This Love Will Go On (5 page)

Startled, they both froze. Then Jade stepped behind her and folded his arms around her waist, pressing his body into his, making their two shadows one inside the leafy arbor, his urgent possession a silent command to be quiet.

She entered into the conspiracy, letting her body merge with Jade's and holding her breath.

“I guess she's not out here, either,” Marc's rueful voice said to whoever was behind him. There was a moment more of silence. The door closed with a soft swoosh and they were left there in the arbor with only the sound of their breathing, now suddenly ragged, and the sound of the crickets.

Then she became aware of other things, the feel of Jade's tall lean body against her back, the comfortable cradle of his arms… and the undeniable evidence of his arousal.

She moved, wanting to be away from him before the wanton thoughts that had possessed her a moment ago flared up again.

“Don't move,” he ordered roughly.  “Just let me hold you.”

The husky intensity in the words sent a white-hot fire racing through her.  “Jade.” She whispered his name and the sound trembled into the night like a butterfly in first flight.

He drew in a quick, tortured breath.  “Don’t say my name like that.”

“I’m sorry...”

His hand wandered, tracing the supple line of her rib cage.  “You should be sorry. You have a whole list of sins,” he murmured, “a sinfully sweet body, lips that are smiling instead of petulant, eyes that are honest and open, hair so long I could get lost in it…”

“Jade, don't.  Oh, please don't.”  Her heart was tearing, ripping into little shreds.

“Do you know how long it's been since I've tasted a woman's skin?”  The husky question sent a ripple of shivers through her.  He dropped his head to the side of her neck and lifted her hair to nibble.  His warm lips against her skin increased the sensual ache to an intolerable level.

“Jade, don't.”

He laughed softly and brushed her hair with his lips.  “Console me, Raine. Make me forget.” His hand moved up to explore her rib cage.  The sensuous feel of his hands and the agony of wanting him to cup her breast completely made her cry out in desperation, “Jade, I…I didn't mean…”

He touched her shoulder and with one quick move, he brushed her strap down over her arm.  Her fears, her anxieties were swept away by the heat of her passion. Her skin was on fire, her body and mind whirling with excitement.  He turned her in his arms and bent his head to the soft flesh just above the rounded curve.  She was powerless to resist him.  This was Jade holding her, caressing her, pressing his hot mouth against her skin. This was Jade making her blood sing in her veins. Fantasy and reality coalesced into a starburst of forbidden dreams.  The unfamiliar charge of desire exploded from deep within her.  “Jade, no…”

Against her skin, he murmured, “Yes.” His mouth moved treacherously close to the dusky nipple. She had read about the delights of a man's mouth on a woman's breast, but until this moment, she had never felt the agonized pleasure of velvet lips on her own smooth roundness.

Her mind echoed his words as if he had whispered them in the night breeze,
I can never
love you.
  “Let me go,” she whispered.  “Jade, please let me go.”

His hand cupped and supported her breast and his tongue came out and caressed the rosy tip.

“Oh!”  Her sharp exclamation brought a soft chuckle to his lips. His hands tightened at her back, steadying her to receive the deeper possession of his satin mouth.  Driven by a longing that had her fingers digging into his shoulders and clinging to him for balance, she called on the one name she knew would break the spell.  “Michele…”

His tongue stopped its slow, erotic course and his head lifted, shadowing her anguished face. In night air heavy with the scent of roses, the sound of their quickened breathing rasped in counterpoint, his a deep dragging in of air, hers shorter gasps that shook her pale, bare flesh. Flesh that cried out at the loss of his touch.  “You're still married…to Michele.”

A sound…a low, heavy, agonized sound issued from his throat. He twisted away and walked out into the night. She was left in the arbor, alone with the crickets and the fragrance of roses and the shadows. Alone with the breeze that caressed her bare breast in a pale mutation of a lover's touch. She adjusted her clothing and followed in Jade’s footsteps toward the door.

“Kiss him,” Marian, Tim's wife, chanted, her pixieish, freckled face alive with impish pleasure, her spoon clinking against the glass.  “Kiss him, Raine.”

They were sitting around the big oak table in Julia's dining room. Only Marian and Tim and the Kincaid men had remained for the after-party coffee. Julia sat at the head of the table and smiled at them as they drank her left-over punch, ate the last pieces of cake, and talked and laughed in easy companionship.

White cake crumbs clung to the corner of Marc’s mouth. Jade sat across the table from Raine, the mocking smile on his mouth sending a dagger of pain through her. 

