CRAIG FELT AS IF he had been tied into slow, tortuous knots, but because he was agitated, he made himself behave normally—whatever that was. He turned the flame of his kerosene burner very low and began to shed his clothing meticulously, placing his boots right to left beneath the cot on the hard earth floor, rolling his socks, neatly folding his shirt, jeans, and briefs.
Everything was in easy reach, but nothing was indispensable. In his line you never knew when you were leaving.
Naked, he stretched his length onto the cot and punched his pillow into a headrest. He crooked an elbow against the canvas wall and placed one hand behind his head; with the other he lit a cigarette from the packing case beside the cot that served as a makeshift dresser.
Inhaling slowly, he stared unseeing up at the angled, army surplus green that was his roof. This whole thing could be classified only as stupid, he thought, bitterness mingled with regret. He had expected a princess, a spoiled little girl.
He had found a woman. Both feet firmly on the ground, intelligent, possessed of humor, character, wit, and a soundly reasoning mind. For the life of him, he couldn’t begin to understand why the old man refused to discuss the situation with her. Classified, he reminded himself wryly.
Craig sighed deeply with a long exhalation of smoke. He was going to try one more time: In three hours he was due to send a communication, and an idea had taken formation in his mind. If those damn eggheads would only listen. But it was the old man, and even higher echelon personnel, who would make the decisions. And now that he knew what Huntington had at stake, he couldn’t really blame him. Too bad he couldn’t communicate his own seething emotions through Morse code. Don’t worry, sir. There’s no way in heaven or hell I’d let anything happen to her. Sounds a little crazy, I know. I’ve only been around seventeen days, but I think I’ve fallen in love with your daughter. I say think, of course, because I’ve never really had time to find out just what love is. But I’ve never met such a woman, sir. She makes me shake, sir. Me, sir—can you imagine me shaking?
The guys in Special Services would love relaying that one, he thought with a brief and dry laugh.
But there was something about Blair. She made him think about a home he could come to every night, sipping wine and discussing their days before a fire, waking up together, seeing her beautiful, bright face each morning, creating a family, a haven.
“Your machine is faulty,” he told the powers that be in an unheard whisper through the night air. “Wrong man for the assignment.”
He had thought that all along, at first with annoyance, now with something akin to pain. This woman whom he was falling in love with was going to hate him when she discovered what was going on. And it hurt like hell.
If he could only tell her. But what if the old man were right? Too much was riding high. The welfare of too many people.
Especially hers. Better to have her hate him and know that she was safe …
When she first entered the tent he thought he was hallucinating, that he had been thinking about her so much she had appeared in his mind’s eye.
She stood hesitantly just inside the tent flap, her slender form straight, very proud. In the glow of the kerosene flame her hair was like a rich, dark wildfire in the night, framing the lovely contours of her face. Her eyes, mercurial green emeralds, swept his form briefly, registering his naked state, but unblinking. Her lips were slightly parted, still moist from his hungry kiss.
Blair stood motionless, watching him from the doorway. She saw little reaction. His eyes went blank for a second, his cigarette froze in midair, the smoke caught in his lungs, but then he was looking at her with a calm, unspoken query, his yellow eyes alert, the smoke released normally. He made no attempt to cover his body, so bronzed and tautly strong and perfect against the stark white of the bleached sheets, and so there was one involuntary reaction to her presence that she couldn’t help but notice.
Blair flushed slightly, but didn’t flinch or move. What must he think of her? she wondered a little desperately, coming so blatantly to his tent in the middle of the night. Could he possibly understand how special he had been to her? How he had already opened undreamed of doors?
She was starting to tremble; she shouldn’t have come. She was never going to be able to carry off the role of aggressor. Good Lord, what if he didn’t want her? He was always holding back … always able to leave her.
He did want her, she could see that.
“Blair,” he said softly, the slightest tone of perplexity in his voice. “What are you doing here?”
She closed her eyes to gather her strength as she moved into the tent and allowed the flap to fall shut behind her. She couldn’t quite stare into his golden eyes with bravado, so she kept hers lowered even as she opened them. Her first attempt at speech didn’t make it. Her second was faint but audible and steady.
“I’d like to be with you tonight.”
He froze again, for more than a second. This just wasn’t fair. He could painstakingly control himself, but not both of them. The machinery was faulty as all hell, and what had been aching with warmth suddenly throbbed with a raging heat.
He should cover himself, he thought almost absently. For what? He’d look more like a tent than the damned tent did.
Employ any means, the old man had said.
But somehow he didn’t think this was exactly what Huntington had in mind.
