Maybe This Time, page 44
“I’ll give you what you want.”
She arched a brow. “Oh, and what’s that?”
“Me.”
Her hands settled on her hips. “I don’t want you.” Naked as an infant, she strode down the beach.
What had he done? Feeling his own temper rise with his confusion, he went after her. “Alyssa.”
She marched on, past the scraggly bush and onto the path to the lagoon. He jogged to catch up with her. She broke into a sprint.
“Alyssa, what just happened?” The woman’s logic was a maze.
“Some genius. Just go away, Buchannan.”
He caught her by the arm. She twisted and he backed off. She started running again. Damn it, what had gotten into her? “I didn’t want my shirt back,” he called out.
She paused and turned. “Stuff your shirt.”
“Are you ticked because I wouldn’t give you my pants?” He stopped, jerked the metal button from the fabric, the metal zipper down, stomped out of the jeans, and grabbed them up.
On the wide path to the lagoon, he caught her and pulled her to the grassy ground. Panting, he pinned her legs between his thighs. “I said, here are my pants.”
She glared at him. “Stuff your pants, too. I don’t know what in God’s name I saw in you—”
Kevan kissed her quiet.
She writhed, trying to free herself from him, pounded her fists on his shoulders. He grabbed her arms and raised them above her head, then shifted until he covered her length. He used his body to persuade her, to entice her to give up her anger. “Welcome me,” he breathed against her lips. “Please, Alyssa. I want you.”
Her hands stilled and he released them. Before he could blink, her furious blows again pounded his shoulders.
“Do you know how hard it was to propose to you? Do you know how hard it was to say I love you? And look what you do,” she cried, raining blows on his chest. “You’re despicable.”
He didn’t stop her. He licked her lips with his tongue, stroked her arms with his hands.
She whimpered and murmured against his mouth. “I hate you, Buchannan.”
He rubbed his lips to the corner of her mouth. “Welcome me, honey. You love me.” He cupped her heavy breast in his hand, whispered all of the things he wanted to share with her.
A little gasp rushed from her throat. “Oh, I hate you.” Her voice a mere thread, she lifted her body to mold to his.
Open-mouthed he kissed his way to the opposite corner of her mouth, her warm breath tingling his cheek. “You love me.”
He caught her hard nipple between his finger and thumb and rolled it gently. A tortured moan crawled up her throat. She turned her head, offered him her creamy neck. “Oh, Kevan. Oh God, I hate you.”
He taunted, teased, and tasted. Tracing the shell-curve of her ear with the tip of his tongue, the soft hollow behind her ear with the tip of his nose, then, raking her lobe with his teeth, he whispered, “You love me.”
Inside, Alyssa cried. Spasms ripping through her, she flattened her fisted hands against his shoulders. What did he want? He wanted her. He didn’t want her. Couldn’t he decide? She loved him. By damn, she knew her heart.
“I want you, Alyssa,” he murmured into the curve of her neck. “I really want you.”
Oh, why did his skin have to feel so good? Why did her hands insist on smoothing a path over the muscles bunching in his upper arm? Why did he make her forget everything—everything except how wonderful it felt to be held by him? He stroked a lingering, languorous path down her center. She caught his hair in her hands, and whispered the lie. “I hate you.”
“You love me.” His lips covered hers, caressing, teasing, torturing and pleasing. His persuasive tongue forced her mouth open and invaded, sweeping her teeth, the soft ridges of the roof of her mouth, and finally—dear God, finally—her tongue. Tiny explosions rocked her body. Moaning her pleasure, she whimpered a protest.
She knew him. She knew the feel, the taste, the scent of him. His touch, the honeyed warmth surging from her center and spreading through her limbs, the powerful emotions filling her heart till it threatened to burst. All of these things, she knew. “Oh, Kevan.” She circled his back with her arms and pulled him to her.
He kissed her deeply, lovingly, then raised his head and breathed against her temple. “By God, you do love me.”
