Winter Roses Part 13

Ivy turned and called to her, cautioning her about the sudden deep creva.s.ses in the field. Rachel made a face and replied that she knew what she was doing. Just then, she tripped and fell into one of the deep trenches.

Ivy ran toward her. Rachel was hanging on to a small bush at the edge of the creva.s.se, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"If I fall, I'll tell everyone that you pushed me!" she threatened.

"I'll save you, Rachel!" Ivy shouted. "Here. Grab my hand!"

"Your hands are dirty," Rachel shouted back. "Dirty, dirty, dirty! You're dirty. You aren't my sister! I hate you! Go away! Go away!"

"Rachel, please..." she pleaded.

But Rachel jerked her hand back. She made a rude gesture with her hand and leaned back, falling deliberately into the darkness below.

"You killed me, Ivy. You killed me!" she yelled as she fell faster. Then there was a scream, piercing and terrifying. It went on and on and on...

CHAPTER NINE.

"IVY. Ivy! Wake up!"

Strong hands held her by the wrists. She was being lifted, higher and higher. Rachel had fallen to her death, but this determined voice wouldn't let Ivy follow her. She took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes.

Stuart's eyes were there, filling the world. She blinked sleepily.

"Wake up, sweetheart," he said gently. "You were having a nightmare."

She searched his face. "Rachel wouldn't let me help her. She fell into a creva.s.se. I couldn't save her."

His hands became caressing on her wrists. "It was only a dream. You're safe."

"Safe."

His gaze dropped to her bodice and his face seemed to clench. "You're sort of safe," he amended.

She was awake now, and she realized suddenly why Stuart was staring at her like that. Her bodice had dropped so that one of her pretty, firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s was on open display. Stuart had a ruddy color across his high cheekbones and his teeth were clenched, as if he were exerting maximum self-control.

"You...you shouldn't look at me, like that," she stammered as color shot into her own cheeks.

"I can't help it," he said huskily. "You have the most beautiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s I've ever seen, Ivy."

She couldn't have uttered a word to save her life. He knew it, too. His big hands let go of her wrists and took her by the shoulders instead. His thumbs eased the tiny straps over her shoulders and down her arms. The bodice fell to her waist.

He was only wearing silk pajama bottoms. His broad, hair-covered chest was almost touching her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"As I recall," he whispered, "this is about where we left off, two years ago. I even got the color of the gown right."

He had, but she couldn't answer him. She couldn't breathe. The clean, s.e.xy scent of his body wafted up into her nostrils. She felt his breath against her lips as his hands became lightly caressing on her upper arms. The tension between them twisted like cord. Ivy trembled all over as the slow, exquisite pleasure began to grow.

"What the h.e.l.l," he whispered at her mouth. "It's this or go crazy..."

His mouth opened on her soft lips in a hard, insistent pressure that held traces of desperation. His arms swallowed her, grinding her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the warm muscles of his chest.

She moaned jerkily at the rush of sensation.

He hesitated. "Did I hurt you?" he whispered.

"Oh, no," she whispered back, shyly lifting her arms around his neck. "I didn't know...it would feel like this."

He smiled slowly. "Didn't you?" He bent again, but this time his mouth was less desperate. It was tender, teasing. He nibbled her lower lip and smiled again as she parted her lips to lure him closer. His thumb probed gently, coaxing her mouth to open. When it did, his tongue slowly trespa.s.sed inside. "No, don't fight it," he whispered against her lips. "It's as natural as breathing..."

She felt him lift and turn her, so that she was lying on her back. His powerful body eased down over hers, one long leg insinuating itself between both of hers over the gown.

She stiffened, wanting more and afraid of it, all at once.

He lifted his head and searched her wide, apprehensive eyes. He brushed the hair back from her temples. His body was half over her and half beside her on the wide bed. But he didn't seem to be in a hurry. He bent and brushed his mouth over her eyelids, closing them. She felt her b.r.e.a.s.t.s go tight, pressed so hard up against him. She was aching for something she didn't understand.

He seemed to know it. "Ivy?"

"What?" she managed shakily.

"Lie back and think of England," he murmured wickedly.

A laugh jerked out of her tight throat.

He lifted his head, grinning down at her. He propped on an elbow while his other hand began to trace lightly, boldly, around a distended nipple. "Or, in our case, lie back and think of Texas." He bent again, brushing his open mouth along her collarbone. He felt her body shudder. He smiled against her soft skin as his mouth slowly trespa.s.sed down, close to but never touching the nipple. She began to twist helplessly as the sensations overwhelmed her. She was new to this kind of physical pleasure. Her reactions were unexpected, even to herself.

Her short nails bit into his shoulders as his mouth teased at her breast.

"You haven't done this before," he murmured, savoring her response.

"No," she agreed. She shivered as his mouth grew slowly insistent. "Stuart...!" she ground out as his lips traced very lightly closer and closer to the nipple.

"What do you want?" he whispered against her breast. "Tell me."

"I...can't," she moaned.

His hand slid under her, lifting her hips up against the slowly changing contour of his powerful body. "Tell me," he coaxed. "You can have anything you want."

She moaned aloud. "You...know!"

"Stubborn," he p.r.o.nounced. He lifted his head to look down into her misty, fascinated eyes staring blindly up at him. Her whole body was trembling with pa.s.sion. "You can't imagine how badly I've wanted your b.r.e.a.s.t.s under my mouth, Ivy," he told her as his gaze fell to her bodice. "But even in dreams, it was never this good." He moved closer. "I like feeling you tremble when I do this," he whispered as his mouth began to open on the soft flesh. "But it's going to be like a jolt of lightning when I do what you really want me to do..."

