Seven
"I know it's Christmas Eve, Darla." Michael picked up his coffee cup, found it empty and lifted the pot from his hot plate. Dregs. He bit off a sigh. The trouble with the Folley was (hat you had to hike a half a mile to the kitchen whenever the pot ran dry. "I know it'll be a great party, but I can't get away."
That wasn't precisely true, Michael mused as he listened to Darla's rambles about a celebration in Manhattan. Everyone, according to her estimate, was going to be there. That meant a loud, elbow-toelbow party with plenty of booze. He could have taken a day and driven into the city to raise a glass or two with friends. He was well ahead of schedule. So far ahead, he could have taken off a week and not felt the strain. The precise truth was, he didn't want to get away.
"I appreciate that...you'll just have to tell everyone Merry Christmas for me. No, I like living in the country, Darla. Weird? Yeah, maybe." He had to laugh. Darla was a top-notch dancer and a barrel of laughs, but she didn't believe life went on outside of the island of Manhattan. "New Year's if I can manage it. Okay, babe. Yeah, yeah, ciao."
More than a little relieved, Michael hung up. Darla was a lot of fun, but he wasn't used to being clung to by a woman, especially one he'd only dated casually. The truth was, she was just as attracted to the influence he had with certain casting agents as she was interested in him. He didn't hold it against her. She had ambition and talent, a combination that could work in the tough-edged business of entertaining if a dash of luck was added. After the holidays he'd make a few calls and see what he could do.
From the doorway, Pandora watched as Michael ran a hand along the back of his neck. Darla, she repeated silently. She imagined the women his taste leaned toward had names like Darla, or Robin and Candy. Sleek, smooth, sophisticated and preferably empty-headed.
"Popularity's such a strain, isn't it, darling?"
Michael turned in his chair to give her a long, narrowed look. "Eavesdropping's so rude, isn't it, darling?"
She shrugged but didn't come in. "If you'd wanted privacy, you should've closed your door."
"Around here you have to nail it shut for privacy."
One brow raised, head slightly inclined, Pandora looked as aloof as royalty. "Your phone conversations have absolutely no interest for me. I only came up as a favor to Charles. You've a package downstairs."
"Thanks." He didn't bother to hide amusement at her tone. If he knew Pandora, and he did, she'd listened to every word. "I thought these were your sacred working hours."
"Some of us schedule our work well enough that we can take some time off during the holidays. No, no, let's not bicker," she decided abruptly before he could retaliate. "It is nearly Christmas after all, and we've had three weeks of peace from our familial practical jokers. Truce," Pandora offered with a smile Michael wasn't sure he should trust. "Or a moratorium if you prefer."
"Why?"
"Let's just say I'm a sucker for holly and ivy. Besides, I'm relieved we didn't have to buy a big drooling dog or a supply of buckshot."
"For now." Not completely satisfied, Michael tipped back in his chair. "Fitzhugh's notion of notifying the local police of trespassers and spreading the rumor of an official investigation might be working temporarily. Or maybe our friends and family are just taking a holiday break themselves. Either way I'm not ready to relax."
"You'd rather break someone's nose than solve things peaceably," Pandora began, then waved a hand. "Never mind. I, for one, am going to enjoy the holidays and not give any of our dear family a thought." She paused a moment, toying with her braided chain of gold and amethyst. "I suppose Darla was disappointed."
Michael watched the way the stones caught the thin winter light and made sparks from it. "She'll pull through."
Pandora twisted the chain one way, twisted it back, then let it go. It was the sort of nervous gesture Michael hadn't expected from her. "Michael, you know you don't have to stay. I really will be fine if you want to run into New York for the holiday."
"Rule number six," he reminded her. "We stick together, and you've turned down a half-dozen invitations for the holidays yourself."
"My choice." She reached for the chain again, then dropped her hands. "I don't want you to feel obligated—"
"My choice," he interrupted. "Or have you suddenly decided I'm chivalrous and unselfish?"
