Seaspun Magic (24 page)

"Arianne, I would like an answer!" He sounded so grim that he must be imagining the worst.

She wanted to smooth the frown from his brow with kisses and tell him that she could never make love to anyone else, not when she loved him, but she didn't do any of that. Instead she said waspishly, "Nothing happened, no thanks to you! What's more, I don't like your attitude. You're acting like a jealous husband, harping on and on about Larry!"

"I am jealous. I'm burning up!" His hands cupped her face as he pressed a hungry kiss on her soft, red lips.

It was just the sort of thing she'd been desperately trying to avoid. She couldn't withstand such an attack on her senses. Her hands went out to him unconsciously... and when her fingers touched bare skin they fused to it, and then very gradually they crept up his chest as the kiss lengthened into one long passionate exploration.

When his hands dropped again to her shoulders he was breathing raggedly. He managed, under his breath, to utter, "Oh, Arianne, you've been keeping secrets again!" before his hands traveled slowly down her back, moving her against him, while hers went up and over his shoulders. His startled ice-green eyes devoured her face, seeking further affirmation of what the kiss revealed.

She slid her fingers into his hair and brought his head down for another kiss. Eagerly his hands held her to him, as tightly as possible, as if he were afraid she would slip away somehow, as if he were afraid she would slap his face in a moment and had only that long to convince her of his love. When it fully sank in that the lady had changed her mind once more, that although she had said scram not more than five minutes earlier, now she was saying something quite different, his hold changed, and his hands began a slow and soft caress... down to follow the hourglass of her waist and the rounded bottom... slowly around her hips where his thumbs traced the twin curves of her hipbones.

Arianne tipped her head back to catch her breath, her body leaning relaxed against him. How fabulous to have his strong arms holding her again! Behind his neck her hands unlocked to glide along his shoulders, savoring the feel of him and the sweet heady satisfaction of being able to touch him. Her clasp slid down his upper arms, sensitive to every flexing muscle underneath, to the warmth and strength and possessiveness of his support.

Only her flimsy pajama top and his bottoms separated them, and the heat generated all but melted them away. His lips ravished the length of her white throat, sending her pulse into greater tumult, and a half sigh, half moan escaped her. As his mouth trailed along her jaw with a myriad of small and tantalizing kisses, she moistened lips that were already swollen and a darker shade of red from the imprint of his desires, and with just a slight twist of her head, had their lips meeting again.

While the kiss was as delicate as could be it was also devastatingly erotic. With his hands spread on her ribs, his palms cupped the outside swell of her breasts. Then the tip of his tongue outlined the shape of her lips. He nibbled on a corner, and his tongue slid inside to follow the bottom lip and the top... and he put an arm around her shoulders, which she rested her head on as the leisurely, intimate, heavenly caress continued. His other hand began to search out the buttons of her pajama top, wedging between them, sliding underneath the thin cotton fabric to scorch the soft skin awaiting his touch.

It took quite a while to get all three buttons undone. Finally, he filled his hand with her breast, seeking out the firm round uptilted beauty. The pointed tip that pressed against his palm invited heightened sensuality and exultant passion and the hot attention of his mouth.

His teeth gently began a new pleasure and his tongue ensured that it continue, his lips soon evoking a need so compelling that her body moved against him in a slow and ancient rhythm.

Leo didn't delay another second; he stripped the cotton top from her shoulders and tossed it away on the floor, and his bottoms went right after it. In the small cast of light from her reading lamp she retreated onto the bed, to the middle of it, and he came right behind her to catch her up in his eager embrace.

"Arianne, from the first night I stayed here I went to bed with thoughts of you—"

"But I had no idea."

"And I went to sleep still thinking of you—"

"Oh..."

"And then I dreamed of you—"

She laughed softly.

"And I had daydreams of you at work—"

"Me, too..."

Leo's warm lips found hers again and his solid weight pressed her into the mattress, the hard length of his sinewy male body a driving force bringing on a delirious craving for all of him. But he only held her, teasing her longing with a hundred kisses and the palpable pleasure of just simply holding. She brushed her hands through his hair, touched his cheek and ran her fingertips along his chin, and kissed him a hundred times in return.