Rearing back, he looked down at her. She met his eyes, fearing he’d again belittle the value of her love by throwing it back to her. She lifted her chin. “Yes.”
She watched him swallow, then again sought his eyes. Tenderness. Purpose. A gentle pleading shone in them. “I’m sorry I hurt you. Marry me, Alyssa.”
She gave him a siren’s smile. “Of course.”
“Of course?” A warning shot went off inside his head. “That’s why you withdrew your proposal.”
“It is.”
“I think,” Kevan said with a mock frown, “I’ve been had.”
Alyssa smiled up at him. “Not yet, darling. But soon.”
Kevan laughed from deep in his chest. “You’re a wicked woman, Alyssa Cameron.”
“I’m a lady, Buchannan.” She wiggled until his arousal fitted between her thighs.
His eyes darkened with possessive desire. He arched his back and entered her body. “You’re my lady.”
Warm and wanting, her yielding body accepted him. “Always,” she promised. “And you’re mine, Buchannan. Only mine.”
“Always.” He began the rhythmic ritual of man joining woman, the act of loving that comforts, commits, and communes bodies and souls. “Always.”
“KEVAN?”
Kevan opened his eyes. His limbs felt lethargically heavy. Alyssa’s smiling face greeted him, which made the leaves pricking into his back worth every stab.
“We’ll get married as soon as we get home,” she said, the pink tinges of dawn melting around her. “Then we’ll merge our businesses, and you’ll spend your days and nights with me. Agreed?”
She looked like a content kitten. Like with one more stroke, she’d purr. “Good morning,” he said, just to annoy her. God she was beautiful, especially when her fire was up.
“And you needn’t bother trying to hassle me today. You can’t.”
He feigned a frown, not at all surprised that she had him figured. “Why not?”
“Because you wonderful man,” she paused to peck a chaste kiss to his chin, “I know the truth.”
“Aha. And what truth is that?”
Cupping his face in her hands, she grew serious. “You love me, Buchannan. God help you, me—both of us—you love me every bit as much as I love you.”
“You don’t seem happy about it,” he said, seeing no sense in denying what they both knew to be true.
“It’s scary.” She licked the lips he longed to taste. “What if—”
He pressed his fingertips against her mouth. She fell silent. “No what ifs, honey. Life’s full of them. What matters is that I love you. I’ve never said that to another woman, Alyssa. I’ll never say it to another woman.”
“Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep. Things happen. Nobody knows what the future holds.”
“I promise.” He looked her straight in the eye. “No matter what happens, I’ll always love you.”
She shuddered, and he had the feeling that somebody’d walked over his grave. “Alyssa? Look at me.” She lifted her head, her eyes filled with worry. “What is it?” he asked.
“I never thought I’d love anyone. Not like this.”
He gave her a tender smile. “Love’s a reason to celebrate, honey, not to mourn.”
She smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes, but worry did.
“You’re right.” Her fingers slid down his bare throat. “Did you ever wear a strip of leather around your neck? One with something shiny—no, not shiny. With something glowing—hanging from it?”
He opened his eyes. “What?”
“A strip—”
“I heard you, love. I just don’t—” Sensing the question was important to her, he answered. “No, I haven’t.”
“Oh.”
That disclosure either worried her more, or disappointed her. “Why?”
She shrugged and stood up. “Just wondered.”
Dressed in her skirt and torn blue blouse, she turned and looked out on the water. The light breeze had her white skirt tight against her legs and ruffled the kick pleat in back so it flapped in the wind. She was a beautiful woman. Tiny but strong, lissome—and tense. “Seeing more images?” he asked.
Her shoulders lifted. “A few.”
He heard pain in her voice, and something that warned him not to push her. “Do you want to talk about them?”
“No.” She paused a long moment, her back still to him. “No, I don’t. But I know we have to.”
She seemed panicky. He clenched his fists at his sides, fighting off a sense of dread stealing through him. “When did these visions start?”
