Miami Midnight (25 page)

Chango, she thought. Ghosts in the attic. Minotaur waiting in the middle of the maze. It would take her longer to turn around and find her way back to Palm Island than it would to go straight ahead and see what lay at the end of the hall.

Sliding her free hand along the wall, she followed it until it became an open door. She turned into it.

The room, too, was candlelit, and large enough to be called a stateroom, with wood paneling and thick, springy carpeting underfoot. It had a bed—the real bed of a luxury yacht, and not a cramped bunk—and the bed was hung with red silk panels that drifted like flame-colored smoke, curling and falling back as the cruiser rocked gently on the swells. Everywhere was the scent of perfume and flowers, gardenias and sandalwood. Tuberoses, musk. Under the floating scarlet silk, Gaby knew, was Chango.

...imbe imbe lorde imbe ma yeye imbe imbe lorde imbe imbe layeye imbe imbe loro via ye oyo...

Echoes of the priestess’s chant drifted like the flower scent in the air. Gaby put down the candle on a table and leaned over the silk-draped bed.

She no longer wondered why she was there. Or why someone had told her, “Go to him,
mundele
, and make him happy.” It was the very thing she longed, in her heart of hearts, most to do. Was this dream, then, the only way it could be done? For certainly, in reality, she would never have come to James Santo Marin alone.

She rocked on her heels as the huge boat moved, and the light of the candle wavered with her. She supposed she could see how they would think he was one of the
Santería
gods. Chango, they’d told her, was beautiful, mysterious, all-powerful. She had only to look at him, even sleeping, to know he was all of that. He looked as if he truly gathered thunder and lightning around him as he dreamed.

It was madness even to think about loving a man like this, she decided as she sat down on the edge of the bed, but she couldn’t help worshiping him with her eyes. He was tenderness and fire. He lay sprawled on his back, his bare feet with their finely sculpted bones and long toes nearest her, then long, strong legs lightly covered with a fine brush of dark hair.

The yacht rolled, and Gaby steadied herself against the bed with one hand. Muscular thighs joined narrow hips, leading to the soft black hair where the thick shaft of his sex lay ruddy, semierect. The eroticism of his body amazed her. Not all of it was breathtakingly graceful; he was sexually put together like a bull.

The flat planes of his belly stretched up to the rib cage, and her gaze roamed over his chest with its strong patterns of muscle under golden skin. A gold small chain with a Saint Christopher medal encircled his neck. She bent over him and braced one hand on the pillow by his head. His face was a mask of stark cheekbones, long arrogant nose, lidded eyes with their thick black lashes. She leaned closer. The fierce mouth that could open to snarl, shout, argue—or smile—was still, tense lines softened, indents at the corners relaxed. There was also what she’d noticed before, the strained skin under his eyes, thumbprints of exhaustion, dark as bruises.

Gaby sighed. He was a sleeping god. He was the man, incomprehensibly, she loved.

She had to kiss him. She had to touch her lips to that cruelly enticing mouth. She had to hold him in her arms because he was a dream that she knew with inexpressible sadness could never come true.

She leaned down, the shells and pearls in her hair rattling softly.

Like a bolt of lightning, something shot into Gaby’s line of vision and closed, hard, around her throat. The next instant she stared into cold black eyes.

“Don’t move,” he murmured, “or I’ll fracture your windpipe.”

There wasn’t any danger of her moving. She couldn’t draw enough breath to move or utter a sound. James pulled himself up, still holding her by the throat, muscles bunching and coiling in his bare arms. He propped his body on one elbow, jerking her to him so that he could look into her face.

She saw his eyes widen disbelievingly, taking in her beribboned hair, the gold chains and beads around her throat, her naked pouting breasts under transparent gauze.

“Gabrielle?” She knew from the stunned sound of his voice he thought he was dreaming.

He let go of her and sat up, red floating silk tangling in his arm and shoulder. He jerked at it, cursing. A crimson panel came loose and fell on his head. “Jesus!” He tore at the streamer furiously. “What is this stuff? What the hell’s going on?”