"Certainly not," she tossed back, but smiled. "I prefer thinking you're just too lazy to make the trip."
He shook his head, but his lips curved in response. "I'm sure you would."
She hesitated in the doorway until he lifted a brow in question. "Michael, would you become totally obnoxious if I told you I'm glad you're staying?"
He studied her as she stood, looking slim and neat in the doorway, her hair a riotous contrast lo the trim sweater and stovepipe pants. "I might."
"Then I won't tell you." Without another word, she slipped out of the doorway and disappeared.
Contrary woman, Michael thought. He was close to being crazy about her. And crazy was the perfect word. She baited him or, he admitted, he baited her at every possible opportunity. He could imagine no two people less inclined to peaceful coexistence, much less harmony. And yet...and yet he was close to being crazy about her. Knowing better than to try to go back to work, he rose and followed her downstairs.
He found her in the parlor, rearranging packages under the tree. "How many have you shaken?"
"All of them," she said easily. But she didn't turn because he might have seen how pleased she was he'd come downstairs with her. "I don't want to show any preference. Thing is," she added, poking at an elegantly wrapped box, "I seem to have missed my present from you."
Michael gave her a bland smile. "Who says I got you anything?"
"You would have been terribly rude and insensitive otherwise."
"Yep. In any case, you seem to've done well enough." He crouched down to study the stacks of boxes under the tree. "Who's Boris?" Idly he picked up a small silver box with flowing white ribbon.
" Russian cellist who defected. He admires my...gold links."
"I bet. And Roger?"
"Roger Madison."
His mouth dropped open, but only for a moment. "The Yankee shortstop who batted .304 last year?"
"That's right. You may've noticed the silver band he wears on his right wrist. I made that for him last March. He seems to think it straightened out his bat or something." She lifted the blue-andgold box and shook it gently. "He tends to be very generous."
"I see," Michael took a comprehensive study of the boxes. "There don't seem to be a great many packages here for you from women."
"Really?" Pandora took a scan herself. "It appears you make up for that with your pile. ChiChi?" she asked as she picked up a box with a big pink bow.
"She's a marine biologist," Michael said with his tongue in his cheek.
"Fascinating. And I imagine Magda's a librarian."
"Corporate attorney," he said blandly.
"Hmm. Well, whoever sent this one's obviously shy." She picked up a magnum of champagne with a glittering red ribbon. The tag read "Happy Holidays, Michael," and nothing more.
Michael scanned the label with approval. "Some people don't want to advertise their generosity."
"How about you?" She tilted her head. "After all, it is a magnum. Are you going to share?"
"With whom?"
"I should've known you'd be greedy." She picked up a box with her name on it. "Just for that I'm eating this entire box of imported chocolates myself."
Michael eyed the box. "How do you know they're chocolates?"
She only smiled. "Henri always gives me chocolate."
"Imported?"
"Swiss."
Michael put out a hand. "Share and share alike."
Pandora accepted it. "I'll chill the wine."
Hours later when there was starlight on the snow and a fire in the hearth, Pandora lit the tree. Like Michael, she didn't miss any of the crowded, frenzied parties in the city. She was where she wanted to be. It had taken Pandora only a matter of weeks to discover she wasn't as attached to the rush of the city as she'd once thought. The Folley was home. Hadn't it always been? No, she no longer thought of going back to Manhattan in the spring. But what would it be like to live in the Folley alone?
Michael wouldn't stay. True, he'd own half of the Folley in a few months, but his life— including his active social life—was in the city. He wouldn't stay, she thought again, and found herself annoyed with her own sense of regret. Why should he stay? she asked herself as she wandered over to poke at the already crackling fire. How could he stay? They couldn't go on living together indefinitely. Sooner or later she'd have to approach him about her decision to remain there. To do so, she'd have to explain herself. It wouldn't be easy.
