By Desire Bound Page 6

  "Lavinia," he said flatly.

  His reaction bothered her. He couldn't understand about Lavinia. She wasn't soft or lovable. She was as avaricious as the rest of them. More so, because she had been the driving force to keep the secret that Con was still alive. But obviously, from the expression on his face, the bracelet had aroused some deep cozy memory, and if he had a choice, she thought warily, he wouldn't let

  it go.

  But he had no choice; Lavinia would kill him if she could find him, and they had to get out of England as soon as possible.

  "Not less than fifty pounds," she echoed. "And the necklaces proportionately more, I would guess. Do you

  want to ... ?"

  "No," he said abruptly. "I don't want to know." "But you remember," she persisted. "And you know

  we have to go."

  He hesitated before he answered. How much, how

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  little to tell her. She didn't know it, but she had, with her words, aroused in him again the instinct of the hunter. And she had said it more than once: he didn't want anyone else to claim The Eye of God. He had found it, and it was his, and while it remained hidden, he still owned it.

  But now, without a doubt, Lavinia was searching for him, just as Darcie said. And Lavinia wanted both of them, to claim different treasures.

  No one will have The Eye of God but me . . .

  Darcie had called it. He was every bit as much the mercenary as she.

  "Sell the bracelet," he said, his tone firm and devoid of emotion. "We'll go to France."

  Dark, dark, dark . . . time meant nothing to him. It could have been morning or midnight when Darcie left him, and he railed against the darkness that held him captive. He was helpless as a baby in the darkness, much more so than he had been in any prison when he'd had his sight.

  To depend entirely on Darcie ... a liar, a cheat, a thief. A woman married to one man for privilege and power, and hopelessly, impossibly in love with another—

  Darcie, who'd given him back his life . . . and he, like a genie, could grant her fondest wish . . .

  "Con ..." Darcie, at the door.

  "How much did you get?"

  "More than your estimate," she whispered. "Shhh ... the walls are thin as paper." He felt her weight depress the mattress where he lay. "Listen, everything is ar­ranged. In two days, we can sail for Le Havre. I have the papers, I bought suitcases, and some things we'll need, and I figured out a disguise. We're going to be a nurse

  and her elderly patient. No one will think to question it. I don't suppose you speak French?" she added hopefully. Her efficiency was stunning. "As it happens, I do," he said dryly.

  "I should have known," she murmured. "Well then, I've got a wheelchair down at the front desk. You'll pre­tend to be old and ill, and we'll just wheel you on board, keep to our cabin, and any time we go on deck, I'll take you in the chair and no one will think we're anything but nurse and patient."

  He was shaking his head, and she felt her heart plum­met. "Don't you think it's a good idea?"

  "I forgot: we're not safe in Portsmouth, whatever that means. What does it mean, by the way? And I think you're crazy if you imagine anyone's going to think I'm elderly."

  "But you haven't seen yourself. Your hair and your beard are longer than St. Nicholas's. All we have to do is powder it and you'll hunch over, so you don't look so tall, and you'll wear this hat—" She put a slouchy felt hat in his hands, "—and no one will know the dif­ference."

  He pulled the hat over his ears, and slouched down.

  "Like that?"

  "Absolutely. That's very good, Con. Have you done

  this before?"

  "In another life," he muttered, removing the hat.

  "God, I hate the darkness."

  "Con—" she touched his arm. "I don't think Lavinia knows we're here, but I felt something ominous when I stepped off the train."

  "That's too nebulous for me," he said, a bad feeling settling in his gut. Something ominous ... he had a feel­ing he was about to hear something ominous.

  "They're trying to get a step ahead of you. They're

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  after The Eye of God, and if they can find you, they think

  you'll lead them to it."

  And who had him so obviously in tow? Who conceivably

  could be working for Lavinia? Whose every word could be a

  lie? Who was in love with Con Pengellis? And how badly did

  she want a piece of the prize?

  "So why exactly am I going to do that, Darcie?" "Because," she said emphatically, "you want it for

  yourself."

  She lay beside him on the rickety bed, her body stiff as a board so that she wouldn't inadvertently touch him. God, if she touched him ... if he even knew, even had a hint about what she felt about him—

  It was all she could do to keep the goal in sight. The diamond. Her father. What he lived for. What she could die far.

  She could do it. She was strong enough for both of them. She had taken care of her father all those years before, now she would take care of Con. She saw it as a simple extension of what she had done all her life.

  Only now, so much more was at stake.

  What would she have done if none of this had happened ? If Con had really died? How long could she have evaded La­vinia?

  Her heart pounded painfully. An easier task than elud­ing her with a blind man keeping pace behind her.

  It didn't matter. She could do it. And no matter what happened, it was still easier to travel with him than to go on by herself.

  She hadn't forgotten that kiss. She had a feeling he hadn't either. But it had been a kiss to exert domina­tion. She had understood that and reacted accordingly.

  She hoped.

  What could a man tell from a kiss?

