Kane

13

“I’d have found you sooner if you’d fired up the damned lantern as soon as it was dark.”

Kane weighed the words of greeting from his cousin as he held the trapdoor open. His gaze was pensive before he answered briefly, “I know.”

What else could he say? It was true enough, and he’d known it all along. Besides, he and Regina were both a little too rumpled, their faces a little too pale and lips too puffy, for him to play it any way except straight.

Luke gave him a sharp look as he stood in his heavy fishing boat that rocked gently against the bottom of the ladder. Then Kane’s cousin lifted a brow and a slow grin spread across his face there in the subdued glow of lantern light shining down on him. When he got no response, his appreciative grin widened while wicked enjoyment danced in his eyes.

Kane gave him a hard look of warning. Luke’s expression sobered as discretion won out over humor, or possibly he realized anything he said would embarrass Regina more than its target.

“So what happened?” he asked as he wrapped a line around the bottom rung of the blind’s ladder. “You forget to tie up?”

Kane told him how the boat had got loose in a single laconic sentence. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he’d been caught off guard like some randy teenager with his girl.

“Who? How?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Kane had his suspicions, but didn’t feel like voicing them just now, couldn’t see how it would serve any purpose to let Regina know that he’d been too intent on his business with her to notice they were followed from The Haven.

“You thought I did it,” Luke said, still grinning.

“It crossed my mind.”

“I might have, if I’d seen the chance.”

“I know. And enjoyed the joke, too, until I caught up with you.”

Luke didn’t find that quite so funny, which was just as well. Kane thought he might have had his cousin’s head on a platter, or sure tried, if he cracked any more jokes. He definitely wasn’t in the mood.

All the same, Kane was glad it was Luke who had found them. His cousin might carry him high about the incident for the next month, but Kane knew he could be counted on not to breathe a whisper of it to anyone else.

The rescue got under way in record time, since none of them was inclined to linger. He and Regina stowed the gear they had used, picked up their trash, and lowered themselves into the rescue boat. Luke took off.

The ride back toward the house was fast, but damp and cool. It felt good to Kane, but Regina sat huddled in her padded chair with her arms wrapped around her upper body as if cold inside. He would have offered to hold her, to protect and warm her if that was what she needed, but wasn’t sure she’d let him.

God, what had gotten into him? He couldn’t begin to understand. He’d certainly never meant to take things so far. The last thing he needed was this complication in the middle of everything else.

But she had been so soft and delicious, and he had thought—Hell, what had he thought? She needed him? That she was trapped by her terrible inhibitions like the damned prehistoric fly was trapped in the amber? That he was the one man to perceive and resolve her fears, the only one who could set her free?

Saint Kane with his trusty sword. So to speak.

What an idiot.

He’d been seduced. The combination of desire and vulnerability, fear and bravado that she had used was lethal and tailor-made for someone like him. He’d been so entranced by the performance that he hadn’t seen what was coming at him until it was too late.

Of course, he might not have noticed because he was too busy concentrating on his own agenda. He had set himself up and had no right to complain. So why did he feel as if he’d been blindsided?

She’d got to him, she really had. Somehow he had identified with her, had felt her rootless, unattached state when she was left without family, as he had been left in much the same limbo when his own parents were killed. It had seemed, too, that the intimate betrayal she had been through was on a par with the ugly breach of faith Francie had used in her attempt to extort money from him. They had both trusted the wrong people, both been hurt when their intrinsic need for love and connection was used against them.

Was there really any kind of correlation, or was it all in his head?

Even if there was one, the questions remained: Why him? Why now? How much of Regina’s lovely surrender was from sincere emotion, and how much due to shivering calculation?

The answers had begun to haunt him the minute she was out of his arms. They would continue until he had the truth.

The reluctance she’d shown in the beginning wasn’t counterfeit; he’d stake his life on that. He hadn’t been taken in to that extent. What bothered him most was the thought she might have faked the rest, the need, the pleasure, the release—the whole nine yards. Had any of that been real, or was she only a very good actor, the consummate liar?

Kane turned his face into the wind created by the boat’s swift flight and inhaled long and deep. He hated the idea that the love they had made might have left her cold while he still burned with the aftermath. While he wrestled with the need to do it again.

