Dance Upon the Air (27 page)

Or maybe it was just another kind of cowardice.

He wasn't sure it mattered, but he was sure it was time to take another step forward.

He'd taken one himself, the biggest step he'd ever taken, on the mainland that afternoon.

He had to admit he felt good about it. He'd felt a little jittery, but that had passed quickly enough. Even the hideous ride back from the mainland hadn't managed to dampen his mood.

The sounds on the other side of the curtain surprised him enough to make him move too quickly. The rap of his elbow against the wall echoed in the little room, and was followed, viciously, by a stream of curses.

“Are you all right?” Torn between amusement and sympathy, Nell pressed her lips together tight and kept his wet bundle of clothes crammed against her chest.

He wrenched off the spray and whipped the curtain back. “This room is a hazard. I've a good mind to check the code and . . . what are you doing with those?”

“Well, I—” She broke off, baffled when he all but leaped naked out of the tub and snatched them back from her. “I was just going to toss them in the dryer.”

“I'll take care of it later. I've got a change around here.” He dumped them on the floor again, ignoring her wince as they hit with a wet plop behind him.

“At least hang them up. They'll just mildew lying in a pile like that.”

“Okay, okay.” He grabbed a towel, ran it roughly over his hair. “Did you just come in here to pick up after me?”

“Actually, yes.” Now her gaze traveled down, slowly, over the damp chest where her locket glittered, the flat belly, the narrow hips he swagged in the towel. “But right at the moment, I'm not thinking tidy.”

“Is that so?” One look from her did more to warm his blood than an ocean of hot water. “What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking the very best thing to do with a man who has just come in from a storm is tuck him into bed. Come with me.”

He let her take his hand and draw him through to the bedroom. “Are we going to play doctor? Because I think I could get really sick if it was worth my while.”

She chuckled, then tossed back the quilt. “In.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Before he could twitch off the towel, she did it for him. But when he grabbed for her, she evaded, then gave him a nudge onto the bed.

“You may know,” she began and, picking up matches, walked around the room lighting candles, “that in lore and legend witches often served as healers.”

Candlelight swayed, and it shimmered. “I'm starting to feel really healthy.”

“I'll be the judge of that.”

“I'm counting on it.”

She turned to him. “Do you know what I've never done for anyone?”

“No, but I'm riveted.”

She slowly lifted the hem of her sweater. She remembered the day she'd stood, poised like this, on the sunny back of his inlet.

“I want you to watch me.” Inch by inch, she peeled the sweater up her body. “And want me.”

If he'd been struck blind, he would have seen her, skin glowing in delicate light.

She slipped out of her shoes in a kind of graceful dance. Her simple white bra cut low and sweet over the subtle curve of her breasts. She lifted her hand to the center clasp, watched his eyes follow the move, then she deliberately left it fastened and trailed her fingertips down her midriff to the hook of her slacks.

His pulse began to thrum as the fabric slithered over her hips, down her legs. When it pooled at her feet, she stepped out with that same fluid ease.

“Why don't you let me do the rest?”

Her lips curved and she stepped closer, but not close enough. She'd never set out to seduce a man before, and wasn't ready to surrender the power.

She could imagine his hands on her as she ran her own up her body, as his breath rushed out of his lungs.

With that faint and knowing smile on her face, she flicked open her bra, let it slide away. Her breasts already felt full, and tender. She peeled the panties over her hips, stepped free of them. She was already wet.

“I want to take you,” she whispered. “Slowly. I want you to take me.” She eased onto the bed on hands and knees to straddle him. “Slowly.” She seemed
to melt over him. “As if there'll never be an end to it.”

Her lips were warm and soft on his. Seeking. The taste of him slid through her system like a drug. When he rolled to take more, to deepen it, she went with him. But not in surrender.

She ran her fingertips lightly up and down his back, finding pleasure in the ridge of muscle, the ripple of it as she aroused him.

She let herself float on sensation as he gave her, and took from her, the gradual glide she'd demanded. Candlelight shifted, then the flames ran straight and true as spears and filled the air with fragrance.

They rose together, danced on that scented air. They knelt on the bed, centered on it, torso to torso and mouth to mouth.

If it was a spell, he'd have stayed bound eternally without question, without struggle. Witch or woman, a blend of both, she was his.

He watched the way his hand looked against her skin, dark to light, rough to fragile. The way her breasts could be cupped in his palms, and how the tips hardened under the brush of his thumb.

They touched, and tasted. A brush, a sip, a lazy caress, a long, slow drink.

When at last he slipped inside her, the gentle rise and fall was like waves of silk. Magic shimmered as they watched each other, as for each, for that moment, no one else existed. Beat to beat, with an intimacy that was more than mating, that abounded past needs and outraced passion.

It welled in her heart, overflowed in a spill like gold.

Her lips curved again as he lowered his mouth to hers. Their hands joined, fingers linking as they slid off the world together.

When she lay
curled to his side, her palm over the steady beat of his heart, it seemed nothing could touch them. Her haven, she thought, was safe, as they were safe inside it.

All of her fears and worries, that creeping dread, seemed foolish now.

They were simply a man and a woman in love, lying in a warm bed and listening to the last of a storm pass overhead.

“I wonder if I'll ever learn how to manipulate objects.”

“Honey, you manipulate just fine,” he chuckled.

“No.” She gave him a playful slap. “I mean moving things from one point to another. If I could, I'd chant the proper incantation and so on, and we'd have chicken soup in bed.”

