Forever My Love (15 page)

A burst of rage from Kathy was spilling through his fingers. “Can't talk any longer, Axel. Boy, is she a tiger, huh? Talk to you soon.” He slammed down the receiver, rather uselessly, he thought. For Kathy kicked and rolled and sent the phone flying to the floor with a loud clang. His hand slipped from her mouth and she managed to get on top of him.

“How could you? How dare you? I don't believe—”

“Hey!” he interrupted loudly, catching her flying fists and quickly flipping her beneath him. She was absolutely seething, her eyes pools of liquid blue fire, her hair a blond tempest flying all around her in an erotic tangle. She lay beneath him, hotter than flame, her breasts rising fascinatingly with each angry breath. She started to swear at him again and he smiled slowly.

“You had no right—”

“I had every right!” he retorted.

“You did not!”

“No, no!” he protested. “You called these shots, sweetheart. As long as I was sleeping with you, I couldn't date, right? Well, the same holds true for you, too.”

“But I didn't—”

“You split up a date I was making with Marla.”

“I didn't try to tell her what I was doing with you! I didn't say—”

“That my mouth was occupied?” he demanded, interrupting her.

“You bas—”

“Hey, Kath, don't make a liar out of me, huh?” He couldn't resist. He lowered his head and kissed her while her mouth was open. Kissed her with heat and fever and just a little bit of fury and the sudden explosion of passion that had come to him when he had heard her talking to another man.

She tried to wrench away from him, tried to shove his chest away. He didn't let her. His body sprawled over hers. He caught her cheeks with his hands, and he kept her mouth open, filling it with his tongue. She twisted and protested, and he knew that he could never let her go because the fires rising inside him were coming to combustible heights.

And then suddenly, she was kissing him back. Her fingers were almost painful as they threaded his hair; her nails raked down his back.

He broke away from her, his lips traveling down her throat, his touch opening her tailored shirt and baring the rise of her breasts. He drew out her fullness, his thumbs running over her nipples. The areolae were nearly aflame, swollen, hard, puckered, ripe to his touch, to his tongue.

“I hate you!” she whispered. And he froze. But she moved against him and her head tossed on the pillow and she whispered, “I want you, Brent! I…want you.”

He shoved up her skirt and rubbed his body down the length of hers. He ran his touch over the texture of her garters and stockings, and over the soft bare flesh of her thigh. He lifted her hips and nipped and licked the flesh at the heart of her desire over the erotic lace barrier of her panties. Then he rose and stripped them away in a frenzy and barely managed to rip open his buckle and zipper before lifting her thighs around him and plunging into her and filling her with the rage of desire that obsessed him.

He heard his ragged cries, heard the tumult of her heart with her every breath, and he rose even higher with the sounds of her whispers. Then her cries and pleas came moist and sweet against his ear.

When they reached their climax, her words were incoherent. He held her while she shuddered. His fingers curled tightly in her hair and he kissed her forehead gently, his lips trembling. “Damn…Kathy…” he murmured with anguish. Then he groaned and staggered to his feet. He zipped his pants and left her.

Kathy lay there, still and startled, for long, miserable moments, wondering how such ecstasy could bring such loss and such pain. She bit the back of her hands, tears forming in her eyes. She had said she hated him.

She leaped up and started to smooth down her skirt. Then she paused and stripped off all her clothing and donned a terry robe instead. She walked out and found him at the piano. He wasn't touching the keys. He was leaning over it, his palms pressed against his eyes.

She sat next to him. Startled, he glanced at her, then stared at the keys again.

“Brent! I didn't mean it!” she said urgently.

He looked at her again. “What?”

“I—I didn't mean that I hated you.”

He smiled slowly, ruefully. “I didn't think you did,” he said very softly. Then he really looked at her and saw all the hurt in her eyes. He slipped his arm around her and pulled her against him. “It isn't you, Kathy. It's me.”

“I don't understand—”

“I don't want to hurt you.”

