It was the rattle of china that finally dragged Lisa out of the comforting oblivion of her warm cocoon.
She opened her eyes, squinting against the bright sunshine that filled the room, getting a glimpse of the deepest blue sky she’d ever seen through the windows, as well as the attractive brunette who was settling the tray on the nightstand beside Lisa’s head.
“Monsieur Devlin said you might wish for some coffee,” the girl said in heavily accented English.
Lisa nodded, only to wince at the dull pain that reverberated through her head at the motion. She pushed up onto her elbow, gingerly taking the cup and saucer that the girl had filled and was holding out to her. “Thank you. Are you Marta?”
“Mais non, madame. Je suis Sylvie.” She quickly rounded the bed to the other side of Lisa and began straightening the pillows there, sweeping her hands deftly over the tumbled bedding.
Lisa eyed her, warily trying to see beyond the pain in her head to her memory of the night before. She’d eaten a little…Rourke had been on the phone…the wine…the chaise.
Her stomach clenched as she recalled the sensation of floating, his arms around her.
He’d obviously slept in the bed.
But had they done anything else?
Was it possible they’d made love and now she couldn’t even remember it?
Feeling as if she’d fallen down the rabbit hole, she rubbed her hands over her eyes. Surely she’d remember…
“I can bring madame les croissants et les fruits?”
“No, thank you.” She pushed the rattling cup and saucer onto the nightstand before she managed to spill the steaming brew all over herself and the bed, and sat up on the side of the mattress. “Can you tell me where Mr. Devlin is?”
The girl dimpled. “Swimming, madame. As he does every morning when he stays here.”
Lisa pushed off the bed, yanking the hem of the jersey down around her thighs, and strode over to the French doors that were opened to the warmth of the morning sun. Ignoring the clanging inside her head at both the motions and the unrelenting sunlight, she went out onto the terrace and, sure enough, she could see Rourke’s black head bobbing in the blue, blue sea.
“In case you wish to join him?” Sylvia appeared silently beside her bearing a plush white robe.
“I’m not exactly wearing a swimsuit.”
The girl merely smiled. “Nor is he, madame.”
Lisa snatched the robe and yanked it on, covering her jersey as well as her self-consciousness. “Thank you, Sylvie.”
The girl tilted her head slightly, managing to look amused and sly at the same time, before she disappeared back into the house.
Maybe Rourke didn’t need to bring women to this place if the lovely Sylvie was already at his beck and call.
Annoyed with herself for even wondering, she stomped barefoot down the steps to the lower terrace. Her feet met the coarse sand, slowing her speed considerably, but she made it to the towel that he’d dropped in a heap just beyond the water’s reach.
He obviously knew she was there. He waved an arm, gesturing for her to come in.
In answer, she gathered the robe around her and sat down on top of his towel.
Despite the distance, she could see the flash of his teeth. Then his head disappeared beneath the surface of the glimmering water, reappearing again a moment later, considerably closer to shore. Before long, he was rising up altogether as he walked through the chest-high water as one hand slicked his hair back out of his face. Then the water was at his waist.
His hips.
She shaded her eyes, ostensibly from the sunlight, but just as much to hide the effort it took not to drop her jaw and just stare, when he kept right on coming. All warm, tanned flesh stretched over long, roping muscles.
Warm, naked flesh.
Not even being forewarned was enough to prepare her.
He walked right out of the sea like some pagan God with water streaming down his corrugated abdomen, his thighs. His…everything.
And he didn’t stop until he was less than two feet away. “My towel,” he finally prompted.
Flushing, caught staring, she shifted off the towel and practically threw it at him.
Not bothering to hide his smile, he easily caught it and ran it down his chest. She was almost pathetically grateful when he wrapped it around his hips because she wasn’t sure she would ever regain the art of breathing if he didn’t.
“I met Sylvie.” It wasn’t at all what she should be saying, much less in such a waspish tone.
“I told her to make sure you had coffee before noon. Figured you’d need it after last night.” He stretched out on the sand beside her, his head propped on his hand. With his hair slicked back from his face, he looked even more devilish. Black eyes bright, thick lashes clinging together with sparkling water drops, the whisper of a sardonic grin hovering around his mobile lips.
“Is she one of the women you’ve been here with?”
The slashing line beside his lips deepened. “She’s a child.”
“She didn’t look very childish to me.”
He tugged at her robe’s belt until it came loose. “Mrs. Devlin, are you sounding jealous?”
“Certainly not. I just don’t want to be embarrassed by coming face-to-face with one of my husband’s lovers while on my honeymoon.”