“Craig?” Her voice was soft, it was tremulous, it was throatily sexy, it sounded just a shade unsure, just a shade frightened. Such a strong character, suddenly so vulnerable, seeking reassurance from him.
The hell with the old man.
“Come here, Blair,” he said, moving slightly to allow her room on the cot.
Blair was suddenly paralyzed. It had been so easy to imagine going through with it all in the security of his arms with his warmth rampaging through her. But he wasn’t holding her now, and then there had been no thought, just natural, elemental action and reaction. Now she was thinking, he was thinking. It was all there in those yellow eyes, a tenderness that belied their rugged intensity, an understanding that even now offered her an out if she chose to take it.
She didn’t want an out, she wanted to be here. Her legs began to woodenly take her to him, but her eyes remained downcast. Her knees buckled beneath her just as she reached the cot, and luckily she sank to it with some grace.
“Blair,” he asked quietly. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, her throat having gone parchment dry. Her hands were on her lap, folded, wanting to touch, unable to touch.
What was it? Craig wondered, his thoughts no longer for anything but the exquisite, beautiful woman beside him, so close, not touching, but filling his senses with wonder. She wanted him, but she held back; she had boldly come to him, but now she quivered like a pine beneath the onslaught of a winter wind.
He had known desire before, and many women of different lands in different ports, but never anything as shattering as this. A desire that almost drove him mad, still tempered by the overwhelming need to be tender, to protect.
She was so beautiful. So breathtakingly beautiful. Her skin so fine, her eyes shimmering seas of green crystal barely visible beneath the concealing fans of flame.
Craig slowly lifted his fingers to graze lightly the velvet softness of her cheek. “Talk to me, Blair,” he said soothingly.
Her lashes finally fluttered open, and he was met with the full force of shining green. “Will you make love to me, Craig?” The first word was faintly underlined. She actually doubted that he would.
“Good God, Blair, of course I will,” he swore, his voice solemn and yet touched with a wondering amusement that was still unerringly gentle. He sensed the pain in her, the loss, the fear. He was instantly sure she had loved no man but Teile before, and that the memories of beauty were blotted by tragedy. “Talk to me about it,” he whispered gently.
She shook her head, and he saw that she held back tears. “Just love me, Craig. Please, love me.”
She was lost to the initiative, needing guidance. His fingers moved to the buttons of her blouse and he willed them to be steady, sensing she also needed absolute confidence on his part.
Difficult when you were shaking inside like a green boy.
His fingers were reverent as he undressed her, but confident or not, he couldn’t control the indrawn gasps of air that came as he revealed all to his touch and sight that had only mesmerized him by distance before.
He wasn’t particularly fastidious. Her shirt, the first to go, landed on the dirt floor. Her bra—a lacy concession to femininity in the jungle—shortly came to rest on top of it. He resisted the temptation to immediately set his lips to taste the rose-colored peaks upon the firm crests of her high, creamy breasts until he had slipped her khaki jeans off and the lace panties down the length of shapely, supple legs. She swallowed convulsively several times, but now her eyes never left his, and her graceful movements were all to his assistance.
Still she quivered, but still longing shimmered in the eyes that held him captive, eyes that were innately sensuous as well as tremulous.
He reached out fingers that were gentle as feather tips, controlled, tender, and slowly traced the high line of her cheekbones, down the white column of her throat, over breasts that rose and fell temptingly with the increase of her breathing. His fingers hovered over her navel, then plunged downward again, grazing her abdomen, her hips, her thighs. He felt her quivering increase, her senses beginning to rage as his lightness teased flesh so close to the core of her feminine sexuality.
But it had to be right, perfectly right between them. He drew her into his arms, savoring the feel of her breasts crushed to the hair-rough flesh of his chest, her long legs tangling with his, but still determined to hold back until understanding could intensify the pleasure for them both. He brushed against her, and he heard her moan, but although he did nothing to hide the near fever pitch of his need, neither did he yet let that need force him to impervious abandon.
“You came here to me,” he murmured, his eyes locking with hers, “but you’re afraid of me.”
“Yes.” Wide, honest eyes made no denial.
“Why?”
Her lashes wavered slightly, but she met his eyes again. “Because you’re real. You affect me in a way …” she murmured. “I couldn’t keep from coming to you, and …”
Her voice trailed away, but he could supply the ending himself. He did, aloud. “And there’s been no one else since your husband died. Is that right, Blair?”
She nodded weakly, her lids once more lowered.
