CHAPTER 6
Kelly managed to wrap the towel that Dan had handed her around herself, but that was as far as she got. She stood there shivering, thinking that she should move, but unable to do so. Even though the eyes were gone, they were still ingrained in her memory along with all the horror she had felt.
Seconds ticked by, then minutes. The fear slowly began to ease from her, and a deep sense of shame set in. What must he think of her? Screaming her head off, jumping—dripping wet and naked—into his arms.
What was going on down there? Why didn’t he come back? Was everything all right? Maybe she should be calling the police. Maybe she had sent him out to meet some horrible danger.
No, this was a quiet neighborhood. Nothing was going to happen to him.
But where was he?
Kelly forced herself to step back into the tub. She steeled herself to go to the window, to look out. Someone was there, standing by the big oak.
“Dan?”
He looked up at the sound of her voice. “Kelly, I can’t find anything. Whoever or whatever was here is gone now. I’m coming up.”
She nodded, staring down at him, but she didn’t move.
A moment later she was frantically asking herself what was wrong with her, because he was back in the steaming bathroom and she was still standing in the tub with nothing but a towel between them.
And then, absurdly, she decided that it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had been wearing armor from head to toe. Nothing could be a real barrier between them. Not clothing, not time, not place, not situation.
Kelly McGraw, you don’t know this man very well, she warned herself. It’s wrong.
“You—you couldn’t find anything?” she managed to ask him. Her voice was quivering.
And it should quiver, of course. She had been frightened. But she wasn’t frightened now, not with him standing beside her. Her voice wasn’t quivering from fear. It was quivering because she could feel his eyes on her. She’d never seen darker eyes. Or brighter ones. They were deep, dark, fascinating, wicked and diabolical, both threatening and promising mischief, never malice. Ecstasy….
He cleared his throat. “There are some broken branches. Someone or something did come up the tree. But it—he?—is gone now.”
His eyes never left her face, but his gaze was like a caress. He stood so still, so tall, filling the room. She could smell his aftershave, and she could almost feel the rasp of his coat against her skin.
He cleared his throat—again. “Are you all right?”
Kelly nodded.
What did he really mean? Or did it matter? None of their words meant anything at all. She should be embarrassed. She should excuse herself and run into the bedroom to hide. She should be grasping for her clothes, but instead she felt the soft beginning of a smile curving her mouth.
“Should I get you anything?” he asked. “A drink? Some brandy?”
Me? he added silently. All of me. You’ll never be afraid again. I won’t let you; I swear it.
He should leave, of course. He shouldn’t be standing here in her bathroom. The danger was gone. He’d performed correctly. She’d screamed; he’d rushed in. The danger, whatever it had been, was gone now.
Gone—or just beginning?
Water clung to her in delightful droplets. Her hair was drying in soft golden wisps. The towel wasn’t really around her; it was just kind of against her. Against her breasts. She looked soft. So soft. Tiny, delicate, exquisite, like a china figurine.
But she wouldn’t be breakable….
His smile curved slowly, in answer to her own. He saw the pattern on the walls. Kelly’s towel, soft brown with an elaborate monogrammed M.
He took a step toward her, and she didn’t move, so he took another step, then lifted her over the bathtub rim and against him. He felt the tremendous shivering that seized her body. She didn’t look away from him. She tilted her head back, and her eyes met his. He could have sworn that his heart stopped. Actually stopped. He brushed his knuckles over her cheek, then held her face carefully between his palms.
“I promised your son that we’d go to dinner,” he told her.
“We will go to dinner,” she promised.
He bent down and kissed her. Kissed her with all the yearning in his heart and soul. His tongue slid over her lips, grazing against her teeth, plunging and delving into her sweet hot depths. His fingers tangled in her hair, those damp, golden strands. He felt her nape with his fingers, her shoulder blades, the smooth length of her back. She was soft…softer than anything he had known. Her flesh tempted and seduced him. He felt for a moment how very small she was, and he shuddered, but when he thought that he should draw back, she pressed herself more closely against him.
The towel slid from between them. She was kissing him back now. Her tongue, a sweet torment, was deep in his mouth; her fingers were entwined in the hair at his nape. They merged together in that kiss, and the night stopped. Time ceased to be. When they finally pulled apart, neither of them could breathe, and neither of them cared. He saw only her beautiful eyes, blue and open and honest, searing into his own.
“Oh, Kelly,” he whispered, and then he kissed her again. When he drew away this time, there was nothing left to say, nothing that needed to be said. What was happening between them was so right that it couldn’t be denied.
