the terry robe the hotel had thoughtfully provided and slicked the wetness of her hair away from her face with her hands. Cautiously she opened the door to the bedroom and peeked around it. Cole was lying in exactly the same place and position.

She walked noiselessly over to the mound of clothes on the floor and began picking them up, remembering the haste with which they'd been stripped away. Separating the garments, she laid them out in neat His and Hers piles, then went into the sitting room to find the rest of them.

When she saw the phone on the secretaire, she hesitated and glanced toward the bedroom. On impulse she picked up the phone and dialed room service, ordering the coffee Cole had wanted when they arrived. She felt pleased with herself, knowing that when he awakened, she'd be able to serve him coffee in bed. She liked the idea of pampering him a little.

In no hurry, she gathered the clothes from the sitting-room floor and carried them into the bedroom. She laid Cole's on his stack, then took her own into the other bedroom, where the bellman had left her luggage. She opened the largest case and began sifting through her clothes, trying to decide what to wear.

The ringing of the bell to the suite's outer door interrupted her. She turned with a faint start, not expecting room service to be so prompt. Running silently on bare feet, she hurried to the door before the waiter could ring the bell again and waken Cole. She unlocked it with one hand and opened it with the other, automatically swinging it wide.

A man in a navy-blue suit stood outside, a stone-gray raincoat draped over one arm and a slim black leather briefcase clutched in the opposite hand. The tense, worried look on his face vanished, and relief sailed through his expression.

"Remy. It
is
you. Thank God." Issuing the fervent declaration, he stepped into the room and hastily set his briefcase on the floor, tossing his coat on top of it and never once taking his eyes off her.

As she stared at him, another image of that same face sprang into her mind—an image frozen in a hearty laugh, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners, a wayward lock of tobacco-brown hair falling onto his forehead.

"Gabe." She recognized her brother, and flashes of childhood memories started coming back to her—memories of Gabe pushing her in an old rope swing, racing his horse against hers along the levee, and teasing her unmercifully about her first date. Gabe, always laughing, always reckless, always carefree. No glint of mischief danced in the brown eyes of the much more mature version of her brother that stood before her now, but the ready grin was there, this time ringed with gladness and relief. When he opened his arms to her, Remy went straight to them, letting him catch her up close and hugging him back.

"I can't believe this," she said, remembering him as he briefly rocked her from side to side, then set her away from him as if needing to look at her again.

"I would have been here sooner, but—Cole had taken the corporate jet to Marseilles, and I had to catch a commercial flight. Then there was a delay for mechanical trouble, and—" He stopped and sighed heavily, happily. "You don't know how good it is to see you, Remy. Don't ever pull a disappearing act like that one again. I thought we were going to have to turn the world upside down to find you."

"It isn't something I want to go through again either."

"When I saw the photo, I knew it had to be you," he said, then chided, "You do realize that had to be the worst picture ever taken of you. I mean, the bandages around your head, the bruises . . . what happened?"

"I don't know—correct that, I don't remember."

"Then this business about the amnesia—it's true?" His expression turned serious, almost grim. Suddenly he wasn't the same—he wasn't the young, smiling Gabe she'd known. "You don't remember anything?"

"No. Just you. As a matter of fact, you're the first thing I have remembered." She paused and took hold of his hands, conscious of the strong bond she felt with him, then lifted her glance to study this new, older face of her brother. "You've changed from the Gabe I remember, though. You're not the teasing, laughing, full-of-the-devil teenage brother anymore. You've grown up and become a responsible adult." Smiling, she reached up and gave the lapel of his navy suit coat a flick. "You've even gone conservative on me."

"But it's what every well-dressed lawyer is wearing these days," he replied with a glimmer of a smile.

"You're a lawyer?"

"It was the next best thing to becoming an actor."

She laughed at that. "You always were a ham," she said, then suddenly remembered, "Your field of practice is maritime law."