Still, she was grateful to Jolley for doing something she'd once resented. Boxing her in. She may have been forced into dealing with Michael on a day-to-day level, but in the few months she'd done so, her life had had more energy and interest than in the many months before. It was that, Pandora told herself, that she hated to give up.
She'd dealt with her attraction to him semi-successfully. The fact was, he was no more her type than she was his. She jammed hard at a log. From all the many reports, Michael preferred a more flamboyant, exotic sort of woman. Actresses, dancers, models. And he preferred them in droves. She, on the other hand, looked for more intellectual men. The men she spent time with could discuss obscure French novelists and appreciate small, esoteric plays. Most of them wouldn't have known if Logan's Run was a television show or a restaurant in SoHo.
The fact that she had a sort of primitive desire for Michael was only a tempest in a teapot. Pandora smiled as she replaced the poker. She couldn't deny she enjoyed a tempest now and again.
When a small one erupted behind her, Pandora turned in disbelief. A little white dog with oversize feet scrambled into the room, slid on the Aubusson carpet and rammed smartly into a table. Barking madly, it rolled over twice, righted itself, then dashed at Pandora to leap halfheartedly and loll its tongue. Entertained, Pandora crouched down and was rewarded when the puppy sprang onto her lap and licked her face.
"Where'd you come from?" Laughing, and defending herself as best she could, Pandora found the card attached to the red bow around the puppy's neck. It read:
My name is Bruno. I'm a mean, ugly dog looking for a lady to defend.
"Bruno, huh?" Laughing again, Pandora stroked his unfortunately long ears. "How mean are you?" she asked as he contented himself with licking her chin.
"He especially likes to attack discontented relatives," Michael announced as he wheeled in a tray carrying an ice bucket and champagne. "He's been trained to go after anyone wearing a Brooks Brothers suit."
"We might add Italian loafers."
"That's next."
Moved, incredibly moved, she concentrated on the puppy. She hadn't the least idea how to thank Michael without making a fool of herself. "He isn't really ugly," she murmured.
"They promised me he would be."
"They?" She buried her face in the puppy's fur a moment. "Where did you get him?"
"Pound." Watching her, Michael ripped the foil from the champagne. "When we went into town for supplies last week and I deserted you in the supermarket."
"And I thought you'd gone off somewhere to buy pornographic magazines."
"My reputation precedes me," he said half to himself. "In any case, I went to the pound and walked through the kennels. Bruno bit another dog on the—on a sensitive area in order to get to the bars first. Then he grinned at me with absolutely no dignity. I knew he was the one."
The cork came out with a bang and champagne sprayed up and dripped onto the floor. Bruno scrambled out of Pandora's lap and greedily licked it up. "Perhaps his manners are lacking a bit," Pandora observed. "But his taste is first class." She rose, but waited until Michael had poured two glasses. "It was a lovely thing to do, dammit."
He grinned and handed her a glass. "You're welcome."
"It's easier for me when you're rude and intolerable."
"I do the best I can." He touched his glass to hers.
"When you're sweet, it's harder for me to stop myself from doing something foolish."
He started to lift his glass, then stopped. "Such as?"
"Such as." Pandora set down her champagne, then took Michael's and set it on the table as well. Watching him, only him, .she put her arms around his neck. Very slowly—unwise acts done slowly often take on a wisdom of their own—she touched her mouth to his.
It was, as she'd known it would be, warm and waiting. His hands came to her shoulders, holding her without pressure. Perhaps they'd both come to understand that pressure would never hold her. When she softened, when she gave, she gave through her own volition, not through seduction, not through demand. So it was Pandora who moved closer, Pandora who pressed body to body, offering hints of intimacy with no submission.
It wasn't submission he wanted. It wasn't submission he looked for, though it was often given to him. He didn't look for matching strength, but strength that meshed. In Pandora, where he'd never thought to search for it, he found it. Her scent twisted around him, heightening emotions her taste had just begun to stir. Under his hands, her body was firm with the underlying softness women could exploit or be exploited by. He thought she'd do neither, but would simply be. By being alone, she drew him in.
