Writ on Water (27 page)

Hearts thundering, they opted to return to Riverview.

Neither spoke on the ride back to the house. The silence wasn't peaceful, but it wasn't hostile either; it waited in anticipation. Chloe's heart never quite settled back into a normal rhythm, and she finally noticed how warm the night actually was. Even in her sleeveless dress with the late evening air washing over her through an open window, she felt hot and prickly. To distract herself, Chloe tried counting the gnomes as they appeared in the headlights. Many were missing, smashed into dust by the ambulance bumper.

Rory didn't bother to put the van away in the carriage house. They abandoned it in the drive with the keys still in the ignition.

It did not surprise Chloe when she climbed
down from the van and Rory took her hand in his own hot fist and pulled her into the house. What did surprise her was that he led her immediately upstairs and into a part of the residence where she had never been. He didn't pause to turn on lights as they went. They stopped only when they reached a closed door, which Rory opened with a quick press on the latch.

The moon's glow leaking though the curtains showed Chloe that they were in a bedroom, and a vaguely herbal scent told her that the room was Rory's.

“Now would be the moment to say something if you don't want this to happen.” Rory's voice was deeper than usual, and also a little rough. The sweet chocolate tone was missing, but she didn't mind. She was not in the mood for sweet.

Chloe still had many unanswered questions about the things that had happened in the last week, and also many things in her own head that she wanted to clarify, but at the moment, finding explanations seemed less important than giving in to her body's wants. Some divine madness had overtaken her.

“Would silence be considered assent?” she asked. Her own voice had altered. “I am not quite used to being this bold.”

“I'd prefer a more direct answer.”

“I feel stupid admitting that I'm shy,” she said, clearing her throat. But Rory still waited.

He wasn't going to let her off of the hook. Apparently he really needed to hear her words of assent.

Chloe gave in. She slid her arms about his waist and rose up on her toes so that she could brush her lips against his.

“Then have it your way—
yes
,” she whispered. “I want this to happen.”

And she did. She was at least ninety-five percent sure.

Rory's arms closed about her immediately and she found herself being lowered onto a down bed. The tie of her dress was undone with a single tug, and since it had been too hot for a bra or stockings, she was unwrapped except for a pair of panties. They soon followed the dress.

As he had demonstrated earlier, Rory could remove his shirt with commendable speed, and his slacks were even easier to dispose of.

Chloe wondered, as Rory loomed over her, a dark silhouette against the pale ceiling, if there would be any of the usual awkwardness this first time, if they would have to speak of their needs or wants—give guidance to one another.

Apparently Rory did not think so, for he didn't say anything else to her, and after a moment she had to agree with his policy of silence. After all, their bodies were speaking in some mutually understood tongue, and what else was there to say that wouldn't confuse things?

Her eyes opened wide at the first brush of his
mouth against her breast, but all there was to fill them was the silver moonlight, so she allowed her eyelids to droop and used her other senses to tell her of her state.

She sank her hands into Rory's hair and tried to moor herself while the room spun away. Her skin thrilled and tingled and even screamed as Rory moved over her. Cheeks, lips, hands—they all felt different and wonderful. Normally, she preferred her mind to be in charge of her body, but that night she gave herself over to the sensations he provoked, and waded out recklessly into the deeper waters where Rory urged her to go.

It was glorious. It was also oddly terrifying.

Though she spent equal time touching, tasting and exploring Rory's body, for the first time during an act of sex she felt out of control. Once she let go of her cautious, logical rock, waves of a new sort of passion were crashing over her, making her feel helpless even as they thrilled her. This new sense of vulnerability was notional, because Rory in no way restrained her, but it seemed that the deep, swirling waters to which he lured her suddenly dragged her down into a foreign place and held her captive there. It was a place she could never escape without Rory's help—somehow he had become both her jailer and her rescuer.

