“Nothing’s wrong, Audubon.” Dismayed, she stroked his shoulders. “Don’t be afraid. I’m all right.”
“Your face is so damned flushed.” He ran his fingertips over the damp skin of her throat and chest. “You’re breathing like a bellows and you’re so damp that your slip is sticking to you. Dammit, listen to me. Turn it off. I love you. Why are you letting this thing take over? Fight it, for my sake, at least. You don’t need to prove anything to me. No more exploding flowers. No more hot-wired psychic massages. They aren’t necessary.”
“Oh, Audubon, it’s not what you think. Please, calm down. Come here. Please. I can barely make sense right now, but believe me, I’m perfectly all right.”
He went very still, scrutinizing her. “Don’t keep any more secrets from me, Elena.”
She chuckled shakily. “Touch me, and you’ll learn the truth.”
“I am touching you, and it’s practically burning my hands. I was a fool for not taking you to the hospital last night.” He rubbed his hands over her bare shoulders, snagging the slip’s thin straps in his hurried examination. She whimpered as the lacy bodice scrubbed her breasts. He grabbed her shoulders roughly. “Why didn’t you tell me that you wouldn’t be well by morning?”
She gave up on rational conversation. “There’s only one way that you can make me feel better.”
He crouched over her, ready. “What is it?”
Elena licked her lips nervously and tried to sound convincing. “The energy flow must be disrupted. You must use your energy to break the pattern. Put your hands on my sides.”
Audubon clamped his hands to her waist. “Here?”
“Yes. Now, very slowly, slide them down my hips. Make certain that all of your fingers press firmly.”
The delicious compliance of his hands made her shut her eyes. Looking at him as he followed her instructions was too much temptation. She must stop this immediately and try to make him understand that she was suffering only from a sweet yearning for him. He was worried about her.
“Now what?” he asked. He gripped the outsides of her thighs.
“Audubon,” she said with gentle rebuke, “there’s really no need for all this concern.”
“Either tell me what to do next, or I’m taking you to the hospital.”
She’d tried to be honest, hadn’t she? With gracious defeat she whispered, “Flatten your hands on my stomach and slide them upward to my chest.”
His face set in serious lines, he did as she asked. She struggled not to make a sound. “Now back down the same path. Slowly. Yes. That’s right. The energy is … following your hands. Distracted.”
He stopped with his hands spread on her lower abdomen, the backs of his thumbs lightly resting against the feminine crest behind them. “What’s happening to you?” he demanded grimly. “You’ve started quivering.”
“It’s just the effect of your hands on my energy patterns. It means you’re doing exactly the right thing. Draw your fingertips down my thighs, please.”
She felt the creamy slip pucker and tighten under his large, gentle fingers. She felt the indentation of every finger on her inner thighs. Rivulets of pleasure ran upward and converged inside her belly. “You’re only feeling hotter to me,” he said anxiously. “Love, please try to concentrate. I feel so damned helpless.”
Elena looked at him tenderly. “Audubon, stop.” The sublime passion mingled with increasing guilt. This wonderful, caring man was frightened for her, while she enjoyed herself at his expense.
“No, I’m not convinced that it’s safe.” He molded his hands to her stomach and rubbed small circles. “Maybe closer contact would accomplish more.” He jerked the slip up to her thighs and put his hands underneath. Her protests dissolved in helpless gasps. “Elena, I’m being serious. Relax.”
Relax? She was caught as before in spontaneous and overwhelming sensation. Dimly she realized she was calling his name, while she turned her face toward the pillow and let waves of release twist her body under his hands.
Audubon’s surprise was followed by quick exploration of an intimate nature that would tell feminine secrets to any experienced male. When his hand slid under her panties, she moaned in soft, unbroken supplication.
He murmured a curse filled with relief and shock. Abruptly his exploration became a skilled caress, a little rough in rebuke, designed to taunt her with the pleasure he knew his touch provided. He caught her chin in one hand and made her look at him.
Elena was limp and trembling, unable to do anything but cling to the fierceness in his green eyes. There was also dark sensuality in them, as the situation sank in, but mostly anger. “I tried to tell you,” she whispered. “More than once.”
“I can’t remember when anyone’s manipulated me so blatantly. Me! The master of manipulation.”
“Don’t be hurt. That’s the last thing I intended.”
“I thought you were about to burn out like a candle. But you were getting your jollies. You hooked me like a trout.”
“Jollies? Trout? Please, what are those?”
“Never mind. You smug little con artist.” He was so close that his breath feathered her lips. He looked not too adverse to kissing them, but she couldn’t be certain. He continued to stroke her with the same slow, forceful movements of his fingers. “Are you or are you not fully recovered from what happened last night?”
“I’m fully recovered. Sleep and rest are the only treatments. I swear to you, there’s nothing for you to worry about now. I love you for your worry, but you must trust me. I don’t intend to destroy myself when I help others. I don’t take foolish chances.”
“Elena, when I woke up and looked at you, your face was red and you were breathing as if you were having an asthma attack.’ ”
“Hasn’t that happened to your women before? I thought you were a worldly man. A man who knows what he’s seeing when he looks at a woman who finds him exciting.”
