Secrets (26 page)

Her cries echoed outrageously. Even when the peak had passed, Regina heard herself and was horrified. She tried to pull free of Slade but he had no intention of letting her go. Instead he was propelling her forward, but holding her so firmly that his body remained pressed against hers. “No, sweet, no,” he panted in her ear, his phallus so distended that it stabbed her like a steel arrow. “Regina, don't say no, not now.”

Regina, don't say no, not now…

His plea echoed not once but twice, the hoarse sexual need amplified in the waves of crushing, erotic sound.
Regina was pushed toward one of the gaudy gilded chairs. As he moved her forward he was also pulling up her skirts in the back, his hand sliding along the curve of her bare buttock and pushing down her filmy white drawers. Being in motion, she stepped right out of her knee-high pantalets.

He gave her no choice. His other hand guided her quickly, pushing her forward and down, and Regina found herself breathlessly bracing her palms on the hard wooden seat of the chair.

He kissed her neck wildly, also bracing himself on the chair, pressing his erection against her backside. Regina groaned, arching stiffly and allowing his hand to slip down her buttocks and beneath them. She cried out again when his palm slid between her legs. This time he pushed two fingers into her hard.

She whimpered uncontrollably. Her groans had yet to fade, and now her whimpers echoed dramatically, overlapping them. She was aghast, dismayed with the cacophany she was creating, yet her body was experiencing an urgency that was beyond any semblance of control. She pulsed heavily around his hand. She was only an instant away from begging him for even more; for the heavy, thick feel of his heat and hardness deep inside her. He thrust his fingers deep into her again and she could not stop herself. She wept amid another mind-shattering spasm.

Her sobs rang around them. “Yes!” Slade shouted frantically. “Yes!” His words resounded, blending with the fading strains of her echoing sobs. He slid the massive length of his phallus into her.

Regina cried out exultantly. The room reverberated as Slade held her hips and began a determined rampaging. Regina heard herself encouraging him, not once but three times, heard herself begging him, every plea she sobbed repeated in a near-endless chorus, as if the empty room had a mimicking voice of its own and was determined to outdo her.

Slade gripped her and surged into her. Regina convulsed again, sobbing his name, and Slade cried out.

The room was spinning around her.
Slade…Slade…Slade
…it chanted. She collapsed but Slade held her upright, his arms damped around her to prevent her from crashing to the floor. She listened to the wild echoing of the room as her voice faded and finally died. She listened to herself, abandoned and in the throes of ecstasy.

She trembled. She remembered the mirror, one more unbelievable fact, and dared to peek to her side at it. She looked every bit as wild and wanton as she had sounded. Her hair had spilled free of its chignon. As he stood behind her, Slade had his arms wrapped around her rib cage, pressing upward against her breasts, making her appear dramatically voluptuous. Her skirts were up around her waist in the back, her buttocks starkly white and lush, pressed against Slade's naked groin. He wore only his shirt; he must have kicked off his pants at the crucial moment.

She closed her eyes. Heat flooded her. She should not have looked. And dear God, the noise. She would never forget those sounds. But just remembering, with the image of the two of them in the mirror, made her pulse heavily again.

“It was as good as the last time,” Slade breathed against her neck. He kissed her there.

“Awful,” Regina managed to whisper. “It was too awful.” Then she winced, because the oversized ballroom was not through yet, and it eagerly repeated her words.

His arms tightened. “You were as excited as I was. Don't deny it.”

You were as excited as I was…Don't deny it…

His tone stirred her senses. It was husky, low, and so obviously carnal when amplified by the empty room. She didn't speak. Denial would be ridiculous.

Slade shifted his face and she knew he was regarding them in the mirror. “Slade,” she protested thickly.

He began lifting up the front of her skirt.

“No,” she whispered, while the room whispered back, and despite herself, she turned her head and watched.

The luxurious fabric crept up her ankles and then her shins, revealing slim, curved legs clad only in pale hose. He bared her knees. She felt faint, yet was incapable of looking away. The garter she wore was frilly with lace and edged in purple ribbon. She opened her mouth to tell him he must stop, he must, but in the end she said nothing.

