Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (44 page)

The tiny, old-fashioned carnations known as clove pinks were everywhere, hundreds of them massed in vases sitting on every available surface. Peach pink and blood red, striped and white, their small, tattered-edge blossoms shed their scent on the air until the night was dizzy with the sweetness of it.

“What in the world?” she said in frowning amazement.

“Carnations. I saw them at the Rialto market and made arrangements.”

“The phone call.”

He agreed. “They are supposed to mean Blighted Love, or something like that according to the journal.” His voice was abrupt, shaded with something near embarrassment.

“Alas My Poor Heart,” she said in hollow recognition.

“Exactly.”

It was absurd of her to allow herself to be affected by such an obvious appeal to sentimentality. Yet the generosity of the gesture, and the understanding of her needs and thought processes shown by it, indicated a level of awareness about her that was astounding. And disarming.

“What are you trying to do?” she asked quietly.

“Say I’m sorry, that I didn’t mean to hurt you. Find out if there’s some way we can try again.”

“At least long enough for you to finish reading the journal?”

He took a harsh breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t care if I never see the journal again.”

“That’s good,” she said soberly.

She expected to see irritation in his face. There was nothing except iron determination. She moved toward a chair, where she slipped the strap of her shoulder bag down her arm and let it drop onto the seat.

“I love you, Joletta,” he said, his voice low and husky.

“Don’t!” she said sharply without looking at him, then added more quietly, “Please. Just don’t.”

“I know I’ve given you no reason to believe me, but it’s important to me to tell you.”

“It’s certainly convenient that you discovered it just now,” she replied, her voice steady.

“I’ve known it for a long time, since Bath at least, though it began before that, possibly even that night in New Orleans. It just didn’t seem right to say it when I wasn’t being honest with you. It would have been carrying false pretenses a little too far.”

“Too bad you didn’t feel like that about climbing into my bed.”

“For that,” he said, “I have no regrets. It seemed likely to be all I would ever have.”

She really wanted to believe him; that was the worst of it. She couldn’t. He had used her, and would continue if she let him. She wouldn’t. Not again.

No doubt he thought there was still some chance she might manage to wring the formula from the journal and wanted to be around if it happened. When that time came, if it did, that would be the end of it; he would have what he wanted, and he would be gone. Or if she failed, if when this trip was over she had nothing to show for it, he would have no reason to stay. Either way she would lose.

It was this she couldn’t face, as much as his lies told to please her.

Everyone always left her. Her mother and father, her fiancé. Even Mimi. But not this time.

This time it was she who would leave.

She moved to the bedside table, where several vases of the small carnations sat. Leaning to breathe deep of their rich scent, she allowed the cool petals to touch her eyelids, her chin, her mouth. With wine and fragrance simmering in her veins, she thought that, just possibly, Rone deserved at least a parting gift, something from her to remember later, to take away the sting of being abandoned.

“Joletta,” he said, a pleading note in his voice.

She needed time to think, time to be sure this was what she wanted. Pure compassion, misplaced desire, or guilty sacrifice, there were all these things in the impulse rising steadily inside her. There was more, she knew, but she would not acknowledge it.

She wanted a last night with him, a last time in the security of his arms. Perhaps she needed a farewell after all, for herself. Who would ever know? Who would care? Except her.

He might think, when she surrendered, that he had won, but what of it? She would know the truth.

And so would he, soon enough.

Her voice not quite even, she said, “The luggage will have to be put out before we go to bed for collection early in the morning. I still have to repack. I think I’ll shower first, if you don’t mind.”

He watched her for long seconds before he turned away with an almost inaudible sigh. “No,” he answered, “I don’t mind.”

The smile that touched her mouth as she sent him a glance from the corners of her eyes was wry and fleeting, but tender.

Joletta did not take long in the bathroom. While Rone took his turn she laid out the slacks and shirt she meant to wear next day, set her packed suitcase outside the door, and stuffed the things she would be carrying with her down inside her big shoulder bag. She patted the bulky purse to be sure the journal was still where it should be; she had hardly thought about it all day. The feel of a sharp corner reassured her that all was well.

Wearing only a nightgown of much-washed white cotton embroidered in white around a design of open cutwork flowers, she moved to inhale the scent of the carnations once more. They really were delicious. She reached to cup a single blossom in her palm. Lifting it from the vase, she took it with her as she turned out the light, then moved to slip between the sheets.

When Rone emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, she turned her head. He was tall and broad where he stood framed in the doorway before he turned out the light. She watched him in the dimness as he moved around the foot of the bed to the opposite side. The width of his shoulders and shape of his head were silhouetted against the window as he climbed in beside her. She waited, not quite patiently, while he stretched out and settled onto his back.

She could feel the uneven pumping of her heart in her chest, like a ball bounced by a clumsy toddler. Heat moved over her in waves, and the palms of her hands itched with the dampness collecting there. It was, she discovered, terrifying to become a temptress, nearly as terrifying as it was exciting.

Easing to her side, she supported herself on her bent elbow while she reached out to draw the carnation she held in her fingers across Rone’s lips.

He snatched at the flower in a swift reflex, as if he thought it might be some invading insect. His movement stilled abruptly.

“What are you doing?” he asked in stifled tones.

“Shh,” she said.

