Quiet Walks the Tiger (21 page)

“Drink all you like, Sloan, but please do sit.”

She poured herself another drink, stared at the glass, and heaped another portion of scotch into it. Maybe she could blur the razor edges of what was to come...

“Do
you
want a divorce, Sloan?” Wesley plopped the food on the table and pulled out a chair for her as he asked the question.

She lowered her eyes as she slid into the chair, her fingers tightly gripped around the glass. She was caught off guard, expecting a further battle, not an almost indifferent query.

“Do you?” He sat down himself, and again she knew he stared at her, his searing jade gaze giving nothing but bluntly allowing her no quarter.

“No,” she finally managed to whisper.

“Why not?” he demanded.

God, why was he doing this to her, she wondered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why do you want to stay married? Is the money worth living with a monster you can’t forgive?”

Now was the time, she knew, to say something, to drop her pride...but she was so afraid he was setting her up...“Yes,” she said coolly. “I could say that I love you, but since you’re not going to believe it, let’s just leave it at cold cash. A signed and sealed bargain, as you say.” Her voice suddenly cracked and broke. He had tried to apologize, and she had made a mess of it. “I’m sorry, Wes,” she continued with a waver. “I do want to stay married, but God, not like this! Not like Belgium! Not with you gone for weeks at a time when I have no idea where you are or who you’re...” She stopped speaking and took a sip of the scotch she had stared at while she spoke.

“Did you care where I was?” Wes asked softly.

“Yes,” she admitted to the amber liquid swimming before her.

“Did you really care, Sloan?” he persisted. “Or was your ego bruised? Never mind,” he answered himself, adding with a trace of bitterness, “I wouldn’t know whether to believe you or not.”

He fell silent and Sloan chewed on her lower lip. “Wes?” she finally said quietly.

“Yes?”

“Could we try to be friends?” she asked tentatively.

His arm stretched across the table, he gripped her chin, firmly but gently, forcing her to look at him. “I didn’t come back to argue with you, Sloan,” he said gravely, and for the first time that night she sensed a thread of an emotion that hinted of tenderness in his eyes. “It doesn’t change things, but I am very sorry for my behavior in Belgium. I can’t promise I’m going to be a saint from here on out; I have an ego myself and believe me, it’s very bruised. You have to expect a few snide remarks when you marry a man for his money, but yes, although I find it ironic to be discussing friendship with my wife, I should hope that we work toward that end since we both plan to keep the...bargain...going.”

His touch upon her chin was wearing through the thin veneer that was left on her nerves. The callused gentleness of his hand brought back sweeping memories that combined with the nearness of him—the light but fully masculine scent that would forever be imbedded in her mind, the breadth of shoulder that was so enticing to lean against, the cleanly chiseled lines of his powerful profile—to nearly engulf her senses and bring her flying to him, promising anything, pleading, begging, anything to be back in his arms, held tenderly even if it was a mockery of love.

She couldn’t allow herself to do that. They had to establish a wave of communication and respect first.

She stood, praying her blurring eyes and quivering voice would not betray her need. “Tomorrow,” she said tentatively, “I’d like to tell you about the school.”

“Fine,” he replied.

“You don’t mind about it, do you?” she said hesitantly.

“No, I don’t. But I will be interested in seeing your books—I don’t care what you spent, but perhaps I can be helpful on the business end.”

“Thank you,” Sloan murmured. She needed to get away from him, and he hadn’t protested her rising. “I, umm, I think I pushed it a little with the scotch. I’m going to bed. I see that your things are in my room, so I’ll just move out to the—”

“No, you
won’t
!” Wes interrupted sharply, the cold, guarded glimmer slipping back over his eyes as he stared at her with full attention.

“Wes,” Sloan said slowly, “I’m not talking about any permanent situation—”

“Forget it,” he said curtly. “Permanent, temporary, or otherwise. In my book, a husband and wife share a room.”

She was too tired and too frazzled to realize what she said next. “Terry would have—” Her voice broke off with abrupt dismay.