She had used his emotions against him, and he had let her. How had that happened when he had been all set to use hers to get at the truth? He had no idea. She had made him lose sight of his goal, and he didn’t like it. Even less did he like realizing she made him feel guilty, as if he’d taken advantage of her. She baffled him, and he liked that least of all.

Still, it had been an experience he wouldn’t have missed, no matter the cost. The feel of her in his arms had been so right. Perfect, in fact. He could spend hours discovering the many faces of her, and all the tender, delicate places he had not yet touched. He’d like to devote days to teaching her all the things she needed to know about making love while reveling in the shape and taste and hot, satin depths of her.

It wasn’t over by any means. If she thought once was enough to put him off her trail, she’d soon discover her mistake. No, he and Regina Dalton had seduced each other. Fine. Now they’d see who wound up on top.

He’d also find out who had made off with his boat, setting up the whole infernal sequence of events. It was vaguely possible that it was an accident, that someone had noticed them entering the blind and decided it would be funny to strand him with the new lady in town. But he didn’t think it happened that way, any more than he thought Luke was to blame.

He probably should have been more careful about throwing accusations at his cousin. Still, the lake and back swamp were Luke’s bailiwicks, and he was more than capable of creating a problem to make a point. He’d shown a certain protective interest in Regina, as well, and might have decided his cousin needed a lesson in the dangers of browbeating women if he’d overheard any portion of the exchange between him and Regina. And Luke could also have figured out that Kane had a less than noble reason for getting rid of him so he could be alone with Regina.

Second thoughts convinced Kane to abandon that notion. Any reaction from Luke to the confrontation between him and Regina taking place during the boat theft would’ve been expressed with considerably more force. He’d have been far more likely to hand out a swift punch in the nose than let matters continue by removing their transportation.

That left Dudley Slater. Kane was disgusted to think of the little creep following him and Regina, but it could have been done by making use of one of the other boats from The Haven’s dock. What his motives might be was the main problem with that idea. Assuming he was on Berry’s payroll, it was hard to see what kind of trouble stranding him and Regina together was supposed to accomplish.

Or was it? It might make sense if Slater was in Regina’s confidence, if he knew she would welcome the isolation. Kane gave a grim shake of his head as that thought struck him. Was it really possible, or was he headed off the deep end on this thing?

Time would tell, and a good thing, too, since he wasn’t thinking too clearly himself. He needed to back off and regroup while he worked things out. It wouldn’t surprise him to know Regina felt the same way. The best thing he could do would be to see her back to the motel. They could both sleep on it. In separate beds.

It was the right decision; he knew it. Why, then, did it feel so wrong?

The following morning, Kane met Melville in Baton Rouge. They came together on the steps of the courthouse where the preliminary maneuvering for the case was being played out in district court. Louisiana law required the case be heard in a higher court because it involved compensation and damages in excess of twenty thousand dollars. A local venue would have been more convenient for Pops and the witnesses who would be called from Turn-Coupe, but made little dif ference to Kane. Trying cases before a district judge was business as usual.

He had driven straight to the state capital from home since he was running late. Unable to sleep the night before for thinking of the way Regina had been and how she had looked lying on the floor of the duck blind, he got up at 2:00 a.m. to check on Pops, then worked for a couple of hours. When he felt sleepy, he fell back in bed for a quick catnap, but his hospital vigil and the long hours he’d put in during the past few weeks had caught up. He hadn’t roused again until half past seven, and the district courthouse was a good hour from Turn-Coupe.

“How’s your granddad?” Melville asked as the two of them mounted the wide steps of the courthouse building, their footsteps grating on the worn surfaces that were hollowed in spots by countless other steps.

“Grouchy,” Kane answered. “Ready to go home and sleep in his own bed.”

“Giving your aunt a hard time, is he?”

“So she says, though she gets a kick out of having someone to talk to besides me.” The smile curving Kane’s mouth faded as he noticed the thin, scraggly-looking man leaning against one of the portico columns with a cigarette in his hand. Tipping his head in that direction, he went on, “Looks like the buzzards are circling.”

Melville gave a nod. “Can’t keep them away, though I don’t know what that one expects to gain. I’ve seen him here, there, and everywhere around Turn-Coupe in the past day or two.”