The tapping, clinking sound beat into her brain.  “Come on, Raine.”  Marian’s little-girl voice had taken on a touch of impatience.  “Kiss him.  Kiss Marc.  Kiss him, Raine.”  A wicked grin lifted the freckled face.  “You’ve got to get in practice for the reception.”

Raine turned to Marc, thinking only of stopping that incessant beat of silver against glass, that needle-thin voice saying her name and Marc’s in tandem.

His eyes lit up. Then his hands reached out and he grabbed her bare shoulders. At an awkward angle that had her head twisted nearly to the limit, he pulled her to him and pressed his mouth against hers. His lips were warm and moist and heavily scented with sweet vanilla frosting and rum. She tried to move away, but he had her shoulders in a hammerlock grip.  Driven by his own fantasies and the rum in Julia's punch, he boldly deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue against the barrier of her teeth.  She twisted in his arms, and this time he let her go, but he smiled possessively at her, his cheeks red with a triumphant flush.  Her anger and annoyance increased.  No longer able to look at Marc, she turned away and her gaze slammed into Jade's. In the depths of those green eyes, contempt gleamed, a contempt that seared her, but was carefully hidden from anyone else by the mocking smile that tilted the comers of his mouth.

It was a fencing match and she was losing. His contemptuous scrutiny went to her mouth-the mouth that she had offered to him-and then to his brother, all within the space of an hour. Whatever scorn he felt for her, her own matched it.  How could she marry his brother after she had tasted Jade's kiss?

“Now, Raine, as soon as you decide on a date for the wedding, let me know. There'll be a million things to do.” Julia's voice, low and husky, delightfully feminine, sliced through the nightmare.

“It won't be for a while,” Raine said, wondering where the conventional words came from.

Marc’s hand covered hers.  “Why? We don't need to wait.”

Raine said coolly, “We don't need to rush, either.” As if it were a beacon, she felt Jade's gaze hone in on every inch of her face.

Marc said, “Speak for yourself, honey.  I’d like to wed you as soon as I can.”

A bright red color fired the skin in her cheeks.  “Marc, stop being such an idiot.  You've had too much punch.”

“We're not even married yet and she's already a nag.”

“That's something to think about, brother.”

Julia's reaction was immediate.  “Jade, don't try to scare him. Raine isn't the type to nag and you know it.”

“No, Jade drawled, “she doesn’t say anything.  But she has a vocabulary of eloquent looks.”

Laughter rumbled around the table. Only Raine knew that Jade's words were double-edged.

Later, when everyone had gone home but Marc, he coaxed her to come out and sit in the porch swing with him.  “Now, isn't this cozy,” he said, pulling her close with his arm draped over her shoulder. 

“Very traditional,” she murmured. “Smell the roses.”  Their scent brought the memory of Jade, and how she’d stood in the rose arbor with him and let him touch her intimately.

“Love is in the air,” Marc said softly. He started to kiss her, but she pushed him gently, keeping him at bay. She knew she couldn't endure another evening like this one, with everyone thinking she and Marc were a permanent couple.  In a voice soft with regret and remorse, she said the words that she would have given anything not to say. “Marc, I…I can't marry you.”

He pulled away and even in the dark, she could feel his puzzled eyes traveling over her face. “Why not?”

“It's just that I can't.”  In desperation, she launched into the rehearsed speech.  “We're good friends, Marc. We've been good friends for a long time. But being good friends doesn't mean…”

“Can it, Raine.”  The words seemed harshly unreal coming out of Marc's mouth.

“What?” She stiffened and tried to regain her emotional balance.

“I said, can it!” He got up from the porch swing with a force that sent it creaking back and forth even with her still in it. He thrust a hand through his blond hair and went to stand by a pillar, his face away from her, his profile lit by the street lamp. "I might have known it was too good to be true.”

“Marc I…”

“I told myself you loved me. But you don't, do you?”

“Marc, you're a good friend.  Maybe that's part of the problem.  Maybe we're too comfortable with each other. I don't love you the way people thinking of marriage should. I…”

“And besides,” the words were blunt and cold, “now that your sister's gone, you've got a clear shot at her ex-husband.”

Sick with shock, she whispered, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

He turned and took a step toward her. “You know exactly what I'm talking about.”

She fought to control her voice and her face. “Don't stand there and make wild accusations that have no basis in truth.”

He took a step closer. “Oh, they have a basis in truth all right.  The basis is my big brother, the lady killer, Jade Kincaid, the macho stud of Verylon High.” Under the words a deep current of jealousy vibrated, a current Raine had never known existed. Marc threw back his head and laughed, a harsh, unpleasant sound.  “I thought it would change when he got older. But it hasn’t. He's over thirty years old and you're still gone on him, aren't you?”