Wes stood. It seemed as if he did it very slowly, rising over her with a towering force that was chilling although they were several feet apart. His fingers were clenched tightly around a napkin, the knuckles white, the thin line of his grimly twisted lips just as devoid of color.

“I think we discussed this once,” he said with soft danger. “I am not Terry. I do not sleep on couches, nor will you.
I am not Terry.
”

Sloan met his gaze, dismayed at the hard-core jade. He still intended to tell her just how high to jump...

“No,” she agreed scathingly. “You are not Terry. Terry was a nice man.” She spun on him before he could retaliate and sought refuge in her bedroom, staring long at the lock on the door. She pushed it in, but then released it as his voice tauntingly followed her.

“Don’t bother, Sloan. If you’re in my—our—room, a lock isn’t going to stop me from entering.”

He didn’t come to bed for a long, long time. Sloan lay in silent misery, her nerves and, yes, anticipation fighting sleep. Each time she heard a movement in the house, she jumped while her mind raced double-time. Damn! She did want him so badly, being near him and not touching him was like slow and torturous starvation...

But all she really had now was a piece of paper and her pride. She couldn’t allow herself to show how vulnerable she was...

He entered the room in the dark, and she barely breathed, feigning deep sleep, hearing the sounds as he undressed as if each piece of clothing had fallen with the burst of an explosion. He crawled in beside her, and her entire body went stiff, her heart seemed to thunder, and her flesh was painfully aware of his heat as she waited...

And waited.

He didn’t touch her. He plumped his pillow, adjusted his position, stretched his body out comfortably. But didn’t touch her.

Sloan lay in shocked confusion. And, she realized sinkingly, disappointment. Whatever she had been telling herself was a lie. She had been glad that he had insisted upon sleeping together; she had been wonderfully relieved that he was going to force her into his arms so that she would have an excuse to salve her pride.

But now she just ached, her disappointment becoming a physical agony.

She didn’t know how long she lay there, her eyes open, staring blankly into the dark, when he shifted again, and his arm grazed her shoulder.

“What is the matter with you?” Wes demanded impatiently, obviously aware she had never been sleeping. “You’re as cold and stiff as marble and shivering like a rabbit.”

“I—I—” Sloan stammered.

She heard his soft chuckle; it was a gentle sound of amusement, and it caressed her warmth. “I see,” he said, and although his voice was amused, it was tender. “You thought I was going to force you into keeping conjugal rights. No, my love, I’ll not force you. I won’t sleep in another room, but I won’t force you.”

“You...you don’t want to make love?” Sloan said in a strangled voice.

She felt his hand on her cheek, the knuckles grazing her flesh, his whisper soft and gentle. “I didn’t say that. But I want you to want to.” He was silent for several seconds, his hand moving to smooth back her hair, to trail down her throat. Surely, Sloan thought, he must feel the terrible pounding of her heart in the erratic racing of her pulse.

“Do you want to make love, Sloan?”

His voice, threading through the night like deep velvet, was husky and wistful. It was the perfect touch to break her final grasp on control. Sloan lay still just seconds, her eyes closing, her fingers clawing into fists at her side. Then she turned into him, her face burrowing into the dark hair on his chest, the tenseness of her body evaporating as she melded to him, her hands freed from their convulsive grasp to tremble as they rose to his shoulders, sweetly relishing the power play of muscles beneath them. “Yes,” she whispered, barely audibly, “yes, please, Wes, make love to me...”

“Oh, God.” She heard his groan, deep and guttural within his throat. His hands raked through her hair, his kisses rained upon her face, covering her eyelids, devouring her mouth, falling with reverence over her breasts as he rolled over her with a need as urgent and demanding as she could have possibly desired. “Oh, dear God, wife,” he murmured, divesting her gently of the silken sheath of nightgown that barely separated them, “I’ve missed you...wanted you, dreamed of you...making love to you...”

Sloan’s shivers of agonized thirst slowly abated as he filled her with his heat, making love to her with a gentle trembling thoroughness that proved the truth of his words. Beneath the assault of hands and lips that enticed and seduced while they commanded and took, she came alive as she had never been before, craving release from her consuming madness, but savoring each touch of hungry lips upon her, lips that bruised her breasts, her thighs, sending lightning streaks of electric excitement ever closer to the core of her need. Nor could she fill herself with the taste and touch of him, drowning deeper and deeper in sensation as he rumbled groans of the pleasure she gave him.

