Midnight Rose Read online

  She held her breath and glanced down to watch his touch make slow, gentle forays ever closer to the swell of her breast. “Can we be honest here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you kiss another woman tonight?”

  “Yes,” he said, and her gaze shot up to find his hot and piercing.

  She licked her lips. “Did you…do more than that…with another woman tonight?”

  He didn’t answer, just continued to caress her in that harmless yet potent way while she searched his eyes for the truth and found it in a shift of shadow and regret.

  Kate didn’t know what to feel. A sick cacophony of indignation, jealousy and excitement screamed in her female conscience. He was forbidden fruit, a veritable guarantee of delight and agony, and she couldn’t stop herself. “Then why are you here with me?” she demanded, studying his face for any flicker of manipulation or deceit. “Why are you touching me, and looking at me like you could go all over again if I gave you the chance?”

  “Because coming home to you makes me forget everything that happened tonight.”

  It wasn’t the answer she’d expected, and she couldn’t think of an immediate reply.

  Gideon’s games were an entirely new creature in her experience with the male gender, and the irritation and confusion his frankness stirred only seemed to feed her arousal as he continued to touch her in that gentle, deadly manner, whisking across the sensitized bare skin beneath her jumper strap. Under her bra, her nipples puckered tight, nerve endings shooting jolts of searing pleasure like a direct line to the damp place between her legs. She shifted on the bench, hardly able to endure the sensations racketing her body, but desperate to drive the pleasure-pain higher, hotter.

  He seemed to know she was ready for more. His fingers bypassed her breasts to drift down her ribs, then up again, while under the sturdy cotton of her dress, goose bumps pebbled her naked skin.

  “What else do you want from me tonight?” he murmured. “More truth? All you have to do is ask.”

  She shivered. “I don’t like the answers you have to offer. Just touch me.”

  “Show me where. Show me how. Anything you want.”

  Oh, God. All they’d really done was kiss, but Kate was on fire. The possibilities dancing in the air were as much a part of foreplay as his teasing touch.

  Her throat moved in a vain attempt to swallow. Trembling, she grasped his hand and led it to her breast. “Quit playing with me,” she managed as his fingers curved around her flesh through the thick material of her jumper. The solid contact of his palm against her nipple, even through the layers of her dress and bra, nearly sent her through the ceiling. He cupped her breast fully, brushed his thumb over its hardened tip, and then did the same with her other breast, touching her like she belonged to him.

  “If I slid my fingers beneath your dress,” he said, his attention riveted to the sinuous movement of his own hand on her body, “inside your panties, inside you, would you be wet and soft and ready?”

  Kate’s eyelids fluttered closed for a second before she opened them and squarely met his regard. “If I unfastened your jeans and lifted you free so I could wrap my fingers around you, would you be hard and hot and waiting?”

  “From the moment I walked into this room.”

  “Then yes,” she said in a shaken voice. “You’d find me wet and soft and ready. But maybe you should check for yourself.”

  The flare of recognition in his eyes was the last thing she saw before he straightened away from the piano, slid his hand beneath her hair and recaptured her lips, swift and violent, with all the hunger and urgency she craved.

  Desire surged in roiling currents from her fingertips to her toes, everything between instantly suppliant and ready for the hard invasion he could offer. She groaned beneath the rhythmic sweep of his tongue, opened her mouth wider, heat suffusing her body and stoking the fire between her legs. Her panties were soaked. All he had to do was follow through on his threat, slide a hand beneath her dress, merely brush her with the tips of his fingers, and she’d shudder to orgasm.

  But Gideon had his own plan, and it wasn’t quick gratification, but slow, delicious torture. His fingers found her neckline and dove beneath it, under her lacy bra, stretching and tearing the material in search of her bare, aching breast. Kate didn’t care about the damage to her clothes. He could rip them from her completely if he wanted; render her naked and vulnerable to his every whim. She already was; had been from the moment he emerged from the shadows, his onyx gaze stripping her long before his hands ever touched her.

