But at the same time he gripped her forearms and carefully pushed her from under him. His frown had become a distracted, almost bittersweet expression. He sat up. His shoulders were hunched with tension, and the sculpted muscles of his back flexed harshly under his shirt as he took deep breaths. Propping his arms on drawn-up knees, he put his head in his hands and rubbed his face wearily. “I can’t do it,” he said. His voice was hoarse and angry.
Rebecca clutched a hand over her stomach and sat up also. Watching him desperately, she felt a cold weight form under her breastbone. “Do what?” she whispered.
“Take advantage of your enthusiasm.”
After a few speechless attempts to make sense of what was happening, she finally gave up and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t understand. I thought something had changed between us. I thought you wanted me to do this.”
“I do. I don’t.” He groaned, a fierce sound that was so painful, tears of shock came to her eyes. He twisted to look at her. “I want you to make love to me but not care about me. I don’t want to care about you.” At her involuntary sound of grief he quickly took her hand and lifted it to his mouth. He kissed it hard. “But I do care about you, and that’s why this isn’t going to go any further. I want to walk away from this job without looking back. I want to walk away from you without looking back.”
“How can you turn off your emotions that way?” She got to her knees and knotted her hands in her lap, clenching them into fists of confusion and anguish. “Why isn’t there any possibility that you and I could be happy together?”
“Because your definition of happiness means having cozy little heart-to-heart conversations. I don’t want to share who I am with you. I don’t need to. I just need a woman who lives for the moment and doesn’t ask questions.”
“A woman who doesn’t really care about you,” Rebecca countered. “A woman who doesn’t care about anything except what you can do for her in bed. I’m sure you can do a lot, and do it very well, but isn’t it a little lonely to give somebody nothing but the pretty parts of yourself?”
“My parts stand on their own merits,” he joked coldly.
“Kash,” she said in bittersweet rebuke. She grasped his hands and leaned forward, trying to analyze the glimmer of despair in his eyes. “What are you afraid of? Don’t be afraid of me.”
“I’m only afraid that I won’t be able to keep my hands off you, and you’ll expect more from me than I can give.” He rose to his feet and pulled her up with him. “Let’s go back inside. I’ll teach you something safe, like how to play Thai gambling games. Then I’ll turn you over to Madame Piathip for the afternoon. I have business in Bangkok. I won’t be back until tonight.”
She slid her hands out of his grip. “You can turn your emotions off much more neatly than I can.”
“I’ve practiced all my life.”
“I feel sorry for you.”
Sardonic humor appeared in the bitter line of his mouth. “You won’t after I teach you to gamble. I’ll win every kernel of corn you own.”
She started up the path to the main grounds of the estate. Shivering with anger, she called over her shoulder, “You’ve already taught me to gamble. Now I’m just trying to decide whether to call your bluff.”
As soon as Kash walked into the great hall late that night, the servant’s nearly uncontrollable amusement told him something strange was happening. The man’s enormous smile had a strained edge to it. “Madame Piathip wishes for you to visit her immediately.”
Frowning, Kash followed him upstairs to the gilded doors of Madame Piathip’s suite, which were cracked open. The servant popped inside while Kash waited, impatiently wondering what Madame Piathip wanted and how long it would take, because he’d hoped to stop by Rebecca’s room before she went to bed.
The servant hurried back, opening the doors wide. “You may go in.” His eyes were worried above a wide smile.
Kash strode into the large room and stopped abruptly. Madame Piathip sat primly on her delicate lacquered lounge, her feet crossed on silk pillows, mint-green silk robes billowing artfully around her.
Across from her, half-draped across a similar lounge, with huge pillows propping her up, Rebecca lay like a rag doll, head lolled back, arms stretched limply on the pillows around her, eyes half-shut. Her robe was pale blue, with fine embroidery at the neck and on the edges of the long sleeves. Her bare feet hung listlessly off the end of the lounge.
