Thirty Nights Page 15

  She shrugged the robe off her shoulders and walked toward him, letting it slide to the floor. The gown she was wearing beneath it was created of delicate black lace. The way it was cut high on the sides, all the way up to her hips, displayed her gorgeous, wraparound legs. As she moved closer, the shifting lace offered tantalizing glimpses of perfumed and powdered female flesh.

  “Tell me again,” she suggested as she twined her arms around his neck.

  “Tell you what?” She was rubbing against him, like a sleek, sensuous cat.

  “How much I bore you.” She slid down his body, her hands clever, her touch confident. “How much you don’t want me.” Hunter drew in a breath as she deftly dispatched the five metal buttons on his jeans.

  “Tell me that you don’t want me to do this.” Her long, slim, talented pianist’s fingers encircled his aching shaft. “Or this.” His body tensed with anticipation as she stroked its length; his self-control was hanging by a single ragged thread.

  “And, of course, I know how you’ve grown so weary of me doing this.” When she took him in her mouth, fully, deeply, wetly, the thread snapped.

  MUCH, MUCH LATER, GILLIAN lifted her head and grinned down at Hunter. They’d ended up on the rug, Hunter on his back, Gillian on top of him, her legs splayed over his hips, their clothes scattered. She’d thought she’d heard the sound of lace ripping, but caught up in her own seduction efforts, she hadn’t cared.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “You’re a saucy wench, I’ll give you that,” he allowed as he ran a hand down the cooling flesh of her back.

  “I am, aren’t I?” She smiled, pleased for them both.

  “Unfortunately, you may have overlooked one important thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you kill me before the thirty days are up, you’ll have to leave early.”

  “Don’t worry, Hunter.” She brushed her lips over his. “I promise to be gentle with you from now on.”

  She felt his mouth curve beneath hers. “Thank you, Gillian. I’m extremely grateful.”

  “How grateful?”

  “It’s difficult to put into words.” He rolled them over in a swift, lithe move that put him on top. “Perhaps I should demonstrate, instead.”

  It was Hunter who was gentle. This time their lovemaking was different. His kisses were as soft as snowflakes, as warm and intoxicating as mulled wine. His hands were slow and patient and knowing, touching her in all the places he’d discovered she loved to be touched. He savored, tenderly, lingeringly.

  Outside, the blizzard continued to rage. Inside, shimmering jewel-toned rainbows filled Gillian’s head and ripples of delight rode in her veins, spinning like a kaleidoscope when she climaxed.

  “You’re crying.” He touched a fingertip to the tear that had accompanied her release.

  “Only because it was so…” She’d already discovered that sex with Hunter could be thrilling. But she hadn’t expected it to be so exquisitely beautiful. “Amazing.”

  He laughed, that rough, slightly rusty sound that suggested it was not something he did often. “It’s us.” He brushed some damp curls away from her face. “We’re amazing together, Gillian. A perfect match, just as I’d suspected.”

  Although Gillian understood that Hunter was still talking about sex, she vowed that before her time on Castle Mountain had come to an end, he’d realize that they were a perfect match in every way.

  Over the next few days, as the storm waned, Gillian held her breath, half expecting Hunter to once again attempt to send her away. But he didn’t.

  They no longer spent their days apart. Gillian’s sexuality blossomed, like a late summer rose opening to the sun. Trusting Hunter implicitly, there was nothing she would not do, no suggestion or request she would say no to. In return, Hunter marveled at her sexual imagination, not realizing, or perhaps not acknowledging, Gillian had thought on more than one occasion, that love was driving everything she did.

  Since even they could not make love all the time, they began to share far more than just their bodies. They spent hours together in the library, Gillian at the piano, Hunter lounging on the leather sofa, his eyes closed, seeming to absorb the music. In the past she’d always preferred privacy when she was composing, but soon discovered that having Hunter in the room stimulated her creativity and raised the emotionalism of her work to new heights.