She didn't resist his touch, not when his hands slipped down to her hips or skimmed up again. It seemed he'd done so before, though only in dreams she'd refused to acknowledge. If this was the time for acceptance, she'd accept. If this was the time for pleasure, she'd take it. If she found both with him, she wouldn't refuse. Even questions could come later. Maybe tonight was a night without questions.
She drew back, but only to smile at him. "You know, I don't think of you as a cousin when I'm kissing you."
"Really?" He nipped at her lips. She had an incredibly alluring mouth—full and pouty. "What do you think of me as?"
She cocked a brow. His arms surrounded her, but didn't imprison. Pandora knew she'd have to analyze the difference later. "I haven't figured that out yet."
"Then maybe we should keep working it out." He started to pull her back, but she resisted.
"Since you've broken tradition to give me my Christmas present a few hours early, I'll do the same." Going to the tree, Pandora reached down and found the square, flat box. "Happy Christmas, Michael."
He sat down on the arm of a chair to open it while Pandora picked up her glass of champagne. She sipped, watching a bit nervously for his reaction. It was only a token after all, she told herself, as she played with the stem of her glass. When he ripped off the paper then said nothing, she shrugged. "It's not as inventive as a guard dog."
Michael stared down at the pencil sketch of their uncle without any idea what to say. The frame she'd made herself, he knew. It was silver and busily ornate in a style Jolley would have appreciated. But it was the sketch that held him silent. She'd drawn Jolley as Michael remembered him best, standing, a bit bent forward from the waist as though he were ready to pop off on a new tangent. What thin hair he'd had left was mussed. His cheeks were stretched out in a big, wide-open grin. It had been drawn with love, talent and humor, three qualities Jolley had possessed and admired. When Michael looked up, Pandora was still twisting the stem of the glass in her hands.
Why she's nervous, he realized. He'd never expected her to be anything but arrogantly confident about her work. About herself. The secrets he was uncovering were just as unnerving to him as they were to her. A man tended to get pulled into a woman who had soft spots in unexpected places. If he was pulled in, how would he work his way out again? But she was waiting, twisting the stem of her glass in her hand.
"Pandora. No one's ever given me anything that's meant more."
The line between her brows smoothed out as her smile bloomed. The ridiculous sense of pleasure was difficult to mask. "Really?"
He held a hand out to her. "Really." He glanced down at the sketch again and smiled. "It looks just like him."
"It looks like I remember him." She let her fingers link with Michael's. Pandora could tell herself it was Jolley who drew them together, and nothing else. She could nearly believe it. "I thought you might remember him that way, too. The frame's a bit gaudy."
"And suitable." He studied it with more care. The silver shone dully, set off with the deep curls and lines she'd etched. It could, he realized, be put in an antique shop and pass for an heirloom. "I didn't know you did this sort of thing."
"Now and again. The boutique carries a few of them."
"Doesn't fit in the same category as bangles and beads," he mused.
"Doesn't it?" Her chin tilted. "I thought about making you a big gold collar with rhinestones just to annoy you."
"It would have."
"Maybe next year then. Or perhaps I'll make one for Bruno." She glanced around. "Where'd he go?"
"He's probably behind the tree gnawing on presents. During his brief stay in the garage, he ate a pair of golf shoes."
"We'll put a stop to that," Pandora declared, and went to find him.
"You know, Pandora, I'd no idea you could draw like this." Michael settled against the back of the chair to study the sketch again. "Why aren't you painting?"
"Why aren't you writing the Great American Novel?"
"Because I enjoy what I'm doing."
"Exactly." Finding no sign of the puppy around the tree, Pandora began to search under the furniture. "Though certainly a number of painters have toyed with jewelry design successfully enough—Dali for one—I feel...Michael!"
