Moonlight Man (3 page)

Sharon trembled at the contact, holding herself stiffly, waiting for him to let her go. He did not, but instead lifted his hand again and wiped the tears from her cheek, making her heart pound at the feel of him against her, at the shocking eroticism of his rough, callused palm on her cheek. Unable to stop herself, she leaned into it just a little, turned her head a fraction of an inch, seeking the contact.

“Don’t!” she said brokenly, her gaze pleading.

“Don’t what? Don’t touch your skin, even though your eyes beg me to do it? Don’t play Christmas music because it makes you sad and lonely? I was feeling that way, too, Sharon.” He paused, as if considering just what he should say. “We’re both so alone! But if we were … friends, then neither of us would have to feel that way again.”

“Friends?” She tipped her head back and stared at him intently. “We can’t be friends!”

He lifted his brows so they disappeared under the front of his moon-gilded hair. “Why not?”

Her voice trembled. “Because you won’t leave me alone! You come to the library all the time and talk to me, make me—” Make her what, she didn’t say, but he could guess. He knew what she made him feel and was certain it was the same for her. “You won’t stop playing your instruments outside my house,” she went on, “and you are driving me to distraction! Music, music, music, all day long and half the night! It isn’t fair! I just wish you had never come here! I wish you would go away! You have no right to disturb my life like this! You are—” She broke off abruptly, her eyes filling with terror as she struggled in his gentle hold, her breath rasping in and out.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, sounding panic-stricken. “I … Just let me go, Mr. Duval. I’ll go home. I shouldn’t have come. I’ll just go inside, and I won’t have to hear you play and—”

“Now I know,” he said softly, interrupting her staccato speech. “Now I know why you dislike me so much.”

His words quelled her panic, but she still needed her freedom from him, space in which to breathe. She placed her hands against the thick woolen sweater that covered his chest, thinking sourly that he might clean up nicely, but he sure didn’t stay that way any longer than he had to. She pushed, but it was like shoving against a cliff. “I … I never said I disliked you, Mr. Duval. Let me go now, please. I won’t bother you again.”

He didn’t let her go, but slipped his other arm behind her, and leaned back against the metal wall of the camper. “You bother me all the time, Sharon Leslie, and you didn’t have to tell me that you don’t like me. It’s there every time we meet, blazing from your eyes. It’s the music, isn’t it? It reminds you too much of what you gave up.”

“No! Of course not! I never gave up anything! Or, if I did, I did it because I wanted to. Music nearly ruined my life, my children’s lives. I don’t want it anymore!”

“Do you hate all musicians because you’re a failed one yourself?” He ignored her gasp of indignation and went on. “If that’s the case, you have no need to hate me. I’m not a real musician. I’m only an amateur.” If making her angry or indignant, even hurting her a little was the way through that wall, then he would take it. Inside, part of him rejoiced that she had come to him, even if only to beg him to stop torturing her with music.

He didn’t yet understand how music could be a torture to her of all people, although he could see that it was. Since he’d come, he supposed, every time he had sat outside and played quietly to keep himself company, her suffering had grown stronger. Those tears had been genuine, her anguish deep and real. But why? And why had she stopped composing? Why had she stopped playing? The glory she had wrung from that harp earlier had enchanted him totally, filled him with wonder. She was so talented! He knew that in spite of what he had said, she was no failed musician, but what he needed to know was why she had given it up.

He didn’t think she was likely to tell him then, so he gently eased his arms away from her, setting her free. “I’ll stop playing where you can hear me if it bothers you so much, Sharon.”

“I … thank you. I apologize for my rudeness. I should have just gone inside and shut the door so I couldn’t hear. It was wrong of me to come over here.”

“You’re welcome here anytime. As are your children.”

“My children.” Her eyes flew to his face, suddenly fiercely defiant and startlingly bright. “Just remember, Mr. Duval, that they are
my
children. I don’t want you to offer Jason guitar lessons. I don’t want you to encourage him to take an interest in music. I want him and Roxanne to grow up knowing that there are other things in life as important as music … more important. Much more!”

