Midnight Rose (10 page)

“Yes.”

“And how many other languages?”

He cast her a rueful look. “A few more.”

“Two more? Four more?”

“Five in all.”

“My God,” she breathed. “Fluent in all of them?”

Gideon smiled. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“Say something in Portuguese.”

He drew in a breath of night air laced with the scent of grass and moisture and roses. “What would you like me to say?”

She tilted her head in consideration. “Say, ‘The grass needs planting.’”

“O gramado deve ser plantada.”

Kate laughed. “Okay, how about, ‘You do a good job on the yard.’”

“Você faz um bom trabalho no quintal.”

“And ‘Your clippers are long and dangerous.’”

It was Gideon’s turn to laugh. “Seu cortador é longa e perigoso.” He looked at her, his smile fading. “ Você tem maravilhosa olhos.”

“What does that mean?”

“You have the most amazing eyes.” He held her chestnut gaze for a long moment, watching the swirl of shy delight in its liquid depths, then looked away. “I thought about you while I was gone.” “Oh?” She maintained her languid pace beside him, profile limned by the glow from the porch. “I’ve thought of you, too.” Pausing, she added, “You want to go first? In English, please.” “In a moment.” He caught her sleeve, nodded at Jude, who had stopped at the door to kick off his sneakers. “I’m going to talk to Kate for a while, J. It’s getting late. Why don’t you turn in, and I’ll stop by on my way to bed in a few minutes.” “You don’t need to.” Jude turned away before Gideon could respond and slipped inside the house, closing the door quietly behind him.

“God, he’s moody,” Kate remarked, staring after him. “I’m guessing it has to do with you and me being so friendly.”

Friendly wasn’t exactly how Gideon would describe the throbbing need that pounded in his vitals at the memory of how close he’d come to ripping off her panties and taking her there against the piano in the haunted music room. “He’ll have to get over it.” “And so will I.” She faced him, her brown eyes warm and luminous as they searched his face. “Gideon, I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened in the conservatory before you left town.” “Me, too. With great agony and anticipation of finishing it.” He stepped closer. “There’s an exception attached to those thoughts of yours. I hear it hanging in the air.” He tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, unable to keep his hands to himself. “You’ve been thinking about what happened, but …” “But you had reservations from the start about getting involved, and you’re right. Your lifestyle, Jude’s illness, the solitude you’ve elevated to an art form…there’s no room for anything more than a causal fling, and I’m not cut out for that.” She chewed on her bottom lip and looked away. “Maybe your friend-who-isn’t-a-friend in Roanoke is better suited for that sort of thing.” “Yes,” he said, walking a few steps ahead. “She’s perfectly suited for, and quite content, with a casual relationship.” He leaned to retrieve a pebble and skidded it across the driveway. “It’s over with her. I’m not seeing her anymore.” When he looked at her again, she was watching him with a desperate frown. “You confuse me terribly.” “I confuse myself.” He caught her hand and drew her closer, reveling in the soft, floral scent of her perfume, the heat of her skin, the rhythmic rush of blood in her veins. She intoxicated him. “How do I stop wanting what I shouldn’t have?” “Gideon, don’t,” she said when he lifted her knuckles to his lips, but the weakness in her voice told him she didn’t mean it. “We don’t even know each other.”

“Something’s there, nonetheless.” Moving impossibly closer, he let his gaze wander over her bewildered features. He was going to kiss her; he couldn’t control it any more than he could stop the hunger brimming somewhere deep in his center, dangerous and impatient. But by God, it could wait. Wait until he knew what it was like to bury himself inside her and be lost. Then he’d deal with the need to feed.

Later.

“There is something,” he repeated, lowering his mouth to hers. “More than attraction between us. More than this incredible, driving need for sex. Tell me you know.” Her free palm pressed against his chest, more to brace herself than to dissuade him. “I know.” She took a breath, held it, reminding him of a swimmer about to plunge, and he smiled at her unadulterated anticipation. Then his lips met hers, a gossamer touch, lighting and lingering before he drifted back to weigh her response.

Tears sparkled on her lashes, unexpected and raw. “It’s been a long time for me. I’m not used to such tenderness.”

