Part 40 (1/2)

”There you are,” Don said to Archer. ”I was just telling Hannah about Len's mother. Figured she should know about us.”

Archer barely managed not to say, Why? Instead, he gave his mother a sidelong glance.

Susa smiled at him. ”I know it continually surprises you, but your father and I both had lives before we met each other. Not nearly as good as the lives we had after we met, but lives just the same. Don was explaining to Hannah so tactfully that the point was all but buried that even at sixteen he knew the difference between l.u.s.t and love. Len's mother was cold and ruthless, but very s.e.xy. Great material for a wild affair.”

Archer reached for the bandage.

And yanked.

”Hannah doesn't have any trouble grasping that principle,” he said neutrally. ”She feels the same way about me. Great s.e.x. No future, because I'm cold and ruthless. Like Len. So you can get that warm glow out of your eyes, Mom and Dad. She's not going to make an honest man of me.”

Silence spread through the room.

Hannah flushed, then went pale except for a line of red high on both cheekbones. ”b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

”Notice she didn't call me a liar,” he said to his parents.

”b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

Archer gave her an ironic bow. ”At your service. Quite literally.” He walked up to the icing bowl, ran his finger around the rim, and licked thoroughly. ”Mmm. Your best yet, Kyle. Where's the cake?”

The condominium was so quiet that Hannah couldn't use city noise as a reason for her insomnia. She rolled over, punched the pillow into a new shape, and closed her eyes. The soft silk she wore one of Archer's old s.h.i.+rts slithered up her hips like a lover.

At your service. Quite literally.

Put that way, it sounded so cold. The fact that it was true made it worse. She would never forget the shock in Lianne's eyes, in Faith's eyes, and the way the two women had gone to stand on either side of Archer as though to defend him from an attack. He had smiled at them, the kind of tender smile he once had given to Hannah, and told them to relax, it was all right. Just because Hannah doesn't want me as a husband is no reason to be hard on her. She's not the first person to think I'm a ruthless son of a b.i.t.c.h. She won't be the last.

With that, Archer had led the conversation around to other topics-Faith's newest jewelry designs, Jake's negotiations for more Baltic amber, Lawe's surprising decision to come home for a time, Justin's unflagging love of wild country, and the end of the salmon-fis.h.i.+ng season. Pearls hadn't been mentioned. Neither had Len.

By the end of the evening, it was as though Archer had never said anything about Hannah's opinion of him. The Donovans talked and laughed with her, washed dishes and tickled the baby with her, and generally made her feel at home.

Until she looked over and saw Archer watching her with icy eyes. No home there. No warmth. Just truth used against her like a sword.

At your service.

Heat snaked through her. She told herself it was anger. She had a right to it. He had embarra.s.sed her in front of his family. He was exactly as she thought: cold and ruthless.

So why did she see him every time she closed her eyes, hear him whispering as his mouth moved over her, need him until she wanted to curl into a ball and cry?

There was no answer for her question but the twisting, gnawing ache that was both l.u.s.t and something more dangerous, something she fled from even before she admitted to herself that it existed. Yet she kept circling around it like a wary-moon orbiting a dark planet. Whatever Archer was or wasn't, he had come halfway across the world when she had asked, had put himself at risk for her, and had given her staggering pleasure.

In return, she had told him that he wasn't fit to be her husband or father to her children in any way but the most basic biological one. Truth wielded like a sword, wielded against a man whose only sin against her had been to help her.

Reluctantly Hannah admitted that they owed each other an apology. Not for the truth, but for the method of telling it.

She unclenched her fists, took a deep breath, and punched number six on the lighted pad.

His voice floated out of the intercom speaker. ”Yes?”

”Archer, I-”

”I'll be right there.”

The intercom went dead.

Glumly, slowly, she got out of bed. She was enough of a coward that she would rather have apologized via intercom, but she had too much pride to insist on it. She went to the hall door and opened it a crack.

Archer's hand pushed it the rest of the way. He was dressed in a pair of jeans he obviously had just pulled on. They were only half fastened. ”Do you need protection?”

”No, I-”

She never finished the sentence. His mouth was over hers, breaking it open, taking it in a kiss as hot as it was deep. His hands kneaded her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and plucked at her nipples until her breathing fragmented into moans and her body went slack. His knee pushed apart her legs until she was riding his thigh. Holding her with one arm around her, he used his fingers to bring her to the shattering edge of o.r.g.a.s.m. Writhing, breathing brokenly, she demanded that he take her.

He sent her over the edge alone.

While she was still s.h.i.+vering and crying, he put her on the bed, pushed her thighs apart, and opened his jeans the rest of the way. He was fully erect, already dressed for s.e.x in a high-tech condom. Kneeling, he pulled her up his thighs and buried himself in her. Hips pumping, he drove her back to the edge. And held her there.

For Hannah it was like being caught in a wild, hot wave. She couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She could only tumble out of control, darkness storming around her, blind ecstasy transforming her. Then came the lull between the waves, a lull that never quite let her catch her breath before another wave rolled over her, spinning her out toward the edge of consciousness, building and building and building until she could hold her breath no longer. Then she breathed in ecstasy and drowned.

Another wave came, rising, building, teaching her that she hadn't died. Not yet. She was still alive, still breathing, still feeling the next wave sweep up to her, lifting her, blinding her, ravis.h.i.+ng her. This time she rode the sensual wave with primal abandon, turning and balancing, twisting and grappling, taking and demanding until all colors exploded into black and she screamed, drowning again.

And he was the seething, powerful wave she drowned in. He moved over her, inside her, around her. In the savage, glittering darkness that smelled and tasted of s.e.x, her breath sobbed and shattered and reformed again after each climax.

Finally she was boneless, weightless, spinning and falling, echoes of ecstasy beating in her like a runaway heart. With the last of her strength, she said his name.

”More?” Archer asked.

A shake of her head was all she could manage. Sighing, she reached out to curl up against him.

Her hands found only emptiness. He was already out of her bed, out of her reach, walking away. He didn't take time to dress because he had never taken time to undress.

With trembling hands, she pulled down the silk s.h.i.+rt that was wadded up beneath her armpits while understanding broke over her in a different, colder wave. He had played her like an instrument. No tenderness, no holding; just raw, hot s.e.x, as much of it as she could take.

A stud at her service.

Eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, Hannah remembered the way it had been in Australia. Hot, yes. G.o.d yes. Yet there had been tenderness as well as fire, sweetness as well as rending ecstasy.

Archer had understood it before she had. He had told her. s.e.x can wait until h.e.l.l freezes over. Making love, now, that's different. But then she hadn't understood the difference between having s.e.x and making love with Archer.

She understood it now.

With swift motions she ripped off the borrowed wedding rings and dropped them on the bedside table. It was a long time before she fell asleep, holding on to herself because she had no one else to hold her.

Fire all around and screams echoing. Len dumping Archer's battered, bleeding body at Hannah's feet. The shabby room vanished in Len's laughter. She was in the center of a riot with blood all over her hands, her body. Archer's blood.

It was everywhere. She couldn't carry him, couldn't drag him, couldn't get out of the violence that roared around her, black fire and red blood and screams like exploding gla.s.s. He had to get up, wake up, walk. Wake up! Wakeup wakeup WAKEUP!