Children of Dynasty (24 page)

The moon sailed in the ceiling skylight. Had Rory seen her close the drapes? Did he suspect she’d seen him standing like a Pagan god, limned in silver radiance? Her hands spread wide on the mattress, her pulse throbbed in her palms. An ache spread like warm honey through the rest of her.

Even as she formed the thought of going to him, she knew she could not. That was Sylvia Chatsworth’s kind of brash action. What kind of woman would be with one man in public and sneak under cover of darkness into another’s room, taking the risk he might not be alone?

Nonetheless, she drew back the covers and reached for her robe.

Moving silently, Rory went back onto the balcony. The stone lay cool beneath his bare feet as he padded toward Mariah’s door.

She would scream. Rouse the household. Throw him out.

He needed to get back to his own room. At breakfast, shake Lyle’s hand and smile.

He turned the knob and, finding it unlocked, opened the door a scant two inches. “Mariah?”

All was quiet within. He dared to push the door farther open, fumble for the edge of the drapery and pull it aside.

She stood at the foot of her bed, a shadow in black. A paler seam within revealed the robe was open. In the skylight illumination, her hair shone silver.

For a long moment, they looked at each other. Then she sighed, a soft sound that set his heart hammering.

To stop the wind billowing the drapes, he came inside and pulled the door shut. She did not protest. He began to walk toward her, waiting for a sign, for her to draw the robe closed.

He reached her. Her hands came up in the dim light, one to cradle each side of his face. Her touch, exquisite as a feather, coursed through him like liquid lava. “I take it this means you’re not going to throw me out?” he whispered.

She rose on tiptoe to kiss him, a bare brush of lips that nearly shattered him. “I was about to come to you.”

Though he longed to crush her against him, he held back. “I want to be with you without words or thoughts of the past or future.” Yet, even as he spoke, he knew the time for such fantasy was past. He placed his hands on hers and gently lowered them from his cheeks. “I want to, but we can’t escape that way anymore.”

She drew the robe together and belted it. “No.” Her gaze sharpened. “What about Sylvia?”

He answered with a direct look. “What about Lyle?”

Mariah turned away, climbed onto the king-sized bed, and settled against a pile of pillows. He sat down cross-legged, at least four feet from her.

“Lyle,” she said, “is a friend who brought me along as a favor. When he saw you and I on the balcony, he figured us out and played along all evening to make you jealous.”

Rory’s back muscles begin to relax.

“Sylvia?” Mariah gave him a steady gaze.

He tensed once more. “Since I saw you again, I haven’t wanted her.”

“Then, what are you doing with her?”

“I’m not. Father wanted me to bring her and when I refused, she came with her folks. When I saw Lyle come out of your room onto the balcony, I saw red and starting playing the same stupid jealousy game with Sylvia.” Recalling his father’s credo of never apologizing, Rory decided that while it might work at the negotiating table it had no place in the bedroom.

He leaned toward Mariah. “Forgive me for trying to make you jealous.”

With those simple words, a weight lifted.

“Forgive me,” she returned.

Feeling even lighter and curious as to what other miracles could be wrought, he took a fortifying breath. “While we’re on the subject of forgiveness, there’s something I need to say. You must be having a difficult time trusting me after the way things ended eight years ago. You could so easily despise me for caving in to my father.”

She started to speak, but he held up a hand. “Let me do this.”

With a nod, she settled back.

“I was young,” he went on, “but I’m not hiding behind that excuse. I do want you to know that when Father caught us on the yacht, he threw up walls in every direction you can imagine. He didn’t just offer to get a judge to annul it if we married. He threatened my education, promised to blackball me from working in the building industry.”

Mariah sat straighter.

“To see me parking cars.”

“Oh, Rory, no.”

“He asked if I wanted your father to support me.”

“I had no idea …”

Rory lifted an index finger. “Don’t forget, I’m not making excuses. I should have tried harder to find a way for us.”

Mariah looked stricken. “I should have, too, instead of refusing your calls.”

He moved close enough to grip her hand and forged on. “As for Elizabeth, our relationship was completely different from what you and I had. I was so battered by the rough seas we went through that she seemed like a haven from the storm.”

Mariah moved closer and put a gentle hand on Rory’s bare arm. “I’ve often wished I could have found solace in someone else.”

He glanced toward the doors that shut out the world and back to her lying in the moonlight, her pale hair spread over shoulders covered in black velvet. “I’m glad you haven’t.”

“So am I,” she whispered.

Awareness flowed between them; the comforting warmth of her hand changed and sent a tingle up his arm. Her lips parted, beckoning.

“We’re all alone,” he said. “Nothing to stop us but our demons.”

“Nothing to stop us at all.”

In the moonlight, she crawled across the mussed comforter to him. Her robe gapped, revealing small perfect breasts. Across a tangle of legs, they managed a dry peck on the lips. Not much of a kiss, but he felt it deeply.

Mariah lowered herself to her back on the bed, and he went down beside her. Propping his head on one elbow, he looked at her half-covered body. The memory of her skin, hot and slick beneath his hands, tormented him. He kissed her again, this time fully, and the sweetness of her mouth was different from the way he remembered it. Her embrace was about passion and the flesh, yet more.

