Eden Burning (11 page)

“Nope.”

“Hell.”

She scrambled up onto the flow and began picking a path across. Along the way she scraped one palm, scratched both ankles, and picked up a few other small souvenirs of her trek over aa. But finally she stood on the other edge of the flow. At her feet lay an improbable green oval surrounded on all sides by a lava flow that was naked of plant life.

Less than ten acres in size, the kipuka was a miracle of survival surrounded by the desolation of the birth of new land.

On the uphill side of the kipuka, some irregularity in the old slope had divided the lava flow into two streams. Between the streams of molten stone, plants shriveled, steamed . . . and survived. When the lava flow combined again farther down the slope, it walled off the kipuka from the rest of the devastated land. Except for the kipuka’s few green acres, life in all directions had been engulfed by burning stone.

Silently Nicole looked at the miracle of the kipuka’s life in the midst of a barren, newly born land. Ohia trees grew in tall profusion. Flowers that looked like scarlet brushes grew at the tips of the graceful ohia branches. Ferns in more shapes and heights and kinds than she could name crowded over the hard rock floor of the kipuka, sending slender fronds toward the life-giving sun.

Every growing space from ground level to treetop was filled by some kind of plant. The explosion of life was all the more startling for the sterile lava surrounding it.

Sensing Chase beside her, Nicole turned toward him. He was studying the lush greenery with a wondering expression that made her want to pull out her sketch pad and draw him. But she didn’t know him well enough yet to ask his permission, and she wasn’t bold enough to just go ahead while he was looking.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I’ve seen all kinds of freak survivals from volcanic eruptions,” he said slowly. “Trees standing while others only inches away were blown to splinters. Flowers blooming where nothing had any right to survive at all. The tracks of mice that had burrowed out from under a blanket of hot ash. All unexpected. Freaks of fate.”

She smiled almost sadly. “Freaks?”

“On the mainland, yes. But not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kipukas are normal in Hawaii, not freaks. They’re the inevitable result of lava rivers flowing slowly down sloping, uneven land.” He made a rough sound. “And having said that, I’ve got to admit that it still looks like magic to me.”

“Yes. Magic.” She smiled. “It’s as though Pele couldn’t bear to burn all of life while she was adding on to her island home, so she saved a few places and plants that were special to her.”

“That’s a very Hawaiian explanation. Scientists prefer more ordinary reasons.”

“Those are good, too.” She glanced sideways at him. “For ordinary days.”

A smiled flashed beneath his black mustache. Then he pulled a notebook from his backpack and began making cryptic entries about the height, width, and kind of lava flow that surrounded the kipuka.

The temptation was too much for Nicole. She got out her own sketchbook, flipped to the back, and began drawing him with swift, sure strokes. The lines she made with black ink were as intense and unflinching as the face of the man looking into a miraculous Eden surrounded by a destroyed land.

She worked quickly, almost secretly, not wanting to share the sketch with anyone yet, even him.

Especially him.

Chase kept writing until he had filled several pages with notes. They would help him to recall the characteristics of this place even after he had looked at thirty others. This was all very preliminary, more of a lark than real work, but he had a feeling that the secret kipuka would be an ideal subject for the book.

“Is there a path down?” he asked without glancing away from his notebook.

Hastily Nicole closed her sketchbook, afraid that he would look up and catch her drawing him. “I don’t know of any path. I went partway around the top once. It’s pretty much the same on the other side as here. At least head-high aa, rough and as wickedly sharp as the day it first cooled.”

“So here is as good as there when it comes to getting down?”

She nodded.

“Well, no help for it, then. I’ve been over worse. I think.”

He stowed his notebook and scrambled down the sharp, rough wall into the kipuka. The last few feet were so steep and pocked with ankle-deep holes that he finally just jumped. When he had secure footing in the kipuka, he turned at the bottom and glanced back up. Nicole was at the top of the flow, looking doubtful.

“You don’t have to come,” he said.

“But I’ve always wanted to go down into this kipuka. I just didn’t want to try getting home alone on a broken ankle.”

“You’re not alone anymore.”

He held out his hand to help her climb down. The first few feet were fine. Then she hit the crumbling stuff. A chunk of lava broke off and turned unexpectedly beneath her foot. Instantly his hands closed around her waist. With an easy motion he lifted her and set her down on the kipuka’s more even footing.