“Don’t be afraid, Blair.” He assuaged her fears, fingers threading through her hair and seducing as they comforted, massaging gently against the nape of her neck. “I’m frightened too. Can’t you feel me tremble? I want to please you as you please me, as everything about you pleases me.” So many times he had watched her, wanting her so badly. And now she was here. Nothing on earth or the earth itself could take her away from him now. Her eyes, steady on his with tremulous pride, were also filled with a guileless innocence. More beautiful, more touching than anything he had ever seen. He still held back. “You should talk to me, Blair.”
She shook her head. “Not now, please, not now. If you want me, please, just love me.” She buried her head in his neck.
Craig didn’t need a second invitation; he couldn’t have held back any longer anyway.
He pushed her down to the pillow as his eyes caressed her. Commanding, but so gentle, so tender.
“I want you, Blair,” he said huskily. “I want you more than I have wanted anything or anyone.”
She smiled and her eyes closed briefly with gratification, but when she reached to draw him down to her, he firmly caught her arms. “There will be no holding back between us,” he told her softly. “I want all of you.”
Pain had left her afraid for so long, but his assurance was now melting away her fears and the pain that had been so deeply rooted in her heart. He was still larger than life, and yet his intuition was also larger than life.
Again she thought this man, now possessing her with a complete and unabashed thoroughness, this determined man who would always demand all, did indeed know her better than she knew herself. Where she sought now to hide from his eyes, he forced her to meet them, to turn over her heart and soul and give free vent to the pleasure he brought. He thrilled her senses, drawing molten patterns over her flesh with an irresistibly persuasive touch, accepting her fear, her inexpertise, and guiding her along with him in a slow sensuality she had never imagined possible. Though she had wanted him before, she was slowly coming to a point of crazed, passionate abandon. And he kept watching her, watching his own fingers work their magic on her flesh, his breath growing ragged as a nipple hardened to a peak at his touch and Blair moaned aloud.
He ran his hands slowly over both breasts and followed a trail down her midriff and around her hips, curving his touch inward to tantalize her upper thighs. Then he groaned himself, yellow eyes now a golden inferno, and leaned over to take her lips in full demand, hungrily taking, seeking, searching. Abruptly he broke, whispered feverishly, and cradled her face as he whispered what she craved to hear.
He told her how lovely she was, extolling each of her virtues. Skin that was satin, touched by moondrops. Eyes that were emerald seas. Breasts that were firm rose-tipped pillows of divinity. Hips that were a perfect curvature, taunting, beguiling, haunting a man in his dreams.
Funny, he had never thought of himself as poetic, yet with her the words came in a stream. They were from his heart; they were voiced with a passion that now held his loins in explosive, radiating desire.
As Craig’s lips followed his flowering descriptions of her anatomy Blair was seized by a new fit of trembling. A wonderful trembling, sweet, tortured, and splendid.
He commanded, and yet he also teased. Her past was swept from her mind. All she could think of was the magnificent, strong man who lay beside her in godlike bronze, whisking her away from earth to some plateau of heaven with a touch amazingly gentle for a man of his size and power. And then suddenly he wasn’t gentle. He was demanding, his lips and teeth tugging with rough magic against her nipples, his hands assertively roaming, cradling her hips, parting her thighs, discovering the essence of her own fire, stroking, probing, driving her wild. His tongue found tender flesh, seared it, branded it, possessing her in a way she had never known, a possession that was irrevocable ….
Her fear was gone. He had known when to be gentle, when to be rough, when to seduce, when to take. His patience was infinitely rewarded as a creature of wild and fiery passion took shape in his arms. Blair writhed beneath his administrations, returning the intimate abandon he gave her. She touched him, and his gratified groans of approval rang as a sweet symphony to her ears. He no longer cajoled or asked that she give, but demanded, and she surrendered to each of his new demands, learning the potency of her own arousal. Nerves throughout her flesh, her raging bloodstream, her fingertips, took on new sensitivity, straining for the feel of him. His back rippled beneath her touch, his tempo became fervent. His yellow eyes consumed her in their golden fire as his body also set hers aflame.
The first velvet thrust of his entry filled her with a shattering wonder. She had never known two beings could fuse together so completely, so harmoniously, so beautifully. She clung to him, allowing her mind to savor the delicious delirium he brought while trusting in all the innate sensuality he had brought forth to respond. Her nails dug tiny half moons into the bronze of his shoulders, but neither of them noticed. They soared toward a rhythmic undulation of locked hips and limbs that steadily increased in wild, pagan need until it burst into a moment of climax so volatile that it was both sheer earthly pleasure and something glorifyingly of the heavens.
They clung together in a savoring aftermath, Blair ingraining each second of the splendor in her memory, Craig aware that she needed time to assimilate all that she had given and received. It was really a first for her.