He gave a bark of laughter and captured her ankle in his hand. She nearly jumped out of her skin and wasn’t helped any when his palm began slowly running up her calf beneath the loose folds of the robe. “Sylvie is Marta’s niece,” he drawled, his gaze capturing hers and allowing no escape. “Marta is a longtime employee of the owner, who happens to be a good friend of mine.” His warm, still-wet palm reached her knee and began inching along the descent of her thigh. “And while we’re married, the only lover I’ll have is you.”
She clamped her hand over his wrist, stopping the progress of his utterly distracting hand before it crept any farther toward the hem of her hockey jersey. “Have? Does that mean we already—last night—” She broke off, miserably humiliated at even having to ask.
His eyes were inscrutable. “You don’t remember?”
Her jaw tightened. “Obviously. Not.”
He moved suddenly, and instead of her hand capturing his wrist, he’d pushed her down and pressed hers into the sand above her head while he settled over her. “Princess, you’ll definitely know when it’s the morning after.”
She drew in a shuddering breath, excruciatingly aware of every solid, male inch pressed against her from breast to toe. “Then w-we didn’t.”
He lowered his head until his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers. “We did not,” he said softly. Slowly.
She swallowed and a soft sound rose in her throat that was either acknowledgment or relief or despair. She wasn’t sure and, at that moment, wasn’t sure that she cared.
He ran his other hand down the side of her head, threading through the tangles in her hair. “And when we do, it’s not going to be because you’re down half a bottle of wine just so you can face being in my bed.”
“There wasn’t even enough left in that bottle for two glasses.”
“And you have no head for even one,” he pointed out softly. “I saw that the first day at Fare. But you’re clear-headed now, aren’t you.” His lips slowly settled against hers; not exactly a kiss, not exactly not a kiss.
Whatever it was, it made her forget the dull throb behind her eyes.
It left her heart charging inside her chest.
It had her fingers curling and uncurling against the sand.
“It’s broad daylight.” Her lips moved against his, her whisper barely audible. “Anyone could see us.”
He angled his head finally, moving until his lips tickled the lobe of her ear. “Private beach. Nobody’s watching.” His hand left her hair and slid over her throat, working the lapels of the terry cloth robe out from between them.
“But Sylvie. Marta.”
“Know better than to look,” he assured her. “And if they do, what will they see?” His hands slid beneath the jersey, drawing it up her hip and stealing her breath. “A husband and wife on their honeymoon.”
She sank her teeth into her tongue when his fingers grazed the flat of her stomach, but a sound still escaped. And then he was moving again, his weight leaving her, only she was still pinned against the sand by the ungodly pleasure of his mouth pressing against her navel.
“Wait,” she gasped, wrenching her wrists free from his grip to press her hands against his shoulders.
He barely lifted his head. His gleaming eyes looked at her. “For what?” Watching her steadily, he pressed his lips against her abdomen.
Her muscles jumped. She sucked in a breath. “I—” She had no answer. What were they waiting for?
Her nerve?
His lips inched higher. Pressed another kiss. Still he watched her.
His gaze was equally as disturbing as the feel of his lips, warm and surprisingly soft, particularly compared to the tingling abrasion of his unshaven jaw against her belly.
He nudged the jersey fabric higher, followed by another kiss.
Nudged again, nearly over her breasts. She felt the breath of balmy air against skin that had never directly felt it. “I don’t do this,” she said faintly. “Roll around naked on the beach like in some movie scene.”
“You’re not really naked,” he murmured. With excruciating slowness, he dragged the jersey against her agonizingly tight nipples until they sprang free. “Not yet.”
Her lips parted, searching for breath that wouldn’t come. Her heart raced dizzily. His gaze finally left hers to survey what he’d revealed.
His fingers balled the fabric in his fist. “Beautiful.” His voice was low. Rough.
His head dipped again to taste, and her back bowed off the sand at the feel of his mouth capturing first one hard, tight peak, then the other. She felt drenched in fire. “Rourke—” She couldn’t take it. “Please.”
“That’s the plan. Please you.” He kissed his way up the slope of her breast. “Please me.”
“No.” She was shaking her head, even as he was pulling the oversize jersey over it. “I can’t. Not like this.” But her heels were dragging into the sand while her knees lifted and her traitorous thighs hugged his.
“Can’t, or won’t?” He braced himself on his arms, keeping from crushing her, but the dark swirl of hair on his chest was a crisp tickle against her breasts. His narrowed eyes searched hers.
