Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) (18 page)

At one point Marisa touched her arm and drew her aside. “You’ve had too much to drink, Diana, and you’re making a spectacle of yourself to get Tanner’s attention.”

“I am not. For the first time in months, I’m enjoying myself. And anyway, Tanner’s attention isn’t worth beans. He hates me, absolutely detests me.” She grew quiet a second and her voice broke. “I can’t blame him for ignoring me. I’ve treated him horribly.”

“Then tell him so. What are you afraid of?”

Diana clutched at Marisa’s wrist and a sob bubbled up in her throat. “I’m afraid I might love him … and that’s … the worst thing that can happen … to me. There’s so much you don’t know about us.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Marisa grumbled, “tell him how you feel and get it over with. I’m sick to death of the way you two keep eyeing each other. If you don’t admit how you feel about him, then some woman, be it Gabriella or someone else, will take him away from you.” Her tone softened and she kissed Diana’s cheek. “I have to leave now. Mother is ill and home alone, but please think about what I’ve said.”

After Marisa left, Diana couldn’t stop thinking about her cousin’s advice, but she lacked the courage to do anything about it, fearing that Marisa was wrong. She hadn’t noticed that Tanner had been watching her. In fact, she didn’t see him or Gabriella at all now, and she wondered fleetingly if they had departed. It was just as well if they had, she decided. She couldn’t bear seeing Gabriella holding Tanner and knowing that people were gossiping about her marital situation. Oh, why wouldn’t everyone just leave?

Taking another glass of champagne, Diana began to sip it delicately when she suddenly realized the room felt stuffy and warm. She wandered onto the piazza, glad of the cold wind on her face as it seemed to vanish her unpleasant mood. She thought she was alone until a slight noise in the shadows near a large potted palm caught her attention. Two figures were locked in an embrace, or rather, a woman held tightly onto a man’s broad shoulders, but his hands were barely touching her waist. Diana emitted a tiny gasp of dismay when she suddenly recognized the two as Tanner and Gabriella.

She knew she should turn in a huff and go back inside, but she couldn’t stop staring at them. Gabriella was pushing her voluptuous body against Tanner’s. The lower half of her was blatantly rubbing against his manhood, leaving no doubt as to what she wanted. Diana’s face flamed with the knowledge because she herself knew what it was that Gabriella craved. But she wouldn’t think about it, couldn’t think about what it was Gabriella wanted, because if she did she’d go insane remembering the feel of Tanner’s hands upon her own body, how it felt when his practiced fingers slid inside her. As much as she hated standing here and being witness to this outrageous display of carnal lust, Diana couldn’t move toward the doorway. She stood mesmerized by the two of them.

“Tanner, Tanner, please take me with you tonight. I hate sleeping alone.” Gabriella’s husky plea was quite audible to Diana’s ears. “You know I can please you, and you know exactly what I like. Let’s go now.”

Shameless hussy! Gabriella was trying to seduce Tanner in his own home with his wife not twenty feet away. But neither of them knew that she was listening, and suddenly she didn’t want to hear Tanner’s reply. In a flash she’d made up her mind what she intended to do, and if he didn’t like it then he could take his whore and leave!

Diana was vaguely aware that she now stood next to them. It was Tanner who saw her first, and he nonchalantly broke away from Gabriella, though the loathsome woman still clung to him.

“Heavens, for such a cold night you both are on fire,” Diana declared, her eyes blazing hotly. “Especially you, Gabriella. I believe the time has come to cool you off.” Lifting her champagne glass, Diana hurled the contents at Gabriella, staining the expensive gold satin gown the woman wore. Diana turned deaf ears to Gabriella’s screech and threw down the glass at Tanner’s feet. “I won’t be made to look the fool any longer,” she raged at him. “I’m your wife, and as your wife, I shall be treated with respect. Otherwise…” and here Diana faltered, realizing that she’d lost control but also realizing for the first time that she must be in love with her husband to act this way. Her world seemed to shatter into shards of glass like the broken crystal. Her glare died to be replaced by tears of anguish. When she noticed his stunned expression and lack of reply, she thought she’d lost him.

