Velvet Lightning (18 page)

Catherine thought of her own secrets, and realized that he was right. All this time she’d been desperately guarding the dark rooms because there were no locks on the doors. And she knew that one day, one day soon, the doors would open and all the darkness would come spilling out.

“Sail away,” she said suddenly. “Take your ship and sail away before that man comes here, before he opens the door.” She heard fear in her voice, fear for him. He could escape, she thought wildly, could keep the door shut tight.

“I can’t do that, Catherine.” He lifted a hand and touched her cheek, cupped it gently. “This time I have to face the darkness. I’ve stopped running.”

She had known that, had felt certain of it. She stepped away from him and turned to the side, staring off across the ocean. She could smell the rain on the breeze now, and watched the clouds rolling slowly toward the island. She could still feel his hand on her cheek. Her body ached for him incessantly, and he wouldn’t be pushed away, wouldn’t leave the island. There was a flood of tears inside her, the pressure building, and she was so tired she didn’t think she could bear it any longer.

“I love you, Catherine,” he said quietly.

Catherine heard a gasp escape her, as if she’d been struck or stabbed, as if all the breath had been driven from her lungs. Joy and agony washed through her, and she caught at the railing on the side of the ship to steady herself when her legs went suddenly weak “Don’t,” she whispered.

“I love you,” he repeated.

She could feel the flood of tears, hot and stinging, pressing harder inside her. “Don’t love me,” she said starkly. “You can’t love me.”

“I do. I can’t stop it, can’t change it . . . can’t run away from it. And you realized I was falling in love with you, Catherine, and that’s why you tried to end it between us.”

On some dim level of her mind she wondered if it was true, wondered if her own instincts had alerted her that the unthinkable was happening. She didn’t know ...

She was afraid to look at him, afraid her own violent emotions would leap at him out of her eyes. “Why did you have to change things?” she murmured helplessly. “I was so happy. Never again will I be that happy—”

His hands caught her shoulders, turning her to face him, and when she would have pulled away, his fingers bit into her. In a hoarse voice he said, “Tell me you hate me, Catherine. Tell me you can’t bear my hands on you. Because that’s the only way you’re going to get me out of your life!”

She looked up at him, and at first she thought the rain had come, because she was blinded by it. But then he pulled her into his arms with a groan, and she realized that she was weeping. Sobs tore out of her like things alive and on the wing, clawing her throat in ragged pain. She couldn’t stop them. Once the flood was released, it poured out of her violently.

She thought she was moving, thought he might have been carrying her, but it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing mattered except for her wild grief, the awful, unbearable pain of loving and being loved. She heard his voice, rough yet tender, felt his hands trying to soothe her shaking body. She couldn’t say anything, could barely breathe through the racking sobs.

She didn’t know how long it went on, but she was drained and limp when it was finally over. She was lying on her back on a bed and staring up at what looked like a canopy of scarlet satin. Yards and yards of the stuff, she thought. She felt a cool damp cloth move over her face, knew that Tyrone was doing that for her just the way he had earlier knelt beside her to wash away the mud.

“I must look like hell,” she said suddenly.

A shaken laugh escaped Tyrone, and he said tautly, “Dammit, Catherine, don’t do that to me again!”

She turned her head to find him lying beside her, raised on an elbow as he stared down at her. There was a silver glitter in his eyes, and his face was pale. She felt an echo of pain, and reached up to touch his cheek. “I'm sorry.”

He tossed the damp cloth aside and held her hand against his face, kissing the inside of her wrist. “You should be,” he said somewhat thickly. “I’ve lost ten years of my life during the past half hour.”

She felt oddly peaceful. The dark rooms were still there, but she believed she might almost be ready to face them. She was still afraid, and still hurting, but her long-denied tears had let the worst escape. “Thank you,” she said to him.

“For what? For making you cry?” He was incredulous.

“Yes. For that.”

“Catherine—”

She lifted her head from the pillow and kissed him lightly. “It's raining, isn’t it?” she asked. “I can hear it, and feel the ship moving more strongly. It’s very peaceful.” She raised her other hand and touched his face, looking at him gravely, conscious of a need to settle things between them. “You’ve made me very happy since that day by the stream,” she told him. “I hope you know that.”

His mouth tightened. “If you're saying good-bye again—”

She covered his lips with the tips of her fingers.

“Please. Can we forget all that for now? I don’t want to think, or hurt, or be afraid. Make love to me?”

“Is that all you’re ever going to take from me, Catherine? Is that all you’re willing to give me?” His voice was low, bleak.

She stroked his face with gentle fingers. She wanted to ask,
Would that be so bad?
But she didn’t. Because she knew it would be. “Don’t you want me?”

“That’s a stupid question,” he muttered.

Catherine almost smiled. “Don’t be angry. Just— make love to me in this amazing bed of yours.”

He laughed reluctantly, a glint of honest appreciation in his eye. “You never say the expected, do you?”

“You just don’t expect the right thing. And it
is
an amazing bed.”

“Mmmm. Do you like it?” He was smiling a little, watching her face.

Catherine looked up at yards and yards of scarlet satin, twisted her head to see the ornate headboard. Then she looked back at him and widened her eyes. “Which sultan did you rob? And how many harem girls did you manage to fling across your saddle before the flight through the desert?”

“Damn!” He laughed, but there was a trace of sheepishness in his expression. “It isn't that bad.”

“It should be in a cathouse,” she said roundly.

“What do you know about cathouses?”

“Only what I’ve heard.” She smiled. “What you told me, in fact. I asked, and you described. A number of them. All over the world.”

He winced. “Hell, I did, didn’t I?”

