Gift of Gold (11 page)

“
Don
’
t run from me. You belong to me. Don
’
t run.
”

The words echoed in her mind, part command and part plea. She thought she should be able to recognize that voice. It was rough, male, and full of power. And it only made her want to flee faster through the corridor. She had to get out of there.

Then, without any warning, the curving walls and the sense of being pursued disintegrated. Verity was abruptly, violently aware of Jonas, who stood perfectly still beside her. He was no longer holding one of the pistols. He had returned it to the case. But he was looking at her with his strange golden eyes. There was a raw, unleashed hunger in that gaze. It was both undeniably sexual and much more, indefinable and dangerous and compelling.

The room around Verity looked exactly as it had a moment ago. Nothing had changed, although she was dazed. Something felt terribly, horribly different. In a way she couldn’t explain, she sensed that her world would never be quite the same again.

“The gun is genuine,” Jonas said in a voice that sounded unnaturally calm. “As Verity told you, my field is the Renaissance, but I know enough about old weapons to tell you that you’ve got a very valuable set of pistols there. Take care of them, Emerson. They’re worth a great deal of money.”

“I guess my daughter was right,” Emerson said cheerfully. “Luck follows the virtuous. Now all I have to do is figure out how to turn these pistols into cash. Well, it’s been a long day. What do you say we all hit the sack? I could use a night’s sleep, and Verity here looks a little washed out. What’s the matter, Red? Haven’t you been getting enough sleep lately?”

“She works too hard and she doesn’t eat properly,” Jonas said. His eyes never left her face. “Come on, Verity, I’ll walk you back to your cabin.”

She wanted to refuse. The panic attack, or whatever it was, seemed to have vanished with as little warning as that with which it had materialized, but a lingering uneasiness remained.

Some part of her was almost certain that Jonas Quarrel was the source of her uneasiness. Yet, when he took her hand and led her outside into the night, Verity followed without protest.

Chapter
Five

“Are
you all right?” Jonas asked quietly. His fingers closed around Verity’s hand as he guided her through the trees along the barely visible path that led to her cabin.

“Of course,” Verity mumbled, taking deep breaths of the crisp night air. Jonas’s grip felt strong and reassuring. He seemed to be communicating some of his quiet strength to her. Verity tried to drink it into herself without being too obvious about it. “Why shouldn’t I be all right?” She concentrated on the familiar sights and sounds of the night around her.

Everything was utterly normal here at Sequence Springs. The wind rustled in the trees. Scattered lights gleamed along the shoreline. The glow from her cabin window was warm and welcoming. Now and then the distant sound of an
automobile engine rumbled briefly, then faded.

Everything was normal. She was normal. She was just fine.

“Your father was right,” Jonas said slowly. “You looked a little washed out back there in the cabin. Sure you’re okay?”

“I told you, I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all. Having Dad show up out of the blue is always a bit disconcerting.”

She felt defensive. Damned if she was going to admit to this man that she had suffered a momentary hallucination tonight.

“Take it easy,” Jonas said soothingly. He released her hand and put his arm around her shoulders.

Verity found herself nestled closely against his side. The warm, heavy, oddly comforting weight of his arm around her sparked mixed emotions. On one hand, she was still aware of an inexplicable uneasiness. A part of her insisted on irrationally associating Jonas with the fear she had known a few minutes ago. But another, equally primitive and very feminine part of her was convinced that the masculine power in Jonas offered safety from those same terrors. In desperation, she tried to make normal conversation.

“It figures my father’s only here because he’s in trouble. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Now he’s got a loan shark after him. Are you sure about those dueling pistols?” she asked.

“Sure about them being genuine? Yes, I’m sure.”

She glanced up at him, curious and perplexed. “How can you be certain without doing some sort of tests?”

Jonas shrugged, the action somehow pulling her more tightly against him. “I’ve seen a lot of old guns. I know what old steel looks like. I know what old craftsmanship looks like. And I know what a dueling pistol feels like.”

“What it feels like? What do you mean?”