She turned to face him. Her skin had paled, and her voice had become hesitant. “When I was seven and my father died. They happen often, Kevan, and they’ve frightened more people away from me than I care to remember.”
He wanted to hold her, but he had the distinct feeling that she didn’t need holding. She needed words. “I’m not most people. I love you.”
She seemed to relax just a bit, not holding her back quite so straight. “I see things,” she warned him.
“I know.”
“No, Kevan. I mean, I see things. They appear. I—I—”
“People? Events? What?” he asked, forcing his voice bland though his inquisitive nature was titillated.
“One person—appears. The rest I just glimpse. Kind of like looking at a photo.”
She wasn’t crazy. She was dead serious—and scared. “Who appears?”
Alyssa grew rigid, scarcely daring to draw breath. So far, Kevan’s reaction had been mild, curious. But, she reminded herself, the worst had not yet come. “He’s called the Elder.”
“Un huh. And what does this Elder do?”
She frowned at him. “Don’t patronize me, Kevan.” She rubbed her forehead, then lowered her hand to her side. “Sit down and let me explain. It’s simple really, but you’ve got to keep an open mind, okay?”
Kevan lowered himself to the sand and leaned back against a palm trunk.
Alyssa sat in front of him, her legs bent at the knee. “When I was seven, my father drank himself to death. The night of his funeral, I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t understand why he’d had to die.” She paused to check Kevan’s expression, and finding it conveyed nothing of his thoughts, she continued. “I was crying, muffling the sound with my pillow so my mother wouldn’t hear me. She detested any display of emotion. Considered it a weakness, especially in me.”
His lips twitched like he wanted to say something, then decided against it. “She was a good mother, Kevan. My father’s drinking hurt her and she believed that not feeling was the only way to survive. But she was wrong.”
Alyssa took a deep breath. “I know she was wrong because the Elder told me she was.”
“When he appeared to you?” Kevan asked.
“Yes.” She flicked a strand of hair behind her shoulder. “Lying there, I saw a silvery vapor fill my room like a big cloud. This old man stepped out of it. He said he was the Elder of the Council of Perfection.” Recalling the incident, she smiled. “I asked him if he was an angel.”
“Are you sure you weren’t dreaming, honey?”
“I’m sure,” she said. “The Elder smiled at me and said that calling him an angel would suffice. I didn’t know what suffice meant. But he didn’t look angry, so I supposed he’d meant he was an angel. I asked him about my father; why he died.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He said,” she hesitated and looked deep into Kevan’s eyes. “He said that my father’s trials had ended in this level. That he had other discoveries to make in a different level.”
“What did he mean?”
“That it was time,” she said simply.
“Very interesting, but time for what?” Kevan rested his hand on her thigh. “Honey, maybe you were dreaming, or maybe it was shock. Stress can do strange things to an adult, and you were just a child.”
“No, Kevan.” She might as well tell him the rest. “As recompense for losing my father, the Elder gave me the gift of sight. He said that the Council had made the concession, given me the gift, because of my mother’s denying her emotions. They felt that fulfilling my destiny in this level would be impossible if I didn’t have the faith of their service.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think with your heart, Kevan, not with your brain. Since that first time, I’ve seen the Elder many, many times. Hundreds of times. Every time I do, and sometimes when I don’t, I have a vision.”
“Have any of them come true?”
Somber, she met his gaze. Now came the time when he would emotionally run. “All of them.”
Thirty-four
“KEVAN, WAKE UP.” Alyssa shook his shoulder. “Blast it, Kevan, would you wake up?”
He rolled over and opened one eye. “Just five more minutes, honey.”
“There’s a boat coming just after dawn.”
Groaning, Kevan shut his eye. “Right.”
She shook him again. “I saw it, Kevan. Come on, wake up.”
Grumbling, Kevan hauled himself to his feet. “If you woke me up for no reason, you, dear lady, are going to pay.”
She smiled at him. “Are you always this grouchy in the morning?”