“Oh, Kelly,” he whispered again, and he buried his face against her throat, against the sweet damp scent of her soap, and when he moved again, it was to sweep her naked body into his arms, the only natural thing to do.
Her arms wound around him; her eyes, eternally blue, remained locked with his. Her fingers stroked his nape, and he was dimly aware that he was shaking. He had never wanted anyone as he wanted her now. She was an aching in his soul, a yearning in his heart. She compounded his desire with her own, and she made the experience transcend anything that he had ever known before.
He barely knew the way, yet his footsteps led him surely to her bed. He laid her on it, but when he tried to draw away to undress, she parted her lips and smiled, and pulled him into a kiss again.
He kicked his shoes off, far more anxious than graceful, and when the kiss ended, he was above her. Her smile, mercury and stardust, met him, and their eyes remained locked as he removed his tie, as she eased away his jacket, and they fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and vest together.
Things went in every direction. His vest to the left, his shirt to the right, his belt to the foot of the bed.
Only then did her fingers falter. He didn’t urge her to go on, afraid that the magic would be broken. He stood and shed his trousers and briefs, then fell down beside her again. For a long moment they remained that way, close, barely touching, feeling the marvel of their bodies meeting.
When he moved, it was slowly. He brought his fingers against her arm, stroking languidly, tantalizingly. There was so much to savor in just that touch. The moon was out, and he could see her, could see every exotic curve and plane.
She made a little sound and moved against him, and suddenly the world was filled with brilliant color. He burned with desire. It raged within him, controlling him, and there was nothing languid about his touch when he swept his arms around her and felt the liquid motion of her body beneath his. Too fast, he warned himself. Too fast. They had just met, and he couldn’t let passion take control.
But it had.
A hoarse, guttural cry escaped him, and he shifted his weight over hers. He let his trembling hand roam free over her breast, then touched that seductive flesh with his kiss, with his tongue, holding her nipple within his mouth, warning himself to slow down, ignoring that warning as her body arched against his.
Kelly decided that she had gone mad. But she deserved to be mad, she told herself. She was an adult; she was mature and capable and responsible…. And this was paradise!
Each time his tongue rasped against her flesh, each time she felt the deliciously callused tips of his fingers against her skin, she found paradise all over again. This was new. Entirely new. Once she had thought herself a decent lover. She had loved her husband, and life had been good.
But this…this was new. This was so intense that it was painful. So delicious that denial would be akin to death. This was something that she had never known.
She whispered his name out loud, harshly, hoarsely. His teeth were grazing her nipple while his fingers stroked the soft inner flesh of her upper thigh, and she seemed to become liquid, hot and molten. She emitted a small sound, and then a louder one, and then a searing cry as his touch probed within her, deep within her. The sensation electrified her, and she shuddered because it felt so good, so intense.
He told her to open her eyes, and she did. She stared at him with wonder, fascinated by the strength in the muscles beneath her fingers, enchanted with the passion she could read on his face. He shifted again, smiling, entering her, and she cried out boldly. For a moment she was horrified at the sound, but he laughed with such triumph and pleasure that she buried her face against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his back.
She savored each second, each movement, each slow, subtle thrust that brought him deeper and deeper into her, made him more and more a part of her.
Her blood seemed to sing in her ears, her entire body moved to the music, his touch. She flew, and she soared, and she sobbed, because she had to reach the pinnacle, yet he held her back again and again, so that she was forced to fly and soar again.
Finally she reached it: a moment so high, so wonderful, so good, that light had never been so explosive, color had never been so brilliant. She felt as if the stars were colliding inside her, yet she knew that she was completely of the earth. As she drifted downward she smiled, because once again she could hear her breath and his, hear her heartbeat and his. Feel her flesh, damp and slick, against his.
Dan rose up on an elbow, watching her eyes again and praying that remorse wouldn’t set in. It would be so easy for her to hate him now. Easy for her to feel that he had taken advantage of her, of the situation.
She smiled.
She reached up and smoothed the hair back from his forehead, ran her fingers over his cheek. He caught her hand and kissed her fingers.
“I think I’m in love,” Kelly murmured.
Then she did suffer a pang of remorse. What an asinine thing to say! Wouldn’t she ever grow up? Anyone with any sense knew that love and lovemaking weren’t the same, that a man might well run if such words were spoken too early.
