into a frown.
“May I come in?” she repeated, barely defeating the urge to turn tail and run.
“Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry.” Running a hand through his hair, Keane stepped back and gestured her inside.
Instantly, Jo’s shoes sank into the luxurious pile of the buffcolored carpet. For a moment she allowed herself to gaze around the room, using the time for the additional purpose of regaining her composure. It was an open, sweeping room with sharp, contrasting colors. There was a deep brown sectional sofa with a chrome and glass coffee table. There were high-backed chairs in soft creams and vivid slashes of blue in chunky floor pillows. There were paintings, one she thought she recognized as a Picasso, and a sculpture she was certain was a Rodin.
On the far right of the room there was an elevation of two steps. Just beyond was a huge expanse of glass that featured a spreading view of Chicago. Jo moved toward it with undisguised curiosity. Now, inexplicably, fear had lessened. She found that once she had stepped over the threshold she had committed herself. She was no longer afraid.
“It’s wonderful,” she said, turning back to him. “How marvelous to have a whole city at your feet every day. You must feel like a king.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way.” With half the room between them, he studied her. She looked small and fragile with the bustling city at her back.
“I would,” she said, and now her smile came easily. “I’d stand at the window and feel regal and pompous.”
At last she saw his lips soften and curve. “Jovilette,” he said quietly. “What are you doing in my world?”
“I needed to talk to you,” she answered simply. “I had to come here to do it.”
He moved to her then, but slowly, with his eyes on hers. “It must be important.”
“I thought so.”
His brow lifted, then he shrugged. “Well, then, we’ll talk. But first, let’s have your coat.”
Jo’s cold fingers fumbled with the buttons and caused Keane to frown again. “Good heavens, you’re frozen.” He captured her hands between his and swore. “Where are your gloves?” he demanded like an irate parent. “It must be all of twelve degrees outside.”
“I forgot to buy any,” Jo told him as she dealt with the heavenly feeling of his hands restoring warmth to hers.
“Idiot. Don’t you know better than to come to Chicago in November without gloves?”
“No.” Jo responded to his anger with a cheerful smile. “I’ve never been to Chicago in November before. It’s wonderful.”
His eyes lifted from her hands to her face. He watched her for a long moment, then she heard him sigh. “I’d nearly convinced myself I could be cured.”
Jo’s eyes clouded with concern. “Have you been ill?”
Keane laughed with a shake of his head, then he pushed away the question and became brisk again. “Here, let’s have your coat. I’ll get you some coffee.”
“You needn’t bother,” she began as he undid the buttons on the coat himself and drew it from her shoulders.
“I’d feel better if I was certain your circulation was restored.” He paused and looked down at her as he laid her coat over his arm. She wore a green angora sweater with pearl buttons and a gray skirt in thin wool. The soft fabric draped softly at her breasts and over her hips and thighs. Her shoes were dainty and impractical sling-back heels.
“Is something wrong?”
“I’ve never seen you wear anything but a costume or jeans.”
“Oh.” Jo laughed and combed her fingers through her damp hair. “I expect I look different.”
“Yes, you do.” His voice was low, and there was a frown in his eyes. “Right now you look as if you’ve come from college for the holidays.” He touched the ends of her hair, then turned away. “Sit down. I’ll get the coffee.”
A bit puzzled by his mercurial moods, Jo wandered about the room, finally ignoring a chair to kneel beside one of the pillows near the picture window. Though the carpet swallowed Keane’s footsteps, she sensed his return.
“How wonderful to have a real winter, if just for the snow.” She turned a radiant face his way. “I’ve always wondered what Christmas is like with snow and icicles.” Images of snowflakes danced in her eyes. Seeing he carried two mugs of coffee, she rose and took one. “Thank you.”
“Are you warm enough?” he asked after a moment.
Jo nodded and sat in one of the two chairs opposite the sofa. The novelty of the city made her mission seem like a grand adventure. Keane sat beside her, and for a moment they drank in companionable silence.
“What did you want to talk to me about, Jo?”
Jo swallowed, ignoring the faint trembling in her chest. “A couple of things. The circus, for one.” She shifted in her chair until she faced him. “I didn’t write because I felt it too important. I didn’t phone for the same reason. Keane . . .” All her carefully thought-out speeches deserted her. “You can’t just give something like that away. I can’t take it from you.”
“Why not?” He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “We both know it’s always been yours. A piece of paper doesn’t change that one way or the other.”
“Keane, Frank left it to you.”
“And I gave it to you.”
Jo made a small sound of frustration. “Perhaps if I could pay you for it . . .”
“Someone asked me once what was the value of a dream or the price of a human spirit.” Jo shifted her eyes to his helplessly. “I didn’t have an answer then. Do you have one now?”
She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know what to say to you. ‘Thank you’ is far from adequate.”
“It’s not necessary, either,” Keane told her. “I simply gave back what was yours in any case. What else was there, Jo? You said there were a couple of things.”