But it was a first for him, too, and it took holding his—yes, she was his—flame-haired beauty, in his arms in this almost ungodly satiation to realize that he had never made love. He had had sex, lots and lots of sex, and he had cared sometimes, but he had never known the true meaning of making love. He braced himself above her, loathe to leave her, and cupped her face between his hands. Her eyes were more beautiful than ever, heavy, dreamily clouded, sensual in the aftermath of passion.
“You,” he told her simply, brushing the tip of her nose with a kiss, “are unbelievably lovely.”
Her lips turned into a half-shy, half-knowing smile, and her eyes held his with a grave sincerity. She stroked his cheek with fingertips; no words were necessary between them.
He felt humbled by her; she silently thanking him when he had received so much. He kissed her forehead, and once more, her lips, savoring them now with passion momentarily spent, caressing very tenderly. Then he adjusted his weight, leaning beside her on an elbow as he watched her curiously, drawing absent patterns on her flesh that now comforted beguilingly.
“I want you to talk to me now, Blair,” he told her with gentle command. “I can sense it in you—something that needs to come out.”
She returned his scrutiny with dismay. “I … I can’t talk to you,” she murmured.
“Don’t you see, Blair. Whatever was the past has to be cleared up. You find happiness with me, but I want more than the physical. I can sense that something is or was wrong … you were so hesitant, so unsure, and you are so perfect, so breathtaking.” He fell silent for moment, and then his voice took on a graveled edge. “Did Teile hurt you or abuse you in some way?”
“Oh, no!” Blair gasped. “It just may seem trivial …”
“No, sweetheart,” he assured her, seeming to understand something with a breath of relief. “Nothing that has anything to do with the way you think or feel could ever be trivial to me. And Blair—” It was hard to bring up the name of the late Senator Teile now. But even though he had received her and fully given passion, Craig still wanted much more than that from Blair.
He was a fool, he knew. The more he had, the more he would lose.
But he was a man addicted. He could deny himself nothing now, no matter what the eventual consequences.
“Blair,” he repeated, honesty and the need to fully understand her forcing him to take the gamble of bringing up her deceased husband’s name. “Teile was not a trivial man. Nothing about your relationship to him could have possibly been trivial.”
It was his constant, perceptive understanding that did her in. Perhaps she had always wanted to talk, but there had been no one she could talk to. Her father would have lovingly listened, but she would have increased the burden of pain he already carried for her. Kate would have been there, but she might not have understood.
Nor would Blair ever have been able to have spoken to another lover had she ever taken one. No one else could have possibly had the assurance and self-esteem to comprehend without insult or resentment her words of loss and agony for another man.
Craig did know her—the woman Blair. But he did not know the girl she had left behind, daughter of one famed man, widow of another. But she could talk to him, and it suddenly seemed imperative that she do so. Even if she didn’t trust his existence, she did trust his heart. He would never betray her confidence. Next to her, propped on his elbow, legs still entwined with hers, he waited, hazel eyes warm now, colored with patience.
She closed her eyes tightly for a moment and swallowed, and then swallowed again, hoping she didn’t sound ridiculous. Then she spoke. “I suppose this is absurd,” she murmured. “Other women have lost their husbands.”
“Not absurd,” Craig corrected gently. “And few women have lost a husband like Ray Teile in such a manner. Talk to me, Blair. I want to listen, I want to hear about Ray.”
Her words at first were in a strained whisper, but Craig’s hands were lulling, his heat soothing. The strain left her voice; her words continued in a toneless flow. On and on. And it was good to talk. The raw edges began to heal.
She had married Senator Ray Teile right after acquiring her master’s in psychology. It was a sensational Washington wedding, hosted by the nation’s capital. A marriage thought perfect, made in heaven, by everyone.
And Blair was happy. Ray Teile was a good man, God, what a good man. His campaigns were shockingly clean; he never found it necessary to throw dirt at an opponent. His platforms spoke for themselves, he practiced what he preached, he stood steadfast for his principles.
Craig listened to her without blinking. He felt some of her gut pain—he had been an admirer of Teile himself—tough, rough, but smiling and renowned. Surely a fine hopeful presidential candidate in his later years—which he was never to reach. A slender blond man, his bearing spoke of principle and determination, his face a halo of ideals to be dreamed and then achieved.
The honeymoon proved to be somewhat of a surprise—but a surprise that endeared Blair even more to her new husband. A handsome man—the “golden boy” of politics—Ray Teile had always been thought to be something of a playboy.
