Chapter 18

 

Danny tugged her unresisting body into his arms and covered her mouth with his. He cradled her head in his hands and threaded his fingers through her windblown hair.

“Just one kiss,” she whispered against his lips.

“Okay,” he agreed, forming the feathery soft words over her mouth. “Just one goodnight kiss is all I ask.”

Satisfied with his response, Elora closed her eyes in anticipation. One goodnight kiss couldn’t hurt, could it? On a sigh, she opened herself to him and breathed in his uniquely fresh woodsy scent.

Slowly, thoroughly, his tongue stroked and danced with hers. It flickered over her teeth and tantalized the tender skin inside her mouth. Elora allowed her own tongue free reign to explore his inner reaches, savouring the taste of him. Of their own volition her hands slid up his broad chest, across his wide shoulders, until they encountered the thick hair at the nape of his neck. She revelled in the feel of his hair between her fingers. All afternoon she had longed to reach out and touch him.

Just one kiss. She had no idea when the first kiss ended and the next one began. Elora had fallen into a wonderful world of sensual awareness. A world she’d give her very soul to inhabit forever.

Danny’s lips trailed fire across her eyelids and temple. Her swollen lips brushed across the soft hairs along the edge of his jaw. A single line of searing heat followed in the wake of his roaming fingertips as they skimmed down the small of her back, feathered over her hips, and began an exploration of her midriff until they finally cupped her aching breasts.

Cool air teased her nipples. She hadn’t even noticed the buttons coming undone or the front clasp on her bra parting to allow Danny full access to her breasts. But she did notice when he took one throbbing peak into his mouth. A shaft of pure desire speared her deep within her belly.

“Oh…,” she sighed.

“Gorgeous,” Danny murmured.

He turned his attention to the other breast. He laved her nipple into a hard little rosebud with his moist, hot tongue. He gently kneaded the soft flesh with his hands.

“So very, very gorgeous.”

With agonizing deliberation, Danny’s mouth burned a path back up her torso. He stopped a moment to nibble at the pulse in the hollow of her throat, then to feather kisses around the curl of her ear.

“And so very, very delectable,” he whispered.

Before she could formulate a reply, he once again claimed her mouth with his own.

Elora ran her fingers through the coarse hairs sprinkled over Danny’s magnificent chest. She had no idea where his shirt had gone, only that it had disappeared and she was glad. Greedily, she returned his hungry kisses. Open-mouthed she tasted him, devoured him.

 

Dan was on fire. He burned and ached and throbbed for this woman like he had for no other. Her taste only made him hungry for more. Her touch only fuelled his red-hot desire. Her true, basic wants matched his own real, primal needs. Tonight, they were one.

The soft mewling sounds that escaped from her throat were the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard. A deep rumble of a primitive growl grew somewhere deep within his chest. He longed to give voice to his passion. He had never felt so raw or powerful in his entire life. She made him feel this way.

She pressed her perfect body closer to his, rubbing her hips in an enticing dance against his full, throbbing manhood. He longed to bury himself deep within the promise of her heat. He would never have enough of her – never. Lori would become a part of him like no other. She had crept in past his defences like no other.

Oh so slowly he lifted her skirt with one hand, while the other hand slipped underneath the frothy layers. Instead of finding the tight waistband of the pair of pantyhose he expected, he encountered instead a lacy garter belt clipped to a pair of sheer stockings. His roving hand cupped her smooth, firm behind, and when he felt only naked flesh separated by the thin strip of a silky thong bikini, he groaned in exaltation. The suggested image trebled his heart rate. Lori hid a sexy secret underneath her voluminous skirts.

Dan had found the perfect woman. Demure on the outside and wanton within.

He threaded his fingers through the silky nest of curls that lay at the approach to paradise. He insinuated his leg between her knees until they tentatively parted. He held her braced against his chest while he slipped a single finger inside her hot, moist warmth.

“Ah…,” he groaned.