“Me neither. I’m trying it on for size.” He glanced at her. “So how am I doing?” At last her smile returned, as though she couldn’t help it. “Disconcertingly well.” Gideon swayed toward her again, inexorably drawn to her lush, responsive mouth, but the sound of the front door swinging open shattered the aching tension between them.

“Telephone, Mr. Renaud,” Martha said, her pale eyes magnified five times behind the heavy lenses of her glasses. Her cool, stony regard made Gideon feel as though he’d been caught with the girl next door—the sweet, unsullied girl whose smile spiraled through him like an indecent caress.

“Could you take a message, Mrs. Shelton?” he returned, annoyed at his self-conscious reaction.

“This is a call you’ve requested I put through.”

Delilah. Instantly a rush of hunger pounded through him, an involuntary response invoked by Kate’s softness, and only safely assuaged by Delilah’s lurid charms. He wanted so desperately to deny it. It wouldn’t go away, though. It would build, and build…

Gideon swallowed the raging heat in his chest, his eyes fixed on Kate. “Take a message,” he told Martha. “Please.”

“With pleasure.” Martha sounded smug as she slipped back into the house and closed the door.

In the silence, Kate returned Gideon’s gaze. “It’s late,” she said hesitantly. “We should say goodnight.” He nodded, absorbing her uncertainty, her regret. Underneath dwelled something darker. Fear maybe; she was an intuitive woman. No doubt something bothered her about him she couldn’t name.

“Goodnight, then.” Resisting the urge to touch her arm, her cheek, any part of her just so he could take the sensation with him, he turned and ascended the stairs, feeling her wide, brown gaze on his back.

Promise you won’t hurt her, a plaintive voice whispered in his mind.

He’d die first.

Somewhere in the night, Kate stirred, caught in the place between sleep and waking, where the world is languid and blue and silky.

The curtains over the open French doors waved in the breeze, diaphanous, fluid. She watched them without stirring a muscle. Just her lashes, rising and falling as her eyes followed the sensuous undulations.

A light sheen of moisture covered her skin, and the breeze sipped it away with every lift of material.

Humidity lurked beneath the temperate night.

Her drowsy gaze shifted away from the doors.Shadows slunk across the room, twisting and writhing.

She chased them with her eyes, knowing they weren’t inherent to the atmosphere, but unafraid of them.

Drifting and dreaming. Her eyelids drooped. It was a lovely place to linger.

Long fingers curled around the bedroom doorknob, a phantom’s touch. The faint creak of hinges, a soft click as the door closed again. Between one breath and the next, Gideon was there, salient shadow among the gloom. Kate couldn’t see his face, but she breathed his scent, breathed in desire, her heartbeat throbbing like a lazy metronome.

She wasn’t afraid.

His bare shoulders gleamed, ivory smooth, in the dimness. He was merely an element of the night, naked and intent as he drew back the sheet from her body and eased down beside her, eyes like anthracite, radiating heat.

Her eyelids slid closed, arms opening to him and embracing air. But he was there; she smelled him, heard the tender whisper of her name on his lips. Felt the glide of his palm against her hair, caressing her face, her throat. His fingers traced her arm, left chills in their wake as they skimmed aside the strap of her nightgown to reach naked flesh.

Lifting a languid hand to cover his, she guided his fingers to her breast, and encountered her own flesh, soft, yielding, nipple hard and aching. But it was his touch— his touch—invisible to her fingers, which cupped her breast and slid aside the bodice of her gown, his mouth warm and wet and searching against her throat. Her breath quickened, body rising to meet his delectation, fingers reaching to sink into the dark thickness that slid like feathers across her skin. Finding nothing. Nothing to hold, no way to anchor herself as his lips closed around her nipple and drew on her as though he could swallow her very heart.

Hell of a dream.

Cool air wafted beneath her palms as she slid them down his broad back, following the strong line of his spine, tracing through space for the shift of muscle beneath skin and finding intangible mass. A ghost.

The night kissed her bare legs, a cool contrast to the heat that pooled between her thighs and misted her skin. Gideon moved over her, a look of such dark intent tightening his features that she felt the tiniest quiver of apprehension. She roused enough to shift her head on the pillow, sensed its solidity beneath her hair; yes, it was real, she was real. Gideon’s touch, sliding aside her nightgown, slipping beneath the elastic of her panties, was real. And his whispered accolades as she lifted her hips, felt the bikinis slide down her thighs…real, all of it. Her lashes fluttered and for an instant, she focused. No one there. An empty room.

