“You’re sure about this,” he said again when they were naked and breathing hard, their bodies slick with sweat, nerves strung tight in anticipation.
In answer she kissed him and he moved atop her, his strong hands holding her arms over her head, his eyes burning with a pulsing desire that seared into her soul.
He kissed her again and then roughly, as if he were fighting and losing an inner struggle, he prodded her legs apart. She lifted her hips off the ground as he drove into her and she felt his manhood, heavy and thick, break through the barriers of their lives and delve deep into the core of her soul.
She closed her eyes, but he kissed her cheek. “Watch me,” he said hoarsely. “We can’t forget that this is happening. We can’t ever forget.” His words were like the prophecy of doom, but she stared up at him and moved with his sweet, hungry rhythm. There was no pause, no minute to catch her breath. He pushed into her harder and harder, faster and faster, until the colors behind her eyes began to blend and whirl.
She was moist and warm, like thick, hot honey, and she felt him gather steam just as something erupted within her.
“Adria, oh, sweet, sweet Adria!” His voice, a raspy whisper, bounced off the walls of the canyons and the chambers of her heart. Lights exploded behind her eyes and her body convulsed around him, holding him tight within her as if she was afraid to lose the precious link they’d found, the ecstasy of loving each other. Her throat worked.
Love me, she silently cried, wrapping her arms around him as he fell against her, his sweating body melding perfectly to hers. Love me, Zachary Danvers, and don’t ever stop.
Tears touched the back of her eyes—from joy or relief, she didn’t know—but she refused to give in to the persistent drops and wouldn’t think about tomorrow.
It would come soon enough.
22
“Tell me about my mother.” Adria, shivering as the afterglow faded, stared up at the swaying, long-needled branches of the pines to the blue sky beyond. A few filmy clouds moved slowly through the heavens but didn’t spoil the day.
Beside her, Zach tensed. “I didn’t know your mother.” He reached for his faded Levi’s and slid into them. “She lived in Montana with you.”
“My other mother,” she clarified, refusing to let him vex her, but she wasn’t going to let him put her off as he had in the past. They were lovers now—they could share everything. “Katherine.” The ground was cold and goose bumps rose on her flesh as she found her jeans and sweater.
After making hot, furious love to her, Zachary had held her against his naked body. She’d seen the scar on his shoulder, been reminded of the night that London had disappeared and had convinced herself that she couldn’t be related to him. Either he was Polidori’s son or she wasn’t London Danvers. Now, as her mind cleared, she wasn’t so certain.
He seemed more remote than ever, as if the shock of what they’d done had been a slap of reality—cold water in his face.
“Katherine wasn’t your mother,” he said with conviction.
“You don’t know that.”
That much was true, Zach thought as he yanked on his boots. He had to get away, far away. Being with her was like being trapped in a seductive spider’s web, sticky and warm and exciting but infinitely dangerous. Whether she’d decided to make love to him because she suddenly didn’t believe they could be related, or because she thought he would let down his defenses and give her more information about the family, or because she wanted to blackmail him later, or, God forbid, because her motives were pure and she was falling for him, he knew it just couldn’t happen. He should have been stronger. Ever since Kat, he’d been in control and had never let a woman seduce him. He’d always been the predator. His will where sensual women were concerned had been strong. Until now. With Adria. He ground his teeth together in disgust and stood, swiping at the dust covering his jeans.
He’d been unable to resist her—the defiance in her blue eyes, the challenging tilt of her chin, her soft, sensual lips, and the provocative invitation that touched him in a deep, roughly animal place, where his body took over and his mind shut down. He’d wanted sex. With her. Lusty, hot, get-your-rocks-off sex, and he’d ended up with more. Too much. An emotional whirlpool that threatened to drag him under.
Just like Kat!
He slammed his eyes shut and told himself it was just a matter of time. If he could maintain some distance from that body of hers, he could stay in control. At least until he had all this figured out.
Like hell, Danvers. How’re you going to stay away from her? Now that you’ve had a taste, a teasing nibble of her, how are you going to fight the craving that even this minute is tearing you up inside?
The muscles in his back drew so tight they hurt. Angrily, he threw on his jacket. “We’ve got to get back. It’s cold.”
He stiffened as her fingers touched his shoulder. “You don’t have to feel guilty,” she said over the roar of the river as it dived from the cliffs to the gully far below.
“I don’t.”
“Then why—”
“Look, Adria, we can’t do this. Not anymore. Not until we find out for sure.” He placed firm hands on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “It just can’t happen.”
“So you’re starting to believe me.”
“For Christ’s sake, do you know what we’re talking about here?” he said, nearly screaming. “Incest!” The word hung between them, seeming to haunt the forest, standing still in the chill afternoon light.
“It’s not—”
“How do you know? If you’re so damned sure that you’re London, then how do you know?”
He watched her swallow with difficulty. “Because,” she said, tossing her hair away from her face, “I believe that you’re not Witt’s son.”
“Christ!” His face turned ashen. “Is that your rationalization?” He grabbed her arms so hard that she felt his fingers digging deep into her flesh through her jacket. “Now listen to me, sister, I’m not Polidori’s son.”
“How do you know?” she threw back at him, tossing the very words in his face that he’d spit at her.
“Don’t you think that when Eunice and Witt split up, when she was stripped bare of everything she claimed she wanted, don’t you think she would have turned around and laughed in his face, told him that his second son had been fathered by his enemy, insisted that I stay with her?”
“Not if she wanted her reputation to stay intact. Her reputation, as I understand it, was as important to her as you children, so she would never say anything to tarnish it.”
“As we children? What a laugh. We were never important to her.”
“I think—”
“You don’t know. As for her reputation, it was already black as tar.”
He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat.
“I don’t believe she intended to hurt you.”
Eunice’s words, uttered at his bed in the hospital, whispered through his head. I hate to admit it, Lord knows a mother shouldn’t, but you’ve always been my favorite. Of all my children, you were the one closest to my heart. As if he was different. As if he wasn’t Witt’s son. Oh, God, no! All the spit dried in his mouth and he stared at Adria as if he were looking into the window of his future. “You couldn’t have done this”—he motioned to the bed of pine needles under the tree—“on the outside chance that I wasn’t a Danvers.”