She was more than ready! His heart leaped at the realization that she was so slick and silky with desire for him, that her passion equalled his own.

Lori moaned at the tantalising touch.

Dan covered her mouth with his and breathed his own life into her. He did his best to ignore the busy hands undoing his belt and tugging down his fly. He held his own raging passion in check while he tenderly caressed her inner heat with his light, teasing strokes. He wanted to take her to the brink and beyond before experiencing his own pleasure. He revelled in the power he wielded over her satiny flesh with just his touch.

She panted against his mouth. Her soft moans changed pitch and intensity. He played her like a beautiful instrument – the vibrations that rippled through her slender body struck a chord at the heart of his psyche. She had long since stopped trying to undress him. Instead, her fingers dug into his back and shoulders, clinging to him as he stroked her faster and further into a fevered frenzy of endless passion. Wave after wave of shuddering sensation racked her beautiful body, and Dan held her upright, pinned against his broad chest as he held her close, their thundering heartbeats racing together as one.

Dan never wanted to let her go. She was his.

 

Elora lowered her head onto Danny’s shoulder and clung for dear life as the surging tide of overwhelming sensations washed over her.

Nothing in all her life had ever felt so wonderful. Not winning a gold medal, not the adoring adulation of hundreds of fans. Only this man’s love mattered. Wave after wave of ecstasy shattered through her, leaving her feeling both splintered and whole at the same time. She never wanted this moment to end. She never wanted to leave. Never before had she felt so languid, so cherished, or so wondrously uninhibited. Never before had she felt so much love for another as she did for this man.

She lifted her head and gazed into dark, passion-glazed eyes. Elora felt overawed by her heart’s sudden revelation. She wanted to say something, to make him understand how she felt, but before she had the chance to utter a single sound his mouth covered hers and took the words away.

His lips trailed fire down her cheek, along the side of her jaw, down the hollow of her throat, until they finally parted over a single budding nipple. Elora moaned as he once again began a tender assault on her defenceless state. It was starting all over again. Once again she felt the cresting wave of passion rising within her. How was this possible? Surely she couldn’t be ready to respond to his slightest touch so soon? His mouth blazed a new trail from her swollen breasts, back up her throat, and once again to her mouth.

“Lori,” he breathed against her lips, “you’re so very perfect. I want you – all of you.”

He gathered her close and pressed his very obvious state of desire into her lower belly. She had done this to this man. It was her he desired. His hands rested on her waist and began to unfasten the button on the back of her skirt. Of their own volition, her hands dipped into the waistband of his jockey shorts. He gasped and surged in her hands.

“I need to see you in all your perfection,” he whispered hoarsely against her hair. “I’m going to take you to that bed over there, where you can wrap your lovely legs around me, and we can ride this night together, this oh so very perfect night, to the stars and beyond.”

At the word legs, Elora’s heart lurched to a painful stop. From a complete state of euphoria she went to a complete state of shock. She released the thrilling hold she had of him and withdrew her hands. How could she have forgotten about her disability? She suddenly saw everything with agonizing clarity. Danny found her beautiful, sexy, and perfect. Right now he did, covered up as she was.

What would his reaction be once he discovered that she wasn’t so perfect after all? How could she possibly survive his rejection now, now after all this wonderful passion they were sharing? 

She loved him; she knew that now. More than anything, she longed to see that love-light reflected in his eyes. She couldn’t bear to witness anything else. But what if he saw her prosthesis? What would his reaction be if he saw what remained beneath the plastic appendage?

Trevor’s voice, underscored with loathing and revulsion, filled her head. “I can’t possibly marry you. Just look at you. You’re a cripple, for God’s sake. I’ve seen what’s left of your leg, and it’s not a pretty sight. That ugly lump of withered flesh just hanging there. You were beautiful before, but now…”

“No,” she whispered. She shook her head to clear it of unwanted images. “I should never have let it go this far.”

