Shadowed Paradise (19 page)

“
Like it?”

He’d come up behind her again, close
enough for the air to seethe around them, so charged with sex she
could almost taste it.
Cool, cool, she had
to stay cool
. “I don’t think I’d care to let it all
hang out.” She bet Diane Lake liked it.

“
I’m told it’s the latest
thing.”

How could he sound so cool when the tension
between them was hot enough to explode? “If you’re a teenager,” she
ground out.

Claire shivered. He’d moved closer. Close
enough for her to feel his full length pressed to her back, the
unmistakable bulge of his arousal. The scent of Alpha male on the
prowl.

Their tour wasn’t going to make it to the
third floor. She knew that. Of course she knew that. Claire Langdon
was exactly where Brad Blue wanted her.

She swallowed hard. “No bidet,” she declared
brightly.

“
I couldn’t quite see myself with a
bidet,” Brad admitted blandly. “Are you fond of them?”

He didn’t move a muscle, but her body
throbbed, her mind threatened to fly away on a whirlwind of
sensation. “No,” Claire choked out. Dear God, what was she doing
here? She couldn’t do it. Absolutely couldn’t do it. No matter how
strong the attraction to Brad, there had been no one but Jim for
more than ten years. And Brad? He was practically still warm from
the bed of the hottest number in the county. Diane must have looked
stunning in that shower. Claire would not. There was that slight
bulge to her tummy . . . the extra pounds on the thighs. Her knees
were knobby. The breasts weren’t too bad, though . . . and her face
could pass muster . . .

Brad’s hands bit into her shoulder, the
thumbs fanning out to do marvelous things to the taut muscles in
her neck. His fingers, strong yet gentle, moved along her
shoulders, kneading, caressing. Seducing . . .

She was losing herself. A hazy glow blurred
reality, destroyed common sense, blotted out time itself. She was
in danger of meltdown, straight into a puddle of quivering
protoplasm marring the sparkling finish of the white tile floor. It
really wasn’t fair that with no more than this Brad Blue could turn
her into a spineless wimp. No one should have such power.

She arched her neck beneath his hand.
Clamped her teeth over her tongue to keep from crying out. She was
hot, breathless, her mind a shambles.
Damn
him, damn him, damn him!

Her wisp of a dress, a flowered voile,
barely concealed the blush of her bra and panties. Brad’s fingers
burned through the fabric, as if touching bare skin. He kept up the
slow, demanding pulse on her shoulders, a seduction that left her
no possible reaction but
Oh God,
yes!
His hands moved down her back, worked their way
out from her spine, insinuated themselves around her sides . . .
Her breasts were not small but he had no difficulty encompassing
them, one each, in his large and knowing hands.

Claire gasped. The room faded away. She
swayed back against him, no longer shrinking from the rock-hard
spear prodding her back. He wanted
her
. Not Diane Lake. But Claire. Only
Claire.

As he filled his hands with her luscious
breasts, Brad felt his fingers quake. Could she tell he was as
overeager as a school boy? No matter how often his mind assured him
he could afford to be patient, his body knew he lied. He rolled her
nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and knew triumph at her
gasp of erotic pleasure, the feel of the small peaks stiffening
with desire. He swallowed a groan as his engorged penis demanded
something more than slow seduction.

Patience was losing the battle. Brad’s
hands slid down, fingers splayed over the thin fabric of her dress,
feeling her breath hitch, the urgency of her heartbeat. Moving on
to caress her nicely rounded thighs—
ah, a
real woman, not a stick
. Stepping back, so he could
knead her buttocks, another marvelously feminine expanse of
flesh.

Claire choked back a moan. Surely, it
had to be wrong that it was all so
right
. Yes, she’d come close to panic, but at
this moment she had no doubts. No matter what the consequences,
this was right.

Claire gasped in protest as Brad’s fingers
disappeared. Then, just as suddenly, so did her dress. One of his
hands was back on her breast. The other, with startling dexterity,
peeled down her stockings and her white satin bikini.

It seemed perfectly logical to stand there
and let him do it. After all, how could she move with her clothing
puddled around her ankles?

