Beyond the Misty Shore (26 page)

He reared back onto haunches, then hauled her up. Kneeling face to face, he reached for her zipper with unsteady hands, desire’s fire burning deep in his glazed eyes. “God, woman, I do love your appetite.”

She raked at his nipple with her teeth. “If you don’t feed me soon, I’m going to die, MacGregor. Starved-to-death women don’t do much redeeming.”

He laughed out loud. “Can’t have that.”

“Certainly not.”

In a tangle of arms and legs and giggles of pure delight, they shed the rest of their clothes. A sock slung left, the other right. His slacks heaved to the floor, a jangle of keys and change and a roll of wintergreen mints that skidded across the planks then thumped into the wall. When she wound up her arm to toss her panties aside, he snatched them from her, grinned wickedly, then draped them on the bedpost, setting off another round of laughter. They fell into each other’s arms, kissed longingly, lovingly, teeth grazing at teasing taunts and answering smiles, and explored those parts of them that until now remained hidden and secreted and often imagined. His hands grew less gentle, more greedy, her mouth less tender, more demanding. The laughter lingering in their spirited foreplay died on their lips, its presence usurped by needs of their bodies and hearts and urges to meld grown fierce.

“Maggie?”

“Hurry!”

He laid her back against the pillow, fitted a condom on himself then nestled between her thighs. “I’m going to love you like no man ever has loved you,” he whispered, his voice full-throated and raw. “I want you to feel everything you make me feel. I want—”

“To show me.” She cupped his face in her hands, the look in her eyes tender, twin mirrors of understanding.

“Yes.” He kissed first her one palm and then the other. “Yes.”

Maggie didn’t hesitate. The need and longing he willingly let her see arrowed straight to her heart. She arched her spine, thrust her hips to welcome him.

Seeking, he found, then sank into her body in a fluid stroke. Like hand to glove they fitted together, and he nestled, then stilled, murmuring not a sound.

Impatient, she pushed against him, urging him to move.

“Wait, Maggie. Wait.” His arms bent on either side of her head, he reared back on elbows, eyes closed, expression enraptured. “I knew it’d be like this. I knew...” He shuddered and found her lips.

What he meant, she’d no idea, but if he didn’t move soon, she’d die of impatience. “Darling, please.”

He smiled against her neck, raked at her skin with his teeth, clearly pleased to find her as thirsty as he, then bowed his back and slowly began the rhythm as natural and innate as drawing breath, as lacking in guile as smiling on feeling joy, as honest as weeping when that joy grew so great that it made tender the heart.

Maggie matched him stroke for stroke, need for need, and totally indulged her every lavish whim in loving him. They might only have this once, and she wanted no regrets, no part of him secret to any part of her. She committed every nuance to memory, every lush and shuddered sigh and soft gasp, every ripple and quiver of muscle and flesh. In the nights ahead, when alone and remembering this night, she would recall with perfect clarity each beloved sensation, each resonant sound and heady scent, and each gentle touch of his hand. She
would,
God help her, have the opportunity. When he learned the truth, she’d have only these memories, never again the loving man, to hold her.

Desperation fired in her soul. Coherent thought lapsed. Feelings, senses, and unquenchable heat reigned. The whorl of their loving spun around her, through her, coiling magic that wound tighter and tighter in her thighs. Certain if ecstasy could kill, she’d surely die, she let it reach in and claim her.

Rocked by tremors, she watched him, pumping hard above her, his shallow breaths thrusting from his lungs, his skin sweat-sheened and glowing in the soft lamplight. He rounded his back then thrust, hollowing spine and buttocks, driving her deep into the bed, then cried out her name.

She stroked him until his spasms ceased, until their sweat-soaked bodies dried then grew cool, unable and unwilling to let him leave her. When his breathing slowed to a canter, he rolled onto his side, bringing her with him, and nose-to-nose, kissed her with tender and light loving brushes of lips to her eyelids, her nose, the tip of her chin, giving her the gentleness now that before hunger denied them.

He broke their kiss, his hand cupping her jaw and looked at her, unsmiling. “I believe in you, Maggie.”

Her heart already full, overflowed, and tears swam in her eyes. A
lot of miracles have happened inside these walls. Miracles... Miracles... Miracles...

Life-altering.

He
believed.

Far too emotional to speak, she nodded.

Curling her close, he buried her face to his chest and sighed contentedly. “Honey?”

Satiated, limbs heavy, eyelids drooping, she mumbled, “No regrets, darling.”

“No regrets.” He let out a totally masculine growl and cupped her breast in his warm hand. “I still want you in that garden tub.”

She wanted that, too. Oh, how she wanted that, too.
Lies between you. When you only have a little left and you lose... 
“Not yet, Tyler.”
Not until we can do for our hearts what we’ve done for our bodies. No barriers. No secrets. No lies.

“Soon, mmm?”

Settling her head on his chest, she snuggled closer to him and gave him the one lie she prayed proved truth. “Soon.”

Maggie awakened during the night.
MacGregor’s arm lay over her bare breast, their thighs and calves were tangled with the sheets. Did she love him? If for a second she believed she
could
love, she would say she did love MacGregor. But it’d take a miracle for her to believe.

Her heart heavy, she looked into his sleeping face. Relaxed and at ease, he was even more gorgeous to her. A flow of tenderness washed through her, and more guilt settled in its wake.

She’d shared her body and part of her heart with this man, but not all of her. She hadn’t let him into her soul. She’d wanted to, but she hadn’t been able to do it. Lies by omission were still lies. And her lies stood between them like a concrete wall.