“Do come in,” Madame chirped, folding her hands around a teacup in her lap. “I want you to take Miss Brown away. I’m through with her.”
For all his attempt at control Kash nearly ran to Rebecca’s side. She gazed up at him with an owlish blink, her expression serene but still alert enough to show she was upset at what had happened to her. He could see the mildly distressed look in her eyes, as though she’d had too much to drink and vaguely hated it. The blue in her eyes was eclipsed by dilated pupils, making him think of the dark eyes of a wounded deer.
“Glad to see you,” she said softly, her voice slurred and yearning. She kept her eyes trained on him as if “glad” was an understatement.
Protectiveness and anger boiled up inside him as he pivoted to face Madame Piathip. He knew he couldn’t voice his fury at what she’d done to Rebecca. The rules in Thai business relationships emphasized politeness to an extreme; even a mild complaint about the matriarch’s tactics would have been a grave insult to their relationship. Insulting her would mean Kash’s dismissal, and that would mean giving up his link to Rebecca.
So he chewed the inside of his mouth, pressed his hands together, and made a very respectful wai to Madame. “As one who serves your family’s interests in the matter of Miss Brown, I need to know what has happened here tonight, please.”
Madame Piathip nodded solemnly. “She’ll be fine by morning. I just put some opium in her tea, to make her be still. Foreigners move too much. She’s so large and active, she frightens me. I wanted to see what she’d say when she was quiet and serene. I thought she might tell me things.”
“And did she, please?”
Madame sighed. “No. Only about Iowa and cartoons. She’s very smart, for a foreigner. Would you carry her away now? I’m tired of her, but she won’t leave.” Looking distressed and pampered, Madame Piathip scowled at Rebecca and said in a scolding voice, “I don’t think she can walk.”
Kash bowed quickly. “I’ll be most happy to take her away for you. Good night.”
“Good night.”
He bent down and lifted Rebecca into his arms. Her head drooped on his shoulder, and she managed to slide an arm around his neck. Her helplessness and the small sound of welcome she made nearly drove him out of his mind with concern for her. Physically she was all right, he felt certain, but he doubted that her straight-arrow lifestyle had prepared her emotionally for this. For the first and probably only time in her life, she was stoned.
“You’re rotten and sneaky,” she mumbled to Madame Piathip, then smiled drunkenly and raised one hand under her chin. After a second Kash realized it was a one-sided wai.
“Oh, carry her away,” Madame ordered, dolefully shaking her delicate gray head.
Kash left the chambers quickly. Once he was outside in the hallway, he halted long enough to bend his head and kiss Rebecca gently on the mouth. “Don’t worry. You’re safe. I’ll take care of you.”
She smiled and met his scrutiny with glazed eyes. “I know.”
Downstairs in her room the moon was sending a large rectangle of light across her bed through the deep-set window high on the wall. Kash placed her on the bed and pulled the pale silk covers out from under her. “Don’t leave,” she said wistfully, wobbling to a sitting position and drawing her knees up. She pillowed her head on her arms and looked at him tearfully. “I can’t remember what my cartoon characters’ names are. That scares me.”
Kash knelt on the bed and took her face in his hands. Tilting it into the moonlight, he caught his breath at her mystical beauty,
and burned with desire he couldn’t indulge. “You’ve been drugged,” he whispered. “Don’t try to make sense of anything right now.”
She brightened, and looked a little calmer. “That’s the way it always is when I’m around you.”
He chuckled, feeling better now that he had her in a private, secure place and could protect her. “See? Nothing unusual, then. Relax.”
“Relaxing … would be unusual. ” She put her arms around him loosely, holding on to the back of his shirt as if that were the only way she could keep her arms from sliding off. Kash groaned silently and shook his head. “Stop.” She turned her head and kissed the palm of his hand, which still cupped her face. “Thank you for being here,” she murmured, her lips feathering his skin.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you tonight. I didn’t know anything about Madame Piathip’s silly little plan, I swear.”