“Chloe!” The weight of his wants pressed down on her in a relentless stream and she felt herself disintegrating, breaking into parts that could not think, only feel. Just a small part of her brain continued
to speak and listen to reason, trying to understand what was different now from every other time she had made love.

The needs of her body were plainly enough understood, but what her confused heart called out for she did not know. It was more than simple affection or a desire for recognition. But its wants—for all of being desperate in their strength—were unrecognized. They were shouted down by the feeling parts of her body, which Rory skillfully controlled.

She shook her head slowly. This had never happened before. Her mind was always the master of her body—but not this time. The last thinking pieces of her brain were alarmed and attempted to form a confederacy of her splintered thoughts which might regain control of the situation.

“Rory?” Chloe writhed against the linens, overwhelmed by her body's response to him, but still not able to completely abandon herself to the moment.

“Hush,” he whispered against her belly. “Trust me.”

Trust him
. But she didn't. Not entirely. Night might smother all other shadows, but not doubt.

The last few days had muddled the conduits of thought and stripped away old logical and moral checkpoints. New emotions raced down these opened channels and straight into her brain and heart where they jabbered at her in foreign tongues. Her body translated some of the new
message, but not all. Much of it was still a mystery to her. But what was there for her to see was a tangle of grief and worry about MacGregor, excitement and passion when she thought of Rory, and—just a little bit—of something like fear. It was there in the sweat of her palms and the goose bumps that covered her upper arms. But what she feared, she did not know. Surely it wasn't that Rory would hurt her.

“Stop thinking. I want everything from you except common sense. This is no time for reason and logic,” Rory said, and bit lightly at her inner thigh. Then he breathed deeply as though gathering her scent the way he had gathered the smells of mint out in the garden.

How would he catalogue her?
she wondered a bit hysterically, as his slow exhalation tickled over her bare skin and she felt his teeth scraping over her.

But the answer to this question remained elusive and her body's demands grew louder than the other things clamoring in her brain. Finally, she did as he asked and stopped listening to logic. It was the only way to escape this desire. He sensed the change at once and laughed softly as she relaxed beneath him.

The pressure from Rory's hands told her that he wished her to move, and with only minor hesitation she rolled onto her stomach, allowing him to part her legs with his own. She lifted her hips out of the feathered tick and pressed against him. His breath tickled the hair of her nape, sending tiny
shivers down her spine and spreading the goose-flesh down her arms.

A low moan told Chloe of Rory's pleasure as he pushed into her. After a few languid thrusts, he slipped a hand beneath her belly and slid it down to cover her sex. His work-roughened fingers closed over her, supplying the pressure she needed to end her body's longing and allow her to escape completely into the realm of sensation where reason could not follow.

She hoped she would emerge as Persephone had from hell, carrying seeds of reason and understanding in her hand, though, for a moment, she doubted that she would ever escape.

After the act, she lay in a lazy S, sunken into the deep tick with Rory sprawled behind her, an arm draped about her waist but otherwise not touching as they allowed their bodies to cool.

Chloe was too tired to wander back into her reassembling brain and start asking questions. Instead she closed her eyes and let her body sleep. Her last thought was to wonder what Rory was thinking, if he understood what had just happened any better than she did.

In many ways, it was as though her life had started only after she arrived at Riverview. She had entered some cocoon and hatched out transformed into another being. She still looked like Chloe Smith, but something inside had altered. Whether this was a good thing or not remained to be seen.

 

Rory was awake. His body was calm, replete, and he found it pleasant to stay still for a moment and study the spill of hair that folded down Chloe's fragile nape and spread out upon his pillow. It looked like tarnished silver thread in the moonlight, fragile as gossamer. Perhaps, in a while, he would wind his fingers into those strands and gather them up in his fist. For the moment, he was content to observe and appreciate.

The line of her spine was gentle, her limbs soft and slender, vulnerable in their nakedness—so much more delicate than his own flesh and bones. Even her fingers, which worked so cleverly when she was awake, looked as fragile as folding flower petals where they curled in toward her pale palms.

