“Maybe. Not that I’m looking particularly,” he added. “But maybe.”
“A man can fall in love with a dream if he lets himself. It’s a simple matter with no effort, no work, no troubles. And no real joy, when it comes down to it. You prefer working for something, don’t you? It’s part of who you are.”
“I suppose so.”
“The woman you did meet is a great deal of effort and work and trouble. Tell me, Trevor, does she bring you joy as well?”
“You mean Darcy?”
“And who else have you been walking with?” Gwen questioned. “Of course I’m speaking of Darcy Gallagher. A beautiful and complicated woman that, with a voice like . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head and lightly laughing. “I was going to say like an angel, but there’s little of the angels about that one. No, she’s a voice like a woman, full and rich and tempting to a man. She’s tempted you.”
“She could tempt the dead. No offense.”
“None taken. I wonder, Trevor, don’t you think she’s what you’re looking for?”
“I’m not looking for anything. Anyone.”
“We all look. The lucky find.” Her hands, stilled, lay on the cloth with bright patterns of thread. “The wise accept. I was lucky, but not wise. Could you not learn something from my mistake?”
“I don’t love her.”
“Maybe you do and maybe you don’t.” Gwen picked up her needle again. “But you haven’t opened your heart to the risk of it. You guard that part of yourself so fierce, Trevor.”
“It may be that part of myself doesn’t exist.” Chewed off at the knee in Ardmore, he thought, before I was even born. “That I’m just not capable of loving someone the way you mean.”
“That’s foolishness.”
“I hurt another woman because I couldn’t love her.”
“And, I think, hurt yourself in the process. It puts doubts about yourself in your mind. Both of you, I can promise, will not only survive it, but be better off for the experience. Once you stop thinking of your heart as a weapon instead of a gift, you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“My heart isn’t the priority here. The theater is.”
She made a sound that might have been agreement. “ ’Tis a grand thing to be able to build, and build to last. This cottage, simple as it is, has lasted lifetime and lifetime. Oh, sure a few changes here, another room there, but the core of it remains. As does the faerie raft beneath it, with its silver towers and blue river.”
“You chose the cottage over the castle,” he pointed out.
“I did. Aye, I did. For the wrong reasons, but in spite of it, I won’t regret my children or the man who gave them to me. Perhaps Carrick will never understand that part of my heart. I’ve come to understand it would be wrong to ask him to do so. Hearts can merge and the people who hold them still stand as they are. Love accepts that. It accepts everything.”
He saw now what pattern she worked into the cloth. It was the silver palace, its towers bright, its river blue as gemstones, its trees heavy with golden fruit. And on a bridge that spanned the water were two figures, not yet finished.
Herself, Trevor realized, with her hands held out toward Carrick’s.
“You’re lonely without him.”
“I have . . .” She brushed a finger gently over the threads that formed a silver doublet. “An emptiness in me. A place that waits. As I wait.”
“What happens to you if the spell isn’t broken?”
She lifted her head again, her eyes dark and soft and quiet. “I’ll bide here, and see him only in my heart.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as there is. You have choices, Trevor Magee, as once I had. You have only to make them.”
“It’s not the same,” he began, but she faded away, like mist. “It’s not the same,” he said again, to the empty room. Though he turned the chair around, it was some time before he picked up the phone and managed to get on with the business at hand.
He called his father first, and that connection of voice to voice soothed his nerves. With his rhythm back, he fell into routine, contacted Nigel in London, and his counterpart in Los Angeles. He checked the time again, noted it was closing in on midnight. Seven in New York, he thought, and called the ever reliable Finkle at home.
Notes were piled on his desk, his computer up and running, and the phone tucked on his shoulder with Finkle’s voice droning through when he heard the sound of a car pulling in. Trevor shifted, angled so he could see through the window.
And watched Darcy walk toward the garden gate.
He’d forgotten the wine.
She considered knocking, but she’d seen the light in his office window. Working, are you? With a sly glint in her eye she let herself in the front door. She thought they’d soon put a stop to that, and walked straight up the stairs.