Without so much as a pause, Brad spun her
around and unhooked the front closure of her bra with practiced
expertise, letting it fall onto the matching panties that hobbled
her ankles. “Your turn,” he breathed, pulling her resistless
fingers up to the buttons on his shirt.

As she worked her way down the row of
buttons, fingers fumbling like a four-year-old, Claire glanced up.
Shocked by what she saw, she ducked her head, concentrating hard on
the shirt buttons and the soft blond chest hair tickling her
fingers as she worked. In the depths of Brad’s gorgeous blue eyes,
usually filled with confidence to the point of arrogance, she’d
seen . . . what? Uncertainty? Wariness? Did he still expect her to
run?

In spite of her fears, it had been too late
for that since the night they met. And now it was time to be a
woman instead of an over-the-hill, long-suffering mouse. She was
alive, she could feel, she had a right to love again. She had a
right to make love. To want. To hunger. To do something just for
herself.

To do something just for him.

To make love with him because she wanted it
so much. Because she needed to forget old bitterness and fear.
Because the future flitted, ever tempting, before her. Teasing.
Whispering all was not lost.

So she was an idiot. Setting herself up for
another fall. It didn’t seem to matter.

Claire slid her hands behind his waist,
working the shirt out of his black dress pants, finishing the final
buttons of his cuffs. She unbuckled his belt and drew it slowly
through the loops, like a snake charmer maneuvering his prize pet
through a gauntlet. Hands loosely extended at his sides, Brad let
her do all the work as she unzipped his trousers, allowing them to
slide down around his hips as she pushed his shirt off his
shoulders to drop onto the growing pile of clothing littering the
tiles.

Her gasp of shock resounded through the room.
Brad’s resigned tones came to her as a far-away echo. “Sorry, I
should have warned you.”

Scars criss-crossed his chest and
abdomen, a maze of pink and ugly slashes riffling through his chest
hair and slicing down toward the darker curls below. Claire closed
her eyes, swaying against his chest.
Fool!
After what she’d heard, she should have
expected it. Been more stoic. Blasé.

“
It’s okay, you know,” Brad murmured.
“Ancient history. Over, done with, and unlikely to happen again.
I’m alive and that’s what counts. I think of it as early retirement
the hard way.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Come on, Ms.
Langdon, aren’t you the one who took on all the alphabet soups?
Fainting’s not quite what I had in mind for tonight.”

“
Sorry,” Claire gulped, “it’s just that
I can’t see how you lived through something like that. You should
be dead. And then . . . then I’d never have met you,” she added in
a rush, shocked into telling the simple truth. “I can’t imagine
that. Right now it seems as if my whole life has been leading me
here. To tonight. Standing in this--this
sybaritic
bathroom with Brad Blue.”

Claire shriveled into herself as he stepped
away from her. Dear Lord, her naive babbling had frightened him
away.

But Brad hadn’t gone far. He was bending over
the tub, twisting knobs. A waterfall eight inches wide poured from
the faucet. The gleaming black tub began to fill. He lingered,
testing the water, his long fingers plunging into the dark depths.
His pants kept inching down. His briefs, Claire discovered, were as
black as his trousers.

Finally satisfied with the temperature, Brad
slipped out of what remained of his clothing before bending down to
extricate Claire from a tangle of stockings, bikini, bra and white
high heels. The fine gold chain that held her amber pendant parted
at his touch. Her earrings followed the necklace onto the vanity, a
gleam of gold between the black of his and hers sinks sunk into the
gleaming white countertop.

Claire closed her eyes, shutting out the
room. She would never, ever, make it into that tub. She was dazed,
numb, frozen. She was on fire.

And the only thing he’d kissed was the top of
her head.

At the sound of the heavy whirlpool motor,
Claire’s eyes snapped open. Brad straightened, reached behind his
head and removed the leather thong that held his hair in place. In
a move that mirrored Claire’s vision of him in the shower, he shook
his head, allowing the long blond strands to tumble free.

He was beautiful. A golden god, more lethal
than the Sirens. Calling . . . calling . . . radiating pheromones,
enveloping her in a haze of blatant desire. Making her long to run
her hands down . . . Claire gaped.