He set his untouched champagne back down and hurried over to where she knelt by a divan. "What is it?" he demanded, then saw for himself. Eyes closed, breathing fast and heavy, the puppy lay half under the divan. Even as Pandora reached for him, Bruno whimpered and struggled to stand.
"Oh, Michael, he's sick. We should get him to a vet."
"It'll be midnight before we get to town. We won't find a vet at midnight on Christmas Eve." Gently Michael laid a hand on Bruno's belly and heard him moan. "Maybe I can get someone on the phone."
"Do you think it's something he ate?"
"Sweeney's been supervising his feeding like a new mother." On cue Bruno struggled and shuddered and relieved himself of what offended his stomach. Exhausted from the effort, he lay back and dozed fitfully. "Something he drank," Michael murmured.
Pampering and soothing, Pandora stroked the dog. "That little bit of champagne shouldn't have made him ill." Because the dog was already resting easier, she relaxed a bit. "Charles isn't going to be pleased Bruno cast up his accounts on the carpet. Maybe I should—" She broke off as Michael grabbed her arm.
"How much champagne did you drink?"
"Only a sip. Why—" She broke off again to stare. "The champagne. You think something's wrong with it?"
"I think I'm an idiot for not suspecting an anonymous present." He grabbed her by the chin. "Only a sip. You're sure? How do you feel?"
Her skin had gone cold, but she answered calmly enough. "I'm tine. Look at my glass, it's still full." She turned her head to look at it herself. "You—you think it was poisoned?"
"We'll find out."
Logic seeped through, making her shake her head. "But, Michael, the wine was corked. How could it have been tampered with?"
"The first season on Logan I used a device like this." He thought back, remembering how he'd tested the theory by adding food coloring to a bottle of Dom Perignon. "The killer poisoned champagne by shooting cyanide through the cork with a hypodermic."
"Fiction," Pandora claimed, and fought a shiver. "That's just fiction."
"Until we find out differently, we're going to treat it as fact. The rest of the bottle's going into New York to Sanfield Labs for testing."
Shaky, Pandora swallowed. "For testing," she said on an unsteady breath. "All right, I suppose we'll both be easier when we're sure. Do you know someone who works there?"
"We own Sanfield." He looked down at the sleeping puppy. "Or we will own it in a matter of months. That's just one of the reasons someone might've sent us some doctored champagne."
"Michael, if it was poisoned..." She tried to imagine it and found it nearly impossible. "If it was poisoned," she repeated, "this wouldn't just be a game anymore."
He thought of what might have happened if they hadn't been distracted from the wine. "No, it wouldn't be a game."
"It doesn't make any sense." Uneasy and fighting to calm herself, Pandora rose. "Vandalism I can see, petty annoyances I can understand, but I just can't attribute something like this to one of the family. We're probably overreacting. Bruno's had too much excitement. He could very well have picked up something in the pound."
"I had him sent to the vet for his shots before he was delivered here yesterday." Michael's voice was calm, but his eyes were hot. "He was healthy, Pandora, until he lapped up some spilled champagne."
One look at him told her rationalizing was useless. "All right. The wine should be tested in any case so we can stop speculating. We can't do anything about it until day after tomorrow. In the meantime, I don't want to dwell on it."
"Pulling the blinds down, Pandora?"
"No." She picked up Bruno, who whimpered and burrowed into her breast. "But until it's proven, I don't want to consider that a member of my family tried to kill me. I'll fix him something warm to drink, then I'm going to take him upstairs. I'll keep an eye on him tonight."
"All right." Fighting a combination of frustration and fury, Michael stood by the fire.
Long after midnight when he couldn't sleep, couldn't work, Michael looked in on her. She'd left a light burning low across the room so that the white spreads and covers took on a rosy hue. Outside snow was falling again in big, festive flakes. Michael could see her, curled in the wide bed, the blankets up to her chin. The fire was nearly out. On the rug in front of it, the puppy snored. She'd put a mohair throw over him and had set a shallow bowl filled with what looked like tea nearby. Michael crouched beside the dog.