“I’m sorry.” Diana choked on the words as she finally admitted to herself that her love for this man had come too late. “Forgive me, please… .” And with that, she found herself running down the length of the piazza, through the maze of blurred bodies and faces, and then up the stairs to her room, where she gulped back tears that threatened to strangle her.

“Ma’am, can I help you?” Cammie asked worriedly when she came out of the bathing room with one of Diana’s nightrails over her arm.

All Diana could do was to shake her head and brokenly tell Cammie to leave her alone. She lay across her bed and staunchly refused to cry, but soon she found herself wiping away the tears she had never thought to shed again over Tanner Sheridan. But when at last the tears had given way to huge, gulping sobs she found a kerchief pressed into her hand. Thinking Cammie was the one who stood beside the bed, Diana lifted her head and opened her eyes to thank her for the kindness. A ragged sob caught in her throat when she realized it was Tanner standing over her.

“I’m sorry you saw what you did,” he said, and Diana thought that his voice cracked a bit. He stood with his hands in his pockets and for the first time that Diana could recall, Tanner appeared less than confident.

Hurriedly Diana wiped her eyes and sat up. How distressing it was to her that he should see her cry. She knew she looked wretched whenever she cried. Probably Gabriella always looked lovely. No wonder Tanner didn’t want her when Gabriella was available.

“I’ll apologize to Gabriella in the morning,” Diana began. “You won’t be bothered with me for much longer. I’m leaving for Briarhaven tomorrow.” She glanced up at Tanner, and her heart constricted when she realized that this was the last night she’d spend under this roof, in this bed, as his wife. “I won’t hold you to … our wager. Briarhaven is yours. Harlan and I will leave… .”

“Diana, stop it!”

His voice boomed loudly in her ears, and she jumped from the sound of it, then jumped again as he fell atop her on the bed. Tanner’s weight was crushing her, but strangely she didn’t mind when his lips claimed hers in a kiss filled with so much mastery and passion that her head spun. “Admit you love me,” he whispered after breaking the kiss. “Tell me you want me … forever.”

His lips were raining kisses upon her neck and shoulders, and Diana couldn’t think clearly. Something pleasant and aching began to build within her, and she knew what was to follow if she gave into the sensations. And God only knew how much she wanted to give into them!

“Where’s Gabriella?” she asked breathlessly. “Why are you here when she’s the one you love?”

Tanner ceased the delightful assault of her senses and stared in bafflement. “I don’t love Gabriella. I love you, Diana. I’ve always loved you.” Grabbing a handful of her dark hair, he buried his fingers within the thick strands. “You’re mine. Never, ever, will I release you, because no matter what you may have said or done in the past, no matter how hard you deny it, you love me too, and you want me.” His breath was warm and soft against her lips. “Say you want me, say it.”

A shiver of desire so raw and intense ripped through Diana at that moment that nothing could have stopped her from saying the words, “I … want … you. I … love … you.” And those last three words she meant with all of her heart.

Tanner’s eyes filled with sparkling fire, and he pressed her close against him. “You said you loved me,” he whispered hoarsely. “I can’t believe you said it. Do you mean it?”

His sudden insecurity touched Diana in a way that made her love him all the more. Tenderly she stroked his cheek and gazed up at him with pure love shining in her own eyes. “I’ve loved you each and every hour of every day since we met. I’ll never stop loving you, Tanner Sheridan, and from this moment on you’ll never be rid of me. I promise you that.”

Taking her hand, he pressed her fingers to his lips. “I’m going to hold you to that promise, Diana Sheridan.”

Her name sounded wonderful when he said it, almost as if she heard it for the first time, and in an odd way it was. Now she knew she loved him and belonged to him and had a right to the name. She smiled beguilingly and pulled his head down, burying her hands within the thickness of his hair. “Make love to me,” she urged in a husky voice. “I want you, I need you.”

“You’ll forfeit all now,” he warned good-naturedly, but the teasing light in his eyes died to be replaced by one of hot desire when her hand left his hair to trail wantonly down his thigh and settle on the bulging spot within his trousers.

“I’m a gracious loser,” was her soft reply.

