Celestial Bodies (20 page)

“It’s one of the layouts Felix taught me. It’s useful for answering fairly specific questions. Another, the Star, highlights the inner and outer influences in a person’s life at a given moment. Felix’s favorite is the Gypsy spread. He’s never taught me that, since it requires forty-two cards, and he says it can cause psychic indigestion if you’re not experienced.”

“Psychic indigestion?” Nick smiled wearily.

Diana’s heart started to thud with a confused mixture of tenderness and terror. “What if we don’t find him?” she whispered.

Nick’s face clouded, and a bleak expression fogged his bright eyes. He leaned forward and covered her hand with his own. “I promised you we would, didn’t 1?” She nodded mutely. “And I owe you this, don’t I?”

Diana smiled tremulously. “We haven’t discussed your fee.”

He brushed her strawberry-blond hair away from her face. “Just a little faith. And maybe...” His voice had dropped to a whisper.

“What?” she asked breathlessly.

Don’t spoil it
, he warned himself, wanting to see that tenderness in her eyes even more than he wanted to taste her on his lips. He forced an iron control on himself and suggested, “Maybe you could tell my fortune?”

Diana smiled wryly. “I don’t have Felix’s gifts or experience. Just a limited, unfocused, layman’s knowledge of the tarot.” She glanced at him from under her lashes as she echoed the words he had uttered to Felix when he first came to the House of Ishtar. “But I’ll give it a shot.”

 
She gathered together all the cards, asked Nick to shuffle them, which he did, and began laying out a new Triangle. “These two cards, forming the base of the Triangle, represent your present position.” She turned them up.

“The Fool,” Nick murmured dryly.

“And the Eight of Swords.” She smiled nervously, surprised by how accurate the random selection was. “Meaning you face difficult choices and danger, and you’re currently stuck between a rock and a hard place.” She turned over two more cards. “These represent your immediate future.”

“The Magician and the Wheel of Fortune.” He glanced questioningly at Diana.

“That means things will change soon. And for the better.” She swallowed convulsively. “I think it means you’re going to rescue Felix.”

After an uneasy pause during which Diana wrestled with a superstitious fear against continuing, she laid down two more cards, the third side of the Triangle. “These represent your immediate future.”

“The Queen of Wands,” Nick said, transfixed despite himself. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“And the Two of Cups.”

“It’s... uh, I forget.”

“I think it’s something good, isn’t it?” he asked curiously, wondering why she was flushing. She nodded and he prodded, “Something about friendship and romance, right?”

Diana cleared her throat. “Sure. I mean, if you believe in this stuff.”

“You said there were seven cards. Where’s the last one go?”

“In the middle.” Her voice sounded weak.

“Well? What does it represent?”

“It influences all the other cards.”

“Better lay it down, then.”

Her fingers closed around the deck in her hand.

Nick wondered why he suddenly wanted to know what the central card would be. It was only a tarot reading, for God’s sake. It was even being read by someone who confessed to lacking a true knowledge of the tarot and to having no particular gift for it. So what did it matter? Surprised at himself, Nick gently gripped Diana’s hand and pulled the next card off the top of the deck. She took it from him and turned it over to lay it in the center of the Triangle.

“The Lovers.” Diana almost choked on the words.

Nick stared at the card, at the depiction of a naked man and woman, forever frozen in position as they reached toward each other. Sexual desire and spiritual love; a relationship with trials and choices attached to it.

More disturbing than the card was the way Diana avoided his eyes when he looked at her. It reminded him too much of her reaction as he had awaited Felix’s judgment downstairs, two weeks ago. It was just a deck of cards, he fumed silently, with no more meaning than what Diana chose to attach to it. And this time, he was not going to sweep her up and into his arms, so she could blame it all on the stars when things got too hot for her to handle. No, this time she would have to come to him on a strictly earthbound level.

Nick pushed back his chair and stood up. “I called Peter a while ago. He said Claude still hasn’t left the estate. I think I may need to try to get in to see him again tonight.”

“When do we leave?” she asked, still avoiding his gaze.

“After sunset.” Nick rubbed his hand against the knot of tension in his neck, trying to ignore the knotted desire in his belly. He wasn’t going to play by the Stewarts’ crazy rules anymore. “I’m beat. I’m going to take a shower and catch a couple hours of sleep before we go.”

“I put fresh sheets on the bed in your room.”

“Thanks. Wake me in three hours.”

Diana watched him go, biting her lip so she wouldn’t moan at the pain welling up inside her. She swallowed and blinked back tears as she heard the door close behind him. He really, really didn’t believe, despite everything. And maybe he had lost respect for her, because she couldn’t help believing.

She stared at the Triangle for a long time before she finally gathered together all the Victorian tarot cards and wrapped them in the delicate silk. Then, on impulse, she slipped the deck into her purse, as if it could keep her father closer to her when she went out tonight.

She gave up the thought of sleeping or even of trying to do anything else productive this afternoon. All her thoughts were focused on the man trying to sleep in a room on the second floor of her house, the man who lay only a dozen feet beneath where she was wearing a rut in the rug.

He was thinking of her, too. She could tell, could sense him reaching out to her, could almost hear the humming of his blood and feel the burning imprint of his gaze.