“He bothers me. I just don’t like it.”

“I expect he’s no worse than the rest. You want a problem to worry about, I’ve got a real one for you.” Without breaking stride, he flipped open the top of his soft-sided briefcase and extracted a file folder, which he handed over.

“What’s this?”

“Dossier on the lady who’s been hanging around your granddad.”

Kane felt his heart clench in his chest. He met Melville’s dark brown gaze for a long moment. Since they were close enough to Slater to be overheard, he chose his words carefully. “You put a chaser on that problem?”

“Seemed like a good idea.”

It was. One he should have thought of himself, Kane realized. No doubt he would have if he’d been tending to business instead of getting involved up to his neck. Or if he hadn’t been so determined to handle Regina his own way.

Voice tight, he asked, “And?”

“Read it for yourself.”

He would. He’d have to, though from Melville’s attitude, he could tell he wasn’t going to be happy with the results. The look he gave Slater, as he passed the scrawny reporter, was murderous, easily twice as hostile as it might have been a minute earlier.

Catching the tail end of it, Melville frowned. As he got the heavy entrance door, then followed Kane inside, he said, “You didn’t want me to check out the lady?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m just not wild about having to investigate every person who comes within spitting distance of this case.”

“That scruples talking, or you got something going there?”

Kane checked himself. “What gave you that idea?”

“You’ve been seen coming and going a lot at the motel. Word gets around. You were with her at Luke’s bash, then out at The Haven yesterday. It adds up.”

“My own brand of investigation.” He spoke over his shoulder as he walked on.

Melville caught up with him in a few steps. “So did you get anything?”

“Nothing informative.” That wasn’t the truth, but it was all Kane felt like saying. He just didn’t want to talk about it. Any of it. Melville got the message, apparently, for he said no more.

It was after court recessed for lunch that Kane forced himself to open the folder. The facts were worse than he’d suspected. Regina Dalton resided at the same address as Gervis Berry. They claimed to be related, but there was no actual blood tie. That added up to only one thing.

Staring at that damning data, Kane was engulfed in sick rage. How could she and Berry suppose they wouldn’t be found out? They must think they were dealing with backward good old boys who had grits in their heads as well as in their voices. Berry, sitting in his New York office, was bad enough, but Regina was on the spot. She should have known better.

He’d like to get his hands on her. He’d have the truth out of her one way or another. For two cents, he’d turn the legal maneuvering over to Melville right now while he went to have it out with darling Regina.

No, that would be too easy, too final. He’d much rather catch her in her lies and deceit and throw them back in her beautiful face. There were other, more personal, ways to make her regret what she was doing and he knew every one.

So would she before he was through. So would she.

The interminable court proceedings ground their way through the afternoon. When they were finally over, Kane and Melville drove back to the Turn-Coupe office to discuss the developments. It was late when Kane finally called it a day and headed out for The Haven. As he passed the funeral home, he noticed the car his aunt usually drove parked near the side entrance.

Aunt Vivian might be attending to some chore for his grandfather, but he didn’t want to bet on it. What was far more likely was that Pops had sprung himself from confinement as an invalid and borrowed transportation to come to town. With a soft curse, Kane hit the brake and wheeled into a parking space.

The first thing he heard as he walked into the reception area was a slow, familiar drawl holding forth somewhere in the back. He lifted an inquiring brow at the receptionist on duty.

Miss Renfrew, a termagant who wore her gray hair in the same bun she’d sported for decades and knew more about the business than anyone except Mr. Lewis himself, gave a grim nod. “You’re hearing right. Himself is in the back. I told him he ought to be home in bed, but he said he was tired of being mollycoddled.”

As she finished speaking, Kane heard a different, more feminine voice issuing from the back in counterpoint to Pops’s deep tones. “He brought Miss Elise with him?”

Miss Renfrew shook her head. “The young woman who came about the jewelry. Apparently, he had an appointment with her. They’re back in the casket room if you want to join them.”

It sounded like an excellent idea.