He lifted the skirt higher. Her naked thighs were ivory-white and lushly curved. Regina shook. Behind her, Slade's member rose hotly, pressing against her buttocks. He pulled the skirt up past her navel.

“No,” Regina breathed, not meaning it.

No
, the room breathed, desperation laced with desire.
No
.

Slade slid his free hand down the smooth white skin of her belly and into the brown hair at her groin. “You want me,” he said thickly. He made no attempt to keep his voice down. As if he enjoyed the mocking walls.

She shook her head while his words were repeated in hoarse echoing tones.

He laughed slightly, roughly, sexually. His laughter echoed and swelled, reverberating around them, while his fingers spread her. Regina sagged against him. “Please,” she cried wildly.
Please. Please
.

“Please this?” he asked roughly, delving deeper into her depths.

“Yes,” she half-sobbed. She dared another glance at the mirror. She was no longer shocked and no longer appalled. Her body was too intent for her to be appalled.

He lifted her abruptly and sat her down in the chair. He did not pull her skirts down, but pushed them further up. Before Regina could protest he gripped her chin hard, kissing her mouth savagely. She gripped his face and kissed him back, their mouths fusing, their tongues sparring recklessly.

Slade suddenly slid to his knees on the floor. He pushed her thighs open wide. Regina cried out at the onslaught of his tongue. He held her open with his thumbs, his tongue a relentless, silent invader. Regina
shook wildly, and accidentally glimpsed them in the mirror.

Too late. It was too late to protest and too late to stop. She gripped his head, flinging hers back, sobbing ecstatically, her wild cries filling up the room, amplified a hundred times over. When she slumped back in exhaustion, her cries continued to wash over them. He rose lithely to his feet, slid a hand under her to lift her, and thrust into her again. An instant later he yanked the chair from behind her so that her back found the wall. She rode up it, pushed there by his pounding. Seconds later that dissatisfied him, too. He sank to the floor, taking her with him. He plunged wildly into her again.

Regina was no longer tired. She gripped him savagely, crying out in encouragement, spurred on by the fever-pitch of his excitement and the mad echoing of the room. His heavy panting resounded. The slapping of their bodies reverberated. Her cries echoed. The room was filled with sound after sound crashing over them. His breathing reached a crescendo. Amplified as it was, it sent her over the brink. He followed, this time shouting his release.

 

Once again, Regina could not believe what they had done. She lay on the bare, cold floor, naked to the waist, Slade beside her. His arms were around her. One of his hands cupped her breast possessively.

She did not regret it. She was shocked at what they had done and at her own uninhibited participation, but she did not regret it. Not quite calm, not quite collected, she pulled her skirts down. She dared to look at Slade, and saw that he was amused. But it was not his amusement that startled her, it was the tenderness of his expression.

“You don't have to hide from me,” he said softly. When his words echoed, he smiled.

“I don't want to,” she confessed in a small voice. “But I think it's only proper.”

He laughed then. She grew still. The lines around his eyes had deepened with his laughter. Then he grew
serious, gazing back at her. “I'm glad you're proper, Regina. I want you to be proper. You are such a lady that I cannot really believe you would want me. But I never want to see propriety when we're making love.”

Despite herself, she blushed. “I don't think you have to worry about that.” She was thrilled. He could berate her for her passionate nature, he could find it defective, as many husbands would, but he did not. How lucky she was.

“No,” he agreed, pleased, “I don't think so.” He began plucking at her nipple.

Amazingly, her whole body began yearning for his touch and invasion again.

“I will never be able to get enough of you,” he whispered. “You are so beautiful—and so perfect.”

She was anything but perfect, as this moment showed, but she would not dispute him. Tears filled her eyes. “You are beautiful, too.”

“But not perfect.”

Her gaze, which had been on his lean hands as they stroked her, flew to his. She breathed in relief when she saw he was smiling. “No, not perfect. But it does not matter to me.”

His eyes darkened. He gripped the lapels of her jacket and pulled her beneath him. Regina lay absolutely still. He leaned over her. “Am I forgiven?”