"Poor fella," he murmured. As he stroked, Bruno stirred, whimpered, then settled again.
"I think he's better."
Glancing over, Michael saw the light reflected in Pandora's eyes. Her hair was tousled, her skin pale and soft. Her shoulders, gently sloped, rose just above the covers pooled around her. She looked beautiful, desirable, arousing. He told himself he was mad. Pandora didn't fit into his carefully detailed notion of beauty. Michael looked back at the dog.
"Just needs to sleep it off. You could use another log on this fire." Needing to keep busy, Michael dug in the woodbox, then added a log to the coals.
'Thanks. Can't sleep?"
"No."
"Me, either." They sat in silence a moment, Pandora in the big bed, Michael on the hearth rug. The fire crackled greedily at the fresh log and flickered light and shadow. At length, she drew her knees up to her chest. "Michael, I'm frightened."
It wasn't an easy admission. He knew it cost her to tell him. He stirred at the fire a moment, then spoke lightly as he replaced the screen. "We can leave. We can drive into New York tomorrow and stay there. Forget this whole business and enjoy the holidays."
She didn't speak for a minute, but she watched him carefully. His face was turned away toward the fire so that she had to judge his feelings by the way he held himself. "Is that what you want to do?"
He thought of Jolley, then he thought of Pandora. Every muscle in his body tightened. "Sure." He tossed it off like a shrug. "I've got to think about myself." He said it as if to remind himself it had once been true.
"For someone who earns his living by making up stories, you're a lousy liar." She waited until he turned to face her. "You don't want to go back. What you want is to gather all our relatives together and beat them up."
"Can you see me pounding Aunt Patience?"
"With a few exceptions," Pandora temporized. "But the last thing you want is to give up."
"All right, that's me." He rose and, hands in pockets, paced back and forth in front of the fire. He could smell the woodsmoke mixed with some light scent from one of the bottles on Pandora's dresser. "What about you? You didn't want to hassle with this whole business from the beginning. I talked you into it. I feel responsible."
For the first time in hours she felt her humor return. "I hate to dent your ego, Michael, but you didn't talk me into anything. No one does. And I'm completely responsible for myself. I don't want to quit," she added before he could speak. "I said I didn't want the money, and that was true. I also said I didn't need it, and that's not precisely true. Over and above that, there's pride. I'm frightened, yes, but I don't want to quit. Oh, stop pacing around and come sit down." The order was cross and impatient, nearly making him smile. He came over and sat on the bed.
"Better?"
She gave him a long, steady look that had the hint of a smile fading. "Yes. Michael, I've been lying here for hours thinking this thing through. I've realized a few things. You called me a snob once, and perhaps you were right in a way. I've never thought much about money. Never allowed myself to. When Uncle Jolley cut everyone out, I thought of it as a cross between a joke and a slap on the wrist. I figured they'd grumble and complain certainly, but that was all." She lifted her hand palm up. "It was only money, and every one of them has their own."
"Ever heard of greed or the lust for power?"
"That's just it, I didn't think. How much do I know about any of those people? They bore or annoy me from time to time, but I've never thought about them as individuals." Now she ran the hand through her hair so that the blankets fell to her waist. "Ginger must be about the same age as I am, and I can't think of two things we have in common. I'd probably pass Biff's wife on the street without recognizing her."
"I have a hard time remembering her name," Michael put in, and earned a sigh from Pandora.
"That's my point. We don't really know them. The family, in a group, is a kind of parlor joke. Separately, who are they and what are they capable of? I've just begun to consider it. It's not a joke, Michael."
"No, it's not.'"
"I want to fight back, but I don't know how."
"The surest way is by staying. And maybe," he added, and took her hand. It was cool and soft. "Add a little psychological warfare."
"Such as?"