“Thanks.” Her voice was too tight, almost breathless.

She hadn’t expected to be picked up with so little effort. She thought of herself as substantial, not petite. The feeling of relative fragility next to Chase was both sensually intriguing and a bit unnerving. It was as though reality had shifted with the lava under her foot, changing her view of herself and the world.

“You okay?” he asked at her startled expression.

“Fine.”

He looked down into her wide golden-brown eyes, wondering what she was thinking. He started to ask but got distracted by the feel of her supple flesh inside the circle of his hands. He flexed his fingers, testing the resilience of her waist.

He liked what he felt. A lot.

“You know,” he said, shifting his glance from her eyes to her slightly parted lips, “I finally understand why men throughout history have paid a lot to have dancers as mistresses.”

Nicole blinked, wondering if she had heard correctly. She knew she was distracted; the diamond intensity of his eyes made her want to put her hands in his hair and pull him down to her mouth.

“What?” she asked, more than a little dazed.

“Dancers feel good.
You
feel good.” He closed her wide eyes with a lingering kiss on each lid. He flexed his fingers again, more deeply. “God, you feel better than good. You feel incredible, all tight and warm and flexible. You make a man wonder what it would be like to—”

At the last second he cut off his words, but he couldn’t stop his thoughts. He wanted to have all of her wrapped around him, moving with him, wanting it as much as he did. He wouldn’t have to worry about crushing her or frightening her or being too big for her.

She would fit him like a hot, satin fist.

Still savoring the unexpected caresses, Nicole slowly opened her eyes and licked her lips, wanting to taste him but not knowing how to ask.

Breath backed up in Chase’s throat. His pulse slammed hard and heavy beneath the tan skin of his neck. Between one minute and the next he was ready for her, his erection pressing hotly against her belly when he pulled her into his arms.

“Chase?”

“Don’t talk,” he said in a thick voice. “Just kiss me. It’s not enough, not nearly enough, but it will have to do for now.”

He took her mouth, and his arms tightened around her as they had on the darkened stage. Her body flexed like a bow beneath his strength. He was arching her into his own body with a force that would have been painful if she hadn’t come to him eagerly. Silently he told himself to slow down, take it easy, this was the first rather than the last stage of seduction.

Then her mouth opened, softened hungrily beneath his probing tongue. Shuddering, he thrust deeply into her, wanting all of her. Here.
Now.

Part of him wondered at his own lack of control when it came to Nicole, but most of him cared only for the sweet fire of having her pressed against his body. She was pliant and warm and so soft that he groaned from the depth of his need for her. With barely restrained urgency his mouth moved over her face and neck and smooth, naked shoulders. Lips and tongue traced the small marks his teeth left, felt the trembling of her responsive flesh, the strength of her fingers kneading his back, urging him on.

Nicole didn’t even know that she was moving against Chase in a slow, sensuous dance. His mouth was both hard and soft, hot, consuming her with sensations she had never felt, never even dreamed.

Nor had she dreamed that a man would tremble at the delicate touch of her teeth on his jaw as she returned the wild, biting kisses he was giving to her. The salty taste and rough texture of his cheek swept through her, making her wonder how many other tastes and textures he had for her to discover.

The thought of all the possibilities made her breath catch. She had never felt like this before—hungry, wild, almost desperate to know all of a man’s body in every way she could.

Chase felt the sudden passionate tension in her body as though it was his own. He
needed
.

And so did she.

With a low sound he took her mouth in a fierce kiss. His hands raked down her spine, cupped her tight buttocks, and shifted until he could rub every aching inch of himself over the sweet heat between her thighs. Her shudder of response was as exciting to him as the tiny sound she made at the back of her throat when she felt the blunt reality of his erection through layers of clothing.

Hungrily, slowly, he stroked over her again and then again, silently telling her that he would give her both deeper hunger and then shocking release. With each motion of his hips, his tongue moved deeply, claiming her mouth, mingling their taste until it was the same, hot and needy, like his hands stripping away her halter, leaving her breasts naked to the sun. To him.

With a startled sound, Nicole yanked back her hands and covered herself.

The defensive movement surprised Chase, for she had seemed as eager for the passionate love play as he was. And then he remembered that he was supposed to be doing just that: playing. This was supposed to be a teasing prelude, not hot sex in the cold lava beds.

