Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(53)

Rand discarded the disturbing thoughts as soon as Rosalie shivered. He pulled the covers over them as the night air chilled the dampness of her skin.

Rosalie was amazed, shocked, profoundly worried by what had happened. He has more power over me, she thought, than I do over myself. Two tears slipped from the corners of her closed eyes, and Rand kissed them away, his mouth lingering over her satiny skin and delicate eyelids. Blindly she turned her face toward him, and he kissed her in an unhurried manner, as if he were wooing her still. Gradually he lifted his head and looked down into her midnight-blue gaze. “Any regrets?” he asked quietly, and she shook her head.

“Only that the first time wasn’t—” “I know.”

He strained a lock of her hair through his fingers, letting it curl and wind around his hand until she was bound to him by that one skein of sable.

“Someday,” Rand said, his voice threaded with a hint of steel, “that will be such a distant memory that you won’t believe it happened.” She shook her head to deny what he said, and his jaw firmed. “I’ll make sure of it,” he asserted, and pressed a hard kiss on her mouth before she could speak. Rosalie slipped a cool hand behind his neck and parted her lips to allow him access, gentling his sudden aggression back into sated laziness. Several minutes later, as she began to drift to sleep, Rosalie felt his hands travel over her body intimately, reawakening the tightness of desire in her abdomen and the trembling of excitement along her nerves. She murmured in drowsy protest, trying to sink back to sleep, but finally she gave up and opened her eyes.

“How much sleep,” she asked breathlessly, her body beginning to crave him with the alarming desperation of before, “are you planning to allow me tonight?” Rand’s gaze was filled with a mixture of amusement and impatience as he wedged a knee between her legs. “Not much,” he admitted, his voice sounding like a heavy purr, and lowered his body to hers as she gasped his name and writhed in the throes of potent desire.

When dawn began, Rosalie opened her eyes to stare at the window through the mists of groggy wakefulness. Beside her Rand slumbered deeply, sprawled on his stomach with his head half-buried in a pillow. Turning her head to look at him, she was oddly stricken by how young he appeared in sleep. His face was shaded a burnished gold and was unlined by worries or cares, his firmly held mouth softened with the gentleness of slumber. Lashes several shades darker than his amber-streaked hair curled slightly at the tips, a trace of vulnerability not usually detectable when he was awake. A lock of her hair was caught possessively between his fingers.

What am I now to you? she asked him silently, her lips curving in a smile that was both wry and wistful. Am I your woman, am I your new toy? Am I a habit that can be discarded as easily as it was assumed?

Randall Berkeley was most definitely not a boy, but a man full-grown, accustomed to taking care of himself. Rosalie knew, however, that he had never before assumed the responsibility of looking after anyone else, and therefore it was up to her to protect her own welfare. Could she entrust him with her heart? Miserably she admitted that the answer was no. After his initial hunger for her was sated, Rand would treat her carelessly. Aside from her form and face, both of which she considered to be pleasant but unspectacular, Rand had no need of anything she had to offer.

Slowly she detached her hair from his grasp and eased herself from the bed. All of her muscles were sore, as if she had run from one end of Paris to the other. Wincing, Rosalie bent to pick up her chemise and slipped it on before walking into the adjoining bedchamber. It was upholstered in soft green and brilliant gold. All of the silkwood and mahogany furniture was elaborate, especially the lacquered armoire where her clothes had been neatly hung. She caught a brief glimpse of her reflection as she passed by an upright gilt wall mirror of silvered glass, with colored and painted glass panels above the central plate. The design was of a garland of yellow and pink flowers, a note of cheeriness that did not complement her mood of this morning.

Wishing she had a cup of café au lait, Rosalie fumbled through her garments until she found a melon-colored robe of silk, and she pulled it on gratefully. What am I going to say when I face Rand? she asked herself numbly. She loved him. She had loved him even before he had led her through the brilliant terrain of passion. And with the strength of such love came anger, bliss, torment, fear, and the knowledge that she would slit her own wrists before telling him how she felt about him. He would only pity her, and the thought of that was revolting.

It was just then that she heard a sound at the doorway. Rand stood there with his hair ruffled over his forehead and faintly shadowed eyes, looking so sleepy and masculine that she wanted to rush to him and bury herself in his arms.

“Good morning,” he said cautiously, and Rosalie wrapped the robe more tightly around herself. “Good morning,” she replied, and distractedly she realized that her voice had sounded as chilling as a winter snowfall. Slowly his expression changed from wariness to blankness, and Rosalie saw that he was retreating behind a familiar wall. They might have been two strangers standing there regarding each other with polite curiosity.

Eight

Ah, that fatal spell! Ere the evening fell I fled away to hide my frightened face, And cried that I was born, sobbed with love and scorn, And in the darkness sought a darker place, And blushed, and wept, and dared not think of morn.

—Sydney Dobell

During his relatively short lifetime Rand had had limitless experience with the fickle nature of women. Helene, his capricious mother, had developed the art of taunting those who loved her by giving them only sporadic affection. Rand’s only form of selfprotection had been to adopt a facade of indifference, and now he was powerless to prevent the automatic defense from establishing itself as he met the coolness in Rosalie’s cerulean eyes. He could not guess what had brought about the change in her manner, but as an inner voice urged him to hold Rosalie tenderly and coax her to confide in him, his overwhelming impulse was to stare at her with a blank sort of civility. The barricades were there again.