Sexual desire
. They certainly had that.
Spiritual love
. Her face crumpled. Did they? Could they? Was she in love with him, despite everything, or was he just a seducer, weaving his silken web of torment around her?

A love affair with a trial or choice attached
. That’s us, all right, she thought bleakly. She frowned and paused in her pacing. What was the exact nature of their trial? In her mind’s eye she saw The Lovers again, a man and woman, naked in their need and in their trust, reaching toward each other, ignoring the boundaries between them.

Diana crossed her arms over her chest, feeling suddenly cold in the warm air, bereft in the middle of her secure home. Her need was naked, and it was eating her up inside. The dark glitter in Nick’s eyes had told her what he needed, too. She could see his guilt, his loss of confidence, his agonized struggle to live up to his own ideals and to prove himself worthy. Hadn’t he been trying to do that all along? He had come here and done his best to find out the truth about her and Felix, even when the cosmos had bound him to her with chains of desire and fascination.

Now he was trying to help them. The rumored loss of his professional status and reputation must torment him day and night. She pushed aside her consuming curiosity about that matter to consider how he must feel now, suspecting a former client of kidnapping a former suspect.

Poor Nick, she thought tenderly. He had never needed guidance before, having sailed through life on natural skill and an abundance of cocky confidence. Now his skill and integrity were being questioned by everyone, even himself, and his confidence was failing him. He still resisted the guidance of the stars, but there was something else Diana could offer him that he needed just as much. She only hoped he wouldn’t resist a woman’s comfort just because it was coming from her.

She paused before leaving the apartment. Since he probably hadn’t been expecting anything this time, it was up to her to be careful. She went into the bathroom for a moment and took control of one choice. There were some decisions she was not about to leave up to the celestial bodies.

Nick lay flat on his back, naked between the crisp cotton sheets on his bed, and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. So much for catching a few hours’ sleep, he thought sourly.

He should have requested another room. The last time he had used this bed, Diana had been with him. He remembered how she had looked, kneeling next to the bed, how her, red-gold hair had fanned out across the pillows, how she had laughed as they tumbled together to the floor, how she had surged against him and wrapped her smooth legs strongly around his waist...

He cursed, punched the pillow, and tried to find a more comfortable position. Another room wouldn’t have been any better, he decided irritably. All the other beds were upstairs, where he would smell her jasmine scent in the air, hear her voice if she used the phone or spoke to Ishtar, and he’d wind up opening the door and wrapping himself around her.

No freckles on her breasts, he thought. A tiny scar on her thigh that he hadn’t had time to ask her about. And the way she touched him, the sounds she made, the things she did with her tongue...

He sat bolt upright. “This is never going to work,” he muttered. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, wondering what he should do now.

There was a soft knock at the door. Nick stared at it, his heart pounding with furious excitement. It was Diana. It had to be. The mere thought made his body react.

“Nick?” Her voice floated through the door and into the room.

He struggled for a moment, trying to summon up his strength of will. But he heard himself say, “Come in.”

She opened the door wide and stood in the entrance, looking at him with soft, misty-green eyes. “Couldn’t you sleep?”

“Of course not,” he snapped. “What are you doing here?”

Diana took a steadying breath, realizing that Nick had no intention of making this easy for her. “I thought you might want some company.”

He raised one black brow. “You thought we’d have a little chat while I slept?”

“I thought I could help you sleep.”

“No.” He shook his head, his expression dark and tense. “That’s not what you thought, Diana.”

“No,” she conceded. She licked her lips. “Actually, I thought I’d keep you awake.”
Please,
she begged silently,
say something to show me you’re glad I walked down those stairs.

Nick looked at the floor. “You said something to me once that I finally understand, Diana. I’m not going to let the gods pander for me.”

“They’re not! I came—”

“You came down here because of what you saw in the cards upstairs. Well, I’m not going to make love to you this time, just because you think it’s written in the stars. I’ve already been burned because I went along with that once.”

“But that wasn’t why I—”

“Wasn’t it?” he said bitterly.

She folded her hands nervously, trying to remember if she had had a reason during that steamy hour of abandon they had spent in this room. Hadn’t she come here just for
him
on that occasion?

“Listen to me,” he said huskily, meeting her gaze. “What I want to do with you right now is about as human and earthy and uncelestial as anything can be. If you’re ready for that, then I’ll be everything I can be for you. But don’t come to me now because of the cards. And,” he added, putting steel into his voice, “don’t ever turn on me again because of what a fortune teller says.”

Diana struggled against her tears. “But he was right. You were lying to me.”

Nick stood up and crossed the room slowly as he replied. “I’ve got plenty of human faults and flaws, Diana, and you can complain about them anytime you want. But I will not let my love life be ruled by Mars and Venus. If we have problems, you consult
me
, not your father’s mumbo jumbo.”

She was caught by fascination as he stalked toward her with naked animal grace. He was dark and golden, long and lean, with beautifully sculpted muscles that bunched and flowed as he approached her. He was also more aroused than he had let on.

“Fair’s fair,” she murmured breathlessly. “No lies, no mumbo jumbo. Deal?”

His stern expression softened into a smile of mingled affection and desire. “Deal.”