"With the family in the shipping business, what else could I choose?" He paused, again sobering slightly. "We've all been so worried about you, Remy, I—Dad had almost convinced himself you'd been kidnapped or murdered or—something equally horrible."

"I wish I could remember him. . . ." She frowned at the absence of any image, any feeling, any impression evoked by the mention of her father. "Maybe when I see him," she said, trying to shrug it off. "Too bad he didn't come with you."

"He wanted to, but he couldn't."

"Why?" Seized again by that feeling of trouble, she became tense. "Has something happened to him? Is he sick?"

"No, it. . . it just wouldn't have been wise right now, that's all. Besides"—he smiled quickly, as if to cover that slight hesitation, and hugged an arm around her shoulders—"you've got your brother the lawyer here, and I'll be much more useful than Dad if we encounter any difficulties with customs or immigration. By the way, where's Cole?"
 

"Slee—"

"Right here." Cole stood in the doorway to the bedroom, calmly tucking the tails of a crisp new shirt inside the waistband of his mocha trousers. "I see you made it, Gabe."

"Yes, finally." Despite the easy smile her brother gave Cole, she sensed a change in his attitude, a faint, barely perceptible withdrawal. Why? Didn't he like Cole? Or had he merely been surprised to find Cole standing there?

"By the way, thanks for picking up Remy from the hospital," Gabe added.

To Remy it sounded more like an afterthought, one dictated by good manners rather than sincere gratitude. And that impression reinforced her initial feeling that her brother didn't think all that highly of Cole. Yet she couldn't detect any hostility from Gabe, only a wariness.

Cole shot him a look that Remy could only describe as sardonic as he buttoned the cuffs of his shirt. "Thanks aren't necessary, Gabe." Without a break, he said, "If you two will excuse me, I'll get my jacket and see about rounding up our flight crew so we can head back to New Orleans."

The instant Cole left the suite, Remy turned curiously to Gabe. "You don't like him, do you?"

He had difficulty meeting her gaze, and briefly raised his hands in an uncertain gesture. "You can't possibly know how damned awkward your amnesia makes things." He stopped, meeting her glance. "You haven't said how much you remember about Cole—if anything. But you two were —pretty thick for a while."

"I know that much." She smiled, mostly at the memory of the extremely satisfying moments she'd just had with Cole.

"You don't know how relieved I was when you finally broke up with him."

"We broke up?" Somehow she hadn't gotten that impression from Cole.

"He didn't tell you that, did he?" he guessed, his very tone making it an accusation.

"I knew we'd been arguing," she replied carefully.

Gabe shook his head in disgust, a grimness about his mouth. "I always knew that man had no scruples, so why am I surprised that he'd take advantage of your amnesia?"

When he looked at her, Remy glanced away, resisting—resenting—the implication of his words. Not twenty minutes ago she'd believed herself in love with Cole. The feelings, the emotions had been real; she didn't question that. But could it be that they were wrongly placed, as Gabe was suggesting? Had Cole deliberately lied to her? Or, at the very least, told only a half truth? But why?

"Why did we break up?"

"You never gave a reason—not to me, anyway. And I never asked. I felt you'd tell me if you wanted to. But I do know that as far as you were concerned it was final. You were through with him."

"Did Cole accept that?"
 

"No."

Gabe's answer confirmed what she'd already guessed—Cole wanted her back. That was why he'd been so quick to make love to her when she'd shown she was willing—eager. Had he hoped it would be the start of reconciliation between them? Did she want that? How could she know, when she couldn't even remember why she'd broken off their affair? Obviously she hadn't stopped loving him, which meant he must have said or done something that she'd found impossible to forgive. But what? And was it connected to this feeling she had that it was urgent—critical—for her to return to New Orleans?

"To tell you the truth, Remy," Gabe said, "I never approved of your becoming involved with him. Call it the protective instincts of a brother who wants only the best for his sister—and who knows that Cole Buchanan isn't the man for you. I always thought you'd end up regretting it. And believe me, there's no satisfaction in knowing I was right about him all along."