  Because his work was so highly classified, Gillian couldn’t help with his research. But she did proofread two articles he’d agreed to write for scientific journals, both which she declared brilliant. She also began spending the morning hours in his office, curled up with a book while he tapped away on the computer.

  And when Mrs. Adams’s doctor, upon reexamination, found a hairline fracture in the housekeeper’s ankle, delaying her return to the house, Gillian discovered culinary talents that surprised her even more than her newfound sexuality.

  She enjoyed cooking for Hunter, an enjoyment that increased when he began to spend evenings puttering around in the kitchen with her. Since more often than not they tended to get sidetracked during preparation, they quickly learned to stick to dishes that could be heated up later. After other hungers had been satisfied.

  “Tell me about your parents,” she asked one night, while they were eating a late supper in bed. Across the room the fire crackled; outside the glass wall a full moon floated in a clear winter sky studded with white stars.

  They’d begun discussing more personal aspects of their lives, as well, and while Hunter had proved more reticent than she, Gillian continued to delve for more information about this man she loved.

  “They were both a lot like your father. Brilliant and horrendously egocentric.” He scooped up a forkful of baked spaghetti. “My father was David St. John.”

  “The British physicist.” A man whose name was legendary in the scientific community. Even more famous than her father’s.

  “That’s him. My mother was Isabel Montgomery. She was an American biochemist, who was less known than my father at the time but no less intelligent and perhaps even more ambitious. Her entire life focused around her work.”

  He took a bite of the now-cold spaghetti, frowning as he chewed. “They divorced before I was two, so I can’t remember them together as a couple, but from what each of them said individually about the other, I’d guess that their marriage was pretty horrific.

  “I spent some time bouncing back and forth between them, which meant mostly spending my days with household staff. When I was five, my mother was offered a research grant to study the medicinal possibilities of plants in the rain forest. Promising to be back before I knew it, she left me with my maternal grandmother.”

  The no-nonsense New York widow of a wealthy industrialist who’d cornered the world market on copper, Gillian remembered reading in that Newsweek article.

  “A year led to two, then five. Then more. The summer I turned fifteen she died of some tropical fever.”

  Gillian placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  Hunter shrugged. “I didn’t spend much time grieving for her. It was impossible to miss something—or someone—you never had. Coincidentally, my father died that same winter, in a car crash in Monaco.”

  “Leaving you an orphan.”

  His rough answering laugh held neither humor nor bitterness. “It wasn’t nearly as Dickensian as you make it sound. By the time he drove his sports car off that cliff, I doubt if I could have picked him out in a lineup. It’d been years since I’d seen him in anything but newspaper articles or news clips.”

  “That’s even sadder.”

  “I suppose it depends on your viewpoint.” Hunter shrugged. “When I first arrived at my grandmother’s Park Avenue apartment, where I stayed a day before being shipped back to boarding school, she informed me that the only reason I existed was because her daughter—and there was no love lost between the two of them, believe me—had wanted to perpetuate her own genes. I suspect that was my father’s motive, as well.”

  “I can understand that. My father always regretted not having a son to keep his gene pool alive.”

  “Yet more proof that your father is a fool.” He gave her a studied look.

  Since he’d been opening up to her more with each passing day, Gillian decided to take a chance. “I suppose that growing up without close family ties is another thing we have in common,” she said carefully.

  His face closed up. “I suppose so.”

  She watched the shutters slamming shut over his eyes. Damn. Gillian understood all too well why Hunter didn’t trust relationships, but it was still frustrating, and a bit daunting, when he turned so distant on her.

  Recognizing the brick wall of resistance, she decided to sidestep around it. For now.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

  “So?”

  “Didn’t Dylan Prescott say something about a winter carnival this weekend?”

  “I believe he may have mentioned it.”

  She took a deep breath, then went for broke. “I thought we might go.”

  “To Winterfest?”