Kane could hear them laughing before he reached them, an easy sound of shared rapport that set his teeth on edge. The pair was standing among the caskets that sat along the walls with the lids open like so many giant bassinets lined with pink and blue, cream and white. They turned as he entered. The smile that lit up Regina’s face would have been enough to tie his insides in knots if he hadn’t been positive it was an act.

To play it cool went against the grain, but seemed best for the moment. He didn’t want Pops upset, nor did he want him taking sides.

Returning Regina’s smile, he walked up between them and put his arm around both, though taking care not to bump his grandfather’s cast. With a mock stern look at the older man, he asked, “What are you doing out and about?”

“Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do,” Pops answered with a glinting smile in Regina’s direction, which suggested supreme ease between them.

It was all Kane could do to keep from grinding his teeth. “At least you have pleasant company.”

“Don’t I though? I was showing her around the joint, and she was telling me about your adventure yesterday evening.”

Kane met Regina’s soft hazel gaze, his own a bit jaundiced as he realized how effectively she had raised his grandfather’s spirits. “She doesn’t look any the worse for wear.”

“I’m fine,” she answered for herself.

He’d just bet she was. “Not too many mosquito bites?”

“Nothing to speak of,” she said with a twitch of her lips. Watching that movement distracted him for a second, doing odd things to his insides.

“I was just telling her she ought to come out to The Haven for dinner,” Pops said. “When I left, Vivian had her Southern Living Cookbook out and was doing interesting things to a roast the size of a football. Elise is coming over, but it might help save us from the leftovers if Regina joined us, too.”

“I’ve been trying to convince him that your aunt might not want a stranger dropping in on her again,” she explained, her hazel gaze soft with doubt.

“I’m sure it’ll be no problem,” Kane said. The agreement was perfunctory. He much preferred a more private setting when he saw Regina again.

“That it won’t,” Pops agreed. “Vivian likes feeding people.”

“And does a wonderful job,” Regina said, “but I don’t know.”

Taking advantage of her hesitation, Kane inserted smoothly, “On the other hand, I think something was said about a pizza party tonight, wasn’t there?”

She met his gaze, her own questioning. He made his expression as warmly significant as he could manage under the circumstances. Color rose at once under her pale skin, and he watched its spread with both satisfaction and a strange, aching regret.

Before she could answer, one of the men who worked with his grandfather stuck his head into the room. “Phone, Mr. Crompton.”

“Be right there,” Pops called over his shoulder. To Kane, he said, “You’ll take care of Miss Regina while I’m gone, won’t you?”

“I’d like nothing better,” he answered, and meant every word.

He waited until the two men were gone, their footsteps retreating toward the front of the funeral home. Then he reached for Regina, swinging her into his arms and clamping her close against him. When she turned her startled gaze up to his, he swooped down and pressed his lips to hers.

He had meant it to be a hard, fast reminder of what had happened between them the night before. It was that, but also a refresher course, a spiraling clamor of the senses that threatened to get out of control. She was so soft and sweet and cooperative that it was perilously easy to forget what he was doing and think only of what he’d like to do. Now. In this room or anywhere else that might be handy.

He raised his head, loosened his hold. Her lips were moist and pink, the pupils of her eyes dark and open. With her hands resting on his chest, over his heart that slammed against his breastbone, she said, “Is something wrong?”

The urge to tell her exactly what was bothering him and ask for some explanation he could believe was so strong it burned like acid in his brain. The only thing that prevented him was the certain knowledge that she would concoct some tale to throw him off the track. He didn’t want to hear it, couldn’t stand that just now.

Reaching for a careless smile, he said, “Should there be?”

“You just seem—different.”

“I’ve spent all day in court wrestling with the hydra-headed monster otherwise known as the Berry Association legal team.”

“Hydra-headed?”

“Cut off one objection or exception and it sprouts twice as many just like it.”

Her smile of commiseration came right on cue. Rubbing a fingertip up and down the silk of his tie, she said, “They have you outnumbered, is that it?”

“About four to one. There must be at least eight of them, all wearing the same Brooks Brothers suit and wing tips. I think they’re clones.”

“I didn’t realize you were already involved in court with the case.”

“Didn’t Pops tell you? It’s advance stuff, mostly tap dancing around each other to figure out how the script is going to shape up and who’ll get to play the lead. It’ll be a few more days before the show gets on the road.”