  Her eyes closed as his mouth moved to her chin and nuzzled down the side of her neck. His fingertips brushed her bare nipple, back and forth, plucked and played, sending quivering shocks of delight straight to her core.

  Oh, God, what was she thinking? She’d known this man a week. Not even seven full days. He’d been with another woman tonight. And here she sat before him, open to his gaze, his touch, his tongue and any other delicious part of him that might make contact if he stood and unfastened a few choice buttons…

  His voice, guttural and strange, rent the dark. “I could fuck you right here, Kate. Here on this bench. Right now.”

  You don’t know him.

  You don’t know his shadows.

  “Then do it,” she whispered, and the restless shift of her body against the piano keys punctuated the demand with a few discordant notes. “Don’t make me wait anymore.”

  Silence.

  The sudden withdrawal of his hand from her dress stirred her from her drugged pleasure, and she tried to focus on him, confused. Gideon smiled, leaned to brush his lips against her forehead, then carefully, solicitously rearranged the neckline of her dress to conceal the damage he’d wrought.

  A breath of humiliation and disbelief rushed from her chest. “I don’t understand you.”

  “The day staff is here,” he said, rising from the bench.

  Kate shook her head, cheeks hot. “I don’t hear anything.”

  He ran his fingers through his ruffled hair, tucked his shirt more snugly into his jeans, and turned to retrieve his coat from the back of the settee, too quickly recovered.

  Bewildered, still trembling, Kate watched him fold the garment over his arm. She didn’t respond when he leaned down to meet her eyes. “This time we’ve gone too far,” he said, his gaze hot as it lingered on her lips. “It has to be resolved. Mistake or not, consider it unfinished business.”

  Suddenly shy, she shifted away, took a deep breath to regain her composure, and turned back to offer a belated agreement.

  But the room was empty, awash in dawn’s dusky gray.

  Gideon was gone.

  Chapter Six

  “You what?” The phone clunked and Kate heard a muffled curse as Mike switched the receiver to the other ear. “Start over, Kate. I’m confused. How could you be getting it on with your employer a week after starting this job?”

  “I’m not ‘getting it on’ with him.” She twisted the phone cord around her finger and let it unwind, restless and annoyed. “I barely know him. But there’s an attraction between us, and a couple of nights ago, we sort of…” She sighed. “I don’t even want to tell you now. You’re supposed to be my friend, not my judge. You make me feel like I’m jumping in headfirst.”

  “I am your friend, and you are jumping in headfirst. I was married to you, Katie. I know. You’re a passionate girl. Hell, it took me an entire month to get a goodnight kiss out of you, and after that, bam! We had sex every night for a year.”

  “A lot of good that did,” she muttered, feeling cheeky. “Harry obviously had something I didn’t.”

  “Yes, and it was all anatomical.” The dryness left Mike’s tone. “What I’m saying is, this guy you’re working for must really be something if you’ve already kissed him, and I’m just reminding you what happens when you let down your guard. You explode.”

  “I do not!” She rose from the edge of the bed and caught sight of her reflection in the gilde
d mirror over the dresser. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair wispy and soft. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t douse the delicious ache simmering low in her belly. Not even bringing herself to orgasm with soapy fingers in the shower that morning had relieved the relentless pressure.

  She plopped down on the edge of the bed again. “Mike, save me. I have no control when it comes to this man. You’re right. I need pacing. I need you to provide it. Will you please drive out next weekend?”

  “You want me to drop everything and drive out into the sticks to save you from yourself?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I have tickets to see Aida in DC.”

  She sighed. “Fine. Okay. I understand that opera is far more important than I am.”

  “How about the weekend after that?”

  The idea brightened her a little. “I should probably run it by Gideon first, make sure he doesn’t mind if I invite a guest.”

  “Good God. His name’s Gideon?”

  “That’s right. Gideon Renaud.”

  “Sounds dark and sexy. Right up your alley.”