“Nothing was more important to you for most of your life, Sharon. Why do you deny your son his enjoyment of it? If you don’t want him to come to like my kind of music, why don’t you give him yours, which is far superior?”

“Why don’t you mind your own damned business!” she said, and then bit her lip and dropped her head, stepping back slightly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Duval. That was rude.” She looked at him again, all defiance gone. “Listen, all I’m asking is that you leave my son alone. Please try to understand that he’s at a very vulnerable stage of his development. He needs a man to look up to, and you’re not the kind of man I want him to emulate.”

He frowned. Did she know about him? He shook his head. How could she? No! There was simply no way! “Why not?” he asked, picking up the conversation.

“Well … because you’re a … drifter. A wanderer. You’ve told Jason about all the places you’ve stayed, a few days here, a few weeks there, and now you’re here. For a while.”

“I’ve been here longer than anyplace else,” he pointed out.

“And when spring comes, you’ll be on your way again. I don’t want him to come to … rely on you.”

“Would you deny your son friendship because he might not keep it forever? Is that why you deny yourself love?”

“What?” Her black eyes shone with deep lights as they opened wide and caught the moonlight. “What gives you the right to make such an assumption about me?”

“Your actions, Ms. Leslie. Your attitudes.”

“Who are you to speak of ‘attitudes’? And we were discussing my son, not me, his friendships and needs, not mine.”

“So what kind of a man do you want to set an example for your son? That tight-faced banker I’ve seen you with?”

“Why not? He’s a good man. Kind, steady, leads a settled life. He’s—”
Safe
, she had been going to say, but he broke into her brief hesitation before she could come up with the word.

“He’s what? Dull? Boring?”

She looked away from him. There was nothing she could say, really. Lorne Cantrell was dull and boring, but he was also what she was looking for: someone who would never be able to hurt her. She knew that she wasn’t risking hurt with him because she could make no real emotional commitment. However, she didn’t care about that. She might, in time, be able to make a practical commitment to him. She could be a part-time mother to his children. She would learn to care for them. He could be a full-time father to hers. They would come to like him, and to get along with his children. What she had to look for was security, calm—a serene, quiet atmosphere in which to raise her kids. No ups, no downs, just nice, level, even-paced family living.

“Do you want dull, Sharon? Do you want boring? Or do you want this,” Marc said, his voice a low growl as he pulled her into his arms again. “I can see it in your eyes, Sharon, how you want me. I can feel it in the tension of your body whenever I come and stand by your desk in the library, or stand in line behind you at the post office. I can hear it in your breathing right now. You want me. I know that because I want you, too, and someday, you are going to admit it freely.”

“No!” she said, but when his mouth came slowly toward hers, she did not turn her head away. She stared at him, mesmerized, until his lips brushed over hers, back and forth, until need and curiosity overcame caution and her own parted so she could taste and feel him with the tip of her tongue. Then her eyes fell closed as her body grew heavy and warm, curling toward his like a flower to the sun.

Her breasts pressed against the hardness of his chest and swelled with an aching need for even greater closeness. A deep, silent part of her cried out with exhilaration at the worship she sensed in his touch, in celebration he unzipped her jacket and slid his arms inside it, molding her shape with his big hands. It had been so long since she had felt like a real woman, a woman who might be able to satisfy a man. And something told her that this time, she could. She yearned to have his hands on her bare skin, all over her, touching, stroking, arousing. Oh, heavens, but he felt good against her, hard and big and masculine! She shoved her cold hands inside his leather jacket, into his warmth. He smelled wonderful, the way a man should, and tasted incredible, of oranges and mint. She let her head fall back against his hand as it came from inside her jacket and rose to slide through her hair.

At once something turbulent, too long pent up, was unleashed in both of them, and they both met it without hesitation.

She moved against him, reveling in the solidity of his frame. Oh, Lord, she thought dimly, I’ve needed this man for so long! And then she no longer thought but simply gave herself up to the pleasures she and Marc Duval were drawing from each other, creating in each other, building together.

