Three

Lily, normally a brisk walker, trudged slowly from the Olympic Village SkyTrain station toward the condo in False Creek. Christmas Eve, and she felt the opposite of festive.

Her body ached from head to toe after more than twelve hours at the Downtown Eastside clinic. Not that she’d had to stay after her day shift, but cold weather and the holiday had brought a lot of patients. She enjoyed helping the destitute, the down on their luck, the addicts and street people. Healing was her passion, and it was nice to concentrate on it, rather than worry about administrative issues like Dr. Mark Brown’s announcement that he had to move to half-time at the Well Family Clinic.

She’d also been too busy today to worry about Dax being home. All right, maybe she’d volunteered for that extra shift in part to put off facing him.

Once upon a time, she’d have been so excited about seeing Dax when they’d been apart. She’d bathe and perfume herself, do her hair, anticipate hours and hours of lovemaking. Their lives had always been so separate that seeing each other was a wonderful treat. She’d done undergrad, med school, and residency while he’d attended military college then gone through military training and served with the army, including two tours in Afghanistan. She’d been building her practice when he got out of the army and went to work as a bush helicopter pilot.

The temperature was a few degrees above freezing. Though it wasn’t raining, chill dampness brushed her face. In her boots, winter coat, and scarf, she was comfortably warm and that cool caress felt fresh and cleansing after the clinic’s distinctive funk of antiseptic and unwashed bodies.

She’d grabbed a quick cheese sandwich and apple during the day and now had no appetite. All she wanted was a long, hot bath, a potent martini, and bed.

Instead, there’d be Dax. They had to talk.

She rubbed glove-clad fingers across her brow, trying to ease her headache. How did you say, “Is it time to end this marriage?” Or should she start with, “Are you sleeping with someone else?”

“Damn.” They should have had this conversation two days ago, when he was supposed to come home. Instead, his job had, as always, taken priority over her. Or perhaps that was a lie, and he’d spent those extra days with a lover.

The misty damp air condensed into drops of rain and she pulled out her umbrella. An UmbrellaWings prototype, it was made of overlapping “wings.” Done mostly in shades of brown, the design was accented by dramatic stylized eyes of blue, black, and yellow. Kim had based it on the polyphemus moth.

Tomorrow, Lily’s parents expected her and Dax for the noon Christmas dinner. Maybe she should defer the conversation until after that. Avoid anything but the most superficial topics with her husband.

“Defer and avoid,” she muttered. That seemed to be her current strategy for everything in her life. She hadn’t resolved workload issues at the clinic and she hadn’t even started the book club novel. What’s wrong with me? She’d always been focused and organized; she made plans and executed them. Though she’d never be as perfect as her younger brother, Anthony, she usually came close. And now she was a mess.

Tomorrow, she couldn’t let her parents or Anthony see any signs of that mess. So, yes, she’d defer the conversation with Dax, but the moment they got home from Christmas dinner she’d tackle her husband and they’d determine the fate of their marriage.

Tonight, she’d tell Dax she had a headache and needed to be alone. And it would be the truth. The heel-click of her boots speeded up as she neared the condo building.

Inside, she stepped into the elevator. Once, absence had made the heart grow fonder. Each time she saw Dax again, she’d feel a “this is right” click of emotional intimacy and physical desire. Now absence only reinforced all the ways they didn’t need each other, didn’t connect. And yet, now her heart did a hop, skip, and a jump that wasn’t just anxiety; it was a thrill of anticipation.

When she unlocked the apartment door and called, “Dax?” her voice was breathy.

“In here.” His voice came from the living room. Dax had a deep voice with a slightly rough edge, a voice that suited him perfectly.

Trying to calm her racing heart, she put her umbrella in the stand, took off her coat and hung it up, then bent to pull up a pant leg and unzip her boot.

His bare feet, strong and well-shaped beneath frayed jean hems, moved into her field of vision. He walked so quietly, she hadn’t heard him approach. Why did he have to catch her like this—limp hair hanging over her forehead, chilled fingers fumbling with her boot zipper?

“Stop.” One word, said with a tone of command she might never have heard from him before.

It did make her stop, and straighten up to stare at him.

Oh God. Dax. The heat of sexual awareness rippled through her, and she surrendered hope of steadying her heartbeat. How unfair that, as she turned drab and middle-aged, he got even better looking. His six-foot-three frame, strong and rangy, was displayed to perfection in well-washed jeans and a faded black T-shirt. Hair blacker than the tee, glossy as a raven’s wings, fell past his ears, long and a little unkempt, but oh so sexy. His features were craggy and utterly masculine, and a short, dark beard accented his stubborn jaw. His striking eyes, the storm-cloud irises ringed with slate gray, studied her with a strange expression. Almost as if he’d never seen her before and wondered who she was.