“It doesn't work like that. Does it?” he asked.

“I bet it does for Mia, if she wants it enough. But for lowly students such as me, it takes getting up, going into the kitchen and doing it all the old-fashioned way.”

She turned her head to give his shoulder a pecking kiss, then rolled away.

“Why don't you stay here and I'll get the soup?”

She tossed a look over her shoulder as she walked to the closet for the robe she'd finally gotten around to buying. “Clever of you to suggest that after I was already up.”

“I thought so. And since you caught me, I'll throw some clothes on and come out and give you a hand.”

“Fine. Bring out that wet heap in the bathroom while you're at it.”

Wet heap? It took him a minute to remember, so she was already out of the room when he leaped out of bed and snatched up his sodden pants from the floor. Digging in the pocket, he let out a breath as his fingers closed around a small box.

She had a round loaf of bread on a cutting board and was ladling up wide bowls of soup when he came in. She looked so pretty, so at home in her soft pink robe, he thought, her feet bare, her hair a little mussed.

“Nell, why don't we let that cool a minute?”

“We'll need to. Do you want some wine?”

“In a minute.” Odd, he thought he'd be nervous, at least a little. Instead he was rock calm. He laid his hands on her shoulders, turned her, then ran them down to her elbows. “I love you, Nell.”

“I—”

It was as far as she got before his lips silenced hers.

“I thought of different ways to do this. Taking you for a drive one night, or a walk on the beach next full moon. Or for a fancy dinner at the hotel. But this is the right way for us, the right place, and the right time.”

The little flutter in her stomach was a warning. But she couldn't step back. She couldn't move at all.

“I thought of different ways to ask you, what words might suit best, and how I should say them. But the only ones that come to me right now are I love you, Nell. Marry me.”

The breath that she had been holding released as joy and grief waged a helpless war inside her. “Zack. We've been together such a short time.”

“We can wait a while to get married if you want, though I don't see the point in it.”

“Why can't we just leave things the way they are?”

Of all the reactions he'd been expecting, the hitch of fear in her voice hadn't been among them. “Because we need a place of our own, a life of our own, not pieces of yours and mine.”

“Marriage is just a legality. That's all.” She turned away, reached blindly into the cupboard for glasses.

“For some people.” He said it quietly. “Not for you or me. We're basic, Nell. When basic people fall in love, and mean it, they get married, start a family. I want to share my life with you, make children with you, grow old with you.”

Tears threatened. Everything he said was what she wanted, so deep in her heart that it was into her soul. “You're moving too fast.”

“I don't think so.” He took the box from his pocket. “I bought this today because we've already started our life together, Nell. It's time to see where it takes us.”

Her fingers curled into her palms as she looked down. He'd bought her a sapphire, a rich, warm stone set in a simple band of gold. He'd have known she would need warmth and simplicity.

Evan had chosen a diamond, a brilliant square in platinum that had sat on her finger like ice.

“I'm sorry. Zack, I'm so sorry. I can't marry you.”

He felt the slice through his heart, but he never flinched as he watched her face. “Do you love me, Nell?”

“Yes.”

“Then I deserve to know why you won't make a promise to me, and take one from me.”

“You're right.” She struggled to steady herself. “I can't marry you, Zack, because I'm already married.”

Nothing she could have said would have stunned him more. “Married? You're
married
? For God's sake, Nell, we've been together for months.”

“I know.” It wasn't just shock she saw now. It wasn't just anger. He stared at her as if she were a stranger. “I left him, you see. More than a year ago.”

He struggled over the first hurdle. The fact that she'd been married and hadn't told him. But he couldn't make it over the second. That she was married still.

“Left him, but didn't divorce him.”

“No, I couldn't. I—”

“And you let me touch you, you slept with me, let me fall in love with you, knowing you weren't free.”

“Yes.” It was so cold, suddenly so cold in the little kitchen that it penetrated her bones. “I don't have any excuses for it.”

“I won't ask when you were planning to tell me. Obviously you weren't.” He closed the box with a snap, jammed it back in his pocket. “I don't sleep with other men's wives, Nell. A word from you, one goddamn word from you, and we wouldn't have gotten to this point.”

“I know. It's my fault.” As his anger grew, hardened his face, she felt the strength she'd rebuilt draining away like the color in her cheeks.

“You think that makes up for it?” he shot back, as temper and misery careened inside him. “You think
taking the blame for it cleans the fucking slate on this?”

“No.”

“Goddamn it.” He spun away from her and caught the way she flinched at the move. “I'll yell when I need to yell. You're only making me madder standing there like you're waiting for a punch. I'm not going to hit you. Not now, not ever. And it's insulting for you to stand there wondering if I will.”

“You don't know what it's like.”

“No, I don't, because you won't tell me.” He reined himself in as much as he could, though temper was still sparking. “Or you tell me just enough to keep things running smooth until the next time.”

“Maybe that's true. But I told you I couldn't tell you everything. That I wasn't going to go into the details.”

“This isn't a damn detail. You're still married to the man who did this to you.”

“Yes.”

“Are you planning on ending the marriage?”

“No.”

“Well, that's plain enough.” He snatched up his boots, his jacket.

“I can't let him find out where I am. I can't let him find me.”

He started to yank the door open, then stood there a moment, his hand on the knob. “Did you ever stop and think, just once did you ever stop and look at me and know I'd do whatever needed to be done for you? I'd have done it, Nell, for a stranger, because it's my job. How could you not know I'd do it for you?”