Rebel Waltz (13 page)

“Right now, I don't want to be a lady,” she breathed.

Shirt and blouse dropped to the floor, shoes and jeans were kicked aside, unimportant and forgotten. Underthings were smoothed away by eager, impatient hands, until they stood with no barriers between them.

She looked at him in wonder, sudden heat blooming somewhere deep inside of her and spreading rapidly all through her body. He was so beautiful it made her throat ache, and the emotion in his eyes as he gazed at her own body made her feel more beautiful than she knew herself to be.

He caught his breath harshly, drawing her fully against him for a tantalizing moment before bending to strip back the covers of the bed, then lifting her onto it.

Banner stretched out her arms to him as he came down on the bed with her, her breathing quick and shallow, her body trembling. Her fingers
tangled in his hair when his lips lowered to hers, and the touch of him fueled her hunger until she was dizzy with it.

Rory held her restless body still as he lay half over her. He kissed her closed eyes, her brow, her cheeks, pressed long, drugging kisses to her trembling lips. Though his own body was taut and fever-hot, he seemed determined to torment them both. Slowly, lazily, as if they had all the time in the world, he learned her body. Hands molded and shaped quivering flesh, lips explored with tender, sensitive hunger.

Desire coiled tighter and tighter within Banner, becoming a consuming need that ran molten fire through her veins. A hollow agony grew in her middle, expanded, filled her whole being. Heat suffused her skin, and her hands gripped his shoulders with white- knuckled tension. His seeking touch probed erotically and tore a moan from the depths of her throat as she moved with restless impatience.

“Rory…”

“God, I need you,” he groaned hoarsely,
moving over her, gazing down on her with hot, liquid eyes. He kissed her deeply, tenderly, then raised his head to look at her taut, seeking face. “And I love you,” he whispered, moving with gentle care.

Banner caught her breath, surprise and wonder widening her eyes. Her arms tightened around his neck in instinctive possessiveness. A part of her was suddenly unleashed and out of control, a wild, primal cave- woman exultant in the certainty of being loved by her man. She caught him within her fiercely, trapping them both in a fiery union that threatened to consume them.

Smooth rhythm quickened, desperately hurried by need. Breathing caught and jerked convulsively as feverish bodies drove themselves on a reckless flight toward satisfaction. Hearts pounded frantically within their living cages, and two voices were barely human as they cried out words of love …

Banner refused to let him leave her, murmuring a soft plea before he could do more than begin to shift his weight.

“I'm too heavy,” he whispered against her throat.

“No.” Languidly, her fingers explored the sharply defined muscles of his damp back and shoulders. She watched the light from the main room glimmer on his bronze flesh, and not even the faintest tinge of regret disturbed her contentment.

Rory sighed, his breath warm on her. “You're so tiny, milady. I'm afraid I'll hurt you.”

“No.” She touched his cheek as he lifted his head, smiling into his arresting gray eyes. “No, you won't hurt me.”

He knew what she was saying, and he had to swallow before he could manage a light tone. “If I'd known what'd change your mind, I wouldn't have been so damned patient all this time.”

She was still smiling, a curiously mysterious, feline smile. “I changed my mind before we ever got back here to the studio,” she murmured.

“What did make you change?”

“Seeing you take that jump.” Her smile faded, replaced by remembered anxiety. “I could have lost you, you know. I've seen horses go down on easier jumps. When Shadow landed safely I… I just knew I had to take the chance.”

“You trust me,” he said, his voice and expression full of wonder.

She pulled his head down to kiss him lovingly. “Of course I trust you, idiot,” she murmured against his lips.

Rory lifted his head suddenly, a martial light growing in his eyes. “Wait a minute, now. If you felt that way before we came back here…”

“Mmmm?” Banner decided that she most definitely liked the taste of his skin.

“Then what the hell was the meaning of all that malarkey?”

“Malarkey?” She was mildly offended. “That was no malarkey. I meant every single word I said.”

Frowning, Rory concentrated for a moment, then realized that everything she'd said could
have been taken in a way other than he'd taken it. “Well, the way you said it was malarkey,” he accused sternly.

“Oh, no, it wasn't.” She brushed a lock of thick blond hair away from his brow and smiled gently. “And you half-guessed that yourself. It was a very careful, if spur-of-the- moment, plan.”

“You little witch!” he said blankly.

Banner took that as a compliment. “Well, you were so busy being noble all over the place that I had to do something. And it worked nicely, don't you think?”

“It worked.” He stared down at her with a mock frown. “Although I'm not too sure I care for being manipulated.”

“Better get used to it,” she warned serenely. “Southern ladies are famous—or should I say infamous?—for it. Remember your favorite heroine?”

“What've I let myself in for?”

She let her nails move slowly across his back and murmured, “I really couldn't say.”

Rory shuddered, and his voice had hoarsened when he spoke. “I'm not so sure myself. But I think—I know—I'm going to enjoy every minute of it.” And his mouth hungrily found her smiling lips.

“O
NE OF US,”
Rory murmured sometime later, “should go and turn off that light.”

“You're elected.”

They were lying close together, with only a sheet covering them, and the light from the main room bathed the bed in brightness.

“I,” he responded politely, “couldn't move if the place were on fire.”

She giggled. “Likewise, I'm sure.”

“I don't suppose it'd hurt anything to leave it on?”

“I doubt it.” She was silent for a moment, then asked curiously, “What brought you out here tonight?”

“I… couldn't sleep.”

Hearing the faint note of discomfort in his voice, Banner raised herself on her elbow and stared at him. “Rory?”

He avoided her eyes for a moment, then sighed ruefully. “Well, hell. They're your ghosts, after all.”

She blinked. “Ghosts brought you out here?”