Not so, Blair discovered. He shyly, but with dignity, informed her he was almost as new at loving as she.
So together they had found themselves, special friends especially close with the secrets they discovered and cherished alone, like two giddy teenagers off on a voyage.
If their sexual relationship hadn’t been wildly passionate or exotic, Craig learned, it was tender. And their life together was wonderful; they were friends, they loved the excitement of working together, they loved the same type of relaxation, they loved their home, they both looked forward to starting a family.
Craig sensed all the things she was feeling as she spoke, emotions that didn’t need to be outlined clearly. They were universal emotions. She felt guilt that she was alive and able to love again while halfway knowing that that was what she must do. She was also afraid; Teile had been a kind and gentle man, a man she had married. Now she was facing an unknown after years of easy comfort and then abstinence.
Craig knew how hard this all was for Blair; he knew how she was trusting him, and it touched his already plummeting heart to fully realize that she had come to him out of instinct and instinct alone.
Trusting, caring.
He didn’t mind hearing about Ray Teile, the real man. Craig could never begrudge the past, and her memories, good and painful, so badly needed this purging.
And so he listened, learning more about Teile, more about Blair.
The senator the world had seen had not been the real man.
No one ever knew that Senator Teile deplored football, disliking the brutality of the game. They never knew that he delighted in flowers, in birds, and soft music.
It was really an amazingly gentle man who became an American dream. But hell, Craig thought, he could understand the image. So many equated manliness to machismo.
And Teile had been good. Really good. Craig could hear it in every word his widow uttered, in her grief as she described him. She had loved him for all that he really was.
And then she had lost him.
Ray Teile had been shot dead by a sniper while on a goodwill tour, surrounded by highly trained secret service agents helplessly unable to do a thing when the first surprise bullet found its mark straight into the senator’s heart.
And Blair stood by, watching as his life blood flowed surely from his body to the pavement.
Craig suddenly realized that she had stopped speaking. Her eyes were still closed and he kissed them lovingly.
“Blair,” he said softly, and her eyes opened to him. “Teile was a very fine person, and it’s very natural that you still grieve for him. But don’t be afraid of loving again. You are alive, and you have so much to give.”
Blair shuddered slightly. She had brought it all back, but it didn’t seem to hurt so bad, and it didn’t seem at all wrong that she was lying in this man’s arms after talking about Ray.
She turned to him, smiling slightly as she traced a finger along the angle of his cheek. “Thank you for listening,” she murmured. “I don’t think I live in the past, it’s just …”
“Hush.” He pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t apologize to me, I wanted to listen.” He held her close, his breath gentle on her forehead. “I wanted all of you, Blair.”
Time passed as they held together, locked in a contented wonderment. Blair thought how strange it was the two men she had loved in her life could be so very different, so very special, so unique.
And then she realized that she was admitting to herself that she loved Craig.
Shifting against him, she brushed his chest with a kiss, then pressed her lips tightly to his shoulder. He moved to hold her again, but she shook her head and pulled back, rising from the ridiculously tiny cot that had become a bed of clouds for them both.
“Where are you going?” he demanded huskily.
“To my tent,” she returned softly, watching his gaze narrow upon her. A mischievous grin curled her lips. “I’m not worried about my reputation, Mr. Taylor, or what anyone might think. I just don’t think I could possibly share something as special as this night has been.”
He wanted to stop her—more than anything in the world he wanted to stop her. He wanted her with him through the night; he wanted to awake with her face beside his.
His muscles constricted, his jaw hardened. Reason held him back. In less than an hour he had to send a communication.
But reason didn’t help him any as he watched her silently dress with her effortless, unconscious grace. And suddenly he was up beside her. “Tonight,” he whispered, fingers tensing into her shoulders, “tonight I’ll let you leave. But there will come a time …”
What was he saying? he groaned inwardly. Their time would be so limited—time when she would want to be his at any rate.
He released her abruptly. “I’m sorry, Blair.” He turned his back on her.
Blair was silent for several seconds, watching the powerful breadth of his back.
“There will come a time,” she whispered. Then with a rustle of air, she was gone.
She wasn’t sleeping when he moved in the night, the wraith cat again, slipping through the jungle.
But she might not have heard a cannon. Her mind was full, her body sated. Distrust was not among her emotions.
She was savoring the feeling of fulfillment, of at long last knowing a complete peace of mind and body.
When she slept she missed his form beside her, but she slept a complete, total, and exhausted rest, a smile curving her lips.
They had both been right. A time was coming when she would stay, stay until he no longer wanted her with him.
Whatever the future brought with her wandering man, she would take whatever he gave and gladly bear the consequences.