He was staring straight ahead at the light in her cabin. “It’s hard to explain. A good dueler feels right in the hand. The aim is true. Point it and it’s aimed. You can sense it. In a real duel there’s no time to line up the target in the gun’s sights. All you can do is point the weapon in the general direction of the target. Dueling pistols are usually fairly heavy, too. They’re designed so that in the grip of a very nervous man the aim is less likely to be affected by a jerky trigger finger.”

Verity shivered. “Makes sense. I can imagine how nervous I would be if I were standing on a so-called field of honor at dawn waiting for someone to give the signal to fire.”

Moonlight glinted briefly off Jonas’s bleak smile. “The feeling goes beyond nervous, believe me. It’s similar to the sensation you get when you hold a rapier with an unblunted tip and face a man who’s holding another one just like it. Talk about life on the edge.”

“You really were an expert on old weapons at one time, weren’t you?”

“Yes. Feel better now?”

“I told you, I feel just fine. Perfect. Peachy keen,” she retorted, irritated by the concern in his voice, even as she longed to indulge herself in his unexpected solicitude. “Why do you keep harping on how I feel?”

He stopped in the middle of the path and tugged her around to face him. His hands slid under the lapels of her coat. The moonlight and the night washed away the gold in his eyes, leaving colorless, gleaming gems that seemed to see past all her defenses into the depths of her soul. A faint echo of the panic she had experienced earlier shot through Verity. She caught her breath, half-preparing to run.

Jonas’s hands tightened on the lapels and he held her still. “Relax,” he ordered quietly. “It’s over for now.”

“What’s over?” she whispered, searching his moonlit gaze for answers to questions she did not know how to ask.

“Nothing. Never mind.” He groaned and pulled her closer. “Verity, you’re safe with me. I swear you’re safe. Please don’t run from me. I’ll take care of you. I swear it.”

She stared at him, stunned by the intensity of his words. “Jonas, please, I don’t know what’s going on here.”

“Yes, you do. You’re not a child. You’re a woman and you’re attracted to me. I’ve seen it in your eyes. I can make you want me, honey. Really want me. I knew it when I kissed you in the spa.” His voice was low, caressing, mesmerizing. “God knows, I want you. Let me have you. Give yourself to me. Let me show you how good it can be between us. Verity, I
need
you. Now.
Tonight. I’ve waited as long as I can.”

In that moment she believed him. He wasn’t the only one who seemed to have the power to look into souls tonight.

She was looking at him but she was also looking into him in a way she could not explain. She knew only that when he did battle with his silent ghosts, the struggle was not unlike what she had gone through dealing with the strange, amorphous fear that had swamped her earlier.

She did not comprehend the nature of Jonas’s ghosts or of the battle being waged, but Verity knew with a woman’s certainty that he spoke nothing less than the truth when he said he needed her tonight. She could feel the driving sensual force in him and knew it was focused totally on her.

And, with a small sigh, she acknowledged to herself that she needed him, too. She wanted him to drive away the memories of the dread she had felt a while ago, even though a part of her insisted on connecting him with that same panic. It didn’t make sense in any logical fashion, but it made incontrovertible sense to the deeply hidden primal part of her nature. She and Jonas belonged together tonight. They needed each other.

For Verity the sensation was unique. She had never before felt this kind of need for a man.

The sighs of the breeze-ruffled pines haunted the night as Verity stood facing Jonas. Another shiver went through her but this one was not generated by cold or fear. This quickening of her senses was linked only to the man whose strong, elegant hands still gripped the lapels of her coat.

The intuitive realization that had come to her the first time he kissed her returned to her now in an overwhelming wave.
This was the right man; the one she had been waiting for.

Instinctively she moved closer, seeking the warmth of Jonas’s body and simultaneously pushing aside the feminine caution that had kept her safe from a man’s demands for twenty-eight years. She rested her head on his shoulder, silently giving him the answer he sought. Jonas shuddered heavily and wrapped his arms around her.

“Yes,” he rasped. “Oh, Christ, Verity, yes.”

Then his mouth closed over hers, hot, hungry, filled with restless urgency.

