After Midnight (11 page)

“Oh, yes,” she replied honestly, remembering her unbearable pleasure when Mosby had asked her to marry him and she'd thought he felt the same raging desire she did.

“But you didn't?”

She met his eyes levelly. “He couldn't, Kane,” she whispered. “He really wanted to, I think. But he…couldn't.”

His breath felt suspended. “And you didn't want anyone else?”

She smiled sadly. “I'm afraid not.”

He stared down at her without smiling back, without speaking. “I see.”

“Your lover,” she began. “You said she'd managed to make you impotent.”

He lifted an eyebrow and faint humor stole into his eyes. “Yes. Well, obviously, you don't produce the same reaction.”

She laughed through the weakness and pain. “No, I don't, do I?”

His eyes slid over her nudity with gentle appreciation. “You aren't in any condition now. But later, when you are…”

Her eyes fell to his chest. She couldn't tell him about her past, or her present. She'd lied to him all around. He would have to know eventually who she was.

“It isn't that easy,” she said.

“I remember. You don't want to get pregnant.” He let his eyes drift down to her flat stomach and he felt a jolt of pleasure at the thought of it growing large, round, as his wife's had years ago. His wife hadn't really wanted a child until Teddy was born, he recalled. She'd been viciously accusing and horrible, until they laid the tiny infant in her arms and she learned to love him.

“A baby is…a terrible responsibility,” Nikki managed, without realizing what she was saying.

He wasn't listening. His big hand suddenly flat
tened on her stomach, so large that it covered most of her to the navel.

“Babies can be prevented,” he said. “So can most diseases, with a very simple device.” His eyes lifted back to hers. “I'll use one. There won't be a risk, of any kind, and you won't catch anything from me.”

“You talk as if it's only the risk I don't want,” she said. She was too weak to fight, and her illness had confused her. Surely that was the only reason she was lying here naked in a man's arms. “Kane, sex is more than a casual pastime to me,” she added gently. “I want to be loved, not had.”

“Do you think I won't know how to love you?” he asked quietly. His hand began to move, very tenderly. “How to please you? How to give you pleasure beyond your wildest dreams of intimacy?”

She pulled his hand away from her body with a shaky sigh. “What you want is a body to ease your physical need for sex,” she whispered. “Presumably, you already have someone you can do that with. I want much, much more. I want total communion and total commitment. I want forever.”

His face hardened and his eyes grew mocking. “Forever is an illusion. No one has forever.”

“I will,” she said stubbornly.

“You won't. You're living in dreams.”

“Then I'll live in them. But I won't be taken in
a fit of screaming passion and then discarded like a morning paper that's just been read.”

His dark brows arched in surprise.

“You know what I mean,” she said stubbornly. “I won't be a sexual object to any man.”

“You're naked,” he pointed out. “So am I.”

She dragged up the covers to her chin. “I'm sick,” she said accusingly.

“So you are.” He smiled at his own fallibility. “Do you want me to leave?”

She did. She didn't. Her eyes sought his and she vacillated.

He jerked the covers back, slid under them, pulled her close and replaced them. “Lay your cheek on my chest and go to sleep,” he murmured.

There was no more argument left in her. She closed her eyes and her body seemed to melt into his. Only seconds passed before she was asleep.

 

In the morning, she woke in her gown and alone. She must have dreamed the whole thing, she thought dazedly. But it had seemed so real. She laughed at her own folly. She really did have to get her life back together.

When Kane stopped in the doorway later to check on her, she smiled warmly but without embarrassment and said that she was fine.

“I have to make a few telephone calls, but I'll
come back in time to have lunch with you. Can I have Mrs. Beale bring you anything?”

“No, thanks. I still have some of the juice she brought me at breakfast.”

“Okay.”

He smiled, letting his dark eyes slide over her pretty face. Even sick, she was lovely to look at.

“You've got a little more color than you had yesterday. How's the chest?”

“It's better,” she assured him. “Kane, thank you for bringing me here and taking care of me.”

“How could I let them put you in the hospital, when you have no one else to look out for you?” he said quietly.

That wasn't true. She had a brother who loved her. But she couldn't admit it. “Thank you anyway,” she murmured while she wondered in a panic what would happen if Clayton should telephone late at night and not find her at the beach house. Would he rush up here looking for her, involve the police? She had to find a way to contact him.

Meanwhile, she looked at Kane with faint puzzlement and involuntarily, her eyes drifted to the pristine pillow beside her head.

He moved into the room and came to a stop beside the bed. “Nikki, it wasn't a dream,” he said soberly.

Her eyes dropped suddenly. On the covers, her nails looked like pink ice. “Then you know…”

“Yes. And so do you,” he replied with a quizzical smile. “Everything there is to know about me, physically. Does it matter? I didn't seduce you, even if it was touch and go for a few minutes.”

“I suppose not.”

“Don't look so stricken. A few intimacies aren't going to stain that snow-white conscience too much. You're old enough to play with fire, aren't you?”

He was fire, she thought, studying him. He was a wildfire, and he caught her up every time he touched her. She'd never known what it was to be so helpless.

“You don't know anything about me, really,” she said. “You might not like what you find out one day.”

“What sort of dark secrets can a virgin have?” he asked, his voice soft as velvet.

“You might be surprised.”

“And I might not.” He reached down and brushed the unruly hair away from her oval face, his touch as tender as his voice. “I'm not going to love you, you know.”

“I'm not going to love you, either,” she whispered.