Her hair was like black silk as it slid through his fingers. Marc took all the sweetness her mouth offered, accepting the tentative little forays her tongue made against his own, then groaning as she became emboldened and moved deeper into his embrace, her mouth hungry and demanding under his. She clung to him, her hands clenching in his hair as if to pull him deep inside her skin. He strained to get closer, closer, but it could never be close enough, not like this, fully clothed, standing outside under a Christmas moon.

He had known! From the moment he’d first met her sultry gaze, seen it fire up and crackle at him, he had known there would be this kind of spark between them, a spark that would turn into instant conflagration. He wanted her like he had never wanted another woman in all of his forty-one years. He wanted to strip her down to her bare skin, lay her on the cold hard ground, and drive himself into her again and again until the desperate urge to have her was finally sated. But he knew that kind of urge would never be fully quenched. He lifted her up off her feet to rub her against him. When she moved her slight, dainty body, parted her legs to make a cradle for his arousal, he groaned and nearly collapsed as his knees gave way. He set her swiftly back onto her feet and turned aside to save his sanity, reluctantly breaking their heated kiss.

When he lifted his head, he couldn’t speak, could only look at her. She was so beautiful with the moon shining on her pale face, her black lashes contrasting arcs along her skin, her lips wet and parted as if begging for more. But not now. He couldn’t give her more. He knew if he took those lips again, he would gather her up and take her to his bed in the camper. At this point, maybe she wouldn’t object, but when it was over, so would be his every chance of earning her trust. Wanting was one thing, friendship another, and he knew he would have to have both from her before he could even think of telling her his story.

“Angel,” he murmured finally, “open your eyes. Look at me.”

She did, and he saw that she was still dazed by the desire that had flared so swiftly and so powerfully between them. The stars high above reflected in the deep pools of her dark eyes. “I want you to go in now, Sharon,” he lied. He didn’t want her to go in. He wanted to keep her with him, enfolded in his arms, and make her so hot the cold wouldn’t matter. “It’s cold out here. It’s time you were in your bed.”

She looked at him for a long moment, blinking as she remembered who she was, where she was, and who he was. “Mr. Duval …” Sharon unclenched her hands from the wool of his sweater, pulled them from under the front of his jacket, and moved back from him, out of his circle of warmth. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. Her head spun. Her brain felt like mashed potatoes. She didn’t know what to say to him. If he hadn’t brought their untamed kisses to a halt, she willingly would have made love with him right there. Even now, she ached with a terrible need that she knew he could fill. “Mr. Duval …” she tried again, but once more there were no words she could say.

“Don’t you think you could start to call me Marc now?” he asked softly, taking her hands and tenderly tucking them into the pockets of her blue jacket, then zipping the front of it up to her chin. He smiled. “You can’t exactly call us strangers after that kiss.”

“I … guess not.” She swallowed hard and drew in a deep, shaky breath. She had to regain control of her own senses. She remembered all too well what happened to a woman who allowed herself to become so sexually overwhelmed that she couldn’t make herself turn and walk away from a man. Marc Duval was one man who could do that to her. And she was not going to permit it.

“Good night,” she said, and as she spoke, the bell in the church steeple a few miles away began to chime the midnight hour. They stood together, not touching, listening in silence to the bell, gazing down the valley toward the church. When the last, deep-throated, resounding “bong” had faded away into the night, she whispered, almost as if in surprise, “It’s Christmas Day.”

“I’ll walk you home,” he said.

She lips curved impishly, and his heart swelled at this first real smile Sharon Leslie had ever given him. “It’s only a few feet.”

“Still, I’ll make sure you’re safely inside.” He took her arm and walked with her, careful not to brush his shoe against the white fur at the hem of her gown. At her door, he turned her and looked down into her face.

“Merry Christmas, Sharon.”

She gave him another smile, just a tiny one, but enough to fill him with happiness he’d forgotten he could feel. “Good night … Marc. Merry Christmas.”

“Mommy! Look! Wake up! Look what Santa Claus put in my stocking!”

Sharon groaned as she rolled over and blinked her eyes open, trying to focus on what Roxy had shoved right under her nose. Grasping her daughter’s hand, she put it back at least a foot so she could see the object, and smiled at Roxanne’s delight.