  He looked as if she’d suggested taking a rocket to Mars. Actually, Gillian thought, there was a very good chance that he’d find that suggestion more reasonable.

  “I’ve never been to a winter carnival,” she said. There had, of course, been winter festivals in the Alps, but the nuns, determined to protect the chastity of their charges, and understanding that might be difficult when music was playing, people were dancing and wine and beer were flowing, had never let the girls attend.

  “Neither have I.”

  “All the more reason to go.”

  Hunter considered that argument as he finished the spaghetti. “I have no idea what one even does at such an event.”
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  “Well—” she shrugged and offered him her sweetest smile “—I suppose attending is a good way to find out. Surely you’ve wondered.”

  He thought about that for a moment. “No.” He placed the empty earthenware bowl onto the black lacquered table beside the bed. “I haven’t.”

  Gillian let out a frustrated breath. “And here I thought you possessed scientific curiosity. Why don’t you try thinking of it as mingling with the natives?”

  His eyes swept over her again. “It means that much to you?”

  “Yes.” She had no real idea why, but it did.

  A muscle moved in his scarred jaw. He didn’t answer for another long moment.

  “If I do this for you, I’ll want something in return.”

  “That’s only fair.” She had a very good idea of what sort of quid pro quo he was referring to and knew that there was nothing he’d suggest she’d consider a sacrifice.

  “We won’t stay long.”

  “Just long enough to get the flavor of the event,” she agreed.

  He nodded. Slowly. And still a bit reluctantly. “All right. We’ll go.”

  His willingness to leave his stunning glass-and-cedar fortress caused joy to sing in Gillian’s veins. She flung her arms around his neck.

  “Thank you, Hunter. I promise you’ll have a wonderful time.”

  He pushed her back against the pillows. “Believe me, Gillian, I intend to.”

  When she’d first arrived on Castle Mountain, Gillian would have believed Hunter’s words to be a threat. Now, as she kissed him back, wildly, wonderfully, she took them as a promise.

  13

  “OH, IT’S JUST LIKE the Emerald City, but white,” Gillian breathed as she and Hunter arrived in the small New England town that had given the Maine island its name.

  The trees lining the brick sidewalks of Main Street had been sprayed with water, which had frozen to a crystalline brilliance. Fairy lights twinkled in the winter-bare branches. A towering ice castle claimed the town square, gleaming in the spotlights focused on it. More tiny white lights illuminated the tall, icy turrets.

  “Now all we need are some munchkins,” he said dryly.

  “Too kinky,” she responded as she spotted an entire group of ice sculptures created by Castle Mountain residents.

  “You promised me anything.”

  “I lied.” She stared up at the huge ice moose and wondered if the real thing could possibly be so large. “So sue me.”

  “I’d rather kiss you.” And he did. Lightly, tenderly, a mere whispered promise of a kiss that nevertheless had her toes curling in her boots.

  A sturdy draft horse approached, its harness lit up with more white lights, huge hoofs clip-clopping. “New idea,” Hunter said. He took hold of her mittened hand. “I’ll bet you’ve never made love in a sleigh.”

  “Of course not!” But the idea, along with the wicked glint in his sexy eyes, caused a flush to rise in her cheeks. “And I’ve no intention of trying. If we didn’t freeze to death, we’d undoubtedly get arrested.”

  He shook his head. “It’s bad enough that you’re admitting you lied when you told me you’d do anything,” he said with a deep, feigned sigh. “I suppose next you’re going to forget that you promised me that if we came to Winterfest, you’d make certain I had a wonderful time.”

  “I may have changed a bit since I first came to Castle Mountain—”

  “Blossomed.”

  “What?”

  “You haven’t really changed, Gillian. Not really. The person you are tonight is the same woman you’ve always been, deep down inside. What’s happened is that the freedom to act on those inner impulses you’ve always put into your music has made you blossom into a gorgeous, exciting sexual adventuress.”