Their lovemaking had been wonderful—a perfect blend of laughter and intense, sensual delight—but it had suffered from the slight of her holding back. She didn’t regret making love with him, but for the first time in her life she understood the costs of those barriers that sealing off a part of herself while making love with a man who meant so much to her entailed. For a moment—one very brief, very shining moment—she’d let down her guard, let him touch that innermost part of her, and she’d glimpsed what their lovemaking could be like. But her guilt had intruded and that perfect unity of body and spirit had disappeared in a flash. She hated it. And she prayed that someday she’d have the courage to tell him the truth. That he wouldn’t hate her for it. That she’d again have the chance to make love with him, holding nothing back. From that glimpse, she knew it would be the most magnificent, fulfilling experience of her life.

She eased free of him, then at the foot of the bed into her robe. He still slept, his breathing slow and even. She left the room and softly shut the door.

On the stairs, she sent Cecelia’s portrait a forlorn look.
How I envy the love you and Collin shared. And how I resent that I’ll never know the contentment that comes with that rare kind of love. I think I could have loved MacGregor that way. But as soon as I tell him I’ve lied... No, no, I can’t tell him, can I? Not now, not ever.

The third stair creaked and Maggie stiffened. Someone was watching her. Instinctively, she looked back up to the landing, expecting to see MacGregor. She didn’t. Though she did sense more than see—something. A flash of pure light...

The entity? Her heart rate accelerated. “What do you want?” she whispered.

She waited and waited, expectant, but heard no response and saw nothing more.

Giving up, she went on down the stairs, crossed the gallery to the ticks of the grandfather clock, then padded on to the kitchen. At the refrigerator, as she reached for the carton of milk, an urge to get outside hit her with the force of a thunderbolt. The entity...

In the mud room, she grabbed her coat from a peg and slipped it on, then went outside.

Come to the cliffs, Maggie.

Trembling head to toe, she wrapped her coat more tightly around her. The night air was cold and crisp, but clear and not biting. The frigid cold came from within.

She walked around the side of the house and glanced over to the Carriage House, silhouetted and shadowed by the moon. The roofers would be done any day now. Would MacGregor move back over there? What would things be like between them now that they’d taken their relationship to intimacy? Would he still value his privacy most? Or would he forfeit it to be with her? Did she want him to forfeit it?

She’d never been in this position before with a lover. What did she expect? What did he expect from her? How did she behave?

One more reason she shouldn’t have done it. She grimaced. No. No. She stepped across the road and climbed the stony walk to the cliffs. She’d promised MacGregor no regrets.

The blustery wind chilled her face, slicked her hair back against her head. It wasn’t making love with him she regretted. It was that she’d done it when she’d had no right to do it.

So why had she?

The ocean roared and the strong wind cut through her. She’d lost her head. Otherwise she’d never have managed to tamp down an entire lifetime of memories of her parents’ situation or to forget all about Carolyn.

Lust? Passion? Good old-fashioned desire? That just didn’t feel right. She’d wanted to make love with MacGregor. Hell, she’d felt all those things for him, if she were honest. But she’d felt more, too. A lot more. She had before they’d made love, while they’d made love, and she still felt them all now, afterward. So there had to be more to this than just lust, passion, and desire. But what?

It couldn’t be love. Not with their histories. If it were love, then Maggie would have trusted him enough to have told him the truth about Carolyn, to have let him into her soul.

And risked losing him? Isn’t that why you haven’t told him, Maggie. You’re afraid he’ll leave you?

The man’s whisper. She closed her eyes and confessed the truth she’d hidden even from herself. “Yes, I’m afraid of losing him.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He
matters
to me. I didn’t want him to. I fought it. But he does. He matters. Is that so wrong? So godawful wrong?”

“Maggie?”

She spun around and saw MacGregor. His coat was unbuttoned and flapping in the wind. He’d forgotten his shirt.

Worry creased the tender skin beneath his eyes. “You okay, honey?”

Her heart wrenched. The time had come for the truth. God, give her the strength. “No, MacGregor. I’m not okay.”

He stepped closer, lifted a hand to her chin and cupped it in his palm. “Tell me you’re not sorry, Maggie. Please. Can you just tell me that?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “I’m not sorry. Not at all.”

He dragged her to him, wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight. His heart pounded against her chest, thudding wildly. “What’s wrong, baby?”

A wall of fog lay just offshore, headed inland. She eased her hand under his coat to his bare skin. Content. Warm. Safe. Could she tell him the truth, after all? What if he turned away from her? She’d never again feel as she felt this moment. Never again for the rest of her life.

“Maggie, please. Don’t shut me out.” He whispered against her ear. “I’m having a hard time here with you. I didn’t want to care about you, but I do. A lot, Maggie. And that scares the hell out of me. You scare the hell out of me.”

The doubts about him being involved in Carolyn’s death had steadily grown in Maggie—until now. Now, they’d twisted on her. Could the man who had loved her with such gentleness, the man who held her now with such tenderness and care, have been involved? She wasn’t so sure he could. “I care about you, too, MacGregor. So much. And I’m scared of caring at all for anyone, but especially for you.”

The fog rolled ashore, obscuring everything around them. It swirled up to their waists then to Maggie’s shoulders. She shivered and stepped away, feeling the cold mist settle on her face. “I have to tell you something,” she said. “Something I should have told you a long time ago.”

An Arctic blast of cold air cut through her like a knife and cold fingers pressed gently against her mouth, blocking her words. Blinking rapidly, Maggie looked back over her shoulder. A man stood there. He looked both aged and ageless, not threatening, but intent and determined. Curly golden brown hair, kind eyes and, through the mist and fog, she saw he wore some kind of old-fashioned clothes: a dark green suit with shiny buttons.

He looked into her eyes, and lowered his hand from her mouth.

“Tyler?”

“Yes, honey?”

From his tone, she knew he didn’t see the man. “N—nothing.”