He folded her deeper into his embrace. She lay her head against his chest, half expecting to feel a crisp waistcoat instead of the warmth of his bare chest.
He rubbed his cheek against her curls. A shuddering breath escaped her. They were merely swaying
now, clinging to any excuse to remain entangled in the tender web they'd woven. As the last pure note of the Maori song rang between them, the solution came to Emily, a revenge so simple and so diabolical, it could not fail to destroy him.
Tansy had always said there was only one way to bring a good man to his knees.
The music died and she quivered in the sudden hush.
The silence seemed too harsh, too penetrating. Justin reached to tilt her face upward. She tore herself out of his arms and ran, fleeing both herself and him, yet knowing in her heart that he would follow.
Chapter 12
As rich as our mine may be, it cannot compare to
the wealth I've always found
in your company. . . .
A laughing mob of dancers streamed around him, but Justin stood in a daze, staring at the spot where Emily had been as if he expected her to reappear in a puff of smoke. Blood rushed through his veins, flooding uninvited to his loins, his heart, his pounding head. The roaring in his ears had nothing to do
with the sea. It was the same roar he had heard on the night he found Emily, the same relentless ebb and flow of warning and desire that had taunted his waking moments and colored his dreams with madness.
He plunged forward, shoving his way through the Maori, deaf for the first time to the lilting intricacies
of their song. A woman's hand touched his arm, but he shook it away, blinded to all else by the lithe shadow growing smaller in the distance.
The ribbon of beach unfurled beneath his pounding feet. A shy moon peeked through the sparse clouds, scattering diamonds of light across the sand. Emily stayed just ahead of him, a whisper of movement between the shallow dunes. His nostrils twitched. He would almost swear he could scent her on the
wind, an alluring blend of vanilla and musk.
As he ran, the lights from the feast faded to a rosy glow in the sky. The echoes of music and laughter were drowned in the crash of the waves. He rounded a high dune and staggered to a halt. Emily stood alone on the stretch of beach where he had first found her.
Justin knew he would never forget the way she looked at that moment. She was as rare and exotic as a wild English rose blooming in the desert. The wind tousled her curls and whipped at her skirt. Her chin tilted in defiance even as she twisted her hands together for courage. He couldn't have said which made her more beautiful to him -her vulnerability or her pride. She might have been a defiant Eve dangling a juicy apple in front of Adam's nose.
As he angled toward her, he could feel his face hardening in ruthless lines of desperation.
"I don't like you," he said.
"I don't like you either."
Each weighted step through the damp sand carried him nearer to his destruction. "I'm too old for you."
"Much."
He was near enough to touch her now. "I have gray hair."
She reached up, wound a silvery strand around her finger, and jerked it out. "Not anymore."
He tangled his hand in her curls, drawing her head back until her mouth was a scant breath from his own. "I won't marry you."
Her hand crept around his nape. "I wouldn't have you."
"Oh, you'll have me."
She shivered at his husky promise. His mouth closed on hers, tracing its shape, its softness, with a patience and delicacy he was far from feeling. He wanted to make her ache deep inside, as he was
aching. He rubbed his lips across hers, nibbling and coaxing with an expertise he'd almost forgotten he possessed. He was determined to stoke the flame of her need with exquisite stealth until she burned only for him.
Her lips parted shyly beneath the tantalizing pressure, burning his restraint to cinders. With a will of its own his tongue snaked out, delving deep inside the lush sweetness of her mouth. She met his thrust with
a soft swirl of her own. He groaned. She tasted like a hot, luscious berry- succulent and ripe for his picking. With a hunger that made him quake inside, he wanted to taste the rest of her, to feel her sugared heat melt around every throbbing inch of his body.
The knowledge of what Justin wanted to do to her exploded through Emily, both terrifying her and imbuing her with a delicious sense of power. Gasping for a breath of sanity, she tore her mouth away from his. Dear God, what was she doing? It wasn't supposed to happen this way. She was supposed to coolly seduce him, scorn him, and toss the shreds of his broken heart in his face like confetti. Instead,
she was clinging to him like a helpless wanton, drowning in the fervor of his kiss. With only a few expert caresses he had become the hunter and she the prey.
His lips flowered hungrily against her dimpled cheek, the curve of her jaw, the tingling skin of her earlobe. His tongue flicked out to taste the damning pulsebeat below her ear. A hoarse whimper escaped her throat. She struggled to remember why she must hate him.
Pressing her burning brow to the hollow of his throat, she whispered, "You always treat me like a child."
"No more," he vowed, sliding his hands down her back. Their callused strength against her bare flesh made her shiver. "You're all woman. Woman enough to take whatever I can give you." His warm, rough tongue plundered her ear, sending ribbons of sensation cascading deep into her womb.
Her knees buckled, but he caught her, dragging her against him. If he only knew how desperately wrong he was. She was no match for him, she knew. No match at all. She knew that with dread certainty as he angled her thigh upward and pressed his flagrant arousal to the aching cradle between her legs.
She moaned as his mouth took hers again. The slow grind of his hips and his tongue's feverish strokes painted a dark and vivid picture of his desires. She trembled, but his body was too broad, too unrelenting for escape. There was no place for her to flee from the tender assault she had provoked.
The rough satin of his fingertips inched between her breasts, gliding wider with each sensual circle. She gasped as his palm cupped the threadbare calico of her bandeau, molding it to the soft globe of her breast.
He pressed his mouth to her ear. "I'm not like the others, Em. I won't hurt you. I swear it."
How could she tell him he'd already hurt her beyond bearing? Unable to resist his hoarse promise, she clung to his shoulders. His fingertips skimmed her nipple like butterfly wings, igniting tremors of pleasure. Beneath his caress the calico became not a barrier, but silky kindling for a spreading wildfire. She muffled her whimpers in his chest, desperate to hide her agonized blush. She could not still the irrational fear that he might discover not only what she was, but who she was as well.
His lips brushed her hair. "I've spent the last few nights pouring all of my passions into my music, when all I really wanted to do was pour them into you."
His blunt confession and the loving stroke of his thumb over the tender bud of her nipple were her undoing. Longing coursed through her in dark waves. She rubbed her lips against his chest, tasting the salty spice of his skin, teasing the rigid nub of his own nipple beneath her tongue.