The Season Of Love: Beloved

He gave her a deliberately careless glance and a curt nod and then turned his attention back to the stage.

Tira’s hands clenched on the evening bag. Simon’s shoulder brushed against hers as he shifted in his seat and she felt the touch as if it were fire all the way down her body. It had never been so bad before. She’d walked with him, talked with him, shared seats at benefits and auctions and operas and plays with him, and even though his presence had been a bittersweet delight, it had never been so physically painful to her in the past. She wanted to turn and find his mouth with her lips, she wanted to press her body to his and feel his cheek against her own. The longing so was poignant that she shivered with it.

“Cold?” he whispered.

She clenched her jaw. “Not at all,” she muttered, sliding further into her velvet wrap.

His good arm went, unobtrusively, over the back of her seat and rested there. She froze in place, barely daring to move, to breathe. It was just like the afternoon in front of the toy store. Did he know that it was torture for her to be close to him? Probably he did. He’d found a new way to get to her, to make her pay for all the terrible things he thought she’d done. She closed her eyes and groaned silently.

The opera, beautiful as it was, was forgotten. She was so miserable that she sat stiffly and heard none of it. All she could think about was how to escape.

She started to get up and Simon’s big hand caught her shoulder a little too firmly.

“Stay where you are,” he said gruffly.

She hesitated, but only for an instant. She was desperate to escape now. “I have to go to the necessary room, if you don’t mind,” she bit off near his ear.

“Oh.”

He sighed heavily and moved his arm, turning to allow her to get past him. She apologized all the way down the row. Once she made it to the aisle, she felt safe. She didn’t look back as she made her way gracefully and quickly to the back of the theater and into the lobby.

It was easy to dart out the door and hail a cab. This time of night, they were always a few of them cruising nearby. She climbed into the first one that stopped, gave him her address, and sat back with a relieved sigh. She’d done it. She was safe.

She went home more miserable than ever, changed into her nightgown and a silky white robe and let her hair down with a long sigh. She couldn’t blame her friend, Sherry, for the fiasco. How could anyone have known that Simon would decide to see the opera a second time on this particular night? But it was a cruel blow of fate. Tira had looked forward to a performance that Simon’s presence had ruined for her.

She made coffee, despite the late hour, and was sitting down in the living room to drink it when the doorbell rang.

It might be Charles, she decided. She hadn’t heard from him today, and he could have stopped by to tell her about Gene. She went to the front door and opened it without thinking.

Simon was standing there with a furious expression on his face.

She tried to close the door, but one big well-shod foot was inside it before she could even move. He let himself in and closed the door behind him.

“Well, come in, then,” she said curtly, her green eyes sparkling with bad temper as she pulled her robe closer around her.

He stared at her with open curiosity. He’d never seen her in night clothing before. The white robe emphasized her creamy skin, and the lace of her gown came barely high enough to cover the soft mounds of her breasts. With her red-gold hair loose in a glorious tangle around her shoulders, she was a picture to take a man’s breath away.

“Why did you run?” he asked softly.

Her face colored gently. “I wasn’t expecting you to be there,” she said, and it came out almost as an accusation. “You’ve already seen the performance once.”

“Yes, with Jill,” he added deliberately, watching her face closely.

She averted her eyes. He looked so good in an evening jacket, she thought miserably. His dark, wavy hair was faintly damp, as if the threatening clouds had let some rain fall. His pale gray eyes were watchful, disturbing. He’d never looked at her this way before, like a predator with its prey. It made her nervous.

“Do you want some coffee?” she asked to break the tense silence.

“If you don’t put arsenic in it.”

She glanced at him. “Don’t tempt me.”

She led him into the kitchen, got down a cup and poured a cup of coffee for him. She didn’t offer cream and sugar, because she knew he took neither.

He turned a chair around and straddled it before he picked up the cup and sipped the hot coffee, staring at her disconcertingly over the rim.

With open curiosity, she glanced at the prosthesis hand, which was resting on the back of the chair.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

She shrugged and picked up her own cup. “You used to hate that.” She indicated the artificial arm.

“I hate pity even more,” he said flatly. “It looks real enough to keep people from staring.”

“Yes,” she said. “It does look real.”

He sipped coffee. “Even if it doesn’t feel it,” he murmured dryly. He glanced up at her face and saw it color from the faint insinuation in his deep voice. “Amazing, that you can still blush, at your age,” he remarked.

It wouldn’t have been if he knew how totally innocent she still was at her advanced age, but she wasn’t sharing her most closely guarded secret with the enemy. He thought she and Charles were lovers, and she was content to let him. But that insinuation about why he used the prosthesis was embarrassing and infuriating. She hated being jealous. She had to conceal it from him.