  What kind of dreams had she woven around the feel­ings from that kiss? Impossible dreams. Dreams she had tamped into nothingness because she had no right to

  have them.

  But she-was the one lying next to him in a seedy hotel on the edge of oblivion. Fate . . . ? She had thought that when she'd found him. She didn't trust in fate; fate was capricious. Anything could tip the balance.

  If she moved one inch, it would tip the balance. One inch and she would fall fast and hard into the darkness, and welcome it with open arms.

  Thank God, she had kept them moving so she could defy the darkness. But moments like these scared her. She felt his heat, his skepticism, his need, and she didn't know what she feared most. She feared herself.

  She shifted slightly, unable to maintain the rigid ten­sion of her body. And he knew it.

  This wasn't supposed to happen. What could happen? Another kiss? What was a kiss in the scheme of things? A moment two people were moved to connect with each other, nothing more, nothing less. What could he tell from a kiss? Even she, who had flirted with lovers in the course of her marriage, knew a kiss meant nothing. She had learned to be as hardhearted as the rest of her set during her marriage to Roger. She could handle Con Pengellis.

  She shifted again toward the edge of the bed. Easy. She could put all feelings aside in pursuit of the dream. Con Pengellis had been a dream, she reminded her­self.

  ... A nightmare, given his blindness—but if she hadn't found him, she might be settling down in some small village

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  in Ireland or France, using Lavinia 's jewelry to maintain a modest and circumspect lifestyle.

  This was infinitely better. It was like her days on the trail with her father through Colorado and Nevada. Over the hill to the next big one. Around the pass to the place where no one else had ever thought to look.

  Familiar territory even though she was a thousand miles away from it, and her father had rea
lized his dream of becoming a respectable gentleman.

  All that gold . . . they found it—one big strike, one huge profit from the takeover by a mining company in Colorado. And then her father's last dream: marry a title. Marry money. His itinerant daughter set for the rest of her life; himself aligned with an honorable, giving luster to his otherwise vagrant family tree.

  And somewhere the future, he expected her to appropriate a piece of The Eye of God, whenever it would come into Roger's possession. It had been all he wanted before his death; she could do nothing less than oblige him as she'd always done. And then fate handed her Con Pengellis . . .

  She woke with a start ... oh God—she was backed up tight against his chest, the last place she wanted to be. And she had slept, when she'd had no intention of doing so. Why on earth hadn't she stayed in the bedside chair, as she had last night? You couldn't get into trouble if you slept upright and as far from temptation as possible.

  Or had she unconsciously wanted to provoke some­thing? Oh, nonsense. They were conspirators, he waxed hot and cold about her motives anyway, and she was making more of this than it was.

  He was sleeping; he needed his sleep after their strenuous trip and his grappling with his returning memory: his breathing seemed regular, she thought,

  there was no reason not to be at ease with the situation. This was not a scene for seduction.

  She couldn't relax. Her body tensed up. Her muscles contracted as she tried so hard not to make an untoward movement. He mustn't ever think . . . She'd make sure he didn't think . . .

  The hours stretched on, punctuated by the sound of a foghorn, the squawk of a seagull, her pounding heart, the feeling of his arm around her waist, the touch of his mouth against her hair.

  What did he see? She could be anything to him, any­one. She could look exactly like his deepest fantasy. He could be hers. He had been hers in her dreams, but it had been the Con Pengellis in the portrait, who could be anything she wanted.

  But in the portrait he hadn't had this world-weary face, or that mouth with its harsh words and ingrained cynicism. His lips had been, in her dreams, soft, coax­ing, obedient, teasing her, tempting her, letting her lead him to the places where dreams were made.

  His arm had not been hard, veined and muscular. His hands, in her dreams, were not rough, callused, hot. His body didn't pulse with that raw heat that was so disturbingly male.

  In dreams, he was cool, elegant, aloof, and he pur­sued her with an ardor that placed all the power squarely in her hands. And yes, she did show him mercy, she did. She allowed him to touch, to kiss, to command.

  The man beside her would allow no such thing. The reality of him was different, dangerous, hell.

  How far into the darkness did she want to leap? . . . as far down as I have to go to . . .

  No! She made a restive movement, and regretted it instantly. He shifted closer, and now against her but-

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  tocks she could feel the thrust of his erection, thick and hard as wood.

  . . . that far down . . . and he could take her and break her and she wouldn 't care . . .

  A slight lift of her head, a wiggle of her derriere, a twist of her body ... she could have him. He was awake, aware, his hand tensing as he grasped her hip.

  This wasn 't part of the bargain.

  Maybe it was . . .

  She was an adventuress, after all—and her father had taught her by words and by example that no sacrifice was too great for the bigger picture. And how many times had he used charm and guile to get them food and lodgings and transpor­tation. She wasn't stupid—and she had known exactly what the whole entailed, even when she agreed to marry Roger.