“Lori, what are you saying?” He held her close.

“I’m saying no,” she answered. “I can’t go through with this.” She tried to push herself out of his arms.

“You can’t possibly mean that,” Danny said. “You can’t tease me to the point of no return and then just leave me.” 

His arms locked around her like bands of steel. She could feel the thundering of his heartbeat through the wall of his hard-muscled chest. Her own heart rate had somehow plummeted to a crawl. He tried to kiss her. She turned her head away.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t do this.”

“Why?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

She could only shake her head. She closed her eyes. Over and over again she heard Trevor’s words of disgust accompanied by his look of revulsion. You were beautiful before, but now…

“No,” she groaned out through clenched teeth. “Don’t ask me to explain.”

She pushed her way out of Danny’s secure embrace. He flicked on a low, bedside lamp. Despite the softness of the light, she winced as if she were suddenly, horribly exposed. With trembling fingers, she refastened her bra and the buttons on her dishevelled top. Tears stung the back of her eyelids, but she refused to let them fall.

“It’s better if I just leave. Now. Before we do something we’ll probably end up regretting.”

“I don’t regret anything. Lori, I would never regret anything I ever did with you.”

She glanced at Danny. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him standing so sexy and so sure in the middle of the room. His dark blond hair was all mussed – she had mussed it. His shirt was gone – she had torn it off. His partly unzipped khakis scarcely concealed a suggestive, virile bulge – she had done that to him. She was the one he desired, or thought he desired. She forced herself to turn away.

“Believe me, this is better.”

“Better for whom?” he asked.

“For all concerned.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “There’s no future here for us. I don’t want to destroy the memory of what we had.”

He ploughed his hands through his already tousled hair. “Listen, I’m not sure what you were expecting from me, but I wasn’t planning on much more than tonight.” He placed his warm hands on her shoulders and drew her near. “You knew that when I invited you in. There was never any talk of futures back then, only one more day.” He stepped closer, lowered his head, and brushed her lips with his.

She shrugged out of his grasp. “So what you’re saying is all you wanted from me was a one-night stand?”

Danny’s head snapped back. “No, dammit!” He paced in front of her. “All I’m saying is that I’m not very good at relationships. I just wanted to get you out of my system.” He slammed to an abrupt halt.

She hugged herself and stared at him. “How flattering.”

“That’s not what I meant to say, either.” Again he attacked his hair with both hands. “I need you, more than I’ve ever needed anyone before, and I thought, maybe, if I could just have you, just once, then the needing might go away, along with the wild expectations generated by such need.”

She stared at him. Could his talk of needing mean what she thought it might? Dare she hope? “We all have needs and expectations,” she began in a tentative voice. “Some expectations can be good, some can even make us—”

“It’s just that I’m sick of trying to have to live up to other people’s expectations.”

“I never expected anything from you, Danny.”

“I know that. That’s why you’re so perfect.” He held his hands out open-palmed from his sides. “Because you don’t expect anything more from me than I’m willing, or able, to give. You don’t ask questions about my personal life, and you’re perfectly happy that I don’t ask about yours.” He stared at her. “And don’t deny it. We both have things in our past that we’re more than willing to keep hidden. We should just keep it that way.”

“So, after tonight, you were just going to up and leave—”

“No.” He reached for her hand. She felt the warmth of his skin against hers. “Remember. You were going to stay another day. I understood that we had agreed to take this, this thing we have between us, one day at a time.” He tugged her close. He feathered a kiss across her brow, her cheek, her lips. “One night at a time,” he whispered.

Once again his kisses began to drain all powers of reason from her. Before she succumbed completely, she asked, “Who are you?”

She hadn’t meant to ask, but the question just popped out. It was suddenly very important for her to know who was seducing her, who she was coming so close to falling in bed with, and who, she now knew, she was beginning to fall in love with.

“What?”