He could break her with ease.

His eyes moved down her body. He watched silently as her ribs rose and fell in an ever-slowing rhythm. The tidal movement as she gave herself over to sleep was unconsciously hypnotic.

How trusting she was, to slumber with a stranger
.

Her defenselessness seemed to be speaking to him, demanding something of him—but he didn't know how to answer its requests. He had never looked at a woman and thought of her in terms of her beautiful fragility. The feelings her weakness stirred in him were vaguely frightening, partly because he didn't understand them. It was as though some part of his brain was making a secret
plan that the rest of him was unaware of. Surely it was telling him that he must defend her innocence. He couldn't be thinking anything else.

Rory gave a mental shrug. He would reflect on this later; the present was too beguiling to waste on self-examination.
Much too beguiling!
He smiled slightly, pleased at finding the right word for the moment.

He rose onto an elbow and blew lightly on Chloe's nape, stirring the nearly invisible wisps that curled there. The soft disturbance made her grumble and wiggle down deeper into the bed.

He laughed silently. He should be feeling sad that MacGregor was likely dying.

Probably he would be sad, but later. For the moment he had other, better things to feel—other bonds that needed tending. In some ways, it was all very simple. He either had to make this women completely his, or he had to get rid of her. It was the only way to be safe. Rory knew which he would prefer.

He leaned over and ran a finger down Chloe's exposed cheek.

“Wake up, sleepy-head,” he said softly, and then lowered his lips to the dainty ridge of collarbone that seemed to ask for his touch. He bit lightly.

“Hmmm?” Her lashes fluttered and her eyes opened. The irises looked black in the moonlight.

“I knew you were going to be greedy,” she complained, closing those sleepy eyes. But in
spite of her words, she rolled over to take him into her arms.

Rory buried his face in her hair, hiding his triumphant smile. Somehow, he didn't think that Chloe would like it. Women almost never cared for the triumph of naked aggression over gentler caring.

I am going to seek a great perhaps.
—the last words of Francois Rabelais

Chloe awoke the next morning alone in Rory's bed. A quick look about the room told her that though she may have been thoroughly ravished, she had not been thoughtlessly abandoned. Her sundress had been picked up from the rug—a breathtaking confection of antique jeweled silk threads, which she hadn't had time to appreciate the night before—and draped neatly over the back of a chair upholstered in faded but beautiful tapestry. Her sandals were precisely paired on the floor beside the seat. There was no sign of her underwear on the chair or rug, but she hoped her panties were tucked somewhere in the folds of her skirt. One thing was for sure, she couldn't leave the room until they were found! She could just imagine Morag sucking them up into the vacuum
and having to call for a repairman to unwind the elastic and lace from the motor.

Chloe shuddered. It was the kind of thing that got immortalized as dating legend disasters. She'd rather die than face Morag without her panties.

A quick glance at the clock told her that the hour was early, so there was hope that she could return to her own room before anyone noticed that she hadn't spent the night there. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with her sleeping with Rory—in fact, she suspected that MacGregor would heartily approve—but having Rory's ancient, puritanical relation know about their affair was rather embarrassing.

In fact, even without proof of her final fall from grace being discovered by Morag, Chloe decided that she would forgo breakfast that morning and just grab something quick at the hospital. She would miss the eggs Benedict and scones with clotted cream, but there was no need for Oleander to go to the bother of preparing a meal just for her when she was too nervous to eat alone under Morag's basilisk stare.

The thought of MacGregor in the hospital, deprived of both good food and company, was another spur to be up and doing. That had Chloe bouncing out of bed and wrapping herself in her sundress, which fortunately did have her underwear tucked neatly into a pocket. Shoes in hand, she dashed down the hall toward the wing where
her own bedroom was, leaping from rug to rug so her feet wouldn't squeak on the glossy wood floor.