This was it, Jo’s brain told her. Carefully, she set down the coffee and rose. Waiting for her stomach to settle, she walked a few feet out into the room, then turned. She allowed herself a deep breath before she met Keane’s eyes.
“I want to be your mistress,” she said with absolute calm.
“What?” Both Keane’s face and voice registered utter shock.
Jo swallowed and repeated. “I want to be your mistress. That’s still the right term, isn’t it, or is it antiquated? Is lover right? I’ve never done this before.”
Slowly, Keane set his mug beside hers and rose. He did not move toward her but watched her with probing eyes. “Jo, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” she cut him off and nodded. “I might not have the terminology exactly right, but I do know what I mean, and I’m sure you do, too. I want to be with you,” she continued and took a step toward him. “I want you to make love to me. I want to live with you if you’ll let me, or at least close by.”
“Jo, you’re not talking sensibly.” Sharply, Keane broke into her speech. Turning away, he thrust his hands into his pockets and balled them into fists. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Don’t I appeal to you anymore?”
Keane whirled, infuriated with the trace of curiosity in her voice. “How can you ask me that?” he demanded. “Of course you appeal to me! I’m not dead or in the throes of senility!”
She moved closer to him. “Then if I want you, and you want me, why can’t we be lovers?”
Keane swore violently and grabbed her shoulders. “Do you think I could have you for a winter and then blithely let you go? Do you think I could untangle myself at the start of the season and watch you stroll out of my life? Haven’t you the sense to see what you do to me?” He shook her hard with the question, stealing any breath she might have used to answer him.
“You make me crazy!” Abruptly, he dragged her against him. His mouth bruised hers, his fingers dug into her flesh. Jo’s head spun with confusion and pain and ecstasy. It seemed centuries since she had tasted his mouth on hers. She heard him groan as he tore himself away. He turned, leaving her t
o find her own balance as the room swayed. “What do I have to do to be rid of you?” His words came in furious undertones.
Jo blew out a breath. “I don’t think kissing me like that is a very good start.”
“I’m aware of that,” he murmured. She watched the rise and fall of his shoulders. “I’ve been trying to avoid doing it since I opened the door.”
Quietly, Jo walked to him and put a hand on his arm. “You’re tense,” she discovered and automatically sought to soothe the muscles. “I’m sorry if I’m going about this the wrong way. I thought telling you outright would be better than trying to seduce you. I don’t think I’d be very good at that.”
Keane made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a moan. “Jovilette,” he murmured before he turned and gathered her into his arms. “How do I resist you? How many times must I pull away before I’m free of you? Even the thought of you drives me mad.”
“Keane.” She sighed and shut her eyes. “I’ve wanted you to hold me for so long. I want to belong to you, even for just a little while.”
“No.” He pulled away, then forced her chin up with his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t you see that once would be too much and a lifetime wouldn’t be enough? I love you too much to let you go and enough to know I have to.” Shock robbed her of speech. She only stared as he continued. “It was different when I didn’t know, when I thought I was—how did you put it? ‘Dazzled.’” He smiled briefly at the word. “I was certain if I could make love to you, I could get you out of my system. Then, the night Ari died, I held you while you slept. I realized I was in love with you, had been in love with you right from the beginning.”
“But you . . .” Jo shook her head as if to clear it. “You never told me, and you seemed so cold, so distant.”
“I couldn’t touch you without wanting more.” He pulled her close again and for a moment buried his face in her hair. “But I couldn’t stay away. I knew if I wanted to have you, to really have you, one of us had to give up what we did, what we were. I wondered if I could give up the law; it was really all I ever wanted to do. I discovered I wanted you more.”
“Oh, Keane.” She shook her head, but he put her from him suddenly.
“Then I found out that wouldn’t work, either.” Keane turned, paced to the window and stared out. The snow was falling heavily. “Every time you walked into that cage, I walked into hell. I thought perhaps I’d get used to it, but it only got worse. I tried leaving, coming back here, but I could never shake you loose. I kept coming back. The day you were hurt . . .” Keane paused. Jo heard him draw in his breath, and when he continued, his voice was deeper. “I watched you step in front of that boy and take the blow. I can’t tell you what I felt at that moment; there aren’t words for it. All I could think of was getting to you. I wonder if Pete ever told you that I decked him before Buck got to me. He took it very well, considering. Then I had to—to just stand there and watch while that cat stalked you. I’ve never known that kind of fear before. The kind that empties you out, body and soul.”
He lapsed into silence. “Then it was over,” he continued, “and I got to you. You were so white, and you were bleeding in my arms.” He muttered an oath, then was silent again. He shook his head. “I wanted to burn the place down, get you away, strangle the cats with my bare hands. Anything. I wanted to hold you, but I couldn’t get past the fear and the unreasonable anger at having been helpless. Before my hands stopped shaking, you were making plans to go back into that damnable cage. I wanted to kill you myself then and be done with it.”
