The Highest Price to Pay (8 page)

He kissed her again, this time on curve of her neck, the tip of his tongue teased the skin there. He raised his head, golden eyes searching hers.

She wanted to beg for him to kiss her lips, and yet she didn’t want to alter his plan. She wanted to see what he would do next. Her heart was thundering in her ears, drowning out thought and reason, drowning out everything but the kind of desire she’d only ever dreamed about.

He kissed her again, his lips brushing the corner of her mouth this time. His hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers worked into her hair, gripping her, clinging to her as though he had to hold her to him. It thrilled her that she could affect a man like him. That he wanted her.

She felt her lips part of their own volition, her tongue sliding out to moisten them. He took it as an invitation, and she was glad, because she’d certainly meant it as one.

He didn’t crash down on her like a wave. He dipped his head slowly, his lips hovering over hers, sending sparks of need raining through her. Her entire body begged for his touch, but her lips ached.

He rubbed his nose against hers, slowly, lightly, before closing the distance between them. He teased the seam of her lips with his tongue, but she was suddenly afraid to move. Afraid that if she did, she might wake herself up, that she might discover it was nothing more than a dream, and that she was alone in her apartment in Paris.

One hand still buried in her hair, he snaked the other arm around her waist, hand spread over her back, the heat breaking her from her fog. This wasn’t a dream. Blaise was real. And he was kissing her.

She parted her lips for him then, gladly, enthusiastically. She shivered when his hot tongue slid against hers, exploring her mouth, tasting her, savoring her as though she were a delicacy.

She felt her hands unclench, lifted them so she could cling to his shoulders. If she didn’t, she would simply melt into a puddle at his feet.

The boys she had kissed hadn’t prepared her for a man like Blaise, couldn’t possibly have prepared her for the tidal wave of desire that a simple kiss had sent crashing through her entire body.

He untangled his fingers from her hair, one hand anchored on her hip now, the other roaming over her curves, cupping her breast, his thumb sliding over her nipple until it ached, until she felt hollow and needy, ready and desiring to be filled by Blaise.

“I have to touch you,” he whispered, abandoning her mouth, lowering his head to press a kiss to her cloth-covered breast.

His hand reached around to her zipper. “Ella,” he said, his voice husky, thick with desire.

She shock of air that hit her skin, the slide of the zipper and the cold reality of her own name, brought her back to her senses, and with it, brought a rush of panic.

This had been a fantasy. She had been floating, allowing herself to pretend. But her name, whispered on his lips, was like getting doused with a bucket of cold water.

She wasn’t the sort of woman who made love with gorgeous men beneath a blanket of stars. She wasn’t the sort of woman to inspire that sort of desire in a man, any man, but especially one like Blaise. She was just Ella. She was the woman with disfiguring scars. The virgin whose lack of experience proved just what an insecure, damaged person she was. If she were to sleep with Blaise, he would know that. He would see her worst, he would see her fears, her pain. How could she show him that? How could she ever show anyone? It was less about her skin, more about her. About the scars beneath her skin, the weakness.

“No,” she said, releasing his shoulders, her hands flying behind her back to stop him from lowering the zipper further.

“No?” he asked.

“I can’t. I can’t. Oh, I’m so sorry, but I can’t.” Words came out in a jumbled rush, and she felt tears pooling in her eyes, ready to spill.

She was devastated. She was angry. She was scared. And she still wanted him more than she wanted her next breath. But she couldn’t.

When he touched her, he was in charge, he commanded her body, he orchestrated the movements. And she had nothing to cling to. No facade of confidence, of being at ease with herself. She didn’t want him to know, didn’t want him to see into her, to see all her insecurity. All her fear.

She turned and went back into the house. And she cursed. She had run away. She was the worst kind of coward. And she was too afraid to be anything else.

“T
HE
art director wants the blue boots.” One of the gofers for the photo shoot was standing in front of Ella, the sand colored boots she’d selected for the china-blue gown dangling from her fingertips.

Ella gritted her teeth. It had been like this for most of the day. They had Ella give her opinion on accessories, makeup and hair. And then the director sent the model, or the shoes, or the belt back to be changed.

Ella reached behind her to the bag full of shoes and rifled for a pair of sky-blue velvet ankle boots. She handed them back to the gofer. “Here. I’m sure these will translate better in pictures.”

Grudgingly she had to admit they probably would. They would make a brilliant foil for the white sand beach. She was just touchy because of Blaise. More specifically, because the imprint of Blaise’s lips was branded on her skin, and her own cowardice, her own fear, was laughing quietly over its victory.

Fortunately Blaise had been absent for the entirety of the shoot so far. Ella moved from beneath the tents that had been set up on the shore to provide the crew with relief from the sun and went to stand near the photographer.

The wafer-thin model with pale blond hair and dark eye makeup was most certainly working her look, contorting her body in a way that made her look like a sad, beautiful, broken doll.

A little shiver of excitement wound through Ella, momentarily chasing away her annoyance and regret. The model was Carolina, a very highly sought after editorial model, and to see the woman in her designs was like seeing her dreams truly come into fruition.