But he didn’t run. He grinned. Slowly. His diabolical, Daryl the Devilish Dragon grin. And he kissed her forehead.
“Kelly, do you have any idea how beautiful, how sweet, how fresh, how wonderful you are?”
She colored and curled against his chest, fingering the damp curls of dark hair there, thinking that he was beautiful. He was in wonderful shape, his muscles powerful and fascinating.
“Really?” she whispered.
“Really,” he told her.
He slipped his arms around her and held her close. “What do you think that the kids are going to say?” he asked.
Kelly frowned, then sat up, laughed and straddled him. It was a wonderful feeling, natural and easy. “Actually,” she told him, her eyes sparkling, “I had no intention of telling them.”
He nodded. “Well,” he said consideringly. And then laughed. “Well, I hadn’t intended on giving them—what were Jarod’s words?—a ‘blow-by-blow’ description, either. But they are going to realize that we’re getting along much better.”
“Are we?”
“I thought we got along just splendidly,” he said, his dark eyes alive with sensual fire. “If you’ve forgotten already, I can refresh your memory.”
She smiled and leaned against his chest. “I’m still not so terribly sure that we get along.”
“Maybe not. Maybe only time will tell. Are you going to give me that time, Kelly?”
“Of course,” she murmured. “I wouldn’t have—I mean we wouldn’t be here, if I didn’t plan. I mean—”
Dan interrupted her, laughing, kissing her quickly. “Aha! You mean that it wasn’t the moon? I didn’t seduce you? You didn’t run to me in terror because of the eyes in the darkness?”
Kelly withdrew slightly, watching him through narrowed eyes. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Why did you say that?”
He shook his head ruefully, hoping that he hadn’t lost her because of his careless words. “No reason. I was just teasing, I suppose. Or maybe…” He paused, then took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Maybe I wanted it to be something lasting. Maybe I don’t want to call you tomorrow and have you pretend that nothing happened.”
Kelly stretched out beside him, idly running her fingers over his torso. Her? Pretend that nothing had happened? He didn’t know her very well. But of course that was true. They really didn’t know each other at all.
Time would change that, he told her. If she gave him that time.
“Mr. Marquette,” she murmured primly, “when I woke up this morning, I most certainly did not intend to spend the evening in bed with you. I didn’t intend to spend the evening in bed with anyone. But having ended up here with you, I can say that I did it with open eyes. Well, once we made the…connection, that is. Oh, that still doesn’t sound right, does it?”
Grinning, Dan said, “It sounds divine, Mrs. McGraw. Divine.”
“Dinner,” she murmured.
“Yes, I did come to take you out to dinner, didn’t I?” Kelly nodded solemnly. “And I simply can’t imagine having to explain to Jarod that we never got to dinner.”
“Neither can I.”
He kept smiling down at her.
“Dan, if we’re going to make dinner, you’re going to have to move. I couldn’t budge you to save my life.”
“Pity,” he teased.
“I’m going to have to shower all over again.”
“So will I.”
“So?” Excited, laughing, Kelly stared up at him. He shook his head, frowning.
“If we’re going to have to go through all that, showering, dressing, I think we should make it worthwhile. And I need to stack up a little time in my favor—numbers, you know.”
“Numbers?”
“Hmm. As in more than once. When you wake up tomorrow morning, I want you to think not of the man with whom you made love once, but of the man with whom you made love again and again and again….”
He bent down to kiss her. Kelly raised her arm over his shoulder and read her watch.
“Hey!” she protested—when she could breathe again. “You’re forgetting, dinner comes early around here! If we don’t eat soon…”
Dan rose far enough above her to glance at her clock and frown. He shrugged. “We can always drive over to Charleston. It’s not really that late.” He smiled at her, lowering himself against her. “We’ve got plenty of time,” he told her.
And she didn’t protest.
* * *
Twenty minutes later they were in the shower—with the window closed. Kelly had decided that she would much rather live with mildew and mold than eyes that stared in at her. Especially now…
But when he made an openly amorous move with the soap, she shoved at his chest and hopped out of his way, pointing at her watch.
“We really will miss dinner!” she told him. “I keep telling you, this isn’t New York or D.C. It isn’t even Charleston. Things close early here!”
He laughed and agreed and remembered that he had wanted to go to the Hilltop House because they could walk after dinner and take advantage of the beautiful view.
“If you can dress in five minutes,” Kelly warned him, throwing a towel his way, “we can still make it.”
“I can dress in five minutes, but can you?” Dan retorted.