“You’re not here,” she whispered. “What do you want?”

“To taste you.” Gideon’s lean body curved over her. “Invite me in.” Words spoken against her abdomen, lips nuzzling in slow descent, warm palms on her thighs, urging them apart.

Her fists clenched around the sheets and she was lost, trapped between a sultry dream and chilled reality as his breath wafted across her most secret places, followed by the silken glide of his tongue. Its tip slid lightly, gingerly, up and down her flesh, circling her clitoris, sampling her secrets.

“Kate,” his words tickled flesh already slick and sensitized, sending myriad shudders quivering through her limbs, “invite me in.”

“Come inside me,” she groaned. “Please, please…”

His tongue plunged unexpectedly into her core, a spear of heat tunneling inside her and wrenching a choked cry of ecstasy from her throat.

All languor fled. Hands slid beneath her hips, curved around her buttocks and lifted her like a chalice as he drank from the center of her pleasure, piercing her with his tongue, then away, circling and teasing, nipping and stinging, until she whimpered with frustration, confusion and delight, until her fingers ached from twisting the sheets and her muscles screamed from straining toward his evasive caress.

Her body danced under his hands like the curtains drifting at the French doors. Blood pounded in her ears; fragments sparkled behind her eyelids. He was eating her alive.

“Kate,” he whispered, lips moving against her tender, yearning center, “come.” She had no choice. She let go, her fists relinquishing the sheet, limbs quivering as they bore the rushing wave of her climax and fierce, electric spasms pinned her to the damp linens. Pleasure too great to abide.

Her cry sheared the air, feral, abandoned.

“Gideon!”

Instantly she jolted awake, tears wet on her face, chest heaving with breaths too shallow to provide oxygen.

The room was empty. She was alone.

“No, no, no…” Her fist hit the mattress, frustration washing away the remnant shudders of pleasure. A stupid, useless, lonely dream.

Shaken, she sat up on the side of the bed and switched on the lamp, and instantly spied her panties in a silken tangle by the bed. Good God. When had an erotic dream ever rendered her desperate enough to shuck off her own underwear? But what a dream it had been. What an incredible, intoxicating, impossible fantasy.

And then she saw the bite marks on the inside of her thigh.

The fluctuating sounds of conversation rose from the kitchen, drawing Kate down the steps, toward Gideon’s low voice. The same voice that still resonated in her ears from her dream the night before.

Kate…come.

No question there; she’d done exactly as instructed and couldn’t replay the hazy recollection without shuddering.

“And don’t forget, four o’clock at the garden club,” Martha told Gideon as Kate paused in the shadows beyond the kitchen doorway. “You spread yourself too thin, Gideon. There’s no time in your schedule for a break.” Dressed in a burgundy tie and a striking, custom-tailored suit the color of his gaze, Gideon leaned his hips against the counter, eyes closed, fingers pressed to his forehead. “Tell me again why I agreed to meet with the garden club?” “Because you’re a pushover. And you promised to donate thirty rosebushes for the home show, so Jose’s already loaded up the truck to deliver them before your speech. You can then count on an extra hour or two of answering questions and accepting the preening of thirty bored old women who never get to stare at a handsome face like yours.” Martha closed the appointment book and primly seated herself at the table, her back to Kate. “So that should put you home tonight around seven o’clock. Just in time to have dinner with your son.” He released a slow breath, lashes lifting, and met Kate’s gaze across the room. Instantly his fingers dropped from his brow and he straightened. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” A wave of self-consciousness climbed her neck, flooded her face with heat as she moved quickly to occupy her hands, which had begun to tremble. Grasping a cup from the table, she approached the coffeemaker beside him and reached for the pot.

“Let me.” He took the cup from her, fingers brushing her skin, and filled it. “Sleep well?” Her lips thinned and she shot him a warning glance. “Just fine.”

“It was hot in the house last night.” He returned the coffeepot to its cradle and moved around her without looking at her again. “Martha, make a note to call the repairman. The cooling unit in the west wing seems to be sluggish.” “What about the east wing?”