“Stop,” she managed to gasp before he sent her soaring. “Wait.”
She disengaged him, turned him so that he lay on his back, eyes grave and unblinking and fastened to her face. She bent over his tensed stomach and gave him a tweak. Then she straddled him and stared into his chocolate eyes.
“I think I do love you,” she whispered as she took him. “In fact, right at this moment, I know I do, Callaway McIntyre. Otherwise, I'd never be here. You can't change a thing about how I feel and neither can I, so let's not worry about hurting each other or you not loving me back.”
Damaged, she thought as his face shadowed. He looks like I've damaged him. She wanted to retract her words.
When he touched his hand to her cheek and opened his mouth, she pressed his lips with her fingertips. “Let’s take this night and forget tomorrow. Forget everything but this.”
“Amanda.”
“Please.”
By then the rhythm had quickened, the thrumming in her ears crescendoed until only their bodies mattered, and when she saw his contorted face, the joy building up within her abruptly burst out to join his.
I do love you, Cal, whether you want it or not
.
Satisfaction overcame melancholy.
* * * *
The darkness outside the latticework shutters gave way to a pearly luminescence preceding dawn.
Amanda had dreaded morning. Callaway would be crushed when he discovered her gone. He'd understand and forgive her though, once she brought Noelle back.
Of course he would.
In the yellow glow of sunrise, she watched him sleeping. They had made love a third time during the night, and then a fourth, each interlude as miraculous as the first.
He hadn't been the lover she had imagined. She'd assumed he would be as impulsive as the little boy who sometimes peeked out, but he had surprised her. He had been patient and accommodating and tender. Everything a woman could hope for.
Sleep cleansed his face of cynicism, giving it innocence. She wanted to reach out and caress it, awaken the other side of him, the man revealed during the night.
Seven-thirty. Time to get up.
Despite her caution, he stirred. “Don't go,” he murmured, putting out a hand to touch her hip.
Sunbeams forked through the latticed shutters and landed on the disheveled shock of hair falling across his broad forehead. Coppery threads caught the rays and frolicked. Thick lashes opened on eyes dark with sleep.
“Stay with me.”
She wanted to. She could snuggle down beneath the sheets and put her head against his shoulder and never get out of bed again. Instead, she combed back his hair with her fingers. “I'm starved. After I shower, I'm going to breakfast.”
“It's too early for breakfast.”
She kissed his nose. “Then go back to sleep.”
He turned, squinted at the clock radio. “No, I'll go, too.”
On the edge of the bed, she leaned over, brushed a hand over his morning beard, and pecked his mouth. “I have to shower and dry my hair first. Sleep another hour.”
“Ummm.” He touched her lip. “I want to kiss you, really kiss you, but your mouth looks swollen.”
“I wonder why.”
“From me.” His thumb traced her lip's bow. “I'm sorry.”
“I'm not.”
Her reassurance contented him. He closed his eyes. “Come love me when you've showered?”
She shook her head, elated because he still wanted her. “I've got to have food.”
Eyelids slitted to reveal a drowsy gleam. “All right. Call me five minutes before you go down. I'll come, too.”
She kissed him, slid off the bed. He was already closing his eyes.
Too easy. He didn't deserve her doing this to him again. But she had no option. Not if she wanted to calm Noelle so he could recover his things.
By now, she knew the book could somehow hurt Claire and that Callaway was as anxious to protect his sister as she was to protect Noelle. He’d never care for Amanda as much as he did Claire, but she'd be happy with half the affection.
If not, well, it didn't make any difference.
Chapter Eighteen
With a start, Cal woke from a nightmare where a laughing Amanda had pushed him into a fountain before transforming into someone who looked a lot like his old girl friend.
He sat bolt upright in bed. Cold sweat bathed his forehead and upper lip.
Christ, what was that all about?
An obvious comparison between Amanda and Serena. Was it also a warning that his involvement with Amanda would end the same way? Was his subconscious advising him that one night of passion means shit-all between a man and a woman?
He knew that. He couldn't trust Amanda, not really, not where her sister was concerned. But could he fault her for that? Hell, no. Loyalty to Noelle meant Amanda would be as loyal to anyone she cared about.
He couldn't believe after the past night that she didn't care about him.
She’d told him she loved him. He hadn't asked. She had volunteered, told him outright she didn't expect anything from him.
And he had wisely, for the only instance of his life in the same situation, kept quiet.
Before, uncertain of what he might find, he hadn't dug too deeply into a woman's mind. Or his own. He'd simply mouthed the usual words when appropriate.
With Amanda, he wanted to peel away the layers of brisk businesswoman and bewitching siren and discover what lay underneath. He wanted to reach down inside and pull out the best of himself and hand it to her on a silver platter.
Fool.
He had always been carried away in the throes of passion. “I love you,” he had told his wives, apprehensive without knowing why. “Sure I love you,” he'd answered Serena and the others who had coaxed the words out of him. How many times had he said them?
It was so simple to promise love, so hard to keep the promise when a woman revealed her vacuity, when she deceived and betrayed.
This time, with Amanda, he had learned caution. No matter how much he was tempted, memories of the past kept the usual words spoken so easily in bed, unsaid.
But he had wanted to say them. Christ, how he'd wanted to say them.
He cocked an ear toward his bathroom but heard no running water. She must be in her room dressing. He yawned. It had to be past time to get up, but after last night, he had an excuse for sleeping in.