“I want to know who you are, Danny Smith. If that’s even your real name.” She paused, and in the barest of whispers asked, “I just need to know who I’m starting to fall for.”

He stepped back and planted his fists on his hips. “I’ve broken away from my family. I don’t want any hassles or worries or relationships or responsibilities, and I refuse to—”

“What about my responsibilities? Am I supposed to just get rid of them and hop into utopia with you, with someone I don’t really know?”

Danny’s issues with his family seemed bigger than she’d supposed, and he dragged that baggage with him into his relationship with her. Whether he admitted it or not, they were involved in a relationship. She wanted to help him, or least understand him. But she couldn’t do any of that if he wouldn’t confide in her.

“You’re right, it’s probably best if you left.” He waved his hand at the door. “As you already surmised, there’s no future for us.”

“Why? Because of your irrational dislike of children?”

His face became a frozen mask. The light in his eyes grew hard and brittle. “Don’t even go there.” He crossed his arms over his naked chest. “Besides, if you were at all honest with yourself, you would remember that you were the one who put a stop to our sleeping together in the first place, and I don’t think it had anything to do with children. Why don’t you give me your reasons?”

Elora shifted her stance. Her left knee throbbed with pain from the day’s strenuous activities. All she wanted right now was to remove the prosthesis, soothe her leg with a bucket of ice, and wallow in self-pity. She mustered her dignity around her like a cloak and headed towards the door. With every step, she felt the artificial limb dig deeper and deeper into her swollen, aching flesh. She reached for the door handle.

“I think it best that we never see each other again, Lori,” Danny spoke softly behind her. His voice no longer warm with loving words. “I don’t take kindly to being lied to.”

She turned, her hand still on the knob. “Lie?” She narrowed her eyes. “When did I ever lie to you?”

“Tell me, Miss Barrington-Smith, were you ever planning on telling me your real name? Were you ever going to tell me what it is you’re trying so desperately to hide? Oh, yes,” he glared at her. “I know there’s something big you’re keeping from me. We both have our secrets. Why don’t you tell me yours?”

The blood drained from her head. Tears stung her eyelids and she averted her gaze. She stared at the brass handle in her hand. It blurred. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. To tell him the truth right now would be beyond stark, it would be horrifying. And to show him…. She shuddered.

“I’m sorry, Lori. I didn’t mean it,” he said, his voice strangely hoarse. “Please, I really don’t want what we have here to end this way. Not like this. Can’t we talk this thing through?” He hesitated, and his voice dropped even more. “I … I think I’m coming to care for you.”

Elora longed to turn around and throw herself into Danny’s arms. Instead, she bowed her head and rested it against the coolness of the wood door. Indecision warred within. Danny had come so close to saying the words she wanted to hear, but almost wasn’t close enough for her. Trevor had often said he’d loved her. And yet, when it had come down to the crunch, his love hadn’t been strong enough to allow him to see past her crippling disfigurement. Danny only thought he cared. How much greater would be his horror?

You were beautiful before, but now….

Elora turned the handle and walked out. It was the most difficult action she’d ever taken in her life.

Blindly she made her way to her own room where she sat on the edge of the huge, empty bed. Emotions churned within her. She loved Danny; she couldn’t bear to live her life without him. But the fear of rejection held her captive. She recalled how devastated she’d been in the hospital after Trevor’s callous renunciation.

The clock ticked the hours away. Elora lay back on her bed, still fully clothed. She’d left the prosthesis on and it felt like her leg was ensnared in a vice. Even that pain wasn’t as great as the pain in her heart. She stared unblinkingly up at the ceiling.

Why was life so cruel? She loved a man whom she was sure truly cared for her, and yet they could never be together. Why? Because of her leg. No. Not because of her leg. He knew nothing about her leg. She had never even given him a chance because of her leg. They weren’t together because of her fear.

Elora sat up.

And what of his fear? 

She flopped back down.