She did not have to ask to know he was referring to his desertion of her. “Yes.”

He looked at her, his eyes blazing, then he began opening the buttons of her shirt, slowly and one by one. “I want you naked,” he finally said, hoarsely. “I want to see you naked. “This time, I want you naked in my arms when I take you—with nothing between us.”

And his words rebounded, echoing loudly.

S
lade stepped through the door of his house on Gough Street. The hallway was shadowed even though the sun had yet to set outside. He flicked on a hall light but made no move to go up the stairs.

What in hell was he doing?

He had just left Regina at her uncle's after promising to call on her tomorrow morning. After they had left the Henessy place, the afternoon had been spent in smiles. He hadn't ever experienced such a glowing mood before; he had certainly never been so sated. The repletion was not just physical and he was astute enough to realize it.

But the glow had dissipated when he'd left her. In its place came doubt.

He had set them on a course today, one leading to a reconciliation. It would not take much to bring that about now. And he wanted a reconciliation. He wanted her. There wasn't anything he'd ever wanted as badly as he wanted his wife, and not just physically. But Jesus, she had already been prepared to leave him once. Now they were lovers again, with all the intimacy such a relationship entailed. He wanted to go farther, he wanted to get in deeper, but he was afraid.

For today had been capped with another monumental
decision. He could not take her inheritance. He could not use her. He would have to take the loan Charles had offered. And soon he would return to Miramar to begin the long, arduous task of transforming the rancho into a profit-making enterprise. If he reconciled with his wife, she would go back to Miramar with him.

A life of frugality awaited them there. It would be many years before he could begin to keep her in the manner she was accustomed to. Could she adapt to such a simple life-style? Could an elegant woman like her accept the duties of a ranchero's wife? Could Regina be happy at Miramar? He hoped so. He wanted to believe so. But he could not be sure.

Frustration swept through him. Just when his life had never been brighter, it had never been darker. He was angry. It was like shooting in the dark at a ghost. He wasn't exactly sure what he was angry at, or who. It certainly wasn't Regina. He suspected it might be himself, for not being able to give her all that he wanted to give her, all that he should be able to give her.

He sighed and moved up the stairs, entering his bedroom. The small double bed was made up, but messily. He ignored a pile of clothing on the floor and began removing his tie. Stripping, he returned his jacket and trousers to the armoire, while his socks, underwear, and shirt fell by the wayside. He stepped into the small bathroom, running the tub.

Footsteps sounded in the bedroom. Slade shifted on the edge of the porcelain tub so he could see into his room. A small Chinese boy skidded to a stop. “Mista Slade! You home!”

Slade grinned. “What are you up to, brat?”

“Work-work in kitchen,” Kim told him with a grin.

Slade doubted it. Kim couldn't cook, not that there was anything to cook with downstairs, although perhaps he was doing some cleaning. “There's a sack on the bureau with your dinner in it.”

Kim's eyes widened with expectation. “Joe's Ribhouse ribs?”

“Isn't that what you asked for?” Slade stood and got into the tub.

“You want me washee back?”

“Get lost, kid,” Slade growled. Kim was teasing him, though, because he knew Slade had never let him wash his back and never would. Kim ran out of the room, undoubtedly to feast on Joe's Ribhouse ribs.

Slade dressed to go to the office, even though it was late. He didn't really think he would be able to get any work done, not given the circles his brain was running in, but he felt compelled to try. He was silently moving down the stairs when his doorknocker sounded.

His heart immediately skipped. His first thought was that it was Regina. Yet he had just left her, not even a half hour ago. No, a lady like his wife would not come calling, especially at this hour.

He opened the door. His father stood there, a small bag in his hand. “Glad you're home, boy.”

Slade was stunned. Rick had never visited him in the city, not once. Then he shrewdly realized that in the past he hadn't been married to a Bragg heiress whose funds Rick was undoubtedly itching to utilize. Slade stepped aside, somewhat reluctantly, to let his father in. “This is a hell of a surprise.”

“I'll bet. Edward here?”

“Edward comes and goes. What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Rick set the bag down. “I spend all goddamn day on a hot train and that's the greeting I get?”