“You didn't hurt me, Brent. You've never hurt me, don't you understand? I—I wanted you.” She paused, then whispered softly, “Desperately. Passionately. Deeply. You've never hurt me.”

He stood suddenly, his back to her.

“Never?”

“Never.” Again she paused. “Except when you left me,” she admitted.

“I had to leave you,” he said softly. Then he turned and came to her and gently massaged her temples.

“Why?” she whispered.

“I couldn't stay after what happened.”

“But you didn't do it, Brent, you didn't.”

His hands went still. “I wish I could believe that,” he said quietly. He turned away from her and she knew he had ended the conversation, and that she hadn't reached him at all. She stood up to follow him, determined to get through.

“Brent—”

“I saw some steaks in the freezer earlier. Want to do them on the grill? They come out best half frozen.”

“Sure. Fine. Brent—”

“Kathy,” he said curtly, “we've barely been back together at all, and already we're fighting like cats and dogs.”

“Well, hell, it's not that bad!” she protested. “You started it.”

“I did not.”

“You definitely did. You snatched the phone away from me and said really horrible and crude things to Axel. I don't think I'll ever be able to talk to him again.”

Brent took the steaks out of the freezer. “Good.”

“Good? You and I are just playing house, remember. What happens to my life when this is over? Assuming we have lives left, of course.”

“Well, you don't date Axel again.”

“He's a very nice man.”

“Yes, yes, he's fine. But I told you, Kathy. You deserve someone wonderful.”

“Do I? What about you and the lady of the draping body?”

“There's nothing between Marla and me. I told you that.”

“And I told you that Marla doesn't know that.”

“Yes, you dealt with Marla very well.”

“At least I wasn't crude.”

“Ah! The difference between us!” he exclaimed.

She threw up her hands in exasperation. Then she smiled, because at least he was smiling again. She walked into the kitchen and stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on the lips. “Steaks sound great. I'm going to take a shower and change. A bloody Mary would be great, too, if you wouldn't mind fixing me one. I'll be out in a few minutes. Okay?”

He nodded. “One bloody Mary.”

She started toward the bedroom. At the door she paused and called to him. “Brent?”

“Yeah?” He stood by the counter and watched her. His hair was ruffled and a little long over the collar. His shirt was in slight disarray, but he still looked great with his tall, lean, broad-shouldered physique, strong, handsome features and piercing, whiskey-colored eyes.

“You know what?” she asked him huskily.

“What?”

“You are wonderful,” she said quietly. “Really wonderful.” She grinned. “Even if you do say so yourself.”

Then she slipped into the bedroom and closed the door. It might be good to let him think about the precise meaning of her words.

The phone was giving off a dull buzz from where it lay on the floor. She picked it up and set it on the night-stand. Then she smiled again and hurried to the shower.

Chapter 8

After she'd showered, Kathy pulled back the curtains on the bathroom door and looked out. Brent had the barbecue going. He'd changed to a pair of cutoffs and was stoking up the coals.

She started out of the room, then noticed the bathing suit in the little wicker trash basket. The basket was clean; the two pieces of the bikini were the only things in it. It was Shanna's bathing suit. Kathy couldn't let him throw it away. And she was really in the mood to torture him—just a little bit.

She rinsed the bikini, wrung it out and slipped into it. After grabbing a towel, she casually sauntered onto the patio.

He was no longer standing by the barbecue; he had moved closer to the pool to stretch out on one of the redwood deck chairs. From this position, he could see all of the forty-by-sixty pool, the screened dome enclosure and the patio plants within it, and the yard and the wall beyond. It was very private.

He was wearing sunglasses and sitting with a can of beer and the sports section from the newspaper. But as soon as Kathy stepped out, he swung around so swiftly that she cried out, startled. He might be sitting casually, she thought. But he was ready for anything.

“It's just me,” she said. She couldn't see his eyes because of the sunglasses but she felt he was staring at her. “You were out here, so I was assuming you felt it was safe.”