“I don’t care how it feels, or to whom,” she said stiffly. “In fact, I have no interest whatsoever in your personal life. Not anymore.”

He drew in a long breath and let it out. “Yes, I know.” He finished his coffee in two swallows. “I miss you,” he said simply. “Nothing is the same.”

Her heart jumped but she kept her eyes down so that he wouldn’t see how much pleasure the statement gave her. “We were friends. I’m sure you have plenty of others. Including Jill.”

His intake of breath was audible. “I didn’t realize how much you and Jill disliked each other.”

“What difference does it make?” She glanced at him with a mocking smile. “I’m not part of your life.”

“You were,” he returned solemnly. “I didn’t realize how much a part of it you were, until it was too late.”

“Some things are better left alone,” she said evasively. “More coffee?”

He shook his head. “It keeps me awake. Wally called and offered me the attorney general’s post,” he said. “I’ve got two weeks to think about it.”

“You were a good attorney general,” she recalled. “You got a lot of excellent legislation through the general assembly.”

He smiled faintly, studying his coffee cup. “I lived in a goldfish bowl. I didn’t like it.”

“You have to take the bad with the good.”

He looked at her closely. “Tell me what happened the night they took you to the hospital.”

She shrugged. “I got drunk and passed out.”

“And the pistol?”

“The mouse.” She nodded toward the refrigerator. “He’s under there, I can hear him. He can’t be trapped and he’s brazen. I got drunk and decided to take him out like John Wayne, with a six-shooter. I missed.”

He chuckled softly. “I thought it was something like that. You’re not suicidal.”

“You’re the only person who thinks so. Even Dr. Gaines didn’t believe me. He wanted me to have therapy,” she scoffed.

“The newspapers had a field day. I guess Jill helped feed the fire.”

She glanced up, surprised. “You knew?”

“Not until she commented on it, when it was too late to do anything. For what it’s worth,” he added quietly, “I don’t know many people who believed the accounts in her cousin’s paper.”

She leaned back in her chair and stared at him levelly. “That I did it for love of you?” she drawled with a poisonous smile. “You hurt my feelings when you accused me of killing my husband,” she said flatly. “I was already overworked and depressed and I did something stupid. But I hope you don’t believe that I sit around nights crying in my beer because of unrequited passion for you!”

Her tone hit him on the raw. He got slowly to his feet and his eyes narrowed as he stared down at her.

She felt at a distinct disadvantage. She’d only seen Simon lose his temper once. She’d never forgotten and she didn’t want to repeat the experience.

“It’s late,” she said quickly. “I’d like to go to bed.”

“Would you really?” His pale gaze slid over her body as he said it, his voice so sensuous that it made her bare toes curl up on the spotless linoleum floor.

She didn’t trust that look. She started past him and found one of her hands suddenly trapped by his big one. He moved in, easing her hand up onto the silky fabric of his vest, inside it against the silky warmth of his body under the thin cotton shirt. She could feel the springy hair under it as well, and the hard beat of his heart as his breath whispered out at her temple, stirring her hair. She’d never been so close to him. It was as if her senses, numb for years, all came to life at once and exploded in a shattering rush of physical sensation. It frightened her and she pushed at his chest.

“Simon, let go!” she said huskily, all in a rush.

He didn’t. He couldn’t. The feel of her in his arms exceeded his wildest imaginings. She was soft and warm and she smelled of flowers. He drank in the scent and felt her begin to tremble. It went right to his head. His hand left hers and slid into her hair at her nape, clenching, so that she was helpless against him. He fought for control. He mustn’t do this. It was too soon. Far too soon.

His breath came quickly. She could hear it, feel it. His cheek brushed against hers roughly, as if he wanted to feel the very texture of her skin there. He had a faint growth of beard and it rasped a little, but it was more sensual than uncomfortable.

Her heart raced as wildly as his. She wanted to draw back, to run, but that merciless hand wasn’t unclenching. If anything, it had an even tighter grip on her long hair.

She wasn’t protesting anymore. He felt her yield and his body clenched. His cheek drew slowly against hers. She felt his mouth at the corner of her own, felt his breath as his lips parted.

“Don’t…” The little cry was all but inaudible.

“It’s too late,” he said roughly. “Years too late. God, Tira, turn your mouth against mine!”

She heard the soft, gruff command with a sense of total unreality. Her cold hands pressed against his shirt-front, but it was, as he said, already too late.

He moved his head just a fraction of an inch, and his hard, hot mouth moved completely onto hers, parting her lips as it explored, settled, demanded. There was a faint hesitation, almost of shock, as sensual electricity flashed between them. He felt her mouth tremble, tasted it, savored it, devoured it.

