A Daring Vow (Vows) (18 page)

In his current state of perpetual lust, sackcloth would have made Zelda look desirable.

A pale shaft of moonlight streamed in the window and made her skin shimmer like candlelight on silk. He closed his eyes as if that could stop the wave of pure longing that swept through him.

He’d be okay, he told himself firmly. He’d escape before he did anything foolish, if only she didn’t stir sensuously, if only she didn’t awaken.

She did both. She came awake slowly, sensuously, her gaze instantly locking with his in a way that made his pulse hammer. She stretched, pulling the fabric of that innocent gown taut across her breasts, hiking it above her knees and drawing his attention from the relative safety of bare calves to the pure temptation of that shadowy mound between her thighs. A faint, satisfied smile curved her lips and still he thought he might escape.

Then she lifted her arms, deliberately inviting him, tempting him.

One mortal man could withstand only so much, he thought with a groan as he walked slowly to the door and locked it. His return was even slower, drawing out the anticipation, trying not to acknowledge how one lone woman could scramble his wits.

“This is a bad idea,” he murmured, even as he lowered himself onto the bed.

“No,” she said, boldly lifting the gown over her head. “This is right. It’s always been right.”

She was beautiful. That was his one last completely rational thought. Then all that mattered was the way she felt beneath his caress, the way she responded when his lips closed over a nipple and drew it into his mouth, the way her hips seemed to seek his. She was all fire and passion in bed as she was in life, taunting him, inflaming him, luring him.

“Sweet,” he murmured as he tasted her skin.

“Taylor, I need you now,” she insisted. “Now.”

“Not yet,” he taunted her. “You don’t get your way in everything. We’re going to take this at a nice, slow, leisurely pace. It’s taken us ten years to get here. I’m not about to rush it.”

She bucked beneath him, her skin already damp with perspiration. “Couldn’t we try for slow and leisurely next time?” she whispered, lifting his shirt and raking her fingers along his belly. His belt buckle provided only a temporary slowdown in her determined assault. When it was undone, she moved on to the zipper of his jeans. The slow rasp as she pulled it down was pure torment.

“If you keep that up, we’ll have to,” he said, his whole body aching with the effort of maintaining control.

“You have on too many clothes.”

“Self-defense.”

She slid down, latched onto the cuffs of his jeans and tugged. Taylor was impressed by her determination. He allowed her to shuck them off, then moaned as she scattered little kisses all the way back up his legs. His breath snagged in his throat as her mouth skimmed over him, her pace fast, her intent clear.

When she reached his mouth, he ended the game, claiming her with a kiss that started out hard and punishing and gentled into something sweet and tender and heart-stoppingly familiar. He recognized then that this moment had been inevitable, that no matter what came after, they had been destined to be in each other’s arms again.

And he wanted to savor it, to do all the sensual, exciting things he’d been imagining—remembering—for months, maybe even years. But that wouldn’t happen, if they didn’t slow down. This fire inside him would blaze out of control. She deserved better than that.

He tempered the kiss, then rolled onto his back. Unfortunately, she came with him. In less than a heartbeat, she was astride him, her face radiant with satisfaction, her red hair cascading to her shoulders in a tangle of curls.

“I see patience is not one of your virtues,” he said, his voice coming in a ragged gasp as she settled over him. His arousal strained against his cotton briefs, which were scanty protection against her tempting heat. His whole body throbbed with need. Her gaze locked with his, she wriggled against him in a slow, provocative rhythm, and Taylor was lost.

He somehow managed to scramble out of his briefs with her willing assistance and then she was poised above him again. With careful deliberation, she settled herself over him, taking him deep inside until he was surrounded by that tight, moist, velvet heat. Tears shimmered on her lashes.

“Zelda? Is something wrong?”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t…I couldn’t let you change your mind again,” she told him.

“I wouldn’t have, not this time. It’s too late for that. I think maybe it was too late the first time I ever saw you.”