“But you, dear Russkie, couldn’t be any more unique if you tried. I spend half my time trying to get information from you and the other half wishing I could understand what I do get.”
“I didn’t mean to deceive you a few minutes ago. But I was embarrassed to tell you what had happened.” She spoke very softly. “I don’t know the correct words to describe this in English …”
“Try,” he growled.
“I had just made love to myself, on your behalf.”
She saw the explanation click in his mind. “Aaaah,” he said, looking startled. Then the sensual droop to his eyelids showed he was thinking about the moment he’d awakened with her overheating in his arms, and also imagining what had occurred to put her in that state. He cupped his palm to her and drummed his fingers lightly on a very sensitive spot.
“You’ll have to show me how you accomplished this interesting phenomenon. I can’t decide quite what you mean, since you don’t know the proper English description.”
“I doubt there’s anything proper between you and me at this moment.” They were both speaking in a hushed, private tone made for intimacy. His hand began visiting other regions under her slip. The bedcovers tantalized her widely spread feet; each time she curled her toes, the brocade coverlet seemed to be kissing them.
“Please, Ms. Petrovic, do try to explain,” he urged, as if a deep baritone voice could sound prim. “The Victorian setting demands propriety.”
She couldn’t match his teasing mood. What had happened to her was too special. Feeling tears pool in her eyes, she told him softly, “I woke up thinking about you last night, the way you cared for me, the way you touched me. I moved close to you. You held me. I would never have believed that a woman could feel so much just from a man’s embrace. If I’m unique, then so are you, my love.”
His eyes burned her with their pleasure and intentions. “Come here,” he ordered. Playful talk was discarded for deep, erotic kisses and the shared melody of encouraging whispers and moans. She caressed him through his black pajama bottoms, smoothing the material over hi
s legs and abdomen, fitting her hands into the hard angles and curves covered in fluid silk.
He caught his breath as the soft tie string gave up its duty to her nimble fingers, which were soon feathering over his naked belly, discovering everything about him. Velvety hot skin, coarse hair that tickled, and fascinating shapes transmitted waves of delight up her fingertips and back to him.
Audubon rolled over and dragged her across his chest, while one hand sank into the back of her slip. Already the hapless garment was barely covering her, the straps hanging down her arms, the bodice lace caught only on her nipples. Now his quick tug pooled it around her waist. He winked at her, so satisfied with himself, and she laughed, until his skillful hands and inventive mouth proved how right he was to be confident.
They undressed each other slowly. He lay on his stomach with his head and arms draped over one side of the bed while she nibbled and kissed him. She found herself sitting with her back braced against a bedpost, her hands wound tight around the carved wood behind her head, while he sat facing her, his feet tucked mischievously under her updrawn legs. The bedcovers jumbled around them in hummocks of fine fabric that tantalized by discreetly hiding, here and there, an attraction, an invitation, a blatant caress.
Sometimes she and he were polite, asking permission. May I? Would you like it? Then politeness would succumb to a selfishness that wasn’t selfish at all, because it was designed to excite.
“We should stop now, before we go too far,” he teased in a low voice raw with desire, as they faced each other, kneeling, fingertips tracing the differences and similarities between their bodies. “Go downstairs, have some breakfast—”
“What an ego! I’ve let you get away with it for too long!”
Seconds later they were tangled in the center of the bed, and his body pressed hers deeply into the delicious nest. She trembled as he stroked her hair, then cupped his hands under her head. His thumbs caressed the corners of her lips, then rubbed across the swollen surface to receive kisses.
He looked down at her with the flushed, tense expression of a man trying very hard to keep the necessary control. “Audubon,” she said desperately, already beginning to ache inside.
“Don’t let it happen,” he ordered, his eyes alight with pleasure at what they both knew would occur when he entered her. “It will be too much for me.”
But she whimpered with anticipation, and curled her legs around him tighter. “It’s your fault.”
His sloe-eyed scrutiny was an erotic challenge. “I take the blame. But only because I love you so much.”
“I forgive you for making me this way.”
“You might reconsider. I’m not done, yet. Not for hours, actually. And of course, we’re not just talking about this morning. There’ll be this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow—”
“Stop.” A vibration ran through her at the wonderful images. “I accept my fate.”
He settled deeper between her legs, teasing, moving forward. “Be calm. Use your willpower. I insist.”
“Audubon, you dear monster. You dear tyrant. Audubon.” As he sank deep inside her she cried out and arched repeatedly, clinging to him, while his own body shivered with control. She heard him saying wonderful words to her, praising her in lusty and gentle ways. But he lay still, every muscle braced, waiting for her to quiet a little. When she did, he began to move in a very slow cadence.
“Don’t hold back,” she urged, nuzzling his ear and kissing the damp, warm side of his neck. She was floating in another dimension, and she wanted him there with her. “I love you.”
“I want this to go on forever.”
She drew back and smiled at him. He stared at the love she felt shimmering in her eyes, then gave up forever with noble defeat. His sudden wildness made her wrap her arms around him and bury her head on his shoulder, crooning to him in Russian, loving the way his chest hair brushed her cheek in rhythm with his fierce movements.