She could feel him hard and heavy and waiting. The only things separating them were a loosely draped towel and her panties, both of which could be so easily disposed of.
And heaven help her, but she wanted those barriers gone. She felt hollow and achingly wet and he was the means to heal her.
She’d never wanted anyone like this. She’d known it ever since that single, unforgettable turn around the dance floor with him at the Founder’s Ball, even while he’d been making caustic comments about the fancy party that test-tube babies had paid for.
But none of that came to her lips as she stared mutely into his eyes.
She felt the push of his chest in the deep breath he drew. Her lips felt swollen and tingled when his gaze dropped to them. He ran his palm along her jaw, moved his thumb over her lower lip.
A small part of her brain warned her that she was only imagining a tenderness in his touch. A larger part of her body wanted to just sink into it.
His gaze lifted again and caught hers. “What are you afraid of?”
It was the last thing she expected from him. Cool irritation. Arrogant demand. Not this unexpected, unwanted softly voiced insight.
“Tell me.” His voice dropped even lower.
“Everything.” The admission was nearly as much a release as the one her body was aching for him to give her. Hot tears suddenly leaked from the corners of her eyes. “I’m afraid of everything,” she whispered again. “Everything’s out of control.”
“Everything?”
“You,” she amended huskily. “You make me feel out of control.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t gloat.
And it was more dangerous than if he had, because that she could have shored up her defenses against.
Instead, he simply asked softly, “What’s safer than losing control in the arms of your husband?”
She couldn’t bear the gentle probing in his eyes and closed hers. “Nothing if we were an ordinary couple. Which we’re anything but.”
He was silent for a moment. A moment filled with the lap of water, the whisper of a breeze, and the weight of this man whose words did nothing to allay the desire still holding her in its grip. “Control’s important to you.”
She let out a careful breath. “Isn’t it to you?”
“I’m a man.”
Her eyes flew open. She stared, then laughed brokenly. “Right. And for a man—particularly a man like you—your need to stay in control is acceptable and expected. But because I’m a woman—” She broke off, shaking her head.
He nudged her chin with his thumb until she was looking at him again. “I know the reasons why I control the things I do. To achieve the things I want.”
“And what you want now is a child. Which is the only reason you want me.”
He shook his head slightly and smoothed his thumbs down the tracks of her tears. “That’s not the only reason. I wanted you long before it occurred to me that we could help each other.”
And it scared the living wits right out of her. Men like Rourke didn’t want women like Lisa. They wanted beautiful, sexy, accomplished women. Women who were as comfortable in their bedrooms as they were in their offices.
“I told you it’s all going to be all right.” His mesmerizing gaze held hers even when he pressed his mouth against hers in a slow, drugging kiss that had her bones melting all over again.
And just when she was on the verge of collapsing into it, to twine her arms around his broad, broad shoulders, and pull him down onto her, into her, he suddenly jackknifed off her and grabbed her hands in his, hauling her up to her feet. “Come on.”
She very nearly stumbled, taking a few steadying steps in the sand as he leaned down again to scoop up her jersey and his towel that had slipped free, giving her another heart-stopping view. He dropped the jersey back over her shoulders, slung the towel around his waist again, and shook the sand out of her robe before handing it to her.
Bemused, she took it and followed, unresisting, when he took her hand and led her back up the short stretch of sand to the stairs leading up to their bedroom terrace. Expecting him to lead her right to that big bed that they’d shared but hadn’t “shared,” confusion joined the miasma of emotions swirling inside her when he just let go of her hand once they were inside, and headed to the dressing room.
She looked from his departing backside to the bed that Sylvie must have finished making after Lisa had gone down to the beach, and back again. But Rourke didn’t return and a moment later she heard the sound of the shower.
She shoved her hands through her hair, fingers catching in the tangles, as she pressed her palms against her head.
She did not understand the man she’d married at all.
Before she realized it, her feet had carried her into the spa-like bathroom where steam was already forming against the clear glass shower walls. The steam had not, unfortunately, begun to cloud the mirrors and before she could demand to know what game he was playing now, she caught a glimpse of her reflection.
She cringed, nearly groaning right out loud.
She looked like something the cat had dragged in. Hair sticking out at all angles. Day-old mascara smudging shadows around her eyes.
Ignoring the distraction of Rourke’s movements behind the cloudy shower glass, she snatched open her cosmetic bag. She washed her face. Brushed her teeth. And was just beginning to attack the snarls in her hair when Rourke shut off the shower and stepped out, again displaying that singularly unselfconscious demeanor as he stopped behind her, heedlessly dripping water everywhere as he slipped the comb out of her nerveless fingers.