Brad nearly lost it. Seeing Claire
standing there, frozen in what he could only hope was surrender . .
. He hurt. He couldn’t breathe. His body was yelling,
Charge!
He had to have her now. This
moment. Fuck the hot tub, the bed . . . His brain screamed,
Mistake! Get a grip, Blue
. His
pounding heart drowned out the rhythmic pulse of the water.
Facts, facts. Face the plain unvarnished truth,
bud
. They weren’t really alone. They each had ghosts
to exorcize. Tonight had to be a whole new experience for each of
them. No hint of anything that would bring back memories of other
times and places.

So a playboy romp in a hot tub was a really
bad move. Sweeping Claire off to his kingsize bed, equally inept.
Yet here they were, stark naked, staring at each other through the
steam rising from the tub.

Shit!
Never had
he felt less in control. Okay, for the better part of the evening
his only thought had been to get her naked, and now she was
standing there, looking stricken. Lust turned to stone. The ghosts
must have whispered to her too.

Dragging his gaze away from Claire’s
delectable curves, Brad stepped down into the gleaming black tub,
immersing himself in the bubbling water, hoping it might ease the
demands of a cock that was refusing to bow to reason.

Fat chance. He raised his hands out of the
water, beckoned her to come to him.

Like a groundcrewman
bringing in a 747
, Claire muttered to herself. But she
appreciated the pause. For a moment there, as she tried to juggle
the here and now with memories good and bad, she’d thought he was
going to pounce. Instead, he’d given her respite. He was actually
letting her set the pace. Not easy for a man like Brad
Blue.

So how long was she going to stand
here, her nakedness barely softened by steam? She’d made a promise.
It was time to keep it.
Silly twit!
As if she needed an excuse to do what she’d been wanting to
do for weeks. No matter what shadows, or whose shadows, hovered in
the mist around them, ghosts at the feast.

And it would be a feast, of that she was
certain.

Ignoring Brad’s outstretched hand,
Claire stepped into the dark swirling water, settling as far from
him as possible, not so much as a toe touching.
A-ah, yes
. It felt good. Wonderful. As if the hot
vortex could wash away her sins. Her fears. Banish Claire the Wimp,
Claire the Defeated. Reveal the girl who had embraced New York,
loved her job, the mean streets, the bustling crowds, the blaring
horns. The girl who had been full of confidence. The girl who knew
how to seize the day.

Claire kept her eyes down, tracing lazy
circles in the water, moving closer and closer to her toes.
To
his
toes, which she
couldn’t see or feel, but knew were there, perhaps only a scant
inch from her own. Following her hand with her gaze, she lifted her
chin that extra bit. Peeked. Taking in all of him, from the looming
bulk beneath the water to the maze of scars, to his full mouth,
come-hither blue eyes and the long fall of pale gold
hair.

She leaned forward, her breasts dipping into
the deep water as she sought his toes. Tweaking. Adding a husky,
provocative whisper. “This little piggy went to market, this little
piggy stayed home, this little piggy . . .” Brad groaned. “. . .
and this little piggy cried, ‘wee-wee-wee,’ all the way home.”

Claire inched forward, moving between his
legs. “You know,” she breathed, “you could make a fortune as a Chip
’n’ Dale.”

He was reaching for her, bending his head to
her lips when her outrageous words registered. A rumble started far
down in his belly, bubbled up like the gushing water in the tub,
and rose to reverberate through the room. “Jesus, Claire,” he
gasped. “That’s about the last thing I expected you to say. What
about the scars?”

“
The women would simply swoon over
them. They’d think you painted them on just for the daring
adventurer look.”

Carefully, as if examining a priceless
porcelain, Brad slid his fingers up the slick wetness of her arm,
along the shoulder blade, lingered over the sensitive indentation
beneath her chin and rose to trace the fullness of her mouth.
“Claire Langdon,” he announced with great solemnity, “I have to
tell you, if we live together for the next fifty years, I doubt
I’ll ever have the slightest inkling what you’re going to say or do
next.”