“Hmmm.” She began nuzzling his palm, with her eyes shut. “You smell like pineapple. I love pineapple.”
“Shh.” He was going out of his mind. His body was begging him to caress her. “I’d rather corrupt you when you’re sober.”
“This isn’t … about corruption.” She frowned slightly, only her closed eyes showing above his hand, where she was now placing small kisses deep in the cup of his palm, the most sensitive spot. “It’s about taking care … of you.”
“Taking care of me?” he repeated with strained humor, his eyes riveted to her.
“Teaching you.”
“Teaching me? What do I need to learn?”
She opened her heavy-lidded eyes and nearly destroyed his control with a look of shimmering devotion. “To let someone fall in love with you. With all of you, even those things you say no one could love.”
“Go to sleep,” he said brusquely, releasing her and gently pulling her arms from around him. He quickly pushed her legs down, then planted his hands on her shoulders and pressed her onto the bed. She went willingly, but reached up and began stroking his face with the backs of her fingers. His hands trembling, he smoothed the pillow under her head. “I’ll be nearby all night. Go to sleep now.”
“I’m not sleepy. Kash.” His name, spoken softly and urgently, sounded like a plea. “Just hold me. Hold me, please.”
He looked down at her with strangled misery, wanting to hold her and reminding himself that there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d let himself do more than that. He loathed people who took advantage of innocent sexuality, and no amount of her delicious torture would break down his control. It would be safe to lie down and put his arms around her, though. She’d be asleep in seconds. Torture for him, but worth it.
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” he promised.
She held up both arms to him with such complete trust, tenderness filled his throat. Carefully he stretched out beside her liquid body. Her robe was a swirling river of pale blue around her breasts and down her belly, pooling into shadows between her legs.
She flowed against him, her hands tucked against his chest. He cuddled her with one arm under her head and the other around her waist, and allowed himself to stroke the center of her back. Her low sigh of pleasure feathered his neck like a kiss.
Kash angled one leg over her knees and molded her to his torso, but when she tried to press too close to his thighs, he put his hand on her hip and held her still. “No fair,” he murmured against her forehead, then gave into the temptation to kiss the spot.
“Yes,” she whispered, and began fumbling with his shirt buttons.
“No.” Kash let go of her hip and gently wound his hands around hers. She tilted her head back and kissed his chin. “Yes.”
“No.” He tucked his chin and looked into her dreamy eyes. They shared the same pillow, and its pale silk cover reflected a silver sheen of moonlight onto her face. “You have to go to sleep,” he said gruffly.
“Why?” She wasn’t being coy, she was answering from a peaceful haze that didn’t care about the consequences.
“Because I can’t reason with a woman who only knows ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ and ‘why.’ ”
“Yes, yes, yes.” She aimed a kiss at his mouth and missed, but caught it the next time, even as he tried to turn his head away. Her lips were warm and relaxed. Kash shivered with restraint and told himself there was no harm in a kiss—none to her, at least, because she was more playful than aroused.
He melted into her depths very softly, loving the awkward, endearing way she explored his mouth and the little sounds of pleasure that purred from the back of her throat. Lost in the taste and warmth of her, he let go of her hands and put his arms around her again.
Time pulsed slower as they continued to kiss, and the fragrant night air curled through the open window with a faint cinnamon scent that made Kash’s head swim because it mingled with Rebecca’s. Slowly one of her hands, light as the air, trailed down his side and came to rest on his thigh. Her fingers curled and uncurled curiously, then danced languidly down the front of his trousers.
He inhaled sharply, wishing he had all of her around him at that moment so he could move with exquisite care and show her how wonderful she made him feel, and how he could make her feel in return. His body flexed strongly with response, and he groaned silently as he pulled her hand away, then tucked it back into place between his chest and hers.