“I see,” she said, actually sounding relieved.

“So which is it going to be? Aunt Vivian’s home cooking, or pizza for two delivered to the motel?” The last word was husky and slightly suggestive whether he wanted it to sound that way or not.

“Whatever you prefer.” She shielded her eyes with a downward sweep of her lashes, but he still caught the soft, gray-green promise behind the gold-tipped fans.

It was unfair, but he was the one who felt the charge of her reply, felt it squarely in an uncomfortable part of his anatomy. “I’ll see you around 7:30, then,” he said, and let her go before things got away from him. Before he succumbed to a wild urge to put her in one of the caskets surrounding them and take up where they’d left off the day they met.

That same need, made up of equal parts of anger, sexual hunger and beguilement, still simmered inside him when he reached the motel two hours later. He’d shaved, showered and changed to remove the traces of a strenuous day and in anticipation of an evening ending in bed. If he was right about Regina, there was little chance it would turn out otherwise.

Still, it felt cold-blooded and overly cynical, going about things this way. Using the kind of fireworks that ignited between them to gain the upper hand was far from his idea of a perfect relationship. It was possible he had more romantic illusions left than he thought.

When Regina opened the door to his knock, he inhaled the heady smells of oregano and basil, hot tomato and mozzarella cheese and yeasty bread, and also an elusive perfume redolent of gardenias. The pizza, he saw, was laid out on the table under the room’s single window.

Regina had already ordered and paid for everything, which didn’t sit well with him at all. Other people might think it was fine, but in his part of the world there was an unwritten law that said a man paid for the food, especially when a couple was on intimate terms. Not that there was a quid pro quo involved; it was simply the natural order of things, like any male animal providing food for his mate. Any other arrangement made him extremely uncomfortable. If that made him a chauvinist, then so be it.

Kane walked into the room, put down the ceramic dish holding the dessert provided by his aunt, then took out his wallet and began to count money onto the console table that held the TV. He dropped enough bills for a large pizza with all the trimmings and the fat tip it had probably taken for the special delivery.

“What are you doing?” Regina inquired in tight distress from where she stood with her hand still on the doorknob.

“Paying you for—” he began.

“Out!” she said, swinging the door wide again. “Get out.”

He was genuinely puzzled for a split second, then he saw the look on her face. “Now wait a minute!”

“For what? You to get naked? No, thank you. Take your money and go.”

He put away his wallet with deliberate movement. Voice toneless, he said, “Selling yourself a little cheap, aren’t you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not selling myself at all, you sorry—”

“Well, that’s just fine,” he cut across her tirade, “because I’m not buying. Anything except pizza, that is.” He picked up the bills, fanned them, and held them out to her so she could see it was not nearly enough for what she obviously thought was taking place.

Silence descended. He saw the color recede from her face until her freckles stood out against the powdery fineness of her skin like flecks of gold and he was afraid she might faint. The words husky with strain, she repeated, “You’re paying for the pizza.”

“That’s the idea.”

She closed the door, then leaned her head against the frame a second with her eyes closed before she turned back to him. “I don’t know what to say. I thought—”

“I know what you thought. Sorry to disappoint you, but, believe it or not, I’ve paid for sex exactly as often as you’ve sold it.” He met her clouded gaze, willing her to accept his word, offering her his own belief in her integrity.

Quiet hovered between them. She searched his face, her own shaded with lingering doubt. “That first day, at Hallowed Ground, you seemed to think I was some kind of call girl.”

She was right. “I discovered my mistake.”

“Yes, you did,” she agreed darkly.

“I didn’t mean it that way.” He wanted to move closer, to take her in his arms, but was too wary of the implication she might put on that urge to move.

“No,” she said on a deep breath as she linked her fingers at her waist. “I don’t suppose you did. I may be a little touchy on the subject.”

It was a definite understatement, but Kane was sure she had her reasons. What surprised him was how much he wanted to know what they might be. He was also puzzled as he recognized that he bore her no grudge, but respected her stand.

A crooked smile tugged at his mouth as he asked after a second, “Would you really have thrown me out?”

“I’d have tried.” She shook back the bright curtain of her hair as if daring him to laugh at the idea.