To prove the point, Diana’s hands began unbuttoning his frock coat. With a smile of disbelief still hovering on his lips, Tanner’s eyes began to darken to an intense shade of black, broken only by amber lights that flared within the centers. Diana shivered from the dark pleasure that roiled inside of her, recognizing his desire. Daringly, she offered further assistance by removing the rest of his clothes. It seemed that her very fingers ached to touch him, and when he stood by the bedside, naked and unabashedly aroused, she didn’t feel the least bit shy or hesitant. She was on her knees on the bed, leaning against him when she placed her hands on his chest to gently skim across the bronzed surface. He felt strong like steel, but also smoothly supple beneath her questing movements, and strangely vulnerable, too, when she placed her palm on his pounding heart.

Tanner was human,
she found herself thinking;
he could be hurt.
She’d hurt him often in the past — perhaps without knowing it. She didn’t want to hurt him anymore, because now she had done the impossible by admitting to herself and to him that she loved him.

“I’ve always loved you,” she said in an aching whisper. “I hope I’m not too late to tell…”

His mouth swooped down and captured hers in a kiss that stopped her very words and thoughts but left no doubt that he wanted her, no matter how long it had taken for her to tell him. Warm and hungry lips trailed from her mouth to her neck, gently sucking before moving downward to the valley of her scarlet-clad breasts and flicking his tongue within the lush indentation.

“As much as I like this dress, Diana, it has to go. May I remove it?”

God, she loved this man! Diana stifled a sound that was half giggle, half moan. “Do you have to ask?”

“I don’t want to hurt you or do anything that might upset you. I’m not like Kingsley.”

“No, you’re the man I love. You needn’t ask me anything right now, Tanner. I know you won’t hurt me. I trust you.”

With that, he said nothing else.

When the last of her clothes lay in a scarlet and white heap on the floor beside the bed, Tanner blew out the candle and joined her beneath the quilts. But when the heat and intensity of their bodies and burning kisses became too great, Tanner threw off the covers.

He gazed down at her face, clear and silver-hued from the full moon’s luminous light outside the window. “I believe I’ve taught you too well,” he noted and grinned. “How to kiss, that is. My whole body’s aflame. I’ve never felt like this before.” The last sentence was filled with awe.

“Tanner, I love the way you talk, but sometimes you talk too much.” Diana met his lips and arched toward him in one motion and for once Tanner seemed more than delighted to be quiet and to allow his body to speak for him.

Diana thought he had wonderful hands, hands that could move caressingly across her body and then fill with a fire, a fierce urgency to pleasure her. She couldn’t stop touching him, touching him in places that caused him to moan in ecstasy. She wanted to know all of him, to give to him that same wonderful pleasure he’d given to her a few nights ago. Her palm wrapped around that part of him that was simultaneously hard and velvety smooth, and he guided her in the motions. Strange as it was, she wasn’t repulsed as she’d been with Kingsley. In fact, she enjoyed hearing Tanner’s moans. But suddenly he stilled her hand and pushed her onto the mattress, his warm, wonderful hands coaxing her thighs apart.

He held her thus while he kissed her mouth and then laved attention upon her breasts. Tanner had wonderful lips, too, she decided, as he loved each of her breasts in turn — loved them so well that she felt herself trembling and aching to close her legs, but his hands held them apart.

Lower his mouth trailed, skirting across her stomach and navel to her abdomen, then lower still. No, not there! He couldn’t mean to place his mouth there. Kingsley had done that very same thing to her and had hurt her. Tanner had promised he wouldn’t hurt her, but her body hadn’t forgotten those long ago hours of pain when she was Kingsley’s wife.

She tried to close her thighs, but he held them open, not looking at her, seemingly not aware of her fear.

“Tanner, don’t. No, no.” But it was too late. His mouth found her and explored her, tentatively at first, but growing bolder when Diana started to relax. His hands became gentle, no longer unyielding on her legs. In her mind she imagined that Tanner was speaking to her, assuring her he wouldn’t hurt her, urging her to enjoy … enjoy. But it was so sinful to give into this, so darkly wicked … so heart-stoppingly wonderful.