tonight. Not when she was what he needed, what he’d hungered for without even knowing he was hungry.
He moved quickly, knifing his way through the clots of people filling the room, his gaze constant in its search for a flash of that pale face, that silken hair.
Liz Holcomb grasped his arm.
“Gage, you gorgeous man, there you are! I want you to meet…”
“Later,” he said, and swept past her.
Hank was next, appearing suddenly in his path with a portly, smiling gentleman in tow.
“Gage, old pal, here’s the mayor of…
“Later,” he said again, and kept moving…and, all at once, he saw her, hurrying out the French doors to the patio.
She was almost running, wobbling slightly in those ridiculously high heels, those sexy-as-sin heels. Past the string quartet, down the garden steps, past the fountain where cherubs and dolphins cavorted in cascades of illuminated water. Just beyond the fountain she paused, looked back. Their eyes met again and the heat he saw in hers almost made him groan.
Still, she turned and fled. Gage quickened his pace. There was no need to run. He was faster than she was and he knew she couldn’t escape him, not out here. The garden was walled; there was no way out.
He knew, too, that she didn’t really want to escape him.
It had been there, in her eyes. The need. The urgency. The hot wanting that pulsed through her body just as it pulsed through his.
And there she was, at last. She stood in the rear of the garden, where the darkness had gathered, where the leafy branches of the trees blocked out all but the faintest hint of moonlight.
Gage stopped, inches from her.
Her eyes were wide, her lips were parted. She was breathing hard, and her breasts rose and fell quickly beneath the clinging black dress. A strand of hair had slipped free of the pins that held it and trailed down her neck. Her scent, an erotic blend of jasmine and roses mixed with the scent of the sea beyond the garden wall, filled his senses.
He reached out. She drew back.
“Are you afraid of me?” he said softly.
She licked her lips. Nothing in the way she did it was provocative, yet the simple gesture made his body harden like stone.
He came closer, so close that he knew he had only to bend his head if he wanted to brush her mouth with his.
“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured. “Surely you know that.”
“You won’t mean to,” she said. Her voice was low and husky. The sound of it seemed to dance against his skin. “But you will.”
“No.” He said the word fiercely but the hand he reached out was gentle as he tucked the trailing strands of hair behind her ear. “No,” he said again, “I’d never hurt you.”
“You will,” she whispered, “you—”
And then, with a little sob, she was in his arms.
Gage kissed her mouth, her eyes, her temples. He knew he was holding her too closely, that he might be bruising her delicate bones, but he felt like a drowning man clutching a bit of driftwood. If he held on too loosely, she might slip from his grasp; too tightly, and he might overwhelm her.
She solved the problem for him. She moaned, lifted herself to him, dug her hands into his hair and crushed his mouth to hers.
“Babe.” His voice caught and broke; he clasped her face in his hands and kissed her, deep and hard. “Oh, my sweet babe.”
Her hands swept under his jacket, her palms spreading across his chest. She felt the race of his heart, knew it matched the galloping beat of her own.
“Yes,” she said, “oh, yes, please. Please…”
She groaned when he dragged down the straps of her dress. The swell of her breasts above the lacy filigree of her bra shone like fresh cream in the moonlight. She cried out when he buried his face in her neck. Her head fell back; he cupped her breasts, bit lightly at her skin, slipped his hands beneath the bra and touched the eager flesh that awaited him.
Her answering cry tore away whatever thin veneer of civilized behavior that remained to him. He made a sound deep in his throat, drew her further into the darkness, pressed her back against the wall.
She whispered something he couldn’t understand as he thrust his hands up under her skirt. Her hips tilted towards his; he brushed his palm over the scrap of lace that covered her. She was hot, wet enough so he could feel the slickness of her through the lace; she burned like molten lava against his questing fingertips.
He groaned, and ripped the lace away. “Come to me,” he whispered…
“No!”
Her cry rose into the night, sharp and piercing as the gust of wind that had suddenly come from the sea. Gage didn’t hear it. He was lost, blind to everything but the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her on his lips. It had been so long. So long…
“No.” Her hand clamped over his; she twisted her face away from his seeking mouth. “Stop it,” she panted, “Damn you, I said stop!”
The urgency in her voice, the combined anger and fear, snapped him back to reality. He went still, his body numb as he became aware of her struggles. He blinked his eyes, like a man who has gazed too long at the sun, and looked down into her face.
“What?” he said. “What?”
She was trembling and she hated herself for that, hated herself almost as much as she did for having succumbed, for having let herself be caught up in one blind, foolish moment of passion.
“Let go of me,” she whispered.
Let go of her? Let go of her, when she’d just been coming apart like a falling star in his arms?
“Let go,” she said again, and what he heard in her voice now vanquished whatever dream had held him. Reality was her cold voice, her cold eyes…
Her contempt.
The fire inside him died. He stepped back, adjusted his tie, smoothed down his shirt. She fixed her shoulder straps, tugged down her skirt.
“That’s a dangerous game you were playing, lady,” he said, when he could trust himself to speak.
Her eyes flashed. “You were the one playing games, not me.”
“Dancing a man to the edge and then telling him to behave himself might win you applause in some quarters, babe, but sooner or later, you’re liable to do that to a man who doesn’t give a damn about the rules.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. It was hot out here in the garden, but the wind carried a chill in its teeth, or maybe the chill was inside her; it was impossible to tell and she didn’t much care. All that mattered was how close, how dangerously close, she’d come to falling into the trap again.
“I