“Good. I like a woman who knows what she wants.” It was the exact truth, though he had never expected to say it to Regina Dalton. Especially not tonight.

She watched him a long moment, her expression still shadowed. “Fine,” she said at last. “What I want now is food.”

It was not the start that he’d planned for the evening. The question was, could he salvage the end he had in mind? All he could do was try.

They ate their pizza in an atmosphere of subdued politeness punctuated only by scant comments about the food. They might as well have been eating cardboard, however, for all that Kane knew or cared. It was only as he disposed of the scraps and she opened the container holding the dessert he’d brought that things began to loosen up.

“Strawberries,” she said in awe as she saw the big, ripe berries inside, then leaned over to inhale the sweet, fresh-picked fragrance that rose from them. “Did you get them at a farmer’s market?”

“From Aunt Vivian’s garden. She’s as good at growing fruits and vegetables as she is at cooking them.”

“And this is a sauce?” She set the ceramic bowl with its center depression holding coconut cream on the table between them, then sat down across from him once more.

“A dip. Something decadent my aunt whips up out of cream of coconut, cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla. You dunk the berries in it like this.” He demonstrated, holding the strawberry by the hull and stem that had been left when the berries were rinsed clean. With the thick, rich cream dripping from the dark red strawberry, he offered it to her.

“Ummm,” she said as she opened her lips and bit off half the berry, then reached for the rest. “That’s wonderful. I do love strawberries.”

Kane agreed, while ignoring the drawing sensation in the lower part of his body caused by the sight of her lips enclosing the round, tender fruit. Reaching for a berry for himself, he said, “You realize that, all things considered, we know very little about each other, our likes and dislikes, what we enjoy and don’t, or even things more important. For instance, you’ve mentioned very little about your life in New York, other than the fact that you live with a cousin and have a son.”

“There’s nothing much to tell. I buy and sell jewelry, travel for auctions and appraisals. When I’m home, I help my cousin with his paperwork.” She shrugged without looking at him as she swirled a second strawberry in the dip.

“No other family? No grandparents, for instance?”

“None on my mother’s side. She always said that she was an orphan, though I think her family may have washed their hands of her when she ran away from home in Kansas to marry my father. As for his parents, they may still be alive somewhere, but I never knew them.”

No family, or at least none who cared about her. She had apparently taught herself not to mind, but it had affected her, Kane thought as he watched the flicker of emotions that crossed her face. Sympathy was not going to help him, however.

He said, “So who was it took care of you after your mother died?”

“An aunt.”

“But I thought you had no contact with either your mother’s or your father’s families.” His tone was carefully neutral, though he watched her closely.

“Actually, she wasn’t related, but only a friend of my mother’s, a woman she met soon after she came to New York,” she answered, her gaze wary, as if she suspected what he was doing. “She decided we should tell people she was my aunt to avoid trouble with the child-service people. She was afraid they wouldn’t let me stay with her if there was no blood tie, though I doubt they cared. Anyway, it became such a habit that it almost seemed true.”

“I think you said before that this woman died?”

She dropped the hull of the strawberry she had just eaten onto her plate and didn’t reach for another. In toneless agreement, she said, “Five, almost six years after I went to live with her.”

“What then? You must have still been fairly young since you were only—what? Ten, wasn’t it—when your mother died?”

“The woman had a son who was like a brother to me. I stayed on with him.”

“So the two of you made a family of sorts.”

“Of sorts,” she echoed, her gaze on the strawberry hull she nudged around the edge of her plate with the tip of one finger.

“Except he isn’t really a cousin.” Kane wanted to accept that the situation was as she said. The surprise was how much he wanted to believe it.

“You’ve no idea what a hassle finding an apartment can be in New York. I keep meaning to move out on my own, but somehow, with the traveling and everything else, I’ve never gotten around to it.” She aban doned the strawberry hull. “I suppose it must seem strange to you, considering the size of your family.”

“It’s a bit hard to imagine.”

“Having so few people close to you makes you cling to those who are there,” she said, lifting her gaze finally and holding it level.

Kane refused to be affected by the undercurrent of stress in her voice. “Especially your son, I imagine,” he added quietly. “Who takes care of him when you’re out on the road like this?”