He glared at her. “I’m usually worse.”
“Oh, pity, we’re in trouble. I hate to break this to you, lover, but I’m a morning kind of person.”
He rubbed his neck and let out a deep yawn. “You’ll learn better.” Stretching his shoulders, he worked out a kink just under his left shoulder blade. “If the boat’s not coming ‘til dawn, why do I have to get up now?”
“You believe me—about the boat?”
“Are you lying to me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then why shouldn’t I believe you?”
“You should,” she said. “It’s just that—never mind. There are two reasons to get up now, genius. First, so you can do your half of the cleaning up around here, and two—”
“Wait a second. Back up. This is a deserted island.”
“It is. And all we’re leaving on it is footprints. The world’s trashed out enough as it is.”
He rubbed his chin, wishing for the zillionth time he had a decent razor. She had a valid point. “All right, we’ll clean up. Do I have time to wash my face?”
She smiled. “Only if you wash the sand out of your beard.”
He slid her a reprimanding look. “You know I hate cheerful in the morning, Alyssa.”
“I know.”
Grunting at her for seeming so pleased with herself, he turned for the path to the lagoon.
“But you’ll learn better.”
He stopped, and, looking back over the slope of his shoulder, he leveled her with a frosty glare. “The Hell I will.”
Alyssa shrugged off his anger like it was a pesky fly. “Fine. If you’d rather have Hell in the morning, I’ll do my best to accommodate you.”
He turned and crossed his arms over his chest. “That sounds a lot like a threat.”
She grinned. “It sure did, didn’t it?”
He walked back to where she stood. Without a word, he scooped her up and slung her over his shoulder. Placing a hand firmly on her rump, he took off toward the lagoon.
“Oh, Kevan,” she cooed at him. “I just love your caveman tactics.” Then she burst into laughter.
He sidestepped a sticker bush that oozed a clear, gummy-looking substance, and sought his memory to classify it. Her hand slid to his buttock. Seconds later he felt it sting. “Ouch, damn it.”
Alyssa pinched him again. “I don’t appreciate being ignored. When a person says, ‘I love you, darling,’ you’re supposed to say, ‘I love you, too.’”
“Pinch me again, and I’ll make you think love.”
She laughed at him. “I’m not afraid of you, caveman. Bullying me won’t work.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really,” she said, nipping his back with her teeth.
“Woman, you’re getting under my skin.”
“God, I hope so.”
He stopped at the edge of the lagoon and slid her down his length until her chest met his. Her laughter rang out. He captured her lips and kissed her until she clung to him, until her laughter ceased bubbling in her throat.
Feeling wicked, wonderfully wicked, at what he was about to do, he raised his head.
“No, Kevan,” she ordered him. “Don’t you dare.”
“Dare what?” he asked, knowing full well they both knew his exact intentions.
“You’ve got that look. The same one you had when you deliberately snared my blouse with the fish hook and ripped it right off my back.” She worried her lip with her teeth and tried to wiggle out of his arms. “Kevan, honey,” she said, tapping a long finger to his chest. “You wouldn’t throw me in, would you? It’s barely dawn. The water is—”
“Wet,” Kevan finished, throwing his weight. They both tumbled and plunged into the water with a great splash.
Alyssa came up sputtering. “Kevan Buchannan, you are a maniac. A misguided, annoying pain in the—”
He dunked her.
She bounced up from the shallow bottom gasping. He backed away.
“That’s it, buddy,” she vowed, slapping the water from her cheeks. “You’re going down.”
Smiling, Kevan planted his feet in the soft lagoon floor and crossed his chest with his arms. Staring down his nose at her, he tried not to laugh. She was so angry she wouldn’t be able to spit for a week. “Going down? Me? Is that so?”
She splashed him. A water fight ensued, and when the sunlight crept higher to flood the tree-shadowed lagoon, they were laughing like children.
“Enough, Kevan. It’s full dawn.”