“That's the greeting you get. 'Cause I don't believe this is a fatherly social call.”

“Well, it is,” Rick said. “Do we have to stand in the hallway?”

Slade shrugged, following his father into the parlor which was just off the entryway. He never used this room. Which was why it was in perfect order.

Rick spotted the side table with its decanters and crossed to it, pouring them both drinks.

Slade hadn't felt like drinking all day, except for the single glass of wine he'd had with the late lunch he and
Regina had shared, but now he accepted the bourbon. “Let's not beat around the bush,” he said softly.

“Okay,” Rick agreed, settling down on the overstuffed sofa. He glanced around. “This place is shit.”

Silently Slade agreed. Since he was only renting it, he had hired someone to furnish it for him. The decor was not to his taste. The sofa was too large, the fabric too bright; the wallpaper was too cute, the bric-a-brac unnecessary. The table on his left was cluttered with framed photographs, but he didn't know a single person in them. He sighed. He just didn't feel like a down-in-the-dirt battle today, if the truth be known. “Yeah, well, I'm rarely here.”

“Where's the wife?”

Slade tensed. “So now we get to the point.”

“She here? I want to say hello to the little lady.”

“No.”

“She's not here?” Rick stood, dismayed. “You didn't give her the divorce, did you?”

Slade clenched his teeth. “No, I didn't.”

Rick was relieved. “Don't forget she holds the key to Miramar's future.”

“I haven't forgotten. You knew all along, didn't you? That she was a Bragg heiress, not Elizabeth Sinclair?”

Rick's eyes widened. “I did not!”

Slade decided to debate the issue, which rankled. “I don't believe you, Rick.”

Rick threw up his hands. “Dammit, all right! I guessed.”

“You know what?” Slade was livid. “You are a son of a bitch.”

“I did it for you!”

“You did it for yourself. You did it for Miramar!”

“I also did it for me and for Miramar,” Rick told him firmly. “But if she wasn't such a perfect little lady, with you hot to trot on her heels, I wouldn't have done it.”

Slade stared.

“You need that gal, boy, an' we both know it! You need a proper little lady for a wife, and a few cute little
kids, too. You need the whole kit an' caboodle an' you have for years.”

Slade's eyes narrowed. Rick was right, so goddamn right. He needed Regina Shelton. He needed her proper manners, her good breeding, her generosity, her compassion and her smiles. He needed her passion. He needed her, period. And if she would give him a family…his heart lurched. But it was all such a big
if
.

Slade crossed his arms. “I find it hard to believe that you would play matchmaker.”

Rick grinned. “Well, I did. So believe what you want. But if you tell me you don't like her, I'll tell you you're a liar.”

Uncomfortable with the idea of his father acting with anything other than selfish motivation, Slade changed the subject. “Charles offered us a loan.”

“No.”

Slade was well aware that Rick would hate the idea of being beholden to Charles. Borrowing from his friend still bothered him, but not as much as the idea of taking his wife's money. “I'm going to accept, unless you can think of another way to get enough cash to pay back the banks and operate for the next five years.”

“No, goddammit!” Rick was furious. “I won't take a goddamn cent from Charlie Mann.” He tossed down his drink, calming. “Your little wife is an heiress.”

Slade said nothing. It wasn't Rick's business that he would not take Regina's funds. Rick had bamboozled him many times, so he felt little remorse in making this deal with Charles on the sly.

“Where is she?” Rick asked.

“She's staying with her relatives, the D'Archands.”

“Well, that's great! A wife is supposed to live with her husband. You have to patch things up with her soon, boy.” Rick left it unsaid that he was counting on her inheritance and counting down the days before foreclosure.

Slade coiled up tight. Deep inside he wanted nothing more than to have Regina living with him. He had almost asked her if she had changed her mind about
a divorce, had almost asked her to move in with him. But he hadn't. That would be the final step, completing their reconciliation. It wasn't the doubt that had prevented him from asking her to return to him—it was the fear. “Listen, old man, don't get on my back. Your interest in my marriage may or may not be one hundred percent selfish, but it is
my
marriage and I'll handle it my way.”