  “Right up any woman’s alley.” Kate glanced at the clock. It was time for her to find Jude and check his reading journal. He’d been dragging his heels with the writing assignments, and she intended to remain firm, no matter how many long-lashed, pleading looks he gave her. No matter how much he talked, smiled and acted like his father. “I have to go, Mike. I’ll let you know about the visiting thing.”

  “Okay, honey. Harden your resolve—and that’s the only thing around there you should be working to harden.”

  Kate groaned. “Enough already. I’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up the phone and glanced out the French doors, which she’d opened to welcome the early summer breeze and the scent of freshly cut grass.

  Male voices floated to her ears. She stepped out on the balcony and glanced down to see Gideon standing on the lawn below, a few feet from the brick terrace, talking to two dark-complexioned men in baseball caps. He’d obviously just returned from the conference he’d attended for the past couple of days, leather duffel in one hand and his briefcase in the other. He wore a maroon Harvard sweatshirt in the unseasonably cool evening, and the sexiest pair of faded jeans she’d ever seen on a man. Everything about him was appealing, even the way he stood, relaxed, broad-shouldered, gesturing toward the line of tangled brush that hugged the far edge of the yard.

  She stepped closer to the rail and realized with surprise that he was speaking a foreign language with the gardeners. Spanish? No. Portuguese, perhaps. There was so much about him she didn’t know, that she wanted to explore and absorb…at great risk, according to her common sense.

  As though sensing her presence, he glanced up, eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses, and smiled at her.

  Kate brushed aside a strand of light brown hair blown by the breeze and smiled back, too transfixed to step away even when he returned his attention to the gardeners. She couldn’t help herself. Even concealed behind the shadowed lenses, his gaze shivered through her on a wave of hot awareness. She hadn’t seen him since two days ago when he nearly shattered her with his knowing kiss, his skillful hands on her breasts, the way his tenderness touched her like a thousand fingers, permeating straight to the very marrow of her bones.

  Mike was right. Gideon had the ability to unleash a wildness in her she hadn’t dealt with in years. She needed to avoid him, to put distance between them while she figured out if their attraction was merely unruly entertainment, or something deeper.

  As she gazed down at him, the hard tug in the vicinity of her heart served as a warning. One step closer to the fire and he’d burn her alive.

  She tore her gaze away and headed inside.

  * * * * *

  The soft bong of Westminster chimes rang the late hour, bringing Gideon out of his trance as he stared at the paper he was writing. “Where’s Jude?” he asked Martha, glancing up from the presentation he was scheduled to give at nearby Putnam College the following morning. “It’s after ten.”

  “Ms. O’Brien took him for a walk.” She peered at him over the lenses of her thick, round reading glasses, her mouth puckered. “He needs fresh air, she says. Doesn’t matter if it’s day or night, all fresh air is the same. It won’t kill him, she says. He needs to toughen up, she says.”

  Gideon raised a brow at her. “You wouldn’t be in disagreement with her, would you, Martha?”

  “Not me.” She sniffed and looked back at the bills laid out before her. “I happen to think she’s good for Jude, but that doesn’t mean the ‘fresh air and good cheer’ speech doesn’t get under my skin. It’s enough to make me feel guilty for working inside.”

  “How long ago did they leave?”

  “Right before you came in from the greenhouse.”

  The sudden, urgent need to look upon Kate’s face seized Gideon with frantic fists. He hadn’t had the chance to speak to her since returning from the garden convention earlier that afternoon. Despite the distraction of the last two days, he’d battled the sultry thoughts drifting through his mind, even as he reached for her with his senses, over forty miles, tracking her from bed to breakfast to lessons, every rhythmic push of blood through her veins resounding in his ears until his own heart beat in tandem.

  He rose from the game table where he and Martha worked, pushed in his chair, forcibly pacing himself to keep from tearing through the house to the foyer and out the door.

  Martha looked up at him, openmouthed. “Where are you going?”

  He paused, a helpless smile of anticipation creeping across his lips. “Out to play.”