“I can beat you hands down, Mr. Marquette.”
“Do you think so?”
“Hmm. And what are you grinning at?”
“Nothing,” he assured her, drying quickly, watching her every movement, then catching her briefly when she tried to slip into her dress.
“I’m not so sure about putting my clothes on, but I can guarantee that I could get yours off in way less than five minutes.”
“But you’re supposed to be getting yours on! Behave!” Kelly wailed. “Honestly, if we’re not in the dining room before the last sitting begins, we won’t get to eat!”
He could dress in less than five minutes and so could she—they both proved it. Dan protested that Kelly’s hair was still wet, but she assured him that it would dry in the car. Laughing, they ran huffing and puffing from the parking lot. They managed to get into the dining room just in time, and get seats right next to the window, too. Friday night dinner was a buffet, and their waitress, a girl Kelly had known for ages, warned them that they’d better get their food quickly, before the chef began to put things away.
Kelly piled her plate high, and Dan grinned and commented that for such a tiny creature, she could pack it away. She made a face at him and said her appetite was entirely his fault.
He didn’t protest.
They didn’t speak much until they had eaten, and then they both laughed again, because they had been so hungry. Kelly ordered a coffee liqueur and Dan ordered a black Irish coffee when they had finished the meal. Only then did his fingers fall over hers where they lay on the table, and only then did she smile a little awkwardly in return. The night was exquisite, as if Dan had been able to order it in advance. It wasn’t light, but it wasn’t completely dark. An echo of the sun remained in the sky, while the moon and the stars moved out, and a haze fell, tinted mauve and crimson.
“You know,” Dan said lightly to Kelly, “Sandy is crazy about you. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that. I’ve been pretty good at playing two roles most of her life—but mother of the pregnant bride-to-be was something I know I couldn’t have managed the way you have. Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Kelly felt a pink flush suffuse her cheeks, and she wondered how on earth she could still blush so easily around him. She lifted her glass to him. “She’s a beautiful girl, and you know it.”
“Yeah, she is,” Dan agreed, then he frowned. “You know, they both have to start making some decisions soon. This year will end; they have to decide on a college they can both go to.”
Kelly shrugged. “Jarod wanted Georgetown. He wants to be a politician eventually.”
“Sandy wanted the University of Miami. Premed.”
“Well, they’re going to have to compromise.”
“Yes, they are.”
“And they probably should—” Kelly broke off, hesitating.
“Should what?”
“Well, I was thinking that Georgetown would be the better choice. Don’t you think that it would be smart for them to be near us?”
Kelly drew her fingers back, watching as his lashes quickly hid the thoughts that might have been betrayed in his eyes. What was he thinking? she wondered. That she was on Jarod’s side—and against Sandy?
“You might be right,” he said lightly.
“And they’re both going to have to work,” Kelly said sharply.
He shrugged. “It might not be necessary.”
“What! Not necessary!”
“Kelly, damn it, I can help them.”
“You’ll wind up helping them straight into the ground! Dan, I want to help them, too, but they can’t shirk everything. Jarod was going to have to work one way or another, and work isn’t a bad thing!”
“No, it’s not, but I’ll be damned if Sandra is going to work for four years to put Jarod through college so he can start making a great income and divorce her!”
Kelly stared at him indignantly, then burst into laugher. “There’s got to be a compromise here. Really.”
“There probably is,” Dan murmured, and he moved his thumb over her palm in such a way that Kelly caught her breath.
“We can’t live for them—” he began, but before he could go any further, they were suddenly interrupted by a sweet, feminine voice.
“Kelly! Kelly McGraw! How good to see you, darling!”
Kelly swung around, feeling only the slightest dismay. The woman coming toward them was a very pretty natural redhead. She was exactly Kelly’s own age—and in fact had known her—though not always liked her—since high school.
She was also sophisticated and elegant—and tall. Kelly wasn’t at all sure that this was a night when she wanted to see her, no matter how long they had known each other.
Dan was already politely on his feet. Kelly stood, too, then wished that she had remained sitting. She felt ridiculously short. She quickly introduced her friend to Dan.
“Dan Marquette, June DeMarco. June, Dan Marq—”
“Marquette, yes, I know,” June said serenely, smiling brilliantly and pulling up a chair to join them, even before Dan had a chance to help her.
June grinned at Kelly. “Mr. Marquette is the talk of the town, Kelly, you didn’t know?”
“I haven’t been in town enough lately, I guess,” Kelly replied.
“And you know each other?”