He burst within her and she was filled, so sweetly gratified that she was at peace, realizing only then how sorely empty she had been. And he whispered softly that he loved her, and she clung to the words because she wanted more than anything to believe them.

Wes did mean his ardent whispers, uttered with passion in the dark because he was afraid to face them by day. Her sighs of pleasure made him tremble. The darkness had hidden the shattering joy in his eyes when she had come to him...a humble joy...his wife was perfection...a potion that slipped into the blood and intoxicated for life.

There was so much he wanted to say to her. He wanted her to know how sorry he really was, but it could never be explained, only felt.

And he couldn’t explain anyway. She had taken him so easily once, cut him to the bone. She had the power to destroy him; he couldn’t let her do it a second time. He couldn’t talk to her as he wanted, until he could begin to believe, until time healed. They were wary opponents, ever circling...

He couldn’t even assure himself that insecurity would keep him from striking out again...But now, as he held her close in the darkness, they had precious moments of mutual need...and caring. The battle tactics were out of the bedroom. Here he could love her.

And he did.

All through the night. He took what was his and cherished it, knowing morning could bring dissension and inevitably the light of day. Here, in the shadows, he could even accept her tentative whispers of love in return as the lazy comfort of satiation held them both in a spell and he cradled her to his form, softly stroking her hair.

“I do love you, Wes,” she murmured softly against him, her voice so hesitant, so beseeching, that it hurt and he stiffened. Very, very faintly, he thought he heard a muffled sob.

“I love you,” he said quietly. “But I don’t trust you, Sloan.”

“Then where do we go from here?” she murmured bleakly.

He was silent for a long time, but he continued to stroke her hair gently. “Trust is something that has to be earned,” he said very softly, and fell back to silence.

Dawn was streaking through the windows, dispelling the guardian shadows of darkness, when they both slept, held together by the first tenuous thread of communication.

Wes was grateful that he held her in his arms against him, but his sleep was still not content or easy. He still had to wonder if she didn’t wish that she slept with another man, a man she had also called husband and formed a relationship with that was her dream of near perfection...

And he had to wonder if she really loved him, or if she still gave her love only to the ghost who remained in her dream.

She was a wonderful actress. He had learned that already. She could be protesting love for the mere convenience of saving the wealth she had plotted to obtain...

Thank God she didn’t know that any further acting was unnecessary. He loved and needed her so desperately that he would stay with her, give her anything in his power, no matter how she felt, just as long as he could be with her...

“W
HAT IN HELL ARE
you doing?”

Wesley’s voice, rasping over her shoulder, startled Sloan so badly that the pill she had been about to take flew from her hand and sailed into the kitchen sink. Whirling to face her husband, she stated the obvious with confusion. “I’m taking a pill.” He stared at her stonily for a moment, his arms crossed over the white terry of his robe, then brushed her aside to pick up the packet she had left on the table. Very deliberately, he punched each pill from its plastic socket and flung them down the drain, one by one.

“What in hell are
you
doing?” Sloan demanded, astounded by his behavior. She had left him peacefully sleeping, confidently believing that the ardent lover of the night would awaken in a decent, if not loving, frame of mind. But he didn’t appear to be in a “decent” mood at all. The tension in his sinewed body that she was learning to read so well was all too apparent. She wasn’t sure how, but she had seriously angered him. “Wesley,” she repeated more softly, “what are you doing? I need those.” Had the man gone mad?

The last pill swirled down the drain, and Wesley tossed the packet into the garbage bag beneath the sink. “Where’s your purse?” he demanded.

“Why?”

“I want the rest of these.”

“There aren’t any ‘rest.’ I get them each month.” Sloan planted her hands on her hips and added crossly, “Except now I’ll have to run by today and replace what you just threw away. What in God’s name did you think you were doing? Did you think they were some type of drug—”