He nuzzled her head back and kissed her, then kept his mouth lightly on hers, whispering her name. She felt the sensual twist of his body as pleasure shot through him. They were beyond perfection, balanced on the cusp of one of the greatest mysteries they could share.
Afterward, shaken and breathless, he met her eyes again. This time he smiled back, disheveled, vulnerable, completely open. “Wait here, darling.”
He kissed her and lifted himself from her body, while she watched with bewilderment and rebellion, not wanting him to go. But he only stretched out on his stomach next to her, leaned over the edge of the bed, and pulled something from underneath. “Thank you,” he said softly.
She turned over and craned her head alongside his. On the floor was a mountain of flowers blooming from a miniature white rosebush. Elena put her arms around Audubon’s neck as he twisted to face her, studying her reaction intensely. “Were you testing me?” she asked.
“Testing myself, to see if I could make you happy.”
She snuggled against his chest and held him tightly. “I could fill this room with flowers.”
“You’ve already filled it with miracles.”
She managed to catch her breath enough to kiss him. Then they curled up in each other’s arms and began making the miracle, again.
Elena was never far from his thoughts, even now. How could he put aside the memories of the long, glorious day they’d spent together? His offices had a secluded atmosphere that he ordinarily found appealing—the solitude had been part of him for years, and the unchanging artificial light in the windowless rooms made time seen endless … and forgiving.
But it wasn’t. It demanded decisions and action. Dressed in rumpled trousers and a long silk robe of oriental design, Audubon went from fax machine to telephone messages from his people in Mexico. An old enemy’s hatred struck out at Audubon.
A son for a son, Miguel de Valdivia warned.
At dawn, several hours after the phone in his suite buzzed with Clarice’s call, Audubon dragged himself upstairs. He found Elena asleep on a couch in his study. The glow of a lamp gave her blond hair a warm, feminine contrast to the burnished leather, and her hands were furled gently against the collar of a white turkish robe.
She had dressed for propriety, he thought with a pang of affection, noting the bulky robe and the high neckline of a blue satin nightgown. Looking at her, no one would suspect that nakedness suited her the way it suited a Greek statue, that earlier that day she had danced for him wearing nothing but a lace curtain draped around her, that she’d fed him grapes while he played the violin in bed. Both of them had been laughing, naked, as joyful as children.
Her carefree moments were just for him. He knelt beside her and smoothed a hand over her head.
“Audubon.” She rubbed her eyes and sat up quickly. “I was worried when you stayed away so long.”
“I’m sorry, love.” He was surprised by feelings of guilt for not bringing her down to the offices. Years ago he’d accepted the need for secrecy, and no lover had ever been part of his work.
“Is the emergency finished?”
“For now.” It was brewing, not finished, but there wasn’t anything else he could do that night. He sat down on the floor and leaned back against the couch, massaging his forehead wearily. “You must have a thousand questions.”
“And you don’t want to answer any of them.” She spoke without rebuke. “I don’t think it’s because you distrust me, so I’m not hurt. Not too much, anyway.”
He chuckled. “You know more about me than anyone else in the world. Be patient.”
“You know me too.”
“I know that you love ballet, peanut butter, and borscht; that when you were growing up, you watched Elvis movies dubbed in Russian; that you want to hike the Grand Canyon and visit Disney World; that you favor simple clothes and complex books. A hundred little things. That leaves slightly less than a million more to learn.”
“Give me time. I’ve been preoccupied.” She caressed his cheek and looked at him somberly. “Is your adopted son still
in trouble?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be going back to Mexico?”
“Perhaps. The next few days will tell.” He leaned his head against the couch, and she rubbed his temples. He felt the tingling glow in her fingertips. She was relaxing him, making the dull tension fade, seducing him so he’d confide in her.
And possibly say too much. She must never know she’d been a game piece in his plans. It would destroy everything between them. He’d spent the past few hours plotting his new course of action—and its consequences made sharp pain well in his chest.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, and laid her cheek against his hair. “What hurts you so much?”
“Turn off your psychic antennae. You’re getting your signals crossed. I have a headache, that’s all.” He reached behind him and grasped her hands then pulled them in front of him, where he gently trapped them inside his own. “There. Behave, my little Slavic nymph.”
“I’m too old and large to be a nymph. And too modern. Yes. I’m going to be a sophisticated American woman, like the ones in all your magazines.”
“So you’re going to consult your horoscope, try a new diet every week, learn how to power-walk, power-dress, and have power-lunches, while doing a study of techniques for keeping your boss, lover, husband, parents and/or children free of waxy buildup. Oops. Pardon me. I’m getting my articles confused.”
“You’re very smug.” But her tone had a smile in it. “No, I’m just not going to be passive and dependent.”
“You’re neither of those now.”
“Oh? I have no money and no home, and I depend on you for everything.”
“And that bothers you?”
“Am I your mistress? Is that what Americans call it?”
“No, you’re my personal love slave. How’s that?”
“Hmmmph. It requires one to know one.”