Notorious (12 page)

And he had succeeded in chaining her, she realized suddenly. Why else had she been torn between wanting her freedom and maintaining some kind of bond with Sabin. “You’re not as calculated as you pretend.” She put her glass on the table beside her. “Isn’t it time to go in to dinner?”

“Not yet.” He set his own glass down and
grasped her wrist. “I want you to come to the library with me.”

She stiffened. “Why?”

He was pulling her toward the door. “Are you getting a flash of déjà vu? Don’t worry. I’m not stupid enough to try a repeat performance of that first night.” He propelled her down the hall and threw open the door of the library. A small fire burned in the fireplace, casting a cozy glow over the book-lined room. Sabin didn’t bother to turn on the lights as he released her wrist and closed the door. “They’re on the mantel.”

“What?”

He strode across the room toward the fireplace. “Come on. Let’s get it over with.”

She frowned in puzzlement as she slowly followed him across the room.

He turned and gestured to the mantel as she reached the hearth. “Burn them.”

Her gaze turned to the six black boxes stacked neatly on the mantel. She went still. “The tapes?”

He nodded. “I could have done it, but I thought you’d rather do it yourself. You’ll feel better if you know they’re destroyed.”

“Yes.” She moved a step closer to stand before the fire, feeling the caress of heat through the sheer chiffon of her gown. “I told you that you were kinder than you believe. Why else would you do this for me?”

“I don’t need them any longer. They’d only disappoint me.” He met her gaze. “They were only erotic dreams. Dreams are as dry as dust after you’ve tasted the reality.”

A wave of heat moved through her that had nothing to do with the blazing logs in the hearth. She could feel her breasts swell and the muscles of her stomach clench, as memories tumbled back to her. She reached hurriedly for the first tape and threw it into the fire. The blaze flared as the plastic entered the flames.

“You’d better throw them all into the fire at one time.” Sabin grimaced. “That plastic burning is going to smell terrible.”

“I know. I burned the originals, remember?” She threw the five remaining tapes into the fire and stood looking down at them. “Thank you, Sabin.”

“You persist in thinking I’m being generous,”
he said roughly. “I wanted those damn tapes destroyed as much as you did. I hate the thought of Ben behind the camera taking those pictures. It used to eat into me like acid.”

“Then why did you look at them?” she asked haltingly, her gaze on the fire.

“You,” he said simply. “It was the only way I could have you.”

He stood two feet away from her, but she felt as if he were touching her, stroking her as he had that night. She felt a tingling between her thighs, in her palms, even in the arches of her feet.

“I used to fantasize how you’d feel around me,” he said thickly. “How you’d move, the sounds you’d make. How you’d smile at me.”

She turned abruptly away from the fire. “I think it’s definitely time we went in to dinner.” She started across the room toward the door, her gaze deliberately avoiding the leather chaise lounge as she passed it. “I’m hungry.”

“So am I.”

Sabin’s soft words rang clear in the room behind her. She tried to ignore the double entendre
as she opened the door, but she found her hand was trembling on the knob.

Though she had heard no sound, Sabin was suddenly beside her at the door. “There’s no use trying to run away from it,” he said quietly. “Lord knows, I’ve tried since the first moment I saw you at the premiere. What’s between us won’t go away, and it won’t let us go.” He bowed mockingly as he gestured for her to precede him. “Time may well lessen it and familiarity dull it, but we don’t know that yet, do we?”

Pain seared through her at the cynicism in his tone. She knew he had no faith in lasting relationships. Why did his words hurt her?

An answer leapt to her mind with stunning swiftness, the same thought that had occurred to her once before. Again she instantly rejected it before it could become more than a fleeting impression. No, she
wouldn’t
believe anything so outlandish and dangerous.

She didn’t answer his question as she passed through the doorway leaving both the burning tapes and the disturbing memories behind her.

Sabin may have permitted the memories to be laid to rest, but he had no intention of allowing her to lessen the sexual awareness crackling between them. Although the conversation was desultory and casual during dinner and coffee afterward, Sabin’s demeanor was not. He was charged with the same raw sensual intensity she had first noticed in the courtroom and that first night at Kandrahan. Now, as then, she found herself drawn mothlike toward its burning glow.

But she mustn’t be drawn to him, she thought desperately. Everything that was sensible and practical in her character shouted at the folly of becoming involved with Sabin Wyatt.

But wasn’t she already involved? He had dominated her thoughts as well as her life for the past three weeks. How was she to cast him out now?

“Stop frowning,” Sabin said roughly as he set his coffee cup down in the saucer with a clatter. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She looked at him, startled. He had been talking
about his friend Alex Ben Raschid, and these words had come out of nowhere.

He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Come for a walk in the garden.”

“I’m tired. I think I’ll—”

He wasn’t listening. He was already at the French doors leading to the garden. “Come on, I’ve had enough of this waltzing.”

She slowly rose to her feet, her heart pounding hard, erratically. “I can’t imagine you waltzing. It wouldn’t suit you at all,” she said with an effort at lightness. “Perhaps a vigorous polka like the one in
The King and I
but not—” She broke off as she remembered the underlying sensuality in that dance between the King of Siam and his Anna, but it was too late. She could see by the arrested expression on Sabin’s face that he too recognized the similarity.

“Oh, yes.” He held out his hand. “We both know what’s been going on tonight. I’m not good at hiding my feelings, and you’ve been getting more nervous by the minute. Let’s clear that up right now.”

She moved slowly toward him. “I’m not nervous.”
Breathless, excited, afraid … but not nervous. His hand reached out and grasped her own, and she felt a charge of feeling electrify her.

He felt her stiffen and nodded. “Wrong word,” he said thickly. He pulled her out into the garden, lacing their fingers together as they walked down the path. “Is it too cool for you?”