Gaby rubbed her throat gingerly. “I’m here because you want me.” She paused, trying to remember what she’d been told. But she hiccupped. “I’m supposed to be Oshun.”

“What?”
His snarl ripped into the red-tinted darkness.

She smiled at him tenderly. “And you’re Chango.”

He pulled the fallen silk from his shoulder and tossed it away, still staring at her. “My God.”

“God
dess
,” she corrected him. “I’m the—”

“Shit!” He tried to swing his long legs out of the bed but she sat blocking him. “Gabriela, tell me, is anyone with you?”

She thought for a long moment, trying not to hiccup again. “No, I think they went away.”

He allowed her to push him back against the pillows. The scent of his hair, she found, breathing it in, was warm and musky, like his skin.

He was still scowling. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She lowered her mouth to the tight line of his lips and rubbed them, her mouth opening to let her tongue trace a warm, wet line of desire. She felt a tremor run through his powerful, naked body. “I am Oshun,” she repeated, liking the sound of it.

The carved nostrils flared, suspiciously. “Gabriela, what do you think you’re doing?” He tried to sit up again. “Christ, you smell like a distillery! You must have taken a bath in it.”

She giggled softly, remembering the
iyalocha
spraying the night, with whole mouthfuls of the stuff and the wind blowing it back. “Actually, it was a shower.”

She let the tips of her breasts, the tight hard points of her nipples, brush his chest. Her long legs slid sinuously between his and brought his flesh into intimate contact with hers. She heard him gasp, and smiled with her new-found power as she felt him grow and stiffen against her.

Reluctantly, he wrapped his arms around her. His dark eyes blazed into hers. “Look, Gabriela, I want you to start from the beginning and explain how you—”

“Yummm,” she interrupted, boldly loving him. She pressed her soft, warm mouth to his, stroking his lips tantalizingly with her tongue.

He pulled back, holding her slightly away from him. “Will you listen to me? I’ve just had a damned tough flight tonight. I’m beat. I don’t need—”

A choked sound breathed from him as she lowered her face to his throat and nuzzled his damp skin. Her hands slithered down his sides, fingers spread, molding his ribs, his hips, his whole powerful body as far as she could reach.

With all the rum she’d drunk, Gaby thought happily, with the
iyalocha
’s commands and incantations, reality was altered, at least for a time. She was free to do what she’d never dreamed of doing. And what she would never do, she was sure, for any man. It was glorious.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re going to hate yourself when you sober up.” He grasped her arms and tried to lift her away, at least that part of her that was pressing so insistently against his crotch, but she only clung more tightly.

“Gabriela, will you stop?” Fine beads of perspiration stood out on his upper lip. “Dammit, this is not the time to do this. You’re bombed—and I’m tired of playing games. You hang up on me when I try to talk to you, you tell me you’re engaged to marry somebody else, now you show up in my bed. What the hell’s going on?”

When she laughed softly, he gave her a shake that set her beaded hair clicking. “You don’t take any of this seriously, do you? But then playing around is always a big damned game for Anglo girls, isn’t it? Do you know what it means to me to—”

He stopped abruptly. “That thing’s transparent,” he said hoarsely. He caught her exploring hand. “Who got you up like this? In this damned masquerade?”

Gaby wasn’t listening. His skin was hot to her touch, the muscles of his taut belly hard and tense. Her fingertip tenderly explored the tight vertical slit of his navel. He jumped. Violently.

“Jesus!” He caught his breath. “Did you expect me to just—lie here, while you do this?”

She saw his body was lightly defined from belly button to groin by a fine line of silky black hairs. She bent and touched them with her tongue, a gentle cat lick, then moved lower.

He clenched his hands, his body jolting as her eager fingers closed around him. She stroked him, tentatively, absorbed, hearing his shuddering sighs in response.

They could never love each other, Gaby was certain, the world held them apart. But they could have each other now. She moved to straddle him a little clumsily.