"What if we sent each one of our relatives a nice bottle of champagne?"
Her smile came slowly. "A magnum."
"Naturally. It'd be interesting to see what sort of reaction we get."
"It would be a nasty gesture, wouldn't it?"
"Uh-hmm."
"Maybe I haven't given your creative brain enough credit." She fell silent as he wound her hair around his finger. "I suppose we should get some sleep."
"I suppose." But his fingers skimmed down her shoulders.
"I'm not very tired."
"We could play canasta."
"We could." But she made no move to stop him when he nudged the thin straps of her chemise from her shoulders. "There's always cribbage."
"That, too."
"Or..." It was her decision, they both understood that. "We might finish playing out the hand we started downstairs earlier."
He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to the palm. "Always best to finish what you start before going on.
As I recall, we were...here." He lowered his mouth to hers. Slowly, on a sigh, she wound her arms
around
his neck.
around
his neck.
"That seems about right."
Holding fast, they sunk into the bed together.
Perhaps it was because they knew each other well. Perhaps it was because they'd already waited a lifetime, but each moved slowly. Desire, for the moment, was comfortable, easy to satisfy with a touch, a taste. Passion curled inside him then unwound with a sigh. There was inch after inch of her to explore with his fingertips, with his lips. He'd waited too long, wanted too long, to miss any part of what they could give to each other.
She was more generous than he'd imagined, less inhibited, more open. She didn't ask to be coaxed, she didn't pretend to need persuasion. She ran her hands over him with equal curiosity. Her mouth took from him and gave again. When his lips parted from hers, her eyes were on him, clouded with desire, dark with amusement of a shared joke. They were together, Michael thought as he buried his face in her hair. About to become lovers. The joke was on both of them.
Her hands were steady when she pulled his sweatshirt over his head, steady still as she ran them over his chest. Her pulse wasn't. She'd avoided this, refused this. Now she was accepting it though she knew there would be consequences she couldn't anticipate.
The fire crackled steadily. The soft light glowed. Consequences were for more practical, times.
Her skin slid over his with each movement. Each movement enticed. With his heartbeat beginning to hammer in his head, he journeyed lower. With open-mouthed kisses he learned her body in a way he'd only been able to imagine. Her scent was everywhere, subtle at the curve of her waist, stronger at the gentle underside of her breasts. He drew it in and let it swim in his head.
He felt the instant her lazy enjoyment darkened with power. When her breath caught on a moan, he took her deeper. They reached a point where he no longer knew what they did to each other, only that strength met need and need became desperation.
His skin was damp. She tasted the moistness of it and craved more. So this was passion. This was the trembling, churning hunger men and women longed for. She'd never wanted it. That's what she told herself as her body shuddered. Pleasure and pain mixed, needs and fears tangled. Her mind was as swamped with sensations as her flesh—heat and light, ecstasy and terror. The vulnerability overwhelmed her though her body arched taut and her hands clung. No one had ever brushed back her defenses so effortlessly and taken. Taken and taken.
Breathless and desperate, she dragged his mouth back to hers. They rolled over the bed, rough, racing. Neither had had enough. While she tugged and pulled at his jeans, Michael drove her higher. He'd wanted the madness, for himself and for her. Now he felt the wild strength pouring out of her. No thought here, no logic. He rolled on top of her again, reveling in her frantic breathing.
She curled around him, legs and arms. When he plunged into her, they watched the astonishment on each other's faces. Not like this—it had never been like this. They'd come home. But home, each discovered, wasn't always a peaceful place.
There was silence, stunned, awkward silence. They lay tangled in the covers as the log Michael had set to fire broke apart and showered sparks against the screen. They knew each other well, too well to speak of what had happened just yet. So they lay in silence as their skin cooled and their pulses leveled. Michael shifted to pull the spread up over them both.
"Merry Christmas," he murmured.
With a sound that was both sigh and laugh, Pandora settled beside him.