“He’s only thirty-two. You make him sound as if he's got one foot in the grave. And as for my being 'gone' on him…don't be ridiculous.”

He crashed down on the porch swing beside her, catching her arm and forcing her against the corner.  “I’m not being ridiculous, and you know it.”

“You've got a bad case of sibling rivalry, Marc, and jealousy distorts a person’s view of reality.”

“Was it jealousy that made me imagine I saw him with you in the rose arbor tonight?”

Shocked to the core, she stared at his dark face.

“You thought I didn't see you, didn't you? But I did. I knew you were there. He kissed you, didn't he?”

“I'm not going to discuss this with you.”

His harsh crack of laughter made the words die in her throat.  “Don't give me that sick little evasion.  You were with him and he kissed you. Your lips were swollen when you came back into the house, swollen because they'd been kissed by a man who arouses you more than I ever have.”

She sat stricken and chilled, listening to him, wishing she could deny his words.

“What's the matter, Raine? Can't think of anything to say?”

“Marc, please…”

“The hell with talking.  I'd do better to take a lesson from big brother.”

He bent his head suddenly and pulled her to her feet, covering his mouth with hers, smothering her words, kissing her with a strength and passion she didn't know he possessed.  His mouth hardened on hers and his tongue entered her mouth and ravished cruelly, taking all, giving nothing.  She pushed against him with a strength born of fear and panic.  He made a low, animal sound and released her, watching her as she sank back against the hardwood swing, her breath coming in short gasps.

In the cool, damp dark night, he stared at her. “I wish you luck with him,” he rasped.  “He was faithful to Michele for six years and that's a record for him.”  He peered into her face, a mocking twist on his mouth.  “I think he loved her once. But he has something else in mind when he looks at you.”

Outside the print shop, the winter wind whistled, driving gusts of snow up the main street of Verylon.  From somewhere outside, the slam of a door penetrated the air thickened with snow. The sound hit Raine's ears with the force of a gunshot.  She jumped, her nerves jangling.  It was the screen door flapping on Harry's Bar and Grill across the way.  Winter or summer Harry never took the door off. The person who let it bang moved away from the protection of the building and climbed into his car.

Raine gave up trying to edit the galley sheet spread on the desk in front of her and looked at the clock.  Ten-thirty.  Harry's customers were going home. As she should be.

She stared out into the snowy night. The screen swung on its hinges for another moment before it finally settled into place. The car backed up, disappeared into the white haze. She went on gazing at the winter scene framed in the plate glass window, mesmerized by the play of snowflakes as they danced in the air. Red and green lights on the little tree she had set out in the street glowed through the filmy veil.  With this storm, they would have a white Christmas.  The thought brought no joy.

She picked up the paperweight on her desk and shook it.  Artificial flakes drifted over the
fleur de lis
in a microcosmic echo of the world outside.  The tiny dots of white floated and settled.  It had been almost five months since her birthday, five months since she'd talked to Jade. Oh, she'd seen him from a distance, of course.  And once, she'd gone into the drugstore and he'd been there, talking to Sandy Tremain.  She'd said hello, and he'd answered in that low, male voice and immediately turned back to Sandy.  She'd felt the pain for days afterwards.

To fill the empty, aching spaces of her life, she'd thrown herself into working on the paper. They'd picked up some new subscribers in the area and four new advertisers. She hadn't seen Marc, which was not surprising since he never came into the print shop the way he used to do. He was avoiding her. She didn't blame him. She understood the unwillingness of the Kincaid men to see her, even though their reasons were entirely different. She understood but that didn't make her loneliness any more bearable. She had lost three of the most important people in her life at the same time. She was isolated, and very much alone. She couldn't confide in Julia. She had no one.

She rubbed her eyes and tried to focus on the work in front of her. She was proofing the story she had done on the school cheerleaders. There was a picture with the article. Krissy, Kim, Anne, Candi, Heather and Emma grinned at the camera, but unfortunately Kathleen Miller had been hidden behind the double tier of the pyramid. It was the first year Verylon had been represented at its games by a group of girls who were both willing to spend endless hours practicing and agile enough to perfect ambitious routines like the pyramid.