How deep did his alleged feelings of dislike towards children run? Could Caitlin help him to overcome that fear? Of course she could. It would take a heartless cad not to fall in love with the child, and Danny was anything but heartless.

So what about his problems with his family? Surely living in Lunenburg would be far enough away to help him solve that issue. But then, what would they think if he got involved with a cripple?

She sighed. That was the heart of the matter. The real issue between them had nothing to do with children, or his family, or even Danny’s true identity. The real problem was her, the fact that she was crippled. But if he was coming to care for her, maybe even love her, would her disability even matter to him? Would he be able to see past her leg to the woman inside?

Dry eyed she stared at the wall that separated her from Danny. She had never backed down from anything in her life before – ever. There was only one way to find out the answers to her many burning questions. If he didn’t want her, it wouldn’t be because of her leg. Either he cared for the woman she was, or he didn’t. Living this half-life of uncertainty was hell. She owed it to both of them to find out.

Swiftly, before second thoughts had a chance to steal her resolve, Elora limped out into the hallway and knocked softly on Danny’s door. No answer. She knocked a little more loudly and called his name. Still no answer.

She’d phone him. She made her painful way down the staircase and approached the front desk where a young man sat at his post. The windows beyond showed the pearly dawn lighting the sky.

“I need to speak with Dan Smith about something important,” she said. “He doesn’t seem to hear my knocking. Could I please have his room phone number?”

“I’m afraid he’s gone,” the clerk said. He glanced at his watch. “He checked out a couple of hours ago.”

“He’s gone?” Despair washed over Elora. She was too late. She fought the sinking feeling and rallied her spirit. She straightened her shoulders, looked the young man in the eye, and said, “I’m Lori Barrington-Smith. I’m working on arranging a golf tournament to be hosted from this inn, and I believe that Mr. Smith’s expertise in that field would be most useful. Would you please give me his home number so I could call him later?” She hated herself for uttering the falsehood. She knew hotel policy would never permit the divulging of confidential records.

“I really shouldn’t be helping you,” he said. He tucked the tie into his jacket while he stalled for time, clearly torn between helping a supposed relative of the owner and abiding by the rules.

“I know,” Elora agreed. “I could call Mr. Paul Barrington-Smith, the owner himself, to get the information for me, but I hate to bother Paul with these things. Believe me, I wouldn’t be asking you this if it weren’t important.”

Everything within her screamed to stop the lie from expanding. She ignored her conscience and barged ahead on her chosen course. Danny was too important for her to give up on so easily.

Reluctantly the clerk opened the registration book and read out Danny’s street address. The information given matched that of the Barons Hotel in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The same went for the phone number. As he’d paid everything with cash, there was no traceable record to follow. Without missing a beat, Elora thanked the man and made her way back up to her room.

What was going on? Why leave a false address? Why would Danny need to cover his tracks? Elora sat in the middle of her bed and rested her chin on the palm of her hand. As she sat there brooding, she gave a mirthless chuckle. She was no more a Miss Barrington-Smith than Danny was a Mr. Smith. And if he’d looked up her address, he would have gotten Paul’s information instead of hers.

Elora raked her fingers through her wild hair and gave it a good shake. She thought of all the lies that had somehow formed between her and Danny.

“God, what a tangled web we weave,” she muttered to the empty room.

The sting of hot, salty tears coursed down her cheeks. She dashed the tears aside and began to pack her bags. There was nothing left but to get on with her life. She’d catch the first plane for Halifax.

Or else she could woo the press and have her private life, as well as the secret life of Danny, make the headline news. The media would have a field day with that one. And if her intent was to drive Danny away forever, that would certainly do the trick. Savagely she crammed her belongings into her bag and zipped it shut. All along she had felt justified by her subterfuge, obviously he must have had as good a reason as she for concealing his identity.

She picked up her weekend bag, then paused. Last night she had tried to get him to divulge his secrets, but he hadn’t budged. Who was he? If not Dan Smith, then with whom had she fallen in love?