“You made it home,” she said inanely.

A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. “So did you.”

She braced herself, waiting for a frown and the comment that she looked tired and stressed, the same greeting he’d given her the last time he came home. Maybe he was concerned, but it came across more as a reminder that a guy like him could come home to someone younger, prettier, sexier. He had that thing that drew women. He’d had it at seventeen; he had it at thirty-three; the damned man would have it in his eighties.

But Dax didn’t speak again. He squatted with the powerful grace she’d always found so attractive. He lifted the bottom of one of her pant legs and unzipped her boot.

Her mouth opened in wonder. He’d never done anything like this.

A warm hand curved around the lower part of her calf, holding her gently but firmly, and as her stocking-clad skin tingled with awareness, he eased off her boot. Then he repeated the process with her other boot, and straightened.

Was this foreplay? Much as her body might tremble with the craving for his touch, she really didn’t want to have sex. Not with the clinic odors clinging to her skin, her head pounding with tiredness and stress, her mind and heart so tormented. Besides, the last times they’d had sex, her body might have spasmed in release, but she felt detached. Empty. Alone. She didn’t need her husband for a meaningless orgasm; her vibrator and an erotic novel worked fine. “Dax, it’s been a long day and I have a headache.”

Now that big, masculine hand reached toward her face.

Quivering with nerves, she held still, wondering what he intended.

He scooped her wispy bangs back from her forehead then ran his fingers firmly across her brow, finding the tension knots. “Run a bath. I’ll make you a martini.”

She cocked her head. This too was different. Oh, he’d said similar things before, but more like, “Bet you could use a bath. Want me to make you a martini?” Now those same thoughts came out as . . . well, almost as orders, spoken in a deep, rough-edged voice that didn’t brook argument.

Lily Nyland did not take orders. Only from her parents, though she preferred to think of that as daughterly respect. Still, there was something compelling about Dax right now that was strangely appealing. “A bath sounds good. So does a martini. Thank you.”

Without another word, he turned and walked toward the kitchen.

Puzzled, she stared at his retreating back: the sleek black hair, powerful shoulders, narrow hips, taut butt, long legs. What was he doing? Being nice to her, yet ordering her around. Was he leading up to something? To sex, or to saying he was ending their marriage? It could be either, or anything in between.

She was exhausted and achy and she did want that bath, so she headed for the bathroom. After turning on the taps, she went to the adjoining walk-in closet to strip and dump her clothes in the hamper. Dax’s voice came from the bathroom—“Martini’s on the counter”—making her grab her terrycloth robe and bundle herself into it. He didn’t come into the closet, though, and she heard the bathroom door close.

When she stepped cautiously into the steamy room, she was alone. A martini glass sat on the vanity, its surface damp with condensation. She took a sip. It was perfect, right down to the twist of lemon. No surprise. When Dax chose to do something, he did it extremely well.

She swallowed a heavy-duty headache pill, took out her contact lenses and gold stud earrings, and tossed lavender-scented Epsom salts into the bath. Breathing in the fragrant air, it was impossible not to relax a little. Whatever Dax wanted, she’d find a way to defer it.

Martini glass in hand, she stepped into the bath and settled back, her head on a bath pillow. Sipping, she tried to clear her mind. Occasionally, she took a course on the latest relaxation technique, but she was always a dismal failure. She’d aced self-defense, but failed meditation. The only time she felt truly relaxed was when her life was in perfect control. Which—hah!—hadn’t been the case for a long time.

Setting the martini glass in easy reach on the tiled surround of the tub, she closed her eyes. The warm water soothed her tired body. The even warmer burn of alcohol radiated through her, its potency reminding her that lunch had been a lot of hours ago.

She breathed in. Slowly, deeply.

The lavender took her back to Camp Skookumchuck. Mr. and Mrs. Broadbent, a childless couple, had turned their oceanfront Gulf Islands property into a camp for kids and teens. Mrs. B was not only a great cook, but an avid gardener. She grew vegetables and herbs behind a deer fence. The flower beds around the house featured lavender, yarrow, and other plants that were deer-resistant.

The scent of lavender was tied to those wonderful summers when Lily had been free of her parents’ rules and expectations. Free too of the pressure of competing with her two-years-younger brother Anthony, who’d attended a different camp. At Camp Skookumchuck, Lily was a kid like any other kid, able to explore, play, learn, even make mistakes. She attended from the time she was ten until she was seventeen, the last two years as a counselor.

It was that last summer that she and Dax had gotten together.