Crack! The slap of the door sounded again, and again Raine jumped.  She made a soft moan of resignation and reached in the bottom drawer of the desk for her purse and the headache tablets she carried now as a matter of course. Shaking two out of the plastic bottle, she got up to walk past the Linotype machine to the little room partitioned off at the back where there were amenities for living: a cot, a sink, a two-burner hotplate, a small refrigerator, and behind a closet door, a toilet and sink. She drew a glass of water and swallowed the tablets. The cot looked soft and inviting nudged up against the wall with the quilt Julia had made for it. How good it would feel to lie down, just for a minute, to help the tablets work.

She turned off the harsh overhead light, slipped off her shoes, and lay down. But even from behind the extra wall, she could hear the sound of the door across the street as it slammed once again. She moaned, dosed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her forehead, trying to rub away the pain.

Another sound came to her ears, but it wasn't from the bar and grill. It was the door of the print shop, its little tinkling bell banging against moving wood. A blast of cold air told her she wasn't imagining things. She had a visitor.

A chill shivered over her skin, not entirely from the change of temperature. There was absolutely no reason why anyone with legitimate business would come into the print shop at ten-thirty in the evening.

Her heart pounded. Swinging her feet to the floor, she told herself she should have locked that door.  It simply hadn't crossed her mind.  She wished now it had.  She was frantically trying to thrust her feet into her shoes when a sound made her look up.

The light from the desk lamp in the other room threw a halo around her unexpected caller's head and body, giving him shape and substance. She didn't need to see his face to know who he was. The wildly accelerated beat of her heart told her.

Jade said, “What are you doing?”  His voice was soft, slurred, that faintly puzzled tone totally unlike him.

He hadn't even asked who sat there in the shadowy darkness of the cot. He had known it was her and he had known exactly where to look for her.

She was no longer afraid, she was angry.  What right did he have to stalk in here like a shadowy giant in his sheepskin jacket and scare the life out of her?  “What does it look like I'm doing?  I'm trying to get my shoes on.”

“Are you ill?” He took a step into the room, and her heart reacted with an even more frantic bumping against her ribs. The soft concern in his voice was muzzy. Had he been drinking?  She'd heard he was making a visit to Harry's a nightly ritual lately, leaving Tate with Marc and Sandy Tremain.

She said coolly, “I was proofreading and I got a headache.”  With a sense of relief, she finally slipped her feet into her shoes.  Fully shod, she stood and faced him, fastening her eyes on the dark shadow of his head, knowing that the light was reflecting off her face and making it easier for him to see her than the reverse.

She took a step toward him. The faint odor of alcohol told her he had been in Harry's for more than a ham sandwich.  She said, "From the smell of you, I don't think you're in any condition to be worrying about me. You'd better go home, Jade, while you can still find the road.”

”I have been worrying about you,” he muttered inexplicably.

“Why should you?”  She longed to see the expression on his face, but she couldn't. 

“I've discovered I don't like playing God.”

Faintly alarmed by the intense tone of his voice and the stillness of his body, she moved closer to him. "What on earth are you talking about?”

“Marc has asked Sandy Tremain to marry him.”

His words were so far from anything she imagined, she was speechless.  He stood stock still, waiting for her reaction.  Time hung in a curious suspension.  She stared at him, the dark figure in an open jacket, hard, tough, lean and male, with flakes of snow melting in his amber gold hair.

He said, “If you still love him, I’ll stop the marriage.”

Her mouth lifted in a wry smile.  “I thought you didn’t like playing God.”

“I owe you that much.”

She sighed.  “You don't owe me anything, Jade.”  She added dryly, “I'll send him a punch bowl.”

He said something under his breath. Knowing that stress and an excess of alcohol had driven him to offer her this weird apology, she chided, “You've had too much to drink. Come on, cowboy, you need some fresh air.”

She tried a push to get him moving. Her palm slid past his open jacket and connected with his chest. His reaction was immediate-and violent. He caught her arm and swung her around opposite him, pinning her against the side of the doorframe with a strength that both astounded and terrified her.  She had thought him sloppily drunk, easy to handle.  She’d miscalculated badly. She stared up at the profile of his face, seeing the hard determination the gritty agony of a man driven to the limit.  His other hand grasped her waist in a grip of velvet steel. She wore a pullover sweater and heavy denim pants, but the material was no barrier to the warmth and weight of his hand.  Against her hip, his palm fit as if it were the mold she'd been poured from.

“Don't you care?” he muttered.

“About Marc?  No.  Why should I?”  Her breathing quickened.

“I thought you loved him,” he murmured his voice soft, as if he were thinking about it.  “But you didn't, did you?  You’re as incapable of loving a man as your sister was.”