She paused at the door to his office, finding herself both irritated and pleased when he continued with his phone call and waved her in with a little finger crook.
Irritated that he didn’t appear to have been anxiously awaiting her. And pleased because she imagined she would shortly have him panting like an eager pup.
“I’ll need that report before New York closes tomorrow.” Trevor scribbled something down, nodded. “Yeah, well, they’ve
got till end of day to accept the offer or it’s off the table. Yes, that’s exactly how I want you to put it. Next item. I’m not satisfied with the bids on the Dressler project. Make it clear that if our usual lumber supplier can’t do better, we’ll look to alternate sources.”
He glanced over absently, took a sip of his coffee as Darcy unbuttoned her coat. Then inhaled caffeine like air—and choked on it.
The coat dropped to the floor, and he saw she wore nothing beneath it but his bracelet, high heels, and a very feline smile.
“Perfect,” he managed. “Jesus, you’re perfect.” As Finkle’s voice buzzed in his ear, he simply hung up, got to his feet.
“I take it business hours are over.”
“They are.”
She looked around the room, angled her head. “I don’t see my glass of wine.”
He discovered it was just possible to speak when a man’s heart was in his throat. “I forgot it.” His breath already ragged, he crossed to her. “I’ll get it later.”
She tipped her head back to keep her eyes on his, and saw what she’d wanted to see. Desire, raw as a fresh wound. “I’ve a powerful thirst.”
“Later” was all he could say before his mouth came down on hers.
He possessed. With quick, hard hands, restless lips, he took what she’d offered. Gave her what she’d wanted. Desperation was what she’d wanted from him, that jagged edge of need as dangerous as it was primitive. She’d come to him naked and shameless to lure the animal.
He was rough, and his recklessness added a slick layer of excitement. No control now, nor the need for it. So she lost herself in the wicked spell of her own brewing.
He shoved her against the wall, feasting on her throat, drugged on that sharply sexual taste of perfumed female flesh. And his hands streaked over her, bruised over her, greedy for the curves, the swells, the secrets of woman.
Hot, wet, vibrant.
His fingers slid over her, into her, driving her up. Even as he felt her body shudder, felt the violence of the orgasm rip through her, he looked into her eyes.the dark and clouded blue, he thought he saw the flash of triumph.
He might have been able to pull back then, to clear his head enough to find his finesse, but she moved against him, one lazy, stretching arch, and her arms twined around him like chains wrapped in velvet.
“More.” She purred it. “Give me more, and take more as well. Right here.” She nipped her teeth into his lip. “Right now.”
If she’d been a witch murmuring the darkest of incantations, he’d have been no less spellbound. He’d have sworn he caught the scent of hellfire as her mouth once again captured his.
Then there was madness, fevered and glorious. In her own triumph she found it, that wild pleasure, the terrorlaced delight of having a man turn savage. And allowing it. Craving it.
Her blood beat as frantically as his, her hands raced, as urgent and as rough as those that raced over her.
She tore his shirt, and reveled in the harsh sound of cotton rending at the seam. And her teeth dug into his shoulder when he pushed her over the edge again.
A haze filled his vision, thick and red. Her nails bit into his back, glorious little points of pain. His blood was a drumbeat, a primitive tattoo in his head, heart, loins. He plunged into her where they stood, greedily swallowing her ragged cry.
Each thrust was like another step on a thin wire stretched over both heaven and hell. Whichever way they fell, it couldn’t be stopped. Knowing it, he dragged her head back, kept his hand fisted in her hair, his eyes on her face.
“I want to see you.” He panted it out. “I want to see you feel me.”
“I can’t feel anything but you, Trevor.”
She tumbled off the wire, clasping him against her on the fall. And flying out with her, he didn’t give a damn where they landed.
He stayed where he was, fighting for air, for his sanity. The press of his body kept her upright as he braced a hand on the wall for balance.
She’d gone limp, as he knew now she did after loving. He told himself he’d find the energy, in just a minute, to get them both into bed.
“I can’t stay like this,” she murmured against his shoulder.
“I know. Just a second.”