Yet he barely had enough control to keep from taking her down onto the rough ground and to hell with cuts and bruises. The violence of his need shocked him, cooling his unexpected, fierce lust as nothing else could have.

“You’re right.” His voice was as harsh as the black stone beneath their feet. He couldn’t stop looking at her, startled and half naked, like a goddess caught at her bath. “This isn’t the time or the place. Turn around.”

Numbly Nicole obeyed, hating herself for betraying the promise of passion with her own fear.

Struggling to breathe more slowly, Chase replaced her halter with deliberate motions, first waiting patiently for her to remove her hands from her breasts. She stood, trembling, while he fastened both halter ties with great care.

The casual brush of his fingers over her naked skin went through her like sweet electric shocks. She took a ragged breath, then another. She wanted to tell him that she hadn’t meant to stop him, that she had covered herself without thinking because her husband had often hurt her breasts trying to force a response from her.

And that was only the beginning of the hurting.

She swallowed several times and tried to tell Chase why she had frozen. She couldn’t. Her lips simply refused to shape the words. She was much too ashamed of her past failures as a woman to stand in the pouring sunlight and discuss her frigidity with the first man she had ever really wanted. The thought of saying something that intimate literally paralyzed her.

In frozen silence she stood with her back turned to Chase, her shoulders braced as she waited for the anger of a frustrated male to break over her head. It was her fault. Again. Her fault.

Always.

Chase couldn’t miss the stiffness of her body. Though he put his hands gently on her shoulders, his thoughts weren’t the least bit gentle. He was cursing himself for his loss of control with her. He had seduced enough women to know how it was done—and how it wasn’t.

It wasn’t done on a bed of prickly ferns and lava sharp enough to cut to the bone.

It also wasn’t done by letting things get out of hand to the point that both people were frustrated and angry because the lovemaking stopped short of satisfaction.

Great going, hotshot,
he told himself sardonically. Y
ou’ve just nominated yourself for the Rutting Jackass of the Year award.

And still he wanted her like hell on fire.

“Sorry,” he said, brushing his lips across the soft skin at the nape of her neck. “Are you okay?”

For a moment she couldn’t believe that the gentle caress and the quiet words were real. But they were.

He wasn’t angry with her.
He wasn’t going to berate her for something she couldn’t help, couldn’t change, and couldn’t bear living with. Her breath came out in a long, broken sigh of relief. Wordlessly she nodded in answer to his question.

“Let me see.”

Gently Chase turned Nicole until she faced him. A single look reassured him. She wasn’t angry with his lack of finesse and all-around bad timing. Relief went through him in a wave that made him feel light-headed.

The depth of his relief was as shocking to him as his nearly uncontrollable passion had been. Since his divorce he’d had only sophisticated, superficial, and physically satisfying relationships with women. Fun and games for both sides. Period.

He hadn’t cared about anything more complex than returning the sexual release women gave to him. Nor had the women cared about getting anything more from him. Emotions weren’t necessary for climax. In fact, they got in the way.

That kind of mutually cool coupling had worked well enough for his purposes.

Until now.

The magic of the redheaded dancer’s body had brought him to the point of eruption with only a few kisses.

Remember what you’re here for,
Chase told himself savagely.
You’re here for Dane, not for a quickie in the underbrush.

And if you keep coming on to Nicole like you’ve never had a woman, she’s going to decide that gentleman Dane looks like a better deal—wife and all.

Abruptly Chase turned away from Nicole. “Has anyone done a formal survey of this kipuka’s biota?” he asked, his voice neutral.

Controlled.

For a moment there was no answer. He fought an impulse to turn back and look for emotions on Nicole’s face. He shouldn’t care whether she was happy or sad, relieved or vibrating with need. He already knew that she had wanted him, but not enough. She hadn’t been anywhere close to losing her head.

He had. He didn’t like admitting it, but Lynette had taught him that denial was a fool’s way to live. He wasn’t that kind of fool anymore.

It was up to him to keep his head in the future. Then he could raise the level of Nicole’s need until she was like Kilauea on the edge of eruption, trembling on the brink of an explosive, mindless release that only he could give her. She wouldn’t be thinking of money and marriage but of the kind of sex that made volcanoes look cold.

Afterward he would go to Dane, tell his brother that he had lost the bet. Then, finally, Chase would be free to . . .

What? What do I want after Dane’s marriage is safe?

There was no answer for Chase but the thick pulse of his own need.