“Our children are engaged,” Dan supplied.
June’s eyebrows shot up. “Kelly! You didn’t tell me!”
“June, honestly, I haven’t had a chance,” Kelly said helplessly, but June wasn’t really listening anyway. She had linked a long arm through Dan’s and was telling him that she ran a simply wonderful antique shop down in the historic section. “Just a hop, a skip and a jump from the Park, where I understand you spend an awful lot of time. You really must come by!”
“I’m sure I will,” Dan said noncommittally, furrowing his brows at Kelly over the rim of his cup.
Kelly laughed. “Down, June! Down. Dan, forgive her. She’s only been divorced for two years, and we’re still trying to teach her proper behavior.”
“Oh, nuts to you, Kelly McGraw!” June teased back. She smiled at Dan. “We’ve been trying to teach Kelly that widowhood does not mean instant membership in the nunnery!”
Dan choked on his coffee. Kelly reddened and quickly asked June how her daughter was doing with her ballet classes.
A minute later June admitted that she had come with a date. She beckoned him over and introduced him as Donald Milligan, an insurance broker from Sharpsburg. Donald sat down, and their waitress brought them another round of drinks.
They talked for a while about casual things; then June suddenly frowned and asked Dan, “Your daughter isn’t home alone, is she?”
Dan shook his head. “No. Jarod is over there, for one,” he laughed wryly. “And we have a man named Reeves—sort of a butler, sort of an old friend—who lives with us. Why?”
“Why?” June sounded concerned, and she stared at Kelly uneasily. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“The police, the sheriff’s office and even the FBI are after an escaped Tennessee convict. He’s called the Peeper. He was convicted of thirteen assaults! You haven’t heard? You didn’t watch the news?”
Kelly gasped and stared at Dan, ashen and dismayed. “The Peeper!” she nearly shrieked.
“Calm down, Kelly, you don’t know for sure. It might have been a raccoon or a—”
“What might have been a raccoon?” June demanded.
“Kelly thought that someone was watching her tonight,” Dan said carefully.
“Thought!” Kelly exclaimed. “I didn’t ‘think’ anything! I saw those eyes staring at me!”
“My, my,” Donald Milligan said unhappily. “What a shame that you didn’t call the police.”
“Thank goodness Dan was with you,” June purred.
“Yes, thank goodness,” Dan murmured.
Donald said that Kelly should call the police anyway, and she did, from the inn. Dan spoke to them, too, and then, since the dining room had closed, they all walked out to look at the view. After a little more conversation they split up and went to their respective cars.
Kelly hugged her arms to her chest uneasily.
“You’re not staying home tonight,” Dan said bluntly.
“What?” She looked up at him, confused.
“You’re not staying home alone.”
“But I won’t be alone! I have a son who’s barely an inch shorter than you are!”
“Kelly, the police made it sound as if this man is really dangerous. Kelly, to think that it might have been him, right outside your house…”
She shuddered, willing to rest against him. “Thank God you were there. And to think, we were so mesmerized by each other that we didn’t even worry… Oh, my God! If you hadn’t been there…! Jarod wasn’t there then, either!”
“That does it!” Dan stated flatly, gripping her elbow and pulling her along. “You are staying at my house.”
“I can’t! What—”
“You’ll stay, and Jarod will stay.”
“Oh, that’s just great! The kids will adore that!” Kelly blurted out sarcastically.
“Kelly!” Exasperatedly Dan pushed back a straying lock of hair from his forehead. “Not together. You can have your own room, and so can he. My house is enormous. We’ll tell the kids what happened—”
“We will not!” Kelly yelped.
“Not that!” Dan retorted. “We’ll tell them about the Peeper, and the eyes staring in at you. That’s all. Hey, they’ll get to see what they look like when they wake up in the morning. That knowledge just might help make their marriage work.”
“Cynic!” Kelly charged.
“I have a right to be,” he told her dryly.
“I don’t know, Dan,” Kelly began.
“I do,” he said, and he said it in such a superior tone that she was tempted to argue.
But she was a little frightened, too, so she didn’t. She stared straight ahead and thought of his face plastered on her mythical dragon.
He started laughing suddenly, glancing her way.
“What?” she demanded.
“We get to see each other first thing in the morning, too.”
“I’m absolutely glamorous,” she retorted.
To her amazement, he reached out and dragged her close to his side. “I’ll bet you are, darling. I’ll just bet you are.”
“Still short, though.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you? The best things always come in small packages.”