Lily sipped her martini and, behind her closed lids, pictured her first night at camp. When her eight ten-year-old charges had finally fallen asleep in the four pairs of bunk beds in Heron cabin, she’d slipped silently out the door. In her wrinkled camp shorts and tee, her shoulder-length hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail—her mother would be appalled!—she headed for the beach. Growing up near the ocean, she was used to air with a salty tang, but here, with no city smells to dilute it, the scent was even fresher and more pungent. She found a smooth log to perch on, gazed out at the ocean and stars, and savored the idea of two full months away from home.

From behind her, where the dozen rustic cabins nestled among fir and cedar trees, came the occasional muffled laugh as the campers settled down for the night. Then, from closer at hand, she heard a clunk of wood on metal. Startled, she gazed around.

At one side of the small bay where she sat, the camp dock extended a weathered wooden finger into the ocean. On the scrub-grass bank by the dock, canoes and kayaks rested in metal racks, their bright colors bleached by the moonlight. But one of the canoes was moving. She made out the shadowy figure of a person—adult-sized, not a kid. Was one of the counselors sneaking out for a paddle, or was someone stealing a canoe?

“Hey,” she called, rising from the log and hurrying over, her bare feet tender from a winter in shoes.

“What?” The voice was male, rough and challenging. It didn’t sound like one of the four male counselors’, and it sure wasn’t mellow-tempered Mr. B’s.

She stopped abruptly. If this was a canoe thief, she should run for help, not challenge him. But then the guy stepped toward her and details materialized from the darkness. A lean, muscular body in frayed cutoffs and a tee with the sleeves ripped off; a face with bold, striking features; hair blacker than the night sky. Recognition locked her in place. “You’re Dax Xavier.” The words came out as breathy as a puff of wind. He’d been in her twelfth grade class. The hot new bad boy who had every girl dreaming wild and crazy dreams.

His eyes widened in apparent surprise, and his gaze raked her, then a grin tilted that sexy mouth. “You’re Lily Nyland.”

He’d noticed her at school? Knew her name? Suddenly, she was aware of every wrinkle in the olive-drab shorts and red tee, of the loose hairs straggling from her ponytail, of her total lack of makeup.

“Camp counselor?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Figured you’d spend your summers at chess camp or finishing school.” It was a taunt, yet something about the lazy, teasing way he spoke made the comment sound almost seductive.

Warmth crept through her. If she’d been Lily back home, she’d have stiffened her spine and strode up to the Broadbents’ house to report him. But she was Lily at camp, and instead she tilted her head and studied him, trying to look casual and confident. “Not that I thought about how you’d spend your summers, but I suppose if I had, stealing canoes would have been right up there.”

He gave a quick, low chuckle. “If I was gonna steal something, I’d pick a Ferrari, not a canoe.”

“Maybe you’re starting small, honing your skills.”

Dax took a step closer, so their bodies almost touched. “My skills are plenty honed.”

That memory had Lily, in her scented bath, opening her eyes and sitting up. Yes, Dax had proved that point over and over.

She finished the last swallow from her martini glass. Summer camp, attraction of opposites, summer love. If she read that story in a book club novel, she’d call it cliché. Maybe she and Dax should have let it go when September rolled around. And yet . . . Over the following years, they’d had such fun when they got together. She’d loved him with all her heart. And now her heart was so confused. Did she still love him? Sometimes she was sure she did; other times, she told herself it was only nostalgia, memories, history. But was she telling herself the truth, or trying to build a shell to guard against heartbreak?

And what’s wrong with self-protection?

Briskly, she lathered soap onto her bath sponge and washed herself, then climbed out of the tub, dried off, and pulled on her robe. Where was Dax? If only they could be civil until after Christmas dinner, then they would deal with the future.

She took a birth control pill, an act that these days sent a pang of regret through her. She left her glasses in their case, unable to face Bound by Desire.

Though her headache had eased, she was a little spacy from the potent meds, the alcohol, the steamy bath, and, maybe, the memories. Sleep, that was what she needed.

What she got, when she stepped into the bedroom, was the sight of Dax lounging on the bed, dark and virile in his jeans and tee, pillows stacked behind him. The lamp on the dresser gave the room a warm, golden light. Even though her vision was far from twenty-twenty, it was good enough that she saw how rugged and masculine he looked, sprawled across the caramel and cream-striped duvet.

A tug of arousal pulsed between Lily’s legs. How annoying that, despite her doubts about their marriage and his fidelity, the man still turned her on.

Dax pushed himself off the bed and walked over, to stop a foot away. “Take off your robe.”