“Literally.” He managed to keep his voice light as he told her about why he'd left his room in the middle of the night, finishing with, “When I saw the painting, then heard a horse and went out to see you tearing across the field—well, I didn't stop to think.” He touched her cheek gently. “I suppose they … thought you needed me.”

“They were right. I did.” She gazed at him gravely. “When I saw what I'd painted, I thought—it's over… and I ran.”

“And now?” he asked softly.

“You tell me.”

He frowned just a little. “Could you… live here with me? No matter who owned the Hall?”

“Yes.” Then, honestly, she added, “But I think I'd always feel that I let the family down somehow. Oh, it isn't logical, I know. But I can't help believing that I should be able to save the Hall myself. I can't help feeling that, Rory. I want to be able to say it doesn't matter, but I can't.”

Quietly, he replied, “You said you trusted me not to hurt you.”

“And I meant that.”

“But I'll hurt you if I take the Hall.”

Banner tried to work it through in her own mind, then realized abruptly why that was impossible. Because the question was no longer a matter of thinking… it was a matter of feeling. Every instinct she possessed told her that though Rory now held the power to hurt her in many ways, taking the Hall from her was no longer one of them.

She didn't know why. Perhaps because she
believed he loved the Hall almost as much as he loved her. And that was really all that mattered.

“No, you won't.” Banner smiled at him. “Not if we live here together. Not if we work together to preserve the Hall. And not as long as you know that you're more important to me than it is.”

Rory caught his breath, then pulled her head down and kissed her fiercely. “I didn't hope for that,” he murmured against her lips. “The Hall's in your blood.”

“So are you,” she whispered achingly. “So are you.”

The light in the main room went out just then, leaving only the moon's glow to brighten the bedroom.

“Power failure?” Rory ventured cautiously.

Banner rested her cheek against his chest, smiling. “Somehow… I don't think so.”

“Well,” he said after a moment, philosophically, “at least the ghosts of Jasmine Hall are helpful spirits.”

Giggling, Banner relaxed completely in his arms and allowed sleep to float her away.

She woke to the appetizing aroma of bacon and coffee, and lay there with her eyes closed for a moment, frowning. She couldn't, she thought uneasily, be smelling bacon if she were in the cottage, because there was no kitchen.

Had she dreamed last night?

Then warm hands surrounded her face, and she looked up into smiling gray eyes. “Good morning, milady,” he murmured, kissing her gently.

“ ‘Morning.” She was immensely relieved, but confused as she took a good look at him. “You're dressed.”

“Only because I had to go get breakfast,” he explained, bending down as he sat on the edge of the bed, and retrieving a huge, heavily loaded tray from the floor.

Banner sat up with a laugh, tucking the sheet underneath her arms. “You got enough to feed an army. I know you didn't fix all this yourself!”

“I sweet-talked the cook,” he said disarmingly.

“And then met Jake in the small dining room on my way out.”

“Oh, great. I'll never hear the end of it.”

“Nonsense. He was a perfect gentleman about the situation.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. He said he was going to go find his shotgun.”

She chuckled in spite of herself. “To which you replied—?”

“I pleaded moonlight and a Southern hussy as extenuating circumstances.”

“I'm sure he appreciated that.”

“Completely. He said blood would tell. He meant yours, I gather.”

Banner sipped her coffee demurely. “Well, to hear him tell it, my grandmother seduced him one moonlit night.”

“And people think Southern ladies are ladies!” Rory snorted.

“We are ladies.” She leaned forward to kiss him, allowing her fingers to trail across his cheek
as she sat back. “Until we're forced by… circumstances… to be something else.”

He caught her fingers to his lips. “Did I happen to mention how much I loved your ‘something else,’ milady?” he asked huskily.

“No,” she replied firmly, “you didn't.”

“Well, I loved it. There's just something about chasing a lady in a three-mile circle on horseback in the dead of night, taking a jump that should have killed the both of us, then being deviously seduced, that's quite … enjoyable.” He answered her giggles with a mock frown. “I'm serious!”

Banner reclaimed her hand and picked up a piece of bacon, still laughing softly. “If you say so. It just sounded so comical.”

Abruptly serious, he said, “That jump wasn't comical. I admire your horsemanship tremendously, but I'd be very grateful if you wouldn't attempt another jump like that.”

“I'll have a talk with the Cid,” she said agreeably. “Just between you and me, I was praying
for wings last night. I've never taken a jump like that in my life, and don't intend to do so again.”

Rory leaned back on an elbow, drinking his coffee and smiling at her. “Good. I don't want to lose you now.”

“You took the jump too,” she reminded him.

He winced. “But I didn't know what I was doing. All I saw was the fence and you going for it like a bat. I didn't know there was a sheer drop and a creek on the other side.”

“And if you had known?”

“I would have prayed for wings too.”

They spent the day together. Jake maintained a discreet absence, and all the Hall servants, from Conner to the gardeners, seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to leave the lovers to themselves.

They swam in the pool for a while that morning, competing amicably over their diving.

“What was that?”

“A swan dive, milady.”

“Really?”

“Personal best.”

“I can do better.”

“Prove it.”

After her graceful dive, Rory admitted she was better, but qualified the statement by saying he'd been paying too much attention to her form to pay attention to her form. To which Banner pulled on a ludicrously expressive “how like a man” grimace, and challenged him to better her backward flip.

For lunch they packed a picnic basket and strolled off across the fields, finding a shady spot beneath a towering oak and spreading a blanket there. In the warm midday stillness, both food and sleep held strong appeal—but so did other things.

“You're very handy, you know,” she observed at one point.

“Talented—that's me.”

“I mean it literally. As in ‘all hands.’ ”

“Mmmm. D'you know that you have utterly fantastic—”