“Wait,” he murmured, “let me get you out of this.”

As she lifted her arms over her head he slid away the diaphanous gown and dropped it on the floor beside the bed. Then he held her away from him, drinking in the sight of her as she knelt over him wearing only the strings of shells and pearls, her tiny waist, gently rounded hips, breasts thrusting proudly.

“Ah God, you’re so enchanting.” His trembling fingers cupped her breasts with exquisite care, his thumbs stroking the tight nipples. When she moaned, he whispered, “What is it you do to me, Gabriela? Why did I find you now, when I can do nothing about it? Why is it that when I’m with you the world turns into a place I can almost live in?”

“I love you,” she whispered. She saw his skeptical glance. It didn’t matter. She wanted to please him, this beautiful man. She wanted to lavish him with her love.

She pressed the length of her smooth body against him, but he abruptly rolled over on top of her, making her cry out in surprise. Then his mouth took hers roughly, ravishing her with a long, devouring kiss that left her whimpering.

“I swore I’d never do this.” He kissed the warm wet hollows of her throat, her ear, her shoulder, hungrily. “I thought I’d never hold you like this again. Gabriela, I don’t know what this is about, waking up and finding you in my bed, but I don’t want to know.”

She pulled his head up by his black hair, the softest thick silk to her fingers, so that she could look into his eyes. She couldn’t know that he warred with himself at that moment, that he couldn’t resist her. She saw only his vulnerable scowl and thought she’d made him angry.

“I do want to love you,” she told him sincerely.

“Then show me.” He brought himself between her legs with tense, shaking care, his fingers gently opening her thighs, remembering she’d had difficulty taking him before. “Love me now, Gabriela. I need you to love me.” He buried his face in her fragrant hair. “Oh, darling, there’s never been anyone else for me.”

He possessed her in one driving stroke. Poised between the stunning pressure of his body and her own mindless ecstasy, she nearly fainted with pleasure. He was the lightning and the storm in passion’s dazzling fury, and she was the sky and the sea, surging, retreating only to return again, the center of her body in flames.

He filled her powerfully, whispering love words in a rough-soft murmur. “Gabriela, darling.” Shivering with desire, his control was tenuous.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, hearing his inarticulate cry as she slid her fingers between their bodies and touched him.

There was a desperate sweetness in their lovemaking. She clung to him, one hand curled in his hair, dragging his mouth to hers, as wild as he. Streamers of silk came down around them and they tangled in them, pleasure building unbearably until the earthquake waves began. He held her, watching her face as she peaked. Then his body clenched, and he joined her violence with a loud, tearing groan as he poured himself into her.

They drifted back to earth, gasping, breathless, tangled in silk. After a moment he lifted himself on one elbow, still gasping, to look down at her. “Are you all right?”

She buried her face against him, tasting his smooth wet skin, the salty tang of his sweat. “I made love to you,” she murmured.

Breathless, he managed a husky laugh. “You’re smashed.”

He rolled over, holding her so that she lay in the curve of his arm. He took a long unsteady breath. “You’ve got to tell me,” he said softly, “how did you get in this mess? Do you have any idea what you’re doing here?”

She smiled, her eyes closed. “I’m Oshun and you’re Chango. You sent for me.”

“Sweetheart, don’t give me that garbage.” He absently stroked her wet hair back from her forehead. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Mmmm.” She snuggled closer.

“Gabriela? Will you listen to me?” He turned to her, frowning. “There’s something I have to tell you and there’s so little time. I tried to tell you before, that Harrison Tigertail and I flew A-sixes together in Vietnam. He was my electronic surveillance systems officer. Do you remember what he told you at the house? He didn’t come there just to fix the roof.”

He shifted his body to look down at her. “You’re not listening to me.”

She was curled against him, the palm of her hand under one cheek, as close to him as she could get. For several long minutes he didn’t move, studying her. His face, unguarded now, expressed more than he would ever tell. Then he carefully slid his arm out from under her and got out of the bed, naked body glistening in the candlelight.