She kissed him until her breath came only in shallow pants, and further contact of his taut body with her avid curves was impossible without a complete and fervid union....

***

It was dark outside, that insubstantial darkness just before dawn. She was comfortable and warm and surrounded by her lover's embrace. Even in his sleep Leo held her. And then she realized he was awake, too.

His face buried in the black cloud of tousled curls, he nuzzled the side of her neck ever so softly, kissing and nibbling and tasting her white skin, intoxicated by her individual flavor. He murmured, softer even than a whisper against the shell of her ear, "My beautiful Arianne. I love you. I think I love you more every day…"

She moved her head on the pillow to look at him with drowsy, smoky black eyes from under a low fringe of lashes, and murmured back, her voice a sleepy endearment, "Oh, Leo, I can't charge you room and board anymore!"

"No," he said, laughing quietly. "And neither can you pawn me off as a paying guest!" Under the covers his fingers began a slow random journey over her contented feline curves.

In a warm haze she gradually turned toward him, stretching like a cat underneath his languorous, persuasive caresses that searched out the most erotic places, to linger there and, in delicious sleepy slow motion, render her shamelessly wanton. And then his possessive touch slid down the soft warmth of her inner thigh, drawing it against him—

***

When, some time later, they lay quietly in happy satiety, entangled in each other, Arianne's mind wandered in a semidoze, and all of a sudden she remembered the ESP dossier just across the landing, hidden in his bedroom. He kept secrets, too.

She determined then not to let on that she knew anything about either the file or his curious business card with the thumbprint on the back. She would wait, simply wait him out to see what happened. She didn't want to force any issues; the magnitude of being in love was enough for her for now. Let the future take care of the future. Nothing had really been resolved last night by their argument, except that they loved each other.

But wasn't that an earth-shattering realization all on its own! She smiled and snuggled yet a little closer to him, and his responsive embrace savored their sweet harmony. He liked to cuddle, she discovered, to her utter delight.

He loved her... so she imagined what had happened was that he had changed his mind, not merely overcome his principles. In any case, she wasn't going to pressure him into giving one iota more than what he was willing to give. She didn't want him feeling burdensomely responsible just because they were lovers.

And he would realize that, because she would ask no questions. Whatever he cared to divulge was fine. She had to maintain such a hands-off attitude, because, as she well knew, he could be gone with the light of day... any day. He could yet spell disaster.

It was only later in the day, when she had time for her own thoughts again, .that Arianne remembered she had a mystery to solve. There really was a mystery, wasn't there? Or had she lived by herself for so long she was imagining intrigues under every rock?

No, she hadn't imagined that damned file, and neither had she made up Larry's nagging for passwords. In a lull between customers at the shop, it suddenly occurred to Arianne that perhaps she was already up to her neck in another case like the kidnapping one and she just didn't know it. As had happened before, was she a pawn in someone else's game? What kind of rings was Larry seeking his passwords for? Damnation upon damnation! She was too trusting, much too gullible; she never should have started answering his many questions... and she never should have replied to Leo's few, either.

If only she could have kept her ESP a secret. But first Jill had given her away to Larry, and her own close association with Leo had given her away to him.

Thoughts of home and Leo and the night ahead made her smile. How gladly he made her blood rush through her veins; how he filled her with joy! Like magic he made her life doubly worth living. She was bubbling over with eager happiness to see him again, and couldn't wait to tell him so. How wonderful it would be not having to pretend anymore... how wonderful to run to him and hug him and kiss him like mad just because she felt like it, which she very often did—

However, all these exquisite conjectures didn't help turn up any clues. Her smile disappeared. If only she had a friend in whom she could really, truly one hundred percent trust. Well, there was Jill.... Arianne chewed contemplatively on her lip, while with another part of her brain she automatically bagged enormous quantities of Christmas confections in preparation for when the shop would be crowded with customers.