That stung.  Her voice bitter and acrid, she replied, “Well, now that you've discovered the truth about me and eased your conscience, I know you’ll sleep better tonight.”

“I'd rather be sleeping with you,” his voice was a low, seductive murmur poured into her ear.

Startled, she reeled with shock. She fought her reaction to his seductive words with anger…and the biggest lie of all.  “I'm not…interested in you, \Jade.”

“Do you know what happens when you tell falsehoods?”  He tapped the end of her nose lightly, chuckling. Then he pulled her closer and pressed his mouth to her forehead.  “You're lying, honey.  You melt in my arms when I kiss you.  Your mouth is deliciously pliant when you open it under mine.  I can feel how much you want me every time I hold you.”

Her skin burned. She forced her voice to steadiness.  “You do have a colossal ego, Jade. Let go of me.”

He shook his head. “I could have walked out of here if you hadn't touched me.” He closed his eyes and lifted his hand to her cheek. His knuckles bent, he grazed the backs of his fingers over the smooth, satiny skin, raising fire.  “But now,” he breathed, his voice soft as thistledown “now it's too late.” His caress explored her cheek until he uncurled his lean fingers and cupped her chin.  “Tell me you hate having me do this to you.”

“Jade, stop it.”  Her voice was breathless, huskily soft. “You don't know what you're doing.”

“Don't l?” He laughed softly and shook his head.  “I’m doing what I always want to do whenever I get within fifty feet of you.” His words dissolved her resistance.  She felt his hand slide around her nape and hold her head steady. Breathless, she waited for his mouth to complete that long, slow descent toward hers.

His lips were cool and scented with alcohol.  He kissed her sweetly, like a boy wooing a girl on her first date.  For a long tender moment, he made no move to deepen the kiss.  He simply held his mouth on hers, as if the contact gave him a deep satisfaction he wanted to savor. Then he groaned a low sound of pain and pulled her deeper into his arms. Under the open edges of his coat, he 1ocked her in his male world, a world redolent with the aroma of good clean skin, alcohol, leather and wet wool. The lips that had been so gentle against her mouth now claimed her with a fierce possessiveness that heated her blood as it consumed her. His tongue probed, sliding enticingly over hers, exploring corners, dropping depth charges that resounded in the deepest, most feminine core of her.

Electric excitement raced through her veins and encircled her body, making her giddy. He lifted his lips. But as if he couldn't bear to break the contact with her skin, he dragged his mouth along a path from her cheek to her temple and buried his lips in her hair. She clutched at his back and nuzzled her face into his chest, feeling the warm strength of him everywhere, against her cheeks, her body, her palms. She wanted to melt into him and take away the pain he had suffered…and was still suffering.

She stood in his arms, feeling the overwhelming release of her love. She belonged here. She always had, since the beginning of time.

His hands moved.  Suddenly, he swept her upward, lifting her off her feet and cradling her against his chest.  Stunned, she looked up into his face, seeing nothing but a shadowy form and the dark hollows of his eyes. Peace vanished, panic took its place. The lovely feeling of being one with him washed out on a tidal wave of fear. The man who had picked her up like a woman he was carrying away to ravish was a stranger to her.

She lifted her head away from the heavy suede of his jacket. His breath fanned her face. Though he had been drinking, the hard strength in his arms and body never wavered. Some inner force drove him.

A primitive instinct told her not to betray her fear.  “Jade, put me down.” Her voice was crisp, cool and practical.  “You'll hurt yourself. I'm not a featherweight like Michele…”

“No,” he muttered. “You’re not Michele.”

Fighting the agony of hearing his wife's name dragged out of him, she kicked her feet against his arms and stiffened her body, hoping he would loosen his hold on her.  He didn't.  He tightened his grip and walked the two steps to the cot.  When he lowered her to the soft quilt that was still warm with the heat of her body, she took a breath and half-raised herself up, pushing against him. He came down heavily on top of her.  She resisted, writhing against him, knowing now beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had something far more elemental than simple comfort on his mind.  The struggling movements of her body only sharpened her senses and made more vivid the feel and warmth of him.  His hard masculine chest against the softness of hers exploded the guards she had built around her long-buried love.

She made a sound of protest and he eased away from her but did not let go of her. He merely held her with one hand and shrugged a shoulder out of his sheepskin coat. He reversed the process with his other arm, and the coat went sliding to the floor.

Her heart throbbed in her ears, blood pounded in her brain. 
Jade,
her body whispered. 
No,
her mind answered.
Not like this. Not like this.