He still didn't say anything. She strolled over to the next deck chair and tossed down her towel. “Did you make my bloody Mary?” she asked him.

He gestured toward the round, glass-covered, wrought-iron patio table by the barbecue. She thanked him sweetly.

When she turned to take a seat, she found he was still watching her. He spoke at last. “I thought I had trashed that suit.”

She arched a brow delicately over the rim of her glass and took a bite out of her stalk of celery before replying. “Trashed it? Oh, well, I did find it in the wicker basket. I thought it must have fallen there accidentally.”

“It wasn't an accident.”

“Oh? You don't like the suit?”

“Not on you.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I didn't mean that,” Brent said flatly. “What I mean is that it…it displays too much.”

“Brent, really, no more than any other bikini—”

“All right. It's the way it displays what it does, then. Kathy, the damned thing is provocative as hell. You want old geezers jumping off their boats with their tongues stuck to the decks?”

She leaned back, smiling. “Only the old ones?”

“Kathy, you know something? There are times when you're a real little witch.”

She sipped her drink, hiding a smile. “No, I'm really not. I'm just trying to plan ahead. For the future, you know.”

He slipped his glasses down his nose and stared at her. “What future?”

“Mine. Well, you've absolutely destroyed whatever I might have had with Axel.”

“You should thank me for that.”

She ignored his comment. “So I'm going to have to go out looking, you know, so I might as well be as prepared as possible, right?” She was trying to goad him. Into what, she wasn't certain, but it didn't seem to be working.

He smiled. “I promise to cut that thing to ribbons before I leave.”

“But when you leave is exactly when I'll need it. Just how long do you think you'll be staying, anyway?”

“That's hard to tell, isn't it?”

“You really had no right to do that to poor Axel. I'm being an extremely understanding ex-wife. I'm doing my very best while you destroy my life—”

“I'm trying to preserve your life, remember. And you haven't really given me the impression I'm destraying your life. Damned if I didn't think you were having, er, fun at various times along the way.”

“Oh, yes, you can be mildly entertaining.”

“Mildly entertaining?” he asked pleasantly.

She smiled, set down her drink, walked to the far end of the pool and dived in cleanly. The water was just the right temperature, cool against the heat of the day.

Seconds later, she heard a splash behind her. She quickened her strokes and moved to the side of the pool. Seconds later, Brent emerged from the depths before her. With a hand on either side of her he held on to the side. He asked again, “Mildly entertaining?”

She tried to slip below the surface and swim around his legs. In a second he had her by the foot and he was dragging her up. This time, his sleek bronze body pinned her against the side.

She didn't speak. He kissed her and their lips were damp and cool from the water, but when his mouth parted hers, all the warmth rushed in. He kissed her throat and she wound her arms around him as he nibbled her shoulders, biting her flesh lightly, running the hot liquid of his tongue over the spot to soothe away the erotic little hurt. She leaned her head back as he teased her throat again, as breath dampened and warmed her earlobe and collarbone. Then she felt his thumb and fingers running along the band of the bikini. “Let's see, what is it that you want to hear? This thing is incredible on you, sexy as all hell, provocative, evocative, titillating. Old men, young men, in-between men would all be drooling at the sight. I love it on you. Here. In private. And I am going to cut the damn thing to ribbons before I leave.”

“You can't do that. It belongs to Shanna.”

“Shanna! You mean you let her wear that thing?”

“She'll be eighteen soon. I can't stop her from using her own judgment. Besides, she looks absolutely dynamite in it. David loves it on her.”

Brent leaned back, groaning. “This is getting worse and worse.”

“Don't you remember being that young?”

“I remember you being that young. And I remember a few of your outfits, too. And I remember—”

“What?” Kathy demanded as he broke off.

He started to laugh. “I remember a few of your father's comments about them, too. It's frightening, 'cause I know exactly what David feels.”

“What do
you
feel?” Kathy whispered.