He bent and brushed his lips softly over her fore
head, her closed eyes, her cheeks. He paused at her mouth, barely touching it.

“I'm contagious,” she whispered, a plea in her voice.

“You won't be forever,” he whispered back. He hesitated but after a heartbeat, he lifted his head.

He looked vibrantly alive, big and dark and dear. Nikki's eyes adored him hopelessly.

“Don't push your luck,” he teased with black humor. “Last night is all too vivid in my mind.”

“Don't you sleep with her like that?” she asked suddenly.

He chuckled at her fierce glare. “Not naked,” he returned easily. “Usually it's in a feverish rush and then I get up and go home. Neither of us has much inclination toward tenderness. In fact, she doesn't really like sex. She likes controlling men. I tolerate the relationship because I don't want commitment and neither does she. I like it quick from time to time.”

She was curious. She shifted a little against the pillow and studied him. “Was it like that with your wife, if you don't mind my asking…?”

“I felt very tender with my wife when we first married,” he said, reading the question. “I was in love with her, and she with me. We reached heights that I've never found with anyone else. But it all went wrong when she got pregnant with Teddy. After he was born, she lived for him, I sup
pose I did, too. We lost each other in the act of becoming parents.” At the mention of the little boy's name, something terrible flared in his eyes, in his face. The nightmare exploded, like the bomb that had wiped out the young life and all his hopes and dreams…

“Kane!”

She dragged herself up from the bed, shaky on her feet, but anguished at what she saw on his face. He was sweating and his eyes were wide, wild, dangerous.

“Darling, it's all right,” she whispered, hugging him fiercely. “It's all right, it's all right!”

He swallowed and his body jerked. His hands found her shoulders, resting heavily there while he fought the terror. He'd shut it out for a whole year. Now, with her, it was all coming back. The comfort she offered was making him vulnerable. He realized, shocked, that he felt safe to talk about it because Nikki was there to hold him when the nightmares came.

“Kane, don't look back,” she said, nuzzling his chest with her cheek. “You have to stop tormenting yourself.”

“They died,” he said in a ghostly whisper. “They were torn to pieces, lying there in the metal shards that had been a car.”

Her arms contracted. She could barely stand, but she couldn't leave him now. She smoothed her
hands over his broad back through the soft knit shirt and heard his voice drone on, the painful memories spilling over from his mind to his tongue. Almost incoherently, he told her all of it, and his voice shook when he reached the end.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry, Kane.”

The words were barely audible now as his voice and his strength gave out. He hadn't talked about it until now. He couldn't seem to stop. The fears and pain were dragged from him until he felt helpless.

“They never knew,” she assured him. “It was quick. At least be grateful for that small mercy, that they didn't suffer.”

“He was my son,” he choked. “And what was left of him…God! God, I can't…think…can't bear to think of it…!”

She reached up and kissed his wet eyes, his face, gently comforting him while he relived the nightmare. Except that this time, he wasn't alone. He didn't have to face it by himself. His big arms pulled Nikki closer and for the first time in his life, he clung willingly to a woman for strength.

Nikki felt the moment when he came out of it, when his own will began to reassert itself.

His big hands contracted roughly on her shoulders. “I haven't spoken of it to anyone. Not even to my friend Jake.”

“It's good to talk about the things that hurt most,” she said quietly.

“So they say. So Chris says, constantly. She's a psychologist, she psychoanalyzes me when we aren't making love,” he said, angry at himself for pouring out his pain and angry at Nikki for being here, for listening. He felt her stiffen as he continued, “She's very inventive in bed. She likes to get on top and…”

She jerked back out of his arms, savaged by the deliberate revelations as he'd known she would be.

“There's no need for this,” she told him with cold pride. “I wanted to help, that's all. I wasn't asking for promises of forever or commitment.”

He glared at her. “You wouldn't get them. Once was enough.”

“You won't believe me, but I know exactly how that feels.”

“Yes, I remember,” he said with a mocking laugh. “He couldn't, could he?”

Her face paled. She turned and got shakily back into bed, pulling the covers up.

He hated himself for the look on her face. She'd been trying to help, but he couldn't accept his own vulnerability. He'd always thought he was invincible until Nikki came along.

“That was low,” he said heavily. “I'm sorry.”

She lifted her eyes but didn't say a word.

He jammed his hands in his pockets. It disturbed
him to see her in bed. “If you need anything, just sing out.”

“I'm fine,” she replied with involuntary formality. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

“Who else did you have?” he asked. He started out and then hesitated. “Where did you learn Morse?” he asked suddenly.

“I had a friend with a ham radio.”

He smiled. “You thought I'd know the code. Why?”

“You're a sailor.”

Something changed slightly in his features. “Because I can drive a motorboat?” he asked.

She realized suddenly what she'd given away. A yachtsman could be expected to know Morse Code. But would an ordinary boater know it? Perhaps. Probably. She had to bluff.

“Well, you did, didn't you?” she asked innocently. “I thought anybody who was around boats would have to know the code. I mean, what if you had a communications breakdown or something and a lot of static?”

The suspicion slowly faded. “I guess so,” he said, and laughed dryly at his own sudden stupidity.

He shook his head as he turned and left the room. Nikki stared at the closed door for a long time. He wasn't the only one with unpleasant memories, and he'd brought some of her own back.
She had to get well quickly and get out of here. Charleston seemed very far away, and there was Clayton to inform about her illness. She only hoped that he didn't decide to telephone the beach house in her absence. Things could get very, very complicated if he did.