  And she'd kept her side of the arrangement, submitting all those bloodless, passionless nights that Roger had taken her, doing his duty, a lackluster lover, and earning the gold her father had stuffed into his coffers.

  But Con—oh, but Con . . . all she had ever longed for, in his hands, within her sight. Maybe she was a creature of the senses after all.

  But—she felt it instinctively: a bargain with Con, would be something else again.

  She had to decide if she was willing to pay the price.

  "Con?" Her voice was barely above a breath, pulling her back to him magnetically. She wanted no words; words would disturb it, disperse the fog of heat and need.

  "Yes or no, Darcie?" She liked that; a man who knew what he wanted, would take what he wanted if it were offered.

  "Yes," she whispered, and the word floated in the air, as firm and fragile as a bubble. She twisted her body toward him. She felt his hand skim from her hip to her shoulder, to her neck and her chin, and she shuddered.

  The touch of a sightless man, feeling his way in the dark. Unfamiliar territory but for her traitorous mouth. That he knew, and he hadn't forgotten. She had given too much, and it was too late to backtrack now.

  He cupped her chin firmly to position her mouth for the devastating press of his lips, faintly moist, against hers. The sensation spiralled all the way to her toes, and she parted her lips and invited him in.

  The dark enfolded her. She felt as if she were an island, alone with him, a part of him, and that nothing existed outside of him. Hot, wet, hungry: she couldn't get enough of him; she was neither mistress nor slave to him. She just was, drowning in his heat, her need, the taste, the feel and the sensation of him living in her

  kisses.

  He had all the time in the world; he explored her mouth as if it were a new world, as if the taste of her nourished his soul. She took him greedily, feeding on her dreams, her unacknowledged desires.

  She had thought she could hide in the dark, that nothing would be visible that she didn't want to show. But he knew everything, just from the taste, the touch, the ache in her. And then, it was too much, and too late to refuse him anything.

  She stretched against him like a cat, her body swelling with a shimmery longing that settled definitively be­tween her legs.

  His had nestled between her breasts, feeling the con­tour, the shape, caressing one stiffened nipple beneath the soft worn bodice of her dress.

  Heaven . . . luscious heaven, as if that hard peak were the only pure pleasure point of her body. His kisses drove her; the nebulous feelings in her took shape into something more potent and powerful as his fingers shaped her nipple in concert with her moans.

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  But the contact was not real, not strong; in a frenzy, she ripped her dress, her underclothes away from her breast to bare her nipple to his stroking fingers.

  And she almost convulsed when he touched it, cir­cling it gently and enclosing it in his long callused fin­gers. And she wanted it; she never knew how badly she wanted it. Her body sunk into a morass of voluptuous sensation. He knew just how to touch it, how to play with it and stroke and squeeze it. Never too hard, never too little. Always just the right amount of pressure and delicate massage.

  She arched herself against him, lost in his kisses and the keening excitement of his manipulating her naked nipple. She never wanted him to stop.

  His hot mouth, her feverish kisses, his knowing fin­gers, her frantic body writhing beneath his expert caress of her hot hard nipple—she wanted more and more and more. Both nipples at the mercy of those fingers, both at once. Her mouth, her body, her soul, he could have everything if only he never stopped the movement of his stroking thumb.

  The pleasure was too sharp, too necessary for her very being. And it was building, steeply, deliberately, deliciously to a hot hard peak that she willingly as­cended if only to ask for more.

  He gave her more. He deepened his kisses, and the pressure of his fingers against her nipple. Just that much more feeling, just that much more sensation. It crashed over her like a wave as he squeezed her naked nipple deliberately hard.

  Her body convulsed, she p
ushed against his invasive fingers, seeking the last hot spasm of pleasure, and he gave it to her. He wrenched his mouth from hers and squeezed her nipple hard between his lips that were wet with her honey, and she bucked against him like a

  gun as her body fired off one exquisite sensation after another deep between her legs.

  On and on, he wouldn't give up her nipple. He wanted it, and she pushed him to squeeze her, to suck it, until she was hot and dry.

  But she was wet, sopping wet, with her tumultuous climax and sobbing now it had ended, because that he had gently let her go.

  More . . . more than she'd ever dreamed—how could there be more"? She was insensate with the pleasure of it, and the way he pulled her against his chest in the dark.

  She made a motion toward him, and he pushed her hand away.

  "Next time," he murmured.

  Next time. She savored the words and curled up against him, awash in the lingering scent of her sex, and the heat of him.

  Next time. He smiled faintly in the darkness. Next time. A world of promise in his consideration and his skill.

  He had done what he had planned: tonight he had made her his.

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  Next time.

  Everything had changed. The next morning she felt satiated and raw. And she didn't know quite how she was going to face him.

  But of course, she thought ruefully as she tugged at her torn bodice, it wasn't a case of him looking at her. It was her shame, her need. If she hadn't crept into the bed, if she hadn't rolled against him, hadn't turned . . . if she hadn't let her fantasies override the reality of the situation . . .