He laughed. “I don’t, really. I send people here to do the work for me. These days I have managers and technicians who do most of the work.”
“It’s incredible.”
“It’s a good studio,” he told her. “People like it. The important thing, of course, is the quality of the sound you produce. But it’s good to be comfortable. There’s more.”
He led her down to the end of the hall, where there was a full kitchen, and behind it, a bedroom, sleek and inviting, with a lush private bath. The carpet was a rich blue, the bedspread a shade deeper and piled high with pillows.
“Who lives here?” she asked him.
“No one. It’s for visiting artists, but there isn’t one at the moment.”
At that moment, Caer made a conscious decision.
This was her night.
She might never have another one.
She walked into the room. It was lit only by the glow coming in from the kitchen, and she thought she had never seen anything more inviting.
Zach had remained in the doorway.
She turned to him. “Aren’t you supposed to make a move now, or something?” she asked softly.
“I can’t say it hasn’t occurred to me,” he told her. “But it wasn’t my intent when we started out tonight. It wasn’t even my intent when we came here.”
“It wasn’t my intent when we started out this evening, either,” she said. “It is my intent now.”
Still, he didn’t come to her. She didn’t know how long she could hold out before she felt like an idiot and went racing from the room.
She didn’t have to find out.
He strode over to her, and she was suddenly grateful for the dimness, because she was shaking, tremulous, not at all sure. Then his arms came around her. She had visualized so much before….
But this…This was real.
All the wonder, warmth, strength and vibrancy she had imagined were there in his embrace. And then…the tenderness in his fingers as he lifted her chin, and the hot, deep wonder of his kiss when his lips found hers, a touch at first, molding shape against shape, and then a burst of hunger and his tongue deep within her mouth, amazingly intimate, a harbinger of things to come, searing and frantic.
The kiss could have lasted forever and she wouldn’t have complained. But then she felt his hands on her, and she instinctively moved her own. She felt the silky brush of fabric as her dress was pulled over her head; her fingers were awkward against his buttons, but she learned quickly.
Naked was even better.
Flesh against flesh. The quickening of muscle, the feel of his heart, the rise and fall of his breath, mingling with her own. They tangled together, falling upon the bed, and she was curled in his arms, locked in another passionate kiss. She was half atop him. She was beneath him. She lay, barely able to breathe, as his lips moved from hers and touched flesh, tenderly, erotically, with fever and heat. Her fingers moved over his shoulders, nails raking lightly.
His mouth…
His kiss…
So intimate. She felt her blood racing, every inch of her flesh so alive, so unbelievably alive and vital. Felt him, his caress upon her breasts, her throat, her ribs, her inner thighs. She yearned for greater intimacy even as she feared it. Awkward and tentative at first, she touched him in return, learning that her instincts were all she needed, that she could touch and thrill him, that her kisses spurred his fever. And then they were an incredible tangle of give and take, limbs and torsos, fingers and hands…lips caressing, a shattering ride of wild and liquid movement. There was nothing that did not seem incredible, the wickedly sweet arousal, the feel of him inside her, the staggering, blinding ecstasy that came at last in a shuddering moment of climax, and the euphoria that swept over her again and again like an ocean tide as she drifted down, held in the curve of his arms. And all the while, she felt the rhythm of beating hearts, and the rise and fall of their breathing, the sweet and precious pulse of life.
This was real….
His face was in shadow, his expression difficult to read, as he rose up on one elbow, tenderly touching her cheek.
“What is it about you?” he asked her.
She turned to him, glad that a note of laughter escaped her lips. “What is it about you?” she asked him.
“Honestly, this room is for visiting musicians.”
She laughed again. “Of course.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know a few Irish tunes.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Only that I’m sure you do. And that you sing them well. And that your singing will be as great an enigma as everything else about you.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, studying his features in the half-light, praying that her own remained as well hidden.
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said huskily.
“You know what’s frightening?” he asked.
“What?”
“I feel as if I could stay here, right here, forever.”
He was a man, she reminded herself. Words came easily to them, emotions and the memory of those words…not as much.
Not fair…
“We can’t stay here forever,” she said.