As he spoke, his warm mouth moved right onto the nipple and pressed down, hard.

She arched off the bed, crying out. Her whole body shuddered as the pleasure bit into her. She clutched him helplessly, whimpering as his mouth became demanding.

He rolled onto her, nudging her long legs out of the way so that she could feel him from hip to breast in an intimacy that burst like sensual fireworks in her body.

"Yes," she groaned. "Please, Stuart, please...!" Her voice rose as he pressed her down into the mattress. "Oh, please, don't stop!"

His mouth slid up to cover hers, devouring it, possessing it, as his body moved sensuously over hers. She hung on for dear life. She was losing it. She wanted him. She wanted him so badly that it was almost painful when he suddenly rolled away from her and got to his feet.

She lay there, bare to the waist, shivering in the aftermath, too weakened by her own surrender to even manage to cover herself. She stared at his long back, watching him fight to regain control.

After a minute, he took a long, shuddering breath, and then another, before he turned. He stared at her hungrily, his eyes making a meal of her as she lay there, bare-breasted, her hands by her head on the pillow. He stood over her with eyes that burned like dark fires.

She moved helplessly on the bed.

"No," he said quietly. "There's a time and place. This isn't it."

"You want to," she said with new knowledge of him.

"Good G.o.d, of course I do!" he ground out. "I hurt like a teenager after his first petting session. Just for the record, I don't seduce virgins. Ever."

She drew in a short, jerky breath. "How do you know...?"

"Don't be absurd," he interrupted.

Which meant that she was as transparent as gla.s.s to him, with his greater experience. Oddly she didn't feel embarra.s.sed or self-conscious. He was looking at her boldly, and she loved his eyes on her body.

"I ache all over," she whispered.

"So do I." He sat down beside her and blatantly traced her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with the tips of his fingers. "I could do anything I wanted to you. But in the morning, you'd hate both of us."

It was the truth. She wished it wasn't. "Everybody else does it. They had a poll..."

"Polls can be manipulated." He bent and put his mouth tenderly against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Virginity is s.e.xy," he whispered. "I lie awake nights thinking about how I'd take yours."

She flushed.

He laughed. "Tell me you've never thought about doing it with me," he dared.

The flush got worse.

He drew in a long breath. "One of us has to be sensible, and I'm giving up on you," he mused, watching her body move on the sheets. "Come here."

He slid under the covers and tucked her close against his side. He turned out the light and cuddled her closer. "You can take my word for the fact that I'm violently aroused and desperate for relief. So just lie still, recite multiplication tables and try to sleep."

"You're staying?" she whispered, fascinated.

"Yes. And you won't have any more nightmares. Now go to sleep."

She closed her eyes. She was sure that she couldn't sleep with his warm, powerful body so close to her. But she drifted off almost at once and slept until morning.

When she woke, it was to a throbbing pain in her right eye and nausea that made her lie very still. The headache wasn't unexpected. Stress often combined with other factors to cause them.

Stuart came in with a cup of coffee, but he stopped smiling when he saw Ivy holding her head and pushing against her right eye. "Migraine," he murmured.

She nodded, swallowing hard to keep the nausea down. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be ridiculous, you don't plan to have headaches. Lie back down."

When he came back, scant minutes later, he had a doctor with him. The doctor smiled pleasantly, asked her a few questions, listened to her heart and lungs and popped a shot into her arm. She closed her eyes, unable even to thank him, the pain was so severe. She eventually dozed off.

The second time she awoke, the pain had reduced itself to a dull echo of its former self. She sat up, drowsy, and smiled at Stuart.

"Thanks," she said huskily.

"I know how those headaches feel," he reminded her. "Can you eat some scrambled eggs and drink some coffee?"

"I think so." She got out of bed and staggered a little from the drugs. "It was just all the pressure," she added. "I always get headaches when I'm under stress."

"I know. Come on." Instead of letting her walk to the table, he swung her up in his arms, in the pale gown, and carried her there. He sat down with Ivy in his lap, within reach of the late breakfast he'd ordered, and began to spoon-feed her eggs and bacon.

She was amazed at the transformation of their relationship, as well as his sudden tenderness. She reacted to it hungrily, never having had anyone treat her so gently in all her life.

He smiled down at her, his dark eyes soft and full of strange lights. When he finished, he cuddled her close and shared a cup of coffee with her. Neither of them spoke. Words weren't even necessary. She felt safe. She felt...loved.

Later, the limousine took them to the funeral home where Rachel's cremated remains were already interred in an ornate bronze urn. The limousine took them from there to the airport, where Stuart's pilot was waiting to fly them home in the Learjet.

It was like a beginning. He held hands with her on the jet. When they loaded her few possessions into his car, which had been left parked at the airport, he held her hand as he drove toward her boardinghouse.

She didn't question it. The feeling was too new, too precious. She was afraid that words might shatter it.

He pulled up in front of Mrs. Brown's house and cut the engine. He helped her out first, then he carried her suitcase and her bags of quilts and photo alb.u.ms up onto the porch for her. He sat Rachel's urn carefully beside the suitcase.

It was dark. Mrs. Brown hadn't left on the porch light.

"Are you going to be all right?" he asked gently, holding her by the shoulders.

"Yes. My head's fine, now. Stuart," she added slowly, "thank you, for all you've done."

"It was nothing," he replied. "If you hear from that drug-dealing boyfriend of Rachel's, you call me. Okay?"

She nodded. "I will."

"And if you remember anything about where that journal might be, call me."

"I'll do that."

He lifted his hand to her face and traced her soft cheek. "We didn't get to do anything about those jewels, but I promise you I'll get in touch with the man in a day or so and arrange to get them back to him. If you're sure that's what you want."