“You Iowa girls can’t resist anything that reminds you of corn.” He heard the raw, uneven sound of his voice.
“Touch me … the same way,” she whispered against his lips, dragging her mouth back and forth across his.
“No, Becca, I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to stop, if I let myself do that.”
“Becca,” she echoed groggily, smiling. “Like that.”
“Good, It’ll be my private nickname for you.”
“Kiss Becca some more.” Her hands fumbled with the front of her robe, and by luck or fate, suddenly the small opal buttons were undone and the embroidered material hung open halfway to her waist. Kash drew back in surprise, then caught his breath at the sight of her breasts.
“Please,” she whispered raggedly.
With a low murmur of defeat he sank down and took one of her nipples in his mouth. Her broken moan of delight made him shudder. Flicking his tongue across the swollen tip, he forced his mind away from the deep pulse of desire in his own body and concentrated on pleasuring her.
He left the straining peak with a soft kiss, then drew his mouth across her torso, taunting the delicate skin with his lips. He gave the same intimate attention to the other breast, and her soft moans cascaded into the silence, exploding in his senses. “More,” she urged, writhing against him.
Kash was drowning in her magic, and the restraint he thought he’d mastered began deserting him. Breathing harshly, he dragged his head up and rested his forehead against hers. “I can’t. We’re going too far.”
A poignant sound of protest came from her throat. “Make love to me.”
Love. He took her roughly by the shoulders and pushed her away, put her on her back and knelt beside her, glaring down shakily into her wounded eyes. “You don’t want to be my lover. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t want me. Say it. Believe it. Say it.”
“No.”
To his sorrow she began to cry, though she didn’t make a sound. She struggled to push herself up on her elbows, then turned away from him. Her shoulders shook. Kash was distraught. Finally he realized that despite all they’d been through together in the past few days, he’d never seen her break down like this. Only his rejection had the power to hurt her so much.
Stunned, he put a hand on her shoulder and stroked carefully. In a low, choking voice he told her, “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to make you hate me. I don’t want to come between you and all those nice little ideas you have about men and women and love.”
Between harsh breaths she managed to whisper, “I’ve waited all my life for you.”
Something broke inside him. He lay down behind her and pu
lled her back to his chest. I’ve waited all my life for you, too, he told her silently. But out loud he only said, “You’ve waited for a man who doesn’t exist, who’s not the way you expect a man to be.”
He listed to her cry for a long time, and kept his head back from hers on the pillow, afraid that he’d give in to the urge to lean over her and smooth her tears away with his lips. By the time she quieted and began to breathe in a slow rhythm that signaled sleep, he was trembling. Hours passed before he fell asleep, feeling more alone than he ever had in his life.
The moon had disappeared, leaving the room in darkness. Kash was a large, quiet form beside her, lying on his back with his arms over his head. He was fully dressed, even down to his shoes.
After she woke up, Rebecca turned to her side and watched him sleep. Her mind was fuzzy, and her eyes felt as if sand had been rubbed across them, but she remembered everything she’d said to him, and what she’d tried to do, and how he’d responded.
What happened to make you so caring but so afraid of being loved? she asked him silently, desperately. Who hurt you when you were young?
Finally she asked herself the most important question. What could she do to break down his bewildering fortress? Every instinct cried out that the walls around him weren’t as strong as he wished.
I love you, she told him silently.
Seven
He was gone when she woke up the second time. Rebecca lay in the plush bed staring pensively at the empty pillow beside her. A deep ache of bewilderment and disappointment grew in her chest, and she slowly traced the indention his head had made in the pillow.
The invisible man. It was appropriate.
Dizzy and light-headed, she sat up and put her head on her knees. Fury at Madame Piathip soared through her blood. “Sample this wonderful tea,” Madame had said innocently. Rebecca remembered the fog of relaxation overtaking her mind, and Madame leaning forward eagerly to ask questions about Rebecca’s father.