“She looks good.” Blaise’s voice penetrated her reverie and brought reality back in on her.

Ella didn’t turn toward the sound of his voice. If she did…the flashbacks would ensure she ended up melted into a puddle. “She does.”

“Going well?”

“Yes, we’re almost done for the day. Tomorrow we’re going to move to an inland location, have her pose in a waterfall.”

“You are sure this magazine is meant to sell to women?”

Ella turned sharply this time. “It’s not going to be a wet T-shirt contest. It’s high fashion.”

“My apologies.” He sounded amused. She cursed him mentally twenty different ways.

“This isn’t a men’s magazine,” she added, for good measure, knowing she sounded like a prude.

“Point taken.”

The director called it a wrap and Ella started to wander back to the tents. Blaise followed.

“Haven’t you got…somewhere to be?” she asked.

“No. I’m through with my business for the day.”

“And what did that business include?” she asked, in spite of the fact that she should be trying to get rid of him, not continuing a conversation with him.

“Discussing the drilling of more wells in some of the outlying villages. And getting more ambulances, mobile care units, something to help the people who live far out of the cities in a medical crisis.”

Ella stared at him. “You carry a lot of weight on your shoulders.” She heard herself say it, and realized how true it was at the same time.

Piercing eyes appraised her. “So do you, I think.”

A crushing amount. “Not really.” She shrugged, trying to remove the heavy feeling. It was impossible. “I wanted to thank you,” she said, clinging to her water bottle like it was her life support, keeping her focus on the bright blue label, and away from Blaise.

“For?”

“Not for—” she felt her cheeks get hot “—I just wanted to thank you for this. All of this. I know that our working relationship has been…rocky. But I’m grateful for it now. This has helped.” She still planned on paying him back as quickly as possible, but what he had done for her in such a short space of time simply wasn’t something she could have accomplished on her own.

“It is business, Ella. Nothing more.”

“But there’s more to you than that,” she said. She didn’t know why she said it, why she wanted him to admit it.

“Not really.”

“What you do here, in Malawi, that’s not just business.”

“Don’t be fooled by a few charitable acts, Ella. A tax write-off is a tax write-off.”

Her heart tightened. She didn’t believe him for a moment, but watching his face get hard, seeing his walls come up around him, that hurt.

Her defenses seemed permanently crippled, and his remained as high as ever. Blaise was perfectly happy playing the bastard, even as it became abundantly clear there was more to him.

The way he had treated her last night was an example of that. He didn’t plunder, or take. He had given to her. His lips had been both gentle and firm, demanding and generous. And when she had withdrawn, he had respected her.

It wasn’t only his response that offered her the window into him. It was the fact that he was using the same methods she had used for the past eleven years. Don’t let anyone in. Don’t betray any emotion.

He was better at it than she was, though. Something she’d envied at first. Something she wasn’t sure she envied anymore. She felt like she had one foot behind her own emotional walls, one foot testing out the other side.

She was afraid. Last night she’d been too afraid, and today she’d tried to resurrect her defenses to no avail.

She looked at Blaise, at his profile, his body held so strong and masculine, his posture so straight a military officer would be envious. He was a sinner, it was widely known. But he also built hospitals and dug wells.

And he had shown her things about herself, unlocked things in her she hadn’t imagined were in there.

She had stepped into the fashion industry, a woman with scars, a woman who had been tormented by the fashionable girls in high school. And she had done it without fear, without hesitation, because it was her dream.

Last night, she’d wanted a man. She’d wanted Blaise, so much she trembled with it. And she had let her fear have dominion over her. She had seized control in her professional life, had set out to achieve her goals with single-minded focus. Why should any other area of her life be different?

It was time for her to stop being afraid.

He had been up half the night, his body aching, unfulfilled. He wanted Ella. His mind had been plagued by images of her, naked, her nipples, pink and tight, begging for his touch, her lips, soft and moist on his body.

All day he had pictured her blue eyes filled with desire for him, with none of the abject terror he’d seen flash in their depths when she’d pulled away from him on the terrace.

He would kiss her neck again. The curve of it, where it was smooth and creamy, the other side, where it was not. Not for the first time he thought it strange that his fantasies did not make her body unblemished. In his mind, he pictured every scar that he’d seen before. Because that was her. It was Ella. And his body, for whatever reason, desired only Ella.

And every mark that signified who she was.

His body tightened, hardened as he thought of her. She was so soft. He could imagine, very easily, the feeling of every soft inch of her pressed against his body.

He had left the photo shoot before Ella today, but he knew she would have returned by now. He closed his laptop and leaned back in the office chair. He’d thought to check on some of his investments to distract himself, but stocks weren’t doing anything for him. Not tonight. Not when he knew Ella was somewhere in the house, downstairs probably.

This desire, this need, had a strength that bothered him.

Obsession. He remembered it well. Had vowed never to allow himself to give in to it again. That driving need to have something, someone, regardless of the cost. It was a weakness. A lack of control. That he was weak at his core was something he preferred to forget.