She rode him then, as she had ridden that horse—with wild abandon, unaware of the dangers, lost to everything except pure sensation. As time disappeared and need consumed him, Taylor thought for one fleeting instant that he had discovered something new and magical. Then he realized it was as old as time. It was the freedom to enjoy all that life had to offer, to love with everything in him.

He also knew, as their bodies stilled and passion ebbed, that it couldn’t last. It never did.

* * *

Floating on a cloud of pure sensation, Zelda thought that nothing could ever be this perfect again. She had known the precise instant when Taylor had given himself up to the emotions, had seen the exultant expression on his face and gloried in it.

But just as she felt the sweetness of triumph, she realized he was slipping away from her and he was doing it intentionally. Though Taylor’s arms remained tight around her, she sensed that something indefinable had shifted.

“What is it?” she asked, smoothing that untamable lock of hair from his forehead.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t tell me nothing. I know you, Taylor Matthews.” She recalled what Sarah Lynn had told her. “According to some, I even know you better than you know yourself.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that you love me, always have, always will.” She said it with utter confidence, hiding the doubts that his stiff, unyielding demeanor stirred in her.

To his credit, he didn’t deny it. That made it that much worse when he said, “It doesn’t matter.”

Zelda slowly extricated herself from his embrace, exchanging heated comfort for cold loneliness. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? It’s the only thing that matters.”

“You asked me about my marriage.”

“That was weeks ago. I’ve figured out most of it by now.”

“I don’t want you relying on conjecture. I want you to hear all of it, from me.”

Bringing Maribeth into this bed was the last thing Zelda wanted, but she could hardly stop him from answering questions she herself had plagued him with.

“After you were gone, after I’d driven you off, I was in a lousy mood for months,” he began. “I didn’t want to hear from my parents that I’d made the right decision. I missed you so badly, I think I went a little crazy. When Maribeth was paraded before me as the perfect candidate for the wife of a man destined for politics, I didn’t much care. She was sweet and lovely and more than willing, though why she’d take on a man who was still hung up on another woman is beyond me.”

“She knew about me?”

“I told her every chance I got. Maybe I was just trying to scare her off. Anyway, after the wedding, I tried my damnedest to make it work, but you were there between us, and she knew it. She began to drink. And when she drank she did things, totally reckless, out-of-character things.”

“Why?”

“I wondered that, but because I was so damned afraid that I already knew the answer, I didn’t ask the question, not until it was too late, anyway.” He regarded Zelda bleakly. “Do you want to hear what she admitted eventually? She told me that she knew she was a disappointment to me. She said she wanted to be more like you so that I would love her as much as I loved you.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Zelda whispered, trying to imagine the kind of desperation and pain behind such an admission. “Oh, Taylor, how terrible for her. And for you.”

“Me? Don’t pity me. I got exactly what I deserved, enough guilt to last a lifetime and then some. I’ve seen firsthand what recklessness and love can lead a person to do. So if you want to stick around for more sex, if you want to stay on at the office, I’m not strong enough to deny myself the pleasure of that, but as for love, as for commitment, I can’t do it.”

He looked her straight in the eye, and Zelda felt all the hope drain right out of her.

“I won’t do it,” he emphasized, just in case she hadn’t gotten the message. “I won’t get tangled up with all that recklessness again. I know how it ends up.”

Foolishly Zelda had thought of tonight as a turning point, linking passion and respect in a way that could endure for a lifetime. She still believed with all her heart that it could, but not if Taylor kept clinging to the past and refused to see the possibilities.

That meant she was going to have to fight with everything left in her. At least now she had some idea what she was up against.

Chapter Fourteen

“W
ould you say that one more time?” Zelda said very slowly.

Taylor hardened himself against the hurt in her eyes. He couldn’t allow himself to forget for one single instant that appearances could be deceiving. He’d learned that from Maribeth, too late to save their marriage, too late to save her life.