This kiss was unlike the one in the spa pool. That one had only hinted at the passion that lay buried in the man. This time Verity found herself inundated with a resonating need unlike anything she had ever before experienced. It swamped her senses the way the unnamed fear had overtaken her earlier in her father’s cabin.

But this time she felt no more than a fleeting desire to run. Her need to stay and sample the maelstrom of passion overcame twenty-eight years of wariness and caution. She surrendered to the moment, feeling her senses come alive with a new kind of sensitivity. Excitement swept through her.

But above all there was a driving need to answer the demand radiating from Jonas. Verity knew that she might have been able to resist the lure of passion, but the need to give Jonas what he wanted so desperately tonight was irresistible. She had never been needed like this. She had never wanted a man like this. Her head was spinning with the glittering lures held out before her in shining array. Heedlessly she reached to take hold of the priceless jewel of passion. Her arms went around Jonas’s neck and she plunged her fingertips into the darkness of his hair.

“Verity,” he groaned. “Sweet tyrant. I’m going to learn all
your secrets tonight. Every last one of them. No more games.”

His hands tightened around her, forcing her closer until she could feel the hard outline of his aroused manhood. The rough fabric of his jeans was taut across his groin. He moved against her, making her tremble in response.

“You feel so damn good,” he muttered thickly. He nuzzled the sensitive place behind her ear and then he found the lobe with his teeth, sampling her with exquisite care. Verity moaned and locked her arms more urgently around him. “So soft. I’m half out of my mind with wanting you. I need to be inside you. I
need to feel you wrapped around me.” He released her slightly and started urgently along the path.

Verity stumbled along beside him, her footsteps made awkward by the combination of Jonas’s tight hold and by her own shimmering sense of anticipation.

When they reached the cabin door, Jonas fumbled briefly with the unlocked door and then they were inside. The pleasant warmth and light enveloped them.

Verity stood blinking in the glare of the light until Jonas reached out and flipped the wall switch. Instantly the room was plunged into darkness.

“We don’t need the light,” he said.

She looked up at him and realized he was right. She could see all she needed to see of him. Almost too much, in fact. There was enough moonlight filtering through the cabin windows to reveal the starkly aroused expression on his harsh face and the burning heat in his eyes. Maybe it was better to view him in the soft glow of the moon rather than the more revealing glare of artificial light. Verity wasn’t sure she could take the full impact of what she would see. For an instant she knew a jolt of fear once more.

“Jonas, I...”

“Hush,” he said, kissing her back into silence. “I’ve told you I’ll take care of you. You’ll be safe with me.”

She wondered why he was so determined to promise safety but there was no opportunity to ask. Jonas was already untying the sash of her coat and unbuttoning the oversized buttons.

“I
knew it,” he muttered as the coat fell to the floor. There was
satisfaction in his voice. “I knew you were wearing your nightgown. I sat there watching you sip that vodka and I got hard just thinking about what you had on under that coat. Did you come to see me tonight intending to stay with me until morning, sweetheart?” He touched his tongue to the corner of her mouth. “Were you going to seduce me after you had apologized?”

She shook her head violently. “No. I was only going to say I was sorry for yelling at you. I never meant to stay.”

“Don’t say that,” he said, indulgent amusement in every word. “You don’t know for certain what you wanted. You don’t even know your own secrets.”

“And you think you do?” she challenged softly.

“I can only guess at some of them.” His fingers worked the tiny buttons of her flannel nightgown until he had it open to her breasts. When he brushed against the gentle swell of her softness he sighed hungrily.

For a few seconds Jonas teased both of them by exploring the curves that were partially exposed and then he grew impatient. His fingers slipped inside the gown to cup her completely. He held her gently captive in the warm palm of his hand and his thumb flicked over one velvet nipple. There was an instant, uncontrollable response. Verity caught her breath and her nails sank into the cotton of Jonas’s shirt, finding his hard, muscled flesh underneath.

“Go ahead and use your claws on me, vixen,” he said, the words rough with his desire. “I don’t mind carrying your mark. I think I was meant to bear it.”