“
Are
you handling it?” Rick asked. “I don't see how you can be handling it with the two of you living apart!”

Slade took a sip of the bourbon. He remained calm with an effort. He really didn't want this additional headache right now. Saying nothing, he summoned up Regina's lovely image. It was infinitely soothing.

Rick seemed puzzled at his failure to respond. “So why isn't she here, where she belongs? Or rather, why aren't the two of you at Miramar, where you both belong?”

Slade set his glass down. “Can you really see her living at Miramar? For any length of time?”

Rick frowned at him. “What kind of question is that? Of course I can. What the hell is going on in that head of yours now?”

Slade had the urge to tell Rick everything, to spill his guts, but that was insane. “She's not exactly a country girl.”

“So what? I haven't met a soul yet that didn't fall in love with Miramar, sooner or later.”

Slade said nothing. Rick was prejudiced, but then, when it came to Miramar, so was he.

“Look,” Rick said, jabbing his finger at him, “don't go tilting at windmills. Bring her home an' it will all work out. She's your wife now, or do I have to remind you of that, too? You both belong at Miramar, with me, not up here working for some goddamn stranger!”

“You don't have to remind me,” Slade said grimly.

“Sure as hell doesn't seem that way. Have you even talked to her since she arrived in the city?”

“I've talked to her.” Slade couldn't help it, he smiled, remembering. “I've seen her.” He actually volunteered information, surprising himself. “We spent the day
together. I took her to the Cliff House for lunch.”

Rick beamed. “That's good to hear!” He came forward. “Speaking of food, I'm starved. Let's go get a bite to eat.”

“I just ate,” Slade said. “But I'm going back to the office. I'll drop you wherever you want to go.” He turned and strode out of the room. His back was to his father so he did not see Rick's disappointment.

 

Regina looked at the small boy standing in front of her, holding out a note. “From Slade?”

“Yes, missee, from Mista Slade.” He beamed.

Regina could not smile back. Dismay swept through her. Slade was already late. He was supposed to have picked her up at half past ten, but it was almost eleven. She didn't have to read the note to know that he was not coming after all.

She balled up the note in her hand. Her disappointment was so vast it left her trembling. She couldn't help wondering if there had really been an emergency, or if he merely preferred work to her company. Since she had come to the city she had learned just how fond of working he was.

“Missee want to send note?” the boy asked.

Regina barely heard. Crushed, she shook her head. The boy bowed and backed out the door, then turned and ran down the front steps. She barely saw him as he veered abruptly and ran through the gardens, ducking beneath the hedge onto their neighbor's property.

Yesterday had been wonderful—too wonderful, in fact. After they had left the Henessy place, Slade had taken her to the Cliff House, where the views of the Pacific were stunning. They had both been unable to stop smiling and had gazed at each other until it was
unseemly. Yet they had not really conversed. Regina had been waiting for him to discuss their relationship, hoping he would bring the subject up.

But he had not asked her if she still wanted a divorce.

He had not asked her to move in with him.

He had not asked about the future—their future.

She had been afraid to broach those topics herself. It was not appropriate; it would be terribly aggressive. As the man and husband, it was up to Slade to set the parameters and make up the rules, it was up to him to demand that their estrangement end. Yet he hadn't. After the wonderful meal he had simply taken her home. He had kissed her for a long time in the carriage before leaving her at the door, and at the time she had thought that he was sincerely fond of her. Now she wondered if it had only been evidence of his passion for her.

Regina turned and sank down on the settee in the foyer. She could not decide what to do. She wasn't sure he would even call on her that night. His words might have been a smoke screen. Perhaps he would be happier with separate living arrangements. It was done all the time in London.

Abruptly she stood. She wanted a real marriage. She had wanted a real marriage from the start, when she had thought herself to be Elizabeth Sinclair. She was almost prepared to throw convention to the winds and do what she really wanted to do—move into his house, even without his permission. She could not go that far. But she was his wife, and she had certain rights. Surely he could not be too upset if she went over there to take a peek at the situation.