His words, so unexpected, had the force of a command. She’d unknotted the sash and shrugged off the robe before she even paused to think. But then awareness returned and anxiety twitched her shoulders. She resisted the urge to grab the robe from the carpet and bundle herself in it again. Dax had seen her naked thousands of times. But what did he see now? She was thin, thinner than she’d ever been, but also more taut and muscled. She used exercise—weights, running, self-defense workouts—to counteract stress and tire her enough that she stood a chance of sleeping.

Dax said nothing. Instead, he bent and effortlessly scooped her up in his arms.

She gasped in surprise then her body heated at the strong, possessive clasp of his arms, pulling her tight against his broad chest. So good. But she barely had a moment to enjoy it, to wonder what he was doing.

He took three or four quick strides to the bed, then tossed her—actually tossed her—down.

A shiver of excitement rippled through her as she gaped up at him. On his last visits, Dax’s sexual approaches were dispassionate. Tonight, with his commanding manner and unaccustomed beard, with her poor vision and light-headedness, he seemed a different man. “Dax, what are you doing?”

“Don’t talk.”

Another order. Had he said anything since she arrived home that wasn’t an order? She should protest. Except . . . as she’d decided earlier, tonight she didn’t want to talk.

She’d also decided she didn’t want sex. But now her body urged her to reconsider. Her husband’s behavior had an edge that reminded her of the bad-boy vibe of his youth, though now he was definitely a man and this edge was, well, edgier. It was arousing, and a tiny bit scary. But she’d known Dax for fifteen years. He would never hurt her, never harm a woman.

Squinting up at him, she saw a gleam in his gray eyes, but couldn’t tell if it was lust or something else. The lines of his face were set, hiding his thoughts and feelings.

“On your stomach,” he said.

Doggy-style sex. Disappointment brought a quick rush of moisture to her eyes and she rolled, to hide her face. He wanted sex where they couldn’t see each other’s faces, where kissing was impossible. Sex with no intimate connection. No, she wouldn’t do it. Forcing back the tears, she tensed her body, readying herself to roll back again.

Before she could move, Dax pinned her down, planting his denim-clad knees on either side of her hips and curving his hands firmly around her shoulder caps.

She twisted her head to the side. “Let me go.”

“I told you to keep quiet.”

“You have no right—”

“Keep quiet.” His fingertips dug into her flesh, almost punishingly hard. “I’ll look after you.” His touch eased and turned into massage, kneading into the tight muscles of her neck and shoulders.

Again, he’d surprised her. It felt so amazingly good, she groaned with pleasure. All this macho stuff, just to give her a massage? She couldn’t remember the last time he’d tended to her aches and pains.

“Put this under you.” He handed her a pillow and she shoved it under her chest so that her back arched toward him.

With controlled strength, Dax used the heels of his hands, his fingers, his thumbs, even his knuckles to work out knots. Pain made her wince, but she knew his touch was healing. She drew in a deep breath and tried not to tense against those probing fingers, but to let her muscles relax.

And yes, the knots slowly released. Her body warmed, loosened, softened. As the tension eased, she almost purred with relief and pleasure. Dax, touching her this way—what did it mean?

As he moved from her lower back to her butt cheeks, his touch gentled and became more of a caress.

A sensual, sexy caress, or at least that’s how it felt to her. Arousal throbbed between her legs and quickened her breath. Her nipples tightened, pressing into the pillow beneath her. She wanted to squirm, to rub her nipples against the crisp cotton, to wriggle her hips in a wordless request that he slide his hand between her legs. But she was unsure what he intended.

When she’d been young, Dax had told her she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Now did he think her lean, lithe body was attractive? Sexy? Did he mean his touch to be erotic or was her sex-starved body overreacting?

She got her answer when his finger traced the crease between her buttocks, then slid between her legs. He traced her naked flesh slowly, igniting arousal inch by inch and making her quiver as need mounted. When he brushed her labia, spreading the moisture that slid from her body, she pressed against his hand, wanting more. Massage as foreplay. She liked it. Yes, she wanted sex with him, but face-to-face. “That feels so good, Dax.”

His hand withdrew and a slap stung her butt cheeks.

“Oh!” She jerked and automatically started to turn over.

He planted both hands at her waist and held her down. “I told you to keep quiet.”

What had gotten into him? Dax had never hit her before. She should yell at him, except . . . the slap hadn’t been all that hard. It hadn’t hurt as much as created a tingly burn that, to her embarrassment, brought a fresh gush of arousal trickling onto her inner thighs.

Dax rubbed the spot where he’d hit her, and the sensual burning sensation spread.

She almost wished he’d slap her again. Which was ridiculous.

“Roll over,” he said.

Now he’d let her do it? On his terms, not hers? Though his behavior was baffling and out of character, she knew one thing: she was more turned on than she’d been in a very long time.