  It was true. Even so, Gillian quickly looked around to make certain that no passing festival-goer had heard his murmured comment.

  “You may have a point. So far as it goes.” She noticed that he’d deftly left out any reference to love. “But while I’m willing to explore my sensual side at home, I’m not adventurous enough to make love in public.” He might be hesitant to say the word, but she was weary of trying to conceal her true feelings.

  “So, it was a dandy festival, can we leave now?”

  She laughed. One of the things that had surprised her about these past days with Hunter was that their relationship also included an easy humor that, in the beginning, she wouldn’t have thought possible.

  “I would have thought, that being a scientist, you should have learned patience.”

  “I thought I was remarkably patient with you when you first arrived. Do you have any idea how many showers I took trying to give you time to adjust to your situation?”

  “You also wanted me to spend that time thinking about you. About how it would be when we went to bed together. What you wanted,” she accused lightly, “was to make me crazy with wanting.”

  “That, too,” he agreed. “So, did it work?”

  “If you need any more proof, Hunter, I’d say that your observation skills need a lot of work.”

  It was his turn to laugh as he led her over to where the sleigh had stopped beside a towering ice structure that reminded Gillian of Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Which in turn made her think of how, in a way, she’d been sleeping until Hunter had awakened her to the total, sensual woman she could be.

  “Wrong movie,” she murmured minutes later as she snuggled beneath a pile of blankets in the back of the sleigh. Harness bells jingled merrily, metal runners crunched against the snow, stars glistened overhead.

  “Hmm?” When he touched his lips to the top of her head, as impossible as it was, Gillian imagined she felt the heat of the kiss through the barrier of her red wool ski cap.

  “Main Street may resemble Oz in winter, but this is right out of Dr. Zhivago.” There may have been more romantic ways to spend a December evening, but Gillian couldn’t think of one.

  He pulled her closer, put his gloved fingers on her chin and tilted her face up to his. “We’ll have a happier ending.”

  Gillian didn’t want to talk about endings. Not when the waning moon overhead signaled that they’d passed the halfway point in their agreed-upon time together.

  She didn’t answer, but instead closed the distance between them, kissing Hunter with a rush of feeling that brought tears to her eyes.

  While the fantasy of making love in the back of a sleigh was admittedly tempting, Gillian was relieved when Hunter seemed satisfied with long, slow, hot kisses that made her forget the temperature had dropped below freezing.

  She was snuggled up against him, able to feel his thickening erection even through the layers of thick outdoor clothing between them. When she pressed her palm against the bulge in his jeans, he groaned.

  “Wench,” he murmured in her ear, so as not to be heard by the driver, who had his wool watch cap pulled down low over his ears. “You realize, of course, that we’re not playing alien dominatrix tonight. I could punish you for that.” As if to underscore his silky threat, he pushed the hood of her parka back and bit her earlobe. Gently, but enough to cause a tingle of anticipation.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Her chin was up, her eyes flashed confidence. He might not be willing to admit he loved her, but neither would he humiliate or embarrass her. “Not in public. Not in front of all these people who know you.”

  Gillian’s words were a dare. And they both knew it. His responding smile was slow, and wonderfully wicked. “Want to bet?”

  An instant later, she felt a deep throbbing between her legs. “Hunter!”

  “Yes, Gillian?” he asked with feigned innocence. Even as he pulled a bit away from her, severing physical contact, the throbbing deepened, stimulating already overly sensitive nerve endings.

  It was the bikini panties, she realized. The ones he’d given her earlier this evening and asked her to wear tonight. But how could that be possible? Hadn’t she held them up to the light, noticing that they were so sheer she could see her hand behind the nearly transparent black silk?

  “What… Oh, my God,” she moaned, writhing, just a bit beneath the blankets as she felt the familiar sexual tension coiling inside her.

  Her senses swam. Her mind was shutting down, her thoughts drifting away, allowing her to concentrate only on the magnificent sensations flowing through her.