She couldn’t pretend that her face wasn’t blushing fiery red, but she could ignore it. “The tangles will get worse if I don’t get them out.”
“Then sit.” Rourke closed his hand over her shoulder when she stood there staring at him in the reflection of the mirror, and he nudged her toward the padded stool tucked beside the vanity.
Looking too surprised to protest, she sat and looked even more bemused when he stood behind her and lifted up the ends of her hair to start working the tangles free with the comb. “It’s longer than I expected,” he admitted.
Her brown eyes widened. “You thought about…my hair?” She sounded so disbelieving that he almost laughed.
At himself.
He’d thought about a lot more than her hair. And now she was his wife and he was no closer to having her than he’d ever been, because he’d realized that he couldn’t force himself to force her to want him in return. “You always have it pulled up,” he said.
She’d curled her hands together in her lap. Tightly. And was watching him in the mirror as if he were crazy. “What are you doing?”
Maybe he was crazy. His hands kept working, patiently making his way from the ends of her hair to the scalp. “Keeping you from ripping so much of your hair out that you’re left half bald.”
“Why?”
He nudged her head forward with a finger. “Because I want to. Blame it on my controlling nature.”
She gave an exasperated humph. “Where’d you learn to comb out tangles?”
“My sisters are all younger than me,” he reminded her. “Someone had to help my mother with them.”
Her gaze caught his in the mirror and damned if he felt able to look away.
“I can’t figure you out,” she said softly.
She wasn’t the only one. “I’m just a man.” He finally, deliberately lowered his gaze back to her head. “I can ditch the towel if you need reminding.”
She huffed softly again. “You could probably buy and sell small countries but you insisted on marrying me to keep your mother happy.”
Not just his mother. He moved on to another satiny hank of tangled hair, not commenting.
“And here you are combing out my hair.”
“That sounds more like an accusation than an observation.” He draped the tangle-free length over her shoulder and moved to the next section. Her head tilted slightly, revealing that tantalizing little freckle.
His mouth felt dry. Here he was. Surrounded by the ocean of her while thirst was slowly, but surely killing him off.
“You’re close to your sisters.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She was an observant woman and it wasn’t something he’d tried to hide.
“They all have children. Are you just trying to keep up with them?”
His lips twisted. Not with amusement. “I want kids. Not so unusual. Haven’t you thought about having them?”
“Not until you forced me to think about it,” she returned. “Now, I feel constantly confronted by it.”
He didn’t reply to that. He merely stroked the comb one last time through her waving hair that was now free of knots, and then handed it to her. “Get dressed. We’ll go into town for lunch.”
He left the bathroom and Lisa turned on her stool to watch him go to one of the armoires in the bedroom and pull out a lightweight shirt and pants. He was nearly fully dressed and she was still sitting there, trying to understand the odd progression of the day.
Trying to understand this man to whom she was now married.
Finally, he stopped in the middle of the bedroom. His white linen shirt was untucked over beige pants. With his black hair still damp and tousled and his unshaven jaw shadowed, he looked expensively casual—and seriously sexy.
And a large part of her was demanding to know why she’d had to go and ruin what had started on the beach.
“I don’t understand you at all,” she admitted, beyond caring at that point what sort of edge she was probably allowing him.
“What’s to understand? I’m hungry.” He pushed his feet into leather loafers, missing the face she made.
“I wasn’t talking about the lunch plans.” Which she knew he was well aware even before he straightened again with the faint smile back on his face.
“You need to stop thinking so much,” he said.
“If I could stop thinking, we’d have been having sex down there on the beach.” She flushed all over again.
His eyebrows lifted a little. He gestured toward the opened doors leading to the terrace. “Then we’ll go back down there. We can always have lunch later—”
“No.” She quickly pushed to her feet. She was afraid he was playing with her, but that didn’t mean she trusted him not to put words to action.
She knew that the time would come—sooner rather than later—when she’d have to live up to her end of the bargain. He’d bought his way into her uterus, in exchange for saving that which mattered most to her. The institute.
But that didn’t mean she was ready yet to face the fact that in the process, she’d also sold him a place in her bed.
“I have sand on my legs,” she said, reaching for the door between them. “I need a shower before I dress.” Before he could comment, she closed the door.
It wasn’t a significant exercise of control, but it was better than nothing.
And when it came to Rourke, she needed every speck she could hoard.