It was true that for weeks now Zelda had been acting more responsibly than he’d remembered. He’d never had a better assistant, in fact. She was organized and efficient, intelligent and clever when it came to helping him with cases. But then, just yesterday on that damned horse she’d lost her temper and done something exceptionally foolish. He couldn’t trust her not to do that kind of thing again. And again.

Worse, he seemed to be the one who brought out her impetuous nature. He always had. Hell, at one time he’d been even more of a danger junkie than she was, but he’d learned. Now no one could accuse him of being anything but steady and dependable. He shook off the word
boring
when it popped into his head.
Responsible.

“I was just trying to explain why it will never work between us,” he said carefully. “I know what you’re like, Zelda. There’s a reckless streak inside you that nothing will ever tame.”

“A reckless streak,” she repeated as if she’d never heard the phrase before. Fire sparked in her eyes. “Maybe I just call it living, Taylor. Maybe I see it as grabbing life and hanging on for all it’s worth. Maybe I don’t want to cruise through my years on this earth in neutral, letting things pass me by.”

She glared at him. “And that includes love.”

Love.
The word resounded in his head, promising so much. He knew all too well, though, what sins could be committed in the name of love, what tragedies could occur.

“This isn’t about love,” he said quietly, hoping the denial would silence his own doubts, maybe make him feel more at peace with the choice he was making. He knew in his gut, though, that it was a lousy choice, no better this time than it had been before. He clung to it stubbornly just the same.

“Yes, it is about love. And if you tell me to go this time, it will be for good,” she threatened in a low tone that revealed more fury with each word. “I won’t waste one single minute mourning you again. I won’t waste one single ounce of energy thinking about what we could have had together. You will no longer exist for me. Have you got that, Taylor Matthews?”

A great empty space opened up inside him. He could already feel the void her going would create in his life and he wondered if anything ever again would hurt so much. He fought the urge to drag her back into his arms. With every last ounce of sanity he had left, he made himself regard her calmly, emotionlessly.

“I’ve got it,” he said softly. “It doesn’t change anything.”

He watched as the passionate spirit seemed to drain right out of her, and he hated himself for causing it. Still, that defiant chin of hers lifted a notch. A brief flash of anger darkened her eyes to the shade of a turbulent sea. Zelda would be okay. She had a survivalist’s instincts. He wondered if he would do nearly as well.

Something cold and lonely settled over him as he watched her slide from his bed, her shoulders stiff with pride. She dragged a sheet with her and wrapped it around herself like a protective cloak.

Without glancing in his direction, she said, “I’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

“Zelda…” His voice trailed off as uncertainty swept through him.

She paused, but didn’t turn around. As he watched her waiting for him to say whatever it was he’d begun, he thought he knew what it must be like in hell. He owed her better than this, but too many things had happened. He didn’t have anything better left in him, just regrets.

“Nothing,” he said finally. “I was just going to say there’s no need to rush. My parents expect you to be here in the morning.”

She trembled then as if a draft had chilled her, but he knew better. Her spine went ramrod straight as she walked into the bathroom and quietly closed the door.

Feeling more bereft than he ever had in his life, Taylor cursed softly and climbed from the bed where only hours ago he’d rediscovered magic, the same bed where he’d spent his entire adolescence dreaming of what it would be like to possess Zelda the way he had tonight. As he pulled on a pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt, he tried to reassure himself that he’d had no choice, but the words seemed hollow.

In the kitchen he made a pot of coffee and waited. The slow, methodical click of the clock over the sink marked the agony of waiting. He heard the shower stop, then, after a while, the opening of the bathroom door. All the while his imagination taunted him with images of Zelda’s skin, soft and flushed from the steam, smelling of something sweetly exotic.

When she finally came into the room, his heart wrenched at the bleak expression on her face. She’d tugged her hair back into a ponytail and pulled his baseball cap on again. She looked about seventeen, until he sought her gaze and saw the weariness and pain of someone much older.

“I’m going to stop by the office when I leave here, to pick up my things,” she said.

“Just like that?” he said without thinking. “Sorry. Of course.”

“Will you be coming in tomorrow?”