“Certainly you did. You told me all sorts of things I’d never known before. Very interesting. I especially recall that memorable visit to the house in Spain—”

He bent his head and kissed her. “Shut up.” He was half laughing, his mouth curved and a bittersweet enjoyment in his eyes. “Just shut up, dammit, and let me make love to you in my sultan's bed.” “You’ll have to get me out of this cloak first,” she said in a voice that had grown abruptly breathless with more than humor. “I’m all twisted in it.” Tyrone managed to get her untwisted while she laughed and fumbled at the buttons of his shirt. The storm of tears had changed her somehow, leaving behind it a serenity that reminded him of their first days together. He could only be grateful that her pain and fear had gone, at least for now, and tried not to let her see his own pain.

He had told her he loved her, and she had wept for the first time in his presence, bitter, racking tears that had shaken her body wildly and had nearly killed him.

But he would happily give her what she would take from him while he snatched all he could from her. For now.

“You’ve lost weight,” he said in discovery when their clothing had been flung aside haphazardly and her pale body lay naked beside him.

She stretched pleasurably as his hands stroked over her, smiling a little. “Your imagination.”

“No.” He bent his head, trailing his lips across her breastbone while his hands slid slowly down her ribs, exploring gently. “I can feel it here.” His fingers traced slight indentations between her delicate bones, touched the hollows above each leg. “And here.”

“How does it feel?” she asked huskily.

“Like silk.” He moved a hand smoothly over her belly, felt the deep muscles tighten and quiver. “Silk over glass. Soft and fragile.’’ His lips nuzzled a tight nipple, and his tongue flicked lightly, teasing.

“And that?” she whispered.

“Mmmm. You tell me. How does it feel?” His mouth captured the hard bud, drew it strongly inward.

Catherine moaned. “Heat.” Her voice was throaty, shaken. “Burning me . . .” Her fingers dug into his shoulders, compulsively stroked the powerful muscles. She sounded bewildered, passionate. “How can you make me feel this way? I'm alive only when you do this.”

Tyrone felt a sudden rush of hunger more intense than he had ever felt before. A craving for her, for Catherine, that was more than desire, more than need. His entire throbbing body cried out for hers in a way that was primitive, almost savage. She would give him only this, only her body, and if that was their sole tie, he would bind her with it.

He moved slowly down her body, kissing, his tongue flicking, teeth nipping her soft flesh. He could feel her tremble, feel the heat inside her. He felt more than heard a sound break free of him, a guttural groan of pleasure and yearning.

“Please,” she whispered, her head moving restlessly on the pillow. “Tyrone, please . . .”

She wouldn’t even give him his name. And he knew, suddenly, implacably, that this time she would. If he had to half kill himself, if he had to drag it out of her, he was going to hear her say his given name.

He eased her legs apart, slowly trailed his lips over the sensitive skin inside one thigh, then the other. His mouth hovered over her lower belly, just grazing the hot flesh, and she writhed suddenly with a gasp.

“Is this what you want?” He hardly recognized his own voice, hardly knew the thick, rasping sound of it.

She moaned. “Yes.”

His mouth suddenly found the hot, throbbing wetness between her legs, his tongue stroking with sure skill, and she cried out brokenly.

“This?”

Catherine’s body shuddered, and she tried to catch her breath, tried to find a voice in the searing heat of her need. He was torturing her and she couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel the exquisite agony lancing through her.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

“Say my name, Catherine,” he murmured softly.

“No!”

“Say it!” He prolonged the torture ruthlessly, taking her again and again almost to the peak, letting her reach for it but refusing her satisfaction. She became a wild thing, a thing that was hunger and nothing more, a thing without will. Until finally she broke.

“Marc!”

He went still for an instant, and then he was moving over her swiftly, settling between her thighs. His swollen, throbbing manhood sank into her, deeply, a violent plunge. Her legs locked strongly around his hips and she arched beneath him, whimpering.

“Again,” he ordered thickly, holding himself still, buried inside her, his glittering eyes fixed on her face.

“Marc,” she whispered, filled by him, claimed and possessed and vanquished by him. “Marc.”

An odd sound escaped him, as if he had broken instead of she. His powerful thrusts scalded her, ignited flames that burned her alive until she couldn’t bear it any longer, until she was dying from the pleasure of it. Blind and deaf, she felt rather than heard her own wild cry of release, felt the harsh rumble of his groan before his heavy, welcome weight bore her down into the bed.

A long time later she felt movement, felt a shifting of weight. He had rolled over, concerned that she might be uncomfortable. She was suddenly on top of him, boneless, still joined to him, and she rested her head on his chest with a sigh.

“Thief,” she said softly.

A chuckle vibrated in his chest. “I got it.”

“You stole it.” But she couldn’t feel any anger. She had known, somehow, that he would win at least that.

His hands were belatedly removing pins, spreading her hair over her back, stroking the silky strands. “I got it,” he repeated, something fierce in his low voice. “And I won’t let you take it back. Not now.”

“No.” She rubbed her cheek against the springy hair on his chest, enjoying the rough caress. “There wouldn’t be much use in that, would there?”

His arms tightened around her.

9

C
atherine sat in her buggy, hidden from the road in the cool little grove. She listened to the sounds of birds, the faint hissing of the sea against the thin ribbon of sand around the southern curve of the harbor that was nearest to her. She felt more alive than ever, sensitive to everything around her, as if she'd never allowed herself to see and feel before.

She looked back over her shoulder at
The Raven
floating serenely in the harbor, and realized suddenly that she had spent these last hours in another world, a world where the sea whispered and a graceful wooden vessel floated, where the breeze through rigging could be a kind of siren song, and an ornate bed draped with satin could be a place of wild passion and fragile peace.