“He’s in a special boarding school because of a learning disability. It makes him frustrated and hyperactive, and…resistant to discipline or control of any kind, which is dangerous in a place like New York where he might dart into traffic or wander away from the apartment and be found by anyone, any kind of creep. He takes medication, but still needs constant supervision.” She made a helpless gesture as she trailed into silence. The sheen in her eyes had the look of unshed tears before she glanced away toward the strawberry bowl. She reached for another berry and took a bite, though he didn’t think she wanted it.

“Is the boy the reason you never married, never started a real family of your own?”

She swallowed and licked some sugary dip from a finger before reaching for a napkin. “Part of it, I suppose,” she answered, “though you know the rest.” She looked up, her face changed, hardened. “What is this interrogation? If you’re going to keep asking questions, maybe I should call in another lawyer.”

“Only if you have something to hide,” he said, and waited with a suspended feeling in his chest for her answer.

She hesitated a millisecond and her eyelids flickered, then she gave a low laugh tinged with irony. “I don’t suppose I have any more secrets than the average person. You, for instance.”

She was good, he thought. So far, she had told enough of the truth to be plausible while still concealing the facts by omission. Yes, she was very good, but so was he.

“The only thing I’m hiding,” he said, smiling ruefully as he propped an elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm, “is a strong urge to see how you taste with Aunt Vivian’s dip on your mouth.”

“Like coconut and strawberries, I’d imagine,” she said, her voice suddenly uneven.

“Two of my favorite flavors.”

She licked her lips. “Are they?”

It was all the encouragement he needed. He got to his feet and moved to her side of the table. Taking her hand, he pressed the palm to his lips, then placed it at his waist as he bent over her. With a knuckle under her chin, he tilted her mouth and settled his lips on hers.

The luscious mixture of tastes, including her own nectar, melted on his tongue, spread through him with the power of some mystical elixir. It made him yearn for more, even as he knew it would never be enough. Bemused by the magic, he lifted his head and saw the same glazed wonder in her face.

Why? Why did it have to be so good? Why couldn’t he have found this amazing physical affinity with some simple, loving female who believed in all the things he believed in, who understood his values, hopes and dreams? Why did he have such bad luck with women? Were there no honorable ones, or was he simply, inevitably, attracted to the wrong kind because of some inner flaw?

It was a useless question, one that vanished from his mind the instant he took her mouth again. His senses expanded as he realized there was no shrinking, no denial in her touch. She was all giving grace and accommodation. She allowed him entrance, followed his lead, swayed a little and caught his arm for balance with a touch that seemed to burn through his skin to the bone.

His heart was on fire, and his lower body, as well. He needed her as he had never needed another person in all the accumulated days and minutes of his life. Against all common sense, he wanted to lavish her with love.

Impossible. But he could do the next best thing. He could show her a different kind of loving, teach her the intense communication of selfless physical passion.

He went down on one knee, at the same time placing a drift of small kisses along the point of her chin to the pulse in the long sweep of her neck, down to the hollow of her throat. She wore a rust silk blouse that glided open beneath his questing fingers. To pull it free of her skirt took less than a second.

Her breasts were milk white and blue veined under a covering of peach lace, gentle globes that fitted his hands as if molded for them. Their warmth and delicate fragrance mounted to his head with narcotic force. His senses reeling with it, he pressed his hot lips to the valley between them while he slid her bra straps down her arms.

It had been too dark to see the night before. Now the beauty of her nipples, like tight and tender rosebuds, moved him beyond words. To touch them, it seemed, was to risk damaging them, yet his mouth tingled with the need to capture their perfection. Unable to help himself, he bent his head and wet first one, then the other, with his tongue. That glistening moisture was the ideal enhancement. A faint smile curved his mouth before he tasted them again.

But there was another variation lying like a gem in his mind. Moving with slow care, he reached to scoop his finger into the bowl of coconut-flavored dip. Applying it to the nearest nipple, he spread it in a slow circle.

“What are you—doing?” she asked with a catch in her voice.

“Anointing you,” he said distractedly.

“Why?”

“For this,” he said, then began to lick the lovely treat he had created. She brought her hand up to run her fingers through his hair, but didn’t interfere. Nor did she object again.