Last night.
Amanda had given herself so freely that his throat clogged up thinking about it. He'd never known anyone like her, so restrained and so eager, so composed and so ardent. He’d wanted her and gone after her, but he'd never expected her to give in. Even last night, until he was inside her, he’d thought she would renege. The one thing he had never envisioned was the explosive power of their joined bodies, the flood of denied longing she’d unleashed.
In her arms, he'd felt good about himself. She'd enjoyed his body, his lovemaking, and had let him know it, so that all he wanted to do was satisfy her, pleasure her.
Now he found himself thinking weird things. Really weird things.
He wasn't making plans to take her to Greece or show her off to his friends. He wasn't even figuring out how not to get too involved. Oh, no, nothing so simple as those usual kinds of post-coital pursuits had crossed his mind.
Instead, he was devising outlandish ways to please her, such as incorporating her dresses into the hotel shops to give her a national and international outlet.
Which wouldn't be hard to do. His marketing skills were rusty from lack of use but still intact. They could allot her cheap space and give discount vouchers to guests. Or use her clothing in retail stores already established in the chain. It would be a simple matter of contacting tenants and working out terms.
Shit. He swung his feet off the bed to stop his runaway imagination.
He was crazy.
Simply because she'd looked at that frigging tablecloth and he'd seen how much she'd wanted it and he'd wanted her to have it but she'd refused to take it from him.
She couldn't refuse his gift after last night.
He grinned, feeling pretty cocky. On the whole, he'd acquitted himself pretty well, but Amanda had been wonderful.
Oh, hell. His stomach turned to water thinking about Amanda.
Out of habit he reached for his cigarettes but stopped. The smoke bothered Amanda, and it was an unhealthy habit. Maybe he should quit like Claire and Johanna kept nagging him to. A glance at the clock showed him the time was past eight-thirty.
Eight-thirty. He hopped up. She should be dressed. He went through the living area and into her silent room.
The shower was off. The bathroom door was open. The air around him held that vacant hush, the peculiar desolation that signaled the absence of its occupant.
He stopped, uncertain.
She wouldn’t have left without him.
“Amanda?”
There was no answer.
Back in the living area, he found a note.
Callaway, You were asleep so I'm going on. Back later. I love you.
He read the words once and again.
She went to eat. She'll be back. She won't chance missing Noelle. After last night, she wouldn't run away from him.
He showered. By the time he dressed, she still hadn't returned.
She should have been back by then.
He hurried downstairs, looking first in the expensive restaurant before trying the other hotel eateries. No luck. Maybe she was at the pastry buffet. But when he crossed the lobby to the potted palms where uniformed employees set it up each morning, she wasn't among the customers milling around there either. As they opened one by one, he checked the gift shop, the jewelry shop, the boutique, the Mexican market shop, and all the rest.
Amanda was nowhere to be found.
When he asked at the desk, no one had left a message for him nor did anyone remember seeing Amanda. He turned away indecisively, to bump into a bellman who had heard him questioning the concierge, the same bellman who had helped recover items from Amanda’s spilled purse the day before.
The man hesitantly asked, “You look for the lady with the beautiful smile, Señor McIntyre?”
“Yes. Have you seen her?”
“She go to Chichen Itza this morning.” The bellman pointed to the area where daily tour buses loaded. “She wear a hat and red pants, and I do not know her except for her purse and the smile. I see them and I think, she is the lady with Señor McIntyre. The lady who drop her bag.”
Icy hands clutched his chest. He was suffocating.
She’s gone to Noelle.
Amanda had again deceived him. She had come to bed with him deliberately the past night so he wouldn't suspect she was meeting Noelle this morning. She had let him love her, had made love to him, intending all the while to run off with her sister.
She'd hoodwinked him as cleverly as she had the first time they'd met. And fool that he was, he'd let her.
His ears roared. A red haze eclipsed the sunlight. He could not remember suffering such a rage in his entire life. It filled him, debilitated him before leaving him almost insensible.
She’d never meant any of it, not the words of love, not the sweet caresses. Had she even enjoyed it?
He mastered the rage, pulled out his money clip and gave the bellman a handful of bills without looking to see what they were.
Then he went to the tour agency for the bus schedules. In fifteen minutes, he had made arrangements to get to Chichen Itza by air. Another twenty minutes found him climbing into a chartered plane which had to be at least half a century old and would probably crash in the jungle and kill him.
Not that he cared. Still, grim satisfaction accompanied him. Anger ceased to be a cutting hurtful thing and became numbing cold.
When Amanda Jane and her sister arrived at the ruins, they were going to be in for an unpleasant surprise.
* * * *
Disguised by a baseball hat and dark glasses, Cal sat on crumbling blocks at Chichen Itza to wait for the tour bus. Since it was a long trip by road from Cancun, he had time to kill, but he couldn’t concentrate on his newspaper and instead, lashed his outrage into a controlled fury.
He would never forgive Amanda Jane for making a fool of him again.
Never.
He would never forgive himself for allowing another woman to make a fool of him.
Things could have been different.
He'd been prepared to overlook Amanda’s enticing and drugging him. He'd been prepared to overlook her part in the theft of his diamond studs and the loss of the journal.
Criminal offenses all, and because he believed she was another person, a
good
person pulled into the mess by her sister, he’d been prepared to forgive and forget everything.
All because he'd gazed into those clear eyes and imagined something in them besides treachery.