“No.” She was burning. Sabin’s fingers laced through hers felt outrageously intimate, as if he’d made her part of his own body as he had when he had thrust his—“It’s odd how cool it gets at night in the desert, but tonight it’s warm. I remember—”

“I won’t hurt you,” he interrupted, not looking at her. “I … care about you. Even if I make love to you, I won’t turn into the Marquis de Sade.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“We’ve got to talk about it. I’ll treat you very well. I’ll take care of you. I’ll give you anything you want.”

She stiffened. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“Lord, I know that. I’m saying all the wrong things.” He looked down at their joined hands. “Can’t you feel it? This is
right.”

She did feel it, and it frightened her. She felt as if she were being swept away from all order and safety. “For me to become your mistress? Being a courtesan isn’t one of my ambitions.”

“For you to belong to me.” He stopped on the path, his bold features harsh, strained in the moonlight. “Lord, Mallory, stop fighting it.” He framed her face in his hands and looked down at her. “I’ll be so good to you. I’ll take such good care of you. Give me a chance. Don’t go away from me.”

Tenderness rose in her, sunlight warm, achingly sweet. All through his childhood people had left Sabin, passing in and out of his life, leaving him guarded. His fingers were moving over her face, caressing her throat, and the tenderness merged with desire. She instinctively threw back her throat to invite more of his touch.

He went still. “Mallory?” His hands closed gently around her throat, manacling her as he had that first night. “Yes?”

Dear heavens, what was she thinking about? She had been swept into one disastrous marriage by emotion, and she was allowing herself to be
caught up again. She wasn’t tough enough to take on Sabin Wyatt. He would destroy her, turn her inside out, make her—

His mouth was covering her own, coaxing her lips apart for his tongue. “Say yes,” he muttered. “Say yes, Mallory.”

His big body was trembling against her, and it was that sign of vulnerability more than the lust searing through her at his touch that brought surrender.

Her arms slid around his shoulders. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Lord.” The word was a groan, deep in his throat. His arms crushed her to him, his mouth hot, working as he pressed kisses on her face and throat. “You won’t regret … I need you so.” He lifted his head. “Now.” He was pulling her down the path away from the palace.

“Sabin, where—”

“Here.” He stopped at the bench in the enclosed, filigreed arbor. “No one can see us here.” His hands were shaking as he began to unfasten her gown. “Though I don’t know if I’d care if they could.” He pushed the bodice of the gown
down and gazed at her naked breasts, dappled with the moonlight drifting through the lacy filigreed panels of the enclosure. “Yes, I would.”

His big hands cupped her breasts weighing them gently as his thumbs caressed the taut nipples. “Only for me.” His gaze lifted to her face. “For heaven’s sake, don’t tell me you want to go back to the house.”

“No.” She swallowed to ease the tightness of her throat. Her breasts felt ripe and heavy in his palms, and fire was exploding through her bloodstream with her every breath. “Though we might as well go back unless you
hurry
.”

He looked down at her in surprise and then laughed with boyish exuberance. “I’ll hurry.” His hands pushed down her gown, letting it fall to the ground. He began to unclothe her as quickly as possible. “If I can keep my hands from shaking.”

Her hands were shaking, too, as she pushed the coat from his shoulders. “Let me help.”

“We’d only get in each other’s way.” His voice was hoarse as he pulled off the last of her undergarments and tossed them aside. He took a step back and stood there looking at her. “Dear
heaven, you’re beautiful.” He lifted her so that she was standing on the bench. “Stay there and let me look at you while I get rid of these clothes.”

“I feel… awkward.” The bench was cold beneath her bare feet, but that was the only part of her that was chilled. She could feel Sabin’s gaze on her breasts, on the curls that encircled her womanhood as if they were a burning touch.

“You don’t look awkward.” Sabin’s beautiful, rich voice came out of the darkness across the path. “You look like an exquisite statue that I’ve commissioned for my garden. But moonlight is too cold for you. We’ll come here tomorrow and see how you look in the sun.” He stepped forward from the shadows, and a ray of moonlight revealed the powerful muscularity of his nudity. There was nothing statuelike about Sabin, she thought. His masculinity was as earthy as his excitement and lust were palpable. His arms slid around her, and he buried his face in her abdomen, his warm tongue touching, tasting her flesh. “I’m hurting,” he whispered. “Help me, Mallory.”

Her awkwardness and shyness melted away as tenderness spread through every atom of her being. “We’ll help each other.” She smiled lovingly as her arms went around his brawny shoulders.

He lifted her and sat down on the bench, setting her astride his lap. “Yes.” He kissed her deeply as he slid her slowly onto his manhood, stretching, filling her. He groaned, his chest rising and falling with every breath. “We’ll … help … each—” He broke off as he began moving her, plunging upward in a fever of need.

Madness, fullness, satiety, hunger.

Sabin was the same, yet totally different. Or was it she who was different? No drugs dulled the pleasure he brought her with each movement, no reluctance marred her surrender.

She found herself moaning, whimpering as the tension mounted to unbearable heights.

“More.” Sabin muttered into her ear. “Talk to me. You like this?”

“Yes.” Her nails dug into his shoulders. “But I can’t—” She gasped as he rotated his hips while holding her deeply captive. “Sabin!”

“Never mind. I like to hear those little sounds better than words anyway.”

He heard many of those cries in the next few minutes, and when the climax of feeling came she had to bite her lips to keep from screaming with pleasure.

She collapsed against him, without breath, gasping, trembling.

His hands caressed her bare back, soothing, petting her as he did when he held her in his arms during those long afternoon naps. However, there was nothing companionable or sexless in his stroking now. Blatant possession and sensuality imbued every touch. “Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice as soon as he could get his breath.