Gradually, the pressure of desire built in him until it was all he could do not to roll her over and bury himself in her moist heat. Her hand found its way below his waist and closed over his aroused sex. He kicked his way out of his pants.

Pushing up to her knees, Mariah replaced her stroking fingers with lips and tongue. He gasped at the heat of the inside of her mouth, for she’d never done that for him, not during their long-ago explorations, or at Ventana.

“You’re going to make me lose control,” he warned.

She lifted her head and said fiercely, “I want to make you lose control; I want you to forget everything else.”

He did. Let go of all except her and the coil winding tighter in him. Each time they were together, it made him hotter and took him higher than the last.

Filling his palm with her breast, he hoped to incite her to greater heights. He tugged at her hair that spilled over his stomach and gasped, “Let me …”

She sat back on her heels. By the time he donned the protection he’d brought along in his pants pocket she was watching him with eyes like coals in the moonlight. He reached between her thighs and found her ready, her moan all the encouragement he needed to slide his fingers into her silkiness.

“Rory …”

He couldn’t tell if she wanted more of his touch or …

“I want you,” she said, her voice black velvet as her hand once more found him.

He moved over her, his chest brushing soft breasts, and then her impossibly hot flesh enveloped him. It was all he’d dreamed of since their night at Ventana, more, as she wrapped her legs around his back and rocked him ever closer.

As she had desired, he lost control and went over the edge. Her cries answered his.

The delicious euphoria beginning to subside, Mariah felt herself settle back to reality. Though this glorious taste only whetted her appetite for long luxurious nights, all of them spent together, she knew their safe haven could not extend over this room’s threshold.

“Rory,” she said, “What have we done?”

He brought her fingers to his lips. “Given in to forces we can’t resist.”

“But, what’s going to happen now? Do we go down to breakfast together and shock everybody?”

He bent and brushed a kiss on her cheek. “It would get the job done.”

Could it be that simple? Rory said he wasn’t with Sylvia, so she had no claim on him. She and Lyle were friends and after the role he had played last night, he couldn’t be too surprised to see them together. Davis Campbell would be livid, but she and Rory were both adults now. They could take whatever tantrums he threw.

Rory’s expression turned thoughtful. “Although that could be tricky.”

Her stomach clenched. Was he still afraid of his father?

He propped on an elbow. “This little shindig is going to be written up in the Sunday gossip columns. You’ve already weighed in for the weekend with Lyle Thomas. Though I didn’t ride down with her, I’ve been paired with the Sylvia. Do you see where this is going?”

“I’m afraid I do.” Lyle was too nice a guy for her to publicly dump him as her date. Not that she cared about Sylvia; humiliating Lawrence Chatsworth’s daughter would make the bombshell of Grant and Campbell all the more sensational. If her father read about her and Rory in the Sunday paper when he thought she was down here with Lyle, he might have some kind of relapse.

Much as she hated the idea of a secret affair, Mariah nodded. “We have to keep this quiet, at least until we get home.”

R
ory breathed the bracing salt of morning air on Wilson McMillan’s main terrace. Offshore, the sun was burning off the last traces of ocean fog. He had hated to leave Mariah’s side, but after last night, he believed things were clearing for them like the weather.

Looking around the breakfast crowd, though, he found his euphoria threatened. After the way Sylvia had stormed off last night, he’d expected her to avoid him. However, at a table set for four, she shared breakfast with his parents. Dressed in demure navy slacks and a matching sweater, with her hair brushed smooth like a child’s, she called, “Come and join us.”

He smiled, for he could afford to be agreeable. Once home on Sunday, Mariah would tell her dad that she and Rory were determined to see where a renewed relationship led them. And though the idea of it turning into something more permanent had Rory a little scared, he planned to tell his father about them. He would wait for Monday morning at DCI, where the expected scene could not disturb his mother.

Rory worked his way between the breakfast tables and approached the little domestic tableau.

“Did you sleep well?” Father asked with the slightest insinuation. For an instant, Rory wondered how he knew about Mariah. Then he realized the innuendo might refer to Sylvia, who cast down her eyes, her wide mouth managing to look both innocent and corrupt.

Rory sat, poured coffee from a pitcher, and reached for a slice of melon. “I slept like a stone.” Truth, for after he and Mariah had wrung each other out, he’d gone down into a deep and dreamless slumber, interrupted several times by more lovemaking, and then more restful sleep.

Waking around dawn, he’d kissed the somnolent Mariah and gone onto the balcony to find the world newborn … fresh mist rising from the golf course, the distant boom of surf a revelation.

Tasting his melon, he found it tart and delightful, the coffee strong without being bitter.

Davis wore golfing clothes. “You playing a round?”

“Not this morning,” Rory replied.

As soon as he spoke, he wondered if he made a mistake in letting Sylvia think he was unscheduled. With relief, he saw her check her watch. “I’m going into Carmel to shop with the golf widows,” she told Kiki. “Want to come?”

“No, thank you, dear.” His mother sipped a tomato drink Rory figured for a Bloody Mary.

Sylvia rose and leaned over to kiss him. He turned his head to the side so her lips barely grazed his cheek.

Kiki smiled after her. “Such a lovely girl. I had a nice talk with her after dinner.”

Rory pushed his plate away. Last time she and Sylvia had a powwow, his mother had spilled the story of him and Mariah during that distant summer.