  Outside, the night was moonless, indigo and cool. The undulating symphony of frogs and other night creatures caressed his ears as he descended the steps, his preternatural vision knifing through the dark, ears finely tuned for the sound of his son’s breathing. There. Laughter. It halted him in mid-step. Jude’s laughter. Jude’s joy. Gideon saw them, fifty yards from where he stood, standing at the edge of the pond with a bag of bread while a gaggle of geese glided toward the promised feast like phantoms on the water.

  With silent steps, Gideon walked partway down the drive and paused in the shadow of a weeping willow. Leaning his shoulder against the gnarled trunk, he watched them, his son and the woman who called to his past, to the man he was born to be. A surge of emotion rose swiftly in his chest, fingered around his throat and squeezed. He wanted this, the woman and the boy and the laughter. He wanted to embrace it and draw it in to him, absorb it, make it real. But he walked a razor-thin line between truth and someone’s sick joke of reality. His existence was folly. Sometimes when he thought about it, it seemed too ludicrous to be borne.

  “Watch where you step,” Jude warned Kate. “It’s hard to get goose poop off the bottom of your shoe.”

  “Speak for yourself.” They peered down to find that Jude’s sneaker had effectively flattened a fresh pile of goose droppings.

  “Oh, man…” He groaned and lifted his tennis shoe to check the damage. “Disgusting. I mean foul. Get it? Fowl?” He elbowed her, and she rolled her eyes.

  “Yeah, you’re a real comedian. If you think Mrs. Shelton’s going to let you in the house wearing those sneakers, you’re sorely mistaken. We’ll have to run them under a hose.”

  The noisy geese waddled onto the bank, determined and quick despite their uneven approach. “Drop the bread,” Jude said with sudden urgency, backing up. “Drop it, drop it, drop it!”

  Kate let out a screech and dodged the vicious stab of a hungry bill. “Oh, they’re mean!” Before she could turn around, another goose, fat and downy, nipped at her backside and sent her dashing through the grass with the entire gaggle in chase.

  Gideon laughed. So much for the inherent sangfroid of the distinguished educator. No doubt she would have to leave her shoes at the door with Jude’s.

  Still giggling, Jude turned and spotted his father in the shadows. Instantly his smile faded. “Hey, Dad. I thought you had to w
ork.”

  “I did all the work I could stand, knowing you were outside having fun without me.” Gideon’s gaze drifted to Kate, who stood to the side, breasts rising and falling with a rapidity he knew wasn’t entirely from dodging the geese. She returned his look without blinking, and finally smiled in a way that sucker-punched him down low.

  Jude’s sullen tone shattered the tension. “We’re just feeding the stupid geese.” He balled a remaining piece of bread in his fist and tossed it at a nearby gander, pelting it hard enough to elicit a squawking protest. “I’m going in.”

  Gideon and Kate fell in behind him, sauntering up the driveway toward the house. Myriad windows glowed into the night, lighting their path. “How was your trip?” she asked, hands clasped behind her back.

  “Long and fairly boring.”

  “I saw you talking to the gardeners earlier when you first got home. You speak Portuguese.”

  “Yes.”

  “And how many other languages?”

  He cast her a rueful look. “A few more.”

  “Two more? Four more?”

  “Five in all.”

  “My God,” she breathed. “Fluent in all of them?”

  Gideon smiled. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Say something in Portuguese.”

  He drew in a breath of night air laced with the scent of grass and moisture and roses. “What would you like me to say?”

  She tilted her head in consideration. “Say, ‘The grass needs planting.’”

  “O gramado deve ser plantada.”

  Kate laughed. “Okay, how about, ‘You do a good job on the yard.’”

  “Você faz um bom trabalho no quintal.”

  “And ‘Your clippers are long and dangerous.’”

  It was Gideon’s turn to laugh. “Seu cortador é longa e perigoso.” He looked at her, his smile fading. “Você tem maravilhosa olhos.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You have the most amazing eyes.” He held her chestnut gaze for a long moment, watching the swirl of shy delight in its liquid depths, then looked away. “I thought about you while I was gone.”