Slowly, Keane turned and walked back to her. “I saw it happen again every time I closed my eyes for weeks afterward. I can show you exactly where the scars are.” He lifted a finger and traced four lines on her upper arm precisely where the claws had ripped her skin. He dropped his hand and shook his head. “I can’t watch you go in the cage, Jo.” He lifted his hand again and let it linger over her hair. “If I let you stay with me now, I wouldn’t be able to let you go back to your own life. And I can’t ask you to give it up.”
“I wish you would.” Solemn-eyed, Jo watched him. “I very much wish you would.”
“Jo.” Shaking his head, he turned away. “I know what it means to you.”
“No more than the law means to you, I imagine,” she said briskly. “But you said you were willing to give that up.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Oh, very well.” She pushed back her hair. “If you won’t ask me, I’ll have to ask you. Will you marry me?”
Keane turned back, giving her his lowered brow frown. “Jo, you can’t . . .”
“Of course I can. This is the twentieth century. If I want to ask you to marry me, then I will. I did,” she pointed out.
“Jo, I don’t . . .”
“Yes or no, please, counselor. This isn’t an easy question.” She stepped forward until they stood toe to toe. “I’m in love with you, and I want to marry you and have several babies. Is that agreeable?”
Keane’s mouth opened and closed. He gave her an odd smile and lifted his hands to her shoulders. “This is rather sudden.”
Jo felt a wild surge of joy. “Perhaps it is,” she admitted. “I’ll give you a minute to think about it. But I might as well tell you, I won’t take no for an answer.”
Keane’s fingers traced the curve of her neck. “It seems I have little choice.”
“None at all,” she corrected. Boldly, she locked her arms around him and pulled his mouth down to hers. The kiss was instantly urgent, instantly searching. Joined, they lowered to the rug and clung. For a long, long moment, their lips were united in a language too complex for words. Then, as if to reassure himself she was real, Keane searched the familiar curves of her body, tasted the longed-for flavor of her skin.
“Why did I think I could live without you?” he whispered. His mouth came desperately back to hers. “Be sure, Jo, be sure.” Roughened with emotion, his voice was low while the words were spoken against her lips. “I’ll never be able to let you go. I’m asking you for everything.”
“No. No, it’s not like that. Hold me tighter. Kiss me again,” she demanded as his lips roamed her face. “Kiss me.” She wondered if the sound of pleasure she heard was his or her own. She had not known a kiss could be so intimate, so terrifyingly exciting. No, she thought as she soared with the knowledge that he loved her. He wasn’t asking everything, he was giving it.
“I’m leaving something behind,” she told him when their lips parted, “and replacing it with something infinitely more important.” She buried her face in the curve of his neck. “When you realize how much I love you, you’ll understand.”
Keane drew away and stared down at her. At last he spoke, but it was only her name. It was a soft sigh of a sound. She smiled at it and lifted a hand to his cheek. “If there’s a way to compromise . . .”
“No.” She shook her head, remembering his mother’s words. “Sometimes there can’t be a compromise. We love each other enough not to need one. Please, don’t think I’m making a sacrifice; I’m not.” She smiled a little and rubbed her palm experimentally over the stubble of his neglected beard. “I don’t regret one minute of my life in the circus, and I don’t regret changing it. You’ve given me the circus, so I’ll always be a part of it.” Her smile faded, and her eyes grew serious. “Will you belong to me, Keane?”
He took her hand from his cheek and pressed it to his lips. “I already do. I love you, Jovilette. I’ll spend a lifetime loving you.”
“That’s not long enough,” she said as their lips met again. “I want more. I want forever.”
With slow, building passion, his hands moved over her. Taking his time, he loosened the buttons on her sweater. “So beautiful,” he murmured as his lips trailed down her throat and found the gentle swell. Jo’s breath caught at the new intimacy. “You’re trembling. I love knowing I can make your skin tremble under my hands.” His lips roamed back to hers before he cradled her in his arms. “I’ve wanted to be with you
, to hold you, just hold you, for so long. I can’t remember not wanting it.”
With a sigh washed with contentment, Jo snuggled against him. “Keane,” she murmured.
“Hmm?”
“You never answered me.”
“About what?” He kissed her closed lids, then tangled his fingers in her hair.
Jo opened her eyes. Her brows arched over them. “Are you going to marry me or not?”
Keane laughed, rolled her onto her back and planted a long, lingering kiss on her mouth. “Is tomorrow soon enough?”
Keep reading for a special excerpt from the newest novel by Nora Roberts
WHISKEY BEACH
Available now in hardcover from G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Through the chilly curtain of sleet, in the intermittent wash of the great light on the jutting cliff to the south, the massive silhouette of Bluff House loomed over Whiskey Beach. It faced the cold, turbulent Atlantic like a challenge.
I will last as long as you.