Tugging the carnation free, she touched his mouth once more, outlining its shape, before trailing the ragged petals down the strong jut of his chin and along the turn of his neck. She dipped it into the hollow between his collarbone, then brushed slowly back and forth through the glinting hair on his chest to the flat disks of his paps. As she touched one, teasing it to a nub of firmness, he turned his head toward her in the darkness.

“Joletta?” he whispered in entreaty.

She did not answer.

Leaving the carnation lying on his breastbone, she moved closer and leaned to touch the wet heat of her tongue to his tightened pap. She traced its circumference, applied adhesion, nibbled gently, then moved to the other one.

He said not a word as he reached for her, circling her body with his arms as he held her close, searching out the warm and sensitive curves of her body through the soft, thin cotton, finding areas of delicate sensation she had hardly known existed.

She tasted him without haste, and with rich delight growing inside as she felt the increased depth of his breathing that matched her own.

Blindly then, she sought the warm, chiseled shape of his mouth. Her soft lips molded to his as she traced the edges of his teeth and gently eased deeper to entice his response. Sweetly, generously, he gave it, twining his tongue with hers, following her lead.

He drew her closer, until the lower part of her body was pressed against the unyielding length of his thigh. Holding her there, he smoothed the slender concave of her waist, ran his fingers with exquisite care over the roundness of her hips, and drew the cotton of her gown tight to outline the shape. He smoothed his hand over that gentle curve before he began to inch the gown higher.

Joletta lifted her knee across his body, allowing access to his delicately probing touch. The heat that flushed her skin spiraled deep inside, coalescing in the lower part of her body. A soft sound left her as he sought and found its center. Molten inside with desire, she tasted the corners of his mouth and trailed a line of kisses across the hard plane of his face to his ear. She tasted the lobe, then in a rush of ecstasy, buried her face in his neck.

Shifting his attention, Rone cupped the fullness of her breasts in his hands, flicking the tender nipples with his thumbs, so the firestorm of sensation within her became nearly unbearable in its intensity.

Still, there was no hurry. Grasping at control, Joletta spread one hand to clutch at the muscled hardness of his shoulder before brushing lower to find and put aside the carnation that scented his chest. Her fingers trembled as she reached lower still, pushing away the sheet that covered him, slipping her hand under the loose waistband of his pajamas. Seeking to return the pleasure he was giving her, she increased her own a hundredfold.

When nerves and tissues and shivering minds could stand no more, he drew her on top of him. She lay for long moments with the firm contours of her breasts pressed to his chest and the surface of her belly flat against him while their hearts jarred in double rhythm.

Finally she rose above him with the glide of heat-oiled muscles and took him inside her in a slow, liquid slide.

Gently, they rode, gathering ease, gathering force, gathering speed. He moved with her, matching her rhythm, allowing her to set depth and pace while he held himself in stringent check.

Their breathing increased. Moisture dewed their skin. The clean scent of her hair and the warmth of their bodies mingled with the scent of clove carnations, mounting to their brains like an aphrodisiac. Joletta felt light, yet powerful, filled with grace and boundless caring, fecund and daring and eternally female.

Then she felt the contraction of her heart, her loins, her very soul. The silent magic burst like a firestorm inside her.

He heaved himself up, maintaining the contact as he swung her to her back among the rumpled sheets. He lowered himself over her, covering her with his welcome weight, plunging deep into the vital strength of her body. And once more he began to move.

Joletta held nothing back. She strove with him, breath for gasping breath, muscle against quivering muscle. The magic returned. Feeling its hot, tumbling grip, they clung, gasping, while they let it take them.

It was only later that Joletta, curled in the shelter of Rone’s arms and staring wide-eyed into the dark, remembered that this loving was supposed to be a farewell. It had not, somehow, turned out as she had planned.

She thought of staying where she was, as she was, for as long as she was permitted. She considered accepting whatever pretense of love Rone cared to make.

It might be that the pretending could be made real, or at least that it could be enough.

No.

She couldn’t do it. Her choice had been made, and bitter or not, she would follow it through. To fail would be to let Aunt Estelle and Natalie — and Rone — win by default. It would certainly mean discarding something she was beginning to realize was just as important, and that was her self-respect.

She would go. She must.

It was early when she woke; the gray light beyond the window was barely touched with gold. The church bells had not yet begun to ring. As she slid out of bed Rone stirred and stretched out his hand after her. If he woke, however, he refrained from making her feel guilty by letting her know it.

The bells began to clang as she finished dressing. She dragged her hairbrush through her hair a final time and fastened it back with a pair of bone barrettes. Moving into the bedroom, she crossed to the chair to push her brush into her shoulder bag, then picked up the heavy purse.

Rone was lying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head. His firm lips curved in a smile as he turned toward her. As his gaze drifted over her, settling on the shoulder bag, he said, “Where are you going so early?”

“There are a couple of female-type things I need. I’ll only be a minute.”

“There won’t be any shops open,” he pointed out.

His hair was tousled, his jawline shaded with beard stubble, and his eyes heavy with sleep. Perhaps it was the dark concern in his eyes, but he had never looked so fine.

Joletta swallowed on an obstruction in her throat before she said, “Maybe the concierge can help, then. Be right back.”

She didn’t wait for a reply, did not linger at all. She didn’t kiss him, didn’t say good-bye.

She was strong.

She went out the door and closed it behind her.

She made it as far as the stairs before the tears crowding into her eyes blurred her vision too much to see.