She chanted his name, the words catching in her throat as she struggled for breath. Her breasts rose and fell in the image in the mirror. Her stomach quivered. Lucky's hand moved against her groin. His eyes watched her from beneath the rim of dark lashes, smoldering amber, hot and bright. Her gaze fastened on his mouth, blatantly sensual, carnal, his lips moist and parted slightly as he whispered to her.
«Vien, cherie, vien, vien, vien…»
Her climax hit her like a wave, breaking over her, knocking the breath from her. Her body stiffened in his arms and she would have cried out, but Lucky twisted her around and fastened his mouth over hers. He kissed her hungrily, savagely, bending her back over his arm, his free hand tangling in her hair as it spilled behind her.
In the next instant they were on the bed, Serena lying back on the cool sheets, Lucky with one knee on the mattress and one foot on the floor as he tore his T-shirt off and flung it aside. His jeans followed. He came to her magnificently naked, magnificently aroused, lowering himself over her and plunging himself into her in one smooth move that lifted her off the bed.
Serena arched up against him, taking everything he would give her and knowing in her heart it wouldn't be enough. She gave him her body, let him fill her again and again with the essence of what made him male. She welcomed the driving power of his thrusts, delighted in the feel of his muscled back beneath her hands, the hot musky scent of his body, the smoky taste of his kisses, but she longed for something more.
She looked up into his face and saw the torment there, the strain as he gave her his body and fought to withhold his soul. For an instant she could look into his eyes and feel the terrible struggle going on inside him, and it tore at her heart. There was no place here for reason or self-control. All she could give him was her love, no matter how foolish it seemed, no matter that she knew he wouldn't want to take it, no matter that she was certain her heart would get broken in the end.
As he moved powerfully over her and inside of her, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest, hanging on for dear life as longing tore through her shield of logic once and for all. She was in love with a man for the first time in her life, helplessly, hopelessly in love. He took her on a breathless climb to passion's very summit and soared with her over the edge, his big body straining against hers, his arms crushing her to him. And she let herself believe in that one brilliant moment that he could love her too.
CHAPTER 13
SHE LOOKED LIKE AN ANGEL. HER HAIR SPILLED golden and silky across the pillow. Her lashes lay like tawny lace fans against her cheeks. Her mouth was soft and rosy, relaxed in sleep. Lucky looked down at her, something twisting painfully in his chest as he reached out to touch her but stopped himself, his fingers a scant inch above her face.
She was giving and caring, strong and brave, everything he'd ever given up on finding in a woman, and he couldn't allow himself to indulge in anything other than her body. That, of course, was heaven itself. What he felt when he was inside Serena was incredible. She took away the coldness, chased back the darkness, made him feel alive instead of caught in some bleak plane of existence. He could take her five times a day and never get enough of her. He'd never felt such an insatiable yearning for a woman, had never had his needs met with such sweet absolute surrender.
He wouldn't have believed it possible of the woman he'd first encountered in Gauthier's, but that cool, controlled woman wasn't who Serena really was. Too bad for him, he thought, his mouth twisting in a wry parody of a smile.
Serena wasn't cold and hard. She was a warm, golden temptation. Heaven was losing himself in her, hell was knowing he couldn't stay. She would want too much from him. She would want things he couldn't give. He couldn't let her get that close.
In the first place, he was terrified of what she would see-the things he'd done, the things he'd seen, the cold blackness that surrounded his soul and crept in on his mind. In the second place, he was terrified of what would happen. He had spent the past year putting himself back together, painstakingly reconstructing himself from the fragments Ramos's hell had left him in. Now those fragments balanced one against the other like a house of cards. One wrong move and it would all come crashing down.
He needed his peace, his solitude, his art. That was all. He had stripped his life down to those bare essentials because he couldn't tolerate anything more. He couldn't be around people because their presence irritated him, like air blowing across an exposed nerve. By necessity his focus had to remain inward, concentrating on holding himself together. He couldn't need a woman whose job was to poke around inside people's minds, ferreting out their secrets, taking them all apart to see what made them tick.
He slid from the bed without disturbing Serena, stepped into his jeans and zipped up, leaving the button undone. He dug a cigarette from the pocket of his T-shirt, hung it from his lip, and wandered across the room to the French doors that still stood open. Thunder rumbled in the distance, an appropriate accompaniment to everything that was going on inside him and around him; a portent of a coming storm within and without.
He had a bad feeling about this business with Chanson du Terre. He had from the beginning and it was only getting worse. Opposing forces were pushing against each other, building pressure. Something was going to have to give. Digging a match out of his pocket, he lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply, wondering which side would give in first.
Gifford Sheridan was an old man. Ferocious and hardheaded, to be sure, but an old man nevertheless. If he had a son to inherit or a granddaughter who wanted to stay, things might have looked better. As it was, the deck was stacked against him, against Chanson du Terre, against the swamp.
On the other side stood Tristar and Len Burke. Burke, who reminded Lucky too much of his old nemesis, Colonel Lambert, a man who had known no boundaries when it came to getting what he wanted. Where would Burke draw the line? And what of Shelby? Lucky knew all too well how far she was willing to go to get what she wanted.
Mason Talbot struck him as little more than a pawn to be used by Tristar and Shelby. He was too laid-back to instigate anything. Too dimwitted in Gifford's opinion. But he would have his uses. He would make a perfect figurehead to rally the town around in favor of economic growth. And once Tristar was in place and Mason was ensconced in the legislature in Baton Rouge, he would make a very attractive spokesman for the chemical industry.
Lucky's gaze drifted back to the bed and Serena, who was frowning and mumbling in her sleep, her hand sweeping against the mattress where he had lain. The load had been dropped squarely on her slender shoulders, and while she seemed determined to uphold her grandfather's wishes, would she only be delaying the inevitable? She had said Gifford's ploy wouldn't hold her here. What would happen when she left?
«Lucky?» she whispered, rousing herself like a sleepy kitten. Blinking against the soft light, she sat up and combed back a handful of honey-gold hair from her eyes. Lucky watched and said nothing, savoring the sight of her as she drew the ivory cotton sheet up demurely over her breasts, a gesture that struck him as sweetly incongruous considering everything they'd done together in bed.
She tilted her head and blinked at him. «What are you doing?»
«Havin' a cigarette,» he said. He took a deep drag and exhaled a plume of smoke in demonstration.
Serena frowned as she slid from the bed, wrapping the sheet around her like a Grecian gown. «You smoke too much,» she chided him softly as she padded across the faded carpet. She cuddled against him, not waiting for an invitation, but sliding her arms around his lean waist and nuzzling her cheek against his bare chest. She tilted her head back to look up at him. «You shouldn't smoke at all. It's bad for you.»