But Ella reminded him. Because Ella stirred up a kind of specific longing in him he hadn’t felt since Marie. Then he had called it love. Had imagined that it made a sufficient excuse to act purely for himself.

“Love conquers all,” he said bitterly. Love was a lie. An excuse.

He knew better now. What he felt for Ella was lust, nothing more. Strong lust, the sort of lust that promised untold pleasures, but only lust. Human desire at its most basic.

He had enough experience with that to recognize it. But with Ella, it was so much stronger. She made everything feel stronger. He needed to find his cool passivity again, his detachment.

The temptation she presented seemed too great to combat. All the more reason for him to do so. He had to maintain control. He had seen what happened when he didn’t.

He would not indulge himself, would not give in to the need that was pounding through him, making his hands shake with the effort it took to keep from going downstairs and finding her, kissing her, making love to her. He had to prove he could stay distant. He couldn’t afford anything else, anything more.

He needed to find another woman when he got back to France. That thought cooled his ardor faster than any cold shower ever could.

The breeze blowing in from the lake was cool; it blew across Ella’s heated skin and made goose bumps raise up on her arms. She had not seen Blaise for most of the day.

She wasn’t avoiding him now because she was scared of him, she was avoiding him because she hadn’t decided what she wanted yet, and she had a feeling that any time spent alone with him would see her decision made quickly.

It was the speed that scared her. It made her feel like she was in a car with no brakes, careening down a mountain. No control, no way to stop. If she was going to be with him she needed control.

Her moment of tranquility was interrupted by the sound of the French doors opening behind her.

“Did you have dinner?” Blaise asked, his footsteps heavy on the stone terrace.

“Yes. I got something from the restaurant in the hotel lobby.” Another avoidance tactic she’d used, to great effect.

“Did you enjoy it?”

She looked at him and immediately regretted the action. Her heart slammed into her breast, thundering rapidly, as though it were trying to escape. She couldn’t look away, though, because then he would know.

“Of course I enjoyed it. Everyone here does a fabulous job.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

She found her eyes riveted to his throat, to the up and down motion of his Adam’s apple. Even there, he was so different than she was. Fuzzy images drifted through her mind, silken sheets, dark and pale limbs entwined, her lips on that strong throat.

She shook her head, tried to shake off the drugging arousal that was creeping in on her.

She felt like running. To him. Away from him. She felt like jumping out of her skin, as though her body couldn’t contain everything that was swirling around inside of her.

This was what she’d been running from. From what Blaise made her feel.

She was still running. Even after she’d decided not to let fear control her. And now she really
did
want to jump out of her skin. To be someone else. Someone else here with this man who made her feel all of this amazing, burning passion.

But she couldn’t. She turned away from Blaise, looked back out at the water, her heart hammering, but for a different reason now.

She couldn’t be someone else, and in all probability, her scars looked now as they would look in forty years. They were healed, as much as they would ever be. She’d never accepted that, and she hadn’t realized it until now.

Relationships, sex, all of that had seemed like something that would happen later. But she was twenty-five, and it hadn’t happened. Because in her mind she had always imagined herself being with a man and looking beautiful, perfect, and while logically she’d always known that would never be, a part of herself had been clinging to the insane hope.

But she wanted Blaise. And he might reject her. So might any man, a man she might not want half as much.

It was now, or not at all. She had to take the step, to claim her life. The fire had taken so much from her. And she was seeing now that she had given it even more than it had taken; she had fed the flames with her fear for the past eleven years, aided by her mother’s thoughtless words, by her classmates tormenting her, and she wouldn’t do it anymore.

She turned to Blaise again, and she was certain he would be able to see the pulse fluttering at the base of her neck.

She took a step to him, and another, then put her palms flat against his chest. She stood like that, frozen, feeling his heart pound beneath her hands, letting his warmth spread through her.

She slid one hand up, curved it around his neck. He lowered his head slightly and she tilted hers up, capturing his lips. Her heart rate quickened, her breasts felt heavy, her body empty, in need of him. Of Blaise.

She knew what she wanted. The only thing stopping her was fear. Fear couldn’t have this. It would take this from her.

Blaise wrapped his arms around her, pulled her in tight, kissing her urgently, hungrily. She wanted to cry. To be wanted, to be held so tightly, as though he were afraid of losing her, it was like balm, healing unseen wounds inside her.

She could feel his desire for her, hard and heavy against her belly. She moved against him, desperately seeking some kind of satisfaction. He lowered one of his hands, cupping her bottom, kneading her flesh. She wiggled against him with more intent, his touch making every part of her burn with need.

“Inside,” she said, her voice reflecting her desperation. And she didn’t care.

He moved his hand down her thigh, stopping when his hand moved from the bottom of her dress to bare skin, then he pushed the fabric upward. He kissed her temple, her cheek, nipped her earlobe. “I can work with what we have out here.”

Out here, in the open. She would feel too exposed. And she didn’t possess the knowledge or experience to engage in any sort of serious sexual acrobatics. She didn’t really want him to know that.

“Inside,” she repeated, lending her voice a commanding note.

She felt his lips curve against her neck. “Whatever you desire.”