He groaned as his mouth began to part her lips insistently. Then his arm was around her, the one with the prosthesis holding her waist firmly while the good one lifted and traced patterns from her cheek down to her soft, pulsing throat. He could hear the tortured sound of his own breath echoed by her own.

She whimpered as she felt the full force of his mouth, felt the kiss she’d dreamed of for so many years suddenly becoming reality. He tasted of coffee. His lips were hard and demanding on her mouth, sensual, insistent. She didn’t protest. She clung to him, savoring the most ecstatic few seconds of her life as if she never expected to feel anything so powerful again.

Her response puzzled him, because it wasn’t that of an experienced woman. She permitted him to kiss her, clung to him closely, even seemed to enjoy his rough ardor; but she gave nothing back. It was almost as if she didn’t know how…

He drew back slowly. His pale, fierce eyes looked down into hers with pure sensual arrogance and more than a little curiosity.

This was a Simon she’d never seen, never known, a sensual man with expert knowledge of women that was evident even in such a relatively chaste encounter. She was afraid of him because she had no defense against that kind of ardor, and fear made her push at his chest.

He put her away from him abruptly and his arms fell to his sides. She moved back, her eyes like saucers in a flushed, feverish face, until she was leaning against the counter.

Simon watched her hungrily, his eyes on the noticeable signs of her arousal in her body under the thin silk gown, in her swollen mouth and the faint redness on her cheek where his own had rubbed against it with his faint growth of beard. He’d never dreamed that he and Tira would kindle such fires together. In all their years of careless friendship, he’d never really approached her physically until tonight. He felt as if he were drowning in uncharted waters.

Tira went slowly to the back door and opened it, unnaturally calm. She still looked gloriously beautiful, even more so because she was emotionally aroused.

He took the hint, but he paused at the open door to stare down at her averted face. She was very flustered for a woman who had a lover. He found himself bristling with sudden and unexpected jealousy of the most important man in her life.

“Lucky Charles,” he said gruffly. “Is that what he gets?”

Her eyes flashed at him. “You get out of here!” she managed to say through her tight throat. She pulled her robe tight against her throat. “Go. Just, please, go!”

He walked past her, hesitating on the doorstep, but she closed the door after him and locked it. She went back through the kitchen and down the hall to her bedroom before she dared let the tears flow. She was too shaken to try to delve into his motives for that hungry kiss. But she knew it had to be some new sort of revenge for his friend John. Well, it wouldn’t work! He was never going to hurt her again, she vowed. She only wished she hadn’t been stupid enough to let him touch her in the first place.

Simon stood outside by his car in the misting rain, letting the coolness push away the flaring heat of his body. He shuddered as he leaned his forehead against the cold roof of the car and thanked God he’d managed to get out of there before he did something even more stupid than he already had.

Tira had submitted. He could have had her. He was barely able to draw back at all. What a revelation that had been, that a woman he’d known for years should be able to arouse such instant, sweeping passion in him. Even Melia hadn’t had such a profound effect on him, in the days when he’d thought he loved her.

He hadn’t meant to touch her. But her body, her exquisite body, in that thin robe and gown had driven him right over the edge. He still had the taste of her soft, sweet lips on his mouth, he could still feel her pressed completely to him. It was killing him!

He clenched his hand and forced himself to breathe slowly until he began to relax. At least she hadn’t seen him helpless like this. If she knew how vulnerable he was, she might feel like a little revenge. He couldn’t blame her, but his pride wouldn’t stand it. She might decide to seduce him and then keep him dangling. That would be the cruelest blow of all, when he knew she was Charles Percy’s lover. He had sick visions of Tira telling him everything Simon had done to her and laughing about how easily she’d knocked him off balance. Charles was Tira’s lover. Her lover. God, the thought of it made him sick!

He could see why Charles couldn’t keep away from her. It made him bitter to realize that he could probably have cut Charles out years ago if he hadn’t been so blind and prejudiced. Tira could have been his. But instead, she was Charles’s, and she could only hate Simon now for the treatment he’d dealt out to her. He couldn’t imagine her still loving him, even if he had taunted her with it to salvage what was left of his pride.

He got into his car finally and drove away in a roar of fury. Damn her for making him lose his head, he thought, refusing to remember that he’d started the whole damned thing. And damn him for letting her do it!

Chapter Six

After consuming far more whiskey than he should have the night before, Simon awoke with vivid memories of Tira in his arms and groaned heavily. He’d blown it, all over again. He didn’t know how he was going to smooth things over this time. Jill called and invited herself to lunch with him, fishing for clues to his unusual bad humor. He mumbled something about going to the opera and having an argument with Tira, but offered no details at all. She asked him if he’d expected Tira to be there, and he brushed off further questions, pleading work.

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