But hadn't Jill spilled one secret too many already, and to a practical stranger, too? Arianne puzzled over this small but irksome fact again. Why would she have done that, when she'd never been that negligent before? Perhaps it had been by accident, after all. Something could always slip out by accident.

And pressure from her ex-husband, no doubt, was what had made her so depressed of late. Every time she saw Jill—it seemed the only time Arianne saw her was when Larry had arranged for her to baby-sit—she was down in the dumps and all she could talk about was how rotten her ex-husband was... or how marvelous Larry was.

Then, remembering some of their more recent conversations, Arianne thought it was curious how Jill stridently insisted she hadn't seen this "scum of the earth" since their divorce and yet she had also said that the same man was the "father of my children." Jill's divorce had been about the same time as her own. In that case, Jill shouldn't have seen him for more than two years. Yet Lucy was barely a year old. And there was his new get-rich-quick scheme that she knew about. The thin cover story of mutual friends letting her in on it rang false. Yet Jill would not confide in Orly; she hadn't made up her mind what course to take concerning her ex-husband's dangerous crooked dealings.

Arianne wondered again whether Don was Jill's ex. He seemed like such a nice fellow, though....

Whoever her ex was, Arianne surmised he lived nearby and was probably a frequent visitor for Jill's fear and dread to be so gripping. Anxiously Arianne puzzled over Jill's state of mind all day at the shop, when she wasn't thinking about Leo.

When she arrived home and started to prepare supper, the problem of Jill's behavior was still rolling around in the back of her mind. Since she was expecting no one and Leo wasn't due home for a couple more hours, on a whimsy she withdrew her crystal ball from its deep drawer and unfolded its black velvet wrapping. She placed it on its stand by the window, and as she looked out through the lashings of rain and the pitiless black of a moonless, starless night toward the lights of her neighbor's house, a scene from several weeks earlier paraded through her mind in startling clarity.

She had been opening her back door for Larry as he came running up the stairs. Looking up from his smiling face, she had noticed Jill on her back porch, watching them. She had lifted her hand and Jill had waved back. Then her neighbor had turned away and the door behind her banged shut—such a lonely sound. Meanwhile Larry was overflowing with chatter and cheer....

With a sickening lurch of her insides Arianne realized what suddenly made perfect sense. Larry Barnes was Jill's ex-husband.

But how disgusting, if it was true! Of course it was true; she knew it was true. Jill was in love with him, yet sending him across to her door. Arianne now began to get a little feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, too. It began to sink in that whatever was going on, it wasn't over peanuts. If Jill would lie, betray their friendship and send her beloved across the alley... well, whatever was going on, it probably didn't concern a picnic in front of the fireplace on Sunday!

Arianne wished she knew what Leo was doing down at the old fort; she wished he would come home early and hold her tightly in his arms. She hoped he, too, wouldn't betray her trust, with that file or anything else. Her fear grew. So many unknowns confronted her!

Pelts of rain against her windows acted upon her mind like water torture, adding tiny bits of terror, accumulating steadily…

Arianne got a firm grip on herself. She concentrated upon the various elements of her mystery, in hopes of unearthing more clues. Jill had said Larry was up to no good. She'd told him about the ESP, and he had come calling, pretending romantic interest when all he wanted were those passwords. And she had given him one correct password to the first ring, the word "bobsled." Egad! What had she done without knowing? What could that first ring possibly be?

A boxing ring? A bullring? A... an appellation for the racetrack? If it was the racetrack—and it wouldn't surprise her—she could understand Larry's consternation over "retarded," for she couldn't see anyone wanting to dub their hopefully winning horse a retarded anything! She laughed to herself, remembering his doubtful expression.

But somehow a bet on the track didn't seem a good enough reason to support all the resulting shenanigans. Certainly oodles of money riding on a winner would make a difference, though, especially if a loan shark, or some similar weighty reason, was riding along with the horse. And he had expensive tastes, Jill had said. But hadn't Jill also said he had a new scheme. Placing a bet hardly comprised a scheme did it? Perhaps involving her ESP with a bet could be termed a "scheme."